[braydenm]

Although there are many cynics, it's quite remarkable the impact on the world donations can have. Here's what their foundation has actually been doing with the money: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/Resources-and-Med...

I wouldn't be surprised if private donations will eventually be responsible for the eradication of Malaria (1000 deaths daily, much more suffering and cost to society).

If you're in tech you're likely to be in a great position to create value beyond your company. For example, donating equity from your startup or a fraction of your income to the charities that can prove they are having the most cost effective impact on the world: https://founderspledge.com/ https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge/

[Iknown0thing]

As much as like the new way of distributing wealth in this manner, some of the foundations Christians fundamentals worry me. For example - https://www.gatesfoundation.org/how-we-work/quick-links/gran...

I tried looking for similar grants to religious services organizations from other religions, but my search came up empty. Very happy to stand corrected on this.

[mikeyouse]

This is a silly complaint -- Some of the 'religious' grant money goes to Catholic Relief Services who happen to be one of the largest charity groups operating in Africa. Most of these funds go to Agriculture / emergency relief.

They've also given over $150 million to the Islamic Development Bank to support their vaccine efforts and smaller amounts to dozens of other Muslim-based groups for different initiatives. Likewise for Jewish organizations.

B&MG Foundation are incredibly results driven, all of their grants come with direction for measuring impact and reporting on it. They aren't giving to religious organizations to further religion, but because those organizations are best suited to reach the most people or best suited to responsibly steward enormous amounts of money and resources.

[Iknown0thing]

Just because it is called Islamic development bank does not make it a religious organization. Point here is - look at the profiles of some of the organizations. Some of them based on fundamentals I am not sure I feel comfortable about. Also about catholic church in Africa, see Rwanda case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Rwanda#1994_Genoci...

[rusk]

Just cross-referencing jk2323 here who makes an interesting point in this regard [0]

  *He should improve contraception instead*

You're pointing out that a lot of these organisations are based on a Catholic ethos. Given the church's outspoken position on contraception, could the pointed nature of these donations actually be doing some harm?

Given 1000 donors donating a million vs 1 donor with a billion (as somebody else points out below) you could imagine such biases being averaged out ...

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15024948

[saint_fiasco]

When donors with different biases donate to causes with different political implications, they don't always average out. Sometimes they cancel out.

For example political campaign donations are obviously zero-sum, as is lobbying for mutually exclusive well-intentioned causes.

[rusk]

You're presuming a zero-sum balance between all causes political and/or charitable. I'd need to see this thesis more thoroughly fleshed out before I could comment further, but I think on the face of it it's grossly a flawed assumption. Maybe that's not what you mean though.

[saint_fiasco]

Only political causes. And only most of them.

For example suppose that we want to do a cost-benefit analysis to see if convincing people to use contraception is a more effective charitable intervention than whatever Gates is doing.

If the Catholic Church really hates contraception, they would oppose that. They might tell Catholic charities to refuse to work with Gates. They might spend a little money and a lot of cheap labor on convincing people to not use contraception. Generally they will spend resources on doing the opposite thing and Gates would have to spend more resources just to cancel out the Catholic influence.

Since we know beforehand that this is very likely to happen, we should include that in the cost part of our cost-benefit analysis. It's possible Gates did just that and concluded that working with Catholics instead of against them is better.

[rusk]

All sounds very far fetched.

[deadalus]

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/how-we-work/quick-links/gran...

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/how-we-work/quick-links/gran...

[nodesocket]

I think Buffett and Gates proved that despite what the media or anti-capitalists say, the top 1% are able to have the biggest impact. Somebody who donates a million (while a great contribution), will never have the impact that a billionaire can.

Buffett took tremendous flack and there was very public outcry before he started donating. His rationale was that I'll just stack it up, and his late ex-wife Susie would distribute it after he died. However, when Susie passed away unexpectedly, Warren decided to make the move.

[pharrington]

No one said that the top 1% don't have the biggest impact.

Currently, our geo-economic systems are structured such that the world's underclasses rely on the emotions of the wealthiest 0.0001% of homo sapiens in America to continually fund triage operations to ameliorate problems that societies have developed institutionalized solutions to.

[forapurpose]

> despite what the media or anti-capitalists say, the top 1% are able to have the biggest impact

I think this argument misses, or even reinforces a core criticism about the concentration of wealth. The criticism is that so much and such disproportionate power should not be concentrated in the hands of one individual.

It's fundamentally undemocratic and a danger to society. In a democracy a broad-based group of citizens should be deciding where charitable resources are allocated. It's in aristocracies were a few wealthy control all the assets and make the decisions. Democracies were formed as a rejection of aristocracy, the U.S. in particular.

