For all the Bill Gates bashers...

[DFWdem]

Too often we only hear about people when a negative story comes out. Here's something positive for a change.


http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/051031/31gates.htm

Some of the worst human tragedies happening in the world today go on because we don't really see them. We rarely make eye contact with people who are suffering, so we act sometimes as if the people don't exist."

The speaker is Bill Gates, the world's richest man. At a gathering in Seattle, he is talking not as the Microsoft chairman but as a partner in an intense personal mission. For Gates and his wife, Melinda, alleviating inequities in global health and domestic education has become a life's goal.

Having endowed their foundation with close to $29 billion, the Gateses are on track to become history's greatest philanthropists. But they do more than just shovel money out the door. Experts praise the couple for their astute vision and their ability to mobilize others: "Even with this gigantic endowment," says Susan Schwab, president and CEO of the University System of Maryland Foundation, "they know they can't solve these problems alone."

So far, the Gateses have committed over $9 billion in grants, and the impact on global health has been enormous. "When you put high-octane fuel on a campfire," says Nils Daulaire, president and CEO of the Global Health Council, "you get a big blaze."



Say what you will about Microsoft's products and your dislike of them, but Bill Gates is undeniably a generous man who is dedicated to making a huge difference in the lives of millions of people. I don't care how much money one has, to simply give away $29 billion is astounding...and they're not done yet. Kudos to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

[mark0rama]

1. Agreed. Gates' generosity is real, and it sets a great example.

And yes, that is an Apple logo as my avatar :)

[DFWdem]

4. Then it's official:

Even Apple users agree. I'm no Microsoft loaylist, but it's wonderful that Gates is doing so much good with the money he's made from Microsoft. How much has Exxon as a whole donated to alleviate global health and education problems throughout its entire existence? I would guess it's a small fraction of the Gates Foundation, and the Gates Foundation has only been around for about a decade.

[henslee]

2. Sorry, I'd have to think 29 billion is pocket change for Bill.....

I'm ready.

[DFWdem]

5. Lol

That'd have to be one big pocket

[Ioo]

23. If you look at the % of his total worth, it is more then most...

Oh let us not celebrate a single family for giving money to a cause than is noble, but instead bitch about the fact that he could have given more.

Bill gates net worth is about 50 Billion; he has endowed about 29 Billion to his foundation. That is 58% of his net worth. Not I am not sure what you define as pocket change, but almost 60% of that I am worth I can not afford to give to charity. I am going to go out on a limb and say that there is NO ONE I know that can just give away 58% of their net worth.

I am not saying that Bill is strapped for cash, but it is not chump change.

[misternormal]

3. I laud Bill Gates...

... for His work in humanitarian efforts. It is just unfortunate that one has to wait until one is the richest man in the world to do it.

I do not mean my comment to be inflamitory in nature, it just seems that the #2 and #3 and so on and so forth are doing relatively nothing.

[DFWdem]

8. He did earlier good deeds

I lived in the Seattle area from 1995-1999 and heard about some of his philanthropy then. He just didn't do it on quite this scale at that time, but he has always given back to the community.

[misternormal]

9. I stand corrected, thank you, but...

My question still is... where are the rest of those that can afford to be more philanthropic than most??

[DFWdem]

11. I couldn't agree with you more

Where indeed?

[henslee]

6. Ok, I'm probably wrong. Sorry. According to the Bill Gates weath clock...

He's worth about 60 billion. But I do suspect its more.
http://philip.greenspun.com/WealthClock

[sleipnir]

7. He is supposedly giving away all his money before his death.

That's what he's said, at least back in the late 90's.

We'll see if he changes his tune, but I think he's going to keep his word.

[DFWdem]

10. If I remember correctly...

I think he said he was going to give away 95% of his wealth and leave the remaining 5% to his family. Of course, 5% of $60 billion is still $3 billion, but I see nothjing wrong with that. If they've given away $29 billion so far and plan to give away another $50 - $60 billion, that'll end up being around $100 billion dollars by the time all is said and done. That's a butt load of money.

