On March 21, first-term Congressman Ro Khanna sent a letter asking the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate TransDigm, an aerospace supplier he accused of cornering the market on proprietary parts for military aircraft and then jacking up the prices.
The California Democrat charged that TransDigm operates as a “hidden monopolist,” to “enrich a few individual financiers who stand to benefit at the expense of our troops and weapons systems.”
The letter rebounded across Washington and Wall Street. TransDigm stock dropped over 10 percent in two days. The business press highlighted the story; The Huffington Post called TransDigm “The Martin Shkreli of defense contracting.”
In a nation that once saw a senator become president in part because of his investigation of war profiteering — and where memories of the Pentagon buying $640 toilet seats still linger — the story of a greedy corporation ripping off the military seemed to have legs.
But by April 11, TransDigm stock was back up to $236.48, virtually the same level it was at the day before Khanna’s letter. Investors had shrugged off the bad publicity, and the potentially damaging investigation.
It appears that the hedge funds, Wall Street banks, and highly paid executives cashing in on the scheme are confident that they can use the power and influence that comes with big money to prevent public outrage or government investigations from ruining their party. (...)
(...) The Tomahawk missile used in the strike is made by Raytheon (rtn, +1.47%), whose stock opened 2.5% higher Friday, adding more than $1 billion to the defense contractor's market capitalization.
The shares of other missile and weapons manufacturers, including Boeing (ba, +0.83%), Lockheed Martin (lmt, +1.17%), Northrop Grumman (noc, +0.90%) and General Dynamics (gd, +0.93%), each rose as much as 1%, collectively gaining nearly $5 billion in market value as soon as they began trading, even as the broader market fell.
(All major U.S. stock market indexes dropped slightly in morning trading after the release of the weakest monthly jobs report in almost a year, which increased doubts about the strength of the American economy.)
The technology and equipment of the defense companies, which all have lucrative contracts with the U.S. government, was likely also used in Trump's airstrikes on Syria. Lockheed Martin, for example, makes the Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System, one part of a three-pronged system needed to launch the missile; the product calculates the trajectory from a ship to the target. General Dynamics also makes technology used to fire Tomahawk missiles.
Boeing, meanwhile, makes other types of cruise missiles.
Defense contractor stocks have risen in the months since Trump was elected, spurred by his promises of a "historic" increase in U.S. military spending. The budget Trump proposed last month includes an additional $52 billion for the Department of Defense. Boeing stock has gained nearly 21% since the election, while General Dynamics stock is up 14% over the same period. (The S&P 500 has risen roughly 11% since election day.)
In great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them, scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace. They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory from a longer continuance of the war.
Changes at EPA mean that it will immediately lose 3000 workers.
So, the President promising to create jobs has just unemployed thousands of people. That seems backwards, unless these folks are all immediately hired onto to Superfund clean up crews.
Government jobs don't count.
Notice that Obama didn't get any credit for reducing the size of government when he radically reduced the number of public sector jobs.
Changes at EPA mean that it will immediately lose 3000 workers.
So, the President promising to create jobs has just unemployed thousands of people. That seems backwards, unless these folks are all immediately hired onto to Superfund clean up crews.
The close relationship between Scott Pruitt, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and fossil fuel interests including the billionaire Koch brothers has been highlighted in more than 7,500 emails and other records released by the Oklahoma attorney general’s office on Wednesday.
The documents show that Pruitt, while Oklahoma attorney general, acted in close concert with oil and gas companies to challenge environmental regulations, even putting his letterhead to a complaint filed by one firm, Devon Energy. This practice was first revealed in 2014, but it now appears that it occurred more than once.
The emails also show that American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, an oil and gas lobby group, provided Pruitt’s office with template language to oppose ozone limits and the renewable fuel standard program in 2013. AFPM encouraged Oklahoma to challenge the rules, noting: “This argument is more credible coming from a state.” Later that year, Pruitt did file opposition to both of these regulations.
The letters also show the cosy relationship between Pruitt and the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), the influential US lobbying network of Republican politicians and big businesses, and other lobby groups sponsored by the Koch brothers, the billionaire energy investors who have spent decades fighting against environmental regulation. (...)
