Background: Donald Trump Thinks He Can Call Bill Gates To Shut Down The Internet

Reference: Super Rich Hide $21 Trillion Offshore, Study Says

Summary: How Bill Gates shifts sides when it suits his financial agenda, this time with President-elect Trump

According to CNBC, Gates recently spoke with Trump, supposedly talking about innovation. Gates then claimed that Trump is a big supporter of innovation, saying that Trump would revolutionize America and get rid of regulatory barriers. He claimed that Trump likes to point out weaknesses in the American system and that he wants to improve on them.

Maybe he will even start an opportunistic partnership with Trump. Interesting Gates should claim this, when in June 2016 he said “Donald hasn’t been known for his philanthropy. He’s been known for other things.” Furthermore, Gates also implied that Trump was behind the other candidates.

He even portrayed Trump as unscientific, stating “Science in general, whether it’s GMOs or vaccines, there’s a lot of people out there who don’t give science the benefit of the doubt”. “In terms of experience, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton have more experience on global health.”

Bill Gates has been innovative like many billionaires: he has created a charitable foundation and still manages to profit in the billions every year, and Microsoft as a whole profits from monopolizing software. █

Summary: Yet another large institution can be listed as appalled by the management of Battistelli, who repels talent and turns the EPO into Europe’s source of shame

THE EPO has already driven away many of its talented staff (examiners and judges) and is currently seeking to recruit interns because the EPO is no longer an attractive employer. More institutions across Europe, recently CERN for example, blast the EPO for this utter failure. Abuse against staff led to all this and Battistelli’s horrific leadership made it the official policy.

Joining the growing number of bodies that besiege Battistelli now we have staff of the European Central Bank (ECB). In SUEPO’s words: “IPSO is a staff union, founded by staff of the European Central Bank (ECB) to represent the professional interests of persons working for the ECB and other international institutions and agencies in Germany.”

The “ECB Union,” told us one reader about IPSO, “issues a support message to SUEPO and EPO staff [...] In Frankfurt ECB Union – IPSO – issues a support message to SUEPO and EPO staff [...] IPSO expresses support for colleagues at the European Patent Office Office, with Heardquarter in Munich…”

Here is the original that says:

IPSO expresses support for colleagues at the European Patent Office Office, with Heardquarter in Munich

Like many international organisations, the European Patent Office (EPO) has been given full autonomy to determine the legislative framework applicable to its staff. This creates a situation of high concentration of power, leading to risks of abuses.

Since the arrival of Mr. Battistelli at the helm of the organisation, the level of tensions within the EPO has met unprecedented levels. The matter has been widely reported in the media (SZ, FAZ, die Welt, Le Monde, Médiapart, Libération, De Volkskrant, NRC, El Mundo etc, see also a reportage broadcast by BR on 21 March 2016).

A good overview of the toxic atmosphere has been published by Politico in August 2015.
Unfortunately, since then the situation has deteriorated further. IPSO is deeply saddened to learn that Mr Battistelli dismissed two union officials and elected staff representatives based in Munich, In January 2016. A third one was dismissed on 4th November, in The Hague without a fair trial. Two more union officials and staff representatives are currently being targeted.
To try and de-escalate, the Administrative Council of the EPO adopted resolution CA/26/16 in March 2016, requesting Mr Battistelli to revise the applicable rules to ensure that justice be done and seen to be done. The Council required that, in the meantime, no further investigations or disciplinary proceedings be carried out against staff representatives and union officials. We are informed that Mr Battistelli unfortunatley ignored the resolution, thereby reinforcing the impression that the President of the EPO can act with full impunity.

As representatives of the trade union of ECB Staff, we would like to express our solidarity and support to our colleagues dismissed by Mr. Batistelli. We are not willing to accept the situation as it stands, and are currently considering further action to support our dismissed colleagues with the objective to reinstate them in their function at the EPO.

How much more of a PR disaster can the already-embattled Battistelli endure? He brought this upon himself and he keeps making things worse. It’s going to take down the European economy with it (if this persists). █

Summary: A look at the political context surrounding the Chairman of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation

IN the opening part of this series and in the previous post (with addendum that contains photos) we introduced readers to the Chairman of the Administrative Council of the EPO, Mr. Kongstad. Our exploration of this topic is very much relevant to the EPO, as shall become apparent towards the end of this long series.

“Kongstad seems to be in a position of significant power as the Chairman of the EPO Administrative Council. But it’s important to remember that this position is essentially that of a “primus inter pares” in relation to the delegates of the other member states of the EPO.”Mr. Kongstad is no orodinary person. Kongstad seems to be in a position of significant power as the Chairman of the EPO Administrative Council. But it’s important to remember that this position is essentially that of a “primus inter pares” in relation to the delegates of the other member states of the EPO.

For example, under the Administrative Council’s Rules of Procedure, any delegate can raise objections to the Chairman’s conduct of business and, if the objection is not upheld, the delegate may call for a decision by the Council.

Apart from this it should not be forgotten that as Director of the DKPTO, Kongstad is effectively a mid-ranking national civil servant who is ultimately subject to the authority of his political masters back home in Denmark.

For that reason it could be interesting to have a closer look at where the buck stops back in Copenhagen.

“Apart from this it should not be forgotten that as Director of the DKPTO, Kongstad is effectively a mid-ranking national civil servant who is ultimately subject to the authority of his political masters back home in Denmark.”The Ministry responsible for oversight of the DKPTO is the Ministry of Business and Growth. The current Minister is Troels Lund Poulsen who is a member of the Venstre party.

Before scrutinising Poulsen’s colourful and chequered political career, a short digression to provide some background about the Venstre party might be useful for readers who are not familiar with Danish politics.

Venstre – a Danish political curiosity

The Danish word “Venstre” literally means “The Left” but the party which bears this name is actually a centre-right conservative-liberal party with agrarian roots.

Venstre was founded in 1870 as part of a farmers’ movement against the landed aristocracy. Traditionally it was a conservative party advocating free trade and farmers’ interests as opposed to the interests of the aristocracy which were the platform of the other conservative party Højre (The Right). In the 1960s Venstre reinvented itself as a more classical liberal party. Today it is the major party of the centre-right in Denmark, and the third largest party in the country. It espouses an economically liberal “free market” ideology and some people would classify it as belonging to the “neo-liberal” camp.

“The Danish word “Venstre” literally means “The Left” but the party which bears this name is actually a centre-right conservative-liberal party with agrarian roots.”The party has often been in government usually as a coalition partner and many Danish Prime Ministers have come from its ranks.

In the most recent Danish parliamentary elections in 2015, Venstre received 19.5% of the vote, and 34 out of 179 seats. The government which formed following the election is a minority government consisting of Venstre alone which is supported by the other right wing parties. The current party leader and Prime Minister is Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

The Minister – Troels “Troelex” Lund Poulsen

Troels Lund Poulsen was appointed as Minister of Business and Growth in June 2015.

“It espouses an economically liberal “free market” ideology and some people would classify it as belonging to the “neo-liberal” camp.”Poulsen (D.o.B 1976) is a longtime member of Venstre who became politically active at 16, when he joined Venstre’s youth organisation Venstres Ungdom (“Liberal Youth”). A few years later, he had advanced to become its national chairman.

After finishing secondary school, Poulsen started university in 1996 but he never completed his history studies and left university without a degree.

His first and only non-elected jobs were as assistant to Venstre’s press chief, Michael Kristiansen, and as press coordinator for the Danish property development firm Ørestadsselskabet — two positions where he appears to have learned the fine art of spin doctoring.

In 2001, at age 25, Poulsen was elected to the Danish Parliament. Just six years later, he was appointed to the first of four ministerial posts which he has held:

• Minister for the Environment from November 23rd 2007 to February 23rd 2010.
• Minister for Taxation from February 23rd 2010 to March 8th 2011.
• Minister for Education from March 8th 2011 to October 3rd 2011.
• Minister for Business and Growth from June 28th 2015.

Source: Troels Lund Poulsen

“After finishing secondary school, Poulsen started university in 1996 but he never completed his history studies and left university without a degree.”Despite his meteoric rise in Venstre, Poulsen’s political career has also been dogged by controversy as documented by the Copenhagen Post in an article published in December 2011 entitled “Taxgate: Just who is Troels Lund Poulsen?”.

Source: Taxgate: Just who is Troels Lund Poulsen?

The Copenhagen Post article reveals that during his first ministerial appointment as environmental minister from 2007 to 2010, he brokered a deal to import and store the poisonous waste material hexachlorbenzene (HCB), a known animal carcinogen, from Australia. HCB is banned under the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants.

It was also during that time that Poulsen was widely criticised for accepting the gift of a 65,000 DKK (approx. 8,700 EUR) Rolex watch from the king of Saudi Arabia, the leader – and for then refusing to release his tax return to prove that he had declared the expensive gift. Poulsen finally decided to return the watch in order to silence his critics.

“The Copenhagen Post article reveals that during his first ministerial appointment as environmental minister from 2007 to 2010, he brokered a deal to import and store the poisonous waste material hexachlorbenzene (HCB), a known animal carcinogen, from Australia.”This incident earned him the nickname “Troelex” in the Danish media.

From 2010 to early 2011, Poulsen was Minister of Taxation – a job which he appeared to carry out without controversy until the so-called “Taxgate affair” surfaced in late 2011 some time after he had moved on to the Education Ministry.

Poulsen’s appointment to the Education Ministry in March 2011 was the result of another Venstre-government embarrassment which forced the then-PM Rasmussen to fire his Immigration Minister Hornbech and reshuffle the cabinet. During his seven months as education minister, Poulsen – who left university without a degree – was lampooned in the media as the “uneducated education minister”.

However, the incident which seems to have been most damaging to his reputation was the “Taxgate affair” which had been simmering in the background for some time previously but only really began to attract public attention in November 2011.

