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Tuesday, June 28, 2005 |
Have you noticed that consultancy firms seem to spring up like mushrooms everywhere since a number of years. Some of these are outright scams, attempts to siphon money off from fraudulent companies, or provide sister companies with some money for old rope, but several consultancy firms are specialised in providing governments with the ammunition for their policies, sort of outsourcing the dirty work. In any case they are costing us a lot of money.
Independent: "McKinsey is a highly secretive consultancy firm - and Tony Blair is more likely to listen to its advisers than to his own ministers. Katherine Griffiths investigates the 'Jesuits of capitalism'.
They are the modern buccaneers of the business world. They jet between cities, rack up huge expenses, and charge up to £6,000 a day to think the unthinkable for clients including big corporations and governments.
But now McKinsey stands accused of cronyism, greed and arrogance, as a result of associated scandals that stretch from the offices of Enron in Houston, Texas, to the corridors of 10 Downing Street.
David Craig, a former consultant, wrote a book called Rip-Off! The Scandalous Inside Story of the Management Consulting Money Machine. He said consultants have been known to celebrate deals at parties with this song: 'McKinsey management consultants are we/ We take all our clients' money/ We can earn many a million/ Because our clients have no vision'.
McKinsey shares a long and fruitful relationship with UK governments. William Hague worked there as his first job, and John Major recruited Norman - now Lord - Blackwell from the firm to lead his policy unit. But the degree to which McKinsey alumni have ended up among Blair's most favoured advisers is unprecedented."
We live in the age of the marketing of politics and the politics of marketing.
11:34:37 AM 
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One would think a pre-emptive strike against a country is supposed to prevent further fighting, right?
Reuters: "U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday that American forces would not defeat Iraq's rebels but would make way for Iraqis to put down an insurgency that could go on for a decade or more."
Is Rumsfeld out of his mind? Perpetual war for perpetual peace. So forget about the peace.
Herald-Dispatch: "We may now be only weeks away from a complete collapse of the Iraqi army and the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq in the face of overwhelming public pressure on Tony Blair.
That is a realistic projection based on the reports of two Washington Post reporters, whose dispatches from inside Iraqi Army units and U.S. units assigned to train and work with the Iraqi military have just been published.
What the Post reporters found was massive disenchantment on both sides: American forces bitterly disappointed with the Iraqi government forces, and Iraqi troops harboring similar feelings toward their American counterparts. Only a small percentage of all Iraqi troops are now estimated to be adequately trained to take over the defense of their country. Desertions are widespread.
Recent surveys in Iraq have shown that insurgents are overwhelmingly Iraqis, not foreign fighters."
10:37:01 AM
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