How philanthropy benefits the super-richEconomics | 208112 hits | Sep 08 5:48 am | Posted by: BeaverFever Commentsview comments in forum Page 1 2 You need to be a member of CKA and be logged into the site, to comment on news. |
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Plus there are huge tax write-offs foe these donations and some of the worst people and organizations around make these big tax deductible charitable donations in order to buy a respectability they don’t deserve or they have an ulterior political motive. Like Trump using other people’s charitable donations to buy portraits of himself or donating his presidential salary to causes in order to appear like a non-scumbag.
Even where these Mega-donors and philanthropists have good intentions, the money tends to be spent on their pet projects and personal interests rather than where needed.
Charity is not a substitute for publicly-funded services, never has been, never will be.
Charity is not a substitute for publicly-funded services, never has been, never will be.
What about the filthy filthy rich, like Gates and Buffet setting up charities that perform amazing things in places like Africa that can't publicly fund those things?
Charity is not a substitute for publicly-funded services, never has been, never will be.
Not a substitute but an addition to existing efforts.
Charity is not a substitute for publicly-funded services, never has been, never will be.
What about the filthy filthy rich, like Gates and Buffet setting up charities that perform amazing things in places like Africa that can't publicly fund those things?
The article addresses it:
There are a number of tensions inherent in the relationship between philanthropy and democracy. For all the huge benefits modern philanthropy can bring, the sheer scale of contemporary giving can skew spending in areas such as education and healthcare, to the extent that it can overwhelm the priorities of democratically elected governments and local authorities.
Some of this influence is indirect. The philanthropy of Bill and Melinda Gates has brought huge benefits for humankind. When the foundation made its first big grant for malaria research, it nearly doubled the amount of money spent on the disease worldwide. It did the same with polio. Thanks in part to Gates (and others), some 2.5 billion children have been vaccinated against the disease, and global cases of polio have been cut by 99.9%. Polio has been virtually eradicated. Philanthropy has made good the failures of both the pharmaceutical industry and governments across the world. The Gates Foundation, since it began in 2000, has given away more than $45bn and saved millions of lives.
Yet this approach can be problematic. Bill Gates can become fixed on addressing a problem which is not seen as a priority by local people, in an area, for example, where polio is far from the biggest problem. He did something similar in his education philanthropy in the US where his fixation on class size diverted public spending away from the actual priorities of the local community.
... The result has been what the late German billionaire shipping magnate and philanthropist Peter Kramer called “a bad transfer of power”, from democratically elected politicians to billionaires, so that it is no longer “the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich who decide”. The UN general assembly has warned governments and international organisations that, before taking money from rich donors, they should “assess the growing influence of major philanthropic foundations, and especially the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation … and analyse the intended and unintended risks and side-effects of their activities”. Elected politicians, the UN warned in 2015, should be particularly concerned about “the unpredictable and insufficient financing of public goods, the lack of monitoring and accountability mechanisms, and the prevailing practice of applying business logic to the provision of public goods”.
...
Charity is not a substitute for publicly-funded services, never has been, never will be.
Not a substitute but an addition to existing efforts.
Yet for decades conservatives have argued that publicly funded services should be cut or eliminated and replaced with charities so that individuals can voluntarily donate to the Lie chosen causes instead of being forced to through involuntary taxes
Charity is not a substitute for publicly-funded services, never has been, never will be.
What about the filthy filthy rich, like Gates and Buffet setting up charities that perform amazing things in places like Africa that can't publicly fund those things?
The article addresses it:
I know it did. I was asking what you thought about it, not some partisan opinion on the matter.
Is it not better that people get polio and malaria treatment from the Gates foundation, than not at all?
If The Gates Foundation is more powerful than local governments, that is another matter.
What about the filthy filthy rich, like Gates and Buffet setting up charities that perform amazing things in places like Africa that can't publicly fund those things?
The article addresses it:
I know it did. I was asking what you thought about it, not some partisan opinion on the matter.
