Galt's Gulch

Mr. Charles Koch - Fighting to restore a free society.

Posted by Bobhummel 10 years, 7 months ago to Economics
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How does one improve one's life? How does one go about achieving a better life -- a more meaningful, productive, full life. We all only get one. Can you achieve a productive, meaningful, full life with no moral code in it? You can't. No matter how hard you want to try, no matter what kind of utopia you imagine, you can't.
SOURCE URL: http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303978304579475860515021286-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwMzEwNDMyWj

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  • Posted by Lucky 10 years, 7 months ago
    A (partly hidden) comment refers to Koch as having inherited his wealth. The implication is that inherited wealth disbars from merit (re- the eye of a needle), tho' billionaires like Huffington, Gore, etc. who give to lefty causes are ok.

    Hero to the alarmist left Al Gore inherited wealth from tobacco, (slavery?). His utility bill is 20 times national average household consumption. He invests in mining, and in schemes that have success from cronyism. He made big money from selling media to supporters of terrorists, illegal fundraising and from oil.
    The oil came from Kitanemuk Indian land, an Armand Hammer venture.
    The Indians asked for sideways drilling-
    “We’ve never denied them taking the oil. We are not asking for land. We are not asking for royalties.
    We are just asking them to leave something to show that we were here.”
    In this case the EPA sided completely with the big oil proposal.
    From
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/20...

    In the Francisco speech, Rand tells us that a measure of a man is not how much money he has but how he earned it. A measure of worth for a man who inherits wealth would be what he does with it.
    If he owns and invests in companies that give employment to thousands and make products that people want and need and are willing to pay for, if the employees have won awards for excellence in many areas and are praised by the EPA (ok a double-edged sword here), if he opposes pseudo-environmental measures like ethanol for fuel that has caused starvation, and opposes cronyism and political favors, and if he builds wealth at the same time, then surely that is a good thing.
    The above from the WSJ article.

    Further - The Kochs gave $100m to a hospital, the left were outraged.
    http://joannenova.com.au/2014/03/kochs-g...
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    • Posted by jpellone 10 years, 7 months ago
      You never hear about George Soros in the MSM. According to the MSM the Koch Brothers are the bad guys... The real bad guy is Al Gore and Gorge Soros. I once figured out (calculated) how much of the land in the US would have to grow corn to supply enough ethanol and it was more than what we had available and produced enough waste water to fill the Great Lakes with contaminated water.
      Great post Lucky 17...
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  • Posted by $ FredTheViking 10 years, 7 months ago
    This article is so good. I am going to share this with my family members. Alas, I doubt it will inspire much from them.
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    • Posted by Boborobdos 10 years, 7 months ago
      From Koch: "He knew that no government could possibly run citizens' lives for the better."

      Really? Then why do those on the extreme right insist that women follow their lead on contraception and abortion ( concerning their own bodies) and gay marriage (concerning nothing that impacts another directly)?
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      • Posted by Bobhummel 10 years, 7 months ago
        In your world of morality you can kill a viable a baby in the name of choice. Just don't make people who find such behavior abhorrent pay for it. As for the gay life style choice, I prefer not to have it assigned a virtue it does not posses by a very noisy counterculture that really only contributes to the fashion and food world much as those in the Hunger Games capital do. If you want to go down the road that it is not a choice, they are born that way, that road goes in both directions. You must then accept as true that those "extreme Rights" could be born that way too. One cannot impose selective virtue and outrage in an argument and be rational.
        I refuse to be a slave or a slave driver. Welcome to the Gulch.
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        • Posted by Boborobdos 10 years, 7 months ago
          "It's a baby": Don't impose your beliefs upon me or any other person unless they want to share them with you.

          >>>If you want to go down the road that it is not a choice, they are born that way, that road goes in both directions.<<<

          If it's in both directions I suggest that you go gay for a year to demonstrate that it's a "choice" and then choose back to straight.