[emulatorloo]

12. Yes, he has made a huge difference in the lives of people whose companies

and lives he has crushed with his monopolistic business practices. And of course that trickles down to you and me because we no longer get to enjoy those products and instead are pretty much stuck with the MS "standard" - buggy bloaty and dreary.

JMHO

I am glad he is giving to charity (his wife does sound like a wonderful person). Some have argued that at least some of his charity works to Gate's advantage in terms of world dominance for microsoft. Sorry too lazy to look for links but if you google India and Microsoft and Gates and Charity.

[DFWdem]

14. Well, there is another way to look at it

Certainly some companies have been crushed, but Microsofts products have also greatly enhanced productivity in a multitude of workplaces, thereby enriching the people who work at those companies. It could be argued that more people have benefited from Microsofts products than have been harmed by its business practices. Of course, that'd take quite the in-depth study to determine.

[emulatorloo]

25. And think how productive we could be with products that were less lame

than Microsoft products!

Inferior products sold thru strong arm/successful tactics are still inferior products. Just look at the Bush administration.

[leesa]

32. And think of the sales Microsoft makes when Micorsoft products are

"donated"...upgrades, software, etc. Kaaaaching!

What the hell else does he have to do with his money? Buy more cars?

[afdip]

13. good article in 10/24 issue of 'the new yorker' about

"what money can buy."

[William769]

15. I have never bashed Bill Gates & I doubt I ever will

He is a true humanitarian & I love him for that.

[brainshrub]

16. For an evil geek, Bill Gates has a heart.

I am a big fan of OpenSource, and I love to make fun of Microsoft... but I have to admit that Bill Gates is a man of great generosity.

[left is right]

36. Prior to Windows

you couldn't just go into Costco and buy software or a printer cable (let alone a printer). Everything had to be configured and sometimes custom made for the specific computer and peripheral. I worked at a company who specialized in custom computer cables. It was not uncommon for a Fortune 500 company to call in an order for a printer cable that often had to be built to specification, have it special messengered halfway across the country at great expense. Diskettes had to be preformatted specifically for each computer model. Now if a company needs a cable someone picks it up on their lunch break at anyone of a number of local establishments and diskettes have been replaced with keychain drives that are near universal in application.

[brainshrub]

37. Back then, not many people had computers.

I've taken part in many, many flame-wars on other forums over Microsoft. IMHO, to give primary credit to MS for standardizing the OS is like giving the rooster credit for making the sun rise.

Let's not forget that Gates built his fortune on a software program he didn't even own when he leased it to IBM. Gates is a brilliant businessman and a generous benefactor, but he got his fortune with some sneaky, underhanded tactics that all of us are paying for to this day.

[Vinnie From Indy]

17. Gates is a decent man

I have no doubt that there are ruined lives and businesses in Microsoft's wake but Gate's charity is a model that should be adopted by other hyper wealthy Americans.

[Beetwasher]

18. He's A Cutthroat Businessman But A Good, Generous Human Being

The two need not be mutually exclusive.

Indeed, Bill Gates IS one of the good guys, despite what you may think of his business practices.

It's interesting to note, that if a rich person is self made, like Bill Gates, George Soros etc, they tend to be more liberal. I guess when you actually earn your money, and know the value of hard work it makes you view things a bit differently, as opposed to having everything handed to you.

[acmavm]

19. Hmmmmmmm. Where does Bill Gates stand on the tax cut for the

wealthy issue? Where does Bill Gates stand in regard to support for this current administration? Didn't Mr. Gates have Ralph Reed on the payroll for a long time? While the evil and corrupt Mr. Reed was on the payroll didn't Mr. Gates take a stand against gay rights?

Does Mr. Gates get one hellacious tax break on his donations?

Not saying it's all bad but I certainly do not see Mr. Gates as being a big supporter of the common (and poor and minority) people in this country.

