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Comment by whackedspinach | Hacker News Reader

Well an easy answer is to take a lot of that money people are earning in technology (I'm talking personal income or gifts from companies) and put it towards programs that either work towards ending poverty in those cases (through economic development, direct cash grants, etc) or improving health conditions, which often helps.

Some possibilities (although there are many others): http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities

If you have a novel approach using technology, you should pursue it, but don't let a lack of a technological solution prevent you from doing anything right now.

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Also whenever you earn more money, some the tax you pay goes towards programs like this whether you donate anything extra or not. So getting a high paying job alone helps.

Your taxes also fund the IMF, the legal system used to defend drug parents, and the promotion of "abstinence-only" sex-ed.

The reality is federal programs aren't started or canceled based on total, let alone an individual's, tax revenue, so I call bullshit here.

OK, how about this for starters: do you agree that the following two statements are inconsistent:

1. Increasing tax dollars does not benefit the world by increasing the services provided by the government.

2. Rich people should pay more taxes.

The fact that total tax revenue must ultimately equal total government expenditure in the long run, is not bullshit, it's basic accounting. And the things you listed don't come close to canceling out the benefits of aid (and what is wrong with the IMF in the first place?)

Nope, I don't agree.

Total tax revenue does not need to equal total expenditures in the long run. Fiat currencies are created when the government spends money, and it's a choice (based on monetary schools of economics) to have them correlated with revenue. It is not a requirement. The government prints money.

The IMF is tasked with countering global inflation; anti-inflation policies disproportionately benefit those with cash and harm those with debts. In practice, structural adjustment has led to reductions in all sorts of public goods around the world, including education. Hence my inclusion of the IMF on a list with other government programs that increase, rather than reduce, wealth inequality.

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