We've talked quite a bit about
speculators and
private equity firms snatching up
residential real estate and
turning them into rentals.
Well, unfortunately,
Koch Industries is now involved in
that.
In fact, Charles Koch has decided
to double down on the real
estate end of his investments.
And they're not only snatching up
properties, they're also turning
them into rentals and
fighting tooth and nail to end
the eviction moratorium.
Because if people can't pay the
rent as a result of the pandemic,
as a result of these layoffs, well,
they're going to need to
be pushed out of their housing.
So first, let me give you
the details on just how much money
Charles Koch is spending right
now on buying up real estate,
specifically residential real
estate and
then turning them into rentals.
A month into the pandemic, Koch
Real Estate Investments made a $200
million preferred-equity investment
in Amherst Holdings LLC's
single-family rental business.
And that's according to
the corporate law firm Jones Day,
which said it advised Koch
Industries subsidiary on the deal.
Now, Amherst says that since 2012,
its affiliated funds have acquired
and operated more then 30,000
homes.
So there's more,
it doesn't stop there.
In fact, starting last May,
Koch Real Estate Investments began
a financial relationship with
Ladder Capital Corporation,
culminating in a 32 million equity
investment, $32 million of course,
equity investment in December.
And Koch also is making a point to
buy up some of the more struggling
properties, maybe a development
that went bankrupt and
was unfinished.
One example of that is a Las Vegas
pop property that he spent $350
million on.
The Las Vegas property that Koch
acquired last month For $350
million is one of the oldest and
biggest unfinished real-estate
developments in the country.
Property developer Jeffrey Soffer
started building the 63-story,
almost 4000-unit hotel/condominium
and casino tower in 2007, but
the project filed for bankruptcy
after the 2008 financial crisis.
So in swoops,
swoops in Charles Koch.
He buys up these properties, turns
properties that ordinary Americans
can buy if they're looking to buy
their first home, for instance,
turns them into rentals,
serves as the landlord, much like
these private equity firms.
This is a little different though
from the private equity firms,
in that Koch is not over-leveraged.
Private equity firms will
borrow money in order to do these
investments but Charles Koch he is
flushed with cash.
So he's able to do these
investments and then what does he
also need to do to ensure that he
gets a return on those investments?
He's gotta be able to treat these
renters like absolute crap and
evict them the second
they're unable to pay their rent.
That means, fighting the CDC's
moratorium on evictions.
He has spent quite a bit of money
on that and it is working.
I'll give you the details in just
a minute, but Cenk, first you.
>> Yeah, so I actually want to get
to that part because I get it.
They bought a lot of homes,
they bought a lot of properties.
If you think that the market is
low, you buy them.
We explained in previous shows that
they're squeezing average
homeowners out, and
that's a significant problem in
the housing industry.
But in this particular story,
what I'm more concerned about is
they then go and
give money to these groups that use
the court system with very benign
sounding names.
Pretending to speak out for
civil liberties, but in reality
is funded by Charles Koch.
And they use the American
government to basically get around
the rules of
the American government.
So they use the courts,
if you can't find the legislators
to do what you want, you go and
try to influence the courts.
So they're going to spend tons of
money trying to make sure that
they throw you out of those homes,
your homes, so that Charles Koch
can make even more money.
>> Exactly, so I'll give you a few
examples of how they've spent this
money and the organizations they've
worked with, right
wing organizations to essentially
go against the moratorium.
So the past few months
for instance,
the Texas Public Policy Foundation,
the Pacific Legal Foundation,
I mean, you get the hint with all
the cutesy sounding names.
The Pacific Legal Foundation and
the New Civil Rights Alliance-
>> Get out of here.
>> It's insane, have been pushing
federal courts to strike down
the CDC eviction moratorium which
is designed to protect millions of
Americans from being thrown out of
their homes during the pandemic.
So how much money has Charles Koch
spent on this lobbying effort?
