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Gates Foundation To Spend All Its Assets
El Lobo writes "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has said it will spend all its assets within 50 years of both of them dying. The foundation focuses on improving health and economic development globally, and improving education and increasing access to technology. It also focuses on fighting diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. The Seattle-based foundation plans to increase spending to about $3.5 billion a year beginning in 2009 and continuing through the next decade, up from about $1.75 billion this year." The Wall Street Journal (excerpted at the link above) called the foundation's decision "a decisive move in a continuing debate in philanthropy about whether such groups should live on forever."
How many endowed research programs will this money go to?
Yes, the foundation will cease, but a good chunk of the funds will remain as permanent endowments for the various causes that the Gates support. The most important difference will be management: Each will be managed by people close to the individual projects.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Why not setup a trust that just spends the interest on the earnings. That way they can give for generations?
Bizarre. Where do i get my check?
Does this mean that they will help the OLPC project out with some funding now rather than making fun of it?
Beep beep.
I think it would be a better move to establish organizational policies that dictate an amount or percentage that must be donated over certain time periods, instead of effectively forcing the end of a charitable foundation.
Building such a large foundation is no small task, it just seems like a waste to dissolve all the work that went into it just because the founders aren't alive. I think it would be smarter to establish a policy that prevents it from hoarding assets and forces continued charitable work. Sort of like a charity/monetary GPL.
One thing I really like about the philanthropic gestures from the Bill and Melinda foundation is that their fortune is new money and it all came from selling software to the middle class or above. It's literally taking (willingly) from the rich and giving to the poor.
The vast majority of funds and foundations that have long survived their founders have gone in ideological directions that would outrage said founders; if Gates has set a time limit on his foundation, I certainly can't argue with it.
I applaud this decision. I think that businesses and charities should all have a life span. Too often they become bloated with bureaucracy and weighted down with useless traditions. They think only of prolonging their own existence, above all other things.
I am gaining respect for Mr. Gates with his handling of this charity. For a decade I outspent him in charity giving as a percentage of my income and worth. It is great to see him come around and finally give back to the world what the world was so gracious to give to him.
Many of these charities (governments, etc.) become all about servicing the bureaucracy and preserving the status quo than doing whatever the original charter was as they become older.
Bill is evil for having that much money!
Money is evil for existing!
He was evil for hording it!
He's evil for spending it, no matter he spends it on!
He's evil if he doesn't spend it fast enough!
He's evil unless he spends it exactly on the things that the most people here who say he's evil can agree that he should spend it on! And even then, he's still evil!
Children with AIDS shouldn't want to live longer if it means saying they don't care about Windows 98's browser implementation issues!
Really, why do articles like this even make it here? Bill and Melissa's charitable foundation - which puts all others to shame - is nothing more than a blank canvas on which to paint your already-existing opinion of the man. We might as well put up an article about what brand of corn chips he prefers, since it would result in exactly the same conversation.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
For all the crap he gets here, its never been about the money with Bill. He lives in relative modesty for his income and has always maintained that his kids would only inherit a small portion of his wealth with the bulk to be used for charitable causes.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
-b.
This move makes perfect sense. Many people will argue that they should save and spread the money out, spending the interest. But this idea is going to spend the money on infastructure, research, food, whatever. The interest will be the results of the action. It doesn't make sense to save for the future when there are problems to be solved today.
This
His kids must be pissed off.
Is build renewable energy infrastructure. With 50+ billion, you could put a huge dent on fossil fuel burning, help curb global warming, and even make some money. Yeah I think aids and the rest is bad, but there won't be any aids to treat around equitorial regions if nobody is living there anymore! 50+ billion builds a lot of solar/nuclear/wind/tidal power.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
It's great to see them want to spend ALL of their money on charity and that they will liquidate their assets to do so. A cynical person might say that any large pile of money will attract people more interested in themselves than the charity's mission. Making the organization spend them money will insure the money goes to the immediate purpose.
Given such intents, it's strange to see the foundation money spent buying independent newspapers. The Contra Costa Times and the San Jose Mercury News don't seem to have much to do with AIDS.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If you could save 100 lives today, wouldn't that be better than saving 1 a year for 100 years? While it's not sure that spending all the money now gets you 100x the benefit, holding back money for the sake of keeping the foundation going isn't necessarily increasing the benefit.
