[quote=CDMA ENG][quote=EconProf]In the never-ending debate about whether the more wealthy are generous, I am encouraged by the Bill Gates/Warren Buffett behavior. They and dozens of other uber-rich have pledged to give at least half of their wealth to charities or philanthropies at death or before.[/quote]
I think it was both. These gentlemen in thier early days were probably not so philanthropic…
They obtianed thier wealth and reflected upon it and relized there were better things to do with it.
Essentially the glimmer of gold lost its luster when thier eyes dulled with age.
That being said I really admire what they are doing with thier wealth…
CE[/quote]
I seem to remember that back in the earlier days, Bill Gates was NOT philanthropic and had to be goaded into charitable giving. There were rumors that he was incredibly tight-fisted when it came to charitable giving, IIRC. Does anyone else remember this? Going 100% from anecdotal memory here so would appreciate if any of the other Piggs who’ve been around the block a few times could offer up their own accounts from the 80s and early 90s. I could be totally wrong about the reality of his giving, but do remember the rumors.
In the meantime, found this:
……
Philanthropy wonk Lucy Bernholz defines the buzzword leverage
as “the idea that you can use a little money to access a lot of money.”
It’s hard to think of the Gates Foundation’s $26 billion leverage effort
as “a little money”, especially since it’s been spread over the globe to gain access to vastly more resources than it contributes, including U.S. tax dollars, the foreign exchange of emerging African nations, and United Nations funds for international development and world health.
Gates’ leveraged philanthropy model is a public-private partnership
to improve the world, partly through targeted research support but principally through public advocacy and tax-free lobbying to influence government policy. The goal of these policies is often to explicitly support profitability for corporate investors, whose enterprises are seen by the Gates Foundation as advancing human good. However, maximum corporate profit and public good often clash when its projects are implemented.
For example, chemical giant Monsanto has partnered with the Gates Foundation, which reportedly works to suppress local seed exchanges and environmentally sustainable agricultural practices through its global agricultural charity work. Fraud-prone drug giant GlaxoSmithKline
is a partner in the Foundation’s work to leverage its own relatively fractional contribution to vaccination efforts, so that it centrally controls enormous world funds for purchase, pricing, and delivery of vaccines for world public health. And in its U.S. education reform charity work, the Gates Foundation has increasingly shifted its funding to promote market domination by its British corporate education services partner, Pearson Education.
The Gates Foundation, and Gates personally, also own stock and reap profits from many of these same partner corporations. In addition, the Foundation owns a profit-generating portfolio of stocks which would seem to work against the Foundation’s declared missions, such as the Latin American Coca-Cola FEMSA distributorship and five multinational oil giants operating in Nigeria. These corporate investments, now moved to a blind trust whose trustees are Bill and Melinda Gates, are collaterally supported by the Foundation’s tax-free lobbying and advocacy activities.
Criticism of the profit-driven philanthropy agenda is muted by the fact that many of the Foundation’s “advocacy” gifts are positioned to leverage control of policy analysis and news outlets. The Gates Foundation recently undertook sponsorship of the Guardian’s Global Development coverage, for instance, which now maintains a weary-but-compliant stance toward corporate domination of development aid. The Gates Foundation also literally dominates news coverage of Global Health issues.
On the U.S. Education Reform front, the Gates Foundation maintains long-time charitable support of Media Bullpen, as well as Education Week itself (see disclaimer).
Tom Paulson of Humanosphere reviewed some critical stories that reporters did get published in major news outlets last November.
