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Bill and Melinda Gates letter to Warren re his donation

bookie71

By bookie71
in Berkshire Hathaway

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John Hjorth Newbie

John Hjorth

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Great read! - Thanks for sharing, bookie71.

 

This is one of those good stories - very impressive - that does not hit the press here.

 

With regard to Mr. Buffetts health: I can't image, that there will ever come a situation, where the BRK board shows him the door, as Mr. Buffett him self called it in a shareholder letter some years ago.

 

It's about generally beeing fit and proper for the job - all included, also health. When your body gradually starts quitting on you because of age, even the most basic acts might start getting cumbersome and time consuming compared to earlier in life. His hearing is in decline, he does not try to keep it a secret. So, likely his ability to communicate orally will be affected going forward.

 

I have noticed that people of high age - perhaps it's just a local phenomen, I don't know - want to spend more time with family in general. Perhaps Mr. Buffett has such considerations - pure speculation from my side.

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  • 6 months later...
Jurgis Newbie

Jurgis

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This might be OT, but Gates Foundation now accepts donations from anyone. This was not true some time ago, but people have been bugging them to take their money  8), so they have relented.

 

I have donated some. I may donate more. There are caveats: a large chunk of your money gets redonated to causes/organizations Gates Foundation supports. You can see the list on their site. They still encourage you to donate directly to these organizations (but they will take your money and redonate).

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merkhet Newbie

merkhet

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This might be OT, but Gates Foundation now accepts donations from anyone. This was not true some time ago, but people have been bugging them to take their money  8), so they have relented.

 

I have donated some. I may donate more. There are caveats: a large chunk of your money gets redonated to causes/organizations Gates Foundation supports. You can see the list on their site. They still encourage you to donate directly to these organizations (but they will take your money and redonate).

 

It's good that they encourage people to donate directly as that cuts down on how much goes to a second overhead. Curious why you chose to go w/ The Gates Foundation rather than going direct.

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Jurgis Newbie

Jurgis

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This might be OT, but Gates Foundation now accepts donations from anyone. This was not true some time ago, but people have been bugging them to take their money  8), so they have relented.

 

I have donated some. I may donate more. There are caveats: a large chunk of your money gets redonated to causes/organizations Gates Foundation supports. You can see the list on their site. They still encourage you to donate directly to these organizations (but they will take your money and redonate).

 

It's good that they encourage people to donate directly as that cuts down on how much goes to a second overhead. Curious why you chose to go w/ The Gates Foundation rather than going direct.

 

We probably should move this to charity thread (I'm pretty sure there was one at some point).

 

You are right that donating to Gates foundation makes your donation suffer second overhead. OTOH, you might be benefiting from their expertise in picking organizations to support. Also some organizations that they support might not be accessible for you to support directly. You may also benefit from their "asset allocation" decisions - in terms of how much money to put into poverty, how much into education, etc. If you want to make these decisions yourself, power to you. If you don't, there's nothing wrong to get them to make these decisions for you (as long as you like/agree with their priorities).

 

I'm not a concentrated investor and I'm not a concentrated "charity donator". I know that most people advise to pick a single (or couple) charity to donate to and stick with that. I don't follow that very much.

If I concentrated to single charity, I might go with Gates just because of the arguments above. As it is, I do a scattershot with a bit of forethought and planning but also with a bit of random/emotional/etc. decisions. ./shrug

 

Can I ask you to follow up on charity thread if you want to continue this discussion?

Edit: we can use this thread I think: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/charity-recommendations/msg284871/#msg284871

 

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  • 2 years later...
Guest longinvestor

Guest longinvestor

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Bill Gates’s departure from Berkshire and Microsoft boards surely means he sees the the current & future pandemics as the call he was waiting for.

 

How about the Buffett money? Is this the call for swinging for the fences? Meaning go all in with spending the money? Buffett’s giving was going to be spread out over about 25 years; With this pandemic causing trillions in economic damage besides the likely million deaths, Buffett has also found the one problem to fund? After all the Gates foundation has been preparing for pandemics for a while already. The money is likely to be more effectively spent. Now just pull out all the stops and give it all away now?

 

Can’t wait to hear about this from Buffett and Gates

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bill-gates-to-spend-billions-on-coronavirus-vaccine-development-11586124716

 

 

 

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