3 ms·

I agree most VC money has been misappropriated in the interest of purely making more money.

refurb 8y ago
Huh? That's the purpose of venture capital...to make money. How is it "misappropriated"? I'd say it used exactly as intended.
- dasil003 8y ago
  Perhaps a poor choice of words, but I think the GP means the super rich have a moral duty they are shirking. One of the arguments against progressive taxation is that government spending is ineffectual, but if the super rich don't take up philanthropic spending in a serious way then that argument is undermined.
  - ameister14 8y ago
    But since we have progressive taxation, does the moral duty still exist? Personally, I don't think it's just the super rich that have a moral imperative to give to philanthropic causes; it's everyone, though the amounts increase as your income does, much like progressive taxation.
    - dasil003 8y ago
      It's a sliding scale. Certainly we have much less progressive taxation than we had through most of the 20th century. The difference seems to be in the industrial era we actually had political will to do something about it. Now, Republicans have mastered the sleight of hand to harness anti-intellectual sentiment to pit the bourgeoisie against "the common man" even though it's the 0.1% capitalists that're really running away with all the gains. This is not going to end well, and the super rich should be trying to get ahead of the problem before the pitchforks show up.
      - refurb 8y ago
        Certainly we have much less progressive taxation than we had through most of the 20th century. Overall effective tax rates hasn't changed much over the last 100 years.[1] In fact, they are higher now than they were before the 1930's. Bracket rates were higher, but there were also a lot more ways to avoid taxes. I can't find the source right now, but if you look at the tax burden on the top 10%, the US system has actually become more progressive over time. Those darn Republicans! [1]https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/

Huh? That's the purpose of venture capital...to make money. How is it "misappropriated"? I'd say it used exactly as intended.

dasil003 8y ago
Perhaps a poor choice of words, but I think the GP means the super rich have a moral duty they are shirking. One of the arguments against progressive taxation is that government spending is ineffectual, but if the super rich don't take up philanthropic spending in a serious way then that argument is undermined.
- ameister14 8y ago
  But since we have progressive taxation, does the moral duty still exist? Personally, I don't think it's just the super rich that have a moral imperative to give to philanthropic causes; it's everyone, though the amounts increase as your income does, much like progressive taxation.
  - dasil003 8y ago
    It's a sliding scale. Certainly we have much less progressive taxation than we had through most of the 20th century. The difference seems to be in the industrial era we actually had political will to do something about it. Now, Republicans have mastered the sleight of hand to harness anti-intellectual sentiment to pit the bourgeoisie against "the common man" even though it's the 0.1% capitalists that're really running away with all the gains. This is not going to end well, and the super rich should be trying to get ahead of the problem before the pitchforks show up.
    - refurb 8y ago
      Certainly we have much less progressive taxation than we had through most of the 20th century. Overall effective tax rates hasn't changed much over the last 100 years.[1] In fact, they are higher now than they were before the 1930's. Bracket rates were higher, but there were also a lot more ways to avoid taxes. I can't find the source right now, but if you look at the tax burden on the top 10%, the US system has actually become more progressive over time. Those darn Republicans! [1]https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/