Showing posts with label Bill Gates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill Gates. Show all posts

Sunday, February 28, 2021

America in Conflict

 


Starting a series of random posts illustrating the struggle the United States is going through today, emphasizing the moral drought of our political system.

A president impeached twice with absolutely no remorse for what he did to the United States during four catastrophic years in the White House. Read more...

As one columnist put it, "The United States is visibly in an early stage of disintegration," like Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," only the giant insect is the country we live in.

Evangelicals courted Donald Trump throughout his four years in office despite his despicable behavior, particularly his abuse of women. Read more...



Republican lawmakers proposing laws to prevent liberals from voting, targeting blacks and Hispanics. Read more...

And this is one of those 'can you really believe this?' pieces. The Washington Times suggests replacing Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski with Sarah Palin. Read more...

Here's a whopper, "Conspiracy nuts think Bill Gates helped Biden generate 'synthetic snow' to make Texas look bad." Don't know for sure but do believe we can assume this group supports Donald Trump.


With 390 million guns on U.S. streets in a country of 329 million people, one would expect gun violence. And we got it with a 50% increase in mass shootings in 2020, plus in the first seven weeks of 2021, there have been 63 mass shootings. Read more... 

President Biden appointed more Postal Service Board members, but nothing is done about the arrogant and incompetent Postmaster Louis DeJoy. Why is Biden dragging his feet on this? Read more...

Stephen Miller is the sneaky behind the scenes Donald Trump work master for white supremacy in what the Washington Post's Greg Sargent calls a "shadow war" against Joe Biden. This administration shouldn't let Miller out of its sights. 
Read more... 


SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas, obviously an ardent Donald Trump follower, seems to be overstepping his bounds by becoming a supporter of the "fixed 2020 election," movement. Read more...

Joe Biden mirrors Donald Trump if he lets Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman get away with the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. We keep warning China's Xi Jinping about human rights in his country. But, then, he doesn't have any oil. Read more...

As you may know the CPAC convention got under way last Thursday, and one of its speakers, Ted Cruz, mocked the wearing of masks when the COVID-19 pandemic has now claimed 524,480 deaths. Maybe he should just go back to Cancun and stay. Read more...


Speaking of CPAC, have you heard of the life size gold metal statue of Donald Trump served up to the emperor during the convention? By the way, it was made in Mexico, probably by the kind of people he described as drug dealers, criminals, rapists. Read more...

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the U.S. Representative who was stripped of all of her key House posts due to radical views, is attending CPSC with the rest of the Republican lowlife to praise the recently dethroned dictator. Not sure if she brought her baseless QAnon conspiracy theories with her. Read more...

You can thank Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) for being one of the first-rate idiots in the attempt to overturn Joe Biden's win in the 2020 election. He the epitome of untruth with his ongoing claims of rampant voter fraud rampant voter fraud with absolutely no evidence. Read more...





Matt Gaetz, the moron congressman from Florida, pushes Donald Trump for 2024, by comparing Trump's book, "The Art of the Deal," with Gaetz's new version, 'The Art of the Comeback.' Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said it best, "That guy [Gaetz] is
not an adult". Read more...



Monday, October 7, 2019

Mark Zuckerberg says billionaires don't deserve to have that much money


MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2019 NEWS BYTES

Mark Zuckerberg wants to give up his billionaire status...  

Mark Zuckerberg video on no one deserves this much money...

  
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, is a billionaire with a net worth of almost $70 billion in 2019. On the other hand, he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, "have promised to give away 99 percent of their Facebook shares to help charity via their philanthropic organization, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative." I emphasized the "promised," because I have never trusted this guy since his blatant arrogance of doing what he damn well pleased with your personal information on Facebook. I give him nothing he can sell. Just recently,,,
"Facebook must pay a record-breaking $5 billion fine as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, by far the largest penalty ever imposed on a company for violating consumers' privacy rights," according to USA Today.
Facebook $5 billion fine...



There's more...
Zuckerberg has appeared in congressional hearings after the Cambridge Analytica scandal surfaced. Facebook suspended the data analysis and political consulting firm in March 2018 for improper access to user data. That move came after The New York Times and U.K.'s The Observer said Cambridge Analytica had access to 50 million profiles and used them to target ads during the 2016 presidential election campaign.
And Facebook is accused of not warning its users of the fact that they were at risk for a data breach, "which left around 29 million user accounts open to hackers," reports techradar. Hackers were stealing FB "access tokens," a problem known for years by the social media giant, but failed to fix it, despite knowing. Which prompted more blatant arrogance from Facebook...
“Even more egregiously, Facebook took steps to protect its own employees from the security risk, but not the vast majority of its users.”
Mark Zuckerberg and his wife donated $100 million to Newark public schools, also to disease issues, and then $1.2 billion by the two to their Chan Zuckerberg Foundation for education, housing, science and improving the criminal justice system. But Warren Buffett is the most charitable billionaire, followed by Bill Gates. Here's the WB/BG giving pledge explained by Vox...
"In 2010, the two of them launched a campaign that they hoped would change philanthropy: the Giving Pledge. The idea was to persuade their fellow billionaires to pledge at least 50 percent of their wealth to charity. It was greeted with enthusiasm.
That claim seems to have been borne out — as far as it goes. Ten years later, we are in a position to evaluate some of the effects of the Giving Pledge. Hundreds of billionaires have signed on, with Bloomberg and other big names like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Mackenzie Bezos among them. More than $500 billion have been pledged, and money is already being donated to a range of causes."
Melinda Gates on Warren Buffett/Giving Pledge...


