Several of your assumptions—for example, about taxes—are country-specific. Property tax for owners, closing costs, and tax breaks for homeowners vary from country to country.
You also didn’t include time or money costs from maintenance, which I expect to be substantial.
Your core argument—young EAs should build up savings—could be right, but has already been discussed at length. For example, see http://globalprioritiesproject.org/2015/02/give-now-or-later/
Just want to second that interested readers visit Khorton’s very helpful link. It’s a great article with a very helpful decision tree produced by 80,000 Hours & the Global Priorities Project.
Thanks for the link, I hadn’t come across it before and agree it is a very useful analysis of investing vs giving depending on one’s opinions about opportunities for investment and the discount rate applied to future donations. I think this point is related to mine and very useful in it’s own right, but the point I am trying to make also involves personal utility.
I’m worried about the sustainability of giving which requires sacrifice on the part of the donor—which I believe is the path of least resistance for those interested in EA at college and who end up taking the GWWC pledge at that time. I’m trying to communicate that it is possibly, and perhaps even likely, to be more productive to reach a level of wealth at which you can sustain your desired lifestyle and then give large amounts in excess of that level, rather than giving a significant % from the moment you join the workforce.
I agree that tax treatment of property varies from country to country along with several other relevant variables. I only offered an imaginary numerical example for illustrative purposes. My goal is certainly not to convince people to buy property without knowing anything about their circumstances, only to have them consider the possibility that it might be beneficial, and that running the numbers specific to their case is an exercise worth doing.
Several of your assumptions—for example, about taxes—are country-specific. Property tax for owners, closing costs, and tax breaks for homeowners vary from country to country. You also didn’t include time or money costs from maintenance, which I expect to be substantial. Your core argument—young EAs should build up savings—could be right, but has already been discussed at length. For example, see http://globalprioritiesproject.org/2015/02/give-now-or-later/
Just want to second that interested readers visit Khorton’s very helpful link. It’s a great article with a very helpful decision tree produced by 80,000 Hours & the Global Priorities Project.
Thanks for the link, I hadn’t come across it before and agree it is a very useful analysis of investing vs giving depending on one’s opinions about opportunities for investment and the discount rate applied to future donations. I think this point is related to mine and very useful in it’s own right, but the point I am trying to make also involves personal utility.
I’m worried about the sustainability of giving which requires sacrifice on the part of the donor—which I believe is the path of least resistance for those interested in EA at college and who end up taking the GWWC pledge at that time. I’m trying to communicate that it is possibly, and perhaps even likely, to be more productive to reach a level of wealth at which you can sustain your desired lifestyle and then give large amounts in excess of that level, rather than giving a significant % from the moment you join the workforce.
I agree that tax treatment of property varies from country to country along with several other relevant variables. I only offered an imaginary numerical example for illustrative purposes. My goal is certainly not to convince people to buy property without knowing anything about their circumstances, only to have them consider the possibility that it might be beneficial, and that running the numbers specific to their case is an exercise worth doing.