jdreyer wrote on Dec 17, 2020, 21:58:

RedEye9 wrote on Dec 17, 2020, 17:52:

jdreyer wrote on Dec 17, 2020, 15:40:
I bet giving away $4.2B carefully is a full time job!
I know Bill and Melinda work full time on their charity.

Several articles mentioned the significant amount of work her organization did to give away that amount of money.

I'm always impressed when I see rich people give away significant amounts of money. I know they're not affected personally, since a billionaire could give away 99% of their money and still be extremely rich with the 10M they have left. But still it's counter instinctual to give away large portions of your material wealth.

That said, I'd much prefer the government to tax the shit out of 100% of billionaires and get vastly more amounts of money to solve our nation's problems than be impressed with the 2% of billionaires that are altruistic and give a lot of money away.

It's not tax rates, it's tax law. It's the ability for them to engage in massive tax avoidance. That's always been the problem. Raise the tax rate to billionaires to 90% and Congress will pass - very quietly - laws that allow them to avoid paying 95% of those taxes.

RedEye9 wrote on Dec 17, 2020, 17:52:

jdreyer wrote on Dec 17, 2020, 15:40:
I bet giving away $4.2B carefully is a full time job!
I know Bill and Melinda work full time on their charity.

Several articles mentioned the significant amount of work her organization did to give away that amount of money.

I'm always impressed when I see rich people give away significant amounts of money. I know they're not affected personally, since a billionaire could give away 99% of their money and still be extremely rich with the 10M they have left. But still it's counter instinctual to give away large portions of your material wealth.

That said, I'd much prefer the government to tax the shit out of 100% of billionaires and get vastly more amounts of money to solve our nation's problems than be impressed with the 2% of billionaires that are altruistic and give a lot of money away.

jdreyer wrote on Dec 17, 2020, 15:40:
I bet giving away $4.2B carefully is a full time job!
I know Bill and Melinda work full time on their charity.

Several articles mentioned the significant amount of work her organization did to give away that amount of money.

Mr. Tact wrote on Dec 17, 2020, 13:32:
You're right, net worth and income are not the same. But seeing as I doubt she is "working", her net worth provides her income. And yes, her donation is larger than yours but I still think yours is more impressive.

I bet giving away $4.2B carefully is a full time job!
I know Bill and Melinda work full time on their charity.

Mr. Tact wrote on Dec 17, 2020, 12:27:
I said what she did "is nice" and that "She deserves credit for the donation". But yes, I did minimize it -- because based on her estimated $60b net worth giving away $4.2b is less than you giving away 15% of your earnings. It is helpful, it is good, but for her it is not a sacrifice. It didn't reduce any of her options, as I'm sure your 15% donation did. I'm glad she is being charitable, but don't give her more credit than she deserves.

As Penguin points out below, she can't simply give it all away at once, it has to be scheduled over time for a bunch of reasons.

500 millionaires donating 20% of their income versus Mrs. Amazons 6 billion.
I know which one impresses me and will do the world the most good.

You're right, net worth and income are not the same. But seeing as I doubt she is "working", her net worth provides her income. And yes, her donation is larger than yours but I still think yours is more impressive.

Mr. Tact wrote on Dec 17, 2020, 12:27:
I said what she did "is nice" and that "She deserves credit for the donation". But yes, I did minimize it -- because based on her estimated $60b net worth giving away $4.2b is less than you giving away 15% of your earnings. It is helpful, it is good, but for her it is not a sacrifice. It didn't reduce any of her options, as I'm sure your 15% donation did. I'm glad she is being charitable, but don't give her more credit than she deserves.

Net worth is not the same as cash, when you are at that level the overwhelming majority of your wealth is tied up in real estate, business and long term investments.

Her $4.2b does a lot more good for the world than ours does and I'm OK with acknowledging that. It doesn't diminish anything we donate, quite the opposite all donations should be lauded. That's what I think she deserves. It's a significant donation for good causes and the proportions do not matter.

I said what she did "is nice" and that "She deserves credit for the donation". But yes, I did minimize it -- because based on her estimated $60b net worth giving away $4.2b is less than you giving away 15% of your earnings. It is helpful, it is good, but for her it is not a sacrifice. It didn't reduce any of her options, as I'm sure your 15% donation did. I'm glad she is being charitable, but don't give her more credit than she deserves.

