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What motivates Dick Cheney? It may have something to do with this:

Oil-field services giant Halliburton Co. said Monday that its quarterly earnings jumped as energy companies ramped up oil and natural gas exploration and production activities.

Net income in the third quarter was $499 million, or 95 cents a share, compared with a loss of $44 million, or 9 cents a share, a year ago when the Houston-based company took a large charge related to its now-settled asbestos liability.

[...]

Analysts had expected the company to post earnings per share of 82 cents, according to Reuters Estimates.

Five hundred million dollars of profit in a single quarter is, as they say, real money. How much is Halliburton squeezing out of US taxpayers? To put it into perspective, Halliburton's profits (not revenues, but profits) since June of this year break out as follows:

$ 166,333,333 per month
$ 38,384,615 per week
$ 4,101,369 per day
$ 170,890 per hour, every hour, 24 hours a day

Was the debacle of the entire Bush Junior administration really just a form of Cheney payback to Halliburton for his "asbestos liability" errors of management while he was CEO? After all, "...he orchestrated Halliburton's purchase of Dresser Industries in 1998. Few people connect this problem with Cheney, but they should, given that he was in charge at the time and got a raise as a result of buying Dresser."

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