The Griffith R. Harsh IV and Margaret C. Whitman Charitable Foundation in 2007 contributed $100,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund, which is now at odds with Whitman over water policy. The foundation also invested $3 million in hedge funds based in the Cayman Islands — a Caribbean tax haven that's been the subject of political controversy.
. . .Read the full story here. The hedge fund stuff is whatever. Tax competition is actually good for people, so I don't have a hard time with the Cayman Islands being the place where people go to store their money.
When you're a billionaire, you will do things with money that don't look so good when you're a political candidate," said John Pitney, a government and politics professor at Claremont McKenna College. "Even if they're totally ethical and lawful, they can still be embarrassing."
He added: "Anytime you mention large sums of money and the Cayman Islands in the same sentence, political eyebrows will go up."
Sorry, but if your foundation gives money to the radically anti-business, anti-capitalist Environmental Defense Fund, you've lost my support. (Not that I would have swayed all too many votes, but I'm very, very disappointed with Ms. Whitman.)
On to Poizner or Campbell!
4 comments:
When you hear the name, “the Environmental Defense Fund” it is all too easy to imagine an office full of vegan, fish-loving environmentalists typing amidst posters of endangered baby seals.
Easy, but incorrect.
I come from a fiscally conservative background with an engineering degree from Stanford. As one of the newer interns at EDF, I want to share with you what I have found because I think it is very different from what you might expect. In fact, I turned down other paying jobs so I could work here without salary.
EDF strives to find environmental solutions through market mechanisms, finding policies that benefit everyone in a sustainable way, far into the future. Companies as diverse as McDonalds, Walmart, and FedEx have found working with EDF has helped them improve their environmental impact and profit. Practical solutions can mean real benefits, both in profit and environment. EDF strives to establish symbiotic relationships among all parties, finding ways that work for everyone.
I have found that when individuals make decisions and judgments based on bias, and not on fact, we get ourselves into some pretty hot water. The more we jump to conclusions about environmental organizations automatically being anti-business (or republicans being anti-planet etc.), the more and more debates turn emotional, instead of rational. When we point fingers at any organization for being anti-fill-in-the-blank, we undermine the conservative case: we turn into nay-sayers, instead of intelligent individuals who make decisions based on fact and analysis. The conservative point of view is a valid one, and it merits being communicated in a validating way.
Working at EDF has been an eye-opening and gratifying experience, and easily one of the best decisions I have ever made. Please feel free to check out the EDF website http://www.edf.org/home.cfm or the City Brights blog of our VP, David Festa: http://bit.ly/3aWpla
Thank you, Caroline Crandall, for cutting through this drivel. As with most of the garbage posted here, it is all too easy to poke enormous holes in the fabric of these arguments with simple facts.
The first point is so clearly a straw man and wasn't worry of addressing. Is EDF pro-cap and trade? Yes. Is it therefore anti-business? Yes.
I rest.
If Whitman becomes the Gov. of Calif. the state's unemployment rate will exceed 75% by the end of her first term. 95% of state jobs will be eliminated and replaced by a computer, and all state telephone help numbers will be based out of India. She will close half of the prisons, releasing all sorts of violent criminals making our steeets oh so safe!
Her REAL track record with eBay speaks for itself: the only jobs she created were outside the United States! The eBay office in San Jose employed 5,000 people before she became CEO, wghen she resigned there was less than 200 employees still employed at eBay's San Jose headquarters. And yes she DID resign under duress because eBay founder Pierrre Omidyar was unhappy with the way she was ruining his company!
Whitman is another of these fake conservatives who preach and support amnesty and outsourcing, then go home and watch American Idol (is there anything in existence less conservative than reality tv?)! If she does manage to get elected, there will be a recall vote less than a year after she does!
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