Posted on 05/24/2009 6:38:56 AM PDT by markomalley
SOME of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education.
The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.
Described as the Good Club by one insider it included David Rockefeller Jr, the patriarch of America’s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George Soros, the financiers, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and the media moguls Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey.
These members, along with Gates, have given away more than £45 billion since 1996 to causes ranging from health programmes in developing countries to ghetto schools nearer to home.
They gathered at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, a British Nobel prize biochemist and president of the private Rockefeller University, in Manhattan on May 5. The informal afternoon session was so discreet that some of the billionaires’ aides were told they were at “security briefings”.
Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said the summit was unprecedented. “We only learnt about it afterwards, by accident. Normally these people are happy to talk good causes, but this is different – maybe because they don’t want to be seen as a global cabal,” he said.
(snip)
Why all the secrecy? “They wanted to speak rich to rich without worrying anything they said would end up in the newspapers, painting them as an alternative world government,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Well eventually it is...but eventually the sun will burn out too. The question is over what time scale is it unsustainable. In one his books, P.J. O'Rourke tackles the question of overpopulation by comparing the population density of places like Calcutta and Fresno. He found that they're roughly the same- only Fresno is richer than Calcutta because (at least at the time) Fresno was a part of a free-market country and Calcutta was not.
The change the figures on usable land, some of it is under water.
We have 0bama in office you you think that population growth in 3rd world countries threatens our wealth and freedoms? That is downright hilarious.
You also think that the population controls won't morph into more sinister methods to be used against conservatives. You are a funny guy.
Deluded..., but funny.
IOW the USA is to be come like Calcutta as 0bama forces us away from the freemarket.
So its not population density? What a novel idea?
9yearlurker what do you think?
IIRC,
when I first read that thought experiment . . . they were talking not about useable land, per se . . . but the whole total acreage within Texas borders.
It was just used to illustrate that the earth has a lot more land per capita than folks seem to realize.
I love PJ and I expect many if not most Freepers will disagree with me. I also am a very-small-government free marketer. But of course the resources supporting those Fresno lifestyles are quite different from what’s used in support of Calcutta. The actual areas of residency aren’t really the major point.
I’ll add another. I love Mark Steyn, too. And he’s absolutely right about the Muslim population over-running those with our Western values. But simply out-populating heavy populators is not the answer. The issue is that our self-governing ideals are somewhat inaccurately boiled down to democratic, majority rule worldwide. Looking at the Israeli/Palestinian issue, such a simplistic application would be death to the Westernized government.
There was a time in the US when people wouldn’t think of having children they couldn’t support, and so men went about making themselves into good breadwinners so they could ‘afford’ to marry and have children. I’m not so sure that was such a bad ethos to have held.
Where’s the All Seeing Eye?
;-)
Sounds like they are planning a war.
The ‘insiders’ profit from the war as millions are killed.
See! Everybody wins! Money is made, population is reduced.
They can “take a look”—it’s a free country.
As an individual, I can take a “look” at demographics, too.
What the elephant in the room is that they are gathering together to “take a look” and they are obviously consorting to address a “problem”. God forbid! Malthusian-minded wealth consorting and calculating power together.
Why don't they just off themselves and their families, now THAT would show some real committment to the cause.
You could say the same thing about Hong Kong or Japan - few indigenous resources but strong vibrant economies. The difference is free market capitalism. The problem with much of the developing world isn't that they are overpopulated - but rather that they are poor. The free market is a good way of making them rich.
Secondly, the whole concept of overpopulation is somewhat patronizing and paternalistic, especially when it's directed towards people who don't look like you. They are humans too and are motivated by the same interests as other humans even when it comes to reproduction. And even so, statistically, making a society richer is an effective way to control birth rates probably more so than just handing out contraceptives and sterilizing people you deem to be inferior.
That’s funny. My neighbor, Mr. Dredd, was talking about this just the other day!
Obviously, there is way too many billionares in Europe and the US. Time to cull the herd as they are stinking up my culture, planet and environment. The world’s billionares are unsustainable and incompatable with human life.
Ted Turner 5 children
Warren Buffet 3 children
George Soros 5 children
Hey guys...shut up.
The people in question are far from being the *trustworthy* *good guys* they appear to be. I’m quite surprised the SleezeMaster Bill wasn’t there. (since he’s involved with these folks)
http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=ClintonGlobIni
What points were made in the discussion, if I may ask, please?
Could it be any other way? Would the plutocrats of the world ever want to reduce health care and increase population more quickly, or even still improve health care and speed up population growth? Not sure what is so surprising about this. People need to use their heads.
Gotta remember when you are a billionaire, the masses become statistics that YOU can influence.
>>> Never mind that the biggest problem regarding population in much of the world is the issue of underpopulation. Russia and Germany are paying women to bear children. <<<
In the article, it’s pretty clear that the target populations are in Africa and other Third-World regions. I don’t think the Russkies are being targeted.
My guess is that these purveyors of the culture of contraception look at countries like Spain, Germany, and Russia and think “Mission Accomplished”!
What worries me is that the meeting was held at the home of a Nobel-winning BIOCHEMIST. What’s a biochemist up to with a bunch of no-goodniks like Turner and the rest?
...kinda like the SPCA.
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