Bill Gates, sponsor of American Enterprise Institute [View all]

[JackRiddler]

Last edited Sun Aug 31, 2014, 09:04 AM - Edit history (1)

How did I miss this?

http://www.aei.org/events/2014/03/13/from-poverty-to-prosperity-a-conversation-with-bill-gates/

"Bill Gates on the risks of raising the minimum wage... Gates on getting frozen into inaction by infinite need... What 20,000 hours of video taught Bill Gates about teachers... What does Bill Gates consider his biggest achievement? The Common Core: It's not a curriculum... Will India need the Gates Foundation in 15 years?... What is Bill Gates' favorite paper from AEI? ... How charity and capitalism go hand in hand... How poor farmers benefit from free enterprise."

What does the great man say? I'm dying to know!

Okay, so Gates gave four million dollars to American Enterprise Institute! So what? He's just buying the entire "legit" political spectrum, from "conservative" all the way to sort-of "liberal." So the money's raining down on everyone, long as they're part of the status quo. That's his god-given right as a rational maximizer of utilitarian benefit. And it will help create the consensus behind sensible policy we need so badly in this time of awful, awful polarization. (Cue shudders & eerie music.)

If you don't like that he has all this money, or how he's spending it, then it is because you are JEALOUS. And LAZY. And not smart like him, but STUPID. Or CRAZY.

But I know a lot of you here agree that our new Gilded Age's most successful robber baron and unconvicted antitrust violator is a great guy!

Billionaires are generally wonderful people, always saving the world, giving away their billions for philanthropy, making new billions to give away, feeding people... Except for the Kochs! Those are some very bad brothers. (Insert two minutes' hate here.)

But Gates? What a wonderful man! Bill Gates is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life!

His foundation is saving Our Children by waging war on the bad teachers in the Bad Teachers Union. They're saving the Africans by using just a small fraction of them in Big Pharm medical experiments. They're saving the Indian farmers by forcing them to use GMOs or get off their lands. That lets more productive entities produce the food we need to feed the whooooooole world.

Now yes, he's saving a lot in taxes by transferring a portion of his wealth to the foundation, which of course he still controls. And yeah, the main action of this foundation is to use its awesome endowment as a hedge fund, investing in corporations that generally benefit from the research that the charitable side funds.

But this is also good for everyone, because it means Gates will have even more money to save the world even more!

The charitable side, meanwhile, does not just fund R&D for applications that the endowment side can later invest in. As the 400-pound gorilla in any room, the Gates Foundation sets the agenda for policymaking and philanthropy. For example, Gates decides that deficient schools are the cause of inequality and the economy isn't, and its money is enough to determine how these issues are covered. By offering to finance shares in projects, Gates determines how other charitable as well as public money is spent in the United States, Africa and India. Its reach thus goes far beyond the already considerable funds that it commands. It can control how your own taxes are spent.

The Gates Foundation is so fabulously charitable that under its charter it is required to give away all of its money within a mere fifty years after Bill and Melinda have both died.

Really that makes me sad. I hope the successors can find a way to roll that endowment over into another foundation, so that they can keep giving away their always-growing fortune - forever!

Hopefully some of that medical research can bring us closer to the day when the rich can really start dreaming of immortality. With some luck, Bill and Melinda may still be blessing the young of the future with their kindly presence and beneficient influence in person, in 2100!

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There is a really great comic in Truthout now about the Gates war on the schools. Excellent research tool as well:



More:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/25644-the-gates-foundation-education-reform-hype-machine-bizarre-inequality-theory

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And to think how you hated this guy for being a wealth creator - Gates could buy out his whole fortune about 400 times, I think?



(Sadly I couldn't find one of Romey speaking with an AEI backdrop!)