Sudoku: Juega cada día a uno nuevo
El tiempo: Consulta la previsión para tu ciudad
La plataforma más completa de información y servicios económicos para iPad.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Another 17 U.S. billionaires, including Facebook co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, have pledged to give away at least half their fortunes in a philanthropic campaign led by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.
A total of 57 billionaires now have joined The Giving Pledge, which was launched by Microsoft founder Gates and investor Buffett in June. The campaign announced the new pledges in a statement late on Wednesday.
Gates, his wife Melinda, and Buffett have asked U.S. billionaires to give away at least half their wealth during their lifetime or after their death, and to publicly state their intention with a letter explaining their decision.
The Giving Pledge does not accept money or tell people how to donate their money but asks billionaires to make a moral commitment to give their fortunes to charity.
"People wait until late in their career to give back. But why wait when there is so much to be done?" Zuckerberg, who gave $100 million in September to the beleaguered public schools of Newark, New Jersey, said in a statement.
"With a generation of younger folks who have thrived on the success of their companies, there is a big opportunity for many of us to give back earlier in our lifetime and see the impact of our philanthropic efforts," he said.
In addition to Zuckerberg and Moskovitz, the world's youngest billionaires, pledges were made by AOL co-founder Steve Case, financier Carl Icahn and Michael Milken, a former Wall Street executive who went to prison in the early 1990s for securities violations.
"CHANGE LIVES"
Morningstar Chief Executive Joe Mansueto, businessman Nicolas Berggruen and private investor Ted Forstmann also are among the new billionaires to take the pledges.
"In just a few short months we've made good progress," said Buffett, who made his fortune with insurance and investment company Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
"The Giving Pledge has re-energized people thinking about philanthropy and doing things in philanthropy and I look forward to many more conversations with families who are truly fortunate and whose generosity can and will change lives," he said.
Along with speaking to about a quarter of the wealthiest people in the United States about The Giving Pledge, Gates and Buffett hosted a dinner with Chinese billionaires in Beijing in September in a bid to promote a culture of philanthropy in China. The pair plan to visit India in March.
Forbes magazine said the United States is home to more than 400 billionaires, the most of any country.
Individual Americans gave more than $227 billion in 2009, according to the Giving USA report by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, down just 0.4 percent from the previous year despite the U.S. recession.
Buffett pledged in 2006 to give away 99 percent of his wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and family charities. Bill and Melinda Gates have so far donated more than $28 billion of their fortune to their foundation.
The full list of billionaires and their letters can be seen at www.thegivingpledge.org.
(Editing by Bill Trott)
PUBLICIDAD

Los últimos sondeos publicados esta semana continúan confirmando el afianzamiento de un cambio en el sistema polít...

La mayoría de los chipriotas defienden la permanencia en el euro y el acuerdo alcanzado por el Gobierno con la tro...
La semana termina con tiempo inestable, cielos nublados y precipitaciones que afectarán especialmente a la mitad n...

El presidente del Bundesbank (banco central alemán), Jens Weidmann, considera que las últimas decisiones del presi...

El 46 por ciento de los británicos respondería 'no' a la pregunta de '¿Piensas que Reino Unido debería permanecer ...

El presidente del Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann, ha apremiado al Gobierno francés a que se "tome en serio" el objetivo...

El presidente del Bundesbank, Jens Wiedmann, ha apremiado al Gobierno francés a que se "tome en serio" el objetivo...

El presidente de El Salvador, Mauricio Funes, y los pandilleros salvadoreños han manifestado su contariedad por el...

Aleida Guevara, hija del histórico revolucionario Ernesto "Che" Guevara, pidió a la izquierda europea que se una ...

El expresidente de Perú Alberto Fujimori permanecerá un día más hospitalizado, al menos hasta hoy, debido a una ga...
Noticias más leidas
Noticias más leidas
Noticias más leidas
Noticias más leidas
Noticias más leidas
¿Estarías dispuesto a pagar medio millón?

Ecoprensa S.A. - Todos los derechos reservados | Cloud Hosting en Acens