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Bill Gates's Net Worth Hits $90 Billion (bloomberg.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from Bloomberg: The net worth of the world's richest person Bill Gates hit $90 billion on Friday, fueled by gains in public holdings including Canadian National Railway Company and Ecolab Inc. Gates's fortune is now $13.5 billion bigger than that of the world's second-wealthiest person, Spanish retail mogul Amancio Ortega, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. At $90 billion, the Microsoft Corp. co-founder's net worth is equal to 0.5 percent of U.S. GDP. Less than two weeks ago, Bill Gates topped Forbes' "100 Richest Tech Billionaires In The World 2016" (Warning: may be paywalled) list with an estimated fortune of $78 billion.
even his Foundation requires Windows which should be a conflict of interest.
Why can you make heads or tales of them? Did you read Hillarys or Obamas? Or is it just an excuse for you to be mad at Trump?
You should be more mad at what is going on there. BillG got his buddy WarrenB to get Obama to basically nuke their biggest competitor from orbit and make it look like they were doing a good thing. WarrenB gave BillG a heads up in what to get into. Between the two of them they have locked up about 80% of the rail shipping market in America.
how about we do a deal, Hillary releases the missing emails and Trump shows you his tax returns.
No one gives a shit.
none whatsoever.
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i should've bought a ticket
except Trump is under no obligation whatsoever to show his tax returns, that is mere tradition.
Meanwhile Hillary broke the law...
(I have bigger concerns about Trump than tax returns.....)
He isn't worth much? Wait do you mean how much money he has?
I seriously admire Bill for the passion he has for helping the world's most vulnerable -- and in that vein I'm surprised to see his stockpile of cash going UP and not down...
Meanwhile Hillary broke the law...
No, she didn't. She was careless. Being careless is not illegal.
Compare that to Dick Cheney who deliberately outed an undercover CIA agent for political vindictiveness. The man remains free to lord over Halliburton who received a multi-billion dollar no-bid contract to help with the invasion of Iraq. If that doesn't scream cronyism and illegality, nothing does.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I am also worth $90 billion, give or take $90 billion.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Meanwhile Hillary broke the law...
No, she didn't. She was careless. Being careless is not illegal.
Wait... you mean she *didn't* lie to congress?
That damn mainstream media, always distorting the truth!
Next I suppose you'll be telling me she didn't come under sniper fire in Bosnia!
No, it was illegal to handle professional matters under a personal server. It was not malicious but it was illegal.
Caveat-- I think Dick Cheney is an evil piece of garbage who should hang for his crimes, but "Compare that to Dick Cheney who deliberately outed an undercover CIA agent for political vindictiveness." is just stupid and the least of his crimes.
Valerie Plame was the wife of an ambassador. She was not an undercover CIA agent to any reasonable person. She was an overt CIA agent. Anyone of *any* country associated with an embassy *is* a spy. That's the entire fucking point of embassies. Have you never played Civilization? Embassies are the "honor among thieves" of spy craft, diplomatic immunity and whatnot.
That being said, I would love Cheney's energy meetings to be declassified. That's where you're going to find some seriously evil shit.
I don't get why Canckles email thing is an issue - the moment any type of crime is mentioned, the current failure will pardon the next failure.
It's really a non issue. Not because she isn't a criminal, it's just that the criminals are in charge.
This is the Daley machine nationwide. Until we crack down on all government criminals from city to state to nationwide, our votes won't be counted.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
If you are a billionaire and you need more money then FUCK YOU.
If the money is made good use of in the process then it's win-win. Who says you have to be self-sacrificing to help others?
The central banks of the world are conjuring money out of thin air and using it to buy stocks, which are ownership claims on real businesses with real assets, made of real materials in a universe dominated by the laws of thermodynamics [1]. Think about this absurdity and the implications for holders of fiat currency.
Therefore, the marginal buyer is increasingly a central bank that can create as much money as it wants, consequences be damned. When this ends, I suspect equities, like most other asset classes, will have a long fall back to reality.
Concurrently, interest rates are artificially low, leading to all sorts of chicanery and malinvestments. Shares of dividend-paying blue chips, such as Microsoft, are bid higher and higher as income-seeking investors search for yield wherever they can. However, the price you pay for future cash flows absolutely matters and determines your return; at current valuations, I suspect there will be a lot of tears for equity holders.
Between the third central bank-induced financial bubble in less than 20 years and Trump/Clinton, I'm starting to think I'm on a bizarro Earth 2 or something.
