Good evening. Good evening. Im steve we bert with the like librarys Public Affairs staff and i want to welcome you and thank you for being with us tonight. And thanks to rainy day books, our frequent and favorite collaborator and of course one over the nations great independent book stores. We operated ourselves here at the library among other things on the timeliness and the relevance of our signature programming, whether were holding forums on local issues or addressing emerging or hot button national topics. We certainly didnt intend on the particular timeliness of tonights presentation. Christopher leonard was a busy man at the end of last week. Taking reporter calls, wrote a coup of oped pieces for the New York Times and for cnn business. After the death of david koch. Chris spent aye eight years ee. Americaed in kochland, the place and title of his book, pulling back the curtain on the extraordinary Business Empire and the very potent Political Network that was put together by david koch and his old are brother, chatter, from their base three hours don the road in wichita. Is cracked into a despite his limited access to Companies IncludingCook Industries mastermind. It is so excessively written. It is fascinating, is dramatic in places at the very top of the journalist of checklist it is fair maybe more than some people would like. New york times said in its review, it ranks among the best books ever written about an american corporation. Coke was released to reisinger today and immediately crack at times top ten list of nonfiction bestsellers. Chris was born and raised here in kansas city. Grew up in brookside area, went to college at a meal, and it was there that he got hooked on journalism. He wrote his first job after graduation at the daily tribune. It was a Business Reporter there, that is been one ever since. He went on to be an arkansas democratic gazette and Associated Press reworked out of st. Louis. When is the tribune in columbia, he worked a story on tyson foods. With that, he began it straight with Corporate Power. Which is broadest to tonight. Chris is here for the second time. He spoke at the Central Library in 2014, on his book, the meat market in the secret takeover of americas food business. Which is about a handful of companies had for the u. S. Meat supply. Joining him on stage, lee shaun, so longtime broadcaster who has collaborated on a couple of the books. Including psych james autobiography. He was terrific, if you know here and interviewing the former mayor in july. That is about the book. He had both of them here with us tonight. Please we will sean and we will christopher d. [applause] [background sounds] [inaudible conversation] kansas city and mainly midwesterners are in this book in this room. We will to this part of the country. I thank with all of this are guilty of its not fully understanding how your book eliminates this tremendous power is part of the country. Namely in which we just saw. What attracted me so much to this story is how powerful and how influential this instituti institution, and industries it and how littleknown it is. Well talk about this, its not secretive in this john james bond sense, it is an institution that doesnt want the rest of the world to know what it is doing strategic reasons. The space into what they do and how the make so much money. Youve got this massively powerful institution that affects everybodys. Coke industries specializes in the kind of businesses, is the stuff you cant boycott or live that went out. Gasoline to drive people to wo work, and the wall panels and the structures and the carpeting in the material in her clothing thats nylon and spandex. In one of the world his largest makers of nitrogen fertilizer, which is something most people dont thank that they bite but this is the literal bedrock of our food system so Coke Industries is engaged in these businesses that his client on the surfaces earning stunning profits. The annual sales are bigger than that of facebook and golden and you still be combined. And at the same time, you counter the coke namebrand. You never know you know engaging with is coming. So thats what really drew me to it so long with the fact that when you are writing about this company, i feel like you are writing about an entire American Economy and even the entire political system because coke is so diverse and it is the story of bluecollar manufacturing workers on the factory floor whom i belong to the labor unions who have got a pay raise in 20 years. Your writing about highflying finance who are earning millions of dollars a year his training future contracts. Private equity dealmakers with koch. Ewing out across the country looking for the company to buy. Today is depths to bite and then pressure them to boost productivity and profit and finally writing about one of the largest corporate lobbying operations in the country. Corporate lobby. Taken together, the story of this company over the last 50 years, release a portrait of Corporate Power in in our company and our country. Has a lot to do it is going on in our economy today. Early in our book we talk about 1988 when the federal government through the Indian Bureau of affairs, finds out about Coke Industries. And what you realizes this is 1988, multibillion Dollar Corporation and energy. Congress had no idea who they were. Some people that their part of cocacola and they were sitting people are to atlanta and people were pronouncing it koch. Even on the insiders of the insiders. Not only did they not know to the general public but not to the United States congress. The book serves the fbi agent hiding behind much of cals survey and. [laughter] he sent an investigator, with a huge issue off of this oil off of this inulin. Who are these people. All of a sudden they come to