Warren Buffett and Bill Gates created The Giving Pledge, a legally binding agreement to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy by death or through last will and testament. It currently has over 240 signatures from over 30 countries.
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates created The Giving Pledge
1 - Giving Pledgers promised to give their wealth away. As a group, they’re wealthier now than when they made the pledge.
2 - These high-end donors increasingly give to intermediaries rather than working charities.
3 - Some billionaires are blending their charitable giving with for-profit investment.
4 - High-end philanthropy is subsidized by regular taxpayers.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Foundation:
Following in the footsteps of eBay’s founder, Pierre Omidyar, CZI continues the tradition of “impact investing“,
which is essentially supporting nonprofit organizations in addition to selected for-profit entities…
They are dodging taxes by donating to their foundations and then using the money
to invest in the same things they would want to invest in if the money
wasn’t in a charity and they had to pay taxes on it. The whole thing is a scam!
Billionaire Philanthropy Is a Scam
The True Cost of Billionaire Philanthropy
Chuck Feeney did not get richer as he gave his money away.
4 - High-end philanthropy is subsidized by regular taxpayers.
I feel like this is really under-appreciated. Like, Rich Dude decides he wants to donate $100M to…whatever - early childhood education. In the US, he avoids up to $37M taxes, which you can either look at as other taxpayers making $37M matching donation or $37M taken from other society objectives.
To the extent that government is a (marginally) publicly accountable system for funding a society’s competing goals - education, health, defense, research - charity allows the very wealthy not just to bypass the social structure for prioritizing goals, but to force other taxpayers to adopt their personal priorities. Maybe the goal is good, maybe it’s not - the point is that they’re completely unaccountable.
What makes high-end philanthropy different from low-end philanthropy? Don’t they both get the same tax cuts?
There’s a big difference between giving away 99.975% of your wealth, leaving your self with what 1 person can OPTIMISTICALLY make in a lifetime for retirement, and allowing people to scarp half of whatever is left after your life of destruction.
Not only does that mean Gate’s grand children have a grandpa with unimaginable wealth and power, but half of that is still in the family and all of them and their children’s children are all set for an absolute decadent life even if they all decide to never move another muscle ever again. All while the world continues to burn rapidly, waiting for the dragon to bleed.
This is the bare minimum, and they only do it to gain sympathy and trick us into believing they aren’t evil.
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates created The Giving Pledge, a legally binding agreement to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy by death or through last will and testament.
It’s PR, tax dodging, and a scam. Actions speak louder than words.
Those “Giving Pledge” Billionaires Had Better Pick Up the Pace.
Most longtime US members are richer now than when they signed up.
Signing the pledge doesn’t duck you out of any taxes. Also, giv8ng money away can lower taxes you pay, but it doesn’t lower them as much as the amount of money you gave away. Not how it works.
Signing the pledge doesn’t duck you out of any taxes.
- They transfer stock to their charitable foundation.
- No capital gains taxes are paid.
- Charity gets full value of stock.
- Billionaire donor gets a tax deduction on that year’s taxes.
- Charity is a tax exempt charity and never pays taxes when they choose to sell the stock.
- Unlike any other charity, the charity is owned/ran by them so they dictate how the money gets used including paying themselves, friends, family administrative salaries if they choose.
No taxes paid and a tax deduction was earned AND the money is still in their control.
This video explains the scam that Billionaires use:
Why There’s No Such Thing as a Good Billionaire
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates created The Giving Pledge, a legally binding agreement to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy by death or through last will and testament. It currently has over 240 signatures from over 30 countries.
Bill Gates donates to companies that benefit his existing stock investments.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates-foundation-philanthropy/
It still would have been better if workers got the money in the first place. There are no good billionaires.
Your real thoughts are leaking there. “No, don’t give the money to the starving and homeless that need it most! You are supposed to give it to us!”
What makes you think the workers downstream from him are not among the starving and homeless?
