Some More News - SMN: Billionaire Philanthropy Is Kind Of A Scam

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

Hi. In today's episode, we look at how billionaires often benefit from their supposed altruism and why we can't rely on their "generosity" to solve society's problems. Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1orsSMfQVHzbcCwgS0bBGsNL6dnc4FpC-Kies59UIlc4/edit?usp=sharing Check out our MERCH STORE: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh Subscribe to the Some More News and Even More News audio podcasts: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA?si=5keGjCe5SxejFN1XkQlZ3w&dl_branch=1 Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews If you want to take ownership of your health, try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 Free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. Go to https://drinkAG1.com/MORENEWS. Sign up for a $1/month trial period at https://shopify.com/morenews (all lowercase) to take your retail business to the next level today.

Hey, Katie, I know you're listening. I think there's like a leak in the studio. Hey, Drippy, what can I do for you? Well, you know, the reason you called me Drippy, I could use a hand, etc. Never fear, Drippo, the Stoll Foundation can help people like you. Oh, good. The Stoll Foundation. Glad that is apparently something. So, are you going to fix the ceiling or do something else? Probably, you're probably going to do something else, right? Like some bit?

Look under your desk. I hate this. It's a head diaper. As the Stoll Foundation continues collecting data, fielding opinions from ceiling experts, researching the need for fixed ceiling leaks, and investing in ceiling education designed by me, well, we offer this head diaper to help with those leaky ceilings. What about like a plumber? Big piece of tape? Put on the diaper, Drippy.

Why is it already wet? Billionaire philanthropy is kind of a scam. Oh, I get it. The ceiling leak plus the indirect and functionally useless way of helping me with my ceiling leak is a metaphor for the episode. How clever of us. So here's some more news. Philanthropy. Does it perhaps in some demonstrable ways kind of suck?

Seems like a weird thing to be mad at. It's like making a takedown video about Steve Irwin. But to be clear, I'm not saying charity is a bad thing. As a general concept and a way to get rid of old clothes and chips DVDs, charity is great. Our focus today is specifically on philanthropy and a philanthropic foundation is different from a regular charity.

While a charity is a collective working together for a need or cause, often a specific one at that, philanthropy in the modern context is a private initiative to promote or invest in a supposed and often broader public good. Based upon the topic of this video, you can safely assume that supposed is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Because while it may sound like a net good, there's always a catch with philanthropy, even when those behind it mean well. Hence this episode and the pooling of,

hopefully water, by my feet. For example, take the Rosenwald schools, a philanthropic initiative that was touted and celebrated for decades. In 1917, African-American thought leader and educator Booker T. Washington paired up with Julius Rosenwald, the part owner of Sears and Roebuck and Company, to build quality schools for black children in the segregated South. By 1928, more than one in five schools for black children were Rosenwald schools. Adjusted into future bucks, Rosenwald spent 70 million space dollars of his own money to accomplish all of this. He could have bought so many orphans with that money, but he didn't.

Not even one lovable scamp or a precocious ragamuffin or even a fancy mutton chop. That is commitment to education. And even today, Rosenwald has been championed as the gold standard for the philanthropic rich person. But even this kind, not orphan buying gentleman is not without faults. In historian Olivier Zun's book, "'Philanthropy in America,"

he points out that while Rosenwald did enable hundreds of thousands of black children to get an education, he did it without challenging the segregationist views of state governments. If we look deeper into the conditions that Rosenwald himself required before he opened his checkbook, we can see that it actually upheld Jim Crow laws in the South. Historian Alan Spears explains why what appeared as a step forward was actually a step back for black citizens. Generally speaking, the Rosenwald model was for him

to provide about a third of the money required to construct a school. And then it would be up to the state and the local African Americans to produce the rest of the money. And in doing that, he empowered them to really invest in their time, their resources, in the construction of these schools, the maintenance of these schools, and then making sure that their children

attended these schools and benefited from them. The financial contributions of the African American community, in some senses it was an unfair second burden. They were taxpaying citizens. They should have been able to access public education. In other words, black citizens were essentially being taxed twice. First, to finance the public schools they couldn't attend due to segregation. And then a second time to cover whatever Rosenwald and the state wouldn't provide to build the Rosenwald schools. In total, only about 32% of the funding came from Rosenwald, while 45% came from rural black communities.