A lot depends on what your target charities are. If you're funding protection for farmers who have bad seasons, then spending it all now isn't going to prevent future bad seasons and will only provide a temporary relief. If your target is a cure or immunization for AIDS then achieving that goal as quickly as possible with the funds available would warrant not holding back.
Putting the benefit you hope to achieve first, above the life of the foundation, seems to be more true to the goals of a foundation.
after all, it's their money.
So, give it back Mr. Gates.
Actually, I don't think he should give it back, because the Gates foundation can probably do more good with it.
However, I thought I'd throw that line in there, as it is exactly the same line the Republicans used against Bill Clinton when he turned the deficit into a surplus ("give it back Mr. President" were the exact words of one GOP idiot congresswoman who conveniently forgot that the President didn't have the power to do that, while her own GOP controlled congress did).
Hell, the folks at the Ford Foundation are proud of the fact that they call Henry Ford "the grave spinner".
Indeed, the Gates Foundation is probably already failing to get the results they should because their failure to use objective criteria for prize awards creates a systemic malincentive: rewarding proposal writing rather than getting real results.
Seastead this.
Well, when you have THAT much money, it generates a lot of interest. Like the Nobel. So a better analogy would be saving 100 people today, or 10 people a year forever.
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
So my inherited family fortune originally built on slavery and then bootlegging is finally respectable now! Thank a god!
Oh wait, it's always been respectable, hasn't it.
That's the thing about wealth in America: nobody cares how you got it just so long as you got it.
Yeah, because we all know Bill's money is stained with ill-gotten gains from drugs, gun-running or carcinogenic products. Not. Sometimes you *can* carry a metaphor too far, but all I see it stained by is the egos of several Silicon Valley types who couldn't compete with hard-edged marketing. Frankly, I think the Silicon Valley types will survive the humiliation.
Go somewhere random
Comment removed based on user account deletion
R.I.C.O. He stole the money from us. Don't forget it!
Check out Microsoft's wrongdoing: http://malfy.org/
... while my right hand takes your wallet.
Can that amount of money be spent responsibly in that amount of time? I hope it all gets used for research and the good stuff, not fluffed on new carpeting for the lab offices because there isn't enough useful equipment or scientists to spend it on...
That must have hurt.
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
So wait.... we have to kill Bill and Melinda to speed up the process??
and sin no more!
Bad new for you Bill, there is no heaven.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
1. Found hueg billion-dollar company
2. Get massive profit
3. ????
4. Philantropy!
Literally.
Most of their money came from governments. Government departments spend fantastic amounts of money on software - hundreds of millions per year, per state. Now guess where that money comes from.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
They aren't out to save people, they're out to save humanity. If they can do it sooner, rather than later, isn't that better for everybody?
Let's have some more illegal monopolies then! It's good for the world!
By stipulating that all fund be distributed in a set period of time, Gates avoids this problem.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Debate? What debate? You mean to tell me that there are people out there debating whether or not philanthropy is a good thing?
The mind boggles...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
People keeps complaints about Bill Gates this and that, but I dont see those
Google founders guys contribute to world health or any charitable foundations.
Too me the Googles founders guys are real stinker
OK, I'll call.
To paraphrase David Kearns, no more prizes for rants, prizes only for solutions.
How would you solve the problem you perceive?
No time machines involved.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
SO thats 1.75billion of Windows and office licences per year? Wow! How generous they are!
And I guess that means vista and office will be given away in 2009 instead of xp/o2k3... what a shame. If only we could be using xp forever...
Of course they're going to spend all their money eventually, because eventually (after their deaths, like the story says), Bill will stop being able to make big bucks for the charity. Unless they slow down their spending, of course, but from the sound of the article they have no intention of doing that. And why would they? "We have less money, so let's give less away." That hardly sounds like something a charity would say.
/.: "World is going to end!"
Next on
Yeah, eventually.
