Charities

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
What realistic options are there for a redistribution of wealth, to say nothing even of the chances of it happening? Redistribution of wealth seems to be the solution provided by those who are against the extreme variation in wealth we see today, but I could be incorrectly presuming and generalizing there.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
I believe there are people so rich that even if they just had a modicum of virtue they would be inclined to donate a small fraction of their wealth, which could nonetheless be life-changing for some number of people, if facilitated properly.
 

sufi

lala
these are not new questions though, they are big and well known issues as i said before and charities make a big effort to demonstrate value for money. there are well established systems for tracking grants and impact,
also for redistributing wealth = "taxes"

the fundamental problem is not addressed though, which is that these tycoons can amass vast wealth. Relying on their charitable instincts, even when bolstered by tax breaks, is a ridiculous and completely disfunctional way to redistribute wealth, that would not have been accrued in the first place if our societies gave a shit about poverty
 

sufi

lala
Perhaps there are interesting discussions to be had about how the big charities can tailor their services to attract funding more efifciently, and how that can in fact move them away from prioritising their beneficiaries' needs,
and how smaller grass roots orgs don't get the funds that they would be able to disburse more effectively because altho they have the genuine community connections and understand the needs, they aren't set up to report on teh goddam KPIs every 10 seconds
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Yeah I didn't mean to indicate that these were new period, just that they were new to me.

And even if we agree that the wealth should not have been accrued in the first place, which could only be prevented by a totalitarian and benevolent state that has always existed before any such wealth can be accrued - even if we agree here, which I am unsure if I do, we nonetheless find ourselves in the present state of affairs, wherein such wealth has been accrued, and we should be pragmatic about addressing the existing reality.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Perhaps there are interesting discussions to be had about how the big charities can tailor their services to attract funding more efifciently, and how that can in fact move them away from prioritising their beneficiaries' needs,
and how smaller grass roots orgs don't get the funds that they would be able to disburse more effectively because altho they have the genuine community connections and understand the needs, they aren't set up to report on teh goddam KPIs every 10 seconds
This is largely what I am interested in fleshing out, if even just for my own understanding.

I think its reasonable to assume that if models of charity can be improved substantially, i.e. if donations can have their milage extended, that would give less of an excuse for would-be donors who are simply disillusioned by the inefficacy of charity, or at least deploy that disillusionment as an excuse.

Not saying that an improvement in charity models will make every billionaire a saint, just that it will nudge their expectations of the impact any potential donation would make.
 

sufi

lala
i don't think you'd need a totalitarian state to prevent capitalist looters from becoming billionaires, but it may be that nothing short of force will equalise society in 2021.

If you think improving charities will help you are barking up the wrong tree
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
If I was considering giving away a ton of money, I would have serious reservations about simply dividing up cash across a large body of recipients, primarily because I believe the impact will be short-lived and not have a systemic impact.

Perhaps I, in this situation, should just settle for a small and transient impact, i.e. a bunch of people being able to pay a bill they may not have been able to pay before, but the problem remains: only a matter of time, likely in short order, that the state of affairs reverts back to how it was before the distribution of wealth took place.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
i don't think you'd need a totalitarian state to prevent capitalist looters from becoming billionaires, but it may be that nothing short of force will equalise society in 2021.

If you think improving charities will help you are barking up the wrong tree
But how can the accruement of wealth be prevented in the first instance? A state's existence, namely its presence and force required to set the law, is predicated on some wealth having already been accrued, no?
 

sufi

lala
I believe there are people so rich that even if they just had a modicum of virtue they would be inclined to donate a small fraction of their wealth, which could nonetheless be life-changing for some number of people, if facilitated properly.
this is kind of bitcoiny - the bitcoin tycoons should be able to afford to drop a few %s onto us paupers since they are so minted,
but forget trying to score bc with cash
and by the way bc1qfvfv0vqkfqpq9zs8tc9hwu829705zjm636mmae
 

sufi

lala
If I was considering giving away a ton of money, I would have serious reservations about simply dividing up cash across a large body of recipients, primarily because I believe the impact will be short-lived and not have a systemic impact.

Perhaps I, in this situation, should just settle for a small and transient impact, i.e. a bunch of people being able to pay a bill they may not have been able to pay before, but the problem remains: only a matter of time, likely in short order, that the state of affairs reverts back to how it was before the distribution of wealth took place.
Charities' whole existence is about managing that relationship - unfortunately that generally involves subscribing to the whole management cult of hierarchy and so on, and if you don't you willgenerally not be "fundable"
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
If we're talking about self-interested decisions that should not have been made, I'm sure the list would be innumerable. But saying that those decisions should not have been allowed to have been made, presupposes the existence of a more powerful, i.e. more wealthy, body to enforce such rules.

I'd rather just channel creativity into defining investment models that manage to have a net-positive, if even small and incremental, social impact, while also yielding returns to the investor. Opportunity Zones in the U.S. seem to be an example of this, but I'm not familiar enough with them to really say for certain.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Here I would push back as well, as this just seems like it would, and does, prompt more sophisticated financial advise to mitigate tax losses, which in turn prompts more sophisticated tax policy, which in turns prompts even more sophisticated private strategy, ad infinitum, resulting in a corpus of policy that only financial experts, i.e. insiders, can even understand.
 

sufi

lala
If we're talking about self-interested decisions that should not have been made, I'm sure the list would be innumerable. But saying that those decisions should not have been allowed to have been made, presupposes the existence of a more powerful, i.e. more wealthy, body to enforce such rules.

I'd rather just channel creativity into defining investment models that manage to have a net-positive, if even small and incremental, social impact, while also yielding returns to the investor. Opportunity Zones in the U.S. seem to be an example of this, but I'm not familiar enough with them to really say for certain.
your assumptions seem to be preventing you from grasping some basic issues here
 

sufi

lala
Here I would push back as well, as this just seems like it would, and does, prompt more sophisticated financial advise to mitigate tax losses, which in turn prompts more sophisticated tax policy, which in turns prompts even more sophisticated private strategy, ad infinitum, resulting in a corpus of policy that only financial experts, i.e. insiders, can even understand.
you are overthinking this
 

sufi

lala
... states have been hijacked by business and stopped doing taxes properly ,especially of the super-rich
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
you are overthinking this
I assumed you meant just increasing corporate tax rates, inheritance tax rates, etc. - things that enough smart people specialize in combatting, people who think about these things way more deeply than I am currently capable of.
 
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