[lbo-talk] Hitch: Halliburton Huzzah!

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Mon Apr 21 08:08:29 PDT 2003


On Mon, 21 Apr 2003 Nomiprins at aol.com wrote:


> Boots and Coots (I don't know why that's a parodically American name, or
> what he means by that)

It's him being a Brit, thinking he's still writing for other Brits, about what a laugh it is to be such an insider.

BTW, you probably know this, but Kellogg Brown & Root was literally created through contracts like this back in the 30s. LBJ was known as the candidate from Brown & Root. And they in turn gave him unlimited piles of money when he needed it most. I think it's fair to say that without this relationship he would never have become a Congressman, never mind a Senator or a President. Robert Caro tells the story in great detail in his LBJ biography. But there's also a decent online story of B&R's origins at the Texas Observer:

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=731

When it comes to crony capitalism, West Texas had it perfected when East Asia was still in colonial pants. The latest bunch is just carrying on the tradition.

Michael



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list