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The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

nytimes.com

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Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#121

Post by SatvikBeri »

ceras wrote: post #116
SatvikBeri wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that really helps is getting involved with the growing Effective Altruism movement. There are several effective altruists at Jane Street (where Matt works), as well as meetups in NYC (and most major cities in the USA) and being part of a community makes sticking to those ideals a lot easier. Also, note that 5% of your income donated to effective charities is still huge, and enough to save many lives during…

What meetups are there in NYC? I've been really into this topic for years now, but don't really know anyone else who is. Would be cool to change that.

Here's the main one: http://www.meetup.com/Effective-Altruism-NYC/

The organizer Chris Jenkins is a great guy, you should definitely feel free to sign up and ask him any questions!

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#122

Post by michaelt »

jtbigwoo wrote: post #37

I talked about this on HN a few years ago, but my friends and I planned to be this guy. In college we talked about all the money we'd make and how much we'd be able to donate. We all had a job offers for $32 - 42k/year. That was amazing! We were living on less than $1k/month in college. We had plans to give away 20%, 30%, or 50% of our income. We would barely even notice. Some of us even managed to do it for a few ye…

  The world got to us, though. You start to notice that 
  the coworkers that dress nicer and go to happy hour get
  promotions. One guy married a social worker and had four
  kids. One guy got tired of living in a studio apartment
  in New Jersey.
But in our industry, with salaries how they are at the moment, you don't have to forego nice clothes and happy hour to donate 20% of your income to charity. I mean, the guy with 4 kids is spending way more than 20% of his salary on them, right? As long as you don't have 4 kids, you just need to keep your discretionary spending under control and demonstrate a reasonable amount of ambition in the workplace.

Now granted, your colleagues might have more expensive houses and nicer cars, but even giving 20% of my income to charity I have a much higher standard of living than my friends who studied less remunerative subjects.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#123

Post by driverdan »

jtbigwoo wrote: post #43
iamfbpt wrote: post #10

We all almost do through taxes. He goes further and donates 50% more from the remaining money.

> We all almost do through taxes. He goes further and donates 50% more from the remaining money. This is an odd argument. Are you saying that paying taxes is some form of altruism? The story is about a guy who donates money with no tangible benefit to himself. We all get benefits and services from the government. It debatable whether the value we receive is equal to the amount we pay in taxes, but the value is certai…

US entitlement spending is about 66% of the federal budget. Unless you're on disability, medicare, social security, or some other entitlement program that's money you're receiving no direct benefits from.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#124

Post by driverdan »

drcube wrote: post #65

This is the same Peter Singer who told parents not to send their kids to college and instead send their tuition money to Africa. But apparently, if you send your kid to college anyway, he could make enough to send half his salary to Africa every year, far outweighing his parents' initial college fund. So who is right? I like that Singer holds this guy up as an example, for doing the exact opposite of what Singer actu…

Source?

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#125

Post by bch »

morninj wrote: post #100
bch wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think all he's saying is that if you get in the habit of living on less $ (because you're giving 20, 30, 40, 50% away to others), if you decide to give it to _yourself_ to paydown debt, or save for retirement, you're already used to living on "50% income", so it may not be as difficult as for soemone who hasn't done this exercise. Edit: sloppy typing

The motivations are different: paying down my debt enhances my own financial well-being, while donating to charities enhances others'. Or: paying down debt is self-interested, while donating is selfless (or at least self-interested in a different way).

The point is: living on 0.5 * $annual_income requires discipline. If you give 0.5 to charity, good for you. If you put 0.5 to a retirement plan, or apply to some long-term debt that you assume, good for you. Not everybody has the discipline to get $10 and only look at $5 as "available".

