How America’s richest donate their money
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- Опубліковано 2 бер 2023
- Billionaires don’t give the same way we do.
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Every year, publications like Forbes release lists detailing the generosity of society’s richest philanthropists. But the raw numbers of their donations don’t tell the whole story of how ultra-wealthy charitable giving tends to work. We took that data and put it on a big chart that highlights exactly how much of each billionaire’s personal wealth is going toward charitable giving.
This video outlines how wealth inequality creates a distorted view of the generosity of America’s billionaires. We examine the causes their money goes to support, like education and public health. And we break down the actual methods they use to move massive amounts of donated money around, like foundations and secretive donor-advised funds.
Measuring wealth and philanthropic giving is difficult and subjective. We relied on Forbes’s specific methodology for our chart, but lists like the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s “The Philanthropy 50” use their own methods. www.philanthropy.com/article/...
Correction: In a previous version of this video, the equation at 1:05 was incorrectly flipped. We've updated the animation.
Here is the original Forbes list we mention in the video:
www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswe...
If you’re wondering why Elon Musk isn’t on the Forbes list despite a $5.7 billion donation of Tesla shares in 2021, it’s probably because it was speculated that the money went to a donor-advised fund:
www.forbes.com/sites/elizahav...
They also do their own guide on “giving scores”:
www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsa...
The inspiration for this chart came from this Reddit post using numbers from a previous Forbes list:
/ oc_forbes_2022s_most_p...
Here is a list of all the Giving Pledge signatories:
givingpledge.org/pledgerlist
For more reading on the rise of donor-advised funds:
www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/bu...
We interviewed Vox senior reporter Whizy Kim, who recently covered Jeff Bezos’s philanthropy:
www.vox.com/recode/23553730/j...
She also covered the ways everyday Americans give that aren’t captured in charitable tax deduction data:
www.vox.com/recode/2022/9/27/...
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I personally HATE donations to univerities. Universities are already so predatory, and it was a pretty common sight to see a big, fancy, barely-used building with someone's name one it collecting dust.
Donations to universitys should fund the books you need to complete a course. Not another library that nobody visits in this day and age.
Granted, yes, library's are important. But which student in their right mind searches for a book when it's available as a searchable PDF online for free?
Collecting dust and incurring maintenance, current and deferred.
Undergrad programs should be much much cheaper (if not free) but universities are also great places for innovative research to happen so I could see why a philanthropist would want to donate a university and have that donation go toward something like vaccine research
US university are scams. What students are paying is sick.
It depends a lot which university and what the money is earmarked for. Scott's donations, for example, were to HBCU's with no strings attached, which is very different from buying a building with your name on it at Harvard...
Shout out to that one guy who actually gave all his fortune away.
shout out to the video itself
you couldnt even bother figure out his name from the video, so lazy
@@baldassare5426 You’re really this desperate for some attention? So sad.
Chuck Feeney
@@baldassare5426truth teller🙋
Giving is not a equitable substitute for wages and taxes.
Exactly. They wouldn't be where they are if they treated people with dignity and respect and didn't scam them out of money.
best summation of whats actually happening. i dont hate the actual billionaire person, just the system that made them billionaires
Giving should be an unconditional form of love, not a loophole to a corrupt system.
There it is! 👏💯
The existence of billionaires is failure of capitalism and our current economic system.
I slightly disagree with that last sentences. You really should tax billionaires more, yes, but you also need the government to have far more generous social spending to not need charity, which a lot of politicians (and voters) are going to fight, tooth and nail
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
The last sentence never mentioned we should tax rich people more. They only said the problem wouldn't exist if the gap between rich and poor wasn't as big.
Peoples kindness (charity) > Government
@@LucasOe True. But less money would go to the poorest people in the world if e.g. the 100 richest people in the US were taxed more, and the video is deliberately not pointing out those sorts of observations I think.
Although I give it credit for showing how such a large % of non-rich people's donations go to religion - hence at least somewhat conveying/suggesting (well, maybe not intentionally, I dunno) that if decisions about charity were made by people who are less smart on average the decisions will also be less smart on average.
The video doesn't discuss % of money given to donations vs % spent on personal consumption. I guess we can guess why the video chose to not discuss that.
