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Sometimes generosity makes no sense. Nevada state officials, for instance, have been exceedingly generous with billionaire Elon Musk and his luxury electric car company Tesla. Nevada has decided to shower the company with $1.25 billion in “economic development incentives.”

The incentives, state officials say, will “create jobs.” They will, agrees one Los Angeles Times analysis — at up to $400,000 in taxpayer dollars per job created!

On the other hand, sometimes generosity makes all the sense in the world. Here, too, an example from Nevada: Citizens there have upped their charitable giving by 13 percent since 2006, the top increase in the nation. That boost is helping lots of folks. The housing meltdown had its ground zero in Nevada.

A new report released last week places this particular Nevadan generosity in a much broader perspective. Generosity that makes sense, turns out, seems to diminish the higher up you go on the income ladder. We have more on that phenomenon — and new report — in this week’s Too Much.