We will take a look at Bill Gates as just one example to examine these 2 questions in greater detail. Gates has an estimated wealth, of about $65  billion (USD). According to The Telegraph, this is equal to "... the annual GDP of Ecuador, and maybe a bit more than that of Croatia. By this rather crude criterion, the founder of Microsoft is worth two Kenyas, three Trinidads and a dozen or so Montenegros."

Among the many companies in which the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invest their money for humanitarian causes in Africa are notorious GM company, Monsanto, 'faceless agro-giant', Cargill and in sixty-nine of the worst polluting companies in the US and Canada, including Dow Chemical, according to Democracy Now!. But the Gates is probably best known for his contributions to vaccines and birth control, particularly in Africa and the "third world" - work which has been touted by the corporate media and heavily criticized by others for the actual intent and medical effects.

Critics often cite one of Gates' well known quotes in which he said,

"The world today has 6.8 billion people... that's headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.” (i.e. reduction of the world population known to some as "eugenics."1

One reader of the Telegraph article/interview cited above comments,

"This is no different than throwing bags of rice off an air drop. There is a very dark force lurking behind all of this hoopla that Billy Wonka has come to save the children.  Eugenics with a geek face is still eugenics. Need I say more? Far darker agendas are hiding under his oh-so-caring smile"

and another writes,

The way to help is not by providing vaccines to those who have poor nourishment or compromised immunity due to illness, as they will become even more ill. The way to help is to provide access to clean water, good nutrition and satisfactory housing. This will lead to general health improvement, stronger immune systems and the gradual decline of infectious diseases."

The effects of Bill Gates' vaccines have proved to be at best, ineffective and at worst very dangerous. But rather than arguing the positive or dangerous effects of the largesse of "philanthropists" like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and others holding vulgar amounts of net wealth, let's think about what giving 5% of one's wealth to "global health initiatives" really means while investing the other 95% in transnational corporations that cause far more disease than can be eradicated with vaccine programs - even if one assumes that those programs are beneficial to the population.  

The Telegraph reports that Gates and his wife, Melinda have so far given away $28 billion of their $65 billion through their charitable foundation and over $8 billion of it "to improve global health." In that January 2013 interview Gates explained, "I have no use for money. This is God’s work."

Aside from how Gates invests his other $37 billion, in 2010 the LAT reported how Gates uses "his" philanthropic money:

The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to protect health, The Times found, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France — the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe... AT the end of 2005, the Gates Foundation endowment stood at $35 billion, making it the largest in the world. Then in June 2006, Warren E. Buffett, the world's second-richest man after Bill Gates, pledged to add about $31 billion in installments from his personal fortune. Not counting tens of billions of dollars more that Gates himself has promised, the total is higher than the gross domestic products of 70% of the world's nations. Like most philanthropies, the Gates Foundation gives away at least 5% of its worth every year, to avoid paying most taxes. In 2005, it granted nearly $1.4 billion. It awards grants mainly in support of global health initiatives, for efforts to improve public education in the United States, and for social welfare programs in the Pacific Northwest. It invests the other 95% of its worth. This endowment is managed by Bill Gates Investments, which handles Gates' personal fortune. Monica Harrington, a senior policy officer at the foundation, said the investment managers had one goal: returns "that will allow for the continued funding of foundation programs and grant making." Bill and Melinda Gates require the managers to keep a highly diversified portfolio, but make no specific directives.

When considering all of this, a few very simple questions arise about those who end up controlling so much wealth and power:

• The first is rhetorical. Can any one person actually earn through honest work $65 billion in one lifetime and if not, how did he or she accrue this much wealth?
  
  
• If they haven't earned "their" money, what right does any one human being have to be holding and controlling this much money and power and of what real benefit is their wealth for the rest of humanity?
  
  
• On what basis should we simply accept that people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are endowed with the intelligence and wisdom to know what is best for the rest of us?

1. Eugenics: the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics)  or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics) (Dictionary.com)

The research of Paul Piff, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley study attempts to understand how money affects the human mind.

PBS News Hour
Does money corrupt? A controversial study explores the effects of money on human behavior

What is it about being wealthy that might make people behave differently?

Is it the feeling of societal advantage? Or maybe it's the belief that wealth is proof of hard work, and therefore comes with certain entitlements.

A PBS "News Hour" report titled “Money on the Mind” (video below)  explores these concepts and more, attempting to zero in on how and why money affects attitudes and behavior.

Citing the research of Paul Piff, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, the report claims that having more money typically leads to more aggressive, selfish and “morally reprehensible” behavior.

By asking the study’s participants to perform seemingly mundane tasks, like playing Monopoly and other dice games, the researchers tested what the mind does to make sense of advantage or disadvantage.

The results were rather alarming.

“You become less attuned to all of the other things that contributed to you being in the position that you’re in,” Piff said about the “advantaged” test subjects in the report, noting that the participants given the upper-hand showed sings of increased greed and a lack of empathy.

Another startling conclusions from the study was that wealthier people are more likely to endorse unethical behavior, such as stealing at work.

“One of the things that money does is it comes with a set of values,” UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner told "News Hour." “One of them is (that) generosity is for suckers and greed is good.

“But it turns out there is a lot of new data that shows if you’re generous and charitable and altruistic you’ll live longer, you’ll feel more fulfilled, you’ll feel more expressive of who you are as a person. You probably will feel more control and freedom in your life.”

The video points out, however, that there are plenty of billionaires — such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates — who have pledged to give their wealth to charity, showing that the findings are, at minimum, not universal.

The study — and its researchers — have come under heavy criticism for its controversial conclusions.

“We published these studies in relatively obscure scientific journals, and literally the next day we were getting hundreds of emails from around the world, and a lot quite hostile,” Keltner told the segment’s host, Paul Soloman.

When charged that the findings were tainted by a liberal agenda to criticize the rich, Piff comments that he hears the “Berkeley, idiot scientist who’s finding what they expect to find” criticism all the time.

“Let me tell you,” he told Soloman, “We did not expect to find this.”

“Our findings apply to both liberals, conservatives,” he continued. “It doesn’t matter who you are. If you’re wealthy, you’re more likely to show these patterns of results.”

JJ Feinauer is a graduate of Southern Virginia University and a content writer for the Moneywise page on DeseretNews.com. Email: jfeinauer@deseretdigital.com, Twitter: @jjfeinauer.

Source: PBS Newshour