Charlie is at it trying to do agitprop. He comes off thinking that "Atlas Shrugged" is a historical drama.
Wall Street Journal gives him all the column inches he needs to make clear his ignorance of basic economics and the simplest of stubborn facts.
Details below the fold :::
Here's Charlie Koch. A billionaire who apparently had a servant to do his homework:
Years of tremendous overspending by federal, state and local governments have brought us face-to-face with an economic crisis.
In what universe did that happen ?
There was no mortgage banking and Wall Street fraud bonanza 2003-2008 and continuing ???
Charlie needs to read his New York Times for himself. He might get something called a "fact" into his system. Such as this:
PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 25, 2010
Let’s hear it for the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Its work on the financial crisis is increasingly looking like the 21st-century version of the Pecora hearings, which helped usher in New Deal-era financial regulation. In the past few days scandalous Wall Street e-mail messages released by the subcommittee have made headlines. ...
E-mail messages... from employees at the credit rating agencies, which bestowed AAA ratings on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of dubious assets, nearly all of which have since turned out to be toxic waste. And no, that’s not hyperbole: of AAA-rated subprime-mortgage-backed securities issued in 2006, 93 percent — 93 percent! — have now been downgraded to junk status.
What those e-mails reveal is a deeply corrupt system.
$7-trillion worth of corruption-driven losses in the 2008-2011 slides and foreclosures.
Charlie "The Billionaire" Koch doesn't know that. More from Charlie:
For many years, I, my family and our company have contributed to a variety of intellectual and political causes working to solve these problems. Because of our activism, we've been vilified by various groups. Despite this criticism, we're determined to keep contributing and standing up for those politicians, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who are taking these challenges seriously.
But, but, but....... even the Wisconsin GOP legislators are admitting that the Walker bill attacking unions, gay marriage, and planning to give away public power plants... has nothing to do with the budget deficit in their state.
What is it about a billion dollars that blocks rational thinking ?
Are all these guys cousins of Paris Hilton ?
Steam room towel-slappers with the Arab dictators ?
Charlie again:
Getting back to a balanced budget would mean a return to at least 2003 spending levels—and would still leave us with the problem of paying off our enormous debts.
Uh, yeah. Two unfunded wars, Charlie. You invade two countries and pay for none. You do a Bush and imagine that deficits don't matter. Raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for the two wars and the security increases -- that's how you balance the budget to 2003 levels.
Not a word about wars in his WSJ article. Not a word about the destructive effects of income inequality. Not a word about trashing long-term investment in infrastructure.
Purest Bachmann-Palin-Koch madness in WSJ
Why Bachmann and Palin ? They don't know what a fact is, either. Perfect trio.
Tell me how a man can be that rich and that dumb. How can he be so friggin' bad ? Please !!