It's hard not to be impressed by what the Gates Foundation is doing. I don't think they get the full recognition they deserve sometimes, maybe because much of their work is abroad in the poorest countries in the world.
Hard to fathom the number of people out there in the world thankful and who owe their lives to the foundation choosing to help their community or their cause.
With that said and not to diminish the good work. It is sad and eye-opening more progress has not been made on these issues.
I think when you really look at the numbers, besides seeing the positive trends one can also see how truly difficult, large and complex these problems are. The foundation has $50 Billion dollars! And Bill can get pretty much any world leader or other billionaire CEO to take his phone calls. Yet, sorry that is not enough not even close. The foundation has to focus on very specific issues and even then it hasn't "gotten to zero" where it wants to (though Polio is close, down to 37 cases). Private foundations can only do so much, the scale of these problems really requires the cooperation of governments. I'm not sure what can be done on that or what that means, just a bit breathtaking how governments can help people or really screw things up on a scale nothing else even comes close to.
Also, Buffett's gift is still inspiring to me 10 years later. The world's richest man never spent his enormous fortune other than living a normal upper middle class lifestyle. He not only decided to give away all the money, but is doing so without the typical pursuit of marking his name in stone on every building in the world. He didn't even create a charity in his name. Very possible that the Gates foundation will live on for many decades and Buffett won't mind that his name isn't strongly linked to it.
> With that said and not to diminish the good work. It is sad and eye-opening more progress has not been made on these issues.
The reasons for this are not hard to find. Indeed, you hit the nail on the head in the next paragraph by pointing out the role of governments.
> I'm not sure what can be done on that or what that means, just a bit breathtaking how governments can help people or really screw things up on a scale nothing else even comes close to.
A case study of this in Ethiopia serves as a point in William Easterly's critique of "technocratic aid" in general and Gates's approach specifically:
http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/guest-the-flaw-in-bill-g...
He elaborates upon this at length in his book "The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor".
The way I like to think of it is that money, especially in large sums like the $50 billion in the foundation, is a potent tactical weapon. However, wars are not won on tactics/technology alone, but also on strategy. Here that amounts to solid leadership/deployment of the capital. I think this letter shows that they have done a pretty good job with it. Nevertheless, it is easy to fall into complacency and arrogance here. I only hope that they continue to listen, observe, and learn.
Providing help , like bed nets to prevent mosquito bites in order to reduce malaria, does not promote nor prevent other fight for more freedom in Ethiopia. Sure, the Gates foundation could have chosen to concentrate on that other front, but criticizing one type of aid for not help with something else is pretty uninteresting.
>> "the scale of these problems really requires the cooperation of governments"
Right, it's my understanding that orginally the Gates foundation tried to do it without working with the governments governing the people they wanted to help, but were unable to make it work.
Instead of corporate or national concerns, his view is global. This is the perspective of the king of the world - or god.
Like Rockefeller, everyone loves him (now).
Lots of people work for his vision, perhaps more than as MS ceo.
No taxes.
For the richest man in the world, it's possibly the only step up.
I wonder how much of this particular philanthropy is just giving back money that those countries spent? I.e. Microsoft licences, or balance of trade with the donor countries?
I'd be more fearful of corruption in those countries. This is where so much foreign aid falls apart, it's siezed by the government, distributed to their favored constituents, and never makes it to the people who really need it.
Bill gates talks about corruption in his 2014 annual letter (1). Search for the word "corruption" if you don't want to the read the whole letter. TLDR: Its manageable.
> I wonder how much of this particular philanthropy is just giving back money that those countries spent? I.e. Microsoft licences, or balance of trade with the donor countries?
I mean, that's literally how capitalism works. You earn money selling a product or services to people, and use that money to purchase products or services from people.
I've seen too many pirated unactivated copies of Windows Server running large businesses (that could afford the licensing easily) in many of those countries to subscribe to that theory.
Hard to fathom the number of people out there in the world thankful and who owe their lives to the foundation choosing to help their community or their cause.
With that said and not to diminish the good work. It is sad and eye-opening more progress has not been made on these issues.
I think when you really look at the numbers, besides seeing the positive trends one can also see how truly difficult, large and complex these problems are. The foundation has $50 Billion dollars! And Bill can get pretty much any world leader or other billionaire CEO to take his phone calls. Yet, sorry that is not enough not even close. The foundation has to focus on very specific issues and even then it hasn't "gotten to zero" where it wants to (though Polio is close, down to 37 cases). Private foundations can only do so much, the scale of these problems really requires the cooperation of governments. I'm not sure what can be done on that or what that means, just a bit breathtaking how governments can help people or really screw things up on a scale nothing else even comes close to.