I am soooo damn glad that he's doing so much for global health. Now let him do something for the poor here that have gotten their healthcare taken away, who can't afford insurance. Hey, how about helping the thousands who will miss out on meals because the fundy nutjobs in Washington decided to cut the foodstamp program. (Ever hear Mr. Gates say anything about this??? No, me neither.)

[DFWdem]

21. Well, he is on record...

As being against the repeal of the estate tax. He's better off not getting involved in political issues such as food stamp cuts or national health care policy. Once you take a stand on one side of an issue you immediately turn off about 50% of the population. Not only would that not be good for his business, it could also affect his ability to get matching donations from others for his projects. One man can't solve every problem. Perhaps George Soros, Warren Buffet, or Paul Allen can take up the causes you listed above. Where are they?

[acmavm]

24. Where Bill Gates is. Stuffing his pockets and watching out for number 1.

First and foremost. And always remember the golden rule of the rich and powerful. You can do more time for stealing a dime out of the pocket of a rich man than you will if you kill a poor one.

[DFWdem]

27. Some people are never happy

Endow your charitable foundation with $29 billion and someone will always say "Why didn't they give $30 billion?". What have you done to fight global disease today?

[acmavm]

30. I give what little bit I can when I can. Which I suspect to me is

proportionately more that Mr. Gates is shelling out. I also give money to the hungry on the streets. To the missions. Whatever whenever. When it's cold out I give people who are freezing rides, and when they don't have a coat I scrounge one up for them. It may not be new, but it's better than nothing. For the past couple of winters I've had someone sleeping in my (detached) garage out back. I've just let them be (the most that they do is help themselves to some of the pop cans I save up and turn in).

I also support giving the tax breaks to the people who need it most. I support healthcare for everyone in this country. And I oppose cutting funding for food for those that need it.

What's your big claim to fame?

[DFWdem]

31. Sorry, that was a little snotty wasn't it?

I apologize. My point was that we can find fault with every person on the planet. However, we shouldn't define them by their faults alone, especially when they also do so much to help others. Could Gates do more? Of course he could, but so could all of us.

[acmavm]

34. Thank you for the apology. That's something you very rarely see here.

But my point is that Bill Gates may be, no is, doing some good. But as a rule all his ideals and actions are those of the 'elite' and they do not favor the rest of us. He is not to be idealized one bit. Those questions I asked. Research them.

Bill Gates, for those who don't know it, has built a great fortune at the expense of a lot of other people and companies. He has used unfair and what should be illegal business tactics amounting to coersion and blackmail. He's not one bit different than the drug companies.

Like I said, proportionately I probably give more than he does. And sometimes it hurts but I can't stand the guilt of not buying some poor guy outside the Holiday a carton of milk and a sandwich. Even though I'm at the end of my money until payday.

[Deja Q]

28. He's an effective monopoly and the direction he's taking will solidify it.

Web-based services and applications.

Thin clients.

And you thought "Software assurance" was extortion. That's nothing compared to what's coming. (heck, MS is apologizing left and right right now about not having any new products for 5 years. Guess when "software assurance" started? And guess what S.A. promoted? No-cost upgrades to new product versions as they become available. Well, gadzooks, none became available after WinXP and Office 2003 came out...

It obviously goes much deeper than all this. But the blind gates-lovers out there need to look at the whole picture.

[DFWdem]

29. I'm not a blind Gates lover, but...

I give credit where it is due. Bill has done an enormous amount of good with his Microsoft profits.

[I Have A Dream]

40. Bill Gates' father was one of the most vocal people against the repeal...

of the Estate Tax. I don't know what Bill Gates Jr. thinks about it.

Here's a portion of an article from The Nation magazine co-written by Bill Gates Sr.:

Long Live the Estate Tax!

Bill Gates Sr. & Chuck Collins

There is a stunning disconnect between the terrible budget shortfalls facing states and localities and the priorities of federal tax-cutters. States face budget deficits of more than $60 billion for the coming year--and the ax is falling on mental health, education and children's healthcare. Libraries are being shuttered, tuitions increased and parks closed. Governors of all political persuasions talk about the need for massive federal relief to the states in the form of block grants and Medicaid subsidies.

