Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates and his wife Melinda are the most generous charitable donors in America, Business Week magazine said this week, as the couple gave away or pledged a staggering $23 billion — more than half of their net worth.
Gates Tops Generosity List
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Eugenia Loli
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Sure, it’s real nice donating all that money and all but it won’t get you out of our contract. We made a deal and there is nothing you can do about it. Your soul is MINE! Jesus can’t save you now so don’t even think he’s watching your good deeds here, cause your ass is mine, all mine!! See ya down the road, Billy.
-The Devil
A person can spend only sooo much! $23B is ALOT of money and still ALOT left over.
Sure, this is generous, if measured in pure money terms. But that rather misses the point. It effectively costs him nothing – there won’t be a hole in his pocket, and his lifestyle won’t change one bit.
To me, Bill Gates and Microsoft are like a game of Sim City 3000 (or whatever) gone mad. They are the ultimate expression of business success, and making more money than you know what to do with. You know when you “suss” a strategy game, and you basically “beat” it and become invincible and just start printing virtual money? That’s what Microsoft has achieved, but in the real world.
An extraordinary achievement, no doubt. But it frightens me, and makes me hate Microsoft even more. They could “sell” all their software for $0 for years and not even feel the pain, such is their cash pile. But instead, they continue to bleed the world dry with expensive licensing schemes and high prices.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe most of the money Bill and Melinda Gates donate is to the “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation”, which exists primarily to serve the interests of… guess who, Bill and Melinda Gates.
woo, thats good, so gates will make sue he has all his money and assets in there when he dies so the government does not get a cent, and his kids will be co-chairs on the fund each getting payed a few mil per year. isn’t being rich fun!!!
and here we are paying $300 for WINXP and $600 for OFFICE, while BillyG is gving away $23, 000, 000, 000!!!! If he has too much money, why not lower prices and invest more into security?
Bill Gates is the biggest private contributor to AIDS relief in Africa in the US, IIRC.
That doesn’t get him out of the hotseat for anti-competitive practices, but let’s not be overly skeptical.
It’s fine to be giving money like that an I applaude the gesture, but I’d bet anything he doesn’t lose a dime. When you make that much it puts you in a very high tax bracket, and donations like that are tax writeoffs. Hence by donating $23 million, he gets to keep that same amount in the long run instead of giving it to the government.
Everyone loves to hate Microsoft/Windows (including me) but I respect him for this. Despite his billions he’s still human and we all want to be remembered for the good we did on this earth once we leave it.
It is typical that ”the most generous charitable donor” value is based on how much money one spends to non-profit projects. Various other factors influence such. What does one get back from the non-profit project? What is it’s target? Does the target benefit the investors ideals somehow? Why does s/he invest in that project?
It’s just not that simple that the one who spends the most iz da c00l3szzszt
From my point of view, it’s relative; not absolut. One who does non-profit work in free time and spends 70% of his/her modal income and almost lives in poverty is in higher respect with me than one who spends 30% of his/her millions-high income.
It makes me also wonder in which projects he exactly invests and why the problems these organisations target actually exist.
I’ll probably get modded, but what does this have to do with operating systems and OS technology? Are we going to list the charitable contributions of the executives of;
SUN
IBM
SUSE
REDHAT
NOVELL
HP
INTEL
AMD
This is not really relevant to operating systems, only useful for flaming and trolling. But as I said before (and it got me modded) OSNEWS has become slashdot as far as the forums are concerned.
It seems Bill almost a modern day Robin Hood, he robs from the rich (and the poor) and give (half of it) to the poor.
I am sorry but how can anyone who has hoarded $40 Billion of the world’s wealth be considered generouse, even if he has given half of it away? Seems a bit like calling man used to weigh 700KG but only weighs 350KG the worlds slimmest man.
the man has so much money that he can dig the loose change out from under his couch cushions and feed a nation for a year
I think it is wonderful that he is giving so much away. Fortunately he is also a pretty sensible and well balanced person (as opposed to say Ross Perot) that gives to sensible causes that no governments would be able to get the votes for. Still, there is also something pointless in struggling so hard to accumulate such wealth just to give it all away. Oh well it is after all only about $100 for every person of the US. If I were him I’d consider also leaving something permanent. Maybe a Microsoft Entertainment center ala DisneyLand. Or a Museum ala Paul Getty’s. Or a libray ala Reagan’s. Or a high tower ala the Twin Towers in Kualalumpur. A pyramid. Or another Mount Rushmore. Something. He could afford it. The WTC cost about $10 bill.
