Gates Foundation Revokes Pledge to Review Portfolio 236
NewsCloud writes "After the LA Times reported that the Gates Foundation often invests in companies hurting the very communities Bill and Melinda want to help, the Seattle Times reported the foundation planned 'a systematic review of its investments to determine whether it should pull its money out of companies that are doing harm to society'. Shortly after that interview, the Gates Foundation took down their public statement on this and replaced it with a significantly altered version which seems to say that investing responsibly would just be too complex for them and that they need to focus on their core mission: 'There are dozens of factors that could be considered, almost all of which are outside the foundation's areas of expertise. The issues involved are quite complex...Which social and political issues should be on the list? ... Many of the companies mentioned in the Los Angeles Times articles, such as Ford, Kraft, Fannie Mae, Nestle, and General Electric, do a lot of work that some people like, as well as work that some people do not like. Some activities might even be viewed positively by some people and negatively by others.'"
SRI (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:SRI (Score:5, Funny)
Well, most of happens to that coyote is his own damn fault.
Chris Mattern
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It would be a different story if the foundation was using their money as investment capital to evil startup companies or backing radical governments. But they aren't.
Re:SRI (Score:5, Insightful)
People trying to do good things can make money too, why not invest in them? It will end up helping them out, just a little, and you won't profit from destruction. I am amused by the idea that big companies are just too stupid to see everything they are doing, but it's partially an incentives thing - if you are going to lose a huge investor and the stock takes a 5 point hit because some nimwit dumped oil in a pond, you're more likely to fire him and prosecute to make an example.
Re:SRI (Score:4, Insightful)
While that's true, it's also about as absurdly far as you can reduce the equation. People might be willing to buy the stock of a company because it's profitable, not caring why it's profitable. Maybe because even though that company is doing eveil things, people still want their products. Investment decisions are a lot colder and calculating in the real world.
That has always been the belief -- "if I invest in a responsible company, this will increase the demand for products from responsible companies, and I'll make money". While I applaud it as a noble sentiment (and one I generally try to endorse), it might be a bit naive to think that most people are motivated by ethical corporate behaviour.
People might not just be passively/blindly investing in such companies. They may be doing it because of solid financials -- Acme Cocaine has had 25% revenue growth for each of the last 20 years, they have no liabilities, and huge cash reserves. Sometimes, it's a savvy investor who is deciding to buy such things.
As I pointed out elsewhere in this thread, there are classes of investments called "Sin Funds" -- you pick companies which make money off people's vices, and make more in the long run than ethical funds have achieved yet. A lot of people are perfectly willing to say "damn the misanthropy, give me some cash!!", so they couldn't care less about the fallout of it.
Cheers
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Re:SRI (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you kidding me!?!?! That's almost a *textbook* example of why what the Gates Foundation is doing wrong. It's investing without any moral grounds. The Gates Foundation is *supposed* to be a philanthropic (definition: seeking to promote the welfare of others, esp. by donating money to good causes; generous and benevolent) organization addressing the ills of modern society. Their investment strategy and attitude behind it is COMPLETELY counter to the very mission of philanthropy! At best what they are doing is creating/perpetuating one evil while back handedly curing another. It's not only socially irresponsible it's completely egregious behavior. What their investment manager is saying is that it's ok to kill everyone on the planet by investing in environmentally and socially irresponsible companies as long as we shore up the population with bare minimum human needs, i.e., housing, clean water, medicine, etc. through transparent attempts to make themselves look good.
We're not talking about an individual with $100,000 investing for his retirement here. You are trying to poke holes in an argument with the wrong frame of reference. We're talking about an investment house (Gates Foundation) with BILLIONS of dollars at its finger tips to invest. When you throw that kind of money around you damn well better believe it will shift the market away from socially, environmentally, and morally deficient public corporations. This isn't some day trader with a credit card. This is a seriously large investment powerhouse with supposed good intentions programs to fund with its ROI that is essentially doing absolutely nothing good. Why? Because the money they are giving to these unethical and irresponsible corporations is a lot bigger than the piddly returns (at best 30% annually) they are using to fund the good things the foundation is supposed to be doing. WAKE UP!