And on top of forcing black Americans to meet or exceed his contribution, Rosenwald also required the approval and cooperation of white school officials. Not trying to shit on this guy's grave because he certainly did more than most people during this time. Also, it's really hard to actually shit directly on a grave.

Unless it's one of those, like the flat ones. But the Rosenwald schools did nothing to address the root problem of segregation and even slowed down progress toward the permanent solution of, you know, letting black children attend public school. In other words, instead of fighting segregation, Rosenwald, whether or not he knew he was doing it,

was rewarding and reinforcing it through his philanthropy. Again, it's hard to be mad at someone providing schools to black children during the early 1900s, but I have a lot of constructive notes for the guy. And this exact model is still adopted by the obscenely wealthy today. Take my best friend, Mark Cuban, for example. Out of the goodness of his super cool heart,

and also because he has more disposable income than most nations of the world, Cuban recently disrupted the healthcare market by launching cost plus drugs, selling medication online at incredibly low prices. Now, some may argue that in our dystopian nightmare country in which people go into debt for necessary prescription meds, providing access to affordable medicine is good.

And even though it's a company, it's a philanthropic endeavor. Or maybe, perhaps, there's actually a chance that Cuban is just making a buck by undercutting the competition in a broken healthcare system. But it can be both. People are complex.

That's why we have a whole magazine devoted to them. People, they're just like us. In either case, whether you believe Cuban is as cool as he appears to be, and he is objectively unquestionably cool, cost plus drugs doesn't address the actual problem. It allows elected officials to continue avoiding any meaningful healthcare reform in this country

by having their constituents rely on a better alternative that's at the whims of an unelected billionaire. A very cool billionaire, but still a billionaire. A private citizen with no legal obligation to serve anyone's interests but his own. And you could argue that by creating this alternative, Cuban is actually delaying reform by treating the symptom rather than the cause.

And that's not the only way these organizations can go wrong. Again, that's a company. There are foundations that do this. In fact, you could easily argue that Cuban is on the better side of the spectrum because at least he's offering something useful through a company.

On the other side of the spectrum, we get not only the ineffective, but extremely suspicious and controlling endeavors. Hillary says she's gonna be president, we say. President Hillary. President Hillary. President Hillary. Ah yes, the Clinton Foundation.

There they are. Look at old Hill and Bill being definitely casual and very normal there. Their foundation is under scrutiny because while they have provided assistance to various nations in need, there's still some potential shadiness regarding donors from foreign nations

while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. Not to mention that after over a decade of work in Haiti, promises made to the nation are still unfulfilled. It's almost as if the Clintons, who had their honeymoon in Haiti, have been using their foundation to exert influence and control over the nation without actually helping that much.

And in fact, a lot of Haitian citizens don't like them. And as the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton even threatened to cut funding to Haiti unless their elections go a specific way. Gee, it's almost as if the Clintons are using their foundation to make Haiti their own personal playground for them and their family while their philanthropic quests have limited success.

And it's almost as if we did an entire video about this and the many ways America and the rest of the world have failed Haiti specifically, often through bullshit charities leveraging the many disasters there. Haiti has basically been ravaged by a combination of earthquakes and people claiming to help with the earthquakes.

And while the Clintons may have had some actual success over there, it really seems like they're more focused on control than genuine care, which is a common theme of this episode, as in rich people who want to help, but only in one specific way. Hey, want to see a real nightmare of a video? Yeah, I've committed to starting the Startup Education Foundation, whose first project will be a $100 million challenge grant.

$100 million? $100 million. $100 million. Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. Yes. Clap, clap, clap, clap, my happy little gerbils. A $100 million education grant is a pretty good deed, right? Who could have a problem with that? Did you notice Republican Governor Chris Christie and Democrat Mayor Cory Booker were there?

