New York's elite ask that regular folk please be more respectful of their betters

Friday, Sep 30, 2011 4:30 PM EDT

Mayor Bloomberg, partner diagnose what's wrong with America: You

New York's elite ask that regular folk please be more respectful of their betters (and stop protesting them)

By Alex Pareene

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New York's First Couple (Credit: Reuters/Joshua Roberts)

Topics:Michael Bloomberg, Great Recession, Bank Reform, Wall Street, New York, New York City, Unemployment, Bank Bailouts

The 90,000 New Yorkers who control 99% of the city’s wealth are completely segregated, geographically and intellectually, from everyone else in the city and the nation at large, so its no surprise that they tend to be tone-deaf and blind to the inequities and frustrations and resentments of Regular Folk, but billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his charming and powerful partner Diana Taylor are really out-doing themselves in terms of blinkered elite thickheadedness these days.

Let’s start with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is at the moment clearly struggling with his natural impulse to throw every protester in jail without charges for the crime in interrupting the business of the city’s truly important people. His impassioned plea to the people currently participating in the Occupy Wall Street protest: The banks are our friends!

“The protesters are protesting against people who make $40-50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That’s the bottom line,” Bloomberg said, presumably meaning service workers on Wall Street, adding that “we all” share blame for taking on too much risk, not just the financial industry.

“And people in this day and age need support for their employers. If the banks don’t go out and make loans we will not come out of our economic problems, we will not have jobs so anything we can do that’s responsible to help the banks do that is what we need.”

Wonkette’s Kirsten Boyd Johnson correctly notes that every single word the mayor says here is utterly nonsensical, unless you are, say, a billionaire mogul with deep ties to the financial industry.

Everyone else knows that the banks exist to make huge amounts of money by screwing everyone over, but banks are generally run by human beings (with the exception of Goldman Sachs, a Lizard Person From Outer Space operation), and those human beings have largely convinced themselves that they are very good and productive members of society. Hence, this sort of talk.

Which working-class people making $50,000 a year are the protesters protesting against, exactly? I’m not sure. The people who clean the offices of the financial firms that are actually being protested, maybe? The people who sell them fancy coffees? (This is just a slightly confused version of the old hostage argument against attacking the pillars of the vast, corrupt financial industry — if you hurt the banks they’ll hurt everyone else in America in retaliation.)

Still, Mayor Mike is to be commended for his political acumen. Desperate, terrified fealty to “employers” is a great, inspiring message. That should be his independent presidential campaign slogan. “SUPPORT YOUR BETTERS, OR ELSE.”

Diana Taylor, the mayor’s partner (in a personal/romantic sense, not in terms of business), gives an interview to Elizabeth Spiers, the editor of the New York Observer, boy real estate magnate Jared Kushner’s newspaper of record for New York’s media and real estate elite. Taylor manages to be less astoundingly dense as the mayor, but she still illuminates the mindset of the Gotham’s ruling class.

They hate democracy, or at least they hate the decisions made by voters (and who among us doesn’t, much of the time), but she is positive that everyone would see the light and support people like her (or her, specifically) if only those damned left-wing nuts and right-wing nuts who control the political parties hadn’t rigged the whole system.

Here’s the classic “I WOULDA WON IF I WANTED TO!” cry of the elite centrist who declines to messy themselves with an actual run for office, after flirting with the idea:

Last year, Senate Republicans approached Ms. Taylor about the possibility of running against incumbent Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and for a while she considered it. “The Senate Republicans basically asked me to run and I thought about it, talked to a lot of people,” she said. “But then when I really thought about it, what attracted me to the idea was the race because I knew I could win that race. It was the thought of actually having to go and do that job, that was really not all that appealing.”

I bet Taylor would’ve been just as successful as her handpicked ridiculous Congressional challenger to Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the hilarious Reshma Saujani.

Taylor explicitly defines herself in the traditional “centrist” way: socially liberal (she is pro-choice!) and “fiscally conservative” (she is pro-corporatist!). Contrary to popular belief, this is basically the opposite of how “most Americans” — especially genuine swing voters — actually feel. (To drastically oversimplify, your generic “swing voter” is uncomfortable with changing social mores and thinks the government should soak the rich to pay for regular folks’ schools and healthcare, basically.)

Of course, Taylor identifies as a Republican, but her platform is basically the same as that of the “moderate” wing of the Democratic party, which Barack Obama mostly belongs to, despite occasional liberal rhetorical flights. But it is those liberal rhetorical flights that Taylor deplores about him, because she doesn’t think he’s polite enough to her class:

She was even less sanguine about Obama. “I think that he’s a very intelligent man,” she said carefully. “And he has a lot to learn.”

Her voice took on a sharper edge. “For somebody’s who’s going to come in and be the great unifier—you know, that hopey-changey stuff—it hasn’t worked very well. The country is more divided now than it’s ever been. And he doesn’t appreciate other people and what they do. “

He doesn’t… “appreciate other people.” If only he knew how much the world’s top 1% had done for him!

Having given this some thought, she had a three-pronged list of his biggest mistakes. “There are probably more,” she said, but here were three. He wasn’t supporting business, Ms. Taylor said. “He should be a champion for this country and he’s not. Because that’s where the jobs are going to come from. They’re not going to come from government; they’re going to come from the private sector.” The second: Obamacare. He basically told Congress, ‘you know what? I want a health care bill, do something.”

“The last time I checked, the president was supposed to sit down and figure out what he wanted and then get Congress to go along with it. And we got a mess. And exactly the same thing with financial regulation and regulatory reform.” This was number three. “And we have a mess.”

This boilerplate center-right political analysis is self-evidently stupid to anyone who’s been paying attention to the legislative process over the last, say, 20 years (it is the “magic president” school of analysis) but it is always useful to understand how our betters think about the world. In Diana Taylor’s mind, the unemployment crisis is a result of… Barack Obama being insufficiently respectful of business, or somehow not “championing” business. The jobs will come from the private sector, once… Obama thanks them, profusely, for their goodness.

Next: Barack Obama mistakenly allowed Congress to craft legislation, a clear violation of the Constitution, which holds that Congress should sign or veto bills sent to it by the president. That’s what the Constitution says, right? I seem to have misplaced by pocket copy.

“The last time I checked, the president was supposed to sit down and figure out what he wanted and then get Congress to go along with it.” What a wonderful line! The last time you checked what, Ms. Taylor? Your email? “Doonesbury”? The Thursday Styles section?

