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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

I don't think I've seen a single positive statement about Zuckerberg's foundation.

It would have been 100% fully within his right to simply keep it all, or blow his fortune on snorting Fabergé eggs, or buying classic cars and crashing them.

Instead, he's giving almost all of it away. He's choosing to retain control over how it's given away? Well so what! It's still way better than keeping it all.

I am no fan of Facebook, but man, the amount of vitriol coming out about this move just astounds me. Giving away 99% of your wealth is apparently not commendable unless you do it just right. Meanwhile, how much are the commenters themselves giving away? Oh, somewhat less than 99%? Yeah.

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I think Chan and Zuckerberg will do incredible things with this money, but I also appreciate the cynicism of ultra-rich philanthropy.

We as a society will be reliant on "hoping the kings are just with their gold" as they make decisions based on their personal preferences. This is undemocratic and should be under perpetual scrutiny. I likely agree with what Chan and Zuckerberg will be doing with this money, but what about other ultra-rich folks giving a ton of money to high priced arts where their relatives all work in high paying jobs in the name of charity? Nothing inherently wrong with this in a vacuum, I love the arts, but when these donations take money away from other tax-reliant services such as schools, the net benefit to society should certainly be considered.

Those relatives with high incomes are almost guaranteed to get taxed at a higher rate via income than any other distribution formula of that money would produce. In the US if you're in typical high net worth locations, you're going to pay ~33% to 50% on high amounts of income between state and federal.

So what's the problem? Those high incomes get taxed at a high rate. There's a reason the rich pay such an extreme portion of all income taxes in the US.

"Meanwhile, how much are the commenters themselves giving away? Oh, somewhat less than 99%? Yeah."

Terrible statement. If a commenter here makes 100,000 and gives away 99% well they are now extremely poor. If I have billions and give away 99% my life isn't likely to change.

Well, 50%? 25%? 5%?

Even 5% is a lot if you already have difficulties making ends meet. I mean you still want to invest something to have some kind of a cushion if you lose your job right?

So yes, for someone with little income donating 5% can already be too much.

You have a point. I guess I'll allow them to keep more than 1% of their money.

Wait, you mean I don't get to decide what other people do with their money? Exactly.

> "Meanwhile, how much are the commenters themselves giving away? Oh, somewhat less than 99%? Yeah."

Dude I've met lots of people who don't make much money and still donate from the little they have. They might be giving only 10% but if you already have difficulties making ends meet this is a lot.

So no, I don't buy into some billionaire putting his money into a LLC to evade the tax and claiming to do something good.

Btw I wouldn't be pointing my finger if it wasn't for the public announcement. He still could do that in private. But don't make a big fuss about it and pretend you are an example.

Yep. And plenty of people who have donated lot of free time towards making the world a better place in unglamorous ways, even when they were struggling with many other responsibilities.

There's a huge difference between someone who's always spent their life working for others, and someone who has ignored others for most of their life, but then throws money in that direction after they've made so much that they realize what they really want to spend their excess billions on is buying popularity.

People are upset because it feels like another step in the shift of power from a democratically elected state to the oligarchs.

You're right that it is fully within his right to keep it, but then he would have had to do things like pay taxes on it. By doing this he can avoid estate tax and keep the power within his family or inner circle. He can be left to pursue his worldview without interruption.

I'm sure he'll do some great things with his foundation, and others I'll completely disagree with, but the point is it moves us further down this road of oligarchy and reliance on the extremely wealthy.

EDIT: Just wanted to add an example. The Gates foundation put something like $200 million towards Common Core education standards, which was rapidly pushed through and adopted after their funding. Regardless of whether you are for or against it, it goes to show that one extremely wealthy foundation was able to completely change national education policy in less than a decade to reflect their singular worldview. That to me is unacceptable in a democratic society.

Can you explain how this moves us further down the road of oligarchy and what the alternative scenarios are that wouldn't have done that?

Taxing a portion of that money is the alternative scenario.

Money aside, Isn't the government already an oligarchy too? I'd much rather be "reliant" on the extremely wealthy than the politically powerful: economic capital is not a zero sum game so it's fundamentally more easy to disrupt by a person less endowed with it than political capital.

> I am no fan of Facebook, but man, the amount of vitriol coming out about this move just astounds me. Giving away 99% of your wealth is apparently not commendable unless you do it just right. Meanwhile, how much are the commenters themselves giving away? Oh, somewhat less than 99%? Yeah.

I can put 99% of my wealth in a LLC and claim I'm giving it away. that doesn't make it true.

If he was being honest and genuine, it would be in a charitable trust or a non-profit foundation. Unless by "give away" he means "invest in companies and/or political lobbying". [ Hint: Charitable Trusts would function like a LLC in many respects with the guarantee at the end that the money would flow to a charitable cause in the end. ]

As a correction to your assumption and other comments in this thread, charitable trusts (depending on the many ways you can set these up) do not guarantee ANY money will ever be given to charity. Most require a distribution, but many do not dictate how this distribution is to be used or put a limit on how much can be distributed (although large distributions may still incur taxes). It's often used as a way to pass on an inheritance to avoid or limit tax consequences.

> Most require a distribution, but many do not dictate on how this distribution is to be used or put a limit on how much can be distributed. It's often used as a way to pass on an inheritance to avoid or limit tax consequences.

