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I’ve taken pen and paper in hand to write a little note to Warren Buffet and Bill Gates regarding their big push to get 40 billionaires to give 50% of their money to charity. I was going to pull out one of my very prettiest cards, but all I’ve got left are the ‘Thank you’ ones and ‘Sorry for your loss’ ones and I didn’t feel either one was appropriate, so they got my best lined legal pad.
Dear Bill and Bunny (remember me, Warren? I’m the woman in Indiana who…oh, well, forget I mentioned it):
Out here in Great Recession-land, we read with great interest of your success with getting all of your lovely friends (all the ‘right’ people, I’m sure) to contribute to your little charity plan. You’ve been doing a lot of good work with your money with disease; no one can fault you for that (Bill – don’t forget to thank Melinda for me; the recipe for sour pickles was fab).
I do have to say, though, that I am more than a little bit disappointed with you both in terms of the direction of this. Considering how you got the money, it does seem a little bit ungracious.
Now don’t misunderstand me (deep breathing, Warren; it really does help): Both of you have worked hard for the money (don’t you love that song; I just can’t stop dancing when I hear it). And so did all of the lovely little munchkins who worked for your companies, too. I’m sure they feel a certain amount of ambivalence about this, considering how many of them you boys have let go, outsourced, and downsized out of house and home so that you could transfer those thousands of jobs to India and China.
And now the American economy is flat on its back – and the workers right with it. For all your complaints, Bill, about not being able to find enough American talent and needing all of those H1-B visas, it really is a self-fulfilling prophesy: If you take the jobs away, you can’t expect young people to find the prospect of competing with an Indian kids for what is now a $15,000 job to be exactly appetizing. And all the industrial jobs and technology, Warren, that you encouraged to be transferred overseas – well, if we wanted to gear up and do it here, we really…can’t because people like you refused to invest in technology here, or people here, or having industries thriving here.
And now that you made all of this money, you want us all to stand there, line the parade route and wave the flag for you guys because you are ‘doing the right thing’ and putting your money into foundations.
But what will money in a foundation do for Americans or America for that matter, boys? Zip. And what will money in a foundation do for you and your friends? Tax breaks.
See, the bloom is off the rose, guys – you threw American industry and American workers under the bus; you aren’t magic to us anymore. And have not been for a long time. So, you and your friends can all get together behind your locked and guarded gates, and drink your cocktails and eat uncontaminated shrimp, and collectively pat yourselves on the back for being so high minded and philanthropic.
But we don’t forget on whose backs you actually made that money.
And we would like some of it back; here are a few ideas that might really help America, Americans and American industry in terms of how you can use that money:
Paying off the student loans of every kid with a college student loan and setting up a fund to pay the tuition for any kid in need. Bill – your father got to college through the GI Bill. That made a huge difference for him…and for you. Time to give back.
Money for jobs doing maintenance projects of state and local government that have been deferred in the ongoing economic downturn
Grant money to fill the food pantries of every non-profit on an ongoing basis
Money for grants and investment in entrepreneurs
Money for grants and investment in American industries for energy saving technologies in transportation, rail, wind, solar and other alternative technologies. Or, do you want to see ‘Make in China’ dominate those here as well?
Money for grants and investment in basic American industries; if someone wants to make shoes, clothing, small appliances, furniture, basic goods in this country, we need companies that will design and produce the high tech equipment to do it with. American industry sent all the equipment overseas over the past 25 years – if we want those industries back, we need to build from the ground up..and doing it smarter and better than the Chinese, who’ve been stealing our technology and selling it out the door to their friends ever since.
Money for programs to support vulnerable American families, especially in the areas of health, nutrition, and education.
See, I have lots of ideas; you only have one: put money away to protect it, invest it, and use the proceeds how?
Or, have you decided that throwing American industry and American workers under the bus is just fine with you? You’ll have to excuse me, now; I think I’ll go get sick…
photo: aflcio (flickr)
58 Comments
*standing on chair clapping wildly*
tweeted and recommended aunt toby
Watch the chair, Suz — they can get mighty tippy..
My oldest daughter waited on Warren and Bill at the Buckeye in Mill Valley. It was Warren’s B’day. He had a big cake with a $5 bill on it. She said they were good tippers.
And gracious too, I’m sure.
Amy said they were very nice.
ditto
Warren and Bill can afford to be nice. They hire other people to be rude, tough, and greedy for them.
no doubt.
