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| Multi £billionaires asking for charity donations | |
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| Topic Started: Sep 11 2017, 08:43 AM (293 Views) | |
| papasmurf | Sep 11 2017, 08:43 AM Post #1 |
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Multi £billionaires asking for charity donations. Sorry but open up your own wallet. |
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| Steve K | Sep 11 2017, 09:46 AM Post #2 |
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Once and future cynic
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Mr Bono again? Not good is it when they do this. True Charity is measured by how much you have left after you have given and how quiet you keep about your donations. |
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| papasmurf | Sep 11 2017, 09:56 AM Post #3 |
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As far as I am aware he is not a £Billionaire. |
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| Steve K | Sep 11 2017, 11:59 AM Post #4 |
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Once and future cynic
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$600M though, not short of a penny Anyway who are you referring to then? |
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| papasmurf | Sep 11 2017, 12:14 PM Post #5 |
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Branson. |
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| Steve K | Sep 11 2017, 12:29 PM Post #6 |
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Once and future cynic
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Ah yes and worse he's seeking to promote his brand via other peoples' money and other peoples' misery doesn't cover ithttps://twitter.com/richardbranson/status/907153030952431616 |
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| marybrown | Sep 11 2017, 12:39 PM Post #7 |
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We could include Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Yates?? |
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| Alberich | Sep 11 2017, 02:55 PM Post #8 |
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Alberich
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Hasn't Bill Gates given millions of his own cash to charities already? |
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| johnofgwent | Sep 11 2017, 02:58 PM Post #9 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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No, he's given billions stolen from people forced to pay for his shitty operating system... |
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| johnofgwent | Sep 11 2017, 03:00 PM Post #10 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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I suppose Branson is only asking for other people,but hey, their fathers demanded independence from is. What part of "stand on their own two feet then" do they not understand, and how much did they give Tewkesbury and Glastonbury in 2014 ? |
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| Rich | Sep 11 2017, 03:12 PM Post #11 |
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He has indeed, he and his wife have instituted and set up many foundations, most, I believe for good works in Africa...he is one helluva philanthropist and whatever the wider world may think of Bill gates, to my mind he is tops in that field. |
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| Affa | Sep 11 2017, 04:11 PM Post #12 |
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Indeed! But JoG's post does raise the issue of how he came by his fortune? To have amassed such wealth in one lifetime does scent of profiteering, not to say greed. Sure he was only playing the system which doesn't make him wicked, but it does make the system cruel .......... after all it was/is our money, us users, that is funding his philanthropy! |
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| Rich | Sep 11 2017, 06:31 PM Post #13 |
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But the difference is Affa, he is using money that we have chosen to give, you or I could have chosen Apple, linux or whatever, but it was our choice.....he is not using money taken from us by the inland revenue department and spent, apparently, on our behalves to salve MP's ego's and well being so that they can sleep easy at night knowing that they have done the "right thing".............but without our sayso. |
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| Affa | Sep 11 2017, 09:27 PM Post #14 |
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All I point out is that the profit margin of Microsoft was set at a level that made the owners fortunes .......... wealth distribution from users to them. It wasn't criminal, but it has been excessive to my mind and having gained so much he doesn't know what to do with it he gives it away. Had he had this conscience earlier we users would have saved money, money to spend elsewhere thus being better consumers, keeping more unrelated businesses going. We are a consumer driven economy. |
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| Rich | Sep 11 2017, 11:22 PM Post #15 |
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I iterate, no force was used and it is a matter of choice and I have no regrets....if he is using his profits to good effect and for philanthropic reasons then you and I have lost nothing have we....to me it is a moot point. |
