Era can be so frustratingly black & white sometimes. You either have to go play up this offensive 2mil "broke" fantasy or you're some asshole that can't appreciate the overall 9bil donations.
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Forbes: The Billionaire Who Wanted To Die Broke . . . Is Now Officially Broke (Chuck Feeney)
- Thread starter JustinBB7
- Start date
People taking cheeky messages about the crappy clickbait a little too seriously.
Thanks for donating 9 billion and helping make the world a little better. Dude is 89, I hope he uses his 2 mil to enjoy his final days.
Glad to see New York has improved in QoL by philanthropist such as homelessness, education and especially infrastructure.
The rich don't even go broke the same as the rest of us, huh?
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) clip with quote The rich don't even go broke the same as the rest of us, huh? Yarn is the best search for video clips by quote. Find the exact moment in a TV show, movie, or music video you want to share. Easily move forward or backward to get to the...
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I think people are more zeroing in on the fact he could acquire the wealth he did is due to the system being broken, or that his wealth, like every billionaires, came at the expense of others so giving it back is what should be happening. Or even just that the media are selling a millionaire as broke when the general public live month to month.
There's no real harm in pointing any of these out. One billionaire giving away their money isn't going to suddenly change the status quo and people will echo that. Just as the media saying a billionaire went broke by choice is a stretched truth when they downgraded from billionaire to millionaire instead. Sure its a commendable move, but its dishonest of the publications to sell it as anything more than that. To point those out doesn't appear to be heinous offence some have taken to it.
I think it's more we're dunking on the article for calling 2 million broke. Nothing was forcing Forbes to come up with such a stupid title other than for clickbait reasons
I mean I think I'm with you, but giving it all back is kind of the maximum by definition. What else was he supposed to do? He was doing it anonymously for years and years.
Maybe it's just my mindset, the "broke" part doesn't come off as click bait to me, because the idea of seeing a former billionaire literally homeless wouldn't be something that'd entice me to click.
By many people standard being able to earn thoses 9 billion in the first place, can only be achieved by stealing money ( in the sense of not properly paying your workers compared to the money you get from their work, or/and not paying the amount of taxe that you should ).
There is nothing really surprising about it, it's simple leftist position, as in true left, not american left.
Although, I am against obese wealth, it seems this guy is too, having given away by far the most of his wealth. Seems a good guy if you look at his personal habits. Duty free isn't good, but this guy has conducted himself well relative to the majority of his peers.
Talk about missing the forest for the trees.
:|
You will never feel stressed being down to your last 2 million dollars.
Well there it is boys. You heard ithere first.
Sounds like you have over 2M and think you are "normal people"
And this many people can't understand math.
It's like someone with 5.000$ on his/her bank account and giving away everything except for ca. 1$.
And Forbes are stupid for calling 2mio "broke"..
It was nice of him to do, if it was done legitimately. 2 million left over, if it's to cover both himself and his wife, isn't outrageous for retirement savings. It's still high though given he's already almost 90.
An individual response to a systemic problem at the end of the day. For every billionaire that decides to do this (and even then it's a question of efficacy), how many don't?
An individual response to a systemic problem at the end of the day. For every billionaire that decides to do this (and even then it's a question of efficacy), how many don't?
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"There's no way you can be rich without being an amoral asshole who used/abused/crushed people along the way". You know, the usual
In relative terms, it's pretty accurate though. $2 million is like 0.02% of $9 billion, right? If you lost 99.9% of your savings most people would consider that 'broke'.
In reality though, the average American earns around $2.7 million over their LIFETIME. The very existence of billionaires is proof of a truly fucking broken system.
Probably because it's blood money made off the back of the gross theatre of human and environmental exploitation known as Capitalism?
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There's way too many people here focused on the $2M he kept and not the $9B he gave away. He literally gave away 99.998% of his wealth, and while he was alive, no less. That's cause for celebration, not scorn.
The truthful answer is because that's the only point that heads are actually clashing in this thread thus leading to a back-and-forth.
I agree at 89, he should be comfortable with 2 million but, eh, I wouldn't retire at 40 with 2 million either. It's not nearly enough to retire at that age.
Heh, don't you mean $8.998 billion? But ya, it's weird people are so focused on that rather than giving all that money away and not wanting credit for it.
Right. That was the point I was making. I don't think I made it clear, though.
A billionaire going "broke" while still being more than set for life really highlights the grotesque inequity of our society. 99% of people will never reach his current level of destitution no matter how hard they work, and 99% of billionaires just keep running up their score (absurd, functionally useless wealth) like it's a video game.
Good on this one guy being less of a ghoul, though.
Good on this one guy being less of a ghoul, though.
Because they should have never been allowed to horde that much wealth to begin with?
The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%—And That's Made the U.S. Less Secure
A report shows that a $50 trillion redistribution of income to benefit the richest has made America less healthy, resilient, and secure
Yes all billionaires are thieves for actively not doing the right thing... Hell they likely actively endorsed, spent time and money to put themselves in these positions at the detriment to our entire society for generations to come
And not enough of them will give enough back THAT THEY OWE to make a dent in saving our broken country
This always brings out the worst in me. I like to tell myself, "YES! I would do the same!" But I can't say that for sure because.....well I am never going to have that kind of money to give away. I hope that should it ever happen I am able to be wise and follow in these kind of footsteps.
Damn so he's basically the source of Cornell's endowment. Of course, they wouldn't use it to keep classes online and pay faculty and staff the same rates but that's not his fault necessarily. Honestly should've given that money elsewhere, but the other causes are quite good.
Billionaires still suck though, but at least he did something good.
The system being broken doesn't take away the good deeds of the people within said system.
That's not even what the post you are quoting is talking about though, they are saying that donations to charities can be bad if the charities themselves are bad. This guy seems to have donated to many good causes but the broader point Powdered Egg is making can definitely be true.
This "relatively broke" nonsense should just underline how absurd a billionaire is. You can give away 99.9% of your worth and still be in the 1%.
Obviously it's good he did it, but what would be even better is a system where this doesn't happen in the first place or if he had just paid reasonable salaries. I'm sure everyone working for him is happy that what they earned was given to someone he considered more deserving.
Obviously it's good he did it, but what would be even better is a system where this doesn't happen in the first place or if he had just paid reasonable salaries. I'm sure everyone working for him is happy that what they earned was given to someone he considered more deserving.
To be clear, I'm not saying this dude giving away almost the whole entirety of the fortune he made off the backs of who knows how many people isn't a good thing. But the phenomenon being extremely rare in no way means they deserve a pat on the back for it. And if his heart is in the right place, he wouldn't expect one.
We need to stop with this madness in our culture of being so eager to worship and venerate billionaires. Particularly when their class is responsible for shit like this destroying our society.
Actually, as with the thief, the maximum would've been to not steal the money in the first place. Sure, it's nice to see a billionaire not hoarding his billions for once. But how much of his fortune is going directly back to all those countless folks he exploited to become monstrously wealthy in the first place? Will these billions undo all the untold damage already done to people's lives in the process of their accumulation?
There's only so much gratitude these robber barons deserve from us, the exploited, no matter how "less awful" they are.
