Slashdot Mirror
Dark Cloud Over Good Works of Gates Foundation
theodp writes "Justice Eta, a Nigerian infant, has an ink spot on his tiny thumb to show he was immunized against polio and measles thanks to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But Justice still faces respiratory trouble, which locals call 'the cough' and blame on fumes and soot spewing from 300-foot flames at a nearby oil plant owned by Itallian energy giant Eni, whose investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Part one of an L.A. Times investigation reports that the world's largest philanthropy pours money into investments that are hurting many of the people its grants aim to help. With the exception of tobacco companies, the foundation's asset managers do not avoid investments in firms whose activities conflict with the mission to do good."
You still see the Gates Foundation doing good things but why is it that so many foundations of insurmountable wealth are somehow ignorant of the economic problems they persist for those they try to help?
My work here is dung.
I was expecting something about windows, but this is a valid "conflict of interest" I would contend. Maybe the foundation wouldn't get such a good rate of return going with "safer" companies, but it would help people in the long run. But then again, if these companies are providing employment, closing them down could be bad for the workers in the country. A bad double edged sword to have.
Umm. Bit different from being bitched at for not fixing all problems, and being bitched at for inadequately fixing problems caused by you.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Well I'll go to the top of our stairs. Something from Bill Gates was just hype and marketing spin.
How do they compare with the Stephen & Melinda Gates Foundation?
If you look closely at all of the funds that you can choose from,
you may well find that most of them have big oil, or questionable companies like Microsoft or Walmart.
It is very difficult, on inspection to make good picks that really fit your morals.
But this is the key problem. When you look at stocks or funds you look at the profit to you, and often do not see or ignore the negative things that you may be contributing to.
Yeah, can't they be like the rest of us who are consistently only good and never do anything with direct or indirect effects that are mixed or outright bad?
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Bill isn't even trying. For a mere $3.4 million dollars he could be a super hero http://www.forbes.com/business/2005/06/20/cx_de_ba tmanslide.html?thisSpeed=60000/ he just doesn't care enough to be one.
Whereas we know Steve Jobs is a super hero, what with his amazing abilites to turn back time.
No, they are being bitched about for owning part of a company which is harming people.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
This looks like another "lets connect the dots" piece. Perhaps it will draw attention to the problem and a definitive study can be done and a cleanup will follow. Pieces like this inevitably come off looking like their saying the Gate Foundation would be better off not existing at all. Always with the negative vibes. Hey, I'm not a Gate fan and certainly not a Windows flag-waver, but the Gates Foundation to me is the only positive thing I can see Bill doing. I'm all for it.
As to the guy above who thinks charities should be losing money not making it, that is just idiotic.
Is there really any proof that 'the cough' is caused by the oil plant, besides 'the locals' saying it is? Oh wait, I mean, Bill Gates is horrible and Windows sux0rz.
Portland, North Dakota Puppies
When a person who has been deemed one of the most ruthless capitalists ever starts a charitable foundation, it's not to help anybody but himself.
Some token amount of money may go towards benefitting others, in order to get the tax benefits associated with a charitable organization. But that money is surely going to be made up elsewhere, possibly by directly investing in companies that likely are causing harm to the people the organization claims to help. But since the organization was likely never founded in the first place to actually help those people who are also being hurt, there is no conflict of interest.
Once an asshole, always an asshole.
Did you buy any gasoline recently? Had anything delivered by truck? Bought anything in plastic packaging? Used any electricity in the last, oh, 2 minutes?
Get off your high horse.
The reason our American families have our wealth and the luxury to be so judgmental is because of our dirty, industrial, cheap labor past. Now the left is trying to impose our new found tight standards on the rest of the poor world. It sounds like Gates knows that dirty filthy development and dirty filthy commerce will lead the rest of the world to be more concerned, peaceful, cleaner, and have lower birth rates. That's what happens when you have wealth. You can be more concerned about the little things that effect old people like black lung or getting your arms torn off in an industrial machine. Since the American taxpayers don't have enough money to pay our own bills, let along subsidize the rest of the world to develop cleanly, they will have smelly factories and smelly coal mines, and horrible factory farms and sprawl and over-development of natural areas. From that will come wealth and from that will come a middle class and environmental awareness. The rest of the world simply does not have the luxury of hating oil and coal and smog they will deal with it like we did, and then get cleaner as they get richer.
I highly doubt that this company would fail if not for the Gates Foundation investment, if they have a solid business model then they will have investors and they will make money, so one could say that the plant is going to be there anyways so it is good that a portion of the proceeds are going to helping the locals.
G uidingPrinciples.htm
The Gates Foundation is not an environmental group, I fail to see why they should concern themselves with something that is not in their "Guiding Principals" found here: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/AboutUs/OurValues/
$diff terrorists hippies
$
$rm -rf *terrorists *hippies
Yeah, can't they be like the rest of us who are consistently only good andnever do anything with direct or indirect effects that are mixed or outright bad?
Dude this is evil inc, they're making huge profits from investments in socially irresponsible corps while maintaining a good public image through their donations(and keeping uncle sam out of their pockets.)You missed the point.
The foundation pours money into vaccinations, but pours more money into things like oil often creates poor heath conditions that are equally bad.
The point, perhaps, is that if the money was not invested at all, the world may be better off.
I disagree with most of what you said, but I want to commend you on your $100 figure, I just did the calculation, and you are right.
like poop in a shiny foil wrapper?
from previous post: many demand corepirate nazi execrable stop abusing US
we the peepoles?
how is it allowed? just like corn passing through a bird's butt eye gas.
all they (the felonious nazi execrable) want is... everything. at what cost to US?
for many of US, the only way out is up.
don't forget, for each of the creators' innocents harmed (in any way) there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/US as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile will not be available after the big flash occurs.
'vote' with (what's left in) yOUR wallet. help bring an end to unprecedented evile's manifestation through yOUR owned felonious corepirate nazi life0cidal glowbull warmongering execrable.
some of US should consider ourselves very fortunate to be among those scheduled to survive after the big flash/implementation of the creators' wwwildly popular planet/population rescue initiative/mandate.
it's right in the manual, 'world without end', etc....
as we all ?know?, change is inevitable, & denying/ignoring gravity, logic, morality, etc..., is only possible, on a temporary basis.
concern about the course of events that will occur should the corepirate nazi life0cidal execrable fail to be intervened upon is in order.
'do not be dismayed' (also from the manual). however, it's ok/recommended, to not attempt to live under/accept, fauxking nazi felon greed/fear/ego based pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking hypenosys.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited supply of newclear power, since/until forever. see you there?
Foundation has to keep money somewhere ,thats why they invest it .Such a big foundation typically diversifies (commoditeis, securities ,currencies) - but it is delegated to other companies (asset management companies ,hedge funds )
,who managed a sizeable chunk of Bill G foundation, - this company was managing assets ,not the foundation ,and we invested money in order to maintain the value of assets, so their portfolio included oil companies from time to time .
,nor it is anybody elses.
I worked for one of the financial institutions
I frankly do not like how BG spends money (better he invested in some progressive research imho) - but it is not my fucking buisness
The US never had any jobs or industries, and we did just fine!
Comment of the year
There's a problem. If he simply signed a $100 million check to help some starving people in, let's say, an African country, the local government would say: "Nice! Please hand us the check and we'll take care of the details!". Then the money would simply disappear. This, by the way, also happens each and every time the rich countries forgive loans made to poor countries.
Any good charity towards these people must be done in such a way as to minimize governmental robbery. Simply giving away a big amount of money is the worst way to accomplish any goal whatsoever.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
We've tried cutting checks for hundreds of millions to fight hunger. It all ends up in the pockets of warlords and terrorists. Today hunger is a political problem, not an economic one.
Gates is spending billions to fight malaria. Is that not a worthwhile endeavor? How about you go out and build a $30 billion fortune and then you can direct how it's spent.
The fact the the Gates foundation invests into questionable industries is perfect.
ALL multinational industriess are 'questionable. Every single one. It is near impossible to invest on a large scale without bumping against these corps.
Bill Gates could, if he were REALLY concerned with good works, spend 100 million dollars (That's like a $100 to you and me) and feed them all.
Wrong. Cutting a check for $100M will NOT do it. VArious countries have tried that all over Africa. The result? Food left rotting on the dock, because the local chump in charge of the trucks isn't getting his cut.
Simply sending $100M to Somalia/Ethiopia/Chad does nothing except for make a few warlords richer.
How many people are dying because of no health care?
And that is one of the main things the Foundation is trying to address. Fixing some of the less popularized, but still debilitating/deadly illnesses and diseases.