A timeline of the case can be found in an article entitled “Taxgate: How it all went down” which was published in the Copenhagen Post in December 2011 as an official enquiry was beginning.

Source: Taxgate: How it all went down

“During his seven months as education minister, Poulsen – who left university without a degree – was lampooned in the media as the “uneducated education minister”.”In December 2011 an official investigation was ordered into allegations that Poulsen and officials from the Taxation Ministry had been involved attempts to influence a tax audit of the opposition Social Democratic leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt and her husband Stephen Kinnock. At the same time Poulsen announced that he was taking a six month leave of absence from Parliament. One Danish journalist quipped that Poulsen might soon have the opportunity to complete his history degree now that his future in politics was looking less promising.

The Taxgate investigation went on for 16 months and involved the hearing of a total of 45 witnesses. The final cost to the Danish taxpayer was estimated in excess of 19 million DKK (approx. 2.5 million EUR) as reported by the Copenhagen Post in an article entitled “As Taxgate finally wraps up, total tab hits 19 million” published in December 2013.

Source: As Taxgate finally wraps up, total tab hits 19 million

“Poulsen is reputed to be fully loyal to his superiors “above and beyond the call of duty” and it seems that his loyalty to the party has been rewarded in spite of the many controversies which have overshadowed his career to date.”Political commentators have described “Taxgate” as one of the biggest scandals to hit Danish politics in recent times. Politiken newspaper’s editor-in-chief Bo Lidegaard has said that the case reeked of “political corruption” and “abuse of power”.

Although Poulsen’s reputation was undoubtedly damaged by the affair, he nevertheless managed to make a political come-back in June 2015 when he was appointed as Minister of Business and Growth in the newly formed Venstre minority government.

Poulsen is reputed to be fully loyal to his superiors “above and beyond the call of duty” and it seems that his loyalty to the party has been rewarded in spite of the many controversies which have overshadowed his career to date.

The “éminence grise” – Permanent Secretary Michael Dithmer

A significant figure in the chain of command between Kongstad and his Minister appears to be the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Business and Growth, Michael Dithmer.

“Bendtsen came under investigation for corruption in 2009 as a result of allegations that large Danish companies had paid for 23 hunting trips and 25 golf tours for Bendtsen and officials from his Ministry.”A long-serving career civil servant, Dithmer is also reputed to have strong Venstre connections. Both of his parents were lawyers and were Venstre members who sat on the Copenhagen City Council. It is suspected that Dithmer might also be a party member but this has not been confirmed.

In his role as a senior civil servant Dithmer is normally less exposed to the limelight than politicians like Poulsen but it turns out that he has also been involved in a fair share of controversies during his career.

From 2001 to 2008, Bendt Bendtsen, a member of the Conservative Party, acted as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Economic and Business Affairs under Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. During this time Dithmer’s duties as Permanent Secretary included advising the Minister about potential conflicts of interest in relation to gifts and benefits in kind.

Bendtsen came under investigation for corruption in 2009 as a result of allegations that large Danish companies had paid for 23 hunting trips and 25 golf tours for Bendtsen and officials from his Ministry.

“It was also reported that in 2007 Dithmer used his official BMW 730i with chauffeur to buy a new hunting rifle during a trip to Jutland.”The total amounts of the benefits alleged to have been received were reported to be of the order of 250,000 DKK (approx. 33,500 EUR).

Source: Bendt Bendtsen meldt for bestikkelse

During the investigation into Bendtsen’s affairs it emerged that Dithmer himself had been a willing participant in a number of hunting trips which had been paid for by DHH (Det danske Hedeselskabet), a business foundation which is one of Denmark’s biggest firms in private forest management and is involved in the commercial trade of forest properties in Denmark and the Baltic region. It was also reported that in 2007 Dithmer used his official BMW 730i with chauffeur to buy a new hunting rifle during a trip to Jutland.

Source: Bendtsens højre hånd fik selv jagtture”

“By 2009 the Danish press was already reporting that the cumulative losses associated with Roskilde Bank had reached the level of DKK 10 billion (approx 1.35 billion EUR) and were expected to climb even higher.”Dithmer also came under fire in connection with the collapse of Roskilde Bank, a regional lender that had existed since 1884. During the years preceding the recent global financial crisis the bank became a test laboratory for “innovative accounting”. It was later found to have grossly exaggerated the value of its assets, while the management indulged in self-enrichment by awarding itself millions in stock options and bonuses. After unsuccessful government-backed attempts to find a buyer, Roskilde Bank was finally declared insolvent in August 2008. By 2009 the Danish press was already reporting that the cumulative losses associated with Roskilde Bank had reached the level of DKK 10 billion (approx 1.35 billion EUR) and were expected to climb even higher.

Source: Roskilde Bank – taxpayers’ nightmare

Following the Roskilde insolvency, about one-third of Denmark’s banks either collapsed or were absorbed by bigger rivals.

In September 2009, the Danish Social Democrats called for an investigation into what Bendtsen had known about Roskilde back in 2006 at a time when the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) was already aware that the bank was in trouble.

“In January 2012, reports appeared in the Danish press that Dithmer had been the main inspiration behind economic measures which had cost the treasury at least 2.1 billion DKK (approx. 280 million EUR).”It was claimed that although the Ministry had been repeatedly briefed about the situation at Roskilde, officials in the Ministry had failed to pass the relevant information on to the Minister. Dithmer’s role in the affair came under scrutiny and questions were asked about what was claimed to be his close personal relationship with the Director of the FSA, Henrik Bjerre-Nielsen.

Source: Kendte Bendtsen til Roskilde Banks problemer?

In January 2012, reports appeared in the Danish press that Dithmer had been the main inspiration behind economic measures which had cost the treasury at least 2.1 billion DKK (approx. 280 million EUR). According to one report, in his role as Permanent Secretary he had pushed through a special government guarantee of 13.6 billion DKK (approx. 1.83 billion EUR) to Amagerbanken under Brian Mikkelsen, Bendtsen’s successor as Minister of Economic and Business Affairs. The measure was approved despite the fact that the Ministry had been advised against issuing a guarantee by Finansiel Stabilitet, a state-owned public limited company which was responsible for winding up the activities taken over from distressed banks.

Source: This page about Michael Dithmer

“In the next installment we shall start to look at Mr. Kongstad’s private entrepreneurial activities which he seems to pursue with almost as much enthusiasm as his day-job as Director of the DKPTO.”As a seasoned political operator Dithmer managed to weather these storms and to hold on to his position as the ” éminence grise” of the Ministry of Business and Growth. It has been rumoured that his connections to Venstre may have helped him to emerge relatively unscathed from the various controversies in which he has been implicated but this cannot be confirmed.

That concludes our little excursion through the corridors of power in Copenhagen where the political masters of the DKPTO reside. In the next installment we shall start to look at Mr. Kongstad’s private entrepreneurial activities which he seems to pursue with almost as much enthusiasm as his day-job as Director of the DKPTO. █

Summary: Staff of the EPO is leaving (or retiring) in droves as abusive management continues to be the norm and staff benefits are being taken away or gradually revoked

CRACKDOWNS at the EPO carry on, even when staff is (mostly) on holiday. Don’t be misled by the silence. Things are not rosy at all. Some representatives appear to have gotten exhausted, whereas others are too afraid or away on holiday. Some are on permanent leave or effectively suspended. In the coming weeks we shall reveal some more information, potentially about individual stories as well. It’s not pretty and it serves to show what kind of management runs the European Patent Office these days. Rather than value staff, this management does a fine job driving staff away. Cherishing and respecting people (“assets” or “human resources” as management typically refers to them) is the key to an institution’s long-term success. Highly educated people have plenty of employment options, so they don’t tolerate abuse from their superiors. They have other career possibilities (private and public sectors) and they tend to be principled, not judgmental or overly opinionated. They also know their rights and actively defend these.

“Rather than value staff, this management does a fine job driving staff away.”Earlier this year we mentioned the attack on the pension of Els Hardon — probably an illegal move which Battistelli later had to withdraw/revoke. What kind of justice is that? Hardon was dismissed from the Office for her duties as a staff representative and she wasn’t alone. It is very sad that Battistelli’s war on the staff union left much-appreciated staff having to support their representatives with Broodfonds (literally bread funds). Some of them have entire families to support! What happened to human decency?

The crackdown is far from over as EPO management, notably Bergot (the wife of Battistelli’s former INPI colleague), still threatens staff representatives, even while they’re on holiday. Mr. Topić, for instance, blocked the publication of essential reading material in The Hague, without even notifying the Local Staff Committee The Hague. This was censored using threats of disciplinary measures. So the atmosphere of fear clearly prevails at the EPO and people are rightly afraid of communicating with one another. That’s a recipe for disaster that would certainly drive away the high-profile examiners. They would have no problem seeking and finding alternative employment, e.g. in fine universities or in the industry.

“Cherishing and respecting people (“assets” or “human resources” as management typically refers to them) is the key to an institution’s long-term success.”EPO management, moreover, is trying to punish strikers (perfectly lawful activity) even more severely. The management is getting pretty vicious right now, raising the ‘fine’ by 50% by essentially withdrawing a twentieth (instead of a thirtieth) of one’s salary. They are just taking away more and more of people’s money, so no wonder people flee or formally retire early. Watch what they’re doing to people’s investments, pension changes aside. Based on this document [PDF], workers’ interests are trampled and stomped on. Quoting from the summary in the PDF: “lowering the probability of reaching the long-term objective for the investment returns, but instead supported initially unfounded and expensive reforms.”

“Therefore,” it also says, “the Office representative’s reasoning appears to be so ill-founded and misaligned with the interests of the main stake-holders that one might conclude that it serves instead to realise another hidden (or at least undisclosed) agenda.”

There is also a part about Bergot: “Further statements made by Ms. Bergot left Staff representatives with the impression that the Office may also try to influence the investment return assumptions made by the three independent actuaries of the AAG. If successful, this might lead to pushing for a reduction in the assumed rate of return on investment in the actuarial study, which could consequently trigger a recommendation by the actuaries either to increase the contributions which the Office could follow and/or lower the benefits.”

