Why the Billionaires Need to Buy the White House
A Koch Industries executive (not knowing he was being taped) said he had asked Charles Koch, who already had a billion from an inheritance, why Koch was pocketing a few bucks a week from poor American Indians. Koch told him, "I want my fair share, and that's all of it."
And "all of it," of course, includes the White House.
Putting Bush in the White House was worth his weight in gold to these gents - more, in fact. And now, the Kochs, Singer and Langone have teamed up to pick a candidate they pray can take back their real estate at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Gimme for Langone
Langone's firm DBT's "felon" scrub list included only innocent people, so you certainly wouldn't find the name "Langone" on it. In 2004, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer charged Langone with conspiracy, accusing the billionaire with subverting a stock exchange regulator's investigation into monkey business by Langone's investment bank.
A technicality ended the civil action on the conspiracy charge.
DBT's Florida Felon scrub list (Langone's firm) and Willie Steen, a Black veteran who was wrongly purged from the voter rolls. (Image: BBC Television, Bush Family Fortunes.)
But now, Obama's new banking and securities reforms, albeit weak, give regulators new enforcement powers and provide an extra independent eye on stock market shenanigans. For Langone, picking the president means closing the regulatory eye.
The Gimme for The Kochs
FBI man Elroy told our investigators that the Justice Department was going to let the FBI cuff Charles Koch on criminal charges for the theft of the Osage Indian oil. But then, fumes Elroy, Koch's well-funded buddies, then-senators Bob Dole and Don Nickles, stepped in - and Koch walked. No charges.
Dennis DeConcini, then an Arizona senator, wanted to know why criminal or civil charges were never brought against the Kochs. That was not a wise question to ask. The senator told me that the Kochs threatened his political destruction if the Congressional committee he chaired continued with its investigations of the theft of Native oil. He continued, but his political career did not.
During the Clinton administration, Koch Industries was charged with criminal violations of the Clean Water Act. Under President Bush, the charges, but not the water, were cleaned up.
In other words, crime pays - if you get to pick the sheriff.
The Gimme for Paul Singer
Paul Singer had placed a big bet on the asbestos industry, then, set out to fix the casino, helping install Bush in the White House. That is, he had a president willing to beat up on asbestos workers and push for so-called "tort reform" that undermined these victims' claims. What the victims lost, Singer gained.
But there's trouble on the horizon for Singer. In 2007, Britain outlawed Singer and all other Vulture speculators in Third World debt from collecting their pound of flesh in the United Kingdom. Other European nations are following suit.
Several US Congressmen are pushing a UK-style prohibition on Singer's activities. (Even Chevron Corporation is complaining about the Vulture attacks. When Chevron calls bankers unscrupulous, they've got to be really unscrupulous.) Without a veto pen over Congress, Singer stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.
Singer plays defense, but is best at offense: to collect on some of his claims against Argentina, his lobbyists have pushed a bill in Congress to put an economic chokehold on trade with the South American nation. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blocked this crazy attack on our ally. As a result, Singer is not a happy gaucho. There will be blood. Obama will have to pay.
The Gimme for Them All
There's one thing that every billionaire wants: another billion. And that's threatened by Obama's plan to tax the "carried interest" tax deferment.
Guys like Singer and Langone don't pay taxes like you and I do. While we pay taxes on income, the profits from vulture speculation and arbitrage are often recorded as "carried interest," effectively not taxed. It's a billion-dollar benefit for the billionaires, and every Republican candidate has sworn to keep this loophole open and make sure you and I pay Singers' taxes for him.
Unfortunately for Singer, the Kochs and Langone, the GOP candidates currently kissing the billionaires' behinds don't seem electable.
So the Billionaire Boys Club prodded Gov. Christie, a bully-boy from Jersey, to muscle his way into the Oval Office. Christie didn't fly, no surprise. But whether they pick the GOP candidate or retreat to their old tactics of smear-from-the-rear, the fragile thing called democracy stands little chance against the tsunamic powers of the quartet's combined checkbooks.
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