The investment arm and the charitable arm are two distinct entities within the Foundation. The investment arm gathers as much money as possible, and the charitable arm spreads it around where it will (supposedly) do the most good. Neither side has influence over the other.
You think it's easy? Get hired on their board and change the way they do business.
No, they are bitched about because they actively contribute to the problems. Plenty of charities do good without doing the kind of harm that is described here, either because they manage any investments consistently with their charitable mission rather than largely independently of it, or because they simply operate on their current donations and don't have large investment portfolios in the first place.
The best place to be when you're trying to put pressure on a company is at the shareholders meeting. If you own millions of dollars of stock that's even better.
Always doing good, well, it depends on your definition of whats good I guess. Leading a country to be industrialized and within an overseeable number of years belong to the world economy is surely a definition of good that I'd be able to think Gates has.
I mean; its lead by the wealthiest man in the world, who grew up in America. What do you expect his position to be?
One of the real issues with the market (stock markets, equity markets, etc.) is the manner in which responsibility is diffused. This of course stems from the inherent definition of a corporation (a fictional "person" who cannot be imprisoned) and the corporate veil created to protect stockholders and board members from much of the fallout if the corporation does something illegal. But the stock markets add another layer of indirection to this. Anyone who owns a retirement account, invests in a mutual fund, or buys more than a few very carefully chosen stocks, will find their long-term financial interests at odds with their own ethics, and often with what most humans would define as basic morality.
This has the effect of making all of us complicit in the misdeeds (and financial rewards that result) of all of these companies, and that undermines fundamentally our ability to effectively oppose it.
This does not mean we should scrap the free market, or the concept of stocks, bonds, derivatives, mutual funds, and other financial instruments. What it does mean is that we need to update these instruments, the mechanisms by which they are created and traded, and probably even the definition of the corporation itself as a legal entity, to include mechanisms for enforcing ethical behaviour not directly related to earning money, and to empower individual investors, managed funds, etc. in a way that facilitates investment strategies that can effectively reflect the investors' ethical concerns as well as their financial goals. This is by no means easy, but let's face it, the system we have is hopelessly antiquated (particularly in this regard), and showing its age.
As long as guilt and responsibility are so diffuse, no justice or corrective measures are likely to be forthcoming, whether it be Bopal, Enron, Monsanto, or Microsoft.
Do you have any evidence of this? Organizations like the Gates foundation have to publicly document where their money is and where it is going. And it isn't going back into the pockets of the Gates family; on the contrary the Gates family is pushing more of their money into it and have declared an intention of donating virtually all of their wealth into the foundation, and not pass it on to their children.
For all the bluster of charitable works, Bill Gates could personally solve many of the problems in the U.S.A. or the world with a personal check. Obviously, not all of them, but a lot of them. Anywhere people are starving, Bill Gates could, if he were REALLY concerned with good works, spend 100 million dollars (That's like a $100 to you and me) and feed them all.You obviously don't know much about economics; you simply cannot spend 100 million dollars and have hunger go away. Feeding the starving people of Niger is not just a question of calling up Domino's pizza and sending a big order to Niamey.
How many cities and towns need schools? How many people are dying because of no health care? How much real suffering is there that he could fix?Not as much as you apparently believe. The population of the USA is 300 million, and Gates' net worth is $25 billion. If he just distributed his wealth evenly to every citizen of the USA, that would only be about $80 per person. In the grand scheme of things, that isn't that much money.
Philanthropy is difficult - thats why you have groups like the United Way that waste millions of dollars on "administration".
When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. - Jefferson
Bill Gates does not make $40 billion per year. He "only" has a net worth of around $50 billion. Around $29 billion of that will go to his charitable foundation, and the rest to other charities upon his death. Your $40 billion income / $2 million donation per year figures are way off scale.
I also challenge your view that you are some kind of superhero because you donate a bigger percentage of your income than Gates does (and YOU don't donate a bigger percentage FYI). It's not the thought that counts, it's the results. Bill Gates has donated more money than you will ever see in your lifetime. Your donation, while commendable, is nothing more than a pittance. The fact that you donate some large portion of your middle class income does not magically make more ill people well. It may make you feel better about yourself however.
Let's be clear; the market for equity capital in polluting, evil, nasty industries is a large one, and the Gates foundation is just a drop in the bucket. Therefore, from the perspective of companies like Eni, it makes no difference whatsoever whether the Gates foundation owns a chunk of stock or someone else does. However, if the Gates foundation owns that chunk of stock, the dividends and capital gains from Eni's profits will ultimately go to the causes that the Gates foundation supports. If YOU owned that chunk of stock, the dividends and capital gains would go to purchase that 100" plasma TV, which feeds that evil multinational corporation that makes it and pollutes a river in China somewhere. Remember, money is just circling around in the economy: profits made by companies go back to their shareholders, who use it to purchase goods, which makes profits for other companies. What the Gates foundation, etc., are taking money out of the cycle when they get their dividends. It doesn't make it any more "evil" for them to take the profits of a company like Eni, as opposed to directly taking the profits of Microsoft. It's just a question of when the money gets spent. You COULD argue that the Gates foundation should be spending it's money FASTER, that argument is orthogonal to the question of WHERE it's investing the money hasn't spent yet.
If Bill Gates wants to be so high, and holy, he should give up that $40 billion, and make a REAL difference in the world as a whole. With 40 ... billion ...dollars (dr evil grin) you could bring an entire 3rd world country out of poverty. So NO, Gates is not doing good enough.
You know what's funny? The range you are talking about (40B) is exactly the target Gates and Warren Buffet have or are in the the process of reaching. IIRC, Gates has stated that he wants to give 85% of his total networth to charity (90% for Buffet, but I'm quoting this from memory here).
But of course, it's easier to attack him on totally groundless charges (tax write off? Come on. You can find something better than that) than to actually look at what he is doing. After all, he's rich and he's Microsoft, so any populistic argument you can bring will find his crowd, especially on Slashdot... Pathetic.
the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" theory. And a chance for the anti-corporate kids in moms basement to write eloquent post today.
Um, nice piece of completely unfounded conjecture. Also, it doesn't make logical sense even from a circumstantial point of view. The billionaires are investing in their foundations to "make money?" You do realize that they can't get it back out, right? The foundation makes money, true...which is good, as it allows it to spend way, way more money fixing problems. Assuming a fairly normal rate of return, the foundation should be able to spend its entire (current) endowment over the next 7 years and yet still have the same amount of money at the end of that time...meaning it can keep doing it. And this idea that Gates should just be sending us all a $100 check? Are you brain dead? First, since he is clearly more interested in third-world disease and poverty than he is with the home-grown (and comparatively less miserable) variety, we'd be talking about a few billion checks, not a couple hundred million. Which means the foundation's endowment would only be like $20 per recipient. But even if it was a hundred...you think everybody having a small bit of cash (which won't last) would be better than curing HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis, and working on better ways to get clean water and food to the third world? That's dumb as hell; the value of the foundation is having such a big pile of cash in one place where it can be spent in really big chunks on research and large-scale health projects. The benefit of these initiatives to the people they serve are many, many times greater than the per-capita amount spent to pursue them.
You seem to think that the foundation doesn't do anything important. This suggests you simply haven't made any attempt to find out what they are about. Add to this your complete lack of logic and your unfounded conclusions, and it comes off sounding really ignorant.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
some of US should consider ourselves very fortunate
Just some? I didn't get on the list through any special qualifications/certifications I attained, don't know about you.
Who is John Cabal?
Wait. We're missing something here. His thumb has been marked because he's been touched by a foundation headed by Bill Gates? Could this be the Mark of the Beast. Sorry, I couldn't resist. :-)
Thats why I, unlike many, can sleep at night.
BS.
The Gates foundation has an endowment of over $30 Billion dollars(granted Bill only donated a small amount of that, most of it was from Warren Buffet).
Bill Gates also doesn't make anywhere near $40 billion a year. His net worth is $53 billion, but his salary is less than a million. Of course he still probably makes a few billion per year just off interest and investments, but that's a whole other topic.
According to Forbes Bill gave away about $30 billion just in the period from 2000-2004, the Gates foundation is just a small part of that. So he gave away $30 billion, and has a net worth of $53 billion, that means he's given away more than 1/3rd of his total net worth. Sure that doesn't put him in the poor house, but there is absolutely no reason to minimize what he has done.
So please don't make up crap saying 'but it's only 1/20,000th of his money' when that is clearly BS, and 5 seconds of looking up the numbers, which are fairly publicly available, would show that's not the case.
Shit adds up at the bottom...
If the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation made a positive decision to invest in ENI, it could have been that the company is (apart from pumping oil & gas) spending lots of its own money looking at alternative energy sources.