We can’t judge Bill Gates, but we can question his choice of charities. This article does not list exactly which organizations will be ultimately receiving this money.
For an alternative view, see http://www.all.org/gates/
J
“An extraordinary achievement, no doubt. But it frightens me, and makes me hate Microsoft even more.”
Why would hate someone for extraordinary achievements?
I think alot of people need to take a look at themselves and realize that probably at least half of the hatred toward MS is nothing more than petty jealousy. Life is to short, there is no time for feelings like these.
@PantherPPC
Actually with the tax laws the way they are he probably is paying around 50 percent in taxes. So therfore for every dollar he gives the government doesn’t get 50 cents. He still is giving twice as much as he has to. I would rather see that than the money go to dropping more bombs etc.
I wonder how much Larry Ellison gives away?
Bill Gates for President of the United States! Running under the Green Party. He’s got my vote.
Well, it is a good thing Bill Gates is not a scrouge. The three ghost of Christmas would have to visit him. I wonder who the three ghost would be.
For some one you, no matter what Microsoft does it can’t be good. Screw the haters. So what if he’s worth a bazillion dollars and “only” donated half that bazillion. The only thing that would make the haters happy is if MS folded, open sourced all its apps and made them free, gave you all their net worth, and then created the best linux distro ever. I don’t see why it is so hard for some of you to see that Gates actually did something good.
He’s just trying to buy himself a place in history. I don’t buy for even a second that he is actually trying to help anyone.
I’ve got an idea. If he TRULY is trying to help people. How about doing it anonymously. That way he would still be helping people but not “appearing” to be trying to buy himself more fame.
LOL…screw you too. No, that wouldn’t make me happy. What makes me happy is reading this forum. You guys make me smile. So he did something good, so what? It doesn’t change the fact that he ran his company illegally, and should be punished. Unfortunately, in america that means minimal security at best…
but he’ll just get slapped on the wrist. God I hate this country right now.
“Hey ‘insert name of poor 3rd world nation here’ don’t look at Linux or other OS’s and we’ll give you 5 Billion in aid to your school’s or to fight off HIV/AIDS.”
Al Capone ran soup kitchen’s in Chicago during the depression era. Of course we all know how much of a nice guy Al Capone was.
You’re an idiot. Half Bill’s net worth still allows him to pay his bills and put food on the table. Besides all this get’s written off in his taxes anyways. Freaking tax loop holes ensure that anything these guys give away they can get right back with the nice highly paid lawyers and accountants they have working for him via tax credits/breaks.
Listen…you try making by renting, providing for two, paying off over $25G in college loans, and working at a shit intro job in the IT sector then come to me and tell me that it’s easy to live on less than $15G a year because you gave the other half to charity.
Until then I say, go to hell.
Thank you so much for the personal insults, it furthers the discussion considerably. Oh, but your comments aren’t pending review. Riiight.
The top 1% of incomes in the United States have by far the highest charity rate of any nation in the world. The United States government itself, too, is the largest giver of foreign aid.
And still your total amount of charity is embarrasingly low compared to ie my country (and many other EU countries). At the same time you have a higher CAP. Sucks, doesn’t it?
I personally wasn’t doing any thing to throw stones. In fact, I aknowledged his good dead, but said it doesn’t make up for the fact that he built a company upon illegal business practices.
Then by making aburd suggestions like living off of $15G a year and $23B a year is the same…and equally simple, well you started your own personal battle. For which I will gladly continue as long as you make such absurd suggestions.
Government-run charities are not charities–they are funded by taxes, which are compulsory. I have heard a lot of Europeans complain about the price of food in the US as compared to many European countries. Those countries tend to have EXORBITANT subsidies for farming, which everyone pays for. They often have runaway overproduction in many cases, too. Go try to find out how much damn milk and butter is destroyed in Europe every year! Please do not mix subsidies and entitlement programs with charity. They aren’t the same.
