Topic: when the rich say 'ill give 95% of my billion away over my lifetime' explained (Read 378 times)

Rich people already experience being rich that can afford everything without looking at the price, all of the expensive things they can now really afford they continuously making an investment and of course in a good return for all of their hard work giving a small amount to the people of the community as help them in a good way but again not all the rich people will do the same thing some of them still want to make a dominance into this world which have their own power and do what they want that's the power of money. This kind of privilege is quite risky too they can use those power to help or to manipulate.

One would never do that, they don't care that much, no matter how good they preach they are or how much money they give to charity or whatever humanitarian work they do around the world when it comes to distributing a very large percentage of their total wealth, they wouldn't be ready to do that even if that percentage wouldn't make them become poor or something but they will lose their status which to them is the most important thing, in my opinion.

Take Elon Musk as an example. He is currently the richest person on the face of the earth with a net worth of $246.4B according to Forbes, now if he decides to give away about $50B worth of his assets, someone else will take that position and he probably wouldn't want that to happen.

salary Pfft
the richguy can put (instead of $40b in one go..) $2B a year for 20 years
the trust can sell upto $2b/yr of asset and invest in-kind in a 'loan facility'. thus no capgain... and give a'personal' loan to himself from trust to personal. so rich guy receives a loan (tax free money) and as a repayment(to himself as trust) puts another $2b into trust. to cancel loan. which again is no gain for trust

This is how it works:

A rich person is having assets worth $50 billion. Out of that, he announces that he is "donating" $40 billion for charity (any resemblance to criminals such as Bill Gates is purely unintentional). Now he forms a "charity trust" with him and other relatives as the board members. $40 billion worth of cash and other assets such as stocks and bonds are moved to a bank account earmarked for this charity. Any income in the form of interest payments or dividends are tax-free, as the account is owned by the charitable trust.

Now comes the irony. Instead of purchasing luxury houses and yachts from his own account, the billionaire will just purchase them using the charitable trust. Instead of bribing politicians openly with his own money, he will do so with the bank account owned by the trust, in the form of "speaking charges". On top of that, he will write down a few million USD every month for himself in the form of salary.

its not about any rich person needing to help others..

its about the ones that say they will help others using 95% of wealth.. but the results dont match the sales pitch/promise/pledge

separate subject
when there are millions of people leaning towards one political position.. who is chosen as the local and national representatives is not done by the public.. there is alot of internal posturing and garnering donations and sucking up to win favour within the close doors of political party meetings

yes the public then vote on who sounds better of those chosen representatives to then decide which party should be elected based on the parties representatives/spokesman.. but there is much more going on behind te scenes of who got chosen as representative/spokesman for the party

and dont get me started on gerrymandering and also community/social media pandering that swings votes

You don't have to accept that image and also don't have to create another that they make the world worse.

Not all businesses are tied to child labor.
The businesses which are tied to it still has thousands of customers, who finance the business but do not consider themselves to be part of the problem. People buy the jewelleries, the devices etc, but will take the moral high ground because, "I wasn't involved in the chain of supply".

The rich are not taking money off the table of the half of the world population by building their businesses. Many of them when starting out never even expected their companies to get as large as they did, but they do get emotionally attached to it and cannot be expected to halt it's growth cause they are getting to rich.

If I for example invested in Bitcoin when it was not worth even a dollar and held on for it to be worth billions, should I be ashamed cause more than half of the world cannot access safe water but I have billions?

But we vote the politicians in and not the elite, so who should we hold accountable?

Of course we can have different opinions and I respect everyone's right to express their opinion. However, I look at things in a much wider context and I do not want to accept the image created about someone by the mainstream media, which in some cases is financed by the same rich people who present themselves as people who make the world a better place.

I personally would wake up very ashamed every morning if I knew that my wealth was largely the result of exploiting children and slave labor, but for the world's richest people, this is obviously not a problem.


