Throughout my academic career at USC, business courses taught me the importance of “the bottom line.” While true cynics believe that money is the only factor that drives individuals, a part of me still believes that humans are more complex than that. I gained a spring in my step today when I came across a blog conversation discussing “The Buffett-Gates Pledge”. Led by Bill Gates & Warren Buffett, they along with 40 other billionaires have pledged to give away half of their overall wealth to philanthropy. Amongst the 40 individuals are top donors like Michael Bloomberg, Larry Ellison, Barron Hilton, and George Lucas, to name a few.
While I commend Gates for his efforts at helping the poor, I am certain there will be great debate as to how the money raised by the pledge will be allocated. Only a month after the announcement of the pledge, bloggers are already up in arms about who is more deserving of the charity.
One blogger claims that “rather than helping the poor, the Buffet-Gates pledge might actually make inequality worse in the United States.” This leads me to ask: Does no good deed go unpunished nowadays? Rather than buying 80 more private planes or a small island in the Pacific, Gates wants to do his part to change the world by gathering an elite group to donate their hard-earned money to charity…and people are UPSET about it. While I understand the idea that philanthropy must be focused on the poor in order to bring about the kind of change Gates’ aims for, I cannot believe that people are trying to discredit the generosity exhibited in this promise. While cynics will continue to bash the rich and belittle this pledge, my faith in humanity has been restored.
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