NYT's Leslie Wayne reports that the Navy's biggest contractor will get special help recovering from Hurricane Katrina.
PASCAGOULA, Miss. - The destruction is everywhere at the Northrop Grumman shipyards here…
But as the cleanup begins, Northrop will have a much easier time than most other Hurricane Katrina victims, at least financially. Unlike many small businesses and families that may never fully recover from the storm, Northrop - through a combination of insurance and, most important, support from the Pentagon - is likely to end up having to pay little, if anything at all, from its own coffers to repair the damage.
The Navy is asking for $2 billion in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds, saying in a memo that it wants to restore Northrop's three Gulf Coast yards, where most of the Navy's surface ships are built, to their pre-Katrina "capacity and profit opportunities."
Donald C. Winter, recently confirmed by the Senate to become the next Secretary of the Navy, is a senior executive with Northrup Grumman.
How about that?
The frightening thing is that now they are not even trying to hide it. At least in the old days they would to minimize the exposure in various ways. I guess now that Halliburton/KBR have been feeding at the trough with no oversight or competition, and getting away with it, everybody assumes that it is 'happy hour' and the drinks are on the house.
ReplyDeleteRemember the days when your OOD watch used to fall on payday and you just know you would spending all night dragging sailors and marines out of the EM and NCO clubs all night long. These folks are going to drink until either they run out of money or someone hauls them off to the brig.
Drunken sailors. Good analogy, Monk.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the lyrics and the link, Dedmike.
ReplyDeleteDo you happen to know if the Donnie Vliet who appears on the album is related to Captain Beefheart? (Is it Beefheart himself?
Thanks again for the great links. IMO, the Flo and Eddie sessions were the most "fun" rock and roll I've ever heard.
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