Taylor goes on to decry “uncertainty,” claiming Dodd-Frank is somehow stopping banks from lending money to people who need money, and throws in this exasperated cry to the heavens:

“And this whole business of the FHFA suing all the banks around Fannie and Freddie; it’s crazy!” Inasmuch as Mr. Taylor would ever be inclined to pound her fist on a table to make a point, she seemed on the verge of it. “I’ve never—I mean, it just makes no sense at all to me!”

They’re suing the banks because the banks committed mass fraud, basically? It’s pretty easy to understand! (And don’t worry, they’ll let your bank friends off easy, probably.)

But Taylor doesn’t blame the banks for what the banks did. No, she places the blame where her class knows it belongs: On All of Us.

“I think it’s a problem with Congress. I think it’s a problem with the ratings agencies. I think it’s a problem with the banks. I think it’s a problem with the population at large. Everybody’s going like this” she threw her hands up in the air. “And at the end of the day, everybody’s responsible in some way or another.”

Everybody! Did you know that you, citizen, are responsible for the financial disaster and the ensuing mass unemployment crisis? You should probably call up Diana Taylor and apologize personally. You are making her so upset!

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene

Meet the Wealthy Right-Winger Plutocrats Helping Fund the Koch Brothers' Agenda

AlterNet.org

TEA PARTY AND THE RIGHT

Mother Jones / By Gavin Aronsen

$1 Million Donation to the Kochs? Meet the Wealthy Right-Wingers Helping Fund the Brothers' Agenda

In a speech recorded at the secretive Koch gathering, Charles Koch thanks donors who gave more than $1 million to the cause. Here's who they are.

September 6, 2011 |

Read Mother Jones' inside account of the Koch brothers' Vail seminar, and listen to the exclusive audio.

Twice a year, the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch host secretive retreats for an exclusive list of corporate America's rich and powerful to strategize and raise money for their right-wing political agenda. Mother Jones has obtained exclusive audio recordings that shed some light on the brothers' latest retreat, held at a resort near Vail, Colorado, in late June.

In a speech that is part of these recordings, Charles Koch thanks donors who gave more than $1 million to the cause. We checked the audio against a list of participants at the Kochs' 2010 seminar in Aspen that was obtained by ThinkProgress.org and did additional research on these individuals. Below are the names Koch read that appeared on the previous guest list.

John Childs: Childs is the founder and CEO of private equity firm JW Childs Associates. In 2006, Boston Magazine placed the "notoriously media-shy" magnate—a.k.a. "the Republican ATM"—among the city's wealthiest residents, reportedly worth $1.2 billion. Childs donated $750,000 to outside political expenditure groups in 2010. He's also been involved in Floridawetlands conservation efforts.

The Cortopassis: Dean "Dino" Cortopassi and his wife, Joan, hail from Stockton, California.This article, which identifies the pair as philanthroposts, calls Dino a "wealthy self-made agribusinessman who is Stocktonian of the Year for 2005." He is suing the state of California for its failure to dredge streams in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Joe Craft: Joseph Craft is president, CEO, and chairman of Alliance Resource Partners, a coal company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that gave $2.4 million to outside political expenditure groups in 2010. His family is reportedly worth $1.9 billion.

The DeVoses: Rich and Helen DeVos hail from Michigan. The cofounder of Amway and owner of the NBA's Orlando Magic, Rich DeVos is reportedly worth in the ballpark of $4.2 billion. The Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation funds conservative Christian groups such as Focus on the Family. The DeVoses are big enough political donors to have their own profile at OpenSecrets.org.

The Farmers: Dick Farmer is from Ohio. The founder and former CEO of the Cintas Corporation, his story is literally rags-to-riches: He turned his father's Depression-era rag-cleaning business into a $3.5 billion enterprise. Farmer and his wife, Joyce, are longtime Republican boosters; during the 2002 election cycle the couple gave about $1 million to the party.

The Friesses: Foster Friess founded the investment firm Friess Associates in 1974 with his wife, Lynn; in 2001, he sold a majority share for $247 million. Friess is a champion of conservative Christian causes and one of Wyoming's richest men. His son, Steve Friess, helps him run the family's philanthropic foundation. (Steve's wife, Polly, was also on the list of Aspen Koch participants.)

The Fullinwiders: Jerry and Leah Fullinwider hail from Dallas. Jerry has pursued oil exploration and development in the United States, Canada, and Russia. He now serves under Ross Perot's son as vice chairman of Hillwood International Energy, which has operations in Iraq and Jordan as well as the United States and Russia. He also has ties to Hilarion Alfeyev, an anti-abortion Russian Orthodox bishop.

The Gilliams: Richard Gilliam and wife, Leslie, are natives of southwest Virginia. Richardfounded the Cumberland Resources Corporation, which was one of the nation's largest private coal mining companies when Massey Energy bought it for nearly $1 billion in March 2010. He's now a director with the Vancouver-based mining corporation Endurance Gold.

The Griffins: Ken and Anne Dias Griffin are a hedge fund power couple from Chicago whowed in 2003. Ken is the founder and CEO of Citadel and is reportedly worth $2.3 billion. Anne founded one of the nation's largest woman-run hedge funds, Aragon Global Management. Ken bundled money for both President Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain during the 2008 election.

The Haworths: Richard "Dick" Haworth is the former CEO and chairman emeritus of Haworth, an international office-interiors manufacturer based in Holland, Michigan, that he took over from his father in 1975. The company reported sales of $1.4 billion in 2005, the year he retired. He is married to Ethie Haworth and has donated more than $100,000 to Republican causes, according to OpenSecrets.org.

Diane Hendricks: Hendricks is the billionaire former head of the ABC Supply roofing company, which she took over from her husband Kenneth after he died in a construction site accident in 2007. Reportedly worth $2.2 billion, she is therichest businesswoman in Wisconsin and a big Republican Party donor. She recently gave her state's embattled Republican governor, Scott Walker,$10,000 in advance of a potential recall vote next year.

The Humphreys family: Ethelmae Humphreys is the chair of the board of Tamko Building Products, one of the country's largest independent roofing manufacturers. She also serves on the board of directors of the Cato Institute, a Koch-funded think tank. Her son David is Tamko's CEO. The two have doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates. That includes David's $25,000 donation to the successful recount effort this year of conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, who came under fire recently for allegations that he choked a fellow justice. (He wasn't charged.)

