Not only did they host the democrat convention, but the Democrats didn’t pay the 10 million it cost to put on convention. Duke Energy put up the money. I guess in the long run the citizens of NC paid for it. What a bunch of deadbeats.
“Not only did they host the democrat convention, but the Democrats didn’t pay the 10 million it cost to put on convention. Duke Energy put up the money. I guess in the long run the citizens of NC paid for it. What a bunch of deadbeats.”
The CEO of Duke at the time, Jim Rogers, wanted to be appointed Secretary of Energy. He loaned the DNC $10 million of company money to assist with the up front cost of putting on the convention. Allegedly the money would be repaid once the DNC received the revenue from the events. When Obama put his cabinet together, he chose someone else for the job. The $10 million company loan to the DNC, which was never repaid and was forgiven by Duke, is an example of the type of influence peddling that has corrupted our government.
The DNC stiffed Duke (or there was always a behind the scenes agreement Duke would “forgive” the loan). Whatever the real circumstances underlying the payment of the money, the loan was not repaid.
Under strong criticism from the public, the CEO claimed the “stockholders”, not the customers of Duke, covered the cost of the bad loan. A nice fiction to quell the outrage of customers angry about continual rate increases. The truth is, Duke generates its revenue from those who buy electricity and the profits Duke generates for the stockholders are only possible if it is generating money by selling electricity. Given that Duke did not decrease its dividend payments to the stockholders there is no other conclusion than the funds to cover the payment to the DNC were extracted from the consumers of electricity in North Carolina.
Shame on the Duke CEO (who should have been fired), shame on the DNC, shame on the board of directors of Duke, shame on the state utilities commission for approving rate increases after the “loan”, shame on the SEC for not investigating the company’s lack of fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders, and shame on the DOJ for not investigating and prosecuting an outright theft from the treasury of Duke.
This deal was pure crony capitalism. It is another example of the 1% feathering their nests and using funds that don’t belong to them to further their own goals. Meanwhile, the average citizen pays for the loan in higher electric rates. The oligarchs who pretend to be capitalists in this country are destroying capitalism through their corruption and greed.
One can assume Duke there will be no $10 million loan or payment to the RNC when the Republican National Convention comes to Charlotte.