Now we’re talking real money

Investor Warren Buffett’s decision to give $30 billion of his estate to his friend Bill Gates’ charitable foundation — doubling its assets — creates the largest philanthropic fund in history.
The money will give even more clout to Gates’ efforts to fight global disease and poverty and, on the home front, improve U.S. high schools and libraries.
The staggering amount of money involved signals a new golden age of philanthropy. To put it in perspective: The $60 billion Gates fund is five times bigger than the Ford Foundation, the next largest private charity. The United Nations, by comparison, spends about $12 billion annually, according to The Wall Street Journal.
And the fund exceeds some of the most generous charitable giving of the past: Andrew Carnegie’s $380 million in giving, adjusted for inflation, is worth $7.6 billion today.
Let’s hope it is spent wisely, and that other rich Americans follow Buffett’s and Gates’ lead. Buffett told Fortune magazine that he agreed with Carnegie that “huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society.”
Posted by Randy Scholfield

12 Comments

  1. kansassam
    Posted June 27, 2006 at 5:20 am | Permalink

    It would be nice to see the Supportive Housing grants and other initiatives expanded to other geographic locations than the Pacific NW.What a benefit this could be to funding mental health and people with disabilities programs… but once again, it appears that these folks will be left with only the bread crumbs after the feast!Another area that could use help is our veterans coming home from war.. they deserve much better than they are going to receive. I don’t believe the Gates Foundation addresses their issues.Although I’m sure this money will be well spent, I wish that Mr. Buffett would have created his own foundation to complement what Gates is doing. I do hope that he adds programs to benefit other needs that the Gates Foundation does not currently address.

  2. heartlander
    Posted June 27, 2006 at 8:43 am | Permalink

    Mr. Buffett said in an interview last night (with Bill and Melinda Gates sitting with him) that he decided to give the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation his money because he has been very impressed that the Gates not only have worthy ideas, they know how to get things done. The endowment has been set up to enable Mr. Buffett to recover his money if Mr. and Mrs. Gates die, which is to say, Mr. Buffett has a lot of personal faith in Mr. and Mrs. Gates per se.

  3. Jed
    Posted June 27, 2006 at 9:18 am | Permalink

    $60 Billion sounds like a lot of money until you start enumerating the needs. If it’s used wisely, it can go a long way toward improving the lives of those in need. I hope it is used well, and I hope it becomes an example for others in their position to follow.

  4. Joe Williams
    Posted June 27, 2006 at 10:17 am | Permalink

    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations has done and will do much more to help the problems facing the cronic poor in third world nations than any government or UN program.

    It’s funny that leftist attack the rich and capitalist, saying they are greedy and only think of themselves, yet the two richest people in the United States have dedicated to give away practially their entire fortunes in helping the world poor.

  5. RD
    Posted June 27, 2006 at 10:25 am | Permalink

    Nice try, Joe, but I won’t join anyone in bashing these mega wealthy who are using their money to help others.

    As Buffett said, this isn’t going to hurt his personal wealth one bit, nor will it touch his stockholders. In other words, why not?

    Indeed.

  6. TRACY
    Posted June 27, 2006 at 10:32 am | Permalink

    So Joe, what are the rest of Bush’s ‘base’ doing with their unwarranted tax cuts?Hiring more illegals to do there landscaping?

  7. Joe Williams
    Posted June 27, 2006 at 11:31 am | Permalink

    Nope!

    What are the leftist doing with theres?

  8. Patriot
    Posted June 27, 2006 at 11:34 am | Permalink

    >>What are the leftist doing with theres?<<

    Well, they’re certainly not giving it back to the Treasury (which then makes them a bunch of hypocrits).

  9. mrbill
    Posted June 27, 2006 at 12:03 pm | Permalink

    Whats good ole liberal Ted K. doing with his illegally gained rum running money….

    Perhaps keeping it all behind a trust wall..

  10. mrbill
    Posted June 27, 2006 at 12:21 pm | Permalink

    If anybody needs or wants to find out who and what these orgainzations are up to you can find it at…

    http://activistcash.com/

    They track most of these foundations and charities etc. It would be nice if the news orgs would check these at times rather than just blindly going ga-ga because an org has a high sounding name in their title. Issues such as the Ford family disowned the Ford foundation after the far left took over the board and now they have no contact with the org. Or that many of the far left orgs are funded by the huge TIDES foundation with support from Theresa Heinz-Kerry.

    You dont hear much about the founder of MADD resigning from the org once she found they had become a political org and then morphed into a Prohibitionist org with big ties to the far leftist Roberts Woods Johnson Foundation that supports Ralph Naders orgs etc. So Candy Lighter bailed out.

    You can find a lot of info at Activistcash and who is tied to whom, and how much money they spread around.

    But Gates and Buffet seem to have cajones big enough to smack some of the crazies that can get into these orgs. Just hope they can write it up so the inmates can never get control of the asylum as they have in some.

  11. ksfarmgrrl
    Posted June 27, 2006 at 12:55 pm | Permalink

    Does the site detail how Jack Abramhoff and Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist used non-profits to funnel and shuttle cash to their buddies?

  12. J M Walker
    Posted June 27, 2006 at 9:21 pm | Permalink

    KFG,Nah, just anybody the neo-con-nuts disagree with. If they policed themselves, they’d be at the top of the list.