[random us-bashing]katarina...
 

Well, there is yet another hurricane, but what I find far more interesting is how the reconstruction after katarina goes on. I've just read some informative article about the whole thing and it looks like good old Halliburton et al. once again make big money.
I'm not going to translate the whole thing, but apparently to make money in the us with public contracts, all you have to do is donate lots of money to the republican party. I don't know, but where i come from we call that corruption and I always thought most civilised countries have laws against that.
If they really think that is how a state is supposed to work, i guess its a good idea to keep the governemnt as small and powerless as possible.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

I hear halliburton started the hurricane deliberately by dropping lots of oil barrels into the sea.


edit: the barrels were filled with dead iraqi babies.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

oh do shut up gordon.

we all know about halliburton. yes yes america is corrupt. yes yes they murder their own poor. but all the times that we've ever pointed it out the american posters get pissed off.

For the sake of peace and sanity we just have to accept their national 'quirks'. they obviously like things the way they are!

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

in fairness though the haliburton contract with the army was won in open bidding, they made a bit of a thing about it at first but then everyone backed off on that one and i think the contract comes from the clinton era anyway.

there are lots of problems with america and there is lots of corruption in america, but complaining because big companies do well in the market seems a slightly odd line of criticism :)

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

The big companies will always do well no matter who is in power. The big companies almost always contribute enormously to both sides so that they will have access to the halls of power.

There are some things that Haliburton is well suited to do. Haliburton was around long before the Bush administration. They grew quite well under Democrats as well as Republicans.

Democrats were given huge sums of money to build the levees around New Orleans but squandered it on pet projects within the state of Louisiana.

The federal government isn't so much corrupt as it is inefficient.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

nope

it's still corrupt.

it's just that both parties in your two party system are corrupt.

you know as well as i do that there is nothing in life that 'has' to be. somethings just 'are' because they are allowed to be.

change isn't that hard.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

or incompetant.

anyhow. has there been any talk in the states that this is a direct result of global warming yet, surely some cogs will be beginning to whirl by now.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

Whilst watching the news of Katrina i turned to dad and said 'if you want to make a quick buck dump some cash into Halliburton because I bet you they get chosen to do a lot of the construction work'


He didnt listen to me
I proved to be right again.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

you are a parasite.

you'll never know the upper class.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

you will note that I didn't say that there was no corruption. There is corruption in all governments. However, the things that are being brought up are often more of a function of inefficiency than they are of corruption, though there is plenty of that to go around.

As to global warming, at this point I don't think that people are saying that the planet isn't warming, but many are saying that it is unconnected to human activity. The polar ice caps on Mars are also melting showing that Mars is warming. The sun is the hottest that it has been in several thousand years and there is no link between that and human activity.

I would like to see environmental friendly things done even if there is an economic price but not because hurricanes are caused by SUV's. However, I would espouse this position if it would guarantee the elimination of SUV's which I hate for other reasons.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

benefitting from other peoples misery and natural disaster is the capitalist way. :-(

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

darling I can't do anything about the truth.

neither can they.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

and those people are stupid people.
Human activity may not be the sole problem of course, and I doubt it is, but dumping huge amounts of carbon dioxide atmosphere is not a good idea. look at venus for hints on why not.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

but in case of the katarina-reconstruction there was no open bidding for most of the contracts. that article claims that 80% of the contracts so far were given away without any bid invitation, total volume $ 2.9 billion.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

You truly are turning into the biggest tosser on the forums lately Nod.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

It's like being being told I'm too fat by idimmu.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

Except that Kura's right.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

You sound as if its wrong to make the best out of the situation
While it wouldn't hurt anybody

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

Or too Ginger by Taratang.

Am I Rite?

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

that's right, there's some things in life you have to accept.

Members of the forums have long come to accept that you live in a fantasy world where a) you pretend to be some godlike creature b) being a lawyer makes you upper class c) the british empire was a brilliant success d) helping people consists of mocking them

Just some personal 'quirks' of a chinless inbred poof.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

It is very unlikely the work was granted without first opening a bid to contractors. The U.S. media frequently claims that work is given in a no-bid contract when, in fact, the contracting was open to bidders. (I'm sure the German media does not understand the contracting process any better than the U.S. media.)

What the U.S. media do not understand is that if you want to get U.S. government contracts you have to bid for the contracts, then you get a contract for about four years. Later, when work needs to be done related to the contract, the government issues task orders based on the contract. The media see these task orders based on an already existing contract as a new contract.

The contracting process in the U.S. government (based on law) takes many months to complete. If the people of the United States had to wait for a new contract each time the federal government needed work done, the work would never get done.

Re: [random us-bashing]katarina...
 

since you probably speak german, there you go:
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,380743,00.html