The Levys: Kenneth Levy of Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, cofounded the Jacobs Levy equity management firm and has donated about $85,000 to conservative causes, according to FEC records. His wife, Frayda Levin, is a national director at the Koch brothers' advocacy group Americans for Prosperity and sits on the board of the Club for Growth. She also cofounded the Motion Picture Institute, which "promotes liberty through film," according to her AFP bio. FEC records show that she has given well over $100,000 to conservative causes.

The Marshall family: Elaine Marshall of Dallas is the widow of E. Pierce Marshall, a son of oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall who served on the board of Koch Industries before his death. Elaine was involved in a successful effort to prevent the late Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith, who married Howard when he was 89, from inheriting the family's wealth. Before Smith's death, she was investigated by the FBI but never prosecuted in a murder-for-hire plot against Pierce. In the end, Pierce inherited the bulk of his father's wealth because he and his father had previously helped Charles and David Koch thwart a takeover of Koch Industries; Howard's eldest son—also named Howard—sided against his father and was disinherited as a result. Meanwhile, Elaine's son, E. Pierce Marshall Jr., is senior vice president and general counsel at oil exploration company MarOpCo. Another son, Preston Marshall of Houston, is the president of MarOpCo.

The Popes: Art Pope is a millionaire Republican booster from Raleigh, North Carolina, who inherited his retail fortune from a family business. According to this article, he’s "one of the most trusted members of the Koch's elite circle" and a regular at the Kochs' secret seminars, as well as a "valuable junior partner in many key Koch operations." He's another national director at Americans for Prosperity and is married to Kathy Pope.

The Robertsons: Corbin Robertson is CEO and chairman of the board of Natural Resource Partners, a Houston-based fossil fuels company. He's also been involved with a number of other energy organizations and was listed as the richest US small-business owner in 2007 byCNNMoney. He and wife Barbara have donated to the Baylor College of Medicine and both Democratic and Republican politicians.

Karen Wright: Wright is the founder and CEO of the Ariel Foundation, a private philanthropy group based in Mount Vernon, Ohio. She's also CEO of the Ariel Corporation, a natural-gas compression company, and on the American Petroleum Institute's board of directors. She has donated more than $100,000 to Republican causes, according to OpenSecrets.org.

Tom Rastin: Rastin shares a Mount Vernon, Ohio, address with Karen Wright. He serves onthe board of directors at the Ariel Foundation and is vice president of marketing and engineering at the Ariel Corporation. Last year, he gave $2,400 to the failed congressional campaign of former Democratic Louisiana House Speaker Hunt Downer, who switched to the Republican Party after endorsing the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2000.

The principals with the Services Group of America: SGA is a billion-dollar food services wholesaler; its CEO, Peter Smith of Scottsdale, Arizona, appears on the list of 2010 Koch attendees. Smith took over as CEO last year after its former head, GOP heavyweightThomas J. Stewart, died in a helicopter crash. According to FEC records, Smith has donated $12,500 to Republican congressional candidates. SGA's political action committee donates heavily to Republicans.

At the event, Charles Koch also read off names that did not appear on the 2010 attendees list, but that mirrored those of well-known GOP donors for whom giving $1 million or more to the Kochs would not seem out of character. You'll find these names below. We chose not to offer any details on the handful of names for which we could find no association with Koch business interests or conservative political giving. (Listen to Charles Koch reading the donor list.)

The Camerons: Ron Cameron of Little Rock, Arkansas, runs agribusiness giant Mountaire Corporation, which generated $1.22 billion in revenue in 2009. He has donated at least $175,000 to Republicans in recent years, including $5,000 to Sarah Palin's PAC, according to FEC records. The company itself has given at least $125,000 to outside spending groups over the past decade, according to OpenSecrets.org.

The Hamms: Self-made magnate Harold Hamm of Oklahoma City is reportedly worth $8.2 billion. The son of sharecroppers, Hamm soared up the corporate ladder from gas station attendant to CEO of "America's Oil Champion," Oklahoma-based Continental Resources. According to OpenSecrets.org, he's doled out more than $100,000 to political causes and candidates, mostly Republican. Stricken with diabetes, he and wife Sue Ann founded a centerat the Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center to help combat the disease.

The Haydens: Jerry and Marilyn Hayden of Barrington, Illinois, doled out $400,000 to conservative-leaning outside spending groups in 2010 and about $250,000 to Republicans in 2008. Before retirement, Jerry ran Peacock Engineering, a packaging company. As of September 2008, he served on the board of directors at the United Republican Fund of Illinois. The Haydens recently donated $2.5 million toward an alumni center at their alma matter, Bradley University.

Virginia James: James is an investor from New Jersey. She has donated handsomely to right-wing causes, including a $750,000 gift to the Club for Growth in 2008 and another $350,000 last year. This year, she donated $25,000 to the successful recount of Wisconsin's Justice Prosser.

The Menards: John Menard of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is the founder of Menards, the country's third-largest hardware company. He's worth a reported $5.2 billion and has donated about $80,000 to his state's Republican Party and federal candidates, mostly Republicans, according to FEC records. His company backed a recent anti-union program that was linked to the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity and supported by Gov. Scott Walker.

John Moran: Hailing from Palm Springs, Florida, Moran is the former chairman of the Dyson-Kissner-Moran Corporation, an international holding company based in New York City. He also chaired the Republican National Finance Committee from 1993 to 1995. Moran has given more than $900,000 to Republican causes since 1991, according to OpenSecrets.org, and he bundled between $250,000 and $500,000 more for McCain's 2008 presidential bid. In 1997, he warned that the religious right was putting his party's future "in jeopardy."

The Schwabs: Charles Schwab of San Francisco is founder and chairman of the Charles Schwab Corporation, the country's largest independent brokerage firm. He is reportedly worth $4.7 billion. Since 1989, Schwab has donated more than $1.6 million to political causes, mostly Republican, according toOpenSecrets.org. Part of that went to his company's lobbying arm, which has given away millions more.

Paul Singer: While Singer is not on the list of Aspen participants, the New York Times notedthat "Annie Dickerson, who also runs a foundation for Paul Singer, a hedge fund executive who like the Kochs is active in promoting libertarian causes," showed up at that seminar. Singer founded the $17 billion hedge fund Elliott Management and recently issued an economic manifesto slamming the Federal Reserve as a "group of inbred academics."

The Templetons: John "Jack" Templeton Jr. and his wife, Josephine, of Pennsylvania, gave $50,000 apiece to Wisconsin Justice Prosser's recount effort this year. Jack has donated more than $1 million to Republicans, according to state and federal records. He heads the conservative John Templeton Foundation, which aims to merge evangelical Christianity with "science" and "health." The foundation was started by Jack's father, Sir John the mutual fund billionaire, and in 2009 reportedly had $1.7 billion in assets.

