A Critical Examination of Bill Gates' Philanthropic Record

sam_handelman writes "The common perception among Slashdotters is that while Bill Gates may cause us some professional difficulties, he makes up for it with an exemplary philanthropic record. His philanthropic efforts may turn out to be not as altruistic as one may think. Edweek, not ordinarily an unfriendly venue for Gates, is running a series of blog post/investigative journalism pieces into what the Gates' foundation is doing, and how it is not always well received by stakeholders."

Comments

All charity ends

[roman_mir]

If a charity is worth running, it is worth running well as a business, otherwise the gravy train stops. Where is the money supposed to come from, tooth fairies?

Re:All charity ends

[stewbacca]

Where is the money supposed to come from, tooth fairies?

This is a story about how philanthropic Bill Gates is, so yeah, the money comes from him. That's the whole point of charity -- you give away portions of your wealth for a cause.

Re:All charity ends

[FriendlyLurker]

Probably feeding the troll, but here goes... running health (amongst other "social" activities) as a business, how is that working out for ya, USA?.

Donor nations were shocked last month, when UNICEF disclosed that it has been forced to pay artificially elevated prices for vaccines under an arrangement called the Advance Market Commitment, which was brokered by Gates Foundation-dominated GAVI alliance, to greatly increase drug company profits. Stakeholders also worry that industry reports of particular vaccine's effectiveness might be skewed by marketing goals.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation proves once again that leopards dont change their spots.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

If you invest it properly and don't put too much principle at risk and don't spend more each year than the long term average investment return, that's not an issue.

For a guy who has so much faith in the private sector you don't have much real knowledge of how it works, do you?

Re:All charity ends

[roman_mir]

And that is what I am talking about, if you build an entire business out of charity, you should make it profitable, you should be able to show that your management costs are very low and that the money that the charity is providing is mostly making it to the actual recipients of whatever the benefit is, and if you can show that, then you can run the charity as a business by hiring people and advertising the fact that you are a very efficient charity and those who want to donate to that cause should do it through you rather than through other charity groups, because you are the most efficient in it.

Only donating your own money is one thing and it always ends, one person's resources are not limited. Creating a steady stream of donations by running a successful charity business is another.

Re:All charity ends

[roman_mir]

one person's resources are not limited

- I hope I don't have to explain where the typo is in that.

Re:All charity ends

[poetmatt]

Yet people have been denying this from day one on the phrase of "oh it's philanthropic".

If someone can't figure out that working with Glaxosmithkline, Monsanto and Coca Cola (who happily works with Cargill, as if they aren't bad enough on their own) might be a bad thing, then they deserve to have a fast one pulled on them by the Gates foundation.

Maybe now people will realize that Bill Gates didn't step down to do "Great things for the world". He stepped down to continue the Microsoft concept of business and expand it *further*, outside of the US's reach.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Shout all you like that the problem with health care is the US government, nobody can hold up an example country with fully privatized health care which is being run well (Well as in, people dont die early or have to live with treatable health problems for lack of income, not well as in it makes corporates boatload of money).

Re:All charity ends

[h4rr4r]

Then why have a charity at all?
If you are going to run a business, just run a business. The money is supposed to come from donors, like maybe Bill Gates. Having string attached to charity makes it not even charity. This is just Gates once again showing how horrible a person he is.

Re:All charity ends

[h4rr4r]

Mr.Gates resources are actually pretty close to not limited. He could easily set enough aside for the foundation that only the interest would ever have to be spent.

No matter how you run it though there is no need to use it as a tool to make people spend more money.

Re:All charity ends

[stewbacca]

Well I know this won't be popular, but you shouldn't build a "business" out of a charity. You should, however, run your charity like a business to make sure it is efficient. If you make your charity a true business then it is no longer a charity...it's a business. I'm thinking not-for-profit or non-profit here, but I am not intelligent enough to understand the nuances.

Re:All charity ends

[roman_mir]

In an inflationary environment created by the government the real return on interest is negative.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

roman_mir, you're such a communist. Always wanting big government looking after every little detail like roads, schools, fire services and suchlike.

Maybe you should change your view a little. It's nice to advocate giving everybody handouts, but somebody has to pay for them you know.

I know a book by someone called Ayn Rand that would blow your mind! (yes, I know she took advantage of government health benefits, but that's beside the point).

Re:All charity ends

[ciderbrew]

I hope I don't have to explain just how useless that is.

Or to explain, How do thems what don't no what the error is, ever learn?

Re:All charity ends

[mcwop]

Not sure how it is working out for us. What is the per capita health expenditures for people 65 and older in the US. I'd like to see that compared to other countries, since in the US we have a universal, government health system for people 65 and older. Wonder if we will find our government doing it better than others?

Re:All charity ends

[roman_mir]

Running a charity as a business ensures that the money that goes to charity is pretty steady and doesn't depend on a few wealthy one time donors. I thought this place liked charity? I don't even support charity and I have more sense about how to run it than anybody here.

Re:All charity ends

[Doc Ruby]

The money is supposed to come from people who selflessly give money and time out of compassion to help others, not to make a profit. That's why charities in the US are almost always non-profit organizations.

You think otherwise, because you are an autistic narcissist. Every time you post something on Slashdot, especially when you start the discussion, you demonstrate the precisely inhuman way to act.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

one person's resources are not limited

- I hope I don't have to explain where the typo is in that.

You don't have to but it would help.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why have a charity at all?
If you are going to run a business, just run a business. The money is supposed to come from donors, like maybe Bill Gates. Having string attached to charity makes it not even charity. This is just Gates once again showing how horrible a person he is.

The real questions should be which does greater good. A one time gift of $20B (or whatever he's invested) or to set up a philanthropic organization which uses business tactics to try and turn an initial $20B investment into a significantly larger donation over time. The answer likely largely depends on whether the problem you're tackling has a known solution and if that solution costs less or more than the initial investment. I suspect that in the case of third-world healthcare the right answer is to run it as a business and fund research for longer than a one shot effort but I don't know that for sure. This is just someone looking at things from a rational way rather than just more hating on old Gates from the OSS crowd.

Re:All charity ends

[h4rr4r]

Thankfully we are not quite there.
If I mister non-billionaire can make money this way, surely Mr.Gates can do better.

It is pretty telling how your faith in the free market suddenly vanished though.

Re:All charity ends

[Doc Ruby]

Until the US government got involved, running US healthcare strictly as a business left millions of us to get sick, stay sick and die, without preventive or responsive care available. That left many millions of other people to stay trapped in a sick home, unable to live fully, work properly or contribute economically or educationally.

Since the time the US government got involved in a coordinated way, through Medicaid and Medicare, the large majority of the population has been freed from the worst afflictions, healthwise and otherwise. Meanwhile the expanded healthcare economy has completely transformed health science and practice.

You and your fellow "libertarian" corporate anarchists would return us to the bad old days. Next you'll tell us war is good for the economy, so we should have more of what ruins us.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

I peaked at what you wrote, and there's this:

In a free market economy, the unemployment is very low, anybody with a job can afford * health care and insurance, because those services are very cheap, just like they were prior to 1965 **.

That's obvious bullshit. The introduction of very expensive diagnosis machines (MRI, gene readup and the like) and treatments (artificial organs, radiation treatments) push costs up. Probably hospital infrastructure's more expensive now, doctors more trained etc. Also patients want the best possible care whenever they realize their life and health is at stake. Best possible care today is expensive.

Trying to use the logic of supply and demand to determine prices is doomed to fail here. If I'm healthy, my demand for chemotherapy is zero. If I'm dying, my demand is infinite. Plug those into your equations and see.

Re:All charity ends

[h4rr4r]

Yeah, it worked so great that in 1965 all kinds of things would have been a death sentence that are now done on an outpatient basis.

Even in a perfect free market land if you get a disease that so few people have that no money can ever be made on a cure you are totally screwed.

Even worse is that short term profit motives will slow research to a crawl on all but the most profitable sectors of drug research. We would be able to have 40 kinds of pecker medicine and not much else.

Re:All charity ends

[hattig]

Charity comes without attachments or requirements.

If this article is in any way true, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is in no way acting charitably.

Re:All charity ends

[luis_a_espinal]

Shout all you like that the problem with health care is the US government, nobody can hold up an example country with fully privatized health care which is being run well (Well as in, people dont die early or have to live with treatable health problems for lack of income, not well as in it makes corporates boatload of money).

I hear what you are saying, and I tend to agree with you (having been in Japan, I know what good health care is, and how bad we have it here in the USA.) However, @roman_mir does have a point. Fully privatized health care DID work.

The problem here is not whether health care is privatized, or whether other countries have better health care systems with some type of government intervention. The root of the problem is the collusion of government and health care firms, which have created a self-perpetuating carcinogenic mass of middle man sitting between the patient and the physician.

Not all private enterprises are created equal. There are those that compete freely (with price controls dictated by supply and demand), and there are cartels. Two solutions to the problem exist:

1. Have a government-sponsored health care system as found in Japan or Germany

2. Have the goverment dismantle the health care middlemen cartels, forcing them to compete freely.

Either one will work, and both require goverment intervention of some form. People need to stop looking at goverment vs private enterprise as if both formed a zero-sum game, a black-n-white, matter-antimatter dichotomy. They are not. Such parrochial black-n-white window painting serve well to pander simple solutions to the simple-minded masses on both sides of the political fence, but that's the extend of its usability.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Just another anti-society fuckwit bedazzled by the republican corporatist dream of a nation of wage-slaves being fed tidbits and media rhetoric to keep those in power, in power.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

if you build an entire business out of charity, you should make it profitable

If you build a business out of charity, you show to the world that you don't understand the word.

Re:All charity ends

[Prof.Phreak]

Thankfully we are not quite there.

You'd think that, but you'd be wrong: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=realyield

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

In the left-winger mind, a medical charity that works with Glaxosmithkline is probably doing something terribly bad.

The question is just how the world is going to survive if these minds proliferate.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

How can anyone be surprised? Rich people don't wake up in the morning and think "today I'm going to rip off the world once more, and tomorrow I'm going to be good." The difference between their for-profit work and their charitable work is that they are good at their for profit work and they want to be good at their charitable work. That's why one is a business and the other is a "best effort". Remember when every Hollywood star opened a restaurant? Same thing.

Re:All charity ends

[TheMathemagician]

You're right but many will fail to understand. I'm as big a Microsft hater as anyone but find it somewhat ridiculous to criticise Gates for giving billions to charity. His foundation has an obligation to properly steward the funds under its control and investing them in a range of blue-chips - some of which have dubious practices in the 3rd world - doesn't contradict his charitable aims. The real problem is the behaviour of companies like Monsanto. It has nothing to do with Bill Gates or his charity.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, with your armchair psychology and your opinions-as-facts style, you're showing everyone how to behave humanely towards each other :o

OP is a reasonable comment, only marked Troll because of groupthink. One may not agree with it, but one's response would normally be restricted to the point itself, rather than this extreme version of Ad Hominem via Psych 101 you're playing.

It may be worth reflecting that people who randomly accuse others of deep (and highly specific) psychological problems are usually projecting their own. Seriously, I would reflect on that, if I were you.

Re:All charity ends

[grcumb]

Well I know this won't be popular, but you shouldn't build a "business" out of a charity. You should, however, run your charity like a business to make sure it is efficient. If you make your charity a true business then it is no longer a charity...it's a business. I'm thinking not-for-profit or non-profit here, but I am not intelligent enough to understand the nuances.

Well, I agree most with your last sentence. 8^)

I've worked for and with NGOs and non-profits large and small, from UN agencies to universities to the independent think tank where I am now. Let me assure you that the death-knell of any non-profit is to have it taken over by someone who claims it needs to run more like a business.

Profit-making and non-profit organisations are very different in their nature and -more importantly- their culture. They each have a million ways to fail, but here's the key: Non-profit organisations can and must measure success by something other than financial returns. This impacts every single aspect of its work. It sometimes means that you can (and should) spend more time on seemingly pointless details getting things just right. It sometimes means that you work on things that you know have a high chance of failure, but you take them on precisely because no profit-making outfit can't afford the risk.

The killer on both sides of the equation, though, is complacency and power. Allow either to become too apparent and the same sociopathic personalities begin to appear at the head of the organisation. And though they die in different ways, their death is a painful spectacle. Non-profits, especially those with guaranteed budgets, get over-run by careerist know-nothings who spend more time agonising over their per diems and life-saving meetings than actually thinking about what they're supposed to be achieving.

In profit-making ventures, the organisations get overrun by strategic thinking business-school types who spend more time plotting strategy and market position than actually running the fricking company.

Non-profits die like old oak trees: They rot from the inside; they remain standing for far longer than they should, providing shade for a few but hosting an increasing army of parasites.

Profit-making companies die by fire. They remain standing until the first lightning strike, then collapse in flames, sometimes taking half the countryside with them.

Re:All charity ends

[ls671]

50 billions at 1 percent a year is 500 millions in interest a year. "Inflationary environments" cause the capital to loose value and the charity would loose purchasing power as years go by but this isn't directly related to the argument in the GP post.

Re:All charity ends

[dammy]

Except that Medicare is running out of money in 12 years: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/04/social-security-and-medicare-could-run-out-sooner-than-expected/ Just a couple of years before I qualify, thanks federal government! Yeah, there is Medicaid, good luck getting an appointment under 6 months that isn't a quack, if there are any none quacks still accepting new Medicaid patients.

Re:All charity ends

[jellomizer]

Almost all Not-for-profit organizations are a for profit organization. They operate like a real business and make profit, they just change the vocabulary around "excess revenue", used to help grow the organization. A NFP organization is just like a company however they get particular tax brakes because their work help the community on the whole, and are willing to do things that may negativity effect their bottom line. (for example, a Hospital will keep funds to pay for services for patients who cannot pay for them, they will not refuse emergency care to a patient, if they do so then they could loose their NFP status. )

Charity isn't giving away your money for a cause, but using your money for a cause. The difference between the Rich and the average joe, the Average Joe works for his money, the rich has money work for him. So if Gates uses his money and profits off of it, that is to be expected, making money is a habit for him now, he is directing his profit making towards the greater good, because if he didn't invest then things may not have gotten done.

A lot of the time drugs are hard to get by because of lack of resources. They may know how to make it, but have a hard time justifying the upfront capital to mass produce it. That is where the Organizations like the Gates Foundation comes in. They will give the company the millions to mass produce the drug (allowing it to be sold for cheap), they may agree to share the profits of the drug (or the profits back will be a donation to the charity (remember the difference between FP and NFP is vocabulary) ). This will give Gates Foundation even more money in the long run to invest into other resources.

A lot of organizations hate the Gates Foundation, because it isn't all in your face political. They will do the research do some small scale tests, if it works they expand it, if not they will drop it. That is what is missing today, too many organizations are against the idea of making mistakes. When there is a mistake then there is a head hunt out there to find the cause and fire it... Not learn from it and work to make it better.

Re:All charity ends

[h4rr4r]

I think both of those are fine.

I believe the problem is the deals with Pharm companies that demand more expensive drugs be purchased. That kind of running it like a typical MS business. If you really want to save lives you get the cheapest drugs that do the job.

Re:All charity ends

[h4rr4r]

You don't even support charity? Nor do you want people to have access to healthcare?

You are either a troll or the most disgusting person I have ever heard of. I am going to go donate some money to a worthy cause in your name.

Re:All charity ends

[Gr8Apes]

Running health care as a business worked out really well for USA before the government got involved, I don't want to repeat it, so here is the argument I wrote down some time ago.

In 1920 or so? Everything stated there was a special, one of a kind situation. Look at what the other companies at large were doing. There's a reason there were major pushes to unionize workers (Ford was not a cause) Workers were generally exploited. Lifespans were significantly less than today. Various diseases ran rampant, all cured or mitigated since the government got involved. (After all, under Ron Paul, vaccinations et al would be up to the individual - wouldn't want to get the government involved in that now, would we?) The one thing I have to give Ron Paul - I believe him when he says he believes in these statements, he did watch a campaign worker and close friend die of a treatable disease after all. The thing he hasn't answered is how he feels about someone involved in an accident who doesn't have proof of insurance readily available and needs immediate and expensive care: does he let them die or treat them? If they cannot provide proof of financial capability to pay, at what point do they kick them out of the hospital (during the operation?). What if they do have insurance and die because of refusal to provide care?

No matter how you slice it, care will be given, and some won't be able to pay, which leads us down the same road we're on now, perhaps at a different rate, but the same road none the less. Unless you advocate the full set of (hopefully) unpalatable options listed above, you're in favor of the mandated insurance clause, and would actually be a proponent of at least basic universal healthcare. There's a set of diseases IMNSHO that would require additional health insurance, and of course most of the cosmetic type things would be excluded, and undergoing them might require purchase of additional insurance (as part of the procedure cost) to cover the potential complications thereof.

Of-course same thing applies to SS, etc.

SS is a different boat, I didn't but lightly skim this one after the Libertarian diatribe. SS is not quite a Ponzi scheme, and it was never meant to be the sole source of income for retired folks. Why isn't it a full Ponzi scheme, because it actually tried to set up a partial pay ahead balance system. You might want to visit the SS site for some amusing facts about internet myths.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read the articles (duh, Slashdot, I know...) - the problem is the Foundation is campaigning on behalf of it's business partners to get the governments who they claim to be helping to establish policies that benefit Monsanto rather than their population. The end result is, Foundation spends x, corporate partners gain x*y. Bill Gats (personally) and Foundation then also gain from investment in corporate partner. This is not about charity at all, it is about disguising dodgy business practises as charity.

Re:All charity ends

[h4rr4r]

I can get 1% on 20k. 50 Billion is going to get a heck of a lot better rate.

Re:All charity ends

[crazyjj]

If a charity is worth running, it is worth running well as a business, otherwise the gravy train stops.

Why was this modded troll?!? It's true. Every charitable foundation uses this principle to remain solvent. It's the whole point of having a foundation (instead of just making a one-time big donation to some charity).

Re:All charity ends

[paiute]

I can get 1% on 20k. 50 Billion is going to get a heck of a lot better rate.

You could buy up unsubsidized student loans at 6.8%. Low overhead costs and no worries of getting discharged in bankruptcy.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

All of this 'run it like a business' stuff is misplaced, becase it is always meant as 'like a for profit business'. It is misplaced when applied to government and misplaced when applied to charities.

A for profit business has the single goal of making a profit. At whenever mean necessary, and even if that means is illegal, as long as the profit exceeds the penalty it should be done. No matter the external harm. If distilled down all decisions at the business should be about profit: who to hire; who to fire; changes to the product; which congressmen to lobby; etc.

If the goal is to just be efficient and mindful of the purpose of the organization's existence when making decision, there is no need use for profit businesses as a model. Efficiency isn't their exclusive domain nor are a lot of them even good at it. Look at pre-bailout GM, who could possibly consider them efficient?

People run their households in an efficient manner every day. You don't burn your furniture to heat your house.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it repulsive that you are trying to use autistic as an insult. I for one am an (high-level-functioning or what its called in english) autist. You insensitive dentist!

Re:All charity ends

[codewarren]

Although coordinated involvement by the government (Medicaid and Medicare) were the right thing to do and freed the population from the worst afflictions, it also freed the population to multiply at an unsustainable rate, and we haven't been able to stem the birth rate. So these were good, but only half of the solution to the problem. Without solving the other half, population multiplication will continue to outpace resource multiplication and although we've mitigated this with technology, our ability to keep doing so appears to be waning, and we won't be able to sustain the coordinated involvement. What we see is a boom followed by a bust. That's why Medicaid and Medicare are now out of money. It isn't because they were the wrong thing to do. It's because we tried to have our cake and eat it too, while other nations seemed to avoid doing the same thing.

Re:All charity ends

[davydagger]

oh but it shows that you do.

The world is run by scam artists, huslter, and muscelle bound thugs.

Bill Gates did a good job of making sure the third world got computers, if only if they ran windows.

India for example, and now they are stealing our jobs. I wonder for who's profit?

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, this is lobbying & bribery that is being portrayed as charity. He donates a few million for drugs if a country agrees to stop using cheap imported drugs (that violate patents but would end up saving many more lives). Its sickening and immoral.

Re:All charity ends

[codewarren]

Medicare running out of money has nothing to do with whether or not it was a good idea. It is running out of money because of the combination of a baby boom and a poor economy. Even if it single handedly made the baby boom possible, it didn't make it necessary, and so it still was not necessarily a bad idea. In fact, statistics suggest that more, not less, government aid results in better systems.