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#126

Post by dragonwriter »

driverdan wrote: post #123
jtbigwoo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We all almost do through taxes. He goes further and donates 50% more from the remaining money. This is an odd argument. Are you saying that paying taxes is some form of altruism? The story is about a guy who donates money with no tangible benefit to himself. We all get benefits and services from the government. It debatable whether the value we receive is equal to the amount we pay in taxes, but the value is certai…

US entitlement spending is about 66% of the federal budget. Unless you're on disability, medicare, social security, or some other entitlement program that's money you're receiving no direct benefits from.

I dunno, I think the government employees (federal and, because much of the federal entitlement spending is joint state/federal programs like Medicaid) and contractors paid to work directly in the administration of those programs (or, in the case of companies running Medicare Advantage plans, working in for-profit businesses directly subsidized by the entitlement spending) are receiving at least as direct a benefit from those programs as the program recipients are, and often, per person, a much larger benefit, as well.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#127

Post by driverdan »

dragonwriter wrote: post #126
driverdan wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US entitlement spending is about 66% of the federal budget. Unless you're on disability, medicare, social security, or some other entitlement program that's money you're receiving no direct benefits from.

I dunno, I think the government employees (federal and, because much of the federal entitlement spending is joint state/federal programs like Medicaid) and contractors paid to work directly in the administration of those programs (or, in the case of companies running Medicare Advantage plans, working in for-profit businesses directly subsidized by the entitlement spending) are receiving at least as direct a benefit f…

Government employees and administration are overhead.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#128

Post by Tenhundfeld »

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.

I'm not trying to make this political, but I sometimes wonder how much of our charitable exceptionalism is related to the US having a weaker social safety net than many industrialized countries.

Whereas an American might donate to a food bank, homeless shelter, disaster relief, etc., a European might consider those activities the proper role of government and expect their (higher) taxes to go towards remedying the situation.

So, it might be that all industrialized nations share the belief that we should take care of our fellow man, help the needy, etc. Some believe it should be mandated and codified in the laws and policies of a nation; others believe it should be optional and driven by individuals.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#129

Post by RockyMcNuts »

jimbokun wrote: post #60
willmacaskill wrote: post #21

Matt is a friend of mine, and someone who got career advice from what ultimately became 80,000 Hours, a startup non-profit I cofounded. I'm really happy to see the positive response on here; we've advised a lot of people to 'earn to give' and some people... let's say they aren't that happy about the idea that working in trading can be an ethical career. Anyone, if anyone feels inspired by the story and thinks they mi…

"... let's say they aren't that happy about the idea that working in trading can be an ethical career." Well, it's at least worth having a discussion about. If you are in a career where you honestly think damage is being done by your activities, you need to weigh that against whatever good is being done with the money you earn and give away. What about the traders involved in the near-collapse of the global economy i…

You lend somebody to buy a house, you end up losing your shirt and your job, and they end up going bankrupt...there are a lot of people who should have known better or were downright criminal in the crisis, but most of the actors just didn't know any better...It's hard to do good in your work and it's hard to do good by giving, more power to those who try...Thoreau has some interesting words...

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one that is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve....

As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution...But I would not stand between any man and his genius; and to him who does this work, which I decline, with his whole heart and soul and life, I would say, Persevere, even if the world call it doing evil, as it is most likely they will."

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#130

Post by rancar2 »

scottjad wrote: post #62
willmacaskill wrote: post #21

Matt is a friend of mine, and someone who got career advice from what ultimately became 80,000 Hours, a startup non-profit I cofounded. I'm really happy to see the positive response on here; we've advised a lot of people to 'earn to give' and some people... let's say they aren't that happy about the idea that working in trading can be an ethical career. Anyone, if anyone feels inspired by the story and thinks they mi…

Are there any good techniques for a programmer/small business owner to be able to deduct charitable contributions more than 50% of one's adjusted gross income? > From http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Charitable-Organi... Generally, you may deduct up to 50 percent of your adjusted gross income, but 20 percent and 30 percent limitations apply in some cases.

To make things easy, use a donor-advised fund to meet your 50% of AGI. Thereafter, use retirement accounts. If you are a small business owner, check out SEP-IRAs.
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