Monday, October 24, 2011

Class War Deepens

Earlier this month, hundreds of New Yorkers received an unusual dinner invitation from the Lower East Side People's Federal Credit Union.

The Credit Union, a small lender serving New York's poor, was holding a fund-raiser to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Among the chief sponsors listed on the invitation was Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Among the honorees: "Occupy Wall Street."

They might as well have asked Marie Antoinette to dig into her purse to support Madame Defarge's knitting business.

Shortly after the invitation was sent out, Goldman withdrew its name from the dinner. It also pulled the plug on its $5,000 funding pledge.

[...]

[S]everal hosts and board members of the credit union [...] said honoring the protesters is more important than the money from Goldman—even though the funds were slated to cover a quarter of the dinner's $20,000 cost.

"Their money was welcome, but not at the price of giving up what we believe in," said Pablo DeFilippi, one of the dinner hosts and associate director of member development at the National Federal of Community Development Credit Unions. "We lost their $5,000, but we have our principles."

WSJ

Do I hear Goldman Sachs: "Let them eat principles."

Despite another quarter of robust corporate profits, an ominous impulse is stirring at many big companies—restructuring.

In a sign that executives see a rockier road ahead, many manufacturers are setting aside money to fund moves aimed at cutting costs and streamlining operations. Those steps could include job cuts and factory closures, as businesses seek to pare expenses ahead of what is widely expected to be slow revenue growth in 2012.

  WSJ

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