Originally posted by midnight Target
I heard Buffet say he wanted to give his kids "enough to do anything, but not enough so they could do nothing".
This is a worthy sentiment, but then they reported that his kids were each getting only $1 billion.
I could do a lot of nothing with $1 billion.
David Gilmour is doing the same thing:
"He has never liked ostentatious giving, the kind of parties at which people shake their diamonds at each other in a good cause. "Those evenings where you go out with your mates and have a good time and put £50 in a bin at the end do nothing to raise money or awareness. Far more would be achieved if the two richest people in the room just put their hands in their pockets.
"I would like to see the 464 people above me on the rich list give more. When you are worth £500 million, you could give £400 million away and not notice it." Personally, he adds, he would love to "drop off the end" of that list. "I don't feel comfortable there, it doesn't feel like me. My intention is to pretty much get rid of my wealth by the time I go." This may be bad news for his children - eight of them from two marriages - but he does not want them to have "expectations" of riches. "Children who are given money are emasculated. It's a big disincentive to making your own way in life and I want my children to have the satisfaction that I have had from making my own way." Each of his children can expect a one-bedroom flat and any amount of advice and non-financial support, but they have to earn their own money.
When he is not putting together one of his solo concerts, Gilmour spends his time cooking and playing with his younger children at their Sussex home. Not for him, any longer, the excesses that traditionally come with the rock star life and that caused the downfall of Syd Barrett, the founding genius of Pink Floyd.
"I've seen a lot of people go off the rails," he says, "because you get into a tiny community where all the things that are frowned on in other communities are smiled on. Everyone takes drugs and carouses their way around the world and gets loved for it."
In his time, he has enjoyed all the toys that come with extreme wealth - cars, planes, houses he rarely visits. Now, he has pared his life but he is not making out that he wears a hair vest under his loose-fitting shirt. "I'm not going for saintliness," he says. "I have every intention of enjoying my own wealth. But I don't want to hand it on to my children."
