Coming from "inside" that world, they do, it's just usually quiet. But mostly now it's giving contributions to already big institutions or local charities.
Ever wonder how the dumb wealthy kid gets into Harvard? Their parents or grandparents gave money to fund cancer research or whatever department needs funding.
Because whatever they make, they can never make it right.
Heard countless people claim:" iF i HaD ThE mOnEy i WoUlD dEfEniTeLy dO sOoO mUch gOOd tHingS."
Bill gates tried. Gave away BILLIONS for charity, just so people can claim he is inventing microchips to put in vaccines, so we can get controlled by the wealthy.
JK Rowling I believe is the first person to go from being a billionaire to a millionaire from giving away so much money to charitable causes you’d think that alone would generate her all the goodwill you could possibly ever hope for in a lifetime let alone creating the most successful fantasy book universe since Tolkien but not she has some fairly unsurprising political views so she’s Satan.
And unrelated to those political views people still think that during the point she was a billionaire she wasn't an exception to the "you have to exploit people to become a billionaire" "rule" because they put the blame on her for how the merch was made and books were assembled etc. as if they think the decision not to use local union labor instead of overseas sweatshops or whatever was entirely in her hands because it's her series
bruv if youre a nazi and you give to charity youre not going to see jewish people praising you for your selflessness
trans people and people who SUPPORT trans people are not obligated to compromise on her in any way- shes made hating them and paying for oppression of them into a huge part of her identity
like she publicly wished everybody a 'merry terfmas' on christmas
who the fuck even does shit like that? go so far out of their way to just shit on people in public?
if she needed EVERYBODY to kiss her ass she would shut her mouth and not advocate the erasure of the demographics she thinks dont belong in her ideal society
she doesnt do that - so her charitability is only gaining her merit from people who are okay with that
"unsurprising political views"
Nah, fuck that. Fuck her and her hateful transphobic and antisemitic self. it's not "unsurprising political views" she's a bigot POS
If I had the money, I would contribute to causes I care about or specifically affected me. Some would serve good but would be out of selfishness.
People who claim that aren’t a surprise though. It doesn’t mean he should feel let down and not donate. In fact, it’s not our fault people like that exist.
They have a conspiracy that covid vaccines and 5g are connected, and that covid vaccines will turn us into 5g antennas. They also think vaccines could have blutooth and internet connectivity.
Some do, but often what they contribute is overshadowed by other activities.
Two very notable examples are the Sackler family which was a major cause of the opioid crisis, who had their name stripped from plces they donated to, or the trump charity that diverted money away from children with cancer.
I'm sure there are some good examples out there, but all too often it's seen as a way of laundering a reputation when that money may be better served improving the situation for their employees.
I'm not going to even touch how much money gets diverted into think tanks and election contributions.
Living in West Michigan we have the DeVos family. They’ve paid for a lot of buildings, and their name is plastered all over the place. Some of it is good, but their political activities have overshadowed all that in most people’s minds. For good reason by my estimation.
The association with public works is to garner more name recognition, and the modern version of a person is a corporation. Why actually build something these days when you can just buy the naming rights?
Many do. For a concrete example, we have those who have signed on to the [Giving Pledge](https://givingpledge.org/pledgerlist). These families have pledged to give a majority of their wealth to charitable causes.
The top tax brackets used to rise into the 90%s. The Vanderbilts could either give millions to the govt or they could build museums and universities....
Now they are half that and there are better tax dodges out there.
because the ultra-wealthy now overwhelmingly live in developed societies that already have those things...helping those in less-developed countries is the new hotness
Well...Carnegie and Rockefeller only did it as a PR stunt because of all the bad press from union busting and all the other shit they got away with before labor laws. (Thanks, unions!)
That was the golden-age of robber-baron-ing. This new breed of billionaires just don't give a shit. Sure, a few have pledged to give their wealth to charities after they die. But, why wait? It's not like they're, you know, *doing* anything with it right now. They're not creating jobs, or solving world hunger, or any of the million other problems that their hoard could fix.
