Just a reminder, these donations go to his own charities as a tax deduction.
If the charity itself is doing proper work, that makes sense tbh. I mean, if you had billions to donate, would you give it to some random ass organisation… Or set up your own thing to do things that you personally agree with?
If the charity itself is doing proper work
I would be utterly shocked if it was.
I’d you want to see how it’s done, check out what his Ex-wife did with her money from the divorce
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/15/mackenzie-scott-billionaire-donations-non-profits
It’s not a charity. It’s a way to stay in control of all of your money and not pay taxes on it. You pay yourself and your children salaries from it. You have it contract with your profitable businesses. You get to use that money to decide what the world’s ideology is. You get to use it to own a segment of science itself by being where researchers need to go if they want funding. That’s what Bill Gates did with public education the last 10 years. This is how NGOs that go on to hire death squads in South America are created. And in the meantime you spend a few decimal points on a press blitz to make yourself look like a saint.
All the while Amazon keeps using the streets we pay for, the USPS we pay for, the GPS we pay for, and on and on. That money should be taxed and returned to us and we should get to decide what it’s for.
Agreed, and I’m find with the tax deduction if the charity works they do is legit, it’s not like he is paying taxes anyway.
Yeah and if he donates a majority of his wealth, thats more than he would have been taxed regardless.
If the charity itself is doing proper work
Bill Gates spends his charity money lobbying for privatized education and Eugenics programs.
Also paying hush money to Jeffery Epstein.
So…
Though I don’t have all day to devote to determining if these sources line up with your claims and if they’re worth a darn but I did attempt to skim.
Number 1. I dropped my subscription so I can’t view the article. Can you share?
Source 2. “The Saviorism of Melinda Gates: Eugenics, Philanthrocapitalism, and the Perils of ‘Western’ Feminisms” . This is a senior honors thesis with some pretty big claims and I’m not sure the paper presents a strong enough argument.
Mind you, Eugenics is evil dog shit steeped in racism, classism and so on. Fuck that shit.
Anyway, the author attempts to draw a line between making birth control / family planning available (to third world countries) and eugenics via population control of certain groups.
Their argument traces a very long and winding path of rather tenuous links along the way and I don’t find it very convincing. It seems more like a student grasping for straws to write a paper.
They seem to be suggesting that forced sterilization, forced sexual segregation, and similar despicable things are equivalent to ultimately voluntary family planning.
I see the point. If these programs are intended to control certain populations at a national level driven by eugenics, yeah that’s fucked.
They may have shown it is plausible that this is what the Gates Foundation has been doing but I don’t think they successfully proved it.
Source 3. Hush money… “Jeffrey Epstein allegedly tried to extort Bill Gates over extramarital affair” … yeah that’s not awesome.
Honestly, I’d go for the middle option: donate to existing charities that appeal to me. I don’t want to run a charity, it sounds like a massive headache.
You’re probably a different demographic. I’d guess the kind of people that become billionaires, assuming they actually want to be philanthropic, think that they can do a better job of managing their charities than existing charities would do managing their donations.
I mean if you donate billions you kinda don’t want someone do a extit scam or it going to some very sketchy places… Tax reduction is a point but pretty far down the list.
And even if its for tax purposes, the money is then tied to certain purposes and will definitely do more good than as regular taxes. (and its way more than regular taxes)
Man i hate that guy but this bashing isn’t justified.
I’m so fucking sick of all these billionaires “pledging” their fortunes. “I promise to donate all my wealth when I die” then fucking do it you cowards, die already.
They donate their wealth to avoid taxes. Basically their families control the foundations, they donate and avoid a whole shit ton of taxes their next of kin get the money from the foundation.
Adam Conover did a video on it.
Now say this about Bill Gates and watch the downvotes pour in for… some reason
Eh, Gates is older and has shown more commitment to the idea than most. I still wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him but the foundation has done some good things for a long time. And maybe with fewer self-aggrandizing press stories compared to others.
Let’s not forget, that while they “pLeDgE”, they are also literally fucking their workers at the same time and expect that it all cancels out…
One night I went through Gates’ “Giving Pledge” and I compared the wealth of the people who signed on in 2010 (when they started doing this pledge to give more than half their wealth to charity thing) to their wealth now. The average increase in wealth in those 12 years was like 170%, and the total combined wealth of the 50 or so signees had gone from like 250b to almost 700b. I wanted to make an effort-post with the data and more comprehensive analysis, but I got too busy and mad about it lol.
It’s crazy how profitable “charity” is for the ultra-rich
Like, imagine if Elon Musk actually did spend all the wealth he got from profiting off of the shitshow of COVID and solved climate change. He’d be hailed as a hero and the left would be stuck eating their hats for decades to come. But no, he would rather own the libs because they convinced his daughter to join their side.
This is the same thing that other billionaire did with his fortune. Gave 3 billion “away” to his own charity so his kids could inherit without paying a penny in taxes.
I make under 200k and the highest bracket I hit is 51% of my salary. Warren buffet has paid less than 10% taxes on his entire fortune. They’re playing us, the new cool thing is just to say it’s for the climate.
Bezos pledged 40 billion (maybe 20, can’t remember) I believe in 2019.
To date he has actually donated less than $200 million of it IIRC to any climate-related funds.
It’s just a bold face lie, not even taking his own charity scams into account.
Edit: also side rant: I have gotten a lot of wallstreetbets armchair investors in the past saying “b-b-but muh liquid vs assets, he would crash amazon stock.”
