Koch brothers: wealth grew from $7.5 billion to $50 billion in last seven years

[rchiu]

You don't seem to understand things like changing the rules for institutional investors. Also read this article, which discusses one of the futures markets, food:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/27/how_goldman_sachs_created_the_food_crisis

It touches on everything from the explosion of investment money to the effect it had on the hungry people in the world, putting hundreds of millions into hunger for parisite profit.

The GSCI is more of a index fund then derivative. Index fund can be used for long term investment purpose (therefore that long position only feature) especially when combined with equity for diversification since commodity doesn't have much correlation with equity market.

The impact of those commodity index fund to the commodity prices are still being debated. If there is a real impact, sure go ahead and get rid of them. But at least understand you are talking about fund there and we are still talking derivative market here.

 

[blackangst1]

Philanthropy, love of democracy, opposition to corruption, his 'good deed' all explain it.

Then again, it's clear you only post here to get laid. See how baseless assertion is useless?

Aaahhh yes. Democracy. The same democratic rules that the the Koch brothers used to make billions, he used to make billions at a faster pace. But no matter. Soros gives to charrrriiitttyyyyy.

/chuckle

BTW. Since you seem to think speculating is so damn evil, and you present yourself as a small voice of progressives always parroting the progressive mantra, can you please give me the bill number that any progressive has submitted to end this terrible thing called speculation? Or the bill number to reform speculation into something better? I mean, its made soooo many trillions of dollars for so many evil men (oops, and great men, like Soros) and has transferred soooo much wealth out of the pockets of the poor into the rich, surely someone at some time has tried to stop it.

Right?

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world’s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts.

“I uncovered the practices within a few days,” Egorova- Farines says. “They were not hidden at all.”

She immediately notified her supervisors in the U.S. A week later, Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries dispatched an investigative team to look into her findings, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue.

By September of that year, the researchers had found evidence of improper payments to secure contracts in six countries dating back to 2002, authorized by the business director of the company’s Koch-Glitsch affiliate in France.

“Those activities constitute violations of criminal law,” Koch Industries wrote in a Dec. 8, 2008, letter giving details of its findings. The letter was made public in a civil court ruling in France in September 2010; the document has never before been reported by the media.

Egorova-Farines wasn’t rewarded for bringing the illicit payments to the company’s attention. Her superiors removed her from the inquiry in August 2008 and fired her in June 2009, calling her incompetent, even after Koch’s investigators substantiated her findings. She sued Koch-Glitsch in France for wrongful termination.

A Bloomberg Markets investigation has found that Koch Industries -- in addition to being involved in improper payments to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East -- has sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism.
The ‘Koch Method’

Internal company documents show that the company made those sales through foreign subsidiaries, thwarting a U.S. trade ban. Koch Industries units have also rigged prices with competitors, lied to regulators and repeatedly run afoul of environmental regulations, resulting in five criminal convictions since 1999 in the U.S. and Canada.

From 1999 through 2003, Koch Industries was assessed more than $400 million in fines, penalties and judgments. In December 1999, a civil jury found that Koch Industries had taken oil it didn’t pay for from federal land by mismeasuring the amount of crude it was extracting. Koch paid a $25 million settlement to the U.S.

Phil Dubose, a Koch employee who testified against the company said he and his colleagues were shown by their managers how to steal and cheat -- using techniques they called the Koch Method.

Much much more at link:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...aw-getting-richer-with-secret-iran-sales.html

 

[LegendKiller]

Much much more at link:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...aw-getting-richer-with-secret-iran-sales.html

I was just reading through this...HUGE article and very good reporting. Of course, it'll fall on deaf ears of the Repugs.

 

[Jhhnn]

I was just reading through this...HUGE article and very good reporting. Of course, it'll fall on deaf ears of the Repugs.

For sure. No moral outrage, just envy at not being part of the scams, more adulation for the perps.

 

[Jhhnn]

Aaahhh yes. Democracy. The same democratic rules that the the Koch brothers used to make billions, he used to make billions at a faster pace. But no matter. Soros gives to charrrriiitttyyyyy.

/chuckle

BTW. Since you seem to think speculating is so damn evil, and you present yourself as a small voice of progressives always parroting the progressive mantra, can you please give me the bill number that any progressive has submitted to end this terrible thing called speculation? Or the bill number to reform speculation into something better? I mean, its made soooo many trillions of dollars for so many evil men (oops, and great men, like Soros) and has transferred soooo much wealth out of the pockets of the poor into the rich, surely someone at some time has tried to stop it.

Right?

Some speculation is a necessary part of markets- nobody is denying that, despite your false attributions. OTOH, It's something that needs to occur within reasonable constraints, something the Bush Admin failed to provide, both in ideology & practice.

Dems efforts include the Dodd-Frank bill, which Repubs are attempting to block, de-fund, leave leaderless by refusing to confirm anybody to head it up-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd–Frank_Wall_Street_Reform_and_Consumer_Protection_Act

It's not like bringing FDR back from the grave, but it's a move in the right direction for those not ideologically opposed.

 

[Craig234]

Any government role to interfere with their wrongdoing is what they mean by 'big government' they want the tea party to fight, and to prevent by buying elections.

The corporate US media reports on the Koch Brothers as harmful to society when?

But plenty of coverage on evil ACORN helping get voters registered, told in lies by a lying kid. Plenty of Republican congressional sanctions there.

Gonad, nice story.