This is what you get when the EPA tries to regulate dry ditches on a farm as a navigable water way. Payback for over reach. Its what happens when you get too greedy with your rules and regulations. Yeah, I want the EPA dismantled and replaced. Said so long ago. Long before Trump came down the escalator.
The close relationship between Scott Pruitt, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and fossil fuel interests including the billionaire Koch brothers has been highlighted in more than 7,500 emails and other records released by the Oklahoma attorney general’s office on Wednesday.
The documents show that Pruitt, while Oklahoma attorney general, acted in close concert with oil and gas companies to challenge environmental regulations, even putting his letterhead to a complaint filed by one firm, Devon Energy. This practice was first revealed in 2014, but it now appears that it occurred more than once.
The emails also show that American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, an oil and gas lobby group, provided Pruitt’s office with template language to oppose ozone limits and the renewable fuel standard program in 2013. AFPM encouraged Oklahoma to challenge the rules, noting: “This argument is more credible coming from a state.” Later that year, Pruitt did file opposition to both of these regulations.
The letters also show the cosy relationship between Pruitt and the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), the influential US lobbying network of Republican politicians and big businesses, and other lobby groups sponsored by the Koch brothers, the billionaire energy investors who have spent decades fighting against environmental regulation. (...)
The close relationship between Scott Pruitt, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and fossil fuel interests including the billionaire Koch brothers has been highlighted in more than 7,500 emails and other records released by the Oklahoma attorney general’s office on Wednesday.
The documents show that Pruitt, while Oklahoma attorney general, acted in close concert with oil and gas companies to challenge environmental regulations, even putting his letterhead to a complaint filed by one firm, Devon Energy. This practice was first revealed in 2014, but it now appears that it occurred more than once.
The emails also show that American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, an oil and gas lobby group, provided Pruitt’s office with template language to oppose ozone limits and the renewable fuel standard program in 2013. AFPM encouraged Oklahoma to challenge the rules, noting: “This argument is more credible coming from a state.” Later that year, Pruitt did file opposition to both of these regulations.
The letters also show the cosy relationship between Pruitt and the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), the influential US lobbying network of Republican politicians and big businesses, and other lobby groups sponsored by the Koch brothers, the billionaire energy investors who have spent decades fighting against environmental regulation. (...)
The requests for help — documented in diplomatic cables obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from DeSmogBlog as well as some previously released by Wikileaks — raise a whole new series of conflict-of-interest concerns about Tillerson, who retired as Exxon Mobil CEO soon after being nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to be the next secretary of state.
Consider: Exxon Mobil sent State Department officials a request to help overcome local opposition to fracking in Germany; in Indonesia, the State Department acted as a advocate for Exxon Mobil during contentious negotiations between the firm and the Indonesian government over a major gas field in the South China Sea; and in Russia, Exxon Mobil asked the U.S. ambassador to press the Russians to approve a major drilling program, noting that a “warming of U.S.-Russian relations” overall would also help the company. (...)
“In theory,” said Stephen Kretzmann, the executive director of Oil Change International, “the U.S. State Department is supposed to promote American values and human rights around the world, but in practice that often comes into conflict with an agenda to ensure access for American firms to new markets and reserves.” (...)
The Office of the United States Trade Representative, the agency responsible for negotiating two massive upcoming trade deals, is being led by former lobbyists for corporations that stand to benefit from the deals, according to disclosure forms obtained by The Intercept.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed free trade accord between the U.S. and 11 Pacific Rim countries; the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a similar agreement between the U.S. and the E.U.
The Obama administration is pushing hard to complete both deals, which it says will increase U.S. trade opportunities. Critics say the deals will provide corporate interests with sweeping powers to challenge banking and environmental regulations. (...)
The contents of the trade deals are secret and therefore still veiled from scrutiny by the public and even most members of Congress. Only trade officials and select corporate representatives have been able to review them.
Despite growing opposition to both deals, Finance Committee Chair Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, may introduce legislation this week to provide President Obama with “fast track” authority to limit congressional review over and expedite approval of the agreements.
