Intelligence for the People - the Philanthropist's Playbook
Paul - Critical Sway
almost 2 years ago
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Have you seen the 2007 movie “American Gangster”?
In the first scene, the viewer is introduced to the notorious 1930’s Harlem crime boss, Bumpy Johnson.
Bumpy is standing by in silent observation, presumably with full knowledge of what is about to happen in front of him.
Looming ominously before a bound, beaten and bleeding man is Bumpy’s protégé - the emergent drug mogul, Frank Lucas.
Tied to a chair in a dimly lit back alley, the man is doused in petrol as Frank lights a cigar.
The gravity of this moment is, evidently, of little concern to Frank.
With casual disregard, Frank lobs his still-lit zippo into the man’s lap.
Flame meets fuel, igniting what will be the final terrifying and torturous moments of his life.
Bumpy and Frank both watch quietly as the man, now engulfed in flames, writhes and screams in agony.
A few seconds later, Frank raises a pistol from his side and points it at the man.
Then he executes him, with several point-blank shots to the head.
With that, the first scene ends as abruptly as the burning man’s time on Earth.
Cut to the next.
Light floods into the back of a small truck.
Bumpy comes into focus in the foreground, fronted by a crowd of adoring Harlemites.
This time, it is Frank who is standing by in silent observation.
He watches as Bumpy throws Thanksgiving turkeys into the cheering mass of poor and hungry residents.
Bumpy may have been a ruthless criminal, but as you can see, he was also a philanthropist.
American Gangster is based on a true story.
Bumpy Johnson and Frank Lucas are not fictional characters - they were real-life people.
And they both knew the value of a public display of generosity.
Stories like this one are hardly unique.
History is replete with powerful figures who were at once philanthropists and crooks.
I'm sure you know the name “Pablo Escobar”.
His network trafficked multiple TONNES of cocaine on a daily basis.
At the peak of his power, Escobar’s cartel was in control of up to 80% of the worldwide cocaine trade.
But Don Pablo also understood the power of philanthropy.
He used it well to manage his appearance in the eye of the public.
Escobar paid for housing developments, built schools, roads, sports fields, and donated huge sums of money to charity.
Escobar’s cartel spread drugs, death and misery all across the planet.
But at home, it was easy for the impoverished citizens of his nation to see the man as a hero.
Al Capone was another famous philanthropic crook.
Did you know he ran a soup kitchen during the Great Depression of the early ‘30s?
Capone’s operation dished out 3 meals a day to the poor, cold and starving residents of Chicago.
No fee for the service and no questions asked.
But that wasn’t the only example of his “public advocacy”.
Did you know it was Capone who lobbied the regulators to mandate the printing of expiry dates on milk bottles?
Ostensibly, Capone didn’t want the kids to get sick.
He claimed his personal interest in the topic came after a family member fell ill from drinking bad milk.
In reality, of course, there was an underlying motivation.
Capone had made a fortune bootlegging liquor during the prohibition era.
But with the end of prohibition fast-approaching, Capone knew he needed a fresh hustle.
In those days, the milk industry was a bit rough around the edges.
It was rife with unscrupulous producers, monopolistic practices, and distribution networks dominated by Teamsters.
Sounds like exactly the kind of business where old Scarface could feel right at home.
Capone already owned a fleet of trucks perfectly suited for milk distribution.
He had plenty of clout to take the fight up to the entrenched union men.
And if you believe the rumours, he also had a stranglehold on the market for the equipment required to stamp glass bottles.
So you can start to see the underlying incentive for his move into the dairy game.
And his motivation to lobby the government for regulations that would assist his true cause.
Capone’s real drive was the continued lining of his already-bulging pockets - under the smokescreen of public health.
It's not a new trick, is it?
Men and women, guilty of varying degrees of overt criminality, have long understood the value of the philanthropist’s playbook.
A sprinkle of well-directed generosity goes a long way toward managing public perception.
Let’s take a look at a modern-day philanthropist - William Henry Gates III.
On 20 December 2022, Bill Gates published something via his website, “Gates Notes”…
The nauseating title of his piece is "The future our grandchildren deserve”.
The future our grandchildren deserve | Bill Gates
There are at least 10 topics in there that I'd like to have a crack at.