Snipe, snipe, snipe. Did I insult you somehow?
>Government-run charities are not charities–they are >funded by taxes, which are compulsory. I have heard a lot >of Europeans complain about the price of food in the US >as compared to many European countries. Those countries >tend to have EXORBITANT subsidies for farming, which >everyone pays for.
Farm subsidy in Europe, about 300 billion.
Farm subsidy in US, about 200 billion.
>They often have runaway overproduction >in many cases, >too. Go try to find out how much damn milk >and butter is >destroyed in Europe every year! Please do >not mix >subsidies and entitlement programs with charity. >They >aren’t the same.
>Snipe, snipe, snipe. Did I insult you somehow?
You wrote:
The top 1% of incomes in the United States have by far the highest charity rate of any nation in the world. The United States government itself, too, is the largest giver of foreign aid.
http://www.cgdev.org/rankingtherich/home.html seems to confirm that under its FAQ #3 when measured in absolute terms.
However, when measured relative to the size of the economy the picture is very different. See for yourself.
Relative to the population US and EU has about the same farm subsidy.
Tax financed government charity in the US is embarrasingly low.
Since you have a much broader gap in incomes and riches between the very richest and poorest of course those with the most money easily can give away more money.
But alot of that money is national charity, which shouldn’t be needed if you had a more fair society from the beginning.
And as I said, the largest reciever of US money is Israel (for military means). Ie Israel just now, with US taxes, “bought” 102 top-modern F16’s from you, thus becoming the second largest air-bourne military force.
You think that’s well spent money?
Yes I’m a failure!
Oh how i hate myself…I wish I were dead.
Face it, you know nothing about the situation, the current economy in NY sucks bad and this city is dead. I’m lucky to be making what I am making. Many others aren’t. It has nothing to do with my skills or abilities.
Pass judgement if you wish, but you don’t know anything about me.
http://www.cgdev.org/rankingtherich/Rank_Rich_postcard_v3.pdf
>>However, when measured relative to the size of the economy the picture is very different. See for yourself.<<
U.S. government is set up very differently from most other nations. “Compulsory charities”, as worded above, were always a rather rare thing up until the past century. Tax-funded and mandatory federal “charities” have taken on many forms in recent memory: direct financial aid, military aid, food, bailouts, defense, hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers, etc.
In the U.S. there is much more a sense of self-government — or at least there used to be, anyway. In this way, individuals owe up to their own responsibility to be charitable to the less fortunate (instead of leaving it up to the government). To that end, Bill Gates has taken it upon himself to give away his own money as he has seen fit.
J
No, the government shook people down, stole from them and intimidated them. Robin Hood took the money back from the government who had been shaking people down and taking their money, and he gave it back to the people.
Robin Hood didn’t steal from the rich and give to the poor. He stole from the theifs and gave it back to the victims.
This is OSnews, isn’t it? What’s the Gates Foundation got to do with anything? Who cares?
>>http://www.cgdev.org/rankingtherich/Rank_Rich_postcard_v3.pdf<&l…
An entirely subjective survey. It throws things like “environment” and “trade barriers” and “migration” into the equation. But what is best for the enviroment and best for trade and best for migration are *highly* debatable matters. Hence, the subjectivity.
Nor do I really understand how those factors contribute to “charity” or “aid”. Seems like a very “political” study.
J
I thnik you should respect each other, be real if you was the man that achieved this kind of exposure, would you donotate that much or would you be (like 90% of us) just enjoy life life and let the rest of us go figure?
Alright. first of all, you guys are truly clueless when it comes to taxes. Could someone explain to me how giving away $23 billion is going to be break even for Bill Gates? That’s ridiculous. Giving away money can be used to offset taxes, but that’s a far cry from “break even.” Most of his income is taxed at 15% long term capital gains BTW (fed).
And to the person who thinks the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation only benefits them: how does donating $200 million to fight AIDs in India benefit him?
And to the people who think that MS has so much money so they should charge less…. you don’t understand how companies are run. Companies have a duty to their shareholders to maximize return. That is done by charging the amount that maximizes profit. And if they charged almost nothing then you’d complain that MS was using it’s position to destroy open source (like IE for free vs Netscape for $$$). Either way you’d criticize them.
