Middle class and the working poor give.

[BlueinOhio]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/20/the-new-robber-barons-how-taxpayers-subsidize-ceos-multimillion-salaries/
Taxpayers subsidizing CEO's pay.

This article combined with the one at NPR about giving to charities says a lot. The poor and middle class give lots more to charities than the wealthy.
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/16/158947667/study-reveals-the-geography-of-charitable-giving

Back when I was in school in the early 1970's. I had a teacher for history who was a republican. He always said that when the wealthy got more money they would give to charities and to the public good. He was wrong.

[fasttense]

1. Yes, he was very wrong.

Besides who died and made the uber rich (besides their parents) the ones who get to decide what charities should be supported in this county and what charities should NOT be supported? Giving all our nation's wealth to the uber rich on the off chance they will give some to the poor is a stupid policy. What if they give it all to their own private memorial park complete with statues of themselves? Or what if they give all their extra wealth to fake charities like the old Mrs. Bush who gave it to her son and wrote it off as charity. Or what if they decide every person in the world needs Ayn Rands' book?

No the uber rich are greedy, selfish and frequently lazy; don't count on them to give to charities.

[tclambert]

2. To amass great wealth you have to be greedy and selfish. A generous person gives it away.

Rich people SEEM generous when they give some charity a check for a million dollars. The charity will make it a news event and give the rich guy an award. But if he's as rich as Romney, that million dollar check is not even 1% of his wealth. It sounds like a lot to us regular people, but it's teeny tiny potatoes to the 1%ers. The Koch brothers pledged $100 million to back Romney. That sounds HUGE. Yet, for them, it's less than 1/2% of their family fortune.

And they certainly expect to make a profit on that investment.

[mntleo2]

3. They only reason the rich give to charities is ...

...for tax shelters and tax breaks. Plus they often employ their relatives and wives in executive positions taking off another 6 figures of that "charity" for themselves.

In Wisconsin a scrappy group of welfare moms did the math that might be of some interest as to how large non-profits rake in the dough. It was a major embarrassment to the legislature there who also shoveled in more $millions in "contracts" to these nons. These moms proved that there was downright fraud with these greedy nons and some of them gave their grants back in shame ~ but the legislature still keeps shoveling in our tax dollars to these agencies.

No one else is doing the math otherwise you would see the same in your state as well. These nons rake in around $55,000-67,000 per client but do only about $2000 in direct services.

http://www.welfarewarriors.org/MWV_Archive%5Cs01%5Cs01--bwe--bus_tour.htm

Hope this helps debunk the notion that wealthy people ever do anything other than line their already-bloated pockets with more $$$$$.

Cat in Seattle

[uponit7771]

4. ..the reason being is the rich are far removed from problems of poor and middle class Americans

...ie the apathy. Few even know about the poor, live isolated lives where they don't have to go be amongst the "others".