Plus, Oprah clapped, and she would never boost the profile of anyone who has actually ruined lives. Not a fourth time, anyway. Not that you need a humble news goat to tell you this, but no living creature should ever trust a single thing Mark Zuckerberg says or does. That was the whole point of the movie. This $100 million investment was to essentially turn Newark public schools into charter schools without any input from the residents and by completely bypassing the democratic process. Even if charter schools were good, and a lot of them are not,

a sizable bulk of Zuck's $100 million was spent on $1,000 per day consultants and also $30 million on back pay for the teachers union as neighborhood schools were closed down. That's very good for the union. Pay teachers, pay them all, pay them all more. But that wasn't exactly what he promised. So the education grant may have been a bust,

but that's not the limit of Zuck's generosity. He's also very generous to himself as the donation of 99% of his Facebook stock went into his own LLC, which can legally invest in for-profit companies, make donations to political campaigns and lobbyists, and essentially allows him to do anything he wants with the money. It's like some kind of a, like a, like a, like a protective structure for taxes, like a tax shed, the old tax roof and walls, as they say, which it turns out is pretty common

with these generous rich folk. Speaking of overly controlling tech weirdos, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation plans to donate $8 billion in 2023 to help a variety of important causes, such as education for impoverished children and healthcare, but only under certain conditions. Sound familiar? The BM Foundation, abbreviated to Save Time and also because poop, has an extremely long history of failing to help students. For example, this six year and $575 million project to improve teaching that was found to have exactly zero

or negative effect when the dust settled. Recently, they cut their funding for reading, writing and the arts to shift focus to math because Bill Gates just wanted to. And what happens to those other programs? Who cares, I guess? Bill Gates sure doesn't. So even if the BM Foundation shifted

its rumbling money cheeks to dump a steamy $1.1 billion pile onto your school district, the money could only be spent on very specific things. Over four years, the foundation planned to improve poor children's math scores by developing new curricula and digital tools for them, rather than simply using the money to fund the schools across the board.

This plan was essentially using the poorest kids in the nation as guinea pigs for teaching techniques funded and conceived by a man who has never been a school teacher. Though he might have an interest in school children regardless. That's a cheap shot, all right, but what are you gonna do? You know, he's got all the money.

He can afford the expensive shots, I can't. Anyway, Alex Molnar, an actual educator and part of the National Education Policy Center, criticized this move saying, quote, "'It is so fundamentally misdirected "'and so obviously wrong, both in the moral sense "'and in the rational sense, "'that it is literally breathtaking.

"'This very wealthy, very narrow man "'can continually, continually torment school children, "'while all the while pretending that somehow "'he's making the world better.'" It really feels weird to be mad at people donating money to schools, I get that. But I really can't stress enough that this same money might better be used if simply given to charities

that are more equipped to know what to do with that donation. But instead it's being focused based on the opinion of Bill and Melinda Gates. And while they probably consult with experts, it's clear that this method isn't working. And you can see this with their other foundational endeavors. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

not only big quotes helps education, but spends more money on public health each year than the World Health Organization, which seems bonkers because according to its name, that organization is focused on the health of the world, which is everybody, all people. Now providing funding for public health is not evil. It's actually the opposite of that.

However, things are a little tricky and uncomfortable when a foundation controlled by a few people gets to have a bloated share of influence over public health policies instead of health experts. For example, the BM Foundation wanted to finance the eradication of polio and it got them that good press, which on the surface is a totally fair trade.

We absolutely should fund its eradication. I'm sick of hearing about it. Like Semisonic once said, it's closing time. One last call for polio. The problem, as multiple research papers have explained, is that just because the foundation has prioritized polio doesn't mean that polio is the leading problem. And in fact, other countries, specifically poorer countries,

have been dealing with much bigger issues with chronic diseases that impact more people. But because Bill and Melinda Gates decided that polio was the hot hip thing, those countries would have to shift their priorities away from the actual problems in order to get any kind of funding. In other words, instead of listening to what people need and then providing it, they picked a disease

and worked backwards from there. It's like if your house was on fire and the city sent a landscaper to help. Like, yeah, obviously, sure, the azaleas do need some trimming, but it's not the first problem to address. The Gates Foundation also supports Gates' firm views on intellectual property and