Bill Gates is a cyborg, and he will assimilate Melinda. How can you kill that which has no life? This is just a clever ruse to make people think he is a mortal human.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Personally, if it were me, I would invest my wealth in technology. Technology and innovation usually pays back to society an order of magnitude, or more, over time. Look at the money invested by the likes of Edison and Westinghouse and Bell over the turn of the last century. Also look at the return dollar for dollar spent on things like the Apollo program.
The only humanitarian type of place I would spend my money however might be on meritorious/aptitude scholarships. I don't believe on giving anyone anything without some sort of effort/meet-me-part-way on their end, as that tends to enable poor choices and unproductive behavior. It's the old fish vs teach to fish quip.
Libertas in infinitum
Would you please prevent the person who modded the parent Troll from getting mod points again? There are some other earnest posts in this story's discussion which were also unfairly modded Troll or Flamebait, and I suspect it was the same person.
I wish there was a continuing pulic debate over whether corporations should live forever.
Why not put a 50 year lifetime on companies, then when their time is up you could...hmm..actaully that's kinda tricky, what would you do with the assets of the company? Allow it to live but evenly redistribute the shares between all the citizens of the nation the company is from? Change the company into a non-profit organisation? I dont know. Im glad i decided to post this anonymously.
More proof that Gates is using this Foundation as a stock laundering scheme and influence peddling. After he croaks he couldn't care less if it continues on. I'm just surprised he isn't using the money to find a way to live forever (a laudable goal for anyone else) - apparently he doesn't have the imagination.
This is merely another PR move.
Move along. Nothing to see here.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I really think that the Gates Foundation ought to consider investing
in research, etc. in places where costs are less & result efficiency
might well be significantly better [than in USA}, ie, if they aren't
already doing so...
Some of the work might be done more cost-effectively where costs are
low (eg, due to lower wage-rates), and - having met some pretty ded-
icated grad-students from non-US lands - I wouldn't be surprised if
many of them would be excellent choices for researchers - in their
own countries - ie, if Foundation funding could be used to build ex-
cellent, purpose-built lab's & pay their salaries, etc.
Australia may also have some good minds about the place, to be put
to work on Foundation research problems, ie, right here, in Oz.
If the purpose is to get some results that will make AIDS a thing of
the past, ie, rather than just spending all of the Foundation's $'s,
let's see it put Globalization to the test here & see what happens.
After all, a large portion of the $'s came from non-US sales of MS's
products & services...
What'cha think?
PS On the other hand, there may be limits to the above idea...
I once attended a University of South Australia (Mawson Lakes)
"Open Day" during which senior-year engineering students - most
from overseas (and - of that portion - most, apparently, Asian).
After the persentations & our tours & Q&A's of students' project
work, there was a session - for the students - promoting graduate
study at Uni SA. I stayed around for the promo presentation to
the (mostly Asian) students...
I was SHOCKED to hear Uni SA "recruiters" suggest that - even if
these fine students didn't have creative research ideas of their
own - they were still welcome to sign-up for graduate programs,
as the Australian professors had plenty of ideas & projects for
the students to work on during their graduate study periods...
Correct me - if it seems wrong - but I, for one, found that kind
of talk insulting to the students and to Uni SA; it smelled like
"come be cheap labor" for Aussie research projects.
I don't recall hearing anything like that in N Amer as I was on
the look-out for a suitable grad school to apply my talents at,
& I doubt if these Asian students were terribly impressed by the
implication that they might not "have research-worthy ideas" of
their own to investigate...
Hmm... the summary says that the foundation will spend all of its money within 50 years of Bill and Melinda dying. The headline says the foundation will spend all of its money within 50 years.
Does someone know something that Bill and Melinda don't?
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
Well, Spanish dollars go for $150+ on eBay. Not bad for a coin that used to be just a dollar. Ancient Drachma are also worth many times what they were in the past. However, that is irrelevant. When money is invested, it isn't stored as coinage anymore. It is stored as precious metals, real estate, and other assets. When these are cashed out, they are cashed out in the currency of the day.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I was hoping Bill Gates would spend a lot of his money in research for increasing longevity. I guess he's planning on dying at an average age then...
Subtract $500,000 from the cost of J. Lo's and Bill Gates' houses. The resulting price will reflect how much they are spending on luxury, above and beyond the ordinary housing requirements for a north american family.
