If I can date myself a bit, I remember when Gates was at the top of the stingy list. He was brutalized in the press for making millions (at the time) and holding onto every penny. It took him a while but when he came around, he really came around. Today he does an impressive job with spreading his billions around the world to help those in need. Berlusconi, who is much older, never had an "ah ha" moment when he decided to help make a difference.
"Dear Silvio, I am sorry to make things difficult for you, but you are ignoring the poor people of the world," he told the Frankfurter Rundschau.
And in a clear reference to the notoriously image-conscious Berlusconi, Gates told Süddeutsche Zeitung: "Rich people spend a lot more money on their own problems, like baldness, than they do to fight malaria."
In an annual report issued on Monday by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Italy's aid was listed in 2008 at 0.21% of GDP, compared withthe UK's 0.48%. Italy then decided to halve aid in 2009, which made it "uniquely stingy among European donors", Gates wrote.
