Didn’t he say this a decade ago and is now more rich than he was back then?
To his charity? Oh Bill, you shouldn’t have. Go fucking die billionaire scum…
Don’t give it away.
If you really want to help people, buy media, buy politicans and get REAL change that will actually last.
You giving money to random charities does fuck all, except give you tax breaks.
We need change in the political system so that we don’t need fucking charities for basic needs.
He does give money to politicians and the Gates Foundation does as well:
If you really want to help people, buy media, buy politicans and get REAL change that will actually last.
Did he stutter?
To his kids and their charities? Reminder that Bill gates is every bit as exploitative and evil, he didn’t become a billionaire by paying fair wages. This is all PR to try and save his reputation as everyone turns on billionaires. Like buffet, he just shuffles his money to his kids and calls it charity
Ikr fuck this guy.
Bullshit, he’s “transferring” his wealth to his own charity for tax reasons…
It’s a trick to protect his money for his children.
Not according to the opening sentence?
The Gates Foundation plans to give away $US200 billion ($313 billion) over the next 20 years before shutting down entirely in 2045
“plans”
Sure. The Gates Foundation gives the money to the Totally Not A Tax Dodge foundation which quietly pays the Gates kids as much as they want. I’m sure it will be more elegant than that, but that’s the basic grift.
Meanwhile, Gates uses his reputation as a philanthropist, and all the soft power from controlling billions to further his own interests and cement his personal philosophy as the only option.
The charity means that the American people have no control at all over how the money is spent, so the plebians have to beg at their door for money to be used in the way that Gates says it must be used.
I will say, the business of fake charities is so common that it does sound almost preferable to make their own, and actually understand where aid is needed in the world.
It’s an old topic for me, but I do remember hearing about the B&MGF working on clean water solutions in other parts of the world.
Also; Warren Buffett recently pledged to the charity, while having his own trust for his kids. That action wouldn’t make sense if the charity just existed to protect family.
foundation which quietly pays the Gates kids as much as they want
Any sources?
You’re asking me to cite a source for Gates’s donation to the “Not a Tax Dodge Foundation”? After I said "I’m sure it will be more elegant than that, but that’s the basic grift. ”
Please go look up the term “hypothetical”. You might want to investigate the Onion too.
No, I’m asking for articles about payments made from the Gates foundation to the Gates children.
It’s the first I’ve heard of this and I’d like more details.
American people have not been known for wise choices lately.
I’ll believe it when I see it. He’s evil and always has been.
He was anti-competetive towards Netscape navigator, admitted guilt and paid for it, since then he’s putting his money where his mouth is. Anything else I left out?
Microsoft has gone to shit after he left.
Lemmy sounds exactly like magas
TaxEat the rich!Here’s the thing. Even if he lives up to this promise, it’s still him deciding where that money should go, and it won’t be towards long term support of social safety nets for the commoners. He should just have been paying his fair share of taxes all along and into the future.
…or paying his employees more.
Funny how we don’t have a popular term for the portion of an employee’s deserved wage that turns into “record shareholder profit.”
Imagine if all corporations were required to put a line item on check stubs showing how much you made them.
That term is wage theft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft
Too knee jerk. Needs “tax” incorporated as it’s so unpopular.
Employee value index?
Who do you think Bill Gates’ employees are right now? Do you think he’s still the CEO of Microsoft? Are you referring to the Gates Foundation? If so, have you got data on what they’re paid?
This is him avoiding estate taxes, change my mind.
How much would his estate taxes be vs giving up 99% of his fortune?
I mean if I want my next of kin/whoever to get my money, it’s better to do it while alive when you can get creative with the accounting. Especially when you’ve got Gates money and setting up something like a nonprofit is relatively easy.
Once you’re dead and you’ve got this lump declared assets you’re trying to pass on that Uncle Sam will take up to like 40% of.
If only there was some way to see what the non-profit was doing, some kind of third party auditor or something.
Bill Gates uses his “charity” to exert influence worldwide and demand stuff in return.
If this man was truly giving away his money then world hunger would have been solved by now.
Even on lemmy his marketing pr is successful
What stuff has he demanded in return?
He heaivily invests in vaccines and pharma companies. And he keeps the vaccines patented.
See also this great video https://youtu.be/i8w3qPwpzZA
Sorry, what stuff has he demanded in return ?
He holds the patents on the vaccines which he acquired using a “nonprofit”.
