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-- Help me with this, im comfused

Help me with this, im comfused

Sorry if you've seen this already

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>Subject: Help Me With This..... I'm confused > > >I'm trying to get all this political stuff straightened out in my head >so I'll know how to vote come November. Right now, we have one guy >saying one thing. Then the other guy says something else. Who to >believe. Let me see; have I got this straight? > >Clinton awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Yugoslavia - good... Bush >awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Iraq - bad... > >Clinton spends 77 billion on war in Serbia - good... >Bush spends 87 billion in Iraq - bad... > >Clinton imposes regime change in Serbia - good... >Bush imposes regime change in Iraq - bad... > >Clinton bombs Christian Serbs on behalf of Muslim Albanian terrorists- >good... Bush liberates 25 million from a genocidal dictator - bad... > >Clinton bombs Chinese embassy - good... >Bush bombs terrorist camps - bad... > >Clinton commits felonies while in office - good... >Bush lands on aircraft carrier in jumpsuit - bad... > >No mass graves found in Serbia - good... >No WMD found Iraq - bad... > >Stock market crashes in 2000 under Clinton - good... >Economy on upswing under Bush - bad... > >Clinton refuses to take custody of Bin Laden - good... >World Trade Centers fall under Bush - bad... > >Clinton says Saddam has nukes - good... >Bush says Saddam has nukes - bad... > >Clinton calls for regime change in Iraq - good... >Bush imposes regime change in Iraq - bad... > >Terrorist training in Afghanistan under Clinton - good... >Bush destroys training camps in Afghanistan - bad... > >Milosevic not yet convicted - good... >Saddam turned over for trial - bad... > >Ahh, it's so confusing! > >Every year an independent tax watchdog group analyzes the average tax >burden on Americans, and then calculates the "Tax Freedom Day". This is >the day after which the money you earn goes to you, not the government. >This year, tax freedom day was April 11th. That's the earliest it has >been since 1991. It's latest day ever was May 2nd, which occurred in >2000. Notice anything special about those dates? > >Recently, John Kerry gave a speech in which he claimed Americans are >actually paying more taxes under Bush, despite the tax cuts. He gave no >explanation and provided no data for this claim. > >Another interesting fact: Both George Bush and John Kerry are wealthy >men. Bush owns only one home, his ranch in Texas. Kerry owns 4 >mansions, all worth several million dollars. (His ski resort home in >Idaho is an old barn brought over from Europe in pieces. Not your >average A-frame). > >Bush paid $250,000 in taxes this year; Kerry paid $90,000. Does that >sound right? The man who wants to raise your taxes obviously has >figured out a way to avoid paying his own..

Not sure if everyone here is getting forwareded the same stuff as me but I came across thhis today and thought we might have fun arguing about it, muahahah. I definately think we dont hold people to the same standards, which isnt very fair, and this little bit of information leaves out a bunch of bad things that Clinton didn't have a parallel with. I kinda think its ok for us to go fighing in countries when they are commiting genocide and torturing people and when there is massive suffering because of the people in power at those places, what else would you expect of a country with a strong army?

Either way no matter who gets elected I don't see much hope for us, especialy if we get more similar people in power after this election, sigh.

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Originally posted by Spacey Orange Here are some differences. No bid contract - conflict of interest for bush and cheney b/c cheney receives money from halliburton.

Cheney divested himself of all Halliburton stock, and he gets "deferred compensation," which is completely independent of how well the company does.

FYI, other CEO's do it all the time, so they can take another job and not have a conflict of interest. You can go ahead and say that Cheney wants to make his friends rich from Iraq contracts, but Cheney himself doesn't get a single dime from Halliburton's current business.

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Originally posted by imokruok Cheney divested himself of all Halliburton stock, and he gets "deferred compensation," which is completely independent of how well the company does. FYI, other CEO's do it all the time, so they can take another job and not have a conflict of interest. You can go ahead and say that Cheney wants to make his friends rich from Iraq contracts, but Cheney himself doesn't get a single dime from Halliburton's current business.

