1% Actually Helping The 99%,

Thought it would be nice to show a 1%'er doing something good for the 99% for a change.

www.freep.com...|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

General Motors CEO Dan Akerson and his wife, Karin Akerson, will donate $1 million today to kick-start a new Habitat for Humanity initiative called Leaders to ReBuild Detroit, aimed at stabilizing the MorningSide neighborhood on the city's east side.

At an event to launch the $15-million effort to aid at least 500 MorningSide families by 2014, the Akersons will be joined at J.E. Clark Preparatory Academy today by Roy Roberts, emergency manager for Detroit Public Schools, and city and Habitat officials.

Dan Akerson said he and his wife chose to make a large personal, public donation in hopes that other leaders will also step up with commitments to help rebuild a deeply distressed city.

Businessmen doing the politicians job, but aside from that this is great and would love others to follow.

2nd.

I applaud his actions
however, he is going about his charity in the wrong way.
Instead of giving these people houses. He should give them
jobs instead. Jobs would allow them to pay for a lot more
than a house. However, we know the real reason why he
did this don't we ???

Giving to charity for housing, he gets a tax write-off.

supplying jobs to those 500, he doesn't.

1 million dollars is alot of money to spend to an ordinary person however when it comes to business construction repair it totals to nothing.

It must be that there is no one in the government that can do as much for him with the money than the goodwill he gets for helping the poor will... The publicity is an extra perk... It is a nice gesture though.

Thats only one family

At most, its like 1% of THE 1%

that help the rest

POLICE STATE, DOG EAT DOG.

IF you watch Undercover Boss on Fridays (US). I think you can get this feeling every week. The bosses learn so much on that show and they reward the people and acknowledge their hard work! Most of the CEOs are really down to earth people and not greedy.

A bonus the show is in other countries.

How nice for him to give a little back after record profits last year, due in great part to the bailout that saved GM's bacon.

abcnews.go.com...

My guess, he got a nice bonus from those profits, being the CEO - I'm sure he needed some deductions.

Tax deductions anyone?

Seriously...

Originally posted by Detour

Giving to charity for housing, he gets a tax write-off.

First off I pretty much agree with most of what you said about jobs instead of house(mostly because giving someone a house is like handed them a pile of debt, but thats the Governments fault) but this part annoys me.

If this man gave his money to the government instead of a charity what exactly would the government use that money for?

To build bombs? Increase the drug and hooker budget(hyperbole) or any other unsavory dealing. They might build roads or create some jobs, or they could just turn around and bailout a bank for some other rich people. The fact is that at least we know and the man knows that his money went to a good cause(expect for the people that accept the house now incur a debt because taxes) that everyone can pretty much agree with. Instead of some backroom deal or political move that only a few or even a minority might agree with.

Just saying is all. I'm just saying that rich guys that give charities a bundle of cash might be doing better of society as a whole in the long run instead of handing it to the government to mismanage.

Am I an ingrate for thinking too little too late;

Especially since I live a thousand miles from there, and it massages my feel goods so much that I'd prefer inducing vomit to make the feeling go away?

I'm such a pessimist.

General Motors CEO Dan Akerson and his wife......... this is just PR , you will see more big companies jump on this bandwagon , geez I can hear all the PR firms hammering out new projects for big business to make it appear that they have empathy with the 99%, I am not fooled , que the WHO song , " meet the new boss , same as the old boss " $1 million dollars is chicken feed also a percentage of what the company would have paid in tax anyway, not impressed.

Doesn't Detroit have a ton of empty houses already? What is building more houses gonna do for this city? They need jobs, what part of WE NEED JOBS don't the 1% not understand?

If I were an unemployed US citizen facing eviction or on the street now , I would be asking FEMA , and the government where the hell is the sanctuary for me , the unemployment / homeless situation is a crisis of pandemic proportions and growing , FEMA has millions of dollars , has nobody lobbied on behalf of the homeless and unemployed......... and don't say this is the downside of the free market economy, we all know that. Empty buildings all over America , people living in tent cities.....crazy.