Yes but you can write the documents in such a way that it is required. In other words, I'd be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that it was legally structured that way which is possible with such trusts.

Economic models indicate that the most wealthy people in the United States do not spend proportional to their means, and those in the lowest income brackets tend to spend at their means or beyond. Thus, large quantities of capital pooling with a small portion of the population is extremely damaging to the overall health of the US capitalistic system. There's a larger argument to be had that he probably should frivolously spend it all or randomly bequeath large sums of money to poverty stricken individuals or families at random, that is, if he wanted to actually help the economy.

For now, the 'Institute' is simply being vague about wanting to "do good" in the world, which, if you ask any well-meaning college student or pot smoking hippie, would be a pretty basic premise, but equally ineffective without a step-by-step plan. Might be asking too much on that last point, but look at it this way: A guy stands on top of a soapbox and says he's going to change the world for better, and if nobody in the audience scoffs and asks "How" then is it really a bold statement?

Thank you! People are blowing this whole LLC thing out of control. It really isn't a big deal deal at all. He probably went against the word of his tax advisors to use an LLC as opposed to a typical foundation. Just applaud the man for his efforts and stop turning this into a tax play -- it isn't. Not a very good one at least.

Well, he claims that at some point in his life he's going to give 99% to an LLC he controls, and that the LLC will donate some of that money (it's uncertain to who or for what), invest some of that money (again, uncertain as to where), and use some for political lobbying (uncertain as to what cause). He's also had a bad track record when it comes to some of his donations (see the Newark schools).

So yeah, he might do great things with it, or he might not. We don't have much to go by, other than the fact that he's made a big announcement before he's actually willing to tell us what he's doing, which points to this being a vanity project more than anything.

Even if he does great things with it (which we have no way of knowing at the moment), it doesn't mean that he's above criticism. Some politicians will have massive turkey give-aways to boost their popularity; organized crime leaders are often known for their generosity in their communities. In the world we live in, it's worth taking a look at the person as a whole as well as what their motivations are, rather than just praising any gifts while ignoring ulterior motives.

I'm not saying he'll do great things, or that we should praise him. I just don't understand criticizing him because he's not doing it just right. Not because he's doing something bad, but merely because he's not doing something good enough.

If and when he does something bad, go wild with the criticism. But making your "charitable foundation" an LLC does not qualify, nor does any of the other stuff I've seen criticized so far.

Giving away all of your money is not necessarily good for everyone else. For example, giving billions to promote "teaching the controversy", or iPad literacy or Morris dancing in schools would alter the curriculum in ways that some people would (rightly) disagree with.

> he's giving almost all of it away

> He's choosing to retain control

You're aware that those two things are opposites right?

At least please finish reading the second sentence you tried to quote.

I did. If he's retaining control over how it's going to be given away then that makes it clear that he hasn't given it away yet.

Giving a thing away means you no longer have control of the thing. That's not a side effect, it's the literal plain meaning of the concept.

Him saying he is going to give it away $44 billion in the future should be evaluated in much the same way as my claim that I will receive $44 billion in the future, with healthy skepticism.

OK, let's say he's completely full of it and he's not giving anything away.

So what? That's fully within his rights.

A rich dude might by lying? That's not headline news.

Yes, and people aren't going to write positively about it.

I don't expect people to write positively about it. I just don't understand why people are writing so negatively about it.

People seem to confuse my position with something like, "Why isn't everybody praising him to the heavens?" When it's really more like, "Why is anybody paying attention to this?"

He's a role model for this community.

> I don't think I've seen a single positive statement about Zuckerberg's foundation.

What do you expect? As long as not a single cent has changed hands why should anyone praise what up to now is only a PR move?

Contrast that with J.K. Rowling who actually donated money and is now no longer a billionaire.

I think what he is doing writ large is great.

My quibble is that his "birth announcement" makes this sound "all charity" when clearly putting it in an LLC makes it a "all power play" move.

It wouldn't be the first nor will it be the last time that somebody's Facebook post was self-aggrandizing.

Some people just don't want to believe that Zuckerberg is doing something good for the planet -- it means they can't justify their hatred for him as easily anymore.

The reasons for this are quite simple. When the richest 1% make a very grand gesture like this, there will always be an element of analysis about how they plan to do it, for better or worse.

When it's somebody in the very top 1% who up until now has taken large measures to completely avoid and drastically minimise paying tax in numerous countries (which can have substantial benefits for the populace of said countries) at the levels they should be, questions will always be asked.

I also completely agree, he's fully within his rights to blow the lot - this also has a benefit for society anyway (more people working to build him yachts, supercars, mix him martini's, etc., therefore more collected in tax from said blowing of cash).

I don't have a view at the moment on this either way - the proof will be in the pudding as they say and I will reserve judgement till then. I will, however, say he's not actually given anything away - certainly not yet anyway.

> minimise paying tax in numerous countries (which can have substantial benefits for the populace of said countries)

I'm not sure there's a less efficient way of helping people than giving money to the government.

The bad thing about it is that you have a single person dictating how a large portion of economic activity is carried out. Very anti-democratic, and my intuition would say very inefficient.

Well, anti-democratic and efficiency go hand in hand. For better or worse.

Sounds like talking past each other with different notions of democracy.

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