patent laws, which in turn makes it difficult for poorer nations to develop and replicate generic versions of vaccines and medicine on their own. This further forces them to rely on not only the foundation, but also the pharmaceutical companies that monopolize the patents for these desperately needed drugs. So yes, the act of donating money isn't bad. However, when you donate that money while dictating how and where it is spent on top of mandating conditions for the recipient, that's just a power grab, an undemocratic power grab that either undermines

or actively thwarts the cause it's claiming to champion. But of course this is all nitpicking the individual cases. Perhaps we can't demonize the concept of philanthropy based on a few bad eggs. Which coincidentally, it's what this dripping water smells like. I really hope it's water. Anyway, after the break, we're going to demonize

the concept of philanthropy on its own, without the help of rich jerks. We don't need them, but we do need you to watch these ads for things. Hey, it's Cody J, and I wanna talk to you about your sack. Your torso sack, that is. I'm talking tummies and nothing else. Every day we cram our sacks all willy nilly,

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We were just talking about all the ways that rich people misuse philanthropy as tax shelters or ways to exert undemocratic control. You may have noticed that everyone from the Clintons to the Gateses really love using their charity to also maintain a sizable amount of power. And maybe that's an inherent detail to philanthropy that we should discuss.

It's a flaw that exists no matter who is doing philanthropy. Basically every billionaire can't help themselves, but to make a decision that ultimately profits them, creating more problems than they try to fix. Combine that with either a lack of focus or a focus on the wrong things, and a lot of these philanthropic efforts simply don't do much,

while also pushing aside the very people they claim to be trying to help, and just kinda wasting lots of money for PR. It's the Mr. Burns slurry of it all for all you young folk to understand. Kids these days in their 1997 references. But aside from the individual failings,

there are inherent problems with the philanthropic model as well. As I already mentioned, philanthropic foundations are easily abused As I already mentioned, philanthropic foundations are easily abused in the form of tax exemption. In fact, they seem designed for this. Groups like the Gates Foundation, the Bloomberg Family Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Wayne Foundation, and the McDuck Foundation are classified as private under the Internal Revenue Code, making them exempt from taxes since they are making donations or grants

for supposedly good causes. And yet, even though I leave my trash in the street for the neighborhood kids to pick through every week, I'm somehow not exempt. It's a whack system. And what's even whacker, these foundations are by law only required to give out 5% of their total investment assets each year.

I should stress that for a moment. These foundations only have to donate 5% of what they have each year. That's it. The rest they can just hold on to, which basically makes them giant tax-free money vaults for their founders to swim and fuck in. So for example, in 2012, a little over $300 billion in charitable donations

were made in the US. That's counting giant foundation grants, the cocaine-stained dollar your mom crammed into a jar at the 7-Eleven, and all the money I gave to hog fuckers, which it turns out is not an anti-bore organization. And yet that same year, philanthropic foundations reported

more than $700 billion in assets. Gee, that seems like if they have $700 billion, there should be way more donations being made, huh? Sure seems like they're hanging onto a butt ton of money. And that near trillion dollar figure can't all be operational costs. Five freaking percent, you guys. And even that paltry 5% grant requirements

doesn't necessarily mean money, as foundations can donate non-cash assets like real estate or artwork to further relieve their tax burden because someone thought, I don't know, maybe starving refugees could eat this erotic Picasso painting. Why don't they sell it themselves and donate the proceeds? Well, often these non-cash assets have an inflated value.

So selling them would claim a smaller tax deduction, but because those non-cash assets aren't worth what they say the lost revenue gets passed on to the taxpayer. You know, us people. Meaning that we end up paying between 37 and 74 cents to every dollar a billionaire donates to charity. This method especially helps the ultra wealthy because they can offset any losses from capital gains tax by donating appreciated stock or other erotic Picasso paintings they have just

lying around. Our favorite emerald mine not knower about her and innovator Elon Musk is a prime example. In 2021, Musk donated $5.7 billion to charity in the form of Tesla stock rather than cash. Through this loophole, Musk was able to deduct so much from his federal tax bill and capital gains tax that he ended up saving 74% of his gift to charity compared to if he donated in cash or was taxed in full.

