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Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Donald Trump is now the meanest billionaire in creation - that’s official -- Contrast with the most generous, Irish American Chuck Feeney, never greater

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Donald Trump is now the meanest billionaire in creation - that’s official -- Contrast with the most generous, Irish American Chuck Feeney, never greater

Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2012 at 07:18 AM

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Donald Trump

Donald Trump is the meanest billionaire in creation and it is now official says New York Times columnist Nick Kristoff in his recent column.

Kristoff names CNN founder Ted Turner as the most generous because of his $1 billion gift to the United Nations 15 years ago but he’s wrong there.

All available evidence is that it is Irish American Chuck Feeney who began the ‘Giving While Living’ trend now embraced by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet among others.

Kristoff says Turner was the inspiration for giving while living but it was Feeney, a man I have known well for over 25 years now because of his involvement in Ireland, who led the way.

As Forbes magazine recently noted “Chuck Feeney is the James Bond of philanthropy. Over the last 30 years he’s crisscrossed the globe conducting a clandestine operation to give away a $7.5 billion fortune ....His foundation, the Atlantic Philanthropies, has funneled $6.2 billion into education, science, health care, aging and civil rights in the U.S., Australia, Vietnam, Bermuda, South Africa and Ireland.

"Few living people have given away more, and no one at his wealth level has ever given their fortune away so completely during their lifetime. The remaining $1.3 billion will be spent by 2016, and the foundation will be shuttered in 2020. While the business world’s titans obsess over piling up as many riches as possible, Feeney is working double time to die broke.”

Meanwhile an investigation by The Smoking Gun website revealed Donald Trump as the meanest of all the billionaires.

He says he is worth $7 billion and he has given away all of $3.7 million in that time the Smoking Gun folks found.

“From 1990 through 2009, Trump has personally donated a total of just $3.7 million to his foundation, which was incorporated in 1987. In fact, the billionaire is not even the largest contributor to his own charitable organization.”

He has given away less about $200,000 a year during that time.

Putting it in context Michael Bloomberg gave away $235 million last year alone. Chuck Feeney is giving that much away before breakfast -- every day, every year.

I remember asking Feeney about Trump and receiving a highly uncomplimentary answer. Seems he had reached out to him once on a non-profit housing venture in one off New York’s toughest neighborhoods but the Donald was not interested,

Of course not.

Jim Dwyer of The New York Times wrote memorably that "Chuck Feeney was what Donald Trump would be if he led his life backward."

As we face a new year the two men represent different visions of the American dream.

One is a chest thumping, look at me Scrooge, the other, embodies the incredibly generous philanthropic soul of this country that is the envy of every other democracy.

I have no doubt whose side we should all come down on.

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like2tweet | Dec 30, 2012, 10:15 AM EST

the donald shud play scrooge next year

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patrickesq | Dec 30, 2012, 10:01 AM EST

Do not forget the Donald attaches conditions his modest gifts, like the offer he made to President Obama to reveal his personal records.

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handsome68 | Dec 30, 2012, 09:56 AM EST

I'm with wjb1tex on this one. Let's ask Mr. O'Dowd to give us thorough review of his own charitable contributions. And just because The Donald appears stingy doesn't mean that he really is, and the same goes for Ted Turner's appearance of being generous. Charity begins at home, for one thing...I'm home, gentlemen, why not give some of that money to me?

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antoman | Dec 30, 2012, 09:55 AM EST

Occasionally I will send a package to America to people over there I've met on the net. The last package just before Christmas to a Vietnam vetern consisting of Clonakilty black and white pudding. Why? Simple, I feel good for doing so.

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Niall O'Dowd | Dec 30, 2012, 09:37 AM EST

I'm right up there with Warren Buffett minus 10 zeros or so

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wjb1tex | Dec 30, 2012, 09:33 AM EST

Perhaps to put this all in perspective we should have an investigation of Niall and see how he matches up to others in the same tax bracket.

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