When you get $38b in a divorce settlement giving away $4.2b is nice -- but hardly a sacrifice. She deserves credit for the donation, but let's not saint her yet...

$4.2b does a lot of good for the world if it's in the hands of the right charities and comments like yours seem to minimize that in my opinion. There are many bootstrap billionaires and trust fund kids who do nothing at all. The idea that altruism has to be all or nothing is silly, likewise the idea that charity should be anonymous or its for selfish reasons and somehow less is antiquated. Our family has donated 15% of our income to charities every year for the past five years and while I wish I could do more, we do what we can to help those in need. I'm sure MacKenzie Scott is doing the same. People should be lauded for charity because its much easier to do nothing at all and too many do exactly that.

I'm torn on a Firefly reboot - especially a family friendly one. We'll see. If Mal doesn't occasionally shoot someone in cold blood (or throw them in the engines) it's not Firefly.

I would prefer that they base it on a completely different crew of people somewhere else in the same universe, instead of an actual reboot of the original crew. Firefly Next Generation.

This comment was edited on Dec 17, 2020, 18:31.

Mr. Tact wrote on Dec 16, 2020, 13:38:

Bumpy wrote on Dec 16, 2020, 13:08:
I had to look up who MacKenzie Scott was -> Bezos' ex-wife.

That's a lot of money given away. Major props to her. She done good, lots of good.

When you get $38b in a divorce settlement giving away $4.2b is nice -- but hardly a sacrifice. She deserves credit for the donation, but let's not saint her yet...

She signed a pledge to give most of her fortune away. That's a pretty good down payment. Look at all the other billionaires who can be pretty stingy, or spend it all on pie in the sky projects (granted, at least the pie in the sky money goes into the economy and stimulates business).

She is also taking a very careful approach. As people in the Civil service and who work in charitable organizations know well, just throwing money at something doesn't always help. There's a lot of charities that have become such bloated bureaucracies, that by the time they finish paying the bills (huge salaries for the executives, offices, supplies, employees, advertising, etc) they actually wind up spending a very small portion of their donations on the actual cause.

Also keep in mind that while she may be WORTH $38 billion, that doesn't mean that's LIQUID money. Most of that will be tied up in Amazon stock and other investments. You can't just dump all that stock overnight - you'd crash markets, and destroy world economies. Also early stock sales would de value later sales. There's also some regulations to prevent just cashing out that much stock. It's all has to be planned carefully. I think her original plan was to donate a couple of billion a year, but she wanted to do something more after this disaster of a year.

I'll give the lady some major credit for what she's doing.

This comment was edited on Dec 17, 2020, 11:44.

Cutter wrote on Dec 16, 2020, 19:52:
I always reckon your odds are better on smaller jackpots where much fewer people are playing. That aside I base my purchases on the winning odds verus the jackpot - say a dollar ticket on better odds and smaller jackpot vs. a five dollar ticket on a large one with worse odds. Yeah, I tend not too spend to much either until the jackpots max out. Don't do scratchers much either but this time of year it's always a 'What the hey?'

Obviously the odds of a pick 4 win is 1 in 10,000 -- a lot better than the 1 in 292,201,338 in Powerball or 1 in 302,575,350 for MegaMillions (odds to match the jackpot). My thought process has always been if I am going to waste money, I'd rather spend a few bucks to daydream about winning millions, rather than have increased odds of winning $100k (not indicating pick 4s have 100k prizes).

As for scratch off tickets they always seemed like a scam to me, and while they aren't entirely they are in part. Even after all the larger prizes have been claimed, the scratch off tickets of that game will continue to be sold. So it is possible when you buy the tickets you literally have zero chance of winning the bigger prizes. Not to mention, you may never have been within 100 miles of a ticket with a bigger prize...

This comment was edited on Dec 16, 2020, 21:48.

Mr. Tact wrote on Dec 16, 2020, 17:57:

Cutter wrote on Dec 16, 2020, 16:56:
Like invest wisely...as that fella in Virginia did. Nice return on investment there. I like stories like that. Fuck my luck. Bought 2 instant lottery tickets today - not quite understanding how they worked until after the fact as it's a new lottery - and I didn't win. And then I bought a couple of scratch and win tickets...which I lost while I was out shopping. Hopefully someone else found them and made a few bucks off my bad luck.

