LIVE from NYPL: RALPH NADER, TED TURNER & PETER LEWIS

Date and Time
May 4, 2011
Event Details

In Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, Ralph Nader imagines a coalition of billionaires who join forces to answer the question: “What if several of America’s wealthiest individuals decided it was time to work for the collective good?”

On May 4th, two billionaires, Ted Turner and Peter Lewis, portrayed in the fictional narrative will appear on the stage in real life for a taboo-free exchange with the author. 

The two "billionaires against bull" as Ralph Nader charaterizes them, and  one of America's leading provocateur will envision how philanthropy can spark key redirections of our society, our country, and the world.

RALPH NADER has helped us drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breathe better air, drink cleaner water, and work in safer environments for more than four decades. The crusading attorney first made headlines in 1965 with his book Unsafe at Any Speed, a scathing indictment that lambasted the auto industry for producing unsafe vehicles. Many lives have been saved by Nader’s involvement in the recall of millions of unsafe consumer products, including defective motor vehicles, and in the protection of laborers and the environment. By starting dozens of citizen groups, Ralph Nader has created an atmosphere of corporate and governmental accountability. Ralph Nader’s books include, In Pursuit of Justice and The Ralph Nader Reader, The Good Fight and The Seventeen Traditions. Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! is Nader’s first work of fiction.

TED TURNER has received recognition for his entrepreneurial acumen, sharp business skills, leadership qualities, and his unprecedented philanthropy. Turner is co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a charitable organization working to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; chairman of the Turner Foundation, Inc., which supports efforts for improving air and water quality, developing a sustainable energy future to protect the earth's climate, safeguarding environmental health, maintaining wildlife habitat protection, and developing practices and policies to curb population growth rates; chairman of the United Nations Foundation, which promotes a more peaceful, prosperous and just world.

PETER LEWIS is the non-executive Chairman of Progressive Corporation where for 45 years, 35 as CEO,  he has overseen the transformation of the 100 employee company into a full-line auto insurer with 26,000 employees and annual sales of $14 billion.  Retired since 2000, Lewis invests through his philanthropy. Lewis serves on the Board of Princeton University, his alma mater (Class of 1955), where he is its largest ever contributor (over $220 million)  including the largest gift in Princeton’s history ($101 million) to expand its programs in the creative and performing arts. Lewis’ other gifts to Princeton include $60 million for a Gehry designed science library and an endowment for the Lewis/Sigler Genomics Institute.  He supports the American Civil Liberties Union and helped finance the beginnings of the Democracy Alliance, Media Matters, the Center for American Progress, as well as other progressive efforts.