Kudos to 38 US Billionaires who have promised to at least give half of their wealth away
October 21st, 2010 - 9:33 pm ICT by Aishwarya BhattNew York, Oct 21 (THAINDIAN NEWS) 38 billionaires in the United States have promised to give at least half of their fortune away. United States has the highest number of billionaires in the world.
The billionaires have vowed to give the money mainly to charity in their lifetime. The gesture is seen as completely deviant from the popular view that most of these billionaires are socialists and will not give their money away.
Impressively, all the billionaires in the United States in the top ten billionaires in the world have made the pledge. This includes Warren Buffet and Bill Gates who are arguably the two most popular male billionaires in the world.
Bill Gates did quit his position as the President of Microsoft Corporation to concentrate on his charity work. Gates and his wife, Melinda has a charitable organization called Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have given out billions of dollars mostly for research in fighting HIV/AIDS in poorer countries.
The 38 billionaires believe that their gesture will be replicated by other wealthy Americans to give to charity including those that are not owned by them.
The combined wealth of the 38 billionaires is over $230 billion and if they carry out their pledge that means $100 billion in charity.
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