Billionaire Philanthropists

Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie once said, “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.”

I'm glad those words did not fall on deaf ears. I was ecstatic when I heard on TV that a billionaire has promised to give away a huge amount of money to charity. I immediately went online to get the details, and here is what I gathered from different sources.

Warren Edward Buffett, the second richest man in the world, announced that he will be donating 85% of his $44 billion worth of common stock from his company, most of which would be going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

This single largest monetary donation in history has united the world's two richest people in a bid to fight disease, reduce poverty and improve education.

The roughly $30.7 billion donation doubles the Gates Foundation's size to $60 billion, five times larger than any other U.S. charitable group and larger than the gross domestic product of Kuwait.

Buffett told reporters that his decisions to give such a significant amount to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is due to his friend Bill Gates’ decision recently to step back from his responsibilities at Microsoft to focus more on the foundation.

Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, recently announced plans to retire from Microsoft in 2008 to focus his attention on philanthropy. Many analysts and people in general view the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to be the world's most respectable charitable foundation due to Bill Gates' involvement and how critical he is about where money is spent and who it is given to.

Time Magazine last year named the Gates couple, together with Bono of U2 its "Persons of the Year" for 2005, citing their charitable and philanthropic pursuits.

I've heard some who fear that Bill Gates might be the next anti-Christ, and even claim that this partnership between the world's two richest men is part of a bigger conspiracy. I can't really comment on this. I just wonder why people tend to find the negative out of something positive.

Nevertheless, these developments are truly inspiring. Imagine if all the other 689 billionaires (in US dollars) would duplicate this, even just a tiny portion of their immense wealth?

That would simply be incredible - the total alleviation of poverty.