Blog Archives

In spite of all of the very intense political fighting taking place over the fiscal cliff, Warren Buffett is very optimistic that our nation will fix its overall debt problem soon.

During an interview that he gave on BBC Radio 4’s program named Today, Warren Buffett said: “in the end, 535 people in Washington will not thwart the wishes of 312 million Americans.”

“The United States is richer than it’s ever been. We have $50,000 or so of GDP per person. But we’ve overpromised and we’ve also undertaxed to some extent, so we find ourselves with this great fiscal imbalance. But it was man made. We’re a rich country. It can be solved. … We’ll be able to overcome this problem. America has faced a lot tougher problems than this one. We’ll get it solved.”

Warren Buffett also had a conversation with Melinda Gates, who as I’m sure you know, is married to Bill Gates – friend of Warren Buffett. He’s also the chairman of Microsoft. Warren Buffett also gave a pledge to give most of his fortune to the Gates Foundation. “We have a great history of philanthropy, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have the capacity to do a whole lot more.”

He also spoke with Melinda Gates about the topic of needing to get more women into leadership positions in this country:

“What a waste of human talent. Fifty percent of the talent of the country we’ve pushed off in the corner for almost 200 years. No Supreme Court justice was a woman. Believe me, I’ll take Sandra Day O’Connor or Ruth Ginsburg. It was a shame to not be utilizing that talent. One of the things that makes me so optimistic about the future, when I see how far we’ve come only using half the talent in the country. And now I realize we’re getting to the point, we’re starting to use 100 percent of our talent. It makes me very optimistic. But we still have a ways to go.”

Warren Buffett convinced another 11 billionaires to commit to giving away half of their overall wealth to charity.

The Giving Pledge is a charitable program created by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation along with Warren Buffett. The overall mission of this foundation is to convince the ultra rich to pledge a large part of their overall fortune as early as possible, because this will allow them to control how the money is spent. This pledge has actually recruited 92 billionaires so far, since it was first conceived about two years ago. Two names that I’m certain you will recognize are New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Mark Zuckerberg, who is the founder of Facebook.

MarketWatch recently reported some of the newest members to join this extremely exclusive club. They were Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, along with his wife Patty Quillin. And let’s not forget that Gordon Moore, who is the Chairman Emeritus of Intel, and his wife Betty also joined the club.

Gordon Moore had already committed to giving away half of his fortune prior to his association with The Giving Pledge. He had previously created a foundation that’s main focus is environmental, science and health issues. He also mentioned to the Wall Street Journal that his habits of giving put him “ahead of the curve.”

“It won’t change much of what I’m doing,” he mentioned to WSJ in an interview, but “it’s a good idea and has shaken loose a lot of money that otherwise would have been tied up for a long time.”

When you sign the pledge, you are signing a nonbinding agreement to give away at least half of your fortune. There isn’t a specification saying how the money is supposed to be distributed, but Bill Gates, recently named the richest person in the United States of America, mentioned to the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that he believes it is an excellent opportunity to allow people to donate in a “smarter” way.

Bill Gates also mentioned that “this new group brings extensive business and philanthropic experience that will enrich the conversation about how to make philanthropy as impactful as possible. Their thoughtfulness and deep commitment to philanthropy are an inspiration to me, and I’m sure too many others as well.”