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Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 With $4.6 Billion Pledge (bloomberg.com)
From a report: Bill Gates made his largest gift since the turn of the century, giving away Microsoft shares that accounted for 5 percent of his fortune, the world's biggest. The billionaire donated 64 million of the software maker's shares valued at $4.6 billion on June 6, according to a Securities & Exchange Commission filing released Monday. While the recipient of the gift wasn't specified, Gates has made the majority of his donations to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the charity he and his wife use to direct their philanthropic efforts. It's the largest gift of Microsoft shares that Gates has made since 2000. The 61-year-old gave away $16 billion worth of Microsoft shares in 1999 and $5.1 billion a year later, according to calculations by Bloomberg.
I make $55k doing IT support in Silicon Valley. What am I doing wrong?
He still controls all of that money, but now he doesn't have to pay taxes on it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You should check on Gate's philanthropy background. Think what you may about him, he donated a shitload of money to very good causes over the world.
"or funding organic school lunches for poor-neighborhood children"
Spoke like a true alt-right suburbanite. How would you know how children in poor neighborhoods eat? Scumbag.
Yes, I know that he has done some great things, such as exterminating polio. But he does have an Achilles-heel when it comes to coding.
Reducing the footprint of malaria across Africa is a great endeavor sure to help the world, sending some special group to summer camp where they can be told what to appreciate not so much.
Bill Gates stepped down as CEO in 2000, left the company in 2006, and hasn't been involved at all since 2014. You're blaming him for stuff he's got nothing to do with, and the versions of Windows that did happen under his watch, were quite popular. Except for Windows ME. No one liked Windows ME.
Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
He also made massive donations to promoting genital mutilation (instead of fighting it).
He also prefers $1000 per dose meds bought from companies he cooperates with instead of $2 per dose of the same substance produced locally. Worse, receiving those $1000 meds usually comes with strings attached where they're contingent on passing laws that shut down production of generics in the name of "intellectual property".
B&M Gates Foundation is one of worst charities.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
The $4.6B donation will go to the Surface team to help improve the drivers.
You seem to have some anger-related issues. That's not good for your heart.
You make it very easy for me when you call me alt-right, since it takes a very particular kind of person to skip the thinking part and jump straight to calling others alt-right. Especially when the data on obesity and its correlation to low income (hint: crap food costs less than healthy food) has been so well documented for so many years. Even the simplest form of due diligence, a google search, reveals a results page filled with studies and articles talking about the connection between obesity and low income families. Go on, try it.
You really should try the thinking part, its amazing for continuing discussions and you might even earn some respect from your colleagues.
That money should go to the Feds so it can be spend it the way it SHOULD be spent!! /S
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You did know of that whole Michelle Obama Lunch rules thing, right?
We all know how kids on Free Lunch programs ate. Because Michelle never got tired of telling us.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Because I know he doesn't know what I know. We don't eat coke and hamburgers.
Citations?
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Give it up Timmy. You just outed yourself: "poor-neighborhood children (that will still eat hamburgers and coke for dinner and breakfast)" Disgusting. I really dislike suburbanite types like yourself who think they know what is going on the real world. Here is a hint Timmy: plenty of doughy suburbanite kids eat hamburgers and coke.
Maybe you should listen to her. Plenty of kids DO eat hamburgers and coke. Not just "inner city" kids (and we call know what that is code for).
I'll eat what I please, thank you very much.
Meanwhile, you can stop lecturing people on shit you apparently know nothing about.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Go ahead and stuff whatever you want into your mouth. It is your life. The rest of us will listen to good advice.
It may be debatable as to whether you should be able to donate to your own charitable fund, but the whole concept of these funds actually makes sense. There is a version of these funds that's actually available to "normal" people without their own organizations. They're called "Donor Advised Funds." (If you ever see a clueless article about some fancy person giving money to the "Silicon Valley Community Fund," that is one of these such funds.)
These funds give you a way to separate the act of "getting the tax benefit of making a big donation" from the act of "actually making the donation to charities." They actually serve a useful purpose.