Many Oil companies spend significant amounts of money looking at Alternative sources of Energy and also, cleaning up the environment around their plants.
Now Nigeria is a difficult place to do business at the best of times. You have heavily armed rebels out to kidnap and hold for ransom any westerner they can get their hands on. Then you have the endemic corruption in Government.
If you add this lot together, it could be that cleaning up the possibly offending refinery is just plain silly in economic terms. However the company will have many such places where $$$, Euros(lira) or whatever may give a far better overall return on its investment and without the inhereent risks to its own staff.
Don't get me wrong though. I think the oil companies have a lot of work to do to clean up their act. Its just that picking on this one place that is owned by a multinational may give the wrong idea about the overall policy of that company towards the environment.
There are many, many more questions that have to be asked and answered before you can point the finger at the foundation and get angry(or whatever)
Remember, there is always at least two sides to any story. (With a politician, the answer is at least 360.)
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
Capitalist hardball is the American national sport, not baseball, always has been.
Hatred of the entrepreneur may drive some needed reforms, but is notoriously confined and short-lived in the states.
One reason for this, of course, is that the American entrepreneurial capitalist is one of the most civil and responsible examples of the breed, any European with a sense of history will understand this perfectly.
The vast majority of mutual funds that are turning any kind of above-inflation profit these days invest in companies that are harmful to people. The form the harm they take MIGHT be pollution, or it may also be through monopolization, sweat shop labor, or what have you. This has been a problem for me personally for quite some time...If I ever want to retire I simply MUST invest in funds that can turn a profit, but the winners all wind up winning through exploitation.
There is also the matter of getting a job that pays. Again, most of the companies that will hire me themselves invest in evil funds, if not also directly engaging in some kind of evil activity.
Is this a natural consequence of capitalism? Is it a natural consequence of human nature? Is it the very sort of problem that our advanced technologies were supposed to solve? I really don't know. But the more I study my options for securing my own interests, the more I discover that I must hurt others to get what I want.
Now let's take a look at our options.
1) Accept help from someone funding somthing that is making it tough to breathe.
2) Eat shit and die.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
What is the big deal? Gates did start the foundation to improve their reputation, not the mankind. It was not an act of generosity, but a business deal, give money and receive good reputation in exchange. That proves that money can do everything including buy good reputation, love, etc. True, good reputation is a bit expensive (billions); (true) love is probably cheaper (say only millions).
For those that are not familiar with Nigeria, this is not a standard case of industry versus activist.
The Niger delta is in serious trouble; the environmental contamination there is beyond anything you would believe. My company had been contracted by one of the large oil companies there to investigate cleanup of some of their contaminated sites. They gave us some project specs.
The sites were huge. Gigantic. The scale of the project was larger than anything we had ever considered, and we work on some pretty large projects. Our existing cleanup efforts include some of the largest contaminated sites in the U.S. and Europe. We went to the delta to do some investigating and preliminary tests, and were shocked with what we found. On average, each contaminated site was 10x larger than the specs we were provided.
The environmental "mess" there is huge, and terribly depressing. It's a beautiful region, but you cannot imagine the scale of the contamination. It would take decades upon decades of pouring billions of dollars into remediation to bring the delta region near the environmental standards of the U.S. or Europe, neither of which are particularly high.
Furthermore, in terms of economics; these giant oil companies are ugly, monopolistic ventures with high levels of foreign and domestic (Nigerian) government involvement. They do things no "sane" company would do.
Don't respond with the usual, "These people wouldn't be better off with no jobs" bullshit. These companies have literally destroyed the region, annihilating the local agriculture and local industry. Not through competition, but through force; the region is so polluted that nothing but a resource extraction company can survive there. As far as I'm concerned, this represents use of force; which should be prohibited under capitalist frameworks.
It's really sad what is going on over there.
Lemme guess - you know that by proving it's opposite?
They think they will cure AIDS. Ha! Developing a vaccine is only part of the cure. There's been a vaccine for TB for 50+ years and still many people die of TB every day.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The billionaires are investing in their foundations to "make money?" You do realize that they can't get it back out, right?
The kind of money we are talking about has nothing to do with "spending," but everything to do with "power."
The BILLIONAIRES are set for life, they don't need anything else to live up to anyone's most wildest fantasies, but what these cut-throat business people want is power and influence. They already have money. The money these "foundations" make is money they control, but don't pay taxes on or show as assets.
It is squeeky clean blood money used to coerce governments, corporations, and people, it is NOT about charity.
These ideas are ones that have been influenced by the book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy".
Most health professionals working in HIV/AIDS in third world countries regularly state that the only way to really tackle the AIDS epidemic is for drug companies to allow generic drugs to be made and given to people in third world countries, while allowing the expensive, patented, proprietary medications to continue to be sold in first world countries.
Of course, Merck et al haven't been too eager to open that intellectual property floodgate, and they've either said "No" outright, or volunteered to donate a small percentage of drugs (much less than addressing the epidemic would require).
Any other multinational corporation with substantial patents and IP concerns must wonder be aware that reducing the patent protection from big pharma could eventually affect them as well.
So, when Bill Gates donates large amounts of money to buy patented medications, he's equally protecting the sanctity of human life and the sanctity of international IP laws. Convenient way to look great, do good things, all while protect his own interests.
Sometimes "good" is the enemy of "best" and rich & powerful people using their money to buy drugs at ridiculous prices allows them to avoid pressuring our world governments to level the playing field a little for the poorest of the poorest.
What if the investment is to make a dirty factory cleaner? But until a factory sprouts up that is completely funded by gates, it's dumb to critize the most generous person in the world. (Even though I disagree strongly about charity)
When was the last time you dumped hundreds of millions of your own $$$ into a charitable cause?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
With logic like that, I'm wondering how valid your initial gripe with MS was.
damaged by dogma
This sounds a lot like MS. But then again what else would you expect from its founder, Bill Gates?
the Gates foundation donated to Al'Kida 3 years before the Sept 11 attacks.
What? Well then, under U.S. policy that prevailed until at least July, 2006, Bill and Melinda should have been "disappeared" and tossed into Gitmo without right to legal counsel!
For the past 80 years or better that has been the practice. It has got to be one of the lamest energy wasting ideas out there. I remember as a kid seeing movies of it and thought then that it was quite insane. And they are still doing it? Sure it makes it convenient for the oil companies..but really. It's just stupid long term. If they can't figure out what to do with it, yank the contract from them and try another company, and keep doing that until they get a corporation that can actually run an energy business and not just an oil business. The times of rape,pillage loot should be long over for these pirate companies and their "investors". If it takes nationalizing them and letting the stockholders eat a few big losses, so be it, it's time that stockholders realise they have a duty to something beyond profits when they are granted an opportunity to make money via a corporation, as opposed to getting up and going to work for that loot. Having a corporation is a privelege, not a right. Having an opportunity to do work and get paid is a right,you are free to do that, but corporations are artificial constructs that are state granted with some caveats to be also of the public good, not just money making efforts. Just throwing money at something because you have so much of it that you need to stick it someplace is not work, and it is why we have the problem of capitalist pigs, as opposed to responsible capitalist businessmen and companies. This just is further proof about how a non regulated or barely regulated market works in the real world, left to their own devices most of them take the easiest and sleaziest way out, not the proper way or the responsible way. We wouldn't even need these business laws if they were just honest and used a little more thought and care and concern, you know, as in regular humanity.
Our caveman ancestors had to do battle with predators, we should recognize when we have human predators and treat them the same way, fight them back, wall them out, keep them away from the civilized humans.
This article is right on, and a prime example of where we need to let them know that people can still notice predatory behavior, no matter how nicely it is presented from the PR guys.
Glad to see that ye old "do a flamboyant good deed to hide countless misdeeds" still pulls the wool over the eyes of the sheeple.
You can't take the sky from me...
"Gates might be good, but he isn't a fucking superhero." - Well, excuse us for being misled! To hear the MS fanboys telling it, I thought BG was supposed to be God, Jesus, Santa Claus, all the Saints, Buddha, Krisna, Allah, Moses, Superman, and Popeye all at once. Not to even exaggerate in the slightest.
Wah, we poked a hole in the "Gates can do no wrong" theory. Go cry!
Get off your high horse. My electricity comes from renewable energy (hydro). I'll stay on the horse, I have a good view from up here
You can't take the sky from me...
I think that Eni company is "evil" because it's a oil company.
Polio vaccines should be transported to Africa without the "evil" fossil fuels, via sailing ships, or perhaps tethered to a migratory bird -- like a swallow.
FYI -- If you are a US taxpayer (like myself) you also provide support to better the health of people while simultaneously killing innocent people.
most of us don't have billions of dollars to try and do things differently.
