Let's start right now Bill.

Write me a check for around 10 million and I'll give up my job for someone else and that'll start the ball rolling.

Kidding aside, he is correct but then he is also one of the most egregious violators of created disparity.

The link to the speech does not connect.

The heroic Andrew Golis has fixed the problem. Sorry for screwing up. --Greg

First I object to Gates's philanthropy. He made the money using monopolistic means and spends it as he sees fit. This is undemocratic. The public (and the beneficiaries) has no say as to what programs get funded.

He has chosen to spend on eliminating misery, which may be satisfying to him personally, but does little to fix the underlying inequalities that cause the misery in the first place.

Contrast this was someone like George Soros who has taken as his mission to foster democracy in non-democratic states. He supplies the money and the local groups he sponsors decide how best to spend it. If they are not making adequate progress he tries another approach. If his method works the end result is a more democratic society which can then decide for itself which priorities to tackle.

If we had functioning anti-trust laws and meaningful tax policies Gates would never have been able to amass such a huge fortune. His money would have gone into the general fund where it could be distributed according to the priorities of society at large.

The need for philanthropy to make up for the deficiencies of public policy just means that our democracy is not functioning properly. The cure is to fix the defect, not to ignore it and hope for the tooth fairy.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

Today, one could compare what Gates is doing to combat Aids and Malaria in Africa with what the American Government is doing and ask which is more effective in the short or in the long run?

IMO, what Bill Gates does in Africa is a show and the US government's response is an extortion racket since the US wants African nations to sign GMO (genetic engineered crops) agreements in exchange for drugs. i.e. the US uses military action to enforce the rights of the corporate cartel. Thus, within this political theater, Bill Gates simply plays the good guy in an effort to paint the rich, powerful individual as caring.

Private philanthropy doesn't have to worry about "efficient" expenditure of public money for "important" things only.

one could argue that Bill Gates over charges for his products so, in reality, he's spending our money! instead of philanthropy, I'd prefer an affordable Microsoft Office.

The reason? Public refusal to support bond issues or tax increases to fund them.

especially with the internet, today's libraries don't interface well with the public. google's effort to digitize everything, and put it online, is the way to go.

the library here cost $100 million+ to build (the bonds were sold) but they ran out of money for the staff and the republicans, I think, noted correctly that more cost effective solutions are needed.

personally, the public library might be better served by simply buying, for posterity, the rights to allow the use of written works online.

To boldly go...

LMAO

"...or broad economic opportunity – reducing inequality is the highest human achievement.”"

If he would only walk his talk. If the economy was an ocean, Microsoft would definately be a great white shark. Well a great white would have the right attitude but it would be way too small, so I guess one of those gigantic sharks from the dinosaur days.

For those who want to make up their own minds:

• The Wikipedia Article outlining major initiatives of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
• The 2007 Los Angeles Times Article in question. It should be noted that the Los Angeles Times first criticized the Gates Foundation in 1999, and has kept up a steady drumbeat against it ever since.  I don't know why, except perhaps because Steve Jobs, Gates' arch rival, is a California boy.
• The Expanded Version of the article referenced by mcs, written by Jeff Reifman, former Microsoft employee and himself a millionaire.
• Jeff Reifman's own investment strategy, before and after he "saw the light". 

I wouldn't call Gates' charitable attitude "skin deep".  I don't suspect he cares what I'd call it one way or the other.     

aMike

I wouldn't call Gates' charitable attitude "skin deep". I don't suspect he cares what I'd call it one way or the other.

Your diction is atrocious, Mike, this once and for certain you are wrong even in self-effacing.

Would Bill and Melinda (yes, indeed Melinda is involved too) be engaged in such an enterprise if they had no regard for the goodwill of people like yourself? Would they have drawn even Warren Buffett to donate the bulk of his massive fortune if there was not some regard for the opinion of mankind?

