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You make a good point that I never thought about. People who donate their money get tax breaks because it’s sorting offsetting government spending. But if they

You make a good point that I never thought about. People who donate their money get tax breaks because it’s sorting offsetting government spending. But if they donate to a charity that spends the money outside of the US, should they get the full benefit of that tax break? It’s an interesting question that I never thought about.

dls2016 6y ago
Or maybe one person/immediate family shouldn't be allowed to hoard such vast resources? Perhaps he should've been taxed more so that it can be disbursed by the usual means.
- plank_time 6y ago
  No, that’s called socialism which most of the US is firmly against.
  - eevilspock 6y ago
    Go back in time and most of the US was firmly against something that we today consider morally righteous. e.g. LGBTQ rights, gender equality, abolition, that whites are not inherently superior to blacks, etc.
    - plank_time 6y ago
      I disagree with you that socialism will become popular but we will see. I know dozens of people who have lived through socialism and they hate it so much they voted for trump, even though they hate trump. I’m not talking rednecks from the south. I’m talking about Vietnamese, Chinese, Russians, Cubans, etc. I don’t think it’s going to take a foothold in the US but we will see. That’s what voting is for.
      - eevilspock 6y ago
        That results from a navel-gazing view of history. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26590540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26590540
        plank_time 6y ago
        I think you’re the one navel gazing. Plenty of proof that it fails and you dismiss it with no proof of your own. Sounds about right. Meanwhile most countries are happily democratic. Nothing is perfect but democracy is about as close as you can get.
      - adriancr 6y ago
        There's socialism and then there's communism, the difference is night and day. Only way communism was socialist was that everybody was starving except party elite. Everybody was equal under the watchful eye of big brother... praised dear leader or camps... or both...
  - dls2016 6y ago
    What does a close-to-100% top marginal tax rate have to do with workers owning the means of production? Yes, I’ve met a lot of people from former Soviet states that say the same things. But I also know even more people who lived in the USA when we had very high top marginal tax rates... you know, back when “America was great”.

dls2016 6y ago

Or maybe one person/immediate family shouldn't be allowed to hoard such vast resources? Perhaps he should've been taxed more so that it can be disbursed by the usual means.

plank_time 6y ago
No, that’s called socialism which most of the US is firmly against.
- eevilspock 6y ago
  Go back in time and most of the US was firmly against something that we today consider morally righteous. e.g. LGBTQ rights, gender equality, abolition, that whites are not inherently superior to blacks, etc.
  - plank_time 6y ago
    I disagree with you that socialism will become popular but we will see. I know dozens of people who have lived through socialism and they hate it so much they voted for trump, even though they hate trump. I’m not talking rednecks from the south. I’m talking about Vietnamese, Chinese, Russians, Cubans, etc. I don’t think it’s going to take a foothold in the US but we will see. That’s what voting is for.
    - eevilspock 6y ago
      That results from a navel-gazing view of history. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26590540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26590540
      - plank_time 6y ago
        I think you’re the one navel gazing. Plenty of proof that it fails and you dismiss it with no proof of your own. Sounds about right. Meanwhile most countries are happily democratic. Nothing is perfect but democracy is about as close as you can get.
    - adriancr 6y ago
      There's socialism and then there's communism, the difference is night and day. Only way communism was socialist was that everybody was starving except party elite. Everybody was equal under the watchful eye of big brother... praised dear leader or camps... or both...
- dls2016 6y ago
  What does a close-to-100% top marginal tax rate have to do with workers owning the means of production? Yes, I’ve met a lot of people from former Soviet states that say the same things. But I also know even more people who lived in the USA when we had very high top marginal tax rates... you know, back when “America was great”.