realize this company is the Largest Crude OilGathering Company in the United States and nobodys ever heard of it. Coke. Roger l williams who was on a plane with charles koch in the late 60s, an american little bit, we can talk about the scope family. We can turn talk about charles koch but safe to say that charles koch took over the company in 1967 when his father passed away. And they were rearranging the firm try to figure out what to name it and they specifically start joes name koch because it was a family name that exhaustively completely that went out character, hard to remember and with that description. They were not a Consumer Oriented Company that wanted to develop a brand name, they were a company who wanted to avoid scrutiny. Largely because they were in the oil business. The theory of the Oil Businesses have the opposite of their old staying thats whats good for the General Motors co. Is good for the United States. Americans felt very differently in the oil in the 70s with the oil prices shot up. Companies were getting massive profits. At the expense of ordinary people. It is sort of stay in the background when you are in a business like this. Behind the curtain. And just quietly make a fortune. Charles koch is the second born brother but he is really the picture. Truly is the patriarch and early in the book we do talk about his visit, and this no matter how people view charles koch it cuts both ways. Where wall street financial lawyers come to visit him. He sent them away. Hes not interested in about going public. Everyone in here is either running or about or read it. It is absolutely brilliant. You dont have to read it but if you could please buy the book. [laughter]. I would really appreciate that. So koch since them away. So on the one hand you thank good for my fellow kansas man. He says in new york man packing. The other side of it is theres an old carrier motive. Its not just sticking up for the little guy, they dont want the scrutiny. They are beholden into unto anybody except their family. Talk about this family. This company Koch Industries was founded by fred koch. Lives in wichita kansas, in the 1960s, he owned a wide assortment of cattle ranches, oil refineries, pipeline networks. He died of heart attack in november of 1967. His son charles, was the president of the company in just 32 years old at the time. Thats when charles koch soon controlled the firm. From the beginning, this guy, who by the way is the ceo ever since that time. He became ceo when Lyndon Johnson was president. For 50 years. I know of no other corporation in america that is been the ceo by single personality for that long. From the very beginning, he had a very clear idea how a corporation to be run. One of the key elements of the dna, is longterm strategic thinking. This is an organization that on the horizon, of two and five and ten years out. Headed same time, they operate the secrecy and they talked about that when i talk this whole theory of training. Charles koch knew that he wanted to remain private and retain control and he wanted to be able to not only turn the quarter to quarter to quarter as so many corporations do today, he wanted to be able to thank more longterm. As you say, these bankers came to wichita from j. P. Morgan said take it public. You have access to all this money and everything. And you personally will get 25 million tonight. It was a nobrainer. And he sent him packing. The memo that the rope living at home and you just see, they were banging their heads against the desk because charles koch does not want this cash. In one of the fascinating things that he told them was illegal public, not only will i be answerable to shareholders or three months but then people know how much money are commodities traders make. And if they know how much our traders may, they wont do business with us anymore. This is very important to me. If we could talk a moment with the training. Its at the heart of this organization. It is at the heart of how they thank and what they do and both in the corporation and politically. The thing that really change how i see the world, was interviewing these traders. From the 1970s, Koch Industries has been one of the largest Traders Energy supply the world. Buying and selling supertankers full of crude oil. Barrels of crude oil and shipping the stuff. In the beginning training the future contracts and based on actual oil supply. To succeed in live is the traitor, you want to know more about the world than anybody else. You wouldnt know what oil is actually the real world is worth today. Better than anybody else knows. So 70s going to sell you a barrel of oil for 50 you might know that is worth 52. Cigna boy all you get a 50. The need to wait for the world to wake up to the reality is worth 52. Then you are going to own. So with this reason, koch realizes back in the 70s that the most important resource they deal with is crude oil and natural gas, it is actually data and knowledge about the world. They were in a particularly good place to be knowing about this because they ran huge chunks of the system. The golf course of the United States and therefore they could make a bet and Public Knowledge that a shipment was about to come into the coast. At the same time, they were very as much data and information on the role as possible. This code of the year 2000, koch hired meteorologist on the weather channel, inhouse to create internal secret Weather Forecast for koch. They would be better than public forecast. They would put a fake Energy Demand in. How quick tight tap into these weather predictors say from california and snowfall. And it has all of this data analyzed and use it to make trades out in the real world. So when this is your line of work, you dont want other people to know what you know, you