NY Times Op-Ed: Beware Rich People Who Say They Want to Change the World

[Bozo the kKklown]

 

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“Change the world. Improve lives. Invent something new,” McKinsey & Company’s recruiting materials say. “Sit back, relax, and change the world,” tweets the World Economic Forum, host of the Davos conference. “Let’s raise the capital that builds the things that change the world,” a Morgan Stanley ad says. Walmart, recruiting a software engineer, seeks an “eagerness to change the world.” Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook says, “The best thing to do now, if you want to change the world, is to start a company.”

 

At first, you think: Rich people making a difference — so generous! Until you consider that America might not be in the fix it’s in had we not fallen for the kind of change these winners have been selling: fake change.

 

Fake change isn’t evil; it’s milquetoast. It is change the powerful can tolerate. It’s the shoes or socks or tote bag you bought which promised to change the world. It’s that one awesome charter school — not equally funded public schools for all. It is Lean In Circles to empower women — not universal preschool. It is impact investing — not the closing of the carried-interest loophole.

 

Of course, world-changing initiatives funded by the winners of market capitalism do heal the sick, enrich the poor and save lives. But even as they give back, American elites generally seek to maintain the system that causes many of the problems they try to fix — and their helpfulness is part of how they pull it off. Thus their do-gooding is an accomplice to greater, if more invisible, harm.

 

What their “change” leaves undisturbed is our winners-take-all economy, which siphons the gains from progress upward. The average pretax income of America’s top 1 percent has more than tripled since 1980, and that of the top 0.001 percent has risen more than sevenfold, even as the average income of the bottom half of Americans stagnated around $16,000, adjusted for inflation, according to a paper by the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

 

 

American elites are monopolizing progress, and monopolies can be broken. Aggressive policies to protect workers, redistribute income, and make education and health affordable would bring real change. But such measures could also prove expensive for the winners. Which gives them a strong interest in convincing the public that they can help out within the system that so benefits the winners.

 

 

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/opinion/sunday/wealth-philanthropy-fake-change.html

Another article on this topic:

 

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Meanwhile, the losses to the U.S. Treasury keep mounting. In 2016, the tax deduction for charitable contributions cost the federal government at least fifty billion dollars. Is there any justification for this arrangement? Reich considers several possibilities. One is that the government, by encouraging giving to private philanthropies, is fostering participation in civic affairs. This rationale he discards, since, if anything, the correlation seems to be negative. “The rise of nonprofit organizations in the United States and the use of the charitable contributions deduction coincides with the decline of civic engagement and associational life,” he observes.

 

A second possibility is that giving promotes equality. Once again, Reich is skeptical. The deduction for charitable contributions is available only to taxpayers who itemize their returns, and these people tend to be relatively affluent. And the more affluent they are the more the deduction is worth: families in the highest tax bracket get a much bigger break than those in the lowest.

 

How about all the needy families that are being assisted? Here the figures are harder to come by, but, even so, they don’t look very good. A recent study suggests that, at most, a third of all tax-deductible giving goes toward aiding the poor. And the donors who are getting the biggest tax breaks are, it turns out, the least likely to be aiding the indigent: Reich cites research that suggests “the inclination to give to help meet basic needs declines as one rises up the income ladder.”

 

Instead of promoting equality, Reich worries, tax subsidies for philanthropy may actually be doing the reverse. He cites, in particular, local-education foundations, or lefs. These are, essentially, souped-up PTAs, formed to supplement public-school budgets, and they’ve grown dramatically in recent years. Some lefs raise only enough money to buy paint sets or musical instruments, but some, in more affluent districts, raise thousands of dollars a pupil. In the town of Hillsborough, California, just north of Stanford, Reich reports, parents of public-school students get a letter at the start of the year asking for a contribution of twenty-three hundred dollars for each child enrolled. While the contributing parents can’t dictate exactly how the money will be spent, Reich writes, it’s easy to imagine groups of parents pressing the district to hire specialized teachers or to purchase sophisticated equipment that “can be targeted to benefit their own children.” This arrangement, in his view, exacerbates existing inequities in school funding, and, since contributions to lefs are tax deductible, rich districts are, in effect, receiving a subsidy from other taxpayers.

