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Great to see the mega-wealthy in the UK following the commendable path shown by their compatriates in the US.

Realising there is no point in being the richest person in the cemetary is a great thing.

You stupid stupid people. Hunter has always given to good causes and he always will. The only reason you are moaning about it now is because he is Scottish. You are absolutely pathetic people and deserve nothing.

I applaud Tom Hunters decision to donate to charity his huge wealth and even more that he is putting it back into Great Britain but might I suggest that if businessmen like him were to pay their staff a fair and decent wage plus ensure customers received good quality service and value for money in the first place then the gap in wealth would not be so large and he wouldn't have to worry about giving away his money. but then again he wouldn't be so famous or able to make such grand gestures either, would he.

Although I admire the generosity of these people I'd be much impressed if they made this money available to invest in start-ups and spin-outs.

The best opportunity you can give anyone is the chance of making them rich as well and providing more jobs to others in the process.

I applaud the decision of Tom Hunter, and especially his sentiment that great wealth brings great responsibility. However, I think that the biggest obstacle to social development is the notion that people are rich "because they deserve it". It takes billions of people contributing in all sorts of different ways to make society as effective. Why does Hunter, or any other billionaire, deserve their power just because society lets them have it? Let me give you a concrete example - when Newton developed Newton's laws of motion, he couldn't "sell them" because you can't "sell" fundamental laws of nature. Yet the understanding that Newton and his contemporaries developed has contributed to our present, and future standard of living, far more than the average billionaire. Yet Newton and his contemporary scientists were never "billionaires" by the standards of their time. Similarly Newton's teachers, his cleaners, his local farmers, all contributed to society. The sooner society drops the notion that the wealthy are wealthy because "they deserve it" the better off we will all be. At least Hunter seems to be applying his powers reasonably well, I despair at the over-consumption that the Conrad Blacks of this world indulge in.

Thank you Tom Hunter for setting a marvellous example. There are billions of pounds in the hands of too few people and it is difficult to imagine what they can possibly do with it apart from count it.

The wealthy stars who appeal for money from the poor to give to the even poorer could save a lot of expense by giving what can only be excess wealth directly to the charities.

If you keep it until you die,unless you have a very clever accountant, you will end up donating it to a government as tax and heaven knows what they do with it.

It is amazing to see another Scot leading by example- one of the richest men to have walked this planet- Andrew Carnegie- set forth this ideal, to give the money back to the masses that need it but with some sort of conditions attached. I hope Sir Tom has managed to read Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth" and has realised that to simply give money away is not enough-by the sound of things he has. Follow a Fifer all the way.

The difficulty must be in finding projects that do not merely use ones money for unfruitful purpose. That said, one needs more than money, one needs to give part of oneself for another to actually value the gift and also act generously in response! Such is the Kingdom of Heaven.
So the fortune still seems a millstone round the camels neck, and the eye of the needle still awaits? Good my man, you have taken the first tentative steps.
auroraoz

seeing is beleiving ?
many a pledge but nothing appears at my door.

Nice to see some degree of responsibility by excessively wealthy
blokes. If we had a dearth of poor people then we would not have any millionaires! Just a thought. Private
equity an insult to humanity. Must feel good to give a crust to someone starving. Excuse my being a little cynical - it goes with the situation.
Can't blame human nature for being
normal but we all need to feel loved.
Give us a kiss!

Just the right kind of attitude. More people in the UK should be thinking along the lines of creating wealth and being more entrepreneurial in general; I like the way he acknowledges that with his wealth brings responsibility, and this is the whole point: being wealthy is a GOOD thing, and this country should celebrate it if this wealth is used in a good way like here.

Charity? To heck with that. What we need is dramatically more investment in start-ups and early stage companies.

That's where my billion quid would go. Creating real jobs and the opportunity for someone else to make a billion.. That strikes me as much more creative.

Got his email address anyone? I'll send him a list of companies and people who are screaming out for investment.

