Zuckerberg Giving Away 99% of His Facebook Shares

KomradeBishop

Azalea wrote: »

It's implicit in the posts criticising this act. I mean, I can totally understand people analysing the act, and pointing out that it may not quite be the definition of charity, but ultimately, he is still giving the money away - and doesn't have to. And he is being criticised for that alone. It's baffling. On The Guardian comments "He thinks he's Jesus" - huh?

Same, on a much smaller scale obviously, with the Brendan O'Carroll thing - people bitching and moaning that it's a PR stunt rather than focusing on the fact that the man is helping people. People can be so miserable.

How exactly is it implicit? How is someone supposed to criticize the actions of billionaires like this, without it being 'implicit' in your eyes?

A more accurate representation is spending money, to pursue goals which are partially very political - a lot of 'charities' also spend money on political lobbying to this effect too: Is that 'giving' money, or is it spending money on lobbying?


The point is, to analyse their actions, and ask "cui bono" - who benefits? - and when you see that some of these 'charitable' actions arguably benefit the wealthy through promoting increased privatization of education, rather than truly helping the needy, then you see that there's a level of dishonesty in trying to portray this as charitable.

So who are they helping? In a lot of cases, this 'charity' is them helping themselves, to pursue their own political goals.

Why should they be given benefit of the doubt, and not be criticized, when their actions have results like this?

Kermit.de.frog

Fair play to him. Facebook is sh!te though.

KomradeBishop

FortySeven wrote: »

Done a bit of research on this. the LLC he has set up with his daughter named as a shareholder she has no tax liability as she is getting shares in nothing, he can now move his facebook shares into into it, effectively avoiding one of the most stringent inheritence taxes in the world. He can also sell his shares without spooking the market as he is doing it for philantropy, this allows him a bit of freedom without shocking the share price every time he sells. This company can then invest this money in for example, drug companies in the market and sit back pretty, while 'improving drug treatments', with a more diversified stock portfolio than a big chunk of facebook.

Tax free for his descendant. Nice move.

Let's face it, if he wanted to give to charity, what was stopping him, why the need for a limited liability setup.

Excellent points - and also: These 'charities' often end up investing in corporations with an extremely reprehensible history for unethical actions; just look at some of the investments of the Gates Foundation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Bill_.26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation_Trust_Investments

Exxon Mobil for example: One of the leading corporations in suppressing climate change research in the world, and knowingly/fraudulently promoting climate change denial - despite their own scientists telling them consistently for decades, that climate change is largely driven by man-made causes.
Something that will cause enormous externalized costs for people in the world (disproportionately affecting the needy in parts of the developing world especially), and which negatively affects us all.

That's only picking one example out of that too. So look at what these 'charities' really support; virtually none of them are dirt-free.

Leroy Brown

Nice move.

KomradeBishop

KomradeBishop wrote: »

The criticisms of his actions, grounded in evidence, are not a matter of opinion. As the saying goes "everyone's entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts".

Putting money towards a political goal, which has the end result of aiding the wealthy more than it aids those who are more needy, definitely does not fit the colloquial definition of charity - which is why 'charity' is more appropriate a term.


When people try to muddy the facts, they always start off by trying to drag everything down to the level of 'opinion'.

Our opinions differ!

Zuckerberg won't care too much either way and nor, I think, will any benefiting from his acts of charity (no apostrophes here). Onlookers with opinions either side shall remain onlookers until they onlook elsewhere. Lyfe, mayne.