The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #84906   Message #1572333
Posted By: katlaughing
29-Sep-05 - 03:48 PM
Thread Name: BS: Halliburton owns the U.S. government
Subject: RE: BS: Halliburton owns the U.S. government
From someone who says it better than I (my emphasis), an excerpt:

Published on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 by the Daytona Beach News-Journal
Cheney's War Stock
Editorial

In 2001, Halliburton paid Cheney a salary of $205,298. In 2002, the company paid him $162,392. He is to receive similar payments this year and for the next two years. Those are "deferred salary" payments -- not retirement benefits or payments from escrow accounts, but, as Lautenberg points out, "an ongoing corporate obligation that is paid from company funds." If Halliburton were to go under, the payments would stop.

That, of course, is not about to happen. The stock market has tanked in the last three years. The economy continues to lurk between recession and Herbert Hoover's shadow. But Halliburton's stock value in less than a year (going back to last October) has grown 75 percent. Hint: Halliburton is the Pentagon's top contractor in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Cheney, a proponent, if not a fan, of both wars, holds 433,333 Halliburton stock options. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind. If Cheney's deferred salary and stock options don't constitute a financial interest of any kind, then the vice president's conception of reality is as questionable as his ethics. The fact that he has pledged not to profit from stock sales by giving profits to a charity doesn't diminish the extent of his ties.