Tag Archives: Bill Gates

Point of View Columns

As the Ides of March Approach…

According to Shakespeare the Ides of March did not work out too well for Julius Caesar. And right now, it doesn’t like the Ides are accompanied by a whole lot of good things happening in these United States. Consider just two items taken from the news:

In Defense of White Male Supremacy

The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has brought to light any number of considerations and concerns with respect to the banking industry in particular, and the financial services universe writ large. Commercial banking is not supposed to be in the business of risky business, but somehow SVB missed that memorandum and the entire banking biosphere is concerned, and rightfully so.

 The pileup of Credit Suisse and Signature Bank and other banks are certainly evidence that the worse may be yet to come. The collective “we” are right to be worried.

And then along comes Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri, “The Show Me” state. And say what you will, Senator Hawley has certainly showed us.

You may remember him giving a fist salute to the assembled armed mob as it gathered outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021. And you may also remember him doing his best imitation of Usain Bolt as he sprinted for his life, fleeing from that same mob after it breached the Capitol.

He certainly showed us.

More recently, along with other white male supremacists, Hawley claimed that the reason for the collapse of SVB is that the board was too concerned with DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) concerns rather than focusing on the core business interests of the bank.

The unstated and underlying thought is that if the board consisted of white males who focused solely on the bottom line SVB would not have been so poorly managed and it certainly would not have crashed. Because, of course, white male executives are the epitome of excellence as opposed to all of those components of DEI, what with Blacks and Latinos and Asians men and women bringing their obvious lack of competence to the E-Suite and the board room.

Hawley need not apologize or retract his ignorant statement because he is saying what too many other Americans believe to be the case. No matter that white males were the senior managers of IBM when it turned down the opportunity to acquire Microsoft from a young Bill Gates and Paul Allen. No matter that white males were the senior managers when Lehman Brothers crashed, burned and died – the same being the case when the white male senior management of Kodak refused the opportunity to manufacture digital cameras.

The point is that no grouping of humans is particularly excellent or particularly inept because of race or gender or sexual choice. And the further point is that Hawley and his running partners are spectacularly ignorant in their efforts to resuscitate the dying ghost of white male supremacy.

 Beware of Professor Amy Wax

It turns out that the University of Pennsylvania has at least two blemishes on an otherwise stellar reputation as one of the finest institutions of higher education in the United States. The first is that one its alumni goes by the name of Donald J. Trump. Although it is fair to note that the Great Ghoul of the G.O.P. until long after graduation. But still…it counts.

A much more egregious flaw at the University of Pennsylvania is that a tenured professor by the name of Amy Wax continues to teach at the university’s excellent law school. Here are just a few quotes dredged from the slime of her statements both in class and in public:

“…on average, Blacks have lower cognitive ability than whites”

“…non-Western people feel a tremendous amount of resentment and shame”

“…. some non-Western countries are shitholes” (another UPenn alumnus used the exact same quote – guess who?

“women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men” (Obviously Professor Wax is note referring to herself in that comparative statement)

Speaking of television ads – “They never show Blacks the way they really are: a bunch of single moms with a bunch of guys who float in and out. Kids by different men.”

“American Blacks and people from non-Western countries feel shame for the ‘outsized achievements and contributions’ of Western people”

And finally…” when blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization – any kind of civilization – disappears”

These are not the rantings of some neo-Nazi white supremacist holed up in a Posse Comitatus compound somewhere in Idaho. These are public and classroom statements from a tenured professor where students incur a cost of $100,772 annually in order to have the advantage being a graduate of a law school with such a fine reputation for education and intellectual excellence.

Somehow, this renegade from common sense and common decency is allowed to continue to teach and besmirch the reputation of UPenn Law School because she is tenured and through some twisted interpretation of the notion of academic freedom and free speech.

But there are limits on rights and privileges. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes noted that the right of freedom of speech does not allow a person to yell “fire” in a crowded theater.

Similarly, in an institution of higher learning some stunted notion of decency and at least a gossamer connection to the truth would preclude an instructor from stating that the genocide committed against the indigenous people of North America or the Jewish people of Europe were somehow good and necessary acts in efforts to make the world a better place.

