Tag: Koch

Categories
Common Sense folly ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies political challengers responsibility

Gross Domestic Prevarication

Eternal Koch, meme, Paul Jacob, Koch Brothers, collage, photomontage, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/

A sign of these sorry times for professional journalism: Time magazine runs a dishonest smear against Charles Koch, completely twisting the billionaire’s remarks at a recent meeting of major donors in Orange County, California.

“Charles Koch Says US Can Bomb Its Way to $100,000 Salaries,” screamed the headline. The sub-​heading added, “Building bombs and using them is one way to growth, the billionaire suggests to allies.”

What did Mr. Koch actually tell the assembled crowd of major donors?

“I think we can have growth rates in excess of 4 percent. When I’m talking about growth rates,” explained Koch, “I’m not talking about that GDP, which counts poison gas the same as it counts penicillin. What a monstrous measure this is. If we make more bombs, the GDP goes up — particularly if we explode them.”

In other words, while Time’s headline portrayed Koch as a warmonger, the billionaire businessman wasn’t suggesting this country “Bomb Its Way” anywhere. Certainly not “to growth.” In fact, Koch was making the opposite point: true economic growth can’t come from producing or using “poison gas” or other munitions.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had found this article’s headline to be a flat-​out concocted falsehood; Time soon changed the headline.

Yet, even the re-​written headline was sort of a slap: “Charles Koch Mocks Common Measure of Prosperity.” Only after reading the sub-​head — “Calls ‘monstrous’ the notion that GDP values bombs as much as medicine” — was it clear that Koch was making a very common sense point.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Eternal Koch

 

Categories
ideological culture national politics & policies

My Enemy’s Money

American democracy is uglier than necessary. We don’t have to talk so nasty about our opponents. Or their money.

The usual snipe about this process is that funders of “our side” (whichever side that happens to be) are Good and True and Selfless, while funders of the other side are Evil and Dishonest and Selfish.

So, Democrats decry — and often seek to regulate — the spending of wealthy conservatives and “major corporate lobbyists”; Republicans decry — and, perhaps less often, seek to limit — the spending of unions and billionaires such as George Soros.

Because organizations like MoveOn have been funded by Soros, they are said to be somehow less “legitimate.”

When it was discovered that the Koch brothers of Koch Industries had funded various “Tea Party” organizations to the tune of (it is said) many millions, Obama-​hurrahing pundits and activists decried this, charging that it proved that there was no “grassroots” element to the movement. “Astroturf!” they cried.

All nonsense.

Now, Democrats from Obama on down claim that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is using foreign money for ads. But Democrats haven’t produced a shred of evidence. It’s simply a wild accusation.

Look: It’s not tainted money when the other side gets it and you don’t. Or vice versa. Besides, rich people should be as free as less rich folks to give to their causes.

And perhaps we’d see less money pouring into politics from billionaires were campaign contributions for the rest of us less limited.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.