Cheers?!?! Choke on it! You have voiced a platform of blind greed and I hope that you and your progeny suffer for it because I'm sure the rest of the world will if people keep thinking the way you have described. Thank goodness there are real people actually trying to do good in this world. I don't believe for a second that the Gates Foundation is at all sincere about doing any real good. They seem to be perpetuating everything that's absolutely wrong not only with the way people invest, but how they view the world.
BTW, I don't give a flying flip if you mod this down. This guy I replied to is not the least bit insightful. He's about as myopic and self centered as they come...wait, topped maybe by the Gates Foundation. FUCK them too!Why not? (Score:2)
Because it's vanishingly difficult, and Gates basically says it's a fool's errand, to figure out who the "good" companies are. Announcing that you have Gates' money and are looking for "good" companies is a sure way to get scammed. All kinds of "good" companies will pop up with a business plan who will end global hunger and bring peace to Africa through new, safe technology. Then, after they get the money, they mysteriously disapp
Re:SRI (Score:5, Insightful)
And note that "evil", as defined in the original article, includes such things as providing high-paying jobs that allow workers to patronize prostitutes, and thereby contributing to teenage pregnancy.
There's arguably a sane point to be made there, but the article takes it to a ludicrous extreme.
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Mr. Trump may be building for the rich, but he's keeping thousands of contractors busy for many years. In the suburbs of NYC his investments have drastically improved the local economy and raised the values of lower income housing. And that's before he's even built anything.
I don't like Donald Trump, but just as with some of the companies the Gates foundation invests in, there are positives.
Libertarian squared? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just seems like that invisible hand keeps getting more and more invisible..
Speaking of Malaria... (Score:2)
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I agree mostly, but when one can clearly define a boundary, such as apartheid, or ties to a ruthless regime, it can be a tool, if people 'gang up' on this boundary. However that is rarely the case, you might have noticed that people rarely agree in such great numbers.
Personally I'm an 'armchair environmentalist' but I believe that we/they need better laws to regulate pollution, so that all companies operate from a similar waste management cost structure and that responsible companies don't suffer a compet
Re:SRI (Score:5, Informative)
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Not only that, a lot of people have started investing in blocks of things which relate to people's vices, because over time, those make a lot more money.
Sadly, if you invest your money in alcohol, tobacco, fast food, and someone who makes fertilizer out of 3rd world babies, you will probbaly make more money than someone who invests in e
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because over time, those make a lot more money,
Well, no, in general, socially responsible mutual funds have returns that are very similar to the returns of index funds. Actually you only have to own a surprisingly small number of stocks before your stock portfolio basically starts to follow the market indices very closely. That's one of the reasons that actively managed, diversified mutual funds are a total scam; in general, the only way you can do significantly better or worse than the market indices is
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I didn't say that nobody invests in them or that they are not evil, I simply stated that I am amazed that it happens. In a country in which 90% of the people believe in god and over 70% profess to be xtians no less.
"Doing good, or doing good for yourself have frequently been viewed as opposing goals. They don't need to be, they're just perceived as such."
By the
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Socially responsible investing is essentially impossible. Public companies are almost always too large and complex to boil down into a single binary good/evil decision matrix, and if one could, if investing in the evil company (for little direct benefit to the company by the way) you could do 25% more really good things (say 25% fewer malria cases or more clean drinking water in Africa, the moral calculus becomes quite complicated.
No, turns out that isn't it at all. Really it was because when they started out reviewing corporate activities, they started out by reading the corporate mission statements and the only one that even bothered saying they wouldn't be doing any evil was Google Inc... so by their new policy the Gates' foundation would have had to invest solely in Google and that was just going to look bad for everyone. That and the board of directors heard some grumbling about "...that Damn Google..." coming from Bill's of
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Not impossible, just difficult, and isn't the whole point of the Gates Foundation to place money selectively in order to "reduce inequity and improve lives"? Now they're saying that putting money in the right place is a problem too hard to work out.
You're right, but the decision they've made here is much less complex than that. Nobody can objectively weigh up which is worse, BAT or BAe, but anyone can say "I'm not going to put my assets at the disposal of tobacco and arms companies". When someone like the Gates Foundation says that the pension funds and investment banks who channel all this money will take notice and offer an alternative. Instead, rather than thinking through the problem of how to do the greatest good with a huge pile of money, the Foundation has decided to seek the greatest possible return, regardless of the consequences, and do good later.
Next thing you know, people will be using torture to fight for freedom. Oh, wait.
