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Halliburton Moving HQ To Dubai
theodp writes "Much-maligned defense contractor Halliburton is moving its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai's friendly tax laws will add to Halliburton's bottom line. Last year the company earned $2.3B in profits. Sen. Patrick Leahy called the company's move 'corporate greed at its worst.' Halliburton, once headed by VP Dick Cheney, has been awarded contracts valued at an estimated $25.7B for its work in Iraq."
Does anybody know whether Vice President Cheney has purchased a home in Dubai yet? Between this and the Dubai Ports World deal, the GWB administration seems to be trying to set up a cushy job there for someone.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I wish the reporting would be more accurate. They stated VERY clearly that they are remaining incorporated in the US and will still be paying US taxes and be subject to US law.
Ninety percent of their business is in the Middle East and Asia. The move just makes business sense. The only ill effect will be a few hundred jobs in Houston lost; not a good thing for those people but all part of business.
Maybe we should consider rethinking their contracts as we did the Dubai port management deals. Companies that are based outside the US are clearly not as favorable in terms of our security - at least in the eyes of congress.
In the interest of national security, no company based outside the US should be given any US defense contracts. Period. I bet the Democrats could get that passed as a law.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
When we read histories of wars we often read about the actions and affiliations of governments and armies. Very rarely do we read histories of wars which contain detailed breakdowns of the actions and affiliations of business and banks during the same period.
Create debt, maintain debt, keep people in debt, work those people until they die of debt.
99% of everything else, from suicide bombers to international embargoes, is just PR (running interference, Kansas City Shuffle, sh*tter tennies) to keep the citizens from realizing how deep into debt their political representatives are selling them.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Maybe I just hang out too much with the anti-war crowd but the only explanation that really makes sense to me for why Bush decided to invade Iraq is that Bush had friends in the oil industry that wanted access to Iraq's oil.
Every other explanation for why Bush decided to invaded is inconsistent with other considerations.
Obviously, the Bush administration has given a lot of justifications for invading Iraq. None of the justifications make sense when I actually think about them in detail. Some people claim that Bush is just really stupid but I have a hard time believing that that's the case. After all, Bush was smart enough to get himself elected to USA president twice.
In the end, I have to conclude that Bush's decision to invade Iraq was really about Bush helping out his friends in the oil industry. What puzzles me is that so many people just accept Bush's other justifications - even congress. Do members of congress know Bush is lying but they don't think it's politically expedient to call Bush on it. What about the news media? Do they know Bush is lying but they figure it makes a better story to pretend he's not? What about the general public? Don't they recognize the inconsistencies?
And don't even get me started on the general public's support for massive deficit spending...
Try plane flights from Houston to Hong Kong, Dubai, Beijing, etc. The CEO wants to be closer to the action so he's moving the HQ. I'm sure the decision was a bit more complex than that, but that's the gist of it.
This is such a non-story.
It does make sense to minimize the time zone difference involved.
For instance, if there has to be an urgent phone call between a CEO of an oil services company, and the head of a sovereign nation that retains both de facto and de jure control over resources that are increasingly difficult to find across the world, and somebody is going to be inconvenienced by the time -- I don't think it's going to be the emir who's getting woken up at 3AM to talk business unless it's really, really an emergency.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The US tax base paid for the bombs that blew the hell out of the middle east, now they're paying billions of dollars to a big company to fix the middle east, and people are complaining that the taxes on the profits being made by the big company are going to the middle east instead of remaining in the US.
Words fail me.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Why is it greed for a company to move its headquarters to a place that will take less money from them in taxes? If the company can still do everything it needs to do for its shareholders in the new location, it would irresponsible for it NOT to make the move. The company's purpose is to maximize value for its shareholders, not passively sit around and hope to send more money to the U.S. government.
I know that a lot of people have accused Halliburton of wrongdoing on other issues, but this issue is completely unrelated to those charges. The previous charges seem to be a bit vague at times, and I don't have any opinion about them one way or the other, because I don't know the facts. But on the issue of saving money on taxes by moving an office, the company is completely justified in making the move. I would recommend any company do the same thing under similar circumstances.
David
Simple, by putting your money where your mouth is. Support your local businesses. Support businesses which treat their employees well. Try to buy American made whenever you can. I dunno if I'll get in trouble for a plug but I have heard a lot of good things and read many articles about Costco being responsible corporation by offering its employees fair wages, benefits, etc. I try to shop there whenever I can and avoid Wal Mart whenever possible.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
I dunno, did Nabisco's management use its high-ranking government cronies to rake in billions of dollars in criminally-constructed no-bid contracts?
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Mod parent up. Unless consumers speak with their dollars, corporations have no incentive to change. It's America's growing apathy towards wrongdoing that allows this behavior to continue.
I rather doubt we can, in our lifetimes anyway. Countries that are just now entering the level of prosperity that we enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century are quite willing to give tax breaks, look the other way on pollution controls, and in general "care about" companies that open up in otherwise impoverished parts of their countries. Here on the other hand, we have developed a cultural bias against all large companies, while at the same time not doing much to favor small companies either.
