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In spirit of the holidays, I have decided to write a rant about giving, which could then have a rant on kindness be extracted from it. Everyone would like to say that they are giving. If you are not you are viewed as a stingy person who is uncaring. But then again some people just can not afford to be giving; they should be the receivers instead. But what about those of us who can afford to give up your spare change to the Salvation Army person standing in front of the supermarket? Should you? Think of it in terms of waste. What are you going to do with that change? Toss into a coffee can and just have it sit? Maybe give it to your little kid for him to go buy an ice cream? Well, next time you do give your kid that change for that ice cream realize that some other kid in the world is starving and is literally dying for anything to eat, all while your kid is rotting his teeth out with sugar-loaded ice cream. But you earned that money! Why should you give it away to some one who didn't earn it! Well, the whole reason they don't have money is because they can't, for some reason, earn it. Now don't get me wrong. I detest lazy people who live off of welfare. But I am talking about people who are economically deprived because they can not get work because they are homeless and can not get a break or in a war-torn area. I do not advocate giving money to people who are easily capable of going out and earning money on their own. If they won't, then let them suffer. The people in question here who deserve it who have no way of earning money on their own. This brings up the conversation of inheritence. Let's say that your grandparents are well-off or rich. So they have more money they could possibly need for the rest of their lives here on this earth. So what should they do with that money? Sit on it? Give it to someone in their will? Well, first off, putting it in their will can allow the government to take a huge amount of that money (in the tune of 55%), and we all know they will take it. Or they could give it away while they are still alive and see their money put to good use and not wasted in the governmental bureaucracy. At least they will get to see what their money is being used for. This is what Bill Gates is doing. He has a foundation run by his father that is giving away billions of dollars of his wealth so that he can make sure it is properly used and to have the personal gratification of giving it away. It is also because he plans to not leave much money to his children. I suspect he will make sure they get through college and have some money to start off, but he is not going to allow his children to become reliant upon a trust fund. Perhaps you should begin to think about giving away a certain percentage of your income to charity. Maybe 1% of your income a month you could make sure goes to some well-established charity organization. Or maybe I am full of bunk and you should hoard all of your money and never help another human being ever in your life. |