The only exception to what you said about job creation might be the companies which employ those who would otherwise have a hard time finding a way to support themselves - but these are mostly charities.
When I see people like Sage Rat spout this nonsense about job creation it makes me think that many conservatives like free enterprise so much because they don’t really understand it.
Controlling the number of births and placing quality over quantity is a significant factor in why some families are wealthy. It is felt that the greater is duty belongs to the entire family at large rather than just one possible member.
True, but:
On the whole, Mother Teresa may have largely harmed the people that everyone thought she was helping, and largely did so by following the tennets that Jesus laid out. On the whole, I’m not impressed with Jesus’ ethical system as a genuinely ethical system.
To what proportion? What if the optimal amount of money to be utilized for charity, to achieve the best outcome, is $10m a year, but because of everyone’s desire to be charitable, we end up giving $1b and hurting the people who needed help? When you decide to be charitable, are you performing data mining to see where the best cost-effectiveness is?
I will freely admit to hyperbole, but I did not intend it to seem like anything other than clear hyperbole.
OK, so you’re explicitly questioning the OP’s question, not implying your assertions answer the question as to whether the rich are less compassionate.
You’re not saying, “the rich are compassionate because they grow they economy,” but, “compassion is the wrong key to improving society.”
I can live with that. Disagree, but can live with it.
I think charity does help, and does not build a society of ‘learned helplessness,’ as I think you’re implying. Humans have, as social animals, always aided the helpless because it just might pay off later. It’s worth the risk, anyhow. We’ve done pretty well as a species.
Can we define “rich”?
Also what about the fact that the rich (see above) pay disproportionately more in taxes than others?
I’m not getting the bagel salesman anecdote. The tipping culture in the US promotes good service but it also allows companies to get away with paying their workers less. Does it make sense to continue to support that system via near mandatory tipping (and isn’t the delivery guy, you know, doing his job?).
Also, a lot of large charities have massive overhead and admin costs. It is not terribly efficient to give to charities when a lot of your dollar may not be going where you would like it to go.
Lastly, once we define rich, I would like to see if there is any survey on how people become rich (inheritance etc.).
So why would people whoa re attracted to work in government be less charitable. I’m pretty sure that federal employees are much more charitable than the average citizen.
…Why…? 
Wait. What?
Mother Teresa harmed Calcutta orphans on the whole? Please explain.
Did she force them to make Nike shoes like the “job creators” of today or to mine coal like the "job creators 100 years ago?
And how does that have any bearing on compassion.
Perhaps charity is stupid and we should eliminate it. I haven’t heard a convincing argument but feel free to make your case. I generally don’t give to charities that solicit over the phone (especially ones that purport to be associated with the police).
Before the East India Trading Company, the world must have been a bleak place indeed. There is nothing wrong with engaging in self interested behavior (in fact its what most of us should focus on most of the time) but that does not undermine the value of charitable organizations or government programs like food stamps and WIC.
I agree that we need to support government safety nets. I don’t think the diet analogy holds water.
I think he simply means that if people think they’ve been “good” in one area of life (i.e., recycling, being eco-friendly, volunteering, etc.), then they don’t have to be as “good” in other areas of life (charitable giving, etc.) because they’ve already “done their part/put in their share of effort.”
This reads like an article on Cracked.com. Sorry but it’s just awful.
They have an annual charity drive every year since FDR. There sometimes articles in the paper during the drive about how fed employees are comparatively more charitable than others.
I understand the analogy he was trying to make and it would have worked if he said “rich people volunteer a lot of their time so they do less charitable giving” But he said ~ “rich people make lots of money and create jobs in the process so they do less charitable giving”
The connection between being a good dieter on Monday prompting a little cheating on Thursday sounds like cashing in on diet karma. The connection between engaging in self interested behavior and using that as a rationale for being uncharitable just sounds selfish.
income greater than $250K. Sound OK to you?
What about it? Does that make a rich person compassionate? Or what? Does it give them an excuse to not be compassionate?
Are you seriously suggesting that a rich person not tipping is doing so to fight the established system? S/he tips 5 or 10% because s/he believes it will cause employers to raise servers’ rates to fair wages?
Or do you think, maybe, rich people are less compassionate, and engaging in social loafing, believing vague ‘others’ will give the person enough tips?
That’s a good reason to not donate to any charity. It would take the tiniest bit of effort to find one that supports what you care about efficiently.</sarcasm>
That isn’t rich to me, at least not when compared to some of the people talked about on this thread. To me, rich is someone who has liquid assets above 1M. Put another way, rich is someone who is not reliant on a paycheck. Even at 250K, you are very likely still heavily reliant on that paycheck assuming you have any sort of life.
Compassion is a subjective thing. Let’s you make over 250K per year then you are likely paying over 40% on your taxable income (state and federal). That may well impact how much you give to charity.
I was not suggesting that but the reality is, the tipping culture allows employers to pay employees less. Is that right? Would it not just make more sense to increase the cost of the product?
My guess is that rich people are likely the biggest tippers. Only rich people can afford to routinely go out to nice restaurants and they tend to tip 20% otherwise those restaurants would have to increase wages to keep their wait staff. They haven’t. There is a reason that it’s very hard to get a waiting job at the top restaurants and steak houses in big cities.
Are you saying that charities are all efficiently run? That there aren’t massive admin costs which raise legitimate questions as to where your money goes and how the charity is run? Is that what you are saying?
OK. That’ll be the definition.
I don’t know what you mean by that. Many things are subjective.
So paying lots of tax, which still leaves you with more money than people that make less, makes you give less money to people in need. In your mind that person is just as compassionate.
Sure. But that’s not the way it is. Nor does it make any point about compassion. If you showed me a rich person who was increasing employee pay to not depend on tips, you might have a point. You’re just excusing shitty tipping (in rich people only) because the world isn’t better than it is. You really have a hard time understanding the bagel guy story?
My guess is you made that up. The bagel guy, while an anecdote, is at least based on real experience. Yes, servers in nice restaurants get bigger tips because prices are higher. Still, the rich people at those restaurants could tip less than the middle class people at those same restaurants. The common wisdom among servers is that that is the case.
I really don’t know how you got that out of what I said. I truly don’t.
That some charities are bloated is not an excuse to not give to charity. Take 2 minutes, go to charitynavigator.org, and find one that does what you like efficiently.
Or, you’re rich. Start a charity and run it lean and mean, like the business tycoon you are!
It means that they may not be able to allocate as much money to charity as they otherwise might given that they are paying more in taxes.
You have offered no evidence that rich people tip less than poor people. Who typically eats at nicer restaurants? I would imagine that those who do support the tipping culture (17-20%), and that those who eat at restaurants usually have more money. So perhaps the rich or better off do indeed tip?
Can you provide a cite to that? And how would the server know that their particular customer is middle class or rich?
It’s been done. Gates Foundation and many, many others.
Here is a fairly decent breakdown of charitable giving in the United States.
Among the statistics is one that states that 95% of high net households contribute to charity.
In the link you provided I found this:
Apparently, all the tithes and pledges count as charitable contributions, making religion by far the biggest beneficiary.