Wow...Murphy Oil to pay college tuition for all El Dorado HS grads

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Oerdin


That might be true. However, it is his money to do with as he pleases. They are not public funds. If he wants to blow it all on crack whores and cocaine then that's his choice. He did decide to give it away in order to educate students however and that is great.

No one is trying to take away his choice.

But if someone blows millions of dollars on crack whores and cocaine, or fritters away $113 million in 4 years then we agree that person did something stupid (and throw metaphorical rocks at him).

I am in the charity/non-profit world and I see a lot of people who give away a lot of money to a lot of really dumb ideas that just waste this important money and divert it to much better causes. I'm not saying that the scholarship program is a dumb idea, I'm just defending the idea that giving away lots of money to a dumb charity is still pretty dumb.

Giving $50 million to provide gold plated toilet paper for a Children's Hospital is a pretty dumb idea and while we shouldn't take away anyone's right to do that, we should be critical of it.

[Flubber]

I was just going to comment on the people that seem to think that the tax breaks for charity are almost worth the same as the money. I don'y know the US tax system but I would be surprised if it was worth half the money.


My experience with the canadian system is that having the money is worth far more than the deduction you can get for ANY kind of spending charitable or otherwise. So giving to charity actually costs the giver money that they are free to use otherwise.

[pchang]

Flubber is correct

about the US tax system on charitable gifts.

It just proves that the people who poopoo such gifts have never given sizable gifts themselves.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Flubber
I was just going to comment on the people that seem to think that the tax breaks for charity are almost worth the same as the money. I don'y know the US tax system but I would be surprised if it was worth half the money.

Since I'm the only one who has made a statement in this thread that even comes close to that, I'd guess you are refering to me?

I'd guess about the same. ~50% direct return at the upper limit, though I wouldn't be suprised if there are loopholes and creative account which could allow someone clever to save more. But that aside, you have to take everything into account when determining the overall financial benefit. Tax breaks are one factor. As stated by the company themself, it's an investment in the community which they are (at least partially) reliant on, and they expect returns, and then there's the publicity, of a nature which you can't really even pay for otherwise.

[Aeson]

Re: Flubber is correct

Originally posted by pchang
It just proves that the people who poopoo such gifts have never given sizable gifts themselves.

It's only "proof" to someone with no grasp of logic or ability to read...

(On a somewhat related note... Maybe we could come to a little bargain here... How about we agree that each of us will donate the same % share of our net worth as the highest % between us has donated so far this fiscal year? In effect, if you've given more than I, I'd have to give % what you had, and vice versa. Of course, limited up to the point where this discussion began so as to preclude any shenanigans... Come on, it'd be for a good cause. )

[Ben Kenobi]

I got one of my scholarships for this same reason. The top student who had went to the elementary school in a particular year got the award. It wasn't so much the money but the honour in the neighbourhood of doing the best of all the people you went to school with that was the real reward.