Be sure to Read Part 1 of our two-part series: "Exclusive: The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes."

And check back tomorrow for Part 2, on the GOP superstar who rocked the Koch crowd on opening night.

S&P and the Bilderbergers: All Part of the Plan?

by Ellen Hodgson Brown / August 19th, 2011

What just happened in the stock market? Last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose or fell by at least 400 points for four straight days, a stock market first.

The worst drop was on Monday, 8-8-11, when the Dow plunged 624 points. Monday was the first day of trading after US Treasury bonds were downgraded from AAA to AA+ by Standard and Poor’s.

But the roller coaster actually began on Tuesday, 8-2-11, the day after the last-minute deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling — a deal that was supposed to avoid the downgrade that happened anyway five days later. The Dow changed directions for eight consecutive trading sessions after that, another first.

The volatility was unprecedented, leaving analysts at a loss to explain it. High frequency program trading no doubt added to the wild swings, but why the daily reversals? Why didn’t the market head down and just keep going, as it did in September 2008?

The plunge on 8-8-11 was the worst since 2008 and the sixth largest stock market crash ever. According to Der Spiegel, one of the most widely read periodicals in Europe:

Many economists have been pointing out that last week’s panic resembled the fear that swept financial markets after the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

Then as now, banks stopped lending each other money. Then as now, banks’ cash deposits at the central bank doubled within days.

On Tuesday, August 9, however, the market gained more points from its low than it lost on Monday. Why? A tug of war seemed to be going on between two titanic forces, one bent on crashing the market, the other on propping it up.

The Dubious S&P Downgrade

Many commentators questioned the validity of the downgrade that threatened to collapse the market. Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said in a statement:

The Treasury Department revealed that S&P’s decision was initially based on a $2 trillion error in accounting. However, even after this enormous error was corrected, S&P went ahead with the downgrade. This suggests that S&P had made the decision to downgrade independent of the evidence. [Emphasis added.]

Paul Krugman, writing in the New York Times, was also skeptical, stating:

[E]verything I’ve heard about S&P’s demands suggests that it’s talking nonsense about the US fiscal situation. The agency has suggested that the downgrade depended on the size of agreed deficit reduction over the next decade, with $4 trillion apparently the magic number. Yet US solvency depends hardly at all on what happens in the near or even medium term: an extra trillion in debt adds only a fraction of a percent of GDP to future interest costs . . .

In short, S&P is just making stuff up — and after the mortgage debacle, they really don’t have that right.

In an illuminating expose posted on Firedoglake on August 5, Jane Hamsher concluded:

It’s becoming more and more obvious that Standard and Poor’s has a political agenda riding on the notion that the US is at risk of default on its debt based on some arbitrary limit to the debt-to-GDP ratio. There is no sound basis for that limit, or for S&P’s insistence on at least a $4 trillion down payment on debt reduction, any more than there is for the crackpot notion that a non-crazy US can be forced to default on its debt. . . .

It’s time the media and Congress started asking Standard and Poors what their political agenda is and whom it serves.

Who Drove the S&P Agenda?

Jason Schwarz shed light on this question in an article on Seeking Alpha titled “The Rise of Financial Terrorism”. He wrote:

[A]fter the market close on Friday August 5th, we received word that S&P CEO Deven Sharma had taken control of the ratings agency and personally led the push for a U.S. downgrade. There is a lot of evidence that he has deliberately tried to trash the U.S. economy. Even after discovering that the S&P debt calculations were off by $2 trillion, Sharma made the decision to go ahead with the unethical downgrade. This is a guy who was a key contributor at the 2009 Bilderberg Summit that organized 120 of the world’s richest men and women to push for an end to the dollar as the global reserve currency.

[T]hrough his writings on “competitive strategy” S&P CEO Sharma considers the United States the PROBLEM in today’s world, operating with what he implies is an unfair and reckless advantage. The brutal reality is that for “globalization” to succeed the United States must be torn asunder . . .

Also named by Schwarz as a suspect in the market manipulations was Michel Barnier, head of European Regulation. Barnier triggered an alarming 513-point drop in the Dow on August 4, when he blocked the plan of Hans Hoogervorst, newly appointed Chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board, to save Europe by adopting a new rule called IFRS 9. The rule would have eliminated mark-to-market accounting of sovereign debt from European bank balance sheets. Schwarz writes:

We all should be experts on the dangers of mark-to-market accounting after observing the U.S. banking crisis of 2008/2009 and the Great Depression in the 1930s. Mark-to-market was repealed at 8:45 a.m on April 2, 2009, which finally put a stop to the short term liquidity crisis and at the same time ushered in a stock market recovery. Banks no longer had to raise capital as long term stability was brought back to the system. The exact same scenario would have happened in 2011 Europe under Hoogervorst’s plan. Without the threat of failure by those banks who hold high amounts of euro sovereign debt, investors would be free to move on from the European crisis and the stock market could resume its fundamental course.

Schwarz notes that Barnier, like Sharma, was a confirmed attendee at past Bilderberger conferences. What, then, is the agenda of the Bilderbergers?

The One World Company

Daniel Estulin, noted expert on the Bilderbergers, describes that secretive globalist group as “a medium of bringing together financial institutions which are the world’s most powerful and most predatory financial interests.” Writing in June 2011, he said:

Bilderberg isn’t a secret society. . . . It’s a meeting of people who represent a certain ideology. . . . Not OWG [One World Government] or NWO [New World Order] as too many people mistakenly believe. Rather, the ideology is of a ONE WORLD COMPANY LIMITED.

It seems the Bilderbergers are less interested in governing the world than in owning the world. The “world company” was a term first used at a Bilderberger meeting in Canada in 1968 by George Ball, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs and a managing director of banking giants Lehman Brothers and Kuhn Loeb. The world company was to be a new form of colonialism, in which global assets would be acquired by economic rather than military coercion. The company would extend across national boundaries, aggressively engaging in mergers and acquisitions until the assets of the world were subsumed under one privately-owned corporation, with nation-states subservient to a private international central banking system.

Estulin continues:

The idea behind each and every Bilderberg meeting is to create what they themselves call THE ARISTOCRACY OF PURPOSE between European and North American elites on the best way to manage the planet. In other words, the creation of a global network of giant cartels, more powerful than any nation on Earth, destined to control the necessities of life of the rest of humanity.

