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The People We Pay to Think From: hereinreality.com Introducing RAND, corporate welfare at its most influential. What is RAND? RAND is one of many nonprofit (non-taxpaying) institutions known as a "Think Tank". What's a think tank? It's like a big corporation where people actually get paid to think. Who is paying them to do all this thinking? You and I are. The government pays RAND with our tax dollars to think about our nation's problems. Then, when RAND is done thinking, they give a report to the government that tells the government what they should do about the problem. What kinds of problems are we paying RAND to think about? Since 1948, we've been paying RAND to think about child welfare, the justice system, education, our nation's drug policy, national security, social welfare, just about everything, actually. But those problems seem to have gotten much worse since 1948, when we started paying RAND to think about them. How much does the government pay RAND to think? In the year 2000, we paid RAND over $140 million dollars. Who is involved with RAND? The RAND Board of Trustees includes representatives from the media, Wall Street, big corporate law firms, leaders from the medical, defense, real estate, and auto industries, along with the officers of a few other think tanks, and a university professor or two. How does RAND affect the War on Terror? Who are we paying to think about the situation in the Middle East? Well, there's former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci. He's on the RAND Board of Trustees and he's also the co-chair of the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy Advisory Board. But isn't he also the chairman of The Carlyle Group, a defense contractor with ties to the Saudi Royal Family and the Bin Ladens? That's right. He's the head of a $13 billion dollar private firm that invests people's pension funds in companies that make money when our nation is at war. The Carlyle Group stands to make many billions of dollars from the War on Terror. So, someone we're paying to tell us what to do in the Middle East is a person who stands to get rich from increased military spending? That's right. But Frank Carlucci isn't the only one making decisions about the war who will be making a fortune from Carlyle Group money. President Bush also stands to make a fortune. His father is a Senior Advisor in The Carlyle Group, and he gets paid in Carlyle shares that just keep going up in value. George Bush, Sr. recently visited Saudi Arabia twice and met with the Saudi royals and the Bin Laden family. The Bin Ladens and the Bushes have been doing business together for a very long time. |