Finally, how or why would students who will incur $300,000 in law school expenses want to be at an institution that permits someone like Amy Wax to teach under the pretext of free speech and the protection of tenure.

And finally, finally – who are the students who still enroll in classes taught by Amy Wax? Are they ok being in a classroom with someone who wanders through the sewers of hate and racism and who might spew some of that hate and racism at any moment?

Somebody is not getting their money’s worth. That’s for sure.

Standard
Point of View Columns

There is Such a Thing as Too Smart

If you live long enough and pay attention you can learn why some old sayings stand the test of time. Most of us have at some point learned that it is better to be safe than sorry, that a bird in the hand is usually better than two in the bush and that looking before you leap is almost always a good thing. Billionaire Peter Andreas Thiel has suggested that young people in America forgo college and become entrepreneurs, thereby proving that there actually is such a thing as being too smart.

A little background – Peter Thiel is a German-born entrepreneur who has accumulated a multibillion dollar fortune as a venture capitalist and hedge fund manager. His most famous accomplishment to date is that he was the founder of Pay Pal. He is noted for his extreme libertarian views and has financed numerous initiatives that spread the gospel that the American government is too big and too intrusive. He has also been one of the major financial backers of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign, which tells you something right there.

It is useful to point out that Mr. Thiel has not been able to explain how this same American government created an environment in which he was able to make several billions of dollars as an immigrant. I am not aware of many immigrants to Germany or France or Japan becoming billionaires. There is a lot that needs correcting in the United States but it does seem allow some people to become fabulously rich, Mr. Thiel included.

Not content with biting the institutional hand that has fed him, Mr. Thiel has now unleashed this outstandingly stupid idea that college is a waste of time and that young people in America should forgo college, or drop out, and become entrepreneurs. And, putting his money where his very busy mouth is, Mr. Thiel is actually awarding $100,000 grants to young applicants to the Thiel Foundation who come up with “winning” entrepreneurial ideas.

The word “winning” is in quotes, because $100,000 is rarely enough to start up a viable business. It is enough to entice some young, impressionable and ambitious young people to drop out of school. Pointing to the examples of famous college dropouts like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, Thiel is trying to be the Pied Piper that will lead young people down the road to success.

One of the problems in this world is that there is an assumption that if someone is wealthy then they must be very smart. The smartest wealthy people know that they have become rich because of a combination of applied intelligence, timing and good fortune. And then you have people like Peter Thiel who actually believe that a few billion dollars has made him so damn smart that he can put forward this very dangerous idea to very impressionable young people.

Unfortunately, zealots like Thiel who are absolutely convinced of their brilliance, do not let inconvenient facts get in the way. The fact is that most start up businesses fail. The fact is that most successful entrepreneurs have persisted through several failures before they achieve even a modicum of success.

The fact is that most people are not cut out to be entrepreneurs. The fact is that while higher education is severely overpriced, it provides skill sets which are indispensable to a successful career and a fulfilling life. It is important to learn biology, architecture, and history and computer science. It is equally important to appreciate art, literature and the diversity of cultures that make up this planet. It is hard to learn about any of these things as a nineteen year old entrepreneur.

Pointing to Jobs, Zuckerberg and Gates as role models is disingenuous at best, ignorant at worst. Bill Gates did indeed drop out of Harvard to start his computer software company. But it is important to know that through good fortune and timing Gates spent thousands of hours learning computer programming at the University of Washington as a precocious high school student. Gates’ father was a partner in a Seattle law firm that represented numerous venture capital companies.

Steve Jobs did drop out of Reed College with no thought of becoming an entrepreneur. After backpacking around India he did get some insight into the business that made him a success. But it was not a direct path.

Mark Zuckerberg did drop out of Harvard and Facebook has made him a multibillionaire. As this column is being written the stock of Facebook is dropping just one day after its less than glorious initial public offering. In any event, Mr. Zuckerberg will be a billionaire. How much better the world is because of Facebook is a matter of debate.

Encouraging young people to be more focused in their studies makes sense. Encouraging young people to build a range of skills and perspectives that will enhance their personal career agility makes sense. Encouraging young people to explore entrepreneurial alternatives makes sense.

