Stop bashing Bill Gates! He does nothing but good for the world!

[Peregrinator]

I'm sooooooo impressed. :avery:

Ishmael

Well, he came from a poor background, grew up in Maine with French-canadian roots, became a famous climber in the golden period of yosemite climbing, almost singlehandedly started the "clean climbing" revolution, and now he runs a succesful and ethical corporation which treats its employees amazingly well.

You should be impressed.

 

[OrcishBarbarian]

You're utterly off topic, dumbass. Prostitution is all over the world. But the facts show that what Gates is doing, is creating new health problems for these people, and making existing ones worse.

Those are the facts. Of course, facts are to you what garlic and sunlight is to a vampire.

Is there any question now why liberals run the country, bitch?

Now bark again for me, Assmeal!
woof

Do you drive a car?

The problem here is that the whole world--you, me, Bill Gates, the Queen of England, even Bozo the Clown--depends on fossil fuels for electricity, transportation, medicine, recreation...everything.

Picking on Bill Gates isn't going to solve anything. Write your Congressional representatives and tell them you want research into high-efficiency solar, wind, and fusion power. Tell them you want laws to shut up the NIMBYists and environmentalists who bitch because wind turbines are ugly and kill birds. Drive less.

 

[Peregrinator]

Good link and story of a responsible corporate millionaire.

Of course Ishmael wouldn't be impressed unless he clawed his way to his status on the sweaty, deformed backs of the children working for his company as noted in the above post.

Chouinard is one of my personal idols.

I don't know what would impress Ish. He certainly seems to be taking the position you describe though.

 

[Ishmael]

Wtf are you talking about?

Chouinard is american. He founded Black Diamond Equipment and then Patagonia.

You may have heard of Patagonia...extremely successful technical and sports clothing company. The guy's a multimillionaire.

And I have read friedman.

You shouldn't bluff like this, Ish. It takes away from your credibility.

Still a cheese eating surrender monkey in my book.

You're subsequent post indicates he's a successful marketeer. Good for him. He's threading his way through an industry that has a high degree of failure for those not able to niche market and unable to identify/set trends.

That does NOT make him any expert on macro-economics, or micro-economics for that matter either. Outside of his market, no ones heard of him. And writing a book is just good marketing. (Which goes with setting trends.)

Freidmans last book was an excellent laymans overview of the world of economics. How it works and why. Patagonia is but a subset of Freidmans work from an economic stand point.

Now, you can be among the 'Kathy Lee' bashers, as is your choice. But my point still stands. The third world will NOT burst into economic prominence full blown. It's evolutionary, not revolutionary. The third world will NOT develope economically without a market, and that market is the first world. Our money, in investment dollars and product dollars, must flow in their direction for that to happen. That will NOT happen if we withhold those dollars because they don't do things the way we do here.

While the naysayers sit and judge by our standard of living, the naysayers protests deny those people any standard of living at all.

Some poor little kid is sick. Lives too close to the refinery maybe. But you best figure it out Perg. Prostitution can not thrive in an economy that doesn't have discretionary income. If survival is so dire, there would be no whores.

If you bother to read the history of the UK, and the US, and France, and Germany, and many others you'd find that prositution is one of the leading economic indicators of 'good times'. Starving men don't stand in lines at the brothels.

"Oh my GOD!!!!!!! They're patronizing whores. Let's shut that economy down NOW!!!!!!!"

Ishmael

 

[Peregrinator]

Still a cheese eating surrender monkey in my book.

You're subsequent post indicates he's a successful marketeer. Good for him. He's threading his way through an industry that has a high degree of failure for those not able to niche market and unable to identify/set trends.

That does NOT make him any expert on macro-economics, or micro-economics for that matter either. Outside of his market, no ones heard of him. And writing a book is just good marketing. (Which goes with setting trends.)

Freidmans last book was an excellent laymans overview of the world of economics. How it works and why. Patagonia is but a subset of Freidmans work from an economic stand point.