What makes you think a system where workers are fairly compensated would not also be a better system for food/housing security?
I’m assuming this isn’t a dumb comment and just a fun thought exercise.
What makes you think the workers downstream from him are not among the starving and homeless?
Because RoyaltyInTraining made that statement without referring to any additional information? So I obviously assume that he made his statement based on the information in the post.
Besides, even if they were, would donating the money be less effective than paying them in wages? Charitable donations are tax exempt, wages are not. Also, you assume he was in a position where he could do anything about the worker wages, which seems unlikely given how most companies work (wiki says he was not a full owner, just co-founder).
You gonna pack some more words into his mouth or, you done?
Yeah, kinda pathetic.
My real thoughts are that we should get rid of the elites who prop up the current system so that homelessness doesn’t have to exist anymore. Don’t put words into my mouth.
If your goal was to end homelessness and other societal woes, you would not say that a billionaire working to do the exact same thing using different means is not good. That is why I wrote you exposed your true motivations ;)
people become billionaires through wage theft. that money should not be his to give in the first place. Plus, the starving are unemployed because the unemployment rate is artificially controlled economically in order to pressure the working class into accepting bad work conditions.
people become billionaires through wage theft.
Quite the assumption assertion. Can I also just assume assert bad things you did with no evidence? PS: I
mean that he specifically became billionaires through wage theft. I am sure many others did.
Plus, the starving are unemployed because the unemployment rate is artificially controlled economically in order to pressure the working class into accepting bad work conditions.
Which, even if it was true, he would be unable to change, just as the two of us are.
Millionaire
I am not sure, normally i would consider someone with billon dollars a billionaire. Someone who gave away all their money except a couple million would be a millionaire.
With $5 million, many of us could comfortably live off the interest alone. This allows the freedom to focus on work that aligns with personal passions and priorities rather than pursuing excess. Unfortunately, many people prioritize accumulating as much as possible, often without consideration for their neighbors or community. It’s important to strike a balance between personal success and contributing to the greater good.
The individual of the future is less susceptible to the influence of the seven deadly sins, embodying discipline and virtue. There is nothing preventing you from adopting these qualities and becoming a person of the future today!
But if everyone had the same amount of money, the interest is suddenly 0 because interest is made off the backs of debt holders. You can’t be a debt holder if you are wealthy enough to live on interest. Interest money always comes from somewhere. It’s inherently the transfer of wealth from one person to another. The idea that you might live stress free solely off of the interest of your wealth is capitalism. Meaning capitalism requires people to be in debt and it requires people to struggle while the wealthy do… passion projects? Sounds like an ideal society…
The current financial system, where money is printed without sufficient backing, raises important questions about wealth distribution. Many individuals do not require billions to live comfortably; a modest sum would suffice, allowing us to maintain a productive and fulfilling life. In fact, with financial security, we would likely become even more productive, as we could focus on careers that align with our passions and interests. Automation and AI technologies should be leveraged for tasks like cleaning and food service, rather than allowing greedy corporate interests to exploit workers. Ultimately, most people would be content pursuing meaningful work, rather than being driven solely by financial necessity.
This guy really proves that there are no good billionaires thing. Being good stopped him from staying a billionaire. Anyone who hoards wealth while others suffer from impoverishment and starvation is evil.
There are different ways to accumulate wealth.
In an example from my country, Sir Peter Beck, is only a billionaire because the stock value of RocketLab has rocketed up (pun intended). His total compensation for the 2023 year was just under $1M. Source
I would rather that he concentrate his efforts to making the best rocket possible; he could in theory split his time and work to reduce poverty…but I believe that the rocket building would suffer.
There are a lot of other people working to reduce poverty.
I agree with your point that in general, most billionaires are shitty people who could do a lot more. But some people are billionaires because they are doing cool shit.
Will Sir Peter become a cunt in the future, who knows. In 10 years will we look back and see the decline to Musk levels of cuntishness?