“A lot of people are leaving.”“Unfortunately,” they conclude, “whatever the outcome, it is the staff (and only the staff) who will have to pay the bill.”

Well, they might not stick around to even pay the bill. A lot of people are leaving. Consider the aforementioned changes to pensions, which came under criticism in a report commissioned by SUEPO. These pension changes were recently assessed in a legal opinion (mentioned [PDF] here before [PDF]) and it’s just one among all sorts of ‘reforms’ that breach the fundamental rules and treat staff like dispensable machine operators. The EPO apparently suffers from a lack of money, as it is operating at a massive loss, which makes one wonder if the pensions will be reduced or become some kind of a Ponzi scheme one day. Later this summer we are going to give more examples of where money gets wasted by the millions (for little and sometimes no benefit/gain). Battistelli is terrible on fiscal terms and even some delegates openly speak about it nowadays (a subject to be explored in depth another day). Some say there is even financial fraud.

“What will their retirement mean in terms of pensions?”The brain drain at the EPO is measurable and it is not a matter of ‘gut feeling’ or intuition. One report we saw gives us a rough idea of who left (or is leaving) other than top management. The report says that numbers are made apparent from the EPO’s own reports. To quote: “The social report shows that the Office could not maintain staffing levels at their overall target despite a vigorous recruitment campaign. 2015 saw a net decrease of 77 staff members; in particular the BoA saw a reduction of 15. Furthermore, there were no new recruits from a number of countries including Sl, CZ, CH, NO, and GB. While up to 2014 typically around 100 staff members would retire, in 2015 this number had nearly doubled. The average retirement age has also decreased from around 63 years to about 61 years.”

What will their retirement mean in terms of pensions? Well, to be frank, I’m no accountant and my knowledge regarding accounting is scarce, but the subject was recently explored in IP Kat comments. For record and future reference, here is what one person wrote about the pensions:

The benefits are not over-generous. I can explain the situation about pensions. I’ll try to do that in non-accounting terms. I’ll use round numbers out of my head to make calculations simpler.

The offices self insures the pensions. It simply pays the pensions out of the budget and write the pensions off the salaries as “contributions”. So if we have, say, 1000 examiners with a salary of 10000€/month and 200 pensioners with a pension of 5000€/month, every examiner needs to contribute 1000€/month for the system to be in balance. They can pay that out of their 10000€ salary.
If suddenly, the office lowers the average pay to 5000€, each examiner still needs to pay 1000€ a month, but out of a lower salary. It looks as if the pension contribution is doubled for them.
If suddenly, the office improves efficiency massively and only needs half the examiners (but they keep their pay), we have the same effect: each examiner needs to contribute 2000€ (out of a 10000€ salary).
If we both halve the salary and the number of examiners, contributions quadruple.

Is the office planing to lower both the number of examiners and their salaries? I don’t know. But it does not appear to be planning to lower the fees on patent or the number of granted patents. So the budget would stays the same and the capacity to pay the pensions out of the budget would also stay the same. The office would just need to keep the contributions of salaries at the same level for the examiners and meet the old obligations out of its budget. They would still save massively on salaries by having less active examiners and paying them less in that hypothesis.

But, if the office says “pensions must be a fixed percentage of the salaries” (10% in the above example) and then lowers the total salary mass, there is a problem. It is an artificial problem, but would be called “increase percentage of liabilities” in accountant speak.

Then we have the so called “pension reserve fund”. This was never designed to be a pension fund, but designed to smooth things in case of changes. It was created because in the first years of its existence, the Office had no pensioners (where would they have come from). So the contributions were put aside in that RESERVE fund. This reserve fund is invested in state bonds, its regulation prevent using investments which would be to volatile. The so called “losses” are simply “smaller gains”, because the interest rates are now very low. 10 years ago, we expected a return of maybe 5%, now we don’t have that.

This reserve fund is massive. I think I have read that it could pay the pensions completely for the next 20 years or so. So it can hardly be described as bankrupt.

Then there is that vision floating around that the office would have a “pension fund”. Like some massive amount of money from which only the interests would be enough to pay pensions forever. That is completely wrong: the pension reserve fund was originally designed to pay the benefits out of the fund itself, when necessary.

RFPSS is then mentioned as follows:

Would the “RESERVE” fund you mentioned happen to be the “RFPSS” fund mentioned in the EPO’s financial statement? If so, I note that the assets of that fund were EUR6,600 million at the end of 2015 (with only EUR1,300 million being in bonds). Is that enough to pay pensions completely for the next 20 years or so? If so, what on earth does the EPO’s financial statement mean when it refers to a “Defined benefit liability” of EUR15,800 million? Could that be a projected total spend on pensions over the lifetime of all current and former employees?

Apologies for all of the questions. Like I said, I am no accountant, and so this is all a bit of a mystery to me.

More on the same subject:

Indeed, as stated above, the sum shown is the pension Reserve fund to cover the eventuality that the EPO is unable (or unwilling?) to pay pensions. Indeed originally, the final burden was to be shared between the member states as a sort of guarantor grouping. As is their won’t, the AC simply decided they didn’t agree anymore and passed the honour to the EPO – I’m not sure the legality of that was ever clarified as it didn’t fall within their right to simply dump the agreement of a international treaty.

With regard to the mysterious 4 billion euros appearing from nowhere, that relates to the future liabilities which are referred back to the current date by applying the notionally agreed interest rate. In good times, the rate is high, in bad times, less so. In layman’ terms,if I need to pay 1000 euros in 12 months time and I can get 10% interest, then I need to have 909 euros or so today. If I can only get 1%, then I need 990.1 today. Of course, the sums and time spans are far greater so that compound interest applies. 2 years at 10% would mean I need about 827 today but 1% means 981 etc.
In practice the rate has been falling quickly from 2011 to 2014 and in 2014 the rate was about 1.65% if my memory serves (you can find it in that link). In 2015 the rate rose and thus the liability of 19 billion in 2015 fell back to 15 billion. The rate changes regularly but is applied long term so that the biggest change to liabilities comes from small interest rate changes! In fact the fund has outperformed the rate (and its target) for 30 years.

Yes, the Reserve fund is the “RFPSS”.

I am not an accountant either, but as far as I understood from suepo documents of the time, the “Defined benefit liability” of EUR15,800 million indeed means that the office closes down today, has no incoming revenue whatsoever (no renewal fees on already granted patents) and still has to pay all liabilities. If memory serves, this liability first appeared under Brimelow who insisted that the office use the IFRS accounting system. The choice of that accounting system was criticised at the time. It makes more sense for, say, a car factory which has to put money aside for the goods it orders (e.g. steel, car parts) in case it goes bankrupt.

If my memory is correct, the idea that the reserve fund could pay pensions for 20 years comes from simply dividing the assets by the pensions that the office pays each year at present, possibly correcting by the expected number of pensioners in future years (I am not sure).

All this is to show that there is a large amount of interpretation in the financial statement. Depending on the chosen accounting rules, one can make the office look very rich or very poor. What is clear, however, is that in the past years the office generated several hundred millions euros profit per year (while paying salaries and pensions and constructing new buildings regularly). This money was partially paid to the reserve fund in “extra payments” (in addition to what is paid each year according to the pension scheme). There have been several documents from suepo analysing the situation, but I am not sure whether they are on the public section of the suepo website.

Last but not least, I insist that the regulation for pensions are not any different than in most companies: accrue benefits each year till one is 65 and then get a percentage of your salary. Early pensioners get a discount corresponding to the projected additional pension years, etc… The pensions are also taxable. There are no “lavish benefits” as one sometimes reads.

“The EPO changed the pension system from “defined benefit” to “defined contribution”,” explains the comment below.

I would not know the precise meaning of the expressions used in the Financial Statements. What I do know is that the discount rate is a key factor.

To my best knowledge, every fund promising a certain return, not just the EPO fund, projects how much money will be needed in the future, usually split by calendar year. The fund normally has already some cash, and every fund manager would like to know whether this cash is sufficient to cover the future obligations. To check this, these future obligations are converted in the currently needed amount of money, to cover them fully or as is frequently the case, to 80%.

This conversion considers how much interest you will get on the cash in the fund. This interest is called “discount rate”, implying that you need less than say 100 euro today if you want to have 100 Euro in 20 years. With the current EU politics, the interest you can get is pummeling down, lowering the discount rate. This, in turn, requires you to have more money today. If the European Central Bank changed their strategy next week, this would impact the finances and funding ratios of all funds relying on discount rates.

The catch of the story is that small variations in the discount rate will have a massive impact. A simple 0.2% more or less of the discount rate, over a projection of say 25 years, will make you bankrupt or filthy rich.

The EPO changed the pension system from “defined benefit” to “defined contribution”. The “old guys” get a percentage of the salary as pension, and the EPO carries the risk if the fund “underperforms”. The “new guys” get what the fund delivers, they carry the risk.

Giving lots of crappy patents to applicants is a recipe not to financial success, as the following comment notes:

I now realise that this has all been discussed before.

http://ipkitten.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-finances-of-european-patent-office.html

With the benefit of hindsight, the predictions at the end of the 3rd (anonymous) comment on that thread now look to have been startlingly accurate. Perhaps the BB phenomenon really is all about balancing the books after all.

Whilst it may be that income from renewal fees represents a missing part of the puzzle, there is one thing I don’t understand. Where is the financial benefit to the EPO in rushing applications through to grant (which appears to be the current mantra)? Does this imply that the EPO gets more (on average) from its share of national renewal fees than it does from a full share of its own internal renewal fees? If not, then is the push for earlier grant all about BB keeping the Member States sweet by giving them an ever increasing share of renewal fees?