Now, you can be among the 'Kathy Lee' bashers, as is your choice. But my point still stands. The third world will NOT burst into economic prominence full blown. It's evolutionary, not revolutionary. The third world will NOT develope economically without a market, and that market is the first world. Our money, in investment dollars and product dollars, must flow in their direction for that to happen. That will NOT happen if we withhold those dollars because they don't do things the way we do here.

While the naysayers sit and judge by our standard of living, the naysayers protests deny those people any standard of living at all.

Some poor little kid is sick. Lives too close to the refinery maybe. But you best figure it out Perg. Prostitution can not thrive in an economy that doesn't have discretionary income. If survival is so dire, there would be no whores.

If you bother to read the history of the UK, and the US, and France, and Germany, and many others you'd find that prositution is one of the leading economic indicators of 'good times'. Starving men don't stand in lines at the brothels.

"Oh my GOD!!!!!!! They're patronizing whores. Let's shut that economy down NOW!!!!!!!"

Ishmael

Outside of his market? Which is everywhere. If you take the time to look, you see "Patagucci" clothing everywhere. I see it on commuting yuppies all the time. There are boutique Patagonia stores in many major cities, and they aren't selling to me, the mountaineer. The stuff is everywhere. You know nothing about the book if you think it's a marketing effort.

Your 'graph about Kathy Lee etc...whatever. I made no claims about the third world.

"Some poor little kid..." tell me again about how I should worry about the people who would lose their jobs if we demand ethical standards from energy companies? Remember your violin solo about the "little people" who would lose ducats if we reduce emissions? Check your consistency, dude.


Prostitution exists everywhere. I'm not sure I believe it's an indicator of much of anything. If you really think there are no whores in Mogadishu, you're confused as hell. Prostitution is one of the symptoms of hard times as well. They're everywhere.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Bad article. I believe that in addition to those heart-tugging stories it should demonstrate the fact that there is a balancing act that must be met. If the foundation does not make money with its investments, it will continue to deplete its own cash and ability to help serve the poor.

So the fact that the oil industry Gates run there is causing more diseases and problems, at least enabling the very diseases they're supposedly trying to cure, is irrelevant?

It wouldn't be if you were the one dying from it.

The manager of the Foundation has a fiduciary responsibilty with one goal: increase our worth.

No increase = less money available for health care.

Think is, you can whine about the corporation in which they are investing, but there is a finite number of hippie Ben & Jerry type companies available (which provide value as well.) Sure, it would be nice to find a company making rope out of hemp with shares increasing in double digits every year. But it doesn't exists.

Frankly, I wonder how timely that info is, because I have some new money to invest and I assume the Gates Foundation in managed by capable people who can help me increase my net worth.

Corporations are, by pure definition, psychopathic and that is a solid fact. You're basically saying you don't care who dies or suffers as long as you increase your net worth.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Do you drive a car?

The problem here is that the whole world--you, me, Bill Gates, the Queen of England, even Bozo the Clown--depends on fossil fuels for electricity, transportation, medicine, recreation...everything.

Picking on Bill Gates isn't going to solve anything. Write your Congressional representatives and tell them you want research into high-efficiency solar, wind, and fusion power. Tell them you want laws to shut up the NIMBYists and environmentalists who bitch because wind turbines are ugly and kill birds. Drive less.

What did your post have to do with the fact that Bill Gates is causing more problems than he's solving?

And to address your post, you know, the difference between humans and snakes is that humans can't devour hardly anything whole. We have to eat it in bites.

Likewise, when I had my old house's roof lined with solar panels and ordered solar panels for our new house, I took a bite out of future fossil fuel dependency. Another nibble was taken when we traded in our old cars for a Prius and a Ford Escape Hybrid, then traded in the (replacement) Prius for the Highlander hybrid. When Phoenix Motor cars comes out with its all-electric SUV in 2007, guess what? I'll be plugging it into our solar powered socket whenever we depart.

