Fund Raising Coins I Agree With

No, but thank you for putting words into my mouth and then calling me ludicrous

What I am saying is: what if all those people so ready to donate money to rebuild Notre Dame were just as ready to donate to humanitarian causes? Nowhere in there did I say the money should be diverted, but that I feel there are more worthy causes for such money. Money should go where it is donated to, otherwise it would reduce interest in the same way people do not want to pay taxes due to funds going places they don’t agree with.

Now, if you believe that feeding and housing homeless people, or removing the miles of floating plastic from our oceans, are less worthy causes than rebuilding an opulent cathedral, I’d be inclined to return the adjective of ludicrous right back to you.

Thank you for the anecdotes where you attempt to apply your personal outlook to how the world works. Unfortunately what you believe may not be what others believe (Dunning-Krüger anyone?) because many charitable donations are in fact mutually exclusive. Once you donate money to an organization, you no longer have that money to donate to other things. But feel free to prove me wrong by showing me the hundreds of millions of dollars those three billionaires donated to humanitarian causes in the year 2019.

Now it appears you are confusing your own concepts as you previously stated that you thought I said donated money should be diverted after donation and now you’re talking about simply donating to some other cause and calling it “diverting”.

And quite frankly, this “argument” is a waste of everyone’s time. Why you felt the need to even try to include me in your comments is beyond me. Everyone has an opinion, and I respect if yours is different than mine, but please try not to confuse your opinion with fact.

 

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I commend the rich and the not so rich for stepping up to help rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral. Aside from the historical significance, it is a national treasure to France and important to tourism. At the same time, I would hope those that donate to the Cathedral also donate to charitable causes (poverty, hungry, homeless, other) as well. Giving to one cause does not preclude giving to another.

We renovated the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island buildings back in the 1980's for similar reasons, and also raised money for the effort by selling commemorative coins, some of which I have found while CRH.

 

And why is it you think they don't? And why don't you think donating to the Notre Dame cause is not humanitarian, considering the number of people (including myself & many others on CT) who have visited & worshipped there?

I stand by my initial assessment of your post & I think if you honestly re-read your post, you will understand. You are the one making this an "argument" - get a grip & have a nice day!

 

Prove they did donate hundreds of millions of dollars to humanitarian causes or pipe down and shove off.

 

And I thought that Coin Talk members already knew about these coins, and the medals that the Monnaie de Paris issues on that occasion. Two posts from last month:

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/no...ledged-for-repairs.337198/page-2#post-3493711
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/notre-dame-coins.337286/#post-3474661

Christian

 

Guys, guys. I have appreciated both of you, but I don't think this debate is going anywhere.

My personal feeling is that people are basically of two types: those who donate and share time, talents and money with others and those who keep most of these three things for themselves.

Steve

 

I respectfully disagree, but appreciate your optimism.

 

Are you serious? There are 2 options: those that DO, & those that DON"T. And you respectfully disagree with that???

OK, I'm done with this thread.

 

Yes, I don’t believe the world can be so easily separated into only two categories. Being a student of international relations, I’ve found that it is rather a rarity that there are only “2 types of people” and reject that there are only two available categories. You probably also think there are only Coin collectors and non coin collectors, ignoring the fact that there are stackers, ancient collectors, series collectors, OFEC, etc. Good riddance!

 

Completely agree. I also didn't find his comment political, but they were completely incorrect.

The judgement of what is worthy aside one of the contributing factors to the fire and severity of it was how neglected the restoration and maintenance had been. It wasn't until it was lost that people really started to care as we had taken it's existence for granted. The honest truth is that if in his words "Imagine how much good we could do if we cared half as much about those around us as we do about a building." is that we would have to drastically cut the funding to those more "worthy" causes. Exponentially more money gets put into these other causes than into the Cathedral.

That doesn't even being to touch on the human factors if the cathedral is lost in terms of lost revenue for businesses in France and tourism revenue. Not to mention having a beautiful wonder of the world that bring people together is also good for humanity.

 

The only thing incorrect is your assumption that your opinion on what is worthy is any more “correct” than mine. It’s your opinion on how worthy the cause is, you’re welcome to it, but at the end of the day, it’s still your opinion.

Considering donations for the cathedral have topped $1 billion and continue to climb, and in all of 2018, all French people only donated $2.9 billion TOTAL in charity, your claim about “exponentially more money gets put into their causes” is patently false. Of course, feel free to defend your claims as hyperbole.

Everyone here, to include the person you cited and claimed to agree with, seems rather convinced that donating to one charity doesn’t preclude from donating to another, so your claim about funds needing to be drastically cut for is rather self-contradictory.

I never once said people shouldn’t donate to the rebuilding of Notre Dame, my comment was merely that I wish people would care more about others and would use their money to better humanity and not just rebuild a pretty building because it made them sad that it burned down. If we felt half as sad for those most in need, we could do some real good.

Considering all you do on CT is argue with people, you think you’d be better at it. Thanks for reaffirming why I have you on ignore.

 

Hmm, for most French, Notre-Dame is not just a pretty building. No matter whether they are religious or not, many people want to see it rebuilt also because it represents an important part of their heritage and history. (By the way, while Notre-Dame is not the geographic center of France, the square in front of the cathedral is the "zero point" for the French national roads.)

And yes, I also hope that the donations will not take funds away from other worthy causes. But then four major donors alone - Pinault (Gucci, Brioni etc.), Arnault (Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton), L'Oréal and Total - promised to 600 million euro right away. Well done PR? Sure. But also well invested money, I think.

Christian

 

So we should pull back billions of dollars for charitable funds to be half as sad as the cathedral?

IF we cared half as much about Notre Dame as we did for those in need than billions would have been donated to Notre Dame already.

Do you not understand how much money gets donated to food and aid from the USA alone?

 

Fun fact: Notre Dame actually belongs to France and not under the Catholic order. In the early 1900s, France separated its church and state and Notre Dame fell under “state.” That may explain why the Vatican has yet to offer any funding to the estimated $8 billion restoration costs (almost 3 times the amount of money ALL of France donated to ALL charities in 2018).

 

As for who owns the building, see this post by yours truly from about a month ago. Actually the law affected all churches, not just Notre-Dame. Anyway, I should get my medal - the smaller one - fairly soon. I particularly like the side with the window rose ...

Christian

 

That seems high by any metric. I doubt the restoration of the Reims, Cologne, Trier, etc. Cathedrals cost the equivalent of $1 billion, much less $8 billion.

 

From France24/AFP News today: "Experts believe the total bill will come to between 600-700 million euros, with some raising questions over what will be done with any leftover money, suggesting it could be channelled to other crumbling churches and cathedrals."

Problem is the figures are kind of vague. As far as I know, there is still some debate about whether parts of the roof should be rebuilt using "modern" material. So ... we'll see.

Christian

 

Well, that’s one of the quotes I pulled from news on this side of the ocean. Seems others put it around $1-2 billion https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...llion-rebuild-paris-france-church/3528844002/

 

I purchased 3 of the lower cost coins. They are one their way over the pond as we speak and should be here shortly! I will share them with you all as soon as I can!

 

Beautiful coin! Thanks for sharing that!