I like to follow the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily report of the gains and losses of the biggest billionaires in the world.
Jeff Bezos of Amazon “lost” $4.31 billion yesterday. But don’t worry about Jeff. He’s the richest person in the world, and his fortune is edging closer to $200 billion.
With a fortune so staggering, it makes you wonder why he fought so hard to prevent Amazon workers from joining a union.
Remember when his ex-wife McKenzie Scott gave away $4 billion? She’s already recovered more than that.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The divorce of Bill Gates from Melinda Gates will provide work for Warren Buffet as well. The database of “awarded grands from the B&M Gates Foundation” dating back to at least 2008 has vanished. What you are likely to find is stub that shows current investments.
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Unrelated speculation-
When Bill doesn’t turn over the money dictated by the settlement, unflattering info. about him hits the news cycle. We’ve seen him skewered for his opposition to Covid patent vaccines. Then, the info about his recurring yearly weekends with his former girlfriend (now married) hit the cycle. Then, today, his relationship with Epstein was spun to portray Melinda as cautioning him against Jeffrey. And, next, media reported he wasn’t invited when the family went to an island during the divorce process. If my speculation is on the money, it might get more interesting.
Bill Gates was never in msm looking bad before. But, now….
It’s unfortunate that Eli and Edythe Broad didn’t divorce.
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Wouldn’t wish that even on a cad like Mr. Broad.
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Misfortune when it affects the people who cause misery for profit- can’t muster the sympathy.
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Divorce from either Bill or Melinda would be a blessing, as I see it.
I certainly wouldn’t wish that even my worst enemy would have to stay married to either Bill or Melinda.
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In fact, I congratulate both Bill and Melinda for taking the wise decision in divorcing the other.
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I try to avoid purchasing anything on Amazon. Unfortunately, there are a few items that I have ordered due to the fact that they are not available in any local stores.
I HATE the thought of giving more money to Bezos. He is tight-fisted and self-centered in not wanting his employees to form a union and fight for better wages and better working conditions.
Jeff Bezos of Amazon “lost” $4.31 billion yesterday.
I have no pity for him.
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If you do buy from Amazon, you can join Amazon Smile, which makes a contribution to non-profits including NPE. I avoid Amazon, but my son orders quite a bit for his small company. He agreed to make NPE his designated charity. It does my heart good to know that every Amazon purchase sends a bit of money to The Network for Public Education.
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retired teacher: I am a member of Amazon Smile and donate money to IRTA. Illinois Retired Teachers Association
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You can use Amazon Smile to donate to NPE. The cut is very small, probably less than $100 a year.
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https://ncsc.publiccharters.org/
Priscilla Chan is headlining another ed reform echo chamber conference.
Promote charters and bash public schools.
I don’t mind that they oppose our schools. They’ve never done anything worthwhile or productive for public schools anyway. I just wish they would come clean with the public about what is the obvious agenda here.
The goal of this “movement” is now and has always been to privatize K-12 education. They should admit it and thus allow a real debate on whether the United States wants to do that.
There’s risk in this experiment they’re running. A lot of the risk has been mitigated because public schools still exist (despite best efforts of this lobby) but when they privatize completely that won’t be true. If the experiment in privatization is a disaster none of these people will even be affected. None of them use public schools anyway.
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Sad about Priscilla Chan, who used to credit two of her public school teachers for steering her to college and believing in herself.
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The real shame will be if they succeed and the new privatized systems they designed are a net loss for the public. Lower quality.
There won’t be any going back and 90% of the public won’t know how or why it happened. Public schools will just be something we don’t have anymore, like public hospitals. No one who promoted it will ever be held accountable- they’ll all retain their lifetime sinecures in the ed reform echo chamber and continue to move from government to the ed reform lobby, and back again.
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It would be a massive loss for working families. It would transfer billions of public asset value from the working class to the already wealthy. That is the main reasons why the billionaires refuse to accept defeat.
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cx:reason
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My Herford Bull lost 30 pounds last fall when he was out with the herd. He gained it all back.
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He could have that $ back tomorrow when the markets move.
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He spent a lot of time with the ladies, huh?
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Great to have that inimitable Diane Ravitch voice back! Here’s hoping you are recovering well, Diane, and much love to you and yours.
