robin hood fdn
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see druckenmiller</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/robin-hood-foundation-s-relationships-with-hedge-fund-managers-draw-scrutiny"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/robin-hood-foundation-s-relationships-with-hedge-fund-managers-draw-scrutiny</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">july 2007</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="attribute-body ezoe" itemprop="text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px 2em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> New York City-based <a href="http://www.robinhood.org/" target="self" class="gmkey-hover" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 138, 0); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 0.25s ease-out 0s;">Robin Hood Foundation</a> is drawing scrutiny from members of Congress who question why nearly half its $144.5 million "rainy day fund" is invested in hedge funds run by Robin Hood donors or board members who are paid the standard industry fee of 2 percent of assets and 20 percent of profits for managing the funds, Bloomberg News reports.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The controversy concerns a separate emergency fund built with donations from Robin Hood's 31-member board, which includes business and financial heavyweights as well as television and entertainment industry leaders. According to the organization's 2005 tax filing, the most recent available,<b> the assets were invested in nineteen hedge funds, seven of which were managed either by a board member or the organization's leadership council, a group of major donors. </b>Robin Hood executive director David Saltzman told the <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Times</i> that the decision about where to invest is made by a board committee that is not allowed to invest in its members' funds. Between 1990 and 2006, the fund returned an annual average of 17.05 percent after fees, compared with 10.99 percent for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Melissa Popper, director of the Better Business Bureau's New York Philanthropy Advisory service, said her organization had reviewed Robin Hood and determined that it met "our standards for charity accountability." But Art Taylor, president of the <a href="http://www.give.org/" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 138, 0); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 0.25s ease-out 0s;">BBB Wise Giving Alliance</a> in Arlington, Virginia, expressed reservations. "We would prefer that there were more people involved on the board that were independent of these hedge funds," he said. "You start to wonder what happens in the year that the hedge fund doesn't do well. Does the board have the power to fire the hedge-fund manager?"</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>When asked about the arrangement, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said he was concerned that those who make donations to the fund are receiving charitable deductions for money that isn't distributed to the needy.</b> "I'm worried," he said, "that I am seeing more and more that suggests that some hedge-fund and private equity managers view charitable donations as a chance to do well for themselves, and forget it is about doing good for others."</font></p></div><div class="attribute-sources" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="content-view-embed embed-pnd_source class-pnd_source" style="box-sizing: border-box; transform: none; display: block; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span class="attribute-tags_authors" style="box-sizing: border-box; transform: none;">Alison Fitzgerald</span>. <span class="attribute-url" style="box-sizing: border-box; transform: none;">"<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601014&sid=acXKQZJS1wYs&refer=funds" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 138, 0); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 0.25s ease-out 0s;">Robin Hood Nest Egg Draws Scrutiny From Congress</a>."</span> <span class="attribute-source_name" style="box-sizing: border-box; transform: none;">Bloomberg News </span><span class="attribute-date" style="box-sizing: border-box; transform: none;">07/15/2007.</span></font></span></div><div class="content-tagging" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 2em;"><div class="attribute-tags_interest" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span class="label-subject" style="box-sizing: border-box; transform: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SUBJECTS: <a href="https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/content/search/?filter[]=attr_tags_interest_lk%3Aphilanthropy%20/%20voluntarism&activeFacets[attr_tags_interest_lk:Interests]=philanthropy%20/%20voluntarism" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 138, 0); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 0.25s ease-out 0s;">PHILANTHROPY / VOLUNTARISM</a></font></span></div><div class="attribute-tags_organization" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-transform: uppercase;"><span class="label-orgnization" style="box-sizing: border-box; transform: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ORGANIZATION: <a href="https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/content/search/?filter[]=attr_tags_organization_lk%3Arobin%20hood%20foundation&activeFacets[attr_tags_organization_lk:Organization]=robin%20hood%20foundation" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 138, 0); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 0.25s ease-out 0s;">ROBIN HOOD FOUNDATION</a>; <a href="https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/content/search/?filter[]=attr_tags_organization_lk%3Aw.k.%20kellogg%20foundation&activeFacets[attr_tags_organization_lk:Organization]=w.k.