The fact that Donald Trump Jr’s book isn’t going to be some huge turning point in how Republicans feel about the Trumps shows that their ‘patriotism’ is phony… and always has been phony.
These people use the military as props in their fascist propaganda, but couldn’t care less about the actual humans in uniform. Which makes sense because they are mostly peasants after all.
I am catching up on the thread do I am sure the topic has shifted but just wanted to note I agree. The fact that most of these guys name their charities and donations after themselves is extremely telling. It is pure ego feeding.
There are actually wealthy people who donate anonymously and discretely but they are pretty rare. The likes of Gates need everyone to know they are the ones giving everything. The good deed, on its own, never suffices.
I love scrolling past dozens of posts as much as the next guy but damning transcripts from the impeachment hearings released today
Gates is basically Awval
I am trying to decide which office has had more stupid, Mayor of New York City or Governor of Texas.
Let’s make a containment thread for the bad posters. Totally understand if some people would put me in there. The will of the people and all. As long as it matches the will of our overlords, of course.
Impeachment thread probably a better place for that tbh, this thread is just too rambling and generally low content
Disagreeing does make someone a bad poster. Nice try though.
The bot sets the standard
This is correct. That’s the whole point of that thread. But cross posting is okay.
I agree that the mindset of most of these guys is they are very good at making money, much better than the government. I believe that to be 100% correct.
My problem is you are giving up investing tens of billions to help people today in order to have more money decades in the future. I am not convinced that is a worthwhile trade off.
Also when you look at solutions based charity time is a massive factor. Something done now can be built and expanded for decades leading to new discoveries. I think this time element has a strong case versus the need for more money.
If you can get 1 billion dollars and twenty years to research the problem or 4 million dollars in 20 years, which is likely to have a bigger impact?
Clovis isn’t a bad poster.
He’s just very, very wrong about this issue.
Perfectly fair position, although I obviously disagree about the second point. 
That’s fair. I’m not honestly calling for him to be exiled or contained. Just a little light ribbing that I hoped would be obvious when I threw myself in there with him.
Just watched some of today’s chopper talk. We got a “I hardly know the man” about Sondland.
“the likes of Gates”? Most who give to charity do not do so anonymously. Sure it’s probably more noble if they didn’t want the credit. But in this case, the “likes of Gates” is probably most people who give to charity. The only difference is that Gates has the means to publicize his contributions a lot better than the dude who gives $100 to a local animal shelter.
This is why offering to slap someone’s name on something is a common strategy to elicit donations. They’re not doing it to target specific people who want that. It’s just assumed to be something that most people find desirable. People are shitty that way, I guess – Gates and most everyone else.
I bet he was intimately familiar with his million dollar donation.
I didn’t say that argument was correct. I just said that it was an argument that was made. I’m not convinced that it is correct, but it is plausible.
I agree with what you’re saying though. It’s complicated. You would have to know what the money would be used for today vs the future, rate of return, and a bunch of other stuff. It wouldn’t surprise me that for a lot of cases, less money now (in real terms) could easily be more impactful than more money later for the reasons you state.
This is easy because each of those people can in turn help others out. It diversifies the help while more adequately rewarding those who earned the money in the first place.
I think these guys who have massed huge wealth off the back of companies did so at their direct expense of their employees. Employees of these companies should be compensated along the way as this wealth is accumulating. Microsoft made a ridiculous number of millionaires who then left to go on and do other things. Some of those things greatly benefit society. But as time went on the money was hoarded and the employees got smaller and smaller shares.
I would prefer that someone like Gates plant ten thousand seeds and grow a forest instead of just growing one mighty oak tree.