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I think our biggest problem in society is we're headed more and more toward a two-tiered society. That is, creating welfare for the wealthy and destroying opportunities for the disadvantaged.

Charles Koch

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Charles Koch
Age: 89
Born: 1935
Born: November 1
Businessman
Businessperson
Wichita
Kansas
Charles G. Koch
Charles de Ganahl Koch
Thinking
Biggest
Toward
Tiered
Creating
Disadvantaged
Society
Headed
Opportunity
Wealthy
Two
Destroying
Problem
Welfare
Think
Opportunities

More quotes by Charles Koch

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You've got to learn to work with others. One of my main values is, you learn this system of mutual benefit. That is, if you shirk and you try to make the other guy do more, he's going to do that to you.
Charles Koch
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Far too many businesses have been all too eager to lobby for maintaining and increasing subsidies and mandates paid by taxpayers and consumers. This growing partnership between business and government is a destructive force, undermining not just our economy and our political system, but the very foundations of culture.
Charles Koch
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The great thing about my parents is they didn't preach anything they didn't practice.
Charles Koch
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The old idea that some genius pulls all of this stuff out of the air is ridiculous. As Ridley pointed out, the only way Edison could invent the lightbulb is because all the elements had been developed before. That's obvious it wasn't just his genius - 20 others developed it at the same time. And that's true for almost every invention and discovery.
Charles Koch
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I've had the philosophy that John Adams expressed, in the kind of system that we're trying to create in this country: that this is a system for moral people. It will work for no other.
Charles Koch
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In America, we are just moving the chairs around and spending huge amounts of money rather than having them go in making people's lives better.
Charles Koch
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The good and the bad news is that politicians rarely do what they say they are going to do when they campaign.
Charles Koch
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Best part of my job is fulfillment. When I see that, that we're creating value, that we're helping improve people's lives, and we benefit from it, so it's a system of mutual benefit. Our philosophy's working. That's what turns me on. That's what keeps me going.
Charles Koch
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All the corporate welfare, yeah, it goes from cash payments to debt, to regulations on the competitors, to restrictions on trade, to mandates. You name it, anything so that business doesn't have to do a better job of creating value for others - they can just get the system in their favor.
Charles Koch
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You can't start taking away benefits if people don't have any opportunities.
Charles Koch
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We must measure what leads to results, not simply what is easy to measure.
Charles Koch
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Our system here of creating value for others and having people do the right thing, exchange information, and so on only works if people have the right values.
Charles Koch
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In America, the first thing we have to get rid of is entitlements for the wealthy, and at the same time, open up the economy to the disadvantaged.
Charles Koch
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If you never failed, then you're probably not doing very much.
Charles Koch
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To be happy you have to fulfill your nature. That's what Aristotle taught so many centuries ago, that the road to happiness isn't to go drink more or consume more. The road to happiness is to fully develop your abilities, and then apply them to do good.
Charles Koch
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We try to reward people according to the value they create, value they create in society and for the company.
Charles Koch
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If people are teaching economics, they need to teach all the different disciplines, all the different schools in economics. They can't just teach one because then the person isn't equipped to deal with the economics profession.
Charles Koch
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Everything I give, pretty much, is public. Not every donor wants to - or is willing to get the kind of abuse and attacks that we do, or death threats, so they're not willing to have their names out. I think the other side is pushing for that because they want to intimidate people so they won't oppose it.
Charles Koch
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Our vision controls the way we think and, therefore, the way we act the vision we have of our jobs determines what we do and the opportunities we see or don't see.
Charles Koch
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Repeatedly asking for government help undermines the foundations of society by destroying initiative and responsibility. It is also a fatal blow to efficiency and corrupts the political process.
Charles Koch