That Would Be Some Mattress

The Drudge Report is trying to gin up a controversy over reports that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is part of a consortium loaning money for the acquisition of some newspapers in California and Minnesota. As Drudge points out, this is not a philanthropic purpose.

But what does Drudge think the Foundation does with its money. Keep it in the mattress or the back room? Obviously, the Foundation invests the money and uses the return on its investment to either grow its principal or increase its grants. In fact, the Gates Foundation's financial reports on online. Its 2005 report shows, along with a bunch of other things, assets of $29 billion, investments of $28.7 billion, investment income of $1.4 billion and total revenues of $1.86 billion. On the other hand, the Foundation made grants of $1.56 billion and had total expences of $1.7 billion. So the Foundation "made" $152 million last year.