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Socially responsible investing is essentially impossible.
Wow. What a great way to boil a vastly complicated subject down to a smug sound-bite. Are you going to deny the existence of socially responsible mutual funds, or are you going to claim that they're just run by people who aren't smart enough to share your opinion of their futility?
Public companies are almost always too large and complex to boil down into a single binary good/evil decision matrix,
Well, no. That's another absurd oversimplificati
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I should have qualified the first statement with when you have $70 billion dollars to invest, the universe of public companies available to you are all exeedingly complex and almost all of them have something that offends a portion of people out there. They can't
The Broken Window analogy (Score:2)
You buy a machine to manufacture widgets and as a by-product, it flings heavy iron balls of scrap out. Now it costs money to fix it so the iron balls just don't fling around and smash windows. But if the owner of the machine merely uses some of his profits to replace the broken windows of his neighbors, then that's good then, right?
That was the point of the LA times article: if those companies were NOT behaving like that, the foundation wouldn't
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What is the benefit to the poor? It is relief from the symptoms of poverty. At what cost? At the cost of promoting business interests. Is this a bad thing? It i
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whackos and spending (Score:2)
I doubt very much that it's the whackos' demands that get the results. What gets results is that the advertisers see that the "whackos" will no longer "see fit" to spend their money that way. The fact that the whackos band together and pool their spending is what's effective.
I hope I
Not surprising at all (Score:5, Insightful)
Yawn.
Ethical revision (Score:4, Insightful)
One might say that they have enough money to do both. To invest in all causes and cancel out the 'bad' by fueling all of the good and bad together.
What level of abstraction is a foundation obligated to operate at? The Higher Goal, the Micromanaged Goal, or some blend in-between?
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You're a jackass. Your uber geeky dweeb glasses that paint anything MS as negative are making you behave ridiculously. The most logical assumption is they made a quick release with full intention of doing it (they're a charity, what possible motive can you provide for them wanting to do "evil"). Then they realized they couldn't, after more investigat
Re:Ethical revision (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets say the GF is investing in a toxic spewing power plant in a 3rd world country. People could cry foul and demand that GF pull out their money. But if GF pulled their money out of that power plant, the medical center they invested in just 2 miles down the road wouldn't have stable electricity. With out medical care, the quality of life remains abysmal. Also with out the stable electricity that plant produces, local businesses would suffer and close. Unemployement would rise, and the local social situation would deteriorate even more. Many people would cry for a new clean burning power plant. But it could take a decade to get such a plant designed, cleared by the government, built and operational.
And the PR would be impossible to manage. If you claim to be investing responsibly, and someone wants to take a shot at you, they can say "look at these liars, they claim innocence, yet spew toxic waste from their power plants." It makes a great sound bit, and can be easily spread and widely believed (People will believe anything if they either want it to be true, or fear it to be true). Spreading the truth of the situation would require your audience to take time to rationally think about the situation in a more broad scope. That is something that the 2000 and 2004 US elections have shown us to be a highly unlikely event.
-Rick
Which issues!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Which social and political issues should be on the list?
Perhaps the issues your foundation is ostensibly targeting? There might be some in-house expertise on those problems.
Damn good point. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's probably best that the foundation just lets its capital ride wherever the market takes it w
Re:Damn good point. (Score:4, Interesting)
While the money it is giving to good causes may sound great, it is nothing compared to the possible impact of running a strictly "responsible investment" policy with a money chest of their size (Most of BG money and most of the wizard of Omaha money nowdays).
This will turn the stockmarket bottom up, upside down and leave it on its head for a very long time. Money this size will cause a large number of companies to accept responsible corporate polices in order to be eligible for investment. You cannot just ignore it or turn its back on it. This in turn will force move of other investment and so on and so on.
I can bet that the perspective of this happening has scared all those pyramid jugglers with "quantitative models" shitless. I can bet that the real reason for BGF to abandon the policy 2 days after stating it is that Gates personal phone (the one not published in the phonebook) did not stop ringing during that period.
So this most likely is an order from above and it sucks. A money chest this size which is bound by "responsible investment" covenant may have forced many companies to assume more responsible polices and ultimately changed the world to the better much more than the money GF gives away to good causes. Everything else aside, its effect would have been much more long term.
How about just making a statement? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is precisely the reason why it would be important that they made a clear statement on which activities they see as positive / negative.
