"war profit"

[Nie Trink Wasser]

of course it can be called war profiteering, but let's step back and think a second. if i take home a paycheck from my tool and die shop, am i war profiteering? if i support a president who begins a war and then awards my company a share of the cleanup, am i war profiteering? if i AM a president who begins a war and manipulates billions in contracts to my cronies am i war profiteering? what is the deal with prepending the word 'war'? to the predators who suck profit from any slender source they can detect, people who wail about war profiteering are ignorant schlubs. to them, war is simply good business. and it is. the point is, we tend to get enraged only in certain circumstances - war being one of them. when, for example, the nextel predators paste billboards across the country claiming "coast to coast - now THAT's a walkie talkie!" and the fact is the product will not work from and to MOST PLACES, nary an eye is raised. the casualties will lose money, gain frustration, but still have thier lives, so it is ok, it is 'just business'. when the worlds largest software company lies about every aspect of every product it has ever stolen, bald-facedly, when it runs ads which state the precise opposite of truth, that's ok. never mind the uncounted billions in productivity lost, an entire new industry has sprung up to hold the hands of the victims who purchase lemonware. money is being made! when entire industries spring up to facilitate guiding predators through a deliberately byzantine tax code so as to avoid tax payment and sluff the slack over onto the wage slave, that's ok. no, it makes no sense at all to be outraged about "war" profiteering when the entire logical background of our nation's business practices makes it ok. you cannot wink, pocket profit, and feel good about yourself when you've put someone on the skids or sold someone a piece of ◊◊◊◊, and then moan and wring your hands when others take that same bottom line logic to its ultimate conclusion. george bush and cronies are the pride and glory of the unfettered capitalist dream. take it all. kill anyone who gets in the way. it's just competition. may the best man win. if you can't take the heat, etc. no, to piss and moan about 'war' profiteering is to ignore the root of the problem. there's monsters loose among us, and everyone is too afraid to kill them, because we survive on the scraps of the shredded carcasses they leave in thier wake.

http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/27935#544566

 

[c0rbin]

bald-facedly

Good stuff.

 

[fishbob]

Two comments.

1 - It is not OK for private enterprise, including software companies, to lie to the public and the investors. There will probably be consequences for the company even though a few execs will get stinking rich off the deals.

2 - War profiteering is not the right word for what Cheney/Halliburton is doing. Halliburton may or may not be making a profit while providing a contracted service to the US gummint. What they are doing is getting contracts via cronyism, through the back door, without competition, without proper supervision, without checks and balances, in an obvious conflict of interest. This is cheating and there may be no consequences because the fox is guarding the hen house.

 

[Gem]

I have to agree with fishbob. The fact that companies are getting contracts to rebuild Iraq is great, because jobs are created for both US and Iraq, adn the Iraqis get infrastructure. The problem is that they (halliburton and all) didn't compete for it.

I think that's why people call it "war profiteering," because it looks too much like a conspiracy theory.

Gem