48 votes

Billionaire industrialist David Koch has died

29 comments

  1. [3]
    Diet_Coke
    Link
    While it is usually in bad taste to celebrate people dieing, I can't help but feel like today will be a good day.

    While it is usually in bad taste to celebrate people dieing, I can't help but feel like today will be a good day.

    41 votes
    1. JXM
      Link Parent
      Honestly, it's hard to feel bad about someone who made life appreciably worse for a large number of people dying.

      Honestly, it's hard to feel bad about someone who made life appreciably worse for a large number of people dying.

      25 votes
    2. AugustusFerdinand
      Link Parent

      I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.
      -Clarence Darrow

      24 votes
  2. [3]
    NaraVara
    Link
    And there was much rejoicing! Though it's mostly ceremonial really. He and his brother have established organizations to carry their work on without them and they're probably funded by a permanent...

    And there was much rejoicing!

    Though it's mostly ceremonial really. He and his brother have established organizations to carry their work on without them and they're probably funded by a permanent endowment/trust. And into this trust they have poured their cruelty, their malice, their will to dominate all life. . .

    23 votes
    1. [2]
      skybrian
      Link Parent
      I disagree, I think the details of how the trusts are set up and who runs them will matter quite a bit. For example, who decides whether they support Trump or not, or other politicians? From what...

      I disagree, I think the details of how the trusts are set up and who runs them will matter quite a bit. For example, who decides whether they support Trump or not, or other politicians? From what I've read, Koch didn't support Trump before.

      6 votes
      1. NaraVara
        Link Parent
        Unfortunately, the things I've heard incline me to believe the Super Plutocrat Bros. are actually less batshit than many of their underlings.

        Unfortunately, the things I've heard incline me to believe the Super Plutocrat Bros. are actually less batshit than many of their underlings.

        12 votes
  3. [11]
    Diet_Coke
    Link
    What are your favorite The Kochs Are Evil evidence? For me it is probably improperly storing toxic waste next to poor communities in Detroit and Chicago, then using their money and political...
    13 votes
    1. [7]
      kfwyre
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I am a compassionate, caring person who believes there is good in everyone, but the Koch brothers are the kind of people who make me question my values and wonder if I'm not being too charitable....

      I am a compassionate, caring person who believes there is good in everyone, but the Koch brothers are the kind of people who make me question my values and wonder if I'm not being too charitable. They have done immeasurable harm to many and have achieved their success through fraud and exploitation.

      Under oath, Charles [Koch] admitted that the company had improperly taken approximately $31 million worth of crude oil over a three-year period from Indian lands but argued that it had been accidental. He told investigators that oil measurement is “a very uncertain art.” The committee, however, produced evidence showing that none of the other companies buying oil from Indian land at the time had substantial problems with measurements. In fact, the other companies, most of which were far better known, had secretly turned Koch in, because they regarded it as cheating.

      Dubose took the stand and testified about what he and other employees called “the Koch Method.” As he later described it, “They were just mis-measuring crude oil from the Indian reservations as they did all over the U.S. If you bought crude, you’d shorten the gauge. They’d show you how. They had meters in the field. They’d recalibrate them, so if it showed a barrel, they’d say it was just three-quarters of a barrel when they were buying it. You did it in different ways. You cheated. If we sold a barge with fifteen hundred barrels, you’d say it was two thousand. It all involved weights and measurements, and they had their thumb on the scale. That was the Koch Method.”

      The above quotes and the excerpt below are from Jane Mayer's Dark Money, which is a must-read if you are interested in the Koch brothers and their influence on American politics. There is a lot I could have quoted, but the following story acts as a case study for how they operated, including flagrant malfeasance, prioritizing money over human life, and using surveillance against legal opponents. It's worth noting that this story is not a one-off. There are plenty of others like it. This story represents standard operating procedure for them.