. . . This explains what George Ball . . . said back in 1968, at a Bilderberg meeting in Canada: “Where does one find a legitimate base for the power of corporate management to make decisions that can profoundly affect the economic life of nations to whose governments they have only limited responsibility?

That base of power was found in the private global banking system. Estulin goes on:

The problem with today’s system is that the world is run by monetary systems, not by national credit systems. . . . [Y]ou don’t want a monetary system to run the world. You want sovereign nation-states to have their own credit systems, which is the system of their currency. . . . [T]he possibility of productive, non-inflationary credit creation by the state, which is firmly stated in the US Constitution, was excluded by Maastricht [the Treaty of the European Union] as a method of determining economic and financial policy.

The world company acquires assets by preventing governments from issuing their own currencies and credit. Money is created instead by banks as loans at interest. The debts inexorably grow, since more money is always owed back than was created in the original loans. (For more on this, see here.) If currencies are not allowed to expand to meet increased costs and growth, the inevitable result is a wave of bankruptcies, foreclosures, and sales of assets at firesale prices. Sales to whom? To the “world company.”

Battle of the Titans

If that was the plan behind the market assaults on August 4 and August 8, however, it evidently failed. What turned the market around, according to Der Spiegel, was the European Central Bank, which saved the day by embarking on a program of buying Spanish and Italian bonds. Sidestepping the Maastricht Treaty, the ECB said it would engage in the equivalent of “quantitative easing,” purchasing bonds with money created with accounting entries on its books. It had done this earlier with Greek and Irish sovereign debt but had resisted doing it with Spanish and Italian bonds, which were much larger obligations. On Tuesday, August 16, the ECB announced that it was engaging in a record $32 billion bond-buying spree in an attempt to appease the markets and save the Eurozone from collapse.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was also expected to come through with another round of quantitative easing, but his speech on August 9 made no mention of QE3. As blogger Jesse Livermore summarized the market’s response:

. . . [T]he markets sold off rather rapidly as no announcement was made about QE3. . . . It wasn’t until . . . the last 75 min of market activity [that] the DJIA gained 639 pts to close at a day high of 11,242. That begs the question, where did that injection of capital come from? The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets? Or did the “policy tools” to promote price stability by any chance include the next round of Quantitative Easing unannounced?

Was that QE3 Incognito, Ben?

Titanic Battle or Insider Trading?

There could be another explanation for the suspicious downgrade that was announced despite the fact that the government had just made major concessions to avoid default, and despite the embarrassing revelation that S&P’s figures were off by $2 trillion. On August 12, MSN.Money reported that the downgrade “wasn’t much of a surprise”:

Wall Street had heard a rumor early on that the downgrade was coming. News sites reported the rumor all day.

Unless it was all a huge coincidence, it’s likely that someone in the know leaked the information. The questions are who and whether the leak led to early insider trading.

The Daily Mail had the story of someone placing an $850 million bet in the futures market on the prospects of a US debt downgrade:

The latest bet was made on July 21 on trades of 5,370 ten-year Treasury futures and 3,100 Treasury bond futures, reported ETF Daily News.

Now the investor’s gamble seems to have paid off after Standard and Poor’s issued a credit rating downgrade from AAA to AA+ last Friday.

Whoever it is stands to earn a 1,000 per cent return on their money, with the expectation that interest rates will be going up after the downgrade.

The Securities Exchange Commission announced on August 8 that it is investigating the downgrade. According to the Financial Times, the move is part of a preliminary examination into potential insider trading.

Whatever was going on in the market in the first two weeks of August, it was unprecedented, unnatural, and bears close observation.

Ellen Brown is an attorney in Los Angeles and the author of 11 books. In Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free, she shows how a private banking cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Read other articles by Ellen, or visit Ellen's website.

This article was posted on Friday, August 19th, 2011 at 8:00am and is filed under Economy/Economics, Markets.

Boycott Koch Brothers

Six Extreme Right-Wing Attacks by ALEC in State Governments

Posted on August 3, 2011 by DamnedLiberal

“Model” bills voted on by corporations through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) touch almost every aspect of American life. The Center for Media and Democracy has analyzed and made available over 800 ALEC model bills to allow other reporters and the public to track corporate influence in state legislatures across the country (and in Congress) at ALECExposed.org. Six of the many “hot” topics on the ALEC corporate-politician agenda this year.

• Disenfranchising American Citizens Through Voter ID
• Union-Busting
• Undoing Efforts To Address Climate Change
• Filling For-Profit Prisons Through Anti-Immigrant Bills
• Opposing Health Insurance Reform
• Privatizing K-12 Education

Read details at PR Watch

Posted in ALEC, Exposing the Kochs | Leave a comment

ALEC Love-Fest In The Big Easy

Posted on August 3, 2011 by DamnedLiberal

They’re getting ready for another round of imposing the plutocrats’ will on America:

Today, the American Legislative Exchange Council kicks off its annual meeting in the Big Easy. State legislators from across the country will arrive in New Orleans to be wined and dined by corporate lobbyists. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, for example, has invited legislators to a big smoke at its cigar reception on Bourbon Street. But the meeting is not all fun and games. Legislators will be sitting down with some of the biggest corporations in the world – Koch Industries, Bayer, Kraft, Coca-Cola, State Farm, AT&T, WalMart, Philip Morris and more — behind closed doors. There, they approve one-size-fits-all changes to the law that ALEC legislators take home and introduce as their own brilliant policy innovations.

pr-watch

Posted in ALEC, Infiltration & Influence | Leave a comment

ALEC Protest Planned

Posted on August 3, 2011 by DamnedLiberal

According to the “Protest ALEC” website (which is not affiliated with CMD), advocates will hold a number of workshops devoted to examining the ALEC agenda, corporations, and politicians. The session will culminate with a program followed by a “March to the Marriott” from the Hale Boggs Federal Building. Scheduled speakers and performances include Jordan Flaherty, journalist and community organizer; Bob Sloan, prison industry investigative consultant and author; David Rovics, musician; and representatives from the AFL-CIOand Interfaith Worker Justice.

The story

Posted in Exposing the Kochs, Protests | Leave a comment

Wisconsin Man Files Complaint Against Americans For Plutocrats

Posted on August 2, 2011 by DamnedLiberal

After receiving an absentee ballot form mailed to him by AFP (The Kochs’ Americans For Plutocrats), a Wisconsin man has filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board charging voter suppression by AFP. His complaint:

I received an absentee ballot request form from Americans For Prosperity. It intentionally listed to return up to Aug. 11. The date of the election is Aug. 9. If I followed their instructions, my ballot would not be legal. I think they purposely intended to discount my vote. I understand such activity to be against the law. I believe I was targeted by this group because I am a Democrat and a senior citizen.

