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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2017 18:05:09 GMT -5
as an alum of one of the evil schools in question --
Yale's endowment fund paid for my scholarship and that of other students who could never have gone there otherwise; if they accept you, they will make it possible for you to go. I graduated with loans but not the insane load I otherwise would have had. Also, if you take out loans, the law school has a program that will pay them back for you if you go into low-paying public interest law. Thus, admissions are need-blind, and to a much greater extent than most law schools, your decision to "do good" with your law degree need not be hampered by money concerns.
I will also note Yale Law's clinics provide free legal services to those who need them and can't afford them -- both providing a learning experience for the students and a benefit to the community. I'm proud to say the Yale immigration law clinic played a big role in helping people fucked over by Trump's executive order on immigration. They turned out some astoundingly good habeas petitions overnight. I was really very proud of them.
I really don't think the endowment money, by and large, is lining the pockets of the greedy privileged wealthy -- though to some extent it is enabling poor riff-raff like me to join their ranks if they are so minded.
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Post by Christine on Apr 13, 2017 18:45:22 GMT -5
Sigh. Christine has a point. *copies* *pastes to Word* *magnifies to 500* *prints* *frames* *takes selfie with print* *posts selfie on Facebook* *orders custom T-shirt* *calls Mom* |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2017 19:08:38 GMT -5
it is special moments like these that make this whole website worthwhile.
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Post by haggis on Apr 13, 2017 22:51:54 GMT -5
your decision to "do good" with your law degree Good one, Cass.  |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2017 23:02:06 GMT -5
You know, Haggis, if I didn't know better, I might think you were mocking a mod.
We have ways of re-accommodating people who mock mods, you know.
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Post by Don on Apr 14, 2017 3:28:03 GMT -5
as an alum of one of the evil schools in question -- Yale's endowment fund paid for my scholarship and that of other students who could never have gone there otherwise; if they accept you, they will make it possible for you to go. I graduated with loans but not the insane load I otherwise would have had. Also, if you take out loans, the law school has a program that will pay them back for you if you go into low-paying public interest law. Thus, admissions are need-blind, and to a much greater extent than most law schools, your decision to "do good" with your law degree need not be hampered by money concerns. I will also note Yale Law's clinics provide free legal services to those who need them and can't afford them -- both providing a learning experience for the students and a benefit to the community. I'm proud to say the Yale immigration law clinic played a big role in helping people fucked over by Trump's executive order on immigration. They turned out some astoundingly good habeas petitions overnight. I was really very proud of them. I really don't think the endowment money, by and large, is lining the pockets of the greedy privileged wealthy -- though to some extent it is enabling poor riff-raff like me to join their ranks if they are so minded. I don't think the schools are evil for taking advantage of openings big enough to drive a truck through. Nor do I think any individual or company is evil for doing the same thing. What's evil is politicians selling favored status for things of which they "approve,"* and the individuals who use their power and influence to purchase that favored status at the expense of every other taxpayer in the country. * By "approve" I mean "find a rationale to convince voters they're being screwed for their own good." As rob is fond of pointing out, incentives matter. Even more importantly, price signals matter. Economic distortion on this scale wastes resources that politicians continually claim we're running out of. If there are to be taxes, the very concept of non-profits is economically destructive. They are going to incentivize behaviors that would otherwise be economically nonviable by distorting price signals. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2017 8:42:04 GMT -5
If most of the money I give to fund scholarships, build libraries, fight cancer, etc., is going to go the the government, I'm not going to donate it. The government eats a big-ass chunk of my money already.
I have no problem with non-profits, provided their mission is a legitimate one and they are well-run.
I think some non-economically viable missions are worth performing.
To note: were schools like Yale disqualified, I'd start to scratch my head about why churches should benefit from non-profit status. They have a lot of rich friends, too.
ETA:
Other schools have endowments, too -- no doubt including your daughter's, c.e. Periodically rich alum die and donate enough to build a library and such. That's why no doubt her campus is dotted with Rich Blowhard Halls and such.
Yale's is huge because it has been around a couple of centuries and given its reputation, a lot of its alums make big bucks. Grateful for this, alums like me give it back so other students in our once-scuffed up, down-at-heel shoes can benefit.
