Clarion Content

The UK's Telegraph reports Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder is giving away his $4.5 million (estimated) fortune. He is selling all of his possessions and the business that made him his money. His company made interior furnishings and accessories, from vases to artificial flowers. It does not sound like much.

However, Mr. Rabeder has a beautiful old stone farmhouse in Provence with 17 hectares. On sale for the bargain price of 613,000 Euros. He already sold his collection of six gliders valued at 350,000 Euros. He raffled off his Alpine home, a 3,455 sq. ft. villa with lake, sauna and spectacular mountain views over the Alps, by selling 21,999 lottery tickets priced at 87 Euros a piece.

All the money he raises will go into his microfinance charity vehicle, which offers microcredit, very small loans to self-employed people and small, family businesses in El Salvador, Honduras, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Chile.

Rabeder is only forty-seven and according the Telegraph's story he intends to move into a small wooden hut in the mountains or a simple bedsit (a rental consisting of a single room and shared bathroom) in Innsbruck. It is a curious counterculture tale, here is hoping he does not go Ted Kaczynski.

Labels: Pop Culture