Source


It's not something I didn't know, the rich always want more, and to achieve that they have to invest part of their earnings and it's logical that they don't keep all those billions in cash or in banks. But then the question arises as to why one should find justification for the fact that someone has tens or hundreds of billions that they do not really need, while on the other hand, half of the people in the world today cannot provide enough food on their table.


The same politicians whose pockets are filled by these entrepreneurs? It's no secret who the biggest donors to politicians are, and it's also no secret how those same politicians return the favor when they come to power. Politicians are just pawns, someone else makes the moves, and we know that the one with the most money has the most power.

Don't be too surprised most of them doing this humanitarian pledge don't do this out of the goodness of their hearts, charity money is a way for them to not pay their taxes hell there's probably even more evil billionaires or rich people out there that's using charity as a way to funnel themselves laundered money so they don't have to pay any taxes that could've helped the people of the country much more since taxes are useful in terms of social welfare programs. Can't really do anything about them doing this, unless the working class is fed up with all the suffering then right now, there's nothing that we can do about it.

It is true that rich people giving a lot of money doesn't mean they are giving up their wealth. But most if not all of these giving or donating stuff, are actually through their foundations. It means that rich people's tax gets minimized to the lowest levels. Having foundations and charities is the best way of avoiding tax legally. So they're paying very low taxes plus they're receiving a good image from communities and governments. It's like having free advertisements then.

And rich people have little cash in the banks. They're investing it from different types of assets, be it lands, bonds, stocks or even constructing huge projects that will grow the value of their money over time. Rich people are masters of avoiding inflation which is why they're rich.

In general he has fulfilled his promise, but there are conditions. This condition is used by these people to fulfill their humanitarian promise by paying in installments for the next 19 years. It's a truly extraordinary mathematical calculation, they seem to be very generous in keeping their humanitarian promises. Even though they only use a certain percentage of the interest earned from their savings at the bank.

This method is very effective in attracting the sympathy of poor people. If they run for legislative office, they are certain to win the election. Usually people like this don't really care about the poor, in theory they don't donate their property, but rather their monthly income obtained from bank interest.

It is true that some people who have a lot of wealth make donations just to get recognition from other people that they have a lot of wealth and will not care about the people they help, they have interests for themselves, they will still have quite a lot of wealth. what they have and what they give is only a little of what they have, you are right that the poor remain poor because it is very difficult to improve their financial condition.

there are people that do help.. but its more about of the billions shuffling around. how much of it actually gets to the intended frontline need to actually help those that need help

for instance where im from there is a foodbank "trust" registered charity, that asks for financial donations. aswell as food
but if i was to donate:
£100 to the "trust" charity
vs
40 tins of beans (£100) to the local front line foodbank

the monetary £100 of donation to a "charity" does not end up as 40 tins of beans

just checking out their annual reports shows
charity income: £34m
£28m goes to the "foodbanks" grants (82%)
but wait. that is not 82% going to buy food. its grants..
these grants end up paying for admin of referral services locally authorising vouchers. and advertising local campaigns.. training staff, offering other hardship advice(debt, financial advice, help to get social security payments, budgeting, downsizing), etc etc etc
of the £100 monetary donation less than £10 ends up as food

Well, I for one would not really blame the rich for saying or making such a pledge because in all sincerity, any person willing to do such already has a secure financial aid anytime they want and even if they do not want it.
They know that money comes with value and even if they give out such amount, the value that got them such wealth will still shine on.
Afterall, what is it that they say about a good name. It is better than riches, because it is what brings riches, if it is from a truly genuine source.

Yea, I get it, a lot of them pledge all that for their selfish reasons, be it to avoid taxes, to make more money, or to seem good in the eyes of the public. A good number of them are frauds in this regard, I know. I didn't know about the interest they pay instead of the actual amount you talked about till today, but I always knew there was no way they would be giving 95% of their net worth away.

