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[0point]

Why not give to charity?

Mouse, I think Doug Casey has provided a comprehensive answer to your question:

L: Doug, our readers [...] have wondered, given your low opinion of trying to use the state to improve the human condition, if there’s a private charity you think might be a good place to direct funds they no longer need.

Doug: No.

L: That’s it? No?

Doug: Most charities aren’t worth the cost of the gunpowder it would take to blow them to hell.

L: And the permitting for the demolition – fuhgeddaboudit. But can you explain why?

Doug: Sure. Charities are largely counterproductive. Their main beneficiaries are not the intended recipients, but the givers. They get some tax benefits, but mainly they get the holy high of do-goodism. Frankly, the idea of charity itself is corrupting to both parties in the transaction.

For instance, take Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Both are geniuses at their businesses. But they’re the type of geniuses I consider to be idiot savants. If they really wanted to improve the state of the world, they should continue doing what they do best, which is accumulating wealth. Or, actually, creating it – as opposed to dissipating it by giving it away. Giving money away breaks up a capital pool that could have been used productively by those who build it for making new wealth (which increases the amount of wealth that exists in the world).

Worse, giving money away usually delivers it into the hands of people who don’t deserve it. That sends the wrong moral message. People should have, or get, things because they deserve them. And you deserve things because you earn them. In other words, wealth should be a consequence of doing things that improve the state of the world. Endowing groups, or individuals, because they happen to have had some bad luck, or are perpetual losers, is actually immoral.

When money is given away, it’s almost as bad as government welfare. It makes it unnecessary for the recipient to produce, and that tends to cement him to his current station in life. The very act of making an urgent situation non-urgent takes away the incentive, the urgency, to improve.

Morally speaking, charity is not a virtue, it’s a vice.
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[0point]

I just read this article- http://dont-tread-on.me/4-things-to-leave-behind-today/

Linky no worky

Hutch

http://dont-tread-on.me/?p=5876

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[slidemansailor]

I have recently focused some attention on preparations beyond my own pantry. It seems pretty apparent to me at this moment the local food bank might help prevent a violent encounter at my front door.  This, by the way, I think of as a good thing.

Now I'm letting my subconscious churn on how the food bank may have something to keep the unprepared fed. At this moment, it looks a bit like charity could be a good answer... beats confiscation, methinks.

[MamaLiberty]

I have recently focused some attention on preparations beyond my own pantry. It seems pretty apparent to me at this moment the local food bank might help prevent a violent encounter at my front door.  This, by the way, I think of as a good thing.

Now I'm letting my subconscious churn on how the food bank may have something to keep the unprepared fed. At this moment, it looks a bit like charity could be a good answer... beats confiscation, methinks.

I'd say that would depend a lot on how many people would need to be kept fed... and for how long.