Commercial Intelligence – Page 189 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/02/082011/02/08

Why Boeing is Imploding–Spinney, Sprey, & Reality vs Political Engineering & Government Spec Cost Plus

10 Security, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Sounds Off...

Below are three separate contributions: Spinney on Sprey; Sprey on Boeing; and Seattle Times on Boeing.

CHUCK SPINNEY SOUNDS OFF

President Obama says that restoring America’s competitiveness is one of his top priorities. Yet under his watch, deindustrialization, financialization, and globalization continue without interruption. Many advocates of defense spending argue that spinoffs from the Pentagon's R&D and high tech engineering practices are keys to reinvigorating America’s manufacturing economy. For whatever reasons, Mr. Obama shows no intention of reining in defense spending by anything more than a cosmetic amount, even though the defense budget is higher now that at any time since the end of WWII (after removing the cumulative effect of 60 years of inflation), and despite the fact that the United States is spending about as much on defense as the rest of the world combined.

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2011/02/06

Half a Trillion a Year for Contractors–Poor Oversight

05 Energy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption

Economic Recovery on Edge

Lack of Contract Oversight Puts Billions At Risk

Laurel Adams February 6th 2011
Center for Public Integrity

EXTRACT: The GAO singled out the Pentagon, the Department of Energy, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as agencies with risky contractor oversight. The GAO also said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services failed to review contractor rates and identified $90 million in questionable costs.

Phi Beta Iota: Government–and society–are comprehensive design problems–advanced intelligence (decision-support). The US Government is archaic in its design, and lacks integrity (holistic accurate feed-back loops) at all levels across all mission areas. It is a useful challenge for 2012 and beyond.

2011/02/062011/02/06

Hackers target NASDAQ Site

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, Advanced Cyber/IO, Commercial Intelligence, Computer/online security, Corporations, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Tools

By GRAHAM BOWLEY The New York Times

Published: Sunday, February 6, 2011 at 1:00 a.m.

Computer hackers have repeatedly breached the systems of the company that runs the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York but did not penetrate the part of the system that handles trades, according to several law enforcement officials.

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2011/02/03

Underground world hints at China’s coming crisis

03 Economy, 05 Energy, 06 Family, 11 Society, 12 Water, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Government, Key Players, Peace Intelligence

Underground world hints at China's coming crisis

To understand how far ordinary Chinese have been priced out of their country's property market, you need to look not upwards at the Beijing's shimmering high-rise skyline, but down, far below the bustling streets where nearly 20m people live and work.

There, in the city's vast network of unused air defence bunkers, as many as a million people live in small, windowless rooms that rent for £30 to £50 a month, which is as much as many of the city's army of migrant labourers can afford.

. . . . . .

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2011/01/302011/01/30

Two U.S. Companies Helping Egypt Restrict Its People

Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Law Enforcement, True Cost

Although snuffing out dissent and cutting citizens off from the world aren't actions generally associated with the American ideal, two U.S. companies are helping the Egyptian government do just that as populist protests continue shaking the African nation.

The tear gas and smoke grenade manufacturer Combined Systems, Inc. is based out of Jamestown, Pennsylvania. But its wares have been showing up all over the Middle East as of late. On January 20, a photographer with the Eurpean PressPhoto agency was killed when a CSI tear gas canister struck him in the head at a protest in Tunisia. And throughout yesterday and today, CSI smoke bombs and tear gas have clogged the air and lungs in Cairo.

A less visible but possibly more important American-Egyptian partnership is that between the tech company Narus and the Mubarak autocracy. A subsidiary of Boeing, Narus sells hyper-complex, slightly creepy mass surveillance equipment. Its most famous creation is Narus Insight, “a supercomputer system which is allegedly used by the National Security Agency and other entities to perform mass surveillance and monitoring of public and corporate Internet communications in real time.”

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2011/01/202012/01/30