My reply was to the post that said "It's rare to see a billionaire helping those in need". I don't think that's true. Generalizing like that isn't fair on the ones that actually help don't you think? Because there are millionaires and billionaires actually helping instead of just acting like they're helping.

these days putting 4% a year into a foundation/trust you manage is charity
these days using foundation funds to buy up agricultural land, displacing farmers is charity
these days displacing hundreds of farmers family, to then put one manager inplace to tend the land is charity
these days mass production harvests and selling it to impoverished countries government at higher rate than local farmers is charity
these days governments then distributing that harvest to the poor, thus not allowing the poor the need to farm/sell own produce is charity

when 'big-agri' displaced african farmers and big agri harvested rice was sold to african gov and NGO's who then gave it "for free" to the displaced as charity. it then caused other local farmers not handing land to big-agri to go out of business.. after all how can they sell their local rice if the big-agri is giving it away to everyone

I remember a very long time ago while I was still in high school, I read an article that said Bill Gates as Warren Buffett give out 90% of their earnings away. A part of me couldn't understand how a human being can give out 90% of his net worth to charity because to be frank I can't do it and I'm pretty generous with the little I have. Then I get confused even further when a year later, I still see these same people among the richest people in the world. So to me it was like either the article I read was false or these men make so much money that subtracting 90% of their net worth won't take them away from the top. I use to assume so many things then.
I also assume the money given away to charity was also calculated as their current net worth.
Now it all makes sense to me.
Well, giving up 5% of $1b for 19 years is no small task though.

we all get that. but as you say..
when they make a pledge to donate 95% of wealth.. but their wealth increases
when they say donate it to help others.. but it doesnt get to the people who really need it.
when they say altruism.. but it turns out to be a tax dodge or wealth creation

then what was the point of the pledge

i understand its their money, their choice and shoudnt have to pander to the masses.. but why pledge then(rhetorical)

lets take FTX ex-ceo scam bankman fraud...
his altruistic pledge.. but how many tins of baked beans did he donate to foodbanks vs buy houses for his parents

We can have different perspectives on things and I am open to contrary views, but I do not think the rich are villains simply for owning more wealth, or that they would have a sad life cause they are richer than majority of the world population.
I do not also think they have a responsibility to the world due to how much wealth they have amassed.

Wealthy people do not actually own billions of liquid cash. For the most part their wealth is stored up in stocks of businesses they own and have built from the ground up. I will not expect them to crumble their businesses and give it up to charity while surviving on what they have left (which is enough to survive on). Weirdly, if we took out a couple of billionaires along with their networths, the life of the majority of the population will remain the same.

The politicians are 100% to blame for the half of humanity that are starving; they make stupid policies, start silly wars and only exist for more control, but somehow entrepreneurs he laddened with the blame.

This is not true. A lot of billionaires help out. You can say that they just do very little, but it's their money and they can use it for charity however they want. It's their money.
The problem is most of the money they donate doesn't get to the people who really need it. 
A lot of billionaires and millionaires are funding charity projects around the globe and it's their money. They can decide to do no charity at all and they will not be wrong in any way because it's their money.

the funniest part is
these small "4% contributions to society" dont actually draw down someones wealth by 4% a year
dont go to independent foodbanks/shelters. but instead fund go to some foundation where the donator is a trustee or on the board. and its used to generate new business.. and the original 4% becomes a tax writeoff meaning they pay 4% less on the other 96%

its all business tricks to generate business but to make their employees and customers feel empathy for the rich rather then think he is greedy for accumulating.. and when they do these pledges. where they say "more people should join my pledge" its a call of.. "dont feel guilt or regret, now gimme your money"

where these other donations and circulating of donations between each others trust and all the business creations put these guys wealth not at a 4% draw down per year but a wealth increase per year.. and we still see 'starvation', 'displacement', 'civil unrest' in news headlines

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i have more money then i need. and for a while i was pondering all the ways to best utilise my btc when i finally decide to exit because it will be way more than my lifetime would handle. so when looking into all these pledges. i started to see all the holes in it

Good to know this, I haven't really thought about this and when I read that rich men give 95% of their wealth, I would think it is their whole net worth value.
But I would still be confused while such rich men don't go bankrupt. Now I know what happens, thanks.
That will also mean they might not be able to pay taxes because of the charity they do with their interest.