"you can't invest against something"
That's not entirely true. Microsoft has been doing it for a very long time. They do it every time the give huge price breaks to companies and governments who wave a Linux conversion at them. They also have traditionally done it when they helped out with the piracy of Windows. I can't remember if it was Ballamer or Gates that said it, but one of them made the comment about massive piracy in Asia, that they would be able to use that to turn them into legitimate customers in the future.
Obviously MS isn't the only company to do this.
... I would pull all funding for everything, Stick my middle finger up and say "fuck the lot of ya".
I'm no fan of bill gates, But this bashing he constantly recieves is petty and infantile.
God Be Gone
Greg Palast wrote an article about this a while back...
Killing Africans For Profit and PR
American: Edison
Edison is to the late 19th early 20th as Gates is to the late 20th early 21st.
So... I guess if I were to stretch the comparison, I'd pick Torvalds as the European... but it's stretching pretty far and thin by then.
You can't take the sky from me...
Reading the Gates Foundation website, it would appear that all is hunky-dory. Lots of feel-good stories about funding various feel-good projects. It does read as if the Gates have turned over a new leaf. Yet their guiding principles leave a lot to be desired. For example, "philanthropy" is only part of their aim, and they report only those parts of their operation that *are philanthopic. Could it be that reporting "oh we invest in " would tarnish their fledgling's reputation? If the two aims did not conflict, why not report their operations in toto? Why not adopt a legal framework for their operations which would go some way to clarifying their operations? What have they got to hide? Even ENRON gave a better account of their operations than this. So now, when I read articles like this, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It smacks of being under-hand. Bill Gates - and I believe it is he who sets the tenor of the foundation - is, in my eyes, trying to have his cake and eat it. That's the crux of the problem.
FWIW. I don't particularly mind investment in big multinationals - my morals aren't that high-minded and occasionally they do good - but don't multinationals receive enough Gubmint aid already? The long list includes Aribus, British Aerospace, ELF, Boeing etc etc etc etc. Each sit at the tax-trough day-in-day-out. The only reason for the Gates Foundation to invest in these big companies *is* profit. Now their "guiding principles" don't preclude this but, really, they - and no one else - shouldn't be surprised if others look askance at the grand total of their operations. Currently, it looks like to me that the Foundation is their to make the Gates and Buffet look good. Nothing more.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
(Score: P, Wacky Wacky Insane Nut)
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Has it occurred to anyone that just maybe they invested in a plant that was about to close thus putting everyone out of a job? Fat good it does to keep the air clean while not to being able to eat. Or do you suggest that not only to we solve their health problem but at the same time introduce a brand new industry all on the same day? After all if god can do it in 7 days so can we right? What do you suggest, have them all sit around and knit woolen scarves for us? Oh no then kids have to help that would be child labor.
Arm chair geniuses here underestimate the complexities involved in this matter. Maybe the soul of Bill Gates is as black as the soot from that oil refinery but maybe just maybe there are so many more factors involved. It may well be possible that the link between their money and the oil refinery goes though several layers thus obscuring visibility on what really is invested in. There will alway be some jealous pisshead to dig up obscure links that were not intended.
Yeah, yeah, we all know that the Aschen vaccines are making everybody infertile.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Nearly the entire current endowment is from contributions that Gates has made. Buffett has made commitments, but not actually transfered the money. See:
e tt.html?ex=1168318800&en=3df887f0928b4842&ei=5070
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/business/26buff
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
No Shit Sherlock - Gates might be good, but he isn't a fucking superhero.
C'mon, guys, is it really THAT hard to see that this guy is just trolling? His post needs to be moderated appropriately.
Did it ever occur to anyone that having a 'job' is the same as being a serf? Did it ever occur to anyone that a man with 10 acres and some basic tools doesnt need a job at all? There is a lot of land in Africa, but an individual family cant get it and therefore has to work as a WAGE-SLAVE for people like the obnoxious Gates. Before all the white men came to Africa to steal its resources, the people survived. Now, magically, they need the very assholes who steal and stole all their stuff. Sad state of affairs. As for gates - he's just an ugly symptom of global capitalism and unawareness. Gates is a guy who follows the party line - he is INCAPABLE of change. His foundation is a self-aggrandising company that thinks that crumbs from the big table can feed all us little people. And you thought he was a good guy? Now thats funny.
So in other words, Gates is operating from Mount Doom in Mordor...
Come on, tell us something new here!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...is through education. That, and protection of it's industries while they're still developing. Once multinational corporations start entering the picture, that industry is pretty much closed to the country which results in most poor countries selling bananas or catering to tourists.
I'm having some difficulty following the logic here:
The article complains that Gates spends only 2% of his net worth - US$ 6 Billions - directly on the Gates foundation.
And then claims that "the game" is given away by an investment by the foundation of US$ 200 Million.
What's that, 0.66% of his net worth? 3% of the foundation? Aggregated over different drug companies?
Heck, I hope those 200 million pay off to catch up to the 6 billions.
They must have a better ROI than the similar investments almost every 401K, or any form of diversified investment for that matter, has on the same area.
Ah, well... some people spend 2% of their net worth giving to charity. Some people spend it on aluminion foil hats.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
In India they are building this wonderful and much needed highway called the "Golden Quadrilateral". They are improving their ports and building more power plants to drive the economy so that everyone has electricity.
.. who doesnt want good roads? All of this
.. we still import a massive amount of goods. If those 4% were working .. we would not still have the capacity (millions of workers) to produce all the goods we need. If we block off trade, people will have to switch from cozy jobs to harder manufacturing jobs .. and in turn high end services will suffer. Rather than advancing and innovating in a high tech company workers will be employed in manufacturing. For example if people switch from service jobs to manufacturing who will provide the services? Once the global population is rich, robots can do the harder work. Maybe humans will only have to work a few hours a day. Robots will farm and maybe even do construction work. Since richer more educated people tend to have less kids, their may be a depopulation crisis that will have to be culturally reversed. Since energy will be cheap so will the cost of living. Think about it this way energy -capacity to do work- is the true fundamental unit of economy. Services and food etc. are actually "energy" in some sense. If you have power sources you can mine, recycle, and do agriculture. That's why when people say the economy can collapse due to a dollar criss it's laughable .. since the country has power plants and oil reserves etc. complete collapse is impossible.
The elites in India have realized that the better developed the country is, the more well of they themselves can be (less people polluting the rivers because of inadequate sanitation, more people able to provide them with goods and services they need). Fact is, a nation which has such a massive population in poverty serves no-one. For example, they would rather more plasma TV's were manufactured so they would be much cheaper. Same with cars. None of these are possible when you have a country of people starving and a piss poor economy unable to sustain jobs. And I'll not get into roads
There aren't enough workers to provide all the things a country needs. With a 4% unemployment rate
I'd love to see what Bill Gates could do that slashdotters wouldn't rip into him for. He's separating himself from his brainchild to spend more time with his family and devote more time to giving away his fortune for a good cause. The rest of the world can see how this is a good thing. Anybody reading this remember when Warren Buffet made the largest donation in history? Remember where it went? I guess he must just be ignorant to donate such a large sum to such an evil foundation, or perhaps he's also just as evil.
Humor me here and try to separate your feelings for Microsoft from your opinions of Bill Gates. It might help to ask yourself what you would do if you had more money than you could possibly spend. What tops your list? Vacation for the rest of your life? All kinds of cool new toys? Hot cars? Your own tropical island? Where does trying to solve some of the world's problems rank on your list?
Seriously folks...what could Bill Gates do that wouldn't result in some negative article or negative feedback under the Borg picture?
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
RTFA you moron. They're being called out for investing 95% of their money blindly while spending the minimum (to avoid taxation) 5% on real philanthropy.
Other than that (and the limited availability of hydro), enjoy your ride.
As a non-investor, it's very hard to change the practices of outside companies. Try it: go up to your local gas station and start yelling at them that the oil and gasoline runoff from their parking lot is killing local wildlife. You won't get far.
Now try again, but first buy a few hundred thousand shares of the company, and instead of complaining to the local gas station, complain to the company and use your shares to help influence the behavior and movement of the company. It won't be a quick change, but some change is better than no change.
Someone is going to profit off of investing in that power plant. Would you rather it be a non-profit who is helping people, or a filthy rich investment banker? Do you think that investment banker would try to alter the company or raise issues with a polluting plant? Aside from a few philanthropist investors, most are blood-sucking fiends (and even active philanthropists are fiends).
"The foundation makes money, which is good"
Making money is always good?
