40 Billionaires To Give Away Half Their Wealth

You're kidding, right?

 

So they're all still worth at least $500 million.

Indeed, very nice to see people giving wealth away to (presumably) worthy causes, but it's also a good way to help balance out the tax ledger if done properly.

 

Ease off the newbie, TSP. He's only the messenger.

As a volunteer for a charity, NP, whatever you want to call it for the past 5 years, it's nice to see that 40 of them can give away money to charity because they have more than enough to never go broke. Not many people with money is giving these days. Economy, greedy, or rather give to one place that is more important to them than others.

People who don't have money to donate to charity are opting to barter their services as a way to help and give back. In the case of me, I serve on the board and volunteer for the local chapter of the American Diabetes Association. I'll man a table at a health fair, stop by to do clerical work, or manage their social media stuff as a way to help them.

 

Ding! We have a winner.

That said, a lot of those who make millions because their business hits it big end up giving them away because they really do have more than they know what to do with.

Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller were the two most hated men in America in the 1890s. Within 20 years, Carnegie was building libraries all over the country and Rockefeller gave 10% of his income to his church throughout his life, all while essentially building the University of Chicago, Spelman College and medical research. Back then, there was no income tax, so it wasn't to get a break. Carnegie wrote the greatest defense of capitalism I've ever read, but it also included a tremendous amount about how it was the duty of the wealthy to give back to the poor.

 

If Tom Monaghan, the frustrated would-be priest who used to own the Tigers, gives his money to anything but an extension of the Catholic Church, I will be floored.

 

The blue font is such a crutch these days . . .

 

Rockefeller also started giving heavily to charities after the Ludlow Massacre, in which his company's hired goons killed a bunch of strikers, including women and children. The reaction to Rockefeller was so vitrolic, people told him that he better do a lot for his image.

 

"I am dedicating the majority of my wealth to improving education.”
-- George Lucas
He might as well have said, "I am dedicating the majority of my wealth to the sewage plant fed by the toilets from my very big house."
The United States has thrown trillions at education and mostly made it worse.

 

I thought this was rather amusing

"Bloomberg, who made the bulk of his estimated $17.5 billion fortune from financial news and information services company Bloomberg L.P., said it didn't make sense to leave everything to his children and have them go through life as members of "the lucky sperm club."

"You don’t want to leave them so much money that it ruins their lives," Bloomberg said. "You want kids who can look back and say, 'Yeah my family helped me but I did something on my own.'"


So how many kids does Bloomberg have? Giving away half or more than half of $17.5 billion is still going to leave them as part of the lucky sperm club as he so eloquaintly puts it.

Really though they should all be commended, tax break or not, that money if used properly can do a lot of good. It is nice to see the wealthy -- often characterized as me-first or greedy -- looking to see how they can make the world a better place without profitting from it directly.