Talk:David Koch

Edit request May 2013

Some of this material by User:NMS Bill/Koch Industries/Corporate history should be integrated into this article on David H.Koch as it contains content on the history of Koch Industries.

David Koch's philanthropy in context of political advocacy

David Koch's philanthrophic contributions are in the context of his political work to discourage public funding for public institutions. (And the public funding is orders of magnitude larger than Koch's contributions.) With respect to cancer research, Koch's organizations also oppose regulation of the carcinogens Koch Industries produces. It's misleading and frankly not a neutral point of view and unbalanced to not provide this context. Right now the Koch article is a "philanthropist" coatrack. --The Cunctator (talk) 15:07, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Um -- find secondary reliable sources and add claims which are backed by the reliable sources. AFAICT, the cancer philanthropy is without strings and in concert with government research. That total funding is higher than funding from a single individual - I suspect is true of any subject under the sun. Your implicit claim that Koch deliberately produces chemicals to give people cancer or the like is a teeny bit far-fetched. Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:03, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Um -- Koch deliberately produces chemicals and deliberately opposes health-based regulations of those chemicals. You may consider it a "teeny bit far-fetched" but it's a simple fact. The MIT Koch Cancer Institute doesn't study carcinogens at all.[1] Don't worry, they study prostate cancer plenty.[2]

Here's a few secondary reliable sources:

"When the Environmental Protection Agency announced last November it would update Clean Air Act standards to ban dust particle emissions that reportedly cause 40,000 premature deaths annually, big industries sharpened their knives. . . . Among them is David Koch, chairman of Koch Industries, whose oil subsidiary is being sued by the government for Clean Water Act violations, for a reported $55 million. Although Koch gave $339,000 to federal campaigns in 1995-6, it's only one way he sought influence. He also gives through a tangled web of think tanks, PR agencies, and trade associations, all of which want Congress to gut the Clean Air Act." Mother Jones

"For example, at the same time that David Koch has been casting himself as a champion in the fight against cancer, Koch Industries has been lobbying to prevent the E.P.A. from classifying formaldehyde, which the company produces in great quantities, as a “known carcinogen” in humans." New Yorker

"One witness at Monday’s subcommittee hearing expressed support for doing away with federal funding altogether–David Boaz of the libertarian Cato Institute." Democracy Now

"As the Cato Institute concludes, the federal government should drop out of education and return the money and power for instructing children to the states and individual communities." Sarasota Herald-Tribune

"Instead of debating how much more money taxpayers should funnel into the Department of Education, or what combination of carrots and sticks might tempt government schools out of their lethargy, Congress should simply end federal involvement in education and return the department's budget to the American people in the form of a tax cut." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"As we prepare to celebrate Independence Day and the liberties enshrined in our founding document, we need to be vigilant on the latest federal encroachments on our rights: President Obama’s EPA and their attempt to use the Clean Water Act to restrict property rights of farmers and ranchers." Great Falls Tribune

--The Cunctator (talk) 03:38, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. But Wikipedia is not to be used for soapboxing. Putting these sources and comments into the philanthropy section would be impermissible WP:SYN. – S. Rich (talk) 03:43, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

In case you didn't notice, this is the talk page. --The Cunctator (talk) 03:45, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I have been at this for awhile and I do my best to encourage article improvement as the priority in the edits and in my comments. If you have specific recommendations or comments as to article improvement (or my participation in the project) please speak up. – S. Rich (talk) 04:06, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I promise you, I've been at this for a while longer. I appreciate your civility. Here's a recommendation - instead of obstructive wikilawyering, please use your intelligence to figure out how to incorporate this knowledge into the article in a way that you believe is responsible, since my approach was summarily reverted. --The Cunctator (talk) 05:45, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

You are making the connection, not the sources, even though some (not all) of them are reliable. If you can find a source which makes the connection between his philanthropy and his politics in general, rather than between a specific instance of his philanthropy and a specific instance of his politics, go ahead. If a source makes only a connection between specific instances, it would need to be reasonably unbiased for the statement to be notable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:47, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Cunctator for digging up the sources and posting them here. Lets continue to work on improving the article--Wuerzele (talk) 19:36, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Politics Daily

Is currently in Huffington Post. Collect (talk) 15:16, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and I added that Lewis has spoken for Americans for Prosperity, which speaks to his objectivity.- MrX 15:32, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Wrong -- unless you add parenthetical claims about every author cited. It is enough to give his name - but can you imagine if we included every group every writer has worked for? Sorry -- that would stink regarding WP:NPOV. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:36, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

It's not wrong; I think you mean you disagree with it. Note that the source felt it necessary to make that disclosure, so I'm not sure why we wouldn't. Lewis seems to be somewhat of a Koch advocate not that that's a bad thing.- MrX 16:16, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I suggest you propose changes at MOS and other pages about parenthetical observations about authors. The person is wikilinked it appears. Collect (talk) 21:01, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm not proposing a style change. I merely think that, in this case, the fact that the criticism comes from a writer/blogger known for supporting the Koch's should be easily accessible to our readers. The matter is one of editor discretion at this article, and nothing more. A wikilink is better than nothing, but the text that I added (and you removed) was an improvement, in my opinion.- MrX 21:48, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

2011 Time 100

The source makes clear that this was the view of liberal activists who learned " Koch foundation money had helped finance a group organizing Tea Party rallies, the world suddenly made sense. Whatever the brothers may have done to advance their vast economic interests in Washington and state capitols, they energized liberals who saw them as the new puppeteers of a resurgent right wing." The material following is clearly not a claim in Time's voice, but an expansion of this statement. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:15, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree. The article doesn't explicitly state why they were selected for the Time 100.- MrX 14:28, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

To be clear, the article isn't in Time's voice; the Time 100 is a collection of commissioned essays. The Koch piece is in the voice of Matt Lewis, a conservative journalist, who has defended the Kochs in other venues. --The Cunctator (talk) 00:29, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

I reverted both of you, until we come to a consensual solution. I am against wholesale deletion of the source only because the 2 of you cant agree how to use it. I think the source should be included, because it is a mainstream source that a WP reader will be familiar with, and as Collect likes to point out WP should serve the reader -:). It isn't easy to describe or summarize this essay (I d call it a farce), because the author theatrically slips into different positions describing teh brothers, with yes a clear bent to the right,The Cunctator, ridiculing "liberal activists" and "tender-minded activists" Agree that the essay doesnt state why Time included the brothers, but we don't have to either.--Wuerzele (talk) 19:25, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

IMO the present version is a neutral summary. But who is Ferguson referring to when he said they were "just dumb"? The Kochs or the Tea Partiers? Either way that critical remark is not helpful. The important point is that the Kochs got into the 100 Club. – S. Rich (talk) 19:52, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Criticisms

Most of the information in this section doesn't appear to be critical at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.189.197.249 (talk) 03:47, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Real time net worth

Is it possible to automatically change the net worth to whatever it says here http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#version:realtime or can it only be done manually --88.111.129.157 (talk) 20:03, 17 May 2015 (UTC)