GEICO, the second-largest vehicle insurance underwriter in the US, has decided it will no longer cover Tesla Cybertrucks. The company is terminating current Cybertruck policies and says the truck “doesn’t meet our underwriting guidelines.”
GEICO, the second-largest vehicle insurance underwriter in the US, has decided it will no longer cover Tesla Cybertrucks. The company is terminating current Cybertruck policies and says the truck “doesn’t meet our underwriting guidelines.”
You can literally see the donation of $48B. The pledge itself isn’t legally binding, but he has been consistently donating. He’s 94, so I don’t think it’ll take long to see the proof in the pudding.
Here are some notes from his Wikipedia page:
I will note that the last figure probably includes the money given to his kids’ organizations (not directly to his kids).
And a quote about inheritance for his kids:
He has a pretty consistent track record of philanthropy and statements about philanthropy, so I would be really surprised if he changed that in the last few years of his life. I guess we’ll see though.
Where did I say I was worshipping him? I’m merely saying I think what he’s doing is admirable and that he doesn’t qualify as a “nepo baby.” If you look into his history, he worked hard throughout his early life to save and invest, and I see no indications that his parents gave him a huge inheritance or kickstarted his career in any meaningful way. Yeah, his dad was a House Rep for 8 years (6 of those consecutive), and here’s a quote about him on his father’s Wikipedia page:
That doesn’t sound like the kind of man to give his son an unfair advantage…
It’s not charity to give money to an organization you (or friends or relatives) control, it’s a way to keep your assets under your control without having to pay taxes that would otherwise be required.
It is if that charity uses the money to help people. So any accusation needs to actually look at the financials of those orgs to see where the money is going.
That would be true if he were secretly using those charities to enrich himself but there’s no evidence of that at all.
I think you’re missing the point - it’s not that he’s enriching himself - he’s already done that. It’s that the charity carries out his will, not necessarily the will of people who need charities.
You are poorly educated on the issue and you are citing propaganda he paid for.
Please do some proper researcher on topic of oligarch charity and what that’s all about.
I can’t believe in 2024 we still have adults larping this shite. No wonder we got shit sociology-economic conditions and only getting worse…
If you have better sources, I’m happy to review them.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2022/07/how-bill-gates-makes-the-world-worse-off
https://inequality.org/great-divide/true-cost-of-billionaire-philanthropy/
https://apnews.com/article/business-philanthropy-b8acb10f529ac2dbaff7631021d823c9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVpCbHKqqKI
I haven’t watched the YouTube video (I generally distrust what Reich says), but here’s what I see from the other sources:
Mentions Buffett once, and only when mentioning the pledge to Gates’ foundation. The article seems to mostly be about the Gates’ foundation taking credit for things they didn’t do. I’ll certainly read through the rest of the article, but it definitely seems to be a criticism of that org, not Warren Buffett.
Talks about The Giving Pledge (created by Buffett) and how those who have pledged aren’t donating their money fast enough (i.e. their money is growing faster than their donations). I don’t really see this as an issue, since the problem should correct itself when they die.
The article also complains about most donations going to foundations or DAFs, but honestly, when you need to move that much money, that’s probably the most efficient way to do it. So I guess I don’t understand the criticism.
This one is about wealthy people avoiding taxes generally. I don’t know how this applies to Warren Buffett, whose wealth is in the US and AFAIK isn’t being hidden in tax shelters like offshore banks or trusts. His tax bill is relatively low (this article claims 0.1% from 2014 to 2018), but I think that’s countered by his statements about increasing taxes on the rich (he is registered Democrat, if that matters to you at all).
So I don’t think the issue here has anything to do with Buffett himself, the issue is the tax law doesn’t account for unrealized gains. Or in other words, don’t blame the player, blame the game. The closest Buffett gets to tax shelters is his stock donations to his kids’ foundations, but my understanding is that those are charitable orgs, so I don’t see a ton of difference there vs donating to other orgs like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which he has donated way more to vs his kids’ orgs.
My personal view here is that any compensation above some amount (say, $400k) regardless of source should be taxed at the current rates, and those assets stepped up in basis appropriately. I don’t like Harris’ proposal though because it’s based on wealth instead of income, but I think Buffet himself would approve a change here. If we handled it that way, the income from stock grants and whatnot for extremely highly compensated employees (like a CEO) would end up being taxed as income (short term gains), and therefore would be functionally equivalent to a cash salary, which is what it’s intending to be.