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Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

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Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#181

Post by mercutio2 »

ars wrote: post #55
lmm wrote: post #3

I don't necessarily want it to go away entirely, but the tax breaks should be abolished. It's particularly offensive to see the state and local tax deduction (money that actually goes to help one's fellows in the ways they see fit, without being beholden to the whims of the "donor") capped while 503c "donations" remain an unlimited deduction.

The tax break is only around 20% of the donation. Even if the donated money is not spent as perfectly as you would like, there's 5 times as much of it.

Huh? My marginal tax rate is ~45%. I get way more than a 20% benefit from 501c3 donations.

I get to avoid capital gains on the donation of appreciated assets on top of that.

For whom is the benefit only 20%?

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#182

Post by dontbenebby »

Yup. Money isn't the issue with nonprofits (well aside from paying your execs multiples of the max on the GS scale while whining if the low level staffers ask to be paid in line with the GS payscale)

The issue is they pay their executives $$$$$ while insisting low level employees take much less than they'd make as government employees while feeling entitled to shape someone's career for the rest of their LIFE if they leave the organization on bad terms.

Someone told me "no one gets fired on K street". I did. I moved in with my parents, learned to code, and signed a lease in line with my budget on an apartment in my home county, where yet another nonprofit profited from my knowledge while abusing me.

Ex: look at page 7 here:

https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/CDT-2015-990-FINA...

Then look here:

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...

The entitlement of these entities is astounding.

You can only repeat the same confidence tricks so many times before men with guns come into your house like it's Belfast in the 80s or you have civil unrest on an unprecedented scale.

I've interviewed places that went on to full on unionize, then applied again after the unionization thinking I could discard my previous extremely disrespectful experiences that were hand waved away, only to have people conduct the process like I'm trying to order a vodka mate at Waterfall[6].

(As in conducting the interview with dripping sarcasm and a tone like they're going to try to put a cigarette out on me, which is not something I want done, though thanks for the hole in my best black t-shirt because I decided to go to the club they didn't write about in LA Times or whatever.)

I'm gonna swing back to a research project I'm working on in a moment, but it says everything about thew state of nonprofits all the world over that when back before the 2020 election, I asked my bank for a safe deposit box and a funeral home for a pointer on someone who can draw up a will that it felt like the entire planet lost their minds. (They didn't help with either, since I'm not a boomer, and so I closed my account. Enjoy the bank run and stock crash, you rude little woman!)

The insurrection was illegal, and murder is bad, but unfortunately I think it took events like that, or the power failure in Texas[2] or the condo collapse in Florida[3] are what it took to teach folks that pairing no income tax at the state level with hatred of "feds" and sales tax will end with you sitting alone in your McMansion or condo, wondering if it will collapse in on you due to an extreme weather event, or a nuclear strike conducted by a rouge state you insisted via your purposefully terrible voting be handled with kid gloves[4][5].

At the end of the day, the world we are seeing on the news today is the one that folks from generations prior to mine (including GenX) very violently insisted on.

I'm on the autistic spectrum -- I know people sometimes say one thing and mean another, so all I can do is try to put enough information out there that people can try to make good decisions under uncertainty.

(I wrote the above while pounding espresso that I put on my Capital One[8] card, since based on my interactions with their employees I don't think they care if I pay my bill, and there's no cash in MY wallet.)

[1] https://gizmodo.com/google-funded-think-tank-fires-google-cr... [2] https://www.npr.org/2021/02/17/968577281/what-went-wrong-wit... [3] https://www.npr.org/2021/08/26/1031245430/surfside-condo-col... [4] https://www.npr.org/2022/05/21/1100547908/russia-ends-natura... [5] https://www.npr.org/2022/01/15/1072385995/north-korea-is-tes... [6] http://water-gate.de/de/contact/location/location.html [7] I changed my SSID, you're not as smart as you think :-) [8] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/woman-accused-of...

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#183

Post by nomdep »

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 pure democracy, a direct democracy, is no different than government though Facebook likes, everything becomes a popularity contest. You know, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others".

