Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

801–810 of 875 posts

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#801

Post by mdlman »

names_are_hard wrote: post #790
audiometry wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of a weird escalation -- steps 8->2 incrementally make sense (the more anonymized you are, the 'better'). But then the difference between step 2 and step 1 is totally different, the distinction is no longer anonymity, but some measure of efficacy of the support.

Maybe the axis is not anonymity per se but the dignity preserved by the recipient. Anonymity is not the goal, it's a means to an end. And providing employment achieves that end even better than anonymity does. In this light the lower levels also make sense, each progressive level allows the recipient to feel less guilty (the donor is not annoyed that they have to help, or doesn't even need to be asked, etc). The real…

That's an interesting point. To add to it slightly, maybe the goal is to create a healthier community. Without the guilt or annoyance you mention, it is possible for both the donor and the recipient to maintain a positive relationship going forward (less of an ongoing power dynamic or bitterness).

My guess would be that when these levels developed, most giving was within a close knit community.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#802

Post by MisterBastahrd »

kabacha wrote: post #720
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…

> I have no problem at all with Bezos being worth $200 billion Really? You have no problem one person owning so much money? That's around 30$ for _every_ person on the planet, can you even wrap your head around that? There's no reason why a single person should ever own this sort of wealth, none at all.

The guy could literally buy every team in the NFL and have billions to spare.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#803

Post by refurb »

neuronic wrote: post #764
refurb wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the support for inheritance taxes surprising. HN loves the social democracies, but most of them don't have inheritance taxes, with many abolishing them in the past few decades - Australia, NZ, Canada, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Slovakia, Portugal.

Social democracies aren't perfect, they are just clearly better for the average citizen than whatever type of failed state the US is. By all metrics except Tomahawks per capita.

Or maybe, just maybe, inheritance taxes are bad policy?

And as for the US being a “failed state”, there sure is a big line to get in there!

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#804

Post by mywittyname »

bzbarsky wrote: post #652
alex_young wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems a bit subjective. How do you know that they will become poor if not for your action? If you need to do this over and over again, and we're talking about just that, it seems like giving to the poor is a pretty good algorithm.

> How do you know that they will become poor if not for your action? Here's a simple example. A mine closes down. You can start giving the ex-miners money on an ongoing basis to let them keep paying their bills, maybe. Or you could fund training for them to learn a new career. How do you know they will become poor if you don't fund the training? You don't. Maybe they would have managed to change careers anyway. But c…

Giving money to people is the best way to help them. It turns out that most people are generally entrepreneurial and will spend the money on what they think is the most important need for them at the moment. Maybe the person doesn't need training; maybe they already have a skill, and what they really need is some capital to buy equipment or materials to pursue that activity.

This idea is behind a the success of the Earned Income Tax Credit in the USA. Giving people in need a substantial capital injection at a single point in time is a very impactful to people without the means to save.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#805

Post by dave_aiello »

This article is definitely worth reading. However, I didn't follow the link for over 21 hours after it was published because, I didn't recognize Chuck Feeney's name, and I couldn't tell from the title what the article was about.

I think when an article is shared on HN some consideration needs to be given to ambiguous situations like this.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#806

Post by sokoloff »

ebg13 wrote: post #680
sokoloff wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way does he still have everything? It looks like he’s got enough to sustainably generate about a median household income in my state. That’s a long walk from everything in my book.

> It looks like he’s got enough to sustainably generate about a median household income Oh come on. He's 89 years old and has millions of dollars still. How long do you expect him to live? "Sustainably generating" a median household income in perpetuity is an interesting bar to set. You're aware that most of the country doesn't have any savings at all, yeah? That the current median _at_retirement_age_ savings for the…

My challenge was to your hyperbolic claim that he "still has everything" and an insinuation that that makes giving away $8 billion (with a B) over his lifetime not as impressive because he didn't give away the last 0.025% of his wealth.

That he's getting payments from Social Security after a lifetime of contributions to Social Security is also of no concern to me (I view it as the overwhelming default and entirely proper).

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#807

Post by shadowfiend »

headmelted wrote: post #744
andrepd wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You "concede" that (a) is false? That's quite a strong claim. At least with "the government" managing it, there's at least some degree of democratic control, accountability, scrutiny, and influence. When that management is left to private enterprise, that's not the case.

Then you're getting into a philosophical debate about how morally "right" democracy actually is. That's dangerous territory. I'm not saying I have a better idea, I don't, but democracy has been the driving force behind some pretty heinous stuff over the centuries (most obviously the resistance to equality of race, gay rights and universal suffrage). It's just less terrible than the alternatives that exist in the worl…

> Then you're getting into a philosophical debate about how morally "right" democracy actually is.

Only insofar as you're getting into a debate about how morally right it is _compared to billionaires and/or corporations spending the same money_.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#808

Post by zdragnar »

endymi0n wrote: post #786
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'…

Level one sounds suspiciously close to actually paying taxes and let the social net built on it work its magic. Now come on, downvote me to hell.

Similar effect, perhaps, but different cause.

Taxes aren't voluntary.

You don't choose how much you owe.

Not all taxes go towards improving people's lives- in the US, many safety nets only kick in once you are impoverished, and can disincentivise work. As an example, the recent coronavirus add-on payments to unemployment often meant people at the lowest levels of opportunity would make more by staying home than if they got a job.

This isnt to say tax funded social nets are bad; most aren't. They certainly shouldn't be confused with charity, though.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#809

Post by WaylonKenning »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #526

> “ Where did $8 billion go? Feeney gave $3.7 billion to education, including nearly $1 billion to his alma mater, Cornell, which he attended on the G.I. Bill. More than $870 million went to human rights and social change, like $62 million in grants to abolish the death penalty in the U.S. and $76 million for grassroots campaigns supporting the passage of Obamacare. He gave more than $700 million in gifts to health r…

Yeah how dare this guy give away money to things he thinks is good, and not to these other things that I think are good.

This is immediately the reason why these donations are anonymous!

Guy gives away nearly all his money, and people are still not happy about it.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#810

Post by Dirlewanger »

rhacker wrote: post #689
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…

OR, just parcel out land and give people seeds and allow them to trade with nearby neighbors... There's no longer a need for money and everyone gets to eat - which is all we really need. Beyond that, people can help each other build homes in smallish communities. Money, even on a planet with this many people, isn't necessary, because it's like people driving cars - the system works because everyone is operating to ke…

>HN is not a fan of this take.

Probably because it sounds like utopian nonsense.

Post reply on HN