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Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough

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Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough

#41

Post by nathanvanfleet »

tkiley wrote: post #26
skrebbel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow cool! For those of us who don't regularly create charitable remainder trusts, what are the tax consequences and why are they unfair?

I had a bunch of equity in a startup that had a cost basis of, essentially, $0. Under normal circumstances, I would have sold this for $millions, and would have paid nearly 20% in capital gains taxes immediately. Instead, I contributed my equity to a CRUT. I paid zero capital gains taxes at that moment, and the CRUT pays zero capital gains taxes ever. Also, because a contribution to the trust is a contribution in par…

So true! You literally are doing something immoral which is bad for society!

Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough

#42

Post by beagle3 »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #25
marcinzm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia disagrees: >Derek Sivers transferred ownership of his company to a charitable remainder unitrust for music education, and had the trust sell it to Disc Makers. This agreement requires the trust to pay Sivers 5% of the trust's value annually (hypothetically $1,100,000 pretax, based on a sale price of $22 million as reported by Sivers)[4] until death, while upon death the remainder will ultimately go to chari…

Even if the reality is in the middle, the likely difference between 1k a month claimed and 90k a month claimed surely puts him in the very wealthy category. I agree with other posters, it’s a little annoying to have wildly successful people talk about “being happy with what you have” and “money isn’t that important” and “enough” etc. While the concept is absolutely correct, and I believe “if you weren’t happy before…

On the other hand, there are many wealthy people who are unhappy, with their wealth or otherwise.

I had the honor (but not the pleasure) of working closely with a guy whose personal wealth was estimated at half a billion or so, all self made. There was nothing he wanted he couldn’t afford. And yet he was incredibly unhappy almost all the time - I caught an occasional glimpse of happiness from him after he would come back from a weekend fishing alone, or when some-list-or-other of wealthy people bumped his rank up in their listings.

When someone like like Sivers says “I was happy before the money and money didn’t make me happier”, I believe him.

In fact, I’ve known many people who made fortunes, and quite a few who lost fortunes and some who lost family to terror attacks. Other than a transient effect after specific events (good or bad), everyone reverted to their pre-event happiness levels.

Having money is an incredible daily-stress reliever. But according to my life experience, it has very little effect on happiness.

Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough

#43

Post by ip26 »

chrisblackwell wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find it frustrating when people talk about not working too hard and already having enough, after they have become wealthy?

Different advice for different circumstances. Do you get upset when elite athletes talk about the importance of avoiding overtraining, when they have already become elite?

Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough

#44

Post by rapind »

DennisP wrote: post #28
tkiley wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a bunch of equity in a startup that had a cost basis of, essentially, $0. Under normal circumstances, I would have sold this for $millions, and would have paid nearly 20% in capital gains taxes immediately. Instead, I contributed my equity to a CRUT. I paid zero capital gains taxes at that moment, and the CRUT pays zero capital gains taxes ever. Also, because a contribution to the trust is a contribution in par…

Whether that's bad depends on how you feel about the way your government spends tax money. Because you used a CRUT, the money that doesn't support you will go to some worthy charity, instead of funding a series of wars, pervasive surveillance, and cages for kids. Of course the government also does many worthwhile things, but your extra money will be spent entirely on worthwhile things, and not at all on horrific ones…

The problem with this thinking is that only those privileged enough to take advantage of it get to pick how their tax money is spent.

I disagree with (even despise) some of the ways government spends our money, but should I get to choose like some special snowflake while most don't have the same opportunity?

This just enforces a rigged economy... and guess what? Many of the privileged few would support government programs the rest of the so called democracy wouldn't.

Your tacit assumption is that wealthy individuals who can take advantage of bullshit tax favoritism will spend that extra money in worthwhile (subjective) ways.

Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough

#45

Post by tossmeout »

skrebbel wrote: post #36
tkiley wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a bunch of equity in a startup that had a cost basis of, essentially, $0. Under normal circumstances, I would have sold this for $millions, and would have paid nearly 20% in capital gains taxes immediately. Instead, I contributed my equity to a CRUT. I paid zero capital gains taxes at that moment, and the CRUT pays zero capital gains taxes ever. Also, because a contribution to the trust is a contribution in par…

Thanks! I think I get it, but not fully yet: if you'd deplete the entire trust before dying, you'd have paid the same capital gains tax as you would've if you had not made the trust, correct? Just spread out over many years. Why do you feel that it is a loophole if you pay the same, just at different times? (except over what you give to charity, but isn't charity untaxed pretty much across the board in the US?) EDIT:…

I came here to ask the same, @tkiley. It seems the main benefits of your CRUT are (a) deferring your capital gains taxes until later and (b) allowing you to make deductions for charitable giving. But ofc those come at a cost, namely that you don't get paid until later (5% yearly), and that you have to give to charity.

Can't anyone just give to charity and get a deduction? And doesn't everyone get taxed later when they're paid later?

Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough

#46

Post by secstate »

ip26 wrote: post #43
chrisblackwell wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find it frustrating when people talk about not working too hard and already having enough, after they have become wealthy?

Different advice for different circumstances. Do you get upset when elite athletes talk about the importance of avoiding overtraining, when they have already become elite?

Apples and oranges my friend. Being elite and overtraining are orthogonal. By definition, overtraining is pushing your body too far too fast. No one can train for a 100 mile race by doing 3 50 mile training runs in a week. That's not how physiology works. Discipline and lots of hard work can help you be elite, but overtraining is never good. Never.

Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough

#47

Post by chrisblackwell »

coldtea wrote: post #10
chrisblackwell wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find it frustrating when people talk about not working too hard and already having enough, after they have become wealthy?

Well, it's not like you don't have enough money with Island et al... (Yeah, I'm joking)

I get so many emails for him, people asking me to invest in their Soccer team or whatever.

Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough

#48

Post by raghuveerdotnet »

chrisblackwell wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find it frustrating when people talk about not working too hard and already having enough, after they have become wealthy?

That is why I usually try to avoid advice from people who (explicitly) give advice. It is better to observe what they do than what they say. Even if you wind up not enjoying the wealth, you’ll have understood it yourself and not be cursing yourself for not having tried. Except for life and death situations, and situations involving technical expertise, this applies to everything. Most of the time it is just our laziness selecting for examples of success that allow it to stay while reaping the benefits of working hard. A mind virus discouraging responsibility.

Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough

#49

Post by DennisP »

rapind wrote: post #44
DennisP wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether that's bad depends on how you feel about the way your government spends tax money. Because you used a CRUT, the money that doesn't support you will go to some worthy charity, instead of funding a series of wars, pervasive surveillance, and cages for kids. Of course the government also does many worthwhile things, but your extra money will be spent entirely on worthwhile things, and not at all on horrific ones…

The problem with this thinking is that only those privileged enough to take advantage of it get to pick how their tax money is spent. I disagree with (even despise) some of the ways government spends our money, but should I get to choose like some special snowflake while most don't have the same opportunity? This just enforces a rigged economy... and guess what? Many of the privileged few would support government pro…

I would certainly prefer a government that doesn't spend money on horrific things at all. It'd be great if I could pay my taxes without feeling dirty. I'm hopeful that maybe, with a lot of hard work and creativity, we'll manage to fix our democracy.

But in the meantime, I don't think there's anything morally wrong about legally reducing taxes and sending the money to charity instead. I'd even argue that, since privilege is an issue, we should expand this opportunity beyond the privileged few.

Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough

#50

Post by lukego »

tw04 wrote: post #23
cheez wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if, learning to be happy with "enough", is how people get filthy rich? https://sivers.org/richand

So what's the path from living with 4 other people working 40 hours a week at McDonald's to filthy rich? Haven't gone to college, don't have a skill that sets you apart (music/art/etc), and aren't particularly intelligent or scrappy. Seems to me there's literally no path from A to B.

MrMoneyMustache shows one path that a lot of people follow. It does involve redefining "filthy rich" along the way though so there's no Ferraris involved. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from...
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