Back that 110% any time.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have given away their life savings to causes that are undeniably wonderful. Every day their money saves thousands of lives. You sit at home and rant at Slashdot. It reminds me of a William Shatner tune (if that isn't a contradiction in terms)
(slightly edited for context)
I find posts like yours profoundly depressing. You hold the Gates foundation to an impossible standard, far beyond what you would hold the MacArthur foundation, or your favourite charity or yourself. In doing so, you attempt to rob the Gates of any credit for their good works and in doing so, you reduce a major motivation for doing good works. Have you thought through the end result if we all demonzized philanthropists? Do you have any idea how important robber-baron philanthropy has been over the last few centuries?
Reading the Gates Foundation website, it would appear that all is hunky-dory.
Can you point me to a charity or foundation website that does not promote their work as hunky-dory? If they thought that they had problems, don't you think that they would spend more effort fixing them rather than updating their website to list them?
Yet their guiding principles leave a lot to be desired. For example, "philanthropy" is only part of their aim, and they report only those parts of their operation that *are philanthopic.
No, you completely misunderstand. Their goal is entirely philanthropic. Their guiding principles merely state the FACT that philanthropy is necessarily limited in its results. Therefore it is not an alternative to economic development. Give a man a fish, teach a man to fish, etc.
they report only those parts of their operation that *are philanthopic.
Oh really? Do you have evidence that either their annual report or their website misstates how they spend their money?
What have they got to hide?
Please take off your fucking tin-foil hat. What are they hiding? You are acting as if you know of something evil they are doing secretly but not reporting. Go ahead, please tell us what their nefarious other activities are.
Even ENRON gave a better account of their operations than this.
Enron (note the capitalization) needs to be added to Godwin's law.
FWIW. I don't particularly mind investment in big multinationals - my morals aren't that high-minded and occasionally they do good - but don't multinationals receive enough Gubmint aid already? The long list includes Aribus, British Aerospace, ELF, Boeing etc etc etc etc. Each sit at the tax-trough day-in-day-out. The only reason for the Gates Foundation to invest in these big companies *is* profit.
Yes, the reason that the Gates foundation invests in big companies is in order to maximize the profit available for their philanthropic work. Given this fact, why do you mention the fact that "Aribus" gets government money. What does it have to do with the price of tea in China? When you select your own investments are you biased against companies that have got government contracts, customers, loans or bail-outs? Do your mutual funds exclude such organizations?
Currently, it looks like to me that the Foundation is their to make the Gates and Buffet look good. Nothing more.
I'm sorry, I'm boiling over. You're acting like a total asshole.
First, nothing in your post substantiates the claim you make at the end. Don't you think that there are easier ways to buy positive press than to give away your life savings?
Second, Warren Buffet was already widely loved and praised. Giving away his life savings barely moves the needle of his reputation. As far as Bill Gates: I think that if he gave a flying fuck what people like you think of him then he would have
I bet no one's thought of that yet! Hurry, get on a plane and go tell all those poor Africans to quit fucking! Then come back here and tell all the poor teenagers! Hallelujah, we're saved!
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
1 ?
2 ?
3 PROFIT!
4 It's your money now. Spend it according to your own values. If ignoring those who seek to highjack control of it is too tedious, there's always polonium-210.
--
phunctor
Assuming just that, "normal rate of return", leaves a problem though. Let me see if I can put forth an example that makes sense (since some would argue I usually fail at that). A dollar today is worth more then a dollar in a year. How much more? 1 / (1 + "normal rate of return") - 1 is how much more. So in essence, there is little point in investing charitable money today in order to spend it tomorrow (given the assumption that there are worthwhile projects available today).
So why do it then? I see a few possible answers. One is of course that you feel that you can not extend your organisation far enough to simply spend all the money in one moment. Fair enough. That is the positive possibility though. The other "extreme" possibility is a bit more dark. Being a charity might not be exactly the same as being a business since you have no shareholders screaming for their fair interest payments. On the other hand, that is a fairly pointless difference. If you set up a bureaucracy (and I use the word without the associated stigma) it has but one overwhelming internal goal, shareholders present or not: continual existence.
So ask yourself, which of the two possible paths will provide the organisation with the most chance of this continual existence; to spend all money right now or to put the money to work and only spend the interest. Then ask yourself, which is the more 'humane' approach: to save two people today or one person today and one in a year. Of course the answer is not entirely clear cut and I'm sure philosophies and religions have split up due to smaller matters. Ask a foundation that very question though and I'm certain 99% will pick the first. Why is it then that they follow the other path?
Given these two things, it's not entirely out of this world to hold the opinion that if an entity calls itself a charity it could at least invest in things that doesn't make this place a worse place. Economy is a strange mistress and she is not easy not cheat on. She balances things out in the end no matter how clever you think you are.
Karma: 2.71828182846 (Mostly due to small, fun pills)
Parent post used the phrase "having good intentions", which triggered these thoughts.
BG is driving his new Hummer along a back road in the mountains, just for the pleasure of it. The only other traffic is a 1954 Chevy pickup truck driven slowly by a migrant worker with his wife and two kids crammed in the cab beside him and all their worldly possessions neatly bundled up under a tarp in the back. BG falls in behind them as they go into some tight curves, planning on passing when the road straightens out again. But a tire of the pickup blows out with a bang, the pickup swings wildly from side to side, and ends up in the ditch.
BG performs the duties of care expected of all drivers who come upon an accident. He stops and determines that everyone is okay. The pickup is wedged in the rocky ditch but safely off the road; it doesn't pose a hazard. He offers to call for assistance on his cell phone.
Then, with the best of intentions, he offers to use the winch on his brand new Hummer to pull the pickup out of the ditch, and the family is most grateful for that. After the truck is back on the pavement, he helps as best he can with changing the flat (without getting grease on his fine new clothes). The family beam in gratitude and drive off toward the railroad crossing a few hundred yards down the hill. He watches them go as he wipes the dust off the winch cable (so it will again be all bright and sparklely when he winds it back onto its spool).
The railroad warning lights come on; the pickup's brake lights come on; but the pickup doesn't slow down. It rolls right into the side of the second engine of the freight train, and is immediately spun around to slam broadside into the next car, and then is tumbled like a cartwheel across the road. The tarp rips open and pieces of simple chairs and a table, neat packages of clothes and torn bedding, fly everywhere. The roof pops off the cab, and migrant worker body parts sail through the air.
This is most unfortunate. But there is no one blame here. Since BG is a "software engineer" and an entrepreneur, there is no reason to expect him to know that the brakelines should have been inspected after a vehicle is winched out of a ditch. If not for his action, the family would still be alive, but he did act with good intentions. He is blameless in the matter of their deaths.
Now what if this was the case instead:
BG is concerned with the plight of migrant workers who have to travel the difficult mountain roads. He decides that instead of getting that fun Hummer, he would buy a brand new tow truck so that he could help these poor people who are constantly getting stranded on life's back roads. If the same scenario played out while he was driving his tow truck, he would be culpable for the deaths of the migrant family.
When he bought the tow truck, he also bought into the expectation that he would have the same concerns for safety and the same basic knowledge expected of a tow truck operator. Therefore he should have known to inspect the underside of the pickup after winching it out of the ditch; he should have recognized the distinctive odor of leaking brake fluid; and in any event he should certainly have taken the basic precaution of pumping the brake pedal a few times before letting the pickup drive off. If he did not know to do those things, he would be negligent in the duty of care expected of the position he had chosen to put himself in, and he would be facing charges of negligent manslaughter or wrongful death.
When you intentionally spend your money to offer free assistance, you take on a higher duty of care wrt the consequences of all your associated actions. You are expected to have done your studies so that you can deliver what you are offering with the same degree of safety as the minimum expected of others who do the same work. That means more than knowing how to safely operate the tow truck winch; it means knowing how to evaluate your work so that you are not creating a greater crisis down the road.
The $ in MS in the subject line just makes it more classy. nice.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Bill Gates is such a dick and this proves it.
So the asset managers are incompetent and don't know what the goals of the customer they work for are. The asset managers aren't serving their customer (the Foundation) in a manner consistent with their objectives.
People have been fired for lesser offenses. The Foundation needs to remind those managers who they work for, and inform them that their actions are not aligning with the goals of the Foundation...
No evil here (at least not intentionally). No, rather, this is more of the usual, more-mundane story that comes out of any sufficiently-large organization: the institution has a set of strategic priorities, but the upper management that make the strategic decisions (Bill and Melinda Gates, the management directly beneath them, etc.) aren't managing the lower management who manage the operational aspects (e.g. the asset managers who invest the Foundation's money).
It's just the usual story of incompetent management... Read Dilbert if you require further explanation.
I do wonder what Warren Buffet thinks though, now that he -- the America's 2nd-richest person -- has decided to pour 85% of his entire net worth into the Foundation over a period of several years, on the basis that it does good work and is managed well...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
How many times have I SAID here that the Gates Foundation is a STOCK-LAUNDERING SCAM, NOTHING MORE!
