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Just to make you feel underpaid....


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BILL GATES

 

1. Bill Gates earns US$250 every SECOND, that's about US$20 Million a DAY and US$7.8 Billion a YEAR!

 

2. If he drops a thousand dollar, he won't even bother to pick it up bcoz the 4 seconds he picks it, he would've already earned it back.

 

3. The US national debt is about 5.62 trillion, if Bill Gates were to pay the debt by himself; he will finish it in less then 10 years.

 

4. He can donate US$15 to everyone on earth but still be left with US$5 Million for his pocket money.

 

5. Michael Jordan is the highest paid athlete in US. If he doesn't drink and eat, and keeps up his annual income i.e. US$30 Million, he'll have to wait for 277 years to become as rich as Bill Gates is now.

 

6. If Bill Gates was a country, he would be the 37th richest country on earth.

 

7. If you change all of Bill Gate's money to US$1 notes, you can make a road from earth to moon, 14 times back and forth. But you have to make that road non-stop for 1,400 years, and use a total of 713 BOEING 747 planes to transport all the money.

 

8. Bill Gates is 40 this year. If we assume that he will live for another 35 years, he has to spend US$6.78 Million per day to finish all his money before he can go to heaven.

 

Last but not the least :

 

If Microsoft Windows' users can claim US$1 for every time their Computers hang because of Microsoft Windows, Bill Gates will be bankrupt in 3 years!

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Legally speaking, no. The commonly used definition of "murder" in the US and UK (and many other countries too) is:

 

"Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, with malice aforethought."

 

The first element, "unlawful killing", is not satisfied by a person not giving a dollar to starving folk...because there is no law that says we are to do so. Therefore the failure to do it is not unlawful. Nor is it easy to prove failure to give the dollar caused the death. Why was the person starving in the first place? Probably not because of that dollar.

 

The second element, "with malice aforethought", is not satisfied either. This element does not mean "with malicious thoughts", but rather "with preconceived intent". It's very difficult to argue that Mr. X's failure to give a dollar to a starving person was done with the intent to kill that person. Of course you could make hypotheticals wherein the starving person had also been imprisioned or otherwise prevented from getting food, and then the intentional withholding of food money might be aligned with the actual intent to murder, but this is not what you mean in your hypothetical.

 

Because none of the elements of the commonly used definition of murder are satisfied by failing to give a dollar to a starving person, it is not murder in the jurisdictions that use such definition.

 

It might be more interesting to argue that failure to give the dollar to a starving person is negligent manslaughter, which is often defined as "the unlawful killing of a person through gross negligence".

 

The problem here, again, is the difficulty of arguing that failure to give the dollar is "unlawful" (there is no law requiring such gift), and that failure to give the dollar actually caused the death (i.e., is it really "killing"). This hurdle is difficult to overcome.

 

It's also difficult to argue that failure to give the dollar constitutes "gross negligence". It may seem so in normal conversation, but in legal terms, the standard of "gross negligence" is very high. It would be easier to prove simple negligence but that is not the element in question of the definition of "negligent manslaughter".

 

My conclusion is that we should step out of the legal paradigm for a moment and say, Yes, it is stupid and wrong that unused dollars exist that could pay for food for starving people. In a way it seems like murder to me.

 

But why stop there? Isn't the person who brought people into the world where there is insufficient food or no reasonable chance of nutritious survival also subject to scrutiny? Isn't that person guilty of something like negligent manslaughter or murder?

 

Shouldn't some of these dollars also be spent on population control, birth control education and supplies and family counseling/planning clinics?

 

And how far does the planet have to go down the road to total strip mining, deforestation, dust-bowl unsustainable farming and rapid spread of new diseases before we stand up and ask "what is the optimal population of this country, of this globe?"

 

Or should we simply keep having as many babies as possible and diverting all wealth into keeping them alive?

 

Very interesting.

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"Every man is a Island", so metaphorically speaking old William is a country.

 

That bit about the moon road nonsense, who reserches that kind of cr!p?

 

He is still a bit on the geeky side though, saying that makes me feel better. But really, money doesn't drive a man like him, just the accumulation of power, like Murdoch, Packer, Trump (?) and the rest of the media tycoons.

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 Quote:
Originally posted by jared:
Is he guilty of murder when someone dies from lack of food for not giving them $1?

are you?
How about YOU Jared??! Or do moral obligations of financial assistance only belong to those that have more money than you?? Ask yourself if your second hand Delica is worth the lives of 10 children in Africa? Or do only people who buy cars more expensive than you have to ask themselves that question????

Blame the rich, pitty the less rich. Redistribute wealth via the state so that every one has some.
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bagmigs with the heavy talk!

 

Im a big fan of the old saying, something like give a man a fish he can eat, teach him to fish and he can feed his whole fam etc.

 

give a hand up not a hand out

 

now if we could just do this in an environmentally sustaiable, culturally sensitive, non-discriminatory way...

 

\:\(

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db, thats kinda what I was thinking (even though I didnt really say it)

Its not too hard to convince someone that Bill is a big old kiddie killer by locking away billions of dollars while others starve. Those same people may still absolutely reject the idea that they (and me) are as guilty as Bill.

I accept my quilt for not helping and if I think on it long enough I might even do something.

 

I think Its good to be aware of what choices I am really making when I choose to spend money.

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It's not the not giving that could be seen as a crime, so much as the 'taking'. Something primary good exporters are more guilty of, rather than Bill.

 

If you really want to help the poor/starving/disenfranchised, work to get rid of unnatural political borders. Everything but human capital is allowed to freely flow internationally (give or take a few exceptions), very much to the advantage of the rich and powerful.

 

I'm still amazed at how 'anti-immigation' so many westerners in Japan are, especially given how many are working unqualified, abroad, for large incomes.

 

You want to help? Don't give a dollar, give a visa, (or vote in a government that will). You wont find many starving family members amongst those with a relative working in a developed country.

 

Let's have some good old free trade, with no national boundaries, then those of us WITH, can stop feeling guilty for the WITHOUTS.

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I don't feel guilty. Though my actions do indirectly affect those in developing countries, no one person can be held directly responsible for the starvation etc in undeveloped/ developing countries.

 

The most obvious thing you can blame is ideology, capitalist ideology, and to blame that you blame centuries of development and slaughter, exploitation and progress. All the great things that have happened within human history are equally tainted by our most evil and primal instincts. In fact you can go all the way back to roman era, who expolited the rest of Europe for their gain. And no doubt further......

 

The world always will have the HAVES and HAVE NOTS. This existed before and during late capitalist culture, In fact I'd argue that late capitalism has done a lot to improve the lives of the HAVE NOTS.

 

Things will continue as they are providing that the wheels don't fall of the the capitalist bandwagon and what threats do you see to that other than the dwindling supply of oil?....fundamentalism, no. communism, yawn no.

 

As for moral obligation, well that is a measurement best left to each indivudual...right?

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 Quote:
Originally posted by Mr Matthews:

Things will continue as they are providing that the wheels don't fall of the the capitalist bandwagon and what threats do you see to that other than the dwindling supply of oil?...
The least likely incident to destabilize capitalism, although it might help to erode a particularly exploitative element of it.
The next period of large sustained economic growth will come from the replacement of oil-based technologies.

As an aside, on the note of world future, I was thinking the other day how much life is becoming increasingly Huxley-esque...
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Having reciently found out what some japanese friends make (having been at the same company for many years) I feel rather over paid . That is for this cheap area though, not Tokyo. Not complaining though.

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