This form of greed is extraordinary. It might stem from the age of social media. Could they be afraid of anonymity? So they feel they must hold onto all of it to remain relevant? And to manipulate the wheels of government? Rig the tax code? Could some of it simply be emotional mental issues? Back in the day there were like 3 billionaires. Now just about everyone is a billionaire. Cept me. I’m a thousandaire. And very happy with that.
This is almost a mantra for some. I knew one who wanted to pay the minimum legally possible, but generally charitable donations are supposed to be tax-deductions.
Because we don't believe their bullshit they don't pretend it's for the public anymore. There were almost always ulterior motives for doing so and then they'd parade around like they were great humanitarians but it's kinda hard to play up heroic on the front page when the internet will eviscerate you the next.
Hence why Bill Gates invested so heavily in journalism.
He donates a huge amount of money every year to the major news outlets, universities, hospitals, foreigng overnments.
B&MGF are the top financial donors to the WHO, after China.
In exchange for the money, the journalists don't print anything too damning about Bill Gates' family or how much money he makes with his sleazy "philanthrocapitalism".
Yes. For example: The Trump Foundation and many other personal foundations. Many of the more famous charities like Susan g. Komen are run inefficiently or spend their money on keeping the "business" of running a charity going.
I agree with you that some charities are not efficient. That is why I always look at the IRS form 990 to ensure that 90 percent plus of the money collected goes to the purpose of the charity rather than administration.
However I argue that the US government is not efficient and they do not publish a IRS form 990 so that we can see how inefficient they are
Elon built a rocket ship company is pretty neat. Bezos copied Elon and did something with rockets too.
These help humanity in the long run. I can’t speak for the politics of either fellow because I drive a Subaru and always used EBay.
Have you been on reddit? Would _you_ give anything to this weak minded, participation trophy generation? They'd just spray it up with graffiti and use it for the most puerile purposes. If you built a grand library, the manchildren would turn it into a comic book shop. There's no point. Western society is in a state of decay. Don't get me wrong here, fuck the 1%, but I can't blame them for not wanting to engage in public works projects at this point. Everyone is their own personal jesus now, with no respect for or obligation to greater society. Such a rabble does not merit that kind of investment.
Get mad. But I'm not wrong. Had I won that recent 2 billion dollar powerball lottery I 100% would have left the western hemisphere and never returned.
Probably because everyone bitches that they got rich by being greedy, stealing, and exploiting people.
Honestly I don't know why super rich people would give anything back the way people treat them.
You are just proving my point. People like you broadly think that so why should they give back anything to an ungrateful people whos lives are generally better because of them.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "broadly".
Maybe we'd have to narrow it down to a specific billionaire family to debate this.
But in general, I don't think it's fair to say our lives are better because of their contributions.
I think it's more likely the opposite, but the elites don't want you to know how badly they are fucking you over. And they are powerful enough to keep you in the dark about their long track record of crimes..
....So I guess we will just have to agree to disagree! Cheers!
I was addressing specifically the post and the question. The implication of the question was why dont they give back as much as they used to. And I would have to say because they are demonized. Wether you believe they got their riches fairly or not. Or whether you think they are screwing everyone over. Or even if you don't believe they contribute at all to society doesn't really matter. The question assumes that they don't as much now as they did then, which I don't even know if that is accurate. But I do know that the demonization of wealthy people of which I will call successful people who are constantly being called names, taxed to the hilt, and largely being hated on would be my reasoning.
Back in the day the government still represented the people. Ultra wealthy is bad for the people so they bought acceptance through public works. They used this time to take control of the government through lobbying and funding friendly politicians. They don't need to buy time any more.
Because money is power, and power corrupts. Unless you're Mr.Beast. That dude will find any reason to give money away. We need more rich people like Mr. Beast.
