Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saint Francisco was also a person at one point.
Saint Francis, actually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Assisi
Francesco, actually.
Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
391–400 of 875 posts
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#392Seems like his life mission was to become a communist on his own accord, and now that he has achieved that, he is happy. Good that worked out for him.
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
A few counterpoints: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billio...
The very first commenter on that article really says it best (and succinctly): > I feel this is one of your lesser thought out pieces. I mean false equivalencies are rampant in it. but... if we must, a few hard counterpoints: > 1. Is criticizing billionaire philanthropy a good way to protest billionaires having too much power in society? This point misrepresents how journalism & counter-criticism occur. People critic…
> People criticize billionaires. Full stop. Criticism of their philanthropy is not selective...
And Scott's point is that non-selective criticism is dumb. If you don't want your dog to chew the carpet, criticizing your dog, full stop, as you say, is a terrible strategy.
If you're opposed to dogs or people richer than you in principle, then you can make that claim too I guess. But you won't get much sympathy if you do it when they're doing their most praiseworthy things.
Just out of curiosity, do you just think that billionaires are evil, or does that also extend to people in rich countries making six figure salaries in tech, who are also ridiculously richer than most of the rest of the world?
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#394I've had an idea for a while: some body (could be the government) maintains a list of useful/important infrastructure projects--bridges, hospitals, schools, etc. If you die with more than $x million, we take all the excess (like today's estate tax), but you get to pick what gets built, and have your name on it (or not, if you're like Feeney).
[deleted]
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#395I’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…
> The basic argument against the estate tax is moral. It taxes virtue – living frugally and accumulating wealth
Only insofar as you believe taxation to be a moral commentary. If one thinks taxation is punishment for a decision, then I can see why one might see it this way.
I don't agree, though. Taxation is reinvestment into the society that makes the usage of that tool–money–possible in the first place. I think it's morally wrong to sequester a social tool in the hands of a few people who never made the investment to get that return in the first place, i.e. children of wealthy parents. I think it's morally wrong for anyone to get to pick and choose who will start out having already won the race. This is different from me being a bad business owner and people choosing not to do business with me.
Should parents be able to spend their earned money on their childrens' upbringing? Of course. If a wealthy parent dies should they be able to leave money behind for their children to have a decent shot at life? Absolutely. Does that require millions or billions of dollars to be hoarded, unused, passed from hand to hand, contributing to a skewed money supply that forces the fed to print more, play with interest rates etc to try to keep the system stable? No, I think there's a reasonable amount that the government can request returned.
Now, the _amount_ of tax is certainly debatable. But to take the extremist position of repealing the tax altogether is absurd IMO.
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Typically those billions aren't liquid, they're usually shares in some business you've built which you may not want to sell because it'll dilute your control in the business.
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
Namely something after yourself is tacky. But what should buildings be named after? Famous scientists? Planets? Feeney seems like an awesome guy but sadly in 100 years nobody will know his name!
>Feeney seems like an awesome guy but sadly in 100 years nobody will know his name! I'm 99.9999999% certain that no one cares about their name when they're dead.
'Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?' -Sir Pratchett
Given how much weight most folks put in defining themselves through other people...
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am amazed at how easily you skip over the fact that this means government gets to spend that money. As if that were some ideal outcome which would solve all problems. Which government exactly is it that you think is excellent at solving societal problems and spending taxes efficiently?
I tend towards the conservative side of center, which has been an uncomfortable place for the past 10+ years in the US -- both parties moving away from the center, but the GOP doing so much faster. I thought for certain the level of hate the left has for the current federal regime would make my constant refrain of "do we really think the government will do a better job?[1]" finally make sense. However, the empirical…
Seriously! Replace "government" with "Donald J. Trump" and all of a sudden it doesn't seem to appealing to have government in charge of healthcare, education, and Chuck Feeney's fortune, at least to a lot of the people making the argument.
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#399What he did was great. But for Forbes to say a man with 2% of 8 billion dollars is broke is a stretch.
There's probably lots of people reading this comment who are worth two million dollars, but I bet there are none who are worth eight billion dollars. Knocking yourself down from the 99.9999th percentile to the 90th is a real change.
Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke
#400What a great man. Such a shame that he gave it all away to a bunch of scammers and then a different bunch of billionaire scammers come out and try to claim that they're affiliated with this great man to boost their own reputation when in fact they're nothing alike.