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Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

forbes.com

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Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#581

Post by jakeva »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #343
jakeva wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You say that like that as though you're not just uncharitably describing what's basically a libertarian paradise. There are tons of people who want exactly what you find so abhorrent.

You're making an assumption I ascribe any feeling whatsoever to what I described when in fact I was extending the comment to include things most societies currently do have a say in, without emotion.

For all you know I am a libertarian making the argument for a libertarian paradise.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#582

Post by compiler-guy »

vecinu wrote: post #563
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.

Wouldn't Chuck just receive donations from the thousands of people he personally knew and helped? I doubt people would let him go broke under any scenario... the man spent time with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

Maybe. But maybe not. He doesn't know, and we don't know. And therefore he is taking a big risk.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#583

Post by unethical_ban »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #472
unethical_ban wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's better that a hospital not get Beinhoff's hundred million dollars, since you don't like his need for legacy?

If society wants the hospital to exist and have funding, then society can decide to raise taxes to pay for it. I don't care about Benioff's need for legacy. I care about reducing corruption, which non anonymous tax deductible donations enable.

I think your idea of controlling "corruption" is simplistic if your argument ends with "let government handle the money".

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#584

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

oefnak wrote: post #460
orangejewce wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow dude, if you're going to be anti-semitic, just do it. Don't bother trying to be "cute", or "subtle" using emojis. Really pathetic.

I think you're reading into it too much. He specifically said he thinks it is not a bad thing. In your opinion, is it possible to say anything about your culture without being anti-semitic?

Then why did they feel the need to obfuscate?

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#585

Post by frickenhamster »

travisjungroth wrote: post #578
settrans wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Spend your money on riotous living The letter is BS with the first line. It makes it sound like the options are giving money to your kids or getting drunk. But that makes no sense for the range of money we’re talking about. Jeff Bezos could throw a $10 million party every night for a year and his net worth would go down 2%.

Thats not how networth works. No one has enough liquid capital to spend money like that. As soon as people found out Bezos was wasteful like that, his network would drop just based on stock price.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#586

Post by archibaldJ »

Knowing people such as Chuck Feeney exist is very motivating. I have had many near-death experiences. When I came back to this world everything saddened me. It’s supposed to be good to be alive. And it is! But ontologically suffering appears to be a fundamental nature about this world. And there are so much unnecessary suffering around us. So many miseries. So many heart-broken things and false dreams and inauthenticity that just result in more sadness. All for nothing at the face of the death.

This is why I want to believe. I want to believe in the goodness of people. Just as I’m constantly troubled by the realistic notion of death as I try to appreciate the transient presence of being here, I want to believe things will get better in the sense that there will be less suffering and people will learn and mature and become wiser and nicer to each other.

As we approach death and become one with nothing, we become one.

As we exist, we are only inducing more pains to ourselves. There are meanings though. I hope there are more meaningful things. We are sentient.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#587

Post by charles_f »

white-flame wrote: post #469
davinic wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could also just tax the income used to make the donations at similar levels to prior top brackets and not depend on philanthropy as a means to fund public institutions or social safety nets.

That puts the decision on where to put public good will and non-profitable money sinks solely into the machine of government bureaucracy, which I don't think would be very effective. Currently we incentivize private individual donations, and that lets a lot of things happen quickly and without the requirement of soliciting the permission of a bottlenecked council for anything to happen.

Isn't budget a part of elections platform, and so democracy? Because certainly when it comes to giving money to people bureaucracy becomes a factor, but then rather than redistributing money, things that you could spend tax money on:

- Universal healthcare - Free education - Funding homeless assistance programs - Employment insurance - UBI

(granted these last 2 are pretty much just redistributing money)

The question is whether you want the few billionaires to decide where to spend the money, or everyone (that is, people who haven't been disenfranchised).

AND THEN arguably given the polarization of the US today, I can understand that anyone feels frisky in raising the taxes to found the other side's ideas (being republicans not wanting to fund healthcare or democrats not wanting to fund a wall)

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#588

Post by compiler-guy »

snowwrestler wrote: post #487
settrans wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To have an economist leading off with a moral argument tells you how strong the economic argument is. (not strong) A view toward growing the economy would prefer the riotous living, because it moves more money around. Note that in almost any other context, Friedman is concerned with impediments to economic activity. Yet here, we are led to believe that high levels of economic activity are bad or immoral for some reas…

> To have an economist leading off with a moral argument > tells you how strong the economic argument is.

This is an ad hominem argument.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#589

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

bashallah wrote: post #259
viscanti wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

You have to rationalize; if their endowment is that large, they aren’t prioritizing enabling more students to attend with reduced or no tuition.

Instead of rationalising, try researching. Ivy League universities, for example, almost uniformly use "need-blind admission". Meaning they admit you first, and the decision comes with a promise to find a way to make it affordable for you to attend given your circumstances.

As a datapoint, "Fifty-five percent of Harvard College students receive need-based scholarship aid, and the average grant this year is more than $53,000." (https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=harvard...)

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#590

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

zozbot234 wrote: post #275
throwaway2048 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is however a democracy, Bill Gates isn't.

Strictly speaking, the U.S. is a republic not a democracy. Are you sure that your average congresscritter makes better decisions on money allocation at the margin than a private philanthropist would?

Strictly speaking, the US is both a republic and a democracy, and this stupid meme needs to die.
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