Stephen Puschel
http://www.TheIssue.com

to guest:

You left off a zero. Cheney’s assets are about $90 million, most of which came from options he had in Halliburton stock. Funny thing. Once he was VP, people wanted him to sell his Halliburton stock, which he did, right before the stock plumetted.

Halliburton made about $13.5 billion of revenue. US$90 million net worth for a CEO of a Fortune 500 company is typical (and I think it’s actually on the small side). One problem with the US system is that because public official salaries are capped, all of the really talented people try to go into business or law, and having talented people go into business rather than government makes things unbalanced. The Goldman-Sachs model, where people make money then run for office, is one way of getting around that problem.

Also, once you make about $3 million/year and have about $10 million net worth, (i.e. managing director level at a bank) money no longer matters. Above that level, it’s not about the money. It’s about the power and the status.

guest: Did you mean like the “sleazy operator” George Schultz, or the “sleazy operator”,turned neocon warmonger, Donald Rumsfield? When Cheney and Rumsfield were unsuccessful with the carrot, they use the stick (”shock and awe” rather than shlock and gnaw). Is this what you mean by sleazy?

Yes exactly. If it was just about money, there are lots of deals that could have been made with Sadaam. Lots of deals *were* made with Sadaam. The whole “oil for food” sham.

Cheney and Rumsfeld went wrong when they stopped being sleazy operators and got convinced by the neo-conservatives that they could build a democracy in Iraq. If it’s about money, you can make a deal. Go to Sadaam, ask him what his price is. $1 billion? $2 billion? $10 billion? $50 billion? $100 billion? Write the check and then have the lawyers and lobbyists make sure it is all legal, and the PR people make sure that the story gets buried in the press.

If they were just in for the money, then they wouldn’t have gotten the US in nearly the amount of trouble that they’ve gotten. The US is going to be dealing with the Iraq mess for *at least* the next decade. Realistically, the next two or three. Everyone with half a brain knows it, but no one is talking loudly because they don’t know what to tell the spin doctors to say.

But I still think that the US has a good economic and political system. The thing I find interesting about ideologues on both the right and the left is that they are interested in “selling democracy” but what they are trying to sell is some system that exists only in their minds, and not some real world system.

The basic reality is that people with money get power, and people with power get money. If you try to build a political or economic system that ignores that fact, you are ignoring basic human desire and emotion, and what you come up with will be a mess. However, you can build a system that acknowledges human desire and still manages to do social good. Arrange things so that the people with money have to spread some of it around to get more money. When people complain about corruption, they usually are just upset that they aren’t getting any of the good stuff. Give it to them.

When I say that I think that there are some parts of the US system that China should adopt, I’m talking about the real world, not some imaginary system. Even with the spin doctors, the lobbyists, the lawyers, the overpaid incompetent CEO’s, there is still a lot of good stuff in the US economic and political system. With all of the damage that Cheney and Bush have done, it’s still recoverable. Not anything like the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution.

Twofish said: “You really think that things would be that different in the world, if Bechtel got the contracts rather than KBR?”

Twofish, I can only hope the financial company you work for does not employ you as an analyst. How could you have missed this?

In April 2003, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced that Bechtel won a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract worth up to $680 million to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure such as schools, roads and sewers, as well as perform “institutional capacity building” to maintain the improvements and create “roadmaps for future longer term needs and investments.”

“According to a company spokeswoman, Bechtel has awarded 102 of 140 subcontracts to 90 different Iraqi companies. Iraqi companies are tasked mainly with rehabilitating schools, but also with repairing bridges, power transformers and rehabilitating the Baghdad airport.”

Twofish said: “If Cheney was some sleazy operator, then what he would have done was to cut a quiet deal with Sadaam, quietly make money from Iraq, and then get sanctions lifted. ”

Did you mean like the “sleazy operator” George Schultz, or the “sleazy operator”,turned neocon warmonger, Donald Rumsfield? When Cheney and Rumsfield were unsuccessful with the carrot, they use the stick (”shock and awe” rather than shlock and gnaw). Is this what you mean by sleazy?

“By far the most influential hire, however, was George P. Shultz. After leaving the Nixon administration in 1974, where he served as Treasury secretary, Shultz joined Bechtel as its executive vice president. Shultz suspended his association with Bechtel when appointed secretary of state by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. In 1983, Shultz dispatched diplomatic envoy Donald Rumsfeld to meet with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to advocate for construction of a pipeline running from Iraqi oilfields to Jordan’s port of Aqaba.”

As Mel Brooks said, “It’s good to be king.” (And, apparently, it ain’t bad to be VP either).

The biggest assets in Cheney’s portfolio were mutual fund holdings in the American Century International Bond Fund and the Vanguard Group’s Short-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Admiral Shares, each worth between $5 million and $25 million. You can buy a lot of HazMat suits and salty buffalo steak with that.