Oh wow - you sniff out the motive well, mate.
The main motive is because people like that just really want their image as rich people to improve. It doesn't matter to me at all regardless of how charitable they want to be and how they make money for charity - but when they claim to be the best among other charitable people, then that is the problem.

Rich people will keep getting richer because of the system and the way they maintain and build their wealth. They can do charity without reducing their wealth - in fact the value will continue to increase as they do charity, that is the power of money from the wealth they have.

I think franky1 mentioned something that is important to note when making up our minds about someone claiming to be most philanthropic philanthrop in the world. When Bill Gates says that, everyone should know that he is building an entire corporate empire around agriculture, pharmaceutics, gene-editing businesses and many others.

Please note that this is no criticism Bill Gates is supporting these industries. It's great, someone should do it and someone has to do it for the sake of enabling people around the world to live a better and longer life.

But it is often portrayed as being an act of altruism and this is where franky1 now chimed in with some important info. There is nothing bad with bringing this up because I am sure that most people read headlines about billionaires giving away their fortune exactly as franky1 implied they would read it. 

that's what people say that "the rich will remain rich, and the poor will remain poor". even in donating they do not intend to donate completely. they still think about how rich they are and don't really care about how other people feel.

the donations they actually make are like "tricking" other people into pity and sympathy for what they do, but behind it all they only do it to increase their exposure and to make people think that they are like angels from heaven. everything rich people do is only for their own interests, it is not true for humanitarian action and concern for others.

I usually compare these super-rich individuals in the US with some wealthy businessmen in my country. I see some indigenous billionaires are greedy because of the Giving Pledge founded by Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and his ex-wife Melinda. I thought these men had pledged to give away a majority of their wealth to help society. But this is an eye opener that what they are giving back to the people are profits that were earned from the people. This has proved the fact that there is no free lunch even in Freetown.

Many other billionaires are so greedy that they don't consider society. They keep on profiting from the community without helping. They will always flaunt their wealth by showcasing luxurious cars, private jets, and yachts. So this set of billionaires has done well for even considering giving back to society. It is their wealth, hence they have the right to handle it the way they want.

They are all doing this just for them to get that kind of good image and to those people who doesnt know on how they do play out then they would really be able to believe that those billionaires
are really that indeed generous or really that minding about the humanity but to those who do know the truth then they would really just say "meh". Good thing that you did
make out some explanation on which it is really that something that really good to look at that people at least aware on what are those kind of claims and whatever charitable works that
they've been doing. 

It is really just that a good thing to imagine if you are into those billionaires shoes if you would really be considering on doing such thing or not.
For me then it wont really be that bad since you are really just sharing with the interest that you are getting.

It’s most likely to avoid paying taxes, to protect their children from obscene inheritance taxes. Nobody gives away money of that multitude without an agenda. Look at Bill Gates, he’s one of the least trustworthy people around.

I don't admire those people, nor would I ever want to be in their shoes, because I'm pretty sure that most of them are not happy people who wake up in the morning without a twinge of conscience that with their way of life make the world the way it is today. People who consider it a success in my opinion have a big problem in distinguishing the good from the bad.