Is it not better that people get polio and malaria treatment from the Gates foundation, than not at all?
If The Gates Foundation is more powerful than local governments, that is another matter.
If I have to choose between someone like Bezos/Musk hoarding vast amounts of wealth and building huge monopolies or Gates/Buffet giving away billions through their charities, I know which option I prefer.
What if they grew up in a rough neighborhood and than became very wealthy, and they want people from the old neighborhood to have a better shot at success? Its their money. If a First Nation member wants to provide money for scholarships exclusively to members of his tribe, that is fine with me. Ditto for the hood, and ditto for the trailer park. Its natural that someone would want to give their money to their pet projects.
-J.
- Matthew 19:24
Their giving is nice but:
1) no one buys their way into Heaven
2) pay offs won't earn them a pass when their final judgement comes
In this world or the next they will have to account for all the miserable things they do to the rest of us.
I know it did. I was asking what you thought about it, not some partisan opinion on the matter.
Is it not better that people get polio and malaria treatment from the Gates foundation, than not at all?
If The Gates Foundation is more powerful than local governments, that is another matter.
I have no problem with people creating their own charitable organizations. Its their money. They can spend it how they please. I know that if I had large amounts of money to give away, I would want some say in how its spent. Different things matter to different people. What if someone that they cared about died from a rare disease that does not get much research dollars? Who is getting hurt from a doner spending large amounts of their own money to step up research on that particular disease? All disease is worthy of c
I’m not saying that not at all is better.
Nor am I saying people shouldn’t be allowed to give their money for whatever cause they please. I’m saying charitable organizations that really care about issues and not just the pet causes and tunnel vision of their founder should be more democratic and inclusive and less condescending.
I’m also saying the public and governments should be less naive about charities that want to insert themselves into public affairs like funding public schools
But since it’s tax deductible, governments and taxpayers have a right - no a RESPONSIBILITY - to establish strict criteria for what qualifies for a tax deduction. Billionaires donating to their kids exclusive private schools, sports teams, exclusive fine art exhibits and the like? For every $100 they donate, the taxpayers reimburse them $45 does that seem fair?
Maybe instead of providing billions in tax deductions for billionaires, maybe the government could have better spent some of that money on more public services that would have helped more people. . Many Charities also often focus on symptoms rather that the disease. Instead of taxpayers subsidizing food handouts to poor people how about they instead better fund public programs that reduce poverty and actually treat the disease rather than the symptoms. If a school is failing, government should spend the resources to fix the school, not rely on a charity to to help only handful of the students and is partially reimbursed by government anyway.
Now I’m not saying all charities are bad or charities need to end Im saying we should all be more skeptical of these so-called philanthropists and understand that their interests are often not the exactly same as ours or even the people they claim to help. The criteria dor a tax deductible charity should be stricter and there should be limits on how much a person can claim and higher taxes for the rich.
Oh and deductions for “promotion of religion” should end. In fact Churches and religious organizations should not be automatically tax exempt although their charitable organizations can be as long as they’re not proselytizing or promoting religion.
^
- Matthew 19:24
Their giving is nice but:
1) no one buys their way into Heaven
2) pay offs won't earn them a pass when their final judgement comes
In this world or the next they will have to account for all the miserable things they do to the rest of us.
Oh God, if there is a God, please accept these billions of dollars and put it to good use to save mankind.
"Sorry son but the juggernaut of stupid has run amok and all the asteroids are hiding. All thy fates are in thine own hands".
I know it did. I was asking what you thought about it, not some partisan opinion on the matter.
Is it not better that people get polio and malaria treatment from the Gates foundation, than not at all?
If The Gates Foundation is more powerful than local governments, that is another matter.
I have no problem with people creating their own charitable organizations. Its their money. They can spend it how they please. I know that if I had large amounts of money to give away, I would want some say in how its spent. Different things matter to different people. What if someone that they cared about died from a rare disease that does not get much research dollars? Who is getting hurt from a doner spending large amounts of their own money to step up research on that particular disease? All disease is worthy of c
I’m not saying that not at all is better.
