So old Warren is gonna give away a big chunk of his fortune (the Berkshire Hathaway B stock, worth about $40 billion), it seems. Stop jumping up and down and crossing your fingers. It looks like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will get most of it, because it needs it and all (with only $30 billion in assets). The rest will go to foundations run by members of Buffet's family. Sigh.Wish WB had thought to divvy it up between some of the foundation-less masses. Would it've killed him to have spread the wealth a little? Shoot, even throwing the hordes a tenth of the fortune would leave $36 billion for all those foundations and given a coupla million of us poor working (and even non-working) shlubs a little monthly breathing room. Another sigh.
Remember that old television drama - and I'm showing my age here - The Millionaire? Each week, Michael Anthony, working on behalf of the mysterious John Beresford Tipton, delivered a cashier's check for $1 million to some unsuspecting person. Why, Warren Buffet could take a lesson from JBT and anonymously deliver $1 million checks to a bunch of folks. I wouldn't be greedy; I'd take a measley $1 million cashier's check, even in 2006 dollars (as compared to The Millionaire's 1950's dollars). Oh, yeah - and it was $1 million tax free.
C'mon, Warren. Step up to the plate. Be our John Beresford Tipton. Send Michael Anthony to our doors!
4 comments:
There's only like 300 million people in the US. So he could start by giving us all a million bucks, and still have plenty left over.
Amen, sister. That's what I'm sayin'.
I'm not sure about Nobody's maths skills.
By my calculations, $40 billion ($40,000,000,000) divided by 300 million people (300,000,000) is around $133 each.
Now, I wouldn't sniff at $133, although, at present rates of exchange, that would only just buy enough petrol to get me to work for 2 weeks. Hardly a life-changing amount of money.
Maybe Mr Buffet should send his money to the UK instead. There are only 60 million of us over here, so we'd get around $666 each.
I could use $133 right now. But $666? I think I'd opt for $665.99.
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