Some Millionaires do good things

[facthunter]

The Fair Dinkum Antipodean conoissiers of Grub will no doubt have sampled Adelaides Pie Floaters.. (Where only the best will do).   Isn't that barmaids name Emma Chisett?  Nev

[red750]

3 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

The soapie was called Coronation Street.

Still running on UK TV channel.

[spacesailor]

But Not as old as the ABC  " Dr Who " .

Stil being made since the 50,s.

Such a shame no one recorded those early years. Or kept the negative film.

spacesailor

[Old Koreelah]

On 16/7/2022 at 10:45 PM, Jerry_Atrick said:

 

It's funny how we all hark back to the cuisine we are brought up on…

 

Jerry I sure don’t!

My mum worked incredible hours and was usually bone tired when it was time to cook dinner, so we got meat and three veg with the life cooked out of them! As a result, I haven’t eaten meat for forty-odd years. 

 

It was a revelation to taste Chinese food: firm, crisp veges with taste! That totally reset my attitude to food.

I was so enthusiastic I shouted my parents to a meal of the best Chinese. They were hungry, polite, but also very conservative, so couldn’t eat it!

[Bruce Tuncks]

I agree weeks is a good guy. But he constitutes way less than 1% of the rich class.

So  are elton musk etc.... without these guys, there are lots of good things happening which wouldn't be otherwise.

That's why i find the gdp argument against inequality difficult to believe.

Maybe if there was a big and prosperous middle-class, companies could form and raise capital better.

I had a good mate who so believed in the fact that satellites were easy to launch using off the shelf components that he tried to start a company. He was only asking for what Kerry Packer spent weekly on his polo horses. He would have repaid it many times over by now.

Alas, he failed. Not a single rich person in Australia would cough up.

So my conclusion is that, notwithstanding nice guys like weeks and my hangar neighbor, the costs of inequality are too much for the benefits.

[Bruce Tuncks]

The mate was Australia's best rocket scientist. He wasn't some lightweight who didn't know what he was talking about.

[red750]

[Jerry_Atrick]

On 21/07/2022 at 10:53 PM, Bruce Tuncks said:

So  are elton musk etc.... without these guys, there are lots of good things happening which wouldn't be otherwise.

I have to correct you there, Bruce. Elon Musk has done very little good. Look it up.. he was not a founder of Tesla - it was actually founded by two Californians; and he became an investor and systematically destroyed the real founders' influence and had them ejected from the company; and then set about a PR campaign to bill himself as the founder. With PayPal, it wasn't Elon that was the stalwart founder - in fact much of the work he did had to be undone. It was a banker friend of his father's that did the heavy lifting. He is from a very wealthy family in Sarf Arfeeka, who are as deranged as the Trumps. The only thing he did off his own bat that seemed to make money was a bootleg (for want of a better word) nightclub he ran from his frat dorms when he was in uiniversity. Everything else is a big PR job, and the ideas he actually comes up with are batshit crazy. He really is another Trump, but smarter.

 

My work these days centres around market abuse and manipulation detection; and general financial markets regulation. In this area, Musk literally gets away with the equivalent of murder. A few years ago, he announced (on twitter), that he had the money to take Tesla private. The share price immediately surged, and he sold a sizeable parcel of his shares. He didn't have the backing to take Tesla private, and announced that a couple of weeks after his sell down. The price tanked back to where it was. This is a classic pump and dump and there are many traders and CEOs who have gone to jail/gaol for a lot less that that. We were all expecting the SEC to indict him in front of a grand jury and he would have ended up with a reasonable custodial sentence - probably of around 5 years.

 

However, they famously (or infamously) barred hom from acting as a CEO - I don't even think they barred him from holding office of a publoc company - which meant he still controlled the company - even the SEC could see this. I guess they perceived him being too popular to indict.

 

And this is where my theory that the judges/officals make these decisions out of self-preservation. Trump and Musk are popular enough that, as Trump said, he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue (I think) and no one would bat an eyelid. The corollary is that if someone holds an adverse judgement against these two, because Americans are armed to the teeth, there is some fanatic follower stoopid enough to come after those that decided to punish them, and gun them down. I believe this is why Trump hasn't been indicted yet despite damning evidence if his attempt to steal the election. And I suspect the same is the reason this is why Musk was slapped over the wrist with a tepid Wettex.

 

Good PR and connections always wins.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Jerry_Atrick

[red750]

I read recently that Bill Gates is working his way down the rich list by giving away his fortune to charity. He was top of the heap once, but is now down to about ninth. He wants off the list.

[octave]

9 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

On 22/07/2022 at 7:53 AM, Bruce Tuncks said:

So  are elton musk etc.... without these guys, there are lots of good things happening which wouldn't be otherwise.

