• Torna all'indice generale
• Torna all'indice delle espansioni

 

 

1. Who are ‘the trio’ mentioned?

3. Who’s going to sign it?

4. What is philanthropy?

 

Billionaire and Oracle Corp. (ORCL) Chairman Larry Ellison will join movie director George Lucas and 38 other billionaires who are following a call made in June by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates to pledge the majority of their wealth to charity.

On Wednesday, the trio will announce that 40 of America's wealthiest individuals and families, from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) co-founder Paul G. Allen to hotel mogul Barron Hilton have signed on to the 'Giving Pledge,' an invitation Buffett and the Gates' extended in June for America's wealthiest families to publicly commit to giving away at least half of their wealth to charity within their lifetimes or after their deaths. […]

As philanthropy can often be a private matter, some signatories came as a surprise. Software mogul Ellison is among those who have given widely but rarely stated their intentions so publicly. "Until now, I have done this giving quietly because I have long believed that charitable giving is a personal and private matter," wrote Ellison in a public letter on the Giving Pledge's website. He said he put virtually all his assets into a trust with the intention of giving away at least 95% of his wealth to charitable causes and has already given hundreds of millions of dollars to medical research and education. […]

Other billionaires on the list, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, had previously stated their plans to give away the majority of their wealth to charity but said calling attention to their plans will encourage others to follow suit. "I've long stated that I enjoy making money, and I enjoy giving it away”, Pickens wrote in a letter on the Giving Pledge website. "To date, I've given away nearly $800 million to a wide-range of charitable organizations, and I look forward to the day I hit the $1 billion mark."

 

 

 

1. Why are Bill and Melinda Gates great philanthropists?

2. Does the writer appreciate or object to the Buffet-Gates”giving pledge”?

3. What does he suggest instead?

 

It is surely admirable – isn't it? – that 40 US billionaires, led by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, have signed the 'giving pledge' to donate half their fortunes to charity. Far better that they open their wallets to deserving causes than that they spend yet more money on yachts, carbon-emitting private jets or garish mansions. Well, yes. Salute Gates, whose foundation has already saved perhaps five million lives through the development and delivery of vaccines against diseases such as TB. Salute Buffett who says his children won't inherit "a significant proportion" of his wealth. The filthy rich, or some of them, have shown they have a heart.

But let's be clear. Money paid to charity is exempt from tax; the US treasury already loses at least $40bn (£25bn) a year from tax breaks for donations. So billionaires, not the democratically elected and (at least theoretically) accountable representatives of the people, get to decide on the good causes. […]

As Michael Edwards, a former World Bank adviser, asked "Why should the rich and famous decide how schools are going to be reformed, or what drugs will be supplied at prices affordable to the poor, or which civil society groups get funded for their work?" And even if they give away half their money (or 99% in Buffett's case), billionaires will still be rich. Their generosity, however, helps to legitimise inequality and head off political protest. Some of them may become even richer, because charitable giving is good marketing and, sometimes, can be used to tie recipients into buying the donors' products and services. […]

'Philanthrocapitalism', as it has been called, veers towards tackling symptoms of poverty and distress rather than underlying causes. Gates has done admirable work against TB, malaria and Aids, and begun work against diarrhoea and pneumonia, which are much bigger killers. He and his wife Melinda have started to talk about clean water supplies, inadequate housing, public health infrastructure and agricultural productivity.

They are undoubtedly among the most sophisticated of the new philanthropists. But it seems doubtful they will move into considering issues of, say, land ownership and distribution. The Gates Foundation wants to "give where we can effect the greatest change". But the greatest change is likely to come from transforming the economic system and the pattern of property ownership. Will Gates fund projects that undermine his own power and economic status? […]

I repeat: we should welcome the Gates-Buffett initiative and applaud those who have joined it. Generous, public-spirited billionaires are preferable to mean ones. But remember that two-thirds of U.S. corporations contrive to pay no federal income tax at all and that transfer pricing alone deprives the U.S. treasury of $60bn annually. Such sums, which pile more taxes on the poor and reduce funds for government projects that advance the public good, dwarf what the 40 billionaires propose to give away.

If the rich really wish to create a better world, they can sign another pledge: to pay their taxes on time and in full; to stop lobbying against taxation and regulation; to avoid creating monopolies; to give their employees better wages, pensions, job protection and working conditions; to make goods and use production methods that don't kill or maim or damage the environment or make people ill. When they put their names to that, there will be occasion not just for applause but for street parties.

(Adapted from «The Guardian», August 5, 2010)

 

The Buffett-Gates Giving Pledge was met with glowing press coverage in the U.S. But in the U.K. and on the Continent, it was largely met with jeers.

Writing in The Guardian, columnist Peter Wilby wrote that letting rich people decide how to solve the world’s social problems is dangerous for democracy.

Yet some of the toughest criticism has come in Germany. In an interview with Spiegel, Peter Krämer, a Hamburg shipping magnate and multimillionaire who has donated millions of dollars to schools in Africa, criticized the tax-breaks given to American philanthropists. “The rich make a choice: Would I rather donate or pay taxes? The donors are taking the place of the state. That’s unacceptable.”

He added that given America’s “desolate” social system, “it would have been a greater deed on the part of Mr. Gates or Mr. Buffet if they had given the money to small communities in the U.S. so that they can fulfil public duties.”

[…] U.S. philanthropy steps in where government has failed. Whether this is a good or a bad thing depends on your politics. As the Rockefeller family historian once told me, John D. Rockefeller and his son became philanthropists because government wasn’t meeting some basic needs, or at least needs the Rockefellers felt were important.

It is a bargain that American governments and rich people have been happy to keep ever since. Philanthropists get satisfaction, credit and tax breaks for funding their pet causes, and governments are content to let rich people pick up the tab.

In Europe, this balance is different. More social needs are met by bigger governments, so philanthropy is seen as less important. What the Europeans are really attacking isn’t the civic-minded billionaires, but a government that subsidizes billionaires to fund some of government’s problems.

On that, these two worlds may never agree.

 

1. What is a philanthropist?

2. Who is Peter Kramer?

3. Does he appreciate the Buffet-Gates initiative? Why?

4. What does he suggest instead?

5. Do you agree with him?

6. What difference is pointed out in the article between America and Europe as to philanthropism?

 

 

 

 

• Torna all'indice generale
• Torna all'indice delle espansioni