06.07.13
Posted in Bill Gates, Finance at 10:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“The chief of malaria for the World Health Organization has complained that the growing dominance of malaria research by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation risks stifling a diversity of views among scientists and wiping out the world health agency’s policy-making function.”
–New York Times, 2008
Summary: How Bill Gates’ monopolistic business model is expanding to the public sector, i.e. the sector which taxpayers are funding in the interest of taxpayers (Gates does not pay tax because the money gets laundered as “charity”)
The Gates Foundation wants to profit not only from the private sector but also the public sector. One example of it is the schools system. According to this piece, Gates has just gotten another lobbying group whose name is deceiving. To quote the piece: “The standards could easily reflect the political left leanings of its funders (Bill Gates), its creator (Marc Tucker), and the testing consortia (Linda Darling-Hammond). Proponents David Patti and Joan Benso, who wrote a recent Patriot News pro-Common Core guest commentary, failed to reveal that their organizations accepted huge amounts of money from the Gates Foundation to promote Common Core.
“The Gates Foundation wants to profit not only from the private sector but also the public sector.”“Teachers did not like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top because they were “teaching to the tests.” What profound differences will Common Core make in our educational system? Nothing, except that it will change education for the worse.”
So there we have another lobby among hundreds which Gates is using to get his way in school politics (we covered other such lobbies before, primarily the large ones). This is accompanied by buyout of scientists and the appropriate medium/media that they access. One new example of this comes from pro-Microsoft news sites which show the corrupting influence of Gates not just over individual journals (e.g. Lancet [1, 2, 3]) but an entire gateway like PubMed. Bill would love to gain control over many publications in one fell swoop, claiming the right to have become ResearchGates in ResearchGate.
“What matters is that those in power get served.”Here is the Gates Foundation hailed by a Microsoft booster with some “Nobel” flavouring amidst a hostile bid. It says: “On Monday, ResearchGate announced its third round of funding, $35 million, led by Bill Gates and Tenaya Capital.”
iophk says “Bill continues his attack on science” because he seems to already know what Gates is trying to achieve here. You can count on Bill’s fan press openwashing it. Well, it’s clearly not Open Source, but in Forbes, the billionaires’ fan press, facts don’t matter much. What matters is that those in power get served. “They’ve found that the name has positive connotations so they are abusing it to promote Bill,” iophk added.
“This can potentially make Gates a gatekeeper, pushing the agenda of his investments by giving funds selectively to those who write things in favour of the companies he derives profit from, in a sense monopolising by money distribution, as always.”So what is this move all about? It is about grabbing other people’s academic work (which they rarely get paid for) and trying to hoard the data, storing data locally, and even claiming credit for it and having control over what’s more visible (e.g. in search results). This can potentially make Gates a gatekeeper, pushing the agenda of his investments by giving funds selectively to those who write things in favour of the companies he derives profit from, in a sense monopolising by money distribution, as always. It’s about money and power, masqueraded as science. The grants are routinely allocated based on personal agenda of Gates. We gave a lot of examples of this and the quote at the top is telling.
Here is a new story of a teacher who was turned away because he did not comply with Gates’ will. To quote:
The first thing you need to know reader, is that there is no job security at a charter school. Even excellent veteran educators, like the three physical education teachers who were fired one year ago, are vulnerable.
We have already seen teachers suspended/expelled for not obeying Bill's orders. Here is a new protest Web site which introduces itself as “I AM AN EDUCATOR”. To quote the Washington-based teachers: “Well-funded but non-accountable organizations, such as the Broad Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have invested their wealth to promote the policies of “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top”. These policies that purport to demand teacher accountability but ultimately reduce students and teachers to test scores–data points used to fire teachers, narrow the curriculum, keep students from graduating, privatize education, and close down scores of schools (primarily those that serve Black, Latino and students of color) across the nation.”
“Seattle-based blogs are among those which protest Gates’ agenda in education. Some of the rest have been bribed by Gates to counter those protests.”Seattle-based blogs are among those which protest Gates’ agenda in education. Some of the rest have been bribed by Gates to counter those protests. Gates has funding the lobby by paying Washington-based news sites and the outcome is clear to see (just see the comments). The Bill Gates-funded [1, 2] Seattle Times does its lobbying for Gates, failing to describe this as a politically-motivated (or for-profit) bribe. It is described as “aid” by the corporate press (also published here) as Gates is trying to generate PR by using slush funds, removing attention from actual teachers and instead generating puff pieces like [1, 2, 3]. See the report bearing the headline “More Gates dollars aim to bring charters to WA”.
