07.14.09
Gemini version available ♊︎How the Gates Foundation Helps Getting Children Addicted
“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
Summary: The Gates Foundation makes children dependent not only on expensive drug patents [1, 2] but on Microsoft also
ON NUMEROUS occasions in the past we explained all those Microsoft addictions that are imposed upon young children and adolescents through their school systems. They essentially get indoctrinated without being offered any choice/escape, and assumed to be receptive of the software they are taught to depend on. It is software which was designed to take away their independence and freedom, turning them to perpetual customers. In our latest post on the subject, we showed that “Elevate America” is somewhat of an equivalent of “EDGI”, which may be specifically intended to make people “addicted”, as Bill Gates honestly put at least once in the past. This does not prevent Microsoft and its loyal press (Seattle P-I in this case) from describing all this “addiction” as generous donation. Spot the latest spin:
Microsoft will contribute up to $50 million’s worth in software, training and certifications to worldwide higher education and workforce training, the company announced today at a forum it hosted in Paris.
If not a shameless lie, this is deception at best. Software has no cost associated with duplication, so Microsoft is inflating numbers and casting the state-funded conversion of schools to Microsoft recruitment camps as something charitable.
To address a similar subject, all schools in Brazil are moving to GNU/Linux and the Huffington Post has just covered this massive transformation.
Fifty million Brazilian students will have Christmas in July when software Santa slips down the chimney to give them a free ticket on the information highway.
With Microsoft software licenses costing up to 1000 percent more in Brazil than in the US, the ProInfo program launched by the government of president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reduces dependence on costly foreign software just as the sugar ethanol program for cars reduces dependence on expensive foreign oil. The program, administered through the national education secretariat. provides free operating systems, backbone and educational content employing Linux, Debian and KD3 freeware.
Beneath the surface, this story is a lot more complicated. Michael has just visited Brazil on behalf of Red Hat or the OSI and here is what he found out about things Microsoft does (or tries to do) in Brazil.
On the alarm front, I heard specific confirmation of a storyline I’ve been following, which is that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is basically telling governments: if you want contributions/investments from us, then you’ll give Microsoft cabinet-level access to inform policy, and you’ll use Microsoft products. For example, donations to educational initiatives require installing and teaching Microsoft products. It is similar to another story line reported by Roy Shestowitz. My informant told me that she was fortunately able to point out to the President that this was against Brazil’s sovereignty and interest, and is one of the reasons that President Lula came to FISL, to show is support for the freedoms that “software livre” (aka free software, aka open source) mean to Brazil.
This sure sounds like a form of extortion and it is hardly surprising given what we saw in other countries such as India. Blackmail through withdrawal of incentives in something that we previously saw in Kenya for example. Bill Gates uses the Foundation to pressure governments — and sometimes companies — to buy Microsoft (and only Microsoft). There are of course many other issues such as the fact that Bill and Melinda Gates use their Foundation to avoid paying tax, just as Microsoft uses Ireland to bring taxation down to near 0%. As a timely note on the subject, Groklaw highlights this new document about Xilinx losing its right to play such games around revenue tax. The tide is changing, despite Microsoft's blackmail of Obama. █
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Andrew Macabe said,
July 14, 2009 at 10:59 am
On software: Packaging and storing windows on store shelves is really a losing proposition in itself. To microsoft it’s more an investment by establishing a commercial/consumer value on products (windows, msoffice, etc.) no one in their right frame of mind would actually pay or even copy. Given that the “value” for the product is therefore established, the campaigning for profit begins by snaring the various governmental depts; education, military, police, charities, etc. How many packaged, boxed products does a corporation get when it pays a site license for a windows os?
There is nothing of any value that the USA can export except its GNP, which is its natural resources (natural gas, coal, etc. – Welcome to the order of 3rd world countries, America), so, it’s concentrating on Intellectual Property licensing (money from nothing-patents on ideas and concepts) and pushing American corporate mentality (ACTA, CompTIA, BSA, etc.) on to other countries.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Both ACTA and ACT are pushing American corporate mentality, but I think you meant “ACT” (Microsoft front). ACTA is the initiative to transform the world into a global intellectual monopoles police.
Andrew Macabe Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 11:14 am
The Jonathan Zuck group.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Which used to be called ATL.
Andrew Macabe Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Thanks, I always screw up acronyms.
Jose_X said,
July 14, 2009 at 3:20 pm
If the B&M Foundry donates in one year $100,000,000 of MS products/services (that would be less than 1% of the money the charity has), that number comes out as Microsoft revenues, with a high percentage of that as earnings. MSFT is priced at at least 10 times earnings. This means that 100 million investment helped MSFT gain or maintain some 1 billion dollars in market cap. Since Gates has MSFT shares he sells, this means by investing 100 million from his left pocket, he made 10 times that into his right pocket.
Well, not exactly because he only profits from a small part of MSFT’s total market cap.
Can he thus turn 60 billion into 600 billion market cap? Well, yes in a sense, if he went all out.. at least for a year he could pull that off and if the market did not realize what was going on. Of course, he owns a fraction of MSFT, so he would not want to use his charity to subsidize all other MSFT investors. However, if he got many to contribute to B&M Foundry, then he would be using their money.
Also, you can apply this to even more spectacular P/E ratios if you do it with small companies, eg, with small “high-growth” pharm companies owned by Bill.
So if Bill owns all of some small company, and he feeds that company 100 million over 5 years so that when the company goes public at the end of the five years, it made 50 million in that last year, then the IPO might result in a P/E of 100 or more. 50 million times 100 is 5 billion. Gates would likely own at least 30 percent at the time of the IPO (I’m guessing this figure). That would mean that his B&M Foundry’s 100 million investment would have netted Bill over 1 billion dollars at least if he were able to cash in at the IPO price. [Yes, I excluded taxes in this simplified analysis.]
In practice he can use the B&M Foundry not to entirely support such a pyramid scheme but to help fuel it and to give this private businesses competitive advantages over everyone else. Throw in pharm patents and you are looking at monopolies in the making. Repeat for some other industries. And to think, all of these would be largely controlled by a small number of people and be supporting each other.
Bill didn’t invent this, but I have a hunch he will try to exploit it to the max.
Yes, there are laws, but how many loopholes exist? Point is Bill is likely leveraging this significantly if not nearly as much as might be suggested by the above simplified model.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
This is not new. Some distinguished medical professionals publicly accused Gates of monopolising in their field using a “charity” as a vehicle. You can find articles about it.
Jose_X Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
I had not heard of actual competitors complaining. I would like to read up on this.
Jose_X Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
I would like to read up on this…and if I had heard (probably here), I do not recall anything like what you mentioned.
The basis for this is because you have markets pricing companies at many times earnings. Thus you can feed some of your gains from selling at the high price of the business back into revenues.
If the company has a high profit margin, then the revenues mostly become earnings.
This, thus, finishes out the cycle, as these extra earnings get multiplied many-fold to lead to even greater pricing of the company.
Of course, those that have lots of influence over the pricing of companies (ie, those with savvy and access that lead them to buy low) know what is going on and won’t pay a high price, but they can exploit the ignorance among most of the investment public.
And you don’t have to go all out with this technique (or exclusively). The point is that the B&M Foundry is helping to distort markets. This hurts consumers and many others.
It also shows that patent monopolies are being exploited to lead to or to help preserve larger monopolies.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Here is the latest article I am aware of:
http://www.hindu.com/2009/05/10/stories/2009051055151000.htm
Journal critique on Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant pattern
Older:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/science/16malaria.html
Gates Foundation’s Influence Criticized