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OLPC Launches Buy One, Give One Free Program
Tha_Big_Guy23 writes "For the first time, and for a limited period only, people in North America will be able to get their hands on the XO, MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte's rugged little laptop that's designed specifically for children. And for each cutting-edge XO purchased in the West, another will be given to a child in a developing country. For $399, customers can order a laptop for themselves; bundled into the price is the cost of delivering a second XO to a child a poor country."
First of all, I don't get to deduct this as a charitable contribution, the company does. Second, I doubt the cost is actually $180 if you're standing on Chinese soil. This just doesn't pass the smell test. Who is to know if those second laptops are ever actually donated to children, or manufactured at all? Who is responsible for accounting for laptops supposedly donated to poor kids? Are we supposed to just take them at their word? Laptops that don't enter US airspace or go through US customs may as well not exist.
"Sure, we delivered 100 laptops to poor kids in that little village in the jungle. Sure, they have no lights, no phone, and no motor cars, not a single luxury, in fact. Where is the village, you ask? Hell, I don't know, we just stumbled upon them one day, so good luck finding them."
Smells like a tax scam, to me...