
Rich Kids Who Want to Give Away Their Money - paulpauper
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a29008841/rich-kids-revolution-resource-generation/
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imgabe
I'll believe it when they give away enough that they have to get real jobs and
work for a living. Maybe that's overly snarky, but to me something rings
hollow about people sitting in a multi-million dollar loft in Manhattan
pontificating about pronouns and privilege. Like, the privilege isn't all
_that_ bad, is it? I mean it's not like you're trying to give it up. You
aren't renting a run-down office in Toledo so you can maximize the amount
you're giving away. You aren't really looking to inconvenience yourself in any
way, just trying to assuage some guilt.

I guess it's better than spending it all on cocaine and hookers. Would it be
worse to invest the money in a way that employs people fairly even if makes a
profit for yourself? I don't think so.

~~~
lr4444lr
Spending it on hookers would directly remunerate the "working class" though,
no?

~~~
dadarepublic
Your comment is a tad snarky and strays off topic within the snark... But for
real, why not recognize sex work as a legitimate profession?

~~~
rayiner
As the recent Epstein revelations are proving, there is so much coercion and
trafficking in sex work that deeming it a legitimate industry is not
plausible.

~~~
dadarepublic
Isn't that an argument for recognizing sex work as a legitimate profession?

Exploitation can happen in any number of professions up and down the value
chain. It's one reason why we have corporate & labor law and why we don't have
young children working in mines any longer.

~~~
rayiner
No? Your child labor example shows exactly why. At some point, the inherent
tendency for a certain type of work to be exploitive means that the correct
solution is to ban it entirely. We didn’t regulate child factory labor, we
banned it. (Of course, we prosecute factory owners who use child labor, and
not the children, but we could do that with sex work too.)

[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J189v02n03_03](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J189v02n03_03)

> We interviewed 854 people currently or recently in prostitution in 9
> countries (Canada, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand,
> Turkey, United States, and Zambia), inquiring about current and lifetime
> history of sexual and physical violence. We found that prostitution was
> multitraumatic: 71% were physically assaulted in prostitution; 63% were
> raped; 89% of these respondents wanted to escape prostitution, but did not
> have other options for survival. A total of 75% had been homeless at some
> point in their lives; 68% met criteria for PTSD. Severity of PTSD symptoms
> was strongly associated with the number of different types of lifetime
> sexual and physical violence.

Decriminalization doesn’t fix these problems.
[https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-
legalized-...](https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-
prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/)

> Countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human
> trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited. The
> scale effect of legalizing prostitution, i.e. expansion of the market,
> outweighs the substitution effect, where legal sex workers are favored over
> illegal workers. On average, countries with legalized prostitution report a
> greater incidence of human trafficking inflows.

That’s why I bring up Epstein. Consider Stallman’s defense of Minsky: “she
probably presented as willing.” What does the regulatory regime look like?
Does requiring a license guarantee that women are willing, and not merely
presenting as willing? Do inspectors come around and check that pimps aren’t
physically abusing women or plying them with drugs? Legal prostitution gives
cover to illegal prostitution. And it creates demand that can be satisfied by
either legal or illegal prostitution, but where customers have no way to
discern the difference.

~~~
zozbot234
It's not that some work has some "inherent tendency" to be exploitive. It's
just that some lines of work are extremely vulnerable to exploitive forms
masquerading as non-exploitive, to the point where the whole "market" unravels
and only the exploitive form dominates. Child labor also falls into this,
basically. But prostitution is even more obvious.

And no, people haven't really shown how to fix the issue. Maybe it could be
done via strict regulation _combined_ with a high price floor, to purposefully
turn it into a manageable, "niche" industry where qualitative factors are
prized and discourage opportunistic entry. But while that might be okay even
to many self-identified 'sex workers', let's not pretend that plenty of people
wouldn't be disappointed by such an approach.

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asdfman123
I feel like Bill Gates's idea of giving away all your money so children won't
die is the only rational and sane thing to do.

I cannot imagine having billions of dollars and being like, "Nah, forget the
children. I need three more yachts." I genuinely don't get it.

~~~
ptah
Bill Gates come from multi-generational wealth and his kids are not any
different. They will inherit $10 million each as well as expensive education
etc etc.

~~~
paulpauper
going from billions to 10 million is a big downgrade though

~~~
whamlastxmas
Inheriting the Gates name is probably worth a lot more than $10mm.

~~~
jdironman
And if they're smart, they can make that 10m make them even more money. I just
cant imagine ever needing that much money unless I did my dream of travelling
and staying somewhere new all the time.

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heyflyguy
At first I think "oh yeah, really noble...give away your birthright money you
didn't earn".

But really if it's that instead of becoming a social media influencer,
starting a ridiculous furniture or clothing line...I think I'm in favor of
this.

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kresten
The only way you’d be willing to get rid of all your money is if you’d never
experienced being poor.

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ptah
This is really great. It would be even better if the money was distributed
earlier to the workers that made their parents and grandparents excessively
wealthy

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hnarayanan
I have plenty of solid ideas if anyone wishes to direct their excess resources
my way. :)

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hprotagonist
“Zacchaeus, come down from that tree immediately. I must stay at your house
today.”

