He always stole from somebody else. And he found talented people who could improve on the ideas that he appropriated.
People don't stop and think when they hear the name Bill Gates. A shitload think he's a good guy and a great humanitarian. They see the money he 'gives' to charity and don't stop and realize that he made shitloads of that money off investments in the very things that are killing the earth and the people on it. The Bill and Melinda Gates organization is not really a people friendly entity. First priority is to stuff their pockets.
And then there's the tax situation. He gives money to charity he claims it on his taxes. Then he gets a nice tidy deduction over and above all the deductions he's been provided this administration.
Here's some of the foundations investments:
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.**
Canadian government
Between $1 billion and $1.5 billion
Fannie Mae
German government
Between $100 million and $1 billion
Abbott Laboratories
Archer Daniels Midland Co.
BP (formerly British Petroleum)
Canadian National Railway
Exxon Mobil Corp.
Freddie Mac
French government
Japanese government
Merck & Co.
Schering Plough Corp.
Tyco International Ltd.
Waste Management Inc.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,6827615.story?coll=la-home-headlines<snip>
The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to protect health, The Times found, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France — the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe.
<snip>
Investing for profit
AT the end of 2005, the Gates Foundation endowment stood at $35 billion, making it the largest in the world. Then in June 2006, Warren E. Buffett, the world's second-richest man after Bill Gates, pledged to add about $31 billion in installments from his personal fortune. Not counting tens of billions of dollars more that Gates himself has promised, the total is higher than the gross domestic products of 70% of the world's nations.
Like most philanthropies, the Gates Foundation gives away at least 5% of its worth every year, to avoid paying most taxes. In 2005, it granted nearly $1.4 billion. It awards grants mainly in support of global health initiatives, for efforts to improve public education in the United States, and for social welfare programs in the Pacific Northwest.
<snip>
In addition, The Times found the Gates Foundation endowment had major holdings in:
• Companies ranked among the worst U.S. and Canadian polluters, including ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical Co. and Tyco International Ltd.
• Many of the world's other major polluters, including companies that own an oil refinery and one that owns a paper mill, which a study shows sicken children while the foundation tries to save their parents from AIDS.
• Pharmaceutical companies that price drugs beyond the reach of AIDS patients the foundation is trying to treat.
Using the most recent data available, a Times tally showed that hundreds of Gates Foundation investments — totaling at least $8.7 billion, or 41% of its assets, not including U.S. and foreign government securities — have been in companies that countered the foundation's charitable goals or socially concerned philosophy.
This is "the dirty secret" of many large philanthropies, said Paul Hawken, an expert on socially beneficial investing who directs the Natural Capital Institute, an investment research group. "Foundations donate to groups trying to heal the future," Hawken said in an interview, "but with their investments, they steal from the future."
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