I think that these rich individuals should not give anything and show themselves to the world that they are better than they are, because the facts speak for themselves. Anyone who thinks they need billions of dollars to be happy and successful while at the same time half of humanity is literally starving and has no basic medical care is to me personally someone to be despised not admired.

ok think of it this way..
warren buffet, bill gates, zuckerberg made pledges YEARS ago. so they should be many pegs lower of their wealth compared to pledge date..
now go look at their positions
                        2010      2023
warren buffet    47bill      118bill
bill gates           53bil      116bill
M zuckerberg      6bil      118bill

point is when they say giving away most of their wealth, but never lose any wealth.. but then you see the small % they do give is a below investment interest amount and is also classed as a taxable write off.. its not all as it seems

Hear, hear.  My initial thought was that if the ultra-wealthy give anything away to a decent cause, it's a net positive.  Whether they're lying about it or not....meh.  I've never been the type of person to rage against the rich in general; I have way more of a problem with people who've got too much power and lord it over those of us who have much less, and while it's true that powerful people are often quite wealthy there are rich folks who don't have too much power or at least aren't power-tripping assholes.

I haven't read the entire thread yet.  Is Warren Buffett lying about what he's going to do with all his money when he dies?  I'll go back and read after I post this (bad habit, can't seem to break it).

I didn't think about it this way. If rich people are actually doing this it's still a great help for people who need it. 50 million can be a small amount compared to 1 billion for that person but how many rich people would have done something like that? What most of them do is spread business and give motivational speeches on podcasts and tv shows. 

By the way, what is the percentage of people who have wealth greater than this and want to donate from its interest? I guess not so many and to be honest i didn't heard any billionaires say something like this before. I know they donate a percent of their wealth to charitable organizations, but all of them don't want to publicize it.

I've never really heard it put like that, it's always been "I'll give away x amount of my wealth during my lifetime" and not a fixed number like a billion. The reality is though that most billionaires may only donate after they die because they've become accustomed to reaching ever higher, it becomes a sort of accumulation competition and they feel like they're stuck in some global ranking. There may be the odd billionaire that worded it the way you suggest, but they're generally not stupid people and don't necessarily care to deceive anyone. Even if they were giving away that money while keeping their wealth, they are still making a massive charitable donation compared to the average person which should be applauded and encouraged.

Humans admire successful people. It's a natural instinct.

I do not think a wealthy person needs to give up a chunk of there wealth to be great.

Rich people don't give if they don't expect something in return... with interest. It's always about investing, rich people "invest" in charities so they have some benefits from that from the other side. In the end, they are in profit and their wealth is growing over time, do we need more facts?

If millionaires/billionaires gave away their money, there would be no hungry and poor people... but the fact is that there are more and more hungry and poor people around, so this story doesn't work anymore.

So it's all about the interest that earns from their principal amount whether it's deposited in the bank or it's worth of their stocks. I have never thought that it is like that coming from these wealthy people, however I am aware that this is how you make money if you've got a huge money sitting somewhere else and you want to make the most of it. Usually these also go to their foundations, the ones that they have setup and they will even be the one to decide where to deposit and send it for all of their charity works. This is another way for them to avoid taxes depending on the country and how the ruling about taxation and charities on where they are going to do it.

Does anyone around them see the changes caused by the fact that the richest people in the world give money to charity? I just see that ordinary people have less and less, and that those who call themselves philanthropists have more and more - and naive people admire them because they throw crumbs from their table. I can't call it anything other than calming their conscience, because deep down they know that all the wealth they have accumulated has denied many people a normal life.

If someone has $200 billion (regardless of how he earned it), why do millions of people admire him, and at the same time struggle to survive from month to month? If that person wants to be a great man, let him distribute 90% of his wealth to the poor and make a difference in the world, and he will still be an extremely rich man.

Yes that's how ultra rich people gain the Messiah sort of image by statements as such which a common person fails to understand and beyond understanding of average person.

But I have never seen any billionaire or businessman keep such a huge amount in their bank account as they usually diversify their investment into different verticals because the interest rate which they get from banks are peanuts and don't catch up with the kind of inflation we are getting to see. Maybe they have much more than that and it's just a part which they hold in their bank account.

That's fine! What's the problem in that? At least they are giving out towards philanthropy. Definitely some people do it as a publicity stunt to increase their reputation and to make their brand more visible. But there are some billionaires who does all this philanthropic works without letting the media know.