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| johnofgwent | Sep 12 2017, 07:06 AM Post #16 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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well, there are a few points, to make there although some may say i'm splitting hairs. first of all, are you aware that one of the ways bill made his fortune was by doing a dodgy deal with intel that saw them pay microsoft a per-chip-put-on-a-motherboard fee in order to have what are called "OEM" variants of the windows operating system licensed at a knock down rate for those computers they sold with it pre-installed, but on condition that they impose this feee on every chip they made, thus making people who bought intel motherboards and installed them in linux servers pay a fee to bill ? Yes, I **KNOW** that in more recent years microsoft agreed to refund this to anyone who sent back their disks or wiped their system before using it, but this acer aspire 5720 on which i type this post, is running the LXLE variant of Ubuntu but was sold to me with windows vista preinstalled, which i sent back to the manufacturer and demanded my refund, and it never came ... Second point to make is would bill have been so free and easy with our hard earned dosh if the american tax system wasnt so draconian ? It has ben a while since i've spoken to an american about their tax system but when I last did I was given to understand that they are allowed to deduct every penny they give to charity from the amount they give to uncle sam. Which the way i was told it sounds much more advantageous to them than the gift aid system we have, although I may be wrong. So the question becomes did bill hand it to his "foundation" rather than hand it to reagan / carter / clinton / obama / trump etc Third point and this was something papasmurf posted a link to a blog on the subject from one of these billionaires a long, long time ago, is he handing out this money to all and sundry because if he doesn't he will find his head on a spike somewhere courtesy of a pitchfork waving mob... and of course, what he may consider philanthropy I may consider reckless largesse cast to the feckless |
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| papasmurf | Sep 12 2017, 07:27 AM Post #17 |
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Purely out of interest would you care to give an example? |
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| johnofgwent | Sep 12 2017, 03:57 PM Post #18 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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No,i wouldn't. As I have pointed out specifically, Gates has money of mine which the court has ruled he acquired unlawfully and he has been challenged to return it, and has not. In the same way that certain lottery grants considered by Camelot to be good causes are considered by me to be wasteful vanity projects, I think it possible some of gates ideas on where to spend his fortune acquired less than legally in part may not be quite so agreeable to those whose funds have been wrongfully purloined. My way of not being a donor to lottery good causes of dubious goodness is not to play the lottery. I don't have the option with Intel hardware for reasons stated That's the point I'm making. I don't have specific projects in mind at present. Edited by johnofgwent, Sep 12 2017, 03:59 PM.
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| Affa | Sep 12 2017, 05:29 PM Post #19 |
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Post readmitted with corrections. Edited by Affa, Sep 12 2017, 09:08 PM.
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| Rich | Sep 12 2017, 05:33 PM Post #20 |
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Then do not patronise Microsoft. |
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| Affa | Sep 12 2017, 06:21 PM Post #21 |
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Screw-Fix or Snap On? Microsoft or Who? |
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| Rich | Sep 12 2017, 06:32 PM Post #22 |
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Aldi, Lidl, Asda, sainsbury, tesco, waitrose, morrisons....take your choice. |
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| Affa | Sep 12 2017, 09:17 PM Post #23 |
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It's a moot point because it's Gates and not Blair, or because we made our choice and lost nothing? On the second I take you to task. We paid more than we ought to have. Paying over the odds (Rip-off Britain eg) not only hits your pocket it also takes that money away from the economy - where if spent here we would be consumers adding to 'other' business' enterprise. Even the Treasury loses out ........ and we are taking £mls here, not chicken feed. |
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| Affa | Sep 12 2017, 09:20 PM Post #24 |
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My turn to be confused! Do any of these have patent rights for computer operating systems? |
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| Rich | Sep 12 2017, 09:42 PM Post #25 |
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I know not or care not, the point is you have a choice, why did you not opt for Apple, just for instance? |
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| Affa | Sep 12 2017, 10:04 PM Post #26 |
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Both set prices far too high imo. Purportedly to pay for research and development, but as with Gates his personal fortune wasn't paid for the costs of his research and development. He cornered the market and milked it. |
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| Rich | Sep 12 2017, 11:16 PM Post #27 |
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That, Affa, is business, and look how many jobs Mr Gates has created along the way.....just as Steve Jobs (RIP) did. You cannot have it both ways and we all know that if you pay peanuts then you get monkeys.....I have no complaints regarding Microsoft other than their constant updates, I consider Microsoft to be most reliable. But that is just my own personal opinion, if you like you can equate it to my car, I bought a Volvo as I consider them to be the most reliable, I have not been disappointed as of yet. |
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doesn't cover it
2:25 PM Jul 11