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Dear Mr. Millionaire, As someone with a significant amount of wealth, you have the option to spend it entirely on yourself. For example, you could have consumed all of it already, enjoying non-stop parties, expensive toys, buying the temporary, albeit intense, adoration of an entourage etc. Thank you for not doing those things. Instead, you have invested this capital. You have put it into a variety of investments, each with their own risk-reward profile. I am hopeful that as you grow wealthier, you will become more charitable, both by donating more wealth to help others, and also by accepting a lower rate of private return (or higher private risk) for investments that have a bigger social return (e.g. biotech investments, space exploration, etc). Even there, I hope you exercise some prudence and a portfolio approach, since it doesn't help anyone ex post if you lose all your money developing an invention that doesn't work. In the meantime, we (society) are grateful for your concern, but would probably rather that you did not dump more money into our tax coffers. If you want to give money to the people, give money to the people, Give Directly style. And if you still feel that the government is necessary to solve some of the problems that are bothering you, spend it instead to incentivize better government, or to design and build a government that allocates each tax dollar more efficiently as the years go by. Thank you. |