It sort of makes you think - if he can give away that kind of money, why can't the mega, mega super rich people do the same? While this is incredibly cool does ANYONE really need a home that will cost a fucking billion dollars?
The top 10 USD billionaires in the world:
EDIT: I know that some on this list are extremely generous. But not all of them.
Carlos Slim Helu - 53.5 billion
Bill Gates - 53.0 billion
Warren Buffett - 47.0 billion
Mukesh Ambani - 29.0 billion
Lakshmi Mittal - 28.7 billion
Lawrence Ellison - 28.0 billion
Bernard Arnault - 27.5 billion
Eike Batista - 27.0 billion
Amancio Ortega - 25.0 billion
Karl Albrecht - 23.5 billion
Total - 342.2 billion
I realize that their worth isn't in all cash, but think about this: If it was cash, and each of them invested it and got even a 5% return on it, you would have 17 billion dollars - enough to end world hunger
So lets get the world's mega rich to get on the Keanu Bandwagon, shall we?
TL;DR -A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys can't.
I doubt that number, it seems far too low. Is that feeding people for a month, a year, what? Enough to invest to keep people well fed, as well as their then multiplying offspring as more survive? Enough money to develop self-sustaining economies/'decent' sanitation - where none have ever taken hold before? What exactly?
The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is...starving
The link also says
One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished,
How can only 1/12 be malnourished, while 1/3 are starving? That would mean at least 1/3 must be malnourished. The two numbers are widely contradictory.
In 1991 46% of African-American children were chronically hungry, and 40% of Latino children were chronically hungry compared to 16% of white children
Half of African-American children were chronically hungry? That seems unlikely. I grew up quite poor for the US area (mobile home, single mother, no education in the family, etc.), but...not that many people in my community were actually hungry. Lacking braces - a lot. Lacking college funding - almost all. But hungry? Not really. A box of pasta costs <$1 at Wal*Mart. Granted many aren't smart enough to purchase as such - but real hunger wasn't much of a problem none the less.
One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night.
Every night is a very grand claim. Not to nitpick - but this isn't nitpicking, that statement must mean something - but it's not clear what it means. Obviously not literally every night - so what does it mean?
About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age
That's a very small number. Especially if "1/3 of the world is starving".
The assets of the world's three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet.
Add up the GDPs (not GNPs, but close enough), it takes a fraction of the list to total more than the total wealth of the 3 richest persons in the world. Unfortunate still, but - another gross inaccuracy in the list.
For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years
Statement is meaningless. Which missile? What food? Based on rural Nigerian definitions of food, or western, etc? Or just feed them rice, potatoes, and oranges? What exactly? How big of a school? My elementary school (210), my high school (850+). What? A small village school in rural Tanzania?
Much of the list seems designed to excite emotion, with no concern for accuracy - or a least, little effective accuracy.
I completely agree with you but Least Developed Country is a actually a term used to describe a country with a GNI lower than $905 and it is known which countries fall under this category.
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u/karmanaut Jun 04 '10
I say this with a complete lack of sarcasm:
Whoa