[extropy-chat] Halliburton gets Katrina Contract

[BillK]

On 9/3/05, The Avantguardian wrote:
> I think the lady's point is that Halliburton should
> not be (and probably isn't when I think about it) the
> ONLY company that can do it. There is this thing
> called monopoly that gums up the gears of a freemarket
> economy and I don't need my tin-foil hat to figure out
> that monopoly needs a collusion between the government
> and A COMPANY in order to prosper in a free market. I
> say put these kind of contracts up on BID. There are
> many construction contractors that are perfectly
> capable of building whatever you want them to build
> especially if they are not in a war-zone. What's next,
> is Halliburton gonna muscle in on the home-improvement
> market?
> 

Heh! :) I guess you haven't dealt with government bureaucrats much.

Here in UK (and I doubt if the US is much different) if the gov put a
contract out for public tender you are talking about at least six
months before a contract is issued. They have to prepare a
requirements document, send it out, wait a few months to give the
companies time to prepare proposals, then these have to be reviewed by
committees to get down to a short list. Then the shortlist get into
negotiations with the bureaucrats and eventually a contract will be
issued.

I think the US Navy might be in a bit of a hurry to get their stuff
working again. :)
The only way to do this is to cut the gov out of the process.

The US Navy probably know Haliburton is not the cheapest quote, but
they expect results, *fast*.

BillK