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Why Zuckerberg’s Critics Are Wrong

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Re: Why Zuckerberg’s Critics Are Wrong

#51

Post by iamcurious »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #38
iamcurious wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if a young mother dedicates 99% of her life (but not billions because she doesn't have it) into charity That is the point. He is not dedicating 99% of his life, he is moving money around. If an average person gives 5% of his income to charity he is losing power and losing opportunities. He is sacrificing his well being and that of his immediate family for charity. If someone with as much money as Zuckerberg or Gates…

So what? This sounds like a twisted, reversed version of Widow's Mite[0], in which the rich guy is being hated for giving a lot of money for good purposes. Yes, the average person (or the poor person) is giving up much more personally. But even the Bible story doesn't deny that the rich guy giving lots of money is doing much more for the cause. If you care about actual effect , as opposed to judging someone's moral s…

>you should be happy that a rich person can single-handedly give more good than most other donors taken together

How is that supposed to make me happy?

>It's results that matters.

What results beyond Zuckerberg having even more power and influence than before?

Re: Why Zuckerberg’s Critics Are Wrong

#52

Post by thescriptkiddie »

ant6n wrote: post #19
mangeletti wrote: post #15

Here's an idea: Don't allow tax deductions on "charitable" contributions. If, for instance, somebody wants to give $100MM to Central Park, let them do it because they like Central Park that much, rather than because they like it $70MM worth, and the tax payers can cover the other $30MM. Philanthropy is about giving, period. Not giving when it has financial benefits that make it easier at the expense of others.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to deduct charitable contributions - up to say, 10K per year. There exist people who sit on huge amounts of unrealized capital gains. If they donate 100M in stock, then they can sell 100M in stock without ever paying any taxes whatsoever.

Don't forget the indirect costs of tax deductions. How many man-hours does the IRS spend auditing deductions? How much revenue is lost to uncaught fraud?

Re: Why Zuckerberg’s Critics Are Wrong

#53

Post by zhemao »

david927 wrote: post #32
tim333 wrote: post #21

I think the critics are mostly, maybe at a subconscious level annoyed by the unfairness of Zuckerberg first having a fortunate upbringing / IQ, then making $45bn before turning 30 and then doing saint like stuff. So they try to knock him down which I guess is understandable, and rationalise it in various not totally logical ways which I guess is human nature.

I'm glad you're making an effort to understand the criticism, but unfortunately you need to spend more time doing so. His company, Facebook, is infamous for not paying taxes. (On profits of three billion last year, it paid six thousand dollars in corporate taxes.) Now, instead of paying taxes on his personal capital gains, he's placing them in an LLC, which he controls, ostensibly to do philanthropic work. He could a…

I don't think Facebook is different from any other publicly traded company in that regard. No publicly traded for-profit company is going to pay more taxes than it is legally obligated to. Also, Facebook's taxes are not the same as his personal taxes, and the LLC will still be taxed, since it is not listed as a non-profit.

Re: Why Zuckerberg’s Critics Are Wrong

#54

Post by dragonwriter »

ant6n wrote: post #26
thesunny wrote: post #12

The harsh criticism feels unwarranted to me as well. It honestly feels to me like a little bit of misplaced self insecurity. I kind of get it, but considering that there is no evidence of ill will, I get the sense that people are reacting to something other than what's actually happening here (like their dislike for Zuckerberg's fortunes, how he got it, Facebook privacy issues, etc.) To put this into context, if a yo…

The 'charitable work' feels to me like it's primarily an exercise of power. An amount that an individual shouldn't have in the first place. And this particular individual doesn't have a particularly good track record. 1) For example, 'investing' in education may boost the private education system at the further detriment of the public one - long term this could be worse for accessibility of the poor to good education…

> The 'charitable work' feels to me like it's primarily an exercise of power.

All uses of wealth are uses of power; wealth is a form of power, after all.

Re: Why Zuckerberg’s Critics Are Wrong

#55

Post by TeMPOraL »

iamcurious wrote: post #51
TeMPOraL wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? This sounds like a twisted, reversed version of Widow's Mite[0], in which the rich guy is being hated for giving a lot of money for good purposes. Yes, the average person (or the poor person) is giving up much more personally. But even the Bible story doesn't deny that the rich guy giving lots of money is doing much more for the cause. If you care about actual effect , as opposed to judging someone's moral s…

>you should be happy that a rich person can single-handedly give more good than most other donors taken together How is that supposed to make me happy? >It's results that matters. What results beyond Zuckerberg having even more power and influence than before?

> How is that supposed to make me happy?

Because significantly more good is being done? It should make you happy if you care about the particular issue being solved. If not, that's fair, but it means we're not complaining about philanthropy anymore, but about rich people being rich.

