Is he actually funding those companies in some way, or does he just own some stocks as part of some very diversified portfolio?
If it's the former, I really want to know. If it's the latter, stating that the Gates is financially supporting the destruction of agriculture is a very very strong claim. You need to argue that buying a company's stock on an open market does something significant besides increase the price of that stock by some small amount, or that the increase is meaningful. I have a hard time imagining what practical impact it would have on Monsanto's short term or long term operations that would justify using words such as "hypocrite".
There are investment funds that try to avoid "dirty" stocks, and it maybe it would be morally better to invest only in those funds. Until then, is everyone who invests in an index fund "dirty"? Monsanto is part of the S&P 500 after all.
You can argue that you are ok with building weapon. It's another debate.
But you can't say you are not helping. Companies are selling shares on the market because it helps them.
And if tomorrow you make a big speech about gun control, it makes you a hypocrite.
You can slice it in many way, use semantics, play the cards of the layer of abstractions. But in the end, it's a simple truth.
Any source for that?
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Informatio...
I have worked in agriculture in India. Without the green revolution India would have had a famine the likes of which the world has never seen. Pakistan and India would probably have fought more wars than they already did, to the death, over farmland and water (because neither would have had enough land to feed their populations).
Gates has done amazing things for maternal and child welfare in India. I have worked in clinics that are supposed to be funded by the Indian govt., but in reality only function because of NGO participation in the health ecosystem (not just Gates foundation, but they undoubtedly take a leadership role).
I hope nobody actually believes the FUD you are spreading. You are deluded, a liar, insane, or maybe all of those things. I sincerely doubt you have actually set foot in a developing nation in your life.
But I'm not going to insult you the way you did insult me. Because I'm not insane. I'm a polite person sharing an experience.
BTW, my very first mission in Africa was for the Gate foundation. Half of our budget went directly to intermediary entities as a "managing fee". We couldn't control our budget ourself, we had to ask to people doubling our bills and taking a cut. Reports were falsified. And nobody cared. I never received once an email from the foundation to check how things were going.
It's not a suprise really. Gates was the founder of one of the worst company known, and yet praised for it.
MS did so many bad things, and no one seems to remember:
- corruption : http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandrawrage/2013/03/20/micros...
- helping dictators : http://www.salon.com/2011/09/06/wikileaks_microsoft_tunisia/
- Monopolistic practices : http://www.networkworld.com/article/2221165/microsoft-subnet...
- patent troll : http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=...
- extorsion as a business model : http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/27/microsoft-has-received-five...
And the Gate foundation keeps it up : http://www.agoravox.fr/tribune-libre/article/bill-gates-phil.... Small translation :
"As for most philantropic organisation, the Gates Foundation gives each year less than 5% of its capital to pay minimal taxes. [...] The remaining 95% are invested. [...] The Journalist of the LA times realized that the companies the foundation had shares and whose objectives were in contradiction with the caritative goals the GF pretented to reach for were up to 41% of the total, meaning 8.7B."
This is not a surprise, as BG started his all carrier by stealing ideas from Xerox, not to mention the shady IBM deal (http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/did-bill-gates-s...). Morality is not his strong point.
You can highligh what good the man DID bring with him, but you can't ignore all the bad he has done, or is doing right now. That would be foulish.
This year, Bill Gate has been all over the internet, "saving the world". But most of the money he gives away is invested by his "charity". And it goes into companies making military equipments, mining, extracting oil, etc. causing direct destruction of the causes they are pretending to protect.
E.G: I lived and worked in Africa. I saw the results of the "green revolution" made by Monsanto, an destructive agriculture program financially supported by the Gates. It's ugly. The continent is still recovering from it (and apparently they are in better shape than some parts of India).
But the Gate foundation says they want to help Africa : they fight malaria. So on one hand african people can starve, have no control over their agriculture or natural ressources, but they _may_ be saved from malaria in 10 years. This is hypocrisy at its best.
They are not heroes. They are smart investors. And for one thing they build for others, they build 3 for themself and may destroy many things on their path. Do not get blinded by their (good) PR.