When thieves are compelled to return stolen money, it’s called restitution–not charity!
This is a wonderful letter. Yes, yes, yes!!!
Wonderfully stated, Aunt Toby. I might just try to find the time this weekend to break out my trusty calculator and see just how far those billions Warren and Bill have committed to “charity” might go in the areas you have suggested.
Especially on the issue the “maintenance projects” you mention; I still grumble when I think how many infrastructure projects could have been funded with the dollars put into TARP and the Fed. So many potential jobs wasted…
inspiring Aunt Toby, thanks
Where exactly is the money going? My impression is that today, many charities are bullshit for one reason or another. Of course, there are many good ones. But what is the fine print below all this back patting?
Brava, Toby. Brava.
Excellent letter. Interesting to note that, with their leverage of billions invested in stocks, they don’t use that power to force corporations to do the right thing such as act on climate change, stop offshoring of jobs, etc. I even believe (and please check this as this is from memory) that Bill Gates when asked this question said something about it’s being too much trouble (again check this out.)
Jim, don’t go there – my doctor says I have to stay away from topics that raise my BP so much.
One great myth perpetrated by millionaire tee vee bubble heads, is that billionaire Bill Gates is brilliant. Gates supports Monsanto and wants more Franken Foods, genetically modified foods. Gates Vaccination Program in Nigeria was a failure. Gates “philanthropy” is actually supporting Disaster Capitalism.
Then there are all those Microsoft Window Operating Systems. As well as being user-unfriendly, all his operating systems contain serious vulnerabilities. Any Windows machine can be hijacked.
Thanks. I’m totally sick of both these guys. Buffet and Gates, the “good” billionaires.
Do I detect some wealth envy here?
A little off subject but I just read the following….
“WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday acknowledged it had underestimated the number of homeowners who fell seriously behind on their mortgage payments even after getting government help.”
This is what I’ve been telling you people for months. Obama is just now getting it. We need to get the homes turned over and get solid owners (who make their mortgage payments) into them.
Excellent post!
Z
The real story isn’t whether or not they can get their uber rich buddies to give half of their fortune away, the real problem is they wound up with so much and in the process of doing it wrecked the country that gave them the opportunity to get rich.
Never have so few taken so much from so many and lived to gloat about it.
Sure hope Sharron Angle doesn’t hear about their plan to “spoil” the lazy and shiftless.
How about both Buffet & Gates strongly advocate for returning to the old tax rates for the upper income earners, so that these billionaires’ money could really trickle down into our economy. I was disgusted by Buffet & Gates’ self-absorbed, entitled attitude about their vast, great largesse. Gimme a break. Thanks for the letter, Aunt Toby; I couldn’t agree with you more.
And now I learn that Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd has been s***-canned due to sexual harrassment and money fiddling charges, so once again MY stock has falling prices. But guess what?? Of course, Mr. Hurd is getting $12.2 MILLION to be “fired.”
Hurd was the purported “white knight” who allegedly “saved” HP after it was nearly destroyed by the entitlement queen Carly Fiorina, who got a huge multi-million payout when Fiorina was fired for vast incompetency. Now Fiorina wants to buy herself a CA Senate seat and get on the public dole for life. No thanks! And “white knight” Hurd fiddled with the books to make it seem as HP was doing better than it was. WTF???
I’m accused of wealth envy? I don’t think so. How I’m feeling is incredibly and justifiably angry at the criminal and greedy behavior that keeps getting rewarded in this country. Why should I endorse crooks like Gates, Buffet, Fiorina, Hurd, Peterson, etc? I don’t. They’re crooks.
Why don’t Gates & Buffet advocate for something more useful like no more huge pay-offs for CEOs who do crap lousy work and have to be fired????
Yeah: the “good billionaires” my @ss. Eff them. Pay your d*** taxes, you lousy jerks. And stop expecting the small people to fawn over you.
Not from me. I may be completely old fashioned but I believe that in business, the people who actually create the stuff or the service are just as important as the investors and upper management. As a matter of fact, I also believe that the people who actually create the stuff and the services are actually MORE important and should be made part of the deal and part of the ownership. I also believe that if a company is in trouble, the first people that management should go to for ideas on what to do and how to do it are the employees. They are the ones who know how things work or does not; they know which vendors are screwing them and which ones are good. they are the ones who know what the process problems are and usually have ideas for how to fix them and make them better. But management is very old fashioned – very ‘if you were any good, you’d be us’. So, they won’t share information and won’t ask for help. They just keep marching down the road to destruction and doing stupid stuff and meanwhile, throwing their employees under the bus. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and people like them are wealth locusts – they extract what they can and move on, but this move is to try to make themselves feel better and look better to the public. The tens of thousands of jobs that Gates ok’d to be moved to India out of the US and the tens of thousands of jobs that he’s OK’d to be created in India are based on ‘we can make a better profit margin off cheap labor.’ Nothing more.
