Cheap in America? Gimme a Break, Stossel.

For those of you who were fortunate enough to have something to else to do on a Friday night other than watch the journalistic piece of garbage hosted by John Stossel on 20/20 last night, why didn’t you invite me to come along? I would have behaved…maybe.

Well, Stossel decided to take an hour of television scheduling to tell us about how a great person he is because he donates so much money to charity while the rest of squander it away on ourselves. He at least made up for that part by addressing that the American people give more money than any other population, or something like that. I was half paying attention at this point. I saw pretty maps with colors and 3D effects, though!

The other half consisted of upfront interviews asking billionaires why they didn’t give away more of their fortunes. As a member of the middle-class, I could only wonder why I would expect them to. I mean, if I worked hard and earned millions or billions, I wouldn’t let some snobbish little reporter tell me what to do with my money. Everyone would love to have millions of dollars to buy everything they ever dreamed of having. However, only a few of us reach that goal, and reap the benefits of it. How, we expect them not to act on their dreams? Hell, they even donate money anyway.

Why do they donate? Tax reasons of course! It’s the same reasons some big time CEOs take small salaries with large stock options, less money goes back to Uncle Sam. The good will of these wealthy members of society is at least well-rivaled if not out gunned by the tax minded reasoning mixed in with it. Nobody gives anything away for free and without benefit. Even the best person will volunteer because they love how it makes them feel. This is a great kind of selfishness, but imagine the proportionate selfishness of a large donation. Good feeling becomes saving a buck every tax season.

Give more or spend more, we all know it’s a hard question to hypothetically have a 100% answer to. Imagine when you have billions.

~Another Else