When you think about Dennis Kozlowski's $6000 shower curtain, or homes of over 20,000 square feet owned by other Titans of Industry Corruption, or the grin of retiring Exxon chief Lee Raymond as he contemplates how he's going to spend the $400 million in retirement benefits he gets after presiding over Exxon Mobil's gouging of the American gasoline consumer, you'd be tempted to think it's just human nature for people who have more money than they can ever spend to still want more, and more and more.
Then along comes Warren Buffett, who not only is one of the most high-profile (along with William Gates, Sr.) defenders of the inheritance tax, but now is putting ALL of his money where his mouth is by giving away $37 billion of his $44 billion fortune to the William and Melinda Gates Foundation.
It isn't unheard of for a philanthropist to not believe that one's offspring is entitled to a free ride solely by virtue of being carried in the right womb, as Buffet once said. But after five years of news of one huge corporate executive compensation package after another, while the workplace for the rest of us is shrinking, there's something refreshing about a billionaire who believes that 8 billion is quite enough, thank you very much.
Never mind how odd it seems to not be able to hate Bill Gates anymore.
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