I have to correct you there, Bruce. Elon Musk has done very little good.

I have to disagree. It has become popular to brand anyone who says anything positive about Musk or his companies as "Musk fan boys" he trend lately is to brand people as "the savior of all mankind" or "Dr Evil"   with nothing in between. Whilst I do believe that Musk is a bit of a Maverick and says some truly dumb things I would suggest that Tesla and SpaceX are a net positive. 

 

Tesla has under Musk become a major influencer in the car industry.   Legacy auto companies are only committing to EVs due to the growing market share of Tesla.   I have to admit that I cringe when Musk tweets and I wish he would just concentrate on the main task.  In spite of this Musk/Tesla can build a fully functioning factory such as Giga Shanghai in 10 months plus Giga Berlin and Giga Texas.    It has been quite an achievement to start a new car company that can compete, at least in the EV market with companies that have been going for many years. Whether or not Tesla continues to be profitable or not, it has at the very least stimulated the EV market and I can only see this as a good thing.

 

We also have Tesla grid scale batteries which are displacing peeker plants, again isn't this a good thing?    There are other companies moving in to this field but I suspect that Tesla is the catalyst for this.

 

We also have  SpaceX which have been a leader in reusable rockets (surely a good thing).   Space X is the first and so far only private company to be able to launch humans into space.   For many years Th US has relied upon the Russians to transport astronauts to ISS.  Now they have crew Dragon, and I hear today that Cosmonauts will now been able to travel to ISS on crew Dragon as well as Soyuz.  This is a remarkable achievement for a  private company that has not been in existence for that long.

 

NASA has enough belief in  Space X (and presumably its CEO) to award it with a contract to transport astronauts to ISS and to develop Starship and a moon lander.  I am not sure whether Starlink is profitable yet however it seems like a an area of enterprise that could  be quite successful. Although we only hear of Starlink there are about 6 other companies pursuing the same thing.  At this point there are about 400 000 Starlink customers.

 

Musk seems to have little regard for convention and therefore tends to offend the left and the right.   The right hate that he is disrupting the fossil fuel industry and the left are a bit put out because they thought he was the "golden boy" of the left but probably is not.   Personally I wish he would shut up and get on with it but I approve of disrupting the fossil fuel industry and forcing all car makers to move towards EVs.  I also approve of pushing solar and domestic as well as grid sized battery storage. 

 

I do of course have criticisms of him.    As a share holder in Tesla I wish he had not gone off on the whole Twitter on again off again adventure which entailed selling lots of shares and lowering the value of Tesla but it is not up to me to tell another share holder whether they should sell or not. The value is climbing again and I cant complain.

 

i cant really agree with the comment that Musk has done very little good.    Not the saviour of the human race but also not Doctor Evil.

 

 

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I wasn't attempting to portray him as Dr. Evil - but he has built up this myth that everything about Telsa ans SpaceX is his brainchild - which both aren't. He has been at the right spot at the right time, with the right amount of money backed by hiis family and then investors. And he has a lot of drive and cheek - in the same way Trump has. But, he is way smarter.

 

Yes, Telsa drove EVs (which arguably are not an answer to climate warming if we look at the whole product lifecycle - although we have to take steps forward). However, it wasn't his dream or vision - he could see a profit in it, and muscled his way into a position where he dispensed of the founders, claimed it as his own.. In that way, he acts like every other predatory entrepreneurs and once invested he will do anything to make it work; and lie and cheat and buiild up a PR campagn to make him look liike a saviour of humanity.

 

I don't hate the guy at all.. But I am not into building him up to something he clearly isn't. As for if it were a different investor and a different CEO - maybe Telsa wouldn't have been so popular - or maybe it would have even gone further along its trajectory - we will never know. However, California are not short of innovative active investors that have taken many companies to dizzying heights.

 

Maybe my quip of he has done little good should be corrected as done little good off his own bat...

[facthunter]

As often said the line between Genius and Madness is a fine one. Getting batteries into South Australia and the way he did it was genius, and NO mean feat either.  The full weight of the LieNP and Merdeoch was against him.. Since then more was installed by the Liberal STATE Government of SA (arguably the best Liberal state govt in the country at the time, but since outed)..  due in part to the Stench of corruption in the Federal LieNP recently sent to opposition.  Nev

[Old Koreelah]

This self-made bloke is worthy of praise:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-27/chuck-feeney-philanthropist-queensland-health-university/101270098

[onetrack]

What a nice change, to see one extremely rich American who isn't totally focussed on how much wealth he/she can accumulate for his own personal benefit. Good on you, Chuck!

[Old Koreelah]

In its golden age, America produced lots of charitable foundations.
The town of Boorooloola once received camel-loads of library books from a foundation set up by Andrew Carnegie.

