4 ms·

Super nice! Let's turn this into a billionare challenge shall we? Do billionares also do the challenges thing?

by hcfman 2y ago

bamboozled 2y ago
or just tax them properly and make everything better, obviously we have to make sure the money is well spent, but I don't see why we should be relying on billionaire handouts, even though it's "nice of them to give something back to the entire society that created their wealth".
- lenkite 2y ago
  The extra tax will just go into the hands of U.S. military contractors. Not to medical student tuition.
- octopoc 2y ago
  Yeah the problem with these handouts is that the kind of people who become billionaires tend to be: 1) a bit disconnected from the real problems in society 2) convinced that their success in one field translates well to fixing society 3) very aware of the need for good PR Which means that their affect always looks good but there's usually a hidden agenda which is orthogonal to society's best interest.
- wetpaws 2y ago
  [dead]
- az226 2y ago
  I’ve thought about this. What if we gave billionaires the option (marginal tax rates for capital gains), where they are either paying any taxes above $XM as either taxes or as donations to a list of eligible non-profits. Basically “forced” giving pledge.
  - financltravsty 2y ago
    The problem is non-profits are not optimal vehicles for societal change. And indiscriminately throwing a large lump sum at organizations that haven't grown to be accustomed to managing themselves in that sort of environment can have deleterious knock-on effects. A very crude and reductionist example is donating to a clothing center (that is basically a tax write-off vehicle for HNWI) that then dumps those clothes into foreign countries destroying their local economies. It is such a hard problem, and I have yet to see any brilliant leadership in this area. Off the top of my head, American libraries are the most recent effort that I would consider to have been led well.
    - az226 2y ago
      The word eligible is doing heavy lifting in my comment. The government can look into and qualify top tier non-profits like the Gates Foundation, St. Jude, YMCA, etc.

Super nice! Let's turn this into a billionare challenge shall we? Do billionares also do the challenges thing?

by hcfman 2y ago

Super nice! Let's turn this into a billionare challenge shall we? Do billionares also do the challenges thing?

or just tax them properly and make everything better, obviously we have to make sure the money is well spent, but I don't see why we should be relying on billionaire handouts, even though it's "nice of them to give something back to the entire society that created their wealth".

lenkite 2y ago
The extra tax will just go into the hands of U.S. military contractors. Not to medical student tuition.
octopoc 2y ago
Yeah the problem with these handouts is that the kind of people who become billionaires tend to be: 1) a bit disconnected from the real problems in society 2) convinced that their success in one field translates well to fixing society 3) very aware of the need for good PR Which means that their affect always looks good but there's usually a hidden agenda which is orthogonal to society's best interest.
wetpaws 2y ago
[dead]
az226 2y ago
I’ve thought about this. What if we gave billionaires the option (marginal tax rates for capital gains), where they are either paying any taxes above $XM as either taxes or as donations to a list of eligible non-profits. Basically “forced” giving pledge.
- financltravsty 2y ago
  The problem is non-profits are not optimal vehicles for societal change. And indiscriminately throwing a large lump sum at organizations that haven't grown to be accustomed to managing themselves in that sort of environment can have deleterious knock-on effects. A very crude and reductionist example is donating to a clothing center (that is basically a tax write-off vehicle for HNWI) that then dumps those clothes into foreign countries destroying their local economies. It is such a hard problem, and I have yet to see any brilliant leadership in this area. Off the top of my head, American libraries are the most recent effort that I would consider to have been led well.
  - az226 2y ago
    The word eligible is doing heavy lifting in my comment. The government can look into and qualify top tier non-profits like the Gates Foundation, St. Jude, YMCA, etc.