Besides attempting to discover drugs that will cure and vaccines to prevent terrible diseases like malaria and AIDS that have a huge toll in death and misery, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the development of a mild, oral cure for brain rot ("trypanosomiasis"). Looks like there is a desperate need for that pill around here.

BTW I am not exactly a fan of Microsoft. I am most certainly a fan of the enormous good Gates is doing with his ill-gotten gains.

Best, Terry

Would they have drawn even Warren Buffett to donate the bulk of his massive fortune...

The two of them are businessmen, first and foremost.

I am most certainly a fan of the enormous good Gates...

great! if being a fan makes you happy, go for it!

however, while you may see the glass as half full, it's half empty to others. i.e. the way one measures is a personal choice.

To boldly go...

The two of them are businessmen, first and foremost.

What business do you think Buffett is in?

My understanding is that he is an investor. I suppose one could call investing a business but then there would be an awful lot of businessmen here damning businessmen and businesswomen.

How is the good one might do different if one contributes part of one's income from wages or business - or robbing banks for that matter?

I find it rather comical that Mother Teresa is mentioned as a contra example. That saintly lady did more than her share of harm with hate messages against folks from Muslims to abortion providers. I am happy that Gates and Buffett weren't that mean.

Best, Terry

Actually, we know a lot about how to alleviate inequalities, here and abroad. But the reason nothing happens is all about politics and the leadership and propaganda of conservatives who don’t even consider inequality to be a problem.

Greg Anrig is at serious risk of becoming the mirror image of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity with posts like this one.  Just as those buffoons seek to blame "liberals" for anything and everything they don't like, now we have someone trying to blame conservatives for a phenomenon as complex and intractable as inequality.

In so doing, Greg appears to fall into a classic liberal trap: compassion and caring should equal, ipso facto, support for government-oriented solutions.  If someone does not support a government-oriented solution, it must mean they don't give a shit.

To be sure, in many cases this is perfectly true.  There are plenty of opponents to government action that are mean selfish bastards that couldn't give a fig for their fellow man.  But to generalize and say that of anyone who thinks government is not the answer to social or economic problems is guilty of not caring is a step way too far.  There are plenty of conservatives, even "movement" conservatives, who display compassion for their fellow man through charities, non-profits, churches and synagogues and through their own volunteering efforts and who support expansion of that.  That was what "compassionate conservatism" was supposed to be about before it turned into merely the first of the Bush Administration's cynical blunders.

In addition, it is the height of hubris to say, "Actually, we know a lot about how to alleviate inequalities, here and abroad." not to mention a certain willful blindness about the history of both domestic social programs and foreign aid and their abject failure to put a serious dent in inequality.  If we know anything, it's that there are no simple answers to the problem of domestic inequality, which is a function of larger economic and social forces that government may be able to influence, but only at the margin.  Foreign inequality is another matter entirely.  It is clear, if you look at the economic rise of Asia in the last 50 years, that wealth creation through trade and markets is far more effective against inequality than yet more foreign aid.  Foreign aid has its place to be sure, but no one who knows about its history could possibly conclude that it is the answer to inequality.

Brad the Dad wrote: "There are plenty of conservatives, even 'movement' conservatives, who display compassion for their fellow man through charities, non-profits, churches and synagogues and through their own volunteering efforts and who support expansion of that. "

I'd like a few examples of billionaire conservatives who are doing the kind of work that Bill Gates and George Soros are doing.

Brad the Dad concluded: "Foreign inequality is another matter entirely. It is clear, if you look at the economic rise of Asia in the last 50 years, that wealth creation through trade and markets is far more effective against inequality than yet more foreign aid. Foreign aid has its place to be sure, but no one who knows about its history could possibly conclude that it is the answer to inequality."

Trade agreements may accomplish some things, but saving children dying of AIDS or malaria is not one of them. For this, we need foreign aid.

"Doctors Without Borders" has shown how much can be done. But while a few U.S. doctors have volunteered for the program,the U.S. does not
have its own "Doctors Without Borders" program.
We tend to think "within the borders."

