[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Gates and Buffet Foundation Shell Game

[Bill Totten]

by Sheldon Drobny

CommonDreams.org (August 23 2006)


My background is finance and accounting. As a socially conscious venture
capitalist and philanthropist, I have a very good understanding of
wealth management and philanthropy. I started my career in 1967 with the
IRS as a specialist in taxation covering many areas of the tax law
including the so-called legal loopholes to charitable giving. I have
known for years that a smart wealthy person could keep control of all
his assets without estate or income taxes through cleverly structured
charitable foundations. These foundations are perfectly legal and allow
the donors to keep absolute control of all their money and power and
accumulate enormous appreciation free of taxation. In 1967, the
loopholes were outrageous and the law has tightened some of these
tactics for the rich. However, the Gates Buffet foundation grant is
nothing more than a shell game in which control of assets for both Gates
and Buffet remain the same.

The only difference is that the accumulation of wealth by these two will
be much more massive because they will no longer have to pay any taxes.

The Gates Foundation now has about $60 Billion under the control of the
wealthiest people in America. They do not have to sell any of their
positions in the stocks that they put under the tax-exempt umbrella.
Furthermore, they can vote their stock holdings the same as if they did
before and they can make the same investment decisions about their
considerable corporate holdings. Both Buffet and Gates exhibited the
most predatory capitalistic practices as corporate executives and
investors. Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway are not models of socially
responsible capitalism. That being said, this foundation will be in the
long run richer than the Catholic Church, which has accumulated wealth
and power for over 1500 years. However, the results will be exactly the
same. They will never liquidate enough of their assets to do any real
good for the most onerous problem we have as humans; the worldwide
poverty that is caused by the great disparity between the haves and the
have-nots.

The Gates Foundation and the Catholic Church have the same goals. They
are to keep the legacies for which they were created. For Bill Gates and
Warren Buffet it is the control and legacy of family wealth as in the
ancient days of the Pharos of Egypt. And by not paying any taxes, Gates
will be more powerful than the Pope. I realize that this foundation has
done more for disease research and education than any single government
institution. But, that is just a condemnation of how little rich
countries do for the less fortunate. And the United States is one of the
worst examples of how little it does for its own people.

The great problems of the world today are a direct result of the wide
disparity between the rich and poor. But, it is hard for the wealthiest
to even look at this as an issue of most importance. Catholic Charities
do a lot for the poor and I am sure that the Gates Foundation will do a
lot for diseases of the poor. But, that is merely a band-aid for one of
the symptoms of poverty. The real issue today is poverty.

The governments that keep their people in abject poverty while their
leaders are obscenely rich from oil revenues cause many of the problems
in the Middle East. But, even the poorest of their people now have
access to satellite TV and Internet information that shows these people
how much they are being exploited. The simple answer that they hate us
for our freedom is absurd. They hate us because they see the wealthy and
powerful as the cause of their suffering. As was the case in Germany in
the 1920s, even a cultured society can succumb to irrationally violent
leaders if they are hungry and poor. It is a human problem that we saw
occur in a 1st world country. The 1968 movie, The Shoes of the Fisherman
{1} was a fictional account of a new Pope who had the conscience to
solve world poverty by giving away all the Church's assets. Below is a
summary of the plot from www.imdb.com.

“After twenty years in a Siberian labor camp, Kiril Lakota, the
Metropolitan Archbishop of Lvov, is set free. The Catholic Archbishop is
released and sent to Rome, where the ailing Pope makes him a Cardinal.
The world is in a state of crisis - a famine in China is exacerbated by
United States restrictions on Chinese trade and the ongoing
Chinese-Soviet feud. When the Pontiff dies, Lakota finds himself elected
Pope. But the new Pope Kiril I is plagued by self-doubt, by his years in
prison, and by the strange world he knows so little about. This movie
contains extensive information about Catholic faith & practice, as a
television news reporter steps in from time-to-time to explain the
procedures involved in selecting a new Pope.”

The movie was not great but it did emphasize the point I am making in
this piece. Unless wealthy people and governments around the world
recognize the threat that poverty has on humanity, our chances of
survival are markedly decreased. And unless the major wealth of the
world is used to help feed its people, the diseases caused by poverty
will never be cured. The prevention of diseases, both physical and
mental, caused by hunger and poverty are the real dangers we face. And
with all the concentrated wealth, we have the capacity to give everyone
enough to survive and still leave the wealthy with plenty of luxuries.
If Bill Gates gave $29 Billion away and kept only $1 Billion he would
still have a wonderful life. If he gave it to Sally Struthers {2}, she
could probably feed the world.

Links

{1} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shoes_of_the_Fisherman

{2} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Struthers
_____

Sheldon Drobny is the co-founder of Air America Radio.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0823-26.htm

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