Larry Kudlow Trump’s New Chief Economic Advisor
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Kudlow succeeds Goldman Sachs alum Gary Cohn, both establishment figures.
Earlier, Kudlow was a Federal Reserve Bank of New York staff economist. During the Reagan administration’s first term, he was Office of Management and Budget associate director for economics and planning.
He appears regularly on CNBC and other business programs, contributing to the Wall Street Journal and other print media.
He’s a free-market globalist, a kindred spirit with Trump’s economic agenda, including the great GOP tax cut heist.
According to Wall Street veteran Pam Martens, co-editor with husband Russ of Wall Street On Parade, Kudlow’s connection to the billionaire Koch brothers constitutes a conflict of interest.
Charles and David Koch are modern-day robber barons, involved in manufacturing, energy, oil refining and distribution, chemicals, fiber, intermediates and polymers, minerals, fertilizers, pulp and paper, chemical technology equipment, ranching, finance, commodities trading, plus other ventures and investments.
Their super-wealth buys influence, financing radical right-wing interests to get it, including neocon political action groups, think tanks, and ideologically over-the-top politicians.
Favoring business friendly anti-populist policies, they abhor regulations, want freedom to swindle, cheat and grab all they can, aim to buy state enterprise at fire sale prices, and support minimal corporate taxes, ideally none at all.
They support abolishing social justice, jobs-killing trade deals, and unionism weakened or eliminated.
They believe whatever government does business does better so let it free from restraints.
They want nothing interfering with generating maximum revenues and profits, believing unrestrained free-market predation represents individual liberty.
Their lobbying expenses rank among America’s highest, going all-out for their interests to be served.
According to Pam Martens before his appointment as Trump’s chief economic advisor, Kudlow is connected to the Mercatus Center, an NGO funded by the Koch brothers, saying:
“One of those freedoms most treasured by the Koch brothers is their ability to see a research study done by one of their funded economics departments, then have its dubious data quoted from the mouth of a funded ‘news’ celebrity.”
“From 2002 through 2006, the Koch funded Mercatus Center paid Lawrence Kudlow, a CNBC co-host and later host of his own show, ‘The Kudlow Report,’ a total of $332,500 through his consulting arm, Kudlow & Co. LLC.”
“I obtained the information from public filings Mercatus made with the IRS. It is not known if the Mercatus Center continued to pay Kudlow after 2006.”
“The Mercatus tax filings show $3.1 million paid in a line item called ‘honoraria’ from 2001 through 2007.”
“Emails and phone calls to Kudlow, the CNBC legal department, and three communications executives of both CNBC and NBC/Universal were met with silence, despite a week’s lead time to respond.”
“A secret memo from the Koch brothers’ sprawling network of wealthy donors…lauded the major objectives it has achieved under Trump.”
“If Kudlow or a similar Koch agenda devotee replaces Cohn, there may be no stopping the Kochs from consolidating their power in the White House.”
Charles and David Koch got their man chosen to be Trump’s chief economic advisor – good news for them, Wall Street and other corporate predators, bad news for ordinary Americans.
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