That's not how an economy works (Score 1)

Let's be clear; the market for equity capital in polluting, evil, nasty industries is a large one, and the Gates foundation is just a drop in the bucket. Therefore, from the perspective of companies like Eni, it makes no difference whatsoever whether the Gates foundation owns a chunk of stock or someone else does. However, if the Gates foundation owns that chunk of stock, the dividends and capital gains from Eni's profits will ultimately go to the causes that the Gates foundation supports. If YOU owned that chunk of stock, the dividends and capital gains would go to purchase that 100" plasma TV, which feeds that evil multinational corporation that makes it and pollutes a river in China somewhere. Remember, money is just circling around in the economy: profits made by companies go back to their shareholders, who use it to purchase goods, which makes profits for other companies. What the Gates foundation, etc., are taking money out of the cycle when they get their dividends. It doesn't make it any more "evil" for them to take the profits of a company like Eni, as opposed to directly taking the profits of Microsoft. It's just a question of when the money gets spent. You COULD argue that the Gates foundation should be spending it's money FASTER, that argument is orthogonal to the question of WHERE it's investing the money hasn't spent yet.