[SeaGypsy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')illionaire software baron Bill Gates has made the bold prediction that there will be almost no poor countries left by 2035.

In the sixth annual letter published by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr Gates says that there are already clear signs of progress.

"By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been," he wrote in the letter.

"People are living longer, healthier lives. Many nations that were aid recipients are now self-sufficient."

Countries once considered poor, such as China, India, Brazil and even Botswana, now have growing economies, he says.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')"By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been," he wrote in the letter.

"People are living longer, healthier lives. Many nations that were aid recipients are now self-sufficient."

[Timo]

I guess Mr. Gates is single-handedly willing to pay from his pesonal fortune to achieve his predictions. Actually, he probably has enough money to do it, too. If that's not the case, though, i think he's full of wishful-thinking BS. By 2035, we'll have yet another billion impoverished people on the planet, fewer resources, more wars and famine, and possibly a colony living on Mars.

[Plantagenet]

I saw Bill Gates interviewed about this just yesterday on PBS.

Gates is just repeating what Prof. Hans Rosling says.

Hans Rosling TED talk on poverty

Rosling's data shows that almost all poor countries are getting richer and richer since 1820, and if present trends continue they'll all be pretty well off by 2050.

[SeaGypsy]

All of which utterly ignores the fact of where we are related to oil, peak oil and peak oil dynamics.

[Quinny]

I've met a lot of people with stupid ideas in this world. Congratulations Vogelsgang you win!

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'A')ll of which utterly ignores the fact of where we are related to oil, peak oil and peak oil dynamics.

[dissident]

Billy "I want to be totalitarian overlord" Gates spouted long ago that no one would ever need more than 640 kilobytes of RAM on a personal computer. That was back in the day he was invested in DOS. Apple sort of proved what a load of fermented drivel this pearl of Gate's wisdom was and Billy set off trying to do GUI without doing it right. (Actually anyone with a developed brain would see that this statement was ridiculous). It is unfortunate that the dinosaurs at IBM spawned off two monopolies, Intel and Microsoft, whose products were clearly inferior in the 1980s. IBM made the active choice to hobble the PC and it succeeded. Instead of using Unix with a GUI and selecting the Motorola 68000 CPU (which was basically 32 bit), it selected the crap called DOS and the Intel 8088. The 8088 was an 8 bit POS that used segmented memory addressing instead of linear like on the 68000. It took until the 80386 came out for the segmentation hobble to be overcome. Clearly the market does not work magically to deliver the best choice to consumers.

Billy's pontifications on poverty are totally worthless.

[Shaved Monkey]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'A')ll of which utterly ignores the fact of where we are related to oil, peak oil and peak oil dynamics.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '
')What kind of bubble does being the richest man in the world put him in? This annual 'letter on the state of the world' is severely delusional.

[dinopello]

Windows 8. Need I say more ?

[SeaGypsy]

8 is only an improvement over 7 if you are selling to 7 year olds, obviously.

Here's where I question Bill's logic: the only half sane way he could belive his own spin- is if he believes that the massive dependence of humanity on oil is on the verge of collapsing in line with dwindling availability- therefore (following the money) TerraPower (or similar) is on the threshold of totally breakthrough technology. Following this line of reasoning, this man invests an amount equivalent to a fraction of 1 day's earnings? Gates 10-20 million is like us ordinary mortals purchasing 1 60 watt solar panel and leaving it in the shop. Is he serious or naive or delusional or all of the above? Blinded by conceit?

[lasseter]

Bill gates and Buffet sold massive blocks of their personal stock portfolios prior to the collapse of 2008. They are insiders, they knew. The money went tax free into their foundation which of course they control completely. They can use it to buy private jets, parcels of land, anything they want. The meger amounts they have doled out to the poor from its coffers have been more than offset by the taxes they avoided.

I wouldn't listen to a word that came out of their mouths.

A Critical Examination of Bill Gates' Philanthropic Record
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/07/05 ... pic-record

[Beery1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')e says inequality will continue in every region.

[Beery1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lasseter', 'A') Critical Examination of Bill Gates' Philanthropic Record
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/07/05 ... pic-record

[basil_hayden]

Jackasses like this, and their "altruistic" intentions, are 99% of the problem for this planet.

They've learned that the more bodies there are, the more profits there are.

They have their hands in everyone's pockets; heck they'll even sew on extra pockets just to stick another hand in.

[radon1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')illionaire software baron Bill Gates has made the bold prediction that there will be almost no poor countries left by 2035.

[Newfie]

At this instant this thread and the Obama ambitious GW action thread are side by side on my screen.

That made me think that these two gentlemen probably share a world view.

Just a bit of whimsy.

[ROCKMAN]

Newfie - Share a world view or share how they want the world to view them. Sallust used the phrase "Esse quam videri": To be...not to seem to be. And interestingly: In The Prince, Machiavelli reverses this phrase to videri quam esse (to seem rather than to be) with respect to how a ruler ought to act. Perhaps the "B" boys share similar thoughts.

[Sixstrings]

Hm..

I'm not seeing how his foundation is a sham and not helping anyone? What am I missing here? Surely this is better than the Walton family that just sits on their vast mega-fortune and won't even do any charity for their own impoverished workers.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')iven the enormous wealth of the Walton Family[3], the endowment of the Walton Family Foundation is relatively small. As a group, the Walton Family is considerably more wealthy than Bill Gates, with $93 billion, compared to Gates’ $59 billion. However, whereas Gates has endowed his Foundation with more than $33 billion, more than 57% of his wealth, the Walton Family Foundation has just a $2.3 billion endowment – just 2.4% of the family’s wealth.

When we examine their rate of giving (as opposed to simply looking at the size of the endowment), the Walton Family Foundation trails badly again. While Gates gave away an amount equivalent to 5.2% of his Foundation’s wealth in 2009, the Walton Family Foundation gave less than ½ of one percent.
http://walmart1percent.org/the-walton-family-foundation-how-much-do-they-give-and-to-whom/