Businessmen cease campaign donations.

[The Romulan Republic]

http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/C ... story.html

CEOs vow to stop donating to politicians


CALGARY HERALD AUGUST 25, 2011



Starbucks Corp., CEO Howard Schultz said more than 100 business leaders have joined his pledge to boycott U.S. political campaign donations.

AOL Inc., CEO Tim Armstrong, J.C. Penney Co., CEO Myron Ullman, Whole Foods Market Inc., co-CEO Walter Robb and others have agreed to accelerate hiring and halt campaign giving to incumbents in Washington until Congress finds a solution to the nation's growing debt, Starbucks said.

Schultz is taking his campaign to the Internet and to Facebook with the creation of Upward Spiral, "a platform for action inspired by the letter to America from Howard Schultz," according to the website.

Seattle-based Starbucks has spent $350,000 lobbying the U.S. government this year, according to OpenSecrets.org. Schultz donated to Senator Maria Cantwell, a Washington state Democrat, in March, data from the research organization show.

Schultz joined the company about three decades ago.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Well well, this is interesting. I'd like to think some good can come of this.

[Mr Bean]

No good can come of this, if CEO's decide to take a stand and stop giving the politicians that just means they are the slightly more moral than average CEO's. The guy's who make Captain Planet villains look like saints are still going to donate because buying politicians is one of the best return on investment strategies that exist here in America at the moment. The number of cases I've heard over the years where some company gave 50,000$ to a Senator who turned around and got them a tax loophole created that saved the company twenty or thirty million dollars are beyond count. The ones where it was not thirty million but three hundred million are more uncommon but not so uncommon as to not occur every year and then there are those rare cases where ten thousand dollars in donates produces two billion dollars contracts which is the fact of life in our Defense industry.

If these CEO's wanted to change something they would not hold back money but find someone like Russ Feingold who wants remove corporate dollars from elections and get him in a position to get the laws passed to make campaigns publicly financed in full.

[mr friendly guy]

Bean just out of morbid interest, are those companies which get the defense contracts because of donations, are they say better than their competitors (using the examples you are familiar with). Because if all these companies donate, but ultimately one ends up with said contract, does it go to the company that donated more, or the better one.

[ChaserGrey]

I'd be curious to look at the fine print of this. Are they pledging not to donate on behalf of their companies and affiliated PACs? Or are they just pledging not to personally donate?

If the former I might be impressed. If the latter, it's basically meaningless.

[Mr Bean]

Bean just out of morbid interest, are those companies which get the defense contracts because of donations, are they say better than their competitors (using the examples you are familiar with). Because if all these companies donate, but ultimately one ends up with said contract, does it go to the company that donated more, or the better one.

The company's in question are less than a dozen and while they do compete with each other for many contracts it's a case of the two big established companies competing with half a dozen smaller time firms or our-right start ups along with foreign firms which are considered the same thing in Washington's eyes 90% of the time. The company who wins the contract can be the one with the better product or the one with the better lobbyists. In Washington either one can win you the day.

However a great deal of defense contracts are not competitions to begin with but companies bringing some device to the US Government and concluding the Government it would be invaluable and could you order forty million of them. If you want a practical example of that check out the history of the Quadro_Tracker or the ADE-651 which were mine detectors that were in essence dousing rods. Such things would have never gotten by a purely military board because they would have actually tested the things without the company contractors there to over-see and setup the test. In fact the UK Goverment kicked out 85 million for ADE-651's without once ever having the military test them. Having a superior product can be no match for having a superior lobbyist and sales team. If you want an example of where an inferior (And hideously overpriced) product won take a look at the history of MRAP in Iraq the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected glorified APC's some of which outweigh Bradley's now.

[mr friendly guy]

I looked at the wiki summary of your ADE 651. Fuck the description of it sounded pseudoscience and something out of freaking star trek. It requires no power (oh sorry, it used the user's static electricity) and tuned into the frequency of the device. My god, and the Iraqi gov spent $85 million on this shit.

And I thought the UK wasted money funding homeopathy hospitals.

[Block]

Bean just out of morbid interest, are those companies which get the defense contracts because of donations, are they say better than their competitors (using the examples you are familiar with). Because if all these companies donate, but ultimately one ends up with said contract, does it go to the company that donated more, or the better one.

The company's in question are less than a dozen and while they do compete with each other for many contracts it's a case of the two big established companies competing with half a dozen smaller time firms or our-right start ups along with foreign firms which are considered the same thing in Washington's eyes 90% of the time. The company who wins the contract can be the one with the better product or the one with the better lobbyists. In Washington either one can win you the day.

However a great deal of defense contracts are not competitions to begin with but companies bringing some device to the US Government and concluding the Government it would be invaluable and could you order forty million of them. If you want a practical example of that check out the history of the Quadro_Tracker or the ADE-651 which were mine detectors that were in essence dousing rods. Such things would have never gotten by a purely military board because they would have actually tested the things without the company contractors there to over-see and setup the test. In fact the UK Goverment kicked out 85 million for ADE-651's without once ever having the military test them. Having a superior product can be no match for having a superior lobbyist and sales team. If you want an example of where an inferior (And hideously overpriced) product won take a look at the history of MRAP in Iraq the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected glorified APC's some of which outweigh Bradley's now.

Oh the MRAP's not bad, for the Demo teams and as a C&C vehicle. When it gets used as an APC, yeah, it sucks.

[Mr Bean]

First off the MRAP refers to six different vehicles and yes some of them are not bad, there are others however that just suck including some of side ideas like the BAE Humvee conversion jobs which up armed the humvee to the point that it cut operational ranges in half and oh by the way they are still shit for stopping a RPG hit on the Humvee or an IED but do let you shrug off 12.7mm mg fire which is fine except it was solid as much safer than a standard humvee despite the under carriage not being touched in the upgrade more than five mm of plate added. Considering the cost (Which I was told was the cost of three standard humvee's per upgrade of one existing humvee) it made no damn sense since simply buying more sense to buy a real MRAP rather than upgrade kits which again are mostly good against 12.7mm not so good against actual IED's.

[Block]

First off the MRAP refers to six different vehicles and yes some of them are not bad, there are others however that just suck including some of side ideas like the BAE Humvee conversion jobs which up armed the humvee to the point that it cut operational ranges in half and oh by the way they are still shit for stopping a RPG hit on the Humvee or an IED but do let you shrug off 12.7mm mg fire which is fine except it was solid as much safer than a standard humvee despite the under carriage not being touched in the upgrade more than five mm of plate added. Considering the cost (Which I was told was the cost of three standard humvee's per upgrade of one existing humvee) it made no damn sense since simply buying more sense to buy a real MRAP rather than upgrade kits which again are mostly good against 12.7mm not so good against actual IED's.

Hmm, I've only seen the ones used by the IED sweeper teams, so yeah the other stuff seems wasteful.

[ComradeClaus]

*gag* <- choking on raeg.

They should take all the fuckwits who make those scam products, put them in a BIG, xbox hueg, minefield & force them to navigate their way out w/ their fraudy products!

Then enjoy the show.

[Zaune]

*gag* <- choking on raeg.

They should take all the fuckwits who make those scam products, put them in a BIG, xbox hueg, minefield & force them to navigate their way out w/ their fraudy products!

Then enjoy the show.

Attractive as I have to admit the idea is, we'll probably have to settle for criminal charges of fraud in the case of the ADE 651; it's alleged that their most enthusiastic advocate in the Iraqi armed forces received a "buyer's commission" to the tune of twenty million dollars. Unfortunately I don't think charges of Manslaughter by Gross Negligence could be made to stick under British law, though it might be possible in an Iraqi court.