Word: opic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...from cargo ocean liners to sugarcane. And like other profitable businesses, it collects subsidies--or, more accurately, corporate welfare--from local, state and federal governments. Indeed, officials trip over one another in the rush to extend taxpayer support to Seaboard--from the Federal Government's Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC) in Washington to the Kansas state agency responsible for industrial development, to the utility authority in little Guymon, Okla. Wherever Seaboard is, there is a government throwing money at it. Money the company uses to build and equip plants, hire and train workers, export its products and expand overseas...
...recount, for a moment, some of Seaboard's corporate welfare in the 1990s: Minnesota provided more than $3 million in economic incentives; Kentucky, $23 million; Kansas, $10 million; and Oklahoma, $100 million. The Federal Government's OPIC provided $25 million in insurance for business ventures abroad. As for the financial burdens imposed on other taxpayers by virtue of Seaboard's presence, no one knows the cost. It is in the tens of millions of dollars. And all this for jobs that pay little more than poverty-level wages...
...case of AID's so-called enterprise funds, the investment dollars are supplied directly by you, the taxpayer. In the case of OPIC, government-guaranteed notes are sold on the open market and the proceeds are put into a fund in which private investors have committed some of their money. A typical $150 million fund would consist of $100 million in OPIC-guaranteed notes and $50 million in private capital. Mark E. Van de Water, deputy vice president in OPIC's investment-development department, explains the process...
...investment fund? People who have the proper political ties or who are major campaign contributors or both. Like the billionaire Ziff brothers, whose fortune came largely from the 1994 sale of the family publishing business built by their father. Since 1996, Ziff Bros. Investments has overseen a $150 million OPIC-guaranteed fund, the South Asia Capital Fund, whose purpose is to make equity investments in India, Indonesia, Laos, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Philippines...
...potentially worth half a billion dollars from the Department of Energy to conduct research in such areas as turbine systems for utilities--a core business of GE for decades. The Eximbank arranged more than $3 billion in financing or loan guarantees on some 40 GE projects in 20 countries. OPIC insured four GE projects worth $213 million...