Indeed, Imokurok is correct. Halliburton could very well go bankrupt tomorrow or somehow win a multi-trillion dollar lottery and it wouldn't mean squat for Cheney's deferred compensation.

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Originally posted by Shakka Indeed, Imokurok is correct. Halliburton could very well go bankrupt tomorrow or somehow win a multi-trillion dollar lottery and it wouldn't mean squat for Cheney's deferred compensation.

Try telling that to skerry's followers

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Originally posted by speedracer_mec Try telling that to skerry's followers

I'm tired of trying. They seem to lack a basic understanding of business.

Yawn, straight from the anals of the Kerry campaign...


[[[smoke]]]

yup.

also note that Halliburton was the only company who could fix oil pipelines on that big of a scale. hence, of course there was no-bid

since as shakka said, they have no idea of business, they wont even take the time to look at their annual report to stockholders to see how their LOGCAP III and middle eastern divisions are doing.

the government pays halliburton in an "basis" of 2-3% which is jack compared to the normal companies who make 13-15% off their oil

This has already been posted and debunked. I'll post a link when the search function comes back up.

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Originally posted by Spacey Orange are you saying then that if the us went to war, halliburton was gauranteed work b/c no one else could do it? if this is what you suggest, then it would be in halliburton's interest to influence the administration to go to war. sounds like a good deal eh?

Yes. Halliburton created a war so that they could make paper thin margins. I'll get Mulder and Scully on the horn.

Whoever sent you that list is a plain liar and I won't even waste my time because after just the first few lines I knew it was written by an Islamic extremist spreading disinformation. Yes, they have access to the internet too! don't forget it.

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Originally posted by tecnolover Whoever sent you that list is a plain liar and I won't even waste my time because after just the first few lines I knew it was written by an Islamic extremist spreading disinformation. Yes, they have access to the internet too! don't forget it.

Wouldn't an Islamic extremist want Kerry in office due to his more lax anti-terrorism beliefs?

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Originally posted by Seventil Wouldn't an Islamic extremist want Kerry in office due to his more lax anti-terrorism beliefs?

or they'd like Bush because his anti-terrorist policies has increased their recruiment base and at the same time pushed away many of US allies.

You can't ignore the fact that there is a lot more people around the world today who are upset with the US then there were before Bush became president. And that's despite 9/11. Things like that plays into the hands of various anti-US terrorists.

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Originally posted by Seventil Wouldn't an Islamic extremist want Kerry in office due to his more lax anti-terrorism beliefs?

Errr...Kerry is as anti-terrorist as anyone. In fact he's wisely trying to make the point to america that he'll carry through with the war on terrorism more efficiently and effectively than Bush.

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Originally posted by tecnolover Whoever sent you that list is a plain liar and I won't even waste my time because after just the first few lines I knew it was written by an Islamic extremist spreading disinformation. Yes, they have access to the internet too! don't forget it.

ok you really are an idiot. Not becuzz you support Bush but you can't even see the simple point this list is saying. And to blame it on Islam? You really need something called education.

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Originally posted by Spacey Orange Good point. But, whether they have paper thin margins are beside the point though when you acknowledge all of their sunk costs. Its not like they can make or product whatever gives them the average industry ror. They have so much invested that they can;t do anything else. Paper thin margin is better than nothing. BTW if those margins are so bad, what is your explanation as to why they stay in the business. Must be the desert heat, I hear its great for the nasal passages.

Because it is a huge government contract. It decidedly boosts the top line. Nobody's ever been successful by turning down opportunity. But to say that a company would willingly manufacture a war, that would end up costing it's own country's taxpayers billions, solely to aggressively pursue an extremely high-risk low margin business, which would be a drag on earnings for a long time--doesn't exactly strike me as a business strategy that any competent, reasonably intelligent managment team would pursue. That's a pretty tough risk/reward scenario to justify.