That saving 74 cents for every dollar, which should sound immediately familiar to everyone who was watching this video 10 seconds ago. Such simpler times back then. There are entire industries based around allowing rich people to store their wealth under the guise of charity. A very popular method is called a donor advised fund

or DAFs. A DAF has all the tax benefits of a charity when you give money to it, but holds onto the money like a foundation would. And in fact, while the DAF legally owns the money, the entire draw is that they give the donor full control over where the money will go. It's a middleman, the center of a human centipede,

both taking and giving shit. And while they were originally designed for good, because there's no deadline or obligation to actually donate any of the funds in the DAF, they are mainly just used as tax-exempt piggy banks. They are even run by banks instead of charities. And since those banks can charge for management fees and make investments with that money,

it's actually in their best interest that the cash stays in the DAFs instead of actually going to a worthy cause. This is probably why DAFs now take in a fifth of the total amount of money donated by individuals. And according to a study of 2,600 DAF accounts, the majority of donors paid out less than 5% of their assets. In 2020, over a third of them didn't pay anything at all.

No nude Picassos for you orphans. There are now over 1 million DAFs operating in the United States. As of 2020, they hold around $160 billion of charity money. And I literally mean holding. And while there has been a bipartisan movement in Congress and the Senate to tighten up these obvious loopholes, opposition by foundations such as Vanguard Charitable, Follinger Foundation, and the Greed Slop Group

have killed any proposals. Like those nude Picassos, it's a fuck blur. And one more reason the philanthropy system is mainly designed to make rich people look good while actually just protecting their money and power. But to be fair and balanced and bouncy, but taught, there are occasions in which a philanthropic foundation actually does good.

And it's worth looking at how that happens. Take the Carter Center, originally founded by former peanut farming US president and King of the Hill character, Jimmy Carter. In a huge success story, Carter's Foundation has basically eradicated guinea worm, a deadly parasite that wrecked the lives of 3.5 million people back in the mid-1980s. The Carter Center brought that number down to only 13 cases of infection reported in 2022, which is great, down with worms, et cetera. And while the Carter Center is very spread out,

it did the thing the Gates Foundation tried or pretended to do with polio. It found a neglected medical problem that actually needed a lot of help and hyper-focused on that one thing. And it still took nearly 40 years to do. And yet, while the Carter Center is still highly rated among most charity watchdog groups

regarding the amount of donated money actually spent directly towards their initiatives, they still have 9.9 years worth of available assets that are untouched. So even the best philanthropic group still isn't terribly efficient in dispersing funds or achieving their goals. But you see how they found some success,

specifically by focusing on a single problem and then working to eradicate that one thing. Jimmy isn't trying to solve world hunger or broadly save the planet. He fucking hated those worms and he was gonna get those goddamn worms. Fuck their whole lives up. We were driving along and elementary school children

had a big sign that says, watch out, guinea worm, here comes Jimmy Carter. That was almost as good as the Nobel prize for me. He's a real worm Hitler, that Jimmy Carter. Forever will we call him that. Forever should he be called former president Worm Hitler. So a common problem with philanthropic endeavors and even charities is that they often set

way too broad of goals. Compare that to something like Smile Train. Smile Train is a very specific charity that pays for children's cleft lip and palate surgeries to improve how they eat, speak, and breathe to prevent additional health complications as they age. Why do they focus on something this specific? Well, because it's a serious medical need

that can be easily fixed. Cleft lip and palate surgeries are a permanent solution to improve lives within an outpatient procedure. In short, it's a specific dire need that's easily achievable and improves lives of those less fortunate. It's not combating a giant spectrum of massive concepts such as eliminating hunger, promoting peace, or butt stuff.

It's clear and transparent in its mission, and donors can specifically cite what tasks their donations fund if they want to. So again, focus, pick a cause and work on it until that cause is fixed. One very good example of someone doing this is Dolly Parton. Parton has a net worth of $650 million.