The best use of the money would be to use it against the Republic Party so that it shrinks down to a size that it can be drowned in a bathtub.
But, but surely we unwashed cretins should be amazed at the benevolence and generosity our betters are showing us.
Bravo, I could not agree more nor have said it better. The modern day robber barons do not seem to grasp how incredibly disgusting their posture is. They ought to think about the fact that it only took 17% of Bolcheviks to throw them out of czarist Russia, a point I feel is worth remembering in this day and age.
Increasingly so, if I may add.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that all of the sudden, with this year’s possible/probable rescinding of the disgusting Bush tax cuts to the uber-wealthy, the owner class decides they all want to move the whopping sums they’ve all made in the last 10 years off of their taxable income totals and into ‘charitable’ foundations. God bless ‘em.
The wealth of a nation state or even a community lies with what it produces that others need or want. Where we are now is in the throes of the final destruction of this principle here in the US, and many other nations as well.
We got there through the clever manipulation leading to the banking industry as we know it today…private entities printing money based on money, not production, then leveraging this and loaning to basically the government. This nonsense, crystallized by the Bank of England in the late 1600′s needs to change. Government had to issue money, based on the true wealth of it’s nation’s production.
This nation has proved, over and over again, it’s capability of building this kind of wealth through individual and cooperative efforts. We did rise, for a moment, beyond the difficulties which central banking engendered. But it’s all stripped away now, in the artificial appearance of wealth measured only by the number of zeros after the first integer.
These foundations, Buffets and Gates, are losing in the end as well, because their value has also diminished, Gates through the decline of the value of his MS stock.
So it bite them as well.
I know, I know, this pov is simplistic and to some, naive. To me it makes sense. Start over, bite the bullet and do it right. What do we have to lose?
recommended aunt toby!!
Very nicely said!
They Should do at least 1/2 of the things you listed as a start on paying back the country for their success which none would have with out thePeople’s sweat and toils!! I really like the educational part, all our kids should have easy access to college without putting them in debt for years just when they are starting out in their career!
To replace those who were conned in the first place? Your arrogant elitism is showing….how about jail for those who mislead well-intentioned, if naive, buyers?
Toby, do you think you might be able to get some one at Hufpo to give you a course on using the Google? Did you do any research for this. Warren Buffet has always been a strong opponent of outsourcing. In 2004 address (really a Q&A rather than a speech) Buffet talked about outsourcing being the redistribution of the US wealth to other countries. The strength in Berkshire early on was that they invested in companies that they thought had sound ideas and management and provided the capital to help them grow to the next level. His company does not buy companies to make money selling off their assets. Do a google on Buffet and outsourcing and see what you find. Unless opinion with research goes against your religion.
So then he and Gates are talking about giving away half their accumulated wealth. Instead of praising this effort and suggesting this would be a great thing for all of the lucky sperm winners you attack two that are trying to do the right thing. Do you prefer the rich that buy political office or buy outlandish and stupid items to prove they are wealthy. They have been in the process of giving for years now. They started back when the Bush and the Repubs were giving breaks to the rich. They are saying they will give half. Why not attack the jerks that destroyed the financial industry and got multi-million bonuses with no charitable giving. I am sorry but this article is lazy and pathetic.
In a more functional state, the Buffetts and Gates would not be allowed to aggregate such vast amounts of wealth. Their vast wealth is not a sign that capitalism is great but rather that our current version of crony casino capitalism has failed. You see those massive accumulations of wealth by a few individuals represent an inefficient use of capital and a misallocation of resources. So that they can have so much more, the rest of us have so much less. And that us is not just ordinary individual Americans but small innovative businesses and entrepeneurs. Buffetts whole investment philosophy is buy tried and true companies, that is companies that have already done all the hard work of innovating and establishing themselves. He just takes them so that the benefits flow to him and other rich investors in Berkshire Hathaway. As for Microsoft, it is a poster child for the trajectory of our era’s super large corps. Its success is grounded in its exploitation of a new markets. It was never the best or the brightest, but it got relatively innovative products to a wide population clamoring for them. But instead of using that success to move from the area of partial to real innovation, it did the opposite. It used its market share to stifle its more innovative competitors and to deliver to its customers consistently second rate products. Microsoft’s business philosophy was not to use its resources to stay ahead of the competition but to beat the rest of the competition down.