%20kellogg%20foundation" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 138, 0); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 0.25s ease-out 0s;">W.K. KELLOGG FOUNDATION</a></font></span></div><div class="attribute-tags_location" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-transform: uppercase;"><span class="label-location" style="box-sizing: border-box; transform: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LOCATION: BATTLE CREEK; DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; MICHIGAN; NEW YORK; NEW YORK CITY</font></span></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div class="GGD0W3FBKT" aria-hidden="false" style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 16px; float: left; top: 3px; left: 5px; margin-right: 110px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Druckenmiller, $</div><button type="button" class="GGD0W3FBBT" aria-hidden="false" style="font-size: 10px; white-space: nowrap; float: right; top: 5px; right: 5px;"><b>Edit</b></button><div style="font-size: small; clear: both; position: relative;"><div class="GGD0W3FBKS" aria-hidden="false" style="float: left; font-size: small;"><div style="font-size: small; clear: both;"><div class="gwt-HTML" aria-hidden="false" style="font-size: small;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b></b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Hedge Fund Partners, Political Opposites</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>They may disagree on politics, but they earned fortunes together. The</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>hedge fund investor George Soros, who earned $1 billion in a bet against the</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>British pound in 1992, is a prominent liberal donor and philanthropist who</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>has given $1 million to a super PAC backing Hillary Rodham Clinton. His</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>partner on that trade was Stanley F. Druckenmiller, who would become a</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>prominent hedge fund manager in his own right, and is now close to Gov.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican. Mr. Druckenmiller is a strong</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>advocate of reduced spending on entitlement programs, which he has called</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“current seniors stealing from future seniors.” He has put a total of more than</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>$300,000 behind Mr. Christie, Jeb Bush and Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio.</b></font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b></b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>http://www.alternet.org/economy/meet-hedge-funders-and-billionaires-who-pillage-under-shield-philanthropy</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Meet the Hedge Funders and Billionaires Who Pillage Under the Shield of Philanthropy</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>For every dollar they give, they take 44 from the rest of us.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>By Lynn Stuart Parramore / AlterNet July 29, 2015</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">America’s parasitical oligarchs are masters of public relations. One of their favorite tactics is to masquerade as defenders of the common folk while neatly arranging things behind the scenes so that they can continue to plunder unimpeded. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Perhaps nowhere is this sleight of hand displayed so artfully as it is at a particular high-profile charity with the nerve to bill itself as itself as “New York's largest poverty-fighting organization.”</span></b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>British novelist Anthony Trollope once wrote, “I have sometimes thought that there is no being so venomous, so bloodthirsty as a professed philanthropist.”</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Meet the benevolent patrons of the Robin Hood Foundation.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Robin Hood in Reverse</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Robin Hood Foundation, named for that green-jerkined hero of redistribution who stole from the rich to give to the poor, is run, ironically, by some of the most rapacious capitalists the country has ever produced — men who make robber barons of previous generations look like small-time crooks. Founded by hedge fund mogul Paul Tudor Jones, the foundation boasts 19 billionaires on its leadership boards and committees, the likes of which include this sample of American plutocracy:</b></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>
</b></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">-Hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen, who, when he is not being probed for insider trading (his company, SAC Capital Advisors, pled guilty to securities and wire fraud) is busy throwing parties for himself worthy of a Roman emperor at his Hamptons palace and bragging about his $700 million art collection. He suspends a 13-foot shark in formaldehyde from the ceiling his office, perhaps as an avatar of his business practices</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>-Billionaire Home Depot founder Ken Langone, who threatened to turn off the charity donations if Pope Francis dared to continue criticizing capitalism and inequality, and also likened the plight of the wealthy in America to Nazi Germany. The GOP megadonor doesn’t care for bank regulation and it’s no surprise that he is the main booster for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s presidential bid, as his plan to shred Social Security is a fond wish of the tycoon’s.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>- Hedge fund billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, funder of right-wing causes who <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">dedicates himself to spreading deficit hysteria and ginning up generational warfare on college campuses by trying to convince young people that they are being robbed by seniors using Social Security and Medicare. A long-time anti-tax crusader and supporter of such anti-labor enthusiasts as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Druckenmiller warned President Obama that any attempt to tax the rich to pay for social services for the poor would be futile.