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11 Minutes – Chump Change for Haiti Relief

By Linda Anselmi on January 19, 2010 at 11:30 AM in Current Affairs

One of our finest American ideals is our Generosity of Spirit. Our sense of wanting and encouraging others to do well along with our willingness to extend the helping hand of time, talent, or treasure to those in true need.

This Generosity of Spirit is a measure of our commitment to each other as a community, a nation and a larger global society and can only be truly measured in proportion to the sacrifice required by the giver.  A dollar is never more valued, then by those who have the fewest.

So when does a $1 million donation reflect poorly on the giver?

When the giver has shown itself to be a bad corporate citizen and it makes Billions in profit annually!!

From the Huffington Post

Goldman Sachs press office has announced the firm “will be donating $1,000,000″ to the Haiti Relief Effort.

Goldman Sachs made $9Billion in profits last year. That is $174 Million per week, $38 Million per trading day, $5.7 Million per trading hour, $96,000 per minute.

The Goldman Sachs donation represents 11 minutes of the firm’s profits.

Wow. Goldman donated 11 minutes of profits to Haiti relief efforts. With 525,945.6 minutes in a year you can tell they really wanted to go all out. Can you feel their pain?

As Theodore Roosevelt explains in True Americanism

Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character that the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest uses …

…such a man is only the more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like founding a college or endowing a church, which makes those good people who are also foolish forget his real iniquity.

$1 million for respectability? I’d call that chump change.

_____

For Clinton Foundation Haiti Relief and other Haiti earthquake relief organizations (including the American Red Cross and Doctors without Borders)

Here are a few individuals and organizations that have donated $1 million (or more) for Haiti relief.

American mobile cell users (donations by text messages only) –  over $20 million

Sandra Bullock – $1 million

Gisele Bundchen – $1.5 million to Red Cross

Wyclef Jean – raised $1 million

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt – $1 million to Doctors without Borders

Not On Our Watch (the Pitt, Clooney, Damon, Cheadle, Weintraub advocacy group) – $1 million

University of Kentucky “Hoops for Haiti” telethon – raised over $1 million

Starbucks Foundation – $1 million to Red Cross

Bank of America – $1 million

Morgan Stanley – $1 million

JPMorgan Chase – $1 million

Citigroup – $2 million

General Electric – $2.5 million

Google – $1 million

Mc Donald’s – $1 million

UPS – $1 million

Comcast – $1 million

Abbott – $1 million

Amgen – $2 million

Lowes – $1 million

Coca Cola Foundation – $1 million

Northrup Grumman – $1 million


  • creeper

    Since I expect a substantial portion of the money contributed to Haiti to wind up in the pockets of corrupt pols there, this doesn’t get me worked up.

    If you’re going to send money, for heaven’s sake make sure it goes to an organization like Doctors Without Borders and not some fly-by-night fundraising outfit.

  • lark

    Goldman Sachs press office has announced the firm “will be donating $1,000,000″ to the Haiti Relief Effort.

    With the stipulation that the tents and all the plastic ware that will be brought to Haiti to be distributed among Haitians families be made in China.

  • lark

    The good thing about the Red Cross bringing 40 thousand Haitians to Orlando is that they are going to house them and pay for their utilities and expenses for how many years?

  • lark

    The good thing about the Red Cross bringing 40 thousand Haitians to Orlando is that they are going to house them and pay for their utilities and expenses for how many years?

    Probably 11 minutes too.

  • POdVet

    Makes sense to me…After all, they donated just short of $1million to the Obama campaign.  They wouldn’t want him to get jealous! And hey don’t forget, they are donating $1million more to Haiti than Obama is. He seems to like to donate the same amount to relief for all tragedies and Natural disasters.  Zero dollars and zero cents…

  • lark

    But he said at church on Sunday that they are his brothers and sisters that because of our discrimination and racist policies in years past most properly before MLK efforts are still not finished discriminating against and raising racist antagonisms with them. No? Didn’t he said that?

  • Sassy

    Linda, I won’t attempt to defend Goldman.
    It has amazed me though to see the amount of money that was funneled into Haiti over the years and see the living conditions of those people.
    Prior to this trajedy, their only real sources of help and hope were the relief agencies who are there year round.
    I pray for them now, but if they are to have a future, the corruption must be stopped.

  • FLDemFem

    What I want someone to ask Obama is whether or not he is going to donate the prize money from the Peace Prize to the Haitian relief effort. It couldn’t go to a better cause, and since he can’t keep it, legally, he should donate it to the Haitian relief. He won’t because he is probably busy trying to figure out how to keep it for himself. Perhaps he will get the Peace Prize committee to defer the payment until he is out of office. But I still think someone should ask him if he is going to donate it to the Haitian relief.