Do you think Sam Altman is also graciously saving the world with his “nonprofit”?
While I’m all for taxing the rich more than the current system of not at all, I think in the long term it would be better to instigate or modify systems so that we don’t get these exceedingly greedy people going unchecked in the first place. How about a cap on the ratio between the highest and the lowest paid employee in any organisation for a start? Boss wants a raise, everyone gets a raise.
I think in the long term it would be better to instigate or modify systems so that we don’t get these exceedingly greedy people going unchecked in the first place.
Absolutely.
The problem is that we live in liberal-democracies [as in, a certain type of democracy] where systematic mass media bias and financial corruption of the political system are ingrained from the start. It’s not merely coincidence that almost every country has ended up like this. It’s the inevitable trend of capitalism, a system that rewards corruption and that can’t be leashed without worker power.
The bottom line is that such reforms would be nice, and I support any viable effort at making them happen, but at the end of the day, we’re asking the owning class to give themselves less money. And unless you have mass worker-class power to threaten them, their answer is going to be “no” with a dash of “protesting is now more illegal”. Historically speaking, the owning class don’t give up any serious concessions without going to violent war.
Based on current spending, it will most likely be spent getting drinkable water to the majority of the world’s population.
I don’t like how he got his money, but he’s been reasonably responsible with it since his divorce.
That said, he has over $113b dollars. If he gives away 99% of it, he’ll still have over a billion dollars.
He’s been buying up huge swathes of farm land in the middle of the country. Not everything he’s doing has been philanthropy
There are books on him exposing how half of his charities are frauds. Given his past records humanity should be wary of putting this man anywhere near anything drinkable or useful
Behind the bastards has a good two parter on him. I wouldn’t say he’s been responsible with it.
Yeah but that’s communism, so no way it would’ve ever happened. The average American voter thinks they can become billionaires some day.
Does the word communism even have meaning any more, or is it just something to yell when confused people get confused?
I’m using it sarcastically
I know, I caught the silent /s at the end of your post :) You are referring to people who don’t use it sarcastically - does the word communism have meaning left when they use it?
Honestly, it might just be creeping closer to “social”. As in, concerning a society. Things like bike lanes and healthcare.
It means when the government helps people that aren’t me or people I like, or fails to hurt the people I don’t like.
“Communism” like we ever had real communism.
Communism is a word with different legitimate meanings and it sound like this comment is conflating two of them.
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The communist movement, guided by the various theories within Marxist schools of thought. [as you can see, there’s a huge range of ideologies in this school of thought, and a few different ones have become ruling governments, and any claiming to be the one true ‘real communism’ are being arrogant and ignorant]
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Communist society, a society with a socialist mode of production replacing the capitalist mode of production, which those theories are trying to achieve. This has not been accomplished by a post-industrial society.
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Because it’s a dream that would suffer the same fate that capitalism does.
I’m so glad we have you here to finally tell us how everything works. Thank god.
Do you feel like this has been a meaningful addition to anything? Are you capable of discussing without attacking your opponents?
- Thats an excellent question. Do you apply it sometime? 2. Do you think youre somehow entitled to spew nonsense and not be called out for it?
I’m stating an opinion, you’re the one screeching nonsense.
Can we quit running billionaire’s PR campaigns for them? These people are not our friends, and giving back a portion of what they stole (always in the most public way) doesn’t change that
Sorry Bill but it’s too late and not enough. I still want to eat the rich and that includes you.
Although I‘ll admit if all billionaires did this instead of - oh you know - investing in fascism and actively dismembering democracy globally I might feel different about this. But as things stand I am done with billionaires. We cannot coexist. Simple as that.
Isn’t he literally the only billionaire who has been donating a lot over the years?
But yes, fully agree. There’s no reason any person should be that rich. They’re cause and symptom of a fucked-up system
McKenzie Scott (Bezos Ex-Wife) is doing what she can to get the divorce money to where it normally doesn’t land, so if we eat the rich, i’d currently say she’s off limits, pending good behavior.
Dinner sentence with reprieve.
Absolutely not. I think others give a bit less, but they’re just not public about it.
Warren Buffet makes $5B annual donations to charities. He’s an investor, so if he gave it all out as a lump sum, he wouldn’t be able to make more to donate next year (and aside total received, many charities work better with consistent yearly funding)
How did he get to be a billionaire? By standing on the throats of others, he could not have created that wealth without harm.