How many times have I SAID here that the Gates Foundation puts out BARELY enough money into actual charities to comply with Federal law?
How many times have I SAID here that the Gates Foundation drums up PR for Bill and Microsoft by announcing some multi-hundred million dollar "charity" that then SPREADS THE MONEY OUT OVER ELEVEN YEARS!
This is CLASSIC "rich guy philanthopy" - convert the stock to cash that he can't because of FCC rules, then dribble out the money, and in the meantime dump the cash into stock portfolios to influence and control other companies.
And you Microsoft shill SUCKERS buy into this crap!
Morons.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Dearie dear. Ad hominem attacks for asking something reasonable? Astroturfing for Gate/Buffet per chance. Or do you live Multi-Millionaires row? GTFO.
The problem with your little scenario is that there is no legal structure to the Bill Gates "Foundation". Zippo. None. Da nada. Please tell me, I'm interested. I notice that you don't refute this point.
In the UK, charities have to account for what comes in and what goes out. In fact, the last time I was on a charity board, we had to file accounts with both the UK Treasuries Commission and we had to be a limited company, with the books balanced by a properly certified accountant and accounts filed with Companies house. We also had to conform with the Charities Law.
Now Bill Gates can do WTF he wants with his money, but if he wants to tell me that he's doing good, 100%, gorblimey, then publish the books. If he or Buffet has nothing to hide, then the Foundation should publish their books, have independant auditors look over their books, show us where the money is going, how much is spent on administration, on junkets etc etc. Keep a good man honest. It's good governance - the sort of thing that we the First World have been preaching to the Third World for a while now. If everything is above board, then I really will call Gates a good man.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
The preceding post I largely agree with, including the summary text quoted here. My comments are not intended to detract from any of of this post, but to add to it.
It's not just about other people but about Gates himself. People grow and change. They are not themselves the same person one day as the next. As they grow, they regret things or see things they would like to improve. Sometimes, too, criticism is good because people learn from it. I'm not apologist for Gates, but it seems fair to admit that he has seemed to grow quite a bit as a person over the years. Perhaps he legitimately regrets some things, but can't change them. Maybe some of the things he does now are because he likes doing them and some are an apology for what damage he may himself consider he's done. Who can say?
I think these things he's doing are his best attempt at doing something good. He's one of those guys like Ted Kennedy that you can criticize for not being perfect, but geez: neither of these guys has to work a day for the rest of their life. They can live in luxury if they want. But they wake up, go to work, and do things that certainly seem helpful to others. Why? For the joy of duping a third-worlder into thinking he's cured when he's not? I doubt it.
If there are things he's doing wrong, let's allow for the possibility he'll get better at it. What he's doing now seems better than 10 years ago. Why assume he's stopped learning? Perhaps he'll even read this very thread and improve. Forced to bet money on who was more likely to change, Gates if he read the Slashdot criticisms or the criticisms if Gates changed, I'd bet on Gates to be the one more capable of change.
I've been programming since the mid 1970's. I sometimes pull out old code and it shocks me how ugly it is. But I have to remind myself, the notion of "programming style" was not invented then. Programming style evolved because I and others recognized the need to have more orderly code in order for projects to scale better and have longer lifetimes. We were so excited by how cool programming was that the notion of how hygienic it was didn't seem relevant yet. Everything from the 70's looks dated. Look at movies of the time and how minorities and women were treated. It seems like there were more bad people then, but if you were alive then you'd know that was not so. People just thought differently. People have always thought differently, and have always evolved from generation to generation. Political and social conscience are not things people are born with, they're things people come to have, and things that build as one has time to make mistakes and see the consequences, time to read, time to talk to people, etc.
Successful people may lag in learning these things for all I know, perhaps because they're busy being successful. (No benefit ever comes without a cost.) Now that he's shifted what he's doing in life to focus on his foundation, Bill has more time, so he's getting caught up. But if he'd taken the time to learn earlier in life, maybe he wouldn't have money to give away. So maybe it wouldn't matter. He'd just be a person with views that were more mainstream and a quantity of money that was more mainstream, too. And some rich guy, Bill Prime, would be the one with money to give away, but he also would have been "busy" for a while, and socially behind the times, so he'd be the one catching up. It's not a perfect world. We learn as we go. We're a work in progress. It's why old people so often repeat the phrase, "If I had it to do over..." But none of us get to do
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
you're right. the world would be a better place if we let millions of children die. how about you go the head of that line?
*stab* *heal* *stab* *heal*... eventually the body will not heal but the stabbing will continue...
The Gates foundation is channeling the profits from its twice-convicted and unpunished monopoly. Microsoft has done more to stifle innovation and has terribly damaged America's technological lead by stifling innovation though unethical business practices, such as pre-annmouncing vaporware merely to prevent competitive products from being developed. The gates foundation is handing out blood money. And according to the parent article, its investment practices into polluting companies amplifies the damage. If people want clean white money they should get it from foundations like the Dave and Lucille Packard foundation. That is a true white money source. Dave Packard was a genius, who recognized that the greatest danger facing the earth is overpopulation. Overpopulation is the true root cause of much evil and disease and war and poverty. Gates want to cure aids, which is a good idea of course, but until we solve the overpopulation problem, aids is not going away. As they say, the fruit does not fall far from the tree.
Linux Rules, Macintosh Rocks, what's Wintel?
Ahh, I was misinformed, thanks for the correction.
Shit adds up at the bottom...
Dude!
poured money into KB Home stock which is probably going to go bankrupt in the near future. The money does not appear to be managed well.
So we have a college educated poor young adult instead of a poor dead baby. Well unless your advocating killing the poor, I say we did some good there. Now the next generation of peace corps members should go and build a factory or irrigate the farmland to get these people money.
As far as one of these people growing up to become a suicide bomber, well they would have gotten someone else to do the task if he died as an infant.
Now, personally I don't think that building wells and factories is the answer. However, I think the problem is people need to work hard for and earn everything they have. If stuff is given to you you will expect it to be given to you.
Now charities do things that have unexpected consequences. However, so do for profit companies, governments and individuals. There is a need to better understand these things via sociology, economic forecasting, etc, but that doesn't mean we should stop doing everything until we know everything.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
From your description I can only conclude that the foundation is set up wrongly: aggressive investment for maximum profit combined with charitable endevours do not necessarily lead to a net positive for the world. Both arms need to strive for the same thing. As it seems from your description, the foundation is flawed.
So the obvious solution is stop doing charity work. Imagine that you're the tow-truck driver, and over the course of many years you've spent thousands of hard earned dollars, and helped hundreds of families. Then one day the accident occurs, and suddenly, the whole state decides that you're an evil bastard who needs to reform his tow-truck use. Not only that but they're going to review all of your actions in the future, and blame you for any small slip-up that occurs. You scratched that guys bumper while pulling him out of the ditch! You touched that womans tit while you were giving her CPR! EVIL!
Screw that shit. The moment that charity becomes that much trouble is the moment I stop trying.
Do you think Bill Gates is really thinking social responsibility when picking his investments? Look how he's run Microsoft for a clue to THAT question. He's looking for profits and ROI and it's doubtful he directs his investment managers to be concerned with social consequences of his investments. IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
The B&MG Foundation needs money. That's a given. So they invest money. In a lot of companies, presumably.
Some of these companies are now, of course, shadier than others. Some might have less reputable practices. Not surprisingly, those are also the ones that generate the most revenue. Which is a given. If you don't care about environment or the people around you, you can cut a lot of costs, save a lot of money and increase your profit. Welcome to capitalism, duh.
I doubt that B&MG had any idea just what exactly the company they invest in does. Simply because it's not their business. Their business is to generate money to help people. Yes, they should check what they invest in, but generally, I'm already happy that foundations like this exist at all in our world.
I'm easy to please, I know.
It's also not easy to withdraw an investment. So what should they do now? Bug out and accept the (presumably big) loss? Or keep the investment up and use the money instead to do some good?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Seems like the real problem is that with the accumulation of such excess wealth. individuals rather than the citizenship get to set the agenda and the methods. If the money ws taxed appropriately, then "we, the people" would get to set the sganda and priorities (assuming a more honest congress!)
When the oil runs out, then what?
They'll be unemployed again, that's what. Plus, on top of that, they'll have more diseases than they had before, and the land will be even more useless because of pollution, too.
Let us recap the supporting facts, shall we?
Trading in your health for a job never works out for the better in the end.
Corporations don't engage in charitable acts for anyone's good. They do this to avoid paying taxes.