You guys are too religious about this stuff…. you already have your belief (Gate/MS is evil), so you discount anything that contridicts it.
I suggest more of you get a date once in awhile and quit spending all your energy worrying about Bill Gates. Who gives a fuck? You’re not making any difference.
Ie Israel just now, with US taxes, “bought” 102 top-modern F16’s from you, thus becoming the second largest air-bourne military force.
There is no such thing as a “top-modern F16”, F16’s are an ancient piece of crap from the early 80’s that cannot hold against moderm aircraft like the saab grippen, dassault rafale, the eurofighter or the su-37. The americans are practically giving that piece of flying junk away to anyone who wants it.
Sure Bill Gates far as company policy has done some bad stuff. Most of which isn’t actually bad, just damn smart business moves. He got his money out playing everyone at the game. I don’t like all his company did, but oh well.
Its sad that people can’t give someone any credit when they do real good. His company became one of the biggest in the world, of course he’s going to have assloads of money. MS doesn’t charge to much for their stuff, they charge what any other company would. It’s a company with lots of extra cash because it’s a smart company.
All that money he gave away, do you think just people giving random money would get that much? no! What he has done is worked one of the most effective ways their is to get money to a good cause. Make lots of money from something else and give it back to where it is needed. One would never get people to give that much money to charity directly. In many ways he works like the government collecting taxes and then putting it back out for good things.
I wish their were more companies out there that had ways to make lots of money and used that money towards causes that need money.
I don’t know where all the money goes, I’m sure some would be things I don’t like, but others I’m sure are. Even if some things where giving computers with windows on them to school thats fine, you may have beef with windows but it’s still a computer and better then nothing for a lot of people.
>Yes I’m a failure!
>Oh how i hate myself…I wish I were dead.
>Face it, you know nothing about the situation, the >current economy in NY sucks bad and this city is dead. >I’m lucky to be making what I am making. Many others >aren’t. It has nothing to do with my skills or abilities.
>Pass judgement if you wish, but you don’t know anything >about me.
True, but I do know you went to college, are in the IT industry and earns only 30K. Ummm.
My point is, fix your own problems first (this applies to most of the moaners who’ve posted to this thread) before going on about “how Bill had made so much money and isn’t it SO unfair, and why should the HIV victims in Africa benefit, instead he could have given ME a free copy of xyz software, etc, etc.”
Such a bunch of loosers on this site, but it’s so so funny to watch! It’s my daily entertainment.
What are you talking about? They’re all still there!!
I think its very admirable for them to donate such a large sum of money to charity. The US itself is a 3rd world country that the kids itself most of the time. I hope at least some goes into creating jobs over there.
On the other hand that doesnt make me feel any better about windows as an OS, sorry to say. Perhaps a good investment would be to completely redesign Windows from the ground up with the user in mind as well as offering it at a more affordable price. That would be a truly charitable act.
What do they have in common? The first thing i think of is the magic word ”outsourcing”. The second thing i think about is seeking cheap solutions for 3rd world and IT solutions. Guess what cheap solutions the ex-CEO tries to extinct? The third thing i think of is that an illness like AIDS is mainly invisible; thus whole humanity needs to struggle against it in order to defeat it. Humans from such countries aren’t isolated.
Seems far more interesting to me why AIDS exists in such countries, why these countries are poor, and why there is cruel dictatorships in such places. When people keep shutting their eyes down and 1st world countries enforce WTO, these problems won’t get solved. Not even by some money from a Holy messias.
Okay so he donated 23 billion, but where did the money go? If it went to schools for them to buy new computers with a brand new opy of WinXP, MSOffice XP and Encarta than I’m not too pleased.
Does anyone know what the bulk of his donations went towards?
“Farm subsidy in Europe, about 300 billion.”
“Farm subsidy in US, about 200 billion. ”
Could you point out to me where this $200 billion is allocated in the federal budget?
http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2003/maindown.html
2002 Estimate of Dept of Agriculture budget: $76.6 billion
[from the Historical Tables document, page 75].
Not that I am arguing that our farm subsidies are not ridiculous, but please use factual numbers, they are out there.