It's self-reinforcing: If the local 'aristocrat' funds a park, people are grateful because there were no other funds and now we have a park. But there are no other funds because we have a system that creates aristocrats and by concentrating wealth also creates the need for their charity, and instead of the citizens deciding democratically about their parks, the aristocrat decides.

Gates might be an enlightened despot but he's still a despot (in an exaggerated, metaphorical sense). We know what happens to nations and political systems that fall in love with enlightened despots.

> Somebody who donates a million (while a great contribution), will never have the impact that a billionaire can.

1,000 people who donate a million will have exactly the same impact as one who donates a billion and will be far more democratic. Far better: Each person makes an equal sacrifice (via a progressive taxation system) and we vote on how to spend the money.

[ethbro]

> 1,000 people who donate a million will have exactly the same impact as one who donates a billion and will be far more democratic.

Except if they don't. Or they do to a variety of causes, each with duplicate administrative overhead.

I'm not a fan of wealth concentration, but it does afford patronage opportunities that simply aren't taken on average in the alternative "more people with less money" world.

[forapurpose]

> Except if they don't. ...

Except when the billionaire doesn't. Is there evidence that billionaires donate a greater proportion of their wealth or more effectively than millionaires? Is a market of 1 more efficient than a market of 1,000?

I'd bet that the law of large numbers applies here, and the 1,000 people are overall more consistent than 1 person, and less prone to extreme swings.

It sounds like the trickle-down economics version of philanthropy.

[lorenzorhoades]

We have exactly what your explaining in the form of taxes, and the outcomes are terrible. We spend $1B on a healthcare website, that other companies have duplicated for a mere decimal point of the price. Not only that, but it actually turned out worse, cause now it's mandatory to have Healthcare, and for those who can't afford the "affordable health care plan", now have an additional payments in "penalties" for not being able to afford it and they STILL don't have health insurance. This is just one point of a thousand were socialistic practices are completely contrary to the original point. Let the people who create enough value to the world decide where they want to spend their money.

[rtpg]

The core problem is that society has to rely on the whims of these people to solve problems.

In an alternative universe we tax people more and ensure malaria eradication _whether or not Bill Gates personally decides to do so_.

There are obviously coordination problems (not saying that "government can solve everything!", there are difficulties there too). But having huge organizations ask for donations from people is a really ineffective way of solving most societal problems.

[Shivetya]

Your alternative cannot exist simply because the problem that exist isn't the billionaire but politicians and the governments they run. Gates and his type are able to have the effect they do because being individuals they don't run into problems of the state, there is no threat of imperialism or such. They are also able to do because they live under a government which respects private property rights, whether to self, land, money, or goods.

Government theoretically could solve everything but it requires good government to do so. The first step is what I stated above, respect for private property rights. If people cannot be assured their product of their work is theirs to use you cannot improve the society they live in. They must be able to trust their government.

[rtx]

Resource allocation is at the base of all our problems. And capitalism has been the best solution so far.

[rtpg]

extremely debatable. In the US, almost no national infrastructure was built through private means (though often privatised later). Private healthcare has been a disaster at maintaining a healthy public. An insistence on having government work happen through public contractors has generated massive conflicts of interests and made us end up with the most expensive infrastructure building process in the world.

Just because the Soviet Union fell over doesn't mean that capitalism has somehow been proven to be "the best solution".

[gozur88]

I don't know a good label for the US healthcare system, but it's so heavily regulated it's impossible to call it "private".

>Just because the Soviet Union fell over doesn't mean that capitalism has somehow been proven to be "the best solution".

Name one country implemented socialism (and by that I mean the government owns the means of production) and didn't end up worse off than when it started. Even the Northern European welfare states are capitalist.

[pharrington]

China.

[pharrington]

It's at least been the best solution to creating value from resources.

[k_lander]

For many it helps to know that your dollars are going to have a modest impact on society. Effective Altruism attempts to identify areas that are more likely to do so:

https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/introduction-to-e...

[jk2323]

"I wouldn't be surprised if private donations will eventually be responsible for the eradication of Malaria (1000 deaths daily, much more suffering and cost to society)."

He should improve contraception instead. Would be better for the Africans AND Europeans.

[gjm11]

> He should improve contraception instead.

Yeah. Perhaps he should imitate this charitable foundation run by a billionaire tech guy that's doing exactly that: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Developmen...

[charlesdm]

He really shouldn't do anything. Given it's his wealth, if he wants to focus on Malaria, then he should focus on Malaria.