Scott (#2): In trying to combat (hysterically) the Scottish stereotype of stinginess, you only exhibit another - whining victimhood.

Probably neither has much provable basis in fact, but you do the Scottish cause no good.

Laudable intentions on Mr Hunter's part, but why on earth was this the lead item on Tuesday night's Ten O Clock News? There is nothing remarkable in rich people giving away a part of their fortune, they're all doing it. Just because Mr Hunter is giving away a slightly larger slice of his slightly larger fortune doesn't mean it is headline news, or even worthy of a whole blog entry. Surely the more important issues are the impact that philanthropy on this scale has on service provision in the UK and worldwide, the influence that major donors are able to exert on that provision, and the economic system in the UK that is concentrating more and more wealth in fewer and fewer hands. The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, and Robert Peston, should spend less time giving free publicity to the likes of Mr Hunter and more time reporting real news.

Shawshank (post 5) just has to be a scientist.

'Deserving' has nothing to do with it. If it did then (insert your favourite saint here) would have been a billionaire.

People make choices!! billionaires are rich because either they inherited it or they worked hard in a lucrative field. ( ignore luck because i agree with the view that, in general, the harder you work the luckier you get).

If scientists et al choose to work in a field which doesnt produce lucrative patents etc then that is their choice. presumably they get their satisfaction in other ways.

Wealth is just one measure of success.

Newton will be remembered long after Hunter, that is another measure of success and i imagine Newton worked as hard to achieve that as Hunter did his billions.

Different people deserving different things for different reasons

This is a good sign. The insecurities that drive these manic men to such acquisitive behaviour should be recognised as a treatable illness of the mind. It is a serious affliction.

Not all of us are fortunate enough to have realised that money is just paper, and is not real in any meaningful sense. But they are on the road to recovery, and soon these rich fellows will once again be able to go down the pub and relax without being constantly driven to desperation about owning everything!

Good luck to them. I am available at any time (day or night) to help them to divest themselves of their ponderous wealth in order for them renter society as normal, healed, caring individuals

Dick,

I have to ask what are you smoking?

Rich people should give money to other business people so that they can become rich???

What type of society do you want to live in?

What about the people in society who dont have the inclination, or, ability to start their own businesses and make money - no matter how much investment may be on offer. What do you suggest of these people - just leave them to rot in the gutter?

At least when Buffett gave Gates Billions (just think that worlds second richest man gives billions to the worlds richest - must make Dick happy)it was all intended for charity. Helping those who can help themselves and therefore making society fairer and a nicer place to live.

Your idea of giving this money to businesses is ridiculous - if their ideas were that good then they would have enough investment already - especially with so much cheap money around.

I certainly wouldn't want to live in a society that you ruled!!!

Re Sir Tom Hunter,

A message of support and recognition,

firstly I think the creation of great wealth really does require enormous commitment,drive and determination as well as a bit of luck regarding the opportunity, and on that front you and your teams have suceeded in setting a really superb example for all entrepreneurs young and old in the UK and beyond.

There is no doubt that progress is being made especially when you look at the facts regarding inherited wealth Vs created wealth over the past 20 years in the UK and that is something we should all applaud and share the lessons of the creation of that success as widely as we can.

Secondly the fact that you are commiting to this objective is a real inspiration as over the next 30 years and more you will be held to account on the deliverables.Good KPI.

Thirdly the key for me to all of this is in early intervention.Catch em young and you really do have a chance of getting good habits instilled and therefore nurtured.That requires a social and financial partnership which means that you have to co-invest alongside govt and more importantly get the message across more volubly at a national level.

When we see the amount of wasted time on Purile TV shows that celebrate nothing but fly on the wall voyeurism,a more positive leadership act such as this should be regularly shared and seen by a greater audience.

Fourthly,we all have a responsibility for each other and the planet and therefore again good education and understanding on health,environment and sustainability of the envirnment is a MUST for us as individuals and as a society.