Meanwhile, much, much more money is needed to address global health problems. And here, both Big Pharma and the U.S. government have been niggardly.

Just one example: Merck's new cervical cancer vaccine could save tens of millions of lives in emerging countries. (In the U.S., thanks to Pap smears, cervical cancer has become a "rare disease" according to the NIH. Merck's vaccine will save, at best a couple of million U.S. lives--at a cost of billions. There are far less expensive ways to save the relatively small pool of American women who now die of cervical cancer, but Merck wouldn't turn a profit on a campaign to make sure every American woman goes for regular Pap smears.)

But that's another argument for another day.
My point here is that Merck isn't providing its cervical cancer virus to emerging countries at a price that they could conceivably afford. Nor is the U.S. government trying to make the vaccine available.

The Gates foundation, by contrast, offered funds to help distribute the vaccine in emerging countries nearly a year ago. But so far, Merck has not agreed to the steep discounts needed to make the program work.

Last August, after Gates made his offer, I called Merck and asked if they had begun thinking about pricing for emerging markets, and the company spokesperson said: "That question is premature. Right now, we're focusing on the high-income markets in the U.S. and Europe."

As to whether Gates' philanthropy is more than skin-deep, I saw him talk about the foundation in a long interview with Bill Moyers a couple of years ago, and was impressed. Moreover, I know
enough about Warren Buffett to know that he wouldn't be entrusting his considerable fortune to the Gates foundation if he thought it was in any way a ruse.

Buffett by the way, has always been against the concentration of family wealth. For decades, he has told his children that he does not plan to leave his money to them. He favors a 100% estate tax (at least for the very wealthy) and he is acting on his convictions.

I am actually astounded at the criticisms of Bill & Melinda Gates's charitable gifts.  I know that many people detest Microsoft, but why can't they set that aside and be objective about the good that the Gates Foundation is doing?  The old, "Let no good deed go unpunished," comes to mind.

I could go on, but it's all been said before, but I wanted to pass this on:

  I heard Warren Buffet's granddaughter interviewed on NPR right after  he had announced his financial gift to the Gates Foundation.  She knew nothing about it in advance, but was pleased to hear it and was not surprised at all.  She said that she had always worked for spending money; that her college was completely funded by her grandfather, and that she got the best education money could buy with his help.  She worked as a nanny all through college.  She is an artist and sounds like a wonderful, independent person.  Somehow, I can't imagine her getting DUI's and driving on suspended licenses.

My point is just this --> the Gates's and the Buffets have certainly done something right.  They seem to have decided for themselves what is important in this life and they have given their heirs something more valuable than unspendably large fortunes; they have done what they believe will make the world a better place.

If someone MUST criticize people who give their money away, how about saving it for people like Barbara Bush, who donated a million dollars for educational programs in New Orleans, but with the caveat that it had to be spent on programs and materials produced by one of her son's companies!  Charity really begins (and ends) at home in the Bush clan.

Jan

Actually, I disagree with the original post here:

But I think he’s wrong when he says that when we “have seen human tragedies that broke our hearts…we did nothing—not because we didn’t care but because we didn’t know what to do. If we had known how to help, we would have acted.”

Actually, we know a lot about how to alleviate inequalities, here and abroad.

I think there is a lot of truth to what Gates is saying about not knowing what to do.  There are so many "charities" and non-profits that are geared to enriching their board members rather than doing the good they advertise.  Yes, we can research them and find out more about them, but one is still left with wondering how much of our dollar goes to the child with the sad, beautiful eyes.  There is also a question of overload...it is easy to be overwhelmed by the need everywhere.  I tend to focus on one thing and donate that way because  1.  I am not rich, and 2.  I don't have the time it takes to check into every cause.

Someone mentioned above that you can always donate to the Red Cross.  Wasn't there a scandal about how Red Cross monies were allocated a few years ago?  I only need to hear about a scandal once, and then I move on. 

