October 15, 2014
There’s a nasty strain of business today that calls itself capitalism and it’s really bad for you, bad for me, and bad for America. You might have heard about these two brothers, these two ne’er-do-wells, these two sinister creeps, named the Koch Brothers. They own Koch Industries. They were featured in this long, extensively researched article in Rolling Stone, that painted a picture of the Koch Brothers as seriously the most evil business people you’ve ever heard of. These guys have $40,000,000,000. They own the second largest privately owned company in the country. They own almost the entire pipeline – infrastructure – of how we turn oil into stuff that we use. They make real contributions to the country. Are those contributions good? I mean, that’s the question right? Do we need these guys?
If we actually charged them the costs that they impose on us, would they really be profitable? And if they’re not really profitable, are they really a business we should look up to? Are they real capitalists? Or are they just cheaters who are stealing from the rest of us in health and in costs and in land? Are they just cheaters? That’s the question.
November 27, 2014
Dave Steen
Hi Coco,
I’ve been listening to your podcasts. Lots of good stuff… Of course you know me… I’m not entirely in agreement with everything. My question has to do with your Koch brothers series. Is there a reliable website you would recommend to get their background? I have heard you and others just like yourself talking about them being evil because they are rich and contribute to republicans. What are the specific rules that they should be playing along with? I understand they have lobbyist. They probably have enough write-offs that they don’t pay any taxes… (which makes no sense to me).
It’s like the write-off for billionaires in New Jersey if they have a bee farm on their property. There should be limit to who can have write offs. Once you make over $250k a year your write offs should start to drop off a bit… or something.