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Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
301–310 of 875 posts
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#302I’ve long argued for massive estate tax rates on large estates in order to incentivize behavior like this. I have no problem at all with Bezos being worth $200 billion (or whatever it is now), but it’s this dynastic wealth that I find borderline sickening. Why in the hell should the Rockefeller’s of today be billionaires??? Also, these giant charitable foundations/family offices are similarly off-putting, as they are…
An Open Letter from Economists on the Estate Tax To whom it may concern: Spend your money on riotous living – no tax; leave your money to your children – the tax collector gets paid first. That is the message sent by the estate tax. It is a bad message and the estate tax is a bad tax. The basic argument against the estate tax is moral. It taxes virtue – living frugally and accumulating wealth. It discourages saving a…
I sort of agree with this in the sense that the estate tax seems like a distraction from the larger and vastly more important challenge of implementing a broadly fair, progressive, and efficient system of taxation.
With a better system, we shouldn't have to introduce one-off taxes for "special events" like death because extreme concentrations of wealth should already be heavily and unavoidably taxed--passing wealth to one's children (or anyone else... in any other country) shouldn't make a difference one way or the other.
Estate taxes stir up an irrelevant debate about the morality of inheritance, and puts the government in the role of deciding this moral question for everyone, when that debate isn't necessary and doesn't really matter.
All that really matters is 1 - how much we need to fund the prerequisites for a modern and decent civilization (which includes things like basic income, healthcare for all, housing for all, education for all, etc., imho), and 2 - what is the most progressive, efficient, and sustainable way to raise this money.
I highly doubt the answer to #2 is an estate tax.
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The basic argument against the estate tax is moral. It taxes virtue – living frugally and accumulating wealth. Is there something virtuous about hoarding wealth?
IMO: There's something virtuous about living beneath your means and ensuring that you can be self-sufficient in your retirement. There's something virtuous about living beneath your means and ensuring that, at a minimum, you are not a burden to your family, but that ideally you provide them support rather than siphoning support from them. In order to do that, it's almost a given that you will die with money left over…
You speak of frugal living, but why live frugally amassing great wealth? There is a difference between having money to be self sufficient and sitting on billions of dollars
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#304Is it just me or is there something a little off about the phrase "$76 million for grassroots campaigns supporting the passage of Obamacare"? Grassroots and funded secretly by a billionaire seem like fundamental opposites...
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The basic argument against the estate tax is moral. It taxes virtue – living frugally and accumulating wealth. Is there something virtuous about hoarding wealth?
I guess the counter question is whether there is something virtuous about spending all your money before you die.
Well, you are putting your money back into society, creating jobs. So yes. That is better then not doing those things.
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think thinking in terms of percentage of income doesn't work, because the lower your income, the lower a percentage you can afford to give away. I have found it better to think of it as a percentage of your non-essential expenses. e.g, if you spend $500 per month on non-essential things (eating out, movies, netflix, amazon impulse buys etc.), then you can afford giving away 10% of it ($50 per month) to charity.
Shouldn't it be a % of (income - essential expenses), rather than % of non-essential spending? If you're very frugal, you'd end up giving away a very small amount of money, saving all the rest... Saving is super important, but giving money to effective charities is also a great way to use your money. To take a typical example of someone that might be reading HN, any software engineer working in NY or the Bay Area can…
I am not sure if you can easily give away that much money. If it were easy, people would already be doing it. Buying a nice home is a distant dream even for many software engineers in the bay area for example, and future education and healthcare costs are very unpredictable. Putting it in terms of money you are already spending helps put it in context.
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are just doing the same thing. Posting an article with no context. That and making snide remarks. If you want to say something, say it. Use articles to bolster your point, sure, but posting them without commentary isn't discussion.
@bena do you have a point to make here? Where are my 'snide comments'??? Gates is exponentially wealthier than Feeney, and is extremely noisy in the media he funds as the second wealthiest human on the planet. I wonder what Feeney makes of Gates in 2020.
> I wonder what Feeney makes of Gates in 2020.
Stuff like that.
My point is that spamming links with no other commentary makes me wonder if you have a point here.
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#308but he isn’t broke...
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think thinking in terms of percentage of income doesn't work, because the lower your income, the lower a percentage you can afford to give away. I have found it better to think of it as a percentage of your non-essential expenses. e.g, if you spend $500 per month on non-essential things (eating out, movies, netflix, amazon impulse buys etc.), then you can afford giving away 10% of it ($50 per month) to charity.
As each of my children have left home I have had the following conversation with them: You didn't get here by yourself. You know some of the people who have generously contributed to you. There are more than you know. The ones who stick out are relatively wealthy. Do you think they are generous because they are wealthy? I submit to you that normal wealth does not make it easier to be generous. A person rich enough to…
Agreed, Some people are more generous by nature, some are not. For those who are not, one of the main reasons is that they are scared that giving away money now will put them at a disadvantaged position later. Putting donations in the terms of current spending helps alleviate some anxiety.
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are two reasons to support a hefty inheritance tax on wealth over $X million. First, it raises revenue to help fill the deficit. More importantly, it is friction against generational wealth. Bill Gates (and his father) have for decades supported inheritance tax and gave this as the explicit reason.
In a "free" society, what basis does society have a right to say how much stuff you can amass? That or we stop pretending we live in a free society. I want society out of my business... if I want to give it away that's my choice.. if I want my kids to live like kings that's also my choice.
In a "free" society, what basis does society have to say how much stuff you owe based on your income each year? Or that you have to keep your sidewalk clear of snow each winter? Or that you can't just leave your car wherever you want?
What about amassing as much stuff as possible selling controlled substances and brokering crime?
If you want society completely out of your business, you're going to have a hard time.