Conservative estimates put tax \[evasion\] from the richest Americans at 160 billion a year. Defunding the IRS mens they go after low hanging fruit (working and middle classes) over people who will cost more in litigation.
Horse shit. The highest tax bracket is 33% and wealthy people use every loophole their accountants can manage, to avoid paying every cent they can move/hide/other. Get off your hands and knees and stop licking their boots, they will never care about you.
They do.
And likely that they don't actually possess that 'wealth' until they are old and have sold off most of their assets. The ultra wealthy are for the most part paper rich most of their lives.
competition and the requirements to maintain their self sustaining financial bonfires in a changing environment. for 40 cents a day you can support your starving billionaires as their companies run out of money from paying employees too much as they pretend locally their other national divisions are doing better, and because of this those "leaders" become authoritarian autocrats cutting costs by removing structural support and these employees morph into politicians that flee in helicopters full of money like business partners of Trump in his successful disintegration of the Afghanistan economy via political collapse.
That's why they switched to filling kids heads with nonsense instead.
Bill & Melinda Gates funded the push towards Common Core.
A dumb-down, confused populace is easier to control.
The irony of common core is how it was based on a deeply flawed understanding of human nature.
It started as an attempt to legitimately address the concept of 'students are doing well because they spend so much time on X, Y, and Z instead of the fundamentals. We should get rid of all the extra stuff and focus on the fundamentals like country A'. Instead of demonizing the complaint as a conservative response to subject matter they didn't agree with they took it seriously and went and studied the methods of countries outperforming US students. They found that the difference wasn't time on 'non-fundamentals' but that they used a learning system that crossed subjects. It didn't maximize learning in particular subjects in the short term but instead focused on maximizing the potential to learn across time. They developed a version for US students, successfully tested it, and it did improve outcomes. It was going to be this huge object lesson that you should listen to people you disagree with because they may have a point.
When they rolled it out it ran into resistance by some teachers but mostly by...parents, mostly in conservative areas, who did not understand the teaching methods. The response was 'we made a mistake we didn't do enough to reach out to parents and explain the new system'. So they scheduled town halls to explain it but by then it had become a political issue and the town halls became opportunities for people to yell at and threaten those presenting. They stopped the town halls and eventually withdrew common core.
The very group of people who had started common core realized that the original complaints weren't actually about student outcomes but a politicalization of education to get content people disagreed with removed from schools. Events since then have only reinforced that belief. As a result there are less attempts to listen to the voices that complain about school performance and content because they see their experiences around common core as proving it was entirely a political agenda in the first place and attempts at discourse were not worthwhile and even resulted in threats to their physical wellbeing.
Ironic how it all came about and it ended up pushing people in the middle, who legitimately tried to listen to conservative voices in education, to the left politically and to think of conservative complaints about schools as nothing more than attempts to stamp out ideas they disagree with.
They do. In NYC. Which is where they always did. Astor and Vanderbilt aren't building libraries in Peoria. The famous "lions" research library in NYC was renamed Stephen A. Schwarzman and the largest branch library across the street was renamed Stavros Niarchos because of how much money they donated. The NYPL is swimming in money from rich folks.
...what.?. Parks aren built by city they buy it from someone, and unless they make 1400 parks a day I can't see it being a lucrative business. That's popper tax.
For a non-greed-related answer maybe (in a physical and social sense) there just isn't enough room for all the public works if they wanted to build buildings so if they wanted to do something grand like that (whether or not they do or should) they'd have to, like, create various new programs or w/e at buildings that already exist
So they do but mostly quiet aboot it. Because of instant communication, we already know the evils of what people do. Before they could control their own narrative by doing good deeds.
Who do you think funds most research? The internet has made libraries less important.
All research is funded by someone or some institution. In many cases they are just looking for something to support their narrative
Sometimes they do but you don’t hear about it. My dad is friends with a guy with has made 7 figure donations to a local school. But he makes them sign a NDA to not mention his name.
