Warren Buffet gives away $1.93 billion to charity.
- Thread starter Edrof
- Start date
Are you saying it's wrong for someone be born with talents, in a particular time and place and take advantage of it?
I wasn't arguing the amount of money he has, I was simply arguing the 'greedy billionaire scumqueens' comment made by Forde. You can't belittle someone because they've worked incredibly hard for their money, regardless of how much they won't ever spend.
Soldato
He sounds like a very intelligent and sensible man to me, and I'd hope more billionaires can follow his example. There's nothing wrong with having a lot of money and leading a very cushy lifestyle (and indeed, I wouldn't begrudge him were he to keep his wealth), but there gets a point where one can be too rich. Buffet is a smart enough man to see that he won't get anything extra in his life out of that $2 billion, and so I commend him on donating it to those who are more in need. I'm not sure whether I agree with his choice to not let his children inherit anything, but ultimately it will help them and give them the life skills they need to survive without that helping hand, so his choice has good merit behind it.
Caporegime
Even if they've worked incredibly hard for their money by doing stuff like this?
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...ow-goldman-gambled-on-starvation-2016088.html
What's wrong is trying to pretend that hard work is the primary factor in obtaining wealth, which it never is. Having billions is fine, keeping lots of it is fine, but if you try and pretend that you "deserve" it, and then try and hoard it, you are most definitely a bad person.
It's not being rich that's bad, it's the generally concomitant ideas that are: the idea that you deserve your wealth, the idea that you obtained it through working harder than others, the idea that people who don't have wealth somehow didn't work as hard as you, the idea that you don't owe anything to the society that enabled you to become wealthy.
Soldato
A drop in the ocean reallly, his previous donation to the same foundation was $37billion. Fair play to the guy.
You have to remember that a lot of his wealth is his ownership of companies which benefits hundreds of thousands. It's not all in the bank (although yes his bank balance with be huge).
Buffet has always been sceptical of investment banks greed and motivation. What Robmiller is saying echoes quite a few feelings Buffet has said on his view of the motivations of professionals in various financial institutions.
Buffet has always been sceptical of investment banks greed and motivation. What Robmiller is saying echoes quite a few feelings Buffet has said on his view of the motivations of professionals in various financial institutions.
Also my comment about 'greedy billionaire scumqueens' was clearly flippant but there was an element of truth behind it. What purpose but greed does multiple billions in ones bank account serve?
There's only so many yachts and Rolls Royces a chap can buy.
There's only so many yachts and Rolls Royces a chap can buy.
Soldato
Warren Buffet doesn't go in for that kind of stuff. Did you not read the rest of the thread?
Too true. In Evan Davis's interview with him last year he was so humble. Drives a 15 year old Cadillac or something and only replaces cars when they are broken beyond repair. If there is one thing I want to do before he dies, is go to the AGM over in Omaha.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
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People need to realise certain things, firstly billions in the bank owned by several key people leaves a lot of money banks can "play with" and loan out to business's because the chances of a guy with 30billion taking out more than 50million are slim to none, I mean the best/biggest house in the world might be bought, and only cost a couple hundred mil.
Banks need a stable money source, a billion people with £1000 each in the bank gives them very little leeway for lending money because, well any single person could easily take out 1k at a time.
Likewise, often purchases of things like the top end Ferrari's, or other "extravegant" purchases do MASSIVE things for everyone and the economy.
Firstly there are jobs created when someone builds a 100million house, and lots of people make money, and those people pay lots of tax. A billionaire that spends 500million a year buying cars, holidays, houses, boats, generates a lot of tax income. A lot of innovations, increased efficiency engines start off in the most expensive cars, people pay off the research done to make the best cars in the world by buying them, paying the people working to build them, paying a massive tax bill when buying the car in this example, and the technology trickles down to low end cars that end up more efficient and cheaper to run in the future.
But technologies that would be too expensive to research and test in the top end cars if no one bought them.