Another way of looking at it is that Medicare isn't designed to be profitable. The amount of money it can get is determined by law makers who decide how much goes to Medicare and how much goes elsewhere, like say, the military. If the military was running out of money, it wouldn't mean having a military is a bad idea, it would mean we're not funding it enough. It's the same with Medicare.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean that book where they let the less talented two-thirds of humanity just die off at the end?

Yeah, great book. Just FYI, you're in that two-thirds.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck getting an appointment at all if you can't pay the high doctor prices....which is the point Medicaid is trying to solve.

Re:All charity ends

[rwv]

I have an issue with the way "United States healthcare for 300+ Million people" is compared on the same chart as "Norway healthcare for 5+ Million people".

Let's add country population to the analysis of world health rankings and see how USA compares....

WHO "Ranking" from 2000 of countries with Population greater than 100 Million:

10th Japan 127M
37th USA 313M
61th Mexico 112M
88th Bangladesh 142M
92nd Indonesia 237M
112th India 1,210M
122nd Pakistan 180M
125th Brazil 192M
130th Russia 143M
144th China 1,347M
187th Nigeria 166M

And here are the population rankings for the 10 countries mentioned in the chart the parent linked to.

3rd USA 313M
10th Japan 127M
16th Germany 81M
21st France 65M
22nd UK 62M
23rd Italy 60M
35th Canada 34M
52nd Australia 22M
86th Sweden 9M
118th Norway 5M

This small analysis should temper the hatred towards the US for its healthcare system.... the US is a big country with lots of people and relatively low population density. It's *hard* for big countries with lots of people to take care of the health of their citizens. As expensive as it ends up being, the USA does a reasonably good job while comparable countries like China, Brazil, and Indonesia falter.

health ranking and population ranking.

Re:All charity ends

[billtom]

I think that when most people say a non-profit should be "run like a business", they really just mean that the organization should be setting concrete goals and objectively measuring progress towards those goals and evaluating all the organizations actions as they relate to achieving those goals.

The rest of your post looks kind of straw-man-ish.

Re:All charity ends

[NatasRevol]

Well if the charity is putting the needs of Glaxosmithkline over their patients, is that terribly bad? Or is that still left-winger thinking?

How does the world survive? Stop allowing relationships like these to continue?

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even support charity and I have more sense about how to run it than anybody here.

One of these things is not true.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

it also freed the population to multiply at an unsustainable rate, and we haven't been able to stem the birth rate

No. US population growth rate is 1% per year but this includes 4% immigration. That is, without immigration, US population would decline by 3% (and then you would probably complain that social security will become bankrupt anyway). What you are saying is the opposite of the reality. Check your facts.

Re:All charity ends

[NatasRevol]

But that's not like a business at all! How will people survive!

/sarcasm (sadly)

Re:All charity ends

[Will.Woodhull]

Unless, like the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation, the point of your charity is to give away some small part of your investment earnings so that you can avoid paying more in taxes on the whole of your earnings. It is true that these tax shelters are also called "charities" but as Honest Abe once pointed out, if you choose to call a dog's tail a leg, that does not mean you have a dog with five legs. To be blunt, calling a tax avoidance scheme a charity does not make it something other than a tax avoidance scheme, especially when the "good works" contributions are necessary incidental expenses to the main point, which is to use the massive investment portfolio as a big club to beat the industries of interest into the shape you want.

Re:All charity ends

[mcgrew]

"Inflationary environments" cause the capital to loose value

How can inflation cause capital to set value free? I think you just said the exact opposite of what you meant to say.

Re:All charity ends

[fatphil]

Much charitable donation comes from moral balckmail (you have to sponsor your friend if they're going to run a marathon to raise money to nuke the gay whales for jesus).

Much also comes from a personal reason to want progress in the direction being collected for. E.g. children and grandchildren of those who died from cancer, and thus who even subconsciously think they are at elevated risk, will donate to the Imperial Cancer Relief Fund, etc. . You may substitute "personal" with "selfish" in the above with little or no change in meaning.

So on the input side, the idea that money is given to charity for purely selfless reasons is naive, it's rarely the case.

However, the egress side you're right - the charity should be focussed on directing that money into the helping of others, not profit-making. Pay yourself a fair wage, and if need be employ professionals who can manage projects and money well, sure, but if the thought "I could retire soon" goes through your mind, you've been milking the charity, and the generosity of those who've been donating.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent post is incredibly naieve about how charities operate under USA tax laws. We do not live in the pollyanna world that PP describes.

Re:All charity ends

[Coeurderoy]

First the article is focusing mostly on the way he is using the cash he put in security far from the taxman...
Partnering with all the wrong organisations to f*up the world under guise of philantropy is not "good" no matter where the money comes from.

And of course the money comes from abuse of monopoly powers.

You are right in the fact that a charity worth running is worth running right, but for instance trying toe get a monopoly on a market segment is something most companies try to do, there is no value in a charity to do the same.

Re:All charity ends

[grcumb]

I think that when most people say a non-profit should be "run like a business", they really just mean that the organization should be setting concrete goals and objectively measuring progress towards those goals and evaluating all the organizations actions as they relate to achieving those goals.

No, that's precisely the kind of talk I was objecting to. For one, it leads to insane reporting requirements, often in situations where every hour and every dollar spend doing actual work saves -or at least changes- lives. For another, it leads to a desire for quantifiable metrics, which mean that a ton of really important aspects of development work get left by the wayside, because they can't be easily measured. For yet another, it turns the conversation into a financial one. That's important, sure. Nobody wants their money to be wasted. But it should not be the only topic discussed when evaluating the success of a non-profit.

All too frequently, though, that's precisely what happens when people try to run a non-profit 'like a business.'

I know it sounds whippy-dippy to say that concrete goals are of secondary interest when the real goal is saving lives, but bear with me. As a good friend of mine who worked in disarmament used to say, it's hard to know if you're doing well when you measure your success in terms of the number of people who didn't die. They don't always show up when you're forced to measure your progress in terms of 'concrete goals.'

I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Good financial controls are essential. We're in screaming agreement on that count. But that's not nearly as big a part of the conversation as you might think when it comes to measuring success in this kind of work.

Re:All charity ends

[Coeurderoy]

nope you have to spend 5% or risk taxes, but of course if you are gates and are able to strong arm and bribe governments to help your investors, getting 5% on top of a good yearly interest is not too hard.

Re:All charity ends

[Will.Woodhull]

And not all the interest would need to spent, either. Only enough of the previous year's investment income has to spent to continue to qualify as a tax exempt charity-- the rest of that year's income can, in the case of Bill and Melinda's Foundation, be folded back into the ever increasing investment portfolio. And choosing where to invest all that money can have a significant effect on some industries. Which, if past personal history is any indication, would be of great interest to Mr. Gates. He is still a man with a vision, who would like to change everyone's world into the shape that he thinks is best.

Re:All charity ends

[Smauler]

Why is it harder for large countries to fund healthcare than small countries? I don't understand the rationale behind claiming that it does.

GDP per capita is surely a better indication of how good healthcare _should_ be, generally. Low population density can add problems, but countries like Canada and Norway seem to manage ok with this.

All other countries with more than 100m people are much poorer than the US, so a straight comparison is a little worthless, IMO.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm somewhat surprised how no one seems to ever question why Billg gets all the credit for his fantastic philanthropy when all of that money he is donating is extra cash that he stole from every last one of us through monopolistic practices. We should all be able to claim some small tax credit for what the Foundation gives out.

Re:All charity ends

[Coeurderoy]

You can make an interesting correlation lines between visits of the BMG fundation to emerging countries, and the influence on copyright laws, patents protections, and the type of software these government select (after the visit).
The fundation is only charitable if you believe that charity starts on ones door (preferably on the inside side where you personally live).

Re:All charity ends

[Coeurderoy]

It seems many Ayn Rand fans literally had their mind blown away, ...
And they are still searching for it :-)

Re:All charity ends

[ISoldat53]

Nobody likes a poor thief.

Re:All charity ends

[daem0n1x]

It may (I don't have the data), but it's fucking up sooooo badly in the rest, that it vastly outweighs any good it could possibly be doing. Please, just look at the numbers.

Re:All charity ends

[daem0n1x]

So basically your point is that you (the richest country in the world) rank very well among a bunch of third-world countries with huge income inequalities. Your excuse is so lame it hurts.

Re:All charity ends

[dkleinsc]

Fully privatized health care DID work.

It depends entirely on what you mean by "work": If your goal is to protect property rights (which @roman_mir believes is the most important goal, e.g. this thread versus yours truly), then yes it works. If your goal is to minimize premature death caused by lack of proper treatment, then no, it doesn't, because those who can't afford medical care don't get it and die.

Re:All charity ends

[gewalker]

No, charity may come without attachments or requirements. Say I want to have a charity to help drug users - I will most certainly require certain behaviors from the recipients of the charity in order to receive benefits. This does not change the fact that I am being charitable and giving away my resources for no personal benefit.

Re:All charity ends

[amorsen]

So you're saying that the US is so large that the efficiency gains from more centralization are now negative? Well that's no excuse, really. Go split up!

Re:All charity ends

[PCM2]

Mr.Gates resources are actually pretty close to not limited. He could easily set enough aside for the foundation that only the interest would ever have to be spent.

Actually, one of the characteristics of Mr. Gates's charity is that this will not happen.

Gates's position is that while this sounds good, what you end up with is a charity that exists to function like a business. And then, like a business (let's take Microsoft for example), you end up with an organization that's weighed down with layers of middle managers, most of whose chief priority is to keep the business (charity) running -- not to achieve its goals, but to protect their own jobs.

Gates rejected that model. Instead his charity has a mandate that it must spend ALL of its money by XYZ date. After that date, the Gates Foundation will be broke, and it will disappear. Personally I admire this decision.

Re:All charity ends

[TapeCutter]

Odd, most people label me as a left-winger but I don't think there is anything inherently evil about corporations or governments, both are mearly organisational 'tools' that we use to do things that no man can do alone.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

to loose ain't a verb. Is your asshole loose enough for my big thing although?

Re:All charity ends

[rwv]

Why is it harder to design a space telescope than a magnifying glass? A space telescope is much more complex. More people + lower population density ==> Higher complexity.

Re:All charity ends

[bluefoxlucid]

Why are these machines very expensive? Who could afford them if nobody could afford the treatment necessary for the hospitals to recover costs? What about $2,000 hearing aids?

Re:All charity ends

[ceoyoyo]

No it didn't. Fully privatized health care (everywhere, not just in the US) used to be moderately expensive, so only the rich could afford it. That meant lots of people went without.

Most other governments in the western world decided that health care was the kind of critical service that society as a whole should provide and did so. Health care in many places got a bit cheaper due to economies of scale, but more importantly it got a LOT better, measured by the kind of care the average person received. The US got stuck with the worst of both worlds - mostly private health care for the average person, with subsidized care for certain people. Which brings us to today, where US health care is unbelievably expensive (IIRC it's at least twice as expensive as any other major western country), inaccessible to large blocks of the population, and consistently rated poorly in terms of average care received.

Re:All charity ends

[bluefoxlucid]

Do you want a report supporting government-run health care (i.e. accounting for individual direct spending only) or a report showing that government-run healthcare is severely harmful (i.e. showing tax burdens, more granular differences in health care, and overall economic impact, along with comparisons between general income levels for various countries--Canada and Norway being prime examples, fantastic government health care from two major exporters of oil and one also a major exporter of wood)?

Re:All charity ends

[ceoyoyo]

It's harder to design the space telescope, but if you've got lots of money, it can be done, and is a much smaller burden than if it has to be done by a country with not as much money.

Your rationalization is silly. The US has a large population it has to care for, but it also has a high GDP. Providing care for 300 million rich people is NOT the same as providing care for 300 million poor people. It's much more like providing care for 5 million rich people.

Are you congratulating yourself that the US ranks well among third world or near third world countries in terms of care delivered (and paying more than anyone else, first or third world, for that care)?

Re:All charity ends

[bluefoxlucid]

Have you also considered that Norway and Canada are major exporters of oil (Norway is #4 in the world?) and that Canada is a major wood exporter? What does the US export in such size as to be one of the richest per capita countries in the world? I believe we export cheap grain...

Re:All charity ends

[MagusSlurpy]

Right. Because the last sub-prime loan speculations treated us so very well.

Re:All charity ends

[Grizzley9]

Initial government involvement on such things should always show a benefit in the near term. It's the long term ramifications though that truly matter. So you've "saved" part of this generation from worrying about "sick homes". You've just placed the financial burden on the next. And b/c it's not free the gov tries to dictate pricing. Talk to some medical friends and find out how many are still accepting Medicare/aid and look at how soon those programs are expected to run out of money.

Re:All charity ends

[nine-times]

Call me crazy, but I don't think business should be run like a for-profit business either. That is to say, I don't think people should generally be motivated by, "what's going to generate the most possible profit at the lowest investment over the course of the next quarter."

If you're making a computer OS, then focus on making a kickass computer OS. If you're building hardware, make awesome hardware. Build your business around your business, around doing a good job at the thing your company does, and not around generating short-term profit.

Sure, yes, obviously you need to make a profit. You need to at least break even, or you'll go out of business. But so long as a business is making enough profit to keep their doors open, then in my not-so-humble opinion, they should devote their attention to doing a better job at serving the clients/customers and providing good products, services, and support.

Oh, and yeah, I know. Shareholders, shareholders, bla bla bla. Fuck'em. If we can't run our businesses responsibly because everyone needs to constantly kowtow to the abstract idea of "maximizing investors' profits", then it's time to reevaluate our system of investment.

Re:All charity ends

[ranton]

I still don't see the difference. The success of both for-profit and charities can be measured in the same way:

Dollars spent * Efficiency Coefficient = Dollars of revenue
or
Dollars spent * Efficiency Coefficient = Lives saved/improved/etc.

Obviously you can spend too much time looking at metrics when running a charity, which would cause your efficiency to drop. But you can also spend too much time looking at metrics when running a for-profit, which would cause your efficiency to drop. The proper use of metrics is the exact same in both organizations: only spend time with metrics when it improves your bottom line (profit, lives saved, etc).

You talked about how it is difficult to measure success in charities, but it is also very difficult when running a company. Customer satisfaction is a common secondary interest in business, and it is very hard to quantify how that translates into increased profit. Or how about determining how much money an advertising campaign made you. Companies even have scenarios where their efforts are successful even if they lose profit, because they could have lost even more profit. That is no different than measuring success in terms of the number of people who didn't die (measuring by the number of customers you didn't lose).

Your post just sounds like someone who works in the industry, and has a problem when people try to effectively gauge if you are doing your job properly. Just like how teachers don't like to be measured, or programmers for that matter. Some fields are harder to create metrics for than others, but the core principles behind measuring success and failure based on the goals given to you are the same. Regardless of whether those goals are provided by stockholders or philanthropists.

Re:All charity ends

[bluefoxlucid]

The US isn't a very rich country. Money in the US is loaned into existence--a dollar saved is a dollar owed. Essentially the US will die if we don't have inflation.

Let's talk about education. In the US, student loans have interest. Additionally, we've government-guaranteed student loans, taking all risk off the banks. Thus, the banks (now the Government directly) can loan out endless money without worrying about defaults, since the US Government will levy taxes to pay for it. This gave a situation where students--the least experienced of the bunch, not necessarily financially irresponsible but very much inexperienced--can be told a college education is important, and then billed at rapidly increasing tuition costs, taking loans to cover it.

Let's say in year 2000, $100 billion is loaned at 1%. In year 2001, that $100 billion is owed at $101 billion, 1% interest making the other $1 billion, while $110 billion is loaned. That means that there are now $210 billion in the economy, all debt, but $211 billion owed. Now in year 2002, the people from 2000 are old (we're dealing in Plutonian years, they're long) and pay off their $102 billion in loans (another 1% interest..). Now there's $120 billion loaned in 2002, giving $330 out, $102 billion in, and $231 billion owed... with a pool of $228 billion.

Ok, let's face facts: A third of the money in the economy just vanished.

Salaries can't be sustained like this, because we are now poor. Economic activity decreases, hiring decreases, and defaults start happening. Money evaporates in defaults. The economy is suddenly weaker. Now students become wary of taking student loans, which means much less is loaned but interest keeps accruing. This in turn means less money flowing in the economy (imaginary borrowed money, but money nonetheless), making it even harder to get jobs. It's going to be impossible for the latest generation to pay their debts.

Crash.

The united states' balance sheets are a big mess of interest accruing on loans giving a negative net value. To handle this, we expand our population and take even more loans, and also have inflation (an invisible tax that makes everyone more poor and then allows the poor to demand higher salaries from businesses as a 'cost of living adjustment'). The government of course is in debt out the ass on the same scheme: hold debts, wait for inflation, take new debts and pay off the old debts--the new debt is hopefully similarly sized given inflation, and the old debt has hopefully not accrued enough interest to outpace inflation. Thus at 100% inflation, we hope to borrow $1000, then after inflation borrow $2000 which is equivalent to $1000, and use that to pay off the $1500 of debt + interest and have a net $500 left over to work with. It doesn't work that way, but we try.

Poorest country ever.

Re:All charity ends

[HornWumpus]

I you require blowjobs, it's not a charity.

Re:All charity ends

[roman_mir]

Next you'll tell us war is good for the economy, so we should have more of what ruins us.

- if I prove you to be 180 degrees wrong, would you write a retraction of this statement??

On more than one occasion I have shown that it is in fact the ideas of morons like Krugman who believe that war is good for economy, I always said that war is destructive to economy. You don't understand first thing about Austrian school of economics, do you? War is detrimental to the economy, even if it necessary because it's a defensive war, it's still detrimental and destructive to the economy.

Re:All charity ends

[roman_mir]

It is running out of money because of the combination of a baby boom and a poor economy

- which only shows that Medicare is a ponzi scheme, it's a pyramid without any assets behind it, the money isn't actually there, it's all spent on cold and hot wars, space race, arms race, etc., none of it exists.

Medicare and SS are bankrupt, there are no assets, they depend on an ever increasing population, well Madoff's scam also depended on an ever increasing client base and hope that clients don't start pulling their money out too quickly.

Re:All charity ends

[gtall]

The population of the U.S. is not growing unsustainably, were it not for immigrants, we'd have a net loss in population. The U.S. stopped producing more than replacement about 1999.

Medicare and Medicaid are running out of money because the population is getting older and poorer, the latter mainly due to the current recession. The former due to the Me Generation finally getting read to pop their clogs.

What the U.S. will be forced to do is reduce benefits either by raising the age limit for Medicare and/or taxing to spend on Medicaid. The new health bill contains quite a few new taxes to pay for the increases they want the States to make in Medicaid. There's no fixing Medicare with increased taxes mainly because the younger generation is too small for the Baby Boom Blob.

Other nations haven't necessarily avoided the problems either. Usually they use some form of rationing. In the U.S., we use the insurance companies and their "death panels" (someone has to determine what gets covered, they just aren't government death panels, the former apparently do not distress Conservative Republicans whereas the latter are presumably the spawn of Satan). Also, the U.S. as allowed the growth of "specialty" medicine to provide extraordinary life styles for the specialists. And the U.S. allows the Court system to rape the doctors in malpractice thus requiring those nice insurance companies to get another paycheck.

Re:All charity ends

[HornWumpus]

So your saying that Ponzi would have been fine had he setup an account full of 'Ponzi' bonds?

SS is a full Ponzi Scheme. The bond scheme part is not an arms length transaction. Any private individual who tried that would be cuffed.

Insurance companies are not allowed to hold their own bonds as reserves, no matter what their credit rating is.

Re:All charity ends

[gtall]

Company sponsored health insurance was actually an outgrowth of WWII in the U.S. Taxes were structured such that if you had it, they took it. So in order to help keep labor peace, companies gave workers health insurance. After the war, there was no turning back.

So in the nice libertarian utopia that was the 20s, if you wanted health insurance, most had to buy it themselves...great for the rich, the poor always get the short end of the stick.

Libertarian principles generally fail at anything that one cannot easily put a price on. Fish stocks in the world's oceans being depleted, the Libertarian principles would have the oceans fished dry before any effort was made to save the fish species from extinction. Libertarianism is morally and ethically bankrupt, that includes Ron Paul and his fellow travelers.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

we haven't been able to stem the birth rate

Jane you ignorant slut.

USA birth rate went below the replacement rate in the 70s and has not gone above replacement rate since.

http://www.susps.org/overview/birthrates.html

Re:All charity ends

[hoppo]

nobody can hold up an example country with fully privatized health care which is being run well

That's only tautologically correct. You will not find a country with fully privatized health care, therefore, you cannot find one whose fully privatized health care is run well.