[1] http://www.reuters.com/article...
Wrong, deleting official US federal emails is illegal, being careless is negligence and also illegal. Negligence is not an excuse when it comes to this specific mater because every US official would accidentally be deleting official emails.
Don't hate the ultra-rich person, hate the world that created them.
I can go one better!
These ultra-rich persons only exist in a universe that allows matter to interact.
Don't hate the world that created the ultra rich, hate the universe that creates such worlds!
(Not that I'm not trying to deflect blame or anything. I'm sure you weren't either.)
I seriously admire Bill for the passion he has for helping the world's most vulnerable -- and in that vein I'm surprised to see his stockpile of cash going UP and not down...
I seriously admire his talent for amassing huge sums of money by breaking the law, and getting away with a slap on the wrist.
I don't have that level of chutzpah - I'd have always been afraid of getting caught. He must have had a different upbringing from mine.
"Rich" is a vague and subjective term that GP never used.
The story of the artisan from Plato's The Republic is interesting and rational. There are two failures with Gates. First, he has failed society by hoarding. Then again he has displayed a tremendous amount of sociopathic tendencies so we should not be too surprised. Second, the State has failed by allowing him to hoard that much personal wealth. I use Plato as my reference.
There should absolutely be a wealth cap. Sorry if you don't like it, but unless you can come up with something better than Plato for me to reference I think Socrates had it correct. To preempt someone saying something stupid, go read the book.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
>Meanwhile Hillary broke the law...
>No, she didn't. She was careless. Being careless is not illegal.
Actually, carelessness is illegal, at least in the case of driving.
What is manslaughter?
Anyone of *any* country associated with an embassy *is* a spy. That's the entire fucking point of embassies.
That would be pretty cool. But as someone who worked in Embassies and Missions before, I can attest that is not true. You can't spy your way through economic-cultural-political affairs to assess/negotiate trade deals, organise relevant/successful events, accommodate visiting delegations, and whatnot. You need professionals from all sorts of areas. And because foreign posts rotate pretty often and you always need someone who knows what they are doing, you need lots of them.
Maybe all the attaches are spies though. Why would non-career people need to gallivant all over the globe?
My distance traveled is half my speed!
So, what're you stockpiling for the impending shitstorm? Asked as a person who has similar beliefs and worked hard for my money.
Warning: It's a waste of everyone's time to post something that can't be viewed.
Requiem for the American Dream
Mainstream media is hiding the fact that Trump is the president of NAMBLA. Lots of people know, but are too afraid of what Trump will do to them.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
You idiots should take your politics elsewhere. This is news.slashdot.org, and not politics.slashdot.org (which I have blocked for a reason). Modded down.
She was careless. Being careless is not illegal.
When you're dealing with classified material (and hence the opposition is nation-states) there are certain procedures that you are required to follow.
In order to be cleared to handle those classified materials you get briefed on those procedures,
Once briefed you need to contractually agree to folow those procedures, with jail time as punishment for non-compliance.
Less politically connected people who failed to follow those procedures (and get caught) did in the past go to jail.
Merely by having the private server for government mail Hillary clinton broke the handling procedures at a fundamental level. While that's technically a breach of contract and not a crime, she should indeed go to jail for it (just like less politically connected people who did so would)
non intentional killing
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
a beowulf cluster of bill gates' fortunes
It won't end, they're past the point of no return, Gates will be a trillionaire, and the working class won't even be allowed to access cash
Meanwhile Hillary broke the law... No, she didn't. She was careless. Being careless is not illegal.
There's thousands of folks in prison who will be excited to hear they have been exonerated because they didn't mean to do what they did! In fact, there are people in prison right now for leaking classified documents accidentally. However, they weren't extremely rich and powerful...
Being careless IS illegal if you commit a crime in your carelessness.
even his Foundation requires Windows which should be a conflict of interest.
It's his money, so he gets to decide who to give it to. Nothing wrong with that.
But my dick is still bigger
Ladbrokes is taking bets on whether Trump's hunting trip with Cheney takes place before or after the election.
The central banks of the world are conjuring money out of thin air and using it to buy stocks
Cite? I'm not aware of any central bank buying stocks. The "quantitative easing" they're doing -- AFAIK -- is all bond purchasing, which means they're not buying ownership in real businesses, they're lending money to real businesses.
