How Billionaire 'Philanthropy' Is Fueling Inequality And Helping To Destroy The Country

Is Billionaire Philanthropy Fueling Inequality?
Philanthropist Bill Gates participates in a talk with former President Bill Clinton about debt at the 2013 Fiscal Summit in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Philanthropist Bill Gates participates in a talk with former President Bill Clinton about debt at the 2013 Fiscal Summit in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Peter Buffett, the second son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, worries that the state of philanthropy in America “just keeps the existing structure of inequality in place.” At meetings of charitable foundations, he says “you witness heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders. All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left.”

Describing the stunning growth of what he calls a “charitable-industrial complex,” his recent New York Times op-ed reads in confessional style: “People (including me) who had very little knowledge of a particular place would think that they could solve a local problem.”

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