Perhaps we will never know. With the full knowledge and approval of the AC, one of BB’s first actions as president was to disband the only body (the Audit Committee) that could have provided transparency / independent oversight in connection with the EPO’s finances. So I guess that those affected (current and former EPO employees, patent applicants and the public) will just have to trust that the EPO’s finances are being handled with the utmost propriety by BB and his cronies… what could possibly go wrong?

Another person added:

My original comment related to the problem created (in many countries) where defined benefit (eg final salary) pension schemes were offered without the companies concerned ensuring that they had adequate funds in hand to cover the anticipated liabilities (eg taking into account increases in average life expectancy). Current examples of where things have gone badly wrong with pension funds are BHS and British Steel.

A similar issue applies to state pensions. In that instance, there is no “pension fund” as such, just a country’s GDP. For those countries offering (relatively) generous pensions and (generally) free healthcare, an ageing population will command an ever increasing proportion of public spending.

Please note that I am not placing any blame at the door of the (soon to be) pensioners concerned. I am merely making the observation that bad judgements made by companies, countries and organisations (ie failing to set aside sufficient resources to cope with the retirement of the “baby boomers”) has led us to the situation where the current workforce is lumbered with the problem of making up the shortfall.

I remember people in the 1980s warning us all about the coming “demographic crisis” in Europe. Well, now that the crisis is upon us, I can honestly say that it is almost impossible to identify any national government that has ever done anything significant in the intervening 30 years to defuse the problem.

At least the EPO has the reserve fund… though, curiously, it appears that it has no intention to use that fund to pay pensions. I would have thought that the whole point to having a reserve fund is to ensure that the pension “tail” does not wag the “dog” that is the everything else that the EPO does. However, I have my suspicions that the tail is indeed beginning to “wag the dog”…

“Anonymous” wrote: “I thought that an actuarial study last year showed that the EPO would only need to resort to the reserve fund briefly at some point in the future and that the amount required would be met by the annual return on the fund rather than depleting its capital. I’ll try to find it – I think Suepo got a copy and published it. Cannot imagine BB would let any good news be released – keep the stick and hide the carrot…”

“As to the future of the EPO,” the following commenter said, “the new career system is a net loss for the majority of the employees,” which is probably true. Here is the full comment:

I don’t think ageing of the population is significant for the EPO. Actually, we will have a younger “population”, because we only hire younger staff. On the other hand, the effect I explained about reduced salaries is probably significant.

It is also interesting that you cite British Steel. The steel industry used to employ lots of people but with modern production techniques a lot less people were needed: productivity per person increased considerably (and we could make a parallel with patent examination here, especially if examination is “streamlined”). What also happened is that the industry was privatized and a select small party of people made huge financial gains by keeping the usable parts and refusing to bear the liabilities, including pensions.

As to the future of the EPO all I can say is that:
-the new career system is a net loss for the majority of the employees and huge gains for the select few
-if someone tells me on disputable short term interest rate projections that a fund is bankrupt when this fund has increased regularly in the past 30 years and covers at least a decade of liabilities, I consider that a political message and not a financial analysis.

For those who are into accounting and care to explain this to us, feel free to get in touch or leave a comment below. The consensus appears to be that things are getting worse — not better — for EPO pensioners and verified figures show that the number of retirements have doubled in just one year. This doesn’t bode well for Battistelli. He’s ruining the Office he was entrusted to manage. Why was he not fired in June? █

Summary: Successor of Benoît Battistelli at the Administrative Council, Jesper Kongstad, is rumoured to be hiding something from tax authorities, but lack of transparency in “Eponia” prevents actual verification

THE EPO is no stranger to controversy and scandals. There is virtually no oversight there, no transparency, no accountability. This breeds distrust and often abuse as well. The USPTO is an angel in comparison as it doesn’t enjoy exemptions from European or US laws. There is no “USponia”, only “Eponia”.

“We just read your article with the title "Rumours About Secret EPO Salary of Benoît Battistelli",” some readers told us. “We’re surprised that you didn’t give any mention to the “Rumours About Secret EPO Salary of Jesper Kongstad”…

“If these rumours were true, then as a Danish civil servant he could be in serious trouble if the Danish tax authorities ever happened to investigate the matter.”
      –Anonymous“At the end of an interview published by MIP in March of this year Kongstad was quoted as claiming that he does not receive any remuneration for his work at the EPO: “I am now spending about half of my time on EPO-related work, but I do not receive any remuneration for that.”

“In the MIP interview Kongstad was emphatic about the “pro bono” nature of his work for the EPO but not everybody is prepared to buy that storyline.”

Recall this embarrassing recent story. The readers continue: “In fact for some time now there have been persistent rumours circulating that he is somehow “on the payroll” at the EPO although nobody seems to know the precise details about this. Evil tongues have even been heard to say that he does not disclose this additional remuneration for tax purposes in Denmark. If these rumours were true, then as a Danish civil servant he could be in serious trouble if the Danish tax authorities ever happened to investigate the matter.

“It is important to emphasise that these are just rumours.”
      –Anonymous“According to this report from 2010, under Danish law intentional and systematic tax evasion can lead to 8 years imprisonment and penalties of twice the unpaid tax liability. However, given the lack of effective oversight at the EPO it’s unlikely that Kongstad has anything to fear. Even if there was an investigation he would probably be whitewashed by the Internal Audit department which operates the EPO’s Investigative Unit and only answers to Battistelli. We are unlikely to see a truly independent audit of Kongstad’s financial relationship with the EPO any time soon.

“It is important to emphasise that these are just rumours. The close symbiosis between Kongstad and Battistelli and the fact that Kongstad is one of the few people privy to the details of Battistelli’s contract lends a certain amount of plausibility to the rumours. But in the absence of an independent audit nobody can say for certain how much substance there is to them. The fact that Kongstad went on record in March to specifically deny that he receives any remuneration for his EPO activities might be an indication that he felt a need to say something in public to counteract these rumours.” █

And with the UK’s diminishing hopes of UPC, what would he have left to show for it?

Summary: Based on the latest financial statements of the EPO, Benoît Battistelli would have to declare bankruptcy if he wasn’t so unaccountable and dismissive of accounting

THE EPO does not appear to be doing too well under Battistelli’s management, even from a fiscal point of view. He made his contract a closely-guarded secret with some saying that he doubled (or more) his salary (a massive salary in the context of any public office in the EU), he is wasting millions of Euros on his ludicrous lobbying events, he hired PR agencies even from the US (over a million dollars on that alone for just one year), and he pretends all is well and the money flows in like water while many senior examiners take early retirement to escape him.

“Benoît Battistelli will surely be remembered as one who crashed the EPO as we once knew it, emitting lots of worthless patents in haste like Robert Mugabe printing lots of worthless banknotes…”Extensive surveillance (Control Risks) and militarised forces including unnecessary bodyguards that cost a fortune are among other ‘luxuries’ of Battistelli, even if some of these defy European laws. Then there are the massive contracts without tenders (even tens of millions of Euros for each contract), the terrible IT spendings that make it into a black hole, and other budgetary issues that we have covered here over the years.

Suffice to say, those who will pay the price are past and present (and maybe future) employees; none of that stuff, as listed above, is free/gratis after all. Battistelli runs the EPO like Bush ran the US (into debt, into totally avoidable war, and into the ground on grounds of credibility). Here is a comment that showed up today, claiming (with evidence) that “the EPO shows an operating loss (of EUR 145 million), largely due to an increase of over EUR 260 million in “Employee benefit expenses”.” Here is the full comment:

What do you mean by a surplus? I am no accountant, but it appears to me that the latest financial statement (for 2015) produced by the EPO shows an operating loss (of EUR 145 million), largely due to an increase of over EUR 260 million in “Employee benefit expenses”.

http://documents.epo.org/projects/babylon/eponet.nsf/0/6C4CC693A4FAA752C1257FE2004A2CE8/$File/financial_statements_2015_en.pdf

I know that the figures presented need to be taken with a pinch of salt, especially due to the lack of oversight in the preparation of the figures. However, even the “sanitised” figures show what appears to be a huge hole in the pension fund. That is, there are liabilities of EUR15,828 million relating to “defined benefits”, which completely dwarfs the EPO’s current equity of less than EUR8,000 million. It also dwarfs the current assets of the pension, which were reported as just under EUR6,600 million.

I would be keen to know what “Remeasurement defined benefit obligations” means, though. This is because the EPO appears to have found over EUR4,750 million down the back of the sofa in 2015 thanks to that little accounting trick.

This does raise an interesting question, though. Has BB been brought in to deal with the black hole in the pension fund? Can the major effects of his policies be understood as being aimed at maximising current operating profit and minimising pension liability? If so, it would appear that EPOnia is a microcosm of society at large, with current workers (and users of the system) effectively paying the price for the over-generous benefits awarded to the generation that preceded them.

A lot of these expenses are associated with early departures — something which, as we pointed out yesterday, happened a lot in the past two years because of Battistelli and his ‘reforms’.

Benoît Battistelli will surely be remembered as one who crashed the EPO as we once knew it, emitting lots of worthless patents in haste like Robert Mugabe printing lots of worthless banknotes (“231 million percent peak hyperinflation in 2008,” according to Wikipedia). █

Publicado en America, Europe, Finance, Patents at 7:51 pm por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“En orden de ayudaa a proteger acountabilidad el Banco Mundial GAP monitorea las actividades prestamistas y prácticas corporativas del Banco al proveer refugio y protección a personas se denuncien malas prácticas dentro del Banco. El Banco al igual que otras instituciones internacionales goza de inmunidad de las leyes nacionales mientras persigue su objetivo de desarollo substancial en países medianos y pobres. El Banco como resultado no puede ser enjuiciado por sus empleados y si es sujeto a retalaciónes después de denunciar corrupción un soplón queda sin protección fundamental. Acountabilidad en el Banco requiere libertad de expresión de sus empleados, sin miedo a represalias. Sin efectiva protección para aquellos que denuncian corrupción los fondos pueden ser divergidos y los objetivos del Banco ignorados.”