But Peter Thiel should know better than to encourage young people to drop out of school or to forego higher education altogether. By the way, Mr. Thiel has undergraduate and law degrees from Stanford University – so much for practicing what you preach. And Mr. Thiel has to know that his personal genius alone did not make him a billionaire – hard work, timing and luck have all played a role in his personal narrative of financial success.

His message is deceptive, dangerous and shameful and another example of a wealthy denizen of the right wing of the right wing thinking that they know how the rest of the world should live their lives.

Standard
Point of View Columns

Calling All Rich People….

During the past few years Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have taken an admirable leadership role in urging their fellow billionaires and multi-millionaires to donate their vast fortunes to charity when they die. They have advocated returning their wealth to the people rather than simply enriching their heirs.

It is a noble and uplifting gesture and many of the super wealthy have committed to putting huge charitable donations in their will. All across the United States and around the world charities are monitoring the health of Michael Bloomberg, Larry Ellison, Mr. Buffett, Mr. Gates and many more.

The weeping and gnashing of teeth that you hear would be coming from the heirs who are being denied the opportunity to become junior Midases.

While there is no denying the nobility of donating one’s fortune to charity at death, there is certainly no sacrifice involved. In fact, it could be argued that the only sacrifice that is being made is the sacrifice that is imposed upon the would-be heirs and heiresses of the wealthy who are typically being asked to scrape by on a measly $50 million for the rest of their lives.

While battling world poverty and global misery are noble causes indeed, I am suggesting that these crusading Croesuses remember the axiom about charity beginning at home.

I am, of course, referring to the burgeoning financial crisis in the United States. It is causing some members of Congress and state legislatures across the country to contend that government can not only no longer afford to feed the hungry, house the homeless or help the helpless. Some like Governor Walker of Wisconsin have gone so far as to state that governments cannot even pay public employees fair, negotiated wages.

The reason for this Scrooge-like approach to government and the public it is meant to serve is the budget deficit, especially at the federal level. There are many reasons for the multi-trillion dollar deficit – cash bleeding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that total almost 2 decades in the aggregate, herculean efforts to prop up the economy after the magic tricks of Wall Street ran out of magic and……………….tax cuts to the wealthy.

Most of the federal deficit is derived from the wars started by George W. Bush and…….the tax cuts to the wealthy. The new additions to the deficit during the Obama years have been due to efforts to bring about an economic recovery and……tax cuts to the wealthy.

That would be wealthy people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. That would be billionaires and miega-millionairs who seemingly can’t wait to die so that they can give away their billions and millions.

These would be the same billionaires who seem to think that paying their fair share of taxes while living wouldn’t be fair.

There is simply no hope in hoping that Congress will get the will to impose fair taxes on the wealthy so that veterans won’t be homeless and poor children will not be denied food and pre-school education.

The G.O.Tea Party stalwarts in Congress would rather see job training centers closed and health clinics shuttered than face the horrific notion of billionaires scraping by with a few million dollars less every year.

Perhaps the fact that the majority of the incoming Republican freshmen members of Congress are millionaires or the fact that virtually all of the United States Senators are millionaires has something to do with their cult-like adherence to protecting the loot of the rich.

Whatever the case, this change will certainly not come from Capitol Hill.

So I am proposing that, in teaching eleemosynary and selfless behavior to their fellow lords of the manor, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett take the lead in getting billionaires and millionaires to push for real tax reform.

Instead of refusing to pay taxes, the plutocracy of America can direct their tax advisors and counselors of evasion to waive deductions and reductions in their tax bills. They could also summon their Congressional representatives and demand that they take action.

Congress will never act on its own on this issue. President Obama has already been smeared as a socialist just for saving hundreds of thousands of jobs related to the auto and financial service industries. He has prudently avoided being labeled a card carrying communist by not taking the lead on this aspect of tax reform.

This version of tax reform – the wealthy doing the unthinkable, actually paying taxes at the same rate of someone making $50,000 per year, is an idea whose time has come.

Larry Ellison might have one less yacht, Oprah Winfrey might have one less Maybach, Michael Bloomberg might have a slightly smaller jet in his private fleet – but somehow I think that they can make it.

Just think. Rather than waiting until they die so that they can feel better about themselves, the wealthy can hear the applause and acclaim for their selflessness while they are still alive to enjoy it.

Standard