If you are a Boeing, you may make the best airplanes, but you have a heavily government subsidized Airbus to go up against. In this particular case of course, Airbus, having nothing to lose but European tax payers money went way out on a limb with some bad technology and now Boeing is seeing the benefit. But several years ago Boeing outlook wasn't so certain, and several years from now (if Airbus gets their act together) that might be the case again. Very rarely though does our government step in to prop up a company that might be in trouble (Chrysler being a counter example), instead letting the chips fall where they may (as with Enron, Worldcom, etc.)
On the other hand, if a company is healthy, there is a public outcry to keep them out of town (Walmart), tax them more, or confiscate their revenues for some worthy cause (as Hillary wants to to do to the other US oil companies). It seems to be often forgotten that these "big greedy companies" are where many of our retirement programs are invested. Yes, Enron was evil (at the top), yes they did bad things, and yes a lot of individuals were hurt when their stock value went to zero. But was the average Enron employee a part of this? Would forcing them all to archive their e-mail for a billion years have prevented it? Doubtful.
Do small companies get treated better? Maybe some do, but the ones I know are being run on a shoestring and nobody working there is getting rich. A dozen man construction company for example is subject to endless regulations, and because they handle millions of dollars in materials, even though the employees may be making a low hourly wage, they are not treated like a "small business". Doctors and Dentists in America used to be thought of as small businesses too, and that's the way they operated. But our legal system has changed all that. Now even the smallest country doctor needs a staff to keep track of paperwork, billing though various government agencies, and of course responding to litigation issues.
Our media has focused on the fact that many large companies are being run by executives that are millionaires, and who continue to make millions every year, often after poor performance. But this isn't true of the vast majority of businesses and we've lost sight of the fact that the REAL value of the company (almost any company) is is the hundreds (or thousands) of employees making a living wage, as well as stockholders (pensioners) just like you and me. Socialist countries (I include most of Europe) have awakened to the need to keep these companies happy, just as we (Americans) have started to find every reason imaginable to make such companies feel unwelcome.
I don't think for a minute that most big companies "care" about their employees, other than on a competitive level, where they have to offer just enough incentives to keep them from jumping ship. But the average American voter certainly doesn't care for corporate America either, and as you can see here from the other comments, we'll also blame them for not sticking around to take another beating. Do you think the average government worker in Washington "cares" about the average American citizen either? Yet we give them more and more authority over us to protect us from those institutions that are free to go somewhere else if the going gets too tough here.
To bring things back we have to once again realize that with the exception of a few e
I'll tell what I see:
I see Clinton being grilled before a grand jury because a case was brought AGAINST HIM on sexual harrasment (ok, it was White Water which subsequently led to sexual harrasment), and then he clearly committed perjury in an attempt to avoid being found guilty, and basically got a slap on the wrist, despite the fact that republicans are in charge of the legislative branch.
I see Sandy Berger commmitting what is ostensibly treason and getting a slap on the wrist because he's "just sloppy," despite the fact that the republicans are in charge of both the executive and legislative branches.
I see Scooter Libby being questioned in a case where he hasn't been accused of a crime, has no reason to cover anything up since he hasn't been charged with anything and knows he isn't guilty, and giving a couple of wrong dates or times because he couldn't remember, all questions asked during a case that never had any merit (and this was known by the prosecuter on day one), and this is the guy that gets jail time, despite the fact that the investigation happened with a republican legislative and executive brance, and the verdict being reached with a republican in the white house.
Was he guilty? Yes! He should have just said "I don't remember" and given the best answer he could within what he could remember.
BUT, are you seriously going to tell me this guy deserves jail time when the others didn't?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
That isn't very democratic is it? People with more money than me wield more influence, hence an oligarchy. Capitalism isn't a democratic process, but we have to rely on government laws to protect consumers. This is where libertarians get it all wrong. An absolutely unfettered market is rife with abuse. Government should have limited enumerated powers to pass laws that effect the citizenry but open ended ability to regulate corporations in order to protect the citizens first. This is the exact opposite of how things work now. The government grants more and more rights to the 'personage' of a corporation (tax breaks, access to citizen's data, consumer abuse) while at the same time removing our rights as citizens (privacy, habeas corpus...)
Isn't it fascinating that the vast majority of rightwing bullshit talking points are coming from "Anonymous Cowards"? Maybe we should re-assign that to be "fascist thugs" after Mussolini's little unofficial minions, eh? Halliburton is positioning itself for the incoming civil and criminal actions... they are spinning off all defense "support" contracts into a separate company (collecting all potential loss items into one bag) after already taking the profits. Two headquarters is, as a previous poster stated, inherently absurd unless you're expecting HQ#1 to be zerg'd. The US will be damned lucky if it gets a fraction of the completely missing billions of dollars back after all this is done. What we have here are a few corporations (or actually a very small group of people of whom the Bushes and Cheneys are part) who have manipulated themselves into power, looted the US budget/treasury, damaged the governments ability to conduct oversight, and are now scampering out the door. Worse, they have fooled enough of the social and fiscal conservatives into following them for long enough to pull this scam. At this point, anyone supporting these hooligans are either embarrassed and defensive, have a financial stake in it, ... or roadway gravel stupid.
(signed, former republican -- these people make Nixon look saintly)