Via John Aravosis, who says, "the new GOP and their supporters are just the old Soviet Union, but with better suits".  Just so…

Shock and oil: Iraq’s billions & the White House connection

The American company appointed to advise the US government on the economic reconstruction of Iraq has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars into Republican Party coffers and has admitted that its own finances are in chaos because of accounting errors and bad management.

BearingPoint is fighting to restore its reputation in the US after falling more than a year behind in reporting its own financial results, prompting legal actions from its creditors and shareholders.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, BearingPoint employees gave $117,000 (£60,000) to the 2000 and 2004 Bush election campaigns, more than any other Iraq contractor. Other recipients include three prominent Congressmen on the House of Representatives’ defence sub-committee, which oversees defence department contracts.

One of the biggest single contributors to BearingPoint’s in-house political fund was James Horner, who heads the company’s emerging markets business which is working in Iraq and Afghanistan. He donated $5,000 in August 2005.

The company’s shares have collapsed to a third of their value when the firm listed in 2001, and it faces being thrown out of the New York Stock Exchange altogether…

The company is a mess, not because of malfeasance according to the article, but bad management.  Yet they were cherry picked to be consultants for creating a new market economy in Iraq.  And BearingPoint had the advantage of months of helping the Bush administration write the specifications for the contract they eventually won.  Turns out its competitors only had a week to read the specifications and submit their own bids.  Nice. 

Well, the Iraqis sure got their new market economy didn’t they?  Question: how does anyone in their right mind expect a corporation that can only play in the marketplace if the game is rigged, to help another country rebuild their own economy?  I know…I know…that’s not the point.  The point is that the got the contract, because they knew which palms to grease.  In George Bush’s America, that’s savvy business management.  The product doesn’t matter, let alone the customer.  What matters is the buying and selling of politicians.  Remember children, republicans are better at managing the economy then those communist socialist democrats, who hate the free market.