Bill Gates Gives Away More Money Than The Entire US Foreign Aid Budget

I think there are two important facts to keep in perspective here.<p>First, polls have shown that U.S. citizens drastically overestimate the amount of the federal budget allocated to foreign aid. As I recall, the average estimate is 25%; the reality is less than 0.1%.<p>The comparison holds mainly not because Bill Gates is so rich, or because the U.S. is indebted, but because federal budget priorities drastically favor items that are not foreign aid. Those priorities are formed in part because citizens believe that the budget is already giving away huge quantities of money, making proposals to increase foreign aid unpopular.<p>Second, the amount of money spent is not necessarily a good measure of the amount of aid given. On the one hand, sometimes more money doesn't help; to use an analogy that people here might understand, after a certain point in increasing your budget for paying software developers, you are limited by your ability to find good people, not by your ability to pay them. Likewise, some foreign aid projects - such as HIV eradication in certain African nations - have reached the point where the amount of monetary aid given already exceeds the capacity of local infrastructure to use the resources wisely, and any more would just sit in a bank account somewhere until someone blew it on a useless boondoggle.<p>On the other hand, some forms of aid or assistance given by the U.S. to friends or allies do not have monetary value, such as military assistance, diplomatic cover, or political advice... and there are material goods that are, for whatever reason, more valuable to the people who receive them than the items would be priced in the U.S. market where they were paid for.<p>So although this is a true and revealing fact, it's best to not misinterpret it. The reasons for the foreign aid budget being lower than Bill Gates's charity contributions are political, not fiscal; but it's likely that the more important question about foreign aid is the nature and quality of the aid, not the U.S. dollar value for which it was purchased.

So if the top 400 wealthiest individuals in the US gave half their net worth to charity, they'd merely double the <i>annual</i> charitable giving of the rest of the United States? [1]<p>In other words, in four years, the United States in total will have donated more than the entire net worth of those 400 people -- net worths that typically took lifetimes and generations to amass.<p>If you ask me, that single factoid casts the Giving Pledge in an entirely new light. Yes, Gates and company have done some fantastic things with their charity [2]. But the rest of the country is doing <i>far more</i> than they're getting credit for. Year after year. And as they aren't spending down their net fortunes, it's entirely sustainable.<p>That's something we don't hear nearly enough.<p>[1] Give or take some, as I'm sure those 400 people themselves likely contribute to that total.

It looks like this is comparing the Gates Foundation's total charitable contribution in 2007 to the US's foreign aid budget for one year. Not to undermine Gates' massive contribution to humanity, but the title should say "gave away".<p>The infographic plague continues. Surely the author could have gotten more up-to-date information about a 501(c)(3) than five year old data.

Misleading title. From 1994 to 2007, Bill Gates "gave" to a foundation an amount slightly larger than what US Foreign Aid "gave" in the single year of 2007.<p>The Foundation has not given that money to charities, it has given some small percentage and invested the rest so that it can last forever.<p>I put gave in quotes because possibly both parties are not giving unconditionally, but rather purchasing either respect or obedience or something else.

The US does a lot that I don't think is represented in that number. For instance, the military aid that we render to foreign nations in time of natural catastrophes is second to none, particularly in terms of expediency, logistics and supplies. Haiti is the first thing that comes to mind, but there's tons more examples like Fukushima, South-East Asia in 2004, Pakistan in 2005, Myanmar in 2008, etc.

I wonder if we'll see candlelit vigils and bunches of flowers outside MS stores when Bill Gates finally kicks it? He's long been the opposite of "cool" and certainly hasn't always been an honest competitor in the past but his altruism now should surely make up for that.

1. The constitutional role of the federal government does not mention anything about foreign aid, and rightly so.<p>2. Surely this doesn't count the billions the Federal Government gives in military aid.

And what about Monsanto GE/GMO crops pushed and financed by the B&#38;M Gates foundation? <a href="http://www.activistpost.com/2012/01/monsantos-gmo-corn-approved-despite.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.activistpost.com/2012/01/monsantos-gmo-corn-appro...</a> (I took the first link in DDG, may be unfortunate, I knew from the very good <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_According_to_Monsanto" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_According_to_Monsanto</a> )

FYI Blog Spam, source is: <a href="http://frugaldad.com/microsoft/" rel="nofollow">http://frugaldad.com/microsoft/</a>

The title here is misleading. According to the graphic, Bill and Melinda Gates' net worth, $59 billion, is $2 billion more than the US budget for foreign aid. They have given away $28 billion, 48% of their net worth.

A link to the original source which includes a note from the author of the infographic: <a href="http://frugaldad.com/microsoft/" rel="nofollow">http://frugaldad.com/microsoft/</a>

Including Rockefeller and Carnegie in that graphic is poor choice if you ask me. True they gave a lot of their money away... but mostly to their own causes.When it came to their own workers they were more willing to give money to thugs who killed them than giving them equitable wages and working conditions.<p>And while I find it impressive what Warren Buffet has accomplished, I don't find it very productive for humanity. I'm not anti-capitalist, but the pure money makers who gather wealth without providing a service/product are not heroes in my book.

If you're interested in charitable giving:<p>GiveWell (<a href="http://givewell.org" rel="nofollow">http://givewell.org</a>) does in-depth reviews of charities and recommends the best ones, based on things like cost-effectiveness and transparency.<p>Giving What We Can (<a href="http://givingwhatwecan.org" rel="nofollow">http://givingwhatwecan.org</a>) is a place where you can make a similar pledge (like 10% of your income), and community to support people who have done so.

in contrast, Steve Jobs decided the money was his to keep, even after death. lives NOT saved: 5,812,000 and counting.

He may be on the path to karmically braking even in the not to distant future if he ends up giving back all of his unethically gained fortune. That's good.

Gates didn't give away $28 billion. That's the foundation's endowment, from which they "give away" the annual returns (~5% iirc).

The headline is simply not true. It is comparing Gates' total expenditure to the USA's annual expenditure.

Nice advertisement for libertarianism.<p>In other news, Bill Gates has created more wealth and productivity for people worldwide than any individual (or government) in the history of the world. This equates to better medicine, more fun vacations, better food, more time with family, longer lives, etc.<p>In spite of being attacked by government (antitrust lawsuits) Gates continues to try to tackle the world's toughest problems.

He may not have taste as some would say, but he's been hacking real world problems lately. Good job.

If you apply Gauss' Law and define a boundary around US for money, you can argue that it's not Gates' money that's leaving the country, its the money that people gave to him, i.e. it's still US originated money.

Bill Gates is required by law to give away 5% of equity in his foundation every year otherwise he would lose charitable tax-exempt status from IRS... so yes, he gave away billions but at the same he avoided to pay billions in taxes to government by funneling most of his wealth into his foundation.<p>So the whole comparison between him and the government is pointless since it's the government that made it possible for Bill Gates to even do charity at this scale by sacrificing its own tax revenue.