Charles Koch Quotes
We create these boom-bust cycles by manipulating the money supply and the interest rates and directing it where it went in. And that is what happened with housing: pushed into housing combination of easy money plus all the regulations, and we created this boom-bust cycle, and corruption, because corruption goes with it, because you don't have the same discipline. So we've got to stop all that.
Koch, Charles G. Interview by Stephen J. Dubner. Freakonomics Radio, WNYC, 4 Nov. 2015.
The Congressman was notorious for his extreme and unusual views of things. See {606976} for another of his extreme statements which turned out to be untrue. McFadden quotations are sometimes used to show that there is almost no limit to how absurd a view a politician in general, or a member of Congress in particular, might take and make public.
At the time any private bank could issue their own money. Private sector bankers thought it outrageous that the Congress should consider trampling on their rights to issue money. The solution that was finally adopted some years later was to use the Federal Reserve Board to control the money supply. It is independent of the Congress and the President but members are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Our system, like no other system, is a compromise where neither the Government or the Private Sector controls the American money supply.
Attempting to defend charges that his bank and others were engaged in monopolistic practices:
This is an oft quoted statement because of the Great Depression which occurred the following year after Strong had passed away. The Federal Reserve followed the lead of President Hoover and did nothing while they watched the nation’s money supply shrink a third over the next 3 years, making a business comeback very difficult. If Strong had lived longer, he might have persuaded the others to increase the money supply and act as the nation’s safety valve. As the President of the New York Bank, he was the first among equals.
Charles de Ganahl Koch is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. As of April 2021, he was ranked as the 15th-richest person in the world on Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an estimated net worth of $63.1 billion. Koch has been co-owner, chairman, and chief executive officer of Koch Industries since 1967, while his late brother David Koch served as executive vice president. Charles and David each owned 42% of the conglomerate. The brothers inherited the business from their father, Fred C. Koch, then expanded the business. Originally involved exclusively in oil refining and chemicals, Koch Industries now includes process and pollution control equipment and technologies, polymers and fibers, minerals, fertilizers, commodity trading and services, forest and consumer products, and ranching. The businesses produce a wide variety of well-known brands, such as Stainmaster carpet, the Lycra brand of spandex fiber, Quilted Northern tissue, and Dixie Cup.
