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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."
why stop at the 401K?
where did you think your bank, your HMO, your employer, your church invests its money? probably not always, perhaps not ever, in companies that meet your own standards of purity.
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.
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.
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.
the donations should be mandatory before people become tycoons.
... it's called "income tax", and the Federal Government is by far the largest charity. Probably one of the most efficient too, which doesn't say much for most actual charities. Unfortunately, your average tycoon manages to weasel out of making most of those donations ... I mean, paying most of those taxes.
They are
Besides, most of Gates' wealth is in Microsoft stock, not cash. I read somewhere that every year he applies to the SEC for permission to sell a few hundred million dollars worth of said stock just to pay his personal expenses (houses and so forth.)
{sigh} must be nice.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Greg Palast wrote an article about this a while back...
Killing Africans For Profit and PR
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.
An interesting point. Sometimes I have a hard time justifying the limited liability at all.
Originally limited liability was an important instrument for trade. Corporations and limited liability was started by the Dutch in the Netherlands. The Dutch were big shippers and traders, however ships sank or were lost too often and the ship owners were held liably for lost merchanize and crew. So corporations with limited liaility were instituted so small investors could join together to own ships and participate in trade without having to worry about being liable if the ship sinks. All they would lose was the amount they invested, they didn't have to think about being sued by either the families of the crew or by the owner of the merchandize. Also corporate charters were granted for the purpose of improving the common good. The Dutch East India Company was one of the first corporations.
If the CEO wants more pay then they could pay the workers more.
I think you're getting off track with your taxing of businesses. If you want the rich guys to pay more taxes, do a progressive consumption tax. Anyone who lives on (for example) $20k/year pays no taxes. Anyone who consumes $500k/yr pays a lot of taxes.
Though I didn't state it in my post you replied to, I am in total support of consumption and user taxes, ie sales tax. The more you consume the more you pay. As for taxing businesses, notice I only said corporations which offer limited liability. You want limited liability you pay for it. Otherwise your is just giving out "get out of jail" tickets, epescially as proprietors and general partners can be held liable..
Also, a consumption tax is harder to get around. If you're in the old money club and just live a life of luxury off of your parents' money, right now you pay almost no taxes. However, if you're earning a lot and living modestly you're taxed heavily. Consumption taxes would reverse that.
This won't be a problem with corporations being taxed. While a person who's living off their parent's money won't pay taxes directly, by taxing the profits of the corporations they own stocks in they are indirectly paying. As for discouraging investments, liability discourages investments as well yet people still start proprietorships and general partnerships. Along with some friends of her's my sister stated her own business, an accounting company. And as I've said before, if you want limited liability you should have to pay for it, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
FalconShould there be a Law?