From riches to rags

The Boston Globe Ideas and Books section ran a Reuters review yesterday about a billionaire named Chuck Feeney, who has worked to give away everything he made, even while he was making it. The book is called the Billionaire Who Wasn’t, and his main foundation is Atlantic he’s given money to has a Atlantic Philanthropies. Its intent is to spend itself out of existence, which wouldn’t make it the first such foundation to do so, but is I think still unusual. What interested me more is that someone could be a billionaire and hide it so well, especially since we’re increasingly focused on flaunting what we’ve got. He is in his 70s now, so perhaps Feeney is a throwback, and not really a model for our day. I also suspect he isn’t going to die penniless, but I’ve only read a review of the book.

Still, it was a sharp contrast to read about Feeney after having read yesterday’s the NY Times Style piece Putting money on the table on women who make more than the men they date and the problems this presents, like when the guy thinks they should fly economy and the woman feels like business class is a sacrifice.