Again, how can that parent post be insightful, in light of the glaringly obvious and contradictory facts?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Like these? financial statement
I'm generally a big Gates basher myself - but among American billionaires, he truly is one of the most generous.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The problem with your little scenario is that there is no legal structure to the Bill Gates "Foundation". Zippo. None. Da nada. Please tell me, I'm interested. I notice that you don't refute this point.
The point is so ridiculous that I didn't think it would require refutation. "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is committed to providing clear, timely information on our finances and grantmaking efforts. Our annual reports from 1998 to present ... are available at the links below."
If everything is above board, then I really will call Gates a good man.
You've got the links. The ball is in your court. But anyhow, I didn't ask anyone to call Gates a good man. Please just praise the good things he does and criticize the bad, as opposed to demonizing him unthinkingly. It's the basic consideration that we owe every human being.
Don't get your panties all tied up in bunch over this.
The principles are quite simple really, and seem to be recognized in every written body of law on the planet. If you represent yourself as having a skill, your minimum level of responsibility in regards to the safe practice of that skill is held to a higher standard than someone who doesn't claim to have any skill in that area. Whether or not your actions are charitable or for cash doesn't enter into it.
These principles are also applicable to captains of industry who pose as philanthropists. It simply isn't enough to do Good Works to glorify your name; it is also necessary to use the skills of a philanthropist to keep from doing obvious harm.
TFA raises some serious questions about whether the B&MGF is performing within these principles, or whether it is as unprincipled in its philanthropic behavior as the monopoly that brought forth all its money has been in its business behavior.
I wonder if the foundation would consider donating to a few impoverished open source organizations?
He's done the same thing to us for nearly 30 years; unified the computers (good) and allows us to be the unwitting host for millions of overseas bots (bad). Fixes holes (good) and then makes more (bad).
Nothin' new here.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Or, if we can throw away the idiotic analogies for a second, you're not arguing that Bill Gates' charity should be held responsible because they were negligent and accidentally injected some kid with the wrong kind of liquid - you're saying that the charity should be held responsible for something a totally different company is doing. That's pretty damn illogical, and it certainly doesn't have any basis in law.
Not by any law I've ever heard of, and certainly not by any moral requirements. If they wish to do charitable work, good on 'em. If a bank robber decides to give away half of the money he stole, great! Let's be realistic here - if it's a choice between stopping the charitable work, or stopping their other practises, which do you think they'll chose? Your idealism is nice and all, but that's not the way the world works, my friend.
"Also, I'd love to see you provide a modern example of people being dislocated from their farm-land in order to build an oil field (or any other kind of business), and then having no option but to work for that company."
:)
...the list goes on & on.
For some reason I get the distinct impression that you're just talking out of your ass.
China, Three Gorges Project - 1.3 million relocated
China, Hunan Province, 2006 - Water Pollution Control Facility
anyone remember bill gates standing on stage with U2s bono to promote economic freedom and human rights in poor countries during live aid? it also happened on the same month that microsoft signed an agreement with the chinese communist party that allows the government to censor and monitor internet traffic using msn.com. effectively making microsoft a tool for the communist regime. conscience is not a word in bill gates' dictionary.
as for the other motive, what bill gates is doing is nothing new to the rich who take advantage of tax laws. his old partner paul allen has been using an investment firm as a tax haven for his numerous hobbies which when opened for display to the public becomes deductible. i wish i can use my garage as a museum of junk and claim it as a tax deduction. but only limit public access to it during winter time when nobody would care to visit. no pictures allowed either!
I am absolutely shocked. Microsoft appears on the surface to be helping people but is in fact hurting them. This is a first! Well I never!!!
It is unethical for these foundations to be investing and supporting companies that are harming the very people they are trying to help, do you not see this? This is a very difficult issue to resolve, these foundations need to make money in order to keep up their humanitarian activities, but is maximizing profits really a necessary motivation behind a huminitarian organization? They should only be striving to break even each year and this should be easily attainable without having to invest in companies based on maximum return.
Actually what these organizations should be doing would lead to obsolescene, the people working for these foundations should be working to put their employer out of business. Say the Gates Foundation, using it's money fighting AIDS, the goal would be to spend all the money to eliminate AIDS and therefore the reason it exists. Of course theory isn't very practical.
FalconShould there be a Law?
To quote you " Has it occurred to anyone that just maybe they invested in a plant that was about to close thus putting everyone out of a job?"
What local jobs are you referring to? I can guarantee you that none of the locals are working in a plant such as this. Even Saudi Arabia and Kuwait rarely hire locals for anything meaningful at their oil production facilities. Countries that have any type of oil processing commonly scour North America for power engineers, process engineers, maintenance engineers, facility managers and even the general labour pool. For these oil companies it's just too expensive, time consuming and risky to get the locals involved. You need people that understand how a cracker works, proper welding techniques for pipe lines, how to take a gas compressor out of service for maintenance without blowing the facility up, how to get a pump to run again if the variable frequency drive dies, etc, etc. Due to the staggering and unfortunate lack of education in most of these countries that type of knowledge isn't available locally nor is it something you can just bone up on over a two week on the job training course.
This again leads right back to why most of the oil and gas production facilities are so toxic to their surrounding environments, nobody that works there lives around there, so what do they care?
Good. Don't contribute to charity, if that's your attitude then no one deserves the curse of your charity!
Charity isn't about throwing resources at problems it's about helping people. You can't help people by simply throwing what you have at them, you need to think it through and work with individuals. It's been stated in the "give a man a fish" crap you hear all too often: If you've got someone who doesn't really need money but really needs a swift kick in the rear or an education then don't feed him, but give him a swift kick and an education!
And if you've got someone who just needs a helping hand today and not an education, then give him a helping hand today.
Knowing the difference makes the difference between changing lives with your charity and furthering problems. You can't just contribute because it's not about best wishes and personal checks.
gates foundation is killing justice!
Would that be an african or european swallow?
As to the guy above who thinks charities should be losing money not making it, that is just idiotic.
Not only should charities lose money but they should also be trying to put themself out of business. If you're working on AIDS for instance you should be working to make AIDS go the way of polio or small pox, make it a part of history and no longer a problem.
FalconShould there be a Law?
That's why we should tax consumption and not production. Instead of reporting your earnings, you should report your spending. If you live a life of luxury, you should pay high taxes. If you make twice as much money as Bill Gates and live a modest life, you should pay low taxes.
Yeap, I'd change one thing though, well two really. First I'd tax corporate profits. Corporations offer their share/stock-holders something other business owners like proprietorships and partnerships don't get, limited liability. If you want limited liability you should pay for it. Secondly tax businesses for the pay a employees, executives such as CEOs, get that above a ratio of the lowest paid fulltime worker makes. Say the lowest fulltime worker makes $12,000 a year and using a ration of 1000, if the company pays the CEO more than $12,000,000 what they pay over that would be heavily taxed. If the CEO wants more pay then they could pay the workers more.
FalconShould there be a Law?
African or European? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_swallow
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
I wonder if the people who unquestioningly accept that investments are good or evil actually understands the whole concept of investment. Here's what I mean:
Joe Customer buys a product from an evil company. The company receives this money as income, and uses it to expand the scope of its evil work. Because Joe and others buy so much of the product, the company files an impressive quarterly report and the price of its stock goes up. Since the company owns a lot of its own stock, the value of the company itself increases.
Joe Investor buys stock in the evil company. After the stock price goes up because the company is doing so much business, Joe sells the stock and makes a profit. These stock transactions are between Joe Investor, a stock broker, and other anonymous investors. The company receives none of the money.
Who is contributing more to this company's evil? Joe Customer or Joe Investor?
Who gets the blame for the evil? Joe Customer or Joe Investor?
Sorry for being blunt; as you are actually trying to make a sensible argument you should receive a more constructive reply than this.
What makes me go nuts is: Give a man a fish, teach a man to fish, etc..
Have you read about that toxic waste ~accident~ this summer (Probo Koala)? Certain companies trying to max profit might ensure that soon there isn't any fish left; at least none you'd want to eat.
Now BG is certainly a good businessman (in the profit-sense); he may be intelligent, heck he may even be a nice guy.
Personally, I trust him about as far as I trust the products he sold; which is close to zero.
Darn, I should of done a better job of previewing, the link for allAfrica didn't work.
FalconShould there be a Law?
A charity is just another corporate structure, one that in return for not being able to declare a profit, can actually do quite a lot of things with it money and pay few taxes. It is, for example, perfectly reasonable for a charity to spend much of its money on administrative costs. As long as its actions fit in with its charter, not even the UK charities commission is going to do very much about it (they are one of the more stringent regulators).
Interestingly enough, this is why charities are seen to be at an increased risk of being used for money laundering by the Financial Action Task Force.
