Sources: https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/donor-pulls-100-mill... https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4348656-upenn-loses-1... https://www.timesnownews.com/world/who-is-ross-stevens-stone... (many more)
Compare that to the death toll in any comparable war, event, or behavior that we politicize against domestically. Now imagine yourself seeing these things from the outside. That's how the world looks to the 'real' rest of the world, and not the ~15% and declining percent of the world that people call the 'rest of the world', when they mean Europe, the Anglosphere, and a handful of occasional oddballs like Japan or South Korea.
And when you see this world through their eyes, you start to see an entirely different world, and it's the world that we are also starting to see now as all masks and pretexts have been coming off for years now. And in general I think that's a good thing. People can't form realistic and meaningful worldviews if they're stuck in a Marvel Comic Universe perspective of international relations.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
It's kind of funny to see "anti-interventions" podcasters go full empire mode and justify literally colonization today.
Hardly surprising, since most of these white nationalists love the British Empire's "oeuvre" in non-White countries (but somehow ignore the fact that their own country fought against its tyrannical rule).
Of course we haven't actually defined what we mean by significant, so I suppose we will have to drop back to that old standby of 5%.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” -- Upton Sinclair.
Where salary in that quote could be metaphorical, given there's other reasons like identity, beliefs, or politics.
Because the United States isn't funding and supplying the weapons for that atrocity, and we don't have American congressman and presidents visiting Sudan to pay homage, or have US officials saying "Sudan first" and "Sudan is our greatest ally" and putting the Sudanese flag in their offices. The US president's son-in-law isn't pitching investors on buying beachfront property in Sudan.
> is very specifically socially engineered imho - because there's an actor behind it with purpose
Who do you think is socially engineering these protests and how? There's far more evidence that Israel is manipulating public perceptions, but they're failing at it because there are too many alternative sources of media to control them all now.
- Why didn't any of them seem to care when Netanyahu proposed tapering off US aid? Shouldn't they have been celebrating a major stepping stone toward their purported objective?
- Why do we see the same obsession with Israel in European and many other countries, who do not provide any aid to Israel? What excuse do they have?
To the best of my knowledge, I'm not in any way directly funding a war in Sudan. That doesn't mean I don't care, but I'm not being made complicit.
Because no one in our society is defending, supporting, or funding the killing of children in the Sudan war.
A lot of people aren’t okay with it but also choose not to engage on it.
This sounds more like a proximate cause than a “real answer.”
So his goal is to prevent money issues from being a thing getting in the way of athletes achieving. But he has structured it in a way that prevents the money from helping this goal.
> Per the Wall Street Journal, “Half will come 20 years after their first qualifying Olympic appearance or at age 45, whichever comes later. Another $100,000 will be in the form of a guaranteed benefit for their families after they pass away.”
So half of it will never be seen by the athlete. Ever. And the other half will not be seen for at least two decades.
What Olympic athlete is not able to achieve as much because they don't have money decades down the road? Or because their heirs don't have enough money? I might be missing something, but how do these two incredibly-delayed payments help them train now? They can't use money they won't see for 20 or 30 years to hire coaches, buy equipment or pay for track time. They can't buy food or pay rent with money they will never see.
As for the gift to their heirs, that also allows them to consume somewhat more freely, instead of purchasing (as much) life insurance. Most young people don't, but people who compete in dangerous sports probably do.
In the meantime, they need income not advice on frugality.
FWIW, most athletes are already used to being frugal as they juggle an often expensive training schedule with their personal finances. This is being framed as giving them money to focus on their sport/event during their competitive years.
> So half of it will never be seen by the athlete
This can't be right, right? I never heard of people "receiving a donation" that you get the promise of now, but will be given to your family once you die, sounds a bit macabre. And as you mention, also pointless, how would that make them "break through new frontiers of excellence" when they may not be able to afford rent while being alive?
To me it sounds more than a bit macabre - depending on the familial relations, it would seem like a motive for them to commit suicide in order to provide for their children or for their children to murder them. I can already imagine the memoires being adapted into Netflix shows.
If your sport has any mortality or long term risk (concussions, cardiac events) then this could be seen as a nice extra insurance policy.
Still not worth questioning?
Also, $donator is making, as far as I know, zero demands. These people would be competing if they had to pay. Actually, most of them do have to pay.
Your analogy is comparing apples-to-sqrt(-1)
If you think the above example isn’t a donation then I don’t see the logic behind seeing this as a donation.
And to be clear, I view it as a donation that is still probably net good, but it’s not a selfless donation. The timeline as well also means it can be clawed back at some point in time.
I’d probably rate it a 2/10 for “goodness” where anything greater than 0 is still good.
This doesn't sound macabre at all to me. Sounds more like loophole finding to avoid directly paying the athletes to allow them to keep their amateur status to me.
No, a trust that is setup to give your family money when you die, in order to serve as motivation for you to "break through new frontiers of excellence"
He can now report a $100M donation, let it grow for 20 years, pay the actual donation, and pocket the remainder tax free.
However -
> The USPOC currently supports ~4500 athletes, or ~$22,222 each.
Machinations of the uber rich and the morality of them aside, they would've gotten nothing and now they're getting something.
You can't claim a donation while still holding onto the money?
Yup, the biggest challenge faced by most olympic athletes, and those doing an Olympic campaign, is affording to train, travel, gear, etc, especially in more niche sports, bobsleigh, etc.