“The short story is, Gates is paying for bogus studies and then bribes blogs and news sites to disseminate the resultant message for political change resulting in financial gain (privatisation).”The lobbying attempt is using bribed-for ‘studies’ which fail on many levels, as we showed here before. There is yet another new post breaking apart the latest propaganda from Gates. “This is from the Gates Foundation,” says this post which concludes as follows: “We’ve got a muddled middle, suggesting these predictions aren’t very good for 9 out of 10 teachers. One last point: Condensing the whole data set down to these 5% average points further “cleans” the data. To see what I mean, check out this post by Gary Rubinstein.”
The short story is, Gates is paying for bogus studies and then bribes blogs and news sites to disseminate the resultant message for political change resulting in financial gain (privatisation). Everyone including teachers seems too know it already, but Gates keep trying to gag his critics by overriding them or encumbering those who are still not enlightened with his PR. █
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05.30.13
Posted in Bill Gates, Finance at 7:29 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Marketing Charlie (CBS)
Credit: Photo by David Shankbone
Summary: A look at some recent articles about the Gates Brand and how it makes billions while pretending to be “charity”
The Gates Foundation continues to show what hypocrisy is all about. The ‘guardian’ (misnomer because The Guardian guards the rich), funded by Bill Gates, has just published a new Bill Gates-funded (with Gates ads) article bemoaning “corporate colonialism”. No, seriously. Gates is trying to portray himself as part of the solution,
“Gates started bribing bloggers for PR several years ago, so he sure is trying to gag critics, still.”Some recent PR with Charlie Rose in CBS achieved more or less the same. It was a one-hour hogwash for Gates, trying to portray him as perpetually good and a changed man with some hip “2.0″ buzz term (pure PR was emanating from it as this had been a “controlled” interview — that being a condition most probably). As Toby put it, ‘Gates 1.0: “Technology is an awesome tool for stealing your money.”‘
Whereas, as he put it, ‘Gates 2.0: “Still stealing your money, but now I can pay media to paint me as a saint.”‘
In IRC, Toby adds that “it’s impossible to criticise him in public places any more” (although this is changing gradually).
Gates started bribing bloggers for PR several years ago, so he sure is trying to gag critics, still. Another strategy is to outnumber criticisms by spending massively on PR and media placements. It’s a fight he can’t win. It’s something Monsanto had to learn the hard way.
Meanwhile, Gates’ feminine alter-ego lobbies for his education takeover. There was a widely-covered (with PR) lobbying keynote by Melinda at a Duke graduation ceremony, as noted the other day (no-brainers like this one make headlines, along with PR that’s shaped like a personal story).
It is gratifying to see one branch of the corporate press having the guts to publish this slamming of Gates’ agenda in education. It starts as follows: “As the Common Core continues to insinuate its way into public education, its price tag and problems keep mounting. Reasoned opposition among conservatives and liberals, parents, teachers, policymakers, and citizens is also growing.
“Is Gates profiting already? He sure made a lot of money in recent years.”“And with good reason.
“Concocted by the same expert cadre that’s brought us every post-1970 education boondoggle, and resting on the same gross unfamiliarity with actual classrooms and students, the arbitrary, biased, technology-laden, assessment-obsessed Common Core is the creature of the Gates Foundation, with entities like the Pearson conglomerate sitting at Mr. Gates’s right hand. Pearson is the largest textbook and education software publisher in the world, as well as the world’s dominant education assessment contractor. Mr. Gates’s connection to the computer and software business is also a matter of public record.”
Over at a Seattle blog that we like, teachers help show how Gates profits from the lobby. It says the following: “The Community Center for Education Results (CCER) was responsible for creating the proposal to collect an extensive amount of student data on our children. This pertains to Bill Gates’ desire to collect student information for each child in this country that can be accessed by those producing and profiting from products to be sold to school districts.”
Guess who benefits from it? As put here, the surveillance by private companies (privatising the education system for profit) was “started with a hundred million dollar investment from the Gates Foundation” (it’s one among several).
Investment, eh? Is Gates profiting already? He sure made a lot of money in recent years. █
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05.22.13
Posted in Bill Gates, Finance, Microsoft at 2:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: How Bill Gates’ staff is entering positions of financial power, indirectly giving Gates power over US (national and international) finance
Why would Bill Gates run for president when he can get his cronies put in positions of power and actually lobby presidents all around the world without having to be elected and re-elected? It is a life-long career for him and he has more political power than every president in isolation because presidents can rarely keep their position for longer than several years.
