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Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#151

Post by jakarta »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #133
ramanujan wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest lobbies for increased estate taxes are life insurance companies: http://blogs.forbes.com/hanisarji/2010/12/01/life-insurance-... “The estate tax is a cash cow for the life insurance industry – and the industry’s lobbyists guard it zealously...[o]nly three industries – pharmaceuticals, electric utilities, and oil and gas – spent more over the same period.”

Of which Buffet owns several. Which may or may not play a role in his support.

I don't think it does. The life insurance contribution to Berkshire Hathaway results is quite small. The bulk of the income is from reinsurance and P/C activities.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#152

Post by Benjo »

lionhearted wrote: post #63

Fantastic. I wonder if all these very public proclamations are going to shift people's attitude towards taxes? Most people think of the government as wasteful, inefficient, incompetent, and corrupt to more or less degrees, and I know I'd prefer to see money allocated by smart people like Gates, Buffet, Zuckerberg than by politicians who need to keep constituents happy and win votes. I committed a while back to giving…

Not sure how this should shift people's attitudes towards taxes. Do we increase them to encourage charitable giving or decrease them so the rich have more to give?

At some level this type of thinking lets government off the hook. Philanthropy by the ultra rich is not a solution to government waste and won't solve the fundamental problems in the US government.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#153

Post by jokermatt999 »

jacoblyles wrote: post #110
petenixey wrote: post #55

I happen to have just watched a brilliant TED talk on the value of angel investment (not aid) in Africa. The talk underlined how it is capitalism rather than charity that creates wealth. It would be wonderful to see some of SV's glitterati create more for-profit investment networks (bigger than Kiva, smaller than VC (...YC?)) in other hungry markets. Kudos to Mark for committing to this. If he applies his product-bri…

I will bet anyone that 20 years from now we will see that China's "greedy" investment in Africa has done more good than all the decades and $billions of "selfless" western aid, both public and private. And I also will bet that privatized school systems will perform better than public school bureaucracies that receive hundred million dollar gifts. The invisible hand is puckish like that.

http://www.longbets.org/

Not that I'd go down as opposing, but it could also be a nice way to get this idea some attention/publicity.

(And make some money in 20 years :)

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#154

Post by DevX101 »

ramanujan wrote: post #124
sshumaker wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue one of the points of estate taxes (which are heavily favored by Buffet, Gates, et. al) is to encourage you to will your fortunes to philanthropy - so it doesn't end up in the hands of the government.

The biggest lobbies for increased estate taxes are life insurance companies: http://blogs.forbes.com/hanisarji/2010/12/01/life-insurance-... “The estate tax is a cash cow for the life insurance industry – and the industry’s lobbyists guard it zealously...[o]nly three industries – pharmaceuticals, electric utilities, and oil and gas – spent more over the same period.”

For more details on WHY the life insurance lobbies aggressively to support the estate tax, see this link from ramanujan's article:

http://www.nodeathtax.org/uploads/view/2313/life_insurance_b...

Excerpt:

"Life insurance is the most basic tool for estate planning. Put simply, inheritance is subject to the estate tax, while life insurance benefits are untaxed. This drives up the demand for life insurance, thus driving up the price. The disparate tax treatment distorts the market so much that a wealthy person could buy a policy knowing he will pay more in premiums than the value of the benefit – and it would still make sense financially.

For example, if someone bought a $20 million whole life policy at age 60, and paid $25 million over the years in premiums, he would still be giving more to heirs (an untaxed $20 million) than if he just bequeathed that $25 million to his children – because after the estate tax, that could be worth less than $20 million."

--This discussion has been really informative. Thanks to all.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#155

Post by iterationx »

Stating that the global population was heading towards 9 billion, Gates said, “If we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services (abortion), we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 per cent.”

Another billionaire signs up for Gate's depopulation agenda.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#156

Post by jswinghammer »

nickpinkston wrote: post #137
ramanujan wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes it takes the government Hmmm. Not disagreeing that some things funded by government grants have been worthwhile, but almost every scientific discovery before the WW2 period was funded independently of the government -- including big ticket areas involving fundamental research like automobiles, railroads, and aviation.

Well, most railroad expansion was due to a govt act giving tons of land rights and other highly valuable privileges to anyone laying track in the territories - the TransContinental railroad was laid this way. However, quite true on the rest.

A private company did it the honest way and laid a more efficient track. The government paid per mile of track laid which you can imagine can go wrong all kinds of ways.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#157

Post by stevenbedrick »

ramanujan wrote: post #123
muhfuhkuh wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it takes the government (or someone funded by them) to come up with novel solutions for the maladies that have plagued humanity. Norman Borlaug for famine, Jonas Salk for Polio, the research into Avian influenza and H1N1 pandemics, space exploration, etc. have all been either spearheaded, guided or financially encouraged by government agencies. These are areas which charities (and corporations, for that mat…

> Sometimes it takes the government Hmmm. Not disagreeing that some things funded by government grants have been worthwhile, but almost every scientific discovery before the WW2 period was funded independently of the government -- including big ticket areas involving fundamental research like automobiles, railroads, and aviation.

This might be true in some fields, but there was plenty of government research pre-WW2 in epidemiology and public health. Look up Walter Reed in the Wikipedia for an example of what I'm talking about.

Of course, it should be mentioned that much of that pre-WW2 government research was a) actually sponsored by the military, or by government entities that had strong military roots, and b) was of questionable ethical quality by today's standards.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#159

Post by jbooth »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #133
ramanujan wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest lobbies for increased estate taxes are life insurance companies: http://blogs.forbes.com/hanisarji/2010/12/01/life-insurance-... “The estate tax is a cash cow for the life insurance industry – and the industry’s lobbyists guard it zealously...[o]nly three industries – pharmaceuticals, electric utilities, and oil and gas – spent more over the same period.”

Of which Buffet owns several. Which may or may not play a role in his support.

How many billions has this guy given away again? I'd wager that he doesn't really care about an extra few million in insurance company profits.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#160

Post by nhangen »

rorymarinich wrote: post #60
nhangen wrote: post #38

This is from the PDF on the giving pledge website: "The pledge does not involve pooling money or supporting a particular set of causes or organizations. The pledge asks only that the individual give the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes or charitable organizations either before or after their death." Interesting way to do this. I still don't really understand the need for a pledge of this magnitude, bu…

> That being said, I still think Zuck is far too young to make such a strong commitment. Do you really think so? Mark is a few years older than me, and I've already arrived at the decision that I'd do much the same as him if I ever had the same cash. He's bright, quite savvy regarding the public, and he's got a great inner stamina. I doubt he worries if he's capable of making money — maybe he'll never equal Facebook'…

I'm just saying that when you're young, and you've had your head buried in work, hearing sage advice from mentors, advisors, and board members, it's possible that now isn't the best time to make that sort of decision. I'm not condemning it, and if it's what he wants to do, who am I to stop him, but something just doesn't feel right about it. That's just my .02
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