Oh, wait. That doesn't change anything.
Doing some good with the money you stole from people doesn't make up for the stealing.
Last time I checked, MS hadn't taken from me any money that I didn't want to give them.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Translation: The Gates' kids are idiots.
I know it might be crazy considering the word "Gates" here, but perhaps he's thinking that with an organization doling out > $1 billion a year, other would-be philanthropists might actually be less inclined to start new foundations? Perhaps there's an understanding that part of the reason behind some people's philanthropy is the need to be the "biggest" donor.
On one hand, having this foundation in perpetuity might create a very high bar that would only push such "competition" even higher. On the other hand, it might be seen as such an impossibly high bar that it ends up stifling "competition".
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I don't think this will happen. Running a large foundation like this can be a very lucrative business. Whoever is running it after the Gateses die has a very large monetary incentive to never let the money run dry. Why give away all the money when you know it will force you to find another job?
People seem to be forgetting that the Gates Foundation has already given away over $13B- which does not include the personal contributions he's made.
/. readers it seems), but he, despite physical appearance, is not the character Gary Winston from "Antitrust".
His business practice might have been shady at some points (as per the anti-Microsoft viewpoint of most
i haven't read all the comments, but i'm betting/ hoping that a good portion of them say "we're in it for the tax write off - and nothing more" in short regardless of the cause, we lent you the money, if you didn't get a result fuck you! you're not entitled to the tax break for as long as we are and no more. cheers bill, whatever problems you caused, we're really grateful you chipped in with your help.
Using the word "liberal" like a dirty word, and ranting about "foundation-running elites" and Air America makes you sound a bit crazy and detracts from an otherwise valid point.
You might want to seek counseling about that anger problem you have.
The cynic in me thinks yb helping children with AIDS (1) MS wants more people in the world to make a bigger market for their monopoly and (2) MS wants more people that are healthy and educated, so they can get a cheaper labor force.
I would have been MUCH less cynical if they had started their charitable activities when they were a young company. This is always a peril when you wait too long to be charitable.
Also, they are called Robber Barons for no reason.
-srr
Companies are too preoppupied with gaining shares, sueing others, and keeping their business intact. if we 'ALL' donated atleast 15 dollars toward charity instead of thinking of ourselfs with buying useless material such video games, box of condoms, candy, whatever, it's all about being charitable and caring, not how much money, materialist shit you have..
i ndex.html
and if you think you got it bad.. look at people who literrally live in their own shit.christmas is coming donate/give back something!
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/18/secret.santa.ap/
I don't recall seeing any stairways to Heaven on eBay.
I'd rather Bill apologized for being a greedy scumbag, gave back the money to all the people he stole it from, and promise never to do it again. Until then, he's no better than a punk who shoots a pregnant mother while carjacking.
I thought it was called the Stephen & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The one and only thing I have against the man is what is company has done and is doing. I do NOT blame him merely for being rich or anything like that. Granted, I'm also not impressed by the size of the donations because they do not represent any large sacrifice, but I do acknowledge that he's doing better in terms of being charitable than many rich people are.
But being rich isn't evil, although too often the way people become rich is.
Id like to see the list of who they are giving money to .. I bet it somehow goes to his corporate buddies .. Like the pharmaceutical complex..
Yes, I find the whole thing quite interesting.
Let's say I burgle one house, sell the stuff and use the money to save 3 dieing african children.
How many houses would i have to burgle to become a saint?
It is important here to draw a distinction between the behavior of Bill Gates and the Microsoft corporation. For all intents and purposes, the two are severed. Steve Ballmer is the figurehead of Microsoft now; he has elected to take responsibility for the direction of the corporation, and we should hold him to that responsibility. At this point, Bill Gates is just a wealthy man, and a wealthy man giving a percentage of his money to charitable causes is not unprecedented.
My point is that I do not believe that Mr. Gates' contribution absolves Microsoft of its unethical business practices, at least since Gates passed executive control of the company to Steve Ballmer. I applaud Bill Gates' contribution, let me make myself clear. It does not, however, give the company an indefinite license to stifle innovation in the software market. While giving to humanitarian causes is a noble gesture, software is important, and will become remain so in the near future.