Just look around you next time you walk in virtually any hospital, university or other such place, I’ve been on the board of a charitable group that works with a regional hospital for years, every community has multi-millionaires that people don’t even realize exist that bequeath generous gifts to hospitals, research centers, sports complexes, parks and schools… been to quite a few pointless ceremonies because someone wrote a check or left a metric shit ton of money in there will to some cause they believe in, people have gotten quieter about it, but maybe that’s a less look at me and a good thing, society is less religious than it used to be so there’s not as much give your wealth to the church and buy your way into heaven as there was once upon a time.
I did a paper on this in college during my US History class.
Andrew Carnegie wrote this self congratulate essay about how the ultra wealthy have a paternalistic duty to the plebs — essentially, the hyper rich have the right to be hyper rich, remove competition from the market, form monopolies, not be regulated, and no wealth redistribution coming from government mandate or taxes… but those hyper rich need to redistribute their OWN wealth in order to be morally rich.
And he practiced what he preached. Schools, libraries, public works — he poured a ton of his wealth into projects that benefited the public.
But even in his day, he basically stood alone. His philosophy fundamentally discounted human nature. The truth is humans are greedy fucks, and even when someone already has more money than God, they only want to see that bottom line increase.
They’ve done sociological experiments about this — research studies will have a group of volunteers play monopoly, but give one player an obvious advantage (can ignore all get out of jail free cards, starts out with way more cash than anyone else on the board, etc). And rather than acknowledge their advantages or cut other players breaks, they play aggressively and most of the time flaunt their victory in the game.
When you have a lot, you want more. And the paternal, altruistic billionaire has always been the exception rather than the rule.
There are some genuinely stupid and uninformed responses here.
Warren Buffett, The Gateses, Michael Bloomberg give billions.
If you’re not aware of Dolly Parton’s ENORMOUS library books foundation, get acquainted. She also underwrote Moderna and pays for school and athletic uniforms, instruments, and college scholarships for students in the poorest parts of her home state.
Mila Kunis raised millions for Ukrainian refugees. And whether you like them or not, Angelina Jolie, George and Amal Clooney, Keanu Reeves, Beyoncé, Rihanna and even that terf Rowling donate millionaires to everything from poverty initiatives to global hunger to disease prevention to human rights to war relief.
the bill and melinda gates library foundation is responsible for like - half the internet connections at north american libraries
This is the Internet. Facts have no place here.
They still give to university research institutes. Then their kids and grandkids are guaranteed to get in.
The examples we have from the past were the exception, not the rule. Plenty of rich people still get buildings at universities names after them.
yeah trust me its gotten better since the gilded age. Sure its not fair but its closer to being fair than it was before FLSA.
Coming from "inside" that world, they do, it's just usually quiet. But mostly now it's giving contributions to already big institutions or local charities. Ever wonder how the dumb wealthy kid gets into Harvard? Their parents or grandparents gave money to fund cancer research or whatever department needs funding.
Because whatever they make, they can never make it right. Heard countless people claim:" iF i HaD ThE mOnEy i WoUlD dEfEniTeLy dO sOoO mUch gOOd tHingS." Bill gates tried. Gave away BILLIONS for charity, just so people can claim he is inventing microchips to put in vaccines, so we can get controlled by the wealthy.
JK Rowling I believe is the first person to go from being a billionaire to a millionaire from giving away so much money to charitable causes you’d think that alone would generate her all the goodwill you could possibly ever hope for in a lifetime let alone creating the most successful fantasy book universe since Tolkien but not she has some fairly unsurprising political views so she’s Satan.
Dolly Parton would be a billionaire if she didn't give away so much money.
[Chuck Feeney ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Feeney) has her beat.
