Didn’t he say this a decade ago and is now more rich than he was back then?
Cool, give me some you weird old cuck.
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.
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.
Behind the bastards has a good two parter on him. I wouldn’t say he’s been responsible with it.
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
…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?
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”?
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.
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.
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.
I’ve been sending his chain emails along since the 90s so he owes me some serious interest.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
“plans”
…and still be a billionaire.
Why should oligarchs get to decide where the proceeds of their exploitation get spent?
He has been making this kind of promise since the early 2000s, but never follows through. Just the goal post keeps moving to the right.
While the goal post keeps moving, it’s the opposite of your statement. As explained in the article:
That target would represent a doubling in spending for the nonprofit, which has disbursed more than $US100 billion since it was co-founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates in 2000. Originally, the foundation was set to close 20 years after the Microsoft co-founder’s death.
“I have decided to give my money back to society much faster than I had originally planned,” Gates, 69, wrote in a statement. “I will give away virtually all my wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years to the cause of saving and improving lives around the world.”
Supposedly he’s already given away half, why is it unthinkable that he’s planning to give away the other half?
Because good people don’t hoard wealth to begin with.
He does this so people don’t hate him for helping to destabilize the global economy.
I think only allowing bad people to hoard wealth would be a moral failure if a good person had the opportunity to choose.
Doesn’t that leave him still with something like $2 billion? I’m not knocking the philanthropy, but also, his safety net is going to remain about $2 billion dollars larger than
minemost every other human being on this entire planet. And it will continue to accrue value at a higher rate than inflation as long as the good ol’ American engine keeps on chugging along as normal.From his vantage point, this sacrifice will likely impact neither his daily lifestyle nor his long-term comfort one iota.
It’s a great thing he’s doing, and I want to be clear about that. He’s giving a boatload of money to charity. And I also don’t know what else he might be doing with the remainder. I might be being an asshole. I haven’t even read the article. I just saw that fuckin guy and the shining headline and had a strong reaction.
(Edited)
I wouldn’t for a second think or hope that he endures the distress of poverty or feeling needy given where he started - he has tried to do good with his fortune and that is good enough for me…he is doing what he can for the world around him and should be comfortable as he does so. I hope to find my own (much less extravagant) comfort some day.
and thats the thing there are some who could realistically give away 99% of thier wealth and still individually be rich beyond belief. I hope it spawns some Rockefeller thing where the rich realize they can eat thier cake and have it to, they can be unbelievably rich and donate unbelievable ammounts of wealth, leaving a huge, arguably postive mark on history.
Get fucked with a rusty rake bill, you helped stop the COVID vaccines from being patent exempt, among plenty of other awful shit, all for more money.
The vaccines were patent exempt, WTO adopted it officially in 2022, which the Gates Foundation endorsed shortly after Bill’s initial objection.
2022…I wonder how many people died to protect corporation’s profits in two years of a global pandemic.
The first US full non-emergency-use approved vaccine was Pfizer-BioNTech in August 2021.
Patent laws aren’t something they implemented to stop the vaccines, its the default stance which they, including the Gates Foundation, pushed to change for the greater good.
You didn’t need to explain that patent laws existed before 2020.
In May 2020, WHO, the Government of Costa Rica and other partners launched the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) to facilitate faster equitable and affordable access to COVID-19 health products for people in all countries. C-TAP, which is currently endorsed by 45 WHO Member States, was a response to the global Solidarity Call to Action. Its implementing partners include UNDP, the Medicines Patent Pool, the UN Technology Bank and Unitaid.
https://www.who.int/initiatives/covid-19-technology-access-pool
Medical patents do always cause death, of course. Artificial scarcity protects profits at the cost of lives. Bill Gates, and the Gates Foundation at first, opposed programs to allow poor countries to produce the vaccine themselves.
He made windows.
Why wait, just do it already.
Individuals hoarding wealth is bad for society.
Because he wants to benefit personally from his wealth and be seen as a good person.
And the idiots will keep eating it up
I mean, 99% of his wealth gone still leaves him with over a billion dollars. Might be more of a logistics and planning issue.
This is correct.
He’s gone in depth about this a number of times, where he talks about the complexity of using philanthropic money effectively. For example, is a dollar better spent educating poor children, or building wells in rural communities? Providing bed nets for malaria, or treatments for tuberculosis? And then once you decide on the cause you will put your money into, how do you ensure the money goes where you wanted it to go, rather than being syphoned off by bureaucrats, reallocated to spurious pet projects, or lining the pockets of some local warlord? And once your money has gone to the cause, how do you measure its impact to ensure it was money well spent? Do people actually use the well? Does it provide clean water? Does it work reliably? Did rates of malaria actually go down, or are people too lazy to use the bed nets? Etc.
These things are complicated and take time to figure out. Hence why all the “donate it now” comments are ridiculous.
Do you have a comprehensive plan on how to immediately spend 200Bn USD evenly and fairly only to the most impoverished people on earth in such a way that maximises longterm benefit more than spreading it out over 20 years?
Also, if you sell off 200Bn USD worth of stocks in a day then you’re not going to make 200Bn USD off the sales.
