Saturday 15 July 2023

Today Is...National Give Something Away Day

The Red Hot Chilli Peppers had a song called Give It Away although the lyrics seem blatant enough, 'What i got you got to get and put it in you' doesn't leave much room for manoeuvre although i have heard Anthony Keidas say it was about selflessness and altruistic behavior but then the video with the camera angles and close up's of groin areas doesn't scream altruism to me although a close up of Keidas's love plums is always welcome.
There were not so many close up's of low hanging klackers in Plato's day but in between deciding which sheet to wear for the day and philosophising about matters, he said that man either spread his wealth or become what he despised.
Karl Marx picked up the mantle, combed his impressive beard and wrote a whole book on the matter which has those of us who bothered to read the thing, pondering on the disproportionate distribution of wealth ever since.
There must have been a copy of the Communist Manifesto in Andrew Carnegie's local library because the industrialist's philosophy was: 'The man who dies rich dies disgraced' and after selling his steel company for $480 million in 1901, died 18 years later far from disgraced as he gave 90% of it away to worthy causes.
Scores of the world's wealthiest people have taken to his Marxist driven philosophy, donating their riches to causes with Britain's most philanthropic man being the Sport Division Sports Shop owner, Tom Hunter, who has given away £1bn to charity but's chickenfeed compared to the £5 billion donated by the founder of Intel Gordon Moore, who has given away over 77% of his £6.5 billion fortune and Warren Buffett who has donated £21.5 billion but the top philanthropist is the person you probably spent the 90's moaning about when his Operating System crashed yet again.
Microsoft's Bill Gates was once the worlds richest man until him and his wfe, Melinda, set up the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from which they have donated £27 billion to organisations that include the GAVI Alliance, the World Health Organization, The Rotary Foundation, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and UNICEF.
It really does restore your faith in humans and German's with silly facial hair writing political books.

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