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Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

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Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#91

Post by paisawalla »

krzysiek wrote: post #78

> In the contemporary world, philanthropy is distinctively American. We give about four hundred and seventy billion dollars a year—more if you count donations of time, physical labor, and material. America’s total is ahead of any other country’s, even as a percentage of G.D.P. Well, this is just not true. Americans give 2.1% of GDP to charity [1] while the whole world gives just under 3% [2]. Also when you take a loo…

I suspect this accounts for the discrepancy in their accounting

> more if you count donations of time, physical labor and material

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#92

Post by benpbenp »

krzysiek wrote: post #78

> In the contemporary world, philanthropy is distinctively American. We give about four hundred and seventy billion dollars a year—more if you count donations of time, physical labor, and material. America’s total is ahead of any other country’s, even as a percentage of G.D.P. Well, this is just not true. Americans give 2.1% of GDP to charity [1] while the whole world gives just under 3% [2]. Also when you take a loo…

Your global figure includes both donations and value of time donated ([2], pg.8)

Your US figure ([1]) doesn't say anything about value of time donated so I'd assume it is not included.

Finally, the metric where Netherlands and Switzerland come out on top in [3] is in size of philanthropic assets vs GDP. This is noteworthy for sure but is a an entirely different thing than amount of yearly donations.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#93

Post by nivenkos »

krageon wrote: post #74
habosa wrote: post #68

Don’t let all the shenanigans at the top stop you from doing good. It’s clear that the American system of tax preference for philanthropy is easy to abuse, but while it’s there you might as well use it to help people if you can afford to. If your company matches donations, take them up on that. That means for $1 pre-tax (~$0.60 out of your pocket) you can give $2.00 to an organization that could use the money. That’s…

And what organisations, pray tell, actually need the money and would be visible to a normal human being in a country that isn't shattered by war? Most of the large charities have disgustingly paid CEO's and I can't be the only one that gets a sour taste in their mouth when I give an amount of money to them and realise this CEO receives 100k-1m in compensation while actual human beings starve in the streets or freeze…

Since the choice is often restricted for these options, I usually choose Doctors Without Borders since at least they're actually out there doing stuff on the ground.

Otherwise the FSFE when it's an option in Europe since their Public Money, Public Code campaign is great.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#94

Post by concordDance »

beefield wrote: post #85

Okay, I think I have some weird blind spot here. I have really hard time understanding the reasoning behind philanthropy being a societal good that should be subsidized by taxpayers. Let's take econ 101 and revealed preferences. It is obvious that if you give 100 bucks to a charity you get utility worth more than that 100 bucks. Otherwise you would not do that . And there is zero difference on the mechanics there if…

Subsidize things with positive externalities (e.g. territorial defence) and tax things with negative ones (e.g. industrial processes that pollute the air).

In this case the donor gets his entertainment and good feelings and as a positive externality a child doesn't get malaria.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#95

Post by croon »

krzysiek wrote: post #78

> In the contemporary world, philanthropy is distinctively American. We give about four hundred and seventy billion dollars a year—more if you count donations of time, physical labor, and material. America’s total is ahead of any other country’s, even as a percentage of G.D.P. Well, this is just not true. Americans give 2.1% of GDP to charity [1] while the whole world gives just under 3% [2]. Also when you take a loo…

What would be more interesting would be comparing it after including welfare/public education/healthcare/poverty rates etc.

Best case scenario would be where no charity is needed, am I wrong?

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#96

Post by jrumbut »

beefield wrote: post #85

Okay, I think I have some weird blind spot here. I have really hard time understanding the reasoning behind philanthropy being a societal good that should be subsidized by taxpayers. Let's take econ 101 and revealed preferences. It is obvious that if you give 100 bucks to a charity you get utility worth more than that 100 bucks. Otherwise you would not do that . And there is zero difference on the mechanics there if…

It probably exists for cultural reasons, but you can also view it as a form of decentralized decision making.

The government is saying to the citizens, if you see a problem so pressing it motivates you to altruism, we'll trust that it was important enough that you don't need to pay taxes on that money.