Re:All charity ends

[GargamelSpaceman]

Another post on the site asked rhetorically: Who elected them? Why do they get to influence government policy? The post was complaining about the Gates Foundation's effort to support school vouchers ( which I too support, as a step toward making education voluntary ), but I would also tend to agree that Bill Gates' or my voice should not be able to drown out Joe Shmoe's.

If corporate donations influence the policies of politicians, then they can influence the policies of charitable foundations. Not only that, but one may imagine a world where humans patronize their employers as workers and other businesses as customers, while those entities in turn patronise politicians and also charitable organizations.

The vast majority of the value the average person has as a patron ends is reified as who they work for and what they buy rather than what they believe would be best for them politically. Vast swathes of idiocy make considered voting largely irrelevant.

People ( me included ) don't know what is best for them anyway, and must rely on the sources of information and opinion around them to make a best guess. Often people look for an attractive style or group and trust the consensus to have been well arrived at. Turn up the heat slowly and people will happily boil like a lobster in a pot.

In the Red States, they elect Cokelicans, in the Blue States, it's the Pepsicrats. There's no need to vote with anything but your wallet. It's a matter of taste preference. Elect Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho ( Brought to you by Carl's Jr )

Privatized X is no more efficient than public X unless there is perfect competition. Monopoly, oligopoly, and imperfect competition is inefficient wrt consumers, which is WHY government is inefficient as it monopolizes force ( hopefully ).

Charities trying to direct the use of taxpayer dollars by contributing is an attempt to purchase the force ( power to collect taxes ) that the governent monopolizes.

Charities ultimately benefit the donors. When the donors are human, mostly the charities provide the service of making the donors feel good. Often the act of Charity is ill considered. Beneficiarys don't control Charities as a rule, when something is free, you take it, even if you don't like the idea of it being given away for free, such as printed ( or borrowed ) money from the government. If you depend on it, you won't want to see it go ( like any other dole ).

Considered Charity of any kind is inherently a rebellious act. It's voluntary unlike paying taxes. The effects can be good or bad for a bystander, or for the one committing the willful act of Charity.

Consider Charity, and the Charity of others.

Re:All charity ends

[CAIMLAS]

Well, to be fair, it's not just the US government who makes this stuff fail. Countries like, oh, Sweden (or wherever it reputedly works out well financially and effectively, I think this was pretty much the only country that fits the mold) don't have the other socioeconomic problems the US does which exasperate the issue: obesity, obesity, diabetes epidemic, and of course, a health system itself which is merely a shell of a host for the pharmaceutical and "healthcare assisting" companies.

Re:All charity ends

[roman_mir]

the population is getting older and poorer, the latter mainly due to the current recession.

- nope. The population is becoming poorer not because of a recession, the recession is only a systematic response to the problem of poverty.

Poverty is lack of production, do you understand that? Not lack of money, money (as in paper) you can print. Production is something you can't print.

But in fact the reason for the lack of production is the fake money that is being printed - the inflation is what caused the real savings to move out or disappear, and investment capital is savings, it's not fake money. Investment capital was driven out by inflation and other government policies (regulations, taxes).

In fact recession is only a free market response to the bubble that was inflated with the fake money. Sure, while the bubble was inflating the people FELT like they were wealthy - they could flip homes and extract equity.

It is always funny to read or watch about somebody "losing" a house, where they have 0 equity. Everybody reacts to it as if the house is stolen from them.

Ha!

Nothing could be further from the truth! The money was stolen from the people, whose savings went to finance those ever increasing mortgages over and over, all the refinancing and equity extraction went into the pockets of those so called 'home owners'. Of-course they felt wealthier than then today, than they had crazy credit available with no questions asked, today they actually can no longer buy on credit and are required to repay.

The system destroyed productivity of the people by driving out investment capital, that's what made them poor, not the recession. Recession is only a symptom of the problem, the system attempting to fix the problem.

Re:All charity ends

[aquabat]

Amen. I read a quote somewhere, that said (paraphrasing) making money is a side effect of a good business, not the goal.

Re:All charity ends

[CAIMLAS]

I have to disagree with your premise here.

Part of the reason why healthcare was leaving "millions of us to get sick, stay sick and die" isn't because government wasn't involved, it's because government had already been involved. Governmental regulations and policy is a big reason why it was even a problem to begin with.

Before spouting things you don't understand, maybe you should look at the relationship role between early healthcare providers and the government. It's quite eye-opening. In short, the people who were considered quacks in their day (and rightfully so, to a large degree) had more lobbying power and preventative care got cast out the door as a result.

Re:All charity ends

[phantomfive]

I agree.

At this point, I'm tired of people saying, "make it single-payer!" or "make it private!" I'll listen to anyone who has an idea how to improve the healthcare system, and can show that it would actually improve things (saying "Norway does it!" doesn't count).

There are a lot of things we can do that would improve healthcare in the US that aren't controversial, and aren't risky. But people keep treating it like a religious thing (it has to be my way!) so nothing gets done.

Re:All charity ends

[marcosdumay]

The problem is that while you can measure "dollars of revenue" by looking at your bank account, there isn't any simple, or even correct methodology to measure "Lives saved/improved/etc".

Because of that, when you tell a non-profit that it must measure its output to improve its efficiency, in reallity what you are saying is that they should estimate their output by proxy, and optimize to that proxy. As a general rule, every proxy stops working if you keep optimizing after it for more than a couple of cycles.

Welcome out of the world of exact sciences.

Re:All charity ends

[hey!]

One of the problems with these perpetual trusts is that long after the founder is dead they become sinecures for the people running them, making the occasional nominal grant while absorbing most of the trust income in salary.

Re:All charity ends

[thetoadwarrior]

Exactly. More people need to be talking about this. The corporationification of charities is not a good thing.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Years of Health Care neglect prior to being 65 probably causes a bias in how much it costs us.

Re:All charity ends

[hey!]

I've worked in the non-profit world myself, and it's equally a death-knell not to be run like a business at all. For example no organization that fails to watch its cash flow can continue to operate. Believe me an irreversible negative cash flow is a financial fire, just as much in a non-profit as a for-profit. I've seen up front what happens to a non-profit that fails to attend to financial realities, and it is not pretty.

We used to sometimes say that the difference between for-profit and non-profit was that "owner's equity" on the balance sheet was re-labelled "retained earnings". Of course we *knew* that a non-profit has different priorities than a for-profit; and that non-profit and government budgets are run according to stricter principles (spending is *authorized* rather than *estimated*). But the point is that you still have to manage finite resources, coordinate people, set and achieve objectives, etc. So for many of us who were in support positions rather than line positions, being in a non-profit made very little difference in how we did our job, other than we took a lower salary for the privilege of doing good in the world.

In fact, business and non-profit management shares a very significant failure mode that you point out. You take an interesting organization and you give it a leader who is uses it primarily as a vehicle for ego-gratification. The difference is that in the non-profit world you have this co-dependency relationship with donors who equally see the organization as a vehicle for ego-gratification, which sometimes allows brain-dead organization to stumble forward for a few more years.

The difference between non-profit and for-profit management, aside from accounting technicalities, is *ethics*. In the non-profit world you have many more ethical duties, but as in for-profit enterprises, the only ethical issues that get *consistently* attended to are those that outsiders consistently check on. It is rare that anyone attempts to hold a non-profit to account -- there's no political glory for an attorney general to become known as the scourge of charities. So in the non-profit world you need the good fortune to have leaders of exceptional moral character. Unfortunately, a lot of what passes for that is sanctimonious hypocrisy.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

To your first point don't confuse technological advance with the method of delivery.

The flip-side of your second argument is, in a non-free market who decides how many resources are used to treat someone with a rare disease? We probably don't want to spend say...$100 million dollars to treat 10 people with a rare disease when that same money could provide preventative care to 50,000 people. Like another poster said, when you're sick your demand for treatment is infinite, so who are these angels who will make the right decisions on allocating scarce healthcare resources?

And once such a system is established, it doesn't limit itself to decisions relating to the catastrophic (newsworthy and emotional) healthcare cases:
"Under Ontario’s government-run system, doctors are being told they must get approval from bureaucrats to order potentially life-saving tests for their patients. In Ottawa, a heart patient was rejected for an EKG; in Windsor, a cancer patient told she couldn’t have a PET scan despite a referral from her doctor.

In both cases the patients were over 70, perhaps too old for care in the minds of some bureaucrats."

Re:All charity ends

[bitt3n]

If the military was running out of money, it wouldn't mean having a military is a bad idea, it would mean we're not funding it enough. It's the same with Medicare.

The fact that Program X is running out of money certainly does not mean that Program X ipso facto ought to receive more funding.

Re:All charity ends

[Golddess]

If I mister non-billionaire can make money this way, surely Mr.Gates can do better.

Isn't this how the Nobel Prizes are funded? I seem to recall hearing something about Mr Nobel which stated that when he died, he left instructions to use his assets to fund the whole Nobel Prize thing, and that the monetary rewards for those prizes are all derived from the continuing return on investment of those initial funds.

Re:All charity ends

[Gr8Apes]

It was supposed to be self-financing, and would have been had 2 things not happened:

1) The lifespan increased significantly beyond projections
2) The birthrate dropped significantly in proportion to the population

I agree that currently, it would be considered a Ponzi scheme. When it was instantiated, it was more like an insurance pool.

Re:All charity ends

[h4rr4r]

Not too old for care, but likely too old for any of the care those tests would indicate.

What exactly is a 70 year old going to do when an EKG shows he needs open heart surgery he will not survive?

Re:All charity ends

[stanlyb]

Only if you are poor. If you are rich, or super hyper rich, then the trend is the opposite.
As of Bill Gates philanthropy, do you happen to know that because he "invested" 50 billion dollars in his charity organization, he actually pays ZERO taxes. For the stupid and deaf, i will repeat: ZERO. NULL. NONE.
And for the idiots i will say it 3rd time: ZERO.

Re:All charity ends

[roman_mir]

And it is a good thing that he can avoid taxes, it should be applauded. For the deaf: plenty of hand waving.

By the way, if you can read through my latest journal entry you just may learn something about what income taxes are.

Re:All charity ends

[roman_mir]

I don't support charity, if something is worth doing, it's worth doing it right, as a business. Charity is never sustainable, it's a self defeating enterprise, business has to be at least sustainable.

As to healthcare, here is my take on ACA (and there is something about income taxes there too, you may learn something useful for free, first time in your life)

Re:All charity ends

[h4rr4r]

I learned how much of a dick you are and how foolish you are. Go ahead and not pay the IRS, let me know how that works out.

If something is really worth doing, it is worth doing it without the profit motive.

Re:All charity ends

[roman_mir]

If something is really worth doing, it is worth doing it without the profit motive.

- and how would you know that it is 'worth doing' without the profit? Giving things to people without asking for anything, putting them into a position of them being in your debt, enslaving them this way by turning them into dependants, giving them incentives to stay in their predicament for the fear that they would lose that charity if they started relying on themselves.

Yeah, that is what you regard as 'moral' but I see as evil.

We just had a thread on that here.

Re:All charity ends

[thesandtiger]

There is a missing component:

For people in the US who weren't insured before age 65, how many of them have poor health or have had to cope with chronic conditions because they didn't have coverage or weren't able to afford yearly check-ups even if they did, or who weren't able to afford expensive medications to help moderate known conditions?

Because of this lack of preventative care, many of the people who rely on Medicare after 65 have been in pretty bad shape for decades compared to people who had good insurance and who, even after 65, likely still have good coverage and don't rely as much on Medicare.

We also as a nation have higher rates of obesity and other complicating factors that affect a person's health later on in life (and will affect costs associated with that) than many other (most other?) nations.

The numbers are not simple - there are a huge number of factors that go into determining how effective health efforts are, and anyone who pretends like they know the whole story is almost certainly wrong and pushing an agenda.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's precisely the kind of talk I was objecting to. For one, it leads to insane reporting requirements, often in situations where every hour and every dollar spend doing actual work saves -or at least changes- lives. For another, it leads to a desire for quantifiable metrics, which mean that a ton of really important aspects of development work get left by the wayside, because they can't be easily measured. For yet another, it turns the conversation into a financial one. That's important, sure. Nobody wants their money to be wasted. But it should not be the only topic discussed when evaluating the success of a non-profit.

Who is to say that those strings aren't being attached by the donors?

Re:All charity ends

[thesandtiger]

And, I hit post too soon:

Personally I am a huge advocate of universal coverage and expanding the idea of preventative approaches to health.

The thing is, I can't say for sure whether it will be more expensive or less expensive to have universal coverage than it would currently. I have an idea that it would ultimately be less expensive overall simply because the rest of the developed world seems to have figured it out. However, the cost, as long as it isn't going to bankrupt us (and there's no reason to think it would) isn't the main consideration - it's the good thing to do, it's the humane thing to do.

That said, on numbers: as I said the numbers on the effectiveness of various elements of coverage are truly complex, there are some very simple and stark numbers: with our current healthcare system we spend more per capita than any other nation, and yet we have overall poorer metrics for health than most other developed nations. This tells me that there is either something fundamentally wrong with Americans that somehow makes our exceptionally diverse population that comes from all over the world more sickly and expensive or that there is something fundamentally wrong with our healthcare system (or maybe both). I don't think that can be in dispute, except by ideologues.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

For all this noise about the evil US system, there really aren't that many differences between the US system and many European systems.

In Switzerland, citizens buy health insurance from private companies. Those private insurance companies reimburse private healthcare providers. The two main differences are that insurers can't profit off the base insurance package and the Swiss government chips in to pay the premiums for extremely low income people.

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Assume there's a 1% rate of special exceptions that require intensive intervention. In Norway, that would be 50,000 people. An office of 100 people could clear that @ ten per week. Management overhead for 100 people isn't too bad: There might be 2 layers of management.

Now, let's rearrange that for the US. You're looking at 3 million people. You'd need at least 600 people to manage the same amount. At a minimum, you've got one additional layer of management.

For even more fun, assume that 1% of those special cases are extreme. It's no big deal to say "Hey, there's 500 people that have this problem. We're going give our case workers flexibility to deal with it." In the US, it's 30,000 people -- about half of what's being managed by the hypothetical Norwegian system.

We haven't even started to deal with how geographically _large_ the US is compared to Norway or the interaction with state and federal governments.

Re:All charity ends

[pnutjam]

Wow, you are as naive as you are uneducated. Do some research on non-profit scams and tax dodges.

Re:All charity ends

[amorsen]

Note to mods: "flamebait" would be repeating this little gem: "comparable countries like China, Brazil, and Indonesia"

From an outside point of view it is amusing (and somewhat sad) to see the change in the US perception of its role in the world. A world leader comparing itself to Indonesia, ha!

Re:All charity ends

[Pfhorrest]

Off topic: can you tell me where the quote in your sig comes from, if it's not something original you wrote yourself?

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Similarly, you cannot find a country even remotely capitalist since the 1920s.

Yet people still bleat on about the "failure of Communism" following the fall of one not-very-Communist empire 70 years later.

Re:All charity ends

[paiute]

Right. Because the last sub-prime loan speculations treated us so very well.

You can default on a mortgage. You can no longer default on a student loan.

Re:All charity ends

[poetmatt]

If you can't figure out which corporations put their own profits above *anything else*, you need to do some research. Don't label a corporation "innocent" just because it's not a person. That would be like saying "there's nothing inherently evil about foreclosures" even though the "corporations" involved robo-signed a bunch of illegal foreclosures to get people out of houses.

It's really not a gray area by any stretch.

I'm not saying all corporations or governments are evil, I don't even get where that comes from? I'm saying specific ones are clearly putting profits ahead of society (to their own gain).

Re:All charity ends

[Anonymous Coward]

The US government spends 46% of all money spent on healthcare. Singapore's spends 31. Singapore has been proclaimed as being among the top five best health care systems in the world while being among the cheapest at the same time.

Re:All charity ends

[h4rr4r]

So letting people die in the gutter is moral?

Re:All charity ends

[MagusSlurpy]

How does that matter when you have 20% of the population underemployed and below the garnishment threshold?

Foundations are tax shields

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Anyone that's worked with foundations knows it. I had some dealings with companies that set things like that up for the extremely wealthy whilst I lived in NY City in 2003.

I.E.-> It's better to spend monies on foundations than face tax penalties that would otherwise ensue. You're probably not that much different, considering you probably have monies in IRA's, property, or business investments!

* So - Does this make "King Billy" (I call him that out of respect, NOT ridicule & I have for years) some 'evil guy'? No.

(He's just doing what he has to with HIS monies, and in the most sensible manner possible. Were you in his shoes, would YOU do anything differently with YOUR money? I doubt it.)

APK

P.S.=> Conversely, does it make him a 'saint'? No, of course not - he's just a guy managing his money, and he does a good job of that... I like his educational investments the most! apk

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[Anonymous Coward]

You are absolutely right. Having the choice between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs ways of dealing with wealth I prefer the philanthropic effort/foundation path offered by Bill. To my mind this difference is also what eventually will make Bill stand out as as the greater man. *hides*

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[Anonymous Coward]

I.E.-> It's better to spend monies on foundations than face tax penalties that would otherwise ensue. You're probably not that much different, considering you probably have monies in IRA's, property, or business investments!

Except that IRAs etc are explicitly set up to benefit you. Giving tons of money to a charitable foundation does not benefit you - the reduced taxes reflect the reduction in your income. It is senseless to give away $10MM to charity solely in order to receive a $3MM offset to your taxes if you do not believe in the work of the charity.

The only exception would be if it is some sort of fraud and you intend to get the money back by charging the foundation fictional/grossly excessive expenses or by misappropriating the charity's funds to yourself rather than the charitable purposes set out in the charity's founding documents. I have never heard any suggestion that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funnelling money back to them or is otherwise than a genuine charity.

Note that there are legal bodies called 'foundations' in certain civil law countries such as Switzerland and Lichenstein. These are (in very, very rough terms) the civil law equivalent of common law trusts, and like trusts can be set up for charitable or for private family reasons.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[Doc Ruby]

Using the many $billions you already have to make more $billions by escaping what little laws might restrain them, that results in harming the health and education (and therefore everything else) in the lives of many millions, perhaps billions, of people - mostly the planet's most vulnerable and already unhealthy/uneducated - that makes you an EVIL guy .

Which we already knew Gates is, having lived with him butchering our own IT industry for a couple of generations now.

He's just a guy managing his money by harming others - at every level. I wouldn't do that with my money. In fact I do otherwise with my money. And I don't have $billions already, so spending mine charitably actually subtracts from the minimum adequate lifestyle I might otherwise have.

You like his educational investments the most. I'm not surprised that your education leaves you unable to see that he's evil, and that other people wouldn't do what he does. I expect Gates' work is making as many people like you as possible, to perpetuate the harm.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[Doc Ruby]

I have never heard any suggestion that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funnelling money back to them or is otherwise than a genuine charity.

Read the article. That is precisely the scam Gates is running that the article points out.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[plover]

I have a hard time believing that it's entirely a scam. If you are going to buy a billion doses of vaccine, there is no "little pharma" or local sources equipped to deal with you. Big Pharma is the only choice, unless he wants to spend half the money building a factory and risk becoming Big Pharma himself.

  I don't expect GSK to change their spots, and I'm not surprised that they're taking advantage of the situation, but at these scales the Gates Foundation has to deal with the giant - even when the giant is part of the original problem.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[hairyfeet]

Well I DID read TFA and basically its just the word "foundation" wrapped around a lobbying group. Surprise surprise, rich people that reach the level of Gates, Jobs, and Ellison are greedy self serving douchebags, news at 11.

I mean who didn't know that? while I'll give him credit for using what must be a ripped off copy of Job's old RDF when it came to the foundation, seriously guys, who did NOT know the uber rich are greedy soulless self serving douchebags? You see those of us that DO have a soul, and thus a conscience, couldn't actually stomach sitting on billions of dollars while knowing the guy down the street is praying his 92 Dodge stuck on the side of the road will start because if it don't and he misses a day of work he's gonna be homeless, we just couldn't do it.

Hell I'm not rich by ANY means yet I've given away more computers and more of my time than I could ever count, and not taken a cent off of anything because that is not what it was for it was for making someone else's life a little bit better, for helping some single mom or as I've been doing with the guy downstairs helping a guy who has nothing become computer literate. Has someone like Gates EVER invited someone who had no place to go into his home for Xmas dinner? I doubt it,and before anyone asks yes I have, but I didn't do it for any type of credit or recognition, I did it because it was the right thing to do.

