Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 29, 2019)
A4 • Friday, November 29, 2019 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com SignalViewpoints ‘Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries’ SEEN FROM SEASIDE R.J. MARX ‘K ochland: The Secret History of Koch Indus- tries and Corporate Power in America,” is a story that cuts close to home. Koch’s Georgia-Pacifi c has nine facilities in Oregon; the company’s paper mill stands as the largest employer in Clatsop County. In 2018, the fortune of brothers Charles and David Koch (David Koch died in August) was worth more than $120 billion, larger than that of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos or Microsoft founder Bill Gates. How did the Koch family accu- mulate companies to dominate the nation’s energy sector and natural resources? “The Koch brothers derived their wealth through a patient, long-term strategy of seizing opportunities in complex and often opaque corners of the eco- nomic system,” author and Wall Street Journal business reporter Christopher Leonard writes, “pro- tected by a thick wall designed to be legally impenetrable.” Market-Based Management Wichita, Kansas, is the unlikely capital of the Koch Industries empire, where chemical engi- neer and entrepreneur Fred Koch founded the company and passed it along to his sons. Koch Industries’ headquarters are described as a “fortifi ed king- dom,” with impenetrable security, a tower with black windows and dark granite. Employees are trained in Charles Koch’s philosophy, “Mar- ket-Based Management” — “MBM” in Kochspeak — and communicating in their own vocabulary. The theory of MBM is impressed on every recruit and new hire, Leonard writes. “The fi nancial success of Koch Indus- tries only reinforces the idea that what they are doing is right and that the tenets of MBM are indeed Simon & Schu Simon & Schuster Christopher Leonard, author of “Kochland.” the key to proper living.” While other companies yearned to harvest big paydays with pub- lic offerings, Koch Industries remained steadfastly private — part of a long game inherent in the corporate philosophy. In one industry after another — oil refi neries, transport, chemicals, pipelines — Koch Industries qui- etly outperformed their rivals. Charles Koch “had a specifi c, clear vision of how to run his company, and he didn’t want Wall Street investors to interfere.” Georgia-Pacifi c Local readers may be particu- larly interested in the author’s rich and fascinating history of Koch Industries’ purchase of Geor- gia-Pacifi c, a business case study for the 21st century. The $21 billion purchase would be fi nanced by debt, on the shoul- ders of the new created Geor- gia-Pacifi c Holdings, a private company. “Drastic change came quickly,” the author writes, with the dawn of what Charles Koch labeled the “Labor Management System.” The Labor Management Sys- tem tracked workers with the same level of detail used to track pallets. “Each worker was assigned what was essentially their own barcode,” Leonard writes. “The LMS system tracked them throughout their workday, their workweek and eventually their entire career. Every minute was recorded. Every minute was ana- lyzed. Nothing was lost on the LMS.” Day-to-day operations were no longer dictated by foremen and supervisors, Leonard writes; instead, they were run with the help of an algorithm inside a set of black boxes no one could see. Employees were ranked and placed into three categories: the green zone, the yellow zone and the red zone. If they didn’t meet their goals and fell into the red zone, they could be “reprimanded or put on notice.” Life at Georgia-Pacifi c became a scramble to stay out of the bot- tom third of the rankings. The Labor Management Sys- tem wasn’t just tiring workers out, Leonard writes. “It was turning them against each other.” Cap-and-trade Federal cap-and-trade policy, made famous under George H.W. Bush, created a system of pollu- tion credits to combat acid rain. In 2009, Koch Industries’ lobbyists, citing free market trade, sought to detail carbon control efforts. The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 — known by its sponsors, Wax- man-Markey — posed an “exis- tential threat” to the Kochs, even as the energy industry received $378 billion in government allotments. Third-party studies fi nanced by the Kochs through the National Association of Manufacturers pro- claimed “cap and trade could sig- nifi cantly increase electricity bills, gas prices and American jobs.” Koch was even more uncom- promising in fi ghting cap-and- Why I call my new gas oven ‘Brutus’ VIEW FROM THE PORCH EVE MARX he fi rst thing that happened was the old stove croaked. According to Consumer Reports, the average lifespan of any oven, dishwasher, washer, dryer, or fridge is now eight to 12 years. When we bought this house 2½ years ago, all the appliances were 15 years old. It should have come as no surprise when the oven died. I’ve already replaced the dishwasher and only last month the hot water heater went kaput. The oven’s death was dramatic. The oven screamed bloody mur- der and then smoke billowed out. When it died, the “off” button ceased to work and for one fearful moment I thought we might have to call the fi re department. Then Mr. Sax had the sense to fl ip the circuit breaker which turned the darned thing off. After the smoke cleared, I did a little research on line. The next morning I called J&S Appliance and Home Fur- nishings in Warrenton and ordered a new range. Without going into a lot of details, let’s say choices were limited. This house was built in 1954; 18 years ago, someone gave it a major overhaul. Some would say this kitchen is ripe for redo. But it has a lot of nicely aged marble and attractive cabi- netry that is unfashionably dark but still handsome. Only the slide-in, front-control range style T PUBLISHER EDITOR Kari Borgen R.J. Marx Eve Marx Our new beast, a GE 30-inch slide-in front-control gas range. would fi t the cabinetry. Need- less to say, these models tend to be more spendy. Also adding to the cost are “dual fuel” mod- els where the oven is electric and the stove top gas. In the interest of saving money I went with full on gas. The