Mea Culpa - was The New York Times coverup of ADM

[Eugene Coyle]

Today's Wall St. Journal has a table based on the Project on Government Oversight's investigation that shows, yes, GE's numbers are much higher than Boeing's.  GE's total "Fines, penalties, restitutions and settlements" since 1990 = $982.9 million.  Boeing was in third place, behind TRW, with only a 358 million dollar total.

    But I was wrong in my spin about GE being so powerful that it no longer got bothered by fines, etc.  I have missed the government contractor misbehavior, focused more on price fixing and anti-trust convictions, where GE has been a star but of late not getting the attention it deserves.

    -- ADM isn't big in the "defense" biz, so doesn't show up in the table.

    The Journal story has a nice quote from Edward "Pete" Aldridge who recently stepped down as the Pentagon's acquisitions chief.

            "You don't want these companies screwing up, .. But we have to take into account the national-security interest." [read "We don't care if they are criminals."]

Gene Coyle

Ian Murray wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eugene Coyle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 10:30 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The New York Times coverup of ADM


  

ADM and GE  get convicted of crimes more often than Boeing, without
apparent adverse impacts.  It is hard to put one before the other.  Not
a student of this, but I think Boeing is well back in third place -- or
maybe behind even others.

Gene
    

===================

The Project on Government Oversight just released a report showing Boeing
paid $358million in fines/lawsuits in the past decade. Are the numbers for
ADM & GE much higher?

"It's virtually impossible to suspend a major contractor like Boeing,"
[Paul Nisbet]


Ian