 

Read more: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/08/27/gospels-of-giving-for-the-new-gilded-age

[Bozo the kKklown]

Interview with the writer of the first article:

 

 

[Bozo the kKklown]

 

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Ah yes, class warfare.  

[TradeTheBeal!]

The dudes at Stormfront and Black Israelites wanna change the world too...but they’re dirt poor.  Does their poverty somehow elevate their credibility?

[Spaceman Spiff]

2 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

The dudes at Stormfront and Black Israelites wanna change the world too...but they’re dirt poor.  Does their poverty somehow elevate their credibility?

 

Are you calling them the hipsters of the world change movement?

 

What about the members of the New Provo Front in Northern Ireland?  What about the members of Liberte de Quebec in Canada?  Or in Sri Lanka, the Asian Dawn movement?  They want to change the world too.  Not sure how rich/poor they are, though.

[Bozo the kKklown]

8 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

Ah yes, class warfare.  

Not sure if you noticed, but the wealthy have waged class war on everyone else since Reagan took over.

 

Saying that, this isn't what this is about. Wealthy people need to pay more in taxes instead of establishing BS foundations.

[TradeTheBeal!]

2 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

Are you calling them the hipsters of the world change movement?

 

What about the members of the New Provo Front in Northern Ireland?  What about the members of Liberte de Quebec in Canada?  Or in Sri Lanka, the Asian Dawn movement?  They want to change the world too.  Not sure how rich/poor they are, though.

 

You have to admire their DIY ethos.  Very punk rock!

[CousinsCowgirl84]

Poverty has been mans natural state since he walked the earth. Wealth is created, not given or taken. Rich peoples calls for changing the world should generally be heeded, as most likely they’ve already changed the world.

[redskinss]

9 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

Are you calling them the hipsters of the world change movement?

 

What about the members of the New Provo Front in Northern Ireland?  What about the members of Liberte de Quebec in Canada?  Or in Sri Lanka, the Asian Dawn movement?  They want to change the world too.  Not sure how rich/poor they are, though.

Did you read about them in time magazine?

[NoCalMike]

Weird, it's only considered "Class Warfare" when those who have been swindled for decades start to question the system.  

[TradeTheBeal!]

Re: Class warfare.  As usual, Carlin has the definitive take on the subject.  NSFW

 

 

[Captain Wiggles]

15 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

Not sure if you noticed, but the wealthy have waged class war on everyone else since Reagan took over.

 

 

The wealthy have been at it a whole lot longer than that. Our country was founded by wealthy land owners intent on increasing their wealth and power at the expense of others.

 

 

 

[Bozo the kKklown]

2 minutes ago, clietas said:

 

The wealthy have been at it a whole lot longer than that. Our country was founded by wealthy land owners intent on increasing their wealth and power at the expense of others.

 

 

 

I’m aware

 

then the Great Depression happened and they had to retreat following the New Deal.

 

Since Reagan, the wealthy have enacted another war on everyone.

16 minutes ago, NoCalMike said:

Weird, it's only considered "Class Warfare" when those who have been swindled for decades start to question the system.  

Exactly

[Captain Wiggles]

7 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

 

Since Reagan, the wealthy have enacted another war on everyone.

Exactly

 

They're just trying to go back to a pre new deal era. Since Nixon Republicans have actively worked to dismantle much of FDRs legislation. 

 

I agree since Reagan its been amplified. The dismantling of unions in particular durring that period is a excellent example of class warfare imo. Deregulation is a complete scam and so many Americans have fallen for it over the past 40 years. 

[NoCalMike]

As the Rush quote goes, "Roosevelt is dead, his policies may live on but we're in the process of doing something about that as well"

 

Been a long process, over a long period of time.  Takes effort to bamboozle half of the country to vote against their own economic interests. 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

Beware of articles using phoney math

 

Quote

 

What their “change” leaves undisturbed is our winners-take-all economy, which siphons the gains from progress upward. The average pretax income of America’s top 1 percent has more than tripled since 1980, and that of the top 0.001 percent has risen more than sevenfold, even as the average income of the bottom half of Americans stagnated around $16,000, adjusted for inflation, according to a paper by the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.
 

 

 

 

compares pretax average increase in income to income adjusted for inflation...