You can't solve everything by attacking Bill Gates, but you can at least cut down on the disease and pollution that those oil factories are causing. These are problems that will hang over those Africans long after the oil factories are shut down.

You can't lay down and die because you can't kill the entire problem in one bite.

 

[phrodeau]

Are you planning to post anything to show that Bill Gates is causing more problems than he's solving? You haven't shown that yet, but you claim it's true.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Are you planning to post anything to show that Bill Gates is causing more problems than he's solving? You haven't shown that yet, but you claim it's true.

Yes, I have.

Oil workers, for example, and soldiers protecting them are a magnet for prostitution, contributing to a surge in HIV and teenage pregnancy, both targets in the Gates Foundation's efforts to ease the ills of society, especially among the poor. Oil bore holes fill with stagnant water, which is ideal for mosquitoes that spread malaria, one of the diseases the foundation is fighting.

Investigators for Dr. Nonyenim Solomon Enyidah, health commissioner for Rivers State, where Ebocha is located, cite an oil spill clogging rivers as a cause of cholera, another scourge the foundation is battling. The rivers, Enyidah said, "became breeding grounds for all kinds of waterborne diseases."

The bright, sooty gas flares -- which contain toxic byproducts such as benzene, mercury and chromium -- lower immunity, Enyidah said, and make children such as Justice Eta more susceptible to polio and measles -- the diseases that the Gates Foundation has helped to inoculate him against.

Your next response is wrong, Phrodeau.

Bill Gates is causing more problems than he is solving and anything you say in response makes you look like a retard because the facts have been pointed out without flaw, without any inaccuracy and without any inconsistency.

There are no errors here except in your posts.

 

[Ishmael]

Outside of his market? Which is everywhere. If you take the time to look, you see "Patagucci" clothing everywhere. I see it on commuting yuppies all the time. There are boutique Patagonia stores in many major cities, and they aren't selling to me, the mountaineer. The stuff is everywhere. You know nothing about the book if you think it's a marketing effort.

Your 'graph about Kathy Lee etc...whatever. I made no claims about the third world.

"Some poor little kid..." tell me again about how I should worry about the people who would lose their jobs if we demand ethical standards from energy companies? Remember your violin solo about the "little people" who would lose ducats if we reduce emissions? Check your consistency, dude.


Prostitution exists everywhere. I'm not sure I believe it's an indicator of much of anything. If you really think there are no whores in Mogadishu, you're confused as hell. Prostitution is one of the symptoms of hard times as well. They're everywhere.

So was 'Old Navy', and 'Patchington', and 'Bananna Republic'. <shrug>

If they're top dog even 5 years from now, I'll be impressed.

Ishmael

 

[phrodeau]

Yes, I have.


Your next response is wrong, Phrodeau.

Bill Gates is causing more problems than he is solving and anything you say in response makes you look like a retard because the facts have been pointed out without flaw, without any inaccuracy and without any inconsistency.

There are no errors here except in your posts.

Top of the article, very first words: "Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation". That's all you've got.

No inaccuracy? What about this at the end of the article: "The overall figures in this series may significantly understate the volume of Gates Foundation investments that tend to conflict with its charitable goals. The Gates Foundation did not provide details for about $4.3 billion of investments it characterizes as loans."

There are a lot of things which only you seem to know. Are you able to pull facts out of your ass?

 

[Ishmael]

Top of the article, very first words: "Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation". That's all you've got.

No inaccuracy? What about this at the end of the article: "The overall figures in this series may significantly understate the volume of Gates Foundation investments that tend to conflict with its charitable goals. The Gates Foundation did not provide details for about $4.3 billion of investments it characterizes as loans."

There are a lot of things which only you seem to know. Are you able to pull facts out of your ass?

Why in the world would you think anything has changed?

Ishmael

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Top of the article, very first words: "Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation". That's all you've got.

Wrong. I'll repeat the other facts that show Gates is doing more harm than good.

