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Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

forbes.com

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Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#141

Post by bluedevil2k »

kaiken1987 wrote: post #77

What he did was great. But for Forbes to say a man with 2% of 8 billion dollars is broke is a stretch.

1) It doesn't say how old his wife is, who knows how long her retirement will be. She looks 65+ in the picture, but who knows.

2) A man feels a certain responsibility to take care of his wife even when he's gone.

3) $2M only spins off $80k in income, hardly a rich lifestyle and far less than most Americans on this site could live with.

* And check your math, 2% of 8B is $160M not the $2M stated in the article.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#142

Post by Cerealkiller050 »

jedberg wrote: post #122
Cerealkiller050 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Especially being an American" I have always heard the complete opposite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Giving_Index https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/12/28/the_ge...

Most countries don't let you deduct your donations from your taxes. It's hard to compare levels of giving across nations because of this. A lot of people only donate to reduce their tax bill. Also, because we don't have a social safety net in the US, a lot of people donate to make up for that, which is certainly noble, but would be far less necessary if we had a stronger social safety net that more evenly distributed…

This is a good point.

Unsure if that index referenced, or any other studies/reports on this subject, account for this in terms WHY the donation happened or motive.

It does include willingness to help a stranger and volunteerism too, and those are ranked top 3 as well and doesn't reduce tax bills.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#143

Post by viscanti »

dfxm12 wrote: post #116
BrainInAJar wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems like that was by design. It is. Philanthropy exists to launder the reputations of the rich, on the one hand, and are paternalistic on the other. The only things that get funding are things that can attract the attention of our "betters." If we had taxed them on the front end to the point they couldn't become billionaires in the first place then people in general (through democracy) can decide what causes are…

Yeah, to put this in some context, giving to "education" sounds good, but then when you see over $1B or 12.5% of his fortune went to elite private universities (one of which, Stanford, already has the 3rd or 4th largest endowment in NA), that really stretches the definition of "philanthropy".

Doesn't it depend what the private universities do with the money? If it's spent on enabling people to attend who otherwise wouldn't be able to, that seems good (regardless of how large the endowment at that university is).

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#144

Post by umvi »

ssorallen wrote: post #105
JackFr wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a system that allows $8 billion in wealth to accumulate enough to be controlled by one person has already failed I think you have little appreciation of how wealth is created. Jeff Bezos became the wealthiest person in the world neither by stealing or exploiting , but rather by improving peoples lives. Amazon was able to organize systems, take advantage of technological developments and put capital to work to impro…

The team at Amazon improved people's lives, not Jeff Bezos all by himself. Why couldn't there be thousands more millionaires that helped build Amazon rather than one mega billionaire?

> Why couldn't there be thousands more millionaires that helped build Amazon rather than one mega billionaire?

There probably are thousands of millionaries that helped build Amazon... assuming they held onto their stock from the time they joined to the present.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#145

Post by frenchy »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #112
chadrs wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just depends on whether you trust a government or a rich philanthropist to "properly use" capital (get the most impact/$). If you let billionaires make the choices then sure you get some like Feeney/Gates/Buffett but you get Koch brothers. Government could theoretically do a more equitable job but only if social programs are run competently. Think about the leadership of EPA and HUD.

>If you let billionaires make the choices then sure you get some like Feeney/Gates/Buffett but you get Koch brothers. You just disagree with the things the Kochs choose to fund. You could have easily said Murdoch instead (or Bloomberg if you wanted to pick someone who's hate crosses party lines). Were the government funding the causes these billionaires fund the causes would still be controversial. We just wouldn't h…

That's kind of the point though. Whether you believe that decisions ought to be made by the people, or by whoever has the most money is sort of an axiomatic thing. It's not like we have any good way of testing which one is "better".

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#146

Post by anonAndOn »

Mark Benioff donated $100M to the UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital and got his name on the INSTITUTION (not just a building). What many don't know is that donation was to complete a match of $125M offered by Chuck Feeney (who does not have his name on a building anywhere on the campus, AFAIK).[0]. That $125M was only part of the $394M Chuck ended up giving to UCSF.[1]

[0]https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/finance/ucsf-childrens-ho...

[1]https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2015/02/123366/ucsf-receives-100m-...

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#148

Post by ComputerGuru »

jedberg wrote: post #122
Cerealkiller050 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Especially being an American" I have always heard the complete opposite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Giving_Index https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/12/28/the_ge...

Most countries don't let you deduct your donations from your taxes. It's hard to compare levels of giving across nations because of this. A lot of people only donate to reduce their tax bill. Also, because we don't have a social safety net in the US, a lot of people donate to make up for that, which is certainly noble, but would be far less necessary if we had a stronger social safety net that more evenly distributed…

With very few (and even then, extremely capped) exceptions, the US absolutely does not let you deduct donations from your taxes. You’re allowed to deduct your donations from your pre-tax income, which is equivalent to being able to deduct some percentage (typically less than 30%) of your donations from your actual tax burden.

It’s not being pedantic; this changes the calculus altogether. Deducting from your taxes means you can say “oh well, I have to pay $1M in taxes, I might as well just use that money to make a donation to a charity of my choice and gain some PR instead,” whereas deducting your taxable income means “instead of parting with $1M in tax, I would need to part with $5M in charity to zero out my tax burden,” which is a very different decision and still largely a philanthropic one at some level or the other.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#149

Post by hirundo »

Compare two billionaires.

One stops and carefully donates his money to have the most impact. He ends up "officially broke."

The other doubles down on for profit enterprises, but focuses on those with the most impact, like electrifying a fossil fueled sector of the economy or making us a multi-planetary species. The profits are reinvested to accomplish these goals. He ends up richer than ever.

It isn't clear that the second billionaire is less admirable than the first.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#150

Post by triceratops »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #112
chadrs wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just depends on whether you trust a government or a rich philanthropist to "properly use" capital (get the most impact/$). If you let billionaires make the choices then sure you get some like Feeney/Gates/Buffett but you get Koch brothers. Government could theoretically do a more equitable job but only if social programs are run competently. Think about the leadership of EPA and HUD.

>If you let billionaires make the choices then sure you get some like Feeney/Gates/Buffett but you get Koch brothers. You just disagree with the things the Kochs choose to fund. You could have easily said Murdoch instead (or Bloomberg if you wanted to pick someone who's hate crosses party lines). Were the government funding the causes these billionaires fund the causes would still be controversial. We just wouldn't h…

> We just wouldn't have a single person to have the lion's share of the blame

Correct. Then we'd only have the electorate i.e ourselves to blame.

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