Yet the President and Congressional tax-cutters are marching ahead with a $670 billion tax cut that could include elimination of dividend taxes and an acceleration of 2001 tax rate cuts. According to the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, 42 percent of the benefits of the dividend tax cut will go to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers, whose incomes are above $330,000. These proposals have more to do with rewarding campaign contributors and lobbying patrons than with economic stimulus.

Also at the top of the domestic agenda is the push to make repeal of the federal estate tax permanent. Such a step will not have any short-term or long-term economic stimulus effect. But cutting $850 billion in revenue in the decade after the tax is phased out--money that would have been collected from the heirs of multimillionaires--will prolong the current fiscal crisis. Many states will feel the pain of revenue loss first because their inheritance and estate taxes are linked to the federal levy.

Today, the estate tax affects less than 2 percent of the richest households, those with wealth exceeding $1 million. A reformed estate tax, with wealth exemptions boosted to $3.5 million, would still generate tens of billions of dollars of revenue a year. Under such a reform, an estimated 6,000 estates a year, averaging $17 million each, would pay the tax. In Maine, Montana, Alaska and Mississippi--states where both senators have voted to completely eliminate the tax--the estimated number of estates paying the tax every year would be fewer than twenty-five.

<continued at link below>

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030127/gates

[donco6]

20. I can't judge Bill Gates - he's given my district $3 million.

And we're not large. He's funding our district reinvention. We're moving to small schools. Can't say more as it's not public yet.

I can say that the Gates Foundation does NOT shovel money out the door. They have very, very specific questions they ask about how the money is going to be spent - good ones, I might add. I'm on the finance side, and I applauded the questions they asked, as I have been asking them for years and cannot get an answer! This forced the instructional side to really get specific and detail-oriented. Loved seeing them do that! Ha!

[mrfrapp]

22. Greg Palast

Greg Palast, the investigative journalist who exposed the 2000 Florida vote fraud, has a different view.

...snip...

Stephanie, let me let you in on a little secret about Bill and Melinda Gates so-called “Foundation.” Gate’s demi-trillionaire status is based on a nasty little monopoly-protecting trade treaty called “TRIPS” – the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights rules of the World Trade Organization. TRIPS gives Gates a hammerlock on computer operating systems worldwide, legally granting him the kind of monopoly the Robber Barons of yore could only dream of. But TRIPS, the rule which helps Gates rule, also bars African governments from buying AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis medicine at cheap market prices.

...snip...

Gates knows darn well that “intellectual property rights” laws such as TRIPS – which keep him and Melinda richer than Saddam and the Mafia combined – are under attack by Nelson Mandela and front-line doctors trying to get cut-rate drugs to the 23 million Africans sick with the AIDS virus. Gate’s brilliant and self-serving solution: he’s spending an itsy-bitsy part of his monopoly profits (the $6 billion spent by Gates’ foundation is less than 2% of his net worth) to buy some drugs for a fraction of the dying. The bully billionaire’s “philanthropic” organization is currently working paw-in-claw with the big pharmaceutical companies in support of the blockade on cheap drug shipments.

...snip...

We are all serfs on Microsoft’s and Big Pharma’s ‘intellectual property.’ If Gates’ fake philanthropy eviscerates the movement to free Africans from the tyranny of TRIPS, then Bill and Melinda’s donations could have the effect of killing more Africans than then even their PR agents claim they have saved. And for our own Republic, we can only hope that when the bully-boy billionaire injects his next wad of loot into the Bush political campaign, he uses a condom.

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=232&row=1

He also has written about this in the book, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy".

I don't enough about it to have an opinion but Palast is usually right.

on edit: note that the article in question is about two-thirds down the linked page.

[Deja Q]

26. Give it up, shill. It's not just that his "foundation" is a tax shelter,

He also gave $3 mil to the December Asia Tsunami fund and then said he did (the Bible sayeth (and this is paraphrased) that the only real charity is the anonymous kind). That's all good, but that's like 0.00006% his net worth.

