[WikiEN-l] Donation banner and strongly negative reactions

[Anthony]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 1:52 PM, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2008/11/10 Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com>:
> >> I personally don't like the current banner; the old one was probably
> >> the right level.
> >> I just think that the wikipedia needs to get itself to the point where
> >> the interest on the money it has is enough to run the servers forever,
> >> and any excess per year can be given to charity.
> >
> > At 5% interest you would still be needing $40-80 million +. There is
> > at this time no way to do this.
>
> Is thats accounting for the capital appreciation needed to offset
> inflation?
>

Don't forget the private foundation excise taxes.  A 501(c)(3) which relies
solely on interest income to support its needs, fails the public support
test.

Where can you safely get 5% interest, anyway?  The 30-year bond is around
4%.  Long-term municipal bonds are around 5%, but they're not totally safe
nowadays.  And this is, as Gregory pointed out, before inflation.  The
chance that the US is going to start adding zeros to its dollar bills in the
next 30-years is non-negligible.