She gave away $4 billion in 4 months? This is impossible because conservatives tell me we can’t tax billionaires because all their wealth is stonks that can’t be liquidated easily. 
2 Likes
She probably donated exactly enough to not pay any taxes
The charitable deduction is stupid
1 Like
Donating 4 billion to reduce your taxable income by 4 billion and avoid… what, like a billion in taxes? Am I missing something?
1 Like
And how much you want to bet it was to her own foundation that she’s the sole monarch of.
Edit: reading her post, it maybe sounds like that’s not the case. If 4 billion dollars really left her control in the last four months and into the control of charities, good for her. If it’s like bill gates donating 50 billion to the gates foundation, fuck that.
Do you guys ever think people do good things because they believe it’s important to do good things?
I think a core assumption of conservatism is that everyone is always out to screw everyone else. (I’m at least as Hobbesian as the next guy, but many people actually care about other people and society in general, not just you.) That’s in large measure why I regard conservatism as an ideology for losers. People who are good at things or happy or secure don’t think everyone else is out to screw them. They also do not seek to fill voids that cannot be filled through excess accumulation. (Trump’s whole life is looking to fill voids that cannot be filled.) I think this is more fundamental to conservatism than Corey Robin’s idea that it’s about maintenance of existing hierarchies (through the notions are somewhat related).
6 Likes
I have seen people do good deeds with my own eyes. Why, once I saw a girl offer to let a stranger use her cell phone to order ice cream. During covid! Can you imagine? It made me want to try it myself. So I did. Small things. You know, just for the experience. It’s quite a thrill.
3 Likes
You get to deduct the full market value of any stock you donate regardless of basis.
This is especially awful policy when these people donate to their own foundation, because they escape not only capital gains tax (while getting a deduction) but more importantly that money is now out of their estate, so they avoid the 40% estate tax while retaining control of the money. This is the ballgame for estate tax avoidance.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet will, combined, almost certainly pay zero capital gains or estate taxes. Their fortunes will never, ever be taxed. Fuck that.
3 Likes
Pretty interesting story about Rittenhouse’s’ lawyer and how he’s likely grifting off the defense funds to cover millions in debt.
2 Likes
If you looked into the Bezos article it’s clear that she gives much of her money away with no strings attached, and not to her own foundation.
Gates has said he doesn’t want to leave his kids more than $10M. Buffett has given away billions to promote health in the third world (mainly through the Gates’ Foundation).
Is your worldview so fucked up that these are the people you criticize, and not for what they’ve done, but for what others have done and they could potentially avail themselves of. And don’t call me a billionaire lover, I’m just not a fool caught in a broken ideological thought loop. (I’m all for confiscating billionaire wealth, or, more appropriate, restructuring the tax and ownership system, more or less as Warren has proposed, but I have better thing to do than attacking people who are likely operating in good faith.)
It’s bullshit that they don’t ever pay any taxes, period. Good for them for giving money away but the policy is terrible.
1 Like
They should give away their money. Right now. Not fake give it away to their own bullshit foundation. No reason to give these assholes credit for hoarding their 100 billion dollar fortunes until the day they die.
3 Likes
You are just making up facts. Gates Foundation has given away more than $50bn. Could he have given away $80bn, probably. It’s people like Larry Ellison and Sheldon Adelson who we should worry about, not Gates.
Larry Ellison has $75bn and has not given away much at all, and often to right wing shit. Gates has given away $50bn. I’m sorry if he still has tons of money because MS keeps making tons of money and he has a lot of stock. There are better witches to burn.
Forbes ’ 2004 list of charitable donations made by the wealthiest 400 Americans stated that Ellison had donated[ when? ] $151,092,103, about 1% of his estimated personal wealth.[78] In June 2006, Ellison announced he would not honor his earlier pledge of $115 million to Harvard University, claiming it was due to the departure of former President Lawrence Summers. Oracle spokesman Bob Wynne announced, “It was really Larry Summers’ brainchild and once it looked like Larry Summers was leaving, Larry Ellison reconsidered … [I]t was Larry Ellison and Larry Summers that had initially come up with this notion.”[79] In 2007 Ellison pledged $500,000 to fortify a community centre in Sderot, Israel, after discovering that the building was not fortified against rocket attacks.[80] Other charitable donations by Ellison include a $10 million donation to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces in 2014.[81] In 2017 Ellison again donated to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, this time for $16.6 million. His donation was intended to support the construction of well-being facilities on a new campus for co-ed conscripts.[82]
It’s not like there’s not low hanging fruit with evil billionaires. For every Gates there are 40 DeVos. People like Steve Wynn, Koch, Bobby Kotick, Donald Sterling, and the 95 IQ scions of oil wealth families who fund the GOP.
lol dude that’s a fucking lie. Gates foundation has given away 21 billion dollars. Its endowment is like 50, Gates gave the foundation 36. He’s still worth 118 billion.
This is the model you should hold billionaires to. This guy gave away billions of dollars. All his money. Not to some bullshit foundation. Just gave it away. But you don’t even know his fucking name and trip over yourself to defend the honor of Bill fuckin Gates donating a small fraction of his wealth to some ego boosting charity that he himself still controls. Jesus Christ.
1 Like
Chuck Feeney is awesome, and giving away that kind of money is a huge undertaking. Should Gates maybe go yolo and fund everyone on GoFundMe? Maybe he should do some things different, maybe he should use all his money to support political cause I support, but he’s a smart guy and has thought a lot more about how to effectively give money away than I have.
1 Like
if i ever luck into millions i’ll start a phony charitable foundation where i pretend to give it all away to a tennis coach lol or you know some lie that’s completely not credible
4 Likes
hahahahaha that number went up because Microsoft’s stock price went up so the endowment of the Gates foundation went up. He donated a bunch of fuckin microsoft stock to the foundation and so when it grows, the endowment grows. He controls the foundation and still votes the stock.
You’re doing an oligarch’s PR here my man, for free. He transferred a bunch of Microsoft stock to his foundation that he controls. That’s not giving away his money.
4 Likes
I mean, naming the assholes kind of proves the point. The Waltons have like $400 billion in unearned money, the fact that we let these fortunes grow tax free for multiple generations is a fucking travesty.
2 Likes