Bezos has liquidated a minimum of $12 billion per year without even a slight blip in amazon stock. PLENTY to fulfil his pledge. People don’t understand the scale of sold shares. The stock market is completely speculative bs. If he liquidated every stock of amazon in a short time after an anouncement like this, investors would absolutely speculate that it would recover, the price would lower for a week or so while every hedge fund in existence rushes to buy every single stock that they have and voila, it would magically recover within a month and bozo would not be a complete lying scumbag. It would probably cause him to be audited though which is every bilionaire’s nightmare because they have all done such shady things and dodges so many taxes for so many years. At least if the IRS had any balls.
True a long time ago it was, but if we want to disregard language evolution, then it is actually “bare-faced lie” lol
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/is-that-lie-bald-faced-or-bold-faced-or-barefaced
It’s tax “brackets”. So from say 20-30k you’re taxed ~21%, the following 30-50k you make is taxed at another amount like 30%, and so forth. The last 30k made from 160-190k is then taxed at 49% (51% because I’m taking a bit more money instead of dumping into my pension fund etc…)
And yeah it’s Canada, but in the province of Quebec, the most taxed province of all (where education is still heavily subsidized/ free for people born there etc…)…
I’ve done this whole exercise on /r/theydidthemath years ago on reddit comparing to the US, and with all the medical insurance garbage they have there like co-pays after deductibles, tax credits, dental, daycares, tolls/infrastructure etc… It amounts to roughly the same as the taxation + private insurance in the US. It just “looks worse” because it’s all mostly up front. I know ex-millionaires in the US who were basically homeless because they had a sick baby who needed to stay in the hospital for a year after birth. It cost them 5 million dollars to keep the baby alive without having to go to court with the insurer. This doesn’t happen in Canada.
I’m fine with it, I just want the rich assholes to pay the same. I live very comfortably, bought a home in February this year and have more than enough.
The thing you drug up about the US hasn’t been a thing for more than a decade. The individual out of pocket limit is $9,450 this year for an individual, and Pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care are considered “essential health benefits” so as long as it was an actual factual real health plan and not something like a health care sharing ministry, there’s no way you’re going in a millionaire and coming out destitute unless you did something phenomenally dumb like demand an NICU be built into your house. Out healthcare is broken in so many ways, but the bandaids do exist on the system.
Might be Canada, I’m in a similar situation and GTFOing. No way am I going to continue paying this much in tax but still lack quality education and healthcare for our kids.
Are you/your children Quebec citizens? Education and healthcare are very cheap and accessible. If you’re a foreigner here then yeah it might not be as easy. Healthcare is still free and medicine is subsidized to a minimum of 80%. Also medicine potency is regulated, knock off brands of “advil” are guaranteed to be as potent as the brand name, which is a huge plus and keeps medicine costs very low.
I have a lot of experience with the medical system in canada; my parents both died of cancer, so did my mentor, and were in treatment in the public system the same week they got diagnosed. They didn’t wait months to see specialist like is often thrown around on reddit.
Yeah instead in the US you get to pay healthcare insurance premiums instead and have the companies try every trick to deny your healthcare claims. And pay who knows how much for your kids education, tens of thousands a year. All so your marginal (not effective) tax rate is what 40% instead? I think you need to recheck your math and your outrage. Don’t forget those expenses are after tax.
Taxes. He should pay taxes.
What good does that do when government bans books, defunds schools and persuades people to become parents against their will and then cares more about corps then citizens? and breathe
Maybe the government wouldn’t do those things if they weren’t in the pocket of corporations. Corporations who buy politicians so to create tax loopholes so they don’t have to pay taxes…
Unless he’s donating everything tomorrow, this is all bullshit.
First off he doesn’t have 124 billion. He is WORTH 124 billion, the vast majority of it being the worth of his stakes in Amazon. If he sells all his stakes in it, the Amazon worth would plummet and he’d be worth a fraction of what he’s worth today.
But lets say he has a 124 billion dollars. If he gives out 10 millions every day it will still take over 300 years. In that time his worth likely would.grow faster than he’s spending it so in 300 years he’d still be worth more than he is today.
All this charity stuff is bullshit, TAX THE RICH. Taxes will give honest amounts of money to governments who can then use that money for universal healthcare, universal education, universal income…
Sacrifice the profits of parasitic shareholders for the good of society, returning America to the level of taxation when it’s economy was great, putting the money back in the hands of the workers that keep the economy running? The workers that will spend their money, stimulating the economy (unlike shareholders)?
No - that’s impossible! Pay no attention to the 90% top tax rate implemented by Eisenhower - a goddamn Republican.
governments who can then use that money for universal healthcare
Press X to doubt
Fun fact: we could having universal healthcare right now and both businesses and individuals would make more money. We don’t because voters are dumb and can’t do math.
Fun fact: it’s not that easy. It’s likely possible and likely great for everyone but it’s also an enormous undertaking that you don’t want to fail. It would take years if not decades to implement, don’t ever think it’s easy.
I’m all for it, but it’s not a “we could do it now”
yeah spending 10 million a day would take 34 years to add up to 124 billion
But while he gives away 3.65 billion a year, his remaining 120 billion appreciated to 130 billion or whatever. Then the next year he gives away 3.65 billion and his remaining 126 billion appreciated to 136 billion…
As long as he doesn’t give away more than his principal gains, it’s an indefinite loop.
I’m all for taxing the rich but the rest of this is just pure stupidity.
Like why did you cap how much he can give away at one time lol
Try to sell all your stocks at once if you own a big chunk of all available shares. The stock price would fall faster than you were able to sell your shares.
I didn’t cap anything. There are realistic limits to what you can give to charity. Give a charity that normally gets a few millions a billion and they won’t be able to spend it in any normal way. Breeds corruption, etc.
Charity shouldn’t even exist, as it is always this patch on holes left by governments. Tax the rich until they are “normal rich” and then use that money for projects that normally would require charity
Also, his wife actually had the exact same situation I just described. She spent millions over millions and once done she had more wealth than she started with