> it's easy to give away money if you have it.

You'd think that, and yet so few of them give anything significant away (unless you count political donations).

For every one Newmark or MacKenzie Scott who does give there are hundreds who only use charitable trusts as a tax haven, if at all.

So when one of them manages to avoid the extreme-wealth-to-meanness pipeline theorized by Paul Piff (et al) I'm happy to recognize the good they are doing in the world when so many of their peers are going so hard in the other direction.

▲

rayiner 7 hours ago | parent [-]

> MacKenzie Scott

What exactly has been achieved with the billions MacKenzie Scott has given away? She seems to do very little vetting of the organizations she donates to. And upon a cursory inspection, they mostly seem like the kinds of organizations where most of the donor dollars go to white collar non-profit employees that produce little in the way of results, with very little going to needy people.

I feel like the billions might be better used to piggyback on government programs that have already identified need. For example, we could offer universal school lunch for an incremental $11 billion a year (on top of the $18 billion the government already spends). I bet a few of these “giving pledge” billionaires could just fund such a program in perpetuity.

▲

georgemcbay 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Not really interested in arguing about whether or not she is giving her money away perfectly or to the best causes according to your (or my or anyone's) standards.

She gets credit from me for doing actual philanthropy instead of just cosplaying it for tax purposes, which has been the norm even for quite a few of the other "giving pledge" donors.

As far as bolstering government programs go, I'd love to see billionaires doing more in that area, but I'd also like to see us tax wealth properly to fund the government doing the government's job.

	▲	rayiner an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It seems odd to give someone credit for something while refusing to engage with whether those actions have a meaningful positive effect.