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Penny Arcade Makes Time 100
Precision noticed that Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade fame have made the Time 100. The writeup talks about Child's Play and PAX and lavishes deserved adoration upon the pair. I've always envied their ability to maintain control over their brand and use it for appropriately portioned good and evil ;)
Kudos to them, but sadly this was a popularity contest where the likes of Justin Bieber and such were receiving votes.
I'd rather a wide-range, rational panel try to offer their opinions rather than open up a massive internet vote.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I was impressed until I read the rest of the list, particularly this love letter to Glenn Beck........ written by none other than Sarah Palin herself.
Really, Time? Sure, he's pretty influential, and a demagogue to be certain. But casting him as an intellectual and a history buff? Have they ever even watched his program?
Jon Stewart had a great point last week: The Daily Show is as absurd and farcical as it's been since Day 1. However, the "real news" media are slowly inching their way toward the realm of absurdist comedy and entertainment.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
You can only write off what you actually donate. So unless they're donating enough to make their net income zero, they're paying taxes on their advertising income.
The vast majority of money for Child's Play comes from donations, donations that go completely into the charity, and are completely unnecessary for your It's Just A Tax Shelter theory.
They've raised literally millions of dollars for sick kids to have games to play in the hospital.
You're full of shit and an asshole to boot for trying to tear down something as great as Child's Play.
The enemies of Democracy are
I like to read PA from time to time. I could do without the sophomoric language that seems to be thrown in simply to 'identify with the youth', but sometimes I really find the comic funny. But the Child Play charity is primarily just a tax shelter for PA. They make a lot on money on advertising and PAX, and use CP to avoid (or at least defer) paying taxes on it. Not that that's anything unusual for a corporation, but I hate when companies portray their 'charitable giving' as some grand altruistic philanthropy, when it's just a way for them to dodge taxes.
If the laws that allowed this type of behavior went away, so would the giving.
You do not understand tax laws as well as you think you do if you believe the primary motivation for charitable contributions is to dodge taxes. It's a secondary motivation. You don't come out ahead.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
They answered you years ago.
As I have noted from your other armchair legal opinions, you do not understand the law. You do not know anything about Penny Arcade's corporate structure or how they pay their bills or Child's Play's bills. You are accusing a charitable organization of fraud without any basis in reality. Here is a quick sample from the FAQ on their website: Q. Does Child's Play charge administrative fees? A. We try our best to have every dollar that comes in go right back to the hospitals, but there is a slight administrative cost that does get paid for with donations (for example, shipping $200,000 worth of Nintendo DS' to dozens of hospitals worldwide is not free, sadly). Historically, these charges have not exceeded 2-3%. It's true that we're a non-profit, but unlike most non-profits, we're not in it to create a self-sustainable entity. We do it to give. Again, I ask you to please stop polluting the internet with misinformation. These people are doing good work to make the lives of sick children better. By defaming them you are taking trolling to a whole new level.
Oh you mean PrincessRedDot (PRD) and maybe one or two others that in fact only make a living wage? I think you radically overestimate the financial scope of CPC's diabolical, faceless administration. You don't know anything other than your wild, baseless assumptions about CPC and its people. Whereas I have met and talked with PRD several times over many years. I have myself volunteered my time and with the help of my wife raised thousands for CPC through community events.
You want every charity to be run like a monastery that's your prerogative, but to act like CPC is some cabal of evil tax-dodging millionaire fat cats feeding off of an army of deluded rubes is so intellectually dishonest as to be disgusting and absurd. That is why your original post is rightly modded into oblivion.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
I find about 70% of the xkcd I run into funny.
XKCD can be funny a lot of times, but I also find it frequently unbearably smug. Not old school nerd, more like the newer trendy hipster nerd thing that cropped up in the past few years.
Alright, I've lost it. As parent of a child who has benefited from Seattle Children's Hospital's care more than once, let me say you must truly be the most bitter, irredeemable, self-righteous, scum-sucking, ignorant, foolish, truculent, and repugnant bastards I have ever had the misfortune of wasting my time reading. If you can't understand the value of bringing a small amount of fun engagement into the lives of children who may very well die slowly in the most agonizing pain imaginable, then you yourself are worthless, inhumane excuse of a being.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
You can also write off the income of anyone designated at 'administrators' of the charitable organization.
Before today I was completely unaware of Child's Play, so I visited Guidestar to have a look at actual numbers. This information is from their 2007 form 990 (the latest I found at Guidestar and the one that probably looks worst for expenses). It fully discloses Penny Arcade's affiliation (gee, the IRS cares about people trying to wash salaries and actually checks this sort of thing).
I have questions as a result of that (very quick and limited) review, but none in the area of trying to wash salaries. I'm curious about where the Project Manager expense actually goes. I'm curious about the disaster of an auction - why they did it, what they learned, whether they plan to try again. I fail to see evidence of the sort of fraud you are claiming.
Corporations get into charity for multiple reasons: good public relations, donating to related interests, belief in the cause. That doesn't make promoting or giving to a charity a fundamentally bad thing. Unless you have evidence to back up your claims, the evidence I've seen suggests they are unfounded.