ETA:
Let's not even get into the tax loopholes that allow corporations and rich people to skip out on taxes. If non-profits pay taxes, I want those done away with. Why should Yale pay taxes but not Donald Trump?
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Post by robeiae on Apr 14, 2017 8:58:26 GMT -5
as an alum of one of the evil schools in question -- Yale's endowment fund paid for my scholarship and that of other students who could never have gone there otherwise; if they accept you, they will make it possible for you to go. I graduated with loans but not the insane load I otherwise would have had. Also, if you take out loans, the law school has a program that will pay them back for you if you go into low-paying public interest law. Thus, admissions are need-blind, and to a much greater extent than most law schools, your decision to "do good" with your law degree need not be hampered by money concerns. I will also note Yale Law's clinics provide free legal services to those who need them and can't afford them -- both providing a learning experience for the students and a benefit to the community. I'm proud to say the Yale immigration law clinic played a big role in helping people fucked over by Trump's executive order on immigration. They turned out some astoundingly good habeas petitions overnight. I was really very proud of them. I really don't think the endowment money, by and large, is lining the pockets of the greedy privileged wealthy -- though to some extent it is enabling poor riff-raff like me to join their ranks if they are so minded. Don is more or less in the same place as me. I don't think there's anything evil about the schools, at all. And they're the IVY LEAGUE; they offer the best--or at least better than most--when it comes to education, resources, and opportunities. Good for them, good for the students there. Side note: I wanted to go to Princeton, didn't get in. My daughter--who is now in school in Scotland--applied to Yale and was wait-listed (only school she didn't get immediate acceptance to). I wanted her to go to Yale, not only because of the education she would get, but also because I did my homework: people coming out of Ivy League schools have less student loan debt across the board (compared to other private schools) because the schools are better at helping them find ways to pay for their tuition and expenses. And all of this is partly due to these massive endowment funds, which is money the schools should keep, that is there for them to use how they see fit. And the Ivy Leagues--again--make good use of it. But...that still doesn't mean they shouldn't pay taxes on the money being made within these funds (ditto for every other school, by the way). I noted the salary of the new chief executive of the Harvard fund not because I thought it outrageous, but because I thought it makes the case in a roundabout way: he's getting paid big bucks to maximize returns on investments, nothing, and that should be a taxable enterprise, imo. And the greatness of the schools still doesn't justify preferential treatment in other ways by the Feds, just because they have powerful alumni and spend millions on lobbying. |
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Post by Don on Apr 14, 2017 10:50:11 GMT -5
This is a fine place to exercise the Bastiat "good economist" technique. The positive economic impacts of allowing "favored" activities are easy to foresee. The impact of the economic distortion caused is much, much harder to imagine, and there's no real way to quantify it. One question that comes to mind, out of many: What society-altering inventions were never financed because Mr. Rich donated to Yale instead of investing in a startup because it made his tax picture better? Why should the tax system be structured to channel funds toward some industries at the expense of others? Why should someone be choosing those favored industries and institutions, and on who's behalf are they acting? |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2017 11:08:27 GMT -5
This is a fine place to exercise the Bastiat "good economist" technique. The positive economic impacts of allowing "favored" activities are easy to foresee. The impact of the economic distortion caused is much, much harder to imagine, and there's no real way to quantify it. One question that comes to mind, out of many: What society-altering inventions were never financed because Mr. Rich donated to Yale instead of investing in a startup because it made his tax picture better? Why should the tax system be structured to channel funds toward some industries at the expense of others? Why should someone be choosing those favored industries and institutions, and on who's behalf are they acting? What start-up gigs were initiated by poor students who got a chance at a terrific education thanks to scholarships? What lives were saved by such students? What society-changing inventions did they create? An innocent man walks free because I got a law school education. A number of green card and visa holders were permitted to travel thanks to the Yale immigration clinic. I have a number of law school classmates who, like me, received need-based scholarships and went on to start businesses or do amazing work for the public good. Minus the endowment, they wouldn't have been there or had the same opportunities. Serious question: Are they treated differently from other schools, or do they just have more money, better managed? Is c.e.'s daughter's school forbidden similar tax advantages under the same circumstances? |
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Post by Amadan on Apr 14, 2017 11:55:24 GMT -5