      Emphasis is mine:

      While a few legal violations could be understood as misfortunate accidents, Koch Industries’ pattern of pollution was striking not just for its egregiousness but also for its willfulness. As the company was settling the oil spill case that O’Connell brought, its Pine Bend Refinery in Rosemount, Minnesota, pleaded guilty to still more violations of the Clean Water Act. The refinery paid an $8 million fine for dumping a million gallons of ammonia-contaminated wastewater onto the ground, along with negligently spilling some 600,000 gallons of fuel into a protected natural wetland and the nearby Mississippi River. Earlier the refinery had already paid a $6.9 million fine to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to settle charges stemming from the same violations. In this pollution case, like that in Corpus Christi, government authorities accused Koch of trying to cover up its offenses, in this instance by surreptitiously dumping extra pollutants on weekends and late at night in order to evade monitoring, and later falsifying the records. A former employee, Thomas Holton, who had worked at the Pine Bend Refinery, told the Minnesota Star Tribune, “There were times when…yeah, we lied. We did do that. And I won’t cover that up.”

      These misdeeds paled, however, in comparison with what befell two teenagers in the rural town of Lively, Texas, some fifty miles southeast of Dallas, on August 24, 1996. That afternoon, Danielle Smalley, a newly minted high school graduate, was at home in the family trailer, packing her things for college. A friend, Jason Stone, was over, to talk about the farewell party they were planning for her that night. Smalley’s father, Danny, a mechanic, was home too, watching sports on television. A faint but increasingly nauseating gassy smell was the only sign that something was amiss. After they could find no source, Danielle and Jason decided to drive to a neighbor’s house to report a possible gas leak. The family had no phone of their own. Borrowing Danny Smalley’s truck, they set out, but the truck stalled a few hundred yards away. When Danielle, who was at the wheel, tried to restart it, the ignition lit an invisible cloud of butane gas that was leaking from a corroded, underground Koch pipeline that ran not far from the house, setting off a monstrous blast. A towering fireball utterly consumed the truck. Danielle and Jason burned to death.

      Koch Industries offered Danny Smalley, Danielle’s father, money to drop the wrongful death lawsuit he subsequently brought against the company. Like Doreen Carlson, however, the surviving family member wanted more than cash.

      The pretrial maneuvering was fierce, with Koch Industries reportedly hiring a fleet of top-flight lawyers and a private investigator to tail Smalley. Smalley’s lead lawyer, Ted Lyon, meanwhile, suspected his law office was being bugged. He hired a security firm to inspect, which discovered that tiny transmitters had been planted in his office. “I’m not saying the Kochs did it,” the lawyer later said. “I just thought it was very interesting that it happened during the period we were litigating the case.”

      As the two sides prepared for trial, a chilling picture of corporate negligence emerged. An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found that Koch Pipeline Company, the unit in charge, knew that the pipeline was corroded and had neither made all of the necessary repairs nor told the forty or so families living near the explosion site how to handle an emergency. An expert witness for the Smalleys described the pipeline as “Swiss cheese.” The explosion, according to the witness, Edward Ziegler, a certified oil industry safety expert, resulted from “a total failure of a company to follow the regulations, keep their pipeline safe and operate it as the regulations require.”

      For three years, the company had in fact stopped using the old pipeline in favor of a newer one. But the company decided to revive the older pipeline when it realized it could make an additional $7 million annually by patching it and using it to carry liquid butane. Bill Caffey, an executive vice president at Koch Industries, admitted in a deposition, “Koch Industries is definitely responsible for the death of Danielle Smalley,” but he stressed that he had believed that the pipeline was safe when he authorized its use. He praised Charles Koch as admirably focused on complying with safety and other regulations but acknowledged there were financial pressures. “We were to work on reducing wasteful spending,” he explained. A former employee, Kenoth Whitstine, testified in a deposition that when he brought concerns to his boss at the company about another corroding pipeline, which he feared could cause a fatal accident if ruptured, he was told that it would be cheaper to pay off damages from a lawsuit than make the repairs.

      Finally getting the chance he had waited for, Danny Smalley took the stand as the last witness in the trial and delivered an enraged soliloquy denouncing the Kochs as caring only about money. As he later told 60 Minutes, “They said, ‘We’re sorry, Mr. Smalley, that your child lost her life and Jason lost his life.’ Sorry doesn’t get it. They’re not sorry. The only thing they looked at was the bottom dollar. How much money would they lose if they shut the pipeline down. They didn’t care, all they wanted was the money.”