“Bill Gates may soon become US budget chief by proxy (his crony in charge).”The Gates Foundation, like an octopus with tentacles, has already put many members of staff in positions of power, e.g. in education, agriculture, and energy. Why would anyone entrust a looting giant for education of children or put his goons in charge of the national budget? Maybe because the system has already been rotten from the inside. Remember that Gates’ budget know-how is based mostly on dirty tricks; both he and Microsoft are not paying tax owing to political entryism. If one lets this sociopath send his goons around to control panels on various walks of life, the no wonder policy becomes people-hostile and corporations-leaning. The government is lobbied by corporations and Gates together (yes, side by side) and it shows. The government has its separation from commerce blurred, so it is akin to fascism.
In what’s not exactly news anymore, Bill Gates may soon become US budget chief by proxy (his crony in charge). To quote: “A former leader at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is close to confirmation as the director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
“President Obama nominated Silvia Mathews Burwell to the position in March. On Wednesday she met with the Senate Budget Committee in Washington D.C. ”
“Microsoft itself seems to be another Enron waiting to implode”Also noteworthy is this: “The $4.2 billion-asset company said Thursday that Connie Collingsworth, general counsel of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has been elected a director. Collingsworth, who once was a partner at Preston Gates & Ellis, manages the Seattle foundation’s legal needs and serves on its management committee.”
See more here. Banks get leadership from Gates.
Meanwhile, quite revealingly, Gates continues dumping Microsoft shares. Yes, “Bill Gates sold 12,605,492 shares of Microsoft ( MSFT ) for $390,360,320″ despite gaining 7 billion dollars in wealth last year. He just doesn’t bank on Microsoft growth. That’s why he left, to expand in other areas. Microsoft itself seems to be another Enron waiting to implode. Maybe it will need public subsidies (a bailout) that the US Budget Chief can facilitate. █
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05.12.13
Posted in Bill Gates, Finance at 11:34 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: More complaints about yet more rogue influence that is masqueraded as “public interest” or “for education” (whilst in fact having the opposite effect)
The Gates Foundation has been upsetting teachers and parents who increasingly realise that schools are being taken over by special interests of the world’s richest, assisting indoctrination. The bribery fronts, charitywashing the lobby of the super-rich in the US, have been closely tracked by Dr. Diane Ravitch, whom we mentioned a lot in the past, e.g in [1, 2, 3, 4]. She is very influential. Her latest output asks, “Is There Any Organization That Is Not Funded by Gates?”
“Billionaires don’t just try to buy elections. They try to buy anyone who might help them or hinder them in their quest for power.”
–Dr. Diane RavitchShe writes: “Obscene amounts of money translate into power,” she says, stating the obvious. Gates swaps some slush funds to get more lobbying power for his for-profit investments. To quote the author further: “Obscene amounts of money–billions–often translate into the ability to buy elections. But not always, as we saw in the recent school board election in Los Angeles, when the candidate of the Billionaire Boys Club was beaten by Steve Zimmer.
“Billionaires don’t just try to buy elections.
“They try to buy anyone who might help them or hinder them in their quest for power.
“The Gates Foundation, for example, underwrites almost every organization in its quest to control American education. It supports rightwing groups like Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence and Ben Austin’s Parent Revolution. In the recent past, it gave money to the reactionary ALEC. It pays young teachers to oppose unions and to testify against the rights of tenured teachers. It also pays unions to support its ideas about evaluations, despite their flaws. It spends hundreds of millions of dollars to support “independent” think tanks, which are somewhat less independent when they become dependent on Gates money.”
It is noteworthy that she names the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which we recently saw slamming Google in a complaint after getting some Gates staff inside it and perhaps some Gates money too. Ravitch mentions the ACLU to show yet another controversy. Merciless lobbying by Mr. Gates, eh? Never mind the handicapped, or students with disabilities.
“Power corrupts. So does money,” she concludes.
“None of it is charity. The man owns too much and too many people have to do as he says. Unless we address the root of the problem, he will continue to abuse his assets to gain more power,” Will Hill says. █
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05.10.13
Posted in Finance, Microsoft at 10:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Microsoft, the world’s most valuable company, declared a profit of $4.5 billion in 1998; when the cost of options awarded that year, plus the change in the value of outstanding options, is deducted, the firm made a loss of $18 billion, according to Smithers.”
