| > Be it Billy Gates, Bezos, or one of the many Midwestern Financial Gurus—-their use of 901c3‘s are basically tax dodges. Do you mean 501c3? How are these a tax dodge? How does someone end up financially better off than just keeping and investing their wealth if they choose to donate it or deploy it in a donor advised fund? > Gates foundation gives back less than 1% of the wife’s fund to the nation that birthed him, and provided a comfy launching pad for that privileged life. (I get you need to help developing nations, but America is dying. I have never seen so many homeless.) If you think America is dying, boy do I have news for you about the state of most of the world. I also deploy most of my personal donations outside America, through GiveWell and Watsi (and more targeted donations independently). America has a lot of problems. I live in NYC and can empathize with the dissonance of seeing the homeless sleeping in the cold on Madison Ave. I don't want to diminutize that, and this is something I also care about. But the blunt fact of the matter is that America is far better off than the countries Gates focuses on. It's not even a fair comparison in terms of poverty and healthcare. Gates deploys his wealth primarily in regions that have never or only rarely "birthed" billionaires like Gates, in your words. It is uniquely selfish to criticize billionaires for hoarding their wealth while also insisting they focus their charity on one of the richest countries in the world by median. |