More good news for Halliburton stockholders

[Mickey]

HALLIBURTON WINS CONTRACT TO RECONSTRUCT CHENEY’S REPUTATION

 

 

At $42 Billion, Largest Contract of its Kind, Company Says

 

 

Details at: Cheney Contract

[Kelly the Dog]

HALLIBURTON WINS CONTRACT TO RECONSTRUCT CHENEY’S REPUTATION

              At $42 Billion, Largest Contract of its Kind, Company Says

Details at: Cheney Contract

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Man, how does Halliburton keep winning these no-bid contracts? They're just plain good.

 

It reminds me of my very rich friend whose wife kept "winning" these silent auctions at fund-raisers and charity events. He had to (jokingly) say, "We didn't win, dear, you just gave them more money. It means we lost."

[Adam]

HALLIBURTON WINS CONTRACT TO RECONSTRUCT CHENEY’S REPUTATION

              At $42 Billion, Largest Contract of its Kind, Company Says

Details at: Cheney Contract

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Justa question- if we did bid things out, insteadof awarding that contract to Haliburton- how long would it taken to get help and supplies over there, and how much criticism would that have drawn.

[Mickey]

Justa  question- if we did bid things out, insteadof awarding that contract to Haliburton- how long would it taken to get help and supplies over there, and how much criticism would that have drawn.

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You are assuming that bids would take longer. No reason for that.

[Alaska Darin]

You are assuming that bids would take longer.  No reason for that.

607566[/snapback]

Says a friggin' lawyer. Oh, the irony. The biggest problem with large government contracts (both scope and scale) is protests. Everyone wants a piece of that big money and the lawyers know it. PC contracts dragged on for years, so the government ended up doing away with them, as one example.

 

Guess who dies because of it? Now B word about troops not having body armor.

[Ghost of BiB]

Typical CONCAP contract

 

I call attention to the scope of work.

 

1. How many companies out there can provide this service as described?

2. Who has experience at performing such services?

3. Related to 1, how many would want to? Lots of room to lose one's ass.

4. How long do you think a bid process would take to cover all these items.

5. What would be the management and oversight costs of breaking up the scope into separate contracts for each item or item groups.

6. How would 5 affect the timeliness of delivery of those services because of the individual bids and bidding process?

7. Also, relating to experience - what makes anyone think Halliburton/KBR wouldn't win outright anyway? The company with the best experience generally is going to present the best bid, because they know what can and can't get done for x money.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

You are assuming that bids would take longer.  No reason for that.

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This is a joke, right? You must be kidding.

[KRC]

This is a joke, right?  You must be kidding. 

607620[/snapback]

 

Halliburton bad.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

Halliburton bad.

607625[/snapback]

 

I've come to the realization that Halliburton's not bad. Halliburton lives in a magical pixie land inhabited by elves and unicorns and competitive bids take the same amount of time as no-bid contracts.

[Scraps]

I've come to the realization that Halliburton's not bad.  Halliburton lives in a magical pixie land inhabited by elves and unicorns and competitive bids take the same amount of time as no-bid contracts.

607633[/snapback]

 

If you'd just shoot down one of those contracts over the equator while wearing a clown suit, balancing on a beach ball at the South Pole, we wouldn't have these problems.

[KRC]

...and competitive bids take the same amount of time as no-bid contracts.

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They don't?

 

[TheMadCap]

Can't resist.....

 

 

 

AWK! HALLIBURTON! HALLIBURTON!! AWK!!!!

 

 

 

Credits to whoever first said this, probably the funniest thing I've ever read here...

[Mickey]

This is a joke, right?  You must be kidding. 

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What is your experience in dealing with bidding of construction work for large scale public improvement projects?

 

Care to hear mine? Hint: it is extensive.

[RkFast]

What is your experience in dealing with bidding of construction work for large scale public improvement projects?

 

Care to hear mine?  Hint: it is extensive.

607737[/snapback]

 

So then you know its a shell game, a cluster!@#$ and higly dependent on a lot of backroom bull sh--.

 

So what Halliburton is doing is par for the course.

 

And you shouldnt be so "outraged".

 

Thanks for playing!

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

What is your experience in dealing with bidding of construction work for large scale public improvement projects?

 

Care to hear mine?  Hint: it is extensive.

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You have extensive experience in the federal competitive bid projects?

 

I've been involved in five of them. I'm involved in two now. I've never seen one take any less than a year. One of the ones I'm invovled in now, despite being "competitive" bid, is being bid on by one company...and that's taking more than a year.

[Ghost of BiB]

What is your experience in dealing with bidding of construction work for large scale public improvement projects?

 

Care to hear mine?  Hint: it is extensive.

