It is surely admirable – isn't it? – that 40 US billionaires, led by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, have signed the "giving pledge" to donate half their fortunes to charity.I suspect you’re going to tell us the answer’s ‘No’, aren’t you?
Far better that they open their wallets to deserving causes than that they spend yet more money on yachts, carbon-emitting private jets or garish mansions.Mmm, because buying those things doesn’t stimulate the ship-building/aerospace/house-building/decorating/servicing industries, does it?
It doesn’t create employment, they simply fall, fully-formed, from the Boeing Tree or can be plucked from the Mansion Bush…
The filthy rich, or some of them, have shown they have a heart.Well, that’s grudging of you, Peter. Any chance of you showing you have a brain?
But let's be clear. Money paid to charity is exempt from tax; the US treasury already loses at least $40bn (£25bn) a year from tax breaks for donations. So billionaires, not the democratically elected and (at least theoretically) accountable representatives of the people, get to decide on the good causes.Ahhh, see that term ‘loses’?
Peter regards it as the government’s money, to which they are rightfully entitled, not the money earned by an individual, for them to decide to spend or not...
As Michael Edwards, a former World Bank adviser, asked in a study for the thinktank Demos, Small Change: Why Business Won't Change the World: "Why should the rich and famous decide how schools are going to be reformed, or what drugs will be supplied at prices affordable to the poor, or which civil society groups get funded for their work?" And even if they give away half their money (or 99% in Buffett's case), billionaires will still be rich.That’s the problem, isn’t it, at least for you, Peter. It’s not the fact that people are poor that concerns you. It’s that people are rich.
When they shouldn’t be, according to you.
Their generosity, however, helps to legitimise inequality and head off political protest.It clearly hasn’t stopped you writing columns in CiF or pushing your progressive agenda everywhere you go, has it?
You may think, if we're talking about mosquito nets to stop children dying from malaria or drugs for HIV, that it doesn't matter where the money comes from.Well, quite. Why not ask those in receipt of such vital charity from the west, charity that only becomes vital in the first place because their elected (or not!) representatives would prefer to add another gold-leaf seat cover to their diamond-encrusted Range Rover, rather than spend the money on their countrymen?
Because the answer you get might not suit you, perhaps?
In the short term, it probably doesn't. But rich business people tend to bring their own values to charitable giving, and there's a danger they will undermine those of the voluntary sector.Aha! Now we get to the crux of the matter. He who pays the piper inevitably calls the tune. And that tune may not be music to Peter’s ears…
Wealthy benefactors usually want efficiency, clearly defined targets, measurable outcomes, quick results.Oh, horrors!
Who could possibly make such bourgeois concerns a priority? Why, when you are spending other people’s money, such things are merely fripperies…
They tend to select charities as they would select suppliers of goods and services to their companies.What!? You mean, they ignore things that might conceivably advance their own political agenda or make them look good at Islington dinner parties in favour of projects likely to make a real difference? Barbarians! *swoons*
Some bodies provide data that help donors decide which charities to support: in the US, for instance, GiveWell records effectiveness according to "the most lives saved for the least money". These things aren't necessarily wrong – many charities would benefit from more rigour – but they don't always translate easily to the voluntary sector. They are not readily applicable to the more diffuse, long-term aims of civil society organisations, nor to their more transparent, less top-down decision-making processes.Methinks you protest too much, Peter…
The Gates Foundation wants to "give where we can effect the greatest change". But the greatest change is likely to come from transforming the economic system and the pattern of property ownership. Will Gates fund projects that undermine his own power and economic status?Well, no. Because it’s not a zero sum game, is it?
It’s entirely possible for Gates to stay rich and the poor to get richer at the same time. Should that be what we all strive for?
If the rich really wish to create a better world, they can sign another pledge: to pay their taxes on time and in full; to stop lobbying against taxation and regulation; to avoid creating monopolies; to give their employees better wages, pensions, job protection and working conditions; to make goods and use production methods that don't kill or maim or damage the environment or make people ill.And even if they do all that (those few that aren’t doing it now, of course), would you be happy?
I suspect the answer’s no…
15 comments:
If the government didn't make the tax system so ludicrously expensive and complicated for higher earners and allow so many ways to offset and avoid paying it then the rich would be prepared to pay the same as the rest of us. The lower the rate, the less complex the system the more revenue the government tend to raise, it's well documented. Problem with idiots like Wilby is jealousy where he believes that the state knows best how to spend our money.