–The Economist, 1999
Summary: Fraudulent firm Goldman Sachs is where Microsoft gets its next CFO from (C*O-level master of accounting at the relative young age of 41); reminder of the dark (but censored) history of accounting practices at Microsoft
T
here have been shades of Enron at Microsoft, with whistleblowers already alleging financial fraud at the abusive, dishonest monopolist which employed them. Microsoft paid millions of dollars for such whistleblowers to shut up after they had complained and later Microsoft settled with the prosecutors (another bribe). This has not the hallmark of a company that does remarkably well. In the US, quite famously, large corporations including oil giants are receiving government subsidies (taxpayers’ money or deeper national debt). It is marketed as necessary to protect “national interests” or “national security” (the latter usually applies to surveillance and military force). Remember how Goldman Sachs and other rogue financial firms got bailed out by taxpayers’ money that those taxpayers don’t even have (thus contributing to national debt rather than corporate debt). It’s debt-shifting. Anyway, the point to be made here that a lot of institutionalised corruption is going on, and it is going on unpunished. It’s a systemic issue. The existence of this issue need not be met with disbelief.
“In the US, quite famously, large corporations including oil giants are receiving government subsidies (taxpayers’ money or deeper national debt).”“Microsoft on Wednesday named Amy Hood its new chief financial officer, effective immediately,” says IDG. Watch the urgency: “Hood was promoted from CFO of the Microsoft Business Division (MBD). She replaces outgoing CFO Peter Klein, whom Microsoft would stay at the company through the end of June “to ensure a smooth transition.”"
Where did Hood come from? Well, here goes IDG again: “Hood, 41, joined Microsoft’s investor relations team in 2002 after working as an investment banker and capital markets analyst at Goldman Sachs.”
We wrote about Goldman Sachs‘s connections with Microsoft several times before. Remember that Microsoft already bribed Klein and his predecessor [1, 2] (the last two CFOs) to keep silent about what they had seen. iophk, who is older than the new Microsoft CFO, says that Microsoft “ran a loss recently in spite of Enron accounting. Seems to have been going on since 1998″ (he cites The Economist for support).
“It’s noteworthy that Microsoft ran a loss in 1998, but then changed it’s accounting to cover the loss.”
–iophkBe sceptical of Microsoft financial figures because we know damn well (it is easily provable) that it lies about software ‘sales’ all the time. Insiders from Microsoft already told the world that Microsoft cheats in its financial reports. Microsoft bribed to silence them all. It’s the usual financial distortion of Microsoft profit reports and information about profits. When it comes to Vista 8, the real numbers are estimated to be just half what Microsoft claims them to be.
“It’s noteworthy that Microsoft ran a loss in 1998, but then changed it’s accounting to cover the loss. Now, even with the new accounting, it’s running a loss that it can’t cover up,” concludes iophk. Yes, Microsoft reported losses. █
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05.07.13
Posted in Apple, Finance, Microsoft at 4:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Stopping contribution to their home country
Summary: The financial games of Microsoft and Apple culminate in more loan-taking manoeuvres, which give legs to speculations and rumours
ARE Microsoft and Apple good for the US economy? It depends on whose economy. Microsoft made some few Americans very affluent, but those people and the company they work(ed) for, Microsoft, do not pay tax, or only pay negligible amounts in tax. Apple, to a certain degree, is the same.
The other day we showed 'legalised' tax avoidance using corporate tricks that lobbyists make "legal". We showed how Microsoft moles in government let Microsoft avoid billions in tax, leaving others to fill the fiscal gap. This is robbery, technically speaking, but nobody will be sent to jail for it because the legal system is controlled by those with a lot of money,
According to this report as well as others, Apple keeps much of its money abroad, despite being US-based. With an estimated 22-30 trillion dollars (global aggregate) in offshore tax havens, this too deserves criticism. No wonder the richest families continue to gain trillions in value every year while others struggle to earn enough money for food and shelter. Microsoft has been doing this for years as well and it still does it.
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), one of four U.S. companies with a top credit rating from Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service, sold $2.67 billion of bonds with a portion of euro-denominated debt paying a record-low coupon.
The world’s largest software maker issued bonds in euros for the first time, raising 550 million euros ($715 million) with 20-year, 2.625 percent notes, the lowest coupon among similar-maturity, non-financial corporate bonds sold in that currency, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The debt pays 55 basis points more than swaps.
Microsoft has debt to repay. We wrote about this in many posts for over half a decade. Contrary to common myths, Microsoft is not always profitable, but it is always corrupt, at times with its finances, too. █
“One strategy that Microsoft has employed in the past is paying for the silence of people and companies. Charles Pancerzewski, formerly Microsoft’s chief auditor, became aware of Microsoft’s practice of carrying earnings from one accounting period into another, known as “managing earnings”. This practice smoothes reported revenue streams, increases share value, and misleads employees and shareholders. In addition to being unethical, it’s also illegal under U.S. Securities Law and violates Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (Fink).