Finally as a fellwow Scot I appluad your vision and action in this endeavour which is in the tradition of the great Scot's such as Carnegie.

Best Regards

I wish the Scots here would get off their high horses about this. Just because he is a Scot doesn't mean they can take the credit for it. Anyway with all the money with give them it is about time they gave us something back!

I'd be interest to hear how much Hunter is worth overall.
For example, if he's got £10billion, giving away £1billion isn't that much because he could never spend the other £9billion anyway.
If he's that concerned about poverty, why doesn;t he give it all away and live like the rest of us - away from his big home in the south of France.
It's all a PR stunt and is like me saying I'll give a tenner away. It's nothing to him.

Jasper .....

Rich people should give money to other business people so that they can become rich???

It's called being an investment angel.. Lots of them in the USA. Not very many here.

To Jon(20).

What does he gain from this 'PR' stunt. When he sold 'Sports Division' he created an investment firm to leverage his millions. I am not yet aware of any privately owned investment firm that runs on 'PR'.

As his estimated wealth is 1.05 Billion he is giving away a huge % of his wealth.

So if it is like you giving away a tenner I can only conclude you are most misfortuanate and this is the reason for you running down this man and his good deed.

Pat (post 15, in response to my post 5),

I agree that people make choices relative to the economic system that we have. So scientists, for example, don't really choose to to become wealthy. But that is not my concern, my concern is that society should not allow any individuals to become excessively wealthy in the first place, for the following reasons.

Rich people can allocate more resources than poorer people. Hunter can allocate more oil, to whatever cause he likes, than you or I. Geological Oil is an excellent example as it is essentially a finite resource. The question is - will Hunter's decisions as to how this resource is distributed be better for society, than decisions made by someone who has less money?

Clearly Hunter has demonstrated considerable managerial skill, so may be that is the case that he makes wise decisions. But its pretty clear that not all super-rich people are wise, just because they are rich. The Hilton family for example, has previously allowed the burning of precious resources to support their famously pointless offspring. Then there are the Beckhams, Conrad and Lady Black...etc. Great, we allow people to become super-rich (adimittedly perhaps through hard work or ability), but at the end of it all if they became rich just to become rich, they will quite likely blow some pretty valuable, non-renewable, resources on a ridiculously excessive lifestyle. At the end of this, all of us, inclduing the rich people themselves, their children and grandchildren, and future generations in particular, will suffer as a consequence.

When I talk about "deserving", I didn't mean that poorer people should be showered with luxuries, I mean that society should not allow anyone to be showered with too much individual and undemocratic power, because you can't guarantee whether they will knowingly or unknowingly abuse it.

Shawshank

I was hoping thatn in you most recent response you would redeem yourself (sorry....i couldnt resist the obvious any longer).

It seems to me that what you are proposing that the state controls how rich any one gets and makes their decision based on the way in which people spend/would spend the money. (yes i realise thats a simplistic summary, but bear with me)

Aside from the fact that the idea is unworkable in practice it also reduces incentive for people to produce wealth. reduce that and you reduce the investment they make with the knock on effect on employment and the economy in general.

at what level do you cap how wealthy someone can be? and why penalise them when there are plenty of poorer people who damage the environment.

Perhaps you would stop foreign holidays because the use of aeroplanes pollutes, make everyone one walk to work as all forms of transport pollute (even bikes in the manufacturing and use of oil)

I could go on. if your idea is followed to its conclusion we might as well go back to living in caves.

Sorry Shawshank i simply cant agree that wealth should be capped (or restricted to someones arbitrary definition of worthy individuals). That's just 1984, communism or something equally undesirable.

Dicky, Dicky, Dicky

I think that if you were to look into it then you would find as a percentage of the population there are more investment angels, VC's and private investors in the UK than the USA.

Its disgusting to think that money should be given away to individuals so that they can enrich themselves rather than giving it to society for the benefit of a large number of people.

