SZ:
31 Aug 12 - 06:24 PM

Why you did stop at the first 10? Was that what it took to prove your point?

I took the 10 from a list of 400 people. It seemed a logical stopping point. Did you want me to list 400 people? More to the point, why did you stop with four?

SZ: The combined wealth of the Democrats is 152.2 billion.
The combined wealth of the Republicans is 138.8 billion.
The obvious point is that more of the wealth held by the top 10 richest people is held by Democrats.

We were not speaking of the total wealth in numbers, but of the numbers of people.

SZ: You still don't have the guts to answer the question because it would violate tribal politics.

I don't try to answer your question (Do the rich deserve their wealth?) because I have no idea how to answer such a blanket construct. Some inherited their wealth,i.e. they did not earn it and therefore do not deserve it. Some inherited their wealth, added to it and used it in humanitarian efforts. OK, perhaps they deserve it. Some married into it - do they deserve it? I don't know. Frankly, I think it is a stupid question. (I fail to see in what *guts* are involved.)

As for Bill Gates' statement, I think it is unfortunate that he didn't develop the thought further, because every right wing out there is flapping. It is apparent what he was actually saying.

"In terms of giving, Gates did a 180-degree turn. Rather than prevent births, he would aim his billions at saving the kids already born. "We moved pretty heavily into vaccines once we understood that," says Gates.
"He could have focused on clinics and doctors, but that doesn't scale. "The magic tool of health intervention is the vaccine, because they can be made very inexpensively," he says. "We had to choose what the most impactful thing to give would be—not just money, but our time, energy, voice." Melinda, his partner in all things philanthropic, echoes that thought: "Where's the place you can have the biggest impact with the money? Where can you save the very most lives with those resources?"

What Gates Clearly Meant