Sure he has a lot of money, but to donate half of what you earn? Sure he can afford it, but to part with more than half of your money? Thats insane! Sure he prolly knows it wont effect him, but i always thought no matter how much you have, half is still alot!
I never expected him to be giving this much away! Good man. Despite the fact that the linux community and others love to hate Bill, you have to give it to him on this one. Just becaues he makes an OS that a lot of people dont like, doesnt mean we have to play down the fact that this is very genorous!!!
“I wonder how much Larry Ellison gives away?”
Good point. Larry Ellison is a selfish son-of-a-bitch who doesn’t give one frickin’ dime of his money away, IIRC. But hey, let’s not worry about that everybody, Larry loves Linux so he’s cool now, just like the crony-communist Chinese government is cool for using Sun’s desktop Linux. Oracle is on-side, Microsoft is a menace, and I’m sure we would all be better off if Larry realized his dream of Oracle replacing Microsoft in the IT industry.
>That doesn’t get him out of the hotseat for anti-competitive
>practices, but let’s not be overly skeptical.
Why do people have to bring this up. It seems that people have a hard time believing that Bill is actualy human. Comes to no surpise at me. I feel the culture of alternative Operating Systems is having an unfair effect on this guy. No matter how much you may hate the OS, he is human, and from time to time like humans makes mistakes and other times does stuff like this!
First off, America’s foreign aid/lack thereof/too much of does not make it a bad country nor a country to be ashamed of. If you are ashamed of this country do the following: stop listening to rock ‘n’ roll, playing baseball, using micro cpu’s, talking on cell phones, and get off the Atkins diet. Is it really the government’s job to decide which charities to donate too? In a “democratic” society, I should donate my money directly to the causes I believe in to avoid the overhead of the tax system.
Secondly, I don’t really like Bill Gates. I think when he referred to Open Source as Anti- or Un-American, a veteran who has actually has fought for this country should have kicked him square in the nuts. C’mon. Linus moved TO America. However, let’s examine NET WORTH. This includes all the stock he owns in Microsoft. If he sold a great amount of shares, his company would be open to a buyout or would at least significanly lower the stock price hurting many 401k’s and other retirement plans. Bottom line is 23 Billion Dollars is a lot of money. You guys are so locked into “Microsoft is Evil no matter what” that you are completely missing the point here. This may not get him into heaven, but for once say something positive. Bill Gates has not killed anybody. Windows may have flaws (I haven’t used it lately to tell, but IGWS) but nobody has been electrocuted by a BSOD. Gates doesn’t owe anybody anything and he voluntarily gave 23 FRICKIN BILLION DOLLARS to charity. I am impressed. Maybe he’s changing. Maybe he realized he was being really mean and it’s time to give something back. Instead you guys conjecture he has some evil plot.
Seriously, haven’t all of you done something mean in your lives? Remember when you called the kid with braces metal mouth? Is everything you now do a way to hurt his feelings even more?
Now, Israelis have F-16’s. Well guess what? We gave F-16’s to Saudi Arabia too. And I don’t mind Israelis having them since I heard Islamic Jihad is not going to honor the latest peace agreement although most of the Palestinians would want to.
Republicanism and Democracy did not come from America retard.
I don’t think America behind the facade is a bad country. How could it be. It is comprised of people no different than other people. But the system is different. America’s trademarks are freedom and money. But is there really freedom as say in Western European countries? All it has is 2 political parties that in reality are very close to each other. Where is the social democratic party as found in other countries? The green party? For that matter the communist party? Is that choice? Is that freedom? That there in reality is only one party to vote for? No. And why? Money.
How did Bush get elected? He would never had stod a chance on his own merits. Money kicked in – just as Enron greased Arthur Anderson. Get the money out of the political election process and I’m sure America will become a much more civilized country.
Sure It’s easy to be generous when it is monopoly money. And in truth it is not like he earned the money more that he manipulated the income.
So it’s easy why not – perhaps I will look good and they will accept my monopoly look at all the good I am doing.
Please someone play the go to Jail card.
Claus, I appreciate what you said. Somebody else listed his problems with America and I responded.
I don’t believe money is the only reason we have a “Two Party System”. In America, people for better or for worse, want to see results. Sometime that is results without waiting. So we have a Two Party System because A. We don’t want to vote for a loser and B. We don’t want somebody with less than a Majority winning.