Let's say that you find yourself with a large lump of income (or appreciated securities, or anything else donate-able), and you want to get the tax benefit of donating a portion of it during a given year. However, you aren't yet ready to figure out how to divide it among every single charity you might want to contribute to. So you donate it to a DAF, and then later "direct" the funds at your leisure. (And while its in the DAF, it can get invested with the gains not being taxed.)
Is this news? He's "pledged" to give away 50% of his wealth (any timescale, I'm not sure?), this is about 5%.
Who'd have thought it would be so hard to give away money and just live on the billions you have left? Just ask Monty Brewster, I suppose.
But then, supposedly he gets a tax break, so is that defined as something that Monty's lawyers would class as an asset or profit?
That should be enough for anybody.
W Buffett used similar option to cancel huge swaths of his tax liabilities in a triple-dip dodge. He donated billions to charities he controls, sure, but he donated appreciated shares of stock. So first he deducted the charitable donation, at the same time bypassing capital gains taxes, and he significantly reduced his potential estate taxes. And he created $10B in carryover deductions for future years.
Imagine if he had simply sold his shares, paid income and CG taxes, then didn't deduct the gifts on his taxes. Or just left the money in his estate so the government could get 40%. Think of the revenue he stole from taxpayers!
Won't hear progressives complaining, instead we get BG & WB saying taxes need to be higher.
Charitable donations do not provide a 'tax benefit'. Ever.
A tax benefit leaves you with more money than you would have without the benefit. A charitable donation leaves you with less money.
The only way a donation can be seen as a tax benefit is if you simply do not want to pay taxes, as opposed to keeping more of your money (which is what normal people consider a tax benefit).
Why is it legal to donate to your own charity?
Because the rich make the rules and love a good tax dodge. The close cousin to this is donating to each others charities in similar amounts for tax free perks.
Spoke like a true alt-right suburbanite. How would you know how children in poor neighborhoods eat? Scumbag.
I can say with confidence from a family member who used to teach in Lancaster, a true ghetto, that McDonalds was the biggest beneficiary of Michelle Obamas push to make school lunch be healthy and unappealing. He found it amusing, but I guess he must have been an alt-right suburbanite scumbag for observing reality.
That's because you shoot coke.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
It's complicated. The most direct effect is devaluing the stock, if the charity sells it.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Didn't like the thinking part, eh? Fair enough, it's not for everyone.
You still haven't addressed the scientific consensus pointing out the strong correlation between poor-neighborhood upbringing and obesity.
The only information you are trying to convey in your post is "plenty of doughy suburbanite kids eat hamburgers and coke." which, while formulated in a way I find charming and prosaic, doesn't hold. If you want to use suburban as a proxy for "not-poor-neighborhood upbringing", then the scientific consensus is the opposite of your feelings.
And it unfortunately seems that all you are willing to contribute to this discussion is a cornucopia of feelings, most of which are no doubt harmful to your longterm health.
Oh, and the suburbanite thing was also wrong :)
The US economy is "worth" something like 18.6 trillion dollars, or 18,600 billion. 4.6 billion is 0.024 percent of the US GDP. So even if the foundation sold that all immediately, effectively nothing happens to US GDP. Average *daily* trading volume on markets like NYSE is in the hundreds of billions. Wikipedia says NYSE did $169B/day of trades in 2013. So selling 4.6B of stock in a day would be 2.7% of the daily volume of NYSE in 2013. A lot of times these foundations set up scheduled sales, to sell X number of shares on certain intervals as part of a diversement strategy.
Once it hits the Foundation, the activities are open for all to see. Anyone can pull up a copy of their IRS Form 990, which lists all the grants received by the foundation, given by the foundation, lists the various activities of the organization, lists the compensation for the key employees and officers/directors (plus their names), and so forth. It's all there, for anyone who cares to read through the 1124 pages to see. To look at it, go here: https://www.gatesfoundation.or...
So yes, Mr. Gates obviously has significant influence over the direction of the organization, but every action it takes is in the light of day.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
When you have that much money, you can randomly do weird things with it, with no risk, to get attention focused on you or to see what comes out of peoples' mouths... sort of a litmus test, if you will. I can't imagine what it would be like to have that much money and get bored enough to fuck with it just to stir the proverbial pot.