And on paper, she's no different than any other multimillionaire creating a philanthropic foundation. But the big difference is focus. The Dollywood Foundation she started in 1988 was created to decrease school dropout rates in Sevier County, Tennessee, and has offered $15,000 college scholarships

to five seniors in the county every year since 2000. During their efforts, dropout rates went from 35% to 6% in the affected classes. After that, her foundation shifted focus to Partins Imagination Library in 1995, which helps incentivize reading to youngsters in Sevier County by donating one book per month to every child, from birth to their first year of school.

And while the Imagination Library did expand to other partners in other countries, that expansion was based on the success of the local program. After wildfires ravaged East Tennessee in 2016, Parton raised money for the My People Fund to financially assist families who were impacted by the fires to pay for food, rent, housing,

and mental health resources by paying them $1,000 per month over the next six months to help them recover. You may have Googled My People Fund and couldn't find a.org anywhere. That's not because the fund was a sham or secretly an altruistic ghost, but rather because it accomplished its goal and doesn't accept donations anymore.

Because like a good charity, it addressed the problem it was created to resolve and then vanished. In fact, the last checks the fund handed out were for $5,000 to make sure all of the donated money was dispersed. The My People Fund was praised, not just because of Parton's popularity, although let's be honest, that helps,

but because of its effectiveness in working in tandem with local social services and allowing the families themselves to use the charity money as they saw fit. Bill Gates must be fuming. She should have made some of those people do math is what she should have done. In addition to her foundation,

Parton either personally or through her other companies has donated to help fund Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, flood relief for middle Tennessee, and research into pediatric diseases. It's pretty easy for her to do since she reportedly makes up to $8 million per year on royalties for her songs 9 to 5 and Jolene alone, which to be fair, very well deserved.

Also, she runs a sweet amusement park and has spoken up many times for LGBTQ rights. As far as rich people go, she might be the best one. She's the one we won't eat. But just the one. Sorry, Cuban, you look scrumptious. And I mean, to be clear, there's no doubt that Dolly is enjoying generous tax deductions for these charitable acts.

That's not a Dolly slam. I would never. Would smash, respectfully, but not slam. Writing off charitable donations as tax deductions is something she legally has the right to do, and perhaps that's okay, although people have argued that that system is designed exclusively to aid the rich.

My point is the Dolly's praiseworthy acts aren't really showcasing any kind of sainthood as the media likes to portray. They're just exposing how low the bar is. And let's be clear, we're also not necessarily endorsing Smile Train, Imagination Library, the McDuck Foundation, or anything else.

They have shady baggage and there are valid criticisms against them too. I hear the McDuck pays women to eat their hair, not even in front of him, he just likes hearing about it. But we're not totally damning them either. Even the best charities are imperfect. So in the end, it is up to you to decide where you want to donate

your cocaine-stained dollars. However, we do encourage you, if you are able, to research and see which charities you're comfortable supporting and give where you can. Because the other issue is that when a charity gets too big, they run into the same problems that philanthropic foundations do, with the tax sheltering, paying too much for overhead,

erotic artwork maintenance, and so on. The good thing with most charities compared to the ones backed by philanthropists is that you have some influence into how they are being run. Not necessarily by donating your money, but also donating your time through volunteer work. Volunteering can provide personal benefits for your brain and bank account too.

You can also do it while drunk if they're cool about it, which fair enough, they probably won't be. Again, while there should be scrutiny, charities as a concept are good when they're focused on a specific goal and intend on being temporary, especially if they point out the systemic problem causing the issue that they are trying to fix

because the end goal is for that charity to be so successful that it stops existing. That's the whole gosh darn point. It's like a superhero. If they're fighting escalating crime and disaster for 20 goddamn movies, then maybe the problem is them. You know? So the reason we're making this video isn't to tell you

that charities or philanthropy, whatever, it's all a waste of time, but rather to reassess their basic purpose. And if a charity or philanthropic endeavor seems to exist in permanent stasis with a broad and undefined goal, well, then that's a big red flag. But on top of the nuance of how philanthropy needs to work,

there's also a larger and systemic reason why they all kinda suck in like a broad philosophical way. All charity is bad. And we will talk about exactly why that is after this next ad break. Because remember, we love you and we love. I think some... Some of the water dripped in my mouth.

