Vanity Fair is running an article about the perverse and dichotomous laissez-faire economics dealing with government contractors. Specifically, they take an accounting of the relationship between SAIC and the federal government as it influences the readers' moral center and income tax statement.

The authors eloquently demonize the monster 'shadow corporation' but provide a wealth of facts and conjecture. It's a worthwhile read if you can filter the unncessary adjectives.

Vanity Fair

To get some idea of the scale: contractors absorb the taxes paid by everyone in America with incomes under $100,000.

Vanity Fair

Three years and a million lines of garbled computer code later, [the FBI's Virtual Case File system] has been written off by a global publication for technology professionals as 'the most highly publicized software failure in history.'

Vanity Fair

An unrepentant Donald Rumsfeld stated that he would shut down the Office of Strategic Influence but in name only: 'There's the name. You can have the name, but I'm going to keep doing every single thing that needs to be done.'

Vanity Fair

Unlike traditional wars, which eventually come to an end, the Global War on Terror as defined by the Bush administration can have no end: it is a permanent war - the perfect war for a company that has become an essential component of the permanent government.

Hmmm.