It's impossible to find things which are straight as arrow. At the end of the day everything boils down to the business.

you can easily google things like warren buffets "giving pledge" which he "says" will give 99% of his wealth.. but when you look at the details he actually says "distribute" 4% annually the amount of the shares he retains"

well when you look at berkshire hathaway, it offers more then 4% profits on investments... he's not getting poorer..
..
bill gates says he pledges to charity.. the charity ofcourse is a foundation.. the bill and melinda gates foundation (donates to himself) to then fund project that then make profit as a separate trust he can benefit from

I was thinking how are some rich men thought they are wise but foolish to me for saying that they will give almost all their wealth to charity, I did not know that the money they earn after when they said it are not added. Which means they will even still make more money becuase they are business tycoons. But please can you give me some links I can read about this? I have noticed that rich men are very wise when it comes to money and wealth. And this is another example that rich people are just using to fool people.

Don't forget with inflation rate, the average inflation rate is 3%, if you only hold $10M from $1B it means you only hold 1% interest, but you're lose $3,3M your money value. But that's just a small argument with your idea, we're not yet talk about the rich's businesses or other way where he keep making money.

Most people only amazed with the "numbers", but they're not looking about the "percentage".

The rich who make $300M per month will not lose anything when he give $3M, it's just 1% of his monthly income.
While the poor who make $1,000 per month, he give $500 because he care with the other unlucky people, even the amount looks small, but it's 50% of his monthly income.

I think one of the reasons they say that is to avoid being criticized for not doing much with their wealth in the midst of poverty and societal needs.
It may have crossed their minds or they are likely encouraged by those who manage them to giveaway so they don't get into problems for piling up riches for themselves like the "Rich Fool" who piled up so much riches and never lived to enjoy it. .
Riches are given for the benefit society/people not to be piled up for your future enjoyments..

I think there could be those who really giveaway so much just to feel better or not to feel too guilty... but not without expecting something in return from the receiver/society. If they do not expect anything in return they would be giving without anyone (except maybe their wives) knowing.

1.The truly rich people(the top 1%) usually don't keep all their money in bank accounts. They diversify their assets.
2.I agree with what you wrote, but I don't agree with the "put money in a bank account and wait for the interest rate" thing.
Usually the rich people declare that they will put their assets in their own charity foundations, in order to deduct taxes. AFAIK, charity foundations are tax free in many countries around the world. All the "rich people donating money for charity" BS is mostly done in order to spend less money on taxes.

This means that he can only give 5% and that is from the profit of his deposit and not from the net value of his assets. but, it's better than nothing at all and that's what rich people in mathematics always live for. ;.

At the end of the day it's still their wealth which they acquired and can choose to spend whichever way they want. Acts of altruism or humanitarian services can be done willingly and should not be excessively scrutinized.

In this example, at the end of the 19 year period they should have earned a extra $1,140,000 from interests, totalling $2.1 billion networth but they've given away $950 million away already of their money (cause yeah, the interest is also their money). This is now almost 50% of their entire networth giving to charity helping millions of lives around the world.

They did!!

  Most rich people make a lot of promises that, in the end, always fall short of the truth. There is also the saying "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer." This saying is also true.

  There are also many rich people who say that they will help with the events, but in reality, it is also true that those promises are not fulfilled. It's rare that I see billionaires who always help those in need, especially during times of calamity. Only a few people know whether it is the rich who really care about the poor or the so-called philanthropists.

when the rich say 'ill give 95% of my billion away over my lifetime' they do not mean if they have $1b today they will be at $50m at death. what they actually mean is:

they have $1b in a bank account at 6% interest
meaning it earns $60m a year.
they give just $50m yearly interest away for the next 19 years ... (totalling the $950m pledge)
yet keeping the $1b lump plus earning $10m of personal spending per year

also the % interest is usually more than 6% but they only give 5% to meet their humanitarian/altruistic hustle pledge

enjoy that thought next time the rich try to make it sound like they are going to give up their wealth for humanity.. because reality is they are not.