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So, then what difference does it make who executes a stated fee cost plus performance contract? And, how is a complete Federal RFP/RFB process including FR publication and the involved mandatory "time out" periods going to be quicker than extending an already in place performance contract order?

 

I'm not even trying to defend Halliburton. I just don't get where you are coming up with this, given the scope of the specifications and the requirement to have something that can hit the ground running upon activation of the contract. A large scale PI project is not the same set of scope or circumstance as what is in effect a standby task order driven emergency response contract.

[Mickey]

So, then what difference does it make who executes a stated fee cost plus performance contract? And, how is a complete Federal RFP/RFB process including FR publication and the involved mandatory "time out" periods going to be quicker than extending an already in place performance contract order?

 

I'm not even trying to defend Halliburton. I just don't get where you are coming up with this, given the scope of the specifications and the requirement to have something that can hit the ground running upon activation of the contract. A large scale PI project is not the same set of scope or circumstance as what is in effect a standby task order driven emergency response contract.

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My experience is in federal, state and local projects over a period of 8 years where I worked on nothing, nothing but construction projects. Laying fiber optic cable from Crystal City, Va. to J'Ville Fla. and repairing failed roofing systems installed on over 5,000 public buildings just for starters. You know how hard it was to bid out jobs? They had to actually mail out spec.s and bid packages to more than one contractor. All that work stuffing 5 or 6 envelopes instead of just one, it was brutally time consuming.

 

Much of the work that has to be done in bidding has to be done even without bids. You still need a contract, you still need specifications, you still need to see if the contractor can really get the job done, see if he is bonded, etc, etc, etc. Its not as if the construction industry has no history upon which to draw in determining whether bid or no bid contracts are preferable. Bidding is so much more preferable that the practice has been widely enacted as law. That is in the real world anyway. But here at the PPP, you are a full blown moron to suggest even the possibility that bids are a better, more efficient way of doing business. You see, this is where free market and competition are only a good idea when advanced by a conservative. If advanced by a liberal, as I just did, those ideas are suddenly moronic.

 

Does that mean that there aren't special circumstances that would cause one to depart from the standard practice? Of course not. Extension of an in place contract can be an excellent way to deal with an emergent situation. Its like a unit price contract, you don't know the scope, so you just decide on per unit fees and count the units, keeping the contractor on call to get it done as the need arises. The original contract though, should have been the product of a competetive bid and unless you have a perpetual emergency, it makes no sense to perpetually extend the in place contract.

 

Whether or not, on a case by case basis those special circumastances apply would be an interesting debate to have. I'm glad you raised them. But since my point of view that *gasp*, bids might be able to be done just as fast and, in the long run more efficiently and less expensively has been summarily dismissed as idiotic, it is pretty clear that there is no point in bothering with a discussion.

[Ghost of BiB]

My experience is in federal, state and local projects over a period of 8 years where I worked on nothing, nothing but construction projects.  Laying fiber optic cable from Crystal City, Va. to J'Ville Fla. and repairing failed roofing systems installed on over 5,000 public buildings just for starters.  You know how hard it was to bid out jobs?  They had to actually mail out spec.s and bid packages to more than one contractor.  All that work stuffing 5 or 6 envelopes instead of just one, it was brutally time consuming.

 

Much of the work that has to be done in bidding has to be done even without bids.  You still need a contract, you still need specifications, you still need to see if the contractor can really get the job done, see if he is bonded, etc, etc, etc.  Its not as if the construction industry has no history upon which to draw in determining whether bid or no bid contracts are preferable.  Bidding is so much more preferable that the practice has been widely enacted as law.  That is in the real world anyway.  But here at the PPP, you are a full blown moron to suggest even the possibility that bids are a better, more efficient way of doing business.  You see, this is where free market and competition are only a good idea when advanced by a conservative.  If advanced by a liberal, as I just did, those ideas are suddenly moronic.

 

Does that mean that there aren't special circumstances that would cause one to depart from the standard practice?  Of course not.  Extension of an in place contract can be an excellent way to deal with an emergent situation.  Its like a unit price contract, you don't know the scope, so you just decide on per unit fees and count the units, keeping the contractor on call to get it done as the need arises.  The original contract though, should have been the product of a competetive bid and unless you have a perpetual emergency, it makes no sense to perpetually extend the in place contract. 

Whether or not, on a case by case basis those special circumastances apply would be an interesting debate to have. I'm glad you raised them.  But since my point of view that *gasp*, bids might be able to be done just as fast and, in the long run more efficiently and less expensively has been summarily dismissed as idiotic, it is pretty clear that there is no point in bothering with a discussion.

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That's what I meant by cost plus. U/P, basically T/M. Whichever specific contract we are talking about, has anyone looked at the scope and the delivery schedule?

