It's true. They're looking for names. Joshua Green reports that the Koch brothers, that noxious pair of wealthy donors to some of the worst causes as well as some of the best, are not aiming at Jane Mayer who wrote a long profile of the brothers for the New Yorker. They're looking for the people behind websites with their name in the URL.
[Koch Industries] clearly is going after other critics, including the anonymous hoaxsters who created a dummy website for Koch Industries (www.koch-inc.com) and sent out fake press releases claiming that the notoriously anti-environment company was going green. That didn't go over so well at Koch headquarters. Yesterday, according to the Salt Lake City Tribune, Koch Industries sued the web-hosting company in order to obtain the names behind the bogus site.
Also over at The Atlantic, Derek Thompson brings the news that rising oil prices could stymie the slow economic recovery that's been looking pretty good for the past two-three months. Who to believe?
Economists and watchdog groups are nervously monitoring the rising price of crude, now hovering around $90 -- down from a 2008 high of nearly $150. "Oil prices are entering a dangerous zone for the global economy," warns Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency. "High oil prices threaten to derail the fragile economic recovery," echoes Sylvia Pfeiffer at the Financial Times. Meanwhile, other economists say there's very little reason to think oil should spook the fragile recovery.
Megan McArdle asks whether commercial real estate is looking good, for a change. Is it on the mend? Well, no. More like a "pre-mend," as she has the charts to prove it.
So don't drive, duck when you see the Koch brothers on the horizon, and quit complaining. If things are going to get worse, they'll get worse without any more help from you, thanks very much. Have a nice day.
