• rational_lib@lemmy.world
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    15 minutes ago

    Bill Gates deserves a lot of shit for creating the original big tech monopoly. But I’ll say this about him: At least he’s not hoarding his money to build a secretive compound to hold hundreds of kids he spawned with right wing crazy women for the purpose of creating a future master race.

  • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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    12 minutes ago

    too bad he vouched for vaccines to be only distrubted by the USA, which makes the cost high for poorer countries. people like him have an ulterior motives of what he is doing.

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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    3 hours ago

    I’ll take whatever win I can get at this point. I just hope that it’s actually going to good causes that will actually help people and not just bullshit money laundering “charity” shell games.

    • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz
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      4 hours ago

      I’m fairly certain he pays every last cent he government asks of him.
      The problem is that the government has been unwilling to ask for more, and the current one certainly won’t.

      He has been advocating for higher taxes for while though, like backing the Washington Income Tax initiative with his father:

      Bill Gates Sr., father of the Microsoft Corp. co-founder, and about two dozen other supporters of Initiative 1098 turned in 350,000 petition signatures Thursday in Olympia, many more than the roughly 241,000 required to get on the ballot. The campaign says it will turn in an additional 20,000 Friday. Gates said that it was time “to make our tax code fair for the middle class and small businesses.”

      • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        He has been advocating for higher taxes for while though

        Yeah, that’s called PR. The billionaires love living in a world where they can say they support something and take credit for that position in full knowledge that they’ll never actually be held accountable for it.

        • Doom@ttrpg.network
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          2 hours ago

          Yo this motherfucker fights diseases that kills millions and absolutely is nowhere near Musk or his shit filled ilk

          Stop consuming right wing propaganda. This dude tries more than most let humans be human fuck sake not like he set this system up

          • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            This dude has that button box that says “press me for a million dollars but someone somewhere will be hurt” and he spends his days pressing that button over, and over, and over, and over again.

            If he wants my affection, he needs to do this now. I will 100% change my tune if he wakes up tomorrow and donates 99% of his wealth here, in the US.

            Also, I think the world would be a better place if people didn’t simp for billionaires. His business practices are robbing all of us of value we should be getting for our taxes.

      • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        And that is exactly what he and his class makes sure of via their politics and clandestine political bribery lobbying efforts.

  • Taleya@aussie.zone
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    4 hours ago

    Plenury indulgences or a carefully structured set of trusts that he will hold shadow control of? Either way i suspect the man sees the wall coming and wishes to avoid being pushed up against it and shot.

    • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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      3 hours ago

      Yeah, I mean, a quick Google search shows his net worth at 133b. 113b x 0.01 = 1.13 billion dollars.

      For context, bill is 69 yo, and the average US male lives to about 76 yo. That’s a difference of six years, or 2190 days. That means that Bill would have to scrape by on just $519,000/day.

  • Guidy@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Yeah, don’t fucking care. He already enjoyed it, and he’s told us for years he doesn’t give a shit about his kids inheriting all his wealth.

    Want to make a difference Bill? Don’t wait 20 years. Give it all away right now, to Washington State and its charities. (Don’t worry that money would immediately go to into the greater economy.)

  • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Bullshit, he’s “transferring” his wealth to his own charity for tax reasons…

    It’s a trick to protect his money for his children.

    • MimicJar@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Not according to the opening sentence?

      The Gates Foundation plans to give away $US200 billion ($313 billion) over the next 20 years before shutting down entirely in 2045

      • Dragonstaff@leminal.space
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        7 hours ago

        Sure. The Gates Foundation gives the money to the Totally Not A Tax Dodge foundation which quietly pays the Gates kids as much as they want. I’m sure it will be more elegant than that, but that’s the basic grift.

        Meanwhile, Gates uses his reputation as a philanthropist, and all the soft power from controlling billions to further his own interests and cement his personal philosophy as the only option.

        The charity means that the American people have no control at all over how the money is spent, so the plebians have to beg at their door for money to be used in the way that Gates says it must be used.

  • LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Bill + Melinda Gates Foundation is a fun litmus test for leftists because you either have to claim (and secretly hope) Gates is a fraud or admit that not all billionaires are evil.
    To the average non-leftist it is very obvious he cares about humanity and is doing his best to help it.

    • nonentity@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      The foundation exists because of Melinda.

      Bill is, and always has been, a sociopath. It’s a requirement to becoming a billionaire outside of inheritance. He ‘cares’ about humanity because it’s a useful vector through which to launder his reputation.

      A truly uplifting story would be if he were advocating to prevent billionaires from existing. Any society which tolerates that level of wealth concentration is suicidal.

      • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        A truly uplifting story would be if he were advocating to prevent billionaires from existing.

        Hell, he has all the means he needs to get ACTUAL progressives elected. The man is a piece of shit through and through.

    • SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 hours ago

      Billionaires are evil, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are all consciously evil. They’re “evil” like cancer.

      Of course, many of them are consciously evil, too, but obviously that part is a choice.

    • Bio bronk@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      For the average supporter of the trump regime, it’s a globalist conspiracy—Gates is seen as a symbol of elite overreach, vaccine mandates, and technocratic control.

      • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
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        2 hours ago

        True. And as much as I hate to ally with a group that I see as mostly ingorant and foolish…

        If I must to choose between Bill Gates and an ignorant Trump supporter - one of the two categories has ever helped me change a flat tire on the side of the highway.

        I think they’re largely wrong for why they dislike Gates, but they’re not wrong that he’s on the opposite side of an unprecedented self-propegating wealth gap and class war, from the rest of us.

    • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Because he wants to benefit personally from his wealth and be seen as a good person.

      And the idiots will keep eating it up

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        I mean, 99% of his wealth gone still leaves him with over a billion dollars. Might be more of a logistics and planning issue.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Do you have a comprehensive plan on how to immediately spend 200Bn USD evenly and fairly only to the most impoverished people on earth in such a way that maximises longterm benefit more than spreading it out over 20 years?

      Also, if you sell off 200Bn USD worth of stocks in a day then you’re not going to make 200Bn USD off the sales.

      • 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        36 minutes ago

        you seem to be all over the thread defending gates. Do you really think this is how a good willed person helps people? by preventing vaccine patents, and using impoverished kids for testing.

        He’s creating pathway to funnel his money where he wants it, his own family, with least criticism, and defended by short sighted stringent followers like you.

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          25 minutes ago

          You think preventing vaccine patents was the bad outcome? I don’t even know how to begin with that, I don’t feel any need to defend if that’s your stance.