Nor am I saying people shouldn’t be allowed to give their money for whatever cause they please. I’m saying charitable organizations that really care about issues and not just the pet causes and tunnel vision of their founder should be more democratic and inclusive and less condescending.
I’m also saying the public and governments should be less naive about charities that want to insert themselves into public affairs like funding public schools
But since it’s tax deductible, governments and taxpayers have a right - no a RESPONSIBILITY - to establish strict criteria for what qualifies for a tax deduction. Billionaires donating to their kids exclusive private schools, sports teams, exclusive fine art exhibits and the like? For every $100 they donate, the taxpayers reimburse them $45 does that seem fair?
Maybe instead of providing billions in tax deductions for billionaires, maybe the government could have better spent some of that money on more public services that would have helped more people. . Many Charities also often focus on symptoms rather that the disease. Instead of taxpayers subsidizing food handouts to poor people how about they instead better fund public programs that reduce poverty and actually treat the disease rather than the symptoms. If a school is failing, government should spend the resources to fix the school, not rely on a charity to to help only handful of the students and is partially reimbursed by government anyway.
Now I’m not saying all charities are bad or charities need to end Im saying we should all be more skeptical of these so-called philanthropists and understand that their interests are often not the exactly same as ours or even the people they claim to help. The criteria dor a tax deductible charity should be stricter and there should be limits on how much a person can claim and higher taxes for the rich.
Oh and deductions for “promotion of religion” should end. In fact Churches and religious organizations should not be automatically tax exempt although their charitable organizations can be as long as they’re not proselytizing or promoting religion.
I get the gist of what you are saying: you want the government to do a better job, and not have to depend on charity. The problem is that sometimes (many times actually) charity can do a better job than the government. I remember when I was 17. I was living in Daytona Beach killing time until I went in the military. The owner of the local newspaper (that I happened to be working for) cared about the arts, and culture. He thought that it was important to bring those things to the city. The local government didn't give a rats ass about culture. Daytona was all about tourists and race fans filling up the hotels, spending money in the bars and restaurants. The chamber of commerce was almost exclusively hotel owners, bar owners, and restaurant owners. They only cared about keeping the hotels full, and wages low. Any local politician pushing for higher taxes for "culture" would have been thrown out on their ass in a heartbeat. The owner of the newspaper used his own money to bring arts and culture to the city. Government would have never accomplished that.
I now live in a much larger and wealthier city than Daytona Beach. Daytona Beach has way more culture than Las Vegas has, or ever will have. The people who run Las Vegas do not give a rats ass about culture. They care about keeping the hotels full and the tourists spending their money gambling, drinking, eating, smoking weed, and sightseeing. No different than Daytona, only we have no rich person willing to spend their own money to bring culture to Las Vegas. When I first moved to Las Vegas, we had one water park. The city council allowed it to be shut down because some asshole wanted to build another casino on its location. It would be 15 years before we had another water park. One of the hottest counties in North America with a population of over 2 million with no water park. I have lived in one horse hick towns that never seen 30 degrees C in the summer that had a water park. The government let that happen. The water park appealed to the government to save them. The government did not care. They did not care about 2 million people suffering in some of the hottest temps in North America. The government is in the pocket of the casinos owners. They call the shots. Sometimes wealthy people is all you have to get what you need. I am not saying that a water park is culture, but damn it the land where the old water park was located is still vacant today. Nothing ever got built there. The government could have prevented that.
Daytona only has some culture because some wealthy guy spent his own money to bring culture to a small city. Las Vegas will never have culture because no one gives a damn. The only people spending money in Vegas expect a huge return on their investment. Culture don't cut it. A casino can make more in a day than a museum can make in a year.
Dr. C made a good point about charity helping out in third world countries. When things are bad economically (like now) the people in the west start bitching about their tax dollars leaving the country. There is no way that western politicians can provide the aid to the third world that wealthy donors can and still keep their jobs.