Bogus "Generosity" by MS
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/09/ifascism.php#more?ref=fpblg
I could not let this false "fact"of Bill Gates supposed generosity pass with out comment.
The form that of the donations by MS and Gates has historically been product promotion.
An example was a number of years ago MS through the Gates Foundation "Donated" generous amounts of software to Children's Museums. The kicker was that it was Windows only software exclusively produced by MS. Even if there was a Mac version of the software produced by MS they would not give that away or exchange it or even offer a discount. The upshot was with thousands of dollars of software sitting on the shelf the local Children's Museum switched from Mac's to Windows.
A very clever tax deductible product promotion by MS. If one reads the fine print on many of Gate's and MS "donations" you will find they come in the form of Windows products/hardware exclusively. That is not philanthropy but rather marketing with the US taxpayer subsidizing it because of the tax deductions that MS claims for its generosity.
I am reminded of growing up in Chicago when the press would launch an investigation into mob activities all of a sudden many local churches etc. would get donations from people of interest and they would be publicly exalted as Civic heros rather then the thugs they were.
It is the same syndrome as Al Neuharth exhibited, After being the head of Gannet and using every method he could to monopolize and dumb down the news (Richard McCord's The Chain Gang: One Newspaper versus the Gannett Empire - Columbia: Uni of Missouri Press 1996) he takes his ill gotten gains and starts a Journalism foundation ( The Freedom Forum) to decry the evils he promoted in journalism, without ever admitting any guilt.
So it is with robber barons, Mafioso's and retired dictators who when, in old age, they find the cold breath of natural mortality they donate to the church a portion of their ill gotten gains in hope of redeeming their reputation and purchasing forgiveness.
So it is with Gates and MS after 20 years of promoting an inferior product through the use of FUD ( Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) while stealing other peoples code ( i.e. Stacker, false error message with Windows using other then MS-Dos etc.etc) are now trying to buy respectability. Just like old John D. Rockefeller trying to appear beneficent with his very public campaign of handing out dimes to poor waifs after crushing so many to build Standard oil.
Interesting to note that only after the anti trust trail is when MS and Gates decided, like the oil and tobacco companies, that a little money to grease the PR and political machine might erase the ugly truth. Remember this was the trail where where every, I repeat every, MS witness was discredited on the stand, including Mr. Gates during his deposition.
Lets not forget the money that MS poured into GW's campaign in 2000 in a successful effort to buy a lenient DoJ who promoted a minor slap on the wrist to MS. Do not forget the campaign scandal it was involved in by hiring future Bush apparachec, such as Ralph Reed, to keep them on tap for the Bush campaign without it being listed as a contribution or cost to the bush campaign. So lets make sure we add MS and Gates contribution to giving us 8 years of GW to the balance of their marketing "generosity".
So when citing MS and Gates generosity lets put it in perspective rather then simply buying the PR hype.
I could not let this false "fact"of Bill Gates supposed generosity pass with out comment.
The form that of the donations by MS and Gates has historically been product promotion.
An example was a number of years ago MS through the Gates Foundation "Donated" generous amounts of software to Children's Museums. The kicker was that it was Windows only software exclusively produced by MS. Even if there was a Mac version of the software produced by MS they would not give that away or exchange it or even offer a discount. The upshot was with thousands of dollars of software sitting on the shelf the local Children's Museum switched from Mac's to Windows.
A very clever tax deductible product promotion by MS. If one reads the fine print on many of Gate's and MS "donations" you will find they come in the form of Windows products/hardware exclusively. That is not philanthropy but rather marketing with the US taxpayer subsidizing it because of the tax deductions that MS claims for its generosity.
I am reminded of growing up in Chicago when the press would launch an investigation into mob activities all of a sudden many local churches etc. would get donations from people of interest and they would be publicly exalted as Civic heros rather then the thugs they were.
It is the same syndrome as Al Neuharth exhibited, After being the head of Gannet and using every method he could to monopolize and dumb down the news (Richard McCord's The Chain Gang: One Newspaper versus the Gannett Empire - Columbia: Uni of Missouri Press 1996) he takes his ill gotten gains and starts a Journalism foundation ( The Freedom Forum) to decry the evils he promoted in journalism, without ever admitting any guilt.
So it is with robber barons, Mafioso's and retired dictators who when, in old age, they find the cold breath of natural mortality they donate to the church a portion of their ill gotten gains in hope of redeeming their reputation and purchasing forgiveness.
