Inside a Think Tank – RAND Corporation - Public administration policy being shaped by corporate interests

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.

Homelessness

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. [1]

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 [2].

How does RAND affect the War on Terror? Who are we paying to think about the situation in the Middle East?

At the time of the September 11 attacks, it was former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci. He was on the RAND Board of Trustees and was also the co-chair of the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy Advisory Board.

But wasn'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. At the time of the 9/11 attacks he was 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.[3]

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.

Carlyle Heir George W. Bush

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. [4]

The President's Father

[1] Federal Procurement Data Center
Type in "rand". On the next page, select "Rand Corporation" from the list of companies it gives you to choose from. This website is very handy for seeing how much money the federal government paid out to individual companies.

Philip Lader
Chairman of The WPP Group, the world's #2 advertising and media services conglomerate with clients such as American Express, Ford, and IBM.

Lovida H. Coleman, Jr.
Partner at Sutherland, Asbill, & Brennan, a corporate law firm that boasts in it's brochure (PDFfile - Adobe Acrobat needed) that it "represented the California Manufacturers Association in landmark proceedings that restructured the California electric market". You can read more about the disastrous effects of these proceedings by clicking here.

Bruce Karatz
Chairman and CEO
KB Home, one of America's largest homebuilders. They are currently facing a $100 million dollar lawsuit for building a subdivision without telling the homebuyers that their homes were built on the site of a former military bombing practice range and contained a number of subsurface, unexploded bombs.

Patricia Salas Pineda
Vice President of Legal, Human Resources, Environmental & Government Affairs
New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc., a joint venture of General Motors Corporation and Toyota Motor Corporation

Karen Elliot House
President Dow Jones Company, Inc., "the pre-eminent publisher of business and financial news."