Bye bye Texas. Bye bye US of A, Hello Dubai. In a wonderful show of support for the USA and all the tax dollars they received, the giant oil conglomerate Halliburton, is leaving the US. The company that Vice-President Dick Cheney headed up for 5 years is moving its corporate headquarters to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Their tactics remind me of Washington State’s home grown Boeing Corporation, which after receiving millions in tax breaks from Washington taxpayers via the Washington state Legislature, shortly thereafter moved their corporate headquarters to Chicago.
Corporate loyalty is to their bottom line , not to their state or country of origin these days.
It is not idle speculation to try to guess how long it will be before Halliburton re-incorporates in Dubai. It seems they have liberal tax laws and Halliburton can save hundreds of millions by not paying corporate taxes in the U.S. I think I can hear their President say Bye, Bye Suckers as he boards the company corporate jet to leave.
I’m sure they can see the writing on the wall. Despite all those lucrative no bid contracts Bush/Cheney lavished on Halliburton the Bush/Cheney era is not going to get better. The golden era of contracts after the Bush/Cheney “shock and awe” campaign in Iraq saw Halliburton reel in billions in no bid contracts to “undo the damage”. “Shock and Awe” was a stupid policy of arrogance.
The massive destruction that unnecessarily resulted from the playground bully approach of Bush/Cheney was overkill and contributed greatly to the subsequent inability of the Administration to set up a working economy to employ Iraqis and meet everyday needs like electricity and water. Even Halliburton’s billions in contracts didn’t bring recovery.
In fact, they are now being investigated by the new Democratic Congress.
Yahoo news notes that “Federal investigators last month alleged Halliburton was responsible for $2.7 billion of the $10 billion in contractor waste and overcharging in Iraq.”
