A billion dollars is 1,000 million dollars.
The net worth of Bill Gates: 111.8 billion dollars
The net worth of Elon Musk: 264.9 billion dollars
The net worth of the Sackler family: 14 billion dollars
The net worth of Mark Zuckerberg: 60.2 billion dollars
The net worth of the Walton family (they own Walmart)
238 billion dollars
The net worth of Robert Mercer: about a billion dollars
The net worth of Warren Buffet: 101.6 billion dollars
The net worth of Bernard Arnault: 167.8 billion dollars
The net worth of Jeff Bezos: 166.4 billion dollars
The net worth of Oprah Winfrey: 2.5 billion
This is just a sample list of 10 billionaire individuals and families.
In 2020 in the United States there were 614 billionaires.
What are these people ever going to do with that much money? How much is enough for them? Is there “enough” for them?
Some billionaires get involved with charities and giving away their money. In return they usually end up coming out richer than they went in because of the tax breaks they receive on charitable spending. Their philanthropic activities are all a matter of personal preference and pet projects. The Sackler family of Purdue Pharmaceutical fame (and the opiod epidemic) for example, spend their charity dollars on having big famous museums named after them. They believe this is good public relations and that it removes the tarnish and stain from their good name. But does it?
Billionaires involved in philanthropy do it for two reasons: tax breaks and write offs, and to scrub their names publicly. The usefulness of their philanthropy is debatable. If billionaires ever engage in philanthropy for purposes of burnishing a meaningful legacy, whether or not they will achieve that goal probably depends on their projects. In order for it to mean anything significant and to have it be a permanent, brilliant legacy, it has to be meaningful. Andrew Carnegie gave the United States a system of beautiful and grand libraries. That gift will ensure that his legacy will be eternally brilliant. But what about other billionaires? Will their legacies be as brilliant as Carnegie’s? Is that something that is important to them or that they even care about?
If they want to do something that is meaningful, billionaires could spend money on solving the many grave problems we have.
The following is a sample list of ten big problems that could, if billionaires chose to use their money to solve them, provide an excellent legacy for any billionaire who wants one.
1. Clean the world’s oceans of plastic and fund R&D into the repurposing and/or safe methods of disposal of the recovered plastics.
2. Build desalination plants for the metro regions of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego.
3. Help Los Angeles develop a plan of green spaces, natural habitats, parks, and to restore a more natural watershed.
4. Distribute large scale carbon capture technologies around the country.
5. Fund R&D to develop powerful jet engines that do not use carbon based fuels and that have long range flight capability.
6. Put money into a new and improved train and freight shipping system.
7. Put money into building mass transit that will move people in large numbers in all urban areas and significantly decrease the need for traveling on dangerous and congested freeways.
8. Build affordable housing to house the homeless of America.
9. Build and fund health clinics that treat mental illnesses and that could also possibly provide job training.
10. Put money into pubic education and vocational training systems.
Yes, this is a list of my very own cherry picked pet projects that I believe would be of a great and meaningful significance to the country and to the planet. These are the types of endeavors I personally would engage in if I had billions of dollars to work with. These are the types of philanthropic activities that I am sure would forever be viewed as being truly meaningful and beneficial and that legacy would last forever and remain forever significant. But, that’s just what I think. And, of course, these are just ten problems that we need to fix. There are many others that could likewise use a little bit of billionaire money thrown at them.
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