Oprah Winfrey - does speech provide clues about presidential run?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by FullMetalADCAP

So now we're just going to elect people who have billions of dollars? And poor people think Oprah has their interests at heart? Get real. She's no different than Trump. Just a cutthroat business person herself. You don't become a billionaire giving away YOUR money. She gives away products from companies who give her products to give away using her name. Then those companies make a profit when rich men's wives watch her show (while their rich husband is off at work working his butt off and she's home working her butt on) complain that some woman got a cool car on TV and how she wants a cool car just like she got or she's gonna scream! (Imagine Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka) And the rich man gives his wife everything she wants just to keep her from whining and complaining like that because chances are she's super attractive and uses her looks to play him like a fool but he likes having an attractive wife to sleep with even if she does cost him a fortune with her materialistic wants.

What the US needs is a middle class man who wants to take the job and wants to lower the wages for the entire US government, including the president so that the president can't make more than the average middle class person. Same with everyone in congress and the senate also. Someone who wants to tax the rich so that they can feel it just the same as a poor or middle class person. Someone who wants to overhaul the justice system so that the rich can feel that too. For instance, something isn't fair or right when a poor person and a rich person commit the same crime and the bail is set at 10,000 dollars the rich person can come up with $1000 real easy and post bail while the poor person can't unless he can get lenders to lend him the money to post the bail. $1000 to a rich person is like $10 if that. Maybe even a dime if they are rich enough. The poor person will struggle to pay off any lenders for that $1000 he borrowed to post his bail. (Note: Bail amount is usually 10% of what is stated. $10,000 = $1000 to post bail.) Heck, most poor can't even get anyone to lend them any money and just have to sit in jail and pay for their crime by losing their freedom. I think the richer you are, the more you should have to pay for your crime. For one thing, if you're rich, why are you even committing crimes? You should be an example to society, not a criminal. So sick of seeing poor people get raked over the coals in court and the rich walk free. They can afford the best attorney's to represent them also. Screw that.

Everyone should be given a public attorney. So much for the representation of "scales" being used when it's quite obvious that the poorer you are in society the more you pay. But since the rich are always running the show, it makes sense they are going to look out for their interests and screw the poor over. But the poor outnumber the rich so the poor really need to get smart and STOP electing rich people into office. Duh! Even Obama! So dumb! Elect someone who is closer to your economical position to get better representation.

A new study in Germany just two days ago found something that is known in psychology since decades, and which has been confirmed by other studies before. People being perceived as attractive, get more often and more positive traits and characteristics attributed to them by other people. Whats worse - attractive people have better chances to get elected. Shine trumps competence.

Just when you talk about a grandfather-style or nation's mummy style candidate, then him or her must not be attractive, aTV commentator commeneted laconically. Grandfathers and mummies must not look young and hot anymore to be loved by others nevertheless.

This is the kind of fundamental motives that decides elections.

And this I am expected to take serious, this holy grail of democracy? Infamy. I take offence from that.

[tiger585]

hallo leute und alles klar bei euch

[vienna]

Originally Posted by u crank

Yea well when Hollywood decides .... let me know.

Oh, I wouldn't really want Hollywood to decide. After all, the last reality TV star they put in the Oval Office has proven to be a huge turkey...

Originally Posted by em2nought

If things are going badly for the GOP it's due to their failure to embrace the President that their supporters overwhelmingly chose and stand behind.

Stand behind no matter what the mainstream media arm of the Democratic Party continue to throw against the wall, a year later, hoping something eventually sticks.

Its fine for the supporters to stand and support him, but the rest of us, the vast majority of Americans who did not vote for him are under no obligation to tolerate his glaring deficiencies and idiocies...

...and to blindly "Stand behind no matter what..." runs in extreme contradiction to not only common sense, but, also, the Constitutionally-given right to speak up and stand against unreasonable, and possibly illegal, actions taken by any administration. If ya'all wanna be lemmings, just follow The Chump-In-Chief as he heads for the cliffs...







<O>

[u crank]

Originally Posted by vienna

Oh, I wouldn't really want Hollywood to decide. After all, the last reality TV star they put in the Oval Office has proven to be a huge turkey...

Everybody gets a turn.

[vienna]

Those who do not learn from their mistakes, are doomed to repeat them...








<O>

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by FullMetalADCAP

You don't become a billionaire giving away YOUR money.

I will E-mail Bill Gates and tell him that he is doing it wrong.

[Skybird]

Bill Gates gives away money he made before.

I do not want to see the write-offs he gets for that from his tax bill.

Before anything else, Gates is a business man. THAT is what made all the money running after him.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Bill Gates gives away money he made before.

I do not want to see the write-offs he gets for that from his tax bill.