The story

Posted in AFP: Americans For Plutocrats, Politics | Leave a comment

Kochsters Brag About “Defining The Debate” In The Disgraceful And Disgusting Budget Cap Battle

Posted on August 2, 2011 by DamnedLiberal

They have the audacity to claim bragging rights:

“We defined the contours of the debate and made it impossible to raise the debt ceiling without achieving serious spending cuts,” said Phil Kerpen, head of policy at the prominent Tea Party group, Americans for Prosperity.

Kerpen estimated that of the 66 Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted against the final compromise, on the grounds that it does not cut public spending enough, about a half were Tea Party affiliated. The group included Michele Bachmann, a candidate to be the Republican presidential nominee.

The story

Yeah, the Kochs must be smiling and sipping champagne.

Posted in AFP: Americans For Plutocrats, Attacking working Americans | Leave a comment

Kochs Lose Their Toilet Paper Lawsuit

Posted on August 1, 2011 by DamnedLiberal

Yeah, they sued another toilet paper manufacturer for making toilet paper with a “diamond quilted” design — like their “Quilted Northern” TP.

They sure know how to gang up:
670,000 pages of documents and a dozen witnesses.

The judge tossed out the case, saying the design is functional and therefore can’t be trademarked.

Posted in Koch Industries | Leave a comment

Do The Kochs Own A University’s Economics Department

Posted on August 1, 2011 by DamnedLiberal

“Free market economics”: Government bad. Rich people good.

The Kochs promote “free market economics” in several ways. One of them is by paying money to university economics departments, sometimes in return for having an influence in who gets hired. Koch involvement at Florida State University has previously been uncovered. Now it’s Utah State:

“Free market economics”, for example, promotes for-profit schools (“charter schools”) and for-profit prisons. The Kochs would like to popularize their brand of “free market” thinking. Influencing teaching staff at universities is one way to do that.

News sources noted that a free-market thinker (one of several in recent years) joined the John M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University. Some of these are earning salary supplements provided by the conservative Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.

Full story

Posted in Free Market Promotion, Infiltration & Influence | Leave a comment

Kochs Buying Property, Spending Money, In Iowa

Posted on August 1, 2011 by DamnedLiberal

There’s some curiosity in Iowa about the Kochs’ buying and spending spree in Iowa:

Land records on file in 20 Iowa counties reveal that Koch Industries or its subsidiaries now own 18 commercial and industrial facilities valued at nearly $90 million, including four ethanol plants purchased earlier this year.

As the Kochs’ business holdings here have grown, so, too, has their interest in Iowa politics. KochPac, the company’s political action committee, has contributed more than $130,000 to candidates for the Legislature and statewide office since 2003, records show.

The story

I believe the Kochs have discovered the best way to get their far-right ideology imposed is at the state level.

Posted in Infiltration & Influence, Koch Industries | Leave a comment

Kochsters Accused Of Engaging In Deception In Wisconsin

Posted on August 1, 2011 by DamnedLiberal

Americans For Plutocrats is doing what it can to keep its Republicans in office.

Upcoming Republican recall elections:

Americans for Prosperity is sending absentee ballots to Democrats in at least two Wisconsin state Senate recall districts with instructions to return the paperwork after the election date.

The fliers, obtained by POLITICO, ask solidly Democratic voters to return ballots for the Aug. 9 election to the city clerk “before Aug. 11.”

Politico

Posted in AFP: Americans For Plutocrats | Leave a comment

Who Needs Government? Kochsters Hold Their OWN “Town Hall” Meetings

Posted on August 1, 2011 by DamnedLiberal

Given the success of ALEC in getting right-wing legislation introduced in state legislatures, it’s obvious the best way to shape government to your liking is to take control of it.

Here’s another way: Hold your own “town hall” meetings.

Americans for Prosperity-Ohio kicks off a statewide series of Taxpayer Town Halls on August 16th in the Greater Cincinnati Area. AFP-Ohio is partnering with Tea Parties, 9-12 Groups, and other liberty organizations to host these town halls

The story

Posted in AFP: Americans For Plutocrats, Infiltration & Influence | Leave a comment

Almost Everything You Need To Know About The Koch Brothers

Think Progress


Everything You Need To Know About The Koch Brothers

Our guest blogger is Tony Carrk, Policy Director for Progress Central.

Today, the Center for American Progress Action Fund released a report shedding light on the vast Koch network and how it operates. The report shows that Charles and David Koch have used the considerable wealth (they are worth a combined $44 billion) to push policies that put their profits ahead of the interests of most Americans.

The report finds:

• Grassroots organizing for big business. The Koch brothers use their considerable wealth to bankroll the right wing, including the Tea Party. This serves the purpose of furthering not only their right-wing ideology but also their bottom line. Koch Industries has a lot to gain from gutting government oversight and electing candidates who oppose government regulation, especially in the oil-and-gas industry.
• $85 million to 85 think tanks. Identification of at least $85 million the Koch brothers have given to at least 85 right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups over the past decade and a half.
• State organizing. The Koch brothers are active at the state level, spending $5.2 million on candidates and ballot measures in 34 states since 2003. They donated directly to 13 governors that won election last year.
• Over 70% of the GOP Freshman. The Kochs donated directly to 62 of the 87 members of the House GOP freshman class.
• 2012. The Kochs are not going away. In fact, they have already pledged to raise $88 million for the 2012 election and have started scheduling events for potential Republican presidential candidates.

Read the full report here.

This report is intended to be a guide to help progressives map out the vast network of influence the Koch brothers have built over the last decades. By exposing the Koch brothers’ agenda and shedding light on how they operate, progressives can force a public debate that will show that the Koch brothers are outside the mainstream of most Americans and that they are putting their self-interest and right wing agenda ahead of middle-class families.

Tags:

• David Koch
• Koch Industries

American Association for Justice

American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)

Koch Brothers Ghostwriting the Law for Corporate America

The Koch Brothers, big tobacco, insurance companies, and the drug industry: all behind the shadowy corporate front group known as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). On the surface, ALEC is mostly comprised of thousands of state legislators, each paying a nominal fee to attend ALEC retreats and receive model legislation. In reality, corporations pay ALEC a king’s ransom to access legislators to distribute radical legislation that puts corporate interests over American workers and consumers.