Between 2017 and 2019 alone, the
Charles Koch Foundation contributed
almost $7.7 million to those three
conservative organizations.
And guess what?
Their efforts have paid off,
because these are the three
organizations that are fighting
on behalf of Charles Koch to
get people evicted from these
properties.
In February,
the Texas Public Policy Foundation
convinced a federal judge in Texas
to declare the CDC's eviction
moratorium unconstitutional.
In March,
a federal judge in Ohio sided with
the Pacific Legal Foundation,
ruling that the CDC quote, exceeded
the scope of its authority,
end quote, with its eviction ban.
It works, this is how it works,
folks.
It's money and politics,
corruption.
I mean, the United States loves to
criticize other countries that were
thinking about invading or thinking
about doing regime changing for
corruption.
Look at Venezuela, corruption,
there's corruption in all these
countries that we want to invade.
There's corruption
in all these countries that we want
regime change in.
What about the corruption here
at home?
I mean, we've legalized it, and so
I guess they think that it's
different because we've
legalized bribery,
we've legalized corruption.
But this system specifically screws
you over, doesn't matter how hard
you work, doesn't matter if you do
everything right.
if you are harmed as a result of
a pandemic that you have no control
over and you lose your job as a
result, Charles Koch will make sure
that if you're living in one of his
properties, he can evict you.
And he'll spend millions of dollars
to ensure he can do it.
>> So Lewis Powell wrote a memo in
1971 for the Chamber of Commerce
that basically said, corporations
should get together and
take over the government.
And one of the things that he
thought they should take
over was the legislative system,
in the other words the courts.
So if you bribe the politicians in
the first place, then they'll just
pass whatever bills you want.
Well, that turned out to be
startlingly true, the bribes are
now called campaign contributions.
But if that doesn't work, you could
just use the court system.
And in fact, Nixon then put them on
the Supreme Court.
And Lewis Powell declared that
corporations could give money
to politicians,
which allows them to bribe
the legislators in the first place.
But if all of that fails, then you
go spend money to go back into the
courts, and sue, sue, sue with all
your resources until you convince
a judge in Texas that in fact,
people should be thrown out of
their homes no matter what, right?
And so now if you think about
the $7.7 million he put
into those legal organizations,
that sounds like a lot of money.
It isn't if you have hundreds of
millions of dollars on the line or
if you have billions of dollars
on the line.
That is a very small investment to
make more money on the back end
through the evictions.
Because what happens, you evict
people, then you put in new renters
at a higher price, because now
the values have gone up.
And then you make way more money
out of that person's misery.
Now legally, they had a right to
stay in that home, the government,
the US government passed the law
saying they have a right to stay in
their home.
Charles Koch thought that law
was inconvenient, so
he's now spending money to buy more
of our government so that he can
profit further off of it.
Our system here in America is sick.
It is just totally taken over by
corporate machines including
Koch Industries, and
there's no hope in sight.
There's no one fighting against it.
People give generic lip service to
money in politics.
No one in Congress ever fights it.
And no one's got a proposal,
no one's got anything.
So God help you if you're powerless
in this country.
because some giant business owner
like Charles Koch will come and
ruin your life without a second
thought so he'd make just a little
bit more money.
He made $37 billion just during
the pandemic, $37 billion added
onto his already incredible wealth.
What the hell's he going to do with
all that money?
You can't spend it all,
it's doing it for his ego.
I'm going to be even more rich than
other rich people.
>> Yeah, I mean- >> Our
government's supposed to stop
people like this and look out for
the citizens.
Instead, our government is
completely captured by corporate
interests.
>> Yeah, I mean, while Americans
are trying to figure out how
they're going to survive and
how they're going to stay in
their homes, this is what wealthy
people are up to.
They're engaging in a genitalia
measuring contest.
That's what Charles Koch is more
concerned about, rather than just
being a decent human being and
avoiding pushing people out of
the homes that they're living in
for shelter during the pandemic.