Be happy he's trying to do something at all. That's more than what most wealthy families do.

[adim86]

What do you mean?

[prawn]

They might be suggesting that fewer people competing for resources in Africa could mean fewer people fleeing to Europe and agitating some there who resent the arrivals.

[rtx]

And they would be wrong. Focusing on governance will be more beneficial. Africa has enough resources.

[JustAnotherPat]

Malaria will be eradicated by CRISPR if anything. It's almost a waste to try and fully eliminate it any other way.

[hopscotch]

There is a relatively easy and proven way to eliminate Malaria already:

Malaria was effectively eradicated in all but the poorest areas in the 1950s and 60s through vector management: indoor residual spraying, building better houses, eradicating still water near population centers.

The same can be done in sub-Saharan Africa (the main place it remains). In fact, in the richer areas of these countries, Malaria has a very low prevalence.

It's a disease of poverty. Drugs help, but it's mostly about the vector.

[itissid]

Not so simple.. https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/217252...

[randyrand]

Yet many want to 'solve' the problem of the 0.1% being so wealthy and as a result let the government do most of the charity work instead. I think this would be a huge mistake. The mega wealthy donate a larger percent of their income than any other income group (which makes complete sense). We would be losing a ton of donation money.

Yes this is a tangent. But I think its an important point to make. On top of that, even if it were true that most of the 0.1% are very wasteful spenders, there are some who's donations are irreplaceable with government charity. Irradiating the worlds malaria is an example of this. Getting rid of the wealth in the 0.1% would be a huge loss for important donations.

[JumpCrisscross]

There's a difference between someone who went from upper middle class to billionaire, like Gates, and someone who inherited most of their wealth, like other people. I don't think lumping them together into a monolithic N% is productive for purposes of discussing policy.

[olewhalehunter]

Bill Gates was not upper "middle class", his household was solidly in the 1%, he had computer programming access at his private school (this is 1968), and his mother's friendship with the president of IBM at the time was the reason he got contracted to write DOS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates#Career

[dragonwriter]

> Bill Gates was not upper "middle class", his household was in the 1%

Seems to have been a successful petit bourgeoisie, or upper middle class, family. In traditional understanding of class relationships in capitalist society, the middle class isn't mostly middle income but well above; the majority of society is the working class dependent on wage-labor. The upper (capitalist or haut borgeoisie) class is a very thin layer.

The modern American media generally uses a different model which where “class” would more accurately be called “income group”, rather than focussing on relation to the economic system; this gets confusing in conversation when people could be using either model. In that model, Gates family was clearly upper class.

[olewhalehunter]

That archaic nobility distinction is useless to the conversation, especially when the most powerful men in the world we're discussing about have the background I'm talking about.

https://www.dailysabah.com/columns/taha-meli-arvas/2017/05/0...

[dragonwriter]

> That archaic nobility distinction is useless to the conversation,

It's not a mobility distinction,it's the classical distinction of classes in the capitalist economy (the bourgeoisie is a class in the preceding feudal economy, but there the whole bourgeoisie is the middle class, and the upper class is the nobility, not the haut bourgeoisie.)

[Jaruzel]

Sorry to nit-pick, but I didn't know the exact definition of 'petit bourgeoisie' and Google says it's actually lower middle class:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=petit+bourgeoisie&oq=petit...

[mborch]

It most certainly isn't. The Wikipedia article has an accurate description. Google pulls a wrong definition for some reason.

[undersuit]

I've heard the same confused argument in the barrage of anti-Zuckerberg comments that came out after the most recent "Will Zuckerberg run for president?" articles. Gates and Zuckerberg lived in wealthy households with parents who worked. They may have been 1% in income, but their riches now place them so much higher on the income scale it's ludricrous to try and compare their incomes to their parents. To attack their childhood as privileged discounts all the other people who were less well off during childhood who had made similar gains in wealth and perpetuates a very limited argument that all the 1% are bad. Essentially Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg as children were closer to the rest of the nation financially then they are now. You want to attack the privileged; wait until their children start doing things.

[randyrand]

88% of the very wealthy ($30+ million) in the USA made their wealth themselves.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/10/10/where-...

[nebabyte]

> Yet many want to 'solve' the problem of the 0.1% being so wealthy and as a result let the government do most of the charity work instead. I think this would be a huge mistake.

...You don't see the problem in relying on the charatibility of a tiny few to work towards the well-being of billions?

[Retric]

I don't want to 'take it back.' But, I feel donations should not be tax deductible. Why should I subsidize anything someone feels is worth donating for?

