exposed

koch industries, iran, bribes, corruption ….

Politicalgates: …. In a bold and spectacular move, Bloomberg Markets Magazine wrote a story titled “The secret sins of Koch Industries” which does not only focus on several new revelations, but also provides a comprehensive overview about scandals of Koch Industries which happened during the last decades. The story also explicitly puts the well known political activities of the Koch Brothers in context with their highly questionable behaviour in business.

…. No less than 15 Bloomberg-journalists in several countries have worked on it … This is Pulitzer-Prize territory….

…the article reveals, for example, that:

– Koch Industries used the European offices of their subsidiary Koch-Glitsch to sell millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran in an apparent violation of the US-Iran trade embargo, as recently as 2007

– Koch Industries paid bribes in six countries from 2002 to 2008 to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East, comparable to similar behaviour of German technology giant Siemens (Siemens subsequently had to pay a $ 1.6 billion fine!)

Read the full post here

Thanks desertflower

doing business, the louisiana way

Salon: Are you a major corporation that wants to do business with the state of Louisiana? The bad news is you can only donate $5,000 directly to Governor Bobby Jindal. The good news is, you can give an unlimited amount of money to his wife’s charity, the Supriya Jindal Foundation for Lousiana’s Children.

….corporations including Marathon Oil, AT&T, Northrup Grumman, Dow Chemical, Alon USA, and various state contractors have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the foundation. All of those companies have business with the state. All of them received permits or evaded fines or won contracts.

Everyone involved in this pay-to-play-ish venture claims nothing untoward is going on. The major corporations simply love children. And if, following an oil company’s donation, “state environmental officials [ease] requirements for the company to check for spills of oil, ammonia or other contaminants in waterways,” well that’s just a coincidence.

Supriya Jindal’s foundation reportedly does good work, handing out free “high-tech whiteboards,” to low-income schools across the state….

Full article here