Nicely done
it really does read like.
Boo Hoo, woe is me. What am I going to do, I could fool the politians, but the evil nasty capitalist businessmen will see through all my Marxist/Socialist shit spouting about 'empowerment' etc. and actually want results for their money. Which means I won't get any cash and have to find a proper job
Excellent post, if you don't mind me saying.
The Left's loathing of success is bared for to see in Wilby's ramble there. The "it isn't necessarily wrong to save the most lives for the least money but clearly it IS" part is particularly telling IMO. Even charities doing their jobs well are scorned.
I always find it a bit odd that people rag on Bill Gates for being 'so rich' and keeping it all for himself - and in his moments of philanthropy, he donates to his own trusts or charities. Obviously, it's his money, but do these people have any idea what his entrepreneurial skills did to Seattle? Can they even imagine how many jobs his determination and profit-seeking ways created? And how cheap his company made software and computers in general?
Fucking imbiciles. The US govt could take 40 billion and piss it up the wall in 5 seconds flat with nobody noticing.
So how do banks write down losses against earnings to lower a tax bill that would be a requirement of making a profits on money 'borrowed' from the tax payer?
I'm going to make a withdrawal now and invest it in the lottery. If I win I'll buy you a pint and an atol but ask the lender to come and collect on any outstanding balance.
two words used to have the same definition in my dictionary: tax and theft. I going to add quantitive easing and all assets of any charity.
'If the government didn't make the tax system so ludicrously expensive and complicated for higher earners and allow so many ways to offset and avoid paying it' they'd be unemployed and we would be better off
I couldn't believe the quotations were real, and read the whole article. They were, and more.
Another quote from the article is
And even if they give away half their money (or 99% in Buffett's case), billionaires will still be rich. Their generosity, however, helps to legitimise inequality and head off political protest.
That sums up the author's attitude - the donors' charitable intent to be ignored together (and their gifts to be accepted as some sort of due) whilst saying that even if they give practically all that they possess, it's still no real sacrifice.
When read with the other quotations mentioned in JuliaM's article, there is only one conclusion;- the 'Peter Wilby' and 'Polly Toynbee' columns are written by the same person!
Marxism = Narcissism + Envy _ Projection.
'Wealthy benefactors usually want efficiency, clearly defined targets, measurable outcomes, quick results'.
The millions of viewers who tune into 'Dragons Den' or their own countries' equivalent already know this and now, so does Peter Wilby.
It's really frightening to think there are nutcases like Wilby out there.
"The lower the rate, the less complex the system the more revenue the government tend to raise, it's well documented."
Indeed.
"The Left's loathing of success is bared for to see in Wilby's ramble there. "
Oh, I know. The concentrated arrogance and envy that fairly jumps from the page is quite something, isn't it?
"Obviously, it's his money, but do these people have any idea what his entrepreneurial skills did to Seattle?"
If they ever think about it, they probably regard it as something that would have happened anyway, without him.
"The US govt could take 40 billion and piss it up the wall in 5 seconds flat..."
'Could'? I'm fairly sure they HAVE.. :)
"I couldn't believe the quotations were real, and read the whole article."
It does take your breath away. It's not helped by the picture of him, which looks exactly like the sort of pinch-lipped, bad-smell-under-the-nose Puritan you'd expect to write this drivel.
"The millions of viewers who tune into 'Dragons Den' or their own countries' equivalent already know this and now, so does Peter Wilby."
I doubt someone like him ever reads the comments left to his article, so I suspect self-awareness will be a long time coming.
"It's really frightening to think there are nutcases like Wilby out there."
At least he's dumb enough to poke his head up. I wonder how many are keeping theirs down...
One fool who isn't keeping their head down is a William Langley in the Telegraph who has written an equally inane piece
Wealthy benefactors usually want efficiency, clearly defined targets, measurable outcomes, quick results.
So what is he saying here? That that is a bad thing?
Therefore is he actually calling for someone to do this that would want exactly the OPPOSITE of "Efficiency", "Clear targets", "Quick results"?
In that case he is merely advertising for letting the "Government" do this then, surely?
They are EXCELLENT at doing EXACTLY what this turd appears to be calling for.
Besides. I I was a billionaire NO one would get a bloody PFENNIG out of me. Unless it was the manufacture, supply chain, etc, of the firms I chose to buy things from FOR MYSELF.
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