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Comment by spikels | Hacker News Reader

Actual Reason: Bloomberg is planning to announce his presidential candidacy soon.

The cynical part of me is in complete agreement. I hate that I assume ulterior motive to charity, but Bloomberg wants to be in politics, and this is a big move at the very beginning of the primary races.

It makes his perpetual low tax burden unquestionable when he releases his returns :)

Its a non-zero sum game, why worry about such binary events of completely charitable or not.

" It makes his perpetual low tax burden unquestionable when he releases his returns :)"

Trump has set the precedent that this is not necessary anymore.

I’m happy about that and I hope others follow suit.

Now for the political science: If you want to win brownie points with both the wage slaves and the “orange man bad” crowd that would be elated to see everything the opposite of Trump, you can jubilantly release your tax returns if they look good or relatable.

You don't need to be overly cynical to question this. He did write a New York Times editorial about the three billion dollars he has donated to one university.

was about to same the exact same thing. however, as long as this helps, in the broader sense, i hope he buys all the popularity he can get :)

Do you really believe he's getting $800,000,000 of PR out this compared to only giving a billion $?

Agreed.

Bloomberg rejoined the democratic party this year.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/10/michael-bloo...

He also expressed his interest in running for president in 2020.

This is obviously a PR move to win favor amongst the college age people and to gauge his prospects. I'm sure his team is going to poll people, especially students to see how this PR stunt goes and if the numbers look good, he'll declare in a couple of months.

It's no secret that the extremely wealthy tend to have sociopathic tendencies. They don't do anything for charity or out of the goodness of their heart. They always have ulterior and selfish reasons.

There are plenty of people who donate money like this anonymously. Perhaps not quite this amount, but for example my kid's Waldorf school recently got a large anonymous donation of several millions of dollars from "a member of the community." Bloomberg is definitely looking to get something back here, though. Why else would he brag about this in the NYT?

It's hard to donate $1.8billion anonymously, especially to your alma mater (I imagine there are only so many Hopkins alumni capable of that kind of donation and they're all on speed dial on the school's chief fundraiser's phone)

> Why else would he brag about this in the NYT?

To inspire/shame others into doing the same?

Imagine if you had to "keep up with the Joneses" in charitable giving rather than size of house or car or boat.

> This is obviously a PR move to win favor amongst the college age people and to gauge his prospects.

Yes... $1.8 billion is exactly what everyone pays to "gauge their prospects". It's not like it's like 3x times as much as Obama's entire 2012 campaign.

> It's no secret that the extremely wealthy tend to have sociopathic tendencies.

It's not a secret only in the way that it's not a secret that Elvis is alive.

> They don't do anything for charity or out of the goodness of their heart. They always have ulterior and selfish reasons.

Are we still talking about just "the wealthy" or is there any other specific group you had in mind writing this?

Bloomberg has donated almost all profits from his company for the past few decades. Sure everythings technically a 'pr move' but this isnt some new evil plan or anything.

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