@@SilentEire Actually there was a study done that showed between countries the correlation between poverty reduction and charity spending was essentially 0 yet there was a positive correlation between social spending and poverty reduction. So you're empirically wrong.
Billionaires don't give out of kindness they give because they get more out of it for themselves and a defense against their actions because they have something to point to when you call them out
So what... they're are still giving hundreds of billions to charity.
@@Ookashay But if they cause more in damages over all it doesn't matter. They give so they can get away with worse stuff and often times what they give money to is actually to themselves and charities they own so its technically not their money but they still spend it on themselves. Thats my point they give so people like you can say they did good so leave them be its better than nothing.
@@DPowered2 if billionaires don't donate their money, people would say they are greedy/evil. If they do, people would say the same. What on earth are they supposed to do then? Don't get rich?
@Real Nath 2 it's about why they donate you are focusing on surface level things which works for them because it means you won't question the wrong or harm caused by their over all actions
@@DPowered2 so they donated in order to get more out of it for themselves and a defense against their actions, like you said? On what base/proof did you make that assumption?
The standard deduction has increased a ton since 1990, so it makes sense middle income people are not itemizing their charitable deductions. You have to donate many thousands for it to be worth itemizing. I think charitable donations should be a separate tax deduction from the standard deduction, so that middle income people are encouraged to give. Also, making it so only liquid assets like cash are eligible to be deducted would remove many of the loopholes rich exploit, like donating art to museums to drive up the value of their collections. Normal people aren't donating many high value assets.
Foundations also fund a lot of things we care about. Many social studies are funded by the Ford foundation, the MacArthur foundation previously gave a lot of money to nuclear disarmament. Having charitable organizations that can exist over the long term seems valuable for our society, so 5% annual giving seems reasonable. Though I do support only giving a deduction when funds are dispersed
What if we instead solved the health and education problems associated with poverty by applying better governing policy paid for with a more progressive tax of wealth, especially billionaires?
Relying on charity has gotten us here. I think we can do better.
5% to be allocated to actual charity is laughable. It’s a slush fund and tax haven to park money. Billy Gates has bought up billions worth of stock in companies like apple by using his foundation as a tax free fund that’s way.
Interesting and well said.
Not wanting to be the ultra billionaire advocate but this has to be said. Jeff Bezon donates 2.7 Billions and still gets criticized, I mean cmon its 2.7 Billion, how much is Vox donating, criticizing people for not donating enough is not the way even more when those donations are in the billions
@@Random17Game
Ok, ultra billionaire advocate 🤣
“Charity is a cold, grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.” Clement Attlee, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
We'd hardly need charity if the world wasn't overrun by greed and exploitation.
The same United Kingdom that is currently privatising healthcare and cutting welfare funds?
@@e13kid thats why he said former prime minister
@@abhaymanoj3784 My point isn’t that Clement is a bad guy my point is you could pay all your taxes and then a different party gets voted in that guts all the social safety net anyway. Private Charity is more protected from that. There’s pros and cons to both.
Attlee was a w Prime Minister
Isn't the lifetime giving as a percentage of wealth formula flipped?
who cares? how many would actually donate if it wasn’t a tax deduction; also who cares?
At 1:09. Pls fix
Yep, it's definitely flipped. Had to scratch my head for a second there.
Yeah, they messed up. It's only Vox so low expectations
And they concluded that Warren Buffett gave 51,5 out of 106 and somehow that’s 33%. My guess is women did all the math.
2:13 - Let's take a moment to admire this absolute madlad, Chuck Feeney.
Edit: And he made his donations in secret, too!
In secret?
All I want from these billionaires is that rather than faking donation they properly pay their taxes which really helps the needy
where do you think those taxes are going bro?? theyre not going to poor people, theyre just going back to the goverment my guy
@@Vienic2 they are though mate
totally agree
@@Vienic2 who is setting up tax structures, economy and welfare of a country, it's government so when proper management of finance occur it reduces burden on poor government won't increase interest rates tax won't be increased, government would spend money on maintenance of infrastructure so basically it helps everyone
@@alvinarakkal2433 yes, you are correct, but what makes you assume that finance is being properly managed?
Spoiler: they don't donate their money.
WHO...world health organization...say it ain't so!
If this class keeps amassing more and more money, there IS no asking ourselves "what are we doing wrong here and how do we reverse this", because this class holds all the power. To go one step further, I'd argue that's already the case.
