Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats • Hacker News Board

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#151

Post by throw__away7391 » Tue, May 24, 2022, 1:29 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #146

throw__away7391 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for several different charities for a few years. Supposedly "good ones", a couple of big names. After what I have seen I don't think I'd ever donate to a charity. The CEO's pay is almost the least concern, everything runs according to the whims of people who wouldn't last 5 minutes in a for-profit business. The people donating just want to feel good about themselves or get some positive press for donating. T…

I still donate to several causes, and take a slightly different view on the expenses associated with fundraising. No one objects when for-profit businesses spend right up to the microeconomic theoretical optimal point where the marginal profit is zero. Yet we seem to object when charities do it. If I ran a charity and had an exclusive choice to either spend $X to raise $Y or spend ($X + $0.99M) to raise ($Y + $1.00M)…

From the charity's perspective, yeah. From my perspective, knowing that of that $100 coming out of my pocket, only a fraction is going to what I am donating towards, and pretty inefficiently at that, and at the expense of some government programs if I write it off, that's not so interesting to me.

For what it's worth I also tend to avoid products that seem to spend a lot on advertising.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#152

Post by s1artibartfast » Tue, May 24, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #146

throw__away7391 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for several different charities for a few years. Supposedly "good ones", a couple of big names. After what I have seen I don't think I'd ever donate to a charity. The CEO's pay is almost the least concern, everything runs according to the whims of people who wouldn't last 5 minutes in a for-profit business. The people donating just want to feel good about themselves or get some positive press for donating. T…

I still donate to several causes, and take a slightly different view on the expenses associated with fundraising. No one objects when for-profit businesses spend right up to the microeconomic theoretical optimal point where the marginal profit is zero. Yet we seem to object when charities do it. If I ran a charity and had an exclusive choice to either spend $X to raise $Y or spend ($X + $0.99M) to raise ($Y + $1.00M)…

>If I ran a charity and had an exclusive choice to either spend $X to raise $Y...

The common criticism of this hangs on how elastic the supply of donor dollars are. If you spend $1M to divert funds from another charity to yours, then the system overall is worse off.

This isn't a perfect model because donor dollars are not fixed, and all charities are not equivalent. reality lies somewhere in-between.

That said, it is all pretty irrelevant because there are lots of groups that evaluate charities on their overhead to benefit, so it is pretty easy to find one with low overhead if that is a concern.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#153

Post by barry-cotter » Tue, May 24, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #144

barry-cotter wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tax things with negative ones Graduate degrees, pollution, loud cars/motorcycles, ugly buildings, mountain climbing, alcohol, marijuana, fashion magazines. So many possibilities.

I get 2, 3 and 4. A bit unsure how the logic works for the others? Mountain climbing could cause damage to the mountain I suppose...

Taught Master’s and second entry degrees like MDs and JDs are bad for different reasons. The first enable credentialism, which should be discouraged which tax does. Second entry degrees are just bad. Make people spend seven/eight years of their life in college instead of the three/five/six that’s common outside the US and wannabe colonies like Canada or South Korea.

Mountain climbing results in dead people and large hospital expenses and mountain rescue teams rescuing people.

Most alcohol is drunk by alcoholics. Most marijuana is ingested by people who spend over three hours a day stoned. Both of those are bad and should be discouraged. Alcohol probably causes more economic damage than every illegal drug combined.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#154

Post by sokoloff » Tue, May 24, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

throw__away7391 wrote: post #151

sokoloff wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still donate to several causes, and take a slightly different view on the expenses associated with fundraising. No one objects when for-profit businesses spend right up to the microeconomic theoretical optimal point where the marginal profit is zero. Yet we seem to object when charities do it. If I ran a charity and had an exclusive choice to either spend $X to raise $Y or spend ($X + $0.99M) to raise ($Y + $1.00M)…

From the charity's perspective, yeah. From my perspective, knowing that of that $100 coming out of my pocket, only a fraction is going to what I am donating towards, and pretty inefficiently at that, and at the expense of some government programs if I write it off, that's not so interesting to me. For what it's worth I also tend to avoid products that seem to spend a lot on advertising.

It's likely less expensive on the government angle that you might think. Take a thought experiment where from your $100 donation, $90 goes to wages of highly-paid fund-raising or executive staff and only $10 goes to charitable "actual work". Suppose that your combined marginal tax rate is 40%.

If you instead kept that $100 to spend on yourself, you would give the government $40 and you could spend $60.

In the case you give it to charity, the development/executive staff pays income taxes on that $90, so if their marginal rate is the same as yours (assuming they're highly paid), they pay $36 in taxes, have $54 to spend, and $10 goes to programming. If it goes to staff paid under $147K, they pay their (lower) marginal rate on it, but the full 15.3% amount for Social Security and Medicare is paid on those funds.