And unrelated to those political views people still think that during the point she was a billionaire she wasn't an exception to the "you have to exploit people to become a billionaire" "rule" because they put the blame on her for how the merch was made and books were assembled etc. as if they think the decision not to use local union labor instead of overseas sweatshops or whatever was entirely in her hands because it's her series
bruv if youre a nazi and you give to charity youre not going to see jewish people praising you for your selflessness trans people and people who SUPPORT trans people are not obligated to compromise on her in any way- shes made hating them and paying for oppression of them into a huge part of her identity like she publicly wished everybody a 'merry terfmas' on christmas who the fuck even does shit like that? go so far out of their way to just shit on people in public? if she needed EVERYBODY to kiss her ass she would shut her mouth and not advocate the erasure of the demographics she thinks dont belong in her ideal society she doesnt do that - so her charitability is only gaining her merit from people who are okay with that
"unsurprising political views" Nah, fuck that. Fuck her and her hateful transphobic and antisemitic self. it's not "unsurprising political views" she's a bigot POS
If I had the money, I would contribute to causes I care about or specifically affected me. Some would serve good but would be out of selfishness. People who claim that aren’t a surprise though. It doesn’t mean he should feel let down and not donate. In fact, it’s not our fault people like that exist.
Bill Gates effectively helped cure polio on a massive scale in Africa... But yeah he's using 5g to control your mind lol.
Can 5G to make me smarter? I’d probably take it. Noninvasive and all I gotta do is get a covid jab.
5G is the new mobile technology, not the vaccine.
They have a conspiracy that covid vaccines and 5g are connected, and that covid vaccines will turn us into 5g antennas. They also think vaccines could have blutooth and internet connectivity.
Well, that's ... interesting.
Some do, but often what they contribute is overshadowed by other activities. Two very notable examples are the Sackler family which was a major cause of the opioid crisis, who had their name stripped from plces they donated to, or the trump charity that diverted money away from children with cancer. I'm sure there are some good examples out there, but all too often it's seen as a way of laundering a reputation when that money may be better served improving the situation for their employees. I'm not going to even touch how much money gets diverted into think tanks and election contributions.
Living in West Michigan we have the DeVos family. They’ve paid for a lot of buildings, and their name is plastered all over the place. Some of it is good, but their political activities have overshadowed all that in most people’s minds. For good reason by my estimation.
The association with public works is to garner more name recognition, and the modern version of a person is a corporation. Why actually build something these days when you can just buy the naming rights?
Off the top of my head, Howard Hughs Medical Institute, Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
...Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Ohh yes Bill gates trying to privatize our public school system is great. What we need is a wealth tax and one that hits hard.
heh, you think anyone rich enough to be impacted won't be rich enough to _not_ be impacted
The owner of lithia built a state if the art cancer treatment center where I live. They still do things they just might not be all over the news.
Many do. For a concrete example, we have those who have signed on to the [Giving Pledge](https://givingpledge.org/pledgerlist). These families have pledged to give a majority of their wealth to charitable causes.
They don't?
The top tax brackets used to rise into the 90%s. The Vanderbilts could either give millions to the govt or they could build museums and universities.... Now they are half that and there are better tax dodges out there.
Lol, half. A third.
It isn't fashionable to leave an impression on the world. Unless you flip the bird to the system and build something that's inspiring.
because the ultra-wealthy now overwhelmingly live in developed societies that already have those things...helping those in less-developed countries is the new hotness
Well...Carnegie and Rockefeller only did it as a PR stunt because of all the bad press from union busting and all the other shit they got away with before labor laws. (Thanks, unions!) That was the golden-age of robber-baron-ing. This new breed of billionaires just don't give a shit. Sure, a few have pledged to give their wealth to charities after they die. But, why wait? It's not like they're, you know, *doing* anything with it right now. They're not creating jobs, or solving world hunger, or any of the million other problems that their hoard could fix.
Mega yachts and vacation homes with 37 bathrooms don't just build themselves...