So it is with Gates and MS after 20 years of promoting an inferior product through the use of FUD ( Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) while stealing other peoples code ( i.e. Stacker, false error message with Windows using other then MS-Dos etc.etc) are now trying to buy respectability. Just like old John D. Rockefeller trying to appear beneficent with his very public campaign of handing out dimes to poor waifs after crushing so many to build Standard oil.
Interesting to note that only after the anti trust trail is when MS and Gates decided, like the oil and tobacco companies, that a little money to grease the PR and political machine might erase the ugly truth. Remember this was the trail where where every, I repeat every, MS witness was discredited on the stand, including Mr. Gates during his deposition.
Lets not forget the money that MS poured into GW's campaign in 2000 in a successful effort to buy a lenient DoJ who promoted a minor slap on the wrist to MS. Do not forget the campaign scandal it was involved in by hiring future Bush apparachec, such as Ralph Reed, to keep them on tap for the Bush campaign without it being listed as a contribution or cost to the bush campaign. So lets make sure we add MS and Gates contribution to giving us 8 years of GW to the balance of their marketing "generosity".
So when citing MS and Gates generosity lets put it in perspective rather then simply buying the PR hype.
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Actually it was even better than that. They donated money for the exclusive PURCHASE of MS products. This may seem a thin distinction, but by doing it this way they ensured a base of something like $300 million in sales across the product lines in question - which really ensured that the bulk of the donation funds came right back into Microsoft while also increasing their stock prices.
And if we're bitching about unfair practices, don't forget that MS refused to fully document DOS until Windows95 was released - giving his app developers access to capabilities that the competition did not have. In fact, every time someone would figure out one of the tricks - they'd disable the interrupt to sabotage the competing product while his app guys just released a patch using the replacement (also undocumented) functionality.
Gates did donate an awful lot to AIDS research though. Gotta give him credit for that.
September 26, 2009 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Corporate "charity" giving is, of course, a joke -- and MS is no different.
But the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is one of the World Bank's biggest donors. important, because it is this sort of private contributions that allows the Bank to give grants and forgive debts.
loans made using the money that comes from world bank bonds (where 99% of the bank's money comes from), according to the world bank's charter, cannot be forgiven and must be profitable.
September 26, 2009 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not unlike oprah giving away all the free cars to her audience members. It turned out they were given to her by the car maker, then the poor schlubs in the audience members had to pay the taxes on them! Such a deal!
What was the film with the cute blonde guy working for a fictitious microsoft? Intrigue, paranoia, gads, were there murders? Pretty fun movie, it was.
September 26, 2009 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Poor schlubs?" Had to pay taxes on free cars?
Let no good deed go unpunished. They could have returned the cars, I guess. Anyone else you know who could have gotten free cars to give to people?
September 27, 2009 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes; they had to be $7000 taxes, some, if not many, had to sell the cars. She could have paid their taxes, since the cars wer given to her for free. I do not like false stories of alleged generosity. Including Gates and the computers; he has also engaged in plenty of stong-arm tactics that violated even our weak anti-trust laws and investigations.
Those are interesting stats you quote about their philanthropic arm, but PR is PR, and Gates' business practices have been creepy.
September 27, 2009 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well if the tax was $7,000 it must have been a pretty sweet car. You think Oprah should have paid the taxes? That is surprising to me. If a company gives you free clothes and you pass it on to people, is that false generosity?
I guess I just don't agree that people who get a free car should also expect to not pay what the state requires in such a deal. Do you think she should also have paid their car insurance? I'm sure that was pretty high too, since they were new and nice.
Were these people better off before they got the cars, or after? I'm trying to understand how you are framing this, and I just don't get it.
re Gates:
Yes, PR is PR, but the topic here is about Gates hypocritically donating things to communities. If you want to criticize, go ahead, but I think it is wrong to ignore all the good he is doing without benefitting Microsoft in any way except that his name is associated with both and he gets a lot of respect in the world for these programs.
As I said, it doesn't bother me that his donations don't help his rival, Apple, of which I am a devoted fan. The world would NOT be better off if Bill Gates just sat at home and counted his money.
September 27, 2009 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Okey dokey. I'll let you have it. You have way more passion for it than I do. I just get tired of uber-capitalists making money in hinky ways on the front, then giving away a portion for PR reasons. Maybe their AIDS contributions aren't just PR, I don't know. I surrender.