So while I'm glad the RDF is starting to fail on the foundation I'm frankly not surprised its a greedy self serving foundation because i have yet to see a single one of the billionaires that aren't just as I described, more sociopath than normal person by a LONG shot. Hell Jobs fucked over Woz with the Atari sale and he was supposed to be Jobs best friend and without him he would have never had a company, I'm sure if you looked into Gates and Ellison you'd find just as many cases of them royally fucking over people that were honestly trying to be friendly and help them when they were starting out. The pure unadulterated greed required to get to that level, to truly be one of the 1%, just requires a viciousness that most of us thankfully do not possess.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[Anonymous Coward]

"Using the many $billions you already have to make more $billions by escaping what little laws might restrain them, that results in harming the health and education" - by Doc Ruby (173196) on Thursday July 05, @08:54AM (#40550289) Homepage

Ahem: Didn't Mr. Gates do scholarships & build a computer center @ MIT? Isn't he also fighting diseases via his foundations also??

Some "harm"/"evil"... lol! Heck - if Satan HIMSELF did that, I'd have a hard time calling him "evil"!

(In fact & yes, I've seen it - I see FAR MORE EVIL in women that have 10 children by 10 diff. fathers to get welfare monies, & creating fatherless bastards that are nothing more than PAYCHECKS to them!)

* I don't see how a man is evil by doing the above...

---

"Which we already knew Gates is, having lived with him butchering our own IT industry for a couple of generations now." - by Doc Ruby (173196) on Thursday July 05, @08:54AM (#40550289) Homepage

That's ranting & raving man - it's not his fault he built a better mousetrap his competitors can't outcompete on the PC desktop + Server realm combined by a HUGE margin...

---

"He's just a guy managing his money by harming others - at every level" - by Doc Ruby (173196) on Thursday July 05, @08:54AM (#40550289) Homepage

Yea, right... helping:

1.) Education
2.) Fight disease
3.) & more... -> http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx

Real "evil" that... lol!

APK

P.S.=> Again, above ALL else - It's his money:

Thus - He has every right to manage it as he sees fit upon advisement by financial counsellors/advisors, who often suggest such things...

(Heck, I do MY taxes & get offered such tax breaks or others similar to them that I noted in my init. posts)

That is, IF I elect to choose to do them - Don't you? If so, are YOU therefore "evil"?? No, by NO means!

(It's just you sensibly trying to manage your monies effectively!)

Hey, he is just doing what makes the most sense (without taking too much of his DOLLAR$ & "CENT$" which is smart, as a fool & his money are soon parted, + at the same time, hopefully benefitting others)...

... apk

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately "not everyone knows this." Most think a charity is what its name says just like a group like Citizens United consists of lots of citizens, not just a few. It is also surprising how many give to charity such as giving away a big ticket item like a car just to have a fraction of that amount go to the charity with the rest going to a company that "manages" the transaction.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that I don't claim I'm saving third world people by putting money in my IRA.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[Anonymous Coward]

I demand to manage YOUR money for YOU after your words. How's that suit you?

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[fatphil]

It's good to see such a clear and unambiguous statement as your first paragraph said non-anonymously to such a wide audience as slashdot.

I've felt similar for a very long time. As a rabid atheist (me, not him) I was particularly worried to see him chosen for the "good without god" campaign a few years back. I can't remember the biggest nail in the coffin, the one that actually made me think "that's just plain evil", but it was something to do with the malaria research (I just asked my g/f if she remembers what narked me, and all she could offer was "was it to do with malaria?"). There were a lot of links in TFA, but I couldn't see one that exactly matched my memory.

I'm curious, do you have one "most evil" point, or is it just a (un)healthy level of evil across the board?

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[SuperAlgae]

He's just doing what he has to with HIS monies

No, that's one of the main issues raised by the article. You should go read it-- it's quite interesting. Gates uses his foundation's leverage to direct other charitable funds into projects that support his personal world view. Instead of being chosen by their public merits, the projects are determined by the influence of Gates, and those projects get money from more than just the Gates foundation.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[ColdWetDog]

OTOH, forcing countries to change laws the primarily benefit US / Western Europe / IMF interests really crosses the line about what a 'charity' is all about.

For further entertainment, read up on the International Monetary Fund and the 'World Bank'.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[kestasjk]

I read the article and it is indeed troubling..

African and Indian agricultural workers maintain that the Foundation's philanthropy is environmentally toxic , and undermines vital agricultural development that respects local conditions.

This one grabbed my eye, but the article is full of them; I checked the link, and there's no mention of the Melinda Gates Foundation..

Diana Ravich comments on the Gates Foundation's proposed education reforms:

I am also puzzled by the Gates Foundation’s persistent funding of groups that want to privatize public education. I am puzzled by their funding of “astroturf” groups of young teachers who insist that they don’t want any job protections, don’t want to be rewarded for their experience (of which they have little) or for any additional degrees, and certainly don’t want to be represented by a collective bargaining unit.

So she's a teacher who is suspicious of young teachers who don't want to be in unions, and want to be rewarded for performance instead of how long they have been teachers / how many degrees they have?
That's understandable for an elderly teacher with degrees, who is in a powerful union and has many job protections, but there's really no substance to the blog article other than "Gates doesn't know about education".

I also spotted some fear mongering about the initiative to start a "Green Revolution" in Africa (i.e. to bring its farming on par with other places in the word, to reproduce the massive productivity increase it brought in Asia). They talk about affecting the lifestyle of poor farmers, and the risk of genetic patents, but that's a bit narrow-sighted when you're just talking about bringing African agriculture up to standard.

They talk about his investments in blind trusts to sustain the fund, and the way the fund is used to try and lead the way for public money, as if those are bad things. They talk about the use of GlaxoSmithKline to deliver vaccines, reminding us that GSK was recently involved in some scandal, but ignore that drugs and vaccines are what GSK does, and obviously if you want to ramp up production of malaria vaccines you're going to need to involve big pharmaceutical companies.

The whole article seems a bit desperate really.. I'm not sure if it's just a laundry list of vague associations or if it's trying to make some point. Is it questioning Gates' motives? If it is it doesn't make it explicit, it just makes ambiguous jabs.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[Sentrion]

...Gates uses his foundation's leverage to direct other charitable funds into projects that support his personal world view. Instead of being chosen by their public merits, the projects are determined by the influence of Gates, and those projects get money from more than just the Gates foundation.

So instead of a foundation, Gates should have started his own church instead, qualified for faith-based government funding, pursued projects that support his own personal view, and no one would have anything bad to say about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Office_of_Faith-Based_and_Neighborhood_Partnerships

The monopoly that some churches want to have over the distribution of charitable funds is perhaps one of the reasons why so many evangelical Christians are conservative Republicans that oppose all forms of government provided welfare programs, including medicare, medicaid, and social security. Such government programs do not require aid recipients to sit through a sermon before receiving the aid, which pulls the rug out from under many of the churches programs for recruitment.

The fact that Gates wants to pursue his own philanthropic endeavors without the direction of a priest or a preacher is perhaps a good thing.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[dentin]

Thank you. This was my reading of the article as well - basically, yet another school teacher complaining about how he's doing it wrong, without understanding why he's doing what he's doing.

Gates is an extremely smart guy. He's using the leveraged model so as to do the most good with his resources. He's pulling in previously "evil" parties and getting them to -help-, thereby making them less evil. He's putting resources where they have the most effect, which is different from putting resources where it makes you feel good.

-dentin

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[SuperAlgae]

Or just maybe it's possible that pushing political/personal agendas under the guise of charity is bad in both cases.

When someone is donating just their own time or money, they should have a lot of freedom in how they spend it. When they start influencing other charities or governments, then it is not longer just their own time and money, and we need to be more critical of their actions.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[ultranova]

* So - Does this make "King Billy" (I call him that out of respect, NOT ridicule & I have for years) some 'evil guy'? No.

Most kings in history are parasites who contribute nothing but loot ever greater amounts of wealth for themselves, heedless of the carnage they cause in their quest for self-glorification. But go ahead and express your respect for brutal oppression and Bill Gates in the same sentence - I guess he can't expect much from minimum-wage astroturfers.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, every successful person is an asshole! GRRRRRRRRRRR

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[ThatsMyNick]

Nope, Big Pharma has plenty of competition from generic drug manufactures. The reason the foundation goes with Big Pharma, is because they like to enforce Drug Patents in pour countries and make themselves some money through Big Pharma's donations.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[rtb61]

You should clarify, Gates wants to pursue his own 'TAX AVOIDANCE' philanthropic endeavours, that apparently do more harm than good but feed into Gates ego and generate hidden profits for Gates. Sorry but the world's assets belong to every person on the planet, control is given to those often excessive control for all the wrong reason to too much of the planet's assets.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[Anonymous Coward]

No need to hide on this point. Both men have done wonderful things in bringing tech to the masses, but Jobs' general mantra of wanting to get things done for the sake of his will vs Gates' mantra of wanting to get things done because (in the words of Michael Corleone) "It's just business", mirrors the attitudes that both men had/have towards their environment in life itself. A hundred years from now, they'll both be remembered as great industrialists and visionaries of the 20th/21st century, but like the comparison we now draw between John Pierpont Morgan and Andrew Carnegie in the 1800s, we'll see Gates as the greater of the two because his vision of making society better extended beyond merely providing a product or service.

Re:Foundations are tax shields

[KingBenny]

i got this view that's not really left or right winged as i got on all things : it says something like euh : if you get an underdeveloped country, it's better to give them sweatshops than just bags of rice, to them and to you, if you got a foundation used as a tax shield, it still does good, etcetera. Since life is in general shit and revolves around money from the first day to the last it's better to have something that helps a little than to have nothing at all. Thing is he could just open up a casino and launder the money there but they do that instead. Better than nothing ....

Shareholders don't like it?

[knuthin]

A fair amount of Microsoft's money is going to wipe out malaria and polio and shitloads of other diseases, on people from nations who will grow up to use pirated software. No wonder the scumbag stakeholders are pissed.

Re:Shareholders don't like it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill knows exactly what he is doing. NWO BABY

Re:Shareholders don't like it?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

A fair amount of Microsoft's money is going to wipe out malaria and polio and shitloads of other diseases, on people from nations who will grow up to use pirated software.

A lot of the Gates Foundation's spending on medicine has served a secondary purpose of bolstering drug patents - they won't spend money on drugs from local generic manufacturers in countries that do not heel to US drug patent laws.

No wonder the scumbag stakeholders are pissed.

You seem confused as to the meaning of "stakeholder" - it is not shareholder. It is a term that refers to everyone with an interest in an outcome, not just those with money at risk, but the people who's lives are at risk too - nominally the ones being "helped."

Re:Shareholders don't like it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a lot of money of his foundation also goes to support pr efforts. Like on the internet, for example. This helps provide many jobs for people.

Re:Shareholders don't like it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could upmod your sig.

Re:Shareholders don't like it?

[sam_handelman]

No, that's not what it says; in fact, that is the OPPOSITE of what it says.

  STAKEHOLDERS (not Shareholders) is occupy-wallstreet-speak for the people who have some vested interest in the outcome - employees, customers, people in malaria-infested countries, doctors, etc.

  Third world DOCTORS - the recipients of Bill's so-called generosity - are the ones complaining.

Re:Shareholders don't like it?

[Udo Schmitz]

*Stake*holders. As in people with an interest in donations having the best possible impact.

From TFA: “Donor nations were shocked last month, when UNICEF disclosed that it has been forced to pay artificially elevated prices for vaccines under an arrangement called the Advance Market Commitment, which was brokered by Gates Foundation-dominated GAVI alliance, to greatly increase drug company profits. Stakeholders also worry that industry reports of particular vaccine's effectiveness might be skewed by marketing goals.”

Re:Shareholders don't like it?

[Doc Ruby]

Murderers provide lots of jobs too. Many jobs are worse than unemployment.

Re:Shareholders don't like it?

[Gr8Apes]

A fair amount of Microsoft's money is going to wipe out malaria and polio and shitloads of other diseases

Actually, none of Gates' money is going to wipe out malaria nor polio, nor any other disease. What they are doing is treating diseases. I had hoped this was different when they announced the super cool mosquito zapping laser, but after the initial announcement that they should be able to create these in quantity for less than $50/each, everything about this device mysteriously disappeared. Why weren't the blueprints made public? They're supposedly doing this for the betterment of humanity, right? Why didn't they push something that addresses the core problem - the mosquito transmission vector is certainly a viable link in the chain to break if the agent itself cannot be tackled directly.

My personal opinion is that Gates figured out a way to side step SEC and IRS regulations and taxes to keep and maintain a large portion of his fortune intact under his control before Ballmer runs MS into the ground.

Re:Shareholders don't like it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Whoooooosh!" Right over the top...

Re:Shareholders don't like it?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you are wrong. I was learning about "stakeholders" in Business Ethics decades ago, before Occupy-Wallstreet types were in of diapers. Those doctors are correctly termed "stakeholders" in this case.

Re:Shareholders don't like it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's money?? The Gates Foundation is not Microsoft. Is that the least bit confusing?

Re:Shareholders don't like it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that like his insistence on US drug patent laws is a bad thing. If you undercut the developers of new drugs, you are only hurting yourself down the line when it comes time to tackle the next disease. It is like eating your seed grain in a sense. Same for the healthcare - if Gates believes that you need to make healthcare profitable for healthcare workers, then it makes sense to try to undercut efforts at national healthcare programs that are not sustainable.

Not a strong case

[Anonymous Coward]

While it seems credible that some money comes back to Bill Gates, they aren't making a strong case that this would actually be his goal. AFAIK he's getting poorer (less rich) rather than richer now. Also, he would have very little incentive to get even more money other than to pump it back into the foundation. This article does not convince me that this isn't real charity and AFAIK many projects have also been very effective and helpful.

Re:Not a strong case

[Doc Ruby]

Donor nations were shocked last month, when UNICEF disclosed that it has been forced to pay artificially elevated prices for vaccines under an arrangement called the Advance Market Commitment, which was brokered by Gates Foundation-dominated GAVI alliance, to greatly increase drug company profits. Stakeholders also worry that industry reports of particular vaccine's effectiveness might be skewed by marketing goals.

That part of the article, just one point in it, says that Gates is enriching himself at the expense of the people his charity serves. There are many other points about how his charity's work is counterproductive.

You're an anonymous coward. I say you work for the Gates Foundation.

Re:Not a strong case

[Anonymous Coward]

But would you say the foundation that he set up actually undertakes charitable work, given what you have read in the article?

Charity comes without clauses and restrictions. It is freely given.

This foundation is a business working for the interests of the corporates (e.g., Monsanto, GSK) that benefit from the work it does. It is not working for the people it is meant to be helping. Price fixing vaccines? Blocking cheap locally produced drugs? Sickening.

Re:Not a strong case

[aaronb1138]

I'm thinking that especially in the case of the vaccines and dealing with big pharma, it's very simple. These are the people who have the drugs / vaccines. There is no way to avoid their special kind of evil and still get those supplies to needy states. If anything the Gates Foundation doesn't have the power to move those industries and just has to try to make decent deals with them.

Re:Not a strong case

[Anonymous Coward]

Charity does NOT come without clauses and restrictions. If you set conditions to make the aid work, to get certain partners to participate or even to earn some money back that can be used for additional charity that is all fine IMHO. The benchmark should be like this: were more children vaccinated? are fewer people exposed to unsanitary conditions and poor quality water? is there less malnutrition? If such goals are reached (which, as far as I can tell, is the case here) I would certainly call it charity.

Re:Not a strong case

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK he's getting poorer (less rich) rather than richer now.

Naturally. Microsoft's stock value is declining.

Re:Not a strong case

[hairyfeet]

Sorry AC but you are missing the point. When money gets to gates level it is no longer about the money its about the POWER and his foundation has been using their money to ensure the power stays in the hands of multinationals (like MSFT, Monsanto, big pharma) and out of the hands of the people. this ensures the status quo and makes sure USA patents and copyrights will be upheld in these countries which benefits Bill directly, not to mention all the stock I'm sure he has in the other megacorps like Monstanto and big pharma.

Re:Not a strong case

[tibman]

It isn't that simple. Did the charity work remove long-term local options to guarantee their dependence on external supply? If yes, then the charity did long-term damage that greatly offsets their present work.

Re:Not a strong case

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an anonymous coward. I say you work for the Gates Foundation.

And suddenly you discredited everything you just said.

Re:Not a strong case

[AutoReg]

You're an anonymous coward. I say you work for the Gates Foundation.

Argumentum ad hominem. AC is either right or wrong regardless of who he works for. You didn't offer anything substantive to contradict the comment.

Re:Not a strong case

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, it would have that in common with almost all 'charity' then

Re:Not a strong case

[Anonymous Coward]

>You're an anonymous coward. I say you work for the Gates Foundation.

This is why Slashdot is an echo chamber where you can't voice a dissenting opinion; any opinion against the grain means you're being paid by the people the crowd doesn't like.

Re:Not a strong case

[Anonymous Coward]

The Gates Foundation is a Not-For-Profit organization, meaning Gates does not profit from it. Any money that the organization earns is restricted to the organization and cannot go to Gates's personal wallet.

You know, it seems that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of a Not-For-Profit/charity organization on here.

Re:Not a strong case

[Anonymous Coward]

I never understood why the do-gooders get so angry at private do-gooders. Gates might be making a profit (hoho, he's so evil) but he's still helping people. Despite the fact that your quote really only says that the Gates Foundation was 2 or 3 degrees removed from the scandal, a little farther down the article gives a great insight into Gates' thinking by explaining his interest in private-sector healthcare. Not to drag up any political arguments, but I think Gates recognizes that any lasting good will come from the private sector. A private hospital has its own initiative of self-preservation by continuing to provide its service. With a government-run hospital, in an area as unstable as Africa, gov't funding for that hospital can disappear easily and the people are out a hospital. Gates recognizes the individual strength and stability of a private business (and he ought to because, ya know, Microsoft) and thus sees a private hospital being a more stable rock in the political storm than a gov't-run project.

So he might be making money off the people his foundation is "helping." Boo hoo. As the first coward implied, the money he makes likely just gets pumped back into the foundation. Hell, in the first answer in the Foundation's FAQ, it is explained that donations should go to the foundation's grantee organizations because they need financial assistance and Gates doesn't.

Regarding the Ag section, Monsanto is its own monster without the Gates' Foundation's investment. As shown in the documentary "Food, Inc.," Monsanto loves its patents as much as Apple does, and fights for its patents as hard as Apple does. Of course, where Apple fights other companies, Monsanto fights indebted farmers. Naturally, Monsanto wins a lot. To blame Gates for the pain caused by Monsanto is a fallacy. Gates invests in Monsanto because you need to go through Monsanto to impact the Ag sector. Monsanto's evil, we all know this, but it's in control of everything so you can either go through them and feel dirty or try to do it yourself and go bankrupt fighting them.

Again, Gates might be profiting but really, who cares? I think the Foundation is doing more good than bad in most areas and in others is doing at least some good where there would be none without the Foundation. Some of the grantees may be bad apples but every charitable organization has its shadows.

Re:Not a strong case

[andy16666]

You're an anonymous coward. I say you work for the Gates Foundation.

Argumentum ad hominem. AC is either right or wrong regardless of who he works for. You didn't offer anything substantive to contradict the comment.

Ignoring the rest of the comment, this might be misconstrued as true. But argument + ad hominem doesn't magically turn into argumentum ad homenem just because your feelings are hurt. The ad hominem was not part of the argument.

Re:Not a strong case

[AutoReg]

Doc Ruby was attempting to undermine his opponent and thereby support his 'position' by slinging an irrelevant accusation toward AC. This is absolutely argumentum ad hominem. No magic, and no feelings, as I wasn't the AC being accused. I was just calling out the BS.

Re:Not a strong case

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's to say that somebody who is so smart with money isn't the better person to keep power over it? Who's the say the masses would be more capable of spending it wisely than one highly educated financially independent guy with as much time on his hands as he chooses?

a problem with large nonprofits in general

[Trepidity]

Large nonprofit organizations get increasingly likely to be run in questionable ways. The most common failing, of course, is just the usual inefficiency and bureaucracy. But when you're moving around millions or billions of dollars, opportunities for personal interest and corruption are around many corners. As this article notes, nonprofit-corporate partnerships may benefit corporate shareholders, depending on how the partnership is structured (who fronts the money, who benefits, what long-term effects are generated, etc.). And even at levels below official big partnerships, there are always decisions being made: using a contractor here or there, adopting one technology or methodology over another one, etc. It's just really hard to move around billions of dollars without an array of consequences, sometimes intended and sometimes not (and sometimes intended by some people and not intended by others).

Re:a problem with large nonprofits in general

[WillAdams]

Research before donating:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/

Interestingly, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation isn't evaluated 'cause it's ``a private foundation, not a public charity''.