Before anything else, Gates is a business man. THAT is what made all the money running after him.

Still, he is giving away huge sums rather than just holding on to it or spending it all on extravagant material things to satisfy a need to acquire and to showoff their wealth. Gates and Warren Buffett, together have not only pledged to donate the bulk of their wealth, they also set up a foundation to encourage other billionaires and others of high wealth to pledge to donate the bulk of their wealth:

https://givingpledge.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge

Anything that encourages persons of great wealth to try to assist others is well worth the effort. BTW, about twenty years ago, I read an article about the person who handles the Gates' financial affairs and one of the issues touched on was administration of the Gates' charities, at that time primarily funded solely by the Gates' own wealth. Their charity foundations are tax-exempt foundations and, as such, are under strict tax laws in order to maintain tax-exempt status. One of the requirements is a charity must spend a specific, and significant, portion of the available funds or lose their tax-exempt status. In the article the financial manager was asked about disbursements and, in an example, he stated one of the charities was required, in that tax year, to disburse over USD $350,000,000. That was twenty years ago; imagine what the amount must be currently, and, remember, that sum was for just one of the Gates' charities...








<O>

[vienna]

I actually found the article I cited above. The financial manager's name is Michael Larson. However, my memory was a bit faulty: the amount needed to be disbursed was USD $325,000,000 not USD $350,000,000; I plead old age...


http://archive.fortune.com/magazines...6491/index.htm

His name is Michael Larson. And BGI stands for Bill Gates Investments. Larson is Bill Gates' private money manager. He runs the entirety of Gates' fortune not invested in Microsoft stock. That sum, which sits in Gates' personal account and in two huge foundations, now amounts to $11.5 billion, and counting. Though this is a fraction of Gates' wealth--his 18.5% stake in Microsoft is worth some $76 billion today--it is still by any measure a huge chunk of money. About $5 billion of the $11.5 billion that Larson manages is in Gates' personal investment portfolio: that is roughly the same size as the Fidelity Value fund, a big mutual fund with 412,000 shareholder accounts.

As for Gates' foundations, well, the combined $6.5 billion he has sent their way in recent years has swiftly elevated them to the ranks of the very largest foundations in the world. His William H. Gates Foundation, with an endowment of $5.2 billion, is right up there with those founded by Ford, Kellogg, and Mellon. But while it took those pre-info age giants decades and decades to create the kind of wealth necessary to fund a great foundation, Gates has amassed his fortune in less than 13 years. His foundations, practically nonexistent at the beginning of Bill Clinton's second term, suddenly are sitting on endowments so large that they will have to give away some $325 million a year just to comply with tax laws on charitable giving. That figure is more than the median net income of the companies in the FORTUNE 500 last year.

The most amazing thing about Larson's job, though, is that it's really just beginning to gear up. As you've probably heard, Gates says he plans to give away nearly all of his wealth in his lifetime. It's an outrageously large fortune, the largest the world has ever known in current terms, and disposing of it presents huge challenges. "Giving away $1 billion is tricky," says one wealthy philanthropist. "Ted Turner is giving that much to the U.N., and you can always give to a major university, but they would just put up new buildings. There just aren't that many organizations that can really do the right job with that kind of money." Says Gates: "Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity--the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires."

To give his money away, of course, Gates will have to dispose of huge chunks of Microsoft stock. In fact, Gates has already begun his big push. As first reported by Fortune.com in early February, Gates recently gave some $3.3 billion to his two charitable organizations, the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation. And now FORTUNE has learned that Gates has given another $1 billion to the William H. Gates Foundation.

Here's a nutshell assessment of Gates and Larson from 2014:


http://www.business-standard.com/art...2300401_1.html









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[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by vienna

Those who do not learn from their mistakes, are doomed to repeat them...

<O>

I heard a rumor that hate can cause cancer

[Skybird]

Vienna,

yes to all that. However, in the main I wanted to object Platapus' objection to FullMetalADCAP. Gates did not start to give away money and by acting this altruistically he became a billionaire. He made his fortune before he started to give it away.

My side-strike on tax tricks probably was not needed, yes. Sorry for that. I even knew what you described in more detail. Some devil led my fingers there.

[AVGWarhawk]

Oprah and Weinstein. This should go over very well with the voting public. Will she claim she knew nothing? Most certainly. Do I believe she knew nothing? Not a chance.



Look Harvey. A bonus for you:

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Catfish

If a Trump can become president, everyone can.

I wish she had been the Dem nominee last election. She would have been very far from acceptable, but she would still have better that this sad clown we're stuck with

[STEED]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

sad clown we're stuck with

[August]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

I wish she had been the Dem nominee last election. She would have been very far from acceptable, but she would still have better that this sad clown we're stuck with

Really what makes you think that?