      If the Kochs’ cavalier safety practices were a gamble, they lost when the jury rendered its verdict. On October 21, 1999, it found Koch Industries guilty not just of negligence but of malice, too, because it had known about the extreme hazard its decaying pipeline had posed. In his suit, Danny Smalley had asked for $100 million in damages from the company, a staggering sum. The jury, however, imposed a fine almost three times larger, demanding Koch Industries pay him $296 million. At the time, it was the largest wrongful death award on record.

      19 votes
      1. [3]
        NaraVara
        Link Parent
        There was a documentary on Netflix about a guy who made a fortune from forging/faking rare, collectible wines. It turns out the one who busted him was David Koch, who hired a private wine...

        There was a documentary on Netflix about a guy who made a fortune from forging/faking rare, collectible wines. It turns out the one who busted him was David Koch, who hired a private wine investigator to verify that the absurdly expensive wines he was buying were genuine and suddenly the forger went from villain to hero in my eyes.

        My wife, who is an art historian, was most outraged by the fact that Koch had an original Modigliani behind him during the face-to-face interview and started shouting "IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!"

        It's literally impossible to be sympathetic to these guys. They're just such trash.

        9 votes
        1. [2]
          imperialismus
          Link Parent
          I presume you’re talking about the wine conman Rudy Kurniawan and the documentary Sour Grapes. The way the documentary told the story, the guy who did most of the work exposing him was one of the...

          I presume you’re talking about the wine conman Rudy Kurniawan and the documentary Sour Grapes. The way the documentary told the story, the guy who did most of the work exposing him was one of the wine makers whose wines he’d faked. Although Bill (David’s rich-but-not-quite-as-insanely-rich brother) Koch did sue him as he was one of the people who’d bought the fraudulent wines.

          I honestly came out of watching that documentary wishing every single person in it, except possibly the humble wine-maker whose good name had been besmirched, could somehow lose. It was an arrogant, greedy conman fooling a bunch of arrogant, rich assholes out of money no doubt made off the back of other people’s labor. The dude wasn’t exactly Robin fucking Hood but neither were his victims particularly sympathetic, nor were they exactly left out on the street after he was done stealing from them.

          7 votes
          1. NaraVara
            Link Parent
            Yeah I'm not really a Marxist, but by the time Sour Grapes was over I was ready to unironically subscribe to Posadism. Sure the guy was no Robin Hood, but enemy of my enemy and all that. I guess...

            Yeah I'm not really a Marxist, but by the time Sour Grapes was over I was ready to unironically subscribe to Posadism. Sure the guy was no Robin Hood, but enemy of my enemy and all that. I guess it's not so different from why one might vote for Trump.

            I'm really perplexed by how these charismatic hucksters manage to pull off scams like these. In hindsight it always seems so obvious, and they only seem to ever get caught because they get too greedy. (See also: Theranos). And somehow, it seems like it's only ever once in an epoch when these powers of preternatural charisma ever get used for good instead of evil. And even then it doesn't usually go well. You'd think the balance would be more like 50/50, but noooo

            4 votes
      2. [3]
        Akir
        Link Parent
        I've listened to both of the Koch brothers in interviews. And while this doesn't excuse anything they have done, I think it's important to realize that their actions are genuine. They genuinely...

        I've listened to both of the Koch brothers in interviews. And while this doesn't excuse anything they have done, I think it's important to realize that their actions are genuine. They genuinely think that they are doing the right thing, at least most of the time. They remind me a lot of Betsy DeVos. You can tell they care passionately about the people they are affecting, but they don't realize the harm they are inflecting.

        This, personally speaking, was the evidence that made my mind about charity. Charity can never fix the problems of society, and we can see with these extreme examples that it can be damaging. You simply cannot use one voice to sooth the crying of millions. You need to fix society, and the best way to do that is through an existing institution - the government.

        But I suppose this isn't really the place to talk about that.

        7 votes
        1. patience_limited
          Link Parent
          See @kfwyre's response above. I don't doubt that the Koch brothers' libertarian ideological positions are genuinely held as matters of belief, but the cruelty, mendacity, greed, lawlessness, and...