But in a larger sense these great hoards of wealth are part and parcel of the paper economy. These fortunes at some point in their past may have been born in the real economy, they may have at some point even have added to the wealth and strength of the real economy, but they have long since transitioned into paper investments that chase themselves, create bubbles, and don’t just deny capital to the real economy but, as we have seen with the housing bubble and financial meltdown, are highly destructive of others people’s wealth.
Now we are told that they wish to give away at least half their wealth. The truth is that even if they gave away 99% of it they would still be vastly wealthier than any of us could imagine. But let us not make any mistakes about this. What they are doing is about control. That great wealth will not pass back to the American people from which it sprang in the form of income, capital gains, and estate taxes. It will not go where the American people have a say in its disposition. It will go to whom and where they want it to go. Now I am sure some will say that our political system is completely corrupt and maybe it would be better to let some of these rich guys do what they want, that they would be better custodians of how all that wealth would be spent than a wastrel government. But ask yourselves this, how did our government get so corrupt? who corrupted it? Well it was the rich like Gates and Buffett and the corporations they own and control. So basically they corrupted our government, made it theirs. I’m sorry but what this sounds like is just that they want to cut the government out of their activities. It has become an unnecessary middleman. They own it but why even cede an iota of control to other of their rich rapacious brethren when they can, once again, have their cake and eat it too?
Buffet does advocate strongly that the rich should pay higher taxes. You might try doing research before complaining. Buffet built Berkshire in promoting companies that had a solid business plan and need capital to get to the next level. He tried where possible to keep the original management in place when he purchased. The fact that he is rich would normally mean he would neglect everyone else and hoard and pass on a dynasty. If you did any research rather than ranting, you would see that he is not the enemy here. He believes in an inheritance (death tax for the tea party crowd) tax. He believes that the rich should be paying more. All one need do is look at his speeches and actions. If you lump Jamie Diamond and Warren Buffet together, you show that this is just a wild rant and not serious points.
Exactly. It’s about the ability of the obscenely wealthy to control where their money goes. Peterson promises to give away some of his vast accumulated wealthy of ill-gotten gains to his own foundations set up to try to rip off social security.
The rest of us schlubby taxpayers have very little say over where our taxes go. I get it that rightwingers don’t feel like having their taxes go to helping the poor, the disabled, the elderly, for education, libraries, roads or public safety (except for prisons and highly paid prison guards).
But I don’t way my taxes going to the MIC, which just enures to the benefit of uber wealthy and does nothing for our economy, our nation, our military personnel (except to get them killed), etc.
So, schlubby taxpayers are stuck with how our wealthy overlords decide to direct our tax dollars. Yet these self-same billionaires – who are mostly in charge of how taxes are spent – get to self-direct where their billions go, plus get a tax write-off at the same time.
Nice for them. No, I don’t praise them. Gimme a break. It’s yet more of the same: the rich getting richer at my expense.
Will token gifts encourage more billionaires to give their money to charity?
How about a “duvet cover made to look like cardboard boxes“?
I do KNOW that Buffet has said that. Big deal. Until such time as Buffet takes it upon himself – which he could do if he really wanted to – to pay more in taxes, then don’t lecture me about how the greatness of Buffet.
Buffet sold out a long time ago, and he’s not your friend or mine.
You have drunk the koolaid. You have bought 3/4 of the story they have sold you. It just makes it that much easier to get you to swallow that final quarter. Warren Buffett has said that he pays lower rates in taxes than his receptionist. This did not make him run out and voluntarily start paying higher taxes. When you say that Buffett opposes outsourcing, can you give us a list of what companies he owns that do not outsource? Does he prevent their subcontractors from doing so as well? You see because I thought his position was that he stayed out of how the businesses he owns and controls do their business. Indeed I might point out that Berkshire Hathaway made a large investment in Goldman Sachs. Curiously, when Buffett was subpoenaed to testify he didn’t criticize Goldman’s practices that had so much to do with the near financial collapse we experienced. Instead he thought Goldman should be left alone. So when in this case it was a question of his profits or the public good, guess which one won out? Are you so naive to think that in any other case it would be different?