Bill Gates has large staffs to vet the agencies his giving is aimed at, and he can have a high degree of confidence about how his donations are managed.  I think he is right when he says that we, average citizens really don't know what to do if we want to do make the most with our donations, and that is still a significant part of the problem. 

Jan

Brad, All I was trying to communicate in my perhaps overly cursory post is that the agenda items Gates lists about health care, education, and economic policies that would help to offset inequality are all realms in which the right empahtically stands in the way of actions that would clearly help --things like universal health care, increasing the minimum wage, restoring some modicum of fairness to the tax system. And it most certainly is a main plank of movement conservatism that inequality is nothing to be concerned about (see recent columns by people like Charles Krauthammer, Robert Samuelson, George Will, and Lawrence Kudlow reinforcing that view). I'm not saying we know everything about how to "solve" inequality. I'm saying we know a lot about ways to alleviate it, based on experience here and in other countries. And the right has relentlessly stood in the way of taking those steps. Politics is a big part of the story Gates is talking about, but he's leaving it out.

The United Way has also had similar problems; the director resigned under pressure a few years ago. It had to do with allocated funds going to other pet projects.

Yeah.

One local outfit supporting a senior center drew targeted contributions partly because nearly 100% of funds went to the center.

I never really could figure out if that simply meant more money was allocated to other charities.

I used to give money to the Salvation Army through the United Way. The Salvation Army had a relatively high administration cost compared to others but that was explained, at least partially, by a real need for such costs. I am not so happy about some of the religious connections but they are mostly innocuous to this heretic.

Best, Terry

I understand it is generally important to flatter society's sugar daddies, especially when they have their hands in their pockets and are preparing to dispense some of their spare change. We wouldn't want to make them run off in an insulted huff by failing to be sufficiently obsequious and congratulatory. But there are some charades we shouldn't go along with. Gates's address is utterly ridiculous, a buffoonish and self-indulgent farce that is an embarrassment to Harvard University.

I have no doubt that Gates, the wealthiest humanoid in the universe, now sincerely wants to do some charitable good with his vast sums. We should all be glad that Gates has finally reached the point where he has so much money that he can no longer think of any interesting ways to spend it on personal gratification, can locate no alluring object of material desire that he doesn't already own, and has decided he might as well give away some of the superfluity. Tycoons who give away some of their money are better than tycoons who don't give away any of their money. We can at least say that for him.

But so long as nothing is done to alter the fundamental nature of our economic system, there will always be more of the massive inequality that Gates claims to have just recently discovered. There will always be other Bill Gateses possessing many thousands, even millions of times the wealth of other individuals.

Does Gates have the slightest intention of doing anything of a fundamental political nature about the structrural features of our economy, our law, and our very way of life that allow for the very existence of human mountains of capital like Bill Gates, on the one hand, and millions of struggling, scraping schlubs on the other, living side by side in one society? Does he really wish to do anything about altering the power relations that perpetuate, and are perpetuated by inequality? Of course not! In a Gates world of "creative capitalism", there will always be gross inequalities, with lower orders of needy billions ready to be saved by creative capitalist, philanthopist superheroes like Gates himself. How wonderful it is that as long our system is structured more-or-less the way it is now, there will never be a shortage of folks in need of being raised up from the death-in-life of disease and starvation, and elevated to the ranks of the merely impoverished. Bravo for laissez faire capitalism and its philanthropic billionaire hobbyists. If we actually considered radically changing our laws and way of life, what would happen to all those beautiful statues of philanthopists, the memorials, the named university buildings, and the "civil society" foundations?

Surely a number of the Harvard students and alums in attendance must have winced in humiliation at these lines:

I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world – the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair.

.
.
.

I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries.

Gates portrays himself, and his wife, as utter fools, blissfully ignorant morons who had no idea that there were all these poor kids out there in the world who had, you know, deadly diseases and bad schools and stuff. And he seems to implicate Harvard in his imbeciility.

