Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is donating a total of $37 billion -- most of his personal fortune -- to a foundation started by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and to several family foundations, making it the largest-ever individual charitable gift in the United States.

Buffett, 75, is the chief executive of investment firm Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa). He is worth an estimated $44 billion, according to Forbes magazine, making him the second-richest man behind Gates, who is worth about $50 billion.

The $37 billion comprises about 85 percent of Buffett's fortune.

Something tells me this has more to do with taxes than charity.

In a letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Buffett, 75, said he will set aside 10 million shares of Berkshire class B common stock (BRKb) for the foundation.

Based on the stock's per-share price of $3071.01 [!!!] as of Friday, the total amount for the Gates foundation comes to about $30 billion.

The amount is the largest commitment to a philanthropic cause ever made by one person in the United States, said Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

"Even if you look at what (John D.) Rockefeller and (Andrew) Carnegie gave historically -- even if you do it in today's numbers, it doesn't come close to that," she said.

In a letter to the Gateses, Buffett wrote that "You have committed yourselves to a few extraordinarily important but underfunded issues, a policy that I believe offers the highest probability of your achieving goals of great consequence."

"We are awed by our friend Warren Buffett's decision to use his fortune to address the world's most challenging inequities, and we are humbled that he has chosen to direct a large portion of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation," the Gateses said in a statement on the foundation's Web site.

And what exactly do Bill and Melinda do with the fortune they sucked out of humanity through exorbitant royalties on their monopoly software or with the fortunes they continue to bleed out of borrowers by charging interest on the pristine "principal" that constitutes their "charitable" foundation?

They buy up all the intellectual property they can get their grubby little hands on and exploit young unsuspecting brilliant minds to churn out more.

And we're supposed to hail Bill and Warren, the former an extortionist and the latter a speculator, for their pretentious philanthropy?

If Bill and Melinda cared one iota about anyone but themselves they wouldn't be charging the world an arm and a leg for the use of technology that COULD NOT HAVE BEEN DEVELOPED but for the grace of God and the hard work of thousands of people over thousands of years.

The benefits of human progress and technology shouldn't be hoarded by a handful of individuals through the power of courts and police states.

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