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Originally posted by Shakka Because it is a huge government contract. It decidedly boosts the top line. Nobody's ever been successful by turning down opportunity. But to say that a company would willingly manufacture a war, that would end up costing it's own country's taxpayers billions, solely to aggressively pursue an extremely high-risk low margin business, which would be a drag on earnings for a long time--doesn't exactly strike me as a business strategy that any competent, reasonably intelligent managment team would pursue. That's a pretty tough risk/reward scenario to justify.

I am not going to go as far as to say that Halliburton created the war, however you are missing a crucial peice of the puzzle when you say they only make "paper thin margins". I completely disagree that it is a "high-risk" business. Obviosly it is very risky for the people in Iraq who are actually doing the work but I contend that it is very low risk for the company. Why? Because they are guaranteed their money from the government, they tell the government how much it will cost them and then they agree on how much profit they should get and then the US rights the check. This is totally different from a normal "risky" business venture. They essentially have a guaranteed ROI.

that pretty much sums it up. bush getting blasted for doing good things, clintion praised for all the shit he did while in office.

just a load of shit.

btw, i posted this in here about 4 or 5 months ago, at least.

>JM<

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Originally posted by EvilDust ok you really are an idiot. Not becuzz you support Bush but you can't even see the simple point this list is saying. And to blame it on Islam? You really need something called education.

I concur. I was going to completely debunk his posts in another thread, where he claimed Dubya was the greatest President since FDR... now I wonder what the fuck the point would be? tecnolover is an idiot, that's all there is to it.

Here we go, read this:

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...threadid=196459

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Originally posted by Spacey Orange you missed my point which was that the company has millions in sunk costs in their line of business. they can't churn out hot-dogs if there are above average roi there. they do what they do and nothing more. it's not unique to halliburton. this happens to many businesses. they invest so much in machinery, expertise, and have very high exit costs, that it makes much more sense to continue doing what they do.

I tend to disagree. What are the sunk costs? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Halliburton certainly have any operations or equipment in Iraq. They would typically be awarded a no bid contract(no need to spend any costs here), and then start spending money to move equipment across the globe and then start sinking some costs in.

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in the case of halliburton, if the us went to war, they knew that they would be gauranteed the work because as policerobots explained, they were the only ones with the expertise.

This is back in conspiracy land.

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so here is what the company faced: we all of this experitse and machinery to do only x. we can't do anything else with this even if roi was higher in other ventures b/c our expertise and machinery can only do x. if we can influence the gov't to go to war, we can get the work b/c no one else can do it, even if the profit margins are low (because we can't do anything else remember) we'll do it. there is no risk (financial deviations) in this venture so we'll do it.[/i]

Your economics explanations make me giggle. Again, what are the sunk costs that are driving management to make such a bold, strategically non-sensical push for glogal warfare?

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Originally posted by Spacey Orange i was refering to their expertise and whatever investments they have in technology to carry out their expertise.

These are Iraq-specific pieces of equipment & expertise?

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explained above. as far as i know, no one compelled them to do the work in iraq. what is your explanation as to why they entered into the contract, if the profits are so lousy?

I explained. Easy top-line growth.

just to clear things up...

actually, sunk costs play no role in decision-making. they are irreversible costs, therefore they are not considered in incremental (marginal) analysis. you might be thinking of fixed costs, which must be covered by the contribution margin (p-vc), however big or small.

well I'm sorry for the repeat post, were one of you the original writer of the thing? or did you get sent this mesage too?

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Originally posted by EvilDust ok you really are an idiot. Not becuzz you support Bush but you can't even see the simple point this list is saying. And to blame it on Islam? You really need something called education.

Jeezzz! someone is riled up isn't he??? Ok, ok. You are right, I did miss the point of the post. I didn't read far enough. I suppose I have just seen so many Bush bashers in the forum that I missed what the twist was and assumed another Bush bashing thread of which there are many here. Ok! I was wrong and I'm man enough to admit that. Are you man enough to admit your mistakes?

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Originally posted by tecnolover Ok! I was wrong and I'm man enough to admit that. Are you man enough to admit your mistakes?

I will if I've made any.

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