Currently considering, here, how I can “give back” using the billions I made by teaching high-school English, theatre, drama, and film. I mean, there are only so many heliports one can put in on one’s private islands.
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Dear Bob,
Thank you for your good wishes. I am not going to post as much as I used to. I post what I like.
Diane
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The public can watch the ed reform echo chamber in action in just about all of their efforts:
“Disclosure: The Walton Family Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and The City Fund provide financial support to the National Parents Union and The 74.”
The 74 promotes the National Parents Union. The Board of the National Parents Union is packed with fellow ed reformers, including former Obama Administration officials. The university departments they use all share the same backers and all adhere to the same agenda and plans for US public education. And they’re all paid and backed by the same billionaire foundations.
One big happy echo chamber, running US public education. No dissenters permitted.
No criticism or real analysis of the privatized systems they’re designing, no debate. The privatization decision has been made. Now it’s time to inform the public.
Gosh, I hope this turns out to be a good trade for people, public for privatized. They weren’t even aware they were giving it away because none of these people bothered to tell them.
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“Arizona leads in both school choice and student academic growth. That’s not a coincidence”
More incredibly rigorous analysis by the echo chamber.
The only “data” they look at is that which aligns with their ideological priorities.
All ed reform experiments are overwhelming successes and ANY public education success is wholly due to ed reformers.
It’s all like this. Anyone in the public can read the echo chamber. They churn out tons of editorial content presented as “research”. Any person from outside the echo chamber will conclude in about 20 minutes that these folks are working to replace public schools with a privatized system. It’s only inside they echo chamber that they imagine they are “agnostics”.
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(1) FB page for ACSTO, “A vote for school choice is a vote for THOUSANDS (their caps) of students to receive a Christian education.”
(2) AP, 2-1-2021 “Advocates (Center for Az Policy, Az Catholic Conference and Goldwater Institute) push wide-ranging new Az. school voucher bill”
(3) Redefine Ed, 4-13-2021, “New Face at Fl. Conference of Catholic Bishops Keeping Watch on ed choice bills…working late hours during Fl. 2021 legislative session. (The guy) had a stint at TFA… went to Catholic schools”.
(4) “The Mackinac Center and Michigan Catholic Conference continue to promote private school choice.”
Public school supporters (with religious affiliation or not) who refuse to fight the tsunami of influence exercised by Catholic bishops in state capitols and in D.C. shouldn’t rationally expect to win the battle for public schools, not the battle for women’s rights and their economic independence, not for civil rights at the 3rd largest U.S. employer and not for gay rights.
Given the links between state Catholic Conferences and the Koch’s AFP, the Mackinac Center, the Center for AZ policy, etc., I would be surprised if men like the Koch’s aren’t providing financing to the bishops’ political arm. At the conservative Catholic Napa Institute, there was a post describing the “remarkable similarities between Catholicism and Charles Koch’s recent book.”
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Hear, hear Bob! Great to have Diane back and recovering! Lots of well wishes….and kudos for referring to Eli Broad as a “cad” – more terse and retro than the expletive-laced descriptors that pop into my mind!
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If a multi-billionaire with a fortune of $150 billion lost $149 billion of that and only had one billion left, it wouldn’t bother me at all. I would not feel sad. I doubt that I’d spend much energy or time even thinking about it.
Why? Because he or she would still have a billion dollars.
One billion dollars is a lot more than I will earn in my lifetime. In fact, I will never come close to one billion dollars by the time I check out.
I worked for 45 years and have now been retired for 15. I added my earnings up once and discovered that spread out over those sixty years, I’d earn a few million that was all spent along the way making car payments, buying food, house payments, et al. For most of those years, I seldom had anything left over to invest or save.
The last year I worked as a full-time teacher in 2004-2005 I earned about $85k. When I retired I took a 40% pay cut and left teaching with no medical coverage.
And some people in the working class might feel sad for a multi-billionaire losing all but one billion of his fortune makes no sense.
Image how many of us might celebrate if Trump lost everything but a couple of million dollars.
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Late but Dr. Cardona is a willing participant in this scam. Moreover, when I tried to provide an excerpt for this blog my Word file prohibited that. A double scam. See the full text here and note who the “supporters” are. All are logos of the marketers of this scam.
https://www.edweek.org/events/live-event/edweek-leadership-symposium
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