A Buffett big enough to feed the world.

(From Irish Independent)

This week legendary investor Warren Buffet announced that he was giving a staggering 31 billion to charity. Kim Bielenberg reports on the largest philanthropic gesture in history

He lives in the same house that he bought in his twenties for $31,000. He dines simply, on burgers or steak washed down with Coca-Cola. His only indulgence is a private jet that he has dubbed the "indefensible".

This week Warren Buffet, the most successful stock market investor in modern times, stunned the financial world when he announced that he was giving away $31 billion - the largest charitable donation in history. Mark it as the day when the stock market showed a human face; when the world's second richest man decided to hand over five-sixths of his fortune to a charity.

The man dubbed the 'Sage of Omaha' is the 75-year-old stock market legend who made over $40 billion through cautious, long-term, almost exclusively US investments. Now he says that he wants to relieve himself of his billions before he dies.

This month Buffett is to start transferring stocks in his investment firm, Berkshire Hathaway, to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The charity, run by Buffett's friend, the founder of Microsoft, pours money into the international fight against Aids, tuberculosis and malaria. The gift to the charity is equivalent to the entire Irish government health and social welfare budget for a year, or the Gross Domestic Product of Afghanistan.

Buffett's extraordinary largesse marks the latest chapter in America's philanthropic tradition which, for more than 150 years, has encouraged the country's extremely wealthy to give away their cash. In coughing up millions he is following the footsteps of such plutocrats as Andrew Carnegie, the Rockefeller family and Henry Ford.