Bonum Certa Men Certa

How Bill Gates Got Control of a Budget of $500 Billion Per Year (Taxpayers' Money)

Globe



Summary: The Gates Foundation helps us understand why children are brought up to accept those who rob them and why certain "foundation"-named umbrellas increasingly become a burden to society

PUBLIC education is big business and private education can substitute public education, too. The Gates Foundation is the vehicle Bill Gates uses to influence this big business and even buy publications that cover the subject of education. He pays them millions (i.e. slush funds) to deceive the public and expand coverage of his paid-for 'studies' whose purpose is to tilt the education agenda. Not just the United States is affected by this anymore and our last comprehensive coverage of this was centered on Teach for America (TFA), which is one of Gates' many lobbying groups that he keeps at his disposal (not lobbying per se, but a vehicle of influence nonetheless). If Gates can control how money is spent on education in the United States alone, then he has in his hands a budget of $500 billion per year (yes, that's half a trillion, nearly the cost of the big bank bailout). A reader has just told us that PR Watch (an excellent Web site by the way) is addressing the subject right now. The headline is telling. It is "How Billionaires Rule Our Schools", but the pluralism is perhaps an attempt not to criticise Mr. PR Love directly (although his photo is right there). To quote the opening:



The cost of K–12 public schooling in the United States comes to well over $500 billion per year. So, how much influence could anyone in the private sector exert by controlling just a few billion dollars of that immense sum? Decisive influence, it turns out. A few billion dollars in private foundation money, strategically invested every year for a decade, has sufficed to define the national debate on education; sustain a crusade for a set of mostly ill-conceived reforms; and determine public policy at the local, state, and national levels. In the domain of venture philanthropy -- where donors decide what social transformation they want to engineer and then design and fund projects to implement their vision -- investing in education yields great bang for the buck.

Hundreds of private philanthropies together spend almost $4 billion annually to support or transform K–12 education, most of it directed to schools that serve low-income children (only religious organizations receive more money). But three funders -- the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad (rhymes with road) Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation -- working in sync, command the field. Whatever nuances differentiate the motivations of the Big Three, their market-based goals for overhauling public education coincide: choice, competition, deregulation, accountability, and data-based decision-making. And they fund the same vehicles to achieve their goals: charter schools, high-stakes standardized testing for students, merit pay for teachers whose students improve their test scores, firing teachers and closing schools when scores don't rise adequately, and longitudinal data collection on the performance of every student and teacher. Other foundations -- Ford, Hewlett, Annenberg, Milken, to name just a few -- often join in funding one project or another, but the education reform movement's success so far has depended on the size and clout of the Gates-Broad-Walton triumvirate.


Gates' subversion of US education for his selfish purposes is similar to his lobbying for visas*. Nobody should assume that Gates is interested in improving education. It's about money and power. This subject is to be covered properly at a later date and that's a promise. Maybe it will take until March. In the mean time, we wish to share the words of a a reader who mailed us yesterday. In her message she wrote about what Microsoft calls "the slog" [PDF] (or sloggers), stating: "speaking of slogging and Microsoft spin...after the Google accusations about Bing cheating, and after the ghost data problem on the Win7 phone, as well as the lack of sales, and all the Patch-Tuesday news...oh yes, and the Quarterly Reports news...

"It seems that Bill (Senior Slogger in Chief) felt the need to do some damage control. The Slashdot headline regarding Bill's talk about vaccinations (and the B&G Foundations vaccination goals), came at the perfect time to help defuse all the bad Microsoft news.

"It seems that whatever damage Steve causes, Bill just has to fire up the PR machine and swoop down like the Pope waving his saintly halo, and proclaim His Goodness throughout the land.

“In the end, it will be much harder to undermine the Foundation than it's been to undermine Microsoft.”
      --Anonymous reader
"Since most people in the world still connect Bill Gates with Microsoft, they couldn't possibly dislike a guy who gives his billions away just to keep children healthy. Therefore, continuing to buy Microsoft's products will help Bill to support children's health.

"It just seemed to me that the timing was interesting. The "good works" by the Foundation (children's health, etc) obviously trumps any sleazy behavior by the company.