Frivolous and extravagent spending, just puts money into the economy, people pay to eat in better restaurants, more jobs are needed, more tax is paid on higher quality food, which is sourced from higher quality organic farmers etc, etc.
Rich people pay FAR more tax on their earnings and pay far more tax a year as they spend massive amounts of money.
Giving it away, certainly isn't terrible, and most people who have over 100million in the bank wouldn't notice if they gave away half their wealth, or a lot more. But if every billionaire evened out the wealth of the planet by giving their money away, millions of jobs would be lost, and trillions in tax lost also.
This is all ignoring the massive scam that so many charities are, that waste the money, or hire lots of CEO's, board members and pay celebrities to be involved and lots of the charity donations are lost in the mix. The london Marathon being a good example, the % of cash generated that ends up in charities hands is embarassingly low. IE it should be 99%, and its no where close, generates a HUGE profit for the people that run it, and many many charities are the same.
Banks need a stable money source, a billion people with £1000 each in the bank gives them very little leeway for lending money because, well any single person could easily take out 1k at a time.
Likewise, often purchases of things like the top end Ferrari's, or other "extravegant" purchases do MASSIVE things for everyone and the economy.
Firstly there are jobs created when someone builds a 100million house, and lots of people make money, and those people pay lots of tax. A billionaire that spends 500million a year buying cars, holidays, houses, boats, generates a lot of tax income. A lot of innovations, increased efficiency engines start off in the most expensive cars, people pay off the research done to make the best cars in the world by buying them, paying the people working to build them, paying a massive tax bill when buying the car in this example, and the technology trickles down to low end cars that end up more efficient and cheaper to run in the future.
But technologies that would be too expensive to research and test in the top end cars if no one bought them.
Frivolous and extravagent spending, just puts money into the economy, people pay to eat in better restaurants, more jobs are needed, more tax is paid on higher quality food, which is sourced from higher quality organic farmers etc, etc.
Rich people pay FAR more tax on their earnings and pay far more tax a year as they spend massive amounts of money.
Giving it away, certainly isn't terrible, and most people who have over 100million in the bank wouldn't notice if they gave away half their wealth, or a lot more. But if every billionaire evened out the wealth of the planet by giving their money away, millions of jobs would be lost, and trillions in tax lost also.
This is all ignoring the massive scam that so many charities are, that waste the money, or hire lots of CEO's, board members and pay celebrities to be involved and lots of the charity donations are lost in the mix. The london Marathon being a good example, the % of cash generated that ends up in charities hands is embarassingly low. IE it should be 99%, and its no where close, generates a HUGE profit for the people that run it, and many many charities are the same.
Associate
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- 646
I believe the point your making is totally wrong if i do say so myself. The amount of money generated from Tax by these billionares spending will never fully filter through to the people that need it most. There are way to many withdrawals. The only way to help out the most needy is straight up cash given to the charities on the ground. Refering to your first point about banks loaning out money, this will happen anyway regardless of how much they have in depositis. There will always be more money owed then ever in circulation leaving the world in a debt forever
Surely you realise he is just playing the humble card? There is no luck where masses of cash are concerned; preparation met opportunity.
All IMHO, tongue firmly wedged in cheek, etc, so on...
Stingy *******...he gave $37bn (thirty seven BILLION dollars!!!) to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation a few years ago
No, he bequeathed it upon his death if he has that much left.
Soldato
He lost 10bn in the stockmarket crash then got most of it back
Nah I think the secret of his success is not taking it too seriously. Most people would have stopped bothering after the first few bn, the humble thing is the whole reason he has that much in the first place or he'd have lost it quite easily like in the first case I stated
http://uk.askmen.com/top_10/dating/top-10-lottery-tragedies_1p.html
Nah I think the secret of his success is not taking it too seriously. Most people would have stopped bothering after the first few bn, the humble thing is the whole reason he has that much in the first place or he'd have lost it quite easily like in the first case I stated
http://uk.askmen.com/top_10/dating/top-10-lottery-tragedies_1p.html
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