I'm not sure that's really true. Take, for example, the Harry Potter movies. They were great, but imperfect, and were really well received. But they are still being readapted into a TV series.
Because while it’s technically true (each American does contribute about $0.40 a year to NPR stations via federal taxes and the corporation for public broadcasting) it’s a tiny fraction of NPRs budget so the statement is misleading.
It would be similar to complaining that people are forced to pay Ford via taxes because the government uses F-150s
Factual truth is required, but it is not the only part of human communication by a long shot. "It's true" is a meaningless defense of expressions (past childhood) if nobody is claiming otherwise (downvotes don't mean "I think this is a lie").
The GP leaves the degree of taxation/funding, as well as the broader context of what other entities are tax funded and to what degree, unspoken; and they imply that, whatever those facts may be, it's a bad thing in this case. The parent (and other commenters) then provided some of that relevant information (and, assuming that information is true, you presumably would appreciate such a thing).
As for the downvoters, they may reasonably disagree with the parent's implication that it is a bad thing, or disapprove of their omission of details. You may reasonably disagree with this use of the downvote button, but it means they are not necessarily claiming the GP is stating an untruth.
Just as they are also supporting the Catholic Church, Atheist organizations, Mormons, Buddhists, etc and anyone else who fulfills the basic requirements to be tax deductible.
But the reality is only ~13% of US tax payers itemize deductions so in general there isn’t any such support when the average person donates to anything. It’s really just support for the kinds of people who can itemize their taxes rather than supporting charities.
Anyway, a more relevant “how many NPR contributors itemize their donations.” But of course it’s roughly in line other such charity’s, because when your talking about such a wide selection of the population it tends to look like the general population. Aka, when you start talking millions there aren’t enough billionaires for the group to mostly consist of billionaires.
I had an aunt who got a 7 figure refund after an IRS audit because she wasn’t bothering with minor donations. No idea how representative that is, but people are strange especially when you look at large numbers of them.
> how many NPR contributors itemize their donations.
what's your point? Who else's can you itemize?
> when you start talking millions there aren’t enough billionaires for the group to mostly consist of billionaires
who mentioned millionaires, or billionaires? For that matter, that entire paragraph doesn't make any sense. I proposed a very simple test, which we unfortunately can't get the data for (easily).
when you watch a PBS pledge drive, they do seem to emphasize "tax-deductible" a lot when they ask for your pledge. So they must think it matters, at least.
Many people who could deduct donations don’t because they don’t bother with the paperwork. It’s a very meaningful distinction because the option doesn’t inherently cost tax payers anything only those who actually use it do.
Being tax deductible on the other hand is an easy way to saying they’re a legit charity. Anything that isn’t tax deductible that still wants donations should raise major red flags.
OK, point taken. IF that's true. Where's your data on "Many people who could deduct donations don’t"?
Who would have this data, after all? Not the IRS, since by definition the taxpayer didn't file it.
Tax preparers would know if their clients decline to file itemized, but would they report it? Similarly, TurboTax or other servers might know, but I doubt they'd release such data.
Because it’s true of every single non profit in the US. You can say the same about random churches, but that level of support doesn’t keep the lights on.
because, while true, it doesn't tell the whole story. There would be a lot more than 4 podcasts being cancelled if it were solely relied on money through taxes.
Anyone who contributes $100 to NPR deducts $100 from their income for tax purposes. So the public is paying, in that he or she would have paid $40-50 in taxes on it otherwise.
Tax math: it's the marginal tax rate you have to look at for deductions, i.e. the rate you'll pay on the next dollar you earn, or save on the dollar you deduct. We don't have a flat tax at the Federal level, or most states.
We can find plenty of taxpayers in NY, CA, or MA who have a marginal rate of 40-50%. They are the highly affluent people that those PBS pledge drives featuring Baby Boomer musical acts are aimed at.
> California is easily close to that, when you add up Federal and State income taxes. As is New York.
No, it's not. Someone making $250k in California pays an effective Federal rate of 22% and state of 8%. Even someone making a million a year sees an effective rate of ~42%. (And that's before tax avoidance strategies they'll undoubtedly pursue.)
> Anyone who contributes $100 to NPR deducts $100 from their income for tax purposes.
Itemized deductions these days are either extremely small (limited to a few hundred dollars) or only for the very wealthy.
During the Trump years, the standard deduction was doubled, with the result that vastly fewer people now itemize deductions. Yes, you can report a limited amount of tax-deductible donations, but last time I looked it was around $300/yr (and even that was easy to overlook).
The $300 charitable deduction was just in 2021, you basically can't get a federal charitable deduction anymore. Might get one at the state level though.
If less than 4% of their funding came from the state, they wouldn't fight so hard to keep it coming. If the state contribution was that low, it would be in NPR's best interest to just get off it entirely.
A bit off topic, but William Dalrymple's book "The Anarchy" does an excellent job tracking the development of the East India Company from "the king gives you a right to establish trade with India" to the "the purpose of [all of India] is to... increase the wealth of the [EIC shareholders]."
Early in my career, I worked for a company that had one of its five core values as "Maximize shareholder value" and these would get displayed all around the company (as if they were supposed to inspire us). I thought (1) 'I can't believe anyone is actually inspired by that' and (2) 'Well, at least they're honest about it'.
> I think to reduce social media to some of the crappy jobs it does serve artificially diminishes what it can be.
I agree completely with this. The article takes two bad parts of social media and assumes that those are the only uses for it. You've mentioned more. There's also keeping connected in a group context with family and friends that are scattered across the globe. I have an active family group in which my family shares pictures of nephews/nieces, vacation, and more - all stuff that helps keep us close when we can't see each other for long periods of time. I have an active friend group with my college roommates that does the same - when one of them discovered that his spouse was having an affair, we could all support him together.
I agree as well. Those two use-cases for using Facebook don't seem to apply to me. Here's what I use it for:
- Local community groups - I have a few groups localised for my suburb and surrounds, specifically "good karma" groups which are for people asking for/offering help. I'm also part of volunteer organisations and specific interest groups that post updates.
- Buying/selling, both on the marketplace and groups specific for certain things.
- Events. Useful for keeping up-to-date with event information, offering lifts to places and buying/selling tickets.
- Chat. Both with my friends and certain chat groups and also being able to contact people within my network quickly and easily.
I rarely if ever post anything on my profile, and I block the News Feed with plugins/extensions to avoid the infinite scroll.
Granted, a lot of these things could be replaced with other services out there. I'm aware of the privacy concerns and the UI/UX is getting worse over time. I hate Facebook, but the community and people I want to access all use it, so I don't really have a choice if I want to keep in touch.
To claim that people only use social media to seek validation or because your life is so mediocre that you need to consume the best moments of other people's lives, strikes me as a bit out-of-touch and arrogant.
I agree completely with this. I have an Applied Physics Ph.D. and have a similar experience. I think that if you are getting a Ph.D. for a reason other than enjoying the learning and the education, then it doesn't make too much sense. However, if you have a great pleasure in the pursuit of the field and the research in it, then it makes sense to get a Ph.D.
We don't give enough credit these days to education being its own reward.
To be fair, lots of local nightly news shows in America have local restaurant reviews. My parents live outside of Asheville, NC, and their local nightly news on all the broadcast channels carries restaurant reviews and lots of "around town" happenings.
