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inibo
11-24-2007, 11:54 AM
I found a very good article on Vanity Fair about SAIC (http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/spyagency200703?printable=true&currentPage=all). They are one of the largest and most comprehensive members of the MIC. These are kind of people who have a vested interest in thing staying exactly as they are now.



Washington's $8 Billion Shadow

Mega-contractors such as Halliburton and Bechtel supply the government with brawn. But the biggest, most powerful of the "body shops"—SAIC, which employs 44,000 people and took in $8 billion last year—sells brainpower, including a lot of the "expertise" behind the Iraq war.

by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele March 2007

One of the great staples of the modern Washington movie is the dark and ruthless corporation whose power extends into every cranny around the globe, whose technological expertise is without peer, whose secrets are unfathomable, whose riches defy calculation, and whose network of allies, in and out of government, is held together by webs of money, ambition, and fear. You've seen this movie a dozen times. Men in black coats step from limousines on wintry days and refer guardedly to unspeakable things. Surveillance cameras and eavesdropping devices are everywhere. Data scrolls across the movie screen in digital fonts. Computer keyboards clack softly. Seemingly honorable people at the summit of power—Cabinet secretaries, war heroes, presidents—turn out to be pathetic pawns of forces greater than anyone can imagine. And at the pinnacle of this dark and ruthless corporation is a relentless and well-tailored titan—omniscient, ironic, merciless—played by someone like Christopher Walken or Jon Voight.

To be sure, there isn't really such a corporation: the Omnivore Group, as it might be called. But if there were such a company—and, mind you, there isn't—it might look a lot like the largest government contractor you've never heard of: a company known simply by the nondescript initials SAIC (for Science Applications International Corporation), initials that are always spoken letter by letter rather than formed into a pronounceable acronym. SAIC maintains its headquarters in San Diego, but its center of gravity is in Washington, D.C. With a workforce of 44,000, it is the size of a full-fledged government agency—in fact, it is larger than the departments of Labor, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development combined. Its anonymous glass-and-steel Washington office—a gleaming corporate box like any other—lies in northern Virginia, not far from the headquarters of the C.I.A., whose byways it knows quite well. (More than half of SAIC's employees have security clearances.) SAIC has been awarded more individual government contracts than any other private company in America. The contracts number not in the dozens or scores or hundreds but in the thousands: SAIC currently holds some 9,000 active federal contracts in all. More than a hundred of them are worth upwards of $10 million apiece. Two of them are worth more than $1 billion. The company's annual revenues, almost all of which come from the federal government, approached $8 billion in the 2006 fiscal year, and they are continuing to climb. SAIC's goal is to reach as much as $12 billion in revenues by 2008. As for the financial yardstick that really gets Wall Street's attention—profitability—SAIC beats the S&P 500 average. Last year ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company, posted a return on revenue of 11 percent. For SAIC the figure was 11.9 percent. If "contract backlog" is any measure—that is, contracts negotiated and pending—the future seems assured. The backlog stands at $13.6 billion. That's one and a half times more than the backlog at KBR Inc., a subsidiary of the far better known government contractor once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, the Halliburton Company.

You should read the whole thing. It will help you understand. Frankly, organizations like this scare me way more than the CFR.

PatriotOne
11-24-2007, 12:33 PM
Government contractor's and politics are a vicious circle. Companies that support war efforts, support war mongering politicians. And since war is such a profitable adventure for Government contractor's, they have lot's of money to support the war mongerer's or whatever the Government conractor's specialty happens to be.

As a contract adminstrator for one of the largest Government Contractor's in the world (Fluor Daniels) in a mega-funded project in Washington State (Hanford), I saw first hand how unhealthy the system really is. Though the project I worked at specifically is an environmental clean up effort now, resulting from the days when Hanford produced plutomium for the Manhatten Project (first nuclear bomb) and contaminated a 540 square mile area of Washington Stae in the process, the circle is just as vicious.

However, these huge Government contractor's are very fluid and can certainly change direction and support things like renewable energies, etc., very quickly if those in power in America wanted to change the direction of the nation building mission. Government contractor's are whores and will gladly do anything their client so desires.

In other words, the contractor's are the whores of the people in power, not the other way around. Government contractor's don't make policy but they certainly are happy to carry policy out.

The exceptions to the rule is when you have politician's who have vested interests in Government contractor companies like the Cheney/Haliburton connection. Talk about your "conflict of interests"!


SAIC has lots of contracts at Hanford btw.

constituent
11-24-2007, 12:40 PM
me too.

that's why i don't trust "aid" programs.

noxagol
11-24-2007, 01:14 PM
Aid programs with even the best of the best of the best of people running them will fail because they are inherently flawed. The "free" money creates an artificial stimulant that does not properly advance the economy of the recipient nation. It must be done naturally and from within in order for the true natural growth to occur.

At one time, all nations were third world or forth world nations by today's standards and their was no better of society to help out the first ones to bring themselves to present day first and second world countries and we did it just fine.

beobeli
11-24-2007, 01:47 PM
Here is how it works:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=497251819335380093
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cJlJudDtVE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvNgbKy3OiE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogEADmnmZRc
... and many related sources


Lots of people are sucked into feeding the "monster". We are conditioned to organize into groups and support our local politicians to help us profit at the expense of other groups. But that is really like cutting the branch we are sitting on. Some people understand it, others don't.

Our government today in large part is in function of organizing "racket" against the people. The "issue of the day" -- the war, terrorism, security, monetary policy, immigration, social security, health care, education, war on drugs, WTO, north American union, outsourcing -- are just themes around which politicians organize rackets. And we are sucked into supporting one or more of those issues. For mainstream republican politicians that deliver to "silent partners" it is military industrial complex, war on drugs, mega foreign policy (oil). For democratic "henchmen" who deliver to their (often the same ones as republican) "silent partners" it is health care, education, social security, mini foreign policy (nation building).

But the real cause of all the issues is lawlessness in our government -- flagrant violation of the constitution by our very leaders. And we as voters support that. Either wake up America and stop the insanity, or face the consequences which I am afraid are near and disastrous.

The game is played in many ways. For example Boeing has strategically placed a facilities in every single congressional district in America. When a mega billion dollar appropriations bill to fund Boeing come up for a vote in congress, a very few congressmen can say "no". And those who do say "no" are then marginalized. Or in the name of universal health care, the insurance companies love interstate barriers, regulations and restrictions on doctor's treatments and pricelists, because open-market would run their prices down. So they'll support any level of protectionism in Washington. And the list goes on and on, and on... Just think about many other special groups out there that are pining people against other people.

And now Al Gore is a partner in a Silicon Valley venture capitalist firm who plans to invest into alternative energy. They need Gore to secure subsidies and handouts in Washington. Same can be said for U.S. Generals (and almost universally all other people of influence) who are "fellows" on boards of Halliburtons of the world. Their job is to pick up the phone and use their influence to direct your money to their respective “silent partners”. If you work for Halliburton, you may have a job for another year, but you may not have a country in another two. Halliburton knows that; they’ve already moved out of America. They are now based in Bahrain. Go figure it out.

What is beautiful about Ron Paul campaign is that it is already demonstrating how people from all different walks of life can come together. Freedom is liberating. Just imagine how much more efficient, prosperous, safer, stronger, cleaner, greener, happier, enthusiastic, entrepreneurial, innovative, generous, loving, spiritual and beautiful America could be if we eliminated even a small percentage of the racket. America would become a true leader in the world. A country that the American people truly deserve.

constituent
11-24-2007, 02:09 PM
welcome to the forums!