Bank of Ireland bosses face barrage of anger and eggs

[K. A. Pital]

Low-level psych disorders are common to both working class and the rich.

But the rich tend to have a certain type of disorder... more often than not.

[Simon_Jester]

Low-level psych disorders are common to both working class and the rich.

But the rich tend to have a certain type of disorder... more often than not.

Or, alternatively, disorders that everyone has manifest differently in the rich.

It's not that the poor are qualitatively better people than the rich, we see that when poor people become rich (or otherwise powerful). It's that taking any random person off the street and making them powerful will corrupt them if they are corruptible at all.

Any entitlement complex, any vices, any longstanding grudges or biases, will be expressed full-force, using all the power that person now has to impose it on the world.

[Starglider]

I would argue that burning fuel in a massive Yacht for no reason and allowing people to live in abject poverty is negligence.

It's true that the super-wealthy contains a disproportionate number of sociopaths / randians / Darth Hoths who believe that they have no obligation to assist people other than themselves, and/or that poor people are poor because of their own bad choices. However while this is a sizable minority I don't think this is the majority.

Most people acknowledge in principle that other people suffering is a problem. However they allocate this as worthy of some chunk of their efforts, and for rich people this translates into something like 'I should give say 30% of my income to charity'. 30% is much higher on a proportional basis than the average person (how much do you give to charity?) and of course vastly higher on a total basis.

In short normal human psychology is not based on expected utility. 'Charity to others' is a drive for most people, and with more income it manages to expand from 'very small share of income' to 'moderate share of income', but the notion of 'ok, everything beyond $1M per year will be donated to charity' is a philosophical construct alien to how normal human motivation works. Throughout human evolutionary history it was very rare to reach 'enough' of anything, such that the social benefit of donating it all was greater than the personal benefit of keepign some, so we just aren't inclined to do that.

In the same way that walking past a victim of a crime or allowing a small child near a pool unattended is. These people all have the means to do something that the common man can't

Are you criticising the person who earns $100M a year, has three yachts and doesn't donate to charity, or the person who earns $100 million a year, gives $50 million a year to charity and still has three yachts? Note that if you give that $100M a year to thousand middle class people, you'd probably get a lower fraction donated to charity than if you gave it to one rich person; if it weren't for tax evasion tricks, you'd get a higher amount taken in government taxation as well. So in a sense, wealthy people are more efficient income generators for the government and charities, even though obviously the direct utility to the income earner is less for one earner than one thousand earners.

I know the argument is that they'll leave, but pass a law making taxes higher, fix tax law to avoid the stupid easily closeable loopholes, and then freeze the assets of those who think they can run from the tax man.

Practical arguments are a somewhat different realm from accusations that rich people are somehow evil and insane. I mean, I would find it very satisfying to write off Stas Bush as a subhuman communoid, essentially deficient in human spirit and spending all his time engaged in Faustian plotting to make Orwell's 1984 a reality, but I don't do it because it's more important to hold honest views than self-gratifying ones.

[Simon_Jester]

Are you criticising the person who earns $100M a year, has three yachts and doesn't donate to charity, or the person who earns $100 million a year, gives $50 million a year to charity and still has three yachts? Note that if you give that $100M a year to thousand middle class people, you'd probably get a lower fraction donated to charity than if you gave it to one rich person; if it weren't for tax evasion tricks, you'd get a higher amount taken in government taxation as well. So in a sense, wealthy people are more efficient income generators for the government and charities, even though obviously the direct utility to the income earner is less for one earner than one thousand earners.

Citation humbly requested.

[K. A. Pital]

Note that if you give that $100M a year to thousand middle class people, you'd probably get a lower fraction donated to charity than if you gave it to one rich person

Obviously. Middle class is relatively poor and requires more money for itself. A single person can't physically consume $100 million, although examples of people investing the entirety of their income without giving a shred to charity are not few at all. I do not understand also how charity is superior to other types of investment. I understand how both charity and investment can be superior to luxury consumption, but...

[Broomstick]

Charity can be an industry, like any other, and some of them exist not so much to help others as to employ/enrich those running the charity.

Proper charity is not investment - investment implies a profit somewhere, whereas charity is, supposedly, performed to assist others without an expectation of material return. Arguably, there is a societal return in the form of a better life for those helped and a general improvement in overall conditions. Charity can be very direct with maximum impact for minimal material investment. Time was I'd buy a 50 pound sack of potatoes for a homeless shelter and help feed 25 destitute people. That's pretty damn direct and immediate. There's a charity in my current area that helps poor people repair their homes when they're damaged, relying on volunteer labor and, when possible, donated materials. Again, a pretty direct good, in that you're restoring sound shelter to people.

On the other hand, you have "charities" where 80-90% of money donated goes to running the charity and not towards helping others.

This is why the US has requirements for certain charities to report their fund-raising vs. actual charitable activities, to help donors distinguish between those that genuinely help others and those that don't.

Charity isn't a profit-making investment, it's to make a better society. It tends to be scorned by those who think the current society is just fine and those in need shouldn't be helped out of some sort of notion that any form of help leads to dependence. Needless to say, that's an easier position to take when you personally have command of enormous resources.