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If somebody is doing more and more to make other people's lives better, have them make all they can, if that's what drives them, because that's what we want.

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
People
Drives
Somebody
Lives
Better
Make

More quotes by 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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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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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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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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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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There are now businesses and entire industries that exist solely as a result of federal patronage. Profiting from government instead of earning profits in the economy, such businesses can continue to succeed even if they are squandering resources and making products that people wouldn't ordinarily buy.
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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But it [crony capitalism] erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want.
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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I think this is so important - what's not done well at education at every level - is helping kids find, as I discovered for myself, what I was good at. I was very lucky to find out that at an early age, which set my direction in life.
Charles Koch
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Most power is power to coerce somebody. We don't have the power to coerce anybody.
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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First word [of my father] when I arrived [as a CEO] is, 'Son, i hope your first deal is a loser, otherwise, you'll think you're a lot smarter than you are.' But he had tremendous values, tremendous integrity, humility, work ethic and terrific thirst for knowledge.
Charles Koch
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The poorest Americans use three time the energy as the percentage of their income as the average American does. This is going to disproportionately hurt the poor. It may make the whole electric grid unstable, depending on how it is enforced. And it does nothing for the climate.
Charles Koch
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Why I've never been that fond of politics and only got into it recently kicking and screaming, because I don't think politicians are going to reverse the trajectory of this country. I think it's going to depend on the American people understanding what is fair and what makes their lives better.
Charles Koch
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If you never failed, then you're probably not doing very much.
Charles Koch
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We try to evaluate how much value an employee is creating here and reward them accordingly.
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
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The role of business is to provide products and services that make peoples lives better - while using fewer resources - and to act lawfully and with integrity.
Charles Koch
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They say your genetics are going to set your direction regardless of what happens, but I think there's more to it than that.
Charles Koch