Oil workers, for example, and soldiers protecting them are a magnet for prostitution, contributing to a surge in HIV and teenage pregnancy, both targets in the Gates Foundation's efforts to ease the ills of society, especially among the poor. Oil bore holes fill with stagnant water, which is ideal for mosquitoes that spread malaria, one of the diseases the foundation is fighting.

Investigators for Dr. Nonyenim Solomon Enyidah, health commissioner for Rivers State, where Ebocha is located, cite an oil spill clogging rivers as a cause of cholera, another scourge the foundation is battling. The rivers, Enyidah said, "became breeding grounds for all kinds of waterborne diseases."

The bright, sooty gas flares -- which contain toxic byproducts such as benzene, mercury and chromium -- lower immunity, Enyidah said, and make children such as Justice Eta more susceptible to polio and measles -- the diseases that the Gates Foundation has helped to inoculate him against.

Get your reading comprehension aid if the above seems too complex for you to understand.

No inaccuracy? What about this at the end of the article: "The overall figures in this series may significantly understate the volume of Gates Foundation investments that tend to conflict with its charitable goals. The Gates Foundation did not provide details for about $4.3 billion of investments it characterizes as loans."

Judging by your tortured logic I suspect you were probably one of the attorneys on the cigarette industry's defense team.

Plaintiff: "The Cigarette industry has inflicted millions of dollars in damages to American citizens."
Phrodeau, attorney at law: "That, your honor, is an inaccuracy!"
Judge: "Indeed it is. The damages are actually in the billions."

Not that you're smart enough to understand the point but the dispute here is not the accuracy of the claim that the Gates Foundation is doing more damage than it fixes, but rather the sheer magnitude of the margin.

There are a lot of things which only you seem to know. Are you able to pull facts out of your ass?

Apparently a lot of people know this:

Oil workers, for example, and soldiers protecting them are a magnet for prostitution, contributing to a surge in HIV and teenage pregnancy, both targets in the Gates Foundation's efforts to ease the ills of society, especially among the poor. Oil bore holes fill with stagnant water, which is ideal for mosquitoes that spread malaria, one of the diseases the foundation is fighting.

Investigators for Dr. Nonyenim Solomon Enyidah, health commissioner for Rivers State, where Ebocha is located, cite an oil spill clogging rivers as a cause of cholera, another scourge the foundation is battling. The rivers, Enyidah said, "became breeding grounds for all kinds of waterborne diseases."

The bright, sooty gas flares -- which contain toxic byproducts such as benzene, mercury and chromium -- lower immunity, Enyidah said, and make children such as Justice Eta more susceptible to polio and measles -- the diseases that the Gates Foundation has helped to inoculate him against.

 

[Peregrinator]

So was 'Old Navy', and 'Patchington', and 'Bananna Republic'. <shrug>

If they're top dog even 5 years from now, I'll be impressed.

Ishmael

Decided to drop the other two lines of discussion?

You're posting in ignorance of the technical outdoor gear industry. Patagonia is and has been top dog for decades. Their stuff is generally considered to be among the best in the industry, competing with maybe five other brands. They continue to inovate new designs which are promptly copied by all the others.

 

[Ishmael]

Wrong. I'll repeat the other facts that show Gates is doing more harm than good.


Get your reading comprehension aid if the above seems too complex for you to understand.


Judging by your tortured logic I suspect you were probably one of the attorneys on the cigarette industry's defense team.

Plaintiff: "The Cigarette industry has inflicted millions of dollars in damages to American citizens."
Phrodeau, attorney at law: "That, your honor, is an inaccuracy!"
Judge: "Indeed it is. The damages are actually in the billions."

Not that you're smart enough to understand the point but the dispute here is not the accuracy of the claim that the Gates Foundation is doing more damage than it fixes, but rather the sheer magnitude of the margin.


Apparently a lot of people know this:

How is Gates at fault?

