Totally free enterprise at work

Plumbing boss charged Pentagon $1m for two washers

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Friday August 17, 2007
Guardian Unlimited / UK

Plumbers are notorious for excessive bills. But none has come even remotely close to matching an extravagant claim by a South Carolina firm: almost $1m (£500,000) for two metal washers worth 19c each.

Charlene Corley, 47, co-owner of the plumbing and electrical firm C&D Distributors, who supplied parts to the military, is awaiting sentence after pleading guilty yesterday to defrauding the Pentagon. She faces 20 years in jail.

The most expensive washers in history were part of $20.5m the company stole from the Pentagon over the last 10 years. The company shipped plumbing and electrical parts to US bases round the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

The rest is here ...

An old dictum from the extreme right tells us:

Profit is Good
War is Profitable
Therefore War is Good

That would be the syllogism that made war so attractive to Hitler and the Nazis, as well as Mussolini and his Fascists. If you recall, aside from the motivations of Hitler's racist xenophobia, he and Mussolini were leading Germany and Italy out of a severe depression and rampant inflation (yes, the Great Depression of the 1930 effected more than just the Dust Bowl here in the US). War fuels industry. War IS profitable. There's nothing like a war to ramp up the gears of an economy.

Unfortunately, there are several significant risks with war:

1. You can't predict the winner. In the 1940s Germany had THE war machine and was a Super Power in its era. They invented the Blitzkrieg and, throughout 1942 the world considered Germany unstoppable. They lost everything in 1945. The USSR (a Super Power at the time) took on Afghanistan during 1979-1989 and had their asses handed to them by the ISI/CIA supported, cave dwelling Mujahideen. Truth be know, the Mujahideen, who literally routed the Soviet Super Power kinda morphed into the Taliban that we (another Super Power) are fighting now. During the American Revolution, England was unquestionably the Super Power of the era. It didn't do them all that much good in their fight with the colonists in our neck of the woods. So, being a Super Power doesn't really count for a lot when you come right down to it. It may be great when it comes to bragging rights but never underestimate your enemy.



2. Even if you could predict the winner, when you come right down to it, figuring out who won isn't always easy. It's probably more accurate to define the so called "winner" as the side that lost the least. That is to say, in the end, everyone looses in a way ... except war profiteers.