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Something dripped on my tongue and now my tongue is numb. So that's cool. You know how in the ring, the ghost water leaked out of the TV? Kinda tasted like how that looked. Anyway, we teased a larger problem with all charities and philanthropies before the break, a sweeping issue that affects them all,

no matter how good or bad. And if you've spent any amount of time watching this show, you might know where I'm heading with this. Because charities are, by their definition, just addressing the symptoms of many systemic issues rather than providing a cure. If Dolly Parton's home county had proper government funding put towards literacy and education,

she wouldn't have needed to start the imagination library. If medical care was a universal worldwide human right backed by tax dollars, all cleft palate surgeries would be covered and paid for without a need for Smile Train. If legislation was passed to make it a right for the hungry to be fed instead of wasting leftover food, we wouldn't need a charity like Feeding America. This has been the case for everything we've talked about.

The Rosenwald schools wouldn't be needed if segregation was fixed. Same with my best friends, cost plus drugs, and everything else across the board. Charities and philanthropies should be seen as signifiers of a failing in a society, a temporary bandage while we work on fixing the larger problem.

They're like those little spare tires you're not supposed to drive on for too long, except we're just riding that to oblivion like a teenager on a road trip, or Thelma on a road trip, or Louise on a road trip, or God forbid, both of them on a road trip. Imagine that.

And for the record, a lot of charities know this and do work to change the policy that would make them not have to exist. And so on top of all the problems we've talked about, philanthropy was never the most effective option for rich people if they actually want to change the world. It's not even the second best option. The second best thing a rich person can do

is donate real money to a real charity instead of forming their own shady foundation. And the first best thing they can do is pretty simple. Are you ready? All you gotta do is pay your fair share of taxes. Ta-da! Can we get a fun sound to celebrate the revelation? Thanks.

We know the tax system is kind of fucked and that money is subject to the decisions of joke holes. They're at least our joke holes that we elected. And more importantly, we can unelect them if they vote against our democratically determined interests. In theory, mind you, it's America. So we're not doing great right now.

But the bottom line is, if these ultra rich philanthropists truly want to change the world, they should want to be taxed and actually fight for that to happen. Tax incentives for charity and philanthropy largely benefit the richest Americans at the expense of the entire country. So help us reform them and just pay your fair share, I say to all you billionaires whomst I know are watching. It allows a more equal playing field in that instead of hoarding money into a foundation or shooting rockets into nowhere, billionaires could just vote like everyone else.

Or heck, it's not the best idea, but they can always lobby politicians to care about causes too, I guess. It's not the best solution, but a nice rich person could technically pay off a senator to not support stuff like fracking, I think. Bribery, now used for good things. But of course the concept of good bribes

and everything else I've talked about, it's all assuming that the wealthy are actually concerned with making a change. As we've been pointing out, even assuming they aren't doing it for tax reasons, a big draw for rich philanthropists seems to be that they get to feel like heroes, and most importantly, circumvent the government

and take priority over the rest of Americans. After all, Bill Gates could certainly just be taxed and vote like everyone else, but by forming a foundation, he gets to dictate how education works. And apparently, he dictates that it works poorly. I'm willing to guess a lot of them like the fact that the government is inept

and doesn't solve these problems because that means they get to swoop in and take control. Same goes for the Clintons in Haiti, right? If we fix the systemic problems around that country, then they wouldn't benefit from their position. And don't get me started on Worm Hitler. So maybe that's the actual solution here. The most effective way to help address those in need

is for the rich to be taxed fairly and more with loopholes and deductions for charitable donations eliminated, and then use that influx of money to address those issues through democratic means. And that way we can also just stop fucking talking about rich people, because I don't know if you know this, but they are exhausting. So let's just tax them fairly.

And that's good for them too. For starters, we won't eat them if we're not starving. Maybe we'll even start liking some of them. Maybe they can all start their own rollercoaster parks and be Dolly Partons, but also they can just enjoy being rich. Tax them fairly and let them go be rich assholes having yacht orgies and blood rituals or whatever. Go, just go fuck off and be rich.

