Direct link to deposition video | Full set of the deposition videos (including Ogg Theora versions)

Footage from the Gates deposition (quotes for humour's purpose only)

Summary: Unscheduled visit from Gates and his sidekick allows this couple to guide government policies

THE WORK of the Gates Foundation is a subject we've been catching up with in January, having left it aside in November and December. It seems reasonable to say (and Gates too recently said something to this effect) that Microsoft is collapsing, however the sociopaths who created this company -- be it Gates or Allen who is now a notorious patent troll -- continue to spread damage while pretending to be philanthropists. They have this thing called "the Giving Pledge", which does not exactly work the way people are led to believe.

Here is a portion of the piece "Why We Should Dial Down Our Enthusiasm for the Giving Pledge". It comes from Aaron Dorfman, the Executive Director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. This ought to help people understand what Gates in his followers are doing. To quote a portion:

Assuming I'm correct that most of the money will be put into endowments with 5 percent payouts, we're looking at $0.75 billion in new money for social purposes the first year, $1.5 billion the second year, $2.25 billion the third year, etc. It won't be until the 20th year that we'll hit even $15 billion annually in new money actually reaching nonprofits doing the important work that needs to be done. Clearly, the Giving Pledge will not be a major factor in sparking a much hoped-for rebound from the drop in giving that has decimated many nonprofits these last two years.

Gates Keepers commends this "one brave man [who] develops an analysis of the giving pledge that the cochair of the Gates Foundation spends his time promoting":

Lots of people are underwhelmed by the Giving Pledge but you won't read their opinions in the newspaper. Who wants their name to be seen as criticising the promises of billionaires?

One of our readers drew our attention to this short post a couple of weeks ago. It says:

# Roger Simon wrote an incredibly stupid column today about how much everyone hates rich people, because they're jealous. # Speaking of! Warren Buffett and Bill Gates went to the White House to hang out with Barack Obama today.

In two articles/pages titled "Can Warren Buffett and Bill Gates save the world?" [1, 2] this issue gets debated. These two people are not saviours like their PR agents try to convince us; they are a symptom of what's problematic in the world. This whole worship of Buffett in the context of Microsoft shares should impress nobody. In fact, "a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary" (Buffett's company) is said to be adopting "Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 OS for Company and Customer Communications". One might say that Buffett does a favour to Bill here, having used an hypePod for a while (which worried Gates, as Comes vs Microsoft exhibits revealed).

Anyway, here comes the hard part. Those two self-praising plutocrats are now meeting privately with Obama to discuss the economy, even though Gates is not an economist. This is typical and we wrote about it before. "Obama Gets Economic Help From Gates, Buffett" says this other headline, whereas AFP says it's about "philanthropy" (the Trojan horse for political influence). The Financial Times' headline goes like, "Obama meets with billionaires over wealth pledge". "Obama Meets the Billionaires" says the National Journal, claiming: "Bill and Melinda Gates, pictured here receiving the 2010 J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding, met with President Obama and Warren Buffett today in the Oval Office to discuss their "Giving Pledge," the economy, and education."

This is not the first such meeting in the Oval Office. Gates, the infamous lobbyist, is regularly going to the White House to push his agenda (or the agenda of his clients whom he invests in) and also to lobby regarding education, which he is trying to own and control. The oval room/office was named here before, but sometimes Gates arranges meetings elsewhere in the House [1, 2]. And given how much time he spends on these activities, maybe it's Obama who's the guest there.

Here is an article from the middle of December. The author is disagreeing with Buffett/Gates for their self-serving approach and as Gates Keepers put it (specifically regarding this report): "Melinda was also included, though the Giving Pledge has nothing to do with the economy. Nor does the Foundation."

Gates is just buying more power for himself and in turn he uses that to get richer or bully institutions into working his own way. As the Economic Times put it the other week, "Forbes names Bill Gates 'Most Powerful Man in technology'". Other headlines include "Gates still lands ahead of Jobs, Zuckerberg in Forbes power rankings" and "Gates, Jobs among 5 most influential 'geeks': ExecDigital".

“They have all the time and power in the world... and they try to call Assange "most dangerous man". Guess to who?”
      --TobyIt is curious to see that someone who made a career breaking the law is now considered "fifth-most admired man". It's all PR. It works when one gets to literally pay all the right journalists/editors. Even relatives of Warren Buffett are being advertised in all sorts of ways. It's a family package, which results in unelected power that cannot be ousted and if we are to learn anything from oligarchy (which spreads within dynasties), it is that such concentration of power is a huge risk. It happens to silence opposition too, in all sorts of subtle ways that we occasionally cover. "Yes," writes Toby, "It's already started, as I predicted. They have all the time and power in the world... and they try to call Assange "most dangerous man". Guess to who?"

Not so long ago even Pelosi joined Gates' and Microsoft's agenda [1, 2], which she promoted in quite a controversial way (it is not her role to do this). This lends to our contention that Gates is at the very least #3 in the chain of command (and he never leaves office, which permits even greater accumulation of power over time). These oligarchs can carry on lobbying for their agenda and using PR to keep people uninformed about it. Using PR campaigns and re-announcing the same "pledge" infinitely (without ever taking real action, only increasing their status and wealth in the mean time) is not the sort of philanthropy Groklaw mentioned on Christmas Day:

On the same channel, I also saw an author, Ted Gup, talk about his book, A Secret Gift, the subtitle being How One Man's Kindness--and a Trove of Letters--Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression, which is about his grandfather, who gave away money during the Depression, in the most pure way, anonymously. Not even his wife knew he had done it.

"Buffett and Gates grab Obama's ear", summarises Politico, noting quite interestingly that this was not even a scheduled meeting:

President Obama met with Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates in the Oval Office on Tuesday to talk about philanthropy and the stuttering economy, an event that wasn’t on Obama’s official schedule.

Well, OK, so they just sort of 'dropped by'. When the wealth of the nation runs the nation quite so crudely, it's time for people to lead a mental struggle because their elected officials no longer serve "the people", they just serve a small group of people. ⬆