So, while the membership appears to be public sector, corporate money dominates ALEC. In fact, public sector membership dues account for only around one percent of ALEC’s annual revenues. ALEC claims to be nonpartisan, but its pro-corporate, anti-consumer mission is clear.

Read about ALEC’s hand in protecting oil companies, chemical manufacturers and Wall Street banks in AAJ’s report here:

ALEC: Ghostwriting the Law for Corporate America >>

AAJ Release: Report Lifts Veil on ALEC’s Pro-Corporate, Anti-Consumer Mission >>

Executive Summary:

Few have ever heard of it, but the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, is the ultimate smoke filled back room.

On the surface, ALEC’s membership is mostly comprised of thousands of state legislators. Each pays a nominal membership fee in order to attend ALEC retreats and receive model legislation. ALEC’s corporate contributors, on the other hand, pay a king’s ransom to gain access to legislators and distribute their corporate-crafted legislation.

So, while the membership appears to be public sector, the bankroll is almost entirely private sector. In fact, public sector membership dues account for only around one percent of ALEC’s annual revenues. ALEC claims to be nonpartisan, but in fact its free-market, pro-business mission is clear.

The result has been a consistent pipeline of special interest legislation being funneled into state capitols. Thanks to ALEC, 826 bills were introduced in the states in 2009 and 115 were enacted into law.

Behind the scenes at ALEC, the nuts and bolts of lobbying and crafting legislation is done by large corporate defense firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon. A law firm with strong ties to the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries, it has long used ALEC’s ability to get a wide swath of state laws enacted to further the interests of its corporate clients.

ALEC’s campaigns and model legislation have run the gamut of issues, but all have either protected or promoted a corporate revenue stream, often at the expense of consumers. For example, ALEC has worked on behalf of:

• Oil companies to undermine climate change proponents;
• Pharmaceutical manufacturers, arguing that states should be banned from importing prescription drugs;
• Telecom firms to block local authorities from offering cheap or free municipally-owned broadband;
• Insurance companies to prevent state insurance commissioners from requiring insurers to meet strengthened accounting and auditing rules;
• Big banks, recommending that seniors be forced to give up their homes via reverse mortgages in order to receive Medicaid;
• The asbestos industry, trying to shut the courthouse door to Americans suffering from mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases; and,
• Enron to deregulate the utility industries, which eventually caused the U.S. to lose what the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) estimated as $5 trillion in market value.

Koch Brothers' Products -- We're Surrounded.


If you have been following news about the Koch brothers, you might be curious as to which products they manufacture.

Lots! List of koch brothers products



































Georgia-Pacific also distributes paper towels, napkins and soap dispensing systems used in commerical settings. Some GP commercial toilet paper brands: Envision, Coronet®, SCA, Tork and Fort James. GP produces Pacific Garden liquid soaps...







Georgia-Pacific produces ink and office paper under the GP label and the Spectrum® family of office paper products.




Wood Products:


Georgia-Pacific is the largest manufacturer of plywood in the U.S..

Including Plytanium Plywood®, DryPly® plywood, Ply-Bead®.

Georgia-Pacific is one of the country's largest suppliers of corrugated boxes and containers.

Various, numerous wood products, dimensional lumber and building materials.

ToughRock®, Fireguard®, DensArmor and DensShield® gypsum board.




Textiles and Plastics
via Invista Products:

• Stainmaster
• Dacron
• Lycra
• CoolMax
• SolarMax
• Polarguard
• Thermolite
• Antron
  Comforel fiberfill
• DBE® dibasic esters
  Tactel
  Tactesse Carpet Fibers
• Terathane
• ADI-Pure®
• Polyshield®
• Polyclear®
• Oxyclear™
• Performa®
  Cordura fabric
  Supplex® Fabric
  Somerelle® Bedding
  
  

Invista produces a large selection of products under this business, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET) polymers for carbonated soft drink, water, beer, juice, food and custom container applications. Production also includes polyester intermediate feedstocks, film products, fibers, and specialty polymers for a variety of applications, inlcuding PBT-based engineering polymer.




Chemicals, Coal & Oil:

Through its subsidiaries Koch operates refineries in Alaska, Minnesota and Texas, with a combined crude oil processing capacity of more than 800,000 barrels per day. Koch Industries owns or operates about 4,000 miles of pipelines that transport crude oil, refined petroleum products, natural gas liquids and chemicals. Koch Minerals and its affiliates are among the world’s largest dry-bulk commodity handlers, marketing and trading more than 40 million tons of coal, coke, cement and other related products annually. Flint Hills Resources produces about 9 billion pounds of building-block chemicals per year. Koch is a leading producer of paving and roofing asphalt. www.kochind.com

Koch Industries Produces:


* Gasoline
* Diesel
* Jet fuel
* Naphtha
* Asphalt
* Benzene
* Toluene
* Metaxylene
* Paraxylene
* Orthoxylene
* Cumene
* Cycohexane
* Heavy reformate
* Pseudocumene
* Sure Sol ® 100
* Sure Sol ® 150
* Purified Isophthalic Acid
* Maleic Anhydride
* Trimellitic Anhydride
* Ethylene
* Chemical Grade Propylene
* Polypropylene
* Polyethylene



"In Flint Hills Resources manufacturing plants, various hydrocarbon products are the basic feedstocks. At the refineries, the main feedstock is crude oil. The refineries produce a wide range of transportation fuels for motorists, truckers and the airline industry. In the olefins plants, the company processes natural gas liquids into ethylene and propylene. In the polymers plants, those two products are processed into various forms of olypropylene, which are key ingredients in products such as consumer and healthcare products, packaging and other plastic products. In the aromatics plant, products produced during the crude oil refining process become xylenes, cumenes and other light products. Those products are the building blocks for many other chemicals and plastics."* www.fhrstage.fhr.com

Koch Carbon, LLC and its affiliates globally trade and transport petroleum coke, coal, cement, pulp and paper, sulfur and other related commodities through a network of bulk import/export terminals in the United States and Europe. The C. Reiss Coal Company is a leading supplier of coal and related products typically used in industrial applications or to generate electricity.

Koch Exploration Company, LLC and its affiliates acquire, develop and trade petroleum and natural gas properties in the United States, Canada and Brazil.




Pipelines:

Koch Pipeline Company, L.P. and its affiliates own or operate about 4,000 miles of pipelines that transport crude oil, refined petroleum products, natural gas liquids and chemicals.

Koch Alaska Pipeline Company, LLC owns an approximate 3 percent interest in the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. Another Koch company has a 28 percent interest in Colonial Pipeline Company, owner and operator of the world’s largest-volume refined products pipeline.




