PROFILE THE KOCH BROTHERS:�WHAT’S THE WORLD coming to when a billionaire can’t buy a presidential candidate or shut down a labour union?
This was not a good week for the richest brothers in the US, Charles and David Koch (pronounced Coke), respectively chief executive and executive vice-president of Koch Industries, the oil, gas and chemical conglomerate that is believed to be the world’s second-largest privately held company, with an estimated annual revenue of $100 billion (€73 billion).
The Koch brothers’ attempts to choose the Republican presidential nominee are endangered by the sexual harassment scandal involving candidate Herman Cain, and a union-bashing law they sponsored in Ohio was repealed by voters.
The brothers’ combined personal fortune of $50 billion is surpassed in the US only by those of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. For more than three decades the Koch brothers, now in their 70s, have been �minences grises in conservative politics, synonymous with big, secret money and manipulation. They are believed to have given more than $100 million to right-wing causes, at least half of it to discredit scientific evidence of climate change.
Read more: http://bit.ly/rBzlFg