Kochland The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America (ePub)

This is a brilliant investigative report on one of America's most powerful family corporations, Koch Industries. Its annual revenue is more than that of Goldman Sachs, Facebook and US Steel combined, and the fortune of its owners, the Koch brothers, leaves Bill Gates far behind. Its products are all around you: the fruits and vegetables you buy in the supermarket are grown on Koch Industries fertilizers, the pipes of its production are laid in your bathroom, diapers for your children are made of Koch synthetic materials. But why is so little known about Koch Industries and its founders? Why do the billionaire brothers prefer to keep their success in the strictest secrecy? Is it because this story has another, unattractive side? Charles Koch is a brilliant businessman and a ruthless destroyer. For half a century, he has run Koch Industries, systematically breaking the law and gradually increasing his influence in Washington. Thanks to powerful lobbying, he was able to "buy" the climate position of Congress and "bury" the bill to control carbon emissions, as well as initiatives on renewable fuels. In his honest and painstaking work, Christopher Leonard shows through a multitude of facts how everything that was great for Koch Industries became a disaster for America. This is not just a story about a powerful company - this is a truly dramatic story of Citizen Kane of our time!