Rich man Poor man, an analogy for you

[ThomWV]

You and me are just two regular guys. We're out there in the water just dog-paddelin' for our lives. The tide comes in and the tide goes out and all we're hopin' for is to keep our heads above water. If we're floatin' high in the water we're in hog heaven - anything goes so long as we don't sink. But up there's the rich man, lounging on the dock with a cool drink watchin' our poor asses bob around like a corks. He might toss us a life-line if it amused him but he wouldn't haul either of us onto his dock even if it looked you and me and every asshole like us was about to drift out to sea. And if it ever occured to either you or me that we actually own the dock that SOB is standing on we'd die from the shock of it.


* I'm talking about the super rich here, the Rockefellers and the Buffets, the Gates and the Waltons - the people above the economic fray, the ones who consider it a loss when their fortunes do not increase by billions per year.

[Zywiec]

1. Yeah, the Gates' and Buffetts do nothing for the poor...

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (B&MGF) is the 4th largest transparently operated private foundation in the world, founded by Bill and Melinda Gates in 2000 and doubled in size by Warren Buffett in 2006.

The primary aims of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and, in the United States, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology. The foundation, based in Seattle, Washington, is controlled by its three trustees: Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett.

It has an endowment of US$35.1 billion as of October 1, 2008. The scale of the foundation and the way it seeks to apply business techniques to giving makes it one of the leaders in the philanthrocapitalism revolution in global philanthropy. In 2007 its founders were ranked as the second most generous philanthropists in America.

In 2006 the Foundation won the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation

<snip>

Warren Buffett gives away his fortune

The world's second richest man - who's now worth $44 billion - tells editor-at-large Carol Loomis he will start giving away 85% of his wealth in July - most of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/25/magazines/fortune/charity1.fortune/


I guess some people never get tired of bashing the rich...

:shrug:

[izquierdista]

2. I wonder

I wonder what the world would be like if Linus Torvalds was a little bit older. Old enough to have gotten the jump on Microsoft and pulled the rug out from under Gates and his idea of SELLING everyone an operating system for their computer. Had it not been for Gates and his ilk, operating systems might have been just another cost of doing business, kind of like painting cars at the factory instead of just shipping them in primer gray. Had Torvalds been around, making free operating systems available, Gates would never have stolen $99, $199, $249 a pop from everyone who wanted to buy or upgrade a computer.

Just keep paddling in the water, and don't let it bother you that YOU helped pay for the dock.

[leftofthedial]

4. gotta love that trickle down

Even here at DLCU

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. There are also the ones clinging to the barnacle-encrusted pier...

... pushing the floaters away at the rich man's request.