Guaranteed benefits can be monetized. The gift’s goal is to start building generational wealth. But nothing prevents me from lending one of these athletes $50k today if they give me an LPOA over that death benefit tomorrow (assuming this doesn’t breach any covenants).
It’s a totally different story if those are in a trust which is invested on behalf of the athletes, which pays out the invested value at time of disbursement. But I would be shocked if it were set up that way. Pleasantly shocked but shocked nonetheless.
This is a great gift to the athletes, don’t get me wrong. There was just no need to oversell it.
On what planet are hundreds of thousands of dollars not generational wealth if played right? You’re talking about sums that are on par with the 401(k)s of retiring union workers.
It’s not riches. But it’s enough to pass along to your heirs. That’s generational wealth.
They call J.G. Wentworth?
/Worst earworm since 1-877-KARS-4-KIDS
I suspect it's worse. It's structured in a way that will probably harm the goal.
The money will go to people who somehow already managed to marshal enough resources to get to the Olympics. Good on you for supporting people after the fact, but by that point money problems have long before winnowed far too many qualified athletes out of the pipeline.
That kid from Moab would be an amazing swimmer. That kid from Punxsutawney shoots one hell of a bow. That kid from Tuscaloosa would have a smoking slapshot. None of them have a hope of clearing the initial monetary barriers.
The most effective time to apply resources is when the athletes are young, not done.
Potentially could also stop others from donating to athletes because they hear this and think "some rich guy already took care of them" not knowing the details.
A friend of mine is an ex-pro tennis player. She's nearing 60 years old now. She's been n 1 in her country and n 2 worldwide in doubles.
And it's not easy for athletes once they age: when they're still young, they make money doing their sport. Then they find other things, often related, to do: for example she trained a world number one for years.
But later on, it gets more difficult: she became a tennis teacher. And the country's sport federation gives her money for quite a few years... But not until 65 years old.
It's precisely later in life that many pro athletes do need money.
Only those at the very, very, very top do make a really good living. For the others, it's hard.
So $100K at 45 is welcome.
P.S: also if you're 100% guaranteed to get $100 K a 45, I'm sure there are way to use that as collateral for borrowing before you're 45. But that may defeat the idea of giving it when they turn 45.
Delaying a normal career to compete in the olympics will set your career and earning potential back by a few years. This money tries to balance it out a bit.
I wonder if this will adjust for inflation / earn interest at all. If a 20 year old olympian dies 70 years later, then when their family gets $100,000 USD nominal, it will be the equivalent of getting $8,400 in today's money. Assuming the same average inflation from the last 70 years (1956->2026).
Did you inflate over 70 or 50 years?
My read of the original article [1] is it’s a defined benefit. That said, “athletes will receive $200,000 for each Olympics they compete in,” so an athlete who competes for four seasons could stand to get $400,000 when they turn 45 and potentially borrow against their death benefit.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/sports/olympics/team-usa-milan-cortina-e...
Same way all benefits and assets are passed down. One part trustee’s work. Four parts the beneficiaries’.
This seems like some billionaire trying to inflate their donation amount by talking in terms of decades not now. I’m sure there’s conditions attached too (some reasonable but I’m sure some are just intentional land mines)
My reading is Ross made a $100mm donation to the USOPC.
> I’m sure some are just intentional land mines
You’re sure based on zero evidence.
It’s aggressive to call out baseless conclusions being represented as sureties?
Granted, that's 20 to 60 years down the line...
Oh this explains it:
> Starting with the Olympic and Paralympic Games Milan-Cortina 2026, and going at least through the 2032 Games, every U.S. Olympian and Paralympian will receive $200,000 in financial benefits for each Games in which they compete:
Here's the setup: you have a billion dollars invested in some account earning some interest, let's say 5% because that's like bond rates (lower than S&P500). Day 1 you generate interest and don't hire. All following weekdays you hire a new employee and day then daily at a yearly rate of Y, say $250k/yr. Most people are going to be surprised that you can basically go an entire year before your account has less than a billion dollars.
I do this because it's so much money the daily interest is not negligible. I mean 1000000000*0.05/365~=$137k. Is back of the envelope and estimating, but it gets the point across. (So you can hire people daily at $100k indefinitely...)
Anyways, googling suggests there's ~600 American Olympians that participated in 2024 and another ~250 paraolympians. So what, we need on the order of $10bn to solve this? I can think of a lot worse ways we currently spend that kind of money and about 15 Americans where this would be less than 10% their total wealth and 11 of those people made more than twice that just last year... I'm not saying anyone should but hey, Elon could solve issues like these without blinking an eye. Probably better PR than anything else he could do
If you invested a billion dollars at a conservative 5% interest rate, you could employ 200 people at 250k a year on the interest alone.
However, 5% real return is not likely from bonds alone.
The terms are atrocious. imo dude will move money into a his own charity which will hold onto it since no athlete qualify for the next 20 years. After a few years, he will quietly cancel the grant and use it elsewhere.
> His entire donation to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC), announced last March, is $100 million—a record breaking gift to the organization.
Just...lol.
"I want to give a ton of money to olympians but... they are too young and dumb to get it now and also they should get half of it after they die."
Unreal paternalism.
* "amateaur" meaning independantly wealthy, or supported by patron or state.
It's rare to see a kid from the lowest demographics on the gymnast team unless they've been scouted and picked up by a state or national institute.
Similarly horse racing is about the fastest horse with a certified pedigree.
It's about the bloodline, the trainers, the owners, and not about a Waler that can run four miles into a machine gun nest.