Influential Billionaire David Koch Dies
Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2019 6:14 am
The title says it all: David Koch has died. For those that are unaware of him, he was heavily involved in the family run business known as Koch Industries; he was the Vice President of the company. He retired from the company back in 2018 due to health issues. Back in the 90s, he was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer, which kept coming back. This led him to donate millions to medical research, surely a noble thing. That's thanks to his $48 billion dollar net worth, the 11th highest in the world.
He would be most remembered for a few things: his philanthropy for giving to medical research, the arts, establishing the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, education donations, and prison reform.
But the biggest was his political views; he ran as the Vice President Nominee on the Libertarian Ticket with Ed Clark back in 1980, where they earned one percent of the vote, the most at the time for the Libertarian Party. He considered himself socially liberal and fiscally conservative, basically a Libertarian. But using his net worth, he and his brother Charles Koch would build one of the biggest and influential political networks in America, donating to Libertarian and Republican causes, ranging from free trade, low taxes, fighting to protect former Governor Scott Walker from a recall, and supportive of CATO.
In recent years, they have slowly pulled back from the political realm, donating less and less to political causes. In particular, this increased when Trump became the nominee, an individual they viewed as a danger to the conservative and libertarian movements. Their pullback from politics and waning influence means that this once powerful network is slowly dissipating, leaving a possible void that is bound to be filled by someone else.
So, NationStates. What's your view on this man? Was he good or bad? To me, I was supportive of him given he politically aligned with me on many issues though I wasn't a fan of all that money in politics and his influence is quite scary. Of course, building one of the biggest political networks has drawn praise and criticism, but whether love him or hate him, he (along with his brother), have helped shaped American Politics in one shape or form. May he rest in peace.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/23/billion ... -dies.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/billionair ... 1566563837
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/da ... 9-n1045696
Edit: added their slow withdrawal of politics/opposition to Trump.
He would be most remembered for a few things: his philanthropy for giving to medical research, the arts, establishing the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, education donations, and prison reform.
But the biggest was his political views; he ran as the Vice President Nominee on the Libertarian Ticket with Ed Clark back in 1980, where they earned one percent of the vote, the most at the time for the Libertarian Party. He considered himself socially liberal and fiscally conservative, basically a Libertarian. But using his net worth, he and his brother Charles Koch would build one of the biggest and influential political networks in America, donating to Libertarian and Republican causes, ranging from free trade, low taxes, fighting to protect former Governor Scott Walker from a recall, and supportive of CATO.
In recent years, they have slowly pulled back from the political realm, donating less and less to political causes. In particular, this increased when Trump became the nominee, an individual they viewed as a danger to the conservative and libertarian movements. Their pullback from politics and waning influence means that this once powerful network is slowly dissipating, leaving a possible void that is bound to be filled by someone else.
So, NationStates. What's your view on this man? Was he good or bad? To me, I was supportive of him given he politically aligned with me on many issues though I wasn't a fan of all that money in politics and his influence is quite scary. Of course, building one of the biggest political networks has drawn praise and criticism, but whether love him or hate him, he (along with his brother), have helped shaped American Politics in one shape or form. May he rest in peace.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/23/billion ... -dies.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/billionair ... 1566563837
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/da ... 9-n1045696
Edit: added their slow withdrawal of politics/opposition to Trump.