So I was perusing the net looking shit up, my way of wasting too much time that would be better spent sleeping, when I came across a fairly recent article stating that Ol Billy-boy Gates is now the third richest man on earth, behind some hispanic, and Warren Buffet. $62 bil. for Buffet compared to $58 bil. for Gates..... boo fucking hoo. Ya know I would be happy with just 1% of Gates' fortune. There isn't enough shit in this world that I want for me to be able to burn though that much cash in my life time

You know the three of them, if they combined their entire financial pool could pull every single impoverished country in the world out of poverty, and have money to spare, I bet.... I mean they have a combined net worth of $180 bil.

I'd be happy with just enough to get a decent house.Greedy people suck!

How are they greedy? Because they're successful? You realize that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are the two biggest philanthropists on earth? They've helped more people than any of you could even dream? You assume because they are rich and successful that they are bad people, and that is your own flaw, not theirs.

Well said Frog, I was just about to post the same thing.

Personally I hate Gates as a business man, his practices are absolutely deplorable, but as one of the people behind the gates foundation, he is a good man..... although I do feel that it is worth noting that charitable donations make for a good tax write off, so one must ask, how much of it is for charity, and how much is for the write off? But admittedly I do not know all there is to know about tax law, and there could of course be a limit as to how much one can write off...... but if memory servers, the only ones who beat Gates' donation after Katrina was Evil-Mart, or was it Gates beat them.....

Exactly, and why did he say "boohoo!"? Was Gates crying that he was no longer the richest man on earth or something I wasn't aware of? I guess you don't make as much when you retire and your day to day life consists of managing how much money you give to charity.

Yeah because when Bill spends millions on his charities including retiring form most of his duties form Microsoft to do nothing but spend his wealth on charity hes doing it so he can get a tax right off...

few mistakes you are making:

1. Bill Gates doesn't earn his money through a salary so tax write offs don't mean as much to him the way they do to people who run small businesses or work for others for a living.

2. His Microsoft practices aren't deplorable they're good business moves. Its just that he's so successful that all the cry babies have to gang up on him to inflate their substandard products. Does Netscape even fucking exist any more? Didn't the government break up Microsoft so Netscape would stop being Vaginas? Ohhh nooooo hes adding IE to Windows as the Default browser! MONOPOLY!!! Tell that shit to Firefox Mozilla.

3. When the man retires from most of his business so he can spend the remainder of his life using his money for good, it makes him a good man, not an asshole looking for tax write offs. Thats the most absurd thing I ever heard someone say.

180 billion is piss compared to the global economy. Barak Osama Obama alone wants to spend some 900 billion of the US's money alone to alleviate some poverty around Africa and Asia... it still wouldn't be enough.

The attitude of the original post of this thread is what leads to average people leading average lives. Don't be jealous of the people at the top, aspire to their heights.

Did he have more money than Howard Hughes? When you do the math with the inflation and what not...

Hey Billy.. Do you know what charities he's donating to? Just curious..

It takes alot more then money to bring a nation out of poverty. 180 billion wouldnt get you very far either these countries need things like infrastructure, roads a clean water supply ect these things arent cheap and then you need schools and people to teach and then you need buisnesses for people to work in and then you need talent and leadership to run the buisnesses nope money helps but it cant do as you suggest above

as an interesting aside does anyone want to guess what it takes to be in the top 1% of the richest people in the world?

He started the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation didn't he? I know his wife was running it while he was still running Microsoft but now that he has shed a lot of his duties there he is taking more of a direct hand in the BMG foundation. I think they bring medical aid etc to impoverished areas.

What an utter waste of fucking money.

indeed. It amounted to some 1% of our GNP or some such thing. Its one of the only things he did in his short time in the senate. The guy is a real piece of shit.

Uh for one when you started one company that has its operating software in the vast majority of pc's around the world and own a portion of stock in your major rival company, and attempt to get into the open source market as well(MS purchase of SuSe linux from novell), as well as market your OS software in such a manner that you become only of two operating systems most software will run on(linux is user friendly by the way, its just that people are made to percieve that it is not) its kinda deplorable, plus the outright theft of Mac from Jobs for windows 95, and the fact that its shoddy over price software to boot, but people don't think they have any other choice because the alternatives are said to be too hard to use.
2 I wasn't talking about he anti-trust suit, I was refering to the media making such a big deal out of the fact that his no longer on top for worlds richest. I just doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. The point of this thread was to question why people seem to think its huge news, not necesarily to point out that he is not longer the richest.
3. you seem to confuse my intent. I was mearly stating that charitable donations can be written off, thus a motivating fact for many of these big money makers. It was not my intent to imply that he mearly does it for the tax write off. I even stated that I think he is a good man for his charity work, and was not questioning his motivations. You assumed as such, which in this case makes you an asshole for such. I hate his business practices when he was in charge. I stated my personal opinion of the matter, as I am entiled to. I think leaving MS in Balmer's hands was stupid because he comes off as a greedy fucker(for the record I did have a work related association with Microsoft when Gates retired as CEO, through MSN. Things started going to shit afterwards). I think he does put his money to good use though. I will however take some blame, as I was not entirely clear as to what I meant in my questioning the charity of the rich, but not him.

As a side note, yes I know what I said about thier money taking care of impovershed countries, it was not a statement saying thats what they should do. Nor should Obama take such an action either. Yes I know the better of countries should help those countries in need, but I think we have a bigger priority to take care of our own first, then try to save the world. That 900 billion could do wonders for the improvement of our own contry, and before some of you outside of the U.S. say that is a self-centered thing to say(I know there are a few) put yourself in the same situation. Helping others is fine and well, but take care of you and yours first, otherwise your gonna end up fucking yourself.