It would be easy to take a cheap crack at Harvard here, and say something about decadent aristocracies, arrogant elitism and the deplorable educations delivered to the country's best and brightest. But I actually think Harvard does provide an excellent education to most of its graduates, and that Gates is probably one of a small few who attended the institution without acquiring a basic understanding of the living conditions of a good part of humanity.

So I feel sorry for those Harvard grads. No one has done more to embarrass his alma mater since Dexter Manley revealed that despite having studied for four years at Oklahoma State University, he was actually illiterate.

The difference you posit between the Open Society Institute and the Gates Foundation is spurious.  Both donate to NGOs, in response to proposals, and give money to fund projects that their grantees initiate and execute.  Both impose some level of accountability - not much, really - and both will pull funding from a project occaisonally, for accountability reasons or more often because their focus has changed.  Just like every other of the 80 thousand-odd private foundations in the U.S.

Whether they make equally wise choices maybe is debatable, but there isn't much structural difference in their giving. 

The difference you posit between the Open Society Institute and the Gates Foundation is spurious.

While most of us here might wish Soros had been successful in defeating George Bush, I would argue that even if Soros was successful in all his efforts his impact on the future promises far less than that of Gates while Soros' accumulation of his vast wealth was far more predatory in nature than that of Gates.

It has long been argued that a malaria vaccine would long ago have been developed if malaria were a disease of the developed world. One cannot really be certain. There has been considerable effort in academia but for sure the attraction of those seeking profit is far less than some rare orphan indication might be.

One biotech developing a drug that might have offered aid to a billion or two people in the lesser developed world expected more profit, if successful, from a drug used as a prophylactic by visitors from the other side of the tracks.

Scientific advancement doesn't go away no matter how much the flat earthers may desire it. Political reform, unfortunately, often does.

Best, Terry

The most strident criticism leveled against the "Saint From Hell," in the stirring words of Christopher Hitchens, was that she was an apostle of hate. Whether she might have gotten an equivalent of Edwards haircut is not of particular moment to me.

Best, Terry

Much of the recent "philanthropy" has gone to the funding of conservative think tanks.

I do not believe you will find that to be true of Bill and Melinda Gates' donations, however. Also, it might warm your heart to know that at least one of these conservative think tanks (CEI) is no longer being funded by ExxonMobil at least. (However, I believe they are still funding AEI et al.)

I think the point I was trying to make was slightly different. Soros is working to change the structure of the societies where he intervenes, Gates is trying to help individuals. Several others have made a similar point in this thread.

Finding a cure for malaria will eliminate a lot of suffering, but if the country is a plutocracy, it will still be one afterwards.

The case is even more stark in the case of HIV. Treatment of the victims appeals to the heart, but altering society so that behavior is changed and the spread combated more effectively requires dealing with the politics of the situation. One can easily burn up great sums of money on treatment and when it is gone find that things are pretty much back where they started.

As to the influence of right wing philanthropists, I think you are underestimating their reach. A think tank like Cato or Hoover Institution doesn't require huge amounts of money to operate. They do have a disproportionate effect on the way political debates are framed, however.

Here is a single example of how this has worked in the case of the estate tax repeal effort:

Estate Tax Report (PDF)

In this case 18 wealthy families have spent on the order of $100 million over the past decade or so. They stand to save more than $100 billion in taxes if they are fully successful. That the number of beneficiaries of repeal is so small is exactly why the huge level of inequality is so dangerous. It subverts true democracy. We have a system of one dollar one vote instead of one person one vote.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

Did you actually read the post Terry? Your response seems to have little do with anything I actually wrote.

There is no reason at all to be embarrassed about a person who drops out of your school and then goes on to develop innovative products of great value to the entire world. There is some reason to be embarrassed when that person comes back and seems to suggest that your school's educational program in his time left its graduates deficient in knowledge of basic facts of economic and social life - especially when his statement is very likely false for all but a few clueless savants like Gates.

