Warren Buffett to give away "85% of his wealth"

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
he can pay the foreign debt of many little countries with that

The thing is the guy grew up in a middle class family and still lives in a house he and his wife bought in 1958 for $30,000. He basically lived the American dream where you start with very little and then end up as one of the richest men in the world.

[DanS]

There's a good accompanying interview...

http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/25/magazines/fortune/charity2.fortune/index.htm

In pertitent part...

I was wired at birth to allocate capital and was lucky enough to have people around me early on - my parents and teachers and Susie - who helped me to make the most of that.

In any case, Susie didn't get very excited when I told her we were going to get rich. She either didn't care or didn't believe me - probably both, in fact. But to the extent we did amass wealth, we were totally in sync about what to do with it - and that was to give it back to society.

In that, we agreed with Andrew Carnegie, who said that huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society. In my case, the ability to allocate capital would have had little utility unless I lived in a rich, populous country in which enormous quantities of marketable securities were traded and were sometimes ridiculously mispriced. And fortunately for me, that describes the U.S. in the second half of the last century.

Certainly neither Susie nor I ever thought we should pass huge amounts of money along to our children. Our kids are great. But I would argue that when your kids have all the advantages anyway, in terms of how they grow up and the opportunities they have for education, including what they learn at home - I would say it's neither right nor rational to be flooding them with money.

In effect, they've had a gigantic headstart in a society that aspires to be a meritocracy. Dynastic mega-wealth would further tilt the playing field that we ought to be trying instead to level.

Q: Does it occur to you that it's somewhat ironic for the second-richest man in the world to be giving untold billions to the first-richest man?

A: When you put it that way, it sounds pretty funny. But in truth, I'm giving it through him - and, importantly, Melinda as well - not to him.

Q: This plan seems to settle the fate, over the long term, of all your Berkshire shares. Does that mean you're giving nothing to your family in straight-out gifts?

A: No, what I've always said is that my family won't receive huge amounts of my net worth. That doesn't mean they'll get nothing. My children have already received some money from me and Susie and will receive more.

I still believe in the philosophy - FORTUNE quoted me saying this 20 years ago - that a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing. [The FORTUNE article was "Should You Leave It All to the Children?" Sept. 29, 1986.]

[Drake Tungsten]

How awesome would it be if this were all just a complicated plot by Bill Gates to get Buffett's money and thereby eliminate all competition for the title of "World's Richest Man"?

[Wiglaf]

his grandchildren must be trying to kill him as quickly as possible

[Flip McWho]

quote:
Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
he can pay the foreign debt of many little countries with that

Originally posted by Oerdin
The thing is the guy grew up in a middle class family and still lives in a house he and his wife bought in 1958 for $30,000. He basically lived the American dream where you start with very little and then end up as one of the richest men in the world.

And that explains what exactly?

[Dinner]

That the American dream is still alive. A guy can be an average Joe and end up one of the world's richest men. It also shows that dispite his vast wealth Buffet never wanted to live grandeously. He's been living in the same nice but not super glamorous house for over 40 years dispite the fact that he could buy literally anything he wants.

[Flip McWho]

So why'd you use that post you quoted to launch off on?

What's living the american dream got to do with him not paying off foreign debt?

[One_more_turn]

Let's see how the Market responds to this news.

The knee-jerk reactions of many would be like "he is giving away his stocks! There will be selling pressures!".

Let's hope it's not the case.

[Provost Harrison]

There's not going to be much of his fortune left to be passed down to Finger when he dies...

[Arrian]

to him. That is all.

-Arrian

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
Good. Mayve Gates can make some headway for education and disease control like Carnegie did for the arts.

Didn't work too well for Carnegie. Theres lots of headway still to be made in education and disease control for those in the arts.

[yin26]

They should have made this a reality show where Buffett goes to Vegas and bets the whole damn thing on black!

[SpencerH]

to Buffett

I would have liked to have seen a new foundation. I'm not criticizing the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation even one little bit but I'd prefer to see two powerful Foundations addressing two problem areas rather than one larger Foundation.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


Didn't work too well for Carnegie. Theres lots of headway still to be made in education and disease control for those in the arts.

[flash9286]

Originally posted by Oerdin


The thing is the guy grew up in a middle class family and still lives in a house he and his wife bought in 1958 for $30,000. He basically lived the American dream where you start with very little and then end up as one of the richest men in the world.

Wasn't his dad a Republican congressman.