Gates is a billionaire but he is a phony. Buffet has never done anything for me. It is the rich people giving us wars and pollution and their phony false flag jihad terrorism. They and their depraved class of fraudsters have never done the “right thing”. They do do the Rightwing thing. They are the enemy.
People need to go back to school in this new environment to learn a new skill.
Perhaps Buffett and Gates and the other billionaires could foot the tuition and housing costs for people to attend University of Monaco to obtain an “MLux,” which is a master of science in “Luxury Goods and Services”, a 10 month degree program. My comment is meant as snark, but the MLux program does exist. There are rich customers who demand the best the world has to offer, and currently there is a shortage of people educated in the ways to dole out the stuff:
Fun post, thanks Aunt Toby.
Don’t know whether anyone else has brought this up yet, but there’s a headline at HuffPost today saying that Buffet’s company is down 40% ????. Since I didn’t read the article, I don’t know what means.
I’m really angry about Gates’ support for Monsanto; that’s unforgiveable.
I’d love to see a lot of the donate money go to pay for really affordable housing (not middle class as the usual HUD programs have been) for Americans and others around the world. Like how about 1 million units for Haiti? How about 1 billion Habitat houses here and abroad?
Thanks to all,
blessings
Wolves become lambs when they see the torches and pitchforks.
I am a 63 year old entrepreneur who has lived near and around the rich and famous all my life – from the wealthy suburbs of Chicago, to Aspen, Telluride and Southern California.
The super rich share a few common traits – a singular, ruthless desire to separate the rest of us from our property – an indefatigable quest to eliminate competition – and a talent to cultivate public subsidy for their obsessions.
In an nutshell – behind every great fortune – there are greater crimes against the groups they prey upon.
Then there are their kids, who suffer an assortment of personal maladies, including, but not confined to the inability to quantify their own worth beyond accidental birth.
Again.. I’ve lived among the rich pretty much all my life. Although inherited wealth appears to be its own punishment – the butchers and thieves who accumulate these fortunes are pretty much the same throughout history. They are supreme scammers – savvy enough to know when to start confessing that it’s ‘time to give back’.
It’s not that the rest of us are lazy or common. The robber barons throughout history are driven to conquest – so damaged in their personhood – that while the rest of us work, pray, love and smell our roses, the royals and wolves plot how to increase their market share.
When the starving peasantry left the French countryside for the palaces of the Loire they had blood in their eyes. Enough was enough… then as now.
Gates move to license rather than sell the software was an absolutely brilliant move, IMO. What he did afterwards can be bandied about pro and con but that move set him (and others) up.
I sure didn’t know about his support for Monsanto. Where? Why?
And I maintain that a significant way to stop the robber barons is to take away their advantage…central banks. The power to generate their own currency has to be returned to national control.
Absolutely! or better still, let us ALL borrow at 0% and buy treasuries at 4%!
karen
Borrow at 1 or 2% would be acceptable.
The real irony here with this “largesse” is that Bill Gates could put half his money in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and call it “charity.”
People – wake up – “CHARITIES” can be family charitable trusts. They can be tax-free trust accounts for their heirs who will never work a day in their lives. I can set up a “charitable trust” that puts billions into a fund whose goal is to “research the history of Welsh immigrants” and voila! I get to research Welsh immigrants. Guess what… If part of my family was WELSH, then that means I get to hire all my kids, grandkids, cousins, nephews, nieces, and in-laws that I want as the staff of the nonprofit, and they get to hire their people, and we can all do family geanology!!! For ourselves! WE may even spend some of that money on “research grants” to college kids (somewhere in the world, probably in Wales) who will help us with that research.
WE may expand the mission statement to include “preservation of Welsh heritage” and then get to spend money on acquiring Welsh art work, invest in Welsh castles, lobby for historical preservation status of those castles, and even spend money building a welsh art museum. We can pay PhDs who specialize in WElsh literature, and maybe even underwrite a Starz miniseries about life in Medieval Wales.
ALL IN THE NAME OF CHARITY AND NONPROFIT!!! And we get to do it TAX FREE.
So, maybe these billionaires should DISCLOSE EXACTLY WHO GOT THAT MONEY before we even begin to slap them on their thick backs with praise.
A 50% ntax rate might save my Social Security, but ALL the pigs would pay that.