          See @kfwyre's response above. I don't doubt that the Koch brothers' libertarian ideological positions are genuinely held as matters of belief, but the cruelty, mendacity, greed, lawlessness, and vindictiveness in their personal dealings reveal them as self-interested hypocrites. Even the most ardent of libertarians attempt to make a case that freedom (whether civil or economic) is a general good; what the Kochs practice is closer to feudalism.

          5 votes
        2. kfwyre
          Link Parent
          I have no doubt that they're sincere, and I have no doubt that they've done plenty of good in their lives. If we look at the magnitude of things, they've done far more good than you, I, or anyone...

          I have no doubt that they're sincere, and I have no doubt that they've done plenty of good in their lives. If we look at the magnitude of things, they've done far more good than you, I, or anyone else on this site. Their wealth enables them to operate at a scale that we can't possibly fathom.

          I also think there's something to be said that, when someone become as successful as they've become, they're incredibly insulated from criticism. Their own life trajectory has a huge confirmation bias to it, in that they believe that they hold the answers because, well, why wouldn't they? They're billionaires! They've made it! The system, their system, works!

          Furthermore, they're likely surrounded by people who are unlikely to go against them and check them on their practices in any meaningful way. Anyone who is dependent on them for their career, income, and life outcomes, is probably not going to give real, genuine criticism. There's plenty of criticism they can read online, of course, but why would they listen to it? Those people don't know anything about them. Those people just read some articles, but those people have never met them, had a conversation with them, or sat down to hear their side of things. Those people don't know the work that went into building a multi-billion dollar company, nor do they know the stress of running it.

          As such, it's not hard for me to believe that the Koch brothers believe in what they're doing whole-heartedly, and I don't doubt that they have done plenty of good. Far more than me! But it's worth noting that they're in a position to do so partially because of their willingness to engage in unethical and exploitative behavior. This was one of the strategies they used to increase their wealth. knowing that the blowback they received would usually be less than what they made from it. With strong governmental regulation of companies, deeply unethical behavior is a gamble (as evidenced by the story I shared, where the amount they paid out far exceeded what it would have cost to repair the pipeline). Not only did they take this gamble and win many times, but they've also continually lobbied for decreased regulation, which puts the odds ever more in their favor.

          It's here that I should admit that my problem with the Koch brothers is less about them as people and more what they represent. They're sort of poster children for the worst parts of capitalism. They used their willingness to break laws and regulations as a competitive advantage. They continually sought to reduce their exposure to sanctions and bad press by buying out opponents rather than letting anything go to trial. They exploited lower-level workers' health and livelihoods in the interest of revenue. They've done immense environmental harm, in ways that were willful rather than ignorant.

          Everything I just wrote could be said of many other companies. Every company's going to downplay responsibility at any turn. Every company's going to try to work around regulations to their own favor. Plenty of companies pollute the environment. Plenty of companies lie to regulators when they think they can get away with it. What the Koch brothers were doing is part and parcel of the economic system in which they live, and no critique of capitalism is fair without acknowledging that we also benefit from this. My quality of life is likely better due to the Koch brothers. The cheap, easily available energy that we get from oil enables much of our modern comforts. The same goes for many of the products on the shelves. We have them to thank.

          But what they've done, which many others haven't, is leveraged their wealth to give them outsize political influence -- far more than democracy intends. Their political spending is both robust and hidden. The money is often used to fund organizations that appear to be grassroots, so that the organization's political positions appear to be populist and community-supported, rather than backed by wealthy corporate interests. They are one of the primary reasons that climate change was disbelieved and treated as a partisan issue, because they deliberately funded groups to produce doubt and debate. They are influencing America's political process under false pretenses. I consider their actions similar to what Russia is doing in using bots and false accounts to sway public sentiment and sow discord.

          They have shown a willingness to overstep every barrier in their way to pursue goals, at large, in their own self-interest, all while ignoring the harm that has come as a result and the ways in which their actions are fundamentally unfair. They've also been doing this for decades now. It's why I find it hard to give them the benefit of the doubt, even if I'm being charitable.

          4 votes
    2. tunneljumper
      Link Parent
      My favorite is when they "donated" money to the University of Arizona and ASU to create new "schools" that are effectively state-funded Koch propoganda:...

