According to the Wall St Journal earlier this month, hundreds of New Yorkers received an unusual dinner invitation from the Lower East Side People's Federal Credit Union. The Credit Union, a small lender serving New York's poor, was holding a fund-raiser to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Among the chief sponsors listed on the invitation was Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Among the honorees: "Occupy Wall Street."
They might as well have asked Marie Antoinette to dig into her purse to support Madame Defarge's knitting business. Shortly after the invitation was sent out, Goldman withdrew its name from the dinner. It also pulled the plug on its $5,000 funding pledge.
The debate that ensued—between bankers and nonprofit chiefs, philanthropists and financiers—turned a modest fund-raising dinner into a heated battleground between Wall Street and the Occupy protestors, exposing contradictions on both sides. On one side was Goldman Sachs, which told the credit union it didn't want its name or money used to celebrate a protest movement known for placards like "Goldman Sachs is the work of the devil," dinner organizers said…
Find out more at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203752604576645480987452682.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
No comments:
Post a Comment