I digress.
The US economy is "worth" something like 18.6 trillion dollars, or 18,600 billion. 4.6 billion is 0.024 percent of the US GDP. So even if the foundation sold that all immediately, effectively nothing happens to US GDP. Average *daily* trading volume on markets like NYSE is in the hundreds of billions. Wikipedia says NYSE did $169B/day of trades in 2013. So selling 4.6B of stock in a day would be 2.7% of the daily volume of NYSE in 2013. A lot of times these foundations set up scheduled sales, to sell X number of shares on certain intervals as part of a diversement strategy.
Hey, now! It would have offset inflation for a week... or less. So nyaaaah! :P </humor>
Citations?
* male genital mutilation
* intellectual property laws: some vague stuff for example here; there's so many hits for their relations to "intellectual property" that it's hard to tell the whaff away. I can't search tonight, lemme find better citations later.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
He can do charity all he want but he'll still burn in hell for eternity because of what he's done with Microsoft. Says me, atheist.
"I'm not much interested in interoperability. I want substitutability. I want to be able to throw your software out."
Not from anybody named Obama, that's for sure.
Now, that is true. Lots of people, especially in the US, do not listen to good advice from anybody named Obama. Their loss, but they don't. But hey, Darwinism in action.
Michelle's Lunch plan was an exercise in futility.
"Healthy" food pretty much tastes like ass unless you have talented people fixing it. That, you will not find in an inner city kitchen.
More food was being thrown away and people were dripping out (which is actually a good thing. so I guess that's a redeeming quality of her program)
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
He should've only donated 640k, it's all anyone would ever need.
If Gates wants to do something that was unquestionably sincere maybe he should give back that money to all the people he swindled so that they can be the revered philanthropists rather than use it to intentionally/inadvertently pump up his own reputation. Otherwise its just like a bankrobber donating to charity. Admittedly the money is going to a lot of good causes but its also going to some bad causes too. And the people he crushed could have donated that money all the same. When he’s as rich as he is theres nothing left to buy but your own legacy, a rational psychopath could do what Gate’s is doing so why he gets so much credit is puzzling. No doubt, he’s shown he’s very smart but he’s also shown he’s a ruthless businessman, a businessman who perhaps is still playing the same game he’s been playing just at a higher level. Instead of throwing money to buy businesses he’s throwing money around to buy hearts and minds. Maybe he’s truly changed but I’ve seen no evidence.
Citations?
* male genital mutilation
Okay, on that one you're being ridiculous.Circumcision is a debatable practice (though I'm circumcised, as are most American men, and I don't consider myself "mutilated"), but in this case it's being done for a very positive reason, which is that it's known to reduce the transmission of AIDS. The Gates Foundation provided support to a UN organization focused specifically on saving lives. That's making the world better, even if it does (theoretically) reduce a little sexual pleasure.
* intellectual property laws: some vague stuff for example here; there's so many hits for their relations to "intellectual property" that it's hard to tell the whaff away. I can't search tonight, lemme find better citations later.
Agreed, that's a poor citation.
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There's no donation, just a move-around.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
There's no state income tax in Washington in the first place. But charitable giving is still deductible under AMT.
This all misses the point though. Being taxed or not literally doesn't change Bill Gates' life at all. He's still a rich-ass multi-billionaire regardless. Doesn't matter to him, just a way to funnel more of it to charity. Which is literally the point of the charitable giving deduction, so it's not so much "cheating taxes" as "using the tax code exactly as intended, promoting charitable giving".
I fully expect the comment area in this post to be filled with comments from people who never even heard all the stuff the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did over the years.
Because of course there is a predominant bias against Microsoft that will certainly contaminate and overlook all the work that the foundation has done.
Quick read here before you post your creed against it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If you'd rather have Gates keep his money and let it go to his own family so that we have another bunch of Trumps running around, I hope you rot in hell.
in this case it's being done for a very positive reason, which is that it's known to reduce the transmission of AIDS
Nope, the preponderance of evidence say the transmission of AIDS is either unaffected or enhanced by circumcision.