          Can't do it. It's the same for gay folks. They can't change either.

          Or, when did you "choose" to be straight?
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 7 months ago
    I think my biofuels company might still be in business had we been able to convince the Koch Brothers to fund it. We did get a chance to present a proposal in front of them to convert their chicken poop into something useful, but oh well, we didn't get that one. That would have been the trophy bass to mount on the wall.
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    • Posted by Bobhummel 10 years, 7 months ago
      JB , Can you come up with a way to turn Obama's chicken poop policies into something of value?
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      • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 7 months ago
        Unfortunately, no, I can't find a way to turn Obama's chicken poop policies into something of value. The poop is spread out over too large an area. One of the key aspects of our proposal to the Koch Brothers was that the poop generated on one farm was converted into something useful at just that farm. The transport costs are a suprisingly large portion of the overall cost. Transporting Obama's poop to a central location or building that many poop processing stations just isn't fiscally smart. We did come up with a small version of our technology that we could take out into the field on board a small tractor trailer. Well, maybe ...
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    • Posted by Bobhummel 10 years, 7 months ago
      It sounds like you and the Kochs are in business for the same reason. Creating a great product in a fair exchange of value for value. Chicken poop to power is a great idea.
      Cheers
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      • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 7 months ago
        It WAS a great idea. Not long after we tried to get the Kochs to trade value for value, we sold the company because the main source of business (environmentalists wanting to absolve their guilt) dried up when their money suddenly disappeared in 2008/2009. That is when I went Galt. I am now only a professor, in a really nice shrug job.
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        • Posted by Bobhummel 10 years, 7 months ago
          But now you have an excellent opportunity to reach young skulls full of mush and give them a true choice based on the epistemology and source of our freedoms. Thanks for that. Anything that points our young toward the gulch and away from the vacuous social media is of true value. Cheers,
          .
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          • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 7 months ago
            My university is the new Patrick Henry University, Florida Tech. Your gratitude is valued.
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            • Posted by $ stargeezer 10 years, 7 months ago
              Let's just hope it does not follow the path trod by PHU.
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              • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 7 months ago
                Having just come back from an open house for Florida Tech today, I couldn't agree more. The Patrick Henry University WAS a model for how a university should be, but they lost that. We started with a 37 cent endowment and are still very hungry. We just made it into the top 200 in the world and are the youngest to do so precisely because we are non-union, private, and non-tenure-granting. The faculty who choose to come here cite that as a factor in their decision. Certainly there are a few government grant moochers here, but as our university focuses much more on undergrad education and is therefore more tuition driven, there is less of a moocher presence here than at any other technical school I know. We are no Hillsdale College when it comes to a complete, no government mooching stance, but we are pretty close. Moreover, I can be an effective professor here as non-mooch; that would not be the case at most universities. If I get industrial contracts here, that can be acceptable even if it hurts my number of publications.
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  • Posted by Kath 10 years, 7 months ago
    Yes, we only get one life. Too bad it's spent worrying about politics. Politics now affects ones day to day life and that is wrong. Read this article and then check out one of Harry Reid's tirades against Koch. Fighting for freedom always disturbs those in power who want to wield even more.
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    • Posted by Bobhummel 10 years, 7 months ago
      Harry Reid's blatant disregard for the law when he is laundering campaign money to family members doesn't even make the news except on FNC or in the Blaze and Drudge. The good senator from Nevada should be doing 10-20 in Supermax for grand larceny, tax evasion and fraud. Supermax is about as close as he will ever get to Galt's Gulch.
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  • Posted by bassboat 10 years, 7 months ago
    " Those in power fail to see that more government means less liberty". Kock here to me is being very generous. They not only see what they are doing to curtail liberty but those in power seek more and more power to enrich themselves to the disadvantaged of the people that they purport to help.
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  • Posted by $ Stormi 10 years, 7 months ago
    It is a good article. I am really tired of the liberals throwing the Koch name around, like some gotta ya discovery. If they would open their jaded eyes and see what capitalism is about, they would be better off.
    I am also sick of the energy industry being demonized. We have half-baked music performers and movie actors making huge dollars, but no liberal questions that. Politicians, including Obama, get big bucks (and I don't mean the salary Obama get!), but the media never brings that up. Why is it only those who run companies who get slammed.
    I think in reference to the above, you have to form some type of internal moral compass based on your belief system and stay true to yourself. Everyone needs to kick the work "utopia" to the curb - does it not actually translate into "no place" anyway? It does and and will not ever exist. If you live by your values, do a good days work and don't lust after meaningless things, you will have a good life. To qualify - not everyone wants the same things. Don't try to have what the guy next door values, just because you don't have it. Cars matter to me, but not to everyone, for some reason. Land matters to me, but some like living crowded in cities. Live and let live, but don't compromise reason.
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    • Posted by Bobhummel 10 years, 7 months ago
      The article was akin to a Francisco moment in AS when he was giving Hank .. "the words you will need for the time when you will need them." He threw a few bones to the statist by referring to the stewardship of the environment and the awards from the EPA. Unfortunately, some readers of the WSJ will not accept the truths presented in this OpEd unless there is some token bone thrown to mother Gaia. If you work in big oil, big pharmaceuticals, or big "self reliant" private enterprise, as opposed to big government or big education, you must be stigmatized, isolated and destroyed. The Koch brothers have certainly been the targets of full Alinski style assault. I appreciated the candor of the OpEd. Glad you enjoyed it too.
      Cheers
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      • Posted by $ Stormi 10 years, 7 months ago
        It can be hard to get the truth into print. I was the Business/Education reporter for the local newspaper for several years. I knew I would have to throw them some bones if I was to expose the bad stuff. It is a tightrope to be walked, just to get some truth about curriculum out there to sleeping parents. The schools also were always looking to our heavily industrial community CEOs for special funding, so those people need truth as well.
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        • Posted by Bobhummel 10 years, 7 months ago
          Thanks Stormi for the relentless pursuit of the truth. Thanks for you insights with regard to defeating Common Core on a great string. It is the Directive 10-289 of the educational system. It can only destroy.
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    • Posted by Boborobdos 10 years, 7 months ago
      "We have half-baked music performers and movie actors making huge dollars, but no liberal questions that."

