TOKYO (AP) — Osaka has received a hefty gift of gold bars worth 560 million yen ($3.6 million) from an anonymous donor asking for its specific use: to fix the Japanese city’s dilapidated water pipes.
The gold bars weighing 21 kilograms (46 pounds) in total were given to the Osaka City Waterworks Bureau in November by the donor who wants to help improve aging water pipes, Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama told reporters Thursday.
“It’s a staggering amount and I was speechless,” Yokoyama said. “Tackling aging water pipes requires a huge investment, and I cannot thank enough for the donation.”
The mayor said his city will respect the donor’s wishes and use the gift to improve waterworks projects.
Any time I hear a story like this, all I can think of his how countries worldwide need to tax the billionaires more.
Exactly, because as cool as this donation is, 3.6M$ is basically nothing when it comes to public infrastructure like that.
Agreed, $3.6mil doesn’t seem like that much to fix infrastructure problems (see cost of updating the US power grid estimates), but you know who also doesn’t think $3.6mil isn’t that much? Billionaires. Such a small denomination of money to people like that.
Pony up, goddamnit!
Exactly. A couple million is nothing to them.
To spell it out. There’s over $999 million in $1 billion. They could solve a lot of shit, but they do not. “Trickle down” is a sales pitch given by snake oil salesmen.