At Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion in 2011, from left: James E. Staley, at the time a senior JPMorgan executive; former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers; Mr. Epstein; Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder; and Boris Nikolic, who was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s science adviser.

Billionaires and charities are the polar extremes of the same policy failure.

Neither should exist, but when they do, they should be tolerated for the shortest practicable lifespan.

Perpetually charities are a grift whose primary purpose is to serve as a social responsibility abdication sink for governments and corporations, and secondarily artificially inflate the social legitimacy of churches and faith based organisations.

Temporary charitable needs are better served by mutual aid.