110 billionaires in the world. Yay!

[Kuciwalker]

Charities are typically significantly more efficient than the government in their particular role.

This is not true in the general case.

In particular, this:

Efficiency of operations: Charities are subject to some capitalist/market forces, as often people will donate to the charity they feel gives the most bang for the buck. Therefore, charities have an incentive to be lean (to reduce overhead costs), and to spend their money on effective solutions, rather than politically motivated ones.

often results in completely unproductive use of funds.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Yes, but the "wealth" it represented is gone.

No, someone else now owns it. All you've done is reduce the liquidity of the market a little bit...

If you want to destroy wealth, buy a factory with that money and blow it up, or something.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
If you want to destroy wealth, buy a factory with that money and blow it up, or something.

Or put Republicans in charge of the country.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Charities are typically significantly more efficient than the government in their particular role.

This is not true in the general case.

In particular, this:

Efficiency of operations: Charities are subject to some capitalist/market forces, as often people will donate to the charity they feel gives the most bang for the buck. Therefore, charities have an incentive to be lean (to reduce overhead costs), and to spend their money on effective solutions, rather than politically motivated ones.

often results in completely unproductive use of funds.

For most well-run charities, I would suggest this is not true. The ability for a charity to quickly reposition itself based on newer data, as opposed to a governmental body that must go through committee or make funding requests of the general body, as well as the fact that charities are able to ignore political considerations (ie, human embryonic stem cells), makes it possible for charities to focus on things the government simply cannot.

There are certainly plenty of poorly run charities out there, but it is well feasible for a contributor to focus on those that are well run (and many do - I'd compare it to mutual funds; there are plenty of funds that have low overhead costs/load and therefore give higher returns, enough that an investor can simply ignore the ones that have too high of overhead).

[Kuciwalker]

For most well-run charities, I would suggest this is not true. The ability for a charity to quickly reposition itself based on newer data, as opposed to a governmental body that must go through committee or make funding requests of the general body, as well as the fact that charities are able to ignore political considerations (ie, human embryonic stem cells), makes it possible for charities to focus on things the government simply cannot.

In the general case, charities can't ignore political considerations, because that affects public image (and thus donations).

[snoopy369]

They can't ignore social considerations, not political ones. The distinction is which group of people (all, or just their potential donor pool) they have to consider. For example, if only non-religious scientistific types are likely to donate to a charity supporting Parkinson's research, they can fund HESC research without caring that a large minority of the country opposes it.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by snoopy369 [*] Localization - US government is top-heavy, with most revenue going to the federal level and a large amount also to the state level; relatively little stays at the city/county level. Charities on the other hand are generally more local, and even large (ie ARC) do a better job of disbursing money on a local level through local chapters.

If you mean administration, it's actually better to have more centralized administration. It saves on a lot of costs. I'm not sure though why you think being local is a good thing though.

[*] Specialization: Charities generally are specialized, meaning they focus on one area. The government, especially the federal government, is typically not as specialized; look the wide variety of things the USDA does, for example, or the FDA, or HHS.

By specialisation you must mean they do just one thing. That's actually a disadvantage. In a bigger organization you can use knowledge on a wider scale. In a smaller organization the knowledge might not travel outside the organization where it can also be beneficial.

[*] Quality of participants: Charities generally have better participants/employees than the government, because they draw people who *want* to work on their projects. They may not come as full time employees, but many highly trained specialists in various fields will work with charities in their fields.

That's not true. People start charities to make a living. They don't necessarily believe more in their work than do government employees. If they like it so much they can do the same work for the government.

[*]Societal benefits: Contributing to a charity is clearly good for society, as it's money that is not otherwise provided to societal causes. Even if it were not as good as governmental spending, it is something that wasn't there before; and thus it is good. As long as it's close to as good as governmental spending, which it clearly at minimum is, it should be encouraged.

What do you mean encouraged? How?

[*] Discretion: Giving to a charity allows people to give to causes they feel are interesting. People are more likely to give money to a cause they support than a blanket donation to everyone. Thus again, more money is willingly donated to charity than would be voted to government, even if you assume people would support the government taking control over formerly charitable causes.

I'm not saying that the government should take over charities. I'm saying that 1) donations shouldn't be tax deductable and 2) inheritance should be taxed 100%. The tax revenue gained should be used to do good things for society. I don't know if enough people support it or not, but I think it would do more good for society.

[*]Efficiency of operations: Charities are subject to some capitalist/market forces, as often people will donate to the charity they feel gives the most bang for the buck. Therefore, charities have an incentive to be lean (to reduce overhead costs), and to spend their money on effective solutions, rather than politically motivated ones.

I don't think the incentive to opperate efficiently and be effective is as strong as you claim. In fact, after working for a charity for a short time last year I think it's the opposite. It's hard to for donators to really tell how efficient a charity is by just looking at financial information. For example, if a charity get's a lot of donations it's going to look like only a small percentage of it's donations go to administration. Even if a charity is opperating efficiently and it doesn't get donations then it looks like a lot of the donations go to the administration.

Government on the other hand can me made fairly efficient in opperations. Sure there are problems like people wasting money so that their budgets won't get cut, but their is a similar result with charities.

[b etor]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


I don't recall you having any issue with older material.

i don't recall ever wanting anyone over 35. and 35 is too old for me anyway, but i was willing to make an exception for the extremely wealthy.

[Theben]

Ageist!

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
No, someone else now owns it. All you've done is reduce the liquidity of the market a little bit...

If you want to destroy wealth, buy a factory with that money and blow it up, or something.

Financial wealth is a claim on real wealth. If he destroyed his money there would be less financial wealth.