  • Anonymous

    They could’ve/perhaps should’ve, given more but…what about entire billionaire countries not giving anything? Check out the Arab countries and how very non-generous they’ve been. How about picking on something other than an American company or the American cause in general. We do a hundred times more than anyone anywhere in the world and we also give how much to the UN who also is there? Please. Also try and find much about what Israel is doing in Haiti. Very inspiring and they could care less if they get any recognition at all. I’m tired of America in any way getting trashed that “we don’t do enough.’

  • PortiaElizabeth

    My guess is it’s already been tucked away in the Caymans or Zurich. A man has to have a retirement account after all.

  • OMG

    Thank-you Guest.  Charity is just that–a gift.  I get to decide what I WANT to give and to whom I want to give it.  Goldman didn’t have to give anything.   Be grateful for all gifts not resentful that they didn’t give more. That is the kind of arrogance that Obama is notorious for.

    There has NEVER been a more generous Nation than the USA and there has never bben a more generous people than Americans; Not ever in the History of Humanity.

  • creeper

    The Red Cross had better check with Janet Napolitano.  I just heard her on NPR saying Haitians should stay in Haiti. 

  • Linda Anselmi

    Guest and OMG -

    I agree, American’s are incredibly generous people as evidenced by the list above.  And the $20 million texted donations alone.  I do think that global mega corporations that make so much money have a responsibility to help out the global community in return. 

  • Linda Anselmi

    I take your point Sassy.  And yet, how well are we doing at stopping corruption here in the US?

  • creeper

    Haiti was a disaster before the disaster.  How in heaven’s name do you “rebuild” something that was never built in the first place?

    We’ve been sending money to Haiti for years and all it’s ever done is line the pockets of the Duvaliers, Aristede, Cedras, and now Preval.  For all of Bill Clinton’s much-vaunted years-long involvement, what has it gotten?

    Short of declaring it a US territory I see no way of making any fundamental change.   It has been a quagmire for decades.  Unless we are willing to establish a long-term presence and engage in heavy nation-building we cannot make a difference.  Look how long we’ve been trying and where it has gotten us so far.

    Let us heal the injured (a heluva lot quicker than we’ve been doing it to date).  Let us feed the hungry and build what infrastructure we can with funds contributed so far.   Then let us turn what’s left of Haiti back to its citizens.  It’s their country and it is a democracy.  Their fate…progress or wasteland…must rest in the hands of the people of Haiti.

  • FLDemFem

    We should ask the Nobel Committee if the money has been disbursed yet and if so, where to. If he did take it, that is grounds for impeachment. It’s illegal for the President to get paid by anyone except the American taxpayer while he is in office, and that includes the Nobel Committee.

  • AC

    That includes gifts and any emolument.

  • FLDemFem

    Gifts over a certain value, I think it’s $250. And if the gifts are valued at more than the allowed amount and the president wants to keep it, he can pay the difference in the value and keep the gift. All others go to the store room/vault at the GAO or are displayed in the White House if they are appropriate to the decor.

  • lark

    I think the U.S. territory deal would be a good deal for both, the U.S. and the people of Haiti. Why? Because that piece of property there is located strategically in the Caribbean and it has a whole lot of potential for the creation of whatever it is that the movie Avatar (which I haven’t seen) talks about.

    But the people of Haiti must stop their stupidity and get smart and get with a program that will take them towards anexation with the U.S. And if they don’t want to, then bye bye for good.

  • Guest

    I’m only surprised Bank of America/Merrill Lynch wasn’t in a more respectable range as they routinely rank as one of the top 2-3 companies in America for corporate giving. Bravo to all of these companies, big and small, for doing SOMETHING; I’m sure they will do more when it becomes clear what is really needed. If they don’t, all these companies that are rolling in money, are absolutely bereft of morals.

  • lark

    11 minutes until 8:00 p.m.

  • creeper

    lark, I’m not opposed to annexing Haiti but I cringe to think what the outcry from the rest of the world would be.

    One thing’s for sure…we have got to quit pouring our money down that rat hole if there’s no change in leadership.

  • FLDemFem

    Well, I just found out that the Obamas have donated to the Clinton Haiti Fund, and the amount the multi-millionaire president gave to his poor “brothers and sisters” in Haiti? A whopping $15,000. That’s about what the embroidery cost on the dress Michelle wore to the Indian State Dinner. Gee, you would think he could at least pony up the cost of the whole damn dress!!

  • DaddysDarlin

    The Obama’s could have at least donated what it costs them each year for the girls piano lessons!  How incredibly cheap. 

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