For example, consider the field of bioinformatics - the application of the computing sciences and biology to solve complex problems in medicine and related fields. It is possible that innovation in software could produce a cure for AIDS, or cancer, or anything else, just as much as a charitable foundation can. In fact, some of Gates' money could be going to fund research in some of these areas. If the Microsoft corporation continues to vigorously fight to maintain its monopoly and forestall non-Microsoft innovation, then Bill Gates and Microsoft are indeed fighting for opposite causes.
>Any rich guy who leaves his money in a foundation rather than in escrow for a set of objective prize awards, such as the X-Prize,
n dation
The X Prize is a foundation.
http://www.xprizecup.com/go.php?sub=go_xprize_fou
>has no recognition of the failed history of foundations.
PBS, as one example, is heavily funded by foundations. No "prizes" here. Do you consider PBS part of a long history of failure?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
In the above post, s/=/<=/g.
:(
note to self: never reply to trolls.
I think that Bill's desire is to avoid Gates foundation turning into a bureauchratic entity that spends more energy on its continuity than on its proposed goals. Bill has seen what almost unlimited money and power can do, for good, and for bad, and don't want to make his foundation a monster to haunt the future. Look at Ford Foundation and Rockfeller Foundation: they mostly fund projects that have more to do with the political views of the administrators than with their original goals. Surelly, if Henry Ford was able to see some of the projects funded by Ford Foundation today, I am pretty sure he would get very, very upset. Not that those projects are wrong or not, but they surely aren't aligned with the original founder goals.
Your ad could be here!
I'm really certain he'd agree with that. If he were still alive, that is.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
Keep going Bill, and the Gates family will be legitimate one day!
Do not trust this signature.
he understand the nature of bureaucracy better then anyone. he knows that if his foundation continues to exist indefinitely, it will only stagnate and become just another institution. Putting a time limit on when the money can be spent will allow for a sense of urgency that such organizations need, and it will likely give people who need that help the most bang for their buck since a lot more money can be used to do bigger projects.
Fool me once...shame on you, fool me twice...won't be fooled again (our president)
He is giving to charities and such, does this not merit tax deductions later on in the process at which time he will get back XX% of his money?
Beautiful. You cite Capital Research to back you up. It's an organization "whose stated mission is to do 'opposition research' exposing the funding sources behind consumer, health and environmental groups." I too need to read more Capital Research because of those terrible liberal causes like watching out for consumers and addressing public health issues - like poisons in the environment - are way out of hand. Thank you for bringing this very important research to our attention, my good sir!
I also like your sense of fair play and objectivity in selecting Michelle Malkin. I much prefer her 2005 perspective rather than this article from 2006 from the liberal spin machine. While we are talking about her ground-breaking research, we should also point out her other important ideas such as her book documenting the important need to bring back Japanese-style internment camps for Arab Americans - which is also coincidentaly based on the cutting-edge research of another person doing important work exposing the myth of the so-called "holocaust".
I can only applaud the efforts of the Slashdot moderators to make sure that your comments get pushed right to the top. No one should be compelled to go through another day without an awareness of these two fascinating, unbiased sources of good information. As a good conservative, I am finally starting to feel like Slashdot is like a second home.
Read the Gates Foundation page on what they're doing about sub Sahara African malaria and then read Plague Time by Paul Ewald describing precisely why none of the approaches used by the Gates Foundation can be really effective against a sexually reproducing, horizontally transmitted pathogen like malaria -- and describing the approach that actually works -- which of course the Gates Foundation can't pursue because none of the grant writers are serious about really stopping the scourge of malaria.
Seastead this.
Cascade Investments, LLC, Invests in Pacific Ethanol.
That's $200M one time sum, not even $200M a year.
If what Robert Bussard says is right, that's the investment required for a conclusive proof of concept of his electrostatic confinement fusion reactor. After that there won't be any shortage of commercial investment.
