DAVID GEFFEN HALL “Placing a rich person's name on a building in return for a big donation is an established practice in the philanthropy playbook that can be a way to honor a loved one or encourage other donations. While mocked recently as ’Philanthro-me’ and ‘Egonomics’ by social commentators, money-for-naming transactions can be mutually beneficial. Benefactors get their name in history books - or at least on Google Maps - and recipients get cash infusions for pressing projects. “For instance, New York's Lincoln Center received $100 million toward massive renovations for Avery Fisher Hall from [David] Geffen in a deal that renamed the venue to David Geffen Hall. But that happened onlyafter Lincoln Center paid $15 million to the family of Fisher, a philanthropist who died in 1994, to clear the way to the renaming.      “Geffen's gift was lauded as transformative by Lincoln Center administrators and elsewhere criticized as self-aggrandizing.” Associated Press. Michael Hill, “The Rich Give, and Get Grief,” as printed in the Bloomsburg (PA) Press-Enterprise, pp: 25 and 28, January 27, 2016.

GEFFEN GIVES $100 MILLION TO CREATE GEFFEN ACADEMY “Media mogul [David] Geffen has been accused of a bit of each after two recent gifts, including $100 million to create the Geffen Academy at UCLA to serve the children of faculty, among others. The gift- aimed in part at attracting top talent to the college and its medical school, which is named for Geffen - has generated critical headlines like this one in L.A. Weekly:  ‘Let's All Watch David Geffen Light His Money on Fire.’" Associated Press. Michael Hill, “The Rich Give, and Get Grief,” printed in the Bloomsburg (PA) Press-Enterprise, pp: 25 and 28, January 27, 2016.

EFFECTS OF BIG MONEY ON COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

“ . . the influence of big money on campus extends far beyond disclosure forms, with banks,
corporations, and entrepreneurs setting up chairs and institutes that apparently are intended to promote capitalism and free enterprise.

“In 2009, for instance, the billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson gave New York University $20 million to create both an Alan Greenspan Chair in Economics and a John A. Paulson
Professor of Finance and Alternative Investments. In 2010, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which is dedicated to reducing government spending and the national debt, gave a three-year $2.45 million grant to Columbia University's Teachers College to develop a curriculum "about the fiscal challenges that face the nation," to be distributed free to every high school in the country. The philanthropic arm of BB&T, a financial services company in North Carolina, has given millions to more than sixty colleges and universities to examine the "moral foundations of capitalism" and promote the works of Ayn Rand. What has been the impact of these donations? How much control, if any, do the donors have over what's taught?”

Massing, Michael, ‘How to Cover the One Percent,’ The New York Review, January 14, 2016, pp: 74-76.

FORTUNE 500 COMPANIES

“Once, Fortune 500 companies were the bread and butter of business coverage. Since the 2008 financial collapse, however, the preoccupation with Wall Street has pushed these companies aside. As Jesse Eisinger of ProPublica observed to me in an e-mail, journalists

‘don't adequately cover how corporations
keep their wages down, treat their employees
in general, fight unions, lobby for their corporate-
needs, arrive at decisions to pay their top executives,
or dominate their markets. We don't hear
about the GM or VW scandals until
after they break. (Once they do, we
get good coverage, but that's
archeology, not detective work.) Where
is the coverage of Boeing. 3M, Du- pont, FedEx or CVS?
Energy? Insurance? Trucking? Construction?’

“ . . . The activities of unions could be examined as well.”

Massing, Michael, ‘How to Cover the One Percent,’ The New York Review, January 14, 2016, pp: 74-76.