Almost any claims that circumcision protects from AIDS quote the infamous Camp Orange/Orange Farms study. That study consists of an egregious list of scientific misconduct. For example, the circumcised group had received sexual education while the control group did not -- so it's not surprising that men who had a downtime and were taught safe(r) practices will have less AIDS. The researchers' bias was so strong they immediately destroyed the control group "so they can benefit too" before even the data was tabulated.
Let's take a look at other studies:small increase of risk; no effect; large increase. Or for gay men: UK, US, Scotland.
On the other hand, there's a significant increase of MtF transmission.
But, if a study is funded by the Gates Foundation, it will be stopped early "because of futility" of protection, while in fact the preliminary data show a strong increase of risk.
Or, papers outright lie about the conclusion: "Declining Rates in Male Circumcision amidst Increasing Evidence of its Public Health Benefit -- in all categories other than one the "benefit" is negative, and the only category where circumcision slightly wins (heterosexuals with syphilis) had a sample of 6.
(though I'm circumcised, as are most American men, and I don't consider myself "mutilated"
I'm sorry for you. Alas, people who suffer from some malady tend to have a strong bias that "it's the right thing to do". For example, the strongest driver for female circumcision are older women who were circumcised themselves. Same for the deaf.
even if it does (theoretically) reduce a little sexual pleasure
"theoretically", "a little"?!? While you're unable to make this test yourself, you can ask an intact friend: wear regular underwear (ie, not commando, not boxers), retract the foreskin, try walking. For extra bonus, do it where there are people around so you can't adjust (this randomly happened to me a couple times). The chafing is so strong it's a pain. If penises get so calloused such chafing is not noticeable, there's hardly any feeling left.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Or, another approach: as such studies are done on a limited sample that often suffers from some sort of selection bias, let's instead compare whole countries. Here are the figures for %HIV prevalence in the entire population, and ratios of prevalence in circumcized to uncircumcized men:
(Sorry for the broken table, Slashdot considers any non-trivial <pre> to be "junk".)
country %HIV c/i =i/c
Kenya 6.7% 0.24 (1/4.20)
Burkina Faso 1.8% 0.62 (1/1.61)
Uganda 6.45 0.68 (1/1.47)
Ivory Coast 4.75 0.74 (1/1.35)
Ethiopia 1.4% 0.82 (1/1.22)
Cameroon 5.5% 3.73
Rwanda 3.0% 1.67
Lesotho 23.5% 1.50
Malawi 11.8% 1.39
Tanzania 7.0% 1.16
Ghana 2.2% 1.14
Swaziland 25.9% 1.12
As you can see, especially in countries with a high incidence of HIV, circumcized men are more affected.
There are two strong outliers: Cameroon where intact is better, and Kenya where cut it better. But, in the latter, the vast majority (84%) of men are circumcised, while most of the rest belong to a single ethnic group. That group, the only tribe in Kenya that shuns circumcision, not only practices polygamy, but also has a deeply rooted custom of "wife inheritance" -- if your brother's wife dies, you're supposed to take her (this was known in ancient Middle East as "levirate marriage"). The mortality rate in age groups that have sexual relations is very small compared to the general population, thus AIDS is the most common cause of death among sexually active people. Thus, that brother had usually died of AIDS...
All of the above countries are among the least developed. So let's take a look at rich educated countries: the US with AIDS prevalence of 0.6% vs Europe with 0.2%. Which one of them has a high circumcision rate, and in which it is hardly ever practised?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
in this case it's being done for a very positive reason, which is that it's known to reduce the transmission of AIDS
Nope, the preponderance of evidence say the transmission of AIDS is either unaffected or enhanced by circumcision.
The UN health organization disagrees with you.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
The UN health organization disagrees with you.
Your FCC claims that Net Neutrality kills innovation on the Internet. Our Ministry of Education's curriculum board says sexual education must preach virginity until marriage, while even high schoolers (including those who are 18) should not be teached anything about actual intercourse, and that birth control is "contrary to moral norms".
All three are political organizations, not panels of impartial engineers/doctors.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.