Warren Buffett donates another $4.1B, resigns as Gates trustee
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
Edit: to paraphrase Hannibal Buress, you can boo me, but I'm right. ;) Some people succeed by having a better idea and executing on it with technical proficiency, some succeed by convincing someone with a lot of resources to support their endeavors. Most succeed through a mix of the two, but pretending that support of entrenched big-money interests has minimal impact is disjoint from reality.
The US is no more a meritocracy than anywhere else. All thats different are the labels.
If there was some sort of slush-fund thing going on it would be a problem, but I haven’t seen any evidence of that. The tax rate on gifts isn’t that high, and so you’d have to be doing really extreme fraud for it to me more profitable than a straight gift.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat...
It is just so undemocratic for a handful of people to be in control of infrastructure projects that will affect the lives of millions or billions. They can so easily make a project look good that still benefits them unfairly and there is some evidence that this is what's happening.
>The government provides generous tax benefits for charitable giving but the rules provide very little assurance that this giving will actually make its way to charities. A well-planned gift can save a donor as much as 74 percent of the value of that gift in taxes. That means a $10 million gift can cost the federal government $7.4 million in forgone taxes and therefore only cost the donor $2.6 million after in after tax dollars.
>Right now, there's over $1 trillion dollars set aside in private foundations and over $120 billion set aside in donor-advised funds. Donors get all the same tax benefits from putting their money in these intermediary vehicles as when they give funds outright to a working charity, like a food bank. Yet the public has no assurance of getting any benefit from this money, because there's no requirement under current law that these funds ever be distributed for public benefit. Donor advised funds have no payout requirements under current law and private foundations can fully meet their payout requirements by giving to donor-advised funds or by paying salaries to family members.
https://www.arnoldventures.org/stories/a-new-initiative-aims...
It's totally fair to complain about one of the most powerful people in history transferring wealth from public, democratically-elected organizations to institutions that have far less transparency and no democratic oversight.
I fully agree that there is something criticise here, but it's definitely not that he is somehow taking "our" money. It's his money until he decides to spend it. It's money that could be hours, if we instructed our government to take it from him. But we haven't, so that's that.
I like the idea of charitable foundations being able to receive tax free, though I would admit that is a matter of taste and not a clear right/wrong distinction. What I do object to is that his family has paid positions in those foundations. That just smells of tax loopholes. If those foundations manage to perpetually break-even, they would be able to fund his family with cushiony jobs forever.
But, as far as I can tell they're not being paid egregious amounts, and the foundations are all actually spending their money on good things, so in this case there doesn't seem to be any shadowy business. Especially since most of it is going to the Gates Foundation anyway.
But, if we're talking policy, I think it would be a good thing if there were restrictions on how much family members of philanthropes can earn at charity organisations, if anything at all.
With nerds, you just mean people who take a rational view of things. And with worship, you mean appreciation of their efforts.
I'd say they wouldn't hurt a fly, but Gates has saved millions of people horrible ends by literally fighting mosquitos so that goes out of the window.
There's loads of horrible billionaires out there, that you would single out 3 of them that are actually accomplishing good in the world is ridiculous.
If you're so against billionaires, why don't you go spread the names of some who are not contributing to the world? Do you even know them? I bet you don't because you're just riding some ill informed band wagon.
When I said “nerd” I meant fan boy culture. A geek who was logical would know centralization of control is bad system design.
He doesn't have enough money to actually control anything. He couldn't even get people in Afghanistan to vaccinate when that was his sole goal for a decade, just because some local warlords were working against him.
You have a misguided idea about how much control he can actually exert with the couple billion he spends on this stuff. Do you know how little money it actually is in the grand scheme of things? He can barely move the needle on the topics he finds important.
A single power plant costs upwards of 10 billion dollars, and that will power maybe 1 large city. You know who really has the money to influence those? Corporations, you know, the things that actually have no soul, and that have no motivation other than greed arguably dictated by law? They'll counter Gates' billions with trillions. All the billionaires in the US couldn't stop a Putin or a Salman from doing anything they want.
That's what an oligarchy is. I'm not arguing for oligarchy, I'm not even arguing Gates should even have that much money to spend. But to say he's being nefarious with it, or that he's spending it in a bad way is just ridiculous.
And who the fuck fanboys over Gates. Literally no one, he's as unlikable as fuck, he fucked up Windows in the 90's he fucked up my job as a webdeveloper in the 2000s. I think he should spend his money on fighting climate change, but he's spending it on sick and hungry children. He probably saved my life by funding vaccine research, but I still don't really appreciate him.
But yeah, complain about fan boy culture and the distinction about geeks and nerds, as if those are not just things you just made up. All this propaganda I'm watching.. you know the movies that really indoctrinate me where I'm watching actual Bill Gates saying things about the things he actually did that you can actually measure and verify that had actual and measurable positive impact in the world. Yeah those things really got to me, I'm so indoctrinated right now.
You mean IBM?
The resignation is newsworthy because it suggests Buffett's transition into full retirement. As someone who can move markets with a quote in a newspaper, his potential retirement is certainly important enough to hit the "publish" button on a digital outlet.
https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/berkshire-hathaway-part-i
https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/berkshire-hathaway-part-ii
https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/berkshire-hathaway-part-iii
So that would imply his net worth is half what it was in 2006. But of course it’s not, it’s never been higher (103 Billion according to Forbes last year). Interesting that CNBC chose not to explore this rather obvious inconsistency in Buffet’s statement.
There's obviously no inconsistency, interesting that you would not point that out.
It's a bit hard to quantify exactly how much he should give away to make good on his promise, because the dollar amount is a moving target. I think maybe he means half of his holdings in Berkshire Hathaway. I haven't looked into what sort of assets he has, but judging from his public writings I wouldn't be surprised if the shares are the only thing of significant value he owns.