</span></b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By occupation (the more useless and parasitical the better), it comes as no surprise that 12 of the 19 men in leadership positions at the Robin Hood Foundation happen to be hedge fund managers</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. A group called Hedge Clippers, supported by a coalition of labor unions and community groups and devoted to exposing how billionaires scheme to inflate their wealth and influence, has pointed out in a scathing report that the Robin Hood Foundation has close ties to an organization called the Managed Funds Association (MFA) that — shocker! —lobbies tirelessly for unjustified tax breaks for hedgies. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Paul Tudor Jones’s top deputy, John Torell, chairs the MFA, and 31 members of Robin Hood’s governing board and leadership committees are executives at firms that belong to the highest membership levels of the organization.</span></b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The MFA was relatively small until 2007, when Congress started eyeing the “carried interest” tax loophole. Then it brought out the heavy artillery to protect elites from paying their fair share. The carried interest loophole is the MFA’s top priority.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The King of Scams</b></font></div></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>...</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><b>The carried interest loophole is the MFA’s top priority.</b></p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><b>The King of Scams</b></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><b>The carried interest loophole, as economist Dean Baker <a href="http://www.cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/the-hedge-fund-managers-tax-break-because-wall-streeters-want-your-money" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(156, 22, 44); cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">put it</a>, is likely the worst of all the “sneaky and squirrelly ways that the rich use to escape their tax liability.</b>” It goes down like this: Hedge fund managers brazenly claim they deserve to pay a special low tax rate on the money they earn overseeing the funds they manage because, um, it’s not guaranteed. So they pay 20 percent instead of the 39.6 percent they would pay if the money were taxed as ordinary income. They get very rich from this windfall, just ask Mitt Romney. But you know what? Lots of workers have no guarantee about the money they’ll earn, from people selling cars to the guy who just served you a burger. Do they get a special tax rate? No, they don’t. They pay full freight. In fact, <em style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">almost nobody’s income is guaranteed</em>. You could get a pay cut tomorrow. Or a pink slip. Do you still pay regular income tax? Yep, you do.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">This unfair tax break basically allows hedge fund managers to screw their fellow Americans out of money that could do things the illustrious patrons of the Robin Hood Foundation claim are so dear to their hearts, like building schools and feeding the poor. According to a Congressional Research Service cited in the Hedge Clippers report, closing the carried interest loophole would generate $17 billion a year. How many hungry children in New York City could that feed? All of them?</p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">The loophole makes absolutely no economic or social sense, it’s just a way for the rich to say, hey, we’re powerful enough to lobby for this insanity, so you little people just go ahead and pay for that airport where our private jets are about to land and that road where our Porsches and limos cruise. It’s a middle finger held up to every hard-working person in America. Dirt kicked in the face of the poor.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">It’s a driver of inequality and encourages risky speculation on Wall Street. Hillary Clinton, perhaps hoping to ward off the threat of Bernie Sanders, has been making noise about closing the carried interest loophole, which many a politician has made before. Given the cultural focus on inequality and the egregiousness of the policy, it may just be vulnerable. Let’s hope so.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 900; line-height: inherit;">Den of Thieves</span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">The <a href="https://www.robinhood.org/about" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(156, 22, 44); cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">mission statement</a> of the Robin Hood Foundation brays about all the funding it provides for school programs, generating “meaningful results for families in New York’s poorest neighborhoods.” Soup kitchens! Homeless shelters! Job training! The tuxedoed tycoons throw money at all these causes “to give New York’s neediest citizens the tools they need to build better lives.”</p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">How far does this largesse actually go toward ameliorating New York’s poverty problem? Unsurprisingly, not very far at all. In fact, as Hedge Clippers points out, the poverty rate in the city has <em style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">grown</em> over the course of the Robin Hood Foundation’s history, from 20 percent in 1990 to 21.2 percent in 2012.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">Guess what’s also grown? The bank accounts of 19 billionaires on the Robin Hood Foundation’s boards, which have ballooned 93 percent since 2008.