Why is there a trend of billionaires giving their fortunes away to charity.

First Bill Gates now John huntsman both giving their fortunes to charity and not to their children.

Because their children will be billionairs themselves long before any fortunes are passed off.

If you think for one moment those kids dont have trust funds measuring into the hundreds of millions set up you are fooling yourself.

It "only" takes a few million dollars thrown into an account at birth to compound into a billion dollars or more by the time their parents pass. No kidding.

The average money market type account doubles your money about every 7 years or so (On average, over the life of the account).

For example:

If Bill gates opened an account averaging about 12% interest (market average) with $5 million dollars when his child was born, that money would be worth $1,280,000,000 when that child reached 56 years old. Really. Time + Compound interest = Mr Moneybags.

And you can imagine $5 million thrown into an account for your average billionaire is nothing at all to do.

I wouldnt worry about these kids futures...

I would love to have a 12% rerturn on my money. I think Bill Gates said he was only leaving each of his children 10 million a piece.

Originally posted by Eben
I would love to have a 12% rerturn on my money. I think Bill Gates said he was only leaving each of his children 10 million a piece.

12% is a historical average. And you also need to undertand sums of money like $5 milion dollars tend to earn better rates.

Hey, a US savings bond all but garantee's a 6% return. So if what your doing is worse than that, you need to rearrange your investments. Always measure your current yields vs a US savings bond, because thats garanteed.