Listen all I’m saying is if this Peter beck or anyone else holds on to a whole billion dollars for themselves then they lack empathy for the rest of humanity and are therefore evil. If he accidentally made a billion that’s fine but donate it.
Agreed, if you have a billion in cash sitting around, then do something with it.
But in this specific example, and really any example where someone gains their wealth from “doing stuff”. It is not liquid, sitting around in cash to hand out. It is usually in stock of the company they found.
While they are “young” and energetic making the world a better place, then keep on doing what you are doing. Once you “retire” from that then it is the time to donate.
It doesn’t sound like he can do that without giving up his ownership stake in his company. Or is that what you are suggesting?
Yep. Those billions are made on the backs of suppressed wages and benefits, more employee productivity with less flexibility, enshittification, etc. It’s “earned” by squeezing it out of others.
I guess he understood that, felt guilty, and wanted to give it “back” to clear his conscience. That’s my personal take. I really want to believe there are good people with power and/or money.
That’s why its the system that needs to be killed, not billionaires. It doesn’t matter if you are good or bad, capitalism is in part a system of forced competition. A CEO who doesn’t make the hard calls for the benefit of stockholders will be replaced if he is caught choosing his moral compunctions over profits. A competitor will exploit what he might refuse to, and thus the harm is done and the “good CEO” is drummed out of the system. The only way for a CEO to remain good and a CEO is to never be tested by the markets mad search for profits. This is possible in a small way, like maybe a CEO of a small regional firm which will eventually be bought out or forced out of business. Hell, most of the strictly “moral” repercussions of an executive are hidden from them, and appear only as columns in a profit/loss report. Capitalism alienates us all from the world we inhabit, our humanity and our selves; worker and owner alike.
But regardless of this, the class interests of ceos and employees are in direct conflict. This doesn’t mean we need to kill, but we will have to fight to crush their way of life which exists as a result of the mass exploitation and immiseration of millions.
Ok… but then we are beholden to where they choose to dispense their largesse. Great, the billionaires have a few pet projects they direct their philanthropy to, and it does help those recipients specifically.
But how about the lifetime earnings of the employees who saw their benefits packages shrink, their medical copays and premiums climb? Maybe that was enough to force their kids into crippling college loans instead of the parents having enough extra to help wirh 529s or just smaller more manageable loans? How about the customers who got inferior products or services that support, returns, or exchanges were obfuscated by deliberately ineffective phone menus or website resources that were designed to make people give up instead of receiving what they deserve? How about the billonaire’s pursuit of anti-tax laws to further line their pockets at the expense of government services? All of these things happen directly by command of the wealthy or by those riding on the coattails of those decisions as major investors or board of directors. All of them in service to the bottom line, and that bottom line is increased at your and my expense.
They may be good people. But you do not become a billionaire with clean hands.
Money is power. Power corrupts. No exceptions. They get into the situation because they can no longer identify and understand their fellow man. There are no good billionaires. There aren’t any any good millionaires. And we should all do them a favor. And never allow them to achieve that status of hoarding.
co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers Group, the travel retailer of luxury products based in Hong Kong
Sort of squeezing second-hand. But you have to know his primary client pool is the business elites passing through international airports and taking advantage of a legalized form of tax evasion while exploiting the working class in sweat-shops on the mainland/surrounding Pacific islands.
A bit like becoming a billionaire by selling yachts or luxury hotels or cocaine. Even if you can argue you didn’t abuse your staff to make your mint (spoilers: you absolutely did), you know all your biggest customers did.
Technically, you’d have to declare what you are importing into the country where you live and pay tax at customs on import. It is kinda logical you dont pay VAT as a visitor since you dont live there and wouldnt benefit from the taxes you paid. Going further, I remember tax exempt cards in the 80’s you could use and show your id in stores and not pay VAT. Online versions of this exist today, I buy something from the UK and ship it to EU, I can request they not charge VAT as Im going to pay it on import.