 

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American elites are monopolizing progress, 
 

 

 

thats because the elite are the ones making the progress. Do something great and you’ll be rewarded for it. Make 9.25 at Walmart making sure to use all of your sick days, then complain about how it’s not fair the doers are rich... not so much.

 

wealth exists because people decide they value what was created more than they value their money. In fact, most of the super rich are rich for selling what people want, not what they need. They have convinced people to give them their disposable income in exchange for vanity. 

 

 

[NoCalMike]

7 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Beware of articles using phoney math

 

 

 

compares pretax average increase in income to income adjusted for inflation...

 

 

thats because the elite are the ones making the progress. Do something great and you’ll be rewarded for it. Make 9.25 at Walmart making sure to use all of your sick days, then complain about how it’s not fair the doers are rich... not so much.

 

wealth exists because people decide they value what was created more than they value their money. In fact, most of the super rich are rich for selling what people want, not what they need. They have convinced people to give them their disposable income in exchange for vanity. 

 

 

 

This has been my argument for awhile.  I, nor most liberals I know have a problem with a CEO or higher positions making more money than I do.  This isn't about "everyone should make the same" or whatever "Socialism boogeyman" strawman is being introduced.  It is more about how the gap is constantly widening.  Not only are the gains at the top going up, but the percentage of what they are going up by are increasing. That is a problem.  Workers benefits constantly being cut, bonuses, perks, etc etc....wages stay flat, percentage of merit increases are ridiculously sad, yet records show the revenue is there to do more for workers, a lot more, but it's not going to them.

[Bozo the kKklown]

 

[DCSaints_fan]

I think the banks are anticipating a recession and general fall in prices.  Market has been bullish for almost 10 years, and is overdue for a correction  So they'll wait it out, and then buy back assets on the cheap. 

[Bozo the kKklown]

1 hour ago, DCSaints_fan said:

I think the banks are anticipating a recession and general fall in prices.  Market has been bullish for almost 10 years, and is overdue for a correction  So they'll wait it out, and then buy back assets on the cheap. 

They have been hoarding money.

 

They are going to cause this recession.

[PeterMP]

8 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

wealth exists because people decide they value what was created more than they value their money. In fact, most of the super rich are rich for selling what people want, not what they need. They have convinced people to give them their disposable income in exchange for vanity. 

 

1.  Your first statement doesn't make sense.  They money existed already so the wealth already existed.  Their desire didn't create the wealth.

 

2.  No, most of the super rich are super rich because their parents were rich, which results in them having access to resources that most people haven't (e.g. exceptional educational resources), and we have tax laws that are written to benefit the wealthy.

 

 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

16 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

1.  Your first statement doesn't make sense.  They money existed already so the wealth already existed.  Their desire didn't create the wealth.

 

Jeff Bezoz was born with a net worth of 150 billion dollars? Wow.

 

16 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

2.  No, most of the super rich are super rich because their parents were rich, which results in them having access to resources that most people haven't (e.g. exceptional educational resources), and we have tax laws that are written to benefit the wealthy.

 

 

 

Most of the super rich got all of their money by selling things people want (not need).

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

9 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Poverty has been mans natural state since he walked the earth. Wealth is created, not given or taken. Rich peoples calls for changing the world should generally be heeded, as most likely they’ve already changed the world.

 Nobody is begrudging people for working hard or creating an amazing company/product that makes them a lot of money. There are people at every income level that will cheat the system though. There are obvious loopholes that many super wealthy are exploiting. That’s what we’re talking about here.

 

i.e. A system where certain people are charged with making the rules that should benefit all of society but where very, very rich people are allowed to use money in order to influence those people so that they will create rules that  benefit very, very rich people instead is not a good system.

[Fergasun]

I think the point is that the Amazon's, Wal-Mart's and other goliaths in the business world should ensure their employees are fairly compensated. It seems obvious things as they are are out of control.

Why are the rich so stingy as a collective to keep the scales tipped in their favor?

I am directly talking about the demonization of socialism.

Ever wonder why there are tons of conservative political radio stations? It's a quasi idealogical arm.... talking about hard core folks like Michelle Malkin, but even Limbaugh and Hugh Hewitt, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, your local conservative radio station. It's the same biased message... put out by the rich for the benefit of the rich. Fox News?

That media arm takes big money to fund.