"You've likely already noticed this, but the waning power of Microsoft seems to be equal to the growing power of B&M Gates Foundation (and its investment arm). In the end, it will be much harder to undermine the Foundation than it's been to undermine Microsoft. People tend to be less sympathetic to a giant corporation, when it comes to bad behavior. But pointing out bad behavior of a saintly foundation that "helps" children will be viewed as baseless criticism."

As we pointed out before, the tactic of Gates right now is to buy the media and then harm society enormously behind closed doors while every critics who stands in his way will be discouraged with a statement like, "by criticising Gates you are killing hungry African children." For what it's worth, Gates is not the only person using this tactic as it has been done many times before. It's a form of sentimental blackmail. _____ * As we've explained in separate posts, Gates also drains the coffers of taxpayers' money all around the world by lobbying politicians to license patents and solicit purchases from the likes of Monsanto and the Pharmaceutical Cartel (incidentally, they have staff inside the Gates Foundation which they use as a lobbying vehicle for their former employers).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Shout-out to Christine From FOSSForce
Who noticed our short story
Apple's MacOS Shows Us the Vision of Computing That GAFAM Has for Us (Digital Prisons)
Freedom means "we the people" should be in control, not people being controlled by corporations (contemporary slaveowners)
GNU/Linux Users Are Not Cheaters
The bottom line is, most cheaters use Windows
 
