Lost Charity

This article is good background to understand Hanson's health care perspective: <a href="http://hanson.gmu.edu/feardie.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://hanson.gmu.edu/feardie.pdf</a><p>Unfortunately his argument really only addresses marginal health care and shows that we may be over-cared-for and suboptimal, not that basic health-care is worthless. The effectiveness of work against polio and eradication of smallpox are perhaps the easiest examples of unqualified success.<p>There's a vast difference between saying that we have too much or suboptimal health care, and that hospitals are worthless.<p>Robin's post criticizes Grass's spending as worthless "signaling," but it seems to me to be guilty of the same thing. This post doesn't do anything to prove the claims that hospitals and academics are worthless, or that profit motive is the only way to do good.<p>I actually agree with many of Hanson's broader points about ways to be more effective, but classifying all charitable spending on libraries, hospitals, and universities as "pissing it away" is needlessly sensationalist.<p>[edited to reduce my own needless sensationalism]

Might I humbly submit that it would be better to make one's <i>own</i> money (no matter how small the amount) and use it for what charity one sees as most appropriate, rather than criticize what someone else chooses to do with the money <i>they've</i> earned.<p>Allowing people to earn money means accepting the fact that they may use it in a manner that seems sub-optimal to you.

FTA: <i>But when folks like Alex spend their later years trying to "do good" with the millions they were paid for actually doing good, they usually end up pissing it away.</i><p>I think he's missing the critical point that they <i>enjoy</i> pissing it away (as he calls it). Being able to spend the money you acquire in ways that bring you personal enjoyment is the whole reason for acquiring money.<p>The bottom line is that it isn't critically important to a working system how wealthy people choose to spend their money toward the end of their lives. What's important is that they be allowed to spend their money in ways they enjoy so that their younger selves are motivated to make the money in the first place by creating wealth for others.<p>How hard would you work on a startup if I told you that, if it succeeded, you could only use the money to create another startup, <i>ad nauseum</i>?<p>What's much more saddening is when politicians get acclaim for spending <i>other people's</i> money in useless ways, since they never produced any value in the first place.

Seriously, we already have too much cure for cancer

<i>But when I think of all the good that could be done by philanthropists who actually wanted more to do good than to look good, it makes me sad.</i><p>Shame on you, OP. How dare you infer anyone else's intent, especially someone giving so much. You're inference that they would prefer to look good rather than do good is speculative and insulting. Better you should just say, "Thank you," and STFU.

too true.

What an asshole. I hope the author never needs medical care he cannot afford. I hope he never gets in a position where he has to rely on another person's charity.<p>Or maybe I hope he does .... I am not sure about that yet.