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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

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Hobo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

This is kind of the actual problem though. It’s hard to actually have effective charities. Even some of the most ethical, and well run charities, end up with surplus funds (Dolly Parton’s charity for example). The government is setup to spend that much money helping people though. But paying taxes is somehow bad and wrong. I don’t know if I had a real point other than maybe we should actually tax these rich folks so they can achieve their dream of giving away at least half their wealth.

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anarchy79@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Paying taxes is only wrong when its to a democratically elected government. But paying tithes to the church or tribute to monarchs is MORAL!

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- Hobo@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The Ayn Rand fever dream!
  
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nandeEbisu@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
There was a post a while ago where a German person posted that they were confused by the US nonprofit systems, they basically said I pay my taxes and the government makes sure it’s spent feeding the needy and foreign aid and all that. Why should I go through the trouble of researching all these charities trying to find a good one to donate to.

Not that Germany doesn’t have non profits, but they really should be for special interest type cases where you explicitly want to send money to a cause, not general global well being.

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- Saleh@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  It is a bit more complicated than that.
  
  First of all the social security system in Germany should not be tax funded. It is a mandatory insurance which should finance its activities through the insurance rate collected on income. However with demographic shifts and the like it is notoriously unstable, in particular the pension fund. So what happens is the social securities being cross financed from tax money.
  
  Like with climate change, we are talking about the issue since more than 30 years, the problematic effects are becoming ever more apparent, but no government is willing to address the fundamental issues, instead kicking the can down the road, until the system will collapse.
  
  Then another issue is that the government activities are far from sufficient and it is en vogue to attack social security further. Especially in the last years we saw an unprecedented rise in people relying on food banks as unemployment checks and the equivalent for refugees, who are prohibited from working, are insufficient. But rather than adjust the payments to reflect the rising costs of living, we see a distraction debate about people “refusing to work” which make up only a tiny minority of people receiving benefits, but the goal is to abolish unemployment insurance.
  
  Then another issue is that nonprofits are often used by rich families to circumvent inheritance tax. This year there will be an unexpected windfall of 4 billion Euros to the inheritance tax, as a rich family failed to set up their construct in time. Furthermore “nonprofits” by industrialists are often used for lobbying for more capitalism. In particularly infamous is the “Stiftung Familienunternehmen” (family run businesses trust). You would think this represents your local bakery run in the fourth generation. Instead it is run by “family businesses” such as Henkel (washing ingredients, chemicals) whose owners are billionaires.
  
  Finally, Germany has the whole range of non profits which follow purposes that genuinely follow causes that benefit humanity and the environment and they also receive billions in donations in Germany every year. Overall the donations to nonprofits in Germany amounted to 12.5 billion € last year, or about 150 € on average. This includes a wide range of purposes. For instance sports clubs are usually nonprofits and donations to them are usually tax deductible. So it might be the father of one of the kids in the football club donating a new set of jerseys.
  
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  - anarchy79@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    
    First of all the social security system in Germany should not be tax funded.
    
    I got to here before I knew you were just full of pure shit.
    
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  - nandeEbisu@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Sounds a bit like the US. I live in New York City, there are a lot of bloated non profits that are just used as slush funds for rich people and networking. I’ve met a few people on occasion who work in non profits that do things like provide hiring metrics for other non profits instead of actually doing direct good, so you really need to be careful who you donate to.
    
    I’m sorry that Germany also has long term issues with its social safety net, but it’s morbidly reassuring as an American to hear we’re not going to be the only ones on the sinking ship.
    
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Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Please do not compare Dolly Parton to Bill Gates.

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