34 billionaires pledge to give away 50 percent of wealth
 

34 billionaires pledge to give away 50 percent of wealth - Aug 2010
Gates, Buffett lead campaign to convince America's wealthiest to donate their fortunes

Thirty-four U.S. billionaires pledged Wednesday to give away at least 50 percent of their wealth to charity as part of a campaign by investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.Among the billionaires joining the campaign are New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, entertainment executive Barry Diller, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens, media mogul Ted Turner, David Rockefeller and investor Ronald Perelman.

Gates and Buffett launched "The Giving Pledge" in June to convince hundreds of U.S. billionaires to give away most of their fortune during their lifetime or after their death and to publicly state their intention with a letter of explanation.

LINK

:2 cents: Wow, something useful from the rich people for a change.

hm serious business, respect! :thumbsup

These "rich" people got rich by providing something so useful hundreds of thousands of people were willing to pay for it :2 cents:

This is way above and beyond :D

More on Perelman:

http://www.northjersey.com/news/9809...tance_law.html
http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/05/news...tune/index.htm
http://www.phillymag.com/articles/perelmans_at_war/
http://nymag.com/relationships/features/16463/
http://gawker.com/5443033/ellen-bark...f-ron-perelman

Either that or get ass raped by the new tax changes.

Damn communist billionaires. How DARE they GIVE AWAY money. Don't they know they are supposed to give it to their spoiled lazy offspring so they don't have to actually WORK for living EVER? And they in turn give it to their lazy kids and so on for generations to come? Where are you going to get the Paris Hilton's of the world if people give away their fortunes?

Please. Give away 50% or give 50% ot teh tax man. Eitehr way you're out 50%. Oh wait even if the Bush tax cuts expire the max income tax rate is still under 40%.

fucking billionares, give me few mils :(

Are you dense? People have a problem with the welfare system because it is NOT VOLUNTARY. Through taxation you are FORCED to give your money to people you may not want to.

Very few people have a problem with VOLUNTARILY giving money away. This is how it should be done.

now this is interesting. Let's just hope they really do it...

Bill Gates is becoming more and more my personal hero.

NOW if they only keep that money IN the US, something good might be able to happen. I just hope it doesn't all go overseas :(

meh it will get sucked up by bureaucracy, pay some fat salaries of charity admin and whatever.

hmmm..... might be a good time for me to apply for a charity admin position. :winkwink:

How much money do you really need.. before it becomes useless to you.


Sabby:)

props to them

fair play to them!

always an agenda :2 cents:

See to beleive.

That's pretty impressive.

I hope it actually happens.

There is Chinese billionaires too and i don't see them giving money away.

those guys contribute more in a day to society than you have your entire life. lets take bill gates for example, providing an operating system for a great majority of computers in the world trumps creating some shitty porn site designs any day of the week. besides, how much money have you donated to charity recently?

wonder what charities they're donating to

This is an estate tax move on there parts...The fucked up thing is that the money will be mismanaged I am sure and will be taken advantage of one way or another even with the trusts and trustees they put in place.:2 cents:

Mr. Romance

Very well put. :thumbsup

Well, isn't that nice of them.

http://18pink.com/gfy/vac.png

THREE CHEERS FOR EUGENICS!!

:helpme

i hope it does go overseas, they need it more than the US does.

Eliminate all taxes in favor of voluntary contributions? There goes the military, roads, schools....

im sure a large % will get eaten up in admin costs, etc like most charity does.

How can it be few if it's a democratic decision? :upsidedow

And good riddance! I'll be happy driving my jeep 100 m.p.h. on trails. Fuck the govt.

My kids are both in high school and don't learn shit there.

And the military? They are doing a great job of protecting us in case the Soviet Union decides to attack us in 1959

I want MY money bitches! :1orglaugh

An operating system he stole. Gates is a thief. Nothing more.

Eugenics is a good idea though. Modern medicine means there is no longer the self eliminating effect of defective people not lasting long enough to reproduce.

Them giving their money away to keep Barry from taxing it away is probably more of the truth

Better them than me. :winkwink:

I joined this group, but can only pledge 45%. They said that's ok.

I'm impressed :thumbsup

big ups!

One hell of a tax write off :) Good to hear people that have TOO much money doing something good. How much money does one person really need? It gets to a point where it's looked at as a high score than means to live.

Well, they have an opportunity to do some amazing things with that amount of money. Let's hope wisdom prevails.

That's awesome. 50% to charity and in the next few years the rest in absurd tax hikes by the socialist Marxist regimen.

Spread the wealth. :)

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh awesome

Been thinking about this here lately.... way I see it, if it helps the charities or the economy or the homeless or disease stricken or federal deficit in any way, then good. Fuck the rich. No one needs $100 billion dollars to themselves. Put it to good use. And you can continue to call the gov Marxists or Communists or whatever you want, as long as the money is "spread", I don't care what you call the gov.

Are you out of your mind? He is the biggest white collar criminal in history.

Very noble gesture. I hope they really follow through with it. It just means that their great great great great grandchildren won't be born financially independent.

it's just self-preservation. they know the wealth gap between the have and have nots has exploded in the last four years and they think throwing some crumbs back will forestall the pitchforks of the mob.

It is a lot easier to give half your money away when you are a billionaire and could never in your lifetime spend a fraction of what you have Than it is giving half your money away when you cant afford milk for your crying hungry baby

Exactly. What's cool about this is it is voluntary and grass roots. Centralized "charity", like centralized economies, aren't very effective.

Too bad more of them didn't give like that. most of it is a tax write off anyways

Think outside the box. :warning