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Zuckerberg gives $45 billion to charity, Guardian readers complain


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Or actually know what I'm talking about unlike you. ;)

 

Resorting to insults is the quickest way to lose any discussion. Although we are both claiming the other is suffering from the same thing in reality. A lack of understanding of the subject, however I am looking beyond the headline while you are accepting it on face value.

Edited by Berberis
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A man gives away 99% of his self made wealth to charity and the Guardian commenters deride him for it. It makes me wonder what could possibly make their miserable little lives less miserable.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/01/mark-zuckerberg-and-priscilla-chan-announce-new-baby-and-massive-charity-initiative#comments

 

They could always read the Daily Mail. That's usually good to laugh at.

 

I've read a few of the comments in the Guardian, some of them are very complimentary. Granted, I've not scoured through each and every one.

Edited by Mister M
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I suspect it's a bit of both. MZ has done plenty in the past for charity. He appears to be genuinely altruistic. However, if there is a tax angle too, then I'm sure that'll be played. If I won the lottery I wouldn't just want to give it away either, I'd want some return for my money and not for a charity to potentially waste it. I'd likely look for a mixture of small scale local and overseas projects with direct tangible returns. A couple of years ago I built a school in the slums of Nairobi. This project was specifically chosen as the school had a business plan to fund itself without need for further outside investment but they needed short term capital and assistance to improve facility to make the business plan happen. We put in electricity, clean water, toilets and a Wi-Fi system that the school sells to local residents to cover the cost of school meals. Now if i'd simply handed over the £3.5k I had to raise for this project (plane tickets and our own accommodation was paid for by ourselves) then there were no guarantees anything would have been done. As it is, St. Lazarus school now has over 250 kids getting a free education and a good quality lunchtime meal and we've made a big difference to those kids and that community.

 

If I was MZ, I'd keep hold of the reins too.

Edited by sgtkate
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Resorting to insults is the quickest way to lose any discussion. Although we are both claiming the other is suffering from the same thing in reality. A lack of understanding of the subject, however I am looking beyond the headline while you are accepting it on face value.

 

Looking beyond the headline I'm really struggling to see the point of your criticism of Zuckerberg's good deed. It comes across as weird jealousy at somebody else's altruism.

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I'm not judging until we see what he will actually pursue for his goals. I have no doubt it isn't a charitable decision, however there can be no harm in someone sitting on billions and billions dedicating part of that money to particular research. Let's just hope he puts it in the right places.

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I suspect it's a bit of both. MK has done plenty in the past for charity. He appears to be genuinely altruistic. However, if there is a tax angle too, then I'm sure that'll be played. If I won the lottery I wouldn't just want to give it away either, I'd want some return for my money and not for a charity to potentially waste it. I'd likely look for a mixture of small scale local and overseas projects with direct tangible returns. A couple of years ago I built a school in the slums of Nairobi. This project was specifically chosen as the school had a business plan to fund itself without need for further outside investment but they needed short term capital and assistance to improve facility to make the business plan happen. We put in electricity, clean water, toilets and a Wi-Fi system that the school sells to local residents to cover the cost of school meals. Now if i'd simply handed over the £3.5k I had to raise for this project (plane tickets and our own accommodation was paid for by ourselves) then there were no guarantees anything would have been done. As it is, St. Lazarus school now has over 250 kids getting a free education and a good quality lunchtime meal and we've made a big difference to those kids and that community.

 

If I was MK, I'd keep hold of the reins too.

 

Exactly so. That would seem very sensible. Just giving it to charity, you have no idea what's going to happen to the money, whose pocket it's going to disappear in to...

 

Also, the tax thing doesn't seem that big of an issue to me; if the money is spend for the betterment of humanity as a whole; seems a whole lot better than one government spending it on arms etc; or, where the government would have spend the money on charitable work; well, he's just cutting out the middle man...

 

p.s. Who is 'MK'?

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Exactly so. That would seem very sensible. Just giving it to charity, you have no idea what's going to happen to the money, whose pocket it's going to disappear in to...

 

Also, the tax thing doesn't seem that big of an issue to me; if the money is spend for the betterment of humanity as a whole; seems a whole lot better than one government spending it on arms etc; or, where the government would have spend the money on charitable work; well, he's just cutting out the middle man...

 

p.s. Who is 'MK'?

 

Sorry, MZ...typo! I shall fix.

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The headline should read:

Zuckerberg to give away over his lifetime 60+ years 99% of Facebook which will be tax deductible to a charity he controls.

 

In fact the headline should be Zuckerberg's finally work out how to avoid most of their tax.

 

Nowt wrong with that . got his head screwed on has that lad.

 

If schemes are there to avoid paying the old taxman , you should take advantage of them.

 

Why would anyone pay tax they dont have to ?

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