Everglades to be killed this October by Florida's own Koch bros - the Fanjuls

[Panich52]

Daily Kos
Everglades to be killed this October by Florida's own Koch brothers
by SemDem

#154 of My Stupid State
http://seminoledemocrats.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-stupid-state-series.html


Most Floridians don't even know who they are.  I wish I didn't.  You probably haven't heard of them.

But you are paying them.

TIME magazine has called them the "First Family of Corporate Welfare"

John Ellis Bush (JEB), Rick Scott, and other GOP politicians kowtow to this family like no other.  They were a top donor for W. And they are almost singlehandedly destroying our Everglades.

Welcome to Keeping up with the Fanjul family of Palm Beach.  The Fanjul family is synonymous with the term "Big Sugar" here in Florida.  They control 1/3 of our nation's raw sugar.  

This family collects over 60 million a year in Federal subsidies.  As a result, you pay an artificially high price for raw sugar, but of course that's not all.  You not only support their hedonistic lifestyle (such as Casa De Campo, their 7000 acre multimillion resort), horrible labor practices, and right-wing politics: you support the killing of our Everglades National Park.  

I am not being hyperbolic.  The Park is actually going to die, along with Miami's fresh water supply.  

More

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/04/1368460/-Everglades-To-Be-Killed-This-October-by-Florida-s-Own-Koch-Brothers?detail=email

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. and what are Floridians doing to stop this, I wonder. n/t.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Who doesn't remember Monica Lewinsky's claim Bill Clinton took a call from one of the Fanjuls

when she was in the Oval Office?

The Bushes, of course, are deeply involved with them. As soon as the coup against Hugo Chavez was overthrown by the people, George H. W. Bush raced to huddle in conference with Gustavo Cisneros, one of the wealthiest men in Venezuela, and newspaper mogul, among other businesses, a man who was himself connected to the coup, and they met for a couple of weeks at the Fanjul resort, El Campo, in the Dominican Republic. (Gustavo Cisneros has long been a fishing buddy of George H. W.)

Here's an old article from CNN on the Fanjuls:

Sweet deal why are these men smiling ? The reason is in your sugar bowl

By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele
TIME magazine
Occupying a breathtaking spot on the southeast coast of the Dominican Republic, Casa de Campo is one of the Caribbean's most storied resorts. It bills itself as "a hedonist's and sportsman's dream," and that's truth in advertising. The place has 14 swimming pools, a world-class shooting ground, PGA-quality golf courses and $1,000-a-night villas.

A thousand miles to the northwest, in the Florida Everglades, the vista is much different. Chemical runoff from the corporate cultivation of sugar cane imperils vegetation and wildlife. Polluted water spills out of the glades into Florida Bay, forming a slimy, greenish brown stain where fishing once thrived.

Both sites are the by-product of corporate welfare.

In this case the beneficiaries are the Fanjul family of Palm Beach, Fla. The name means nothing to most Americans, but the Fanjuls might be considered the First Family of Corporate Welfare. They own Flo-Sun Inc., one of the nation's largest producers of raw sugar. As such, they benefit from federal policies that compel American consumers to pay artificially high prices for sugar.

Since the Fanjuls control about one-third of Florida's sugar-cane production, that means they collect at least $60 million a year in subsidies, according to an analysis of General Accounting Office calculations. It's the sweetest of deals, and it's made the family, the proprietors of Casa de Campo, one of America's richest.

The subsidy has had one other consequence: it has helped create an environmental catastrophe in the Everglades. Depending on whom you talk to, it will cost anywhere from $3 billion to $8 billion to repair the Everglades by building new dikes, rerouting canals and digging new lakes.

Growers are committed to pay up to $240 million over 20 years for the cleanup. Which means the industry that created much of the problem will have to pay only a fraction of the cost to correct it. Government will pay the rest. As for the Fanjuls, a spokesman says they are committed to pay about $4.5 million a year.

How did this disaster happen? With your tax dollars. How will it be fixed? With your tax dollars.

More:
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1998/11/16/sweet.deal.html

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1/06/2012 @ 1:54PM 5,683 views

Palm Beach Sugar Barons Accused in WikiLeaks Cables of Trying to Sabotage U.S. Trade Deal

Palm Beach sugar barons Pepe and Alfy Fanjul, who lavish both the Republican and Democratic parties with millions in contributions, were accused of trying to sabotage U.S. foreign policy and corrupting foreign politicians in diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks.

