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Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#91

Post by stillsut »

Retric wrote: post #25
Afforess wrote: post #2

There is no real explanation for why the pledge is "bad" except for the tired argument that the state is good and private foundations imitating the state are bad . There is no further clarification or explanation; We are supposed to accept this as some sort of given, without pretext or afterthought. Articles like this are bad .

Private charities have on average been terribly inefficient in the US. However, in terms of Conspicuous consumption ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspicuous_consumption ) they are better than building ever larger boats.

In fact, it would be declasse to be seen on a mega yacht except if it was for a charity gala. Yacht is of course owned by charity, which is owned by... well you know who.

But you gotta spend money to give money!

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#92

Post by s73v3r »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #34
thomnottom wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what the article said at all - nor the German billionaire. He said that having a few very wealthy people decide what were the most important causes was bad compared to having the democratically elected government decide. You may disagree with that, but it is quite different from simply saying public good and private bad.

> He said that having a few very wealthy people decide what were the most important causes was bad compared to having the democratically elected government decide. You may disagree with that, but it is quite different from simply saying public good and private bad. How is that any different from the comment you're replying to? If the government is running something, it's a government ("public") program rather than a…

It's different in that it's a more accurate characterization of the argument.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#93

Post by applecore »

Afforess wrote: post #33
thomnottom wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what the article said at all - nor the German billionaire. He said that having a few very wealthy people decide what were the most important causes was bad compared to having the democratically elected government decide. You may disagree with that, but it is quite different from simply saying public good and private bad.

> He said that having a few very wealthy people decide what were the most important causes was bad compared to having the democratically elected government decide. This sentence is really amusing to me, because our democratically elected government, at least at the congressional level, is nearly all wealthy millionaires. So either way, important causes are decided by the wealthy.

Your argument makes no sense: the people control everything in a democracy, literally, by voting for their representation in government.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#94

Post by adaml_623 »

lloyddobbler wrote: post #45
guntars wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The explanation is that it's the government (or rather the people) that's subsidizing the charitable work of the billionaires via tax breaks, but giving up any say in how the money is used.

If the money always belonged to the state, and the state simply allows its constituents to keep some of the money they earn, your logic stands. But if the money ever belonged to the individual, then the public cannot "subsidize" the individual keeping what he/she earned. Put another way: if I walk up to someone on the street and forcibly take their money - and if that wasn't mine to begin with - most people would cal…

If we talking about US dollars then yes the money comes from the state. The clue is in the name.

Is there a quick shorthand way of referring to the notion that tax is theft?

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#95

Post by slavik81 »

HiLo wrote: post #9
jey wrote: post #3

This guy takes it as a given that the Government is well-run and wise. But what's the practical alternative for someone who instead thinks that the current political environment is toxic and insane?

You take it as a given that the private sector is well-run and wise. Nobody is saying either solution is great. All it's saying is that: wouldn't it be better to have all this power be in the hands of the democratically chosen, versus billionaires who may or may not be making relevant investments? edit: Just downvotes, no response?

The reality is that the details of how money is spent are in the hands of bureaucrats.

I trust the guy who wants to use his own money to build a legacy for himself. He has more motivation to get results than a government bureaucrat making decisions about spending someone else's money.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#96

Post by saosebastiao »

HiLo wrote: post #72
saosebastiao wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't necessary to believe that the private sector is well run and wise for that statement to be relevant. All that is necessary is for the private sector to be better run and wiser than the government. In the US, that isn't hard to fathom, although I could probably accept the premise if we all lived in Germany.

Compare the Federal Reserve to many of these subprime "technology driven" lending startups. Who is more professionally staffed? Compare the NSA to Palantir. Compare NASA to SpaceX. Compare the Treasury to Enron. Compare Bell Labs with WorldCom. Your argument isn't as strong as your Econ 101 textbook made it out to be.

Do silly and subjective comparisons of handpicked outliers come in Econ 102? What exactly did I say that has anything to do with Econ 101? It isn't even an economic argument.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#97

Post by HiLo »

slavik81 wrote: post #95
HiLo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You take it as a given that the private sector is well-run and wise. Nobody is saying either solution is great. All it's saying is that: wouldn't it be better to have all this power be in the hands of the democratically chosen, versus billionaires who may or may not be making relevant investments? edit: Just downvotes, no response?

The reality is that the details of how money is spent are in the hands of bureaucrats. I trust the guy who wants to use his own money to build a legacy for himself. He has more motivation to get results than a government bureaucrat making decisions about spending someone else's money.

This is entirely subjective. What about those who devote their lives to a cause and go into government? Your money is better than their passion? This line of logic would suggest mercenaries are always have more incentive than soldiers.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#98

Post by kuschku »

mynameishere wrote: post #49

It depends on what you like. Many people are probably happy that organizations like the Ford Foundation will advocate globalist left-wing anti-Americanism forever . Bill and Warren and Mark's money will do the same as well, no matter their intentions. O'Sullivan's law. There's no point in arguing about whether the state is better suited to handle the money. It would actually be better off cashed out, piled up, and bu…

I’ll just let you know that without the money spent by the German government you wouldn’t have mp3, or AAC.

You wouldn’t have most of modern technology, nor would you have Wendelstein 7-X.

You wouldn’t have DHL or T-Mobile.

Sure, they waste lots of money (BER, S21, Elbphilharmonie), but still they manage it better than the private sector ever could.

The top politicians earn less than the managers of any company at that size — Merkel earns 216'000€ a year. The CEO of even middle-sized companies end up making far more than that.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#99

Post by skybrian »

The argument doesn't make much sense to me. Each government is basically a single decision-maker that already has a very large budget. Just by watching the news, we know these decisions aren't always all that rational (though democratic!). Giving more money to a government doesn't increase diversity of funding sources at all.

Starting another large foundation creates a new source of funding with an independent decision-making process. This increases diversity in sources of funding. (Though not as much as breaking it up into multiple charities.)

Whether it's a net improvement or not depends on whether their decision-making is better than average. Unfortunately, little can be done about charities with poor decision-making (there are no market forces, and corruption is possible). But at least it's independent.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#100

Post by Veedrac »

narrator wrote: post #66

50 billion dollars is about 1/2 the budget of the State of California for a year. It's really not that much in terms of government expenditures. However, If used creatively, it could have a huge impact on the world, but that takes vision. Money without creativity and vision does nothing except raise the price of everything.

Precisely. The article hasn't been justifying the claim that large charitable donations are bad; it has being justifying the claim that not taxing charitable donations is bad.

But I'm not inclined to believe that, since I can reasonably believe that the increase in charitable giving from not having the tax is more significant than the gain from having the government control 20% or so of it.

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