Chasm widens between rich and poor

[BSmack]

About 1/3 of federal spending is interest on the debt.

I'm trying to understand Dinsdale math. Entering known variables into the equation and demanding a logical output of data isn't helping.

[Mikey]

BTBTBTW...

I'm still waiting on that 75% extrapolation.

Or was it just a regurgitation of bullshit data spouted by another lying politician?

[Dinsdale]

I guess there's a problem interpreting graphs... or something.


Did you notice that every graph shown far is spiking dramatically?

[Cuda]

As for those suggesting abolishing the income tax altogether -- with what do you replace it?

A smaller government.

See, I knew you'd get on the Ron Paul bandwagon

[Mikey]

I guess there's a problem interpreting graphs... or something.


Did you notice that every graph shown far is spiking dramatically?

Do you have any idea what "extrapolation" means?

Don't you think there were "spikes" in a lot of the years before 2000 that don't end in 0?

Your Heritage Foundation graph ended in 2004. Where's the more recent data?

[Dinsdale]

Your Heritage Foundation graph ended in 2004. Where's the more recent data?

Federal budget

2004 -- 2.3 trillion (about a 4.4% increase from the previous year)
2005 -- 2.4 trillion (about a 4.2% increase from the previous year)
2006 -- 2.7 trillion (about a 12% increase from the previous year)
2007 -- 2.77 trillion (a scant 2.6% increase from the previous year)
2008 -- 2.9 trillion (about a 4.7% increase from the previous year)


From 2004 to 2008, that's better than a 25% increase in federal spending. I believe the people who make graphs refer to such trends as "geometric progressions"... but that's beyond the grasp of Average Joe, apparently.

But for the math-challenged -- the gist of it means "it's got to stop very quickly, either by choice or by force."


Karl Marx is smiling down on those figures, though.

[Dinsdale]

Namely which corporation is going to do the work if not Halliburton. There really aren't many alternatives.

So, government interference with free-market bidding has benefitted certain favored corporations at the expense of the American taxpayer?


Wow, color me shocked.

[Mikey]

For megascale logistics support the only qualified bidder should be the four branches of the Armed Forces.
They have a lot lower pay scale and they're not in it for profit.

[Mikey]

Your Heritage Foundation graph ended in 2004. Where's the more recent data?

Federal budget

2004 -- 2.3 trillion (about a 4.4% increase from the previous year)
2005 -- 2.4 trillion (about a 4.2% increase from the previous year)
2006 -- 2.7 trillion (about a 12% increase from the previous year)
2007 -- 2.77 trillion (a scant 2.6% increase from the previous year)
2008 -- 2.9 trillion (about a 4.7% increase from the previous year)


From 2004 to 2008, that's better than a 25% increase in federal spending. I believe the people who make graphs refer to such trends as "geometric progressions"... but that's beyond the grasp of Average Joe, apparently.

But for the math-challenged -- the gist of it means "it's got to stop very quickly, either by choice or by force."


Karl Marx is smiling down on those figures, though.

Sure do like to duck and spin, don't you?

[Dinsdale]

are only about three corporations on the planet that can do work on the scale that Haliburton can.

So, why is the bidding closed to the other two, then?


And only allowing one company to "compete" creates competition and savings to the taxpayer... how?

The word you're looking for is "dictatorship." Glad I could help.

[Dinsdale]

For megascale logistics support the only qualified bidder should be the four branches of the Armed Forces.
They have a lot lower pay scale and they're not in it for profit.

Hmmm....

My old buddy, who at one point was named "Armed Forces Logistician of the Year," or some such shit (I don't have the literature from his retirement handy with his list of decorations) seems to have an ENTIRELY different opinion from you, based on a large part of his duties in Iraq(and everywhere else he served in 20 years) being a great deal of accounting(which also included fuels testing, since the fuel that's bought on the not-so-open market needs testing before it goes into planes).




Wonder who's right?

[Smackie Chan]

For megascale logistics support the only qualified bidder should be the four branches of the Armed Forces.
They have a lot lower pay scale and they're not in it for profit.

As a civilian logistician for the Navy, I can tell you that much, if not most, of the logistics support provided for the military is done by contractors.

[Dinsdale]

As a civilian logistician for the Navy, I can tell you that much, if not most, of the logistics support provided for the military is done by contractors.

And I'm sure that you can tell him that it's generally MUCH cheaper when the contractors do it.

But don't let little things like "facts" distort the pure goodness that Big Government represents.

[Dinsdale]

It isn't. You've been fed a load of completely distorted, agenda mongering horseshit and you swallowed it without question.

