[Am-info] Newsweek Cover: Bill & Melinda Gates Charitable Foundation

[Raphael Fleishman]

Bill and his wife are on the cover of Newsweek with an announcement 
of a $24 billion "donation" to impoverished nations.

That's money that Microsoft and Bill Gates collected by pillaging the 
innovative, capitalistic spirit of the technology industry and using 
monopoly power to overcharge consumers. To paint Bill Gates' transfer 
of personal of wealth into a controlled foundation (a foundation that 
he uses to sell his own losing stock holdings to and to leverage 
personal investments with, as in the Cox Communication stock 
ownership transfer several weeks ago) and representing it  as a 
philanthropic effort is to ignore that most of the money was 
illegally obtained in the first place.

This is a clear signal of Bill Gates' willingness to stoop to new 
lows to avoid paying the price for illegally squashing competition 
and hurting US consumers.

I do not appreciate transparent attempts by the media - in this case 
Newsweek, a subsidiary of MSN - to garner public sympathy by 
presenting the leader of a criminal organization as a philanthropist.

References:
http://www.forbes.com/2002/01/25/0125gates.html (Cox Communications Investment)
http://www.msnbc.com/news/694130.asp (Newseek Article)

-Raphael Fleishman