International Forecaster Weekly

Halliburton And Other Recipients Of Corporate Welfare

Halliburton and other recipients of corporate welfare... and what Europeans have know about America for a long time now.....

Bob Chapman | June 24, 2006

Over the past five years Halliburton has emerged as a major recipient of corporate welfare, having acquired more than $3.8 billion in federal contracts and taxpayer insured loans via the Import Export Bank.

We wrote our last expose on the Ex-IM Bank in 1995 and as usual few noticed its significance. It supposedly is an independent government agency that helps finance the sale of US exports, by providing loans, guarantees and insurance. They subsidize about $20 billion a year.

This past April the Ex-IM Bank guaranteed $489 million in credits to a Russian oil company, which is closely linked to the KGB and the old Communist Party apparatus. They are also involved in drug running and organized crime.

 Halliburton will receive $292 million of those funds to refurbish a large Siberian oil field owned by Tyumen Oil Co., which is controlled by Alpha Group. That means Halliburton gets an insured loan, which lowers their interest rate and extends repayment. Halliburton has received Ex-IM and OPIC, Overseas Private Investment Corp., loans and guarantees of $1.5 billion over the past two years. Under V.P. Cheney’s guidance Halliburton has gotten $2.3 billion in US government contracts – double what they received for the five years prior to Cheney. They mostly were for US Army engineering work in Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti and Albania. During Cheney’s tenure at Halliburton over five years Republican political contributions were $1,212,000 versus $534,750 in the five years prior to Cheney’s reign. They call these contributions, good will, when in fact they are nothing short of bribes.

 The Tyumen project credit guarantee was delayed when BP-Amoco claimed that through fraud Tyumen stole a vast oil field in which they have substantial equity. BP-Amoco commissioned a private investigative report, which was passed to the CIA and they briefed Ex-IM Bank, which said they were unaware that Tyumen was connected to the Russian mob. The organized crime and drug running by Tyumen’s parent Alpha Group has been a steady diet throughout the Russian media for sometime. Ex-IM could have hardly missed it. The intelligence has been available since 1997, via the FSB (formerly KGB), via the Duma, Russia’s lower House.

 Alpha Bank is one of Russia’s largest and most profitable banks. Alpha EKO, a trading company, has been involved for years in money laundering of Colombian drug money and trafficking drugs. Alpha was formed with Communist Party funds and KGB funds. They hired a number of ex-KGB anti-organized-crime specialists. The transmission of drugs, via Asia to Germany was controlled by the Chechen mob family. The FSB says Alpha Group’s top executives, oligarchs Mikhail Friedman and Pyotr Aven, participated in these events. As proof the FSB raided Alfa Eko buildings and found drugs and other compromising documentation. During the 1990s Alpha laundered most of the money from the Cali cartel until it was shut down. The crime relationship with the KGB started in the 1980s, via Komsomol, the Communist Youth League. Alpha Group also cooperated with the Solntsevo crime family.

 Alpha via Novy Holdings and Access Industries purchased 40% of Tyumen from the Russian government for $810 million.

 Tyumen has access to the White House via Akin Gump and James C. Langdon, a managing partner who is one of George Bush’s elite fundraisers, a pioneer. He raised $2.2 million for Bush and recruited 100 lawyers and lobbyists at $25,000 each. There are a number of connections via the Republican Party and Cheney to Tyumen. As you can see, this is how business is done in Washington, criminal to criminal.

On 12/4/02, Philip Merrill was sworn in by his good friend Dick Cheney as President and Chairman of the Export-Import Bank. Two weeks ago Mr. Merrill went missing. His empty boat was found at sea. We wonder what Mr. Merrill did wrong?

Americans are finally noticing the great inequality between the rich and the rest of the population something Europeans have been very aware of for a long time. It really paints a stark picture for those without a high school education who can only compete at a very low level and among the uneducated illegal aliens. If that wasn’t bad enough, annual income of Americans with college degrees has fallen relative to that of high school graduates. Plus, the college graduates end up owing $25,000 net after they finish university. Their jobs and their future is being outsourced. It certainly makes our young think twice about spending four more years in school and creating that debt. The wealthy don’t have to worry about that. Americans in the middle are getting squeezed. The American dream no longer seems attainable to many. Since 1980 there has been a continuous trend of concentration of income at the top and it’s gotten much more obvious over the past six years. The share of aggregate income going to the highest earners has doubled from 8% in 1980 to 16% in 2004. That going to the top 1% has tripled from 2% in 1980 to 7% currently. And, that going to the top one-hundredth of 1% – the 14,000 taxpayers at the very top of the income ladder, has quadrupled from 0.65% in 1980 to 2.87% in 2004. We call this polarization and it is what starts revolutions – violent and non-violent.

Unless free trade, globalization and unbridled illegal immigration are stopped, growing inequality will get worse. This is the key to stop America’s decline.

No American can plan for the future anymore. His job may be outsourced to India or Ukraine tomorrow or his plant may be in China next week. His pay may go from $50 or $25-an hour to $10 overnight. There is no safety because our government has abandoned us for dreams of a New World Order and world government. Who wants to buy a house and lose it a year later? How can anyone save for anything anymore? From day to day workers and professionals don’t know if they’ll have a job tomorrow. An economy cannot persist under such a chaotic economic and social climate. It can only lead to chaos. If the wealthy one-worlders have their way, we’ll all become indentured slaves. Free trade, globalization and illegal immigration have fractured the traditional link between skills and wages and risk and reward.

We are headed toward serious economic, social, financial and political problems. Americans had best wake up fast, and throw almost all the incumbents in Washington out of office in November. If they do not we are afraid this will all be settled in the streets.