Post #224,643
9/13/05 9:33:58 PM
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Action comes quickly when money is involved
News Item: Companies with White House connections given no-bid contracts for reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina, with cost-plus provisions guaranteeing a profit no matter how much the company spends.
News Item: President Bush issues executive order allowing contractors for hurricane reconstruction to pay workers below the prevailing wage.
And who said the Bush administration's response was slow?
[link|http://www.suntimes.com/output/quicktakes/cst-nws-qt13.html|source] lincoln
"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from." -- E.L. Doctorow
Never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem.
[link|mailto:bconnors@ev1.net|contact me]
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Post #224,651
9/13/05 9:57:26 PM
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So lets put everything out through the process
Gov't procurement process will guarantee that things will be ready to move sometime close to March 2006.
Thats the response time we need!
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #224,683
9/14/05 1:00:16 AM
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I have a better idea
Lets let the first 60 days circumvent the process and put the rest out properly for bid. Of course, this implies that there will be a little planning and proaction rather than the strictly reactive style this misadministration made famous.
Also, the provision allowing pay below prevailing rates is just lame. It pretty well guarantees that minimal dollars goes into the stricken area while max dollars heads back to the stock holders and home office. So glad my taxes are contributing to some fat cat's bottom line. Profit is allowed within reason, but profiteering isn't.
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
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Post #224,686
9/14/05 1:50:26 AM
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Allowing profiteering among "friends of Bush"
is a hallmark of this administration.
bcnu,
Mikem
It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell
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Post #224,726
9/14/05 10:49:28 AM
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Payrate proposal is ludicrous
may have a slight silver lining in that it allows more people to be hired...but thats a serious stretch.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #224,752
9/14/05 1:32:38 PM
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Pretty well hilights the leopard's spots.
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
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Post #224,759
9/14/05 1:46:08 PM
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Re: I have a better idea
Let's also extend that idea with the following: No contractor receiving a no-bid contract may receive contracts totaling greater than $X (where X is set to insure no fewer than, say, 5 contractors). Oh, and any attempts to hide subsidiaries, joint partnerships, arm's length relations, etc. immediately disqualifies all parties to such an invalid relationships for further contracts, and said violating contractors must return evey dime awarded (even if they have spent some of it).
There, BeeP....
jb4
shrub●bish (Am., from shrub + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf. BULLSHIT
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Post #224,762
9/14/05 1:54:22 PM
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Good idea in theory
Unfortunately, Bush's rolodex has one number in it.
H-Halliburton
1-800-FIX-IT-UP
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
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Post #224,729
9/14/05 11:26:00 AM
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The process was very selective also
Several companies that offered to provide services or repair work for free where turned aside or told to go through the bidding process. But a handful of huge, well connected companies where given huge no-bid contracts.
There is something seriously wrong with this picture. It may or may not be outright corruption, since it could also be incompetence or a defective process on FEMAs part. Probably some combination of all three.
Jay
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Post #224,756
9/14/05 1:38:48 PM
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Yep, I for one would like to see an audit of declined aid vs
purchased goods and services.
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
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