Yes I’m not disagreeing
I think a big problem with our financial system is people with wealth have the ability to siphon wealth out of companies through the stock market. Ultimately that company is paying shareholders with profit generated by the workers. A billion invested with just 5% dividends would take many lifetimes of constant work for an individual to pay off a single time, let alone every year. Yet that’s how it is. Billionaires get richer and richer and their blood sucking proboscis gets bigger and bigger.
We live in a financially feudal society where the Lord’s have no responsibility to tend to the land.
Why not hate on the billionaires who aren’t giving away billions of dollars?
Tankies can’t have us cracking their fragile absolute values.
Because he isn’t doing anything either. He promised to get rid of it in 20 years.
First, he’s a psychopath, I don’t trust a word he says. Additionally, in 20 years he’ll be almost 90. Aka huge chance he’ll be actually dead of old age.
And last, you don’t get to fuck the world for decades and then suddenly become a good person because you promise to stop being a shitstain in another 2 decades.
He’s been consistently donating his wealth for years.
He’s not saying he will do nothing foe 10 years
Then why does he have so much wealth? Donate more. Do more. Some isn’t enough.
He literally said he is donating basically all of it, you chud.
Then do it. I’ll believe it when I see it, chud.
He’s been doing it? And is still doing it? He’s donated about $100 billion so far?
Dumbass.
We do.
Being on lemmy.dbzer0.com I’m surprised your feed isn’t covered in people demanding the removal of all billionaires. The existence of billionaires is the problem, not what they spend that money on or what percentage they donated.
“Billionaires shouldn’t exist” I definitely agree with. I think the production of billionaires is a problem. Focusing on the current existence of all the ones we have now won’t accomplish much sustainably and doesn’t prevent the problem in the future.
I’d really prefer the energy and focus went to better tax laws to prevent higher wealth gain; even if it’s just a start. Gates and other rich people have previously supported such changes.
The sad thing is that even if he gives away 99% of his wealth he will still be obscenely rich. Multitudes richer than the average man.
That’s not necessarily sad. It can show all these billionaires that they will still be ridiculously wealthy without hoarding
I’m pretty sure a billionaire hoards by definition
So then, Bill isn’t a billionaire, by definition?
But honestly it does kinda fit, someone like Elon Musk is a billionaire with the sole goal of gaining more useless wealth at any costs, while Gates kinda realised over three decades ago that he has so much already he doesn’t have a need to actually get more.
He’s already given around $100 billion in donations, and probably actually would have ran out of money by now if not for the fact that even though he has sold off his Microsoft stock from the initial 45% down to just around 1%, that 1% has been growing like crazy -15 years ago, it would have been worth around $2.5 billion, today it’s over $40 billion.That original 45% would be worth 1.5 trillion today, btw.
But they’ll drop hundreds of places on the leaderboard!
Ridiculous wealth is still a hoard.
That’s very true. No body needs a $500m yacht, like Bill Gates has. I think Zuckerfuck has one too. Elon doesn’t look like a boat guy to me. Although… he might have a submarine. Let’s hope it’s carbon fiber.
Also these people: Zhong Shanshan, Zhang Yiming, Ma Huateng, Colin Huang, Robin Zeng, William Lei Ding, He Xiangjian, Lei Jun, Jack Ma, Wang Chuanfu, Huang Shilin, Li Shufu, Wang Wei, Lu Xiangyang, Qin Yinglin, Qi Shi, Dang Yanbao, Zhang Zhidong, Zheng Shuliang, Wang Xing… to name a few.
Yes.
Since you mentioned a lot of Chinese names, I have to give their government props for jailing and executing[1] a few of them. [Further reading]
But I thought billionaires couldn’t exist under communism? I’m sure there’s a diagram around here somewhere. Oh here it is.
The communist mode of production isn’t a magic switch that a communist movement can suddenly flip on. That would be silly, capitalism didn’t just suddenly appear and create billionaires like that either.
If you’re actually asking that question sincerely, this article I already posted gives a concrete answer to your question.
In 20 years, while still sitting on a mountain of money… All rich people are evil. The sooner people realize this, the better.
I would guess that you live in a first world country, and therefore would be considered rich by those who do not. Therefore, by your own definition, you are evil. Are you sure that’s what you meant to say ?
I would hazard a guess that you think you were quite clever, going for the man instead of the ball. Therefore, by my own definition, you are not worth wasting more time on.
