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Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

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Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#751

Post by gambiting »

rapind wrote: post #592
7402 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maimonides defines eight levels in giving charity (tzedakah), each one higher than the preceding one. On an ascending level, they are as follows: 8. When donations are given grudgingly. 7. When one gives less than he should, but does so cheerfully. 6. When one gives directly to the poor upon being asked. 5. When one gives directly to the poor without being asked. 4. Donations when the recipient is aware of the donor'…

9. When the donation wouldn’t occur without a tax break.

I never understood why people keep pointing out that charity donations "might" qualify as tax brakes, as if that's something bad or even worse - some way to cheat the system. Can someone explain this to me?

As far as I understand - by donating X amount of money, the most you can possibly get, is an X deduction from your taxes. But the total amount of money spent at the end is still X. You haven't saved anything anywhere. You have sort of re-routed your taxes from the government to someone else.

The only way I can see fraud in this is when people set up a charity owned by themselves, then donate money to it and simultaneously have it as a tax deduction - that's just fraud. But I still don't see what's wrong with simply getting a tax break for donating - it doesn't save you anything, in fact, it's an added hassle at your tax return time(if you live somewhere where you have to do those at all).

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#752

Post by andi999 »

pmiller2 wrote: post #712
nverno wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"To maintain our standard of living" is not even close to the reason we need to tax billionaires. Let me put it to you this way: I couldn't give 2 shits how many mansions, yachts, and Ferraris anybody has, but, when there are people[0] who literally have the ability to spend an amount of money greater than the entire GDP of a small country[1] to influence my country's elections, then I have a problem with that. Put a…

$1M 1vote is no problem. So even a big short billionaire cannot influence much since 50,000 votes would be $50bn. Ok, this might effect Slovenia. One time. And then its a former billionaire.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#753

Post by gambiting »

richardw wrote: post #731
Daishiman wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not "donations". They're taxes, period. There's no moral benefit to paying them in the same way there's no moral benefit to obeying traffic laws. It's not a charity as it's not voluntary. It's the cost of playing the game.

It’s the cost for some. If you’re rich enough you pay far less tax because you have access to an army of people whose job it is to help you do that. They leave us suckers to pay. That’s not right. I think more of people who pay their fair share. Feels like a moral issue for me.

>>They leave us suckers to pay.

Except that's not true at all. Vast majority of taxes come from the richest. They might pay less percentage wise than me and you, but they pay the most in absolute terms.

>>I think more of people who pay their fair share.

I think more of people who pay more tax, not of those who pay more percentage wise. Ie - someone who makes a million dollars and pays 100k in tax seems to be contributing far more to the system than someone who makes 20k and pays 4k in taxes - even though the second person paid more percentage wise. Which one of these is "a fair share"? Why is one person literally paying 25x as much in taxes? Do they use the roads and hospitals and prisons and the police 25x as much?

I mean, I can see both sides of this argument - but I do dislike when people just go "oh us suckers down here are paying all the taxes" - like, no, we just don't.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#754

Post by Daishiman »

cm2187 wrote: post #749
andi999 wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there is also less need/causes to donate to if living in a high redistribution country (and yes proximity is important for a lot of people at least emotionally).

You should check out France to find out if high redistribution eliminates poverty (hint: it doesn’t).

But it does a very swell job at eliminating most of the worst of abject misery that comes with poverty in most other places.

Being poor in Latin America is an exponentially worse experience than being poor in France.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#755

Post by wolfhumble »

superhuzza wrote: post #645
dvt wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not sad at all. There are plenty of secular reasons for doing a good deed for the sake of the deed itself — not the reward or recognition. I mean, this is basically the entire underpinning of Kantian ethics.

That's exactly my point though. I'm an atheist, and I don't do good things out of a desire for "rewards in heaven", or rewards of any kind. I don't refrain from stealing because I'm afraid of hell or punishment. As you point out, they're done for the act itself. This passage presents altruism as a tit-for-tat deal with God. Do good, and you'll get some of that back...later. I promise! It's almost tacky.

