Giving is not as “cool” as some believe
January 10, 2013
In this column by Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/opinion/kristof-how-giving-became-cool.html
he describes how Ted Turner made giving to charity “cool” by giving a billion dollars to the UN for development work (alleviating hunger and poverty among other goals), and basically doing it spontaneously as a way to come up with something to say at a speaking engagement.
Well, he did not make it all THAT cool with the billionaire class (as Kristof suggested he did). Nearly a billion people are threatened with malnutrition every year. And it would likely only take about 10 or 11 billion additional dollars to end hunger worldwide. Billionaires like Ted Turner and those billionaires he has supposedly inspired with his coolness control over 42 TRILLION in wealth.
That means that about 20% of 1% of their wealth would end world hunger and malnutrition.
The vast majority of funds to relieve starvation and stave off hunger and malnutrition come from governments, not the vaunted “private sector.” These billionaires always want government to butt out and let the private sector take care of the “free market” economy. Apparently the free market is interested in making them billions and wants the poor to die for lack of tiny amounts of food in a world wasting billions of dollars of food each day. And that’s cool with them.
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