The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay • Hacker News Board

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#161

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 8:03 PM UTC

hkmurakami wrote: post #91

willmacaskill wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a really important concern. Btw, 5% is still quite a bit more than the average, so good work! We're attempting to overcome this worry through community and behavioural economics hacks. E.g. I take every opportunity that I can (like this one) to say publicly that I'm planning to give away the majority of what I earn, which makes it a helluva lot harder for me to back out. Similarly for Matt - it would…

Not only is 5% of one's income a rather high number, even the average amount that people give in the United States is far higher than the corresponding amount in other countries (ex: Japan). It may be the country's Christian leanings that contribute to this, but to be charitable is seen as a virtue and absolute good in this society. This is not necessarily the case in other societies.

Monies donated to charity are also tax-deductible in US, and as a result the nonprofit sector is well-organized in terms of public outreach and so forth. One of the minor culture shocks I experienced coming to the US (from the UK) was the variety of billboards, radio, and TV ads encouraging people to donate their car, or boat, or whatever to this or that charity. At first I wondered why so many different charities were involved in giving cars to poor people, until someone explained that it was because you could (then) deduct the general market rate for the make and model of car involved. Nowadays they require more detailed documentation, eg the nonprofit has to give the donor a copy of the bill of sale within 30 days so that the donor knows how much to deduct. Turns out that some generous souls were inflating the size of their charitable donation on the tax forms in order to reduce their tax liability.

I also can't help noticing that some people who extol the virtues of religious giving are strenuously opposed to any expansion of government services, and seem to consider the whole idea of government taxation an intolerable confiscation of their money and thus an infringement upon their liberty. Such folk don't buy into the notion of a secular social contract between the state and the citizenry, and I often wonder if it because they see the state as being in competition with the religious establishment.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#162

Post by Mickydtron » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 8:06 PM UTC

ics wrote: post #42

jrlocke wrote: post #6

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I've always felt it selfish when people of means partake in 'aid trips' over sending money to an appropriate organization. If you care to help, leverage your abilities efficiently; make the money doing what you're best at, and let others administer the aid.

But then maybe wanting someone else to use their money efficiently is selfish of us when they might rather develop as people by observing and empathizing with the struggles of others.

If observing and empathizing are the goals of the trip, and everyone is clear about that, then all is fine and good. However, these sorts of trips are generally understood to have the goal of helping people directly, which they are not actually good at. Anecdotally, I find that these sorts of stories generally go "we helped them so much" rather than "I learned so much and will now donate more than I would have otherwise".

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#163

Post by phaemon » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 8:10 PM UTC

Mickydtron wrote: post #140

driverdan wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false equivalence. Even assuming Goldman Sachs causes ongoing significant financial damage (something I'm not convinced of), you can't compare that directly to saving lives with an equivalent amount of money. Apples and oranges.

Actually, that is the entire purpose of the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY). Keep in mind, no one is really intrinsically concerned with the economy as an abstract concept. The things that we really care about are how this complex system affects real humans, and once we're talking about a change in quality of life for humans, we can compare them to saving lives via the QALY. It's the sort of process that's more sta…

So if you killed the Goldman Sachs employee, stole $2 million of their savings, and donated half of that to Against Malaria Foundation, then you'd have saved a net 399 lives, and you'd be $1 million richer. Everyone's a winner!

I get the feeling that this particular accounting methodology is not used to justify actions against wealthy people.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#164

Post by caseysoftware » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 8:13 PM UTC

Veedrac wrote: post #150

caseysoftware wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This tends to break out along political lines. Christians, people who lean right, etc tend to give to social welfare organizations like the Salvation Army, Goodwill, foodbanks, etc. Basically groups that help out individuals. Atheists, people who lean left, etc tend to give to artistic or societal organizations like a symphony, Greenpeace, etc. I think the reasoning for this is simple. People on the right believe it…

D'you have a source?

Sure, googling for "charitable contributions by political party" gives the original article I was thinking of:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/10/21/s...

which I favored as opposed to the various studies that show Liberals tend to give less often and in smaller amounts of both time and money: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/giving-back-_n_3781... and http://www.nationalreview.com/home-front/357562/which-politi...

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#165

Post by tomjen3 » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 8:19 PM UTC

Mickydtron wrote: post #152

tomjen3 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is that it only works if you believe that 10% makes sense. For me it doesn't - it is either 0% or whatever several 100% of my current income it would take to do my part (I don't see how not currently earning enough to repay would be enough to get me of the hook, certainly car payments are not payed in percentage of income). Thus, for me, the only answer that makes sense is that we have no obliga…

Actually, the 10% isn't intended to be the Objectively Correct Amount To Donate. If someone accepts any obligation to help their fellow humans, then the conclusion is that they have an (effectively) infinite obligation. However, people operating as if they have an infinite obligation tend to find a way to reject that, or simply shut down and ignore the problem. Thus, picking a lower percentage than 100 that can be en…

I reject any obligation to help any random person. I tried to explain my thinking earlier, basically if you have an infinite debt then you don't have any right over your own life. I firmly reject that notion. The only other objectively correct notion is that you have zero debt, as you said 10% is merely a Schelling point. 1% would do as well, so would 5% or 15%.

