Somehow he has more money than ever though.
If they wanted to give away more they could. Chuck Feeney gave away 8 billion dollars and lived off a few million dollars in an apartment. And didn’t tell anyone about it until a court case forced him to reveal it.
the next line being
— voluntarily giving up a huge chunk of our business and all international deals to avoid the appearance that we were ‘profiting off of the office.’
Also “giving away” money to a foundation that you have full control over isn’t giving in the way us mere mortals would understand the term.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Literally no one is saying that Gates shouldn’t be taxed heavily.
All I’m saying is that in his specific case, his wealth will happen to do more for humanity. He’s clearly an exception in this regard and no one is suggesting that because of him we should craft a policy around that type of behavior and just leave society “to the whims of billionaires”.
Fiona Hill and Lt. Col. Vindman transcripts dropping today.
I am excite.
And absolutely yes, the Buffet/Gates model is infinitely better than the Sam Walton model. They absolutely deserve some credit. That doesn’t mean I don’t get to point and laugh when Gates, whose entire fortune exists only because of government protection, hits the fainting couch over Warren’s wealth tax, which he didn’t even bother to learn the specifics of.
This arguably proves that Gates keeping his money and donating it to charitable causes is far better than taxing it away. Now there is even more money for him to figure out how to deal with malaria in Africa and what not. Assuming he actually follows through and ends up giving it away.
Once again, I’m not saying that this should be the basis of any sort of policy on billionaire taxation. It just insulates him quite a bit against criticism that he’s not contributing enough.
As others have said, he is giving away some now, perhaps close to what he would be paying in taxes in a sane world, but is still net accumulating massive amounts of money. The pledge is to allegedly give virtually all of it away AFTER death. There is a very specific reason for that, and it’s that they think they’ve figured out a way to have their cake (satiate their sociopathic desires) and eat it too (get praise and adulation, rather than being viewed as a scumbag). It’s a rather elegant solution from our masters of the universe but again when push comes to shove, they reveal their vicious true nature and unleash it on society.
Another example is Mark Zuckerberg, he has followed Bill Gate’s charitable example and pledge. But yet somehow he ends up hiring former Republicans/NRA supporters to run Facebook’s DC office and happily assists Republicans in their quest to most effectively spread false propaganda and blatant lies to implement their fucked up agenda. How does that square w/ his charitable donations/pledge? Ldo, he is a psychopath that only cares about power, control and adulation.
Just give me half a billion, Bill. I’ll put it to good use.
As stated above
No one is suggesting that because Gates does what he does, he shouldn’t be taxed heavily. Or that billionaires shouldn’t be taxed heavily in general. How anyone could have read that into my post is mind boggling.
Basing a general policy on what Gates does would be ridiculous. As you say there is no accountability. We can’t craft a policy based on the handful ouf outliars like Gates there are.
Not sure why you’re so rustled by the fact that this improves his reputation. Why shouldn’t it?
The only reason Gates actions matter here is that if you are going to tell him to fuck himself because he is not doing enough for society with his wealth, then you’re clearly wrong. Once again, he happens to be an exception in this regard and as such his actions should not be used to guide any tax policy decisions.
I’m first in line to tell Gates to fuck himself if he can’t easily vote for Warren or anyone else over Trump easily.
Hope that clears everything up.
The arguments here are insanely muddled, and seem to be simply driven by class warfare.
Having tons of money is immoral. Giving it away isn’t good either.
Philanthropy is inefficient. He should give more money away.
So the solution here is what? He volunteers all but a few million to who?
That money didn’t appear out of thin air. He has it because countless much poorer people paid it to him.
He should immediately transfer all his wealth but a few million bucks to Chuck Feeney and let Chuck handle the charitable donations. Chuck is, after all, Gates’ hero. He should follow Chuck’s example.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I’m saying.
Agreed. But I’m not only laughing at that part. I’m also telling him to fuck himself over the hard time for voting for Warren over Trump part.
You are the one that is muddying the waters. There is no plausible explanation for Bill Gates saying he is unsure if he would vote for Elizabeth Warren over Donald fucking Trump than sociopathy. Full stop.
lol this is just nonsense.
Countless of “poor” Microsoft stock owners.
Which was conceded by literally every person itt already. Good catch.
You seem to be having trouble keeping up. We are talking about his philanthropy now.
Fuck Bill Gates.
I said poorer, as in poorer as Bill Gates. That money is also not just from stock owners but also from all Microsoft customers.
I’m assuming most of it came out of capital appreciation from his Microsoft holdings. But sure, we can go with it came from people much poorer than him (which, as an aside, happens to literally be just about all people). There is certainly truth in that.
But I’m not sure what the point is.
That’s where all his money came from. So if the government taxes it, they are taking it from him after it came from the poorer people. The source is sitll the same.
If Gates is using it to help millions of even poorer Africans, then he would actually be distributing it to people even poorer than those from whom most of the money came from.