Of course, one thing that bears mentioning is that "Halliburton is obeying the law" and "Halliburton is screwing us" are, unfortunately, not mutually exclusive. The whole point of contracting out military support services to private companies like H was *supposed* to be that the profit motive will make them more efficient than a governmental agency. But a very large proportion (I think almost all, but I wouldn't want to say so without checking) are "cost-plus" contracts, which means that H takes home the same amount of profit (the 'plus') regardless of how much it costs them to provide the services.
Even if H was operating in perfectly good faith (ha!) this removes any motive towards efficiency based on profit (and, in cases where the 'plus' is a percentage of the cost, in fact is a disincentive toward efficiency). And it opens up massive possibilities for abuse in terms of cost overruns even if they are within the technical bounds of the contract.
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Of course, one thing that bears mentioning is that "Halliburton is obeying the law" and "Halliburton is screwing us" are, unfortunately, not mutually exclusive. The whole point of contracting out military support services to private companies like H was *supposed* to be that the profit motive will make them more efficient than a governmental agency. But a very large proportion (I think almost all, but I wouldn't want to say so without checking) are "cost-plus" contracts, which means that H takes home the same amount of profit (the 'plus') regardless of how much it costs them to provide the services.
Even if H was operating in perfectly good faith (ha!) this removes any motive towards efficiency based on profit (and, in cases where the 'plus' is a percentage of the cost, in fact is a disincentive toward efficiency). And it opens up massive possibilities for abuse in terms of cost overruns even if they are within the technical bounds of the contract.