I Have a Pet Peeve: CORPORATE DONATIONS | Eastern North Carolina Now

    I do not know of anyone who has an unlimited supply of money. I know some people who spend recklessly. As for me, I am a penny pincher. Look at my car and my clothes. Look at how I vote as a Commissioner.

    The, as Stan Deatherage says "flavor of the day", seems to be for companies to donate large sums of money to all sorts of what they call "charities". I see more and more advertising from large corporations like Walmart, McDonalds, Wendys Target, Levis, etc bragging about what charity they gave money to. To me this is cheap and unethical advertising.

    That is not their money, it is your money, probably obtained from you under false pretenses. You thought you were buying a hamburger but you were actually buying a hamburger and making an involuntary donation to a charity that you may not approve of. You did not know you were making a donation, so you got no deduction from your taxes. But, that big company sure did.

    Each of us is capable of deciding what charities we think are worthwhile. We know those that deserve a personal donation from us.

    Most of these recent donations are to organizations that have very questionable motives. Therefore, I am making an effort to reduce spending to companies that take my money use it for what they think are popular social programs. I will certainly be using less popular brand cola and more store brands, purchased from those stores that do not make contributions with my money.

    If these companies want to actually help people, they can reduce prices. I appreciate that a lot more than I do the taking of my money for what I think is a hamburger and later find they have insulted by heritage and me personally by making donation to some num skull liberal cause.

    The same thing goes for the payment of dividends. Stop making donations and raise the dividend. People do not invest in companies as a social statement. They invest to make money. Corporations who give money for social causes are violating their fiduciary duty to their investors.

    Corporations also donate money because board members and officers want to be big shots. This is not their money, this is stockholder's money.

    There has to be laws about deceptive trade practices and fiduciary responsibility that cover this. If not Congress should enact some.