Billionaires pledge to give most of their fortunes to charity
04 August 2010 | 
Author: doctor |
More than 30 billionaires, including Canadian-born Jeff Skoll, who made his fortune at eBay, pledged Wednesday to give away at least 50 per cent 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, according to The Giving Pledge website.
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.
The full list of billionaires and their letters can be seen here.
The Montreal-born Skoll, 45, began his letter this way: “I grew up in a middle class family in Canada. My dream was to be a writer who tells stories that make a difference in the world. Along the way, when I got out of business school, I became the first full-time employee and the first President of a fledgling company with an online auction service called AuctionWeb. That company later became better known by its corporate name, eBay. When the company went public in 1998, all of a sudden I went from being in debt and living in a house with five roommates, to having hundreds of millions of dollars in the value of my eBay shares.
“Until then, I had not thought much about philanthropy. But with my newfound paper wealth, I resolved to do good things for the world with that money, in smart ways.”
The Giving Pledge does not accept any money; it simply asks billionaires to make a moral commitment to give away their wealth to charity.
The billionaires announcing their pledge on Wednesday join real estate and construction billionaire Eli Broad, venture capitalist John Doerr, media entrepreneur Gerry Lenfest, and former Cisco Systems Chairman John Morgridge, who have already committed to giving away most of their wealth.
Buffett, who made his fortune with insurance and investment company Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Gates and his wife, Melinda, held several dinners with a couple of dozen rich Americans in the past year to urge them to make the pledge.
Buffett pledged in 2006 to give away 99 per cent of his wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and family charities. Bill and Melinda Gates have so far given more than $28 billion of their fortune to their foundation.
Since the foundation began in 1994, it has given away more than $22 billion for health improvements in poor countries and to improve access for Americans to opportunities they need to succeed in school and life.
Gates was ranked the second-richest man in the world by Forbes magazine this year with $53 billion, while Buffett came in at No. 3 with $47 billion. Forbes said the United States is home to 403 billionaires, the most in the world. (original link)
Doctor's Note: So absolute financial collapse is going to happen soon, but all these charities will be juuuuuuuuust fine. Note the $6 BILLION unaccounted for (in this article) between the Gates' own contributions to their charity and how much the Bill and Melina Gates Foundation spent on 'health improvements for poorer countries.' U.N. charities need to be researched by each individual thoroughly to understand what they are REALLY up to in 'poorer parts of the world', such as Africa..