How to really make a difference. Money Talks (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Start moving cash to companies that provide audits of their social actions.
Once the money moves you can bet companies are going to start acting.
As long as we say "it is not possible" and do not try it remains not done.
But the only barrier is a lack of will power to commit.
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Some are complex some not so complex (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Some are complex some not so complex (Score:5, Insightful)
This view is, like anyones, based on your views and experience. (Mind you, I don't necessarily disagree, I'm just going to point out another viewpoint).
The GW groups would probably consider BP pure evil as they pump and sell oil, regardless of anything else they do. Sony BMG, on the other hand, doesn't have any direct say in it so they wouldn't consider them evil.
On the other hand, most of us on
Taking a Nuclear Power Plant can also be good or evil depending on your view. Energy free of CO2 emmissions or a Chernobyl waiting to happen.
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The money amounts are fairly modest, BP is still drilling for more oil, and they seem to spend an inordinate amount of resources trumpeting themselves.
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Anyway, from the point of view of how many people benefit vs. how many suffer, and to what degree, I d
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Christ, you've been on Slashdot too long. As much as Sony fucks over their customers, they're not the ones employing guerrillas in Colombia, etc.
We've got corporations that, for example, turn a blind eye to child labor (Nike), unfree labor (Coca-Cola), or mass homicide by industrial accidents (Union Carbide). DRM and DMCA lawsuits really just don't belong on the same scale.
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All of the above companies are rank amateurs at murder and human misery compared to the kinds of people the "social justice now!" types like to have pictured on their t-shirts. Companies trying to make money can do harm, certainly, but the harm they do is nothing compared to the harm that gets done when the people who want to "help people" are
responsibility (Score:3, Funny)
With great power comes great responsibility (Score:3, Insightful)
It is quite possible that the Gates Foundation, by being a completely passive investor with so much clout, will do more damage than good. Enough passive investment leads to completely profit-driven organizations, which tend towards running amok all over the people they get involved with.
I now consider this a foundation built upon unstable, rotten ground.
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Forest, meet trees (Score:2)
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Family. Religion. Friendship.
These are the three demons you must slay, if you wish to succeed in business."
I'd have to side with Gates on this .... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Just to be clear -- we're talking about a foundation here, not one guy named Bill Gates. The Gates Foundation hires people to manage every other aspect of its day to day operations. Why is hiring people to mana
Misses the bigger picture (Score:2)
The idea isn't to micromanage the investments, or even to "make everyone happy". The idea is to help many people on this planet live better and more productive lives. The problem is that the many of the companies
I'm confused (Score:3, Insightful)
The Gates foundation keeps many millions of dollars invested in public companies. But rather than riding the blue chips they could invest that money in local bonds or small companies that indirectly assist their goals.
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well... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, you could say Gates is a perfect example that our mutated form of capitalism can indeed work. The man basically started from scratch. Whether he stole ideas or not is irrelevant: the point is, he didn't do a single thing that no one else couldn't have done themselves.
The difference is, he actually did it.
Put aside your personal opinion of Microsoft for the moment, and look at what this man has accomplished. Starting from basically nothing, he has built a multi-billion dollar buisness which is used by roughly 90% of the computing world. I don't care how he got there, I don't care if someoen likes him or doesn't like him, I don't care what toes he stepped on to get there; there are a couple FACTS that you cannot deny regardless of your opinion:
FACT: WE THE CONSUMERS created this monopoly. No one but the general consumers made this company a massive force in the computing world. They didn't magically pull money out of their ass; WE THE CONSUMERS gave it to them.
FACT: There is NOTHING that Bill Gates has done that someone else couldn't do; he just did it first and best. Regardless of how he got to where he was, you cannot deny the fact that in terms of adoption rate, income, and market penetration, NOBODY is ahead of Microsoft right now. NOBODY.
FACT: There is nothing stopping someone else from toppling Microsoft; Linux and Apple could do it...although I think Apple is in a better position to do so than Linux. Linux being open source actually kind of hurts Linux in this regard only because it makes it harder to get a definate measure of "success"; if I develop my own distro of Linux, it's not the same as your distro and thus is not the same operating system. But that's an entirely different conversation.)
Whatever your opinion is of Microsoft and Bill Gates, you cannot deny that the man has accomplished something no one else has.
