A new generation of billionaires are spending their money on social projects. Here is just one example:
Stuck in a traffic jam in his bulletproof BMW, the richest man in Turkey lets loose with a satisfied grin.
Since 2000, Husnu M. Ozyegin has spent more than $50 million of his own money, building 36 primary schools and girls’ dormitories in the poorest parts of Turkey. Next to the Turkish government, Mr. Ozyegin is the biggest individual supporter of schools in the country — and an official from the education ministry has told him that his market share is increasing.
“Not bad,” he says in his gruff, cigarette-scarred voice as he pockets his mobile phone. “If I can have an impact on one million Turkish people in the next 10 years, I will be happy..."
Landon Thomas Jr. made an inciteful arugment, comparing these new billionairs to early 20th century philanthropists:
...For these emerging economies, where loose regulation, opaque privatization processes and monopolistic business practices abound, this extraordinary and uneven creation of wealth rivals in many ways the great American fortunes made at the turn of the 20th century.
While such countries have long been accustomed to vast disparities between a tiny class of the wealthy elite and the impoverished masses, the new elite shares some characteristics with counterparts in the United States. And just as Rockefellers, Carnegies and Morgans once used philanthropy to smooth the rough edges of their cutthroat business reputations — as have a current generation of wealthy Americans that includes Bill Gates of Microsoft and Sanford I. Weill of Citigroup — local billionaires in emerging markets are trying to do the same...
To learn more about how Mr. Ozyegin and other billionaires are spending their money, click
here.