It is not about tit-for-tat, it is about trust. A good parent often wants to give a child something they know will please the child more than what he/she is currently experiencing. Often the child will be angry and scream and hold onto the old, but the parent knows that as soon as the child let go and embrace what the parent has prepared the child will be happy and joyful.

God is more loving that any good parent: God IS Love, 1 John 4:8. I trust God's goodness and follow Him, I therefore don't have any reason to go into a tit-for-tat deal with God.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#756

Post by smaryjerry »

modo_mario wrote: post #715
cabaalis wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with money don't put it all under a mattress. It's active in the economy, creating jobs.

I can assure you the vast majority of billionaires did not become that by caring about creating jobs. They cared about the return. A return that does not have to come matched with creating good jobs. Assuming you're American I believe you still have people in gov that got rich because of their family starting a pyramid scheme. I wouldn't call that a benefit to society. Remember those guys in the 90's tanking company…

Organizing is difficult. Wealth is created because they are able to appropriately organize people into the jobs they are most efficient. They are able to get people to work harder, produce more, and more efficiently use resources. You might not think efficiency is moral but it does result in a higher quality of life across the board. Why are tech companies currently the darlings? Because each was able to find efficient ways to do things, communicate, search, or combine or improve existing technologies. Instead of printing every book they can just be downloaded and on the same device you make calls. It isn’t a natural process, it requires leaders to make things efficient in order to make money. No one should care about “jobs” because they mean nothing. If one person could produce all the food needed to feed the world then we don’t need jobs. That is the progress these people bring and that is the only reason they are able to make money, by improving efficiency. If you are saying their are ways to make money that don’t improve efficiency, obviously that is true but rare, and even if the case where someone tanking company reputations, the owners of the company are not required to sell, look at Tesla which had the most short sellers of any company and a constant barrage of negative articles but that was all able to be overcome by Tesla’s owner Elon Musk.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#757

Post by slickrick216 »

newsclues wrote: post #613
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I fail to see the problem, if you have more money than you could possibly use in a lifetime, why shouldn't that be redistributed through programs that benefit all of society, instead of whatever pet projects the rich person favors. Who decides that? The great and scholarly politicians we elect?

Historically, a mob of angry people after their pleas go unheard for too long, like the French Revolution. Sound familiar?

So let us appease mob violence.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#759

Post by slickrick216 »

tathougies wrote: post #722
nicoburns wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society is the only thing enforcing the private property laws that allow you to amass stuff in the first place. If society wasn't involved there would be nothing to stop anyone simply taking your stuff. Society enforces such rules because they are conducive to a good society for everyone. It has every right to stop enforcing them at the point at which that ceases to be the case. > That or we stop pretending we live i…

The only thing enforcing private property is the threat of violence if you violate someone else's property. This enforcement can come via a socialized system like government and this is preferable. But you are delusional to think the truly rich need to rely on government. Without 'society' you get survival of the richest and most violent instead of just wealth inequality

“Blood, whips and guns – or dollars. Take your choice – there is no other – and your time is running out.”

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#760

Post by username90 »

gambiting wrote: post #751
rapind wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

9. When the donation wouldn’t occur without a tax break.

I never understood why people keep pointing out that charity donations "might" qualify as tax brakes, as if that's something bad or even worse - some way to cheat the system. Can someone explain this to me? As far as I understand - by donating X amount of money, the most you can possibly get, is an X deduction from your taxes. But the total amount of money spent at the end is still X. You haven't saved anything anywh…

If you buy X you pay tax. If you donate to provider of X and get X in return as a gift you don't pay tax.

For example donating money to keep your local church running is paying for a service without paying taxes for it.

Another thing you can do is donate earmarked money that they will use to buy your products. For example Google donating chromebooks to schools. That is marketing dollars.

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