Wrong.

Care to tell us which companies were allowed to bid on fighting oil well fires in Iraq?

There was one.

And that one didn't have as much infrastructure in the region as competitors did, nor was it as qualified to do so.


But keep slurping the Cock of Dictatorship.

[BSmack]

As a civilian logistician for the Navy, I can tell you that much, if not most, of the logistics support provided for the military is done by contractors.

And I'm sure that you can tell him that it's generally MUCH cheaper when the contractors do it.

You mean contractors like Haliburton?

Dude, you're all over the place with this.

[Mikey]

As a civilian logistician for the Navy, I can tell you that much, if not most, of the logistics support provided for the military is done by contractors.

And I'm sure that you can tell him that it's generally MUCH cheaper when the contractors do it.

But don't let little things like "facts" distort the pure goodness that Big Government represents.

So, it would be "Big Government" if the government did it, but it's not when you pay for-profit corporations to do it?

Doesn't your crack get sore sliding from side to side on that fence?

[Dinsdale]

BTW -- whose idea was it to commission a study about whether it was a good idea if more military operations should be privatized?

Then, who did he comission to perform the study?

Then, who did he land a CEO job for after he was no longer Secretary of Defense?

Then, which company gave him massive bucks for quitting his CEO job to become VP?

Then, who got no-bid, no-competition contracts when the former CEO lied about a security threat and began a war based on false information?


There's only two names that correctly answer every question above -- one individual, and one corporation. Sounds a little fishy to any reasonable person.

[Mister Bushice]

About 1/3 of federal spending is interest on the debt.

I'm trying to understand Dinsdale math. Entering known variables into the equation and demanding a logical output of data isn't helping.

Maybe this will help explain the pretzel logic coming out of his keyboard:

[Mikey]

About 1/3 of federal spending is interest on the debt.

I'm trying to understand Dinsdale math. Entering known variables into the equation and demanding a logical output of data isn't helping.

Maybe this will help explain the pretzel logic coming out of his keyboard:

Yeah, and it's pretty funny how, when challenged to back up his statements of supposed "facts", he seems to get completely sidetracked on some different facet of the discussion. Soon as it jumps to the next page you can almost sense an audible sigh of relief.

[Dinsdale]

As a civilian logistician for the Navy, I can tell you that much, if not most, of the logistics support provided for the military is done by contractors.

And I'm sure that you can tell him that it's generally MUCH cheaper when the contractors do it.

You mean contractors like Haliburton?

Dude, you're all over the place with this.

Uhm... no.


Not like HalLiburton, at all.


I meant contractors that are actually allowed to compete in a free market bidding process to give the most cost-effective solution to the American Taxpayer, rather than some corrupt politician's pet special-interest.

Apples and bowling balls.

[Dinsdale]

Are you denying that Halliburton recieved a no-bid contract for oil well fires?

Please say "yes."

[Mikey]

Oh, but the asshat on the barstool next to you does...right?

You mean his new-found "buddy" who doesn't happen to carry his decorations around with him?

[Smackie Chan]

Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Cheney, has won contracts worth more than $1.7 billion under Operation Iraqi Freedom and stands to make hundreds of millions more dollars under a no-bid contract awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to newly available documents.

...

Waxman's interest in Halliburton was ignited by a routine Corps of Engineers announcement in March reporting that the company had been awarded a no-bid contract, with a $7 billion limit, for putting out fires at Iraqi oil wells. Corps spokesmen justified the lack of competition on the grounds that the operation was part of a classified war plan and the Army did not have time to secure competitive bids for the work.

The corps said the oil rehabilitation deal was an offshoot of the LOGCAP contract, a one-year agreement renewable for 10 years. Individual work orders assigned under LOGCAP do not have to be competitively bid. But Waxman and other critics maintain that the oil work has nothing to do with the logistics operation.

The practice of delegating a vast array of logistics operations to a single contractor dates to the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War and a study commissioned by Cheney, then defense secretary, on military outsourcing. The Pentagon chose Brown and Root to carry out the study and subsequently selected the company to implement its own plan. Cheney served as chief executive of Brown and Root's parent company, Halliburton, from 1995 to 2000, when he resigned to run for the vice presidency.

...