Banco Mundial. Fuente/GAP. El Banco Mundial es famoso (or notorio) por muchos déstapes.

Sumario: Una mirada al marco de la revisión externa de las investigaciones en la Oficina Europea de Patentes, donde las investigaciones son un innuendo para atacar al síndicato y la eliminación de puntos de vista diferentes

La EPO continúa mostrando un perfil de militarización (vean algunos reciéntes ejemplos), incluso cuando el Jurado y el Consejo solicitan amistad y reconciliacion. Otro punto de vista digno de notar es que unos pocos en la gerencia de Battistelli (si alguno) son actuálmente científicos.

¿Es esta una oficina de patentes (científica) o simplemente una brigada de multinacionales con antecedentes en financias¿ ¿Es acerca de imposición y dominación o verdadero liderazgo que acompañe a los interéses de los ciudadanos y sus empleados?

“La revisora externa de las Investigaciones de la EPO es Olivia Graham,” nos dijo alguién. “¿Dónde/Cuándo ha sido ella una investigadora?

“Es digno de notar que Sebastian Bauer de la Unidad Investigativa fue “Oficial de Etica” para el Banco Mundial en Washington.”Olivia Graham se llama a sí misma (tengan cuidado, las URL de LinkedIn pueden exponer la identidad de uno a la persona mientras esté conectado) “Consejero de Ética en el Fondo Monetario Internacional, en Washington” y dice haber pasado 8 años de su vida con los Militares de los US, luego el Banco Mundial, UN, el Fondo Internacional Para Desarrollo Agrícol (IFAD), y finalmente el IMF.

Es digno de notar que Sebastian Bauer de la Unidad Investigativa fue “Oficial de Etica” para el Banco Mundial en Washington. Si sólo ética fuese el objetivo… la conección con el IMF (si existe alguna) con la EPO o Pinocho Battistelli ess Christine Lagarde [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

La UPC no debería caernos como un shock total, parece como si gente en posiciones de poder en la EPO y alrededor de ella están más interesados en intereses corporativos que en ciencia y ellos están dispuestos a usar la fuerza para detener aquellos que se crucen en el camino o cortesmente cuestionen su agenda. █

Summary: A look at the background of the external reviewer of investigations at the European Patent Office, where investigations are often a byword for union-busting actions and elimination of dissenting views

THE EPO continues to show a pattern of militarisation (see some recent examples), even when the Board and the Council ask for amicability and reconciliation. Another noteworthy point is that few in Battistelli’s management (if any) are actually scientists.

Is this a patent office (scientific) or just a brigade of multinationals with background in finance? Is it about imposition and domination or true leadership that accompanies staff interests and citizens’ interests?

“The external reviewer of EPO Investigation is Olivia Graham,” told us someone. “Where/when has she been Investigator?”

“It is worth noting that Sebastian Bauer from the Investigative Unit was “Ethics Officer” for the World Bank in Washington.”Olivia Graham calls herself (be careful, LinkedIn URLs can expose one’s identity to the person while logged in) “Ethics Advisor at International Monetary Fund, Washington” and claims to have spent 8 years in the US Military, then the World Bank, UN, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and finally IMF.

It is worth noting that Sebastian Bauer from the Investigative Unit was “Ethics Officer” for the World Bank in Washington. If only ethics were the goal… the IMF connection (if any exists) to the EPO or Battistelli is Christine Lagarde [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

The UPC shouldn’t come as a total shock; it seems like people in positions of power at the EPO and around it are more interested in corporate interests than in science and they are willing to use force to stop those who stand in their way or politely question their agenda. █

–Will Rogers

Summary: Microsoft’s long history of tax evasion is finally taking some toll as the US tax authority, the IRS, is going after Microsoft and unravels its international network (or syndicate) of tax avoidance

WE find it amazing (not just interesting) to see a branch of the US government, the IRS, going after ‘big fish’ (for a change). These bodies or branches of government are usually corrupted enough to overlook abuses of powerful entities that are closely connected to the government and thus pose a threat to the career of anyone ‘daring’ to expose and litigate. Remember what happened to the judge who threatened to split Microsoft?

“Remember what happened to the judge who threatened to split Microsoft?”Microsoft is not an ordinary company. Remember that Microsoft actually threatened the IRS [1, 2] for merely ‘daring’ to look into (and potentially expose) organised tax evasion by these arrogant thugs at Microsoft. Microsoft’s avoidance of taxes is a long-explored subject at Techrights, so we are delighted to see the IRS finally tackling the issue. It’s well overdue and belated (by several decades). Never forget that Microsoft literally threatened the IRS for merely doing its job, which was to expose tax evasion. The poor little IRS thought it was big enough to take on Microsoft (like DOJ taking on Wall Street), whereupon Microsoft bullied it with deterrence lawsuits. Interestingly enough, please note that the same legal firm which lobbies alongside Microsoft on the patent front is the same one threatening to sue me over EPO coverage. The EPO started sending threatening legal letters only after (and only regarding) EPO abuses implicating Microsoft. How will Microsoft respond to the IRS other than threaten the IRS with lawsuits?

“Microsoft’s avoidance of taxes is a long-explored subject at Techrights, so we are delighted to see the IRS finally tackling the issue.”Matt Day’s detailed article about it (in the Seattle Times) says: “Court documents in a case between Microsoft and the IRS provide a detailed look at how the company, like other multinational corporations, has created a complex structure that allows it to minimize its tax bill.”

It is worth noting that the Seattle Times was paid by Bill Gates and it showed, so this article may be ‘risky’ for their financial lifeline. We have already shown how sites which receive Bill Gates’ money shortly thereafter remove criticism of Microsoft (even retrospectively!).

There’s a spurious part about “other multinational corporations”. Saying that a lot of other companies (not under IRS probe) evade tax is a Microsoft-serving evasion tactic. Microsoft is, in our experience, more criminal and corrupt than counterparts. We have provided ample evidence of this over the years.

“Remember when a whistleblower exposed Microsoft corruption (financial fraud to be precise) and Microsoft paid him $4 million to shut up and then scuttled the investigation with the SEC?”What the IRS says about Microsoft isn’t a shocking revelation but perhaps the first time (in recent history) that those in positions of (relatively) high power are “brave” enough to say the truth. Remember when a whistleblower exposed Microsoft corruption (financial fraud to be precise) and Microsoft paid him $4 million to shut up and then scuttled the investigation with the SEC? That was back in the late 90s. Microsoft’s financial situation isn’t what it seems and the company does not operate like it publicly claims. Microsoft has been mostly a piggy-bank for Bill Gates, who himself does not pay tax. Bill Gates is avoiding billions in taxes by pretending he runs a charity. Mark Zuckerberg is to latest to imitate this nasty PR ploy and Microsoft was perhaps one of the earliest software giants (if not the pioneer) when it comes to massive-scale tax evasion. Many software companies just thought, “hey, we can do this too.”

“From 2001 to 2006,” Day explains, “Microsoft completed a series of intracompany deals that, in exchange for upfront payments, shifted the rights to software code and other assets developed largely in the U.S., to subsidiaries in Bermuda, Ireland, Singapore and Puerto Rico.

“When Bill Gates bribes large newspapers they just tend to focus on tax avoidance by companies other than Microsoft.”“Those deals reduced Microsoft’s cumulative tax bill in future years by tens of billions of dollars, according to court documents and an analysis of the company’s filings.”

Read it again: “tens of billions of dollars” (and the IRS usually just cracks down on businesses over a few thousands of dollars).

Singapore, as it turns out, continues to enrich itself (by “itself” we mean few corrupt politicians and businessmen) by facilitating such tax evasion, much like Switzerland (Singapore seems to have become the Zurich of Asia, and that’s not meant to be a compliment).

Day has posted some short summaries of his article in Twitter, noting that “on taxes, Microsoft behaves like much of the rest of big Corporate America: they’ve tried to limit the cash they send to governments.”

“Why did it take two decades for the IRS to do something about it?”No, as explained above, Microsoft is quite unique. When Bill Gates bribes large newspapers they just tend to focus on tax avoidance by companies other than Microsoft. We have given examples of this, e.g. The Guardian.

Day says that “Microsoft spent 20 years building a network of subsidiaries that, among other things, avoided a lot of taxes.”

Why did it take two decades for the IRS to do something about it? Could it be Microsoft’s influence in the US government? If it wasn’t a government-embedded company like Microsoft, one would call it organised crime and it would be front page news (many tens of billions of dollars in tax evasion).

“If it wasn’t a government-embedded company like Microsoft, one would call it organised crime and it would be front page news (many tens of billions of dollars in tax evasion).”Day says that “Microsoft officially sells most products from Ireland, Puerto Rico or Singapore. In the U.S., most sales start in Nevada (few biz taxes).”

Yes, and guess who’s facilitating this. It is well documented, as some people have shown for many years, that Microsoft put former executives as moles inside the local government, perhaps in order to facilitate tax-related crime and send everything from Washington to Reno. We named the people involved about half a decade ago. Where was the IRS all this time? It couldn’t defend itself by saying that it hadn’t noticed. People from inside Microsoft complained about this.

Day says: “Each of Microsoft’s global hubs is designed to place some profit in Bermuda, the island tax haven. It’s unclear how much.”

“We named the people involved about half a decade ago.”Well, it’s time to investigate. This is a big case implicating “big” people and involving a lot of money. Don’t expect any arrests though. Rich people rarely go to prison.

Day adds: “That structure, created ~2001-2006, saved Microsoft tens of billions of dollars in taxes. Likely 100s of mill saved in Washington state.”

According to a campaigner from Microsoft — one who left Microsoft and then became a vocal critic of Microsoft’s tax evasion (he even created a whole Web site about it) — we’re talking about well over a billion, not “100s of mill”, ‘saved’ (means evaded) in Washington state. Half a decade ago it was estimated at well over a billion, so maybe it’s already $2 billion.

