Bill Gates desperately wants the cool kids to like him. And he's decided that kissing some one-world socialist claptrap tail is worth a shot.
He went to Davos, Switzerland and embarrassed himself by announcing Compassionate Conservativism by another name is something he just made up. He can't become popular with the faux-leftist set because he doesn't know how to make useless $3000 laptops for the same people that said they wanted to look at the New York Times on their $600 cellphone last week. He doesn't have the knack or the steel rimmed glasses for it, I guess. I wonder if he can grow a beard yet, never mind a perpetual three day one. The cool kids love Steve Jobs because he's a rapacious loser. Bill's a rich generous winner. They hate that.
Whatever. Bill's decided now that he's got so much money that he feels guilty about it, it's time to overturn the board for everybody else that might like to make a living--or a killing--in business. He wants what he terms "Creative Capitalism' now, not the icky kind he pictures in his cubicle rat worldview that's all messy and filled with Bhopal smokestacks and little brown babies with distended bellies on late night TV commercials. They're still on late night TV, aren't they? Or did Sally Struthers eat them all?
Heh. A fat person that used to look sexy pointing at hard-up people and saying "Send me money, or the kid gets it... I mean, they don't get it." That's the Davos ethos in a nutshell. Sally could get a flurry running for president on that platform, too.
Here's Gates:
"We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well," he told an auditorium packed with corporate leaders and politicians at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. "I like to call this idea creative capitalism."
Look, I'm sure that wiser people than I'll ever be will open the intellectual window on this gaseous economic exhalation and let some fresh air in. That's a lot of work. I'm lazy. I just want to point out two things to Mr Smarty Zune Pants.
1. You know nothing about capitalism. You think you're smart, and that all that money you got is like a wage you earned for being so smart. No it's not. The Market has no opinion. The market sent signals to you and others that the thing you happened to be supplying is exactly what many people needed at the moment it was necessary. That's it. It doesn't mean your opinion about any other thing has any merit whatsover. If you had a bad breakfast burrito on the day you were supposed to sign that deal with IBM and stayed on the john all morning instead, a few million other people were qualified to take your place. You rolled double six ten straight times. You didn't invent dice.
2.I'm only going to tell you this once. Capitalism isn't a system. Got that? Capitalism is the lack of a system. Why can't you fools understand this? Capitalism is freedom. All "systems" are the enemies of freedom, because they rely on the opinions of a few-- usually very cranky-- people, instead of on the collective wisdom of everyone acting in their own self interest, tempered by their innate generosity. Capitalism is the unfettered desire and ability of humans to barter with one another and accumulate knowledge and things. That's it. In capitalism, certain institutions arise because the market signals they are necessary in the first place, and supports them after they are established. In general, when people who do not understand this desire of humans to barter and accumulate things attack these useful institutions, they destroy wealth and impoverish people. That confab in Davos is the poster child for that sort of meddling. Repeat after me: Hong Kong-good. North Korea-bad.
You've got it in your head that capitalism is a thing that can be run. And you've got it in your head that people like you are smart enough to run it. The first sentence cancels out the second, doesn't it? You're a naif about money and government. You've just got a pile of the money and are helping in your small, addleheaded way to give all of us an extra heaping helping of the government. No thanks. Making sure kids in Africa have their innoculations up to date before they get hacked to death with a machete seems of dubious utility, if you ask me, but I can't fault you for trying if you think it's worthwhile. But if you had a lick of sense you'd just keep starting businesses there with the money so maybe those kids wouldn't grow up with nothing but machete-hacking jobs available on Third World Monster.com listed on their OLPC. Oops, I forgot. You really only knew how to do that once, by accident, almost; and you've shot your bolt. Microsoft, which being a real live business you're now apparently ashamed of, has done more to push the sum total of human life foward than any charity or NGO you could dream up. Not because you did it. Because it enabled other people to do things you could never even envision, never mind supervise, with your crummy ones and zeroes.
I'd like to remind you of one more thing. Capitalism is like gravity. It just
is. You can't
fix it. But when the Davos mafia meddles in the Third World, their "Blue Screen of Death" is not a figurative term.
HAMMER. NAIL. BANG! "Capitalism isn't a system. Got that? Capitalism is the lack of a system. Why can't you fools understand this? Capitalism is freedom. All "systems" are the enemies of freedom, because they rely on the opinions of a few-- usually very cranky-- people, instead of on the collective wisdom of everyone acting in their own self interest, tempered by their innate generosity. Capitalism is the unfettered desire and ability of humans to barter with one another and accumulate...
Tracked: Jan 25, 13:04
My friends know I don’t like Bill Gates. I mean, I would admire him immensely if he had stayed within his bounds as an extraordinarily talented entrepreneur and left computer systems design and program coding to people with those talents. He woul...
Tracked: Jan 25, 16:24