Ishmael

 

[phrodeau]

If prostitution is illegal, then the prostitutes and their johns are the criminals, not Bill Gates. Is it possible for you to understand that?

 

[Ishmael]

If prostitution is illegal, then the prostitutes and their johns are the criminals, not Bill Gates. Is it possible for you to understand that?

No, it's not. Cop to it. It's not like this is a great revelation furry foot.

Ishmael

 

[Le Jacquelope]

How is Gates at fault?

Ishmael

He invests in that oil company that's causing so many problems over there.

Didn't you read? No wait, the better question is... can you read?

But polio is not the only threat Justice faces. Almost since birth, he has had respiratory trouble. His neighbors call it "the cough." People blame fumes and soot spewing from flames that tower 300 feet into the air over a nearby oil plant. It is owned by the Italian petroleum giant Eni, whose investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Justice squirmed in his mother's arms. His face was beaded with sweat caused either by illness or by heat from the flames that illuminate Ebocha day and night. Ebocha means "city of lights."

The makeshift clinic at a church where Justice Eta was vaccinated and the flares spewing over Ebocha represent a head-on conflict for the Gates Foundation. In a contradiction between its grants and its endowment holdings, a Times investigation has found, the foundation reaps vast financial gains every year from investments that contravene its good works.

In Ebocha, where Justice lives, Dr. Elekwachi Okey, a local physician, says hundreds of flares at oil plants in the Niger Delta have caused an epidemic of bronchitis in adults, and asthma and blurred vision in children. No definitive studies have documented the health effects, but many of the 250 toxic chemicals in the fumes and soot have long been linked to respiratory disease and cancer.

"We're all smokers here," Okey said, "but not with cigarettes."

The oil plants in the region surrounding Ebocha find it cheaper to burn nearly 1 billion cubic feet of gas each day and contribute to global warming than to sell it. They deny the flaring causes sickness. Under pressure from activists, however, Nigeria's high court set a deadline to end flaring by May 2007. The gases would be injected back underground, or trucked and piped out for sale. But authorities expect the flares to burn for years beyond the deadline.

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.

Indeed, local leaders blame oil development for fostering some of the very afflictions that the foundation combats.

Oil workers, for example, and soldiers protecting them are a magnet for prostitution, contributing to a surge in HIV and teenage pregnancy, both targets in the Gates Foundation's efforts to ease the ills of society, especially among the poor. Oil bore holes fill with stagnant water, which is ideal for mosquitoes that spread malaria, one of the diseases the foundation is fighting.

Investigators for Dr. Nonyenim Solomon Enyidah, health commissioner for Rivers State, where Ebocha is located, cite an oil spill clogging rivers as a cause of cholera, another scourge the foundation is battling. The rivers, Enyidah said, "became breeding grounds for all kinds of waterborne diseases."

The bright, sooty gas flares — which contain toxic byproducts such as benzene, mercury and chromium — lower immunity, Enyidah said, and make children such as Justice Eta more susceptible to polio and measles — the diseases that the Gates Foundation has helped to inoculate him against.

 

[Ishmael]

Hmmmmm, Bill Gates founded the Gates Foundation. The foundation has invested in a third world oil company. The company is successful, but there are unintended consequences. Ergo, Bill Gates is at fault.

LT bought some Ford stock. His mother, driving a Pinto, was ass ended by a drunk. The car exploded and LT's mother ended up in a bag at the grocery store labled "Fried Pork Rinds." LT murdered his mother.

Ishmael

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Hmmmmm, Bill Gates founded the Gates Foundation. The foundation has invested in a third world oil company. The company is successful, but there are unintended consequences. Ergo, Bill Gates is at fault.

LT bought some Ford stock. His mother, driving a Pinto, was ass ended by a drunk. The car exploded and LT's mother ended up in a bag at the grocery store labled "Fried Pork Rinds." LT murdered his mother.