[randyrand]

I edited my comment. By take back I did not mean the current wealth from of the current generation of wealthy. But take-back over generations using very large marginal tax rates. E.g. 'solve' the problem of the 0.1% being so rich.

[Retric]

Confiscating wealth is counter productive. But, so is a large group with unearned wealth where nobody they know actually earned anything.

IMO, the balance point is setting things up so the default is wealth is not maintained across several generations (3+), even though it can be passed down 1 or 2 generations and can be maintained with care past that point.

PS: I say this with many wealthy friends and family. It's surprisingly destructive and I don't want to setup multi generational wealth for my great grand children.

[tankerdude]

The sad part is that that's what is happening in the world today. The rich, when they fund their money correctly, stay rich due to tax policy, gray areas, and loopholes. (Insurance polices as one example for the ultra rich.)

If we don't tax people when they pass away, the money goes straight to their kids, and then a permanent upper class forms and we know what happened to France...

The US has been about meritocracy, and not an aristocracy. But people want to change that, to the detriment of the country, IMO.

[randyrand]

When I said "But take-back over generations" I was not referring to an inheritance tax. I was referring to preventing new people from becoming as wealthy as today's wealthy by changing to a very large marginal income tax rate. It would be clearer if I said "widdle down the size of wealthy class over time". By far most of the wealthy today are new money, so an inheritance tax would do little in that regard anyway.

But back to inheritance:

> not maintained across several generations (3+)

You're inventing problems. Inheritance decreases exponentially. Multi 3+ generational wealth is already divided by 64 times (assuming 2 children + spouses). It is not possible without the children putting in significant work themselves. You're inventing problems.

At least we have common ground. Being able to pass on our successes to our children is a large and important motivator in life - one that would be incredibly unwise to remove.

[Retric]

You assume the spouse is not wealthy. Wealthy spouse turns 1:2 into 2:2 which is stable. Interest can also slow for the occasional al 2:3+ growth. Europe has family's that have maintained wealth over the past 500+ years.

"That’s according to a recent study by two Italian economists, Guglielmo Barone and Sauro Mocetti, who compared Florentine taxpayers way back in 1427 to those in 2011. Comparing the family wealth to those with the same surname today, they suggest the richest families in Florence 600 years ago remain the same now."

England has also had wealth maintained for 28 generations and other old money examples are not hard to find.

[pc86]

Well, only certain kinds of donations are tax deductible. You can donate $10,000 to me right now but you're not getting a penny back from the IRS if you do.

The bar to become a charity could be a lot higher but it's not exactly a rubber stamp.

[Retric]

If I pay you 10,000$ you and I pay a tax. But, there is a separate gift tax deduction and small gifts. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

Donations are really a 3 way tax break, I don't pay taxes on the gift, you don't pay taxes on the gift, and I don't pay income taxes on the money I use as a gift. (The arguable forth deduction is I don't need to realize capital gains before giving a gift.)

PS: The only way to actually lower taxes is to lower spending. Anything else is just shifting the burden to someone else.

[adventured]

> Donations are really a 3 way tax break

That doesn't make sense given the sums we're talking about. If I give someone $100 million (non-charitable), I don't have to pay an extra tax on the giving, I only pay taxes on the income. You're referring to a very specific gift tax scenario.

The majority of the Gates Foundation giving is not within the US. The people on the end receiving should not pay taxes on that as it pertains to the US. Further, the Gates Foundation giving within the US will frequently end up taxed after the gift via income taxes on salaries (whether we're talking about scientists, secretaries or in the field workers receiving foundation dollars to operate as part of a charitable organization).

The scope to the triple tax premise is, in reality, dramatically more narrow.

[Retric]

According to the US tax code you really do have to pay millions in taxes on a 100 million dollar gift to someone else. If they are in another country then that country's tax code applies and they might need to pay even more money.

Here is the actual form: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f709.pdf

19 If line 18 is less than line 17, enter balance due

[RhysU]

How is not taking his money subsidizing him? Tax credits would be subsidizing him.

[Retric]

Tax breaks for specific activities are by dentition a subsidy by lowering costs.

If people with blue eyes suddenly did not have to pay taxes then that would be a massive subsidy. If you get a pay check and the taxes are already taken it it's just as much 'your money' as if you got the full paycheck then had to pay taxes after the fact. The point is more money goes out of your paycheck because the US government subsidizes other and often very rich people.

[rusk]

Sorry for my ignorance but is this merely a technical distinction? I would have thought tax-credits, and non-deduction are effectively equivalent?