Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Warren Buffet Writes A Check...

...A 35 billion-dollar one...

Just after 10 a.m., Buffett arrived at the library to formally commit the bulk of his vast wealth to a foundation run by Gates and his wife, Melinda.

"I actually have several partners that the world doesn't know anything about that have fortunes that would put them on the Forbes 500 - they'd kill me if I gave their names," Buffett said during a question-and-answer session with Bill and Melinda Gates, whose foundation will receive a whopping $31 billion from Buffett.

"I'd hope a few would pick up on this model. It's a sensible model. I'd encourage them to think about what do they hope to accomplish with their money. There are a lot of worthy goals out there," said Buffett, the $44billion man known as the Oracle of Omaha for his astounding foresight as an investor.

Buffett's pledge to turn over $1.5 billion to the Gates Foundation each year will double its size to $60 billion, making it five times larger than any other philanthropy in the country.

After focusing much of its efforts on combating AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the foundation will begin to fund prevention and treatment of some of the world's other top 20 disease killers.

"Within our lifetime I would expect we would have vaccines and medicine to eliminate all 20. There is no reason we shouldn't be able to cure those top 20 diseases," Bill Gates said."
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When all is said and done, Melinda will have about 100 billion to play with, and here's hoping she's better at it then Grandma-ma, AKA Hillary RodHam, who when given the chance to reform health care made such a bolux of it that even Slick Willy had to reign her in.

Cure the top 20 diseases in Bill Gates' lifetime?

Good luck.

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