My name is Sean McKeon, and as a student of Columbus State Community College I recently read an essay of yours titled “What Should a Billionaire Give – and What Should You?”(Norton Reader, 13th Edition) and I can’t say I agree with your approach to this subject. From what I understand, this piece is a question to the masses, especially those who are better off in life, as to what value we place on life and the quality of living of people in countries less fortunate than the United States. I personally don’t think that it is anyone’s direct responsibility to look after the welfare of any other country and I am a bit put-off at how you go about conveying your message. You write about how Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and other various well-to-do philanthropists have contributed millions or even billions of dollars towards the betterment of developing countries, and then provide your opinion on what everyone else should do in order measure up to these contributions, in scale of course. You have the went as far as to break down the average annual salary of the top ten percent of the United States population and propose how much each group, based upon that salary, should give in order to overcome the difficulties of the various third world countries, whether poor, starving, disease ridden or a combination thereof. Moral obligation also seems to be a large factor behind this topic for you too, as far as if ‘he’ is doing it then so should ‘I’ and comparing the entire middle to upper class to the likes of billionaires in regards to what to do with our money. You then mention that people in the U.S live lavish and wasteful lifestyles while people all around the globe have to somehow survive on less than the equivalent of one U.S dollar per day. Right away you state that “it is believed that all
