Comment on Bill and Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge after 15 years: Only 9 of the 256 billionaires actually followed through on giving away half their wealth

sunzu2@thebrainbin.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• IndiBrony@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  To people like this, the number in their bank account is like a scoreboard. They didn’t get that high up the leaderboard purely by accident.

  Anyone who thinks that kind of person is just going to give up their place on the scoreboard is either incredibly naïve or gullible.

  Don’t get me wrong, there are some people to there who may have some semblance of empathy, but as seen by the title, that’s about 1 in 20.

  They also don’t do good things out of the goodness of their hearts, they do it to win social points so that they don’t get gunned down in the middle of a NYC street.

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  • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    This doesn’t make much sense to me.

    Sure. Gates is not a “nice” person. The business practices involved in becoming a billionaire require him to be a vile human being. Granted.

    That said, he has given up his place on the leaderboard. He has become dramatically less wealthy as a result of his philanthropic work.

    What are you claiming is Gates’ motivation here? Not getting murdered? Come on. There are much more practical, reliable, and cheaper means to achieve that.

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  • it_depends_man@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    To people like this, the number in their bank account is like a scoreboard.

    It’s not just that.

    Besides the humanitarian work that the gates foundation does do “voluntarily”, money is agency, it is power.

    There is very little argument and reason to believe that “people” and “countries” would actually be more responsible in spending it.

    If there was a big, motivated, carefully planned social movement that had a solid idea and spending plan, things would be different. And such a group could also force them to give up that money to spend it on these things. But such a movement doesn’t exist.

    As it stands, the idea that they would voluntarily give up money is dumb. To do what? Feed the corruption and nepo network in their country, that then will benefit only the people that are just like them, but less rich? That makes no sense.

    It has to come from public pressure and equal wealth taxes.

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  • brachiosaurus@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    They didn’t get that high up the leaderboard purely by accident.

    You also don’t stay up there in the leaderboard by accident

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• DandomRude@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I assume that tax avoidance is also a factor.

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  • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    You wouldn't expect these clowns to pay taxes that's what w2 slaves are for. In fact, the treasury should be paying them. Just look at the national debt since 1980s then look at how fat these swine got.

    Crux of the everything crisis we got on our hands.

    But hey the good parasites paid 15k for a fluf piece, put on a suit and say thank you!

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  • forrgott@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Let’s not forget lobbyingbribery. And since days political influence is ostensibly being bought for the sake of charity, nobody would even blink.

    Just my theory, mind you. But every one of these charitable foundations is primarily done for tax avoidance. No question. Well that is every one of these foundations except for the one set up by Mr President Tiny Dick. He just can’t resist the temptation of embezzlement. I mean seriously, he bankrupted THREE casinos, and had a judge not just dissolve his foundation, but also bar him from running one of these so-called charitable foundations ever again.

    I don’t even want to know how you can fuck up that egregiously. One of those things where you have to wonder if successfully finding understanding of how it happened is going to hopelessly corrupt your own soul for all of eternity.

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  • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Why would you waste $10 to save $5 in tax?

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    • DandomRude@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I can’t say how the tax avoidance strategies of the super-rich work in practice, but in any case, their feigned philanthropy is a key part of it.

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      • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        It’s not.

        This is a common misconception based on meme level reasoning.

        I don’t know how this works but I know I don’t like billionaires.

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    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      It’s the difference between spending money to have your will enacted, and having your money taken by the people, for use of the commons.

      The latter is a very dangerous precedent to set. You don’t want the people feeling like they can have their will enacted.

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  • crandlecan@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    It always has been (points gun)

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  • resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    What taxes?

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• galoisghost@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  The only good billionaire is a dead billionaire whose stolen wealth has been returned to the people

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  • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Does that mean Gates will be “good” if he spends all his money on vaccines and then dies of natural causes?

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• Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  also Gates have accused of vaccine colonialism by african countries, hes not doing out of his own heart, its most likely his way of laundering money, plus to distance himself from epstein.

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  • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    This doesn’t make any sense.

    He’s been doing this since long before Epstein was arrested.

    He also doesn’t need to launder money because he’s already paid tax on all his money. He’s becoming demonstrably, significantly less wealthy in the course of distributing vaccines. If he were laundering money he would be becoming more wealthy.

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