Don't like it? Prove him to be horrible and change the opinion of hundreds of millions of people that use his product.
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You could have just said that, because that sums up your entire post. You see only the some facts that you like and ignore the rest. I see you're new here, and you're trying to troll, but really... pull your head out of your ass.
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However, that doesn't mean that I cannot acknowledge that his company is SUCCESFULL.
I despise the iPod. I despise Apple. But I will NEVER EVER say that they havn't done s
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Objection! He had rich parents. Quite rich, actually. That's not 'starting from basically nothing.' Dave Thomas [wikipedia.org] started from basically nothing. But not Bill Gates.
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Very well.
I think measuring something like if he has done more harm than good with his investments is something that would be very difficult to do, and the answer would change depending on who you asked.
On the one hand, it seems a lot of the charity that Gates gives (which measures in the millions, if not nearly a billion, if I'm not mistaken) is done in an attempt to improve his image. Beyond that, the
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Name the evil things he's done, specifically. I'm sure these evil things involve outright theft, physical assault, and fraud - so please provide a laundry list of these nefarious dealings.
I'm being facetious. I know, of course, he's done no such thing and you're going to trot out a list of business dealings between consenting adults. It amuses me that you SlashDot geeky dweebs are by and large Libertarian leaning, but not when
Everything in life can be compared to the Simpsons (Score:2)
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Holy cow! (Score:4, Funny)
Even more complex (Score:3, Insightful)
News Flash (Score:2, Interesting)
The New Robin Hood (Score:2)
Thats basically what it is (assuming those companies are really bad)
Bad Corp make money by making Worker miserable.
Then Gates Foundation get a bit of this money (investement returns)
Then they give that money to the miserable Worker.
The question is how much money did stay in the Rich guys hand ?
They changed their policy statement! Surprise! (Score:2)
Obviously somebody at the Foundation decided to say they would change their policy to make the Foundation look better.
Then Bill (or his father) stepped in.
So much for that.
Big surprise...
I keep telling you - the Foundation is a SCAM - nothing more.
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That's a joke, right?
Re:Shock, Amazement (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember a small story in the Bible that goes something like this:
Jesus (pronounced HAY-ZEUS and means son of Zeus) was lounging around gathering contributions one day. There was a large crowd watching him. Some were donating money. Most were asking each other how a Hebrew could have such pale skin when the only people with pale skin in that region of the world were Romans and Greeks, and Jesus was neither. The long hair on his head was the cause of much speculation as well since, in that time and place, men wore their hair cut short. It was decided that the best way to find an explanation for these things was to ask Michelangelo and Pope Julius II della Rovere.
Right about the time everyone realized Michelangelo and Pope Julius II della Rovere would not be born for another 1500 years, a loud, proud, rich man pushed through the crowd and stepped up to Jesus. With a large grin beaming across his face the man reached into the pockets of his leather Jordache(TM) jeans and pulled out a thick wad of greenbacks. From this he peeled off ten Benjamins and spread them on the table before Jesus. Jesus accepted the money and said a simple, "Thank you". This startled the man. With a look of surprise on his face he stepped back a bit and watched for a while. It was clear to the crowd that he had expected more.
Within a few minutes some old, musty smelling broad came through the crowd. She quietly shuffled up to Jesus and gave him a single penny. Jesus smiled at the old woman, blessed her, and wished her well.
Now the rich bastard that donated the Benjamins became angry...irate...pissed-off you might say. He stormed up to Jesus and got LOUD in Jesus' face. "I gave you a thousand dollars, muthafucka'! How come you blessed that bitch for her penny and didn't say shit to me?"
The crowd drew back and sang a collective "Oooooh!" in fear of impending violence. A couple of instigators in the crowd shouted out things like, "You gonna' take that?", and "slap that hippy".
Jesus was quick to his feet.
He pimp-slapped the punk to the ground, put a foot on his neck and calmly explained to the fool, "You gave me a small portion of your wealth that you will not miss. That kind, gentle woman gave me everything she had in the world."
I wonder why I think about that story everytime someone talks about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Re:Shock, Amazement (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, you're an asshole because your point is meaningless. It implies the idea that charitable donations or good deeds have to be compared. The simple fact is that the Gates foundation does more good on this world than most any other organization. It sure as hell does more good than the nutbag religious o
Re:Shock, Amazement (Score:5, Insightful)
The rich man was chastised for giving "only a small amount" because he expected to blessed for his show of philantropy. Hw wasn't showing good will, he was attempting to surreptiously purchase grace.