last time I had a full on gas range was in a tenement apartment in Greenwich Village in 1970s. You needed a match to light the burners, and to light the oven, you had to crawl halfway inside and torch the pilot light. This often resulted in singed eye- brows and eyelashes. They’ve come a long way with gas ranges. For starters, now CIRCULATION MANAGER Jeremy Feldman ADVERTISING SALES MANAGER Sarah Silver-Tecza MULTIMEDIA ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Kim McCaw PRODUCTION MANAGER John D. Bruijn SYSTEMS MANAGER Carl Earl they’re electricity ignited. The model I chose has a steam-clean self-clean option. I called on a Monday morning. J&S ordered it and delivered and installed it on Thursday. Everyone was super nice. Even though it was a few days shy of their Black Friday sale, they gave me an excellent price. Now back to the stove. “I’m a little afraid of it,” I con- fi ded to my friend who lives in New York. We talk at least twice a week. “It doesn’t seem tame like the rest of my appliances. I know this sounds crazy, but it feels wild and alive.” CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Skyler Archibald Darren Gooch Joshua Heineman Rain Jordan Katherine Lacaze Eve Marx Cara Mico Esther Moberg “It is alive,” she said. I could hear her chewing while we talked. I didn’t mind. “That’s why I won’t use the gas fi replace the last owner of my house installed. I can’t bear the idea of an always open fl ame.” “Well, that doesn’t bother me at all,” I said. “We have two gas fi replaces. Our dryer runs on gas, as does our furnace. If I took it into my head to be leery of gas, I couldn’t live here.” Meanwhile the new stove, a GE 30-inch slide-in front-con- trol gas range, holds a command- ing position in my kitchen. It does seem to be breathing. It makes a whooshing sound when you turn it on that for the uninitiated, sounds like something’s blowing up. “Stove envy,” a friend com- mented when I posted its picture on social media. Other comments included, “Nice! Jealous!” and “I love the built-in griddle!” A friend in Gearhart recalled that for 27 years she cooked on a 1945 vin- tage GE Frigidaire electric stove. When she remodeled her kitchen, she went for gas. She was appre- hensive because of an incident that happened just after her high school graduation when a group of friends rented a place in Cannon Beach. It had a gas oven. Unwit- tingly they took a match to the stove when they shouldn’t. Oops. That said, I’m ready to shake those pots and pans. I was think- ing of giving the range a name. I was thinking of calling it “Brutus.” If you’re in the market for a new range, I totally recommend giving full on gas a shot. True, electric is better for baking but I don’t bake. I roast. ster trade than Exxon, Leonard writes, whose lobbyists made it known they might support some sort of carbon emissions plan. Koch Industries presented no such compromise. The Koch-backed Ameri- cans for Prosperity could get peo- ple marching in the streets — and it could get them marching in the exact streets and zip codes of congressional districts where their marching would most effec- tively benefi t their own strategic interests. At their peak in Oregon, Amer- icans for Prosperity had local chapters in Clatsop and 22 other counties in Oregon, the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a nonprofi t seek- ing social and economic justice reported. Americans for Prosperity abandoned Oregon in 2015. A hefty 688 pages, the vast and sprawling “Kochland” remains a compelling work-in-progress, pointing to not only lessons from the past, but the direction ahead. As the story unfolds, it is cer- tain Koch Industries will be at the center of the tale. PUBLIC MEETINGS TUESDAY, Dec. 3 Community Center Commission meeting, 10:30 a.m., Bob Chisholm Center, 1225 Avenue A, Seaside. Seaside Library Board, 4:30 p.m., Seaside Public Library, 1131 Broad- way. Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District, board workshop, 5:15 p.m., Bob Chisholm Community Center, 1225 Avenue A, Seaside. Seaside Planning Commission, 7 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. WEDNESDAY, Dec. 4 Gearhart City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 698 Pacifi c Way. THURSDAY, Dec. 5 Seaside Parks Advisory Committee, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. MONDAY, Dec. 9 Seaside City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. TUESDAY, Dec. 10 6:30 p.m. Gearhart City Council and Planning Commission, work session, county housing study, City Hall, 698 Pacifi c Way. THURSDAY, Dec. 12 Seaside Convention Center Com- mission, 5 p.m., Convention Cen- ter, 415 First Ave. Gearhart Planning Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 698 Pacifi c Way. TUESDAY, Dec. 17 Union Health District of Clatsop County, 8 a.m., Seaside Providence Hospital Ed Center, Room B. Sunset Empire Park and Recre- ation District Board of Directors, 5:15 p.m., Bob Chisholm Communi- ty Center, 1225 Avenue A, Seaside. Seaside Planning Commission, work session, 7 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Seaside Signal Letter policy Subscriptions The Seaside Signal is published every other week by EO Media Group, 1555 N. Roosevelt, Seaside, OR 97138. 503-738-5561 seasidesignal.com Copyright © 2019 Seaside Signal. Nothing can be reprinted or copied without consent of the owners. The Seaside Signal welcomes letters to the editor. The deadline is noon Monday prior to publication. Letters must be 400 words or less and must be signed by the author and include a phone number for verifi cation. We also request that submissions be limited to one letter per month. Send to 1555 N. Roosevelt Drive, Seaside, OR 97138, drop them off at 1555 N. Roosevelt Drive or fax to 503-738-9285, or email rmarx@seasidesignal.com Annually: $40.50 in county • $58.00 in and out of county • e-Edition: only $30.00 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Seaside Signal, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103. Postage Paid at Seaside, OR, 97138 and at additional mailing offi ces. Copyright © 2019 by the Seaside Signal. No portion of this newspaper may be reproduced without written permission. All rights reserved.