But on the downside of the wealthy as of 2018, according to Poverty USA:

  • 16.2% of children live in poverty
  • 9.7% of seniors live in poverty
  • 25.4% of Native Americans live in poverty
  • 20.8% of Blacks live in poverty
  • 10.1% of Whites live in poverty
  • 10.1% of Asians live in poverty

 $19,985 is considered the poverty level for a family of 3, but what is worse, 5.3% of the population—or 17.3 million people—live in deep poverty, with incomes below 50% of their poverty thresholds. And 29.9% of the population—or 93.6 million—live close to poverty, with incomes less than two times that of their poverty thresholds. Even more serious, a total of 552,830 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2018. This number represents 17 out of every 10,000 people in the United States. There is no justification I know of for this statistic in America.

I am sure all of the above group agree fully with the Facebook CEO's words. But, is there a way to end poverty?...
Jeffrey Sachs, as one of the world's leading experts on economic development and the fight against poverty, stated that the cost to end poverty is $175 billion per year for 20 years.
So why don't we line up Warren Buffett's group of Giving Pledge billionaires to each contribute the $1.75 billion needed each year and by 2013, at least homelessness will be solved to the best of our ability. That is the most critical of the two, and then turn the attention to helping those at the poverty level. It sounds like a plan to me, and I would hope the Giving Pledge group would also. And by the way, Mark Zuckerber's billionaire status is not completely his fault; he is just the messenger. The fault is you, readers giving up all your personal data that Facebook sells for billions. Think about it.


Sunday, April 16, 2017

Wealth without charity is obscene


While the United States holds the most private wealth in the world, over $60 trillion, it still has the widest inequity gap of 55 countries that were studied. That is because those with the money have no charity. Okay, maybe they give here and there to organizations like United Way, The Salvation Army, YMCA, St Jude Hospital, Goodwill Industries, among a few, plus their favorite animal shelter or rescue. But I am talking about real charity, sharing of the wealth. Sound Socialistic? Well it is, I am talking about Democratic Socialism of the Berne Sanders kind.

2015 was America's most generous year of giving ever, with donations from America’s individuals, estates, foundations and corporations reaching an estimated $373.25 billion. But here's the shocker. Individuals gave over 14 times as much as corporations did. And from my experience in junk mail fund raising, the single giver is often those who can only afford small amounts. All fingers point to a corporate world where CEOs are pushed for maximum profits and paid generously to get the job done. In many cases a lot of these reach the obscene level of common sense.

Corporate participation is one of the kinds of charities I am talking about and with profits over $6. One such individual is Warren Buffett, the head of Berkshire Hathaway and a legendary investor, who in 2013 complained that he was paying a lower rate of tax than his secretary. But this is offset by the fact that he gave $2.86 billion to charities in 2016. He had given $2.84 billion in 2014.
Bill, Melinda Gates in Africa
trillion annually, you'd think they might have a couple of bucks to spare. The other is wealthy individuals, that 1% that Bernie Sanders talks about.

Bill Gates of Microsoft is another billionaire who is a giver, especially with his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It occurred to Gates in 1997, that rather than making sure the world had computers, make sure the world is healthy enough to use them first; that's when he saw the impoverished living conditions of Africa. Back in 2013, Gates said, "I have no use for money. This is God’s work." He was referring to his intentions to eradicate polio. At the time he had already given away $28 billion to charity, and this would continue through the foundation in years to come.

There are others you can see here. But as long as there are 564,708 homeless on the streets of the United States, and over 43 million people are living in poverty, we're doing a lousy job. It seems to me that the corporations of this country should concentrate on these two issues as a goal to bring the U.S. to where it should be. New York and Los Angeles rank in the top five of homelessness worldwide. And the U.S. poverty rate is the highest in the developed world. C'mon America, we can do better than that, and it all starts with wealthy Americans and rich U.S. corporations.

We need more "healthy" wealthy people like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

Monday, June 15, 2015

Bernie Sanders Talks Obscene Wealth


In Iowa on Saturday Bernie Sanders talked about the obscene wealth in America. He was referring to billionaires like the KOCH Bros. that just keep taking but never really giving in return. Yes, I know about the KOCH family foundations but what they offer there is far smaller than what they suck out of this nation. And part of their philanthropy is no doubt to benefit their many conservative causes which lobby against issues like universal health care and climate change. KOCH industries is the top water polluter in the U.S. with three lobbying organizations that have a key influence on U.S. public policy, which accounts for a bought and paid for Republican Congress and some Democrats.

Here are the wealthiest in the U.S., but with distinct differences in character. There is Bill Gates, #1 at $79.4 billion followed by Warren Buffett #2 at $68.9 billion, then Oracle founder and former CEO, Larry Ellison, $54.5 billion. These three are followed by the dregs of billionaires, Charles and David Koch worth $41.6 billion each. And then comes the difference. Don't know much about Ellison but do know that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have both pledged half of their fortunes to charity. And they have done it without attempting to take over the political reins of the United States and run it as a part of KOCH Industries. And that is what Bernie Sanders was talking about to large crowds this last Saturday in Iowa.

Donald Trump Says He Will Be Indicted On Tuesday

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