Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Trump Family and Friends: In Your Pockets

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/40582-trump-family-and-friends-in-your-pockets
"it is not just the Trump family that is profiting off his administration, the investor Carl Ichan, who serves as all purpose "unpaid" adviser looks to earn a substantial profit off of his advice. Ichan engaged in discussions on altering federal regulations that require refineries to use a certain amount of ethanol in gasoline and other refined products. Following these discussions, Trump reversed a position he had taken in his campaign. Ichan stands to make more than $100 million from this reversal. Unfortunately, letting the affected industry control the regulatory process seems to be pretty much the norm in the Trump administration. His top financial regulators are virtually all from Wall Street, with Goldman Sachs being the leading source of Trump team talent. Trump's pick to head the Federal Communications Commission is a former lawyer for Verizon whose first target in his new position is to end the policy of net neutrality, which ensured everyone equal access to the web. Scott Gottlieb, Trump's pick to head the Food and Drug Administration, was a board member of a pharmaceutical company and has received hundreds of thousands of dollars for fees as a consultant to the industry. In short, the outlook for most of the country may not look great in the Trump years, but Trump's family friends should do very well."