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Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

forbes.com

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Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#441

Post by csours »

Jabbles wrote: post #422
akhosravian wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's liquidate all US billionaires and spread that money to every person in the US. Let's also set aside the question of how one could legally liquidate the billionaires. Per https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/05/21/the-net-wo... the combined net worth of every US billionaire was 3.4 trillion in May of this year. Per https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/3-ways-that-the-u-s-popu... there were 331 million Amer…

Not enough to live on the passive income even in the cheapest parts of the globe. Why do you think that is the right metric? 3.4T is obviously a vast amount of money.

They were probably just responding to how I framed the question.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#442

Post by pitaj »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #269
bedhead wrote: post #240

I’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…

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.

Inheritance taxes raise insignificant amounts of money compared to others form tax. If you taxed all wealth at 100% you could only fund the government for a few months.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#443

Post by jb188 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #409
lotsofpulp wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a shame that all donations aren't anonymous. The government should at least take away the tax deductibility of non anonymous donations.

Making a very public show of philanthropy as a means of self-promotion or self-aggrandizement isn't awesome, though frankly if letting people feel good with a little recognition results in more donations then that seems well worth it. But there are other reasons to make a public show of philanthropy: to encourage others to give, to be a part of giving campaigns, to draw attention to an issue you consider important, t…

Yeah, there's a misconception that it is more morally righteous to give quietly than to give and take credit and that's debatable. $100M is a $100M whether the person is anonymous or not and if not, it can lead to more of the same, even if the motivation is self-aggrandizement. I mean, take that out to a long conclusion and you get a society who's competing to give away the most instead of possess the most.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#444

Post by jacquesm »

maximente wrote: post #368
jacquesm wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point. And 'broke' isn't 100% broke just yet, he's not going to have to sleep under a bridge. But he's broke enough that the wrong accident can put him on the far side of the line easily enough. Obviously this goes for many people but they tend to end up in that situation by accident, not by design and as an example to other billionaires he's pretty impressive. Try imagining Larry Ellison doing this.

it's really hard to imagine someone at age 89, with 2 social security incomes and $2M, who is apparently more frugal than most technology workers, being one "wrong accident" away from "the far side of the line easily enough". an 80% loss of that $2M cash leaves him with a paltry $400K which, assuming a rate of return == inflation, is 10 years of $40K/yr spending, to say nothing of 2x SS income. people's idea of "bein…

Healthcare in the United States is perfectly designed to take your every last penny in the last 6 months of your life. If Chuck Feeney isn't actually broke today, there is a fair chance that he will be on his death bed.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#445

Post by sparc24 »

smattiso wrote: post #203
anonAndOn wrote: post #146

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/uc…

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!

No it is NOT.

Trump Tower, Trump Airlines. Trump Taj Mahal

Oh wait.. NVM

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#446

Post by Ericson2314 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #424
lordnacho wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the reduce the amount of donations greatly? Gotta think most people do it at least partly for recognition, otherwise there'd be nothing noteworthy about the article we're discussing.

I would get rid of all tax deductions period, but in the case of non anonymous donations, the chance of quid pro quo and inability to prove it is so high, that I just view it as a tax loophole for the rich. If it lowers the amount people donate, then it proves my point...that people were intending to get something in return, hence not a donation.

Absolutely a good comment. Tax the rich, replace philanthropy with Democracy. Pathetic that PP is getting downvotes.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#447

Post by nverno »

wang_li wrote: post #418

One could argue that everyone has the same responsibilities to society at large. Thus for every Chuck Feeny and Bill Gates, you, personally you, have an obligation to create many billion dollars of value and give it away. If you don't do that, you're worse than any evil billionaire you care to name. They at least are paying millions of dollars in taxes for any money they pull out of investments. How many millions in…

This is a good turnaround of the previous statement. It is incorrect to assume there is only so much wealth, and subsequently, billionaires need to be taxed in order to maintain our standard of living. Most billionaires have created something entirely new, not hoarded some scarce resource from the rest of us.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#449

Post by tcbawo »

settrans wrote: post #261
bedhead wrote: post #240

I’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 income used to accumulate the assets left at death was taxed when it was received; the earnings on the assets were taxed year after year Neither of these are necessarily true. Although, an estate tax is probably a poor place to catch this. Typically, the real wealth isn't even directly owned by a human being anyways, but rather beneficial trusts, etc.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#450

Post by the_arun »

Good for him & communities. Only few people are real monks. I admire for his detachment with Money.

Not sure word “broke” is the right adjective here. If consciously someone donated their money to charity they need to be celebrated as a “winner” or overpoweing materialistic “money”? Something amazing. “Broke” means very negative. I don’t know. I could be wrong.

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