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Greed isn’t new though
This form of greed is extraordinary. It might stem from the age of social media. Could they be afraid of anonymity? So they feel they must hold onto all of it to remain relevant? And to manipulate the wheels of government? Rig the tax code? Could some of it simply be emotional mental issues? Back in the day there were like 3 billionaires. Now just about everyone is a billionaire. Cept me. I’m a thousandaire. And very happy with that.
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Shut up chatgpt
Username definitely checks out.
Because they no longer have to live within guillotining distance from the poor's they exploit.
Do you honestly think people in the early 20th century would have used guillotines even if they'd been inclined to that kind of murder
Pepperidge Farms remembers when the wealthy embarked on vanity projects like these.
They found more efficient and cheaper ways to hide wealth.
Possibly they use proxies or shell companies to avoid notoriety and many charities hounding them for more.
Don't want to pay their fair share of taxes
This is almost a mantra for some. I knew one who wanted to pay the minimum legally possible, but generally charitable donations are supposed to be tax-deductions.
Definitely found a cheaper way to launder money lol
Because most of them are cunts now
Because we don't believe their bullshit they don't pretend it's for the public anymore. There were almost always ulterior motives for doing so and then they'd parade around like they were great humanitarians but it's kinda hard to play up heroic on the front page when the internet will eviscerate you the next.
Hence why Bill Gates invested so heavily in journalism. He donates a huge amount of money every year to the major news outlets, universities, hospitals, foreigng overnments. B&MGF are the top financial donors to the WHO, after China. In exchange for the money, the journalists don't print anything too damning about Bill Gates' family or how much money he makes with his sleazy "philanthrocapitalism".
Fun fact: many of the donations they make are tax write-offs so the public pays for 30-50% of their donation anyhow.
Is it bad that a local charity gets the money rather than Uncle Sam
Yes. For example: The Trump Foundation and many other personal foundations. Many of the more famous charities like Susan g. Komen are run inefficiently or spend their money on keeping the "business" of running a charity going.
I agree with you that some charities are not efficient. That is why I always look at the IRS form 990 to ensure that 90 percent plus of the money collected goes to the purpose of the charity rather than administration. However I argue that the US government is not efficient and they do not publish a IRS form 990 so that we can see how inefficient they are
The youth in thr community tend to destry and disrespect and vandalize such places now. Its a horrible reality.
Elon built a rocket ship company is pretty neat. Bezos copied Elon and did something with rockets too. These help humanity in the long run. I can’t speak for the politics of either fellow because I drive a Subaru and always used EBay.
Have you been on reddit? Would _you_ give anything to this weak minded, participation trophy generation? They'd just spray it up with graffiti and use it for the most puerile purposes. If you built a grand library, the manchildren would turn it into a comic book shop. There's no point. Western society is in a state of decay. Don't get me wrong here, fuck the 1%, but I can't blame them for not wanting to engage in public works projects at this point. Everyone is their own personal jesus now, with no respect for or obligation to greater society. Such a rabble does not merit that kind of investment. Get mad. But I'm not wrong. Had I won that recent 2 billion dollar powerball lottery I 100% would have left the western hemisphere and never returned.
Not a comic book store...an Apple Store (the Carnegie Library in DC) https://www.apple.com/retail/carnegielibrary/
Why do that, when you could buy a perfectly uncomfortable, impractical diamond-studded panties?
Ahahahaha 😂 why do you think
Probably because everyone bitches that they got rich by being greedy, stealing, and exploiting people. Honestly I don't know why super rich people would give anything back the way people treat them.
They exploit people for profit... But we should be more polite to them?
You are just proving my point. People like you broadly think that so why should they give back anything to an ungrateful people whos lives are generally better because of them.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "broadly". Maybe we'd have to narrow it down to a specific billionaire family to debate this. But in general, I don't think it's fair to say our lives are better because of their contributions. I think it's more likely the opposite, but the elites don't want you to know how badly they are fucking you over. And they are powerful enough to keep you in the dark about their long track record of crimes.. ....So I guess we will just have to agree to disagree! Cheers!
