Read any good books?

[lisa kit]

Trying to encourage the discussion and review of book titles.

[Lock Piatt]

Most journalist - not all - write about things they have little or NO knowledge of and just view the subject with the bias they are taught in college. So yes I am critical, but they write BS about which they know less about than an eighth grader. Most have never taken a science course or higher math course so they are really quite uneducated.

If you want the truth about these type subjects you must read White paper published in professional journals and Universities; these are very technical works and difficult to read for many people.

If my memory (old man failure) serves my correctly, B&R was formed by combining two or more General Engineering firms. It is common in large project to subcontract out very specific tasks because of the time frame between major infrastructure projects. You simply can not afford to maintain a staff for years without contracts.

I find it interesting that everyone wants to blame big business for what corrupt governments do every day? As an International manufacturing executive, I have opened factories in many foreign countries. They are all corrupt and most of the time you are forced to directly or indirectly bribe elected or political officials to simply import the equipment necessary to operate the business. So America is the same only here we must donate to the re-election campaign to gain access to the opportunities.

Here we employ lobbyist to do the bribing for our business interest. In other parts of the world it is the import/export brokers that are provided with the money to bribe the politicians.

There is no conspiracy it is just the way business in done when you give power to governments.

[lisa kit]

Well I do agree that 1 needs physics & mathematics in even a basic education. As for the bias taught in college, I would have to say bias can be picked up anywhere. Though I myself have bitten my tongue on more than 1 occasion to pass a class, and @ least once I didn't pass (into to sociology, buncha nuts).
I would strongly suggest a read of this book. There was no Root in in B&R, it was a relative who extended money to by equipment they used to build gravel roads. I don't recall if he was bought out early or just remained silent, but he was never an intergral part of the Co. There is ALOT, and that is an understatement, of info on the corruption B&R created in the early years. Yes, the guy seems to have it out, but it appears well researched. This is not the only book the Briody has written on this type of subject, of which the Carlyle group is one. I will C&P independent reviews, because my memory of everything isn't up to the std I would like to present.

[Lock Piatt]

Now you have found a real insider trading group 'THE CARLYLE GROUP" which is basically a military Corporate raider. Ask me about them again so I do not forget. I do not have time to go into details but I have personal experience with the group.

[lisa kit]

The Halliburton Agenda D. Briody 290pgs

This is a C&P, and is not my original work.

Amazon.com Review
Despite their shared preference for keeping a low profile, Vice President Dick Cheney and Halliburton, his former employer, gained notoriety in the aftermath of the war in Iraq thanks to a series of lucrative government contracts awarded to Halliburton, for which they never had to bid. Business journalist Dan Briody sheds light on the history of the company and demonstrates how its present-day relationship with influential politicians is not anomalous but part of a time-honored yet ethically suspect tradition of doing business. Briody introduces Erle Halliburton, who was born into poverty but found great financial success with innovative oil well technology. And while Halliburton avoided getting close to elected officials or pursuing government contracts, the Brown brothers of Texas-based Brown & Root made the nurturing of "pet politicians" a top priority as they grew their construction business into one of the most powerful in the nation. The Halliburton Agenda details the mutually beneficial relationship the Browns shared with an up and coming Lyndon Johnson as money and influence flowed freely between the two. Halliburton acquired Brown & Root in 1962 and with it, Briody contends, plenty of questionable business practices that continue to this day. Dick Cheney looms ominously on the book's cover but he doesn't appear much in the book until fairly late in the Halliburton story. Still, because Cheney's early-1990s' appointment to the job of CEO (after no private sector experience) and departure to be Vice President in 2000 coincided with an upsurge in Halliburton revenues and controversies, there's plenty of material to examine. While many have questioned what sway corporations have in the George W. Bush administration, Briody's extended look at Halliburton's corporate culture and history provides enlightening perspective. --John Moe

From Publishers Weekly
Following hard on the heels of The Iron Triangle, an examination of international consultants the Carlyle Group, Briody turns his considerable investigative skills to the rise of the Halliburton Corp., its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root and the transformation of the U.S. military establishment. With a blunt matter-of-fact tone, Briody describes the rise of the two companies from the dusty oil fields of west Texas to the marbled corridors of power in Washington, D.C. Briody contends that Halliburton and KBR have literally bought politicians, manipulated the contracting process and ridden the current wave of small wars to record profits. Small, detailed moments of intense private pressure and unscrupulous backroom deal-making dominate this story. While Briody seethes with indignation, there is a grudging respect for the skill with which the executives and politicians ply their trade and a bitter resignation at the reality of the ways of government contracting. Central to the Pentagon's post–Cold War strategy is outsourcing nonmilitary tasks to private contractors. One of the chief architects of this plan was Dick Cheney, defense secretary for the first President Bush. Briody argues that with Cheney now vice-president and Halliburton awarded a huge no-bid contract to reconstruct Iraq's oil fields, public outrage has grown. As the controversy simmers, Briody raises an important question: with Americans and Iraqis dying by the day, have military matters become so efficient and profitable for companies like Halliburton that war itself is easier to wage? At times the book is repetitive and has the feel of being rushed to press, but this urgency lends the book a certain gravity. Briody has his own agenda—brilliantly illuminating the increasingly crucial nexus of public need, private profit and war making.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[lisa kit]

Lock, maybe U should check n2 The Iron Triangle: inside the secret world of the Carlyle group D. Briody. Maybe share a little of ur insight of the Cg.

[lisa kit]

Here is a text link for the papers Lock want 2 debate.

http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr00.txt

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/locke/locke1/Essay_con...

[Lock Piatt]

This will be fun and educational. All will see that Locke took the work of others and carried it to the next logical step. Those of you that have read Ayn Rand will see the fingerprints of Locke on her belief patterns.

We learn our knowledge and hone our skills by practice and the trial and error method. The Governments have functioned much the same way, Kingdoms, Fascist, Dictatorships, Communists, Marxist and Maoism all were grand experiments that have failed or in the last stages of collapse. It might be that the Republic form of Government is ill and in need of some disinfectant applications.

Are we just better when we believe that our selfish interests are best served when they are available to the rest of humanity? Could it be that then we would fight for those interests because we all want them? Locke discusses this concept in many ways and so did Ayn Rand.

[Tomb]

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Very funny.