My guess is he feels he's in a race now to start distributing his wealth to the world before the US dollar becomes worthless.
Well he's distributing it by handing out shares of Berkshire Hathaway so the value of his gifts isn't static and will increase over time.
Considering he's giving berkshire hathaway stocks, each of which are worth almost a hundred thousand dollars, I'd say you don't need very many.
The amount of influence this gives the Gates Foundation will be enormous. More than most of us can imagine. This is a truly historic event that will not be appreciated until many years from now. Obviously, Bill Gates recent announcement about pulling away from Microsoft was heavily influenced by this HUGE new responsibility. To go from founding Microsoft to being the most powerful philanthropic individual in the history of mankind. WOW! I didn't like Gates at Microsoft but I truly respect what he's doing at his Foundation.
The A shares are trading for $92,100 a piece, while the B shares are trading for $3,071 a piece. The article made it sound like he's giving away the B shares, as you stated.
You're right. He's mostly giving B shares although another article indicated he will give some A shares. I mixed the two up.
Would be interesting to know the size of his foundation vs. that of say Carnegie in inflation adjusted dollars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie By the time he died in Lenox, Massachusetts, on August 11, 1919, Carnegie had given away $350,695,653
I looked a little but could not find a calculator to translate 1919 to today's dollar. (Carnegie gave over time, so even if I did find a calculator, the number would be soft.) I did find one translation from 1931 dollar to 2002 dollars; the multiple was about 30 to 1. 30 to 1 => Carnegie gave away in excess of 10 billion.
If i was this wealthy and powerful, I'd like to say I'd do the same...It's the right thing to do... This is a great thing...
This is terrible. He should be greedy and keep everything to himself. In fact, I would develop child labor shops all over Africa to grow my fortune even more. I hate giving to charity and to undeserving souls who need the money. It's pretty obvious the explanation for poverty and starving kids in Africa, God just simply hates them.