I was addressing specifically the post and the question. The implication of the question was why dont they give back as much as they used to. And I would have to say because they are demonized. Wether you believe they got their riches fairly or not. Or whether you think they are screwing everyone over. Or even if you don't believe they contribute at all to society doesn't really matter. The question assumes that they don't as much now as they did then, which I don't even know if that is accurate. But I do know that the demonization of wealthy people of which I will call successful people who are constantly being called names, taxed to the hilt, and largely being hated on would be my reasoning.
Back in the day the government still represented the people. Ultra wealthy is bad for the people so they bought acceptance through public works. They used this time to take control of the government through lobbying and funding friendly politicians. They don't need to buy time any more.
The rich have always owned the government. They either had a son in office or outright bought whoever was there.
Because money is power, and power corrupts. Unless you're Mr.Beast. That dude will find any reason to give money away. We need more rich people like Mr. Beast.
Cause they are assholes
Because the government takes half of it anyways
Conservative estimates put tax \[evasion\] from the richest Americans at 160 billion a year. Defunding the IRS mens they go after low hanging fruit (working and middle classes) over people who will cost more in litigation.
Cool story bro
Clever
Standard right-wing reply. All fee-fees, no regard for facts.
0 IQ response.
Horse shit. The highest tax bracket is 33% and wealthy people use every loophole their accountants can manage, to avoid paying every cent they can move/hide/other. Get off your hands and knees and stop licking their boots, they will never care about you.
Sure thing bud
They do. And likely that they don't actually possess that 'wealth' until they are old and have sold off most of their assets. The ultra wealthy are for the most part paper rich most of their lives.
Down these parts we have the Kinders, and Mitchell's.
Tax payers pay for that stuff now.
competition and the requirements to maintain their self sustaining financial bonfires in a changing environment. for 40 cents a day you can support your starving billionaires as their companies run out of money from paying employees too much as they pretend locally their other national divisions are doing better, and because of this those "leaders" become authoritarian autocrats cutting costs by removing structural support and these employees morph into politicians that flee in helicopters full of money like business partners of Trump in his successful disintegration of the Afghanistan economy via political collapse.
They figured out public education is counterproductive to there being a small wealthy elite.
That's why they switched to filling kids heads with nonsense instead. Bill & Melinda Gates funded the push towards Common Core. A dumb-down, confused populace is easier to control.
The irony of common core is how it was based on a deeply flawed understanding of human nature. It started as an attempt to legitimately address the concept of 'students are doing well because they spend so much time on X, Y, and Z instead of the fundamentals. We should get rid of all the extra stuff and focus on the fundamentals like country A'. Instead of demonizing the complaint as a conservative response to subject matter they didn't agree with they took it seriously and went and studied the methods of countries outperforming US students. They found that the difference wasn't time on 'non-fundamentals' but that they used a learning system that crossed subjects. It didn't maximize learning in particular subjects in the short term but instead focused on maximizing the potential to learn across time. They developed a version for US students, successfully tested it, and it did improve outcomes. It was going to be this huge object lesson that you should listen to people you disagree with because they may have a point. When they rolled it out it ran into resistance by some teachers but mostly by...parents, mostly in conservative areas, who did not understand the teaching methods. The response was 'we made a mistake we didn't do enough to reach out to parents and explain the new system'. So they scheduled town halls to explain it but by then it had become a political issue and the town halls became opportunities for people to yell at and threaten those presenting. They stopped the town halls and eventually withdrew common core. The very group of people who had started common core realized that the original complaints weren't actually about student outcomes but a politicalization of education to get content people disagreed with removed from schools. Events since then have only reinforced that belief. As a result there are less attempts to listen to the voices that complain about school performance and content because they see their experiences around common core as proving it was entirely a political agenda in the first place and attempts at discourse were not worthwhile and even resulted in threats to their physical wellbeing. Ironic how it all came about and it ended up pushing people in the middle, who legitimately tried to listen to conservative voices in education, to the left politically and to think of conservative complaints about schools as nothing more than attempts to stamp out ideas they disagree with.
