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

This New Determination on a Case Echoes the Modus Operandi of Microsoft's Serial Strangler vs Techrights (Its Online Decision/Judgment Says Truth and Public Interest Defend the Publisher)
Noel Anthony Clarke hopefully has enough money left to pay his victims, which include the publishers
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Was Right About "Sideloading" in 1996
We now have computers that treat booting GNU/Linux like an act of "Sideloading"
Panama: Windows Down From 97% "Market Share" to Less Than 30%
In 2009, Windows was measured at 97.24% (compared to 62.32% right now or less than 30% if one also counts Android)
The UEFI 9/11 - Part I - Introduction to Impending Catastrophe (Microsoft Preventing People From Booting Non-Windows Systems)
eight-part series
Why Techrights is Slow Today (Bot Floods)
We don't know if those bots are connected to LLMs (we have not checked), but that is a possibility
Slopwatch: DDoS Slop, LinuxBSDos.com Spam, and Slopfarms in Google News, Including webpronews.com
Among the news we also found fakes, albeit not so much today
Links 26/08/2025: "Ballooning Debt" in France and "Transnational Repression in the UK"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/08/2025: Listening to Alcest and Google Doing Evil (Users Installing Software is "Sideloading" and Prohibited)
Links for the day
Links 26/08/2025: DNS Tampering and TikTok Layoffs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Windows "Market Share" Overestimated
Microsoft's income sources are shrinking
We Shall See...
My wife and I are hardly the first victims of Brett Wilson LLP
Going Offline
There was life before the Net
The Register MS Has Apparently Shut Down Its Office
It is basically a fake address on the face of it
There Are Also Expectations of IBM Layoffs Very Soon With "Narrative Control."
Some of them mention Red Hat and how IBM failed to achieve anything substantial with that acquisition
After at Least Two Rounds of Mass Layoffs in August Microsoft Said to Have "September Layoff Confirmed - Performance Based"
Those "M5 level meetings" sound plausible
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 25, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 25, 2025
Slopwatch: Slopfarms All Over Google News and Real News Sites Pushed Out of Visibility
Google News is dying (as a tool of value)
Gemini Links 25/08/2025: Numeric-only VM and Alhena 5.3.0
Links for the day
Links 25/08/2025: ‘Panama Playlists’ and Live Nation/Ticketmaster Suit Aims at Class Action
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/08/2025: Empathy Towards Autistic People and Old Gadgets
Links for the day
Links 25/08/2025: Datacentres Versus Water Supplies and "The IPv6 Divide"
Links for the day
Links 25/08/2025: Data Breaches, Politics, and Financial Strain
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Distros Ought to Replace Firefox (and Firefox ESR) With Something Like LibreWolf
Perhaps it's come to replace Firefox
Father of Julian Assange Said the US Government Was Trying to Bankrupt WikiLeaks, Now the Assange Family Promotes Fake Currencies
Using the name for bad purposes?
Bailing Out GAFAM, Giving Taxpayers' Money to Failing Companies, and Trying to Outlaw Lawsuits Against Them
What would the late Lincoln have said?
Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) Inc. Lost 2 Million Dollars Last Year and Its Chief Took a Salary Increase of Almost $6,000
Another year or two like this... and the SFC will be bankrupt [...] Hallmark of mismanagement
The "New Techrights" Turns Two Very Soon
Accomplishing something each year is what's important, not merely "finishing" another year
Gulf Nations Leave Microsoft Behind
How much lower will Microsoft stoop in an effort to raise money from oil-rich lenders?
How to Combat IRC Trolls (in Our Experience)
Today I want to share my experience (or knowledge) of how to deal with IRC trolls
The Register MS Needs to Stop Participating in the "Hey Hi" (AI) Hype, But It Gets Paid to Participate in This Hype
the publisher (The Register MS) wants to have it both ways
Gemini Links 24/08/2025: Living With Your Parents, Zürich Zoo, and Macondo
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 24, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 24, 2025