Does that make sense?

I am willing to help friends, family, etc because I actually care about them, ie making them happy will make me happy.

I am also willing to save the child in this case, because it is a) close b) not especially burdensome and c) will provide me with some measure of happiness. It is a choice I freely make, not a moral obligation (if it was an adult I really hated I might not have rescued him).

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#166

Post by collyw » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 8:21 PM UTC

There was a story of a university researcher doing this a few years ago, on a for more modest wage.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-11950843

On the one hand I think its far more generous, though as pointed out, the trader will end up donating a lot more cash.

Either way, good on them.

I have too much uncertainly about my future to make such a commitment at this moment (and to be fair I really think that politics should arrange a fairer society so that individuals don't need to do such things). It's in the back of my head that if I get rich I could do so much more for society.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#167

Post by lkbm » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 8:22 PM UTC

Mickydtron wrote: post #152

tomjen3 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is that it only works if you believe that 10% makes sense. For me it doesn't - it is either 0% or whatever several 100% of my current income it would take to do my part (I don't see how not currently earning enough to repay would be enough to get me of the hook, certainly car payments are not payed in percentage of income). Thus, for me, the only answer that makes sense is that we have no obliga…

Actually, the 10% isn't intended to be the Objectively Correct Amount To Donate. If someone accepts any obligation to help their fellow humans, then the conclusion is that they have an (effectively) infinite obligation. However, people operating as if they have an infinite obligation tend to find a way to reject that, or simply shut down and ignore the problem. Thus, picking a lower percentage than 100 that can be en…

For me, the Objectively Correct Amount To Donate is the maximum I can deduct. I think this is 33% of gross, but someone elsewhere said it may be up to 50%. I'd go research it, but right now I'm working on achieving that 33$ this year--I'm not hitting 50% unless I bump up my income a good bit.

But it's an objective measure externally set for me that is neither 0% or 100% (less the minimum needed to live), so I find it quite helpful.

(I think taxes are great and I think we should all pay more to fund education, research, health care, and social safety nets, but right now a good portion of it goes to arresting people for drug use, killing people in the Middle East, breaking the Internet, and other things I really dislike.)

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#168

Post by krstck » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 8:23 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #139

krstck wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thus, for me, the only answer that makes sense is that we have no obligation to save the world, but we are allowed to donate whatever we want. That's the status quo. The whole reason we're having this conversation is because not enough people are donating X% in order to fix global poverty. So, what's your burden? What's my burden? 10% is a handy figure because it's small enough to be doable for most people, but lar…

That would be handy, granted. However having looked your argument over I don't think it ads up. Thus I maintain that my burden is 0%, so if you want to fix global poverty you will have to do it without my donations. The real problem isn't that we are not giving enough to Africa, the problem is that we don't buy enough from Africa. If you try to solve that problem instead the Africans will be much better of, you won't…

> However having looked your argument over I don't think it ads up. Thus I maintain that my burden is 0%, so if you want to fix global poverty you will have to do it without my donations.

Can you explain your reasoning? If you don't think you have any burden, then naturally the whole point of relinquishing the infinite debt and the 10% Schelling Point won't have any relevance. But in your original comment, you seemed to imply that there was some amount we are on the hook for, you just couldn't understand why we settled on 10%. But if I am misunderstanding, please correct me.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#169

Post by hkmurakami » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 8:30 PM UTC

willmacaskill wrote: post #157

kendallpark wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It may be the country's Christian leanings that contribute to this Maybe so. I was taught to tithe 10% of everything I earned starting with my grade school allowance. 10% to God (which could go to a church or charity) and 25% to the bank. Everything else got spent on Legos and whatnot. Fast forward twenty years (I'm 25) and I still siphon away 10% of my income into a separate account that I save for either church d…

Yeah, I seem to recall that the US gives a similar % of income as other countries once you subtract out donations to churches and to universities, which are both a much bigger thing than in other countries.

You're probably thinking of other Western countries. Remember that most Western countries have moral code derived from Christian morals.

What I mean is that if you look at countries with say top 50 GDP, many of them will be much lower than the "other western countries".

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#170

Post by lkbm » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 8:31 PM UTC

jrlocke wrote: post #6

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I've always felt it selfish when people of means partake in 'aid trips' over sending money to an appropriate organization. If you care to help, leverage your abilities efficiently; make the money doing what you're best at, and let others administer the aid.

One thing that was pointed out to me once was that a normal person on a vacation will spend more money in the local economy than they would otherwise donate.

Spending $500 on a plane ticket and then spend $500 at local restaurants, vendors, and accommodations won't do as much good as the $1000 would straight-up donated, but it's better than the $100 I would _actually_ donate. Don't make perfect the enemy of good.

And ultimately, it will make me care more about wherever I visited, and prompt further donations in the future.