Inside the Koch Brothers Toxic Empire By Tim Dickinson | September 24, 2014 Together, Charles and David Koch control one of the worlds largest fortunes, which they are using to buy up our political system. But what they dont want you to know is how they made all that money The enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; theyve cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and powers todays GOP. Koch-affiliated organizations raised some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another $290 million to elect Republicans in this years midterms. So far in this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate. What is less clear is where all that money comes from. Koch Industries is headquartered in a squat, smoked-glass building that rises above the prairie on the outskirts of Wichita, Kansas. The building, like the brothers fiercely private firm, is literally and figuratively a black box. Koch touts only one top-line financial figure: $115 billion in annual revenue, as estimated by Forbes. By that metric, it is larger than IBM, Honda or Hewlett-Packard and is Americas second-largest private company after agribusiness colossus Cargill. The companys stock response to inquiries from reporters: We are privately held and dont disclose this information. But Koch Industries is not entirely opaque. The companys troubled legal history – including a trail of congressional investigations, Department of Justice consent decrees, civil lawsuits and felony convictions – augmented by internal company documents, leaked State Department cables, Freedom of Information disclosures and company whistle-blowers, combine to cast an unwelcome spotlight on the toxic empire whose profits finance the modern GOP. Read more: rollingstone/...
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 17:53:50 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015