–2002 story about Charles Pancerzewski, Microsoft
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05.03.13
Posted in Bill Gates, Finance, Microsoft at 2:57 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A look at the outrageous government action (infiltrated to varying degrees by Microsoft executives) which passes vast amount of taxpayers’ money/entitlement to Microsoft and Bill Gates
THE world is controlled by oligarchs who pay little or no tax and at the same time tax almost everyone else, usually by covert means. A reader wrote to tell us that the “Irish bailed out Bill Gates!”
He cites an article about Gates’ tax-exempt investment apparatus (Gates Foundation) and notes that not only Microsoft gets extraordinary benefits in Ireland; Bill Gates got a bailout for his investment:
Bill Gates was bondholder in bailed-out Irish zombie banks
Billionaire held €27m in bonds here at end of 2006, including at Anglo and Irish Nationwide
[...]
Gates was a bondholder in Anglo Irish Bank, Irish Nationwide Building Society, Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank, according to filings seen by the Sunday Independent. The filings detail investments held by Gates’ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The identities of wealthy bondholders in the Irish banks, bailed out in most cases by Irish citizens, have never been revealed fully. Billionaire Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich emerged as a bondholder in Irish Nationwide after his investment vehicle Millhouse was involved in a UK lawsuit in which it tried to extract full payment for its bonds in the building society as part of a tender offer. Abramovich and his partners lost, but many other bondholders were repaid in full despite backing bust banks. German and French banks were the largest holders of Irish bank bonds.
But wait, it gets worse. In the US too Gates and Microsoft enjoy special treatment that exempts them from tax. How? They put their own cronies in key positions in government. A reader who showed it to us called it “a nasty threat to national sovereignty starting at the state level. First Nokia, now Washington state. “former” my ass” (sorry for the language).
The Gates-funded Seattle Times [1, 2] and Microsoft’s booster in the publication would go too soft on this matter by calling it anything less than corruption:
What happens when you put Microsoft managers in charge of the state budget
For the first time in state history, the Washington state budget is being written by Microsofties, with company alums chairing both budget committees, writes editorial columnist Sharon Pian Chan.
So Seattle Times Realizes Microsoft’s Running the Legislature, as one site put it. What took the Gates-bribed Seattle Times so long to show this? Reifman kept pressuring them in an effective awareness campaign, usually in his blog where he now marks “The Third Anniversary of Washington State’s Big Tax Gift to Microsoft” (and still not enough press response to this fiasco).
Let’s hope that more sites get out there the message that Microsoft is still dependent on corruption. This needs to stop. █
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04.21.13
Posted in Finance, Microsoft at 8:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Microsoft, the world’s most valuable company, declared a profit of $4.5 billion in 1998; when the cost of options awarded that year, plus the change in the value of outstanding options, is deducted, the firm made a loss of $18 billion, according to Smithers.”
–The Economist, 1999
Summary: Yet another CFO receives a lot of money to keep his mouth shut about Microsoft’s accounting practices
A SUBJECT we covered a couple of times this morning (Microsoft's CFO leaving after cooking the books) merits an update as a separate post. A reader showed us a report titled “Microsoft to pay departing CFO Klein $2M for non-compete, secrecy promises”, which echoes what Microsoft did when its previous CEO (Mr. Liddell) left. Remember that Charles Pancerzewski, who had worked for Microsoft in accounting, was paid $4 million to keep quiet [1, 2]. He got this money after had revealed systematic financial corruption at Microsoft. The issue got buried thereafter. Here is what the latest report says:
Microsoft’s chief financial officer, Peter Klein, will receive $2 million in the year after he retires from the company, according to documents filed Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Klein and Microsoft announced Thursday that he will leave the company after an 11-year stint. He will work through the end of the fiscal year, which for Microsoft wraps up June 30.
As part of his separation package, Klein will receive a $1 million payment on Jan. 15, 2014, and a second $1 million check on June 30, 2014, a Form 8-K filed by Microsoft said.
The payments are “compensation for his services during fiscal year 2013 and performance of his obligations under the Agreement,” the 8-K stated.
That agreement, also posted on the SEC website, bars Klein from working for any firm that competes with Microsoft for a period of one year and mandates that he keep confidential all information about Microsoft.
Microsoft needs to be raided again and properly investigated with no option of settlement (bribery) to stop the process. It sure seems like there is systematic bribery whose purpose is to cover up misconduct. Unless or until all those briberies stop we can — within reason — assume Microsoft to be guilty but too big to jail. “Big to jail” means that you are capable of paying people to subvert the course of justice, be it by ousting someone(s) or bribing someone(s). █
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