I have occasionally purchased tickets for the big lottery games here in the US, usually when the jackpots get high. I've probably bought more of them "than I should have". There have been years when I certainly spent 100s of dollars on them, probably one or two when I spent two thousand. Although I haven't bought any in the last two years or so. Never was I ever tempted to buy 160 pick 4 tickets. That is just plain weird. Weird that he acted on the urge, weird that it hit. That said, if I was going to get my one in a billion hit, I'd rather it was a 300m lotto...

I always reckon your odds are better on smaller jackpots where much fewer people are playing. That aside I base my purchases on the winning odds verus the jackpot - say a dollar ticket on better odds and smaller jackpot vs. a five dollar ticket on a large one with worse odds. Yeah, I tend not too spend to much either until the jackpots max out. Don't do scratchers much either but this time of year it's always a 'What the hey?'

Cutter wrote on Dec 16, 2020, 16:56:
Like invest wisely...as that fella in Virginia did. Nice return on investment there. I like stories like that. Fuck my luck. Bought 2 instant lottery tickets today - not quite understanding how they worked until after the fact as it's a new lottery - and I didn't win. And then I bought a couple of scratch and win tickets...which I lost while I was out shopping. Hopefully someone else found them and made a few bucks off my bad luck.

I have occasionally purchased tickets for the big lottery games here in the US, usually when the jackpots get high. I've probably bought more of them "than I should have". There have been years when I certainly spent 100s of dollars on them, probably one or two when I spent two thousand. Although I haven't bought any in the last two years or so. Never was I ever tempted to buy 160 pick 4 tickets. That is just plain weird. Weird that he acted on the urge, weird that it hit. That said, if I was going to get my one in a billion hit, I'd rather it was a 300m lotto...

Mr. Tact wrote on Dec 16, 2020, 16:27:

jdreyer wrote on Dec 16, 2020, 15:20:
Paycheck To Paycheck: Why Even Americans Who Earn $100,000 Struggle With Bills.

While people with the lowest incomes face the biggest challenges, even some households making above $200,000 are straining to pay basic expenses.

I'd like to have that problem.

Well, yes and no. You'd love to be earning $200k a year, you wouldn't like being an idiot who can't live on it.

Yeah, I was going to say. If you're a single person making 100k+ a year and can't live on it you need to do some budgeting. It also heavily depends on where you live and the cost of living. 100k a year in Manhattan is peanuts. In Wichita I'm sure you can live quite well on that.

Like invest wisely...as that fella in Virginia did. Nice return on investment there. I like stories like that. Fuck my luck. Bought 2 instant lottery tickets today - not quite understanding how they worked until after the fact as it's a new lottery - and I didn't win. And then I bought a couple of scratch and win tickets...which I lost while I was out shopping. Hopefully someone else found them and made a few bucks off my bad luck.

Bumpy wrote on Dec 16, 2020, 13:08:
I had to look up who MacKenzie Scott was -> Bezos' ex-wife.

That's a lot of money given away. Major props to her. She done good, lots of good.

I'd just like to see Bezos pay his employees a living wage and good benefits the cheap prick. Fuck philanthropy! Pay people a living wage and good benefits. Charity is solely so rich douchebags can assuage their guilt over exploiting people as virtual slaves.

Agent.X7 wrote on Dec 16, 2020, 12:33:

Exclusive: Firefly Reboot Coming To Disney+. Hmmm, not sure this sounds too shiny. Thanks Sigwolf.

No, it doesn't. It sounds pretty Tā mā de làn.

Come on, what could go wrong? The original creator won't be involved, the original cast won't be involved, and they want to completely change the tone of the show. It will be totally Disneyfied. Firefly, without any of that Firefly stuff... it's just what the fans have been asking for, or something?

jdreyer wrote on Dec 16, 2020, 15:20:
Paycheck To Paycheck: Why Even Americans Who Earn $100,000 Struggle With Bills.

While people with the lowest incomes face the biggest challenges, even some households making above $200,000 are straining to pay basic expenses.

I'd like to have that problem.

Well, yes and no. You'd love to be earning $200k a year, you wouldn't like being an idiot who can't live on it.

Agent.X7 wrote on Dec 16, 2020, 12:33:
No, it doesn't. It sounds pretty Tā mā de làn.

How's folks supposed ta misbehave if it's PG?