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">Hedge Clippers applied a delicious tactic to expose the hypocrisy at the heart of the Robin Hood Foundation with stark mathematical precision— they used the organizations own metrics as an analytical tool. The foundation is famed for using grantee evaluations, cost-benefit analyses, and performance measures, including a metrics system freakishly named “relentless monetization.” So the Clippers applied these methods to the foundation’s hedge fund backers themselves, systematically exposing the degree to which they increase inequality and poverty.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">How bad it is? A chilling ratio summarizes just how bad – 44:1. That is to say, for every dollar the Robin Hood Foundation hedge fund managers studied give to the organization’s antipoverty efforts, <em style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">they soak up $44 from the public in the form of tax avoidance and anti-tax advocacy</em>. The authors of the report believe that to be a conservative estimate.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">Take the case of Steve Cohen, he of the shark in formaldehyde, and board member emeritus of the Robin Hood Foundation.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">The tally of his recent donations to the foundation: $4,850,000.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">The estimated amount he ripped off the public in 2014 by paying special low tax rates: $1,300,000,000.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">Quite a difference.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When they aren’t advocating tax swindles, members of the Robin Hood Foundation put in plenty of time fighting fair wages, trying to shred the social safety net, and killing worker protections through their associations with organizations like the Manhattan Institute, the Partnership for New York City (the voice of big business in NYC and a big foe of paid sick leave), and Fix the Debt (a notorious group devoted to crushing Social Security and Medicare).</span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">When you think about it, it looks as if the Robin Hood Foundation members are actively trying to strip the public and strangle working people to such a degree that poverty and nickels thrown by billionaires will be all that’s left of America. The rest of us will all be living in Sherwood Forest.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;">The Robin Hood Foundation’s new motto: <em style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">Increasing poverty is our business.</em></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">-----------</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>America's very rich keep trying to start a movement among college students to blame senior citizens for the sorry state of the economy that kids will inherit. Specifically, the billionaires keep trying to scapegoat Social Security.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is part of the public relations effort to create a "grand bargain" to cut America's (fast-declining) budget deficit.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The Peter G. Peterson Foundation has spent about a billion dollars of Peterson's own money to create faux movements to get students to take up this unlikely cause.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The latest of the billionaires to try this gambit is Stanley Druckenmiller, net worth estimated at $2.9 billion, former head of the hedge fund Duquesne Capital. Druckenmiller's personal campus crusade has been the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">subject of two fawning profiles, one by Tom Friedman in Wednesday's <em style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Times</em>, the other by James Freeman in Saturday's Wall Street Journal.</span></b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Druckenmiller's campus crusade is based on such preposterous economics that I hereby challenge him to a college debate or series of debates. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303680404579141790296396688" target="hplink" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Freeman's puff piece in the <em style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Journal</em></a> begins thus:</font></p><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(240, 240, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 15px; direction: ltr; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: none; font-stretch: normal;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stan Druckenmiller makes an unlikely class warrior. He's a member of the 1% -- make that the 0.001% -- one of the most successful money managers of all time, and 60 years old to boot. But lately he has been touring college campuses promoting a message of income redistribution you don't hear out of Washington. It's how federal entitlements like Medicare and Social Security are letting Mr. Druckenmiller's generation rip off all those doting Barack Obama voters in Generation X, Y and Z.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />"I have been shocked at the reception. I had planned to only visit Bowdoin, " his alma mater in Maine, he says. But he has since been invited to multiple campuses, and even the kids at Stanford and Berkeley have welcomed his theme of generational theft.</font></p><div class="ql" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="qr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></div></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Tom Friedman column, titled, "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/opinion/friedman-sorry-kids-we-ate-it-all.html?r=1&" target="hplink" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sorry, Kids. We Ate It All</a>.," which I <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10/17/tom_friedman039s_worst_column_ever_318057.html" target="hplink" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">addressed in the American Prospect Thursday</a>, Friedman wrote:</font></p><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(240, 240, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 15px; direction: ltr; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: none; font-stretch: normal;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After we baby boomers get done retiring -- at a rate of 7,000 to 11,000 a day -- if current taxes and entitlement promises are not reformed, the cupboard will be largely bare for today's Facebook generation. But what are the chances of them getting out of Facebook and into their parents' faces -- and demanding not only that the wealthy do their part but that the next generation as a whole leaves something for this one? Too bad young people aren't paying attention. Or are they?