Where? Africa. Why? Because Gates is a humanitarian? No. To enable Monsanto to control all seed crops, not just in Africa.
Gates also wants to bring Coca-Cola to Africa because they need it and he can make money.
Awesome article Aunty! You let it rip with such grace and panache and a down home country feel!!! :)
Thanks.
bloody irritating. these dickheads suppose that we should be content to be the object of charity, for jeebus sake. it’s not as if a share in the wealth of the nations were ours by right. We don’t have no stinkin rights.
The reality is that these loons have figured out a way to take every single factor, variable, and ratio that ever had to do with a “Free Market” and learned to dissect and dissociate the one from the other. For example – the relationship of supply and demand. By commodotizing just about everything and then creating “paper” equivalents of these things (its called “Financial Wizadry”) they have effectively allowed false pricing and false supply and false demand to be engineered – each one indepdently of the other. I can point to just about every single aspect of our economy and every single ratio, relationship, or fundamental “law” of economics and point out how this “financial wizardry” has been accomplished in each case.
A commenter above made the point about the money trust of the Federal Reserve system, and how it is an effective “private currency.” So true. Think about how the average wage has not risen in 30 years, but the average CEO pay has risen from about 10x the worker wage to 1000x the worker wage.
What that means is that you’ve been given a paycut so big that you make only 1/1000 of what you made 30 years ago. The whole economy is about ratios. It used to be that 1 CEO had the purchasing power of 10 employees. (The CEO made the same as 10 employees combined). Now, the CEO has the purchasing power of 10,000 employees. What that means is that where economists used to say that “pay increases” contribute to “inflation”, then they must consider that one CEO can move the economy with his/her wages at 10,000x the ability of any person. That is like a small town. In the hands of one person.
And the argument that this necessary because they “create jobs” is not true. As others above noted – those jobs are in India, or they are not jobs, but deposits in Bank Accounts. Accounts that EARN INTEREST. And how do those banks PAY that interest to the CEO? With YOUR DEPOSITS! And you won’t earn anything close to what that CEO will earn (ever seen the graduated rates of interest on CDs?)
Couple that with all variety of corporate law jurisprudence over the past 100 years, and the regulatory schemes that keep average workers from investing in lucrative inside deals, and you have a system that is no longer anything close to a “Free Market” – even when Republicans are in power.
Its a completely engineered and manipulated system. Where money is printed at a rate that devalues the currency itself. The very wealthy can continue to “keep pace” with that devaluation of the currency (also known as “inflation”) by simply paying themselves more and more. They don’t pay the employee that, though. Their pay increases coupled with the Federal Reserves currency printing spree, coupled with the Reserve System of deposits and interest payments in our banking system, and the old economic truths of a person being paid what the free market fair market value determined have been THROWN OUT THE WINDOW.
Now, every dollar of a pay increase you see will be matched by some percentage of dollar devaluation by the Fed, and by 10,000 dollars increase of pay to the CEO. That alone will devalue your dollar raise you just got by ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE to big to calculate in this comment.
Think about it. The entire system is one big rig. There is nothing left of the “Free Market” as long as our currency is so easily manipulated, and as long as commodities can be gamed with “paper” but fake quantities. Add the layers of corporate law that screw the employees for the benefit of shareholders (who end up getting screwed themselves by the next layers of corporate laws) and you have a massive racket (or whatever technical term you want to call it – its like economic slavery, racketeering, extortion, theft, bribery, corrupion, etc all rolled into one).
I have no patience with people like Gates an Buffet. They make zillions from the hard work of other Americans and then use their money to help outside the country. I have no problem with helping other countries but think how many clinics they could build and staff right here and how many school programs and lunches for children. I still like that old saying “charity begins at home.” Their egos have taken over.
If I were Gates or Buffet, I’d hold onto the money just to spite people as bitchy as all of you.
people as “bitchy” as us? Wow, you sure got defensive with the pesky FACTS that got presented.
Feeling guilty much?
The problem with Gates or Buffet keeping their money to spite America is that they will get taxed if they keep it! They WANT to divert a lot of it into tax shelters. As I said in comment 47, the idea of putting money into “charity” is really about hiding money from being taxed. The “charities” are not always what people think they are. They are family foundations established to benefit those wealthy families.
