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The third richest man in the world, Armancio Ortega, is from Spain. The tenth richest man in the world, Bernard Arnault, is from France. Ingvar Kamprad was at o

The third richest man in the world, Armancio Ortega, is from Spain. The tenth richest man in the world, Bernard Arnault, is from France. Ingvar Kamprad was at one point the eighth. And there are many others. Lack of philanthropic giving in Europe is not due to a lack of wealth, but due to a desire for dynasty.

antirez 9y ago
As I said as you accumulate wealth in Europe it's very likely that you gave a very large share of it back to the government just in the process of accumulating it. That is one thing but for sure there is also a matter of cultural POV because here is counter intuitive that is single persons that should try to fix things like poverty but more things like universal health care, decent schools for free and so forth.
- Slartie 9y ago
  > As I said as you accumulate wealth in Europe it's very likely that you gave a very large share of it back to the government just in the process of accumulating it. This may be true for small- to mid-sized fortunes, but not for the really large ones. Ikea in particular is a counter-example for this. They operate a super-tight network of companies, funds and trusts in multiple countries apart from Sweden like the Netherlands and some off-shore tax paradises and perform any possible trick, including the usual fake self-licensing tactics, to reduce their tax burden to next-to-nothing. The difference to Amazon and Co. is mostly that Ikea is privately-owned, thus you can't simply invest some money in them to at least reap some of the profits of these tactics for yourself. The profits all pile up in private vaults of the owner, which is basically the Kamprad family (with exact ownership stakes being unknown of course, another difference from the publicity requirements that public companies are required to meet).

3 ms·

The third richest man in the world, Armancio Ortega, is from Spain. The tenth richest man in the world, Bernard Arnault, is from France. Ingvar Kamprad was at o

by WisNorCan 9y ago

antirez 9y ago
As I said as you accumulate wealth in Europe it's very likely that you gave a very large share of it back to the government just in the process of accumulating it. That is one thing but for sure there is also a matter of cultural POV because here is counter intuitive that is single persons that should try to fix things like poverty but more things like universal health care, decent schools for free and so forth.
- Slartie 9y ago
  > As I said as you accumulate wealth in Europe it's very likely that you gave a very large share of it back to the government just in the process of accumulating it. This may be true for small- to mid-sized fortunes, but not for the really large ones. Ikea in particular is a counter-example for this. They operate a super-tight network of companies, funds and trusts in multiple countries apart from Sweden like the Netherlands and some off-shore tax paradises and perform any possible trick, including the usual fake self-licensing tactics, to reduce their tax burden to next-to-nothing. The difference to Amazon and Co. is mostly that Ikea is privately-owned, thus you can't simply invest some money in them to at least reap some of the profits of these tactics for yourself. The profits all pile up in private vaults of the owner, which is basically the Kamprad family (with exact ownership stakes being unknown of course, another difference from the publicity requirements that public companies are required to meet).