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My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

gatesnotes.com

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Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#421

Post by Ozzie_osman »

9rx wrote: post #100
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For you (or other folks) working in tech and giving to charity, apart from corporate match, another couple pieces of advice are to consider a Donor Advised Fund. They are really easy to set up, and then you get some benefits, like the ability to "bunch" your donations (can help with tax deductions) or donate appreciated investments (like RSUs) without paying capital gains tax.

> without paying capital gains tax. It's a funny day when you're feeling charitable, but go out of your way to avoid helping the entity that should be the ideal charitable recipient.

So, there is a limit to these deductions, meaning, the government is still usually getting the lion's share of most people's taxes (and, generally, I think 50% of your income is the max you can deduct).

I think there is value to letting people allocate some percentage of their income directly to causes they are passionate about. Even if you assume the government is efficient and not bloated, and benevolent, this lets people contribute to causes without waiting for political consensus, or to smaller causes that would not be on the government's radar (yet) or ever. It's more pluralistic. It lets smaller causes bloom. It keeps me civically engaged.

On a personal note, I do take issue with the amounts spent on "defense" (which is often bombing people or threatening to directly or indirectly), and would rather help folks than bomb other folks.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#422

Post by 9rx »

didgetmaster wrote: post #376
mmooss wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The waste, fraud, and abuse that runs rampant throughout the government tells us that the powerful often use taxpayer dollars as their own slush fund. I don't know that it's worse than any other institution? At least voters can remove the corrupt, and they are prosecuted. Are you saying these uber-wealthy and CEOs aren't just as corrupt or worse?

What I am saying is that I have a choice whether my money goes to a corporation or to a charity. I don't get to choose whether I pay taxes or not. More often than not, corruption in government does not result in the perpetrator being prosecuted or even removed from office. I am amazed at all the people who are so sure that corporations and/or wealthy investors are corrupt, but give big government a pass. As if the sa…

> but give big government a pass.

Its probably not so much that government gets a pass as much as government is the organization that, by virtue of being a citizen, they own and control, so when things go wrong it is their own fault, and they really don't want to accept blame for their own faults. They would have to ask "How did I manage to fuck this up?", which is a hard question for most people to ask themselves.

When it is distinctly someone else's organization it's much easier to throw pointless shade to make one feel better about their own failings.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#423

Post by david-gpu »

yupitsme123 wrote: post #414
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #39

His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…

The thing that's always made me skeptical of Gates and any other enormous foundations is that they operate at such a high level and with such enormous budgets that they basically exist in the same "amoral" world of nation states and corporations, but yet they face none of the scrutiny or criticism that those entities face. How do you judge the actions of someone when those actions are powerful enough to move markets,…

Why would they have to be perfect to deserve donations? A "small-scale charity that acts locally with lots of transparency" may be great, or it may be terribly inefficient in their real-world ability to improve the well-being of the people they are supposed to benefit. And either choice would be better than not donating anything to anybody.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#424

Post by lillecarl »

yodsanklai wrote: post #401
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #39

His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…

My issue with Gates is that he wants to fight climate change, yet he's personally an environmental disaster with his yachts and jets. I'm not saying he has to live like a monk to be credible, and maybe his foundation is doing a good job (never looked into it), but either he's an hypocrite, or I disagree with him on how to fight climate change.

While it might be hypocritical it doesn't matter whatsoever what he does with his personal life if his foundation is pouring billions into making the world a better place.

Helping people out of poverty is really bad for the environment too but I don't think we should be complaining when someone does that.

On a global scale his yacht(s?) and private jets are nothing, and if it helps him do good by establishing/maintaining relationships with the right people they're an "investment" into a stopping climate change.

A bit of a naive take as opposed to yours.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#425

Post by pclmulqdq »

stewx wrote: post #409
js8 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among billionaires maybe he is on the good side. But in general? Linus Torvalds did more for the world than Bill Gates, IMHO. And he didn't need to set up a system that first appropriates money in order to "be generous" later.

What diseases has Torvalds eradicated?

What diseases has Gates eradicated? Polio has been surging back and nOPV (which Gates stands to generate a lot of personal wealth from, by the way) has been a bit of a bust. Measles is going strong, too, and Malaria seems to have been a bit of a token effort for Gates.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#426

Post by victorbjorklund »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #116
9rx wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without paying capital gains tax. It's a funny day when you're feeling charitable, but go out of your way to avoid helping the entity that should be the ideal charitable recipient.

If that entity used my tax dollars wisely (looking at nordic countries), yes I agree paying taxes is superior. I have no interest in contributing more towards our 1T/yr defense budget or subsidizing oil and gas.

Grass is always greener on the other side. Trust me there is plenty of waste of tax money in the nordics too. Recent example. Every month the govt pays 4 million dollars for a healthcare journaling system that is not used (because it does not work). And that is just the on going cost (even more was spent building it).

Or a school admin system built for 100 million dollars and crap. They even spent a lot of money trying to prevent a open source client that solved a lot of the issues they had.

Maybe in absolute money it is less than the US. But remember US also have a lot more people.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#427

Post by njdas »

9rx wrote: post #375
njdas wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to reconcile how https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM is 'helping out your friends.' See, we can all create straw-men. It's not very useful for discourse. The vast majority of us want what is best for humanity, but we have different views on how to deliver it.

You can fund the people (government) or you can fund specific people whim whom you have an intimate trust (friends). The only other choices are to fund yourself or nobody, neither of which are applicable here. Not sure why that is so hard to reconcile.

You are framing it as a binary "you either fund the government or only your friends." You really believe there is no in between? You are framing this as if you're on some high ground and we either have to agree with your opinion or we are selfish. There are other ways to advance humanity than your opinions. Government is not some benevolent entity. The supposition that it is has no basis in data from present reality or history. As one example, see marxist/communist governments killing their own people as the leading cause of death in the 20th century.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#429

Post by yupitsme123 »

david-gpu wrote: post #423
yupitsme123 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that's always made me skeptical of Gates and any other enormous foundations is that they operate at such a high level and with such enormous budgets that they basically exist in the same "amoral" world of nation states and corporations, but yet they face none of the scrutiny or criticism that those entities face. How do you judge the actions of someone when those actions are powerful enough to move markets,…

Why would they have to be perfect to deserve donations? A "small-scale charity that acts locally with lots of transparency" may be great, or it may be terribly inefficient in their real-world ability to improve the well-being of the people they are supposed to benefit. And either choice would be better than not donating anything to anybody.

May be great or may be terrible applies to both the small and the the nation-state sized charity right?

Maybe my judgement or efficiency is bad when I try to help my neighbor. Okay, whoopsie. Now apply that margin of error to a foundation whose decisions impact millions of people and possibly entire societies, possibly for generations. The unintended or possibly negative effects can be enormous and long-lasting.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#430

Post by cyberax »

dingnuts wrote: post #275
monooso wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes a lot about the current administration.

It assumes a lot about future administrations too. When Obama was in office I complained a lot about the Executive branch consolidating power and using executive orders, and the Democrats were fine with it because he was a "good" administration. But guess what? If you give too much power to a position, people who want to abuse the power will try to get themselves there. I wasn't upset that Obama was consolidating pow…

Obama didn't "consolidate power", he issued fewer EO than Bush (276 vs. 291). Trump has issued 142 just within these 100 days.
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