Fertilizer:

Koch Fertilizer, LLC and its affiliates; have the capability to manufacture, market and distribute more than 10 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer products annually. They distribute to dealers, so their product has many a label. "Fertilizer today is an intensely industrial business more akin to oil refining or chemical production."* www.kochind.com




Equipment:

Koch-Glitsch, LP and its affiliates are global leaders in the design, manufacture and installation of mass transfer and mist elimination equipment. The company’s products are found in refineries and chemical plants worldwide.

Koch Membrane Systems, Inc. develops and manufactures membrane separation systems for a variety of applications worldwide, including membranes for microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis.

John Zink Company, LLC and its affiliates are global leaders in ultra-low emission process burners, boiler burners, duct burners, flares and thermal oxidizers. The companies are also global suppliers of flare gas/vapor recovery and vapor combustor systems.




Cattle:

Koch Agriculture Company, operates three ranches with a total of 15,000 head of cattle in Kansas, Montana, and Texas. "Matador Ranch in Texas offers a number of hunting packages that include first-class accommodations. Everything is provided to ensure an enjoyable experience." www.kochind.com




Services:

Koch Supply & Trading companies around the world trade and provide risk management services in crude oil; refined petroleum products; natural gas and gas liquids; gas, power and emissions; industrial metals; and other commodities and financial instruments.

Optimized Process Designs, Inc. provides consulting, engineering, design, procurement, fabrication and construction services for the natural gas and gas processing industries worldwide. OPD has been the general contractor on some of the largest natural gas plants built in the U.S.

Koch Knight LLC and its affiliates are leaders in acid proof solutions. The companies offer construction, engineering and services through a global network of manufacturing and outsourcing facilities. Their products, made from state-of-the-art ceramics and plastic materials, are available worldwide.

IPT provides the resources and know how to deliver world-scale technology for licensing to a growing portfolio of technologies in the polyester, polyurethane and nylon value chains.




European brands:

• 
  Colhogar®
• Delica®
• Demak'Up®
• Inversoft®
• Kitten Soft®
• Lotus®
• Moltonel®
• Nouvelle®
• Okay
• Tenderly®
• Tutto®

Source = www.kochind.com

Logos property of Koch Industries www.worldofkoch.com

Georgia-Pacific Products
One more time:

• 
  Angel Soft®
• Brawny®
  Coronet®
• Dixie®
• Mardi Gras®
  MD Bathroom Tissue
• Quilted Northern®
• Soft ‘n Gentle®
• Sparkle®
  Vanity Fair®
• Zee®

Pollution:


University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute, shows Koch Industries as one of the nation’s top 10 polluters/emitters. See detailed emissions breakdowns - www.peri.umass.edu/toxic_index




A Sampling of Environmental Charges Verses Koch:


September 2000, a federal grand jury in Corpus Christi, Texas returned a 97-count indictment against Koch Industries Inc., Koch Petroleum Group for violating federal clean air and hazardous waste laws, due to the release of at least 91 metric tons of uncontrolled, untreated carcinogenic benzene. www.justice.gov


March 2000, Koch petroleum which operates a refinery in Rosemount, Minn., was sentenced to pay a $6 million criminal fine and pay an additional $2 million in remediation costs. This is the largest federal environmental fine ever paid in Minnesota. Koch admitted that it negligently discharged 200,000 - 600,000 gallons of aviation fuel into a wetland and an adjoining waterway. In addition, their way of recovering the fuel (a year and a half later) destroyed a portion of the surrounding ecosystem and wildlife habitat. In a separate offense, Koch dumped a million gallons of wastewater with high ammonia content on the ground between November 1996 and March 1997 and also increased its flow of wastewater into the Mississippi River on weekends when no one monitored discharges. These actions allowed Koch to circumvent the weekly monitoring and reporting requirements of its wastewater discharge permit. The case was investigated by EPA's Criminal Investigation Division, the FBI and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and was prosecuted by the U. S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota. www.ehso.com

Koch's Sterling butane pipeline had a leak in Lively, Texas, on August 24, 1996. Two teenagers on the way to report the leak drove into the unseen butane cloud, and were killed when the gas exploded and burned. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that severe external pipeline corrosion was the cause of the failure. www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries

In 1999, a federal jury found that Koch Industries had stolen oil from government and American Indian lands and had lied about its purchases more than 24,000 times. www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries

In January 2000, Koch Pipeline, agreed to a $35 million settlement with the U.S. Justice Department and the State of Texas as fines for the firm's three hundred oil spills (300 million gallons) in Texas and five other states going back to 1990. www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries



Climate Change Denial:


A March 2010 Greenpeace report shows that Koch Industry foundations have contributed (2005-2008) nearly $25 million to organizations that oppose clean energy and climate policy. That does not include oil and gas lobbying of $37.9 million. For more info on Koch Industries' funding of Climate Denial Groups -- See GreenPeace's report "Koch Industries Funding the Climate Denial Machine" www.greenpeace.org

In the August, 2010 New York Magazine article 'Covert Operations,' oil tycoon David Koch was quoted as saying, global warming will be a good thing for the planet and will help "support enormously more people because a far greater land area will be available to produce food." www.newyorker.com



Revenue:


Koch Industries currently brings in $100 billion in revenue annually.
Each brother is personally worth $21.5 billion. Together 43 billion.*
Koch Industries spent a total of $37.9 million on oil and gas lobbying
from January 2006 to December 2009. www.sourcewatch.org
*www.thinkprogress.org



Voting:


Since the Citizen's United decision, corporations can now attempt to influence their employees' votes. The Koch Brothers jumped on that band wagon right away and mailed out lists of Koch supported candidates to their 50,000 employees during the last election. See info and a copy of a recommended election packet at www.thenation.com


University Affairs:

"Billionaire's role in hiring decisions at Florida State University raises questions" They give as long as they can pick the teachers. www.tampabay.com

Not Just Florida State...Utah, West Virginia, etc... www.insidehighered.com

The Mercatus Center is a conservative Think Tank at George Mason University’s Arlington campus. It is a university-based research center that makes its research findings available to the media and public policy makers. According to GreenPeace the Mercatus Center has received over 10 million dollars worth of funding from the Koch Brothers. Mercatus also fights environmental regulation, opposes clean energy legislation and lobbys to prevent curbs on industrial pollution. www.greenpeace.org mercatus.org


Photo of Coal Plant: ©2008 Walter Siegmund.