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?
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.
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”?
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?
“Communism” like we ever had real communism.
I’ve been sending his chain emails along since the 90s so he owes me some serious interest.
…and still be a billionaire.
Why should oligarchs get to decide where the proceeds of their exploitation get spent?
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.
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?
Sorry Bill but it’s too late and not enough. I still want to eat the rich and that includes you.
Although I‘ll admit if all billionaires did this instead of - oh you know - investing in fascism and actively dismembering democracy globally I might feel different about this. But as things stand I am done with billionaires. We cannot coexist. Simple as that.
Isn’t he literally the only billionaire who has been donating a lot over the years?
But yes, fully agree. There’s no reason any person should be that rich. They’re cause and symptom of a fucked-up system
How did he get to be a billionaire? By standing on the throats of others, he could not have created that wealth without harm.
Yes I’m not disagreeing
I think a big problem with our financial system is people with wealth have the ability to siphon wealth out of companies through the stock market. Ultimately that company is paying shareholders with profit generated by the workers. A billion invested with just 5% dividends would take many lifetimes of constant work for an individual to pay off a single time, let alone every year. Yet that’s how it is. Billionaires get richer and richer and their blood sucking proboscis gets bigger and bigger.
We live in a financially feudal society where the Lord’s have no responsibility to tend to the land.
Absolutely not. I think others give a bit less, but they’re just not public about it.
Warren Buffet makes $5B annual donations to charities. He’s an investor, so if he gave it all out as a lump sum, he wouldn’t be able to make more to donate next year (and aside total received, many charities work better with consistent yearly funding)
McKenzie Scott (Bezos Ex-Wife) is doing what she can to get the divorce money to where it normally doesn’t land, so if we eat the rich, i’d currently say she’s off limits, pending good behavior.
Dinner sentence with reprieve.
Can we quit running billionaire’s PR campaigns for them? These people are not our friends, and giving back a portion of what they stole (always in the most public way) doesn’t change that
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.
Supposedly he’s already given away half, why is it unthinkable that he’s planning to give away the other half?
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.”
To his kids and their charities? Reminder that Bill gates is every bit as exploitative and evil, he didn’t become a billionaire by paying fair wages. This is all PR to try and save his reputation as everyone turns on billionaires. Like buffet, he just shuffles his money to his kids and calls it charity
Ikr fuck this guy.
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.
Yeah he made windows.
Pure evil
why do you think one of the richest man doesn’t have “that” influence at a company he founded anymore?
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
Depends if you are talking about big charities or actual charities
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.
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.
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
Using all his money and influence to advocate taxing the super rich significantly would be helpful.
He does actually. https://observer.com/2024/09/bill-gates-bernie-sanders-tax-wealthy/
He and warren are some of the smarter billionaires, they realize having infinite money is not actually very useful.
Not to say there’s any thing good about there being billionaires in the first place, but there is a spectrum.
Buffet has rescinded his giving in favour of leaving a trust to kids…who are senior citizens. If you cant stand on your own by then, you dont deserve to make it.
His son recently gave half a billion to Ukraine, out of pocket. I get the impression they At least have their minds on the right side of history.
What would be great is if the trust is designed to be given to charities, rather than for his kin’s space flights. But they may do that anyway.
The other gave money so he could ride along with ICE
I don’t believe there is a spectrum at all. If you keep going to get to that level of wealth you have a fucked up mind. Most people would be content and stop.
Now I could see that if you make something and go from nothing to selling for a billion then maybe, but even then I’d want rid of most of that wealth as I don’t need that much.
Well if you just manage your money properly, it grows. I would argue it’s better to do that and give you money away rather than not manage your money properly. In the end, more money goes to good causes that way.
If they “stopped” that would mean leaving their money in a bank account sleeping. The only entity benefiting from this would be the bank.
Good guy bill, saw him also giving shit to Musk as well recently
Bill Gates accused Elon Musk of killing poor children as he announced Thursday that he would donate his remaining fortune to his charity
What a turn around from the 90’s
Don’t get fooled, nothing changed he just step up his pr game
what’s to be fooled with? i appreciate that he donates and advocates to help people with his money
there are plenty of other billionaires you’ll never hear of and they’ll never have to hear you complain because they don’t step into the limelight at all and just horde their money instead
He donates as a form of investment to avoid paying taxes and to clean his image.
i don’t really give a shit why he’s donating and i don’t know why you attach yourself to conspiracy theories like a trump supporter, he’s donating, he’s helping, that’s all i need to know:
Before the Gates efforts on malaria, malaria drugmakers had largely given up on producing drugs to fight the disease, and the foundation is the world’s largest donor to research on diseases of the poor.[139]
With the help of Gates-funded vaccination drives, deaths from measles in Africa have dropped by 90 percent since 2000.[140]
The foundation has donated billions of dollars to help sufferers of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, protecting millions of children from death at the hands of preventable diseases.[140]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gates_Foundation#Criticism
They have an entire criticism section that doesn’t even list everything people in this thread are saying.
Are you aware where you are and how lemmy works?
The most whitewashed billionaire in existence. Insane people still buy into this slush fund campaign.
Bill Gates is more evil than Elon Musk.
For real, but since Old Evil Billionaire is piling on New Evil Billionaire, he becomes Sweet Old Philantropist. Gates made his fortune by stabbing everyone on the back and charging them for the knife.
What has Gates done recently?
Trying to get a monopoly on vaccines through a “nonprofit” and do neocolonialism.
https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-world-loses-under-bill-gates-vaccine-colonialism/
Global health czar Bill Gates had other thoughts. Maintaining his steadfast commitment to intellectual property rights, Gates pushed for a plan that would permit companies to hold exclusive rights to lifesaving medicines, no matter how much they benefited from public funding.
Given the enormous influence Gates has in the global public health world, his vision ultimately won out in the Covax program—which enshrines monopoly patent rights and relies on the charitable whims of rich countries and pharmaceutical giants to provide vaccines to most of the world. A chorus of support from pharmaceutical companies and the Trump administration didn’t hurt.
Should we be surprised that a monopolist-turned-philanthropist maintains his commitment to monopoly patent rights as a philanthropist too?
Bill Gates is about as “nonprofit” as OpenAI.
Aight, yeah, thank you! Gates isn’t that much in the headlines for the things he does, I remember him owning/buying a ton of land too now?
Yes he is the largest US farmland owner as well. Gates is evil on many levels.
The WTO adopted partial patent waivers in 2022, many nations allowed complete vaccine patent exemption, and very soon after the Bill Gates statement your article cites the Gates Foundation made a full reversal and endorsed it.
How so? Specifically?
Cause Musk is actively trying to destroy democracy and kill poor people.
Also different user. His life’s work had been to create the most evil corporation the world has ever seen. The largest monopoly. It’s still allowed to run and controls entire governments all around the world. Most companies, schools and government functions of many countries are completely tied to Microsoft cloud and their software and have no choice. This has essentially halted all technical progress and research on many fields because the results can’t be productised. The loss and corruption is endless.
It’s been going on and ramping up for over forty years. It’s still going on.
Forty years is a good “why” for why musk is nothing compared to this evil.
Is there any reputable journalist that has echoed this take? It sounds very stretched. Monopolization on Word is one thing, but I’ve heard of some governments finally getting fed up and moving to open source.
I won’t deny Microsoft has done bad shit. I’m currently boycotting them for their assistance to Israel. But “most evil corporation” is a gigantically high bar in the world we live in.
Different user: I don’t think it’s worth arguing about which is “more evil”, especially at this billionaire level of antisocial behavior. What’s the point? They’re both intolerable, causing death for profit.
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