I wonder why they do not start giving a way money while still alive, SO ( I would expect) they can see some of the transformative effects of their giving ?
If their money making methods are ethical then isn't this a better strategy, to leave the decisions to others rather than impose your values on them while alive? Also presumably Buffett and his cohorts are better than others at growing their money, so in the vein of the EA argument, it would be best to leave the money untouched while it is being actively managed by the donor, then hand out the windfall after they are dead.
For this argument to work, you have to stop at the donor themselves - you can't keep extending it ad infinitum to their descendants or inheritors. But in the case of the pre-committed amounts, like Gates and Buffett, that isn't the case.
Yup. It's an all too common tendency for rich people to presume that they're better than everyone else and so don't have to follow any particular legal or ethical code.
I think we all should be. Buffett was one of the good guys, a Democrat, saying the rich need to be taxed more etc. Now he just takes it all back to be spent in probably the most idiotic fashion imaginable by his nepo babies.
Buffet loves making money, is may be the wrong guy to give it away.
Based on his article, his children seem very locally oriented rather than global visionaries.
If I was him, I would not leave this to my kids, who may never agree on much, and then there is zero impact and the pile of cash just sits there doing nothing.
The Scottish billionaire Tom Hunter (who go rich from selling shoes) hired
a team of 30 who spent a decade working of charitable giving (spending Tom's one billion pounds donation, which if I remember correctly was at least at the time the largest one in UK history).
Spending Buffet's staggering fortune in a manner nearing anything efficient feels like a herculean task that even the most capable would struggle with.
Objectively, his kids have not demonstrated any capability to do something of this magnitude. It's really quite disappointing to see Warren mostly backtrack on what he's always said (around nepotism and leaving staggering sums to future generations among other things).
You'd think even if this is related to Gate's Epstein connection, he would still recognized the importance of using his net worth for maximum good.
Maybe the human instinct to leave your possessions to your children is too strong for even Warren to fight.
It's really quite depressing watching the fiasco of how Mackenzie Bezos is donating her fortunes and what seems likely to come from Buffet's children. So many resources created+collected by brilliant people and then squandered by their loved ones.
I guess he was just buying time and goodwill from the masses with his announcements. What a disappointment. I guess the wealthy really did win the class war.
Quite possibly he did mean it at the time. However, since the announcement that it would be going to the Gates Foundation, uh, Bill Gates' reputation has had a rough time. Also, it was the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation at the time, and they (and their money and charitable endeavors) have since split, so if it was Melinda Gates' instincts and skills on charitable giving that he was counting on when he made the initial announcement, that might be a reason for pulling back.
Pulling back from that foundation, sure, but starting his own org from scratch with no experience, and puts his 3 weird kids in charge? That's ludicrous.
It is not optimal, but the article implies that some of his kids do have some experience at charitable organization. Nothing remotely on the level of his wealth, but then few (if any) do.
He might just be making a mistake, but it is also possible that the longer he looked at charitable organizations generally, the less impressed he was. Also, he may not have much time, and having something in place now is better than having nothing.
Sounds like a bunch of excuses you’re making up for him. He’s a billionaire, he’s intelligent, and if he didn’t properly plan for his charitable giving at death it’s on purpose. He could have hired a hundred people to scour the planet for the best charities and give his money away to ten thousand different ones of he wanted to, even today, but like every human who gained a fortune he defaulted to nepotism. It’s just the way the world is, I doubt humans will ever overcome our base instinct to gather resources and hoard them, so I can’t say he’s evil or anything, I just personally think he’s a dickhead for saying he’d donate his money to charity and then doing the same shit every other wealthy person does.
The ultra wealthy have (correctly) read the room in the U.S. and realized the the oligarchy has won and fully completed it's metamorphosis; there is no longer any reason to play pretend about it.
Is there any proof yet? Maybe he did, maybe he didn't and if he did he should be punished, but is there any proof Gates did anything actually wrong besides knowing Epstein?
Technically the best thing to do with the money might be to burn it. That would free up the government to issue money for whatever things it figues best for society, hopefully in a professional manner rather than arbitrarily.
Do you think government is best at directing charitable money?
Personally I think the best use of such a fortune, 100bn say, it to invest $1m into $1m high potential new small businesses and startups.
That would create the most wealth for the most people.
You could even decide to pick one poor country with reasonable governance, and use 10 percent of the money for oversight and assessing merits of which business proposals to fund.
Imagine a million new businesses across Africa, or across India or across countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines each got funded with 1m usd.
Imagine how many jobs would be created, how much long term economic impact there would be.
Even assuming 80 percent of the funded businesses fail, 200,000 successful new businesses, plus another 800k entrepreneurs who all learned a valuable lesson and gained a ton of experience.