See my journal, I write things there
.. but for professional and business ethical reasons. Although the story does expose a very sorry state of affairs, I really don't see what this Bill-bashing article is doing on Slashdot.
It's exactly this type of "news" that makes Slashdot lose all its credibility when criticizing Windows, Microsoft, Gates or Ballmer.
Your job or your life hey? I'd rather be unemployed than dying anyday.
First off, Lord of Evil rich man aside, maybe if the poor migrant worker held back on having 5 or 6 sets of triplets he could afford a truck that wasn't, you know, a total piece of trash. It's been my experience (as an employer of migrant workers) that the plight of so many poor people is their own stupidity. Despite their poor economic condition, many seem to be quite comfortable with having as many children as possible, then living off whatever they can get from the well-to-doers and the State. Those who choose a more isolated life style seem to enjoy spending their pay as quickly as possible and on much booze as possible ("why do I need work when I have money enough to drink".) And before you say it, of course this isn't true of all of them. I'd say it's pretty characteristic of about 2/3 to 3/4 of the migrants I've employed in the last 20 years, though.
I'm getting pretty fucking sick about hearing all these third world countries bitch and moan. I'll tell you what, how about the West 1) Stops giving them handouts/aid, 2) Stops taking their resources/shit, 3) Lets them figure out their own future. People seem to have a real fucking problem with doing things for themselves these days. And while I'm all about empowering people with knowledge, etc, etc, the constant "we have a duty to help the rest of the world" rhetoric is getting REALLY fucking old, regardless of whatever side of the aisle you're on. If Iraq wants to be free, let them fight, die, and earn their freedom. Let them sort that civil war shit out for themselves. If they as a people don't care enough to do it themselves then we sure as hell shouldn't do it for them.
Let's let natural selection work it's magic and leave Africa/The middle east/etc to their own devices. It's a pretty sad story that people living in the infertile deserts of Northern Africa or swampy jungles of South America are dying. But wait, here's a fucking idea - maybe they shouldn't live in a fucking desert/swamp/whatever? What a fucking idea!
You're totally right about the B&MGF. They shouldn't even waste their fucking time doing shit in other countries where people seem to take the West's aid for granted, with the only sign of appreciation being "fuck America, etc etc." I'm getting pretty fucking sick and tired of paying taxes so that the ungrateful poor in countries a half a world away whom show nothing but hate and envy for my country can have food, shelter, and medical aid all while we neglect so many of our own people. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, so I guess the best choice is not to have any intent at all.
If we're doing so much damage then we shouldn't be doing anything at all.
I am a self sufficient hermit on an abandoned island, I farmed the electrons for this post myself and don't even know what this gasolene you speak of is.
This foundation is a nice little earner, net investment income:
2004: 1,421,334
2005: 2,632,002
That's almost doubled in 2 years - is that Buffet's (or his people's)input? Where do I sign up? +1 for accounts (I note they depart from the GAAP), -1 for any legal structure.
Part of this "trust fund" is definitely an investment club which I would say is mutually exclusive to a philanthropic organisation. As I said, BillG and WarrenB are definitely trying to have their cake and eat it.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Because you give to charity you are held to a higher standard? Bullshit. I know it is mandatory here that everything Bill Gates does, thinks and appreciates must be attacked as the ultimate evil but come on. All foundations invest the bulk of their holdings in investments with enough rate of return so as to be able to give away the surplus and do this for many years beyond the death of the founder. According to your reasoning CALPERS, the largest pension organization in the world, must ensure that none of it's investments has a negative impact on anybody. This does not and will never happen; although major political issues might get some attention. A higher duty of care? Like it or not many aspects of life have been enriched by charitable foundations from historical types like BG: Morgan, Ford, etc.
Yes they too get run as businesses and the larger they are the more imperative that fact.
I expect you give nothing to anybody - thus you are held to no standard whatsoever. Nice cop out.
If you want to indict the charitable foundation system in general go ahead - there are many who waste money in overhead and have nothing but good intentions. But singling out this one has little to do with anything except another chance to paint Bill Gates as the Anti-Christ. Perhaps you would prefer that this money never get spent in Africa at all since in your view it is not being done correctly?
Are these quotes correct — that Gates Foundation only gives away 5% of its worth?
AZspot
Are you people daft? African swallows are non-migratory.
"I stomp in clown shoes where daemons fear to tread."
But the companies they invest in get richer.
African swallows are non-migratory.
How long have you been working for Big Oil?
If there is a problem with flaring natural gas, write a letter to the Nigerian government and ask them to legislate. If you want to find someone else to blame - best look at your parents, grandparents, and yourself. If you hold assets in a US or European large cap index fund (e.g. your pension) then you hold shares in these corporations. Best always to check your own (and your parents') hands for blood before you lay blame. If you study at a university - you can bet your school's endowment holds shares in them too. If you want to do something about this, get the shareholders (who own the company) to write to the companies.
It would be interesting to know where the Tribune Company Employee Pension Plan is invested. I'd be surprised to learn that they did not own shares in the same companies The LA Times (owned by Tribune Company) is so concerned by.
There is a difference between the poor decisions of a country and those of a single man. Granted, the B&MGF is not a single person, but I can't imagine that BG does not have absolute say over the destination of every single penny he has "earned." So, if he cared, it would be a lot easier for him to direct the charity's spending into "cleaner" avenues.
... but that dictator will still not have the freedom of spending that BG does.
My point is simply that the countries you speak of are run by governments. Some of them may be led a dictator
That's as well as I could put it.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to red, gold & green)
Um... I think your hatred has blinded you from the point that was being made by the parent poster. I'll boil it down for you. It's bullshit to help someone through whatever charity only to turn around and replace that money through a method that hurts the person you've just helped. For example:
1) Little billy's school can't buy books for all the students so X foundation chips in.
2) The books that were bought were actually contaminated with [insert negative here]
3) After a few years of most of the kids who have been "helped" now have [insert medical condition]
Bottom line is if your going to help do it in a manner that doesn't detract at the same time.
But singling out this one has little to do with anything except another chance to paint Bill Gates as the Anti-Christ.
AFAIK the Anti-Christ is meant to be attractive to all men and women. This certainly rules Bill Gates out of the list. My money is on Amanda Vanstone being the AntiChrist and deep in my soul I hope she has a brazilian but doesn't shave her legs.
Have to go now the bathroom beckons me.
She can purchase my soul anytime.
There they are a conga line of suck holes. On the conservative side of Australian politics. - Mark Latham
Because you give to charity you are held to a higher standard?
No.
If the B&MGF simply gave the $70 billion they have to established charities (that would then use their own philanthropic guidelines to determine how to invest the funds), they wouldn't be held to any higher standard than any of the rest of us. But that isn't what B&MGF is doing.
B&MGF has set itself up to look like a philanthropic organization all by itself. And that is why they need to be held to the higher standards.
It's like this: if our imaginary character BG took the money he was going to spend on a brand new tow truck and hired a tow truck operator to regularly drive through the mountains and help out life's stranded poor, BG himself wouldn't have to know anything more about tow truck safety than you or I do. Of course, he wouldn't get to play the hero then. But he could still blow his own horn about how good a guy he was, and for many people with ordinary sized egos, that would be enough.
In the case of B&MGF, it almost appears that the charity work is secondary to using a huge fortune to either make an even bigger heap of money, or to attempt to take over the role of governments in managing the world economy so it performs the way B&MGF wants it to.
The idea of wanting to manage $70 billion just to make more money seems preposterous. That pile of cash is so big that if Bill and Melinda each burned a $20 bill once every minute, non-stop, they would each be long dead of old age before they had burned up a third of that pile.
Of course the alternative also seems absurd: that B&MGF might be merely an instrument with which to take over the world economy. That is absurd? Isn't it?
I do wish some people would take up safe hobbies, like maybe rocketry.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Is it worth it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omelas
.. is preservation and expansion of power. I do not dispute that Gates has an interest in helping people. I do not dispute that on the balance the foundation could be a extraordinary positive agent of change in the world. However nearly all such foundations have a common trait due to the laws that support their existence.
By giving away 5% of the wealth they avoid a tax rate that would most likely be higher than 5%. The reinvestment of the 95% remaining wealth should yield a average return of much better than 5%. From the basic facts in should be obvious that not only is the foundation perpetually self replenishing it is actually growing in wealth and thus power. Additionally the wealth it controls, it controls itself, not the representatives of the people via the tax man. So the power stays within the executors of the foundation perpetually, or at least as long as the laws allow it to do so. As to whether an individual foundation turns out to be a beast or a angel will be for future historians to decide. In this specific case I can only note that due to the level of initial holdings it has the potential to be one of the greatest agents of change in human history.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew