While we may think that Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation is a benevolent Billionaire philanthropist, it’s not quite so clear. This book shows how Gates has used his many dollars and foundations to avoid taxes and push a Big Tech capitalist mindset on assisting other countries.
Yes your tax dollars pay for about 50% of the philanthropic whims of a billionaire giving away money he could never possibly spend.
- [[Bill Gates]] screwed his “friend” [[Paul Allen]] out of a good share of [[Microsoft]] money. Pg 3
- we saw the real Bill Gates in the video testimony for the [[browser wars]] monopoly hearing. Arrogant and a jerk because he felt he knew more than anyone about everything. Pg 7
- The Gates Foundation was built to start to rehabilitate this image of Bill Gates
- the The Gates Foundation gives you a check and a checklist of what they say you should be using the money on. They give you money, but also take control of your organization. Pg 12
- it pushes you towards researching the ideas that it’s founder feels are the ones you should be researching
- this is like The Death of Expertise where someone smart in one field assumes that they know everything about all fields and speak out of turn.
- #tagnote
The effect that [[Bill Gates]] money from The Gates Foundation has on discussion. No one wants to speak out against it’s practices because they fund so much science that it would likely be a death knell for your career. You’ll never be able to get funding again.
This sounds like a [[mafia]] racket to me. “It would be a shame if you couldn’t find funding”.
- Pg 14
- the ability of the superich [[billionaire]]s to turn their personal wealth into political power is a sign of a failing democracy and rising oligarchy Pg 15
- The Gates Foundation claims huge lives saved for rotavirus but deaths were trending down long before they started doing anything with vaccines. Once they started they claim all lives saved as work they did to save lives. Pg 26
- it’s like a kid taking all the credit for doing a small part of the assignment
- The Truth About the Drug Companies - Marcia Angell Pg 28
- Gates believes in trickle down economics Pg 31
- theoretically rich countries can afford expensive vaccines but once R&D is paid off they can be sold to poorer countries for cheaper. Yet [[Pfizer]] doesn’t do this with its very profitable [[pneumonia]] vaccines, in fact it’s been caught continuing to inflate the prices keeping them out of reach of poor countries and even poor citizens of United States
- The Gates Foundation focus on vaccines means malnourished children can’t get food, but they can get a needle. Pg 35
- they are in fact told not to ask about other issues at Gates Foundation vaccine clinics because no other help will be given
- [[Gavi]], the Gates Foundation founded vaccine organization gets most of its funding from taxpayers but is not accountable to taxpayers. It shifts public money for healthcare to private spending. Pg 36
- see The Shock Doctrine - The Rise of Disaster Capitalism for more on this idea
- #tagnote
A way of doing philanthropic work that mirriors the way work is done in the for-profit world. Coined in Philanthrocapitalism - Matthew Bishop Michael Green and endoresd by [[Bill Clinton]].
There is now a bunch of research showing that it does a good job at transferring public funds to private pockets but it’s benefit to society is much more dubious.s
- Pg 38
- The Gates Foundation uses it’s donation power to get deeply involved in a company sometimes to the point of vetting employees because it feels that it knows more about your field and who you should hire than you do. Pg 45
- [[Jeffery Epstein]] Pg 56
- [[Bill Gates]] met [[Jeffery Epstein]] after he was a registered [[sex offender]] and [[felon]]. Gates has a team vetting everything so it’s not believable that Gates didn’t know about this. Pg 58
- though Gates likes to rewrite history saying he broke ties when Epstein was revealed as a bad guy
- Gates denies being at meetings with Epstein where women were present, but his own emails talk about the beautiful women that were present. Pg 60
- seems like a powerful man thinking he could get away with stuff, that’s not trying to cover his butt
- Hard Drive - James Wallace Jim Erickson Pg 66
- says Gates had a reputation for questionable conduct towards women
- [[Maria Klawe]] went public in 2021 about her time on the [[Microsoft]] board where Gates would throw a screaming fit when any mention of increasing diversity came up. Pg 67
- he’d ask why he should devalue the company by hiring women and people of colour
- sounds like misogyny to me
- anyone associated with [[Jeffery Epstein]] should not get the benefit of the doubt about their conduct. This goes for Gates who met Epstein after his convictions for [[sex trafficking]] Pg 69
- they at least knew what type of person Epstein was and still decided to work with him for some reason.
- Gates claims leadership on climate change while travelling by [[private jet]] which is terrible for the environment. Pg 73
- when a very rich person makes a [[charitable donation]] they get a tax break on that money. This is money they couldn’t have spent and that makes no difference in their daily life. We the taxpayers give them this break and our government services pay the price in lost income that could help the rest of society. Pg 75
- the rich oligarchs lobbied for this type of tax break that mostly they can take advantage of
- Decolonizing Wealth - Edgar Villanueva Pg 77
- Capital in the Twenty-First Century - Thomas Piketty Pg 83
- investment income in the United States is taxed at lower rates than income from work. That means rich people watching their money grow pay less on its growth than regular people do "working" to get by. Pg 84
- see Scarcity 180920201044 for why rich people have time to lobby for rules that benefit them and their retention of wealth
- a word on [[Russia]] oligarchs and from the United States why doesn't like them if they're Russian. Pg 87
- #company #tagnote
A [[patent troll]] run by one of [[Bill Gates]] long-standing deputies.
