(Koch brothers propaganda film Economic Freedom in 60 Seconds)
I really would love to see these Libertarian sociopaths have to live for even one week under the conditions that they don't mind helping to inflict onto millions of Americans. I think Digby summed up this article perfectly with the title to her post, The Koch philosophy: You're richer than the average Somali so STFU.
Jane Mayer wrote about these cheap ass S.O.B.'s back when they were making sure Alex Gibney's documentary about them wasn't going to air on PBS, and apparently, despite all of the money they've got, they're too freaking stingy to even tip their doorman properly. And as Think Progress noted, now they'd like for everyone to believe that eliminating the minimum wage will help the poor:
A conservative mogul worth $43 billion says he knows the secret to helping poor people. According to Charles Koch, the U.S. needs to get rid of the minimum wage, which he counts as a major obstacle to economic growth.
On Wednesday, the Charles Koch Foundation launched a $200,000 media campaign in Wichita, Kansas, with a hint of expanding it elsewhere. It is the Kochs’ biggest media buy since they promised to do more to “persuade politicians” after suffering losses in the 2012 election.
In an interview with the Wichita Eagle published Tuesday, Koch said that the minimum wage is one policy he is working against:
We want to do a better job of raising up the disadvantaged and the poorest in this country, rather than saying ‘Oh, we’re just fine now.’ We’re not saying that at all. What we’re saying is, we need to analyze all these additional policies, these subsidies, this cronyism, this avalanche of regulations, all these things that are creating a culture of dependency. And like permitting, to start a business, in many cities, to drive a taxicab, to become a hairdresser. Anything that people with limited capital can do to raise themselves up, they keep throwing obstacles in their way. And so we’ve got to clear those out. Or the minimum wage. Or anything that reduces the mobility of labor.
The Kansas ad does not specifically mention the minimum wage, but it does claim that Americans earning $34,000 a year should count themselves as lucky, because that puts them in the top 1 percent of the world. “That is the power of economic freedom,” the ad concluded. Meanwhile, Charles and David Koch are the ones comfortably in the 1 percent, with a net worth of about 1 million times that figure. [...]
The ad cites a report from the Koch-funded Fraser Institute showing that “The United States used to be a world leader in economic freedom but our ranking fell. And it’s projected to decline even further.” (That same Fraser report interestingly ranks Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Chile ahead of the U.S. Those places all have government-run health care, which the Kochs adamantly oppose.) Read on...
And as Digby noted at the end of her post:
This seems relevant: "Although he deems low-wage workers part of a “culture of dependency” on the government, Koch Industries is on the receiving end of oil subsidies, government contracts, and bailouts."
Jaaahb createrz.