September 27, 2009 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, didn't mean to come off as challenging; like I said I was trying to wrap my head around your points (since my head has a point on it that often works!).
I did complain loudly however, when Barbara Bush donated money after Katrina that HAD to be spent on Neil Bush's educational software, so I do get your meaning. I just think Gates and Oprah are not the right targets. I appreciate the respectful back & forth! We're usually on the same side of the stream so it was fun!
September 27, 2009 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am arguably a cynic, albeit sometimes a hopeful one; you are a Cville Dem.
My bullshit-detector is often on overdrive; sadly, not even often enough.
September 27, 2009 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find myself in complete disagreement with this assessment.
September 27, 2009 2:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think this is a ridiculous complaint. Do you really think that Bill Gates should subsidize Apple? He gives away millions of educational materials and you manage to complain about it?
If your Children's Museum threw away all their Macs and got only PC's to accommodate a gift of software, they need new management. If you hate Microsoft, go ahead and hate it, but Bill Gates and his wife are true philanthropists, and your small-minded criticism of them on this front is just that -- petty and small-minded.
Using my Mac, I will attempt to educate you about a person you have unfairly maligned:
Just ONE aspect of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the Global Fund, and below is a small part of what they accomplish every year. Pick that to pieces if you dare:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/livingproofproject/Pages/globalfund.aspx
September 27, 2009 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
And please don't tell me that those Africans have to use PC's now. Many of them don't even have roofs over their heads, nevermind computers.
September 27, 2009 10:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
The point is that the donations were in the same nature of the missionary's in Hawaii where they went there to do do good and after appropiating the real estate did right well.
How is MS giving away a MS program that run on Mac's "sudsidizing " Apple? This means that you agree by giving away Windows only programs that the donations were nothing more then a tax payers paid subsidy for Windows - MS.
Generosity and alturism are suppose to be acts with out personel benefit. MS and Gates fail on that standard. They give nothing away that does not benefit themselves.
As for the aids Foundation after a lifetime of anti trust behavior, stealing programs ( Stacker - Basic) vialation of the rules of business and human decency ( MS use of Perma -Temps) he like a mafiosa is using a pittance iof his ill gotten gains to buy respectability.
And don't forget to thank MS and Bill for thier contribution in giving the world 8 years of GW just so they could buy a complaint Justice department and a slap on the wrist after lossing the anti trust trail.
No just as Michael Milliken can't buy respectability by his supposed charities after a life of crime so does the burden of past dark deeds and dubious business practices hang over Gates as he, like old J.D Rockefeller, spread a pittance around to buy his indulgence's.
It seems that the MSand the Gates foundation use a disproporitionate amount of time and money telling the world how good they are instead of just doing good.
I am glad if the Foundation is actually doing something useful but do not doubt that is incidental to the real purpose of cleaning up his reputation and buying social cachet.
September 27, 2009 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I can't say that I can read people's minds, and so knowing why they do things is beyond me. I am stuck with looking at the results. That said, as in Millikin's situation, I don't know why either. Some people do things to atone; not to gain respectability. I don't think Bill Gates gave us W. After all, he wasn't really elected. I think we can "thank" crooked Florida election officials, the Supreme Court, and Diebold for those 8 years of hell.
September 27, 2009 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
True atonement would be done without the PR hoopla and self backslapping and congratulations.
The Gates foundation and MS make sure that anything they give is accompanied by equal amounts of self congratulatory PR.
If he was truly "philanthropic" he would donate to some foundation that doesn't havehis name emblazoned for all to see and on the qt.
Think Woz teaching in public HS without fanfare.
September 27, 2009 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
MS and the Gates Foundation are not helping Africa either. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090921/patel_et_al
"Nonetheless, the Green Revolution being prepared for Africa bears more than a passing resemblance to its predecessor. For starters, in the 1960s the push for a Green Revolution was accompanied by fears about national security and stability; the recent global spate of food rebellions, in dozens of countries from Egypt to Haiti to India, has made food a security concern once again. Furthermore, the first Green Revolution was made possible through the philanthropy of a billionaire American family--the Rockefellers; the second is bankrolled by Gates. This is not a superficial coincidence: the destinies of millions of the world's poorest farmers are again being shaped by the richest Americans, and philanthropic choices are very different from democratic ones. "
September 27, 2009 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
If I am reading you correctly, you are saying that if only all the people with HIV and malaria would just go ahead and die, the rest of the people could eat their food? Like I said above, let no good deed go unpunished.
September 27, 2009 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink