40 U.S. Billionaires Pledge Half Of Wealth To Charity

cincybearcat wrote:

catefrances wrote:

and why should they??? ive never understood the expectation of inheritance.

Well, you know, sometimes a person's family actually helps them in life. And...well, while someone is off making a fortune they can often be neglecting things at home. So, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me for the family of someone to inherit that $. They aren't all douchebags.

Drowned Out wrote:

This was just posted on the blog I posted a link to earlier.
Some good points made. Everyone is tip-toeing around criticizing the pledge itself, but it's interesting to see some of the discussion arising from people putting some thought into just how fucking RICH some people are, and how imbalanced our world has become.

As prefaced by the mod on the gateskeeper blog:
"The editor of the Atlantic Wire is the husband of the former CEO of the Gates Foundation. The links in the original article lead to some interesting views."
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions ... ledge-4623

The Backlash Against the Billionaires' Pledge
By Heather Horn on August 06, 2010 12:23pm

Even as the praise continues to roll in for the 40 billionaires pledging to donate a full 50 percent of their wealth to charity, a few writers are beginning to see the darker side to the story. While all are careful to call the pledge "admirable," some journalists and pundits worry about the initiative's echoes of robber-baron philanthropy in the Gilded Age. A roundup of commentators taking a closer look at the pros and cons of philanthropy, writ large:

Back to the Robber Barons The donations themselves are great, says Berkeley public policy professor Robert Reich. What's troubling is what these large sums of money mean--"how much money is now concentrated in so few hands"--and how reminiscent it is of an earlier era:
It's more evidence we're back in the late 19th century when robber barons lorded over the economy and almost everyone else lost ground. The Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Rockefellers made so much money they too could give away large chunks to charity and still maintain their outsize fortunes and their power and influence ... America's median hourly wage, meanwhile, dropped last year, and it continues to drop. That's not even counting the 15 million Americans still out of work. Most Americans don't need charity. They need good jobs.

Confirmed: Carnegie Returns "40 of the country's billionaires have resurrected and updated Andrew Carnegie's doctrine of the 'gospel of wealth,'" writes Steven Pearlstein in The Washington Post. He's not taking issue with the billionaires or their donations. "There can be little doubt, however, that their commitment has raised the bar on social responsibility even as it raises questions about the social value of large personal fortunes." Pearlstein then launches into a review of the "gradual hollowing out of the middle of the U.S. economy," growth since the 90s coming "at the top and bottom of the skills ladder," resulting in the "'polarization' of the labor force," exacerbated during the recession.

'Noblesse Oblige That Might Have Embarrassed Even John D. Rockefeller' While pointing out that he's not "pick[ing] on the billionaires for their charity," The Wall Street Journal's Evan Newmark compares the gesture to Obama's "workers-of-the-world" rhetoric at a recent AFL-CIO meeting: they're both "condescending, nearly cartoonish PR exercises--the exact opposite of good leadership." He's also irritated that, on the same day as the Giving Pledge announcement, Secretary Geithner made another case against tax cuts for the wealthy. Newmark doesn't like the Giving Pledgers being confused with America's "wealthy," who, according to the tax code, aren't so much the Gates and Buffet types as "the local doctors who treat your mother, the McDonald’s franchise owners who feed your family, the Toyota dealers who sell you a car."
Donations? How About Actually Paying Taxes Peter Wilby takes the opposite approach in the Guardian, with a more comprehensive critique of so-called philanthrocapitalism. "The US treasury already loses at least $40bn ... a year from tax breaks for donations," he writes. Not only does the government lose the money, but the billionaires then get to determine what the "good causes" are. Other problems with philanthrocapitalism include that it tends to "[tackle] symptoms of poverty and distress rather than underlying causes," and tends to towards "do[ing] things to the poor, rather than with them."

Just as market approaches carry dangers when applied to public services, so they do when applied to charities. The emphasis on "rates of return" and "value for money" may exclude people in great need who happen to be difficult to reach or, even if made fit and healthy, would be of marginal economic utility ... If the rich really wish to create a better world, they can sign another pledge: to pay their taxes on time and in full; to stop lobbying against taxation and regulation; to avoid creating monopolies; to give their employees better wages, pensions, job protection and working conditions; to make goods and use production methods that don't kill or maim or damage the environment or make people ill.

Jason P wrote:

The people that contributed to this article are assholes. They don't want people hording wealth, yet they are critical when it is given to charity. They want the companies to pay lots of taxes, but the don't want them to be successful (i.e. paying more to turn out a product then their competitors), thus preventing them from paying more taxes.

Can't we for just once give a "thumbs up" signal and a tip of the cap when a group of individuals is this generous?

Drowned Out wrote:

So if these guys became bazillionaires on the backs of the poor and/or through shady business practices...?

Drowned Out wrote:

Jason P wrote:

I don't know if it is 100% good, but it has to be at least 95% good. The money will go to non-profit charities and I think it is fair that the person who donates controls where it goes.

As for how the wealth was developed and what wrongs were committed in the past, there isn't much that can be done about that now, other then giving money back.

Will all of it go to non-profits tho? Or even most of it? That's not my understanding of how this works. It sounds a lot more like a venture capital firm than a charity.
I'm having trouble finding the article right now, but I read one yesterday that explained one scenario where an online auction company which catered to the insurance industry was given a multi-million dollar grant to increase it's business, with the social metric of job creation. The plan was to help the CEO develop the business until it reached a benchmark profit, then sell out at a large profit. Is that something worthy of a tax loophole in your eyes? Most of the fund's money is invested, making (tax-free?) profits on the stock market.

From what I've read, the bulk of the money is being doled out as research grants to universities and private research firms. The main criticism of this is that the schools which are on the cutting edge of R&D are already extremely well-funded. Schools and organizations that support or teach low income people are shunned, as are many less high-profile causes, which only serves to increase the divide between rich and poor.

Regardless, I'm glad you guys aren't jumping down my throat for asking some questions about this...I see this pledge as a good thing, but it's only prudent to watch the cause and effect, equal/opposite aspect to see what's happening in the wake of all this money being thrown around without public oversight.

Jason P wrote:

I think the group has just signed a pledge at this point (I'm still trying to find out the names of all 40 people). As it appears that Gates and Buffet have had the most influence on this, the rest may instill a similar structure.

Jason P wrote:

I noticed George Lucas is on the list. Perhaps he is trying to be contrite for the creation of Jar Jar Binks. Damn, he has made a ton of money (which I have willingly contributed to) off a SciFi series. Anyway, I think there are a few Spaceballs quotes that are fitting for this subject:

Yogurt: "Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower."

AND

Barf: “I know we need the money, but …”

Lone Star: “Listen! We’re not just doing this for the money!

Barf: We’re not?

Lone Star: “We’re doing it for a SHIT LOAD of money!