How do you end 'cancel culture'?

[amadeus]

I've heard this argument a few times and its never hit right to me. "Oh those poor billionaires, they want to give away all their money see but you see they can't because market forces, its so sad!". Honestly, even if Buffet gave away all of his wealth and it lost like 90% of its value, that's still 7.27 billion USD. Imagine the amount of good one could do with that kind of money.

In your scenario, you've inadvertently destroyed 90% of the potential charitable contribution and the pension funds of many people and quite possibly jeopardized the solvency of Berkshire-Hathaway itself. What good has this contributed to society?

But lets pretend that you're correct and that it is physically impossible for the billionaires to give away more money to charity than they earn. Warren Buffet is 89 years old so he'd be lucky to make it to 2030. Lets say in 2030 he dies and he gives away all his money to a big trust that's meant to burn through all that money and give it to charity. But by our earlier assumptions, that is physically impossible. Simply through inertia it will grow bigger and bigger for all of eternity (short of someone messing up and wasting all the money on bad investments).

If charitable endowments grow as a result of sound investment, it can do more charitable good.

 

[NinjaCow64]

In your scenario, you've inadvertently destroyed 90% of the potential charitable contribution and the pension funds of many people and quite possibly jeopardized the solvency of Berkshire-Hathaway itself. What good has this contributed to society?

Potential charitable contribution. If they never are going to be able to give that money to charity without destroying it, then it may as well not exist. What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless where that money that they are never going to see goes to?

Perhaps the real answer to this is to stop messing around with all this financial fiction and deal in actual assets (e.g land, factories).

If charitable endowments grow as a result of sound investment, it can do more charitable good.

You don't see how inherently absurd the idea of a charitable organisation that can't give away all of its assets to charity is and just continues to accumulate wealth on behalf of no one is?

 

[Lexicus]

Radical idea incoming, instead of pretending that billionaire tax evasion schemes (aka "charity") are some kind of moral justification for the billlionaire's vast wealth, just tax them more

 

[amadeus]

Potential charitable contribution. If they never are going to be able to give that money to charity without destroying it, then it may as well not exist. What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless where that money that they are never going to see goes to?

First off, if you sell off those assets in one fell swoop you get less for them. Flooding the market with shares of stock is not a good idea.

Second, your ultimate goal and my ultimate goal are not in opposition: I want to see the maximum benefit of any dollar of charitable donation given. What I’m saying is that the means to do so at first seem counterintuitive.

Perhaps the real answer to this is to stop messing around with all this financial fiction and deal in actual assets (e.g land, factories).

It’s a necessary fiction, unless you want all companies to be held in private by a single family or something. Devaluing these companies through behavior known to be reckless does no charitable good.

You don't see how inherently absurd the idea of a charitable organisation that can't give away all of its assets to charity is and just continues to accumulate wealth on behalf of no one is?

I didn’t say that charitable outlays wouldn’t be increased, just that more good can be done with sound investment. University endowments operate on this principle, as does Norway’s sovereign wealth fund; should both of those be sold off immediately at their face value?

Radical idea incoming, instead of pretending that billionaire tax evasion schemes (aka "charity") are some kind of moral justification for the billlionaire's vast wealth, just tax them more

I don’t think tax laws work this way. Charitable deductions don’t offset any tax liability greater than the donation.

 

[Robert Can't]

I'm not sure the terrifying behemoth of cancel culture could have a real effect on billionaires even if said billionaires were horrible people and everyone knew it.
Furthermore I'd suppose that a billionaire would have much more power and influence to get me fired than a bunch of angry twitterists.

So I guess the woke mob just isn't that powerful or scary at all, at least not compared to the existence of rich people.

 

[Yeekim]

Radical idea incoming, instead of pretending that billionaire tax evasion schemes (aka "charity") are some kind of moral justification for the billlionaire's vast wealth, just tax them more

Nothing radical about progressive taxation, it is necessary and good.
Charity is sometimes a cover for tax evasion. Putting an unqualified equation mark between the two is unfair.
Charity is not "moral justification" for vast wealth.

 

[Modder_Mode]

the white unemployment rate is nearly more than triple for black,
some front-liners got they gun in your back
bubblin crack, jewel theft and robbery to combat poverty
and end up in the global jail economy
stiffer stipulations attached to each sentence,
budget cutbacks but increased police presence
and even if you get out of prison still livin
join the other 5 million under state supervision
this is business!
no faces, just lines and statistics
from your phone, your zip code, to SSI digits
the system break man, child, woman into figures
two columns for who is, and who ain't ******

OK but how are these things caused by oppression?

