In The Truth Laid Bear New Web Log Showcase, the blog "Hell for Halliburton" is winning by a wide margin. [Update: This is apparently no longer the case. A number of links were apparently duplicates, so Wally's site has now moved decisively into the lead.] This is clearly something of a put up job, and I'd link to the article except it would be considered a vote for it. Either the strategy is to undermine the intent of the contest by drawing in the antiwar blogging crowd from all over the internet to co-opt it; or it's a matter of flooding the zone with dubious and false charges to win some quick notoriety, or both. (The Michael Moore approach to political discourse.) You can reach the site by finding it on the Showcase Page, if you've a mind to see this sort of drivel, but most of the writing and concepts are pretty sophomoric, and the charges seem dubious at best. Take the following entry:
"Halliburton said in response to the Congressional letter last week that it charges $1.59 to a gallon for its gasoline imports, which includes the 2 percent profit margin. In a fax, the Iraqi marketing organization's general manager, Mohammed al-Jibouri, said that gasoline from Turkey costs $347 a metric ton delivered to Baghdad, which he said translates to about 98 cents a gallon."
From the information and links provided the contention is that Halliburton is "gouging" $0.61 per gallon because you can buy at a bulk rate in Turkey that's lower by that entire amount. That's right, not one red cent in overhead to deliver gasoline to an area of the world with severe infrastructure problems that has just been through a war, and has an ongoing low level guerilla insurgency. Pretty clever, huh? Nor is there apparently the slightest recognition that there's a relationship between supply and demand that determines price, or that if Halliburton could sell more at a lower price they'd make more profit, as long is it was above their cost. So how is selling at a market clearing price "gouging?" It would certainly be helpful if we knew how much Iraqis were paying at the pump, as opposed to what the Turks are paying for bulk.
[Note: The entire preceeding paragraph was based on the paucity of relevant information provided on the HFH site. There is a somewhat more informative and useful article about this in the New York Times. According to that article:]
Iraqis pay the equivalent of 4 cents to 15 cents a gallon for gasoline, which means that American taxpayers are footing the bill for bringing oil into Iraq.
4 to 15 cents per gallon? That's almost as cheap as a bicycle ride. This seems pretty relevant information, so I don't understand why the Hell for Halliburton site neglected to jab Halliburton with that pitchfork. However this ridiculously low price is not the market clearing price, and has led to shortages and lines that "clotted the streets of Iraq's biggest cities, especially Baghdad, and stoked widespread resentment among Iraqis already grappling with the breakdown of basic services." So the importation of gasoline was, apparently, necessary due to shortages caused by a non-market pricing system.
The Times article goes on to say:
One answer for the disparity may be the cost of renting the trucks, or of paying drivers who are worried about entering a turbulent Iraq, said George Beranek, manager of market analysis at PFC Energy, a Washington consulting firm. Still, Mr. Beranek and other industry analysts said that the difference between the wholesale price and the price the letter says Halliburton charged was puzzling.
So this is a developing story with a rather clear partisan slant. The Hell for Halliburton site didn't say any of this, and didn't link to the Times article for some reason. My initial impression was that 98 cents was the bulk price in Turkey, but apparently the bulk price is 71 cents and according to Henry Waxman (who may not be an impartial source of information) it costs 25 cents to truck the fuel in. That brings the total cost close to the 98 cents per gallon estimate that HFH uses. And had the Hell for Halliburton site been halfway interested in providing even its own partisans with accurate information and analysis they ought to have made this point clearly. But the play here seems to be that if you can flood the zone with enough crap to make a goose slip and fall it'll just be more trouble than it's worth to debunk everything. I can just see a roomful of pre-adults sitting around in a dorm somewhere yukking over how they've co-opted the system.
But fortunately good arguments and valid data do matter (though perhaps only in the long run). Information and judgment are more than commodities.
Which reminds me, I'm casting votes for the blogs below, for starters:
Irreconcilable Musings for Defending the Blogosphere Front in the War on Terrorism. Some excellent articles on a variety of topics, with an appropriate slant. Besides he's second in the above contest, so the closest to overtaking HFH. (I'm third, but way back.)
and I'm also casting a vote for the Captain's Quartes post Fareed Zakaria Loses It. Ed frequently makes some excellent and nuanced observations, and his assessment of Fareed's proposed censure of General Boykin is excellent.
Anyway, check out the New Web Log Showcase if this troll gang tactic bothers you, and vote for someone else. Wally's link is here and Ed's is here, while mine is here, and pasting those links into your blog counts as a vote for them. Or vote for someone else. [Addendum: Apparently you have to link to the specific article, rather than just the overall site, for the vote to count. It pays to read the instructions, I guess.]
My "contest" link, to keep the troll alliance from becoming the featured blog at The Truth Laid Bear New Blog Showcase is:
And even if you don't vote, read the article and post a comment.
Posted by Demosophist at October 25, 2003 12:53 AM | TrackBackWow, talk about SPIN, and blantant partisanship, whoa. How about we skip the arithmetic, and the tedious, ivy-tower textbook babble and cut to the chase. Halliburton is enjoying a contract handed to it on a silver platter, in secret, the details of which were made classified by a key member of the administraion who awarded it, and who is still receiving funds from it (save the bull about it not being "compensation" for one of your your wet-behind the-ears-students). That is the fundamental. That is the basic premise that makes all your whining about "supply & demand" nuttin' more than mental masterbation.
You wrote this:
"It would certainly be helpful if we knew how much Iraqis were paying at the pump, as opposed to what the Turks are paying for bulk."
"It would certainly be helpful" to know what the costs and pricing might be if Halliburton were forced to compete for the contract, and be regularily audited. Until that happens, everything else is pure conjecture. Remeber, the funds being used to pick-up the tab are a GIFT from Joe & Jane Sixpack's TAXES, and nothing Halliburton has EARNED.--D.A.
Posted by: D.A. at October 25, 2003 05:09 PMD.A.:
"It would certainly be helpful" to know what the costs and pricing might be if Halliburton were forced to compete for the contract, and be regularily audited. Until that happens, everything else is pure conjecture. Remeber, the funds being used to pick-up the tab are a GIFT from Joe & Jane Sixpack's TAXES, and nothing Halliburton has EARNED.--D.A.
It's my understanding that they won a long term contract back in the 90s and it was extended, probably due to the transaction costs of holding another bid competition. (Joe & Jack pay for that too, you know.) But all of that aside, what makes you say it's a "gift," as though they've done nothing for which they ought to have been paid? I mean, seriously--a "gift?" I assume you have a job, right? Are you getting a "gift" if your job isn't put out for bid annually? I assume you wouldn't refuse the paycheck.
Posted by: Scott (to D.A.) at October 25, 2003 07:34 PM