I was tempted to take the red pen to the whole thing, but I’m going to narrow my focus to one target only…
The deliberate painting of his philanthropic work as a benevolent act of “giving back”.
You will detect this same bullsh*t undertone from most “philanthropists”.
It would bother me less if they were honest about it.
They could choose to promote their activities as a net benefit to the world, without hiding from the profit incentive.
The same way any capitalist promotes a valuable product or service.
But instead, they peddle this saintly message that it’s all a noble matter of charity.
The tax breaks and preferential treatment they receive are easier to cop that way.
But in reality, it's got little to do with charity.
It is about profit generation, image management, and the promotion of agendas.
This "philanthropy" business boils my blood, and I'm here to call it out.
Returning to Bill's recent letter...
Determined to convince the world about the scale of his benevolence, Bill includes this in his opening:
“Although I don’t care where I rank on the list of the world’s richest people, I do know that as I succeed in giving, I will drop down and eventually off the list altogether.”
Now let’s think for a moment about whether that idea holds water (hint: it doesn’t).
The Gates Foundation has been around in its present form for over 20 years.
Bill’s personal fortune has continued to climb during that same period (despite all his philanthropy).
At the time of this writing, Bill is estimated to be the 4th richest man in the world.
Forbes puts his net worth at $129 Billion.
I don't see any evidence to suggest Bill is giving his wealth away quicker than he is making it.
He doesn't appear likely to drop off the rich list any time soon either.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
I'm not begrudging another man's financial success.
That is not what this is about.
But I am saying this mega-charity claim about giving everything away is bogus.
So what’s the real story here?
Bill Gates and his team have their fingers in a lot of pies.
We need to start somewhere, so I'm going to take just one example...
A crude analysis of Bill’s latest letter shows that the word “climate” appears no less than 15 times.
Clearly, that topic is at the forefront of his mind, so we'll direct our focus there.
Bill is careful to point out that his climate and energy efforts are not done via the Gates Foundation.
That work happens via Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), a separate entity he founded in 2015.
BEV is a “for-profit” enterprise, which backs energy-related start-ups with investment funding.
Bill (ever the philanthropist) doesn’t want you to think he’ll be making any bank for himself from this business.
He is deliberate in making sure you know his plan for the proceeds...
“…any profits I make on BE investments will go either to the foundation or back into climate work.”
Ok, so proceeds from these clean energy investments go to the Gates Foundation, but not to Bill’s hip pocket.
Got it?
And the Gates Foundation sticks to the message with this statement from their website...
“While we do not fund efforts specifically aimed at reducing carbon emissions, many of our global health and development grants directly address problems that climate change creates or exacerbates.”
They seem determined to keep it all at an arm’s length, for some reason.
But hang on a second here.
Do they fund efforts specifically aimed at reducing carbon emissions, or not?
Well, the Gates Foundation funds a lot of the WHO's activities.
Like, really a lot.
*The second highest funding contributor to the WHO is the Gates Foundation. They give more money than any nation-state other than Germany. And if you want another rabbit hole, go see how GAVI is funded, or the links between Gates and Rotary... Let's just say Bill has some serious pull over there at the WHO.
Now the WHO (largely funded by the Gates Foundation) has key projects aimed at reducing carbon emissions.
They talk about it right here, on their webpage dedicated to the topic of climate change.
Climate change
Here's a quick screen grab (highlights are mine, obviously)
That seems to me like pretty direct funding of efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
Despite claims to the contrary from Bill and his foundation.
How might Bill Gates personally profit from the Net Zero agenda?
Let’s see if we can find an answer in his investment portfolio...
Bill owns shares in Waste Management Inc. (WM).
Like, really a lot of them.
This is Bill’s 4th largest shareholding.
It accounts for about 16% of his entire share portfolio.
He holds around 35 million shares in this company,
At a price per share of around $159, Bill’s holdings sum up to a value exceeding $5.5 Billion.
Data source:
Bill Gates Stock Portfolio [Updated as of August 2021]
What does Waste Management Inc. do?
Well, unsurprisingly, waste management services.
But, theirs is not any old fleet of garbage trucks…
These particular garbage trucks run on compressed natural gas.
