I read a story today that filled me with joy inside, but towards the end of it, I kinda felt a little disappointed: KBR pleaded guilty to bribing Naija officials $180 million! HALLELUJAAAAHHH!!!!! They were caught bribing officials so they could win a $6 billion contract for the construction of a natural gas liquefaction plant in Bonny Island, Nigeria… Najia officials n your families, my condolences go out to you… yea right… I hope at least some of that money made its way to people that really need it.

Anyway, KBR will pay a $402 million penalty and go under the watch of a court-appointed monitor for 3 years… but get this, Halliburton will pay $382 million of the total amount and let KBR pay the rest. In addition, Halliburton will also pay $177 million to settle civil complaints against both companies by the Securities and Exchange Commission, for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, without admitting or denying wrongdoing… I don’t get it, did you do it or not do it? who came up with that freakin legal clause? Halliburton is doing all this because Halliburton is responsible for covering, and I quote “certain contingent liabilities” related to any fines that come out of the case, according to filings by both companies… and this is after KBR was spun-off from Halliburton in April 2007… I get it… KBR is the street soldier that does the dirty work, while Halliburton shows up when necessary… gotta keep the money flowin in, any means necessary right?

Kellogg Brown & Root! WHY/HOW are you STILL in business?! you definitely must be doing something right… I mean c’mon, you’ve tried to over-charge the US gov’t (a math error? y’all make all them millions and y’all can’t freakin add shyt up? get a mathematician!), you gave un-tested water to US troops, you’ve had several rape charges, you’ve had a US soldier electricuted to death, and you’re still somehow in business…. impressive.

And only $20 million in penalty charges? At a recent conference call, KBR’s CEO William Utt said that “the payments will reduce earnings by 12 cents per share for the fourth quarter of 2008, but otherwise won’t significantly affect the company’s financial performance” …12 cents… KBR is expected to make an estimated $1.68 per share for FY2008, so that penalty is less than 10% of their annual earnings! Man, even when the economy is good a company’s annual earnings can go down 10%, in other words, that penalty amounts to nothing. Also, the 3-year monitor may cost the company $3 million to $5 million per year… Utt alone made almost $3 million in FY2007. Utt also said that the settlement should not hurt KBR’s ability to contract with state or federal governments… but of course Utt… please forgive me for expecting anything less than that.

The guy taking the actual charge, Albert “Jack” Stanley, is scheduled for sentencing on May 6th… I’m really curious to see what happens to him.

.. or $5.72, I don’t have the receipt on me to double-check, but it really doesn’t matter… the question is, what did you spend on your lunch today? did you work for that lunch? how hard exactly did you work for it? would you be willing to search for pieces of copper or cobalt by scraping through mountains of mining waste, and then washing your findings in cholera-infested waters, all for your lunch? would you be willing to kill for it? all this to earn some food… all this to earn $3.00 (on a good day)… even less than the $5.71 or $5.72.. whatever.

You think ppl in the last commodities bubble got it bad, when they lost their investments, think again. Some Congolese and Zambian men, women, and children, are working til they drop, sacrificing safe working conditions, so that they could take the few ounces of metal and sell them to their local Chinaman (We all know how hungry China is… see my posts below). What’s worse is the fact that these poor victims were somehow convinced by their overseers to block roads to their mining camps and stop any journalists that would report on their dire conditions, at all costs, even death. Because whoever convinced them, told them that if the world finds out about their plight for survival under such dire conditions, then the mining operations will be closed, and they would not get their $3.00 (and that’s on a good day).

It hurt me deep inside when I thought about my Subway lunch today… shameless exploitation for $3.00/day so that the Congolese and Zambian government officials (among others) can keep their political and economic commitments in this abusive relationship with China… cuz if they don’t there will be no cash for their countries (or their fat pockets).

Across the pond, we can print billions of dollars to bailout the greedy that bit a little more than they could chew, but we cannot improve on our aid commitments (the US ranks in the bottom 3 out of 21 countries). We easily turn our backs at such exploitations, because Africa has nothing to offer for us. Where is the human conscience and its dignity? I think it also needs a bailout.