Just so we can be even more clear about this, Gates says:

You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know more about the world’s inequities than the classes that came before.

Now this strikes me as a very ignorant comment. Does Gates honestly think that students and universities in the 70's were less acquainted on the whole with the world's inequities than students graduating today? Rubbish. The people who were teaching in the 70's spanned several generations that had helped lay the intellectual foundations for the New Deal, the civil rights movement and the Great Society. And these were not mere intellectual pipe dreams, but actual social and political movements that had changed the world.

We now live in what is probably the most economically conservative era in the country's history - probably even more conservative than the Gilded Age, when robber-baron capitalism at least had to compete with a vigorous populist movement with a not-insignificant socialist component. Now free enterprise rules all political tribes, and hard core laissez faire capitalism only has to compete with a slightly softer, DLC-style free market capitalism.

What is probably true is that Gates personally had less knowledge in those days of social and economic inequality than he does today. And that's because he personally had no interest in learning much about them at that earlier time in his life, even though there was certainly no shortage of competent people at Harvard to teach him about inequity.

Gates might have taken the time to look up and mention the many Harvard professors who were educating their students in the late 70's about the world outside Cambridge, Seattle and Northern California, and reflected on how his own single-mindedness, competitive drive, personal ambition and craving for power, wealth and notoriety lead him to shut out the problems of the vast bulk of humanity. Instead he seems to blame the supposed ignorance of the times for the deficiencies in his own awareness. He then adds:

... In your years here, I hope you’ve had a chance to think about how – in this age of accelerating technology – we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them.

So not only are we all now more enlightened about inequality, it is because people like Bill Gates have been developing wonderful new information technologies that we can finally begin to take on the problem of inequality - a problem which was just too "complicated" before, and which those pre-Information Age barbarians neither understood, nor could do anything about. What a hero he is!

Of course, it is true that if one sets oneself the problem of alleviating inequality while at the same time preserving an economic and social system that is built to encourage and perpetuate inequality, then inequality does indeed become a very "complicated" problem.

Let's not forget that Gates is the very personification and model of the worship of market forces, individualism, corporate freedom and buccaneer "rebel" capitalism and libertarianism that swept the country during the 80's and 90's and continues until this day. He was the glass of economic fashion during this period. Those who were captivated by a vision of America built on the Bill Gates paradigm are the very people responsible for turning the country away from it's flickering commitment to challenging inequality. So don't you think it's a bit nervy of him to come the Harvard and announce that he now represents the cutting edge of a new generation that has both discovered inequity in the world, and developed the technology to do something about it? Here's an alternative look into how this wonderful "philanthopist" helps those working at the bottom of his own company.

I have never read that Edison ever gave an address when he said anything as idiotic as this: "After I invented my light bulb, I began to shine it in dark places - and do you know what I saw? There are these dreadful places called "hospitals" and they are full of something called "sick people": apparent human beings who are covered with boils and tumors and scabs and festering wounds, and who cough and hack and moan and bleed and ooze foul-smelling fluids until they die! Horrifying! In my generation, we didn't know anything about these places! How wonderful that we live in a free enterprise society where exceptional individuals like me have thrown a light on suffering for the very first time, and where the prime beneficiaries of a system of massive, legally institutionalized racketeering and anti-social exploitation can dispense some of their preposterous wealth to the lower orders, if they so choose"

That is the spirit of Gates's address.

Just a quick point of clarification.

Neither Bill Gates nor Warren Buffet (who is a major funder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) favor repeal of the estate tax.  Quite the opposite:  they've been fighting repeal since 2001.  Bill Gates Senior wrote a book on the topic:

Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes.