Microsoft Lost Nearly Half of Its 'Cash Reserves' This Past Year
Is Microsoft (MSFT) the next Intel (INTC)?
The Year Isn't Over Yet, There Will be More Waves of Microsoft Layoffs
Nowadays Microsoft just tries to conflate/equate its energy waste with "value"
Saving the Planet With Honesty, Transparency, and Sharing (Not Only of Computer Code)
GAFAM is destroying the only habitat humans and other animals have and it'll only get worse
The Corporate Media Blasted Bitcoin for Destroying the Planet and Must Do the Same to Incite the Public Against the 'Great Rigging of Wall Street' (Under the Guise of "AI", the Latest Gold Rush)
"AI" is the next "metaverse" (trailing by a few months)
[Video] Richard Stallman is Back to Halo and Gown (in Peru) With 2+ Hours of a Public Talk
The globetrotting Richard Stallman gave many talks at the end of last month
Going Strong Against the Wind
the abuse serves to emphasise or affirm the importance of what we do
Links 04/11/2024: Squashing More Software Patents and Taiwan at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/11/2024: Typing vs Writing and a Smol (Net) Pub
Links for the day
Links 04/11/2024: LibreOffice Had Adopted PeerTube, "Hey Hi" Hype is a Threat to the Energy Grids (Worse Than Fake-Coins)
Links for the day
[Meme] Social Control Telescreens With Microphone
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Not Boycotting Apple (Yet)?
"Apple Forces The Signing Of Applications In MacOS Sequoia 15.1"
statCounter This Month: Android Has Nearly Become Twice as Big as Windows
If it happened, it would be an unprecedented milestone
Why Technical Sites Need Not Make Political Recommendations or Endorsements
Except perhaps when it's for some purely technical role, e.g. FCC chief
[Meme] Apple Freedom
Freedom is... the ability to purchase as many 'i' things as you want
"Active" as in One URL, One Emoji, and 4 Words in One Week
Diversity community in Fedora
Apple Vision Pro Has Failed, Just Like "Metaverse"
Vision Pro lacks software
Things That Can Improve Election Integrity
the first two relate to "tech"
Rigging Elections is Difficult, Cheating a Little is Not
Avoid social control media, it is the biggest rigger of all
"People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"
On throwing stones in a glass house
Our Stance on Electronic (or Digital) Voting Machines
The simple activity of voting and counting ballots does not require thousands of complex machines with hundreds of millions of transistors and hundreds of millions of lines of code
Microsoft and "Retrospective Re-writing of History..."
in YouTube anyone can make stuff up (as one goes along)
This Coming Week
Go exercise your right to vote
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 03, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, November 03, 2024
Reddit is (Still) Lying and Faking
Don't fall for this phony idea that the above sites are grassroots or edgy; they're not
Links 04/11/2024: FCC, Broadband Industry Spar Over Net Neutrality; Software Patent Squashed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/11/2024: Official MyGemini.Space Announcement
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/11/2024: Election Thoughts, Plagiarism, and LLM Slop
Links for the day
Links 03/11/2024: Deere 'Right to Repair' (RoR) and "Threads Bans Anyone For Mentioning Hitler"
Links for the day
[Video] "El Movimiento del Software Libre y el Sistema Operativo GNU" by Richard M. Stallman
The footage is a bit jittery (taken with a phone apparently, and there's no tripod available), but the sound is OK and the words (in Spanish) are comprehensible
Android at New Highs (47%), Windows at New Lows (24%), Suggests Latest Data From statCounter
So the market share of Android is about double that of Windows
[Video] Richard Stallman's Talk in Spanish (in Peru Last Week)
Alternative URLs too
The Media Focuses on the Wrong Scandal
The real scandal at MIT was Gates
Gemini Links 03/11/2024: Fantasy Life Day and Worship
Links for the day
[Meme] Write Us Drivers and GTFO!
When you realise sanctioning BRICS devs goes against the community
Decommissioning Copper Lines Makes Us Less Safe
We've essentially degraded the robustness or reliability of critical systems
Life of an Addicted Lolicon Who Can Also Code
Personal blog as an open diary
[Meme] Reporting Crime is Not a Crime
Obviously!
Manchester Party for Techrights
If you choose to come, of course we'll cover the cost of the food and treats (but not travel)
Privacy is Not a Crime (in Places Where It is a Crime the Regime is Typically Very Rogue)
Also, criminals lack "privacy rights" to hide their crimes from the public
GNU/Linux "Market Share" in Lebanon More Than Doubled in a Few Months
Maybe it's a reaction to something? Assassination in Haret Hreik was in July.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 02, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, November 02, 2024
Nearly 40 Years Without Security Incidents
People who use Windows have come to sort of "accept" that security incidents are part of life or "normal"
[Meme] The Streisand Effect
Simon says, don't bother trying to suppress facts
Streisand Effect at IBM?
Trying to silence your workers isn't the best approach. It only makes colleagues even more curious.
Microsoft is a Gift That Keeps Giving (Future Stories to Techrights)
Microsoft has been trying to silence me using dirty tricks for nearly 20 years
Elon Musk Has Trashed Twitter for Ideological Reasons (and Propping Up Trump in Exchange for Financial and Political Favours Once in Public Office)
In case you didn't leave Twitter already, consider the fact that Twitter's (or "X"... whatever!) future is uncertain
Wall Street Has Demoted Intel, Seeing There May be No Future to Intel
Intel's loss isn't a loss to us
Free Software Licence Compliance is About Security Too
Linux as de facto proprietary off-the-shelf platform
Links 02/11/2024: Many Fakes in Social Control Media
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Usage Surveys: Up to 6.8% (With ChromeOS, Based on StatCounter) in Desktops/Laptops and Above 2% in Steam
Today StatCounter starts releasing graphs based on data for November
Gemini Links 02/11/2024: Petscop, Jokes, and RetroChallenge
Links for the day
Links 02/11/2024: Temu EU Probe and Shorts Trademark
Links for the day
The "Luddite" Complex
Sometimes simplest is best and sometimes "modern" is designed not with the buyers' interest in mind
SCO's Darl McBride Dead at Age 64
There's hardly any information about it, except we know he reached bankruptcy and 3 years later he died at a relatively young age
The 'Turning-Free-Code-Proprietary Foundation' (Linux/Microsoft Foundation)
LF will basically become just as sinister as its corporate sponsors
[Meme] Python Knows Its Bosses
Microsoft strings attached
Python Software Foundation is 'Cancel Culture' Rehomed
Python isn't grassroots and it doesn't really tolerate grassroots
DeVault "Closes Down His Mailing Lists Every Time There's a Scandal" and Also Censors Messages
Censorious code hosting platform
[Meme] Debt of About $20 Per Active User
Facebook isn't laying off tens of thousands for "efficiency" but for survival
What Social Control Media Really Is
Social Control Media, in a nutshell, isn't just bad if its controller is some foreign or hostile nation
Taking Ethics Lectures From Drew
Projection tactics
Links 02/11/2024: Facebook Stock Falls (Soaring Debt), Apple’s Quarterly Profit Down
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/11/2024: Burnout, Emacs Bookmarks, and Smooth Migration
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 01, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, November 01, 2024