I like it conceptually since central authorities tend to have lots of blind spots. Like a lot of white collar crime issues, enforcement of what rules there are is lacking.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#97

Post by croon »

krageon wrote: post #74
habosa wrote: post #68

Don’t let all the shenanigans at the top stop you from doing good. It’s clear that the American system of tax preference for philanthropy is easy to abuse, but while it’s there you might as well use it to help people if you can afford to. If your company matches donations, take them up on that. That means for $1 pre-tax (~$0.60 out of your pocket) you can give $2.00 to an organization that could use the money. That’s…

And what organisations, pray tell, actually need the money and would be visible to a normal human being in a country that isn't shattered by war? Most of the large charities have disgustingly paid CEO's and I can't be the only one that gets a sour taste in their mouth when I give an amount of money to them and realise this CEO receives 100k-1m in compensation while actual human beings starve in the streets or freeze…

Use some comparison service to get some insight into how the money is distributed and pick one with the most impact:

https://www.charitynavigator.org/

https://www.givewell.org/

https://www.charitywatch.org/

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#98

Post by anonymous_sorry »

krageon wrote: post #74
habosa wrote: post #68

Don’t let all the shenanigans at the top stop you from doing good. It’s clear that the American system of tax preference for philanthropy is easy to abuse, but while it’s there you might as well use it to help people if you can afford to. If your company matches donations, take them up on that. That means for $1 pre-tax (~$0.60 out of your pocket) you can give $2.00 to an organization that could use the money. That’s…

And what organisations, pray tell, actually need the money and would be visible to a normal human being in a country that isn't shattered by war? Most of the large charities have disgustingly paid CEO's and I can't be the only one that gets a sour taste in their mouth when I give an amount of money to them and realise this CEO receives 100k-1m in compensation while actual human beings starve in the streets or freeze…

I guess what I really care about is "how much good does my donated dollar do?". Compare a dollar donated to expensive cancer research in the west with a dollar spent on cheap treatments which we already know to work in a developing country. How much of my dollar goes to CEO and staff pay is part of the calculation, but not the only part.

The Effective Altruism movement aims to direct money towards these activities with maximum impact. But to do this they actually need charities to collect data to measure their impact, which I guess may require some degree of professionalism.

https://www.effectivealtruism.org/

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#99

Post by xnorswap »

beefield wrote: post #85

Okay, I think I have some weird blind spot here. I have really hard time understanding the reasoning behind philanthropy being a societal good that should be subsidized by taxpayers. Let's take econ 101 and revealed preferences. It is obvious that if you give 100 bucks to a charity you get utility worth more than that 100 bucks. Otherwise you would not do that . And there is zero difference on the mechanics there if…

> if you give 100 bucks to a charity you get utility worth more than that 100 bucks

I find that a very odd statement to make. It is a statement that actually denies that people can act charitably at all. It comes across to me as a statement routed in a complete lack of empathy.

I'm not disagreeing with your overall point that actually less reliance on philanthropy and more tax funding of welfare and initiatives would be a benefit, just that I strongly disagree with how you get there, that all charity must be a utilitarian endeavour.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#100

Post by nosianu »

kortilla wrote: post #79
Spooky23 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Flyover and southern states in particular mooch off of the productive locales. So not only do I need to pay more taxes for the US government to fund almost double my states pro rata aid to places like West Virginia and Mississippi, but I get to pay even higher taxes because my locality actually provides things like sound education. You know what, I think we should exercise the people’s desire for small go…

> I think we should exercise the people’s desire for small government and relocate military bases to the places that pay for them Do you know what military bases do? They aren’t there to protect just a local region.

But that's not the point. Aside from what military does when military does something, military installations are a huge factor in the areas where they are. When Trump threatened to remove US military bases from Germany - where I live - the main issue here in Germany was the significant economic impact on those local areas, often in less developed more remote regions.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-towns-face-economic-hit-should-... -- "German towns face economic hit should US troops go"

Much of the military is used by politicians as an economic tool for certain regions, independent of their fighting value.

So, you certainly have a mostly local economic impact of military bases.

https://www.areadevelopment.com/siteSelection/june09/militar...

https://www.tpr.org/military-veterans-issues/2020-06-22/texa...

OPs flippant comment reminds me of the equally un-serious suggestion I read somewhere, some time ago, that people should pay for their jobs so that it can be made visible how valuable they think a job is.

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