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Wait! Who is that speaking to crowds of students at Berkeley, Stanford, Brown, U.S.C., Bowdoin, Notre Dame and N.Y.U. -- urging these "future seniors" to start a movement to protect their interests? That's Stan Druckenmiller, the legendary investor...</font></p><div class="ql" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="qr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></div></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Where to start? If you itemize all the reasons why recent college graduates face a wretched economy, Social Security doesn't even make the list. What does make the list are unreliable jobs that pay lousy wages, the aftereffects of a financial bubble created on Wall Street, and unaffordable college that leaves graduates starting life with more than a trillion dollars worth of debt.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The next generation, and the one after that, will have a shot at a decent life if we can get growth and a fairer distribution of earnings back on track. That project has nothing whatever to do with Social Security or the federal deficit. On the contrary, if we keep on the austerity kick and further cut social outlays that promote opportunities, growth will be even slower.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The biggest lie in Druckenmiller's crusade is the premise that the income distribution problem is somehow generational and that he, as a billionaire, has anything whatever in common with most college students or most recipients of Social Security. One of his pitches to students is that Social Security is excessive because he, a very wealthy man, receives it but doesn't need it.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But for the vast majority of the elderly, Social Security is a lifeline, and a meager one at that. Some two-thirds of all seniors depend on Social Security for half of their income. Fully 46 percent of elderly widows and other unmarried seniors depend on Social Security for at least 90 percent of their income.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The entire projected 75-year shortfall in the Social Security trust funds that conservatives make such a big deal about is around one percent of GDP per year. We could make it up with modest tax increases on wealthy people like Druckenmiller.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since Social Security is financed by payroll taxes -- on wage and salary income -- the real Social Security crisis is the crisis of stagnant wages. If average wages had continued to track average productivity growth during the past three decades, as they did in the three decades after World War II, Social Security would be in perpetual surplus.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The real crisis facing the elderly is not that Social Security is excessive but that it's inadequate -- especially with the collapse of traditional pensions in favor of far less reliable 401k plans (another counter-revolution made on Wall Street.)</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is a certain moral blindness and chutzpah of very wealthy people trying to enlist students in a generational movement against the alleged affluence of their grandparents. The real issue here is not generation, but class, specifically Druckenmiller's class.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contrary to the claim in writer Freeman's opening sentence -- that Druckenmiller makes "an unlikely class warrior," his crusade is precisely class war, of the sort we have been seeing for decades -- of the very wealthy against everyone else.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Happily, most of America's students don't seem to be taking the bait. None of Pete Peterson's front groups has had much resonance on campus -- not his "Fiscal Wake-Up Tour," nor "Fix the Debt," nor more far-fetched groups aimed a college students such as "America's Promise Alliance," nor the foundation's poetry contest aimed at battling deficits in verse.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, these crusades do have a certain resonance among media elites and even in the Obama White House. As we go into the next phase of a trumped up budget crisis, with Social Security and Medicare as targets A and B, the politics and economics could not be more perverse.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So how about it Mr. Druckenmiller? If you are so sure of the righteousness of your cause, how about defending yourself in a campus debate?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Robert Kuttner's new book is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Debtors-Prison-Politics-Austerity-Possibility/dp/0307959805" target="hplink" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Debtors' Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility</a>. He is co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior Fellow at Demos.</font></em></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><h2 class="title" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: large; margin: 13px 0px 9px; padding: 0px; line-height: 0.94em; border-color: rgb(154, 154, 154);"><a class="journal-entry-navigation-current" href="http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/grants-for-k-12-education/druckenmiller-foundation-grants-for-k-12-education.