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Why not? He can do whatever he wants with his money. He's spent $100M on a yacht already[1]. I was a little surprised that this was the largest donation to a

Why not? He can do whatever he wants with his money. He's spent $100M on a yacht already[1]. I was a little surprised that this was the largest donation to a Johns Hopkins humanities department. This may be wrong, but I think of Johns Hopkins as in the upper echelon of schools that tends to have massive endowments and wealthy alumni. [1] https://www.superyachtfan.com/superyacht_utopia_dv.html https://www.superyachtfan.com/superyacht_utopia_dv.html

mathattack 9y ago
There's a big emphasis towards donating for professional schools. (Medical in the case of JHU) Also - it's a huge donation for just a department, rather than a building or school.
dalbasal 9y ago
Well... Those two go together. They have those endowments largely due to such generous donations.
xioxox 9y ago
True, but if your country gives you tax breaks for donations, by giving you're depriving other tax payers of your money. You're saying that what you're donating to is more worthwhile than the average government spending, which may not be true for some "charities". (By the way, this argument is not originally mine but was in an interesting comedy on BBC Radio 4 yesterday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09ply4y http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09ply4y)
- alextheparrot 9y ago
  Couldn’t one flip the equation by saying that allowing certain tax deductions is a form of government spending? The government has decided it is OK with non-centralized (you and I can pick) funding to certain classes of organizations, which is as much a part of the tax code (Or was) as the tax rate itself. I find it difficult to place a kinda of moral burden on the tax payer when this is entirely government policy.
  - shaki-dora 9y ago
    There is a danger in overreliance on private donations, which is that they are rarely targeted well. People tend to rarely donate millions to regabilititation efforts for middle-aged Sex offenders. Conversely, as just one example, there is an immorally well-funded charity for stray cats in my country, mostly financed from inheritances by lonely widows.
    - fjsolwmv 9y ago
      The market solution for that is for rehabilitating middle-aged sex offenders to dedicate themselves to caring for lonely widows.
- dougmwne 9y ago
  A more accurate way of looking at this is that the government is incentivizing a desirable behavior by matching a portion of any money a person contributes to the common good. You have to give up some of your own after-tax wealth to get the govt to kick in 20-30%. Since an individual is mostly putting their own money into the charity, they will want to maximize their good feelings by chosing a charity that adds a lot to the common good. And this is especially true for people who make large gifts. ...At least for the US tax system(where this gift was made)
  - xioxox 9y ago
    Though many voters may not like government matching a donanation to, for example, the Scientology organisation.
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    That's the theory, ut in practice most people give not to charities for others but to schools/clubs/churches they are a member of, so it's a form of nongoverbmental State/Local taxes.

mathattack 9y ago

There's a big emphasis towards donating for professional schools. (Medical in the case of JHU) Also - it's a huge donation for just a department, rather than a building or school.

dalbasal 9y ago

Well... Those two go together. They have those endowments largely due to such generous donations.

xioxox 9y ago

True, but if your country gives you tax breaks for donations, by giving you're depriving other tax payers of your money. You're saying that what you're donating to is more worthwhile than the average government spending, which may not be true for some "charities". (By the way, this argument is not originally mine but was in an interesting comedy on BBC Radio 4 yesterday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09ply4y http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09ply4y)

alextheparrot 9y ago
Couldn’t one flip the equation by saying that allowing certain tax deductions is a form of government spending? The government has decided it is OK with non-centralized (you and I can pick) funding to certain classes of organizations, which is as much a part of the tax code (Or was) as the tax rate itself. I find it difficult to place a kinda of moral burden on the tax payer when this is entirely government policy.
- shaki-dora 9y ago
  There is a danger in overreliance on private donations, which is that they are rarely targeted well. People tend to rarely donate millions to regabilititation efforts for middle-aged Sex offenders. Conversely, as just one example, there is an immorally well-funded charity for stray cats in my country, mostly financed from inheritances by lonely widows.
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    The market solution for that is for rehabilitating middle-aged sex offenders to dedicate themselves to caring for lonely widows.
dougmwne 9y ago
A more accurate way of looking at this is that the government is incentivizing a desirable behavior by matching a portion of any money a person contributes to the common good. You have to give up some of your own after-tax wealth to get the govt to kick in 20-30%. Since an individual is mostly putting their own money into the charity, they will want to maximize their good feelings by chosing a charity that adds a lot to the common good. And this is especially true for people who make large gifts. ...At least for the US tax system(where this gift was made)
- xioxox 9y ago
  Though many voters may not like government matching a donanation to, for example, the Scientology organisation.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  That's the theory, ut in practice most people give not to charities for others but to schools/clubs/churches they are a member of, so it's a form of nongoverbmental State/Local taxes.