Word: bechtel
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...early days of World War II, German U-boats were sending Allied merchant ships to the bottom twice as fast as shipyards could build them. The U.S. Maritime Commission, desperately seeking an outfit to build 60 cargo ships for its allies, sent word to the Bechtel construction company that it would be welcome to bid on half the job. Stephen Bechtel, head of the family firm, had no experience in shipbuilding. But he insisted on getting the order for all 60. "Size can work to your advantage if you think big," he said. "You just recognize it and move...
...Federal Government's corporate-welfare programs started out as welfare. Some began as foreign aid and turned into long-term annuities for corporate beneficiaries. Typical is Bechtel Group Inc. (1997 revenues: $11.3 billion), the global construction and engineering giant owned by the Bechtel family. So far in the 1990s, Bechtel has received more than $2 billion in corporate welfare in the form of government insurance, loans and grants, in addition to foreign-aid contracts, one of which is now nearly 10 years...
...Export-Import Bank of the United States, which subsidizes companies that sell goods abroad. James A. Harmon, president and chairman, puts it this way: "American workers...have higher-quality, better-paying jobs, thanks to Eximbank's financing." But the numbers at the bank's five biggest beneficiaries--AT&T, Bechtel, Boeing, General Electric and McDonnell Douglas (now a part of Boeing)--tell another story. At these companies, which have accounted for about 40% of all loans, grants and long-term guarantees in this decade, overall employment has fallen 38%, as more than a third of a million jobs have disappeared...
Neither Bellenson nor Sasson spends any time in Washington. Sasson has been there twice as a tourist and once on business when he worked for Bechtel. "It reminded me of Rome," he says, meaning the pomp and not the classical beauty of its architecture. He adds that it "has no relevance to high-tech industries." Bellenson has been there a few times for conferences and "sensed it's a closed environment...I was struck by how oblivious they are to the conditions of the poor, though they work with the poorest of the country right nearby." Sasson describes himself firmly...
...hand, California's Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the state's largest investor-owned utility, is selling four of its eight fossil fuel-powered plants to comply with a state order for increased competition. So the company has gone out of state, creating an affiliate that has joined forces with Bechtel Enterprises to build and operate power plants in 17 states from Oregon to Florida. "In no way, shape or form are we moving away from electric generation as part of our business," says PG&E president Robert Glynn Jr. "We've transformed what years ago was a utility company focused...