I wonder how much more value you could extract from this money if they were taxed fairly, instead of waiting for them to give to charity.
Are you proposing that a government's bureaucracy uses funds more efficiently than a non-profit charity's bureaucracy would?
@@secularmonk5176 have you seen the salaries of some "non-profit" executives and board members?
They're taxed unfairly already. It needs to be lowered.
@@gabbar51ngh you'll never be a billionaire. No need to advocate for them bruh.
@@martinp7459 Unlike you I am not jealous of other people's wealth. By your logic you shouldn't support for opposite sex's rights cause you would never be one.
There's not any logic in your argument.
billionaires giving money means they have to pay less in taxes, as such, they can decide which things will not actually help people get out of poverty so they can stay richer
You assume that billionaires pay any tax whatsoever
How about pay nothing in taxes...
@@Jonnnyyyy23 I mean, that's one of the ways billionaires uses to avoid paying taxes
It's much worse, they set up their own charities, donate money (tax deduct) and use those charities to donate money back to businesses they own or partly own...
and if you really want to lose all faith in billionaires, just search youtube for: "Why There's No Such Thing as a Good Billionaire"...
Most of them give to charities that they are owners of.
Exactly. OR they give it to charities or foundation who "work" for them. They fund think tanks and media organisations through these charities who then lobby for and carry out reports benefeciary to these billionaires.
There is a reason why popular Media and organisations avoid talking about human rights violations and exploitation in poorer parts of the world.
Left hand to right hand basically, broker their wealth power tax free.
Imagine being rich like I could never
WHY NOT?
@@thepicturemandannydannytho5711because most of the times it implies being a horrible himan being
@@yellowparenti123 a horrible lucky human being*
@@6000. its not entirely luck, (unless its crypto/ not) these guys had to atleast put some effort in
@@s_gnals if effort gets an abundant reward that's lucky enough.
the commitment to philanthropy was carnage’s idea
Makes Michael Scott look more ethical with Scott's Tots.
The most important fact of this video you relegated to literally the last dying seconds…
I like the manual approach to your charts in this video. Must have been a lot of work! But it looks great. Thanks for the great video, as always.
Wow, this piece was informative & fascinating. Great work, Vox!
Its worth noting that tax benefits for charitable giving were raised in the 2017 tax reforms and the raising of the standard deduction. The chart if percentage of giving by income level over the years looks alot like people responded to the loss of tax advantages of charitable giving
The last sentence of the video is the one that really matters.
Yup, that sums up everything, I do not need to watch the whole video. Thanks ^^
“…we wouldn’t have to depend on the charity of billionaires to begin with…”
Or, “there shouldn’t be billionaires at all”.
It’s a purely political decision. Billionaires are not inevitable or necessary, they’re permitted. The government could institute a far higher top marginal tax rate AND an annual wealth tax. Then would-be billionaires could choose to give their money to the gov’t or run their enterprises with a little less avarice. They could charge less for their products. Pay their workers more. Take direct responsibility for social and environmental harms of their enterprise.
We could see corporations as entities to more efficiently meet the needs of people rather than purely profit-making machines.
@@CarFreeSegnitz The top marginal tax rate should be reduced to less than 25%; just use a progressive wealth tax on the rich and also count Capital gains as a form of income. If at all possible we should eliminate income tax altogether or at least for those making less than a million dollars a year.
@@CarFreeSegnitz That is not what they said. That is what you said.
@@CarFreeSegnitz right, if only it was as simple as typing words eh?
As someone once said “It’s about drive, it’s about power”
ITS ABOUT DRIVE ITS ABOUT POWER
@@3nnik WE STAY HUNGRY WE DEVOUR
@@zjean3417 PUT IN THE WORK, PUT IN THE HOURS AND TAKE WHAT'S OURS
the rich just keep getting richer and I'm here for it
Yes we are 💪🏼
That isn’t necessarily a problem if the poor were getting richer as well.
@@FunderDuckwhere do you think the money for the rich comes from?
@@yellowparenti123 the living standard of the poor today is higher than it was a few years ago. Everybody is getting richer.