Concurrently, interest rates are artificially low
That's debatable. Without the actions of the central banks, we would likely be in a deflationary cycle. Assuming interest rates naturally adjusted accordingly, they should go very low, or even negative. Some of the central banks have gone to slightly negative interest rates, but they won't go nearly as negative as would naturally occur in a deflationary cycle. Instead, they're pumping money into the economy (via QE) to avoid deflation.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
No, just be on the board of IBM to help him get MS DOS on literally every machine. And his dad was worth millions, so getting some startup cash wasn't impossible.
That said, he is giving away a lot of his cash.
He's trying to buy his good name back, a la Alfred Nobel:
In 1888 Alfred's brother Ludvig died while visiting Cannes and a French newspaper erroneously published Alfred's obituary.[4] It condemned him for his invention of dynamite and is said to have brought about his decision to leave a better legacy after his death.[4][17] The obituary stated, Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead")[4] and went on to say, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday."[18] Alfred (who never had a wife or children) was disappointed with what he read and concerned with how he would be remembered.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel#Nobel_Prizes
I have no idea if Gates' primary motivation is altruistic or not, but most people now have a general good opinion of him. Perhaps he got bored with being a capitalist and wanted to solve new problems.
Musk is doing similar things: took his first fortune and used it to build companies that he thinks have important social consequences (energy, transportation, space travel and human extinction). Gates went the charity root.
If I was rich and had money (as in billions) to burn I'd work on improving roads / transportation in Africa, clean water processing and plumbing, the education of girls / women in certain parts of the world, and clean electricity generation. For the latter, I'd be looking into throwing money at small-scale nuclear, thorium, and reprocessing of current stockpiles of nuclear "waste" (which is 99% unused fuel).
Who is it going to be? I'm betting on it being some hospital administrator.
Paying taxes is for little people, for stupid people. And so is releasing your tax returns when you run for President, as every candidate has done since 1976.
Smart people like @realDonaldTrump don't pay taxes and don't follow custom for releasing them. Zero taxes or his accountant is fired.
Now you know why he lays off people. It enriches him and his foundation.
I'd be happy if I had just 1% of that in the bank.
He doesn't have $90 billion in the bank and money or stocks are not backed by anything that has value but by speculation. He basically has $90 billion in stocks(monopoly money). If anyone of those company that he has his money invested in goes belly up he loses a portion or all of his so called wealth.
Please. Running your own email server so as not to keep a trail of documents is legal?
OK. Say it is.
Is it ethical? Is it something acceptable to you?
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
It's what a few cops do, and get charged for.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Hell, I hope so. I do it at my house. I do it so that google and/or anyone else cannot read my email. Seems totally ethical to me. But then again, I'm not a professional politician, working for the public.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Being careless is illegal when you are KNOWINGLY responsible for state secrets.
If I'm not mistaken Apple is worth around $8X billion so I have an idea. First, cash it all in an buy Apple. Second, destroy the company. Just sell it all off and clos everything. Next, die happy as the biggest hero in the entire history of the world.
:-)
good point.
However politicians pass all sorts of compliance laws. Among the purposes of these laws is to ascertain who did what when; who knew what when. Running an email server to bypass compliance regulations is not ethical. (Although it may technically have been legal for the S of S. I'm not an attorney so I don't know how the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed.)
Running the email server out of her house was clearly done to circumvent compliance and FOI requests.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
That's ridiculous, he looks nothing like Marlon Brando.
When the currency goes bad where will he be hiding?
It is a big deal to backstab the whole globe with spyware. This is what Bill Gates will be remembered for.
True, but Trump has a nude picture of Marlon Brando as a child as his phones background image.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Why do they always compare people's wealth to GDP? People say things like he's worth 50B which is the GDP of Cambodia or whatever. 50B over a lifetime of earning vs one year of a small country. Yeah it is a lot of money, I get that. But annual vs lifetime.
From https://www.fbi.gov/news/press...
Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.
Yes, being careless with classified information IS illegal. Perhaps you would like to argue with James Comey about what is legal and not? Unfortunately, because Hillary is well connected, and wealthy, no prosecutor would take the case, it doesn't make it any less illegal. This on top of the official records act laws others mentioned.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
"Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws." --Rothschild, 1744
Casteism
In your very diminished mind a scaling tax can't work as a wealth cap? Income tax was one of many taxes used to equalize wealth, and the heaviest used. We have and had others which were changed at the same time as the Income tax (Capital Gains, Estate) but those worked _after_ accumulation.
No wonder you can't name a reference for your position. It's based in delusional fantasyland which does not exist. You should really get on medication for your mental handicap.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
MansLaughter is the funniest homicide!