Imagine a reactor converting boron-11 and hydrogen directly to electricity with no radioactive waste. Too good to be true, you say? What if there's a 10% chance be is right? 1%? Even in this case the investment would have an average social ROI far exceeding most of what the Gates foundation is doing.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Questions Arise on Accounting at United Way
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/791618/pos
How much of your donation actually goes to cover salaries and expenses and how much actually goes to help individuals? Nobody actually knows. The fact that they are covering up the numbers with "clever" accounting techniques seems to me to indicate a massive amount of fraud going on.
Please, just donate directly to local charities, the best bet is to actually contact local community support and directly donate to the ones that can best help the most people.
would be to ensure the foundation doesn't carry on forever, supporting professional trustees and dribbling the interest out bit by bit.
There are many problems this money can solve now, as Gates seems to realize. Also, if you are embarking on a campaign to erradicate certain diseases, you only need to do it once. In face it's not that you only need to do it once, it's if you did try to do it a bit by bit, you'd never succeed.
Building such a large foundation is no small task, and it just seems like double standards from Bill.
Philanthropy is the act of donating money, goods, time, or effort to support a charitable cause, usually over an extended period of time and in regard to a defined objective. In a more fundamental sense, philanthropy may encompass any altruistic activity which is intended to promote good or improve human quality of life. Someone who is well known for practicing philanthropy may sometimes be called a philanthropist.
Bill is not well known for practicing philanthropy so therefore he is not a philanthropist!
0) Philanthropy is not always viewed as a universal good. Philanthropy on philosophical grounds, the idea of the weak sponging.
1) Governments are often supportive of philanthropic efforts. those who donate money to a charity are given a tax break.
2) Social activists frequently criticize philanthrophic contributions by corporations whom activists consider "suspect". Bill you are most suspect...
It's probably not even a valid point, given that he's referring to right wing propagandist sites to make it. This guy is your typical Bill O'Reilly watcher and Rush Limbaugh listener.
That has got to be the most cynical post I've ever seen on Slashdot.
where the comment ends and sig begins
Sorry, just read your post again: you ARE implying that aggreagte consumption (i.e. what a household spends in a year) be taxed.
That's just totally impractical. How are you going to track that? Businesses have an incentive to report their employees pay, b/c that's an expense for them. Households aren't going to tell you how much they spend, because by understating the amount they get taxed less. Shops can't report it, unless you require ID for every - EVERY - purchase. You can forget about trackable electronic payments: cash will be king, again, for the same reasons that, if you want avoid income nowadays, you do everything with cash.
Pie in the sky idea mate, sorry.
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
The epitome of rich guilty white liberal people doing what they do best-- saying their prayers out loud.
Speaking of the GPL, how much money has Lunis Torvalds given to charity?
I predict the money will be spent on one mother of a blowout.
Then all of Bill's misdeeds will be forgiven many times over. :-)
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
My neices and nephews attend university in southern california. None has seen anything but Microsoft machines, even in their programming classes. I think it says a lot about the monopoly issues. MS/Gates has flooded all the university programs with money, OS, machines--even a lot of their books are from MS press and very MS centric. I am not so sure univeristies should teach things this way.
Well, if I and my homeless-insane clientele consider the aforementioned anthrax to be useful, wouldn't that make me productive? Anthrax is definitely useful for rendering large amounts of land uninhabitable for centuries at a time. I could also spend my time producing pet rocks, or something equally inane. The point is more that productivity is in the eye of the beholder. I would call alternative underground artists productive -- there are definitely lots of people who wouldn't. I would also call producing SUVs counterproductive, since any labour spent producing an SUV could have been better spent producing two conventional automobiles that cost less and are superior in every meaningful way.
1. How do you decide who was "hurt"?
2. How do you find them?
3. What do you do about the dead ones?
4. How much will all of the above cost?
5. What do you tell the people who will now die of common diseases who would have been saved by that money?
Nothing's as simple as it seems.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
It's very smart to plan to zero out the foundation in a fixed amount of time.
Big perpetual foundations attract lots of greedy types. After the demise of the people who established the foundation, it becomes easier for it to lose its way and start focusing on self-perpetuation.
This announcement by the Gates foundation (which by the way includes the Buffett fortune) shows real unselfishness.
How wonderful that is.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It has always being about power. And we do know what too much power can do to people....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.