@@kettlejocksjr7771 yes, but heavily unequal
I think this video misses a key point, that donations to foundations and Donor Advised funds are completely irrecoverable. So yes, they can create some delay between the money being marked for charitable purposes and it actually being donated, but any money donated in this will always end up doing good, eventually at least
I’m terms of the low annual payouts, could it be related to a point you made earlier in the video where the org may find thier donors back out and leave the org in peril? For example, if I spend 100% of my funds this year, and my donor backs out next year, my mission is toast. If I spread this years funds across 20 years, I can make a smaller but more sustainable impact.
How America's richest donate their money: they don't.
they do, just not enough.
@@Munchausenification oh enough, according to their accountants.
@@kencur9690 haha that was quite funny
It says a lot that 1 rich person in america could literally solve all our problems but choose not to and are often the cause of the problems we have
im not sure i follow? wouldnt a large donations of money from Bezos to everyone just cause hyperinflation? Maybe over time but all at once seems a bit reckless
It says alot that people expect people that have more than them to spend all their lifetime effort to fix everyone’s problem.
Do you throw your life away to helping people?
Most of these billionaires have been building wealth since 15 or 18 until 60-70-80
Would you work yourself for example in cleaning garbage on all poor areas of your country cromosomas 15 to 60?
@@Munchausenification the money already exists. it won't cause inflation.
@@abdulahad04 hmm okay now i'm not sure. Could you give me a reason to why it won't?
That is just incorrect.
The chart at 5 minutes talks about deductions, but it would seem like the huge change in charitable tax deduction you see for below 200,000 in 2017/2018 would just be a result of people taking the standard deduction instead after the tax bill.
Thanks bud for keepin us financially Educated!
Regardless of how bad it gets on the economy
As a motion graphics designer, I just love your content and motion. Maybe it's not possible but one day I want to work with you ❤
I can't find Elon Musk here?!
Fascinating. I’ve always wondered how this was rigged.
I knew there was tax rebates but l didn’t know the actual mechanics and how billionaires played with this
It's not rigged. It just means if you give $1M to charity, you don't have to give any of that $1M to the IRS.
Thank hiliary Clinton
@@andrej2375 problem becomes someone choosing to release that $1m at a rate of $50000/m all the while they are making $1m/m
Ok, so where is everyone's favorite tech lord, Elon Musk?
He got himself classified as a Martian. So he does not need to donate ;)
@Zaydan Alfariz or maybe effectively no altruism? lol
As inflation increases, minimum wage remains the same... this is the reason so many struggle to this day
My take has always been that charity is made necessary by the failure of the government; if the government did its job, charities wouldn't need to exist. That being said, this video brought up a point I hadn't considered. If such a huge fraction of charitable giving is done by a small number of wealthy people, then our stopgap solution is on shaky ground too. For a short-term fix, we should make charitable deductions separate from the standard deduction to encourage more middle-class donors (as was done under the CARES act in 2020 and 2021), and limit total charitable deductions to a reasonable amount to stop it from being a tax dodge for the rich.
Your assumption is that the government is capable of doing its job instead of spending on military contracts. It’s too corrupt, charitable donations at least let you fund what you care about
spoiler alert: they dont.
I pray to God this message touch someone's heart n help my family we need financial help for rent n food
Last 10 seconds has a real meaning
5% a year why is so low? What is this "foundation" doing with all those money? These foundations are literally another tax haven for the rich it seems. Its like "I'm helping you but not really" sike! 😆
It generates income based on interest and investments. That way it's a continuous source of money instead of just a fixed value. All the money given to a foundation will end up in the hands of charities eventually. Sure the donors are reducing their tax by depositing into the foundations, but there's nothing wrong with that, the tax they would pay is going to the charities instead of the government,
@@d0x2f ok but anything more than 5% would generate even more interest than 5% by itself would. They could just give more but don't
Nah. Heard of the Panama papers? There are a multitude of ways to avoid taxes without ever donating money to non-profits on charitable foundations. Billionaires are under no pressure whatsoever to donate. There are over 700 billionaires in the US alone, and you people think you’ve got it all figured out simply because you’ve heard of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos
@@d0x2f Yeah just to put a point on it, that model has allowed The Rockefeller Foundation to continue to distribute over a hundred million dollars *each year*, even after over 100 years of operation.
You don't understand the power of compound interest. A $10,000 donation in an index fund will grow to $52,000,000 in 80 years. It's not obvious but it would help the world a lot more if we could lower the minimum % foundations have to pay instead of increasing it to have a bigger net benefit.
