Forbes list of the 400 richest people in the world includes none of those pathetic little millionaires:

"It is a really big deal that it's all billionaires," said Forbes associate editor Matthew Miller, who edited the list and led the team that spent a year compiling it. "It shows economic growth and, as this magazine is a fan of capitalism, it shows progress."

Clearly, Mr. Miller relies on some economic indicators to represent "progress" more than others. And here's your new trickle down economy:

On the one hand, the fortunes have spawned a new age of philanthropy, by which private individuals can try to effect change with the power and reach of a government but without the bureaucratic shackles that often thwart aid efforts.

Let's promote economic policies that benefit the super rich so they, in turn, can get a tax deduction to help those who are unhelped by our economic policies.

Back from my bender. My esteemed colleague at White Courtesy Telephone has provided some literary criticism of the Google press release announcing its new giving arm:

According to the company’s own press release, Google.org is simply an “umbrella term” that “includes the work of the Google Foundation, some of Google’s own projects using Google talent, technology and other resources, as well as partnerships and contributions to for-profit and non-profit entities.”

It’s not a new philanthropy, it’s not a new way of doing philanthropy.  It’s a corporate giving program not much different from any other.

WCT also accuses the New York Times reporter I mentioned in my post last week [and who I stated wrote what I thought was an "insightful" piece on Google's new philanthropic venture] of hyping the story.

There are innovations in marketing and there are innovations in philanthropy. Sticking all of the "good" a company does, whether it be tax-deductable or not, under some corporate philanthropic umbrella is nothing new. I've never thought the tax code was much of a motivator for a company to cut checks to the local soup kitchen.

Perhaps the Times, by sending a business reporter off to cover the Google.org story [is there a segment of the news media that kowtows to the institutions it theoretically covers in an objective fashion as much as the business media?] made too much of it. And maybe Google's PR honchos are looking for some wet kisses for the company's newly conceived mechanism for generosity. I'd say Google's corporate track record of innovation bodes well for its philanthropy.