Re:a problem with large nonprofits in general

[Trepidity]

I believe that classification is unavoidable due to its sources of funds: a public charity has to raise a substantial portion of its funds through donations from many individuals, rather than a handful of benefactors, and generally can't be wholly controlled by one party either. The B&MG Foundation gets virtually all of its money from a handful of individuals (the Gates themselves, and some Buffett donations), and is controlled by the Gates.

Re:a problem with large nonprofits in general

[DinDaddy]

But when you're moving around millions or billions of dollars, opportunities for personal interest and corruption are around many corners.

I would go farther than that and say when your charity work reaches that scale, the corporate interests inevitably show up and give you the choice of taking that route, or being obstructed or eliminated (the effectiveness of your organization, not necessarily you personally) by them.

So basically...

[Pionar]

It sounds like Edweek is complaining that the Gates Foundation channels its money through private enterprises to achieve its goals instead of corrupt African dictatorships?

Why do people think they have a voice in how a private not-for-profit spends their money? The Gates Foundation does a lot of good. This seems like a lot of knocking down the guy on top.

Re:So basically...

[sam_handelman]

In fact, no, that is not it either. Plenty of money is going to corrupt African dictatorships.

  But money is being directed AWAY from public health infrastructure, and the people who are complaining about it (I know: too much to ask for you to read the article) are doctors and public health workers in the African countries.

Re:So basically...

[js3]

There is no public health infrastructure. It all goes to whatever minister of health in that country, which is basically ripe for corruption. Doing it for-profit leads to better accountability.

Re:So basically...

[sam_handelman]

Oh, please, that's just complete bullshit.

  I'm assuming you didn't actually read the article? Perhaps you read the careful research in the primary source:
http://www.ghwatch.org/sites/www.ghwatch.org/files/D3_0.pdf

  Pharmaceutical companies make third world dictatorships look like Finland.

Re:So basically...

[h4rr4r]

You mean like BP oil spill levels of accountability?
Well, maybe you mean union carbide in Bhopal?

People are people, the only difference between private and public is that at some point you might be able to vote to impact the nature of a public policy.

Re:So basically...

[Doc Ruby]

No, that's not what Edweek's writer is complaining about. They're complaining that Gates' foundation is doing quite a lot of harm for private benefit. It specifically points out how African doctors, not dictators, are watching patients die because Gates forces healthcare to work only on what benefits Gates, rather than any of the other medicine that could save lives. Gates sucks all the oxygen out of the room, and people literally die from it.

I don't see how you can miss the many examples the article points out. You really should either read it again, or explain what vested interest (financially or ideologically) you have that makes you unable to notice it.

Re:So basically...

[Doc Ruby]

No, you're just blurting out whatever your ideology tells you, with no actual knowledge or experience of African healthcare, government or economy. Nor do you evidently care about African people, since you're more interested in standing against them out of ideology than just looking into it before defending the people being harmed.

Re:So basically...

[Anonymous Coward]

Doing good does not negate doing evil. I think that's the point you may be missing. The good is given, the evil should be exposed. As opposed to microsoft. The money is given, the evil should be exposed.

Re:So basically...

[crypticedge]

Don't forget the banks and the financial crisis, the Exxon spill, the attack Monsanto has done on farmers around the world. Corporations are about as accountable as they have to be until they can find a way to pawn the issue off on the public, reaping the profit reward but making the cost burden fall on the populations. Thinking the free market will fix anything is proof of the brainwashing so many have gotten.

Re:So basically...

[aaronb1138]

Between this and the Vanity Fair piece about MS being in some kind of nosedive, I think we are seeing the Apple PR machine gearing up against Surface and Windows 8/RT. The timing is pretty remarkable and Apple has quite the history of playing dirty with PR and marketing. Vanity Fair / Conde Nast have a pretty well established extremist pro-Apple history. Some of the contract writers rotate between Conde Nast and Education Week. Looks like people running in the same circles.

Also, the Gates Foundation has given Education Week literally millions of dollars in the past...

Re:So basically...

[andy16666]

Somebody's off their rocker. ;)

Re:So basically...

[HornWumpus]

How about the Nigerian government's mess in the Delta, oil thieves and subsequent spills? (I know we're supposed to blame Shell for not preventing the people from tapping the pipelines and causing spills and explosions.)

How about Ecuador's state oil company spilling oil for decades? (And then suing the company that took over the job after they were proven to be too incompetent to do it themselves.)

The difference between public and private is you have no recourse against public actions and public actions are almost always self granted monopolies. They control the courts.

Lemme know...

[Anonymous Coward]

...what the authors of Edweek have done. Not a thing compared to Gates.

Re:Lemme know...

[Anonymous Coward]

...what the authors of Edweek have done. Not a thing compared to Gates.

So the editors of Edweek are innocent, Gates is not.

Speak for yourself, bucko

[Rogerborg]

I've always assumed that the Gates' Foundation is a tax dodge to funnel funds to companies in which they have interests, just enough to make themselves necessary (but not sufficient) for the success of taxpayer funder projects, which will ensure that they have enough blackmail leverage to keep the pork barrels rolling in. Any benefits to needy humans (as opposed to corporate sharehoulders) would be largely incidental and accidental.

So, do I need to RTFA to have that confirmed, or is that pretty much the gist of it?

Re:Speak for yourself, bucko

[serviscope_minor]

So, do I need to RTFA to have that confirmed, or is that pretty much the gist of it?

Hey, I've got an idea. Try RTFA.

I know, new here etc etc...

What's the big deal?

[js3]

From what I read, instead of handing out money directly.. which just leads to corruption, he is leveraging it in a way that prevents the money from being abused. Free money never works when it comes to aid son.

Re:What's the big deal?

[sempir]

The most sensible and succinct post on the subject so far. Well said Sir. (guessing the Sir bit.)

Re:What's the big deal?

[drinkypoo]

From what I read, instead of handing out money directly.. which just leads to corruption, he is leveraging it in a way that prevents the money from being abused.

That's what the government says when they collect our taxes. Then they go blow up (or otherwise subjugate) brown people with the majority of it so that certain rich people can get richer. Bill Gates stole billions from the industry, and is now managing that money making for-profit investments in things killing the same people he's vaccinating without paying taxes.

Re:What's the big deal?

[Doc Ruby]

You read something different. The article is about how the way Gates hands out the money lets Gates abuse people, and leverages it far more than just his own money. You also don't know anything about the many charities that are free money that does good work.

Re:What's the big deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

he is leveraging it in a way that prevents the money from being abused

No, he's leveraging it in a way that prevents the money from leaving the control of USian corporations. That's most definitely not the same as "not being abused".

Re:What's the big deal?

[grcumb]

From what I read, instead of handing out money directly.. which just leads to corruption, he is leveraging it in a way that prevents the money from being abused. Free money never works when it comes to aid son.

Never say never, son.

A few years ago, Xanana Gusmao, the Prime Minister of Timor Leste was facing a crisis. As a result of the violence leading up to Timor's first free elections, almost 10% of the country (over 100,000 people) ended up in refugee camps. He asked the UN and other aid agencies for advice, and they came up with an 8 year plan at the end of which, the first houses would be built.

The PM immediately ordered cash payments to all internally displaced people to help them rebuild their homes. It was a partial answer, one that the government admitted would require significant further effort, but the move helped 60,000 people to begin rebuilding within a year.

The aid agencies went apeshit. They told him that the money would be wasted, stolen, spent on the wrong things, that there would be no way to measure the success, that they wouldn't be able to avoid fraud.... But Xanana insisted. Within two years, the camps were empty.

In retrospect, it's easy to see why: Nobody wants to live in a camp. The money each person received wasn't enough to build a house, but it was enough to get started. And that's all the encouragement people need.

William Easterly's Aid Watch blog also documents studies tracking how direct cash donations to displaced persons in sub-Saharan Africa were used. They found that less than 10% of the money was wasted or somehow misused. That's better than just about every other form of aid in terms of efficiency.

The moral of the story, therefore, is not that giving money is bad. The moral is that you need to give it to people with the reason and motivation to use it for the right things. I hate to break it to you, but the majority of multi-national corporations lack that motivation.

Re:What's the big deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are entirely wrong in your summary.

Re:What's the big deal?

[tibman]

Very cool. I would have modded but already commented.

Re:What's the big deal?

[gewalker]

The US government does not blow up (kill) brown people.

White people -- Britain, the civil war and Germany being prime examples
Yellow people -- Japan
Black people -- Relatively few in comparison, but Haiti, etc. do add up, especially if you factor in the deaths due to slavery.
Red people -- Native Americans at least got casinos as a consolation prize

And of course brown people are included.

The US government is an Equal Opportunity killer

Re:What's the big deal?

[drinkypoo]

Well, to me, black people are included in the set brown people. I've seen some pretty fucking dark people, and none of them have actually been black... well, sometimes I work on my 7.3, and then I turn black with grease... in parts.

Anyway, it's been a long while since we bombed anyone less brown than we are, and by "we" I mean the people running this show.

Re:What's the big deal?

[nine-times]

Yeah, I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, it sounds bad. It sounds like, in the guise of "helping", the Gates Foundation is actually propping up the system that keeps people stuck in poverty.

On the other hand, I'm sure things aren't that simple. As you say, the traditional model of charity, i.e. "we give you shit with no strings attached", often doesn't work out well. There's the whole idea of, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." In order deal with the problems of poverty, you need to overhaul the system to create opportunities for people to provide for themselves. You have to build a new system, so you base it on the best system we have. Some would argue that our most successful economic system to date is one which empowers large corporations which exploits workers. Sure, it's a flawed system, but it does seem to generate wealth and provide stability.

On the third hand, I realize that the last paragraph sounds like the justification a super-villain gives for his actions.

On the fourth hand, I don't think Bill Gates deserves as much credit as he gets. People talk about him like he's a saint because he gives away billions of dollars, and sure, that's a good thing to do. It's worth recognizing, though, that it's not such a huge sacrifice on his part. If you gave me $100 billion, I'd happily give away $90 billion to charity. Hell, you could burn $99.9 billion, and I'd still be sitting pretty with no grounds for complaint. Even aside from that, I consider Bill Gates' fortunes to be, at least partially, ill-gotten gains. He ran a brutally manipulative and unethical company, and he ran it ruthlessly. I just can't talk about him as a saint for giving away a portion of his money to people, since I know damned well that the money was earned by exploiting other people.

Re:What's the big deal?

[gewalker]

Ahem, war in Kosovo Serbia, less than 15 years ago -- white as anyone can be.

Not Me

[eldavojohn]

The common perception among Slashdotters is that while Bill Gates may cause us some professional difficulties, he makes up for it with an exemplary philanthropic record.

Not me. I've voiced my concerns that are not so warmly received.

The short of it is that I think what Gates is doing is great but I don't understand why they buy research facilities in America and not Africa or why all the drug companies that get to sell their cures to Africa are all American. I mean without stability, roads and other infrastructure, Africa is going to constantly need someone else to fix their problems. And the money from the B&G Foundation stays in America invested in American companies that pays out to American companies that provide "cures" for Africa. It will perpetually work that way.

Imagine aliens landed on Earth, took an assessment of us and were saddened to see war, pollution, poverty, etc. So they say they're going to help us and they buy 10 long range matter transmitters from another alien race and give them to Earth. But if we ask them on how to make the transmitters ourselves they just laugh and say "Please, you're still searching for subatomic particles. Plus, you're just going to use them for war if you can make them. And on top of that, you would have to pay sums you cannot fathom to the alien race who invented these machines. When these break, we'll get you some new ones." Meanwhile they're receiving accolades from the galactic senate and Earth remains full of war, pollution, poverty, etc.

It's a horrible truth but the one thing Africa has a lot of is humans. Life is cheap there. If you want to reverse that, you need to introduce stability and then farming and then commerce. There are huge areas where crime, corruption and warlords make it impossible to raise crops. Curing malaria is important but it isn't going to stop that from being the hungriest place on Earth. And it's not going to raise the value of human life there. Gates' idea to fix that is to pair up with Monsanto (surprise another American company with tons of IP). Right. I wonder if they'll patent the seeds they breed that grow well in regions of Africa?

Just like thinking up a new microfinancing system can win you a Nobel Prize, ideas on how to make areas secure and stable will go much further for farming in Africa than importing Monsanto seed with terminator genes.

Re:Not Me

[Blahah]

1. It would be crazy to try to solve disease by creating research facilities in Africa, when there isn't the infrastructure or educational standard to support to work. Cures will develop much faster in developed nations.
2. Ditto with American drug companies - which African ones are large and stable enough to handle the work?
3. You're describing aid programmes with your alien tech analogy, which are flawed for the reason you give. That's not how the Gates Foundation works. I can only speak to their agricultural development work, but it is not similar to an aid programme - they invest heavily in R&D geared towards specific high-impact goals. They are investing the money where they think it will have the highest impact per dollar spent.
4. I agree about the fundamental problems in Africa, but those aren't the remit of the foundation. They are about developing technological solutions, not about steering political and economic change, which is much less concrete and difficult to engineer. Frankly, whether or not you think it's the major problem, the tech is needed.
5. MONSANTO DO NOT USE TERMINATOR GENES. NOBODY DOES. It's crazy how many people have this idea, but there have never been seed with terminator genes on the market from any company. The technology *was* developed to an early stage by the USDA and a small agro company, who were later bought out by Monsanto. Monsanto made a public commitment to abandon the terminator technology when they acquired the company.

The simple fact is that the Green Revolution worked in Asia, it raised nearly 1.5 billion people out of frequent famine. Whether or not it created a perfect system, it got massive humanitarian results. It couldn't have happened if it didn't leverage existing infrastructure including plant breeding and seed companies, as well as agrochemical producers.. The same is true of Africa - if agricultural production is to be massively increased there within a reasonable timeframe, it needs to be done using the best infrastructure we have available, which includes having the world's major seed companies involved in seed production.

Re:Not Me

[Xest]

But on the flip side, if it's purely a tax dodge, why does Gates invest so much of his personal time visiting poor parts of the world, and speaking publicly about the issues his foundation is attempting to deal with?

He'd have no reason to do this if it was a tax dodge, he could just keep to himself and let it do it's thing, but he doesn't, he gets actively involved.

Maybe they buy research facilities in the US and not Africa because their key focus is on solving the problems they've set as their priorities - like dealing with Malaria. Giving Africa the resources to deal with the problem isn't just a case of building a research centre there - you need a strong talent pool to go with it, which means also building up an education system in the region of the research centre that is on par with Western areas, and then further waiting until the required staff pass through that education system with the skills needed.

His foundation does fund educational initiatives also, but how does that help them deal with the problems in Africa right now? Funding better education and research centres on the continent is a long term investment - you can't just stick a research centre there and assume it to magically fill up with MIT and Cambridge quality grads - it takes time.

So what do you suggest as an alternative? set the groundwork and just wait 20 years until that groundwork has flourished to the point it can deal with the problem? or do both- which is precisely what they are doing. Using American talent now, to deal with immediate problems, whilst sowing the seeds for an Africa that can better help itself with these problems through it's funding and investment in education.

The fact is there are far better tax dodges around, ones that require far less personal effort and involvement if that was the only aim. It may well be that Gates uses his foundation to further the financial fortunes of friends and so forth as a side thing, I'm not denying that, but he clearly has a lot of actual personal interest in solving problems too, and that's far better than merely being a tax dodge, or simply hoarding fortunes for the sake of hoarding which just about every other billionaire does.

Re:Not Me

[drinkypoo]

It would be crazy to try to solve disease by creating research facilities in Africa, when there isn't the infrastructure or educational standard to support to work. Cures will develop much faster in developed nations.

Not all of Africa is warlords and mud huts. Are you racist, or is this just typical ignorance?

Ditto with American drug companies - which African ones are large and stable enough to handle the work?

!American != African. Logic fail, kid.

I can only speak to their agricultural development work, but it is not similar to an aid programme - they invest heavily in R&D geared towards specific high-impact goals.

And draw human and logistic resources away from other goals that health care professionals are already working on.

I agree about the fundamental problems in Africa, but those aren't the remit of the foundation.

Right, if your goal is to spread the dominance of Big Pharma, you don't have to worry about whether people are dying faster than you can vaccinate them. You just give out a bunch of vaccinations, declare MISSION ACCOMPLISHED and move on.

MONSANTO DO NOT USE TERMINATOR GENES. NOBODY DOES

Yes, actually, this is one of the world's great tragedies. The terminator genes can never do worse than decrease yields, and in exchange they would prevent other farmers' fields from being contaminated with Monsanto's IP, which would prevent Monsanto from stealing their land. In fact, we should have demanded that every GMO plant ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD be modified with Monsanto's terminator gene. The down side, bad seed practices. The up side? No accidentally saving seed and getting assraped by Monsanto.

Re:Not Me

[Anonymous Coward]

5. MONSANTO DO NOT USE TERMINATOR GENES

MONSANTO DOES USE TERMINATOR CLAUSES IN THEIR IP LICENSING.

There. Explain to me how it is ethical for any company to sue their non-customers for transgressions beyond the victim's control? There is no conceptual difference between Microsoft suing Linux users for (non-disclosed) patents and Monsanto suing organic farmers for (cross-pollinated) seeds? Or more to the point, between Novell paying protection money for SuSE and farmers paying protection money for their organic seeds?

Of course they don't use terminator genes. Threatening non-customers with legal action is a much more profitable avenue.

Re:Not Me

[Gr8Apes]

Maybe he does it because he's hugely reviled by significant sections of humanity that know or know of him? There's a bit about corporate tycoons and their charity efforts that was most enlightening. Too bad I don't have the link handy or I'd include it.

Re:Not Me

[Blahah]

Not all of Africa is warlords and mud huts. Are you racist, or is this just typical ignorance?

I never suggested it was. The quality of biological research in most African nations is so bad as to be meaningless when compared with developed countries. It makes no sense to try to tackle the biggest biological challenges of the century using the worst labs and worst educated researchers in the world. It's a sad fact, but a fact nonetheless. It's got nothing to do with race.

!American != African. Logic fail, kid.

I oversimplified in response to parent, but this was your logic fail. I never asserted that there was a binary choice between African and American, I just used the words used by the parent. The Gates Foundation does not only use American companies - GSK for example are a UK company.

And draw human and logistic resources away from other goals that health care professionals are already working on.

Firstly, the GF is trying, as every philanthropic organisation must, to prioritise the most important work. Of course that means some people will work on the more important problems, that's the whole point. They add funding and structure, the work gets done. Secondly, they are primarily *adding* resources to the (African) system, not diverting them.

Right, if your goal is to spread the dominance of Big Pharma, you don't have to worry about whether people are dying faster than you can vaccinate them. You just give out a bunch of vaccinations, declare MISSION ACCOMPLISHED and move on.

This is trollish. Perhaps you have not actually read the article or about what work the GF supports, but this isn't it.

Yes, actually, this is one of the world's great tragedies. The terminator genes can never do worse than decrease yields, and in exchange they would prevent other farmers' fields from being contaminated with Monsanto's IP, which would prevent Monsanto from stealing their land. In fact, we should have demanded that every GMO plant ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD be modified with Monsanto's terminator gene. The down side, bad seed practices. The up side? No accidentally saving seed and getting assraped by Monsanto.

I don't completely disagree. But what do you mean by 'bad seed practices'? Licensing their technology? I think you misunderstand how the world is being fed - it's by farmers who willingly buy licensed seed because it is more productive and generates higher yields and profits for them than other alternatives. If they want to cheat by breaking the license conditions, they face the legal consequences. Most don't, and they feed the world under that system.

Re:Not Me

[Blahah]

Monsanto don't use terminator genes because of the public outcry about them. It is not profitable for Monsanto to chase license infringers and prosecute them - they will hardly ever recoup their costs in the legal settlements. It is necessary for them to police infringements because if they didn't, infringement would be come more widespread.

If you bother to look at the history of cases Monsanto has brought in the USA, only a small handful turned out to be accidental infringement. Most are people trying to cheat the licenses.

Re:Not Me

[k(wi)r(kipedia)]

1. It would be crazy to try to solve disease by creating research facilities in Africa, when there isn't the infrastructure or educational standard to support to work. Cures will develop much faster in developed nations.

It's not so crazy as you think. When your research facility is in the target country you can test the drug faster since you don't have to fly in your drug or researchers from another continent or country to do the necessary field tests. You are also able to account for local variables. For example, some drugs might lose their efficacy or simply fail to work because of external factors like humidity, heat, etc or because of subtle genetic differences in the target population.