Now as for choice, about 35% of people are Democrats and 35% are Republican. That leaves about 30% for other affiliations and Independents. Many of these smaller parties are on the ballots, so you do have the choice to vote for them. Just because they don’t win doesn’t mean you don’t have a choice.
This maybe that American’s prefer this system. Of course that’s not really true. The problem is voter turn out. Too many people do not vote, which is their choice. If more people voted then Maybe more parties would have more power. However, the other reason is our parties are VERY loose. The parties don’t really have platforms set in stone. Again, for better or for worse, this is the way things are. I don’t think money is the reason for this. We did just have “Campaign Finance Reform” which I believe limits individual contributions. The thing is, I can’t see money as a problem because money has to come from people anyways. I don’t LIKE money mixing into politics, but A. You can’t take it out without taking people’s right to spend money and B. If information wants to be free then the cost of getting your message out is not as expensive as it was in the past (websites).
It’s not a perfect system, but it allows Bill Gates to donate 23 Billion. I also want to say that whether he spends it or donates 23 Billion it is good for the economy because sitting on 23 Billion prevents that money from circulating.
Just for your consideration:
http://www.guerrillanews.com/sci-tech/doc2398.html
@Re: Euro Morons and stuff
Let’s stay on topic, please.
…and their continual jealousy of the United States of America and the tiny, little country of Israel.
The tiny little country with so much influence over your countrymen
…I keep remembering the crap that europe is responsible for bringing to the world: communism/socialism; freudianism; nazis; imperialism; the united nations, 2 world wars… and so on. The only really good things that have come out of europe are the United States of America, and Linux. 95% of this negative talk is NOT directed at the UK btw…
Yeah, all major ideologies are invented here.
Sure alot of bad stuff comes from EU, but the same applies to US: Slavery, War, Abuse, War
Keep in mind that palestinians blow civilians (yes children too) up on purpose…
And so does Israel, though even more…
…and Israel lets them have towns and commerce, while the palestinians’ arabian cousins let them live in tent city refugee camps, like jordan does.
How noble of the israels to “let them have towns and commerce” and their own country.
Less noble to cut them off by walls – off from relatives, crops etc.
Less noble of Israel to repetively attack refuge camps.
Israel is the country that has broken most UN revolutions in the world. STILL Iraq is being attacked for breaking for fewer.
Also, gates is the biggest asshole ever created(in the business world) because he comes from money, and he wants to have his hand in EVERY technical aspect of your life. He wants to be in your wristwatch, your TV, your refrigerator, hell, even your toilet probably. Making more and more and more money is all he apparently wants to do.
Oh yeah, doesn’t saab make the viggen? Generic Motors, oops I mean General Motors owns a major part of them, doesn’t it? At least they still get to make turbocharged cars.
P.S. McDonnel Douglas, General Dynamics, Rockwell, etc… completely 0wn viggen… It’s so convenient for you to forget the ATF, ATH, F-22 and others.
I don’t get your point.
As usual SOME americans show how little they know of the world.
It seems like americans comes in two groups – those with a clue (minor part), and those without.
“Keep in mind that palestinians blow civilians (yes children too) up on purpose, and Israel lets them have towns and commerce, while the palestinians’ arabian cousins let them live in tent city refugee camps, like jordan does.”
Get back in your Duke’s of Hazzard rerun so I can turn off the TV. The country the Isreali’s now call thier own used to be Palestine. Who are they to “let” the Palestinian’s live in cities the Palestinians have lived in for thousands of years.
I also noticed that you capitalized Isreal but didn’t Palestinian. A Freudian slip perhaps?
People like you give the USA the bad rep we have in the rest of the world. So jump off. The world that is.
I don’t beleive how many people are bitching about Bill Gates giving away 23 Billion dollars. How many of you have giving or pledged half your fortune to a charity no matter how much you make? Like it or not Bill Gates is not sitting on his wealth like others at the top with him, like the Waltons, or the CEO of Oracle, or any of the other top 10 forbes richest.