It seems like the government is only out ~$4 ($40 less from you; $36 more from someone else), with ~$10 available for programs.

(The largest loss is that you lost $60 of spending power in exchange for only $10 in programming while development staff got an extra $54 of spending power. You lose way more than the government loses.)

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#155

Post by s1artibartfast » Tue, May 24, 2022, 1:50 PM UTC

beefield wrote: post #85

Okay, I think I have some weird blind spot here. I have really hard time understanding the reasoning behind philanthropy being a societal good that should be subsidized by taxpayers. Let's take econ 101 and revealed preferences. It is obvious that if you give 100 bucks to a charity you get utility worth more than that 100 bucks. Otherwise you would not do that . And there is zero difference on the mechanics there if…

The moral and economic arguments are pretty simple.

From the economic perspective, If someone gives $100 to charity, and a gets a $20 tax deduction, this is a net positive. Ostensibly, the point of government is to help people, and the point of charities are to help people. In reality, Half of that $20 tax would have gone to building bombs, so it is more like $10 vs $100.

From the moral perspective, charitable donations are set apart from other transactions because there is no quid-pro-quo, so more good is done. When you buy a movie ticket, a significant portion of that goes creating the product you receive (paying the movie studio, building the theatre, paying investors). With a charitable donation, the idea is that that more good is done because you are forgoing receiving any goods or services.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#156

Post by Matl » Tue, May 24, 2022, 1:53 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #147

mschuster91 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A government-funded institution has no one with a stake in its long-term success. Of course it has: pissed-off voters . Mismanaged government-funded institutions such as DMVs or social security systems are a regular troublemaker for politicians.

Is this feedback process the explanation for why those previously underperforming and frequently complained about government departments have now been fixed?

> Is this feedback process the explanation for why those previously underperforming and frequently complained about government departments have now been fixed?

Perhaps the constant demonizing of public services by private interests, (who btw often rely on government contracts to function), and certain politicians bought by these interests could be a contributing factor in why not?

But let me hear about how private healthcare and broadband is killing it please.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#157

Post by ClumsyPilot » Tue, May 24, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

Diggsey wrote: post #135

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comes across as divorced from reality - this is not why most people donate

What's the difference between someone who donates because it makes them feel good (to have a positive impact on the world) and someone who does it because they want to have a positive impact on the world? There isn't one. It's the same thing. All choices can be traced back to a "selfish" reason. To deny that is to suggest that there is something other than our self that determines if we are a good person or not.

What is the difference between someone who lives a trully happy life of luxury and someone who lives in squalor and his happyness is induced through drugs?

There isn't one. Its the same thing.

To deny that is to suggesy that theelre is something other than our self that determined is we had a good life.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#158

Post by itronitron » Tue, May 24, 2022, 1:59 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #131

Another only mildly disguised attack on democracy. > If you’re used to thinking that our democratic system is in bad shape, that can sound jarring. But she’s working in the tradition of what philosophers call “ideal theory”; the aim is to sketch out what a good system would be, assuming that everyone fully complied with its rules. I'm used to thinking that democracy is in poor shape because rich and powerful people p…

A good system needs to be resilient to people in power (the rule enforcers or sub-rule makers) not complying with the rules.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#159

Post by anonymous_sorry » Tue, May 24, 2022, 2:00 PM UTC

exdsq wrote: post #119

anonymous_sorry wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess what I really care about is "how much good does my donated dollar do?". Compare a dollar donated to expensive cancer research in the west with a dollar spent on cheap treatments which we already know to work in a developing country. How much of my dollar goes to CEO and staff pay is part of the calculation, but not the only part. The Effective Altruism movement aims to direct money towards these activities wi…

My issue with EA is similar to the posts point - it seems to be a lot of money being moved around between EA organizations finding their own blue sky philosophy research. For example the Future of Humanities Institute is funded by Giving What We Can, which passes funds to some AI orgs in SF, that the guys at FHI collaborate with, etc… I agree with their points but the actual funding of EA infrastructure appears to be…

I've found that the funds are generally quite clear where the money goes. Givewell have a separate fund for EA infrastructure.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#160

Post by chaosbolt » Tue, May 24, 2022, 2:01 PM UTC

krzysiek wrote: post #78

> In the contemporary world, philanthropy is distinctively American. We give about four hundred and seventy billion dollars a year—more if you count donations of time, physical labor, and material. America’s total is ahead of any other country’s, even as a percentage of G.D.P. Well, this is just not true. Americans give 2.1% of GDP to charity [1] while the whole world gives just under 3% [2]. Also when you take a loo…

Substract from that how much money you made from Iraqi oil and how many houses/infrastructure you destroyed there and the result might be negative, and that's for a single country.

This whole charity idea is stupid if you're a country like the US, it's like kicking someone in the balls then giving them an aspirin for the pain and bragging about how generous you are.