Re: Why Zuckerberg’s Critics Are Wrong

#56

Post by vezzy-fnord »

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #47
Aeolun wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'd argue that the problem is not that companies make use of legal loopholes, which after all is perfectly legal, but that the system still hasn't been fixed to stop them from doing that. It's not like I don't try to pay the least amount of taxes I can every year.

that is LOL bad reasoning: take a look at human history and see the lengthy list of atrocious things that have been legal at some point in time.

This is naive. Incentives matter. No matter how much you try to ethically spin it, actors generally perceive taxation as adversarial. Any country implementing a tax policy is fully aware of the risks they take from noncompliance and avoidance.

(Avoiding or resisting taxes is also not always a purely self-interested endeavor. It's a tried and true political protest technique.)

Re: Why Zuckerberg’s Critics Are Wrong

#57

Post by tim333 »

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #47
Aeolun wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'd argue that the problem is not that companies make use of legal loopholes, which after all is perfectly legal, but that the system still hasn't been fixed to stop them from doing that. It's not like I don't try to pay the least amount of taxes I can every year.

that is LOL bad reasoning: take a look at human history and see the lengthy list of atrocious things that have been legal at some point in time.

I can see Eric Schmidt's point when he was CEO at Google which was being criticised for not paying tax in the UK. Basically that Google paid the exact amount stipulated in UK law and it that was too low it was up to the governments to change the law. I kind of agree - the situation is not good and should be fixed by the governments not the CEOs. After all the CEOs main duty is to serve the shareholder which they are doing in this case. The governments main duty should be to serve the people which they are being slack at.

I've got my own idea how to fix the situation. Could almost be done as a start up - feel free to use the idea - we need some sort of (ideally official) global accounting body that estimates how much profit each large international company makes globally and what percentage of their sales are in each country. So for Facebook that might be $4bn global profits, 42% US, 5% UK, SomeRandomTaxHaven 0.01% etc. Then all the politicians in any country have to do is say companies have to pay tax on the larger of either their local tax return or the international pro rata figure, so in this example the UK would tell Facebook to pay corporate tax on 4000*.05 = $200m or they'll ban them.

Re: Why Zuckerberg’s Critics Are Wrong

#58

Post by iamcurious »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #55
iamcurious wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you should be happy that a rich person can single-handedly give more good than most other donors taken together How is that supposed to make me happy? >It's results that matters. What results beyond Zuckerberg having even more power and influence than before?

> How is that supposed to make me happy? Because significantly more good is being done? It should make you happy if you care about the particular issue being solved. If not, that's fair, but it means we're not complaining about philanthropy anymore, but about rich people being rich.

You claimed I should be happy about rich people being rich. I asked how you expected me to do that.

Also, I'm not sure good is being done at all. As my second question showed.

Re: Why Zuckerberg’s Critics Are Wrong

#59

Post by vezzy-fnord »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #50
ant6n wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'charitable work' feels to me like it's primarily an exercise of power. An amount that an individual shouldn't have in the first place. And this particular individual doesn't have a particularly good track record. 1) For example, 'investing' in education may boost the private education system at the further detriment of the public one - long term this could be worse for accessibility of the poor to good education…

> The 'charitable work' feels to me like it's primarily an exercise of power. It might feel that way. What Gates Foundation does, or what Elon Musk does (not charity, but hitting the market with a stick until it gives up and moves where he wants it to), feels like an exercise of power. It feels undemocratic. It feels good . There are problems in this world - some of the biggest and most important problems, like clima…

most important problems, like climate change, energy crisis, poverty or education, are of this type - for which both democratic governments and free markets fail spectacularly.

Countries with democratic governments generally do not have free markets. Don't butcher the term's meaning.

(In fact, there is evidence that markets, free or otherwise, do advance education. Alternative educational institutions like Montessori, Sudbury, Summerhill and democratic schools tend to be private.)

"Poverty" also isn't what it used to be for many in both First and Second World countries, unless you're extremely myopic.

Re: Why Zuckerberg’s Critics Are Wrong

#60

Post by the_cat_kittles »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #56
the_cat_kittles wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that is LOL bad reasoning: take a look at human history and see the lengthy list of atrocious things that have been legal at some point in time.

This is naive. Incentives matter. No matter how much you try to ethically spin it, actors generally perceive taxation as adversarial. Any country implementing a tax policy is fully aware of the risks they take from noncompliance and avoidance. (Avoiding or resisting taxes is also not always a purely self-interested endeavor. It's a tried and true political protest technique.)

its naive to think that a bullet proof tax code can be written, at least based on history. at some point people need to be accountable for their actions, and not given a pass just because they can avoid breaking the law. its fine if you disagree about where that point is.
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