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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAmerica's Least Generous Billionaires - The Waltons
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/09/walmart-walton-heirs-charityThe Walmart Heirs Give a Measly Amount to Charity
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)TBF
(32,012 posts)gotta pay off those pesky families who sue her after she runs down their family members in one of her drunken binges ....
so proud, err, make that spinning in his grave.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)but he's worth maybe 30 billion and loaded up a foundation his parents run with Amazon stock. The foundation so far gave away maybe a couple hundred million, a hundred million of which went to cancer research. None of this came out of his pocket.
As cheap fuckers who exploit employees go, this one's pretty close to the top of the list.
But, hey, keep telling us about the latest deal you got with Amazon Prime.
Cicada
(4,533 posts)In fairness they have given several hundred million via family foundations. Still shockingly little but not as bad as the chart indicates.
TBF
(32,012 posts)they've given through their foundations? That's exactly HOW most billionaires give money.
It's always nice when folks show up to make excuses for the wealthy ...
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)has donated to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?
TBF
(32,012 posts)to defend the rich folk as well. Go you!
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)However, I prefer real information instead of what appear to be made-up numbers.
To claim, for example, that Alice Walton only donated $2.6 million of her own money for charity from 2008 to 2013 is nonsense, since she has sunk more than $300 million of her own money in a wonderful art museum that is free to anyone who wants to visit it. That might not be your idea of "charity", but it is non-profit and available for free to anyone who wants to visit it, including thousands of schoolchildren who might not otherwise have an opportunity to see authentic American art by such renowned artists as John Singleton Copley, Georgia O'Keefe, Andy Warhol, Mary Cassatt, Frederick Remington, Norman Rockwell, and Gilbert Charles Stuart, among many others. Visitors are also allowed to take flashless photographs, so they can enjoy the art even after they've left the museum.
TBF
(32,012 posts)so I'd hardly consider a museum in Arkansas as groundbreaking charity.
But it's nice to hear she had some money left over after she paid off the family of the woman she killed while driving drunk. Go Alice.
Honestly, you are really picking the wrong lady to champion.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Viewing something on the Internet is NOT the same as seeing the real thing in person. Have you never been to a first-rate art museum? The last time I was in the area, I took my mom there and she just LOVED it. She doesn't have a lot of joy in her life these days, but that day at the museum was an absolute joy for her. She could never have gotten that kind of enjoyment just by looking at pictures on the Internet.
And once again, I am not defending Alice Walton's personal life-- that's not what this thread is about, it is a completely different topic. What I am objecting to is the misleading portrayal of her charitable donations here. The museum might not be "groundbreaking" from your perspective, but it certainly is for Northwest Arkansas, and it is charitable.
TBF
(32,012 posts)that certainly excuses all of Alice's other *ahem* adventures.
I'm sorry you don't like the way Mother Jones has laid out the truth for everyone to see. I'm sure that is hard to stomach when you so obviously admire the family. I hope they have done a lot for you personally, because they sure haven't done much for their employees or the rest of the country afaic.
Faux pas
(14,645 posts)do go hand in hand. That is all.
Initech
(100,040 posts)MFM008
(19,803 posts)And the Koch brothers usually give money to whatever glorifies them. Colleges, whatever.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)to an art museum called Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, Arkansas that houses many permanent exhibits of American art and is open free to the public. I have no idea where they get that figure of a mere $2.6 million, but it's way off.
And in 2013, Alice Walton was ranked #16 on the Forbes list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Bridges_Museum_of_American_Art
leftstreet
(36,101 posts)They earned it for her
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)However, among all the billionaires on that list, who didn't rely on workers to earn their money?
I'm not defending Ms. Walton per se, only to mention that the information in that chart is incorrect. And I am all too familiar with Wal-Mart wages, having worked in one of the Bentonville warehouses on and off while Sam was still around.
TBF
(32,012 posts)no matter how you view it. It's a tax deduction for her, ok? Enough of this already.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Do you think any of those billionaires on that list don't take a tax deduction on their donations?
The donations to the museum are absolutely charitable, whether you want to admit it or not.
http://www.aam-us.org/docs/default-source/advocacy/brief-charitable-giving.pdf?sfvrsn=16
I realize that you have a personal grudge against Ms. Walton for that car accident, and I can understand that. I am certainly not defending her personal life. But the other claims you are making are ridiculous, including the outrageous one about a $450 million project in Arkansas as being "little".
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)heralded at the time as "the largest gift in the history of American public higher education".
http://newswire.uark.edu/articles/12814/university-of-arkansas-receives-300-million-gift-largest-in-history-of-u-s-public-higher-education
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)for doing her little art museum that got it's collection from picking the corpse of funding weakening public institutions.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2011-12-13/wal-mart-heiress-s-museum-a-moral-blight-commentary-by-jeffrey-goldberg
Quantess
(27,630 posts)for their workers?
TBF
(32,012 posts)The Acapulco crash that left her left leg shorter than her right, was to be the first of many for Walton. Five years later, while speeding in Fayetteville, Ark., she struck and killed Oleta Hardin, a 50-year-old cannery worker. She never received so much as a ticket.
Walton managed to keep her fender clean for nearly a decade after the deadly collision but, in 1998, she got wasted and totaled an SUV in Springdale, Ark.
"Do you who I am?" She asked responding officers who charged her with a DWI. "Do you know my last name?" It was a rhetorical question.
http://mic.com/articles/79039/the-untold-story-of-alice-walton-s-dwi-incident