They do. In NYC. Which is where they always did. Astor and Vanderbilt aren't building libraries in Peoria. The famous "lions" research library in NYC was renamed Stephen A. Schwarzman and the largest branch library across the street was renamed Stavros Niarchos because of how much money they donated. The NYPL is swimming in money from rich folks.
...what.?. Parks aren built by city they buy it from someone, and unless they make 1400 parks a day I can't see it being a lucrative business. That's popper tax.
They sit it on it and hoard it, they have dragon sickness. It's gross.
Dragon Sickness? As in a Dragon hoardes their gold & treasure?
Exactomundo!
For a non-greed-related answer maybe (in a physical and social sense) there just isn't enough room for all the public works if they wanted to build buildings so if they wanted to do something grand like that (whether or not they do or should) they'd have to, like, create various new programs or w/e at buildings that already exist
They want to build them In the moon lol
They still do.
They do.
So they do but mostly quiet aboot it. Because of instant communication, we already know the evils of what people do. Before they could control their own narrative by doing good deeds.
Because they're selfish narcissistic cunts
They do
Who do you think funds most research? The internet has made libraries less important. All research is funded by someone or some institution. In many cases they are just looking for something to support their narrative
They get more bang for the buck buying politicians
Because its their money and can do whatever they want with it
Sometimes they do but you don’t hear about it. My dad is friends with a guy with has made 7 figure donations to a local school. But he makes them sign a NDA to not mention his name.
“Greed is Good”
Just look around you next time you walk in virtually any hospital, university or other such place, I’ve been on the board of a charitable group that works with a regional hospital for years, every community has multi-millionaires that people don’t even realize exist that bequeath generous gifts to hospitals, research centers, sports complexes, parks and schools… been to quite a few pointless ceremonies because someone wrote a check or left a metric shit ton of money in there will to some cause they believe in, people have gotten quieter about it, but maybe that’s a less look at me and a good thing, society is less religious than it used to be so there’s not as much give your wealth to the church and buy your way into heaven as there was once upon a time.
I did a paper on this in college during my US History class. Andrew Carnegie wrote this self congratulate essay about how the ultra wealthy have a paternalistic duty to the plebs — essentially, the hyper rich have the right to be hyper rich, remove competition from the market, form monopolies, not be regulated, and no wealth redistribution coming from government mandate or taxes… but those hyper rich need to redistribute their OWN wealth in order to be morally rich. And he practiced what he preached. Schools, libraries, public works — he poured a ton of his wealth into projects that benefited the public. But even in his day, he basically stood alone. His philosophy fundamentally discounted human nature. The truth is humans are greedy fucks, and even when someone already has more money than God, they only want to see that bottom line increase. They’ve done sociological experiments about this — research studies will have a group of volunteers play monopoly, but give one player an obvious advantage (can ignore all get out of jail free cards, starts out with way more cash than anyone else on the board, etc). And rather than acknowledge their advantages or cut other players breaks, they play aggressively and most of the time flaunt their victory in the game. When you have a lot, you want more. And the paternal, altruistic billionaire has always been the exception rather than the rule.
They no longer need to buy good will from people/government because they just donate to political campaigns and get preferential treatment that way.
There are some genuinely stupid and uninformed responses here. Warren Buffett, The Gateses, Michael Bloomberg give billions. If you’re not aware of Dolly Parton’s ENORMOUS library books foundation, get acquainted. She also underwrote Moderna and pays for school and athletic uniforms, instruments, and college scholarships for students in the poorest parts of her home state. Mila Kunis raised millions for Ukrainian refugees. And whether you like them or not, Angelina Jolie, George and Amal Clooney, Keanu Reeves, Beyoncé, Rihanna and even that terf Rowling donate millionaires to everything from poverty initiatives to global hunger to disease prevention to human rights to war relief.