2. Ditto with American drug companies - which African ones are large and stable enough to handle the work?

Probably none, as far as bleeding-edge research is concerned. But it should be a simpler matter to set up manufacturing facilities in Africa for the most essential drugs.

Re:Not Me

[Anonymous Coward]

1. It would be crazy to try to solve disease by creating research facilities in Africa, when there isn't the infrastructure or educational standard to support to work. Cures will develop much faster in developed nations.

Have you ever even met someone who has only so much as visited South Afrika? Yes theres poor people and rich people, just like the US.

I would find it a great plan to found a new company in South Afrika and ensure a philanthropic CEO sits there. (its a tough world there, most CEO's there are fighters)

Re:Not Me

[Blahah]

Yes, I worked in South Africa for a while and several of my researcher colleagues are from South Africa. Whilst they have it better than anyone else in Africa, the facilities at the best universities and the quality and impact of the research that leaves there is not on the same scale as in the USA, Canada, UK, other major EU powers, Japan, China, India. Similarly the quality of the education system in SA is generally below that of Europe, North America and Asia.

What you are suggesting, seeding a new philanthropic organisation in SA, sounds fine, but is nothing to do with the remit of the Gates Foundation.

Re:Not Me

[N1AK]

Not all of Africa is warlords and mud huts. Are you racist, or is this just typical ignorance?

Strawman troll is troll.

Re:Not Me

[Blahah]

This is getting silly - you didn't even read your own link.

It's about a successful vaccination programme, and the complaint is that the Gates Foundation invests in oil companies. Obviously if the Foundation wants to continue making money they have to grow their capital - to do that they invest. Oil companies are profitable, so they invest in them. Then they use the money to do good things. Exactly as outlined in that article.

It's getting a little tiresome having to keep contradicting you so other people don't see your nonsense and take it for truth.

Re:Not Me

[the eric conspiracy]

Manufacturing in Africa is never simple. There are huge issues.

- rule of law a new concept
- terrorism
- poor infrastructure
- lack of skilled workers
- wars
- potential nationalization
- currency instability
- no financial infrastructure
- crime
- famine

Re:Not Me

[drinkypoo]

It's about a successful vaccination programme, and the complaint is that the Gates Foundation invests in oil companies.

Reading comprehension fail. It's a complaint that one of the oil companies they invested in is putting out pollution that is killing the people they're vaccinating, which is precisely what I asserted above.

It's getting a little tiresome having to keep contradicting you so other people don't see your nonsense and take it for truth.

Your inability to read English is more than a little tiresome, especially since you keep running your mouth (hands) without any basis for what you're saying.

Re:Not Me

[Anonymous Coward]

Locality hasn't been an issue in the R&D worl in decades. Nothing is more than hours away from it's source in the advent of the jet and helicopter age. Yes, it adds a bit of expense to transport the stuff around and setup field trials in remote locations, but that is dwarfed by orders of magnitude by the expense of setting up a whole R&D facility in a remote location.

As for setting up drug manufactureing facilities, even the most trivial of chemical production facilities that are required to produce chemicals with the purities required in most drug manufacture cases require a LOT of support infrastructure, large facilities, reliable utilities, high quality raw materials and a highly educated and trained workforce. When you're talking the volume of medication that we're dealing with here, this is a VERY big undertaking that could be handled by few cities in Africa.

I'm still amazed at the flames flying over the BMGF keeping the development and production work in the US when it is a US foundation that's also interested in keeping US workers employed and having the money reinvested in the US economy. It's not like the US economy is in any great state right now either. With all the griping and complaining I see on here in other threads over jobs not being available and unemployment on the rise, the hypocrisy here is astounding. Granted, I don't know the nationality of many of the posters so I have to wonder...

Re:Not Me

[drinkypoo]

Strawman troll is troll.

Trolling is when you say something you don't believe in order to get a desired response. But when someone claims that "Africa" doesn't have the education or resources to support a research facility they are full of fucking shit. Not only are there places where they can be put, but African nations have access to the same tactic that the USA uses to secure scientific talent; they can hire scientists from other nations. The assertion that you couldn't have such a facility anywhere in Africa is absurdly ridiculous and anyone who would make it is either ignorant or pushing a bullshit agenda.

Re:Not Me

[digitalsolo]

Just curious; which significant sections of humanity revile Mr. Bill exactly? The anti-Windows nerd population is not significant in size, and I'm pretty sure if I ask my Grandma, she'd only ever have heard of him as a "computer guy" and philanthropist.

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a bad hatchet-job.

For example, it demonizes the Gates Foundation for having some partnerships with Monsanto. Without discussing the details of the actual partnership, and the expected status quo, and the change the partnership creates.

It effectively creates a vast conspiracy of things the author doesn't like. And then blames them on the Gates foundation, because it does some things they don't like. Like their portfolio is in a double-blind trust that can own stock in evil corporations like coca-cola. Which is a fair criticism, buried in the middle of a paragraph halfway down the page. There is some content in here, but it's either buried or so biased that it is like listening to Noam Chomsky.

And it mentions leverage like it's a dirty word.

The quality of slashdot is really going downhill when this kind of thing makes it onto the page.

Re:WTF?

[drinkypoo]

For example, it demonizes the Gates Foundation for having some partnerships with Monsanto. Without discussing the details of the actual partnership, and the expected status quo, and the change the partnership creates.

Has Monsanto ever done anything that isn't evil? To me, doing business with Monsanto is like doing business with the Third Reich. And no, I'm not fucking afraid to invoke Godwin, this is one of those times when it is well-justified as everything Monsanto does or sells is harmful to the biosphere, to humans, to economies.

Re:WTF?

[sam_handelman]

You're accusing her of doing a hatchet job, but you're clearly not reading any of the links, which discuss the details of the partnerships extensively.

  Your accusation - that she has a "conspiracy theory" *is* a hatchet job. What makes it a conspiracy theory? None of this is particularly secret; these people don't all have to be in the room at once, plotting. The accusation is that the Gates foundation's supposed charity does significant harm, based on an ideological commitment to corporatism, and she's assembled scads of material to document that assertion.

  If you can't see anything but paranoia, that's something that you're reading into it, not a criticism of the substance; which, again, you appear not to have even read.

  The way that the trust is organized doesn't protect from conflict of interest; and that's a concern. But the real issue is the awful things they enduce other charitable actors to do with other-people's-money.

Re:WTF?

[DigiShaman]

Dealing with Monsanto is like dealing with the devil. Sure, they will improve your crop yield and provide a more consistent quality throughout each harvest. But, it comes at a cost with a binding contract. It's a classic case of taking one step forward, many steps back. But in the case of absolute starvation, sometimes the devil is the savior. Relatively speaking that is.

Sometimes you have to make a choice between "bad" and "worse".

Re:WTF?

[the eric conspiracy]

RIGHT NOW 2 billion people are alive because of the Green Revolution. Population continues to grow. There are only a few choices; deforest the planet or mass famine or improve agricultural technology.

Re:WTF?

[drinkypoo]

RIGHT NOW 2 billion people are alive because of the Green Revolution.

[citation needed] -- there is no evidence that the Green Revolution fed ANYONE who would otherwise have starved, and meanwhile, it is DESTROYING topsoil rapidly. If you would like the Americas to look like Africa, by all means, support the Green Revolution.

Re:WTF?

[Blahah]

Your logic is fallacious. If the crop yield is higher and more consistent, the farmers willingly enter into a contract because it benefits them. All businesses make contracts with their clients. How is it worse when Monsanto do it? It's a classic case of taking two steps forward.

Re:WTF?

[Wovel]

It was a hatchet job.maybe it just appears that way to those of us who read the summary here first. We were told to expect investigative journalism. We read a heavily biased opinion piece. Very little facts. I read the whole thing. There is no substance. I am not sure if you are being deliberately obtuse or have a similar axe to grind.

Where is the investigation? Where is the journalism? The author read some news articles and a couple of opinion pieces on-line and wrote an extremely slanted summary. Who did she talk to? What was uncovered?

The EdWeek readers want Bill to take a hit for supporting teacher testing. Why don't they stick to a topic that fits into their magazines core competency.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

"For example, it demonizes the Gates Foundation for having some partnerships with Monsanto. Without discussing the details of the actual partnership..."

Ah, but those details are discussed:
"suppress local seed exchanges and environmentally sustainable agricultural practices"

Re:WTF?

[the eric conspiracy]

That's absolute poppycock.

And as a citiation I refer you to the history behind Normal Borlaug's Nobel Peace Prize or the books:

Hesser, Leon. The Man Who Fed the World: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug and His Battle to End World Hunger.

Cullather, Nick. The Hungry World: America's Cold War Battle against Poverty in Asia. Harvard University Press.

Re:WTF?

[drinkypoo]

And as a citiation I refer you to the history behind Normal Borlaug's Nobel Peace Prize

BAHAHAHAHAHA. And also BAHAHAHAHA. The Nobel Peace Prize means fuck-all... Kissinger? Obama? etc etc. That you would cite that as proof means I will never listen to you again because you clearly do not have critical thinking skills deserving of the name.

Re:WTF?

[bradleyjg]

You see these articles over and over again, because the non-profit industrial complex doesn't like the Gates Foundation. They resent the fact that the foundation doesn't pay sufficient obeisance to complex's people, myths and way of operating. They especially hate that the Gates Foundation doesn't have to fund-raise which most people in that sector simultaneously think is beneath them and spend most of their time doing.

Re:WTF?

[drinkypoo]

Just because I think there is an off chance that you can be helped, I will leave one more reply here. Go back to where Slashdot discussed Norman Borlaug's death. All the citations you need are in there. It is a fact that zero-tilth organic (And not "USDA Organic" either, which is total bullshit) farming produces more food per acre at a lower energy expenditure than "green revolution" farming. It is a fact that "green revolution" farming destroys topsoil and creates hardpan. And it is trivial to find out that these things are true. If you haven't already done the research, perhaps it would be a good idea to do that before you continue.

Re:WTF?

[the eric conspiracy]

Bullshit again.

Comprehensive reviews conducted by major universities show organic farming yields are 25% lower.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/26/world/organic-food-yield/index.html

Try that on a large scale and you will have a disaster like what the world has never seen.

Re:WTF?

[the eric conspiracy]

Nobel Prize may or may not mean anything, meat head.

I referred you to the HISTORY behind it, where the crop yields in Pakistan were doubled in two years, putting an end to recurring famines in the region.

Your IDIOTIC claim was that not one person was saved from starvation by the Green Revolution.

DISPROVEN.

Re:WTF?

[drinkypoo]

First you cite the Nobel Foundation as to who is great, now you cite CNN and expect them to give you an unbiased summary of a scientific paper. What is wrong with you?

Re:WTF?

[drinkypoo]

DISPROVEN.

Using capital letters hasn't proven anything. All it has proven is that if you can't pound on the facts that you will pound on the table.

Keep trying, me laddo. You'll succeed never.

Hard to see an Ulterior Motive

[Anonymous Coward]

Some rich people love to hoard money and fly economy class lecturing the world.

Some and presumably Gates is at the enough billions to live in luxury forever category don't seem to care whether they have 30 or 80 billion $ and splash money around? Yes I know it's all a tax evasion scheme linked to the illuminati but seriously if he'd kept the money I'm sure he'd have a lot more now.

But some twerp will find that a charity which spends billions of dollars on good causes has done a few bad things here and there and Gates obviously knows where every single penny goes and is personally responsible. Seriously, compared to most charities which are as corrupt and evil as hell Gates seems to be doing a decent job of spending money and getting practical results.

I get all my news from tribal college educators

[Anonymous Coward]

If the evil guys have all the goods, wouldn't it make sense to partner with them to leverage their experience? I'm not Monsanto's biggest fan but they have a huge amount of global resources that can possibly be used to make change that works. Also, perhaps the British educators referenced have a better handling on the school system that the equivalent Americans don't?

It seems a bit too much of a rant against making deals with the devil when Bill Gates has arguably done this all his life and is good at it.

No symphany (Sqore:200,000)::Insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

Very little, if any, of what the B0rg has done has benefitted the country that gave him his billions to work with.

CAPTCHA = intone

Re:No symphany (Sqore:200,000)::Insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

well certainly it did not benefit you, because you do not deserve shit, and in fact i hope you die of malaria in your bed, beggin the gates foundation for help

saving as many human lives possible

[Prof.Phreak]

Eh, nice try. Consider ``saving as many human lives possible'' being pretty much the only goal, and all starts to fall into place. It's not about making folks happy, or not leveraging, it's about getting the most saved lives for your moneh, using whatever means [if it means using your moneh to get more moneh, good, if it means using your politics to get others to go along with you, good, etc.].

Heck, it's one of the few non-profits that does things by the numbers. Look around, see what you can do with your $$$ that saves the most lives: identify stuff like malaria, and HIV,... which one kills most folks? malaria. So HIV gets no attention, at least not while other things are much bigger killers.

Re:saving as many human lives possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it actually about publicity, and making Gates' name seem like more than "rich prick"?

Re:saving as many human lives possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Between two cancers, Lung and Breast, one kills twice as many women per year as the other. The one that kills the most is harder to detect early and affects an organ that you CAN NOT live without and have VERY SLIM prospects of being even somewhat replaceable. The second is easier to detect early, and affects a body part which is unneccessary for essential life function, and can be restored through plastic surgery that is at least moderately available to all. If your goal was to save the life of as many women as possible, which one would you spend your money on?

Malaria is curently the number one killer in Africa. It IS currently treatable as well as being largely preventable (or can have its transmissability sharply reduced by controling it's carriers). HIV currently has no cure and any cure developed today wouldn't be widely available for years no matter what. HIV can be completely contained by education and supplies, both in sanitary practices and reproductive health/ed. There are already a lot of other charities on the ground working on just that for HIV. Malaria is defeatable, it just requires a MASSIVE bankroll. The one the B&MGF happens to have...

Re:saving as many human lives possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, killing Malaria isn't nearly as dependent on people's cooperation as fighting HIV is. Getting men to not rape, or to wear condoms, getting prostitution under control - that's a lot harder.

and?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how no one from the "targetted" organization ever responds to these "hard-hitting invesrtigative journalism" pieces. Its just a lot of noise generated by folks who are always looking for the dark side of anything.
If someone finds a way to donate in the billions while: getting some personal advantage, cutting out a possible currupt middle-man, lending a hand to a buddy or a business partner...who gives a sh*t?

Billionaire businessman favours businesses. Gasp.

[jholyhead]

Their problem seems to be that Gates is focussed on building sustainable businesses that can survive after the charity taps get turned off. That bastard!

Doesn't he realise that he is just supposed to pump money into Africa and hope that amongst the missile launchers and the AK47s, someone manages to smuggle in some penicillin?

Are we supposed to be shocked that a man who made a huge fortune in the private sector, favours a private sector approach when he is trying to get shit done?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Language.

[bmo]

>Edweek, not ordinarily an unfriendly venue for Gates,

>not
>ordinarily
>unfriendly

Why. Why do you do this? Why give passive voice such a gigantic hug, kiss and grope up the skirt?

Do you mean ordinarily friendly, or usually friendly, or friendly with unfriendly articles being the exception? If so, say so. Remove extraneous logical operators and use active voice.

Your readers will thank you.

--
BMO

Re:Language.

[drinkypoo]

Readers who can't handle a double negative are not the desired audience for Slashdot. At least, I don't desire them around here. Too many of them already.

Re:Language.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there are more than two gradations to most descriptors. For example, 'not uncommon' does not mean 'common'. Despite the predictable 'no double negatives' admonition, the linguistic construct has a meaning which is independent of what you'd get by assuming that the negatives actually cancel each other out.

For example, there's a world of space between 'not unfriendly' and 'friendly'.

Re:No symphany (Sccre:-1, Troll)

[Anonymous Coward]

That's clever, what you did there with the subject

What's the point of this article?

[Toreo asesino]

To prove the Bill & Melinda Foundation isn't perfectly run? To suggest it's a sinister organisation perhaps?

There's no love for billg here that's for sure but poo-pooing his attempts (however imperfect) at doing good in the world is just petty.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Coeurderoy]

Nope it is the right thing to do, he stole the money, he should not have a say in how to give it back.
And it is a sinister organisation, it does pro microsoft marketing

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try actually reading the article, moron.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, founding a company that has sold the world's most popular OS and "office" software for the last 20+ years is just the same as stealing.

That money would be better off spend paying off 0.1% of the US national debt than in the hands of a rogue philanthropist.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Xuranova]

You not liking how he got his money is one thing, but saying he stole it is something else entirely and wrong. Grow up.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Coeurderoy]

It is not the world's most popular OS it is the one you "have" to use because of monopoly building tactics.
The Office suit might be the most popular, but even this is tainted by abusing the power on the OS market to illegally favor the application.
And that money would be better of being totally destroyed rather than in the hand of a guy who pretend to believe that monsanto is a friend of hungry people in emerging countries.
(just in case you are under the delusion that GMO are a misunderstood champion of the poor, learn from the fate of the 1000s of Indian farmers who commit suicide due to their working with monsanto, and think about how usefull "industrial agriculture" can be when it is imposed on a population where at least 40% of the population cannot do something more sophisticated than small traditional agriculture, it took the "emerged world" 60 years to move from around 50% to 2 or 3% of the population in the "fields", if you want to do the same i one generation you can just as "humanely" shoot the poor b***ds directly.)

And gates is not a roge philantropist but a 100% corporate america white collar criminal pushing a conservative agenda with some "democrat" colloring.

(well democrats are just somewhat less obviously right wing radicals than republicans...)

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Toreo asesino]

So let me get this right; he should stop doing anything humanitarian, saving & improving some of the most impoverished lives on the planet with his own money because Microsoft have a less than perfect business ethics record?

I'm glad to see you have your priorities straight.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Coeurderoy]

Well how would you caracterize what he did ? He took peoples money (in very large quantities) using illegal means (for wich in some case he even got a small "slap on the hand", like the EU fine microsoft will eventually have to pay sometimes (even if it looks large it is minimal in comparision to the dammage).
So I'm all in favor of growing up, but unless you believe that conning people should not be classified as stealing, you're wrong.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Coeurderoy]

He should first pay his taxes, then since probably giving back the money is to hard to manage at least start to work ethically.
And he is not doing anything humanitarian, he is pretending to do humanitarian things in order to make nice photo ops, and whitewash his political donations in emerging contries and leverage these donation into political clout that helps his investors.
He is running a corporation that is dealing in influence, not a charity.
The only lives he improves are his own and the ones of the employees of the fundation, and flettingly the people who are to be shown on photo near him (or her) are prepped up before, so if they're lucky at least that day they'll get some extra food.

You are naive...

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't steal it. He made a product and crushed his competition. You had the choice to buy Microsoft stuff or not buy it, nobody came in and stole the money from your wallet or bank account.

According to your logic Apple is stealing everyone's money, since you can't buy and run osx without bundling their overpriced hardware. Then we're left with only Linux really. Of course we're still being "stolen from" by either intel or amd since there's no other real options for processors...

Give me a break.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Toreo asesino]

Citation needed.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation needed on everything you accuse him. He competed in a un-free market, that ended up with nosy governments suing his company for being better in the competition than any other. He made agreements with OEMs? OMG I must sue the local supermarket for the agreements they have with retailers.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Coeurderoy]

well you probably would if you would know what kind of agreements thay have, how concentrated the distribution of basic food stuf became in the past 30 years.
If you'd recognize how much you pay and how lower than acceptable the quality of many supermarket products are.

Back to gates, he got lucky with IBM hot taking the PC market as seriously as their clients, and corporation at that time did believe that IBM was the best since they did use the same kind of monopolistics methods for their mainframe just one generation earlier.
Nobody can really deny him this first step, he was lucky but most commercial success starts that way.
What he did then was:
force the OEMs to use Microsoft "everywhere" or "not at all" on their computers, this is abuse of dominant position.
He then used the control he had on his OS to push successful software vendors out of his market by providing a strong integrations for his competing products and giving uncertain APIs to its major "strategic partners" successfully poinsonning their offering.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Coeurderoy]

Nope, in most case I have to buy microsoft stuff wether I want it or not because:
- the PC I need for my work is not offered without Microsoft OS (and not because I'm picky, but just because the few existing options are not really avaiable where I am, and in most case do pay the microsoft tax but hide it under the table)
- Some government agency or similar insist on stuf that are depending on some other stuff that does not use an open format and forces me to have at least a Microsoft partition.

About Apple the issue is not the mac and OSX, indeed I can and do avoid these products...
iTunes is much more suspect, but concidering the global mess the audio/video industry is anyway... and the growth of DRM free content for sales or "loan" (streaming would qualify as loan since you are not supposed to keep it after use).... it is not quite as bad.