- Pg 98
- Gates is heavily invested in Intellectual Ventures so he helps control and benefits from one of the world's most notorious [[patent troll]]. Pg 100, 101
- thus enriching himself further by stiffling innovation
- millions of people a year die from treatable or preventable diseases because intelectual propert and patented let [[big pharma]] run as a [[monopoly]] power and charge whatever they want to charge for life saving treatments. Pg 108
- Gates puts his ideology that patents are good ahead of work that destroys medical patents Pg 111
- because he build [[Microsoft]] on patents so closing the loopholes that are used would threaten the machine of Microsoft that he built
- The Gates Foundation's Rise to Power - Adam Moe Fejerskov Pg 115
- the "transparent" The Gates Foundation is unwilling to engage with any outside party to verify their work. Pg 115
- so they have their own replication crisis as they won't let anyone try to replicate their work or the numbers they provide as "success" numbers
- 50 cents of every dollar The Gates Foundation spends is from public subsidies. Pg 119
- [[Bill Gates]] doesn't have any training, expertise or education in most of the things he makes huge decisions on, or is consulted about. Pg 127
- see The Death of Expertise for more on experts speaking out of turn on things they are not experts about
- plus he almost always has investments in the things he recommends so benefits financially from his advice
- Gates donates twice as much to United States politicians as he does to [[African]] aid, which shows where his priorities are. Pg 131
- with keeping the politicians greased in regards to his ideas
- Dead Aid - Dambisa Moyo Pg 136
- The Gates Foundation funds lots of [[family planning]] work which is about getting [[contraceptives]] in the hands of poor people to reduce their family size. You don't find family planning offering fertility treatments though so that you can truly plan your family because the work is not about [[bodily autonomy]] it's about getting poor people to have less babies. Pg 154
- this is barely a step away from full eugenics
- Killing the Black Body - Dorothy Roberts Pg 159
- The Gates Foundation pushed hormone implants for [[birth control]] but they are surgically implanted so rural poor people are essentially sterilized if they can't get to a facility that can remove it. Pg 158, 159
- the United States has a history of putting up blocks to removal of these types of birth control when poor people want them removed
- you can't just stop taking the pill. Someone with medical training needs to remove it and approve of your decision.
- if [[Bill Gates]] and [[Microsoft]] used a stick and carrot to pressure journalists to write favourably about them we shouldn't assume that any of those tactics have changed now that Gates is giving money away. Pg 168
- see Number Go Up - Zeke Faux > ^a8bb34
- we questioned [[Jeff Bezos]] when he bought the [[Washington Post]] but don't question the influences of The Gates Foundation spending $2.9B to support newsrooms since 2009. How does that influence the coverage journalists or editors are giving to the foundation? Pg 170
- if we have a few stories where The Gates Foundation tried to kill stories that were critical of its work, how many more stories haven't come forward? Pg 176, 177
- does this relate to Dark PR - Grant Ennis
- [[Planet Money]] walked away from a The Gates Foundation grant because the foundation would have approval of stories if the grant was accepted. Pg 176
- if you wouldn't do the research funded by The Gates Foundation without the funding, then you're really doing [[PR]] for the foundations ideas. Pg 177
- does our world economy work if people like [[Bill Gates]] can amass 100B fortunes while more than a billion people starve? Pg 180
- this seems like a central question for my Oligarch notes book
- The Gates Foundation earmarks donations to report on specific areas. Thus news only has funding towards stories that the foundation wants it to report on. Pg 185
- The Gates Foundation directs new outlets not to disclose the funding it provides so they can "focus on the issues". This hides the conflicts of interest in the mainly favourable news coverage. Pg 189
- also when found in retrospect it errodes the faith in journalism as independent.
- World War 30 - Ken Auletta Pg 192
- the myth Gates sells, and media helps push, is similar to what Elon Musk would have us believe. He is a genius at everything and should be listened to no matter what the issue at hand entails. Pg 202
- but Elon Musk talks far out of turn all the time. If you know a topic he's speaking about you realize real quick he has no idea what's going on.
> We cannot solve the problem of educational inequality while we ignore the inequitable and inadequate resources available to low-income children in their homes and communities, as well as their schools. Pg 204
- but Gates just focuses on [[common core]] and standardized tests as the saviour of [[schooling|education]]
- while Gates did lots of self-directed learning, and also let his own children do the same, he funds kids in class getting credentials as the best education for the poor communities he targets. Pg 206
- he clearly doesn't believe they can be trusted to self-direct any learning and be useful to society without a rich white dude telling them how to be productive
- so Gates pours money into teach evaluations because he things bad teachers are the issue in poor areas, but does nothing to alleviate the poverty and scarcity of those same students. Pg 210, 212
- The Gates Foundation expects a 17-year-old to take responsibility for an economic evaluation of their career prospects. They don't however address the crazy high costs of [[College]] and [[University]], the crushing debt that comes after for many, weak [[unions]], that means job seekers today are paid far less when you account for inflation than previous generations were paid. Pg 221
- this is capitalism making you think you made a choice and Protestant Work Ethic at play
- when your school has been underfunded and your parents have to work multiple minimum wage jobs, and your city is spread out and poor it’s easy to dive into the world around you because that’s all that seems possible. Then it’s you “choosing” the life instead of being helpless.
This is what capitalism wants as well. It wants you to think that it’s your choice and that the system works just fine. If it’s your “choice” then you won’t look at the broken system and question why it’s so broken and what you should do to change it.
#writingidea
- The Gates Foundation puts most of it's money into United States, [[Britian]], and [[Switzerland]], who then do work in poor nations. This is the same trope ˙a poor black people can't be trusted with money to help themselves so [[white saviours]] must come in and tell them what to do with their resources. Pg 227
- they also aren't trying to build local capacity to solve issues, they sending in the saviours and if the saviours leave the community is often worse off than before
- The Gates Foundation doesn't see training locals to be medical professionals that can perform a [[C section]], it sees robots from [[silicon valley]] doing the procedure for locals. Pg 229
- of course that's more money in the pockets of [[silicon valley]] which are United States companies and building reliance on the technology
- Decolonizing Wealth - Edgar Villanueva Pg 242
- Barbarians Led by Bill Gates - Jennifer Edstrom Marlin Eller Pg 255
- while the [[New England Journal of Medicine]] claims the millions in donations from The Gates Foundation doesn't influence it's content why was [[Bill Gates]], who is not a medical professional, given space to comment on how governments should handle COVID at the beginning of the [[pandemic]]? Pg 261
- like The Death of Expertise where experts in one area speak outside of their field
- is it any wonder people question medical advice when you hear how much [[Bill Gates]] meddles in studies from what studies get done to the methods allowed to be used in the studies. Pg 263
- [[billionaire]] are shaping the "independent" science just like conspiracy theory says they are
- Gates and Chris Murray worried that the [[WHO]] study numbers were overly influenced by member countries so IHME was setup by Gates. This really just gives Gates and Murray the influence over the studies that get done. This also gave them more control over what the [[WHO]] looks at because they now often use IHME studies. Pg 268
- typical big tech wanting to control the numbers because they always think they know best.
- IHME botched COVID modelling preductions yet people kept going with their models primarily because if [[Bill Gates]] funded and trusted the numbers he's so smart he must be right. Pg 270
- see The Death of Expertise for how we assume expertise in all areas if you have it in one
- #tagnote
[[GMO]] seed patent owner. They make seeds that are resistant to the pesticides they also sell. They also make it illegal to keep seeds so that you always have to purchase from them.
- Pg 280
- The Gates Foundation funding for [[agriculture]] in [[African]] pushes purchase of resources from corporations outside Africa. Much like the medical funding they supply, it's not about building local resources it's about getting money out of Africa and into the hands of [[North American]] companies, often ones that [[Bill Gates]] has personally invested in. Pg 286
- American Foundations - Mark Dowie Pg 290
- we produce enough calories for no one to go hungry already so The Gates Foundation focus on increasing production is misplaced. Poor people don't have the money to purchase food so they can't access it. Pg 290
- #tagnote
The study of the relationships between crops and the environment. It seeks a holistic approach to farming and crop production that focusses on natural processes.
- Pg 296
- Where this is something that local communities can do, The Gates Foundation pushes technological solutions that will cost local communities money and take control of their land/crops out of their hands.
- [[Bill Gates]] pushed [[HPV]] vaccine as a one and done solution for poor people to prevent [[cervical cancer]] in [[India]]. As an alternative for regular cervical screenings. This is another example of a "wonder" tech solution instead of building local capacity to do the screenings. To be clear, screenings will still need to be done, but The Gates Foundation didn't help build that system. Pg 316, 317
- the initial [[HPV]] Vaccine used for study were donated by [[big pharma]] because if they can get their vaccine into the national vaccine programs they can then charge for them and have consistent revenue as the programs continue.
- COVID Pg 324
- 90% of $3.2 billion if the lifetime budget of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness came from taxpayers most of which subsidized [[big pharma]] R&D, which they will then sell back to us, the ones that provided the funding to research it. Pg 325
- [[Bill Gates]] gives oral [[polio]] vaccines to poor nations which can mutate and infect others, or rarely but reliably cause paralysis from the dose. United States doesn't use live [[polio]] oral doses because of these risks so they're pushing an inferior solution on poor nations because they should just be lucky to get anything. Pg 347
- when we allow one person, any person, to gain extreme wealth we are also letting them gain extreme power which they can buy with their money. Pg 350
- see Oligarch notes
- No Such Thing as a Free Gift - Linsey McGoey Pg 351
- at a basic level The Gates Foundation system empowers the rich to determine outcomes for the poor with little input by the poor for what outcomes they want to achieve. Pg 354
