The Koch brothers systemic criminality

Bloomberg just published a bombshell story about the Kochs and Koch Industries and how they do business –  apparently, they do it their own way and the law be damned. It’s a lengthy story and it confirms that these enormously rich and very secretive brothers really do see themselves as sovereigns, occupying a higher plane than mere mortals. With all this criminality, I don’t know how they ever found the time to hire Dick Armey so he could create FreedomWorks, the group that stands behind the Tea Party.  (These guys work ‘freedom’ into everything. They need some new writers.)

A Bloomberg Markets investigation has found that Koch Industries — in addition to being involved in improper payments to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East — has sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism . . . [Moe asks: Remember when Halliburton did that?]

Internal company documents show that the company made those sales through foreign subsidiaries, thwarting a U.S. trade ban. Koch Industries units have also rigged prices with competitors, lied to regulators and repeatedly run afoul of environmental regulations, resulting in five criminal convictions since 1999 in the U.S. and Canada.

. . . . In December 1999, a civil jury found that Koch Industries had taken oil it didn’t pay for from federal land by mis-measuring the amount of crude it was extracting. . .

Phil Dubose, a Koch employee who testified against the company said he and his colleagues were shown by their managers how to steal and cheat — using techniques they called the Koch Method.