After a round of unfavorable publicity, the corps explained that the sole award to Brown and Root would be replaced by a competitively bid contract. But the deadline for announcing the results of the competition has slipped from August to October, causing rival companies to complain that little work will be left for anybody else. Bechtel, one of Halliburton's main competitors, announced this month that it would not bid for the corps contract and would instead focus on securing work from the Iraqi oil ministry.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/082903B.shtml

Regarding whether it's cheaper to have gov't personnel or contractors perform the work, the pendulum of conventional wisdom swings back and forth every few years. Generally, the feeling is that for short-term work, it's better to go with contractors, because even though the labor is (much) more expensive, they can be let go when the work is done, whereas with civil servants, you buy them for life, meaning you have to pay their salaries, benefits, and retirements even when the work they were initially hired to perform is complete, and they're nearly impossible to fire. For long-term work, contractors are too expensive.

[Dinsdale]

[No, I'm denying your assertion that they weren't the best qualified for the task on short notice.

Uhm... After they were awarded the no-bid contract, Halliburton immediately began subcontracting the work to two companies that were denied requests to bid on the job. They subbed it out because Halliburton didn't have the infrastructure to complete the job.


But don't let facts stop you from your military-industrial-complex-monopoly brainwashing.

[Dinsdale]

You mean his new-found "buddy" who doesn't happen to carry his decorations around with him?

If by "new-found" you mean 1982... sure.

[Dinsdale]

Except that pesky fact that the competitors that weren't allowed to compete had done jobs of that scope previously, for different governments around the world.

Hey, but let's not let facts get in the way of some good old fashioned war profiteering.

[Dinsdale]

Are you attempting to suggest that subs don't make profits?

Are you attempting to suggest adding another administrative layer to the subs administration is in the better interest of the American Taxpayer?

[Mister Bushice]

It seems to me he's saying that the government deals with Haliburton, and Haliburton manages the project and subs out where necessary. I don't see another layer of Government administration being created, unless of course you split up the project among several companies, then you'll have several different layers of bureaucracy running between the work and the government instead of the one that is there right now.

[Dinsdale]

Google harder nest time -- you just laid an egg.


Oh, and just for the record -- I've forgotten more about government contracting than you'll ever know. You know... the kind of knowledge you get by actually being involved with such things, rather than playing armchair-mvscal.

[BSmack]

Google harder nest time -- you just laid an egg.

Oh, and just for the record -- I've forgotten more about government contracting than you'll ever know. You know... the kind of knowledge you get by actually being involved with such things, rather than playing armchair-mvscal.

Then I guess you would have no problem linking us up to the government work you've been involved in? Or is this one of those Atomic Resume moments?

[Dinsdale]

Then I guess you would have no problem linking us up to the government work you've been involved in? Or is this one of those Atomic Resume moments?

Now I believe I truly have seen it all.

Making reference to Atomic dweeb in a post in which you're infowhoring.


The words "board bitch" don't quite do that justice.

[BSmack]

So what you're saying is that you really don't have jack shit for experience when it comes to government contracts. After all, if you did, you wouldn't have to spin like a fucking dradle in a centrifuge.

[Mikey]

Then I guess you would have no problem linking us up to the government work you've been involved in? Or is this one of those Atomic Resume moments?

No and yes

FTFY

[Mikey]

I've forgotten more about government contracting than you'll ever know.

Like fuck you have. This entire thread has been one long monograph on what little you know about government contracting.

I'm sure that Dins has forgotten a lot of stuff.

He just really can't remember what it was about.

[Dinsdale]

This entire thread has been one long monograph on what little you know about government contracting.

I'll keep this in mind the next time I score a gig from the Department of Homeland Security.


Only they can't pull the "national security" scam with the type of contracting I've been involverd with. Amazing how much lower bids are when there's more than one of them.


Dumbass.

[OCmike]

So what you're saying is that you really don't have jack shit for experience when it comes to government contracts. After all, if you did, you wouldn't have to spin like a fucking dradle in a centrifuge.

You want to see my greatest accomplishment as a government contractor? Fine!

- Dins The Builder

[Dinsdale]

Matter of fact, I could have landed some extremely overpaid work in Iraq contracting for the government(through another contractor).

The universal answer from everyone involved was "no thanks." State and local governments are ripe enough for the plucking without that getting killed problem.

[Cuda]

Amazing how much lower bids are when there's more than one of them.

.

Bids?

I thought they awarded those contracts by congressional seniority.

[Mister Bushice]

Matter of fact, I could have landed some extremely overpaid work in Iraq contracting for the government

That did it. You've just had an AP moment.

Next up we wanna see you dancing in your latest skanks' tarp sized skivs.

[Smackie Chan]

Next up we wanna see you dancing in your latest skanks' tarp sized skivs.

Speak for yourself. I have no desire to be further scarred.