👉Communicative area: speaking about the rich and how they spend money
👉Active vocabulary: poor - the poor, wealth - wealthy, to make a living, charity, charitable, to make a fortune
👉Active grammar: as .... as
Look at the pictures. Do you know who these people are? What
else do you know about these people?
Read the text.
Which of the people from exercise above does it
describe?
There are many inspiring stories of celebrities who came
from nothing and worked their way out of financial hardship,
but have you ever wondered what they do with the money once
they get rich? Let’s take a look at three different stories.
Leon Spinks is an American former professional boxer who
competed from 1977 to 1995. In his eighth professional fight,
he became a heavyweight champion in 1978 after defeating
Muhammad Ali. Spinks won a lot of medals in the light
heavyweight division. During his career, he earned 4.5 million
dollars. Less than 20 years after his match with Muhammad
Ali, he lost it all. Leon became homeless, had problems with
the law, and wasted most of his earnings on drugs. To make
a living Leon had to work as a janitor at a YMCA (the Young
Men’s Christian Association) in Columbus, Nebraska, and sometimes unloaded trucks at
McDonald’s, and volunteered to
help the homeless.
Hetty Green (21 November, 1834 – 3 July, 1916), nicknamed
the witch of Wall Street, was an American businesswoman
and financier known as “the richest woman in
America”. She was known for her wealth and was named by the
Guinness Book of World Records as the “greatest miser”. She
made a fortune buying real estate, investing in railroads and
mines, and lending money to others.
However, her thriftiness (бережливость)
was legendary. Hetty Green never turned on the heat or used
hot water. She wore one old black dress and underwear that she
changed only after they had been worn out; she did not wash her
hands and she rode in an old carriage. One tale claims that Green
spent half a night searching her carriage for a lost stamp worth
two cents. When her son Ned broke his leg as a child, Hetty tried
to get him into a free clinic for the poor. As a result, his leg did
not heal properly.
On the other hand, Hetty could be generous with her
money at times, but not in a public way. She was known for
lending money below market rates to help those in need and
gave money to poor families. Her generosity was private and
100% real.
Bill Gates and his business partner Paul Allen founded and
built the world’s largest software business, Microsoft. In the
process, Gates became one of the richest men in the world.
In February 2014, Gates announced that he was leaving
Microsoft to focus on charitable work at the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation.
In 2017, one of Gates’s
firms invested $80 million into
the development of a “smart
city” near Phoenix,
Arizona. The city of Belmont
will be designed with high speed networks, driverless cars,
high-speed digital networks, new manufacturing technologies
and use solar energy for powering the tech-smart city.
In April 2018, Gates announced that he was planning to
work together with Google co-founder Larry Page to provide
$12 million for a universal flu vaccine. The Gates
Foundation will also invest $1 billion by 2023 to fund research
to end malaria .
Gates has received numerous awards for philanthropic work. Time magazine named Gates one of the most
influential people of the 20th century.
1. Do you know any other celebrities who used to be rich but wasted their fortune? Why did it happen?
2. Is it important to be generous? Why?
3. Is thriftiness a good quality? Can it have a negative effect on your life?
4. Would you like to be as rich as Bill Gates? What would you spend your money on?
5. What do you think about charity? Is it important for our society? 6. Should the rich help the poor?
7. Do you know any charity organisations in Belarus? Have you ever donated money to them?
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