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So, some of you saw the article here that I pointed to yesterday, about reconstruction on the Gulf Coast happening both on the cheap and against usual rules.
For those of you who didn't: KBR, a Halliburton company which received a large contract to help rebuild after Katrina, did its' usual job of subcontracting through a large web of companies, meaning they got paid money to find other companies to do the work. Somewhere along the line some of these companies have not been paid. The usual paper trail of contracts seems to be missing. The upshot is that workers aren't being paid, and the wages they aren't being paid are lower than such wages would normally be.
It's more than that, though.
A great many workers are not Americans. For the moment, leave aside the facts that they have been shown an American dream and had it yanked away by broken promises. Also leave aside the fact that lots of Americans likely would have been happy to have the work. The point is, lots of workers were imported to do this work, many undocumented. It is easily possible that a well-prepared group inimical to the US could slip a person or three into the country in circumstances like that. If we are so worried about the security of our country, why is the priority on cheap cost instead of national safety?
Of course, it might not be that cheap. KBR got a large wad of cash. They likely still have a large sum of it.
Another question that frankly I don't have enough facts on: in both Iraq and Katrina-land, there has been money that's gone missing - nearly $9 billion in Iraq, much less in the Gulf - namely the money that's gone missing between KBR and the workers. Both locations have also been the scene of large no-bid contracts given to Halliburton or a subsidiary. Might there be more to this than coincidence? I don't know; but it's starting to look like a pattern.
For those of you who didn't: KBR, a Halliburton company which received a large contract to help rebuild after Katrina, did its' usual job of subcontracting through a large web of companies, meaning they got paid money to find other companies to do the work. Somewhere along the line some of these companies have not been paid. The usual paper trail of contracts seems to be missing. The upshot is that workers aren't being paid, and the wages they aren't being paid are lower than such wages would normally be.
It's more than that, though.
A great many workers are not Americans. For the moment, leave aside the facts that they have been shown an American dream and had it yanked away by broken promises. Also leave aside the fact that lots of Americans likely would have been happy to have the work. The point is, lots of workers were imported to do this work, many undocumented. It is easily possible that a well-prepared group inimical to the US could slip a person or three into the country in circumstances like that. If we are so worried about the security of our country, why is the priority on cheap cost instead of national safety?
Of course, it might not be that cheap. KBR got a large wad of cash. They likely still have a large sum of it.
Another question that frankly I don't have enough facts on: in both Iraq and Katrina-land, there has been money that's gone missing - nearly $9 billion in Iraq, much less in the Gulf - namely the money that's gone missing between KBR and the workers. Both locations have also been the scene of large no-bid contracts given to Halliburton or a subsidiary. Might there be more to this than coincidence? I don't know; but it's starting to look like a pattern.