“It’s a massive international racket and we hope that the IRS will get to the bottom of it rather than spend a lot of time going after “easy” cases and crushing relatively poor people.”As we have said here before, based on over a decade of research, Microsoft is not an ordinary company. It’s more like a clique of power-hungry people. Microsoft continues to conveniently masquerade as “software company” when in reality it has patent trolls (satellites) bullying practicing firms and funneling untold amounts of money to offshore divisions and subsidiaries such as “licensing” (e.g. Android licensing). It’s a massive international racket and we hope that the IRS will get to the bottom of it rather than spend a lot of time going after “easy” cases and crushing relatively poor people.

Apple, to its ‘credit’ [pun intended], seems to have learned Microsoft’s dirty tricks and a new article from the financial press suggests that Apple too is in trouble over taxes, at least in Europe. Well, are governments around the world strong enough to tackle the Big Evaders? As in Big Business? Whose side are they on? Let’s see if we have a real functioning democracy.

The financial crisis of 2008 showed whose side governments tend to be on when they not only failed to arrest a lot of (likely) guilty bankers but actually took taxpayers’ money and gave it out to these bankers as a “bailout” gift. █

Summary: Benoît Battistelli’s connections to rich and powerful people in France (and also internationally) are explored, with the aim of explaining the EPO’s current sordid state of affairs, which sometimes seems uninterruptible, no matter the severity of EPO abuses and respected courts’ rulings on them

Several days ago we dropped some hints about this new long series about the EPO's current President. He is connected not just to Christine Lagarde but to a wide array of people whose power is beyond doubt and by far exceeds Lagarde’s. A year ago, on December 12^th (2014) to be precise, we mentioned Battistelli’s roots at École nationale d’administration, which was created in 1945 by Charles de Gaulle and boasts a lot of powerful people. François Hollande, Emmanuel Macron, Jacques Chirac and many others are among the better known alumni.

“Our story begins with Battistelli and Lagarde.”In order to understand the EPO‘s ability to get away with almost every conceivable abuse (quite the sloeber as Belgian TV put this) it is imperative that we speak about who it is really serving and who it is run by.

Earlier this month we started to research the sloeber’s background — that’s Battistelli by the way — and investigated various allegations, asking numerous sources around the world in order to verify and ensure nothing leaves leeway for the EPO to threaten me again. We now feel ready and comfortable enough to publicly comment on this sloeber’s past.

In order to add some context to this series, we shall begin with Battistelli’s recent past in INPI, before the suspicious diaspora from INPI to the EPO.

Our story begins with Battistelli and Lagarde. The link between Lagarde and Battistelli is relatively easy to explain. Lagarde was the Minister of Economic Affairs, Finance and Employment from 2007 to 2011 serving in the government of the Prime Minister Francois Fillon. The French National Intellectual Property Office (INPI) came under her ministerial remit so she would have been Battistelli’s political “boss” in his then role of Director-General of the INPI.

“Some background information about Lagarde may be needed for the uninitiated.”Lagarde supported Battistelli’s candidacy as EPO President and issued a congratulatory press release following his election in 2010. See “Christine LAGARDE se réjouit de l’élection de Benoît BATTISTELLI à la présidence de l’Office européen des brevets”.

Some background information about Lagarde may be needed for the uninitiated. Lagarde was appointed as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the 5^th of July, 2011. Previously she had been Minister of Economic Affairs, Finance and Employment serving in the government of the Prime Minister Francois Fillon from 2007 to 2011. Before pursuing a career in French politics she had worked for about 25 years in the United States for the international law firm Baker & McKenzie (from 1981 to 2005).

French critics of Lagarde considered her to be a promoter of US and multinational corporate interests in France and Europe rather than a defender of French or European interests. See for example the following article (in French) which was published on Réseau Voltaire in 2005. It says: “En supposant que Christine Lagarde ait abandonné ses fonctions précédentes sans l’intention d’y retourner, on pourrait admettre qu’elle ne se place pas dans un conflit d’intérêts. Cependant, au vu des positions politiques défendues par les groupes de travail qu’elle a présidé, on ne peut que constater qu’elle est en totale opposition avec la position française défendue par Dominique de Villepin à l’ONU.”

“French critics of Lagarde considered her to be a promoter of US and multinational corporate interests in France and Europe rather than a defender of French or European interests.”Well, here is a link to an English version of the “Voltaire Network” article from 2005 about Lagarde. In English it says: “Only supposing that Christine Lagarde abandoned her former duties and that she has no intentions of going back to them, would it be possible to admit that we are not witnessing a case of conflict of interests. However, when the political positions defended by the groups she presided over are analyzed, it is impossible to ignore that they are completely against the French position defended by Dominique de Villepin before the United Nations.”

There is a lot more in that article.

Lagarde appears to have been a regular attendee of the annual Bilderberg Conference from about 2009 onwards when she attended as a member of the French government. More recently she has attended in her capacity as Managing Director of the IMF [1, 2].

In part two we will proceed to speaking more about Lagarde and the current EPO President. It may well go back to INPI. Anyone who can provide additional input as this series proceeds, please come forth… █

Summary: A decade after Free/libre Open Source software (FLOSS) surpassed its proprietary counterparts on technical terms/merit it is facing an increasing number of patent challenges, as well as disruptive takeover attempts

TECHRIGHTS was born out of the need to tackle Microsoft’s patent war on GNU/Linux. Back in 2006 Microsoft saw innovations such as Compiz whilst it had a lousy operating system called Vista (which even Microsoft executives were internally ranting about). It knew it was only a matter of time until Windows loses dominance outside the server room. Fast forward to 2016 and Android is expected to have nearly 90% of the market. Windows is in a state of disarray and Microsoft now tries to force people to use it, even if they don’t pay for it and don’t want it at all.

“Microsoft promotes lawyers to high management and tries to make patent extortion its new cash cow.”Microsoft tried to evolve, but it was all in vain. Remember the Microsoft Stores? Remember Surface (both the old and the new)? Microsoft is losing a lot of money in the hardware business (faulty by design [1]) and the online business (promises are being broken now in an effort to raise money [2]). Microsoft is now borrowing money — a lot of money in fact — to pay debts [3], confirming what we knew all along about Microsoft’s real financial situation.

As a result of Microsoft’s panic (losing billions of dollars) the company launched patent assaults on various companies (OEMs) that distribute Linux/Android. Microsoft promotes lawyers to high management and tries to make patent extortion its new cash cow. It is also disrupting Android from the inside, in an effort to better control it. Last month we wrote about Xamarin‘s (Microsoft proxy) takeover of RoboVM [1, 2, 3, 4] (still a subject of critical debate). Paul Krill wrote that “Hammond sees the bigger issue as Xamarin’s acquisition of RoboVM and its desire to support RoboVM iOS apps in the Apple App Store, which has taken a dim view of GPL licenses to date.”

Apple — like Microsoft — is also attacking Android backers like Samsung, using software patents that are inherently incompatible with the GPL. Apple is still bickering over patents in an effort to derail the dominant Linux-based platform, Android, according to this new report.

We expect the last remaining barrier for the triumph of Free software everywhere to be patents, and especially software patents. We are changing our site’s focus accordingly. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Microsoft’s Surface Book laptop is almost impossible to repair

   IFIXIT HAS taken Microsoft’s first laptop apart and found that it’s probably not a good idea to try to fix it yourself.

   Microsoft’s latest device went on sale last week in the US and has yet to see a UK release, but the people at iFixit have cracked it open and explained exactly what’s going on inside. And it’s not good.

2. Microsoft is breaking its cloud-first promise

   There’s already a backlash against Microsoft’s surprise announcement, and it’s not a good look for the company given its impressive focus on mobile and the cloud. Microsoft is fighting a war against Amazon, Google, Salesforce, and many others for the business side of the cloud, but its consumer efforts are starting to look a lot more like Apple’s iCloud offering. Apple offers the bare minimum of free storage and entices consumers to pay more for iCloud by making its apps and operating system make the most of the cloud. Microsoft is now bullying OneDrive users into paying for the free storage it is now taking away.

3. Enslaving M$

   It’s kind of embarassing to have to borrow money to pay debts… but that’s what M$ continues to do. It has $100 billion in liquid assets but it can’t repatriate them to USA without forking out a ton of money to Uncle Sam for taxes, so it borrows money at this end to pay for what it does day to day. The problem is chickens come home to roost. When the day inevitably comes that the world sees M$ has no clothes and that M$ is not the one true source of IT, the gravy train ends but the debts will have to be paid. At the last 10-Q quarterly report, M$ reported $36billion in short+long term debt. Now about half it’s liquid assets will be needed just to repay that debt.

Summary: Analysis of Microsoft’s abysmal state and what it has been trying to do as a result of its inability to compete fairly with Free (as in freedom) software such as GNU/Linux, Android, Java, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL etc.

TECHRIGHTS has been a critic of Microsoft for a very long time; never before have we seen Microsoft in such poor form. The attempts to derail GNU/Linux and Free/Open Source software from the inside are part of a fight for the company’s very survival. Its cash cows are losing their luster and the only way to keep their momentum/inertia is to force companies to bundle them; Microsoft now does this forcing (or blackmail) using software patents (Samsung, Kyocera, ASUS and Dell are the main examples of this strategy, so far).

Microsoft’s history of cooking the books and avoiding taxes has led to the perception that Microsoft is very rich, but after the losses announced in the last quarter (in the billions of dollars) comes another poor quarter and the signs are on the wall. As Robert Pogson put it:

The monopoly is not dead yet, unfortunately, but it is on its death-bed.

Parts of the monopoly are already dead and formats lock-in too is being loosened, in spite of Microsoft’s OOXML crimes. Several countries recognised what Microsoft had done and moved to ODF, sometimes to Free/libre software as well. See last week’s example from the British government.

