For OpEdNews: Tom Aiken - Writer
"I'm not a paranoid deranged millionaire, goddamnit. I'm a billionaire." - Howard Hughes
Warren Buffet, in conjunction with Bill Gates and a host of their billionaire familiars, recently announced, with what he must have felt amounted to deity-like largesse in this under-funded era, that he and the other party/parties aforementioned were hereby forking over half of their empires to charity come last call.
The announcement was made with embarrassingly calculated humility as the demi-gods preened and posed for the cameras. But there was an undercurrent to the proclamation, an ill wind, the unexpected promise of gifts pleading the question "What are they afraid of?"
Think about it: the whole situation almost feels like a joke -- Q: "How do you know you're growing up?" A: "The school bully tries to buy you off." These guys aren't stupid, you know -- it's all too obvious slight-of-hand upping the ante (as it were) now that we're surreptitiously sharpening our pitchforks. Somebody like Ted Turner made his fortune sniffing at the horizon... and these days the horizon smells decidedly Gaulish.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Billionaire-Baloney-by-Tom-Aiken-100821-939.html