What if I won the lotto? Pay off the house, go on a big holiday, buy a Lambourghini? How will we manage to retain our friendships now we're so damned wealthy? Should we give handouts to our friends, take them on holiday, just throw a massive party, pay just their medical expenses? Then they'd owe you wouldn't they? Which friends would we choose to come on our handout train? Awkward. It is a taxing enough issue that I will happily enter this conversation with whoever'll listen over and over again.
Oh, and the questions go on. What percentage would you give to charity? Would you only give to charity if you won more than the money to cover your debts? This is serious stuff that takes up at least 2 hours of conversion and contemplation each year of my non-Lotto winning life.
Some people (who I'm not personally acquainted with) are confronted with what percentage to give to charity regularly in their "I-can-buy-you-I can-buy-your-whole-town" lives. Lotto winners in this equation (well Australian Lotto winners, not Euro Millions jackpot winners) are small fry in comparison to the hundreds of billionaires that seem to be doing just a little bit better than I am.
Many good doers, not do-gooders, might allocate 5% or more of their income to charity. They haven't made a million dollars this year and maybe not even in the last 5 years. Just decent people who are doing their little bit for people who haven't got the health, lifestyle and security they do.
Then there's these confounded billionaires who need to have other billionaires to remind them not to be so scabby. 1% of a billion dollars, pounds, or even cents is mean. All managed by their accountant so they can get the right tax breaks and won't need to think too much about those revolting "less fortunate" that are doing little to help them get richer. Greedy bastards.
So the question has now changed, if you were a billionaire, how much would you give to charity? Surely if you have a conscience, you wouldn't need to be bloody-well reminded to give a decent percentage to others who need it.
Maybe you've never given money to others before and need a framework to encourage you to stop being so mean. If The Giving Pledge is any indication, if you're a billionaire then 50% of a shitload should ease your conscience somewhat.
The one thing I learnt from The Richest Man In Babylon is that if you've got a little bit of money, you need to get that money to work for you. Or something like that. People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, used their money and the influence it brings, to work for them by asking a lot more than tokenism from their fellow moneybags. They started the idea of The Giving Pledge by encouraging a short list of billionaires to 'sit down, decide how much money they and their progeny need, and figure out what to do with the rest of it'. They wanted to give heaps of money to charity; why do it with just their own money? Conscience is further eased. We're feeling more comfortable now.
Sure beats door knocking for a squillion $2 tax deductible donations.
With this kind of wealth, simply the people signed to The Giving Pledge could own us, our town, well almost our whole bloomin' country. That's a further responsibility with more questions.
Now you've decided that 50% is the percentage, who do you give it to?
See my next post for why you could do worse than model yourself on Bill and Melinda Gates.