“Parts of the monopoly are already dead and formats lock-in too is being loosened, in spite of Microsoft’s OOXML crimes.”Microsoft cannot sell hardware (potentially a profitable business) and finds ‘creative’ accounting tricks to hide it [1]. This huge failure, which has become a massive embarrassment for the abusive monopolist, shows no signs of reversal because products keep dying and are not at all recognised by the public [2,3]. Putting speech recognition, which does not even work properly [4,5], on devices such as phones won’t work, primarily because Microsoft has no presence in mobile and not even in cars, despite tall ambitions [6] (where poor speech recognition can result in fatalities).

With internal cultural problems and costs associated with litigation (e.g. sexism lawsuits [7]) Microsoft falls back on an evil business model similar to that of Facebook (as Vista 10 serves to show), namely turning users into “products”, then selling their private data to many companies or malicious entities such as GCHQ, NSA etc. Microsoft continues to be a leading proponent of the NSA while working for the military and war complex [8] (they call it “information-sharing partnership”, but what it means is mass surveillance plus data-passing). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Windows, Surface and phones post revenue declines as Microsoft’s MPC segment falls 17%

   The inclusion of the typically very profitable Windows in the MPC division offsets and hides the profitability, or lack thereof, of Microsoft’s hardware endeavors, Dawson added.

2. NFL Fumbles Microsoft’s $400 Million Surface Ad Deal (Again), Still Gets Called An iPad

   In one of the most highly anticipated games of the season, quarterback Tom Brady and the New England Patriots defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers last Thursday to kick off the National Football League (NFL) season. The first game of the season is always popular, though this particular match-up drew interest from fans wondering how Brady would fare after being dogged in the media for the past seven months over something known as Deflategate. With all that attention, Microsoft can’t be pleased that on-air commentators are still referring to its sponsored Surface tablet as an iPad.

3. Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) To Shut Down Zune Services In November

   Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has possibly the most outstanding reputation for its products and services. The company is synonymous with quality, and it is hard to think about the technology sector without Microsoft. However, Zune is another story altogether. The music service, which was started to counter the growing popularity of online music streaming services, has always played second fiddle to the more established players in the market.

4. Watch: Cortana embarrasses Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during keynote address

   Satya Nadella was delivering a keynote address at Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce conference. The Microsoft CEO was in the midst of demoing some productivity tools and also also occasionally showing off Windows 10 capabilities when he attempted to showcase Microsoft virtual assistant Cortana’s ability to understand voice commands and to deliver relevant results.

5. Satya Nadella endures a classic Microsoft demo fail moment

   Nadella could immediately see that Cortana was not getting it. “Come on,” he implored, the annoyance showing in his voice.

   Finally he gave up and said, “No, this is not going to work.”

6. Microsoft Cortana may be headed to your car

   A Microsoft-connected car, reportedly in trial mode, would let you issue commands using the Cortana voice assistant.

7. Microsoft Corporation Faces Gender Discrimination Lawsuit

   Microsoft has been hit by a gender discrimination lawsuit by one of its ex-technician

8. Microsoft renews information-sharing partnership with NATO

   Microsoft and NATO have agreed to renew a longstanding partnership that will see the tech giant provide the intergovernmental treaty group’s Communications and Information Agency with details of Microsoft products and services, as well as new information about cybersecurity threats.

AT the end of last year we wrote about the IRS setting its sight on Microsoft, in spite of Microsoft’s influence in the United States government. Microsoft then attacked the IRS using its lawyers, for merely investigating Microsoft (i.e. doing its job), thus wasting taxpayers money in the courts. Can anyone not see the sheer arrogance of Microsoft? Having already been caught engaging in serious financial fraud (reported to the authorities by an insider) and despite being notorious for taxation/tax violations, Microsoft thinks it has moral ground and believes it can sue the IRS for merely investigating a criminal. Criminal companies with the “God complex” apparently believe that they don’t need to pay tax (because they are very politically-connected) and if you say that they do, they threaten you and bully you. It’s a form of SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation). Microsoft already loses billions of dollars and it sued the IRS for alleging that Microsoft owes billions of dollars to US citizens (easily provable).

This new article from The Register, based on legal documents, reveals the latest in this saga:

The ongoing squabble between Microsoft and the US Internal Revenue Service is heading to court, beginning with a hearing to take place in a Seattle federal court on Tuesday.

The case is gearing up to become one of the largest-ever legal battles between tax authorities and a US corporation over the practice of shifting assets to overseas subsidiaries as a way of avoiding US tax.

The IRS has alleged that deals Microsoft struck with subsidiaries in Bermuda and Puerto Rico between the years of 2004 and 2009 have potentially cost the US Treasury billions in tax revenue. But Redmond thinks the top tax agency’s snooping has gone on long enough and it should either produce a hard figure or drop the whole matter.

Microsoft also claims the IRS acted improperly when it hired two outside law firms to help it in its investigation, which the software giant describes as improperly delegating a government function to a private firm.

Microsoft has filed two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to see documents exchanged between the IRS and the law firms it contracted, including Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Boies Schiller & Flexner. The IRS has provided some such documents but Microsoft thinks it should be compelled to produce more.

Even if Microsoft goes bankrupt (it suffers losses already), people like Bill Gates, who became rich owing to the company’s criminal activities, should be able to (if not forced to) pay what was looted from the public. More of the corporate media should have the courage to cover the above news, but seeing how Microsoft uses SLAPP against the messengers, maybe the media chooses to stay silence and let only official documents (buried behind paywalls) speak. █

“We’ve got to put a lot of money into changing behavior.”

–Bill Gates

Summary: Few remarks on Microsoft’s latest admission that it is losing a lot of money

The latest Microsoft layoffs, which are misleadingly being framed by the corporate media as a “Nokia” thing [1, 2, 3], have financial impact as well. Microsoft has just publicly admitted that it is losing billions of dollars.

“Recall how Microsoft bribed its own staff (a whistleblower) after getting caught in financial fraud…”British media claims this to be “biggest loss in [Microsoft] history”, but the biggest losses are perhaps in the past, as there’s fraud that is many years old. We have written a lot about Microsoft’s financial misconduct for many years. It is not speculative. Recall how Microsoft bribed its own staff (a whistleblower) after getting caught in financial fraud [1, 2] — an often-overlooked issue these days (Microsoft is claimed to have lost $18,000,000,000 in 1998). This may seem like very old news, but it is definitely relevant to today’s massive Microsoft losses. Microsoft has paid millions of dollars to gag several CFOs since then. They must keep up the dodgy accounting.

Nokia is destroyed because of Microsoft, but Microsoft’s losses aren’t to be blamed on Nokia. What kind of a Nokia “CEO” is being appointed with the formalised promise of a $20 million bonus to sell the company? Only Microsoft’s Elop, probably the world’s most famous mole, managed to do this together with Ballmer. Microsoft now pays the price for misguided entryism that has achieved nothing but destruction of Nokia’s Linux efforts. █

Microsoft is not a US company but a globalist company when it comes to taxes. It just doesn’t want to pay taxes and this new article calls out Microsoft for hiding money in offshore account so as to avoid tax. The headline names Microsoft although Microsoft is no longer unique in the area of technology. It’s just the worst. To quote the opening part: “So it is with companies that keep massive stockpiles of cash in foreign countries in order to avoid paying US corporate tax rates. In fact, the only thing that prevents this issue from being relentlessly bleak is the absurdity of what some of these companies get away with. For example,according to the advocacy and lobbying group Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), American corporations claim to have earned so much profit selling goods in tax-free zones like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda that the figure amounts to 16 times these countries’ total GDPs — which defies reality.”

Microsoft basically evades not only US tax. It evades tax everywhere. It’s globalism; it’s the plutocrats’ sovereignty (broderless and above international regulations).

Apple and Microsoft, as the article above goes to show, have more offshore cash and pay lower foreign tax rates than most any other Fortune 500 companies. Microsoft and taxes are two words that only go hand in hand when it pertains to taxation of users of Windows, Office, etc.

Considering how Microsoft helps the US government (among other governments) spy on US citizens, one cannot consider it a US company. It helps espionage against US citizens, which is inherently against US law. This is done not just because Microsoft loves and embraces surveillance but because it wants lucrative government contracts all around the world and it is willing to betray users of its software for these contracts, even in Russia, as we showed half a decade ago. Microsoft even works for Putin when it suits its agenda, helping to imprison Russian dissents by framing (through surveillance) and misuse of law enforcement privileges, however unjustified. Microsoft is loyal to nobody except Microsoft and lobbying operations such as the Gates Foundation, which helps Bill Gates evade tax and rapidly increase his personal wealth.

Microsoft has just dumped ‘Do Not Track’, showing that Microsoft has perhaps grown tired of pretending to care about privacy. Only a fool would ever choose a ‘cloud’ for government, especially a proprietary software ‘cloud’ from a foreign company that engages in espionage activities or at least facilitates them. Using a Web browser from Microsoft is worse than reckless.

Microsoft likes to pretend to be a national company in every nation by creating subsidiaries like “Microsoft UK”, but it’s a lie and a sham. There is an ODF debate in the UK at the moment. Microsoft pretends to be an ODF company and a British company after attacking it through British proxies (like partners), though we’ll soon see how that worked out. Microsoft once tried to frame ODF as anti-American, as if Microsoft itself was pro-American (it’s pro-whoever-pays-Microsoft). As Glyn Moody pointed out the other day, the latest moves seem to make it likely that Microsoft will get altogether dropped, at least Microsoft Office. “Back in July last year,” says Moody’s article, “I wrote about an incredible opportunity for the open source world. After years of disappointments, and despite the usual lobbying/threats by a certain large US software company [Microsoft] against the move, the Cabinet Office announced that it was officially adopting the Open Document Format (ODF) for sharing or collaborating on government documents. At the time I exhorted everyone involved to do their utmost to make this work, since it was the biggest chance to show that open standards and open source were not just viable as a government solution, but actually better than the alternatives.”