You all have to grow up and stop bashing everything Microsoft and actually look at what is being done. This was a very generous gift, and if you still don’t agree with me, just look at it as Large Enterprise relocation of funds to charities. Because Bill Gates is taking from the Forbes 500 list of Enterprises and giving to charities.
About AIDS and Bill Gates & India, that could be one of the reasons yes. I’ve heard various reasons about why AIDS exists and how this sickness got started, but i’m not sure what to believe since some reasons sounded like pure racism.
In 3rd world countries, the population and their max age is a ”pyramid” model. Vary much young people, and many babies who die in their first ages. People make a lot of babies to assure a few of their kids will survive that holocaust, so they get a ”change”.
This in opposite to 1st world countries. Here we have an ”urn” model (partly because of the babyboomers generation btw).
I think the basis of AIDS and being spread can be found somewhere in this area, including unsafe sex, but i doubt unsafe sex is the only factor. Because of criminality, there’s a lot things which happen there, ie. rapes and such. Therefore only struggling against unsafe sex wouldn’t help, and wouldn’t help solving the problems the people face over there either.
Change -> Chance
my bad (:
Give the guy a break, will ya?
I’ve noticed it doesn’t matter what Gates does, bunch of you always try to find something evil in that.
The guy gave away a sum 5 times larger than the yearly budget in our country (small European country), and you still target him for this. Did any of you ever gave away even a much smaller sum? Yet you blame him for this.
It doesn’t matter if he gave away 30% of his fortune or all of it, what matters is that he does give away.
I don’t like his company for that they do to the OSS movement, but his charity ain’t got nothing to do with with that, so give him credit for that.
Hmm….sounds like he’s trying to put the Microsoft LOGO on the front of the Pearly Gates….but if that DID happen, the gates would inexplicably stop working and slam shut a few times per day. They might even turn blue….and cease up…requiring “Gate Update 1.2″….etc…..etc…..etc.
John
What a sad bunch of whingers on this forum. Most of you will never be happy until Microsoft gives its software away for free. How pathetic.
Regarding Israel, believe it or not Israel is a democracy and even has Arab MPs. Try finding the reciprocal of that in ANY Arab country. How would you defend yourself if about 80% of your neighbours (living really really close to you) believed that suicide murders are ok? This is sick. Oh yes, and Arab land area is about 400 times that of what Israel has (plus the oil). So much for Muslim brotherhood. Yes, the Palestinains are a political pawn in the hands of their rich Muslim brothers!
“Farm subsidy in Europe, about 300 billion.”
“Farm subsidy in US, about 200 billion. ”
>Could you point out to me where this $200 billion is >allocated in the federal budget?
>http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2003/maindown.html
>2002 Estimate of Dept of Agriculture budget: $76.6 billion
>[from the Historical Tables document, page 75].
>Not that I am arguing that our farm subsidies are not >ridiculous, but please use factual numbers, they are out >there.
You’re I made a mistake, is 190 billion over ten year, not annual. That’s in addition to the existing subsidy (just look up bush farm subsidy billion on google).
I agree that europe spends more, but there was an element here of the pot calling the kettle black!
<“I wonder how much Larry Ellison gives away?”
<Good point. Larry Ellison is a selfish son-of-a-bitch who <doesn’t give one frickin’ dime of his money away, IIRC. <But hey, let’s not worry about that everybody, Larry <loves Linux so he’s cool now, just like the crony-<communist Chinese government is cool for using Sun’s <desktop Linux. Oracle is on-side, Microsoft is a menace, <and I’m sure we would all be better off if Larry realized <his dream of Oracle replacing Microsoft in the IT >industry.
Excellent point.
I think OS/Linux fanatics would probably support Hitler if they thought is would support their cause. They’ll do anything.
“I think OS/Linux fanatics would probably support Hitler if they thought is would support their cause. They’ll do anything.”
HAHAHAHA.
Why would they?
I think you rock, you are a very special person, since you can foresee what a group of people who all do different things will do the same thing!
Tell me, how can the OSS ”scene” become a fascist scene? The only legal thing behind is are the licenses.
I’d like to see actual proof please. It’s not enough to just to make claims about how you donate all this money, you have to show the proof. Where did the money go?
White Man’s Burden
Greg Palast, July 15, 2003
Bring back Jayson Blair! The New York Times has eliminated the scourge of plagiarized journalism by eliminating journalism altogether from its front page.
