Warren Buffett to give away $30 Billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

[bran987]

Gotmilk says Warren's shareholders probably would have wanted a huge stock dividend.

His whole life he's said he would it away, so this is no surprise. He believes a fortune that was capable of being built only because of the great opportunities and markets a civilization provided should eventually be given back to that civilization.

One of the original plans for the Gates' foundation was to provide online access to all the public libraries in America. 99% are now wired up because of them. It's pretty cool.

Man the people that are selling the stock today are pretty short sighted. This puts to rest all of the questions about what would happen to his stock when he died. He's only donating 5% per year, and even if all the stock were sold immediately, it would only increase turnover in the stock each year from 15% to 17%. Also, the Gates have $30 billion in other assets they can use for the foundation, so they will most likely keep a ton of the shares and not sell. It's a great "safe" investment, Gates owns $300 million of Berkshire himself.

 

[gotmilk]

Focuses about 50% on what it calls "The Big 3" worldwide diseases that affect the most people: Malaria, Tuberculosis & HIV/AIDS.

The other 50% on education in America, he has opened about 900 schools and "revamped" 700 more, and has hired experts in education from around the world to help better design the schools & curriculums. Something like 25% of all New York kids now attend Gates schools and the graduation rate has doubled. He has been less successful in other areas with the school efforts but says he won't give up as he feels it's one of the most crucial problems we face in America today.

There was a great article recently about how his efforts have largely failed. With the exception of NYC, his schools have been a rediculous failure. Even he admitted to not understanding why districts were broken up.

In Denver, his new schools had an increased drop-out rate. In some cases, tens of millions of dollars are down the drain.

His so called experts still do not understand how to maintain kids who live in highly populated gang infested areas.

 

[eat big]

He lived a very simple life. Wasn't very flashy from what I know. Lives in the same house he bought 30 years ago.

 

[gotmilk]

Here's a great quote from an article called Bill Gates Gets Schooled

Six years and a steep learning curve later, the Gateses see just how intractable are the many ills plaguing America's worst schools. It has been a difficult, even humbling experience. Melinda Gates says she and Bill didn't realize at first how much cooperation it would take from school districts and states to break up traditional big schools. "If you want to equate being naive with being inexperienced, then we were definitely naive when we first started," she says. "There are a lot of places where many people have given up, or decided that 'bad schools are not my problem.' There are also a lot of entrenched interests."

Visits to 22 Gates-funded schools around the country show that while the Microsoft couple indisputably merit praise for calling national attention to the dropout crisis and funding the creation of some promising schools, they deserve no better than a C when it comes to improving academic performance. Researchers paid by their foundation reported back last year that they have found only slightly improved English and reading achievement in Gates schools and substantially worse results in math. There has been more promising news on graduation rates. Many of the 1,000 small schools the Gateses have funded are still new, however, and it's too soon to project what percentage of their students will finish school and enter college, also a foundation goal. The collapse of Manual High is an extreme case, but one that points to a clear lesson: Creating small schools may work sometimes, but it's no panacea.

The couple says the setbacks don't mean they have squandered the $1 billion the foundation has spent so far. Instead, they view their crash course as research and development for educators nationally who are trying to sort out what works and what doesn't. The Gates record shows that besides creating a more personalized setting, it's vital to hire motivated and qualified teachers and institute tougher academic standards. The most impressive evidence of what's possible comes from New York City, where 14 Gates-funded schools will hand out diplomas this month to some 70% of their students, double the graduation rate of the large schools they replaced.

 

[bran987]

There was a great article recently about how his efforts have largely failed. With the exception of NYC, his schools have been a rediculous failure. Even he admitted to not understanding why districts were broken up.

In Denver, his new schools had an increased drop-out rate. In some cases, tens of millions of dollars are down the drain.

His so called experts still do not understand how to maintain kids who live in highly populated gang infested areas.

but what if he eventually gets it right? is that money not better spent trying to fix this problem than simply to gift $50 billion to his kids? They've spent $1 billion and they got it half right. Imagine what they can do with the next $10 billion? He's a pretty smart guy, I imagine he'll take what worked and keep it, scrap what didn't, and try again. I read the article in Business Week, I give him credit for being honest about what has worked and what hasn't.

 

[bran987]

And also, it's nice cooler heads have prevailed in the stock market today. After stupid fearmongers who I suspect were mostly institutional money managers sent Berkshire stock down 2.5% this morning, the price has come back and stabilized down only 1%. Buffett is a genius, he took one of the biggest fears about his death someday (would his holdings be immediately liquidated?!) and turned it into an orderly process which we can all understand.