 

As KBR's work is almost always contingency based, in effect, reactive work to emerging circumstances it makes the best sense to me that one continue mods to the original contracts. Were I a government manager, and I already had people on the ground AND I needed something "yesterday", rather than two years from now there is no way I'm going to accept a bid from someone I have no experience with without a full RFP process and very nitpicky review of some type of proof of performance. As far as the type and conditions of KBR's work for the military, I have a sense that no one else really wants it, anyhow. They positioned themselves long before Halliburton came into the picture to provide what is essentially a unique set of capabilities. Once again, if Halliburton (Cheney) had not been involved, no one would give this the time of day.

 

Sure, put together a RFP to provide the same type of services by the same schedule and put it on the street. Know what will probably happen? KBR will win the bid. Like I said, no one else domestically has positioned themselves for that type of scope, so someone else would have to start a new business unit for it, including the considerable investment in goods in order to compete (small thing, but how many construction companies that you know of have an Antonov 124 on call based in Houston for emergency deployments?).

 

If there is anything that potentially smells bad in this, it's in the Halliburton purchase of KBR coinciding with Cheney's involvement prior to going to the White House. That to me is a very separate issue than Halliburton being "given" work because of the Cheney connection. Unless you want a Chinese or French construction company providing your infrastructure support in a war zone, KBR is it. Folks like Bechtel can scream foul if they like, but they aren't bidding on similar work anyway, for a reason.

[Mickey]

That's what I meant by cost plus. U/P, basically T/M. Whichever specific contract we are talking about, has anyone looked at the scope and the delivery schedule?

 

As KBR's work is almost always contingency based, in effect, reactive work to emerging circumstances it makes the best sense to me that one continue mods to the original contracts. Were I a government manager, and I already had people on the ground AND I needed something "yesterday", rather than two years from now there is no way I'm going to accept a bid from someone I have no experience with without a full RFP process and very nitpicky review of some type of proof of performance. As far as the type and conditions of KBR's work for the military, I have a sense that no one else really wants it, anyhow. They positioned themselves long before Halliburton came into the picture to provide what is essentially a unique set of capabilities. Once again, if Halliburton (Cheney) had not been involved, no one would give this the time of day.

 

Sure, put together a RFP to provide the same type of services by the same schedule and put it on the street. Know what will probably happen? KBR will win the bid. Like I said, no one else domestically has positioned themselves for that type of scope, so someone else would have to start a new business unit for it, including the considerable investment in goods in order to compete (small thing, but how many construction companies that you know of have an Antonov 124 on call based in Houston for emergency deployments?).

 

If there is anything that potentially smells bad in this, it's in the Halliburton purchase of KBR coinciding with Cheney's involvement prior to going to the White House. That to me is a very separate issue than Halliburton being "given" work because of the Cheney connection. Unless you want a Chinese or French construction company providing your infrastructure support in a war zone, KBR is it. Folks like Bechtel can scream foul if they like, but they aren't bidding on similar work anyway, for a reason.

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I don't think there is a specific contract under discussion. I posted a joke about a contract to rebuild Cheney and in response, there was a general post suggesting that no bid contracts to Hall. were necessary because of bids take too much time. I suggested otherwise and off we went.

 

You can count the number of anti-Halliburton posts I have made easily enough by counting my posts in this thread. Never been a big issue with me. Mostly because I think that if all the contracts that have been awarded to them without a bid had been let out, they would have won them anyway for some of the reasons you suggest.

 

Nevertheless, the fact is that the Cheney-Halliburton connection is not imaginary, its real. It is also a fact that they are the beneficiaries, big time, of lots of government work, some of which was awarded on a no-bid basis. Those facts lead to justifiable scrutiny, justifiable concerns. Not a corporate witch hunt mind you but legitimate scrutiny. However, any suggestion of that, especially around here, and the anti-lemming lemmings get all riled up. Raising those concerns doesn't make one a moronic left wing parrott anymore than your posts in this thread make you a Halliburton whore.

[Ghost of BiB]

I have a feeling this was thought of as Cheney emerged as the VP candidate, and considered acceptable collatoral damage. Anything at all that the government does, that affects the people (I guess by definition, everything does) deserves scrutiny. But, that scrutiny should be held without rancor or agenda, and whatever findings there are presented in as neutral a manner as possible.

 

I don't think that happens. And, once again veering to a tangent, the manner in which things are scrutinized and reported often affect policy. Not the facts themselves.

 

CTM (and I, for that matter) have complained about the WH's inability to market. All true, but at the same time it has become just about impossible for any administration to market. The facts about what is really good thing are usually represented in a way to make it look bad, if not horrible. Makes for better news. I think that's why so may WH press releases sound so idiotic and simple minded. Anything of substance will be attacked, so why invite the controversey to start with? To a large degree, it's the WH's fault they got themselves there, but the bigger offender is the press.