Check this Sunday?s edition: ?Bill Gates is no ordinary philanthropist,? gushes a Times reporter named Stephanie Strom, re-writing one of the digital diva?s self-loving press releases. Gates has saved 100,000 lives by providing vaccines to Africans, gushes Strom, according to someone on the payroll of ? Bill Gates. And he?s making drugs for Africans, especially for AIDS victims, ?cheaper and easier.? Strom knows because she asked Bill Gates himself!
Then we get to the real point of this journalistic Lewinsky: ?Those who think of Mr. Gates as a ruthless billionaire monopolist ? may find it hard to reconcile that image with one of a humorously self-deprecating philanthropist.?
Actually, that?s not hard at all.
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 a monopoly that 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.
Example: in June 2000, at the urging of Big Pharma, Bill Clinton threatened trade sanctions against Argentina for that nation?s daring to offer low-cost drugs to Southern Africa.
Gates knows darn well that the ?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 cheap 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.
Gates? game is given away by the fact that his Foundation has invested $200 million in the very drug companies stopping the shipment of low-cost AIDS drugs to Africa.
Gates says his plan is to reach one million people with medicine by the end of the decade. Another way to read it: he?s locking in a trade system that will block the delivery of cheap medicine to over 20 million.
The computer magnate?s scheme has a powerful ally. ?The president could have been reading from a script prepared by Mr. Gates,? enthuses the Times? cub reporter, referring to Mr. Bush?s AIDS plan offered up this week to skeptical Africans. The US press does not understand why Africans don?t jump for Bush?s generous offer. None note that the money held out to the continent?s desperate nations has strings attached or, more accurately, chains and manacles. The billions offered are mostly loans at full interest which may be used only to buy patent drugs at a price several times that available from other nations. What Africans want, an end to the devastating tyranny of TRIPS and other trade rules, is dismissed by the Liberator of Baghdad.
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.
GNN’s Guerrilla of the Year for 2001, Greg Palast is author of The New York Times bestseller, “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.” Subscribe to his writings for Britain’s Observer and Guardian newspapers, and view his investigative reports for BBC Television’s Newsnight, at http://www.GregPalast.com.
…donating some cash to the Linux community, maybe to the FSF or even Debian so whe all can run some decent software on our machines? Maybe even to slackware so whe can run some non-bloat clean software? How about that? For once we shouldn’t be plagued by Windowze at every corner…
This Gates thread is longer than any other, and the other threads are about OS specific news!
Why are people being such jerks to each other?
Why must everything be black and white?
We’re taking OS’s, not religion!
I will have to think twice before coming back to this site. If this is the caliber of people in the community, I don’t think I want to be a part of it.
I hate most that some people gloat over how “generous” their billionaires are, yet fail to see that they are serving the very same systems which oppress the beneficiaries. Do you know why USA became so generous. It was to counter communism. See “The Marshal Plan”. Very often this generosity has nothing ot do with goodness of heart, but is more like a necessity. I can imagine the next time Gates visits one of the countries he pledges billions to, who have suddenly become quite dependent on his ‘generosity’, and he wants them to deploy Windows instead of that other OS. He doesn’t really have to say anything, but I guess is people will feel compelled to ‘return the favour’. But this is just me. Third world countries have been burnt before with a lot of this aid, and they are growing increasingly cautious. People are now more a bit more skeptical about philanthropy. Not to say that Bill Gates is not geniune, but that he may have to wait a while until people accept his generosity as genuine.
“woo, thats good, so gates will make sue he has all his money and assets in there when he dies so the government does not get a cent, and his kids will be co-chairs on the fund each getting payed a few mil per year. isn’t being rich fun!!!”
No, it’s not called being fun. It’s called being smart.
The government didn’t earn any of his money, and in most cases (although not all, ie DOS, denying Windows refunds, etc.) Gates earned his. The government deserves none of his money. If, however you don’t think he deserves to have any of his money, there is, of course, a path to that goal. It’s called not buying his products.
But you already do that. How about spending less time bitching about Microsoft and more time making OSS better? You’re doing a great job already. Imagine how good you’ll be if you spent your time more productively?