This is not “wealth envy” on my part. When people lose their 401ks, their HARD EARNED SAVINGS to corporate con artists who then take taxpayer money to recover their losses, whereas the individuals are left holding the bag, and then for those con artists to say they will “Give back” some of it to “Charities” of uknown identity – well, that is like saying that you have “wealth envy” if someone were to rob you of your wealth at gunpoint, escape prosecution in the light of day, and then brag on daytime TV that they were going to “Dontate” a percentage of it to their family foundation. Indignation at being robbed is not “wealth envy” or “Bitchiness.”
Its an attempt to get justice.
Great post-Thank You.
I encourage anybody who is interested in understanding economics and our modern plight to study the economics of the medieval village. I’m not advocating that this is an ideal model or anything like that. But, it is a very useful “laboratory” of human sociology, economics, and culture for which we have EXTENSIVE records. Medieval agrinomics and village life are all quite instructive into the fundamentals of economics.
The concept of ratios, relationships, and interconnectivity among the market participants is critical to understanding how economics SHOULD work vs. how it isn’t working. Joseph Stiglitz is a very good economist who can say these things with much more complexity and many decades of study to back it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz
He was rejected by Obama to be part of the economic recovery, yet he made the same observation about the disconnection of cause/effect. He pioneered the concept of “Moral Hazard.” That is where RISK is seperated from REWARD.
Another financial wizardry innovation, no doubt. In a medieval manor, if the Lord was absent from his lands, took more from them than they could produce, and starved his people, he would have CONSEQUENCES. No one to muster when his liege called for troops. No one to work the fields for to fill his larder. His lands would be fallow, his crops would fail, and his livestock would die. His yields would dramatically decrease. While there was quite a bit of latitude in how he could “abuse” his people (if he so desired), there was a parametric limit to that.
In today’s world, this limit is gone. We have commoditized everything in the future’s market. There are more tons of gold being traded o the futures market than there is in existence. In California, there has arisen a “paper” market in water. Where developers are allowed to “meet” water resource guidelines when developing in arid land. They must show “on paper” that they have the water. But it is not real paper.
Here are some links on that, courtesy of other Firepups and others:
http://firedoglake.com/2009/05/16/westlands-300000-acres-of-hot-water-perfect-for-a-fox-teabag/
http://www.badlandsjournal.com/comment/reply/348#comment-form
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/144020
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/144427
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/the-looming-water-disaster-that-could-destroy-california-and-enrich-its-billionaire-farmers/
So, imagine if the Lord of the medieval village is absent and allowing all his lands to suffer from neglect. IMagine he acted like our Banks and CEOs act today. He takes the food and provisions for himself, sells them for profit, and allows his people to starve. He blames them for not working hard enough. They petition the king for help, and the lord whips out a piece of paper – a FOOD FUTURES CONTRACT – that clearly states that “Sir, I have provided them with food… its documented. Its paper food.” And the law of that day says, “that is good enough.”
Imagine how quickly “Christian” Europe would have fallen to the march of Islam in such a case. There would have been nobody to stop them but the criminals who starved their own continent.
This is Moral Hazard, as Stiglitz puts it. In today’s economy, the “Financial Titans” or “Financial Wizards” have engineered how to separate RISK from Reward at almost all steps. What you now have is the ballooning of “Reward” up in the upper echelons of social strata, while the “RISK” does nothing but TRICKLE DOWN TO THE MASSES.
That is what Trickle Down Economics has become. The Trickling of all risk onto the non-wealthy. The profit, the reward, the upside is harvested like a crop and stored far from the mouths that broke their backs planting it, tending it, and plowing it.
Some might say I am talking like a “communist.” But in essence, I am merely talking like a libertarian who believes in a “Free Market.” Not an unregulated market. Not a lawless market. A true market. What we have in this nation now is not economics. It is theft. It is a graft. It is extortion. And it is a recipe for national economic suicide. When Risk and Reward can be severed, when commodities can be traded in futures in quantities that will never exist, by speculators who will never take possession, and sold to people in lieu of the actual commodity itself.
Suffice it to say that this dynamic occurs in Banking, Investing, Agriculture, Energy, and even WATER. See the above links for your fill massive heartburn and sympathy for the people of California who are about to see the water under their feet taken by the state and given to a handful of billionaires who can’t manage their own lands, and then sold back to these people at as much as 200x the orignal value. And then find out that the Federal Government subsidizes this entire operation.
The “Charity” of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet is not even close to addressing the systemic problems in our economy and our system of how money and labor are disconnected from value and worth. They are now almost exclusively controlled and determined based on position and influence.