How Many Dollars Must a Country Throw Away

So check out this story about a $75.7 million part of the $2.4 billion no-bid reconstruction contract that KBR (Halliburton) was awarded in 2003, $75.7 million that was wasted with practically no results to show for it, $75.7 million that was possibly spent with the full knowledge that the efforts would fail:

The Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root, had commissioned a geotechnical report that warned in August 2003 that it would be courting disaster to drill without extensive underground testing.

"No driller in his right mind would have gone ahead," said Mr. Sanders, a geologist who came across the report when he arrived at the site.

KBR defended its performance on the project, and said that the information in the geotechnical report was too general to serve as a warning.

Still, interviews by The New York Times reveal that at least two other technical experts, including the northern project manager for the Army Corps, warned that the effort would fail if carried out as designed. None of the dozen or so American government and military officials contacted by The Times remembered being told of the geotechnical report, and the company pressed ahead.

$75.7 million.

More than anything else, I am reminded of the overarching themes of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, how the corporatocracy works with corrupt dictators so that both parties get rich at the expense of the general populace - except in this case it is the American people getting fleeced, not tribal groups or the rural poor. And where is the outrage? Is it possible that people don't care? I suppose that $75,700,000 isn't all that much out of $8,358,727,000,000 (current US debt as per this site), right?

Will this ever end? What will it take? One thing mentioned in Confessions is that the dominance of the corporatocracy rests not only on the integration and interpenetration of big business and government, but on the fact that they have managed to sell their idea of economic efficiency as intrinsically good, an idea which is theoretically economically sound but is typified by extreme inequality. People are told hey, the economy is doing great, record profits are being recorded, CEOs are getting massive retirement packages and yet uncountable millions - the middle and lower classes upon whom America was truly built - struggle by without health insurance, without dental plans and paying $3 for a gallon of gas (though that's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself - but that's a whole other topic that involves a bit of economic jargon and general nerdiness, which I both have and demonstrate in abundance).

You know what the biggest crime is? It isn't the huge profits in and of themselves, it's the fact that they are made on the backs and with the blood of people worldwide. Because in this struggle, it isn't about America vs China or France vs Germany - it's the corporations vs us all.

Holy crap, I sound like a Marxist. That reminds me - I finally managed to dig up my camera charger. Tomorrow I should have a picture of a sight that greets me every day and never fails to make me chuckle and then feel mildly ashamed for chuckling.