上图为比尔盖茨和夫人在参观他们资助的尼日利亚农业项目一个人的力量有多大，当这个人恰好是洛克菲勒或者比尔盖茨？历史说明了，答案是很大。这里的力量并不仅仅是对石油工业或者个人电脑业的影响，而是通过慈善事业来改善整个世界的力量。洛克菲勒证明了把钱送给别人不仅仅是慈善这么简单。它可以改变很多事情。如果今天的亿万富翁们都来贡献他们的力量，他们在消灭贫困和疾病方面的能力可能远胜世界上任何一个政府。
What is the power of one when that one happens to be a John D. Rockefeller or a Bill Gates? If history is a guide, the answer is, quite a lot. I'm speaking not only about the power to reshape an industry like oil or personal computers but also about the ability to improve the world through philanthropy. Rockefeller proved that giving away money is much more than charity. It can be transformative. And if today's billionaires were to pool their resources, they could outflank the world's governments in ending poverty and pandemic disease.
transformative
有改革能力的,变化的,变形的
outflank
To gain a tactical advantage over (a competitor, for example).智胜：在谋略上胜过（如竞争者）
pandemic
Medicine Epidemic over a wide geographic area:【医学】 流行的：广大地域流行的：
pandemic influenza.流感
A century ago, Rockefeller decided to put his vast fortune to public use, offering to endow a federal institution to fight disease, poverty and ignorance. Hotheads attacked him, claiming that he was just trying to buy a good name, and Congress demurred. So, instead, in 1913, Rockefeller set up the Rockefeller Foundation with two initial gifts totaling $100 million. No institution did more in the 20th century to further the cause of international development. It led the way in the eradication of hookworm in the U.S. South, helping pave the way for the region's economic development. It supported the Nobel-prizewinning work that created the yellow-fever vaccine. It helped Brazil eliminate a malaria-transmitting strain of mosquito. And perhaps most stunningly, it funded the Asian Green Revolution, the transformative agricultural success that enabled India and other countries to escape endless cycles of famine and poverty.
Now Bill and Melinda Gates, backed by more than $30 billion of their own funds and an additional $31 billion of Warren Buffett's, can do the same. Like the Rockefeller Foundation, the Gates Foundation rightly looks to technology for the breakthroughs that can end extreme poverty on a global basis. Its original focus has been on health technologies, but now the foundation is expanding to agriculture, water and other areas that are also critical in the fight against poverty.
endow:
To provide with property, income, or a source of income.资助，捐赠：提供财产、收入或收入来源
hotheads:
A quick-tempered or impetuous person.性急之人
demur:
To voice opposition; object:反对：持反面观点；反对：
demurred at the suggestion.反对这项建议参见 object
eradication:
连根拔除, 根除
hookworm:
[医]十二指肠虫, 十二指肠病
vaccine:
疫苗
malaria:
疟疾, 瘴气
strain:
Biology A group of organisms of the same species, having distinctive characteristics but not usually considered a separate breed or variety:【生物学】 同类，同族：具有特殊特征，但通常却认为不是不同种族的同种的一组有机体：
a superior strain of wheat; a smooth strain of bacteria.麦子的高级品系；细菌的无凸凹种类
Of course, Bill and Melinda Gates are not alone in contemporary transformative philanthropy. George Soros' support for brave truth tellers in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union helped catalyze the peaceful end of communism. The Google guys, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are out to prove how information technologies can bring about major change. They have recently posted satellite imagery of Darfur, Sudan, in order to raise awareness and technical support for solutions in that violence-ravaged region. The dynamism of social entrepreneurship makes a mockery, alas, of our political leadership. The Gateses, Buffett, Soros, Page and Brin have left George W. Bush and the rest of Washington in the dust. U.S. international aid is at a pitiful 0.17% of national income (just 17¢ per $100), with much of that squandered as failed "reconstruction aid" in Iraq.
According to Forbes magazine, there are some 950 billionaires in the world, with an estimated combined wealth of $3.5 trillion. Even after all the yachts, mansions and luxury living that money can buy have been funded many times over, these billionaires will still have nearly $3.5 trillion to change the world. Suppose they pooled their wealth, as Buffett has done with Bill and Melinda Gates. By standard principles of foundation management, a $3.5 trillion endowment would have a 5% payout of about $175 billion a year, an amount sufficient to extend basic health care to all in the poorest world; end massive pandemics of AIDS, TB and malaria; jump-start an African Green Revolution; end the digital divide; and address the crying need for safe drinking water for 1 billion people. In short, this billionaires' foundation would be enough to end extreme poverty itself. All in all, it's not a bad gig for men and women who have transcended the daily economic struggle faced by the rest of humanity. They might also take note of the admonition of America's first megaphilanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, who wrote in 1889 that "the day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was free for him to administer during life, will pass away unwept, unhonored, and unsung." Fortunately, plenty of new heroes seem ready for a different legacy. WHO HAS THE MONEY
沒有留言:
張貼留言