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Me, I don't care - it's what you do, not why you do it.
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Yes, I am very suspicious of their motives.
By the way, whether you prefer Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, or "the Prophet Harry" you still believe in something that you can't touch and I don't q
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I don't know, but it's best not to judge others. Regardless, I don't think the moral of the story was to not give at all if you weren't going to give enough.
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Give as much or as little as you want. Don't expect your $1000 (which you casually throw from a $50,000 wad in your pocket) to be received with effusiveness and then become indignant when a beggar hands over their only quarter and is highly praised.
This applies to all charity, not just religious-based.
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But in reality 98% of the $50,000.00 went to her friend's catering companies, security companies, and florists. They end up rais
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His point, as many would point out here, is that it is very difficult for an investor to invest only in companies to do no evil.
Many of the evils, say pollution etc, might be offset by the same company by providing jobs/shelter for many of the localities and much more importantly, transference of knowledge to the poor.
If the same company decides to avoid doing evil and go completely green, then
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What's HE going to do with billions of dollars?
And my point, as a rational person who has not been brainwashed and who understands english and demands a lack of hypocrisy would comprehend, is that if your stated goal is to improve the quality of life for people the
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Most people try to keep it for their future generations.
I agree to your point. But, only to a degree. What he might be thinking might be very different from what we think.
There has been a lot of philanthropic organizations over the years, and very few made any
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Oh, so that makes it okay? As long as someone else would have done it, you can consider your hands to be clean?
The message I'm getting from you (and those who moderated me as a troll, when I clearly believe what I am saying) is that morality is a useless concept. I don't feel that it is. I feel that some things are just wrong and that lying is one of them, and investing in companies that knowingly and avoidably harm people is another. Yeah
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My point is not that morality is a bad thing. After reading about Mahatma Gandhi, I cannot even come close to saying that.
What I was just suggesting was that some of these countries are under extreme economic pressure. I am a person who considers that
the amount of good you do matters more than the intent of yours. Again, I am not saying that intent is overrated. Just that at many
a time, what matters is the am
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I guess you haven't been to 3rd/4th world countries till now. I have been, it does (at least in my eyes) make it Ok. See, if that company doesn't pollute, some other company will.
I see your point, that's why I'm going to grab a couple of guns, head over to your house, pistol whip you senseless, tie you up, cut your eyelids off, rape your mom and girlfriend while you watch and then kill them both by jamming the guns up their cunts and pulling the triggers and then kill you by ramming a gun up your ass and
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Yeah, and stealing from the poor and middle class (via Microsoft) is a great way to get that money in the first place.
It also ignores the fact that he's wastes more resources on frivolous personal expenses than most people will ever see in a lifetime.
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"Aren't you being a little too harsh on a person who spent more than 1/3rd of his life's savings in philanthropy
Yeah, and stealing from the poor and middle class (via Microsoft) is a great way to get that money in the first place.
It also ignores the fact that he's wastes more resources on frivolous personal expenses than most people will ever see in a lifetime.
Holy shit on a stick man, get off your soapbox! First off, there was no "stealing", people willingly gave their money for a product. Secondly, if anything, years of super-lax anti-pirating measures made MS give more to the poor than it ever got. I can't think of many homeless people waiting outside in the line so they could be the first to buy Windows 98 First Edition. And thirdly, if you make the money, you're allowed to spend the money! I've "wasted more on frivolous personal expenses" than most 3rd worl
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If he was a true philanthropist and really altruistic, then it wouldn't be called the *Gates* Foundation. Charity is a private thing, not done for bragging points or tax avoidance.
I see from moderation that you don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me revisit the linked article again. Let's look at this paragraph:
Now let's look at this statement carefully because it very well may be the most important statement in the entire thing: it contains an admission that shareholder activism can influence corporate behavior but they want to be a "passive investor" (meaning you don't stan
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Yes, that's true! So when Gates throws money at the problem, and doesn't inspect where the money is going, that is only a partial solution. That in itself would not be proof of his lack of altruism - the fact that they are not going to revise their practices constitutes that proof. They're whining about how doing the right thing is hard, but the whole point of a philanthrop
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