      My favorite is when they "donated" money to the University of Arizona and ASU to create new "schools" that are effectively state-funded Koch propoganda: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/04/22/professor-a-disturbing-story-about-the-influence-of-the-koch-network-in-higher-education/?noredirect=on

      3 votes
    3. patience_limited
      Link Parent
      Climate change denialism and obfuscation, which the Kochs established, root and branch, for the continued profits of their petroleum extraction-based industries. I'm looking forward to the new...

      Climate change denialism and obfuscation, which the Kochs established, root and branch, for the continued profits of their petroleum extraction-based industries.

      I'm looking forward to the new "Kochland" documentary coming out shortly.

      The only sympathy I can muster towards the Kochs is for their horrific upbringing (read Sons of Wichita), and living with the name "Koch", which in the U.S. is pronounced "cock".

      3 votes
  4. [4]
    Douglas
    Link
    Did anyone else hear Freakenomics interview them back in the day with such a softball approach that it sullied your opinion of the show/made you feel a little paranoid that they hold some sway at...

    Did anyone else hear Freakenomics interview them back in the day with such a softball approach that it sullied your opinion of the show/made you feel a little paranoid that they hold some sway at NPR? They seem to have their tentacles in everything, and I recall Ron Wyden specifically calling them out for being behind McConnel obstructing Obama's SCOTUS pick.

    10 votes
    1. Diet_Coke
      Link Parent
      I've been very curious to hear NPR's take on his death. They definitely whitewashed his life on the brief snippet I heard, calling him a philanthropist and saying he 'attacked Democrats and...

      I've been very curious to hear NPR's take on his death. They definitely whitewashed his life on the brief snippet I heard, calling him a philanthropist and saying he 'attacked Democrats and supported conservatives'. No surprise though, Koch Industries is definitely an NPR donor.

      8 votes
    2. Gaywallet
      Link Parent
      Very much so, although I have a good idea why it was so softball. I don't really hold it against them as they produce a lot of good information, but it's a shame they were so milquetoast in their...

      it sullied your opinion of the show

      Very much so, although I have a good idea why it was so softball. I don't really hold it against them as they produce a lot of good information, but it's a shame they were so milquetoast in their interview.

      5 votes
    3. NaraVara
      Link Parent
      They lob softballs because it's where their bread is buttered. The Kochs fund tons of economics departments, you don't make enemies of them without compromising your ability to get published or...

      They lob softballs because it's where their bread is buttered. The Kochs fund tons of economics departments, you don't make enemies of them without compromising your ability to get published or have partnerships with many major research universities.

      3 votes
  5. [4]
    andre
    Link
    I hope his pain was commensurate with the environmental destruction he's responsible for and all of the pain associated with it.

    I hope his pain was commensurate with the environmental destruction he's responsible for and all of the pain associated with it.

    7 votes
    1. [3]
      Diet_Coke
      Link Parent
      Alas, no guillotines were involved.

      Alas, no guillotines were involved.

      3 votes
      1. [2]
        andre
        Link Parent
        A guillotine would have been much too quick for him.

        A guillotine would have been much too quick for him.

        3 votes
        1. superkp
          Link Parent
          Guillotines needed to be sharpened after every few victims, as neck bones would dull the blade. During the french revolution, there were some executions that required many falls of the blade to do...

          Guillotines needed to be sharpened after every few victims, as neck bones would dull the blade.

          During the french revolution, there were some executions that required many falls of the blade to do more than just crush the neck bone.

          Not saying it isn't quick compared to what you might want to give him, just saying that even a guillotine could be quite a torturous death.

          2 votes
  6. babypuncher
    Link
    He died doing what he loved; watching the rainforest burn.

    He died doing what he loved; watching the rainforest burn.

    10 votes
  7. Deimos
    Link
    Matt Stoller wrote about Koch Industries in his newsletter today, which didn't go into much detail but I thought was interesting: Koch Industries Looks a Lot Like Amazon

    Matt Stoller wrote about Koch Industries in his newsletter today, which didn't go into much detail but I thought was interesting: Koch Industries Looks a Lot Like Amazon

    5 votes
  8. ubergeek
    Link
    And, nothing of value was lost.

    And, nothing of value was lost.

    5 votes
  9. Enoch
    Link
    Can't Buy Me Life I guess

    Can't Buy Me Life I guess

    4 votes