Summary: New chart of the "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" serving as a tax-exempt business venture/operation with some revealing disclosures of investments

AS CREATING more monopolies is what Bill Gates is up to these days with his so-called 'charitable foundation', we thought we should take a moment to look at the foundation's role as an investment vehicle, whose choice of investments we criticised before. The reason that we do this is this new article which gives a list of companies that Gates put his money in:

Looking at the Gates Foundation’s holdings from the end of 2009, one can see that the endowment was trimming to its massive Berkshire Hathaway stake. Elsewhere, Gates was making limited moves, adding shares of Mexican broadcaster Grupo Televisa (TV) and vehicle dealer AutoNation (AN).

The Gates Foundation also held steady with large stakes in fast food chain McDonald’s (MCD), beverage maker Coca-Cola (KO), heavy equipment maker Caterpillar (CAT), waste services firm Waste Management (WM), energy giants Exxon Mobil (XOM) and BP (BP) and discount retailer Wal-Mart (WMT).

As we showed before, Gates is making more money from world hunger by investing in patents of companies like Monsanto. We wrote about this many times before and provided extensive evidence. The investment in Grupo Televisa, for example, also enables controlling media coverage, e.g. regarding the Gates Foundation. Gates also invests in Wal-Mart, which ended up choosing Novell over Red Hat (there are also personal reason at play) and then there are those investments in alcohol and Big Oil (giants like Exxon Mobil and BP) that AstroTurf against scientists who highlight the issue of global dimming, warming, or whatever the situation may be called. Since Gates is investing in Exxon Mobil, there is a dangerous alignment of interests. We mentioned the other day that Gates was downplaying global warming, as usual (the press does not pay attention to critics of his approach and instead plays along with the celebrity who is against immediate action [1, 2]). How much effect (if any) do these investments have? Why put money in the same companies that have AstroTurf operations (funded with millions of dollars) to knowingly lie about the reality and put civilisation at huge risk, leading to many deaths?

“Over in Africa, Gates and his investments in oil are killing Nigerian children...”There are many real issues that the press in the West is ignoring. Over in Africa, Gates and his investments in oil are killing Nigerian children (while the foundation is pretending to save lives over there). How about the investments in Caterpillar, which has an atrocious record when it comes to human rights and workers' rights, especially abroad? And McDonald’s? Come on. There are also newer investments in UK retailers which have nothing to do with charity, just profit without obligation to pay tax (that's what makes the foundation so valuable to Gates and Buffett, who also enjoy the PR aspect).

Those who abuse the system in this way are not without enemies. Here we have someone finding to courage to criticise Gates' sheer arrogance in the mainstream press:

By what right does Bill Gates arrogate himself above national leaders?

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has been held in awe for many years for his business acumen. But since the world’s richest man embarked upon a career change as a global philanthropist his self-importance has blossomed.

On the occasion of the latest global mega gabfest known as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr Gates granted interviews to two German newspapers to vaunt his foundation’s work, and then to criticize and shame the Prime Minister of another European country – Italy – for not conforming to Gates’ definition of generosity. Such effrontery is almost unheard of. Is Bill Gates so involved in his own version of the finest in philanthropy that he never had time to learn diplomacy, manners or humility?

Mr Berlusconi, who has provided fodder for the prurient international press with his peccadilloes (which occurred on his Sardinian property and not in the government seat of power as with Bill Clinton in the Oval Office), has become the whipping boy of Bill Gates: his is the sole name on Gates’ “List of Shame.” What for? For allegedly reducing foreign aid as part of the Italian government’s budgetary measures to attempt to reduce a government deficit of 5.3 percent of GDP and an official debt of 115 percent of GDP.

Gates' political agenda should come as no surprise as he was never actually a programmer. Neither were his parents.

"Fine, Gates said. Simple enough. Change the Windows model to be like the Mac.

"But if the Windows team changed the model to pull, the ship date would slip another year. Gates simply didn't understand the architectural issues because he had not been in on the development process."

--Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed
by the daughter of Microsoft's PR mogul

We previously showed how Bill Gates was pressuring government officials to whom he gives money to also give money to companies he is investing in (i.e. profits from) under the guise of "charity" (at the expense of taxpayers, meaning the poor). This is scandalous and it might also explain why Gates denounces world leaders who do not swing that way. In a later post we will write about the Gates-backed Intellectual Ventures, which is like a racketeering operation of massive scale and also a pyramid scheme. Yes, Bill Gates and his friend Nathan are destroying the IT industry with something that's akin to racketeering and derivative scams (investments backed by bubbles). The media largely ignores these issues, maybe conveniently and maybe because Gates is investing in it. ⬆