Lol
Bank Robber vows to give away his stolen funds by 20 years from now to charities of his choosing. He’s one of the good ones! So uplifting!
Bank robber? Stolen funds? Huh?
I guess I will over-explain my snarky comment.
I’m making an analogy with robbing a bank, something that everyone would agree is a criminal activity because:
- Bill Gates is a billionaire. Billionaires hoard wealth that they cannot possibly spend in their lifetimes and use that excess wealth to influence our political processes to get what they want. The existence of billionaires is violence, just not the sort of direct violence we all recognize.
If you don’t find that point convincing:
- The only reason Bill Gates is as wealthy as he is is due to Microsoft being so profitable. I think it’s funny how quickly everyone has forgotten how anti-competitive and scummy Microsoft was during the 1990-2010s (and even today), and they definitely wouldn’t be where they are today without those practices. If you believe in free markets, this should make you angry, because competition is good for the consumer. Anti-competitive practices could be seen as a type of theft here.
A great deal of his wealth is unearned and comes at a cost to society in the form of an unfair technology market. He is the benefactor of a system who rewards those who have the most already, a system that allows your neighbors be homeless, sick and/or without basic necessities.
Kind of like a bank robber has unearned wealth. A bank robber (who got away with it!) giving away their unearned wealth to their favored charities doesn’t really belong in Uplifting News.
Oh those poor US tech workers, living in ghettos, forced to rely on Windows XP and Microsoft Azure in order to survive. Woe is they. How could Bill have done this to them? /s
Lol. As one of those tech workers I’ll never forgive Bill for making slashes the wrong way in DOS.
But also, his foundation does good work and I support it. The amount of hate he’s getting in this thread just builds up the amount of eye roll I have for anyone who describes themselves as a “leftist”
Bill + Melinda Gates Foundation is a fun litmus test for leftists because you either have to claim (and secretly hope) Gates is a fraud or admit that not all billionaires are evil.
To the average non-leftist it is very obvious he cares about humanity and is doing his best to help it.The foundation exists because of Melinda.
Bill is, and always has been, a sociopath. It’s a requirement to becoming a billionaire outside of inheritance. He ‘cares’ about humanity because it’s a useful vector through which to launder his reputation.
A truly uplifting story would be if he were advocating to prevent billionaires from existing. Any society which tolerates that level of wealth concentration is suicidal.
A truly uplifting story would be if he were advocating to prevent billionaires from existing.
Hell, he has all the means he needs to get ACTUAL progressives elected. The man is a piece of shit through and through.
What is your argument that it is not an advertising budget
Billionaires are evil, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are all consciously evil. They’re “evil” like cancer.
Of course, many of them are consciously evil, too, but obviously that part is a choice.
Bill + Melinda Gates Foundation is a fun litmus test for leftists because you either have to claim (and secretly hope) Gates is a fraud or admit that not all billionaires are evil.
There’s no contradiction. Having that much money hoarded in the first place is a gross misallocation of social resources gained by not paying workers what their labor is worth, not to mention all the horrible acts Microsoft has committed to gain that profit. A leech who pays a few percent to charity is still antisocial and should be removed from society.
For the average supporter of the trump regime, it’s a globalist conspiracy—Gates is seen as a symbol of elite overreach, vaccine mandates, and technocratic control.
True. And as much as I hate to ally with a group that I see as mostly ingorant and foolish…
If I must to choose between Bill Gates and an ignorant Trump supporter - one of the two categories has ever helped me change a flat tire on the side of the highway.
I think they’re largely wrong for why they dislike Gates, but they’re not wrong that he’s on the opposite side of an unprecedented self-propegating wealth gap and class war, from the rest of us.
Yes but they’re hypocritical in nature. They elected another billionaire to lead
Agreed. They suck. I just try to remember that they’re still actually on my (non-billionaire) side of the class war, even though they’re ingorantly actively hurting our shared cause.
I’m not actually being generous though.
My motive is knowing that the billionaires really want me to forget that even maga clowns are my natural allies, and could still benefit my cause in the future.
And as much as I hate to ally with a group that I see as mostly ingorant and foolish…
There’s nothing to hate about it, sharing a view isn’t allying. Political ideologies are about having consistent positions, not blindly opposing others. In fact, when you strip away all their nonsense delusions, plenty of them have the same material needs and interests as you so there is inevitably some common ground. Like you said elsewhere, we’re on the same side of the class war, whether they realize it or not.
