Following the money is a surefire way of reaching into people’s hearts, but most in a position to do so are hamstrung by their superiors and the need to put food on the table.

As bloggers, we aren’t bound by similar constraints, yet (in my opinion) voluntarily take ourselves out of the game in this key area where we could make the most difference in one anothers’ lives.

Food for thought as 2007 kicks off and the rich keep getting richer. Campaign season for public office is over, but the campaign season for justice never ends!

AS 2006 recedes and investors ponder another round of amazing events in the business world, one theme keeps recurring. It was a year when truth was more audacious than fiction.

A hedge fund loses $6 billion in a week. A chief executive receives an $82 million pension after his company loses billions in shareholder value. A board chairwoman snoops on her fellow directors and journalists. Authorities discover that a throng of executives have spent years shifting stock option dates to fatten already-bulging paychecks.

Not one of these scenes would have been credible had it appeared in a novel. Real life, however, is another matter. And in 2006, investors had to suspend their disbelief almost daily.

This an excellent point. The picture becomes even clearer or perhaps I’ve been a bit slow in focusing! I heard that Halliburton’s stock rose 300% after the war started. I may have the exact figure wrong but it was indeed a huge number. I just can’t remember where I heard it. Does anyone have any back-up on that?

Dick Cheney nearly ruined Halliburton by buying Dresser Industries, first, because he ignored the implicit liability of asbestos claims against Dresser, and second, because when the extent of the liability was discovered, he thought he could evade the asbestos claims that came along with Dresser by spinning off the insurance company which was a subsidiary of Dresser, and had underwritten health policies for Dresser.

That attempt to sever responsibility ended up in the courts and when it looked like Halliburton was going to have to eat the whole thing, their stock dropped to about $7 a share.

After Cheney became VP, there was a lot of pressure for Congress to limit liability in asbestos claims, and the stock started to recover. Then, when the war started, KBR started making money and the stock, last I checked (a few months ago) was about $45/share.

I think they’re even contemplating a 2-for-1 split, too….

Here’s the New Yorker piece I mentioned earlier:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/…..surowiecki

Almost none of the C.E.O.s on the Bush team headed competitive, entrepreneurial businesses. The majority of them, in fact, made their bones in protected or regulated industries, where success depends on personal lobbying and political maneuvering. Bush himself, of course, built a small fortune on family connections, finagling a spot on the board of Harken Energy, and securing a publicly financed stadium for the Texas Rangers. Dick Cheney, meanwhile, got the top job at Halliburton almost solely because of his political connections. His successor there, David Lesar, has said, “What Dick brought was obviously a wealth of contacts.” Wealth of contacts, indeed: under Cheney, Halliburton expanded internationally, gained $1.5 billion in subsidies from the U.S. government, and added a billion dollars in government contracts.

This an excellent point. The picture becomes even clearer or perhaps I’ve been a bit slow in focusing! I heard that Halliburton’s stock rose 300% after the war started. I may have the exact figure wrong but it was indeed a huge number. I just can’t remember where I heard it. Does anyone have any back-up on that?

Of course, they have their own problems, and this is your invitation to the pity party.

twolf1 @ 33

EvilDrPuma @ 31

And they still can’t do anything right.

…and everyone loses

You got it.

If one is determined to fail–especially if there’s an ulterior motive for failing–it’s just downright easy to do.

I once worked for a company that had been taken over by a large multinational. After failing to achieve the level of profitability desired, they instituted a series of rules that priced the product out of the market.

Then, when the union contract came up, and the lowest-paid workers were making about $9/hr, they started salary negotiations at $6/hr and dug their heels in until the union went on strike.

A few months after the strike was settled, they closed the plant, citing repetitive losses due to the market and labor.

If all you’ve got is a phony war on terror, you don’t want to win it, and you don’t want to definitively lose it. But, you do want it to go on. Successive incremental failure achieves that goal.

Oklahoma kiddo @ 59

If Democrats are looking for one single way to help this country, it’s to target children issues. And the payoff would be manifold. Not the least of which is that someday these kids will be voters, and they will remember. And in the short-run the parents will look pleasingly on Democrats. I see no downside to this approach.

I don’t disagree, but isn’t it high time that we started looking at social and economic justice as a total issue, rather than speaking of social and economic justice for children, for women, for blacks, for the disabled, or for whomever?

Baby steps. Everybody has to say that they love children whether sincere or not. Rethugs hate other people’s children – they must pretend otherwise to appear human. I agree with kiddo.

Though they would not hesitate to do so if they could, the MSM cannot directly attack children (and children’s issues) the way they do society (and social programs) at large. Welfare Queens, anyone?

Make it about children and you’re off that hook.