Giving trading profits to charity

Hello I've been making loads of bull**** posts recently but this is serious so please reply seriously, unless you want to be silly - Which is fine.

I was wondering if anyone else donated any winnings to charity?
Do you think this is a valuable excercise for traders ?
Do you think giving 10% profits per month is a reasonable giving?

What are your opinions?

Personally i give only £2 per month to 'Water aid' but i'm thinking of expanding this to give some of my trading profits to charity and i was interested to hear in peoples thoughts.

I think you can claim gift aid or something and then the tax you'd have paid on that money goes to the charity not the goverment so in effect for every 60p you give them they really get £1.

Aaron should know he's the accountant.

Tax relief on donations to registered charities. Every 80p=£1 if you do a tax return. Wont really affect you unless you fall into the 40% tax and even then you'd have to give sh*tloads. Unless your mate has his XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and you get back handers etc

Ahhh...brings back fond memories...

T2W started a charity trading account...didn't last long though

I traded my own account for charity and still donate occassionally

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/spread-betting/26236-charity-trade-29-08-2007-a.html

lets be honest here, the vast majority of traders dont quite fit the "give to charity" profile

Do you mean because they're selfish w**nkers, or because they don't make any money?

Just asking

GammaJammer said:

Do you mean because they're selfish w**nkers, or because they don't make any money?

Just asking

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probably both,

GammaJammer said:

Do you mean because they're selfish w**nkers, or because they don't make any money?

Just asking

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either or lol

new_trader said:

Ahhh...brings back fond memories...

T2W started a charity trading account...didn't last long though

I traded my own account for charity and still donate occassionally

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/spread-betting/26236-charity-trade-29-08-2007-a.html

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I am very happy to see the topic and discussion on this thread

What I tend to do is give the additional profit made above my daily profit target to a charity.

Most charity only tends to perpetuate the wretchedness it aims to eradicate.

its no different to giving part of any income to charity, some will some wont, i'm sure the % of full time traders that give to charity is no greater or lower then in any other proffession.

charity begins at home

TheBramble said:

Most charity only tends to perpetuate the wretchedness it aims to eradicate.

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yes you do have a point, as some charities only give 50p to ever £1 donated

but don't throw the baby out with the bath water

There are some really hard working and honest charities out there, but I personally give with my own hand to people I know are in a dire situation in the sub-continent especially

You missed my point.

I wasn’t referring to the efficiency of charities. I was using a quote from someone else to highlight the tendency charities have to perpetuate themselves and therefore their cause simply by existing.

In two senses.

First, if you think something is being done about something or somebody is doing something about something, you’re unlikely to be or get as involved yourself as when you believe nothing and nobody is taking any action.

Second, charities, by continuing to cause others to focus on the problem rather than a solution, ensure the problem is self-perpetuating. It focuses on what we don’t want rather than what we do. And we tend to get more of what we focus on that what we don’t.

As Mother Teresa is alleged to have said when asked to attend an anti-war rally, ”No. But if you ever decide to have a Peace Rally…”.

Some fair points Tony, but I do feel that's both a simplistic and generalistic view of the problem. I'm sure some charity issues are like this, and equally I'm sure some charities do solely perform this finger in the dyke kind of operation.

But I am equally wholly sure that some charities dedicate sizeable chunks of their resources to campaining and awareness raising. And I am also sure that while your argument about people being less inclined to help if they think something's already being done has some merit, you surely have to concede that there are some causes that, were it not for charitable action, would have no champion at all. And that's even before we start talking about global financial conditions in the present day. This is why I pick and choose my charitable donations carefully, and opt for a combination of causes close to my heart, and those that have a pragmatic stance and an appropriate position in society.

I’ve obviously failed you in not making my position quite as clear as I should and that is perhaps because my perspective is from a somewhat metaphysical level and this will probably curtail any further debate for that reason alone.

To avoid any offence (like I care LOL) to charity workers or those involved in voluntary/paid charity work – I’m sure the vast majority do so with absolutely positive intent. I just don’t think we as individuals ever know enough about what is genuinely the good or genuinely the bad in anything at all, to ever warrant intrusion, no matter how justified we feel we might be in so doing.

If you took away all the charities, those that they are ostensibly in place to help, would become fewer in number. Not through falling by the wayside, though some would and that is as it should be, but more significantly by failing to come into that state in the first place. Just a hunch.

If there were less support for (a) hungry (b) sick (c) poor (d) abused etc, I have a very real sense there would be less of them getting into those conditions in the first place. You have to be in a certain place to think this way and I appreciate many will find my view abhorrent, but from the metaphysical perspective, what you focus on – you create more of. I think there has to be some consideration that those who end up on the receiving end of charities would have taken different life-routes had those charities not been there in the first place.

Bramble,

Surely your view does not extend to children's charities?

I will stop volunteering at a cancer hospice and look forward to a drop in cancer rates.

I knew I was going to regret this....It’ll be sticks & stones time again….

It doesn’t matter which particular segment of humanity you choose to focus upon, charities are geared up to bring you the story of the problem, the suffering, the things that are bad – that they would like to fix. All well and good. But the problems are still there. They never get fixed, except on an individual basis, and usually only temporarily. They don’t make the things that cause the problem go away, or to cease to exist, they just treat the symptoms and the results.

The root cause of any problem needs to be addressed from a starting point WAAAY back from anything that is normally considered. You don’t get rid of hunger in Africa by providing food to those that are currently hungry. All you’re doing is feeding a small subset of hungry people out of the enormous set of hungry people. Before another war or natural disaster grabs the collective consciousness’ attention and aid goes thataway.

The bods on the sticky end of the stick, or likely to be on the sticky end of the stick need to be finding ways around, not out of, the situations and conditions you want to throw money at. Poverty is as much a state of mind as Enterprise.

You mention children and sure there’s an awful lot of suffering and badness and kids shouldn’t be on the receiving end of anything other than love, laughter, joy, happiness, peace, loving care, comfort, security and benign nurturing. But, and this is where I’m going to fall between the cracks, on a metaphysical level, there would be more of that available and less of the bad stuff if there was more focus on the good, than the bad.

The existence of charity effectively precludes a solution to the problems they address.

shadowninja said:

I will stop volunteering at a cancer hospice and look forward to a drop in cancer rates.

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Yeah, tough one, but I don't know what else to say.

My views are just my views and I can't make any rational sense out of something at this level, it's either a belief and comprehended for what it is, or not, so I'm just going to leave it there.