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jkingsbery
"I wish it wasn’t something that I had to do voluntarily."

I think this is the crux of a major philosophical difference. Someone made a
bunch of money, and decided to put trust in _you_ to do what you thought best
with it (give it away, invest it, whatever). The sentiment expressed by this
individual in the article is a delegation of that trust - they would rather
have someone else (presumably, the government) decide for them the best way to
use that money.

At the same time, it's not like anyone in this article is really giving it all
away. Last week, Catholics celebrated the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. He
would be a useful role model for anyone who feels like they have too much
privilege of how to actually give away all that you have (and still not have
birthday vacations and lunch at Le Pain Quotidien).

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glitchc
I'm not holding my breath. I would rather they spend it excessively, living a
life of complete hedonism. This is perhaps the most efficient way of
distributing their wealth throughout society.

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bluedino
These are trust fund kids.

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ryanmercer
Stuff like this always makes me laugh, mostly out of the insanity of it. Most
of these types have never had to file bankruptcy, or worry about paying the
month past due bill(s), or how they're going to eat or feed their children.
They have no idea what people need. When they want to play philanthropist to
'save the world' I just can't help but laugh.

You want to make a real difference? Find some people, give them a monthly
stipend, tell them it'll last x years and they should use it to improve their
situation.

Say you have 1 million dollars you want to do something with:

\- Find 15 people

\- Give each one $500 a month for a decade as a stipend/annuity.

\- Take the other 100k and give four $5,000 scholarships a year for 5 years.

You'll radically change 20~ lives profoundly. For me $500 a month would be
another week and change of take home pay every month, over the course of a
decade it would be 35-45% of a house here around Indy.

Hell, I only need 700k to retire with a 3% safe withdrawal rate if I do not
have kids (34 and not married so doubt that's happening). You could take that
1 million and give 10 people 100k and say "congrats, I just put you a decade
closer to retirement!" and the impact it would have would be drastic for those
individuals, and if you're worried about them blowing it on stupid stuff, just
spread it out, 1k a month for 8 years and change.

Have a financial planner create a document that gives them suggestions on how
to invest it into retirement vehicles or educational programs, or just point
them at the /r/personalfinance sidebar and ask them to write you an update
each month on what's going on in their life. Feel good for the better part of
a decade.

\---

I don't have a college degree, EVERYONE wants a college degree. I had a multi-
millionaire, that at the time was running not one but TWO companies tell me he
was sorry that I was running into a wall for not having a degree and that he
was sorry it has become a "de facto union card". I begged, and begged, and
even suggested things I could do for either company or some other endeavor of
his and "I'm real busy right now" was all I got.

Last summer this individual that flew me clear across the country and put me
up in a hotel for 2 days, to talk to me face to face for less than 1 hour -
while they worked on their laptop the entire time. I spent all of my Sunday,
Monday and Tuesday finally getting home at 8pm, having arrived at the airport
here 8am Sunday, so they could talk to me for maybe 40 minutes face to face...
the money they wasted on that was about 2 weeks of my take home pay.

I imagine they didn't think anything of it. "Hey I'm busy, I'd like to meet
this person, I'll have them journey across the country so we can have a
meeting since they aren't local" probably didn't think anything of it. but to
me I thought they were finally going to give me a 'trial' job and wanted to do
it face to face. Nope. Just wanted to meet me. I was devastated. For a week or
so leading up to getting there I was like "This is it, this is it!!!" and then
just "hi, nice to finally meet you"...

People with this sort of wealth, simply have no concept of reality for
'normal' people.

~~~
whamlastxmas
It seems pretty clear that the trip was an interview and you didn't pass?

I also disagree that being rich doesn't mean you're oblivious to how the world
works for most people. It doesn't take a genius to realize a lot of people
struggle to put food on the table.

~~~
ryanmercer
>It seems pretty clear that the trip was an interview and you didn't pass?

I don't know how interviews work in California but here in the midwest someone
that's been playing email tag for you with a year doesn't fly you out, put you
up for two nights, and talk to you about random stuff between meetings with
their feet up on the table with no mention of either company they run.

>It doesn't take a genius to realize a lot of people struggle to put food on
the table

There's a world of difference of going "I know some people can't afford food"
and understanding what it is like to actually be in that position. Unless
you've been there, you can't claim that.

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sverige
At last, an article that fully explores the aspirations of trust fund kids! I
had no idea they are so virtuous!

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madengr
They can give away their money, as long as they don’t force others to do the
same, which is typical of socialists.

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elif
I am excited for the era of millineal politicians. I think we'll possibly get
more non-greedy than greedy ones.

~~~
asdfman123
Will we? Boomers were the generation of love and social change, but they
integrated into the system just like everyone else.

~~~
Ididntdothis
True. From “Love and peace” in the 60s to “Greed is good” in the 80s.

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RickJWagner
That's great. Rich people often give their money away, I'm sure it helps them
feel good about themselves.

If these kids are so inclined, more power to them. I hope they pick great
causes.

~~~
dade_
It actually feels good giving away money. Try giving away $100, it doesn't
need to be a million.

~~~
ryanmercer
>Try giving away $100

That's a day's take home for some of us.

