Gates, Buffett host banquet for China's super rich

[sonomak]

Source: AFP

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett hosted a banquet Wednesday for China's super rich that sparked debate about Chinese philanthropy, amid reports that wealthy invitees had been reluctant to attend...

The state-run Global Times said the guest list of 50 rich industrialists included Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, the chairman and CEO of property developer SOHO China, and Niu Gensheng, founder of Mengniu Dairy. Chinese film star Jet Li, himself a philanthropist, had said he would meet Gates and Buffett before the banquet to chat about charity.

The event has caused a stir in China, the world's second-largest economy, where the number of rich people is growing fast in parallel with the nation's stunning economic development. China had 64 dollar billionaires last year, second only to the United States' 403, according to Forbes magazine. The number rose 31 percent in 2009 from the previous year, state media has said.

Still, the official Xinhua news agency reported earlier this month that only a small number of business leaders had confirmed their attendance at the banquet for fear of being leaned on to give. The Global Times said in a commentary piece that philanthropy was still in its infancy in China and was "not popular among Chinese business people".

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[pampango]

1. Chinese saying: "Being rich brings a man the same thing as being fat brings a pig."

http://www.globaltimes.cn/www/english/metro-beijing/two-cents/opinion/2010-09/570866.html



he fact Bill Gates promised that he and his buddy Warren Buffet are not trying to talk their dinner guests in China into pledging their assets like 40 American billionaires have done shows the world's two richest men appreciate what cultural differences lie ahead for their Beijing charity trip.

Gates and Buffet are coming to communicate a message of charity, and to learn where China is with the business of giving, Ye Lei, the director of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's China office, was reported to claim on Sunday.

For one thing, being called rich may get one in trouble here. ... Seventeen rich people who made it on to a top 50 rich list since China started to record fortune makers in 1999 have been found guilty of cheating in some way while they rose. More have gone under because of business integrity investigations. Every year there are people knocked off the heights of wealth - the rich are cursed, people say.

China's old time wisdom with regard to wealth and its implications can be encapsulated in one idiom: "Being rich brings a man the same thing as being fat brings a pig."

[unkachuck]

4. "...as being fat brings a pig."

"Riches are intuitively associated with something fishy,..."

"...men whose combined wealth dwarfs the GDP of about 40 countries on the earth combined."

....caution is the word....our Pigs have discovered that if you spread a small portion of your astronomical wealth around, people will be dazzled into thinking you should be allowed to keep it....

....this is less about philanthropy and more about heading-off the Chinese government from developing 'bad ideas' and setting 'bad examples' with their homegrown Pigs....

[MilesColtrane]

2. They're throwing them a party. That's nice.

It's a "Thanks For Propping Us Up Economically So The Peasants Haven't Risen Up And Killed Us" party.

[avaistheone1]

3. LOL