Adam Conover said it well "it's not billionaires who pay for these donations, it's the state"
100%! Tax deductions is literally shifting the decision making on how to spend govt money out of the hands of elected officials and into the hands of the wealthy. Sounds super democratic and not at all like an oligarchy...
This is brilliant reporting, well done.
This trend of using Arts n Crafts instead of back to back to back infographics is so much better
I had made a video similar to this 3 months ago and the biggest thing I realized is they use our tax money to pay these donations. Which is annoying cause they don't pay any taxes.
Not really. Billionaires only pay a 20% capital gains tax rate on income and they can only deduct what they donate. So, at best, you can claim that taxpayers pick up 20 percent of the tab. Even that is a stretch. Most of the time, a lot of these donations are for higher amounts than the amount of stock they would have sold. Therefore, the donations of billionaires go to improve lives instead of being held in the billionaire's stock portfolios where they do not do anything.. Finally, I saw recently that the demonized 1 percent pays 43 percent of the taxes in the United States, and over half of the country pays zero income taxes. So really, it's the rich subsidizing each other's charitable donations.
@@electioninsight9158 According to the American Institute of Economic Research, the 1% pays 37% of income taxes. That surprised me to be honest. I don't know how the deductions work, but at a guess I'd say that it isn't tied to billionaire income. This because billionaire income is so incredibly low as most of their wealth comes from investments, stocks or other assets. Donating half this wealth would be way more than they were ever paid in salary, and so the donation rules which give them tax deductions would only be worth it if there were different rules than the ones you noted. That said, you are right, although even among the 1% I'd argue it isn't fair for their tax dollars to be used to fund charities that billionaires decide on.
but, what part of wealth have this one %???@@electioninsight9158
@@electioninsight9158how does half the country pay zero income taxes when they’re checks are taxes before they get them ? And the top 1% owns 90% of the wealth so how is them paying 37% even enough? Lot of bootlicking going on here
I'd be interested in seeing how billionaires in other countries compare to the US ones. I have no idea what the results would be, but it would be interesting!
Would also be interesting (although probably impossible to calculate) to see if other rich people would have personal wealth above people like Bezos if they paid wages to their employees consistent with what Bezos does. Ie, are billionaires in other countries, in some cases not as rich as those in the US, because they're giving to poor people through proper wages (& also through proper tax payments)?
Can you do a video of all the space start-up launch companies and what they are up to?
It's their money, they can do whatever they want. No one is doing wrong by giving less than the other. Why middle or low class aren't giving away their money? Money is objective by ones wealth, so its the same.
So this video complains about 50 rich people giving away a total of 191'000'000'000$ 🤔
Simply talking about it isn't "complaining". Where is this video complaining?
and hey guess what? it did nothig! thats why we're "complaining"
Even if philanthropy were completely above board AND actually for the good of the most people it is still a problem that a select, un-elected, un-accountable people have an oversized say on the direction of society.
But we know that just below the philanthropic skin are donations which cement the giver’s place in society and will never threaten their wealth. And worse is how virtually all billionaire fortunes were made through ethically dubious if not outright illegal means which philanthropy is designed to whitewash.
Spot on.
Democracy in the workplace is what we need!
@@darkdragon5520 Worker co-operatives. And just a couple of rule changes are needed to make them much more common.
Before a business owner is allowed to sell or shutter a business a reasonable offer to the company’s workers has to be made.
Some sort of bank rules that make financing a worker co-operative easier. I don’t know how it would work if it could work at all.
You haven't included the CEO of Blackrock. 😂
Agree with the last part.
When it’s 5am and Vox uploads:
It's very nice that some rich people give to charity, but they get to decide who, where, how much, how long - all kinds of caveats - that I find troubling. If they paid their fair share of taxes, we wouldn't need 'billionaire charity'. But, of course, if they were to pay their fair share of taxes, they wouldn't benefit from the tax system they've all but created. To quote former SC Justice, O. W. Holmes, 'Taxes are what we pay for civilized society'.
When you say give to “charity”. What do you know about the charity? When I donate to “charity”, I like to know their structure, reputation, how they operate, and their effectiveness.
So why shouldn’t they get to decide who where and how much? Are you suggesting that they should just toss their money into random charities without knowing how the money is utilised? And isn’t it their money in the first place?
