While candidate Trump slammed China as “an economic enemy” who engaged in “the greatest theft in the history of the world” by stealing U.S. jobs, the billionaire Koch brothers have taken a different tack. They have decided to invest in the totalitarian nation.
In October, in what may be their first purchase of stock in a company from a communist nation, Koch Industries bought 13,000 shares of SINA, which trades at just about $100 a share. (See list of NASDAQ traded companies in which the brothers have a stake). SINA is one of the first Chinese companies to list on a U.S. stock exchange.
SINA is not a government-owned enterprise, but it does obey the law as laid down by the Communist Party of China. SINA Weibo, the company’s internet offshoot, has participated in a state ordered crackdown of bloggers, democracy activists, and critics of the Chinese government.
SINA has even established a Communist Party committee within the company whose job it is to “assess the company’s daily operations to ensure they do not stray from party objectives,” writes the Financial Review.
The Kochs may be following in the footsteps of their father Fred Koch. As New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer has detailed, Koch Sr. made the family fortune by working for Stalin helping to build 15 Soviet oil refineries. The experience made him virulently anti-communist and anti-“big government” in general, but these beliefs did not seem to stand in the way of making money.
Fred Koch would later go on to help Hitler’s Third Reich build an important oil refinery that had to be taken out by the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II.
Even with the Kochs’ ostensible “reluctance” to openly embrace Trump financially, they are still the reincarnation of the robber barons of the early 20th Century. This is virulent cronyism at its worst, and against US interests. Yet, it is fine constitutionally. It’s still a fair question: are they really FOR our constitutional democracy or are they enemies of it and beneficiaries of it at the same time?
The name Koch is synonymous with the devastating consequences of unbridled capitalism. Consumed by the need to increase their wealth by the minute – brothers Koch are money machines in human form, brains wired in libertarianism. The Koch machine is an instrument of destruction to basic fairness achieved from government programs for those whom have so little, while using extreme financial influence of government representatives – to attain additional advantage for themselves. I really don’t know if I pity them or hate them however, I am sure they are desperate to finalize the annihilation of what remains of democracy in this country. I equate the Koch method for full oligarchy as ‘the Tet of capitalism.’ For that, I consider them a domestic enemy of the United States. This Koch machine can be defeated, as it is a product of flawed human design. I am deeply grateful to this outstanding news organization for keeping Americans apprised to the Koch’s ever present motives and maneuvers toward mass destruction of representative government.
Yep!
The Koch brothers are the most dangerous men running our country and buying elections. Their ALEC has invaded every city and town across America robbing Americans of the values we all believe in. Their evil to the core, and need to be stopped. Their every bit as dangerous as Monsanto who is poisoning all our food and killing the bees and monarch butterflies. Only in America would these two evil people be allowed to get away with what they do to harm America! It’s time to take our country back from crooked donors who buy our elections and screw everyone.
Hear Hear!!
Love your insights and sharp writing, your moral compass and your ability to cut to the heart of the issue.
Me Too!