You could also criticize Intel for domineering, but at least you have at least one option (AMD), and if the netbook "craze" stopped it was in large part due to the fact that Intel refused to sell ATOM based machinesif you did not "fit" in their precise niche (and even more so ATOM + Nvidia ION) .

So do not ask me to give you a break, you should ask them... they are robing you, but in nice "lumpen proletariat" mode you prefer your "predators" to people who point out issues to you...

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Toreo asesino]

No difference at all, right, the two are completely comparable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Saint_Valentine.27s_Day_Massacre

You've pretty much demonstrated why I rarely bother even taking up this subject anymore. Simular thing with republicans when they start comparing democrats to nazis - it blows any chance of reasonable debate out of the water and there's just no point continuing.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Tom]

No, the point is to show that a leopard doesn't change its spots. Gates is still the abusive business man, even when he switches sectors from IT to philantropy. This isn't even news, many reports like this have been appearing for many years now. But they are rarely reported in any mainstream press. Gates is doing an excellent job controlling his public image these days (don't for a second think that someone of his wealth does not employ a small PR staff).

Basically, the gist is that he uses the foundation money to buy exclusively from companies that he is a shareholder of. Since the foundation is so huge, and he has convinced many others to contribute, so that in many areas his foundation enjoys a monopoly - oh, look, that word again - he can control some of the markets involved, and he does it. And not necessarily to the advantage of the poor and sick.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not the world's most popular OS it is the one you "have" to use because of monopoly building tactics.

what fantasy world do you live in that a company can just become a monopoly overnight? oh.. i get it.. you're one of those trolls that think ibm "gifted" them the monopoly? no? are you some other kind of troll? please tell us what category of troll you are.

The Office suit might be the most popular, but even this is tainted by abusing the power on the OS market to illegally favor the application.

lol.. there is *nothing* in the OS that favours office. Apart from conspiracy theories and fake "explanations" about "secret apis" and what not, no sane programmer believes that the code that office executes is treated any differently than any other code.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you're an idiot.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[hoppo]

Nope, in most case I have to buy microsoft stuff wether I want it or not because:
- the PC I need for my work is not offered without Microsoft OS (and not because I'm picky, but just because the few existing options are not really avaiable where I am, and in most case do pay the microsoft tax but hide it under the table)
- Some government agency or similar insist on stuf that are depending on some other stuff that does not use an open format and forces me to have at least a Microsoft partition.

Neither of these is really Microsoft's problem. First and foremost, it's dishonest to claim that you can't get a non-Windows PC. There are plenty of viable buying options just a Google search away. If your organization will not certify such hardware, then that problem rests squarely on your organization. As to your latter point, that is based on the decisions of the customer involved. The only thing you can hold against Microsoft is that they're *really good* at selling into the government.

Re:What's the point of this article?

[Coeurderoy]

Really,
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20111018190335196

"We may change those interfaces (or at least their GUID) after M7 to intentionally break those apps (please let me know if you are using those mechanisms internally)."

And no IBM didn't "gift" them the monopoly it was an accident...

Still a tax shelter no matter HOW you cut it

[Anonymous Coward]

http://edsopinion.com/tag/bill-and-melinda-gates-charitable-foundation/

PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT:

"The foundation exists to provide tax shelter for about half of his fortune and the Foundation is designed to change Gates image from a ruthless businessman to a compassionate Humanitarian. "

---

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_shelter

PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT(s):

"Tax shelters are any method of reducing taxable income resulting in a reduction of the payments to tax collecting entities"

---

http://taxshelteradvisorsllc.com/foundation.php

PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT:

" The charitable foundations that we work with gives you not only a tax deduction, but also, through reinsurance, the foundation provides payments for a desired numbers of years and a desired number of deferred years, if wanted."

---

* Lots more of that is here, take a read -> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22foundation%22+and+%22tax+shelter%22&btnG=Search&sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&site=&gbv=1

APK

P.S.=> And, there you go... & again/once more - I don't blame the man for doing it, it's basically the same as what you go thru when you do your taxes (you're offered all sorts of investments that yield tax breaks)... apk

To borrow a line from Bill Cosby

[RevWaldo]

The young people love Bill Gates, but we keep telling them this is NOT the same Bill Gates we grew up with! This is an old Bill Gates whose trying to get into heaven now.

.

Re:To borrow a line from Bill Cosby

[MickyTheIdiot]

In the 90s there was a web site that calculated the amount of money the Gates was worth (based on best available knowledge of stock holdings... an estimate) and kept track of his charity donations per year. The result was that he gave less by percentage to charity than your average single mom on food stamps.

I always felt that the Gates Foundation was partially a result of the fact that people realized the level of giving. Some amount of charity is considered imperative when you get to that level.

Of course that doesn't negate any good that it does... however what I do have problems with some of the details. No one is going to agree with someone else's SOP in toto anyway...

Re:To borrow a line from Bill Cosby

[Coeurderoy]

s/young people/young (and old) idiots/ : here I fixed your typo

Re:To borrow a line from Bill Cosby

[Anonymous Coward]

This is fun, because as far as I know, Bill Gates is a ** atheist and don't believe in heaven.

Re:To borrow a line from Bill Cosby

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the difficulties in using a net worth like that is that it's not all that liquid. Yes, Bill Gates might have eleventy billion dollars worth of Microsoft stock, but it's not really the same thing as gold coins in a vault. When he was an insider, there were significant restrictions on how he could sell. Even if there weren't such restrictions, the market would assume that a massive sell-off by Gates was a signal of a systemic problem and the price would plummet.

This is not to say that I think the percentage works out all that much better if you compare his giving to his liquid assets.

Like all the great Robber Barons

[pubwvj]

Bill Gates is following in the footsteps of Rockerfeller and other great robber barons. They earned their money doing great evil and destroying people's lives. Then they try to rebuy their soul and public name by doing 'good' later in life but it is all selfish.

Call it the "Sandusky strategy"

[wcrowe]

Gates is a prominent example, but perhaps it is not fair to single him out. This is widely practiced among wealthy "philanthropists". Rarely is money given without some profit motive or strings attached. The ultimate example might be Jerry Sandusky's use of philanthropy to provide himself with a steady stream of boys to butt-bang.

What a sham

[sl4shd0rk]

FTFA:
"chemical giant Monsanto has partnered with the Gates Foundation, which works to suppress local seed exchanges and environmentally sustainable agricultural practices"

"Gates Foundation has increasingly shifted its funding to promote market domination by its British corporate education services partner, Pearson Education."

"owns a profit-generating portfolio of stocks which would seem to work against the Foundation's declared missions, such as the Latin American Coca-Cola FEMSA distributorship and five multinational oil giants operating in Nigeria. "

Once a crook, always a crook I guess. Fuck you Bill.

charity != outsourced marketing or ?

[Coeurderoy]

http://www.deathhousebarber.com/images/jr-647-copy-2.jpg (another fine example of philantropy, al capone's soup kitchen)

Gates is using his fundation to:
=> Remove cash from his taxable income
=> provide a cushy long term job & tax free playground for his descendent
=> invest in feel good actions to boost his cash cow's marketing drive.

Moreover if I steal your money, or con you out by putting you in a situation where I have a monopoly on something you need it's a crime.
The fact that I might or might not give it to somebody else does not make it less of a crime, particularly if I cannot claim to be some "robin hood" equalizer if I prefer to steal from the weak and uneducated.

What is surprising is not that his philanthropic record is criticized, but that there are people who are not raving maniacs or subnormal idiots who didn't realize this earlier.

In practice churches and philantropic activities should be subjected to a flat rate tax at the highest corporate taxation level.

Re:charity != outsourced marketing or ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for demonstrating left-wing thought.

At the same time, you scare me shitless.

Re:charity != outsourced marketing or ?

[Coeurderoy]

You are right to be scared, but I'm not sure that you do recognize your enemies...

Re:charity != outsourced marketing or ?

[cffrost]

http://www.deathhousebarber.com/images/jr-647-copy-2.jpg (another fine example of philantropy, al capone's soup kitchen)

One difference is that Al Capone sold a product that people enjoy using.

Yes, he did (MIT)

[Anonymous Coward]

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1999/gates1-0414.html

PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT:

"The William H. Gates Foundation has donated $20 million for construction of a building that will become the new home for MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS), President Charles M. Vest announced today."

---

* Had to post that "for posterities' sake" & to "back my words" above... Slashdot's made me "big on that", because just stating facts here without the 'fabled':

[citation]

?

Opens the door to "nitpickers"... & I won't have that.

APK

P.S.=> Again & ABOVE ALL ELSE here - A man's STILL FREE to manage his monies as he sees fit and he's fighting disease, helping education & more doing so - there you are!

ADDITIONALLY:

What Mr. Gates is doing is better than letting "gov't. bureaucracy" make it possible for (what bothers me MOST)

Think THAT doesn't go on? Wake the hell up!

The rest of what's being done by "King Billy's" seen easily on the "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" website here -> http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx and, it's certainly NOT "EVIL"... not anymore than you doing YOUR taxes & electing tax breaks where possible!

... apk

Excuse me for defying the Monsanto-bashing

[crazyjj]

I know it's all the rage to bash Monsanto as the big, evil corporation that causes all the misery in the world. But I feel obligated to point out that it's the research work that companies like Monsanto and ADM do that have given us the crop yields to support 7 billion people on a planet where most people aren't even farmers anymore. Do you really think we could sustain this planet as it is with a bunch of organic backyard gardens and fields of non-GM crops?

So unless a significant portion of the population is willing to commit suicide and another large portion willing to go back to being semi-starving sustenance farmers, we kind of need that evil Monsanto and its ilk.

In a similar vein, sure it's easy to bash big pharma too. But would you rather go back to life before the vaccines that have eradicated childhood diseases that used to kill millions each year? It's easy to talk big when you don't have to watch your child die of whooping cough, of course.

Re:Excuse me for defying the Monsanto-bashing

[ddocjohn]

I suppose your idea that "the past sucked more" is a good enough reason to ignore that we can do better. In the future, the past had better continue to have sucked.

Yeah, so we need big, high tech corporations to feed us and keep us alive. Do they have to be corrupt?

Re:Excuse me for defying the Monsanto-bashing

[ColdWetDog]

Hmm....

Let's let Monsanto go for a bit - I would just point out that few things are purely good or evil, the world is much more complicated.

However, the vaccine business is clearly not a win for the 'free market'. The early vaccines were not developed by drug companies, they were developed by universities. Even the measles vaccine which was in part developed by the person who started Merck was employed in a government funded lab.

Vaccines make so little money and are so hard to produce that the US government had to write special legislation to entice Big Pharma into making them. That legislation shows just what a mess things are in the US at present. But I think it is quite reasonable to rage at Big Pharma while simultaneously trying to get them to behave in a socially responsible manner.

And the Gates Foundation is an example of this. They certainly do some good, but their structure is really set up to benefit large Western organizations, some governmental, some non governmental. Read up on the machinations of the International Monetary Fund some time. Take some generic anti nausea medication first.

Re:Excuse me for defying the Monsanto-bashing

[spire3661]

The ends DO NOT justify their means. Patenting life and then suing when it spreads is unambiguously EVIL.

Re:Excuse me for defying the Monsanto-bashing

[crazyjj]

That's noble. So I presume you're going to volunteer to commit suicide for a sustainable planet, then? We'll build you guys a memorial.

Re:Excuse me for defying the Monsanto-bashing

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that the government could remove all patents and destroy big phrma, and big whatever, over night. All you, and seventy million other voters have to do is vote for the right people. Hope and Change. Well, maybe next time.

Mr. Gates "evil" vs. REAL EVIL, inside... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

What Mr. Gates is doing is better than letting "gov't. bureaucracy" make it possible for (what bothers me MOST) to let women have 10 kids by 10 diff. fathers to make WELFARE PAYCHECKS OUT OF THE KIDS!

* Think THAT doesn't go on? If not?? Then," wake the hell up!" - you're either in "lala land", or you have been fortunate enough to NOT have seen it, or be a victim of it yourself (the kid involved).

(Better Mr. Gates do what HE does, than contribute to a MASSIVE EVIL, & that's what I noted above...)

APK

P.S.=> Now THAT's evil... creating fatherless bastards for a paycheck - WTF!

... apk

Really?

[Kupfernigk]

I thought that it was established that GM crops merely lock farmers into a dependency cycle where they have to pay Monsanto every year, while the food revolution was created by, mostly, Government and academic researchers. As for vaccines, it has been argued by academics in loony left-wing rags like Scientific American that Big Pharma doesn't want them to succeed because it means that the future revenue is nonexistent. The smallpox vaccine, the rabies vaccine and the poliomyelitis vaccine were all developed by small teams.

Meanwhile Big Pharma has let farmers stuff farm animals with antibiotics until resistant bacteria (including old killers like tuberculosis) are a major health problem, while failing to develop new antibiotics. I, like many older people, depend on a couple of drugs to remain healthy and reasonably comfortable, but I believe that the drug industry needs supervision and regulation, just like the banks.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that it was established that GM crops merely lock farmers into a dependency cycle where they have to pay Monsanto every year, while the food revolution was created by, mostly, Government and academic researchers.

Somewhat. It is two fold in this case as there are contracts & royalties and hybrid instability. In the first issue, Monsanto doesn't lock you in, they just demand that you pay a fee if you continue to use the seed, as saving the seed is seen as reproducing a patented item, similar to how burning a DVD is seen as reproducing it. In some places however farmers don't always do that though, like in India where farmers took some seed from a Monsanto trial plot and have been cultivating it ever since.

n the second issue, hybrid instability, if you save hybrid seed (all of Monsanto's GE seed is hybrid, but not all hybrid seed is GE, and just because something is GE does not necessarily mean it is a hybrid) you end up with second generation seed with inferior quality. The Green Revolution was built on high yielding hybrids.

Farmers anywhere can stop using Monsanto's seed at anytime they please, however, many prefer it for a reason. People act as if it is so terrible that farmers get benefit by buying something from a corporation. I see that as everybody winning. Note that there are claims of an inability to switch if local land races and varieties become unavailable. I don't know how much evidence there is that it happens, but it may be a possibility, ad is why even in the presence of superior modern lines older varieties should be conserved.

TED talk

[Bobke]

One would think, after seeing Bill Gates' TED talk, he would be spending his money in projects that would ultimately help to ... kill most of us.. no kidding. He blatantly said so. http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html 3:57 - 4:50

So like I was absent for 10 years and..

[davydagger]

So I didn't have a slashdot account since like 1999 and we get

"The common perception among Slashdotters is that while Bill Gates may cause us some professional difficulties, he makes up for it with an exemplary philanthropic record."

is this really true, say it aint' so. But I've seen the MS brownshirts on slashdot. on IRC channels dedicated to hackerts, etc....

back in the day being a geek almost exclusively mean being free/open source friendly from one angle or another, what happened?

No.

[Kupfernigk]

My wife has been financial adviser to several charities and has seen at first hand how the failure to run them like a business wastes the money donated. If people give money to a charity and then find it is being used to give bonuses to executives, pursue goals incompatible with the objects of the charity, or engage in expensive window-dressing, they are rightly upset. A charity should be run like a business to the extent that the overheads should be minimised versus the spend on the object. You are, if I may say so, failing to consider the difference in interests between the donors and the people who actually spend the money.

Re:No.

[Carewolf]

Spending all the income on bonuses to the executives and window dressing, sounds in every way exacly like running it as a business. Running it as a business is what they should move away from, which is why charities dominated by volunteers are so much more efficient.

Gates has always been a greedy thug

[Anonymous Coward]

Gates has always been a greedy thug so why would you expect him top change now? The Gates foundation is the physical manifestation of well documented crooked business practices. Now he's doing what he can to destroy public education because freedumz!

I kinda like MS, but I lost all respect for Bill G

[Anonymous Coward]

I lost all respect for Bill Gates when he started recommending that baby boys get circumcised. It's amazing the lack of critical thinking in Americans that causes them to continue practicing this barbaric procedure.

Public television is no better

[justthinkit]

PBS started out sponsor-free and is now sponsor-infested. You are watching some show and suddenly everything grinds to a halt and a seemingly endless stream of overly-happy people start annoying you. What is worse is that they do this for an unknown amount of time -- I just switch the channel and don't switch back.

.
Still, given the general tone of what they are saying, you assume (and they are counting on this) when you look into the sponsors of PBS that they will turn out to be honorable entities. Well, it turns out that the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, for one, is one of the great scams of all time -- check out the book about HH's life (I don't remember which one it was that I listened to on Audible.com 15 years ago, sorry). HHMI is the Monsanto of medical "foundations".

I call this sort of thing the "got milk" scam. Something that seems reasonable that absolutely everyone is bombarded with turns out to be Class A stupid. Happy rich celebrities with milk mustaches are quite a long way from the reality of milk.

Social change = as hard as software, but angrier

[metrometro]

Critical analysis from outsiders is a great thing for a foundation, and they don't get enough of it, because most of the people best able to criticize are also lining up for funding.

That said: this shouldn't make you feel bad about Gates as a person. The Gates Foundation has moved (relatively) fast, been (relatively) willing to make unpopular decisions and has been (relatively) willing to risk high profile failure. This is all pretty normal in the tech world, and completely atypical in the philanthropic world.

The limbic "OMG they aren't perfect on the first try" response serves to make foundations progressively more risk averse and slow to act. Less of that please.

1st - whose money is it? Yours, or Mr. Gates??

[Anonymous Coward]

Answer the question & this made me laugh most:

"Except that I don't claim I'm saving third world people by putting money in my IRA." - by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 05, @10:10AM (#40551067)

No, you're just BENEFITTING YOURSELF instead, right? "Boy, are you selfish & evil"...

* That said - Who's being 'selfish' here, yourself, Mr. Gates, etc./et al... & does that make YOU "evil"?

I'd say no - & thus, I'd also have to say Mr. Gates isn't evil either then!

APK

P.S.=> The bottom line here is VERY simple: It's Mr. Gates' money, he can do what he sees fit with it, no questions asked. Those monies, tax shelter or not, are helping education, helping fight diseases & more... some "evil", lol!

... apk

Exactly what I expected

[Rostin]

Ideological whingeing that Bill Gates has found a way to make helping people beneficial to corporations and the wealthy (whom we hate because 99%1%GINI COEFFICIENT PROFIT-MOTIVE WHARRGARBL) instead of just hoping that they would do it out of the kindness of their hearts.

Wake me up when there's evidence that Bill Gates' approach is actually less successful at helping the people it's supposed to help than some other proposed alternative, and that he knows it but doesn't care because he's just a money-grubbing bastard.

Re:Exactly what I expected

[frank_adrian314159]

whom we hate because 99%1%GINI COEFFICIENT PROFIT-MOTIVE WHARRGARBL

Nice way to dismiss the real problem of heinously inequitable wealth distribution in our country. But I guess it's OK because the magical free market will sort it all out, right? And because the wealthy can do no wrong, as long as they hand out their meager crumbs.

Re:Exactly what I expected

[Rostin]

What, in your opinion, is the "real problem"?

Exactly 4 years ago...

[nherm]

We had a discussion which I think can be relevant to this story.

Axe to grind?

[Wovel]

The edweek series is merely a response to Gates advocating teacher testing in public schools, They should at least mention it in their articles. The summary here sure should have figured it out. While I understand the author's feelings don't necessarily invalidate her argument, not disclosing them adds to the picture. The way the piece takes the worst possible spin on every thing the foundation has done is another clue.

Note to slashdot: This is not investigative journalism....

Whose money IS it being used?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Gates, right? Who are you, myself, OR ANYONE to tell him how to manage it??

* That's the TRUE "bottom-line" here when you come down to 'brass tacks'...

APK

P.S.=> What I also know is that the monies are being put to education, fighting diseases, & more... & HE directs that, nobody else (& it's certainly better than allowing a TRUE EVIL I've seen where bogus women have 10 kids by 10 diff. fathers turning the kids into paychecks - & the gov't. ALLOWS IT - put those wenches on BIRTH CONTROL why don't they? Oh no, that's "stop the machine" cold on BOTH ends (the woman and the system))... apk

Re:Whose money IS it being used?

[SuperAlgae]

Bill Gates welcomes you to his New World Order.

Seriously though, this is not just Bill Gate's money. It is other people's donations (to other charities) too. If Gates pushes for a project that costs a billion dollars and his foundation funds $700 million of it, then where does the other $300 million come from? That's other people's money. Of course, this is a simplified example. In reality, the way he influences the investment of world-wide government and charitable funds is much more subtle and varied. I'm not saying he does not do good. My point is that if he is not kept in check, then the harm could greatly outweigh the benefit. Look at the examples in the article.