Yes, as a UBI. The average person is so poor that “means testing” it is just a waste of time and money. Poverty is very expensive - a high “interest rate” - so $1 donated today will have a drastically higher impact than $1 in 20 years, even adjusting for inflation.
Also, Gates’ wealth is now diversified enough that slippage would be minimal. And doing it suddenly without notice prevents speculators selling ahead of him and then buying back afterwards, which would essentially siphon off the wealth.
A UBI for 340 Million Americans from 200Bn USD comes out to about…
Tap tap tap tap
$588.23 each for exactly once. Saving 0 children across the world from starvation, malaria, or dehydration. You could also try distributing that money directly to poor regions but thats such a terrible idea that its on the same tier as immediately releasing Afghanistans funds to the Taliban.
Nobody is suggesting that we limit it to the USA. That would be about a week’s pay for the average person, saving lives right now, not maybe in 20 years.
Alright then, fine
200,000,000,000 / 8,222,255,289 = 24.32Enjoy your free pizza I guess
Gee, do I want to explain why this is stupid so you can celebrate your ignorance here too, or
Dude, even just planning and organizing a UBI takes time and effort.
It would start with a billionaire requesting people’s personal data (because he couldn’t publically admit to having it through dark sources) and who wants to do that?
He also couldn’t afford a UBI in every nation on the planet; right now his help is focused on countries with far worse standards of living than the USA.
Maybe he could have started by not stealing that money in the first place. We funded that shit with the window tax
you seem to be all over the thread defending gates. Do you really think this is how a good willed person helps people? by preventing vaccine patents, and using impoverished kids for testing.
He’s creating pathway to funnel his money where he wants it, his own family, with least criticism, and defended by short sighted stringent followers like you.
You think preventing vaccine patents was the bad outcome? I don’t even know how to begin with that, I don’t feel any need to defend if that’s your stance.
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?
Give it away now instead you piece of shit. If he actually gave a shit he would have donated it all to charities already. It’s just a billionaire farse, fuck him and the rest of em.
he actually gave a shit he would have donated it all to charities already. It’s just a billionaire farse,
Just not his own goddamned
tax avoidance schemecharityYes, to actual charities.
Which are also tax avoidance schemes
Careful now. Don’t go painting all charities as a form of tax avoidance just because a lot are used for that.
There are many great charities for many great causes out there.
Depends if you are talking about big charities or actual charities
Great tax avoidance. Pay 100% of that money to some charity to avoid paying 20% to government
He is. He is already giving it all away. He’s been doing it for 25 years and he will continue to do it for the next 20 years.
You have to understand that his value grows over time and selling his stocks en masse would decrease their market value. He’s been maximizing the amount of good done very effectively.
His value grows from exploiting even more people.
You keep repeating the claim that selling his stocks rapidly would tank their sale value. Let’s see your math.
Stocks are an unpredictable mess of human behavior; you can’t put anything in a calculator to see what they will be tomorrow. It is based on market confidence.
90% of investors won’t buy claims of “It’s just for charity” and will only see a massive sell off of MSFT, and drain the rest in turn through panic sales. It’s how every stock exchange crash has happened (though it can happen to just one or a few companies)
The basic lesson for finance as in all things is whatever you want to do, it’s better to do it slowly over time. Even charities work better if they have funding over a long period to hire staff and plan events, rather than a sudden billion all at once for a room of 8 volunteers to figure out.
OH NO! OH GOD NO! The US Tech Workers! They’re being forced to use, oh god no, forced to use Visual Studio Code *vomits
Oh the exploitation!
First, pick up a book.
Second, you seem to be assuming all of his investments have only tech workers, and that they’re all very well paid.
Lmao
He’s been doing it for 25 years and STILL managed to reach 133 billion? No, I call bullshit. You don’t just accidentally end up with that kind of money while “giving it all away”, get real.
When you own shares of Microsoft from 1986 to 2025 yes you do.
So sell and donate. What’s the problem? That it is a lot? He had a lot of time to do that.
The problem is that it’s less than donate and sell over a span of 20 years.
Is this supposed to impress anyone?
I find it lovely that he’s racked by guilt over his legacy and tries to do something about it.
Racked by guilt? His company is helping commit genocide by providing AI tools to automatically designate civilians as targets for military strikes.
I’d rather he keeps his money and uses his influence to stop that. He chooses not to do so every day.
I don’t think he has that influence any more.
And yeah, genocide would be one of the reasons to feel guilty, but it’s far from the only one.
why do you think one of the richest man doesn’t have “that” influence at a company he founded anymore?
Yeah he made windows.
Pure evil
Do it now motherfucker.
Yeah, I mean, a quick Google search shows his net worth at 133b. 113b x 0.01 = 1.13 billion dollars.
For context, bill is 69 yo, and the average US male lives to about 76 yo. That’s a difference of six years, or 2190 days. That means that Bill would have to scrape by on just $519,000/day.
That sounds an unbearable way to live. /S
THIS. EXACTLY THIS.
It takes planning and must be done in stages? I suppose he does start with it now.