dont want other people to know what you are about to to do. And thats why theyre associating with his secrecy, and what they do. It is strategic. The company, in 1992 and is the giant black Granite Building with fake windows. That is not coincidental. Its on the northern side of wichita kansas, and they dont want you to know what theyre doing. As the polar opposite of trump towers van manhattan. [laughter]. The say there are philosophical differences and charles koch thats for sure. [laughter] the term Koch Brothers that is almost shakespearean. He spin the patriarch in the ceo says he was 30 years old, charles the oldest brother, wanted nothing to do with the company. And then the two youngest david who just passed away and well about him, and bill, and bill wound up suing and in the long legal fight with his brothers and quite nasty. I thank is the very sad story. The oldest leaves charles is in charge and then he has the other twins. As you. Out, the younger brother never content with this idea that his older brother would run the firm. In an actual dispute over how to run the business. Charles on a 90 percent of the profits back in and bill wanted to live like a rich person. He wanted take money out of the company and wanted by helicopters and big houses. They fought over how to do this and will try to take over the company and get in they had 20 years of litigation. It was ugly. Bill koch hired lawyers and media and created a feeling of being in battle. Kind of a siege mentality. In the 1990s, david koch of course passed away last week. Bill mann his show, real time on hbo, is been picked up by all sides of the media. I believe it direct quote of what bill marks said. Im glad he was dead and i healthy and was painful. The bill marked put. Whatever they thank of him, hes probably hardcore the left. But the victory, he didnt that when president bush best way. I thank site outside of i thank outside of donald trump, i dont thank he would say that about anybody. The Koch Brothers were the absolute enemy of the environment, everything is starting the global warning. I see that a lot. To me my job exceedingly difficult to report in this company because there is an atmosphere of toxicity and hostility and bad in distrust and all the rest of it the first ball makes people inside the company extremely hesitant to share the story and extremely hesitant to talk. Maybe thats one reason the book took so long to report. As opposed to a reporter in general, i thank its extremely unhelpful for our general understanding of how things work to have such rhetoric becomes such a commonplace thing. Based on my own wilderness somewhat. I wrote two essays, for cnn business talking about this empire. In her essay was critical of david koch in his role politically and delaying every any inference in the gas emissions. Which we can talk about. I truly do thank will become a large part of his legacy in the world. On a human loophole, i thank thats an awful thing to do is to criticize somebody that just passed away. As reported however, there was one hot moment when the world really wanted to learn about david koch. As they happen, i had been spending years in reviewing people who knew him. Looking at the empire, at the political operation that he oversaw and i felt like i had something to tell people. Both positive and critical. The timing was as a person, not great. I woke up saturday feeling like crud but as a reporter, youve got to really tell people the truth. And tell them whats going on here. The truth of what Koch Industries in the family has done politically, have been obscured and again intentionally because the political operations and imitated ingrown from the business operation. Theyve taken from the exact same blueprint and playbook, what koch does politics is often obscured is what they are doing the derivatives market. I thank its important for the reporter to tell people this is what happened. In blackandwhite way in 20 years, and is the very important. Then Global Warming, nothing more important. Next 30 to 40 years or longer. Son of david koch really see, and you uncovered this, this was a really sincere Investigative Journalism and you were the first to break it. Not only did they criticize Global Warming but how early they did that. I dont thank thats ever been really fully understood. Dont know how early they wanted to debunk the theory. No matter what political spectrum you are on. But really starts with the Koch Brothers. I started reporting the story for a simple reason. If you raise years ago, i was interviewing a former senior lobbyist for Koch Industries. Wanted to know how they did what they did and how they got to be so good. What was your front issue, what woke you up in the morning, but what is it. And he said carbon. No hesitation. Carmen was the preeminent political issue for the operation. Maybe you could take those second to talk about koch industry and politics and what theyve done. Thats perhaps in perhaps more attention than their very important economic activities. From the 60s, Charles Koch Koch had a very particular view of how society offered destruction. He called himself a classical liberal. These views, libertarian, developed by these economists, i read human actions, you dont have to. [laughter] extremely long and fascinating in this book. Anyway, [laughter]. What charles koch thinks is that this organize society as a voluntary Market Exchange system and that the actual sovereign doesnt have to be the price, human set prices by what they actually care about. I wanted tell you what i care about the price reflects it. You need to honor ted prize. So there must be a place for healthcare for roads for education and you name it. All the stuff needs to do only through free market we try to intervene in the market,