[maerF0x0]

I've long played around with the thought of what would happen if someone started something like the universal-fund you mentioned, but had it snowball like a sovereign fund? (ie, instead of spending the in flow, invest it and only spend the profits from the investments, for example) ...

Particularly for basic needs like housing,food,clothes... Like what if instead of giving a charity $100 we created 41c per month? of UBI (roughly the cashflow from investing that same $100). Yes it would seem too little today, but in time it would be massive because it would never dissipate.

IDK, just my musing while claude takes, err does, my job.

[MagicMoonlight]

Plenty of those have existed, but in the end they always get stolen and given to the dogs trust.

There’s nothing people hate more than lasting charitable foundations. They take them to court so that they can crack them open and wank away the entire fund in 6 months.

There was one which was supposed to pay off the entire national debt. They cracked and spaffed it.

Another was supposed to end piracy. Cracked and spaffed.

You could save a million people a year, but that won’t save you from being cracked and spaffed. They’re already rubbing their trotters at the thought.

[pjc50]

This sounds like a strange set of examples that may have been scams from the start. Can you name them?

The UK is full of long lasting charitable foundations. Many attached to schools and universities, but the highest profile example is probably the National Trust and its collection of historic buildings.

[luplex]

What you need to consider is that you also get compounding returns by treating a patient. They can now be more productive and contribute to their local economy. They might plausibly have a higher return rate (in wellbeing terms) than your alternative investment into stocks.

[daniel_reetz]

Precisely. Things become clear when we think of benefits for people instead of monetary terms.

[BobaFloutist]

That's called a foundation, they exist.

[chaseadam17]

Love the idea and have long wanted something like this to exist. One other twist is you could let ppl vote on where to donate the profits.

[rsynnott]

Some nonprofits do run largely off endowments.

One big issue is that it's a PR problem; most people don't really understand it. They'll look at the non-profit and say "why does that need to raise money, it's rich". You saw this a lot with Harvard in Trump's recent funding war with it, say.

[skeeter2020]

And the biggest expense of the most successful charities is fund raising. It's a viscous cycle and when Watsi came along they showed maybe an alternative path.