Who in the fuck is "Global Justice Now" and why should I care what they have to say about anything?

Furthermore, it they want to go back to a time where everyone spends all of their time farming things by hand, they're more than welcome to show us all how it's done.

@1, obviously that's not what they're saying, but you know that, don't you.

I don't care who they are; at least someone's pointing out that wealthy philanthropy doesn't automatically equate to good philanthropy.

This report summarized what other reports claimed about the overreaching influence and unintended consequences of billionaires and their philanthropies. I salute Mr. Gates for his good intentions. I wish he listens more to the little people with boots on the ground.

Plans to wipe out polio, TB, and other deadly diseases aren't an original Bill Gates phenomenon. A plethora of national and international health agencies and NGOs beat his foundation to this decades ago and were quite successful until war and insecurity disrupt these preventive efforts. But GF is getting the kudos. People have been using mosquito nets to reduce the chance of getting malaria long before there was a Microsoft and public health workers have been out, setting up cold chain, vaccinating people, teaching people about health, hygiene, clean water, etc. before there was a Redmond campus. People also like to use those cheap mosquito nettings to catch fish which helps feed the family, but also wipe out fishing stocks and diversity.

For the agricultural green revolution you can thank IRRI, seed vault, CIAT, and research by thousands of agronomists, plant geneticists, and other scientists in many developed and developing countries working for their governments and universities all over the world. All happening while Bill Gates was the brilliant kid writing programs.

Same with microcredits for poor women, farmers, and small business owners. Not a new idea and not without controversy as to their effectiveness.

Charter schools in the US and the common core. Here things get quite controversial and private enterprise/partnership gobbling up tax dollars to help our children learn isn't quite the success nor free of misuse as GF would like.

Money buys you good PR with long media reach, Forbes ranking and syncophants. To end on a positive note, GF is great place to work and adds to the Seattle glam economy.

Here are the research and policy papers looking at the short and long range implications of private philanthropy - the good, the bad, the intended and unintended consequences.

We have become a world where a very small, very rich and powerful individuals with unprecedented access to world leaders decide which issues are worthy for public infrastructure, public research apparatus, and public human resources to invest in. Those public dollars spent to support such endeavors far exceed the few billions the private philanthropies give. There are strings attached with these gifts.

https://www.globalpolicy.org/images/pdfs…

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.10…

I love it when people who are not doing dick to help anyone try to tear down someone who is helping people because they are not helping the causes the do-nothing whiners want them too.

I bet if someone told "Global Justice Now" how to spend their money, they would be pissed off.

It's not enough to donate to a good cause, you must donate to the "best" cause. Best being determined by someone who couldn't have earned the money themselves. This is to progressives as the tea party is to rational conservatives (admittedly a rare breed.)

No good deed will go unpunished!

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Or do good deed by stop hiding behind tax shelters.

But hey, that's giving power to the government. That means you can't be THE ONE in control which sucks.

What can possibly go wrong by turning global development into a giant go fund me site?

Don't whine when patents go on forever and you can't buyer cheaper, generic drugs because the almighty billionaires are opposed to patent expiration. Be happy and smile when paying more to big pharma. Don't whine when you see your tax dollars go to support public R&D, but you pay top market dollars for things because it was a private-public partnership, and it's the private corporation who decides what you pay.

Don't complain when a new disease emerges and WHO lacks the resources to monitor and respond immediately because much of its fund is diverted to support big philanthropy interest like malaria research. This happened with Ebola. By the time it scared the world into hysteria, big philanthropy took notice.

There's a reason we don't have kings and queens anymore (except decorative ones). You can hate big government and international body, but they serve a purpose. They comprise and represent the bulk of us. When nations decides where to put money in their own health and agriculture institutes, they pay attention to their own people. Governments and international groups have checks and balance and public accountability because they still have to answer to the people and each other.

Combating climate change through innovation will save us in the long run. You can't tax and law our way to a cleaner earth. We are not going back to hoarse and buggy any time soon. As long as energy will be required we should innovate ways to make energy less harmful. Sorry this goes against the government idea that taxing polluters to put more money in the hands of government will fix everything.

Who do you think is the innovator? Public universities and government laboratories. Los Alamos. NASA. NOAA. Think about it. Who encourages and subsidizes solar energy, wind turbines, and nuclear power. Who builds and maintains the grid. Who demands better MPG of vehicles. Was that an industry decision? As in relying on the conscience of VW to do right? But didn't.

Government is far from perfect. Its decisions and policies can be derailed. But that's on us to stay vigilant, to question, and participate in our messy democracy.

So no. I'm not ready to hand it all to the private sector because they'll be more efficient and will innovate all the way to the bank.