Moody just calls or alludes to Microsoft as “a certain large US software company”, but not naming it is playing into Microsoft’s hands and Microsoft should not really be described as a US company, it’s just a pariah that views itself — much like Gates himself — as Napoleonic and thus above every international law.

As Moody put it at the very end, “there’s no timetable for this development, which means it might be a while before we can actually use this software. Still, it’s further testimony to the fact that the ODF ecosystem is one of the most exciting places in free software at the moment. Much of that can be attributed to the boost given by the UK government’s high-profile decision to adopt the format last year, for which it deserves recognition and our thanks.”

The sooner the world recognises how Microsoft views the world, the more swiftly it will unburden itself from abuse, including systemic looting (tax evasion, taxes on citizens), extortion (e.g. with patents), and bribery. █

AS OUR longtime readers may know, Microsoft’s financial fraud is a good example of how certain companies with strong government connections essentially exist above the law. According to this new SEC correspondence (regarding filings), Microsoft tricks — same ones as those we have covered here for years — upset the regulators. Robert Pogson has already written about it and it comes at a time when Microsoft is under investigation by the IRS too. “I’ve been reporting that for years now and the SEC is concerned that investors may not be getting the full story because of the layout and detail of Microsoft’s filings,” he wrote.

Microsoft got caught by the SEC even in the 1990s, whereupon it bribed the whistleblower to escape true accountability. It’s a “too big to jail” scenario. Microsoft’s financial practices have historically reaffirmed its status as a criminal, corrupt entity. Perhaps we are going to see more of that in months or years to come. Perhaps not, assuming Microsoft can pull some strings inside the government (with moles or nepotism, like those who help the Microsoft dodge tax). █

Summary: The nerve of Microsoft wasting taxpayers’ money in addition to evading tax, costing many billions of dollars to the US economy and countless billions outside the US while bullying regulators who dare to investigate the matter

ONE of Microsoft‘s very many abuses is avoidance of tax, not only in the US but also in Europe, Asia, and so on. The company hardly has a track record of obeying the law, so why make an exception when it comes to taxes?

“Microsoft continues to thrive in and promote lawlessness.”Microsoft really showed how arrogant it is when it attacked the IRS for merely investigating Microsoft (i.e. doing its job). It’s unprecedented bullying that one can expect from no company other than Microsoft because Microsoft has a past of criminal tax violations. It bribed people to make the charges go away and eventually settled with the investigators. Even Microsoft whistleblowers get bribed by Microsoft. Rich companies can get away with just about everything, provided they have government connections and enough money to bribe with.

Based on this new report, Microsoft is already abusing the IRS to the point where the IRS needs to spend millions of dollars on lawyers:

The software behemoth is battling the agency over whether it pushed profits offshore to skirt taxes. It’s the latest case to test IRS firepower in cracking down on similar tax maneuvers by other technology companies, which can save hundreds of millions using the tactics.

Both are playing hardball: The IRS, which is spending $2 million on outside legal guns to fight the case, also issued a summons to compel former CEO Steve Ballmer to testify, while Microsoft shot back with legal demands of its own, accusing the agency of hitting it with a “fusillade.”

The legal fees paid by the IRS are basically derived from tax budget. The bills are passed to the very same taxpayers which Microsoft deprived; so by attacking the enforcer over tax violations (over its own crimes) Microsoft basically wasted yet more tax money. How insidious is that? In Spain, a banker sued the judge who punished him for his crimes. This is even worse because the public pays the legal bills. Microsoft continues to thrive in and promote lawlessness. █

Summary: Piketty is approached by Bill Gates, who bemoans the idea that the plutocrats too should pay tax like the rest of us

BEST-SELLING author Piketty reveals some interesting details about the mindset of Bill Gates, the man who created — using criminal activity — software monopolies and is now preoccupied with monopolies in education (public sector), a GMO monopoly, etc.

“This relates to the whole “job creator” myth — a myth more harmful that that of the “free market”.”As mentioned the other day, Gates is increasing his personal wealth very quickly. He is not giving away or back, except in the form of media distortion and spin (he bribes a lot of publications and channels for this distortion and spin). The money he acquires is not earned through hard work; some of it is essentially stolen from taxpayers (through bamboozled politicians), taken by force from poor and exploited people, and on top of this Gates evades tax using the Gates Foundation.

A reader sent us this article about two of the most famous people for supposed ‘charity’ (actually investing tax-free in large corporations that exceptionally harm society and the planet). The article says that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett became $21.1 billion richer in just one year (last year). To quote: “The fact that wealth begets more wealth was illustrated once again last year by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, currently the two richest people on Earth. According to Bloomberg, the pair finished 2014 a combined $21.1 billion richer than when the year began. (Gates’ fortune rose $8.1 billion to a total of $86.6 billion. Buffett’s rose $13 billion; he’s now worth $73.8 billion.)”

A lot of gullible people think that Gates is feeding the world with wealth rather than hoarding at the world’s expense (this money comes or is generated by other people’s labour), so to them the idea of Gates dodging tax may seem appealing. This relates to the whole “job creator” myth — a myth more harmful that that of the “free market”. Gates and Buffett happily let their bribed papers tell us they are “givers” and the Wall Street press (Bloomberg), owned itself by a plutocratic billionaire, reveals what Gates thinks about paying tax:

“I had this discussion with Bill Gates a couple of weeks ago,” Piketty, the author of “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” said today at an economics conference in Boston. “He told me, ‘I love everything that’s in your book, but I don’t want to pay more tax.” A tax on wealth is one of Piketty’s key recommendations for addressing inequality.

The famous thief Bill Gates literally tells Piketty: “I don’t want to pay more tax”. what a ‘generous’ guy, eh?

“Minor Gates apology going on there,” wrote to us a reader, “and emphasized in articles based on the Bloomberg post.”

Never expect balanced coverage of Gates from Wall Street papers that are themselves owned by famous billionaires. This includes the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. These newspapers exist to serve power and depreciate privileges of all except the super-rich. █

Summary: China is reportedly taking action against Microsoft’s notorious habit of tax evasion and fining the company well over $100 million

NOW THAT Microsoft has been found to be evading tax (a crime, but not one that executives of large corporations often go to jail for) and fined for it in a nation as large as China (just like in India half a decade ago, as well as in other places) is the US going to follow suit? Last week we showed that the IRS was on this case, so Microsoft began bullying the IRS (the vanity of corporations that control their government).

“”Remember when Microsoft China offices were raided (just earlier this year on numerous occasions and its patent extortion plot was targeted by the Chinese authorities? Well, it sure seems like China enforcing the law against massive criminals like Microsoft, setting a good precedent that US and Europe should follow. To quote the new report: “Microsoft has reportedly been issued with a charge for £87 million in back-taxes following an investigation into alleged tax evasion by the Chinese authorities.”

For those who still associate Microsoft with something other than crime and corruption, the news report above can serve as a valuable wake-up call. █

Summary: Having put a universal tax on many things (not just computers) and evaded tax using the classic ‘charity’ trick, Gates is now buying the media, the schools, politicians etc. and earns as much as 10 billion dollars per year while the public is taught that Gates is a giver, not a hoarder of the worst kind

Bill Gates is following the trajectory of that infamous Rockefeller empire. He has systematically bribed the press at the cost of about a million dollars per day (on average) to tell us he gives away his money. Some people view him as a giver because of this paid-for propaganda, but he is actually getting $10bn (or ~7-8%) richer in just one year, based on last year which is not much different from previous years. This money comes from somewhere, or at the very least it represents the passage of power and wealth (possession).

According to this new article, “Bill Gates is the richest person in America with a fortune of $81.5 billion, up from $70.8 billion last year, according to Wealth-X.”

When will the media abandon this bogus narrative that Gates ‘gives back’ his wealth? He sure gives a small portion of it to the media in order for this media to fool the public. The corporate media is applauding him for getting richer as though that’s some kind of an achievement while actually characterising him as a giver, not a hoarder (which is by definition what happens when his wealth expands like this). It is just another Rockefeller-type PR plot. It is mostly working.

Gates not only uses the media to fool the public. He also uses schools and it indoctrinates pupils. As this new article puts it: “Gates has personally invested $10 million in the Big History Project, which has spread to about 1,200 schools since it launched in 2011.”

That is just a small fraction (a thousandth) of what he earned in one single year and millions of young people are now mentally controlled by a plutocrat and those who financially depend on him.

Billionaires rewriting history is a classic problem as those who can rewrite history can dominate the future. Watch how some vicious people are now celebrated in schools as heroes. This other new article refers to it as the “Gates Foundation’s reckless experimentation” with the school (indoctrination) system in the US and it is far from the only such article. Many teachers are fed up and pissed off by this. There are public protests which only Gates-sponsored media seems inherently resistant to coverage of (unless it’s for demonising the protesters). A publication may develop a sort of sixth sense, knowing that criticising or upsetting Gates would discourage money awards from him or almost certainly stop any further awards from him. It’s a form of systemic bribes, like those which corporations give to politicians.

The propaganda machine continues to be effective, however, as many newspapers are still bribed by Gates and they routinely show the impact of these financial strings. The Guardian , for example, is a good example of Gates bribing the press in the UK (he even bribes the biggest players such as the BBC, repeatedly even).

Having bribed The Guardian (whereupon it stopped criticising him and his horrible impact through industrial partners like Monsanto) this college dropout, Bill Gates, is now treated by The Guardian as an Ebola ‘expert’ (see puff piece without any disclosure).

Other publications he bribes treat him like an economist, but some show that he does not grasp economics and he has the nerve to blame others for not paying tax (or encouraging further taxation on those whom he is taxing) while he uses his fake ‘charity’ to avoid paying tax. Yes, he points his fingers at poor people or middle-class people when he himself evades tax using a classic trick. He still works on privatising land1, 2]. That’s when when one seeks to profit from what’s public, having reached or exceeded the limit of one’s greed. █