If you look here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/

Bill Gates is only the 5th richest.

…but the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has an endowment total of $75.2 billion.

So, his wealth ($149 billion) + foundation ($75 billion) = $224 billion.

So, my question is…can he spend that foundation money any way he wants instead of spending his personal money? If he wants a jet can he just use the foundation money? If so, then he is still the richest person in the world even though he does not get labeled as such in the news anymore.

  • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
    101·
    8 months ago

    Philanthropy rhetoric is used to justify the existence of billionaires.

    What a silly thing to say.

    No one is saying “oh yes well we need billionaires because they donate all their money to worthy causes”.

    Billionaires shouldn’t exist, but if we’re getting out the guillotine I don’t really understand why Gates should be first in line.

    • whoreticulture@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      32·
      8 months ago

      People absolutely say that, “philanthrocapitalism” is a nerdy word for it it, but that basic argument comes up in a lot of contexts … pay attention.

        • whoreticulture@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          2·
          8 months ago

          🤷🏻‍♂️ Pay attention, look for it and you will see this argument come up a lot. Trickle-down economics is a similar idea, and that was a national talking point for years.

          • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
            2·
            8 months ago

            Dude. Pay attention. We’re here discussing why everyone hates BG. Your point is “yeah well idiots think we need billionaires to pay for vaccines”? Is that why we should hate the person who is actually spending their fortune on vaccines?

            • whoreticulture@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              3·
              8 months ago

              My point is that we can and should criticize any billionaire no matter their philanthropy, noone becomes a billionaire by accident and it is shameful to be one.

              I don’t want to help spread pro-billionaire sentiment by just being “oh yay Bill Gates” for donating the money he got from intellectual thievery and violating anti-trust laws.

              • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
                11·
                8 months ago

                That’s not what this thread is about though. Pay attention.

                People hate Bill Gates more than other billionaires not engaged in philanthropy. My question is why? What is it about his philanthropy specifically that attracts more hatred than other billionaires?

                If you looked at a list of the 10 wealthiest people, I’m sure there are names higher than Gates that most of us wouldn’t recognise.

                • whoreticulture@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                  1·
                  8 months ago

                  This thread is about rich people using philanthropy to seem more palatable.

                  Your question doesn’t even make sense because it’s not at all true that Bill Gates gets extra hate, I think people rightly hate on all the Billionaires. I very rarely even hear about Bill Gates, more often it’s Elon Musk or Bezos … or Taylor Swift lately.

                  • caroline@lemmy.ca
                    1·
                    8 months ago

                    I’ll shit on Elon all day, but pretty sure Bill Gates is just a nice dude who retired and just wants to do shit to help out at this point. I watched some documentary where they followed him around for a few weeks and he was just so focused on people not having water and working toilets in Africa. I mean I guess these days anything can be called propaganda, but that guy keeps to himself and helps people.