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; line-height: 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Druckenmiller Foundation: Grants for K-12 Education</font></a></h2><div class="body" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 25.5px;"><p style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>OVERVIEW: </strong>Now into its third decade, the foundation of retired hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller and his wife Fiona is a major operation, with around $1 billion in assets and tens of millions of dollars in annual giving. Education is among the couple's top interests. </font></p><p style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>IP TAKE: </strong>While this funder's main K-12 commitment has been to the Harlem Children's Zone, money flows to other education groups, too, and the foundation has ramped up its giving in recent years. Unfortunately, the foundation has no website or clear grant application process.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>PROFILE:</strong> Stanley Druckenmiller once had aspirations of being an English professor and received an undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College before moving into finance. Druckenmiller founded his own investment firm, Duquesne Capital Management, which he ran until he retired in 2010. </font></p><p style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His retirement coincided with a huge uptick in his philanthropy, channeled through the Druckenmiller Foundation, which he runs with his wife Fiona, a Wall Street executive turned business owner. Founded in 1993, the foundation's recent tax filings show $1 billion in assets and giving in the neighborhood of $75 million per year. </font></p><p style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A substantial amount of that money went to education causes. The largest K-12 beneficiary by far in in recent years is Harlem Children's Zone, a children's education and antipoverty outfit in Harlem, New York. Druckenmiller chairs the organization, having been successfully courted by fellow Bowdoin alumnus and friend Geoffrey Canada. Canada came to Druckenmiller to help fund his project, and Druckenmiller agreed, provided he was allowed to build the board.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Druckenmiller once said of his philanthropy: "I like putting all my eggs in one basket and then watching that basket carefully.” This certainly appears to be his strategy when it comes to Harlem Children's Zone. The funds Druckenmillher has provided to Harlem Children's Zone total well over $100 million, and in one recent year alone, the foundation awarded HCZ a whopping $30 million. </font></p><p style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet the Druckenmillers have put smaller eggs in other baskets, too, and the couple appears to be passionate about preparing kids for college and supporting them once they get there. In recent years, several million dollars have gone to College Summit in Washington D.C., a nonprofit organization with a stated mission to increase youth college enrollment rates in low-income communities. The Druckenmiller Foundation also has a special "Oakmont Scholarship," offered exclusively to current or former caddies at Oakmont Country Club to help pay for their undergraduate educations.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Druckenmiller clearly has an interest in education reform and fighting poverty and inequality. The couple has been a past funder of Teach for America, providing $100,000 annually in two recent years. Smaller sums have gone to Harlem Village Academies, Storefront Academy, Prep for Prep, Children’s Scholarship Fund, and Success Academy Charter Schools. In addition, a rare international donation recently went to Reaching U, a nonprofit focused on providing educational opportunities to children living in poverty in Uruguay. </font></p><p style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Closer to home, the couple also has deep ties to Spence School, a K-12 all girls private school that received more than $10 million over the course of two recent years. Fiona Druckenmiller is an alumna of the school, as are the Druckenmillers' kids, and Fiona served as a trustee at Spence for many years. The Robin Hood Foundation has also been a recipient of significant funding (Robin Hood cofounder Paul Tudor Jones and Druckenmiller have been friends for years). </font></p><p style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beyond Druckenmiller's support for K-12 causes, the foundation's philanthropic arm has also extended high-level funding to a diversity of recipients that have recently included a number of universities (among them, not surprisingly, Druckenmiller's alma mater Bowdoin) as well as environmental, medical, journalism, and animal welfare organizations. </font></p><p style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With a net worth well into the billions, Druckenmiller has been moving funds through his foundation at a fast rate. This is someone to watch. Alas, the Druckenmiller Foundation has no website or apparent process by which an organization can apply for grants. </font></p><p style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PEOPLE:</font></strong></p><ul style="list-style-type: square; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 2em;"><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stanley F. Druckenmiller, Trustee</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fiona Druckenmiller, Trustee</font></li></ul><p style="margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CONTACT:</font></strong></p><div id="mcePaste"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">40 W. 57th St., 25th Fl.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New York, NY 10019</font></div><div id="_mcePaste"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Telephone: (212) 404-1150</font></div></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div></div></div>