Cheney also owns Ballintober, a nine acre waterfront estate in St. Michaels, Maryland that he bought for $2.7 million in September. (Maryland must be very “in” among the rich and powerful these days. Don Rumsfeld also has a place in St. Michaels, while Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and his immediate family have two multi-million dollar homes in the Terrapin state).

Chinese buy into conspiracy theory
Waterloo, Adolf Hitler and the Asian financial crisis, a far-fetched Chinese best-seller claims all are the result of the Rothschild family’s continuing control of money supply

hammerhead: Do you think Halliburton’s highly lucrative no-bid contracts, slap-on-the-wrist asbestos settlement and a government hands off policy on Halliburton’s Iraq war corruption over the last seven years are coincidental to Cheney’s serving as VP?

Yes, since if you look at any other major oil company or construction company they basically get the same deal. You have money to hire lobbyists and lawyers to play the game.

It’s not the Halliburton has some special deal with the government. It’s that *all* of the oil and big government contractors basically get the same deal. If would be the same if Cheney were not VP. Gore would have made more or less the same deals, because at the end of the day, people need concrete poured, and they want their SUV’s.

You really think that things would be that different in the world, if Bechtel got the contracts rather than KBR?

Lobbyists, lawyers, contractors, all in a tight little circle of power trying to get a hand at the government gravy train. That’s how the system works, and if Cheney were just some sleazy operator trying to make a quick buck at the taxpayers expense, that wouldn’t be much of a problem since he would know better than to *START A WAR TO ADVANCE DEMOCRACY*.

hammerhead: Cheney “is a nice well-meaning person”. I’m sure the 3 million displaced Iraqis, families of the close to one million dead Iraqis, families of the over three thousand dead, and over twenty thousand wounded US soldiers would certainly agree with you.

It’s amazing the amount of damage that nice, well-meaning people can do, which was my point.

If Cheney was some sleazy operator, then what he would have done was to cut a quiet deal with Sadaam, quietly make money from Iraq, and then get sanctions lifted. That is what they’ve done in Iran, and what they’ve done in Libya…….

I said that Cheney was nice and well-meaning. He also was extremely dangerous *because* he is nice and well-meaning. Give me a sleaze ball, corrupt political operator any day. They know better than to think that they can rebuild a nation in their image.

hammerhead: Dick Cheney was so willing to show his honesty in his Enron dealings, that he fought like a tiger to keep his early meeting with his “energy advisor taskforce” secret.

Which shows you how politically inept Cheney is. Any real deal can be made without it ending up front page news. Don’t bother with an “energy task force”, just have a round of golf, and talk about legislation over drinks. Those type of deals are made every day. That’s how the system works. The nice thing is that it’s open season. Big oil writes its checks to get access to congressmen. The Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and Amnesty International can get its members to write checks to hire lobbyists to do the same. Just play the game to get what you want…..

About 90% of what you see on TV news and read in the papers was planted by some group or another trying to play the power game. All the big stories and the real deals, they never make the news, because there aren’t any glossy pictures. You can find the real stories, but you have to do some digging on your own. Look up committee transcripts, read the Federal Register, attend think tank conferences. Learn to read a balance sheet or corporate annual report. Don’t trust what the media tells you. Don’t trust what *I* tell you since I have my own weird agendas. Think for yourself….

hammerhead: Since the Iraq war, it has worked beautifully for the large oil companies, for which the American people are grateful.

They are no longer oil companies, they are “energy companies.” The big “energy companies” have figured out that there is going to be large future in hydrogen, solar and wind, and they want to dominate that. Tax breaks for wind power, and hybrids, all that talk about green energy, you do know who is behind that, do you????? If the future is solar, then Exxon-Mobil wants to dominate solar. If the future is limits on greenhouse gases, then BP Amoco is going to figure out a way from making a buck from that.

But the Iraq war has been a total disaster for oil companies. There are barrels and barrels of black gold sitting there that they can’t touch because the pipelines are going to get bombed and you can’t move from point A to point B without getting shot at. You can’t do business in Iraq, because there is no one to make the deal with….. It’s such a mess that you can’t even bribe someone…..

Right now, lots of Western oil companies are quietly making money in Iran. I pray to goodness, that big oil will keep the Bush administration from doing something even more stupid there….. Lots of Western companies making money in China. God bless them, because they help to stop a war that would have been infinitely more destructive than the Iraq mess…..

I should point out that before I went into finance, I was in the oil business so I got to see this all first hand……

Twofish,
stick with talking about equities and interest rates mate, as your grasp of politics is seriously Alice-in-Wonderland.
N.Dog

Cheney “is a nice well-meaning person”. I’m sure the 3 million displaced Iraqis, families of the close to one million dead Iraqis, families of the over three thousand dead, and over twenty thousand wounded US soldiers would certainly agree with you. Additionally, Dick Cheney was so willing to show his honesty in his Enron dealings, that he fought like a tiger to keep his early meeting with his “energy advisor taskforce” secret. Cheney and that committee sure came up with a great energy plan. Since the Iraq war, it has worked beautifully for the large oil companies, for which the American people are greatful.