On April 20, CBS 60 Minutes re-aired a story on Paul Tudor Jones work with his Robin Hood Foundation. In 1 evening of fund raising, he collected over $57 million that would be 100% allocated to the organizations that his foundation supports.
No doubt, the people at that event went home feeling very good about spending the evening with their friends and dropping a few bucks to help those less fortunate.
The problem is, that in their real lives, I suspect that many of these people are, just like Paul Tudor Jones, supporting politicians and policies that are increasing, not decreasing the need for such fund raisers. So, it seems that their generosity is less about really helping people than it is about making themselves feel good. Undoubtedly, the people who directly benefit from the donations of the Robin Hood Foundation.
Unfortunately, the numbers of beneficiaries are far smaller than the number of people who are hurt by the implementation of Republican policies that cut funding for early learning centers and public schools, support outsourcing of well paying jobs from the US to low wage countries, work to destroy unions so that worker wages and benefits can be cut, work to eliminate any assistance to the poor, elderly, and helpless, and last but not least constantly work to maintain subsidies and tax cuts for the wealthy by increasing taxes on the dwindling middle class and letting our infrastructure collapse.
$57 million sounds like a lot of money to most people, but for the Robin Hood crowd it's probably like an average person donating $1,000.00 to a cause - it's not that significant.
If Paul Tudor Jones wants to really fulfill the stated objective of the Robin Hood Foundation, then he should be working in support of political and economic policies that provide a more fair and level playing field for all. That work would yield benefits to generations of people far beyond New York's borders and would have orders of magnitude more impact than a mere $57 million.