Julia Chatterley's lover: Harvard?
The CNN International anchor does seem to express an excessive fondness for the Cambridge institution—coupled with a raging animus toward President Trump.
On this morning's New Day, Chatterley trashed as a "total fabrication" Trump's criticism of the $9 million in bailout money that Harvard somehow managed to score.
Chatterley offered two defenses of the Harvard bailout. Let's break them down.
1. Harvard will use the funds to support low- and moderate-income students.
Chatterley is supposedly a financial-markets specialist. So surely she should understand that money is . . . fungible. If Harvard uses the $9 million for student support, that's $9 million it would otherwise not have had available to pay for other expenses.
2. Harvard's $40 billion endowment is "not a piggy bank" that can be "raided." It's there to ensure that Harvard "lasts forever."
But at a moment when countless institutions are facing extinction, why the hell can't Harvard dip into its enormous endowment? Nine million isn't a huge fraction of 40 billion.
Harvard has announced that notwithstanding the public outcry, it's keeping the money. So who are the pigs now?
Here's the transcript.
CNN
New Day
4/22/20
6:44 am EDT
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Hey Julia: what is this story with Harvard? You know, President Trump went after Harvard, basically claiming that they had sort of sucked up some of the funds that were supposed to be for small businesses. Harvard has refuted that. What’s the truth here?JULIA CHATTERLEY: It’s a total fabrication. Facts first. The president was completely wrong. Harvard did not steal money from small businesses; let's be clear. There was a separate multibillion dollar fund set up for educational institutions.
Now, Harvard does happen to be the richest college in the world. It has a $40 billion endowment. So you can understand perhaps some questions being asked here.
Two things. Harvard has said and perhaps we could question the timing. We don’t know. That all this money is going to go to their students that come from low- to moderate-income families. Forbes says that’s around 16% of their students.
The second thing is, an endowment is there to make sure that this university, this college lasts forever. It’s not like a piggy bank, unfortunately, that you can raid. A better comparison is, are there colleges out there that also have high levels of low- and moderate-income students that didn’t get money or still need money. That’s the comparison. But the president is just making it up as he goes along.
CAMEROTA: Really helpful. Thank you very much for all the information, Julia Chatterley, Christine Romans.
