Democracy for Vancouver

This is just outrageous:

Halliburton will move HQ to Dubai

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Oil services giant Halliburton Co. will soon shift its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Mideast financial powerhouse of Dubai, chief executive Dave Lesar announced Sunday.

“Halliburton is opening its corporate headquarters in Dubai while maintaining a corporate office in Houston,” spokeswoman Cathy Mann said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “The chairman, president and CEO will office from and be based in Dubai to run the company from the UAE.”

In 2006, Halliburton — once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney — earned profits of $2.3 billion on revenues of $22.6 billion.

Cheney was Halliburton’s chief executive from 1995-2000 and the Bush administration has been accused of favoring the conglomerate with lucrative no-bid contracts in Iraq.

Federal investigators last month alleged Halliburton was responsible for $2.7 billion of the $10 billion in contractor waste and overcharging in Iraq.

This move can only be interpreted as a way for Halliburton to escape the investigators going after documents related to overcharges. As a further convenience, Dubai doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States.

The root of the problem of course is that corporations are granted the rights of citizenship while maintaining liability protections far beyond anything available to Joe Citizen. And if you as a corporation get found out, just relocate to another country, no worries. There’s no process to prevent a corporation from fleeing a country while under investigation, no passport to revoke. Modern day corporate piracy at its finest.

And yet, the same criminal gang running these companies are the first to question my patriotism.

If you’re looking for Congress to provide some answers, I wouldn’t hold your breath:

The New Democrat Coalition embraces a vision of reform that values individual responsibility balanced with corporate citizenship and government accountability.

We are at a moment in history where the modern nation state can do nothing to rein in egregious corporate misbehavior. Ahoy matey!