JCDunkDogs said:
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'm just curious how our government still does business with these unpatriotic companies that have most of their subsidiaries in tax havens.
JC, perhaps I was not clear enough in my ramblings about this statement of yours.
The government has severely curtailed their dealings with companies that do this. Many of the major contracts being awarded the past year or two have had "Buy American" clauses imbedded in them. The clauses state that XX percent (normally 60%) of the buiness must be performed in the United States, or with US Labor, or some form of work/supply coming from the united states. They do not make it higher than that percentage number because many times specific technologies or services can only be rendered by foreign entities.
Excellent examples of this would be the re-bidding of the contract to develop and produce the new versions of HMX-1 (the President's helicopters) It was bid between a team led by Northrop Gruman, and a team led by Lockheed Martin. One team had the team composed of mainly foreign companies to lower costs, while the other was made up of largely american corporations but cost a little more. Each had their own unique prototype that was created for it.
It was heavily protested about one team being made up of foreign companies. VERY VERY visible legistation in that the led to a revamping of who got the award and who was involved.
Another example would be the US VISIT contract awarded to Accenture about 1.5 years ago that would track all people coming in and out of the country. Accenture won the award, but because of their headquarters being offshore, the award was pulled back for further investigation and work was put back out under new requirements.
When you take the time to understand how heavily taxed US Corporations are on the international/exporting of their goods and services, you will understand why companies create subsidiaries offshore to compete on an international level. It is called growth.
And many times, when these major contracts are awarded, it is the subsidiaries based internationaly that have the technology in place to do the work, not the headquarters in the states.
Finally, and this is not directed at you specifically JC... but please take the time to understand that many things are much more complex than they appear to be and some sh*tbag journalist spouting off big words like ID/IQ and multi billion dollar sole source contract... federal contracting is EXTREMELY REGULATED. There are sooooooo many regulations in place to push the work to small, disadvantaged, SDVO, VO, 8a, Hub zoned companies that "big business" gets few wins exclusively their own. Halliburton alone has over 100 small business partners that they use to do all the work. DOn't belive all the hype.
in fact, check out fedbizopps.gov and take a look thru there and count how many RFP's are out there that are ONLY for large business.