Just casually asking whether or not black people are being currently oppressed during a year in which there's been historic civil disobedience and marches directly related to the fact that the police continue to victimize, kill and attack the black community

Asking the real questions folks

How was George Floyd being murdered racist? I get some people are protesting police brutality in general, but how was George Floyds death a racist act?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

How was George Floyd being murdered racist? I get some people are protesting police brutality in general, but how was George Floyds death a racist act?

Yikes.

 

[aelf]

Glad to see that the term 'cancel culture' is so indefensible that pretty much no one even wants to talk about it now.

 

[Synobun]

Glad to see that the term 'cancel culture' is so indefensible that pretty much no one even wants to talk about it now.

"How do you end facing consequences for your actions?" isn't much enticing for anyone except the usual suspects.

 

[aelf]

The hysteria over it on the internet is real, though.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

At any rate, there is evidence that the capitalist American economic system is, in fact, inhibiting the uptake and availability of the benefits of new medical technology for the general population.

USA is the exception, not the rule and even US have higher life expectancy today than it had 40 years ago.

 

[Crezth]

USA is the exception, not the rule and even US have higher life expectancy today than it had 40 years ago.

Now you're just making excuses.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Now you're just making excuses.

Excuses for what?

 

[Lexicus]

The US may have a higher life expectancy than 40 years ago but it has a lower life expectancy than five years ago. And that was true before the coronavirus which i assume cuts into the average life expectancy at birth somewhat.

 

[Crezth]

Excuses for what?

For your own criteria.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

black people were paid less before minimum wage

black people are paid less after minimum wage

black people don't ask for raises as often

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/13/stu...-lower-offers-during-salary-negotiations.html

Give society an underclass and you can exploit them.

What cardgame said. Also American slavery was incredibly profitable for Southerner Aristocrats as it meant that they didn't have to pay their labourers and could work African Americans to death.

The primary reason I hate Capitalism is that the only thing it cares about is profit. It rewards those who can acquire wealth and it turns out that extremely immoral things are often also incredibly profitable. Capitalists have and are making loads of money off of slavery, war, genocide and other horrific crimes against humanity. We need to abolish Capitalism and replace it with something that does not encourage crimes against humanity otherwise this will keep happening.

I meant actual reasons with predictive value, my apologies for not clarifying that given which forum I'm posting on .

 

[NinjaCow64]

I meant actual reasons with predictive value, my apologies for not clarifying that given which forum I'm posting on .

You can’t see how paying an African American less than a white person (or literally nothing) for the same work is inherently profitable?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You can’t see how paying an African American less than a white person (or literally nothing) for the same work is inherently profitable?

Slavery ended over a century ago in the US, and correlation is not causation.

People who are short get paid less on average too, is that also correlation at least as relevant? Per above logic it must be, but almost nobody talks about it here for some reason. Defaulting to race/sex constantly instead.

I would be interested in a nuanced look at the data, given people have spouted the "women are paid less for the same work" falsehood for years and still do so. Consider me dubious after years of that.

And even after all of THAT, there's still the hurdle of actually demonstrating profitability. No worker in the US can compete against inexpensive, awful-condition foreign labor in terms of profitability, for example. If you delete the foreign markets to ignore that caveat, you are then left with the question of why the entire work force isn't black Americans, if they're willing to take less pay than white Americans.

When you claim that racism is inherently profitable, you are necessarily claiming there are properties inherent to race that make some races more monetarily valuable than others on average, completely independent of circumstance. I reject that as a racist notion itself.

 

[Lexicus]

Slavery ended over a century ago in the US, and correlation is not causation.

Do you think it is more profitable for an employer to pay his workers wages or to enslave them and pay them nothing?

People who are short get paid less on average too, is that also correlation at least as relevant? Per above logic it must be, but almost nobody talks about it here for some reason. Defaulting to race/sex constantly instead.

Prejudice against short people is also profitable. Simple.

When you claim that racism is inherently profitable, you are necessarily claiming there are properties inherent to race that make some races more monetarily valuable than others on average, completely independent of circumstance. I reject that as a racist notion itself.

Yeah, no. You're misinterpreting the claim entirely and responding to something no one is actually claiming.