This is a fine place to exercise the Bastiat "good economist" technique. The positive economic impacts of allowing "favored" activities are easy to foresee. The impact of the economic distortion caused is much, much harder to imagine, and there's no real way to quantify it. One question that comes to mind, out of many: What society-altering inventions were never financed because Mr. Rich donated to Yale instead of investing in a startup because it made his tax picture better? Why should the tax system be structured to channel funds toward some industries at the expense of others? Why should someone be choosing those favored industries and institutions, and on who's behalf are they acting? This is a poor argument. On the same basis, you could just as easily argue that people should fund start-ups instead of donating to charity. Do you advocate eliminating tax deductions for charitable contributions? It's true that no one can absolutely predict what the long-term chain of consequences will be for any one decision, economic or otherwise. Maybe I will save more lives by giving money to this charity than that one. Maybe I will save more lives by donating money to a particular lobbying group or political party than to a charity. Maybe I will help cure cancer by buying stocks in a pharmaceutical company. The tax system is structured to encourage people to donate to charity. The principle is that money you donate to charity, you do not benefit from, and therefore it should not be taxed. If you disagree with that principle, you aren't arguing over whether or not churches or Ivy League schools or the Red Cross or the local animal shelter should count as charities, you're saying none of them, or donations to them, should be eligible for tax-exempt status. You can make that argument, but I would disagree, on principle. Every economic policy and decision is an "economic distortion" of some kind, and while I know to you that's an argument for the government basically not existing except in the very limited form in which it does only things you approve of and nothing you don't, in the real world we have to make decisions based on imperfect information and best guesses. On principle, allowing people to get some tax benefit by donating money to charities seems like a good thing. Even if there will inevitably be some gaming of the system (because every system will be gamed). |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2017 12:09:44 GMT -5
Am with Amadan (obviously).
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Post by Christine on Apr 14, 2017 21:53:55 GMT -5
It seems to me rather paradoxical to hold a position that taxes are bad because "evil government" and also that everyone should be equally taxed by "evil government." Declaring that taxes are theft, and then complaining that everyone is not stolen from equally is sort of odd. Maybe instead Don could argue that free enterprise is really charitable because of all the jobs it creates and all the amazing products it offers for low, low prices. Like Walmart! Hell, we should get a tax deduction for shopping at Walmart.  |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2017 22:25:42 GMT -5
Christine! You went all cognoscente on us! And you just narrowly beat Amadan there!
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Post by Don on Apr 15, 2017 6:16:21 GMT -5
It seems to me rather paradoxical to hold a position that taxes are bad because "evil government" and also that everyone should be equally taxed by "evil government." Declaring that taxes are theft, and then complaining that everyone is not stolen from equally is sort of odd. I'm always amazed that consistency in principles confuses some people. As always, I'm arguing for equality under the law and against cronyism used to benefit some people at the expense of others. One can, at the same time, be opposed to taxation and to the political carving out of exceptions so that some people bear the burden and others are exempted. I'm not going to pick sides based on which particular industries are the beneficiaries of politically-granted privilege. That's paradoxical to me. Consistently opposing politically-granted privilege is not. Maybe instead Don could argue that free enterprise is really charitable because of all the jobs it creates and all the amazing products it offers for low, low prices. Like Walmart! Hell, we should get a tax deduction for shopping at Walmart. That's an easy argument to make, if one looks at the data rather than emoting all over the topic. A nine-percent drop in food prices means a lot to low-income people who struggle to put food on the table every night. Anybody here benefiting from the growth of generic drug programs at their favorite pharmacy? Do you know who started that trend? Entrepreneurial activities in third-world countries, driven in large part by Walmart initiatives, have lifted billions of people out of poverty. Even Paul Krugman, who I love to hate, gets it. Here's a detailed analysis of many ways that Walmart has led to net benefits for society. But wait, there's more! If you don't like how Walmart has impacted the world, you're free to take your business elsewhere, without relocating yourself, your family, and friends, and leaving most of what you've earned over the years for Walmart to pillage when you're gone. The same cannot be said for FedGov. Walmart has had far more to do with the 74% percent decline in extreme poverty worldwide over the last 25 years than any UN or Fedgov policy. Indeed, the economic isolationism that was a feature of both the Democrat and Republican campaigns in 2016 is going to have a horrid impact on those billions who found rungs on the economic ladder in the last 25 years. |
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