While the U.S. government has spent millions in farm subsidies on the Fanjuls, the Cuban expats allegedly tried to torpedo the CAFCA free-trade agreement in the mid-2000s because it was expected to threaten their bottom line. Eventually passed, CAFCA established a free-trade zone that included the USA, the Caribbean and Central America.

The story came to light this week in a Palm Beach Post investigation into the Fanjuls’ businesses. The brothers grow sugar canes on 12 percent of Palm Beach County’s entire land mass. They are fixtures at Palm Beach charity function and high-society balls, and the family was believed to be the basis of the television series Cane.

The Fanjuls, according to the 2004 diplomatic dispatches, were likely bribing Dominican politicians to vote against CAFCA, sponsoring anti-American ads and newspaper coverage.

US diplomats reported back to Washington, D.C., that the Fanjuls were close to killing the key piece of President George W. Bush‘s agenda at a time he campaigned for re-election. At the same time, Pepe Fanjul was one of the few $100,000-plus fundraisers for Bush.

A lawyer for the Fanjul family dismissed the cables as “chatty gossip” and denied that the family was involved in any inappropriate or illegal dealings.

“The suggestion in these materials that lobbying and free speech activities are somehow evil and corrupt is absurd,” Joseph Klock, the Fanjuls’ attorney, wrote in a letter to The Post.

More:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joselambiet/2012/01/06/palm-beach-sugar-barons-accused-in-wikileaks-cables-of-trying-to-sabotage-u-s-trade-deal/

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About The Suger Barons - From Wikipedia:

The Fanjul brothers -- Alfonso "Alfy", José "Pepe", Alexander, and Andres—are owners of Flo-Sun, Inc., a vast sugar and real estate conglomerate in the United States and Dominican Republic, comprising the subsidiaries Domino Sugar, Florida Crystals, as well as the airport and resorts surrounding La Romana in the Dominican Republic. As of 2008, the company owned 450,000 acres (1,800 km2) of property.

FanjulCorp's Flo-Sun company is frequently criticized as being the largest recipient of U.S. Government aid and heightened profit due to the protections levied in favor of U.S. sugar producers. It is widely known that sugar costs about two-three times as much in the U.S. as it does on the world market.

FanjulCorp benefits significantly (their net profits average an additional $50 million to $100 million per year due solely to the quota and break-even program). The Fanjul brothers were large shareholders and directors of Southeast Bank before its takeover and liquidation by the FDIC in 1991. In addition, they are the majority shareholders and directors of FAIC Securities, which was investigated by the S.E.C. for regulatory violations.

Their estimates fortune is over USD 500 Million according to the book “Tricks of an IRS Cheat and other scandals you should know about Uncle Sam” page 82, http://tinyurl.com/35kfy4r , other magazines refer to them as Billionaires(see article below).

Casa de Campo is a 7,000 acre (about 5 square miles!!) large private luxury residential resort near La Romana on the south east side of the Dominican Republic. Casa de Campo is like a country with in the country. They have their own security force (not local police), hospital, schools, cinema plus a mega marina with lots of shops, restaurants and a supermarket. This 2000 luxury villa area has restricted access to residents, tourists and high society people only. That means 90% of general darker complexion of the Dominican population cannot visit Casa de Campo and are denied access to the beaches and restaurants. (That policy probably fits well with the statements and life of Fanjuls private secretary for 35 years, Chloe Black, read article below). Just ask the Dominican working class living in area of La Romana if they can visit Casa de Campo? The answer is no, and they will not even try!

Casa de Campo is a play ground for the rich(mostly white), the corrupt and the drug lords. In the last couple of years several drug lords connected to Dominican Republic has spend time or had properties in Casa de Campo.

More:
http://fanjulbrothers.com/

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Some may remember many years ago CBS ran one of their White Paper documentaries on the Fanjuls, and the tragic conditions of the hideous hardship they forced upon their workers in Florida working in their sugar cane fields. The topic has also been covered by news magazines and books, etc. At some points someone got the poor seasonal workers who came from the Caribbean to work in Florida to form their own class suit, which they won. The conditions were simply unholy, they were treated like so much trash, and forced to do deadly dangerous work with no protection.

The later use of some new machinery may have allowed the Fanjuls to reduce the numbers of victims they had in their cruel work camps. If you ever take the time to read about it you will gain a deep dislike for these wealthy Cuban "exile" clowns, who were mega rich exploiters in Batista's Cuba.

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From left: Pepe, wife, Emilia, Alfi, his guest







Gustavo Cisneros, George H. W. Bush, Pepe



George H. W. Bush, Barbara Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney and prominent Republican donor Jose 'Pepe Fanjul [/center]