Tennessee United States
Member #7,853
October 15, 2004
11,352 Posts
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well true critic i'm sure whoever owns peter pan makes a nice comfortable living and i'm thinking he might be sandwhiched in the fortune 500 somewhere......
North Eastern Singapore
Member #32,048
February 7, 2006
25 Posts
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Gee, I somehow thinks that there are some successful businessmen who may have used money from lottery wins to be where they are today, it's just that I don't think they'll feel good about telling people that they made good with some "money from heaven"
The only person I read of that made good with money won in a lottery is Jose Silva founder of the Silva Method, having exhausted his money in his research, he dreamt of numbers which won him $10,000 in the lottery. (I read it in the book "Getting Help From The Other Side" by Jose Silva & Robert Stone)
PS - Before you start heading out to the bookstore to grab this book, take note that the book is not talking about getting help from some spiritual entities from the other side but rather from the right side of your brain, the well known "Creative Side" in everyone of us.
South Carolina United States
Member #6
November 4, 2001
8,971 Posts
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I am willing to bet that not one of them credits the lottery for their success! LOL
One of those who made themself a billionaire was from canada and he moved to costa rica and started an internet gambling site. And if he is the one he takes guarter bets on the lottery also.
Calgary Canada
Member #9,419
December 7, 2004
228 Posts
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And How many children that go hungry daily?
You really have to wonder what's wrong with society when there are so many billionaire's, yet there is still poverty on every street corner and every nation.
Calgary Canada
Member #9,419
December 7, 2004
228 Posts
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Charities are essentially another form of big business, where the organizers are quite well off in most cases. And in some cases, there are charities that are outright scams working for or are friends of businesses. Money laundering if you will. There is almost no charity that you give to that the guy in charge isn't making a lot of money for himself, and giving some to the poor unfortunates is simply an afterthought of the main goal of their own personal greed. Personally, if I were rich, I would personally give to those I see are actually poor and unfortunate not the organized, so called "charities".
Zeta Reticuli Star System United States
Member #30,469
January 17, 2006
11,791 Posts
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There's a website, www.charitywatch.org or something similar that gives you the rundown on different charities, what they support, and especially administrative costs. The Salvation Army is among those with the lowest admin. costs.
MD United States
Member #1,701
June 18, 2003
10,731 Posts
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How much do you think Microsoft gave to Chairty last year?
It's a known fact the Bill and Melinda are one of the worlds largest givers of money his foundation is world wide.
HAMISH ROBERTSON: The software giant Microsoft decided last week that it was time to hand back to its shareholders its $80 billion cash reserves in a special dividend. The cash giveaway means that the company's founder, Bill Gates, who's one of the world's richest men, would receive another $4.5 billion.
But Mr Gates has decided that he won't be keeping the money. Instead, he's giving it to charity – to the Bill Gates and Melinda Gates foundation. It's a classic example of American-style philanthropy – a tradition that dates back to the earliest days of European settlement.
Our Washington Correspondent John Shovelan asked the editor of the Philanthropy Journal, Todd Cohen, if this was the largest ever donation.
TODD COHEN: The gift itself is large. There have only been a few gifts ever of a billion dollars plus. The very biggest ones have been made by Bill Gates and his wife. Five years ago in instalments, they gave $16 billion to create their foundation, and the next year gave $5 billion more.
JOHN SHOVELAN: So Bill is one of the biggest philanthropists the country has seen?
TODD COHEN: He is the biggest.
JOHN SHOVELAN: He is the biggest at the moment. How does he compare historically to other big generous donors in American history?
TODD COHEN: The equivalent would be John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil, which eventually became Exxon. In his time Rockefeller played the same role in philanthropy that Gates does now.
He created the first large foundation. In fact, the very form of the modern foundation is modelled on the foundation that Rockefeller created. And he created it because he needed an organised way to practice his philanthropy. He just couldn't handle it on his own; he was so wealthy and he gave so much money away.
JOHN SHOVELAN: Why is it that America has this philanthropic culture?
TODD COHEN: In general America is an experiment in democracy and in freedom, and when people got here they didn't wait around for solutions for problems that existed, for someone else to solve problems that existed. They banded together on a voluntary basis and solved them themselves.
That's where the non-profit sector came from. The non-profit sector in this country is a big part of the society and the economy. It's roughly 5 or 6 per cent of the gross domestic product.
Roughly one in every ten jobs in the workplace is in the non-profit sector. Americans have always taken it upon themselves to work together on their own to address the problems that they have in common.
So it has been part of the culture from day one.
JOHN SHOVELAN: How effective has something like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation been?
TODD COHEN: The work that the foundation has done, particularly in the area of addressing problems of global… global health problems, has been enormous. No one other than government has the resources that the foundation has been able to apply to address some of these problems of disease in Africa and in Asia in particular.
When you get a foundation as large as the Gates foundation, which is the largest, when they decide they want to focus on a couple of particular areas with big grants, they can make a big difference.
JOHN SHOVELAN: Is there an element of tax avoidance or reducing one's tax liability in this philanthropic culture? Would Bill Gates be doing this partly to offset his tax liability?
TODD COHEN: I can't speak for what his motivation is, but what I can say is that as a matter of public policy the Government has decided that it wants to encourage giving, and one way to do that are through the tax laws that provide deductions for making gifts.
So that is always an element in terms of the planning that individuals make about their giving. Saying that however, there still is an impulse in a lot of people to give because it's the right thing to do and it's something they want to do.
HAMISH ROBERTSON: Todd Cohen, editor of the Philanthropy Journal speaking to John Shovelan