91–100 of 212 posts
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Why would I ever want Zuckerberg as president? Why would I want any of these intelligent, but unqualified people as president? Trump has about the same qualifications. Look at that so far.
Obama had minimal qualifications, himself.
"All lives have equal value" I hope one day all governments across the world operate with this principle. Gates foundation is doing some amazing work. Looking forward to their contribution in the coming years.
I wish Bill or Warren would have run for presidency as an "outsider" instead of Trump. I guess our only hope will be their successor Mark (Zuckerberg)
IMO, anyone with over a Billion dollars is more like an insider than an outsider. Probably anybody over ~4 Million, actually.
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Don't know about Buffett, but I don't get Gates either. He was a ruthless businessman using every trick in the book (legal and illegal) to solidify his company's monopoly.
Every illegal trick? Come on. I competed against Microsoft (compilers) and they were a tough competitor. But I never saw anything illegal. Microsoft benefited a lot from their competitors simply being incompetent (see "In Search Of Stupidity" by Chapman.)
I wish Bill or Warren would have run for presidency as an "outsider" instead of Trump. I guess our only hope will be their successor Mark (Zuckerberg)
Bill and Melinda are better where they are, because they are free from political interference. Can you imagine the opposition they'd get from the GOP for pushing contraception so centrally? And if they get into power, probably from the democrats too, for not focusing on their favourite bandwagons. OT: Can someone explain the GOP's strident opposition to funding contraception, both domestically and in the US's foreign…
It's incredibly heart warming how many people have been saved by the Gates Foundation. Although, the realist in me worries about the possibility that in the long-run, civil liberties and human rights are also of importance to humanity in saving human lives, and human dignity.
Without going into an argument about the relative importance, shouldn't at least some significant portion be distributed towards solving the human and civil rights, liberties, and justice abuses here in America?
After all, the reason Bill Gates and Buffet are in a position to be able to help so many people is due the world they grew up in. The opportunities they were given. A large part of that is individual human liberty. Had Gates lived in another time, and been arbitrarily detained during one of his two arrests for refusing to unlock his electronic devices, would he have encountered a legal battle that derailed his entrepreneurship? If he was a minority, would the police had treated him the same way? If he was abused by the police the way Ian Murdock allegedly was, what would have happened to Gates? Would we have lost the opportunity to save 122 million lives to date through the Gates foundation?
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As far as I can tell, Trump lacks intelligence. I'd rather have a Gates or Buffet presidency. They've at least shown to care about philanthropy a bit. Trump has his foundation, but it mostly seems to do stuff like pay his legal fees and buy portraits of himself.
> Trump lacks intelligence I keep seeing people say this, but I'm not sure it's true. He took a loan of a few million from his father and turned it in to a billion dollar empire. It's difficult to do that without some measure of intelligence. He almost lost that billion dollar empire in '94, but recovered and built it back up again in to a billion dollar empire. It's more difficult to do that without some intelligenc…
http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/donald-trump-index-funds/
What kind of business genius does it take to lag S&P 500 that badly? If he had done absolutely nothing with his dad's money, except park it in an index fund, he'd be 4 times richer.
The article linked also compares the investment performance of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. You can see quite a big difference.
To Bill and Melinda Gates: It was really uplifting to read this post. Because of it, the world now looks a little brighter to me. We're all surrounded by alarmist news every day and often lose sight of the big picture. PLEASE write a post like this one at least once a year :-)
https://www.gatesnotes.com/2016-Annual-Letter
https://www.gatesnotes.com/2015-Annual-Letter
Also, the annual reports are quite interesting as well:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/Resources-and-Medi...
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As far as I can tell, Trump lacks intelligence. I'd rather have a Gates or Buffet presidency. They've at least shown to care about philanthropy a bit. Trump has his foundation, but it mostly seems to do stuff like pay his legal fees and buy portraits of himself.
> Trump lacks intelligence I keep seeing people say this, but I'm not sure it's true. He took a loan of a few million from his father and turned it in to a billion dollar empire. It's difficult to do that without some measure of intelligence. He almost lost that billion dollar empire in '94, but recovered and built it back up again in to a billion dollar empire. It's more difficult to do that without some intelligenc…
See the other comment about how he'd have much more money if he'd plowed his inheritance into an index fund. It's been a story that cropped up every few years for the last decade. He's a bad businessman who keeps going bankrupt and borrowing money from greater fools. This last time, it seems he went into debt to the Russians. Maybe Putin is not so foolish.
Honestly, I think he didn't release his tax returns because they'd show he's actually broke and living off borrowed cash.
> always manages to outsmart his opponents?
Right time, right place. I've seen inept people "succeed" so many times, it makes me weep. But hey, no one likes to hear bad beat stories.