Buffet puts on a great show and hides his ego with his massive wealth. Of course we all have egos, and Buffet is no different. This article sheds some darkness on a man always graciously treated by the media.
That is what my wife and I are planning on doing. Not to say I wouldn't give them my money. I would give them money at any time in their life. It all just depends on the circumstances when it arrives. Its what my father has done for me and I will do the same to my children.
Is that your answer to James Dolan? His father is the power house behind the multi-media conglomerate, not him ... but you had better believe, he's still getting his. Huh? Where is your empirical proff of the above statement? That's right, there isn't any. Your statement doesn't actually mean anything. We all know of peple who are well-to-do and who went down that path, and we all know of people who are from poverty and went down that path also. There is no correlation between wealth and drug addition. Yeah, I think that's a good idea too. Nobody is talking about giving away money to riff-raff, spend thrifts or layabouts.
So what? When the old coot kicks the bucket, his son Peter will get some of the loot. She'll probably be able to access some of it then. Maybe a bit late, but what can she do?
It looks as though this was a falling out based on behaviour and expectations, rather than something driven by wanting to pinch pennies. That said, to sever a relationship because of one instance where they said something you mildly object to is rather unpleasant IMO.
It's idiotic IMO to constrain one's behaviour because of what one of your relatives will think. To the other people on the thread who don't seem to get it - she was not moaning about not getting handouts. She was upset because she had a familial relationship, he acted and behaved as her grandfather, they spent time together and were probably affectionate in the way most distant relatives are. Then, all of a sudden, he basically says she's not part of the family anymore and totally cuts her off - and in a letter, not even a phone call or personal meeting. Bear in mind this was not because she committed a crime, mooched off him, called him a greedy capitalist pig, or hung around with a bad crowd and caused him trouble. All she did was *one* interview in a film where she gave her (moderate and restrained) personal opinion about her status as a relative of his. Any normal person would have called her up to discuss things and say they were a bit unhappy with what she said, then she would almost certainly have apologised and the matter would have been forgotten. Buffett's reaction is to *cast her out permanently* from the family. Mandelbrotset is right - that is extremely callous, a total overreaction, and demonstrates a shocking lack of empathy.
<i>"it's his STEP granddaughter and DIVORCED so it's not his real grandchildren."</i> Forget about the money aspect (he says to a board filled with people who are fixated on $$ alone) and think about him telling her that she was never adopted emotionally as a granddaughter, or whatever the hell blather was said. How cold and heartless is that? Unneccessary and cruel. Truth is it's just a big ego trip for him to control the money, play who gets some versus who doesn't, how the whole family has to live, what their mindset needs to be, etc. Money doesn't make the man. It never has, and never will. Class is something that cannot be bought... you either have it, or you don't.