Summary
Warren Buffett gave $1.1 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock to family foundations and detailed plans for distributing his $147 billion fortune after his death.
His three children will oversee giving the remainder within 10 years, with designated successors in case they predecease him.
Buffett, 94, reaffirmed his belief in avoiding dynastic wealth, favoring philanthropy instead.
Over the years, he has donated $55 billion to the Gates Foundation but plans to shift focus to his family’s foundations.
Buffett continues leading Berkshire Hathaway while preparing Greg Abel as his successor.
The Nasdaq has been above 16% but, again, that’s nothing compared to what private equity can earn - especially when paired with political connections. Earning 2% after inflation and expenditures means the principal must never be touched, but that’s not the real problem. The problem is that the tax deductions happen immediately while spending the money back into the economy is postponed indefinitely.
For some accounts yes, but as people age that percentage goes up based on life expectancy and can go much higher than 5%.
Charity is great and should be encouraged, but effectively taking money out of the treasury to fund private charity gives the ultra wealthy an extreme level of undue influence over the rest of us. You and I don’t get to decide exactly how our personal taxes are used, and neither should a billionaire. How that money is spent is a collective decision through our government representatives, and nobody should have massively outsized influence. I would go further and say that any wealth over $10m should start running into an exponentially curved wealth tax that makes accumulation beyond $100m near impossible. (Obviously those marks are arbitrary, but I think that’s a good range for today’s dollar.) Wealth hordes of over $100m are really only useful for controlling society in order to collect even more money, whether it’s spent on buying politicians, controlling markets, or disseminating propaganda.