61–70 of 134 posts
A person donating $10 when his/her net worth $20 is different from a person donating the same amount but the net worth of, say, $1000.
Just tax them.
I've wondered about this. Would it be possible to have an income/asset tax such that it introduces a wealth cap of some amount which can never be reached? For example, the limit could be $30,000,000 so if you're making more than that in pretax income, your income would be $29,999,999.999 etc. with the fractional cent increasing so people could still compete on a scoreboard. Also, it seems like one of the biggest argu…
Just tax them.
Public's perception of Warren Buffet is really puzzling to me. He seems to largely escape the scorn for billionaires, even looked at as a 'good guy'. Whats his secret? 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.
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.
J. K. Rowling became a billionaire by writing the Harry Potter books. Oprah Winfrey became a billionaire through her brand as a talented talk show host. Michael Jordan became a billionaire thanks to his basketball skills. None of those are even remotely exploitative.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> The wealth isn't the problem if it's distributed evenly. 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.)
Those are rhetorical questions, of course. The answers are no, and no.
If billionaires overall do tend to donate significant portions of their wealth, then the fact that wealth inequality is increasing in spite of that practice is hard evidence that individual charity is an ineffective means of lifting people out of poverty. If the converse is true -- that they aren't donating their wealth -- then that too suggests that something like a state is necessary to force their hand.
Just tax them.
True gifts are freely given, not forcibly taken.
I don't want Billionaire to feel forced to give "true gifts" through social pressures or otherwise - I'd prefer if their wealth was properly utilized through a just level of taxation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>a number of these people donated money years ago to avoid taxes 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.
Except for the fact that they are at least partially in control of the fund either through a DAF or their own charity. You're right they can't spend it on anything they want, but they have the ability to direct in many specific instances with few exceptions. Often if it's their own foundation, to further almost any goal they want. So yeah, they get to not pay taxes on their money and at least spend it partially how t…
They can't further "any" goal they want, it must be a charitable goal. Bill Gates can't take money from the B&M Foundation to buy himself a yacht. I don't really see what your point is. Anyone that donates money is avoiding taxes to spend money on something they want, where "something they want" is a charitable goal.
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'.
Total % of net worth would be the obvious metric, wouldn't it?
Is this only US billionaires? There are 614 billionaires in the US according to Forbes[0], there are only 29 listed here, ~5% of the total.
No one should have a billion dollars
This is probably true. But given that we presently live in a world where billionaires do exist I dont think it does any harm to know which ones we can feel appreciative of. At least, that's how I use a list like this.