And Gates and others like him still work against tax cuts for the super-rich through the organization Responsible Wealth.  Some readers here might like to visit that website:  there is much to ponder, including an interview with Gates, senior, and a petition to sign against repeal of the estate tax.  One has no way of checking the veracity of signatures, of course, but as of my writing this, 2,171 persons subject to the estate tax have signed a petition against abolishing it.  Not every person of wealth is a Walton, thank goodness.

aMike

<hugs></hugs>.  You're one of my "must reads," too.

aMike

It seems rather quaint to note it now but malaria was once endemic in North America. One reason given for the fall of the Roman Empire, whatever the merits, is malaria.

Imagine how different it might be in our country and in Italy if malaria was yet a problem.

A multi-pronged attack on the disease might render it little more than an occasional menace, if not eliminate P. falciparum, the most virulent form, altogether. The benefit would obviously be enormous.

Best, Terry

Agree completely, except you also have to look at their bank accounts as well.  The sheep have all gotten used to mega-rich "preachers" like Falwell, Osteen, Robertson, Graham, et al. 

 If you are preaching from a crystal cathedral, you are obviously smiled on by God --> that is the level of thinking that interferes with any rational evaluation of powerful religious "leaders."

Jan

That's an interesting question. Nobody has ever asked me to give a commencement address. But I can think of a few intial rules I would follow.

First, if I was planning to say something that embarrassed my hosts, I would first try to make sure it wasn't something false.

I would also try to avoid blaming mainly others for my failures, and congratulating mainly myself for my achievements.

I think my general theme would be something like this: We are all implicated in the failures of humanity. If you want to heal the sins of the world, first look within yourself to understand your own sins and weaknesses. There is a lot to find, and if you can confront it honestly, you may have some hope of both improving yourself, and understanding the roots of the world's evils.

I suspect I would also try to ask myself whether I was the appropriate person to deliver certain kinds of messages. If I were Wilt Chamberlain, I would probably not deliver an address on the virtues of chastity; if I were Mao or Saddam or Ariel Sharon, I would probably not hold forth on the power of non-violent revolution and loving-kindness.

And if I were a nation-sized monster of greed and megalomania, and a living monument to capitalist inegalitarianism in all its glory, I would probably not discourse on the great social problem of inequality.

Finally, if I paid myself a salary thousands of times greater than that of my permatemp non-unionized employees, through a simply understood and direct act of free and self-interested choice, I think I would avoid the suggestion that the root of inequality is the great "complexity" of things.

Well Dan, I think it might be safe to say that the defenders of Bill Gates on this thread aren't as intimate with the computer industry as you and I are?

It is good that Gates has his lofty goals for his foundation. I've always been skeptical as to how much of this is calculated public relations as compared to his following the golden rule, but I guess the word is not out yet - we'll have to wait and see how it goes with the Gates Foundation.

The Mafia donates money to the Catholic Church. So I guess the question is, does Gates' end justify Gates' means? It's a tough question actually. A good one for a philosophy class. At Harvard or any other college.

I will say that I have been impressed by Gates' father when he is outspoken about criticizing tax breaks for the wealthy, and I would bet his son has the same opinion.

And yes, to be safe, it is easier said than done to start a company in the computer software industry and survive. It seems MS has gone a bit too far, a bit too many times is all, regarding monopolistic tendencies. Beyond survival.

What you call "defending", others might call "damning with faint praise", because I haven't seen anyone really defend him. No one is saying his business actions haven't been predatory, and don't go patting yourself on your superior intimacy with the computer industry. I've had a lot of direct exposure to the computer industry (i.e., I've been in it), and have read quite a bit about Bill Gates and his business practices. Back when I was still using Visual Studio (mid 1990's), I read "The Microsoft Way" by Stross and found it to be quite even-handed. I understand how they have charged computer companies $x per box sold even if those boxes didn't have Windows installed on them, and I think that's a despicable practice.

Now, all that aside, I can still admire his philanthropy. He doesn't have to give that money away. Perhaps what makes you different isn't your intimate knowledge of the computer industry. Perhaps it's a lack of intimate knowledge of other rich people, such as the Walton family.