 

http://fortennantcreekers.com/places/buildings/library/

[willedoo]

One millionaire who gives a lot away is Clive Berghofer from Toowoomba in Queensland. He's worth about 300 million but gives away more than most Australian billionaires.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I was really interested to hear about Borroloola, old K.

In grade 5, I sat next to this black kid ( Walter) who came from Borroloola and went home there for holidays.

He was a good kid and I hope he did well in life. We sure never heard about any stolen generation, and we would have if it had been true.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Stolen Generation....  what would you do in the shoes of a female cop  rellie who had reason to enter the homes of some aboriginies in Darwin. What would you do if you found a baby  lying in 3 days of its shit? And dehydrated to boot?

 You would ring an ambulance if you were as smart as she was. The ambulance would take the kid to hospital.  Now was that baby part of the "stolen generation?"

I think some would have you think it was.

 

[pmccarthy]

The famous Boroloola library gradually rotted in the wet season, but it entertained and educated  many fugitives from society before that happened.

[Bruce Tuncks]

And I never even heard of it! The closest I personally have come to Boroloola is the pub at Cape Crawford. Unlike it's name suggests, this place is 50 k inland. But it is on the way to Boroloola. Dunno if they read much at Boroloola.

We stayed at a pub there and the walls were just made out of masonite. You could hear more than you wanted from the room next door. The pub was called the "Heartbreak Hotel" and this was not from the Elvis song but because the building contractor had made a mistake with his freight calculations and figured the deal would send him broke.

The next day we drove down this road and met cattle that didn't know they were supposed to move away from traffic.

[red750]

Millionaires who won't leave all their fortune to their kids.

 

12. Nigella Lawson. $15 mil. "I am determined that my children should have no financial security. It ruins people not having to earn money."

 

11. Gordon Ramsay . $63 mil. His children, who still sit in economy on flights while Ramsay and his wife, Tana, peel off for first class: "It's definitely not going to them," Ramsay told The Telegraph in 2017.

 

10. Ashton Kutcher $200 mil isn't even going to set up a trust fund for his children.

 

9. Sting 9. Sting $300 million as of 2014, said he plans to spend his money instead of leaving it to his six kids.

 

8. Sir Elton John $450 million as of 2014, believes it's "terrible to give kids a silver spoon,"

 

7. Andrew Lloyd Webber £820 million ($1.07 billion), says it doesn't bother his kids that he wants to leave his fortune elsewhere.

 

6. "Star Wars" creator George Lucas $6.4 billion, plans to use his multibillion dollar fortune to fund the education of other people's children.

 

5. Laurene Powell Jobs,  $24 billion, said that her family's billionaire status "ends with me."

 

4. Presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg, $54 billion, also plans to give his fortune to charity instead of to his daughters.

 

3. Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, $72 billion, wrote on Facebook in 2015 that they intend to leave his fortune to charity instead of to his daughter "because we have a moral responsibility to all children in the next generation."

 

2. Warren Buffett,$88.8 billion  is leaving much of his fortune to his best friend Bill Gates' foundation instead of to his children.

 

1. Bill Gates, $113 billion, may be a centibillionaire, but his kids will only be millionaires.

[onetrack]

My Father worked on a Station NE of Meekatharra from 1930 to 1934, and this station was called Doolgunna. It was owned by a gentleman named G.J. (Jimmy) Howard. Sometime during my Fathers time there, Jimmy purchased the library from the nearby, almost-abandoned town of Peak Hill, which was the centre of the Peak Hill Goldfield.

 

They jacked the entire library building up, put big logs under it, and dragged it, using camels, down to the Doolgunna Homestead. Dad said he gained a great extension to his education by reading a lot of the books in that Library.

There wasn't much else to do in those days out there, so book-reading was popular.

 

I was initially under the impression it was a Library financed by Carnegie, but upon further research, I find it was a Miners Institute Library.

 

Doolgunna was closed down as a Station in the 1990's, due to the Govt refusing to re-issue the lease, claiming the country was too marginal to continue as a Station and they needed to revert the country to a Conservation habitat.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I don't think these examples, good as they are, in themselves justify the existence of the filthy rich. Some of the examples just show the rich keeping money from their kids, not that I disagree with some of their reasons. I would have a progressive wealth tax.

Inequality is very expensive for a country, it costs Australia about 5% of gdp. It would cost much more in military performance, who would risk their lives for Gina Rinehart?  . I sure can understand the Russian conscripts being unwilling to fight for the oligarchs.

 

[red750]

Speaking of billionaires, I see Bill Gates is in Aus. Met with Albo.

[facthunter]

Having political power opens may Gates..   Nev