The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

How to keep wealth in the club

by Gaia Health

A private foundation is a nonprofit organization that engages in activities for the general good...technically, that is. The catch is that the Foundation gets to define what general good means. Foundations are also a terrific way for the wealthy to shelter their assets from taxation and keep them in the family, all the while giving the appearance of acting for the benefit of the people...and letting the creator of the Foundation bask in the glory of the title Philanthropist.

A foundation can buy almost any sort of asset it wants, including pieces of corporations in the form of stocks or bonds. A foundation is, effectively, a nearly tax-free corporation, with few limitations other than being unable to show profits. Of course, profits can be disguised in the form of salaries, grants, and virtually anything it does.

Bill Gates became the wealthiest person in the world. The corporation he started, Microsoft, controls more than 90 percent of the world's software market, not including the freeware portion. (It's almost a shame he didn't try to patent freeware. He might have managed to strangle that software arena, too.) He used his personal wealth to set up the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

One would hope that the basic purpose of his foundation would be to make the world a better place. But, if it were, wouldn't he use his Foundation to...well, make the world better? Wouldn't he try to assure that more people could get a piece of the pie? And wouldn't the Foundation's business associates be ones that benefit the world?

It doesn't look like it. Gates' Foundation has partnered with some of the most rapacious corporations in the world. Monsanto, which controls about 90 percent of the world's genetically modified seed and the vast majority of the rest of the commercial seed, is now partially owned by the Gates Foundation.

According to the Wall Street Journal⁽¹⁾, among others, the Gates Foundation has holdings in:

• Walmart (9.2 million shares)
• McDonald's (9.4 million shares)
• ExxonMobil (6.3 million shares)
• Berkshire Hathaway (76.4 million Class B shares)
• Monsanto (500,000 shares)

Despite protestations to the opposite, it's hard to to believe that the Gates Foundation is genuinely concerned with people's health. Ownership in Walmart and McDonald's makes that abundantly clear. ExxonMobil is one of the world's most rapacious corporations. You do recall the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, don't you? Berkshire Hathaway is Warren Buffett's baby. He's also a trustee of the Gates Foundation. Is that incestuous enough?

Top Level Gates Foundation Staff

The resumés of most of the highest-level personnel of the Gates Foundation is revealing:

• Warren Buffett, Trustee: Like Bill Gates, he is one of the richest people in the world. He recently "donated" massive amounts of his wealth to the foundation. His fund, Berkshire Hathaway, has massive holdings in the Bank of America, American Express, the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, Coca Cola, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and major medical supplier Becton Dickinson & Co, among others.⁽³⁾ Is his involvement as a trustee philanthropic, or a means of assuring that he can keep an eye on his money long after his death?

• Sylvia Mathews Burwell, President, Global Development Program: She is also on the Board of Directors for MetLife and on the Board of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which seems to serve as a front for GMO seeds and receives the Gates Foundation's biggest grants⁽²⁾. As if this weren't enough, she is also a member of the Aspen Strategy Group, the Trilateral Commission, and the Nike Foundation Advisory Group
• Tachi Yamada, MD, President, Global Health Program: He is a former Board Member of GlaxoSmithKline.
• Martha Choe, Chief Administrative Officer, Foundation Operations: Before her "public service" roles, she was in banking, a Vice President at the Bank of California Credit Administration, Commercial and Private Banking.
• Richard Henriques, Chief Financial Officer, Foundation Operations: He was the was Senior Vice President of Finance and Corporate Controller at Merck.
• Kate James, Chief Communications Officer, Foundation Operations: Before involvement with the Gates Foundation, she was in both banking and Big Pharma. She was Senior Vice President, Global Corporate Communications for Citibank, and "senior leadership roles at Standard Chartered Bank and GlaxoSmithKline in the areas of communications, international government relations, strategy and sustainability", according to her Gates Foundation bio.
• Geoff Lamb, Managing Director, Public Policy Foundation Operations: He was Vice President of Concessional Finance and Global Partnerships at the World Bank.
• Franci Phelan, Chief Human Resources Officer, Foundation Operations: She was Vice President of Human Resources at Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a DuPont company. She was the Human Resources Platform Lead for DuPont Agriculture and Nutrition and was a member of the DuPont Corporate Human Resources Leadership Team

Most of the senior officials of the Gates Foundation have strong ties to some of the most brazen corporations and pseudo-charities in the world. GlaxoSmithKline. Merck. The World Bank. DuPont. Nike. Trilateral Commission. AGRA. CitiBank.

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