What a weird thing to be troubled by, that people decide how their funds are being used.
This is so important!
There's a typo in your title. I think you mean to say, "How America's richest avoid paying their fair share of taxes"
Microsoft donates the Office Suite accounting the market price but it only cost the cd and boxes. Tax discount here is a profit actually.
Capitalism leads to socio-economic inequality. Live the American dream and at some point of time you would realise you have far far more than you need, some would come forward with philanthropic give aways. And many will accept these give aways without any problem. So basically give away are okay, but basic communism is not acceptable. Rather you should have some framework for basic needs like health, education, employment.
That's not capitalism, that's human nature.
Any kind of ownership system can and probably will lead to inequality. For example, if everyone was given the same amount of land some of it would be comparatively better than others. Some of it would be fertile, other plots of land would be in a better location for housing, trade etc.
But im ready to concede to a better argument
Thank you so much for this video!!
Clown
I like how random vox videos are😅
Like the next video could be something completely random. I kinda like it though
The amount calculated as a charity donation needs to account for the tax benefits received by the individual. If I give $10 to receive a tax benefit of $4 the effective donation is $6 since the $4 dollars is back in their pockets. If this is done I'm sure these percentages will come down significantly.
Also the tax benefits the individual receives should be calculated based on the effective tax rate charged to them considering their source of income. It makes no sense to give an individual a 30-40% tax benefit when they just pay taxes at a rate of 10-18% or lesser.
It got a brief mention, of donations being spent on private schools, but it should probably be explored in depth the degree to which some of this "charitable" activity is still done to advance a political agenda that ultimately benefits the donor. Anecdotally, I remember there being a critique of I believe the Gates Foundation that its biggest anti-poverty work was clustered in countries that provided the raw materials that Microsoft et al use, with the implicit or explicit threat of the charity being revoked if the governments involved didn't offer a good deal
All this to say, it's unclear that many of these donors are even benefiting with their contributions- or at least it's complicated.
Wait?! Why did he give his money to Dolly Parton ?
Because Dolly Parton is smart and has been giving to charities thoughtfully over a long period of time. It’s targeted better and scammers don’t get a look in.
Charity has made TRILLIONS and the problems still persist,
Thats the question we should be asking,
Why arent you asking that instead?
Vox is the best channel on UA-cam. Only Channel I have notifications on.
The only channel I watch every single video. Every single video is perfect.
For real? Some of their videos are mediocre or low quality.
@@ameridesign Which One?
(and you do understand that is my personal opinion right? Could go wrong or right)
i'f i had 10 billion dollars, i'd probably give 9 billion away because i have no clue what to do with all that money
The last sentence is key, we shouldn’t have wealth inequality like we do now.
Chuck Feeney... What a hero!
Once you put money in donor advised funds it’s no longer your money. Also, it’s great people are giving so much
But thanks to donor-advised funds the tax returns you get _are_ yours.
@@thebiggestcauldron yea cause you donated the money. If you choose to donate the money today or the years from now it’s going to go to charity,so Iont see what the issue is if the money is going to charity eventually
@@njm543yea, with no real proof that it’s actually going anywhere
@@njm543what if the fund invests in a private company that does bankrupt ?
The word "Billionaire" is a synonym for "Psychopath."
Ty chuck feeney cuz he built cornell tech
Why would people criticize Jeff Bezos for not making enough donations? A donation is a generosity, not an obligation. People seem to forget that aspect. Sure, they take advantage of cracks in the system and get richer, but they were already rich before taking advantage of a system that they didn't implement. Policy makers have the authority to change how the rules work, but they don't. That's where the criticism should be directed instead.
Except they _did_ implement the systems they're profiting from - by lobbying and by creating monopolies and eradicating competition with unfair and illegal practises.
I want to earn like Warren Buffet and spend like Bill Gates.
So do us all. Giving feels hella great!
@@nettieharris Yeah it makes you look good while not fundamentally changing anything, so you can keep being rich!
Thing is, the stock market is open for everyone and anyone to use. Anyone can start putting regular amounts of money into an ETF or index fund instead of leaving their money in the bank to do nothing. The problem is most people either can’t be bothered to learn, or are far too impatient and expect to get 10x returns on their investments.
