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Unisys Gets DHS Contract Worth Up to $750 million
feamsr00 writes "In an affirmation of its business relationship with Unisys Corp., the Department of Homeland Security awarded the Blue Bell firm a "bridge" contract worth up to $750 million.
Some controversy erupted in the fall after it was reported that the government was auditing a Unisys contract because the company had possibly overbilled the Transportation Security Administration by as much as 171,000 hours of labor and overtime. TSA is a division of the Homeland Security department.
Unisys is also to upgrade the Department of Homeland Security's headquarters facility in Washington."
It's the only thing preventing our complete loss of freedoms.
Man I wish I was in security right now.
I just find it amazing how security experts are getting paid such big bucks yet according to recent audits show they arent really making things all that much safer.
It makes me feel much better, considering they cut the CyberSecurity budget to $16 million.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.
:(
Reading a story about 'us' overbilling, generally being corrupt is a bit of a non event. Breaks my fucking heart to see some of the shit that goes on with middle and upper management, coming into the office every day means giving up a bit (read: a lot) of self respect, unfortunately I've got bills to pay
WMF patch rollout Tuesday.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
It's nice to know Unisys's heart-warming corporate culture hasn't changed over the past few years. Ah yes, I remember well the days of the great GIF Patent Shakedown indeed! Bastards.
Does this "bridge" contract involve the sale of a bridge somewhere in New York City to someone?
EvilCON - Made Famous by
What is that, like 100000 per cent?
p ?txtName=unisys
http://www.opensecrets.org/softmoney/softcomp1.as
bun-fhuinneog agam!
When 3 people give up rights to 1 person, it is pretty easy control. When we have just 800 nationally elected officials handling the rights of 300 million, what do you expect? That is 375,000:1 ratio or so (counting underage too).
Here's the root of the problem: abuse of Constitutional authorized power combined with what is NOT voter apathy but citizen time value. A billion dollars is only $1 per day per citizen: you and I are not going to fight tooth and nail to get rid of a billion dollar contract. Yet a small group of 5 CxO's from Unisys will. Money is not the problem, the corrupt political structure of the federal government is.
Voting is not going to change the structure: those 5 CxO's will happily work with whoever is in power. We've already given UP those powers, there is no taken them back.
If you want to see changes, do it with your life as I did. Take your money out of the stock market and 401Ks and put it into your own business or local businesses you have control of (and actually profit from!). Take your money out of the bank and pay off all your debt -- whatever is left over is perfectly safe in gold or silver. Talk to your employer and see if you can become a contractor and find ways to write-off as much as possible under the tax code. Don't take loans, don't have a credit card, don't be concerned with social security and medicare. You can do it on your own, and you can stop supporting the monsters in office.
Unisys is not the bad guy here: they are taking advantage of the system the voters put in place.
When I worked for Unisys about 4 years ago, they had 32 way xeon machines. They were the company that provided the biggest windows server, OEM to HP too. Not that I'm saying it's necessarily a great product, but do give them some credits.
geek page at KY speaks
Unisys is one of the most unethical companies I have done business with. What can you expect though, our major contract is with Dell. So Dell is awarded a contract and then Unisys fullfills the service end of that agreement. So not only do I work for an awful company I get to deal with crappy Dell hardware, and a Dell Helpless desk (as the customers on my site have come to call them).
It is no surprise that Unisys overbilled the TSA. We are constantly told to put time on both our tickets and another accounting method. In effect this often double bills our customer or increases the time that we put on calls. In an eight hour day I have often done 15-20 hours worth of work. I often work reimaging one or two systems an complete other calls, but on a busy day a may really only perform 10-12 hours worth of work in 8 hours.
I am currently looking for a new job. I try to be as honest as I can and still follow this screwed up system. Although when a company chooses the lowest bidder they do get what they pay for. And the Dells and Unisyses of the industry are going to make the profit margin by cheating their customers. It's a good thing I like the company that I support.
If anyone has a desktop position open in Phoenix, AZ check out my resume
--
So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?
They come in two flavors, the OS2200 line (which is the descendant of the Sperry UNIVAC 1100-series), and the MCP line (which is the descendant of the Burroughs B-series and A-series). Nice boxes for those who need that kind of high-end legacy technology (airlines, banks, insurance companies, etc.).
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
If you want to see changes, do it with your life as I did. Take your money out of the stock market and 401KsIf you are stupid enough to follow his advice you deserve what you get. While I agree that social security and medicare will not be there for me (I am 23) despite the fact I pay into these programs, not having investments for your future beyond retirement is idiotic. Gold is not the answer. If you don't trust stocks, invest your 401k's in bonds (and lose out on returns... but have the warm fuzzies knowing you didn't take a risk). I have my finances worked out such that I will be able to retire early and live off the interest, minus inflation - leaving an estate to donate as I see fit and money to pass on to my children when I feel they are ready upon my death.
(and actually profit from!).I profited well off of my 401k's and stocks. The lifetime trend of the stock market is about 9% a year. (8 years to double your money on an across-the-board distribution, better if you invest wisely.) You can't do much better than that. Small companies are hit and miss. Hit and do a lot better, miss and lose it all. (Not to mention harder to get your money out if an emergency comes up)
Talk to your employer and see if you can become a contractor and find ways to write-off as much as possible under the tax code.
Learn the tax code - there are a lot of things you can do to write off taxes without being a contractor if that isn't an option.
-everphilski-
And a hearty skull and bones set of secret handshakes all around. How about companies like DynCorps (Mercenaries R Us) who have been caught involved in human slavery, kidnapping and selling women? They still get lucrative government contracts. How about Haliburton doing business with Iran, while the US is officially boycotting them? Same old same old with revolving door government/corporation/government "officers" and "workers" and the "good ole boy" network. The only rules or laws that apply to them are "make money however you can" and "try not to get caught, and if you do, don't worry, if you are big enough, nothing happens anyway".
The only good thing about it is all corrupt empires eventually fall. History proves this, over and over. The bad thing is it sucks if you are there when it happens.
If they were to "ban" high level corporations who have been caught ripping off the tax payer and engaging in unethical and illegal behavior, they would have to ban virtually every big corporation that does business with the government, including all the big "Homeland Security" defense contractors. All of them, no exceptions that I am aware of. Take your pick, from lockheed to EDS, and etc, right down the list, all have been busted at one time or another. They get a fine that is basically nothing, that they recoup right back with the next big skim contract.
Gold is a lousy investment. Don't let the receant upswing fool you, unless this defies history, it's only temporary. Gold has been right around $400 an ounce for over two decades. Well, $400 bought you a whole lot more in 1980 than it does now. It flucuates up and down, of course, it's been as low as $264 and as high as $900, but only temporarily. Actually, if you discount the peak in 1980 it's never gone for above $650 which was in 1981.
So while it's something you can make money on trading in the short term, like any commodity, holding it in the long terms seems to be a bust. Had you bought in 1985, your gold would be worth maybe $100 more per ounce in absolute terms, but in relitive dollars it'd be worth less due to inflation.
It's a fairly stable medium, in that it's unlikely to ever truly crash and devalue totally, but you can find things nearly as certian that will at least keep up with inflation.
Okay, yes, Unisys is a big company, but unless there is one person posting over and over, they've got the worst goddamn employee morale that I have *ever* seen.
I see something like twenty posts from Unisys and ex-Unisys employees here that are overwhelmingly negative about the company. I see only *one* that's remotely positive, and that's from a guy who says that he's so detached from Unisys that he barely knows who he's working for -- and *that's* what he considers good.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.