The basic point of your argument is flawed - if these people who you know have such great ideas then they wouldn't need hand me downs from successful business men. They would be able to finance their projects from earnings, banks, VC's or other private investors. The only reason they cant get funding is because their ideas are no good.

Do you think that Google, e-bay or paypal had trouble with funding? No, because they have good business ideas and didn't need to rob the poor to fund them.

Pat,

I think that you're missing the point, Shawshank doesn't seem to be arguing over creating wealth, rather about wasting societies resources.

What is needed is not a cap on wealth creation but a tax on over consumption.

Those who consume relative amounts should face lower tax burdens and those who over-consume should be taxed accordingly.

For example, if you want a private jet then that's fine - but the tax you should face for taking so many resources from society should be huge.

Jasper,

The taxing argument is valid and in principle i dont have an issue with taxing use of resources. i had understood that shawshank was arguing we stopped people getting too much wealth so that they couldnt misue their wealth too consume resources...that is the argument i dont agree with. Frankly, i am not convinced that stopping the relatively few stupidly wealthy people from using resources ummm stupidly....is going to make a significant dent in the consumption of resources...i think it is the compbined usage of the rest of us that causes the problem.

I am enjoying the discussion though

Consumption is wealth redistribution! Buying a £500 meal and a £1000 bottle of champagne does no more environmental damage than the alternatives. It does enrich restauranteurs, chefs etc.

There seems to be an assumption that wealth is 'disgusting' in this thread. Followed by some shaky ideas about how the rich actually live.

What is disgusting is attacking innovative entrepreneurs who have worked long, hard and smart and often created hundreds of jobs. Even those who do no social good with their wealth have done their duty to society by being self sufficient and not living on handouts.

Tom Hunter started selling shoes from the back of a van. David Murray, the steel magnate selling shirts. Alan Sugar on a market stall. What message will it send to future entrepreneurs if we aggressively acquire these people assets......

You work hard and we punish you.

Pat,

I hope the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ don't object to us turning this into a message service for you and me!

Anyway,

Firstly, there is a distinction between "wealth creation" and "standard of living creation". A very successful marketing manager may make an unnecessary product very popular, and hence make a company very profitable. So "wealth acquisition", in terms of monetary power doesn't always mean that something concrete has been achieved.

Secondly, I do also worry about the reduction of incentive due to a wealth cap. We don't live in an ideal world on so come form of competition and incentive is neccessary. So I see that we face a dilemma, as overconsumption is a problem and cannot be ingored.

As a stupid example think of the poor Dodo - due to overconsumption of the past, current generations can't enjoy Dodo meat (apparently very tasteless) today. Ok Dodos might seem to fairly unimportant, but when it comes to things like oil, surely as a society we should aim to consume less rather than more?

The finiteness of resources is a real problem which means that we simply cannot go on using certain material incentives without bound. Add this to the fact that some personal wealth is acquired without any real benefit to society (see marketing campaigns behind some "anti-ageing" creams, for example).

I also take your point about 1984 - but if technology does not save us (which it might not), we will face some pretty major emergencies as a consequence of population pressure and limited resources. Do you agree with China's rather severe restriction of civil liberty in the `one child policy'? Most people think that China needs to do something about overpopulation, so will agree that such restrictions are a necessary evil. I'm afraid that the limiting of consumption is something about which we will have to be equally as strict - which includes trying to find other ways to incentivise people rather than overconsumption.

best,

S

Reply to number 20 question.
IF you had bothered to read the article on Tom Hunters donation to charity, you would know that he has just become a billionaire recently and has £1.05 billion, he doesen't have £10 billion so yes it is a sizable amount of his fortune which will take a long period of time and earning for him to achieve which he will do through his charitable trust, also this man has donated millions for years to countless charities and also to help young entreaupaners take up this type of career. The fact he has become known for it now, is just another example of the media deciding what we should know and when we should know it.