The main reason society hates rich people is because they drain resources from everyone else without actually giving back while people starve or struggle to pay for insulin. So if they didn't do that, perhaps in theory, we would hate them less, but more importantly, they would also leave us alone. It would starve the ultra rich of any more power

than what they already have. Because again, the idea behind charity is to create a society in which charity isn't needed anymore, right? But that won't happen if the rich and powerful benefit from it. If you can make money off of it, if charity is profitable, then that profit motive will inevitably warp it.

Having the rich subsidize the mistakes and inefficiencies and insufficiencies of our government and society takes the power out of our hands and puts it into a super select few. And as a whole, they just fucking suck at it. And why wouldn't they? Mark Cuban isn't a medical doctor. He's the owner of the Dallas Mavericks.

He famously owns a freaking shark tank. We shouldn't expect these people to be good at solving the world's problems beyond suggesting, well, through the power of the market, nor should we want them to think that they can solve the world's problems because that's how you get Elon Musk. And I don't know if you know this,

but that guy is not very good at anything. He can barely tweet. So let's leave the helping to the people who might actually know what they're doing and in turn take away power from the already way too powerful. Surely that's not a controversial statement. And at the very least, best friend of me,

billionaire Mark Cuban, if you're going to sell drugs at cost in a philanthropic manner, you could also point out how absurd and grotesque it is that apparently you have to do it. Point it out every day, Talk to politicians about it. Talk on the news about it every day. Make your own news.

You have billions of dollars. Point out that you shouldn't need to do this. In fact, breaking news from the Mark Cuban TV news broadcast. In the nation, there is hunger and poverty and homelessness and illness. And there are also people with billions and billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars,

a stand in for value and resources, accumulated in fewer and fewer hands via exploitation and inheritance and hard work. One of them does a business advice reality man show and owns a basketball team. And he was like, wait, they're charging what? For what? Okay, I guess I'll do it.

And that is fucked up. That we have to be like, cool, very, very lucky that one of the billionaires had to decide to offer, quote, safe, affordable medicines with transparent prices. Heck, this is Mark Cuban TV news broadcast. I'm still like, what the fuck? Oh, things are bad. Anyway, I guess my point apparently

is that selling cheap meds is great, but my pal who's right over there actually, hey, Cube, let's go on Cube. You should work towards a world where you don't have to like start some cheap drug company so that people can get cheaper medicine. And you can do that by vocally supporting Bernie Sanders in the upcoming presidential election in 2024.

Oh God. That's cool. We got this. No, this is the time. This is the round three. All right, we got it. All right. He'll be what?

He'll be like 80, 83? Oh, okay. We got this. Hey, Diapy, how's your di- Oh, you're not wearing the head diaper. Never even thought about putting it on. Well, that's a bummer, cause that drip is probably coming from my crash pad. Remember that?

It's canon now. And I sort of let Wormbo stay there for a while. So that's probably Wormbo water dripping down on you. Wormbo water? Oh, you know how when Wormbo's in a room for too long, all the walls get dewy? But some of it got in my mouth. Oh, really? Okay. know how when warmbow's in a room for too long all the walls get dewy but some of it got in my mouth oh really okay well probably don't have to worry about it dripping on your head then what do you mean so listen yeah i'm gonna um be out of town for a few weeks just until you

get better get better from what i don't feel sick. Miss Katie, Cody doesn't understand what Miss Katie is talking about. Cody isn't sick, you silly- OH MY GOD! Oh my god, what am I saying? Oh no no no no no no! And it's already started. Better just lock you in the studio too, to be safe. Okay, I'll see you in a few weeks. There's a grenade in the toilet tank. Good luck! You know what I kinda like all of a sudden? Meet Momny! Thanks for watching! Stop it!

Hey there silly goats! Don't worry I'm cured, I ate the grenade. Thanks for watching. Stop it. And this show, some more news as a podcast as well, where all the podcasts are. Go visit the podcast place. It's where the podcasts go and are and are gotten from to listen to the show wise for podcasts. OK, look, get out of here. Thanks for watching. We got merch store. Wormbo's on it.

He's me now or not, I don't know. I wasn't really paying attention. But the important thing is, oh, president is alive.