Now if I gave 0.00006% of my net worth and then told everybody I had done so, I'd be laughed out of this planet.

And his only endowment worth talking about is his financial worth. By the way, did you know that your god gates ditched the dollar in favor of the euro in Jan 2005 and then mocked how the dollar was going down? Not very nice for a guy who claims to be a "philanthropist".

He's also working on new technologies to render PCs obsolete AND generate the next generation of steady revenue. Subscription licensing to web-based software. Piracy = 0.00000. Pay to use. Privacy = nil.

He also offshores enmasse, shows signs he's only going to continue to do so, and then tells us all to study software engineering. With the nunber of unemployed programmers in America, I bet Microsoft could hire them ALL and still have tens of billions left over.

Yeah, he's a real hero. :spit:

I could go on for ages.

LOOK at his business practices. He is a vulture and a leech. He's little better than Walmart.

[DFWdem]

33. Bitter much?

Did you get fired by Microsoft? Yes he gave $3 million to the tsunami victims. But tell me, what percent of $89 billion is $29 billion? As long as we're evaluating percentages, let's be honest about it. I believe it comes out to roughly 30%. Like I said, there will always be those who say whatever someone gives is not enough.

[DFWdem]

35. Offshores en masse?

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/inside_ms.mspx#EEBAE

Current Employment Headcount
Location Employees

Worldwide 59,947

USA 38,336

Puget Sound 28,900


Let's see, 38,336/59,947 = 63.94% of Microsoft employees in the US. Considering the company ooperates in dozens of countries, are you suggesting they shouldn't create jobs in any country other than the US?

[barbaraann]

41. A lot of the US employees are not American citizens.

Especially in the high-paying technical jobs.

[barbaraann]

39. You're too kind, HypnoToad.

http://www.microsuck.com/content/whatsbad.shtml

http://users.aol.com/machcu/amsa.html

I think the problem is that too many DUers are so busy with the fight against Bush and the GOP that they don't have time to invest in finding out the truth about Microsoft and swallow the mainstream propaganda. I have personally been around the computer industry long enough to know that Bill Gates and MS are pure evil.

[Vinnie From Indy]

43. I respectfully disagree

I have personal knowledge of some of the discussions that have taken place between the four main players in the Gates Foundation concerning a host of humanitarian and philanthropic issues and I can unequivocally state that these people are not "pure evil". They are not framing every donation in some grand scheme to conquer and subjugate the world under the Microsoft boot. I believe that another poster above has it right when they point to the fact that Gates is a self made man. Gates is not perfect, no one is, and compared to most other titans of industry, he deserves credit for his charitable work.

[area51]

38. "... global health ...."

News flash for ya, Bill, we need help w/unaffordable healthcare here in the states. Also, for the poster who mentioned Gates was against repeal of the estate tax, are you sure that isn't Bill's father? The Bill Gates of MS is actually Bill Jr. And I know his father is against the repeal of the estate tax.

<obligatory>MS drools, Unix/Linux rules. :evilgrin: </obligatory>

[Zhade]

42. He's very flawed, but intriguing.

The recent New Yorker article on his anti-A.I.D.S. and anti-malaria philanthropy really made me think.

He didn't sound like he was faking the compassion. But he's still a ruthless businessman.

Interesting dichotomy, Mr. Gates.

[MadHound]

44. He is simply doing what other robber barons have done throughout history

Trying to leave a benevolent legacy and buy his way into heaven.

Probably having some serious pangs from his conscience, so he is giving money in order to quiet the pain. Trouble is that somehow I doubt that any amount of money he gives will make up for the crimes he has committed, the lives he has sacrificed to his greed, the harm he has caused society and this planet.

Yes, his generosity will make a large difference to many people. But sadly his business practices have made even a larger difference to a larger group of people.

As far as I'm concerned, Gates can go jump in a lake.