Ishmael

LT sells that Ford stock as soon as word gets out that Ford has a history of such problems. Ford stock soon plummets as many others follow suit right before Ford is sued and forced to recall those cars at a cost of a few hundred million bucks (billions when adjusted for inflation). Ishmael, left holding the bag, gets stuck with a margin call and sells his kids into Asian white slavery to keep his stock which continues to plummet until Bill Gates offers him a job at the African refinery that he refuses to divest in.

Since Assmeal is an idiot and his reading skills are fucked, what this means is that LT dumps his stock as soon as he finds the company is a major fuckup (thereby sending Ford a message to shape up their act), Bill Gates refuses to divest (thereby sending the refinery a message that it's okay to continue fucking things up), and Ishmael is the man he is today because of all the toxins he's been sucking down.

 

[Ishmael]

LT sells that Ford stock as soon as word gets out that Ford has a history of such problems. Ford stock soon plummets as many others follow suit right before Ford is sued and forced to recall those cars at a cost of a few hundred million bucks (billions when adjusted for inflation). Ishmael, left holding the bag, gets stuck with a margin call and sells his kids into Asian white slavery to keep his stock which continues to plummet until Bill Gates offers him a job at the African refinery that he refuses to divest in.

Since Assmeal is an idiot and his reading skills are fucked, what this means is that LT dumps his stock as soon as he finds the company is a major fuckup (thereby sending Ford a message to shape up their act), Bill Gates refuses to divest (thereby sending the refinery a message that it's okay to continue fucking things up), and Ishmael is the man he is today because of all the toxins he's been sucking down.

Really? Kinda after the horse left the barn. I guess LT should have had his broker really research the whole thing. (And fuck those Ford employees, really, fuck'em.)

Want'a fried pork rind?

Ishmael

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Really? Kinda after the horse left the barn. I guess LT should have had his broker really research the whole thing. (And fuck those Ford employees, really, fuck'em.)

Want'a fried pork rind?

Ishmael

You can't be culpable for that company's mistakes until you've had an opportunity to actually see them and you do nothing. Otherwise your imaginary kid could kill someone and you would go to jail for it.

And the workers are fucked anyway - when the recall happens and the consumers start suing, the layoffs are inevitable. When investors pull out (that's me in this story), however, that's when the corporate officers start taking the heat.

BTW how much would your imaginary kids go for in the Asian slave market?

 

[Ishmael]

You can't be culpable for that company's mistakes until you've had an opportunity to actually see them and you do nothing. Otherwise your imaginary kid could kill someone and you would go to jail for it.

And the workers are fucked anyway - when the recall happens and the consumers start suing, the layoffs are inevitable. When investors pull out (that's me in this story), however, that's when the corporate officers start taking the heat.

BTW how much would your imaginary kids go for in the Asian slave market?

I see. So now, the Gates Foundation, having seen the err of their ways, should pull all of their money out and collapse the company. Sounds reasonable to me.

Ishmael

 

[Le Jacquelope]

I see. So now, the Gates Foundation, having seen the err of their ways, should pull all of their money out and collapse the company. Sounds reasonable to me.

Ishmael

Or they can continue to take 1 charitable step forward in their fight against malaria, cholera, polio, and measles - and 5 steps backward by enabling companies that make said diseases more and more prevalent, plus stacking ubertoxic pollution on top of that.

Now I can understand why you have no problem donating money to a cause while investing in something else that's setting that cause back - your parents did that every minute they spent educating you at home.

 

[Ishmael]

Or they can continue to take 1 charitable step forward in their fight against malaria, cholera, polio, and measles - and 5 steps backward by enabling companies that make said diseases more and more prevalent, plus stacking ubertoxic pollution on top of that.

Now I can understand why you have no problem donating money to a cause while investing in something else that's setting that cause back - your parents did that every minute they spent educating you at home.

Hmmmmmm, cholera, measles, and polio are major problems? I didn't know that. Apparently CDC doesn't either. Better send them a memo LT. Malaria, on the other hand, is on the rise. It's a gift to the world from Racheal.

Ishmael