Those trucks deliver garbage to purpose-built landfill facilities.
The decomposing rubbish produces methane gas.
WM have a process for capturing and compressing that gas.
The gas fuels their trucks and powers renewable energy generation.
The "clean" energy is then sold into the market.
On the face of it, that all strikes me as quite a clever idea, and I have no particular problem with it.
But there’s an obvious financial motive here that could drive certain things...
Like, for example, pumping the carbon crisis narrative.
Hysterically demonizing fuel sources like diesel or coal, which produce more CO2 when burned than natural gas does.
I should also mention that WM don’t limit themselves to garbage disposal.
Not only do they make natural gas from piles of rubbish, but WM are busy installing solar panels and erecting wind turbines.
Like, really a lot of them…
WM's Renewable Energy Investments Expected To Power Over 1 Million Homes By 2026 | Waste Management
A few choice quotes from their investor relations team...
“WM (NYSE: WM) plans to invest $825 million in its renewable energy footprint from 2022-2025 by expanding its renewable natural gas (RNG) infrastructure. With the benefit of such investments, WM's network of RNG plants, landfill gas-to-electricity plants and other beneficial use projects are estimated to enable the company to provide enough renewable energy to supply the equivalent of 1 million homes across North America and help WM fuel its entire natural gas fleet with RNG by 2026.”
“The increase in RNG production WM expects from the new investments will lead to displacement of approximately 1.3 million metric tons of CO₂ greenhouse gas emissions by 2026, the equivalent to 3 billion miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle.”
“WM also hosts 100 megawatts of wind power and 53.9 megawatts of solar capacity at its closed landfills.”
That’s a pretty comprehensive “clean & green” marketing spin-up, wouldn’t you say?
How might Bill stand to profit here?
Let's do a quick, hypothetical scenario...
We'll plug in some very rough “back-of-the-napkin” numbers to give this context...
Say a powerful narrative (carbon-related, perhaps) drove a 1% uptick in the WM stock price.
We’re talking about a share price that moves from $159 per share (price at the time of writing) to $160.59 per share.
That's not hard to imagine, is it?
If that occurred, Bill's $5.5 billion worth of WM shares would jump in value by a cool $55 million.
An extra 55 million bucks added to his net worth.
Just like that.
Without doing anything else.
And without considering any of the other investments in his portfolio.
To be clear, I don’t know what Bill Gates actually believes when it comes to the question of climate.
Maybe he does see CO2 emissions as a deadly force threatening to destroy life as we know it.
I don’t buy that idea myself, but he’s entitled to his opinions just like everyone else.
If he is being sincere, why is he so eager to distance the promotion of the Net Zero agenda from his personal profit incentives?
One reason is that it plays better in public if you paint it as charity.
And it serves a man with a messiah complex, who wants everyone to believe he has come to save the world.
But this isn’t charity - it’s a deliberately orchestrated charade.
The Gates Foundation uses funds marked as charity to fund the WHO.
One of the WHO’s key projects is to promote a hysterical climate crisis narrative in the name of "public health".
They campaign for a significant reduction in CO2 emissions in the near term.
Meanwhile, Gates and his globalist mates are set to derive a giant fortune from it.
And they would rather we didn't talk about that.
We could debate the extent to which Bill Gates compares to the other “philanthropists” mentioned above.
Different people, with varying baseline levels of cynicism, might reach different conclusions on that.
But it’s a fact that he profits from the Net Zero narrative, in exactly the same way Capone drove profits from milk regulations.
Similarly, I suspect Bill's desire to reduce carbon emissions is about as sincere as Capone’s desire to improve the state of the milk industry.
So please, can we stop letting this guy act like it's a matter of charity?
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This post was written by Paul at Critical Sway
"I’ve hung out with money launderers in luxury apartments and met drug dealers in grimy hotel rooms.
I've been a criminal investigator and survived the high-stakes world of covert intelligence operations.
Sitting in boardrooms with corporate executives, breaking bread with organised crime bosses, and briefing high-ranking officials...
My whole professional life has been a search for the truth.
I used to generate intelligence for the government.
Now I generate intelligence for the people."
Check out https://www.criticalsway.com/ for more information about Paul.