Re:Whose money IS it being used?

[Captain Hook]

Jesus you format your answers poorly, I've given up reading everyone of your posts.

FUD

[sideslash]

Maybe Gates deserves this in a (pop culture) karmic sense, but taken by themselves, these criticisms of his philanthropy are just about as absurd as Microsof't FUD about Linux.

Re:FUD

[thetoadwarrior]

butt hurt fanboy is butt hurt.

Re:All charity ends - To What End?

[trout007]

The question that I always ask myself when dealing with charities is what is the end goal?

There are certain causes that are temporary. A storm or natural disaster struck an area and they need help to recover. I see that as worthy since the people already had a certain standard of living they achieved and you are helping them to restore it.

But does it really help truly primitive cultures to introduce modern medicine? I don't think so. Their culture has only advanced to support a certain population density. Disease and death are natural results of their culture. Saving lives due to illness does nothing to improve their ability to sustain this population and makes it worse. The aid in these cases should solely be voluntary education programs to improve their culture.

Common perception?

[QuietLagoon]

The common perception among Slashdotters is that while Bill Gates may cause us some professional difficulties, he makes up for it with an exemplary philanthropic record.

That may be the perception of some (especially those who are paid to monitor various discussion boards and rebut any negative comments about Mr. Gates), but I'd be reluctant to say it was a common perception.

imo, Microsoft, under Mr. Gates' direction, raped an industry and its customers, directing excessive profits into his own coffers. And now he is trying to rewrite history so that he is portrayed in a better light by using that stolen money for philanthropic purposes. It does not appear to be working.

Re:Billionaire businessman favours businesses. Gas

[Anonymous Coward]

"Their problem seems to be that Gates is focussed on building sustainable businesses that can survive after the charity taps get turned off."

Yes, that's absolutely right. Monsanto, GlaxoSmithKline, and Coca-Cola just need a little more help from the Gates Foundation before they can really get up on their feet. Please, won't you find it your heart to give. Who will think of the corporations?

You completely missed the point of the post. The Gates Foundation is giving money with strings attached. Those strings are that the money they give (and other money coming from other aid programs or governments themselves) has to be used to invest in solutions that are "private sector". And that private sector just so happens to be huge, international corporations that are affiliated with the Gates Foundation either through a partnership or through the Gates Foundation owning stock in those companies. So the Gates Foundation donates a relatively small amount of money and then makes a return from continued donations from a company that benefitted from the donation or through stocks in a company that benefitted because of the donation.

I never thought BG made up for any of his evil

[gweihir]

Even if his charities were genuine (which they are only to a very limited degree, as anybody really looking could see early on), how massive counter-innovative work, his arrogance and incompetence pushed on countless people (I will never, ever, understand how Office users put up with this much pain) is staggering. One lifetime is not enough to make up for so much evil, even if he tried really hard. BG is scum did incredible damage without any redeeming qualities in his professional work.

Re:Billionaire businessman favours businesses. Gas

[Anonymous Coward]

"Their problem seems to be that Gates is focussed on building sustainable businesses that can survive after the charity taps get turned off."

Reading TFA leads to a different conclusion.

Shareholders, shareholders, bla bla bla. Fuck'em.

[HornWumpus]

Good mission statement. Let us know how your IPO makes out.

really?

[Surt]

Is that really a common perception? I mean, the guy does hundreds of billions of dollars of damage to the computer industry, costs who knows how many lives, and the few billion he gives to charity makes it all better?

It's his money, isn't it?

[argStyopa]

Why I hate the Left, lesson 123: No matter what you do, you get complaints. If you do some good, it's not according to THEIR methods, or it's not good enough.

Re:It's his money, isn't it?

[ThatsMyNick]

He wishes its his money, but it is the foundation's money. He only manages it. There are plenty of wealthy people and small organizations (some of which I have donate to) that donate to his foundation. So, yeah, it is not his money.

Re:It's his money, isn't it?

[ThatsMyNick]

Even if it was his money, I have the right to criticize him for using it for evil, rather than good. Note I said criticize, and not outlaw using money for evil or anything. Just criticize (freedom of speech).

A closer look.

[westlake]

The smallpox vaccine, the rabies vaccine and the poliomyelitis vaccine were all developed by small teams

Smallpox:

Edward Jenner. 1796.

Now tell me how you build a large medical research team under eighteenth century conditions and no clearly defined germ theory of disease.

Leslie Collier developed a freeze-drying method to produce a more heat stable smallpox vaccine in the late 1940s. Collier added a key component, peptone, a soluble protein, to the process. This protected the virus, enabling the production of a heat-stable vaccine in powdered form. Previously, smallpox vaccines would become ineffective after 1---2 days at ambient temperature.
The development of his vaccine production method played a large role in enabling the World Health Organization to initiate its global smallpox eradication campaign in 1967.

Smallpox vaccine

150 years of work before the vaccine exists in a form that will make possible the global eradication of the disease.

Rabies:

Louis Pasteur and Emile Roux. 1885.

But that is again only the beginning of the story.

The human diploid cell rabies vaccine (H.D.C.V.) was started in 1967. Human diploid cell rabies vaccines are made using the attenuated Pitman-Moore L503 strain of the virus. Human diploid cell rabies vaccines have been given to more than 1.5 million people as of 2006.

Aside from vaccinating humans, another approach was also developed by vaccinating dogs to prevent the spread of the virus. In 1979 the Van Houweling Research Laboratory of the Silliman University Medical Center in the Philippines developed and produced a dog vaccine that gave a three-year immunity from rabies.

In 1984 researchers at the Wistar Institute developed a recombinant vaccine called V-RG by inserting the glycoprotein gene from rabies into a vaccinia virus. The V-RG vaccine has since been commercialised by Merial under the trademark Raboral. It is harmless to humans and has been shown to be safe for various species of animals that might accidentally encounter it in the wild, including birds (gulls, hawks, and owls).

V-RG has been successfully used in the field in Belgium, France, Germany and the United States to prevent outbreaks of rabies in wildlife. The vaccine is stable under relatively high temperatures and can be delivered orally, making mass vaccination of wildlife possible by putting it in baits.

Rabies vaccine

Polio vaccine

Jonas Salk. 1952.

In 1952 and 1953, the U.S. experienced an outbreak of 58,000 and 35,000 polio cases, respectively, up from a typical number of some 20,000 a year. Amid this U.S. polio epidemic, millions of dollars were invested in finding and marketing a polio vaccine by commercial interests

There were many, many, teams working on Polio on separate tracks, with clinical trials and production on an unprecedented scale. 1.8 million kids drawn into the trials of the Salk vaccine alone. Polio vaccine

EVERTHING GATES TOUCHES IS A PROFIT MOTIVE!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about time someone else woke up and saw the emperor has ALL the clothes.

The Gates Foundation uses it's "donations" to secure a strangle-hold on operations that ensure continued domination of it's financial interests.

I know of this first hand.

As I was completing an extensive Linux thin client roll-out project for Atlanta Public Schools in 2007, the Gates Foundation heard of the work and came rushing in with a "donation" of loads of Microsoft software and the edict "You can all of this for free if you unplug that Linux stuff". The school system caved in once the threat of a BSA audit hit the table and the Linux thin client work was scrapped. APS is back to a less than 30% working student-access PC rate down from the peak of 98% working student access PC using the Linux systems.

Bill Gates supports nothing but his own and friends financial interests.

just like most organized religions & churches

[Anonymous Coward]

At least Gates isn't asking for thier immortal souls.

Common perception?

[peppepz]

The common perception among Slashdotters is that while Bill Gates may cause us some professional difficulties, he makes up for it with an exemplary philanthropic record.

What? Does the average slashdotter really think that? Oh well, at least make that "Slashdotters \ { me }", since I'm deeply convinced that who's born square can't die round.

Re:Shareholders, shareholders, bla bla bla. Fuck'e

[marcosdumay]

Funny, Google's IPO did quite well, while basicaly saying the same thing.

Of course, they used a more diplomatic language.... But the contents were quite similar.

It's Gates' money

[Anonymous Coward]

What he does w\ it's his business. That's like giving you a hard time on what tax deductions or breaks you file as long as you aren't illegal about it? No. I don't see what the problem is then. Gates simply chooses to redirect monies that would go to government administered "causes" (IRAQ war & wmd's anyone?), and instead to avoid that & tax penalties, he chose the route of foundations.

Was a gun put to their heads?

[Anonymous Coward]

"If Gates pushes for a project that costs a billion dollars and his foundation funds $700 million of it, then where does the other $300 million come from? That's other people's money." - by SuperAlgae (953330) on Thursday July 05, @12:57PM (#40553343)

See subject line - they can choose to NOT do that, but they did choose to do so, and no duress was applied!

(I suppose the rest of /. will have "bitches" about that too, but again same deal - who is ANYONE here to tell anyone else how to spend or shield their monies from taxes?).

APK

P.S.=> The "examples in the article" are utter bullshit in light of the fact NOBODY TWISTED ANY OTHER INVESTORS' ARMS to do those investments you spoke of... period - they're all merely wealthy folks who have the SAME FREEDOM to shield their monies as anyone else does... that's all/simple! apk

Re:Was a gun put to their heads?

[SuperAlgae]

Cons and scams don't require brute force, but that still doesn't make them right.

FUD article

[recoiledsnake]

Basically Edweek's beef with Bill Gates is that he's advocating tests for teachers in public schools. Another crime is not supporting unions for teachers in other countries.

That makes you public enemy no. 1 in teachers union's eyes.

So basically, it's a union threat - try to hurt us and we WILL spread nonsense FUD against you.

Re:FUD article

[dmt0]

Actually the article is more about Gates Foundation investing into profitable enterprises (such as Monsanto and various large pharmaceuticals) and than lobbying local governmental groups into buying their products.

Help for education, health & more = oppression

[Anonymous Coward]

"Most kings in history are parasites who contribute nothing but loot ever greater amounts of wealth for themselves, heedless of the carnage they cause in their quest for self-glorification." - by ultranova (717540) on Thursday July 05, @01:30PM (#40553903)

So what man - it's THEIR wealth to do with AS THEY PLEASE!

(What would you say to say, myself, telling you that the tax deductions you take are "evil", hmmm?)

---

"But go ahead and express your respect for brutal oppression and Bill Gates in the same sentence - I guess he can't expect much from minimum-wage astroturfers." - by ultranova (717540) on Thursday July 05, @01:30PM (#40553903)

WTF? How the HECK is a man spending his money OR TAX SHELTERING IT, "brutal oppression"? Nobody's twisting his or any other investors' (meaning other tax shelter seekers) arms to do any of this... they did it of their OWN FREE WILL with their own monies!

APK

P.S.=> To tell you truth, I'd love to have a checklist of EXACTLY WHERE MY TAXES GO TO, so I can do just what Mr. Gates is doing - directing my taxed away monies to causes I see fit, NOT:

A.) IRAQ & STUPID UNJUSTIFIED WARS (WMD's anyone? There wasn't any evidence of them), so war profiteers get the tax cash for example

or

B.) Welfare women having 10 kids by 10 different fathers creating fatherless bastards I pay for that are nothing but paychecks to those bitches!

So - Why don't they put them on mandatory birth control instead? I'll tell you why - it would affect the bureaucracy and THEIR jobs in goverment... and you know it! apk

Thank-You... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject-line...

APK

P.S.=> I don't know exactly what Jobs did, but what Mr Gates is doing is totally right for him and he has every right to do that, & the "side-effect bonuses" of education aid + health related benefits his foundations yield are better than:

---

A.) Unjustified wars based on b.s. so that war profiteers gain by it (IRAQ & WMD's anyone?)

or

B.) Bogus wenches having 10 kids by 10 diff. fathers so they can get a welfare check (and child support too) turning those kids into fatherless bastards & a paycheck for those bitches... why doesn't the gov't. mandate birth control for them?

Same as A above - it'd take out their means to ends & bureaucracy... you know it, I KNOW IT, everyone with any SENSE knows it...

"Can't have the machine stop" after all, says the gov't bureaucrat "It'd cost me my job most likely"

---

(Just like the war on drugs - they REALLY want to stop that? Go invade Columbia & Andes mountains areas + the "Golden Triangle"... it'd stop, or have a HUGE dent put in it... can't do THAT though - it'd put millions of gov't cronies outta work!)

What Mr. Gates is doing to avoid taxations for bogus shit like the above, is merely redirecting his would be taxed away monies into efforts HE DEEMS FIT (as it IS his money still @ that point).

Heck - I'd LOVE it if during my taxes each pay period I could check off what & where I would want my tax monies going to (and it wouldn't be A or B above the way they are done now, for sure)... which is, in real essence, what's going on with guys like "King Billy" & others - they're merely putting those taxable dollars into causes they see fit, because they're going to LOSE THEM ANYHOW! So, why not do as they do... we all should have that right (BUT, we do NOT and you know why - see above!)... apk

BS

[bussdriver]

The "right" is never happy either. If you get into specifics, I would not be surprised in the percentage of unhappy left is higher than unhappy right and this would make sense because the political landscape is far greater than the 1 dimensional left and right French seating arrangement of past centuries. Most of the political landscape exists to the left of the so-called small area we refer to as the left. I won't go into the studies claiming that the "right" is more conformist in nature (which for a large portion is also true.)

I am informed and I think; therefore, I am going to take issue more often.
If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people??

Instead of giving to charity...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft should have instead priced Windows a lot lower. That would have been a much nicer and fairer way of handling these apparently excess funds.

His wife was on Colbert last week..

[JuddMaltin]

Gates' wife was on Colbert last week. Why? Damage control, it seems.

I almost met Bill Gates

[Nyder]

When I was in my 20's and before Bill got married, him and Melissa came into the restaurant i was working at. As much as I wanted to go up and say, "Hello Mr. Gates, I pirate your software." I didn't.

Now, 20 some years later, I should of. One of the few regrets in my life will be that.

Re:I almost met Bill Gates

[WindBourne]

20 years ago, Gates was encouraging you to do that. It meant less money going to his competitors. It was only once he had a monopoly that piracy became an issue.
Heck, In China and in 3rd world, MS stills encourages theft by individuals (it is the seller of large quantities that he gets upset with).

Interesting Hairyfeet... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch it sometime with the "RTFA", because MISINFORMATION is as powerful as information (valid info., that is): Believe nothing you hear, 1/2 of what you see, etc.!

* "Spinmasters" & others that attempt to discredit others are VERY GOOD at what they do... beware!

You DID make me 'think' though... I'll give you that (& I imagine since the article's full of that line of thought? It got your wheels spinning too... again on that note though? Watch it... remember - when you're "@ THE TOP", you get shot at by competitors & otherwise disgruntled "power-hungry" fools too!).

Keeping what I said initially above though in mind? Keep an open mind here... think it out & remember - that man's got a LOT of literally no doubt JEALOUS enemies (who *might* not be as 'benevolent' as "King Billy" is in some regards).

You can't be a pillar of society, until you have the power, and you certainly can't "change the world" (for the better) usually, until you're that guy...

APK

P.S.=> However, on the flipside of that? You did get some interesting points from said article, but... I have 1 thing to say about it, same as I did here -> http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2957987&cid=40549931

"A FOOL & HIS MONEY ARE SOON PARTED" & Mr. Gates is no fool... I have NO PROBLEM with a rich man getting richer, not really (as long as he doesn't take every single crumb off the table so-to-speak) - mainly because they can't be "dumb" to get THAT "mega-rich" in the 1st place... that said, perhaps they ARE meant to thus, lead, because of that very set of "smarts" (more shrewdness actually).

Still - what a guy does with his ca$h, even to get richer & more powerful's his OWN business - & yes, he has that right, if it's done legally & without harming others outright. I don't see the monies he diverts to foundations being bad because of the areas he devotes it to in education, health, & more... & IF he's doing as you say, increasing his wealth in the LONG HAUL via other investments he has?

HECK - we've got to get "King Billy" to run for President (even though he won't, too bad - a fellow like he MIGHT actually straighten out the circus out there, even though (iirc) he's aware of the world of politics, & that ALL DECISIONS ARE ARRIVED @ VIA COMPROMISE (arm-twisting in other words))... apk yes, he has that right, if it's done legally

Not surprised

[WindBourne]

Melinda wanted it to be about repairing gate's name. Gate's wanted to expand and use this to expand MS. Now, he wants to take American nuke tech and give it to China.

I wonder as spotlights are shined on gate's dealings, if buffet will continue with the idea of sending his money to gates.

YOU need to learn to write (everyone? lol)... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said you can read in the 1st place? Quit making excuses for your dyslexic condition already... lol!

* Now, get out your "hooked on phonics" lessons... since reading truly IS fundamental, especially on forums!

---

THIS MADE ME LAUGH THE MOST from the "writing style nazi" though:

Jesus you format your answers poorly, I've given up reading everyone of your posts. - by Captain Hook (923766) on Friday July 06, @04:16AM (#40561285)

Ahem: Note the bolded word above? The correct written form of it in that context would be every one, lol...

BOTTOM-LINE: For someone acting the 'critic' about writing? You put your foot RIGHT INTO YOUR OWN MOUTH... thus, I must ask you a question:

QUESTION - How do your own words taste, flavored with the "bitter taste of SELF-defeat" & your foot in your mouth, hmmm?

LMAO!

(Talk about "the pot calling the kettle black")

APK

P.S.=> Lastly - It seems my initial post here was modded up pretty well, so... opinions vary, & you "shot yourself down in flames", lol, on your blatantly off-topic b.s. above... apk

I've said this for years

[Master of Transhuman]

The Foundation is nothing but a stock laundering operation. Under SEC rules, Gates can only convert so much of his stock to cash at certain times. By giving it away to a Foundation run by his father, which can then invest the cash into corporations Gates wants to influence or profit from, he essentially "launders" his stock.

If you look at the Foundation's actual philanthropy, you find it was once threatened by the government by removal of its non-profit status because so little of its assets were actually disbursed.

And further, much of its large headline-grabbing PR initiatives are disbursed over a decade or more, meaning the actual amounts disbursed in a given year are much smaller than the overall award.

It's a scam, like most such foundations. It's done for political, economic and social influence, not actual philanthropy.

Re:Shareholders, shareholders, bla bla bla. Fuck'e

[nine-times]

First, think about the context for a second. I'm saying, "fuck shareholders," and your response is "I don't think shareholders will like that!" Well... fuck'em.

But ok, because the thing is I'm not totally serious about saying "fuck'em". It's more that people tend to go off on these rants about how the moral obligation of an officer of a company is to "maximize shareholder profit", and I'm going to an extreme in the other direction to make a point.

The reality is that current officers of companies are not really setting "maximizing shareholder profit" as their highest priority. Some of them really do try to do a good job. My impression is that Steve Jobs, for example, had so much of his ego wrapped up in Apple that he would refuse to release a product that he didn't think was good. I think you could have accountants show him that it would make shareholders a bazillion dollars, and he probably still wouldn't go for it. The end result is that Apple's stock does exceedingly well, but I don't think that was Jobs' primary focus.

Other CEOs are dead-set on collecting huge bonuses by pumping whatever performance numbers get them the bonus. It might mean manipulating the numbers and ruining the company, but they're out for themselves. If they can get 12 consecutive financial quarters where they get huge bonuses, and then the company completely falls apart, that's fine. They've got their golden parachute coming.

So this whole "maximizing shareholder value" is a fiction. It's a scam created by modern-day robber barons that preys on your hopes to get rich by playing the stock market. An investor may invest in order to maximize his own value, but it is not (and generally should not be) the primary goal of a company to maximize their shareholders' value. I believe that businesses would do better-- and therefore shareholders would ultimately do better-- if business leaders made "doing a good job" (in all the various ways that one can do a "good job") the highest priority.

Get real.

[NewYork]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority prefer you to be poor/subservient/defenseless so that they can promote their hegemony in the pretext of patriotism/democracy.

Ingratitude

[dumky2]

Sure charitable foundations bring tax benefits, sure Microsoft benefited from bogus IP laws. But Gates has provided the world with great goods, not once but twice and you manage to criticize. I'd like to see you do even one percent of the good he did.
Microsoft, with Windows and Office, have enabled massive innovation and wealth creation. But to listen to you, he acquired his wealth by stealing, not by producing goods and services.
Similarly, you question the motives of his charitable efforts. If people don't like his motives, feel free not to accept his donations.
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." -- Adam Smith.
In other words, the beauty of voluntary cooperation in civil society is that it produces good results from a group of individuals with diverse and sometimes even questionable motives.