This morning, I awoke to an e-mail thanking me for the $1 a month I give Wikimedia/Wikipedia, and providing the year end accounting of my donations. They referred to it as "generous support." $12. So, I wrote back to them.
But before we get to that, I actually did another blog for a short time. I intended it to be about things other than BP, I never established a new post circulation, and I sort of abandoned it. The last post was in 2015.
The 2/11/13 post was called "Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, or Personal Pork." The post was as follows:
No one likes to pay taxes. Even liberals, who claim to understand why the public sector is important, and appreciate the supports and benefits it provides, don't like to pay taxes. The guy in the booth next to mine at breakfast this morning was explaining to his companion how he "plays the system" and "flies under the radar." It seems he's paid by check, with no withholding, and he essentially invents an income and expenses, allowing him to take advantage of all possible tax benefits, and avoid any changes from one year to the next, changes that might trigger the dreaded tax audit.
Most people aren't quite as sociopathic as that, but there is, as they say, a little larceny in everyone. We all tend to cut a corner here or there, or direct money so as to shelter it if we can. It's not quite as simple as wanting to avoid taxes, so we can keep the money ourselves. Some people give money away, to avoid paying taxes on it. And this is the crux of a problem.
Our system, of society, government, and taxes, is set up so that the government spends money on what we're all supposed to agree is in the common interest, whether it's paying for government itself, constructing a system of highways, providing support for the poor and impaired, declaring war on Iraq, or anything else. We're all supposed to pay a fair share of taxes to support those aims. But we're welcome to pursue other interests, which are not necessarily agreed for the common good. These are our private and personal interests, and can include anything "charitable," as long as it doesn't lobby. Our taxes are deductible, and so are these other contributions.
If there is anything most people dislike more than they dislike taxes, it is "pork," or pork-barrel legislation. Absolutely everyone complains about it. Pork is those narrow interests that are forced upon others, who must support them, despite the fact that the vast majority of supporters gain no advantage at all from the narrow interests. In fact, sometimes it seems that no one at all gains any advantage from them. Alaska's "bridge to nowhere" is a recently discussed example. These cuts of pork do nothing except funnel money into an area that could not independently attract the money, because few Americans would be interested, and the projects do not provide anything representing the general welfare. Except in the very local area of the project.
Aren't charitable and related contributions precisely like that? If I'm not a member of your church or synagogue, and I don't favor the ACLU, and I think the national park service provides protection enough, so conservation groups are superfluous and might have narrow agendas that are beyond what is of value to the public, why should I have to pay for part of your interests in these things?
I think I shouldn't. And I think you shouldn't have to pay for part of my devotions. So I have made a resolution from now on. I no longer take tax deductions for donations I make to anyone for anything. The only exception I make is for donations I make to the public sector. The municipality where I live has an extremely limited ability to raise revenue. I make extra "contributions," of one kind or another, and for one excuse or another. I will deduct those "contributions," because I intend them as extra and voluntary taxes. I will not deduct contributions to public radio, Feeding America, Amnesty International, Southern Poverty Law Center, or any of the several other organizations to which I choose to give some of my money. That's on me, not on you. And if you choose to give some of your money to a religious organization (I'm atheist and anti-religious) or anyone else of interest to you, I would appreciate your making that your own business. You shouldn't have to eat my pork, and I shouldn't have to eat yours.
So, I wrote back to Wikimedia today as follows:
Wikimedia Foundation,
I have not provided "generous support." I have provided minimal support. (Also, I do not generally take tax deductions, because any support I give anyone is my business, and I do not ask other taxpayers to share in the donation with me, or to compensate the government for the decisions I make. So I do not need an end of year accounting of how much I donated.)
Wikimedia has at least many millions of users. It could be tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or billions. If a significant proportion of Wikimedia's users made the minimal donation I make, Wikimedia would be awash in support/(money). That's what should happen. I know other people who rely on Wikimedia, and I always encourage people to consult Wikipedia, and to donate. No one I know will miss a dollar a month, and everyone who values you at all should contribute.
It would be hard for me to imagine that you don't look things up on Wikipedia. It's an endlessly extensive source of information about almost anything you can imagine. And it's free, unless you want to donate to them. (Someone has to research these things, and deal with proposed edits, and manage whatever is the cost of the site.) So, I encourage you to donate.
Here's today's Now I Know (nowiknow.com: also free, and also appreciates donations) post:
ReplyDeleteSouth Korea's Reverse Gold Rush
In 1997, many countries in Asia’s Pacific Rim suffered from a massive financial crisis which threatened to spread across the world. Foreign debt to GDP ratios exceeded 180% at the peak of the crisis. Six different nations felt the economic struggles as capital fled their countries, and the International Monetary Fund provided $40 billion (U.S.) to help keep South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia afloat. As economies got more and more troubled, governments tried more and more ideas.
South Korea’s idea? Recall gold.
In January of 1998, South Korea began a campaign called “Collect Gold for the Love of Korea.” At the time, South Koreans, collectively, owned a total of 2,000 tons of gold then worth about $20 billion. That would have gone a long way to lessen the debt burden the country was suffering from. But gold, being hard to track and therefore hard to confiscate, could not simply be collected by edict and threat of force. (And even if it could, it was unlikely that the public would go for it.) So South Korea took another approach. The government simply asked its citizens to turn in their gold voluntarily.
On January 5, 1998, the program launched with the support of three major corporations (Samsung, Daewoo, and Hyundai) collecting and donating gold, thereby showing that this was not just the government getting involved. The BBC, as the program was in full swing, noted that “housewives gave up their wedding rings; athletes donated medals and trophies; many gave away gold ‘luck’ keys, a traditional present on the opening of a new business or a 60th birthday.” Within the first two days of the program, per the AP, over 100,000 South Koreans donated north of 20 tons of gold worth over $100 million. The response was so great that officials stopped announcing the results of the gold collection. Due to the amount of gold newly on the market, they feared too that the donations would soften international gold prices.
It is likely that, in total, roughly $150 to $200 million in gold was collected — a small and probably meaningless dent in the country’s debt, given that the country received a bailout in excess of $50 billion. But the symbolic aspect resonated, as Korean citizens realized the gravity of the crisis and rallied, showing a willingness to accept other efforts to help. By the end of 1999, South Korea believed the economic slowdown over.