"The people", as a collective entity, is extremely dumb, so I think that the faster the communication advances, the worse democracy has become.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#184

Post by colinmhayes »

mattferderer wrote: post #149
croon wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use some comparison service to get some insight into how the money is distributed and pick one with the most impact: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ https://www.givewell.org/ https://www.charitywatch.org/

Please be careful using these services. They show you high level data & many times do more harm than good due to misinterpretations. Working with many non-profits, they're very careful to keep expenses below a certain percentage of their donations. Otherwise sites likes these cause them to lose donations. Unfortunately this results in low salaries for employees which means the employees gain skills but can't afford t…

This seems like bad advice. Local non profits are largely incapable of having the impact international ones do. The local YMCA will not even come close to the impact per dollar that global health non profits have. Yes, it can be hard to get to know the international non-profits, but there are plenty of services that provide meta analysis on non profit impact. Just looking at the top of givewell you can see that lives can be saved for the order of $1000, the YMCA can't compete with that.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#185

Post by colinmhayes »

krageon wrote: post #106
kortilla wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should rethink this stance. Do you want competent people running the organization or the cheapest possible? A charity that just passes money straight through by sending envelopes full of cash to a war torn country is much worse than one that spends a ton of money on analyzing first what the most effective way to help is.

Your stance that the most competent people are paid the most is the kind of toxic capitalism that got us into this situation. Nobody is helped by this except the egos of the donators and the pockets of whoever is in charge.

That's not the stance though. The stance is that administrative costs isn't what matters. Impact is what matters. Sometimes impact requires more administration, sometimes it doesn't. But impact is something that we can measure, so why use a bad heuristic instead?

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#186

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

nomdep wrote: post #183
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 pure democracy, a direct democracy, is no different than government though Facebook likes, everything becomes a popularity contest. You know, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others". "The people", as a collective entity, is extremely dumb, so I think that the faster the communication advances, the worse democracy has become.

That's why Switzerland is such a poor country and disappeared from the face of the Earth. The people who want you to believe other people are dumb and direct democracy is a bad thing are the ones benefiting the most from the current inbalanced form of government.

I mean if you think the people as a collective entiry are extremely dumb, why would you want any form of democracy or even society at all? Also, I have bad news for you but reallisticly speaking unless you are the unlikely strong outlier the average person is you (and me).

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#187

Post by WhompingWindows »

nomdep wrote: post #183
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 pure democracy, a direct democracy, is no different than government though Facebook likes, everything becomes a popularity contest. You know, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others". "The people", as a collective entity, is extremely dumb, so I think that the faster the communication advances, the worse democracy has become.

I think your equation isn't apt. Facebook likes run through personalized networks and are fed to users by privately curated algorithms which prioritize engagement and serving ads to benefit: Facebook.

In contrast, a pure democracy would be open questions and elections to any adult who is a citizen, without algorithms and corporate motivation interceding. This would theoretically benefit the aggregate voter: the citizens who vote.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#188

Post by s1artibartfast »

ryandrake wrote: post #177
gruez wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>this author seems to take as a fairly key element of their argument that people getting stupid rich and then doing government type stuff without democratic oversight is good [...] Which part is bad? The "government type stuff" or the "without democratic oversight"? I agree that billionaires fielding their own armies/police forces would be pretty bad, but what's wrong with funding homeless shelters or schools? If I d…

To me, the key downside of philanthropy is the "without democratic oversight" part. It's all fine when the billionaires are funding homeless shelters or schools: things everyone can agree are a public good. We are extremely lucky that guys like Bill Gates suddenly got a soft spot for fighting malaria after amassing their fortunes. But nothing exists to stop these billionaires from donating to causes against the publi…

But that's not true. The people and the democratically-elected government are the ones that Define what qualifies as a charity.

We have said through our Democratic process that these are good things.

https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organiz...

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#189

Post by newsclues »

pyuser583 wrote: post #22
ThrowITout4321 wrote: post #17

No, but it's troubling to know that some of these non profits will live forever. I can setup a foundation whose goal is to fund an ugly aspect of society. If I give it enough money the foundation can live forever thru wise investments of its endowment. There would be nothing to stop it from doing its work forever. The foundation can even influence political causes by funding research that support the foundation's cau…

It’s really hard to find examples of pernicious institutions set up this way. The Prohibition Party is still around because of a trust that funds them indefinitely. But nobody cares about the Prohibition Party. Some ecclesiastical organizations have this sort of perpetual funding. Sometimes via taxes, and sometimes investments. But it doesn’t make the organizations insanely powerful. The Catholic Church in Germany is…

The original parent organization to modern Planned Parenthood had some pretty abhorrent for the modern times views, and there is evidence to suggest it still has similar aims disguised in a broader social agenda.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#190

Post by ouid »

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…

There's a LOT of money to be made telling poor people that rich people are good. Given how much we have collectively been paid to find a good argument for enriching the rich, I don't find any of the arguments to be anywhere close to commensurately convincing, do you?
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