You want to earn like Buffett? Then pick up some finance books; it’s far from rocket science
They can stay rich as long as there are opportunities for other people to reach their small dreams
Why should some people have big dreams and other small dreams? I mean, do we all begin life on the exact same footing and then, through sheer hard work, achieve our dreams? Cause then I’m ok with different sized dreams.
The rich: give away their money to help people.
Vox: tHis iSNT fAir!!
I thought this was going to be a positive video about rich people for once.
That LAST sentence is what the focus ought to BE on!! 😏
First of all thanks for the video, really informative. Do feel like some of the stats are due to other factors though, such as the household deductible graph. The gates Foundation has done great stuff for health and these billionaires could fix a lot of issues. Had no idea though how low the minimum rate was for funds, 10% isn't high enough either, should be 50%, it shouldn't be another incentive for a tax break, that's just taking money away from society.
The important thing to remember is that “charities” don’t solve the issues wealth inequality creates. Charity is conditional based on the mission of each organization and many charities pay employees wealthy salaries while providing bandaid services. There’s a reason why billionaires are WILLING to do philanthropy: charity does nothing the terms through which they get to hoard resources. Taxing these people and providing universal services would create actual improvement.
True.
Please help doctors without borders and charities that feed and clothe the world and give the world good medicine too. Amen.
The "a lot of good" usually is only to cover the bad things: tax evasion, funding of political groups, branding, etc.
Poor people don't need money they need justice
How do donations to foundations enrich their donors? If you donate $100, the foundation gives $5 of that to charity each year for 20 years, and in exchange you don't pay, say, $45 of tax on that, you are not getting enriched! You are losing more than you would have if you had not donated!
Even if that money just gets burned in a furnace, that isn't enriching the donor, it'd just be spiting the government.
These people help a lot of firms and people still call them names
Make a video on the Willow project please!
I don't blame Jeff he doesn't need to give a dime to any charity
Being reminded that even someone as rich as Bill Gates failed at marriage gives me relief.
You thought being a soul-less billionaire was going to be conducive to a happy marriage???
@@neillynch_ecocidologist I'm still not sure if it's actually worse than being penniless.
@@fubytv731 I don't think being rich has that big of an impact on a marriage.
How does the money parked in a foundation "continue to enrich the donor"? I though you could only write it off once. Please explain
Make a video about Ratan Tata and his philanthropy .
Jeff donated his wealth to his wife.
The fact that these billionaires can accumulate such vast fortunes in the first place highlights a larger issue of a system that rewards greed and exploitation.
Far more interesting having a list of the biggest givers as a percentage of income with a band excluding the minimum cost of living.
This would be nearly impossible to actually do without irs data but still.
Philanthropy is tax avoidance.
I like what they're are saying, but I feel that they are maybe focusing on the negatives to much, like yes they could in theory they could dramatically sway the resources different charities get but they are also giving away huge amount of money that helps lots of people I kind of wish they talked about the good they are doing more. because regardless of the intentions behind the actions the action are still good
Why not frame it like...
Look at all the good things these people have done and, let's also assume, that they know how to distribute money better than us plebs with no money.
Edit - Why call for re-distribution?
People always wonder why the 50s-70s was such a golden time for the American economy. It's because we significantly taxed the rich and the corporations back then. Why is America in the toilet? Because we stopped taxing people who can actually afford to get taxed.
It's not about philantropy in the majority of the cases, it's about buying influence.
Bezos really plays his part well, there is not much he could do to be more despicable
Bruh, it's his money. He's not obligated to donate. He's not doing anything wrong.
@@SigFigNewton His workers should learn to live within their means. Also expensive healthcare is more of government's fault.
@@SigFigNewton first of all wealth isn't a zero sum game neither wealth inequality equates to poverty.
@@gabbar51nghkinda of hard to live within your means when the standard of living is constantly increasing, his profits and constantly increasing, but they’re pay is not. But I guess they should just “work harder”
@@gabbar51nghit actually does. 600 people holding 90% of the wealth literally takes money out of everyone else’s pockets
Watching this after Adam Conovers report on the good billionaires just further prooves his point. Also makes you think - large chunks donated to education, which makes sure the students educated there hold their patrons in high regards and dont ask any questions, plus maybe speak well about them on the internet
we really need income inequality to shrink to reasonable levels, but instead it is growing every year :/
Thank you