      Actually they are all the time. Remember when Ert and Ogg sat around the campfire and listened to a Bard tell stories or update them about neighboring tribes for a crust of bread to get onto the next camp? Well extrapolate that to millions of folks, each willing to contribute a buck each, and suddenly entertainers get rich. As do sports figures. Folks voluntarily toss their money at them because they are entertaining. . A little each, but it adds up.

      Who is right? A right winger like Clint Eastwood, or Barbara Streisand?


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  • Posted by $ sjatkins 10 years, 7 months ago
    Koch is a mixed bag. Both good and bad press for the liberty minded and for objectivists are fairly connected with the name. While I agree Koch is vilified he is not some objectivist or even libertarian unsullied champion either.

    See the mess around the Cato Institute re Koch for one example of why.

    That said, this is one of the best articles I have read in a major US publication in quite some time. Well done!
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    • Posted by Bobhummel 10 years, 7 months ago
      Agree on the mixed bag. But it is a pretty good mix and I find myself supporting the Koch brothers' enterprise and their political objective of less intrusive government. It is difficult to know what is truly his personal motivation except through his own words, as in this OpEd. Everything else is presented through the template and optics of the MSM.
      Cheers
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    • Posted by $ stargeezer 10 years, 7 months ago
      He is a real man. None of us are ALL conservative (although I try to be) or ALL liberal. All objectivist or all collectivist (shutter). In truth, we are all a mix OR we risk becoming the automatons we fear most.
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