On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 12:17 PM, Chuck Grimes <c123grimes at att.net> wrote:
> Sounds ridiculous but too good to pass up:
>
>
> ``Koch's money strings at FSU [Florida State Uni.] pales in comparison to
> the $30 million the Koch foundations have pumped into George Mason
> University's (GMU) economics programs. Much of the details concerning how
> much control Charles Koch has at GMU nonprofits remains a tightly guarded
> secret. Both FSU and GMU are publicly funded institutions.
>
> So what we have at Cato today is essentially the same illusion of fair
> dealings behind a dark curtain of control based on secret contracts. Cato
> has over $52 million in assets, according to its 2010 tax filing with the
> IRS. The Koch brothers, if the court rules in their favor, could spend
> $16.00 to acquire 16 shares of stock for $1 each from Niskanen's widow, and
> end up controlling $52 million in assets. That's not so much a hostile
> takeover as it is the most adept arbitrage maneuver in history.''
>
>
> http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/05/koch-brothers-worth-50-billion-sue-widow-over-16-00-of-nonprofits-stock/
>
> The above is the closing paragraph but the rest of the article is worth
> going
> through if anybody is interested. The main point is to realize the K boys
> buy
> economics dept. faculty appointments at FSU and GMU to keep their version
> of neoliberalism in place. I guess it's not much different than the Haas
> family
> buying UCB a business school, called naturally enough The Haas School.
>
> http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/
>
> Now doesn't that little web ad give you the creeps.
>
> CG
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-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com