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Are the metrics for this described somewhere? I find the top two surprising. From their numbers, Dorsey has donated $1B (26% of his current $3.8B net worth), while Gates has donated $36B (36% of his current net worth). So....Gates has donated more as a share of his net worth and SIGNIFICANTLY more in raw numbers. What justifies putting Dorsey ahead of him?
Within friend groups where there are no formally established laws or codes of conduct, there are certain implicit standards of behavior people are expected to abide by, and part of why they do is because of the threat of social ostracism.
In a broader scope, in ancient societies social ostracism was often used to deal with those who violated the norms of society; in Athens ostracism was an official punishment.
I'm not saying we can or should literally expel billionaires who don't put their liquid wealth towards philanthropy, but far too often we focus on formal, legal means of compelling the super wealthy to part with their money, such as through taxes that are easily avoided.
Social pressure put upon the super wealthy using tools like this could be more effective than people expect. There is the threat of social ostracism, but also the reward of social approval granted to the patrons of philanthropy.
We seem to hold CEO of coke more culpable for filling oceans with plastic than coke's shareholders like buffet who profit more from it than the CEO. Really bizarre phenomenon.
For example it has Jeff Bezos donating 10 billion to a new 'Bezos Earth Fund'.
However it hasn't yet issued any grants so as of today, he has merely moved money from one place he controls to another one I assume he still controls.
Are the metrics for this described somewhere? I find the top two surprising. From their numbers, Dorsey has donated $1B (26% of his current $3.8B net worth), while Gates has donated $36B (36% of his current net worth). So....Gates has donated more as a share of his net worth and SIGNIFICANTLY more in raw numbers. What justifies putting Dorsey ahead of him?
> Top donors this month Is the (admittedly quite small) heading. Also I noted that Brin (only one I clicked on) is in last place/#29 at $0 this month. So (and to find out was the reason I clicked) this is 'how much have these 29 billionaires donated this month'; not 'who are the top billionaire donors, all listed are big donors'.
I don't like rankings like this. I'm not saying all of them, but at least a few made their money off of the backs of others, being ruthless in business, etc. How gracious of them to give money to people they hurt in the first place. I'm glad they are doing good, but let's not pretend they were completely altruistic. Also, a number of these people donated money years ago to avoid taxes, and the money was invested and…
This isn't how taxes work. If you donate money then you've only reduced your taxable principal. You "avoid taxes" in the sense that it's as if you never made that money. You don't magically reduce your burden any further than that.
People won't take your otherwise fine point seriously if you include this commonly made error.
I don't like rankings like this. I'm not saying all of them, but at least a few made their money off of the backs of others, being ruthless in business, etc. How gracious of them to give money to people they hurt in the first place. I'm glad they are doing good, but let's not pretend they were completely altruistic. Also, a number of these people donated money years ago to avoid taxes, and the money was invested and…
> I'm not saying all of them, but at least a few made their money off of the backs of others, being ruthless in business No, that's all of them. You don't become a billionaire by being nice and non-exploitative.
No one should have a billion dollars
I think a better way to put it is that nobody should have a billion dollars more than another person. The wealth isn't the problem if it's distributed evenly. The problem has always been inequality. It would be a fantastic world where everyone could do anything they wanted and have as much agency over their lives as possible.
Isn't that what these billionaires are doing? Giving their money away. The more billionaires donate, the closer we get to your world where everyone has as much agency over their lives as possible. (Including the donors, of course.)
I don't like rankings like this. I'm not saying all of them, but at least a few made their money off of the backs of others, being ruthless in business, etc. How gracious of them to give money to people they hurt in the first place. I'm glad they are doing good, but let's not pretend they were completely altruistic. Also, a number of these people donated money years ago to avoid taxes, and the money was invested and…
"Which of our Gracious Lords are doing the moste Good?"