Why are people not protesting ? Businesses should stop buying Microsoft licenses and that should force Microsoft to remove bill gates completely from the company. Same should be done with Musk, trump etc.

  • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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    16 hours ago

    He also donated 99% of his income to charity including bringing food, water, and medicine to impoverished all across Africa and the middle east. He pressured many other wealthy to do the same.

    He needs to see trial for his crimes but you can’t blame people for thinking he is the best billionaire.

    • melfie@lemy.lol
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      6 hours ago

      The Gates foundation started over 25 years ago and his net worth is still $124 billion. He’s going to give it all away and stop hoarding wealth any day now, though.

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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        6 hours ago

        When I was a kid, I had a Scrooge McDuck comic book in which Scrooge had a serious problem - he was accumulating money faster than he could build vaults to hold it all. So he took Donald, and the nephews Hewey, Dewey, and Louie, on a cross country road trip, to try and spend as much money as they could.

        They threw money around everywhere they went. If they got a bug on the windshield, they’d buy a new car. When they got hungry, they’d eat in the most expensive restaurants they could find. Once, they even invited an entire Duck Scouts troop to eat with them.

        When they finally got home, Scrooge found his company officers in a crisis. While Scrooge was on vacation with his family, it seemed that someone had traveled across the country, buying luxury cars at Scrooge’s car dealerships, eating enormous expensive meals in his restaurants, etc. Now they had even more money than before, and his financial “crisis” had only increased.

        Scrooge’s attempt at spending a significant amount of his money had only resulted in creating even more wealth. Modern billionaires are a lot like that. They have so much, they can’t get rid of it if they tried.

        Every billionaire residing in or visiting America should have to pay a million dollars a day in rent to United States, to be used to fund Medicare 4 All and UBI, over and above their tax burden.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      6 hours ago

      Microsoft could have shared the company’s wealth with the employees who actually EARNED the money and made the company successful, but instead it all accumulated with the guy who mostly said “That’s a good idea, go do that,” (while only being successful about 50% of the time), and kept ALL the money for that “work,” while paying the people who did the actual work as little as he could legally get away with.

      • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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        6 hours ago

        So, the thing about that assertion is, Bill Gates wealth came from his ownership of shares of the company, Microsoft.

        It’s not that Bill has been funneling all the income of the company into his pockets, no, it’s that when he sells shares of the company then other people are willing to pay massive sums for it because everyone has collectively agreed the company is extremely valuable.

        This sort of wealth is why the DNC propose an unrealized gains tax for the rich.

        • eskimofry@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          Bill Gates wealth came from his ownership of shares of the company, Microsoft

          It’s not that Bill has been funneling all the income of the company into his pockets, no, it’s that when he sells shares of the company then other people are willing to pay massive sums for it because everyone has collectively agreed the company is extremely valuable.

          Right… people are aware of this. Don’t pretend we’re arguing about how shares work. What we are saying is that the system being setup like this is fundamentally broken and the scam is in the design.

        • Taleya@aussie.zone
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          6 hours ago

          I don’t know, why didn’t a completely different person do the same thing as melinda gates?

          • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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            6 hours ago

            Yes that is what I asked you. Why does one woman control her husband and none of the other billiionaires wives do the same?

            What magical mind altering power does Melinda have that turns Bill Gates autonomy off and force him to listen to her?

    • resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      The guy that thought union-busting was the key to improving education and campaigned hard to keep Covid vaccines under patent?

      Yeah, man, keep licking those billionaire boots.

      • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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        13 hours ago

        If by campaigned hard you mean backpedaled immediately then yes, that’s the guy. His foundation also paid billions to distribute the vaccine at no cost.

        • eskimofry@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          he backpedaled precisely because it backfired on him spectacularly. Stop jumping through the hoops to clean his spoilt image.

          • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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            3 hours ago

            I think in this day and age we can stop pretending public relations actually mean anything for the 12 digit club.

            Elon Musk literally exposed everyone’s grandma’s social security, waved a nazi salute, and turned Twitter into a CSAM generator.

            They backpedaled because backpedaling was the right thing to do, not because of any fake consequences you’re imagining.

            • eskimofry@lemmy.world
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              3 hours ago

              I think in this day and age we can stop pretending public relations actually mean anything for the 12 digit club

              I wonder why your mindset is like this.

              At the 12 digit club it’s ALL about image. Why else would Bill Gates try to do stuff with his foundation? Why would Jeff Bezos try to fly to space with fuck you money? Why would Elon Musk enter a slap fight in twitter and end up buying the damn company?

              Elon Musk literally exposed everyone’s grandma’s social security, waved a nazi salute, and turned Twitter into a CSAM generator.

              They backpedaled because backpedaling was the right thing to do, not because of any fake consequences you’re imagining.

              No they backpedalled because they care about their image. For them, any consequence is far preferrable to tarnishing their image or becoming irrelevant.

              Egos control people who have such wealth.

              And they wouldn’t do the right thing if it meant they have to admit they are wrong.

        • BenderRodriguez@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          People here are looking for someone to hate right now and your getting down voted for submitting facts. There’s always a lot of bandwagoning on this site.

          There’s no certification when it comes to bad and good. Sometimes evil assholes can do good things and vice versa.

          Life exists mostly in the grey area. The court of the Internet is black and white and arguments here forget that. Unless you’re Trump, Musk, or Bezos them fuckers are straight up evil.

      • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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        11 hours ago

        His “propoganda” helped people, saved millions from death or suffering. If you think my statement was false then who do you believe is the best out of all the billionaires?

          • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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            6 hours ago

            Her entire networth is less than a fifth of the amount that Bill Gates has donated, her donations are 1/10th, and her philanthropy is a part of the Giving Pledge that Gates created.

            Almost all of her donations were exclusively US based and focused charities unlike how the Gates Foundation helps the worlds most vulnerable peoples.

            • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              Gates does not donate. He makes conditional investments through a charitable vehicle. He is totally in control of his donations investments.

              MacKenzie Scott has donated billions more than Gates because her money was actually given away.

              • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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                4 hours ago

                The average lifespan in Africa increased by 12 years as a direct result of the Gates Foundation. It’s a core founding member of Gavi which has vaccinated over a billion children around the globe, its likely to have singlehandedly eradicated entire strains of disease.

        • verdi@tarte.nuage-libre.fr
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          9 hours ago

          No billionaire is the best, they should all disappear. Gates, through his tenure at the foundation, delayed anti-malaria research for a decade because he sponsored his cronies instead of distributing broadly. Furthermore, his foundation accomplished good in spite of him, not through him.

    • EpicStuff@lemmy.ca
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      15 hours ago

      I think there was something about how the gates foundation is actually not that good, patenting vacciens and other stuff. (too lazy to find links links right now)

      • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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        14 hours ago

        They initially opposed a WHO resolution which would have member nations pause or withdraw patents over the Covid19 vaccine but they backpedaled on that shortly after and have spent billions producing and distributing those vaccines.