[Lucky9teen]

Another WTF moment?

[OpusatFR]

They’ll put their money in private foundations and retain control.

The private foundations are nothing more than sociological think tanks and population steering mechanisms.

[Ann Archy]

Where’s SOROS?????

[silverleaf]

and they will spend another chunk of their fortunes electing people who want to give away my money

[LottieDah]

Those 40 billionaires want to give away half their wealth before the Bush tax cuts expire.

[DManA]

Presumably this money is currently invested and being used to grow new wealth. So we take half of this out of the productive economy to be consumed, won’t we all be worse off?

[DManA]

Another way to look at this, if these 40 billionaires gave 100% of their wealth to the US Treasury, it would hardly make a dent in the debt.

[silverleaf]

Only half?

BFD.

Why are they keeping so much? Can’t they live on $250K like the rest of the “rich” whose federal taxes are going up to 40%?

[Sacajaweau]

Charity?? Doesn't really make sense does it. Do something that creates jobs and/or trains for jobs. The trick is always gonna be to get lazy screw ups into the workplace.

MANDATORY work for welfare...FREE CHECKUP!!!

[Cicero]

Also, apart from these foundation slush funds which provide comfortable living support for liberals, it depends what you mean by “charity.”

For Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, history suggests that it mostly means killing off babies, to reduce the population.

[Beowulf9]

Hi! My name is CHARITY!!!

[SeekAndFind]

Well that was a quick move up from 34 just a few hours ago.

See here :

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2564439/posts

[La Lydia]

If they really had the courage of their convictions, they would give it ALL away and live in caves like hermits, on roots and berries, until called to the choir celestial.

[CA Conservative]

Good for them - it’s their money, they can do as they wish, and if they want to give to charity, so be it.

As long as they don’t ask the government to force the rest of us to give more of our money in taxes for their pet causes...

[bolobaby]

Can we declare the U.S. debt a charity cause?

[WOBBLY BOB]

Big deal. I’ve pledged to have children with Salma Hayek.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

My quick perusal of the 40 names tells me that most of them are liberals.

This could be nothing more than a political ploy to keep liberals in power.

[fightin bronco]

Makes sense. You still are giving a large sum to family and get to avoid the estate tax on the rest. I would guess this was already in their estate plan

[McGavin999]

I think it’s great, but you can do a lot of damage with money that is given away carelessly. Also, many employed by these foundations do not have the best interests of this country or it’s people in mind. A lot of money is being syphoned off into the pockets of people who have no thought for the betterment of those they are supposed to be working for.

[Billthedrill]

I pledge to give the entirety of my second $10 billion to charity. Because I’m that kind of a giving guy.

[calex59]

Ok, lets look at this. A billion dollars is a 1000 millions. That means, with no investments at all, you could spend 1,000,000 bucks per year for a thousand years before you went broke. So, if you have 60 billion, as Gates is supposed to have, then you could pretty much dump 30 billion and not be hurt by the loss.

Even if you have a paltry billion and dumb 500,000,000 you would still be pretty set for life even without investing in a thing.