this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2024
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GEICO, the second-largest vehicle insurance underwriter in the US, has decided it will no longer cover Tesla Cybertrucks. The company is terminating current Cybertruck policies and says the truck “doesn’t meet our underwriting guidelines.”

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[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 16 points 1 month ago (13 children)

Warren buffet is literally a senator's son... CCR has a song on the topic ;)

He gave his kids each $17.5M to start their organizations, and then donated like $5B total to their organizations once they proved their management skills.

Literally this what nepotism looks like... 17m is prolly just enough not to get eaten by estate tax.

You are confusing estate planning with charity.

But he pledged to give away most of the rest (almost $100B), and has already given away about $50B (latest pledge is 99% of his assets).

Without reviewing the structures, this is just a trust me bro

Use some critical thinking? And a bigger question why are you worshiping some gereatric nepo baby enough to try to defend him with propaganda that he paid a lot of money to get into your head.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 month ago (12 children)

Without reviewing the structures, this is just a trust me bro

You can literally see the donation of $48B. The pledge itself isn't legally binding, but he has been consistently donating. He's 94, so I don't think it'll take long to see the proof in the pudding.

Here are some notes from his Wikipedia page:

In 2008, Buffett was ranked by Forbes as the richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of approximately $62 billion. In 2009, after donating billions of dollars to charity, he was ranked as the second richest man in the United States with a net worth of $37 billion.

...

As of 2023, Buffett has given over $50 billion to charitable causes.

I will note that the last figure probably includes the money given to his kids' organizations (not directly to his kids).

And a quote about inheritance for his kids:

"I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing"

He has a pretty consistent track record of philanthropy and statements about philanthropy, so I would be really surprised if he changed that in the last few years of his life. I guess we'll see though.

why are you worshiping some gereatric nepo baby

Where did I say I was worshipping him? I'm merely saying I think what he's doing is admirable and that he doesn't qualify as a "nepo baby." If you look into his history, he worked hard throughout his early life to save and invest, and I see no indications that his parents gave him a huge inheritance or kickstarted his career in any meaningful way. Yeah, his dad was a House Rep for 8 years (6 of those consecutive), and here's a quote about him on his father's Wikipedia page:

'Unshakably ethical, Howard refused offers of junkets and even turned down a part of his pay. During his first term, when congressional salary was raised from $10,000 to $12,500, Howard left the extra money in the Capitol disbursement office, insisting that he had been elected at the lower salary.' His wife said he considered only one issue when deciding whether or not to vote for a bill: 'Will this add to, or subtract from, human liberty?'

That doesn't sound like the kind of man to give his son an unfair advantage...

[–] Malfeasant@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago (4 children)

It's not charity to give money to an organization you (or friends or relatives) control, it's a way to keep your assets under your control without having to pay taxes that would otherwise be required.

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That would be true if he were secretly using those charities to enrich himself but there's no evidence of that at all.

[–] Malfeasant@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think you're missing the point - it's not that he's enriching himself - he's already done that. It's that the charity carries out his will, not necessarily the will of people who need charities.

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

Charity is about who benefits, not about who decides how to provide that benefit.

The idea of choosing a charity based on the donor's will of how it will get spent describes almost all types of charity. If someone donates to any charity at all, they have made a choice on how to allocate their resources and they just take it on faith that that's the people who need it the most.

Furthermore, any given dollar of his can only be spent once. The money he spent on himself enriches himself. It's a considerable amount of money but it's a tiny fraction of the money he controls. Any dollar he gives away can't be spent to enrich himself.

Finally, Buffet has donated over $57 billion. How is he supposed to distribute that? Fly a plane around the country and dump cash out the window? Send a huge check to the IRS? Give it all to your favorite charity? The obvious answer is that he sets up an organization that will analyze existing charities for need and effectiveness and then distributes his assets accordingly.

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