Beyond the issue of cost-effectiveness and corruption, I would be worried that a company with two employees cannot handle the job of restoring power to all of Puerto Rico.
Do either of them even speak Spanish?
I know very little about Whitefish Energy Holdings. The fact the Trump administration has at least in some small way facilitated their contract for work in Puerto Rico has sullied their name in the eyes of many. Associating with Trump is bad for a person, a company, any entity at all really. He’s gangrene.
There are companies that outsource nearly their entire workforce. Warehouses full of Manpower employees working for ABC Distribution. Yet ABC distribution has 5 employees. I’ve worked for firms that the entire accounting department are on contract. We cut a big check every week, someone else handles everything else. It’s not unusual. Does Whitefish Energy Holdings do this to one degree or another? I don’t know, but if they do it’s not anything suspicious.
I understand it’s not suspicious per se, but does the company have a record of overseeing big budget operations? I think the answer is no.
Too late, Madame Mayor; the fix is in.
@steviedee111
There are companies that outsource nearly their entire workforce.
This can be true. But in this case a company whose previous largest contract was for a $1.3 million dollar project in or near their home base in Montana is now being expected to do $300 million dollars of work in on an island that is over 3000 miles away. That has special logistical problems for shipping goods. Where many local workers do not speak English. And which has a particularly old and out of date electrical infrastructure.
Unless one or both of Whitefish’s two full time employees is an unknown logistical genius, they are going to be in way over their heads. And the residents of Puerto Rico will pay the price.
I hardly think the restoration of civilization’s standard amenities to Puerto Rico is a priority for the Trump administration. They’re brown foreigners, takers not makers, a bleed on the Treasury, island trash that should have been born to well off parents if they were serious about making it in the real world. Will Trump pay a penalty for Puerto Rico’s suffering? Hardly, that suffering gladdens the hearts of his base, the only people that matter.
No, but they stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night…or the night of Sept 25-26.
This is the kind of crony capitalism that infects much of the world. It leads to a few rich men and a lot of failed projects. In the end we all are screwed.
Their biggest project to date is less than $2 million.
When asked about the company’s qualifications, the CEO brings up a job that was leads than $600k. I believe the Washington Post said it was an 11-month project.
Mostly, the company is making fistfuls of money collecting a 40% overhead on the work of subcontractors.
do a first time criminal investigation of this contract forcing the American people to pay off Trump supporters. drop the fifteenth investigation into Emails on Hillary Clinton. lol. get real you fools. fighting cultural wars while they rob our country
"Mr. Trump may have the most powerful job in the world, but that does not make him a respectful person.”
And certainly not a respect-able person.
Trump: On second thought, the contract should be given to Trump Towers in coalition with Putin LLC.
I am not disputing that Puerto Rico’s electrical infrastructure is old or my have had many problems, and that given the public debt, it deferred investment in maintenance and renewal. But the Media, and we here at TPM are repeating the conclusion that the grid was old etc without any context. The grid here in the entire Northeast collapsed on a very hot and humid Thursday afternoon in August 2003, apparently because of its components’ age, failure to invest in modernization,maintenance and renewal. And maybe a hack. I am not aware that any wholesale upgrading has been undertaken. I believe in large part the GOP dominated congress refused to address infrastructure and modernize the grids because a black president might have gotten credit for the upgrade and increased employment.
I posted here an article from El Imparcial that quoted a 2007 US Dept of Energy study. Puerto Rico was ranked first in the world for megawatts per square kilometer. Puerto Rico was ranked third in the world behind USA and Singapore in megawatts per person. So, with all its imperfections, the PR grid was providing lots of power.
The other point is that there have been no Category 4 storms to score a direct hit on PR and go end to end over the island since 1932. And before that a Category 5 in 1928. Before we join Donald Trump and deflect all blame to Puerto Rico’s neglected, old, terrible, awful, well known to suck infrastructure, let us take into account what a Category 1 Storm did to the infrastructures of NJ and NYC in 2012.
The Puerto Rico Electrical Authority had said after the storm that its entire budget for electrical grid recovery was $500M. The article today in El Nuevo Dia on the contracts to Whitefish and Cobra Acquisitions lists this as having happened on October 11th, the same day the $300M Whitefish contract was first known.
The contracts we are now finding out were secretly awarded to Whitefish and Cobra Acquisitions total $500M. The Cobra Acquisitions $200M contract has a duration of three fucking months.
I already posted this link but here it is again.
Well, I’m shocked.
It’s almost like gambling was going on under pour noses.
(And I’ll take my winnings quietly, slyly handed to me on the side.)
I want to say to the lady, honey, we’re with you, we don’t want anything to do with trumpp either, but there were emails and murders in Libya now there are dossiers, so crack out the rum and make a daiquiri.
“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” What a classic, and so apt in this case.
Unfortunately, the San Juan Mayor didn’t get the memo. There are no checks and balances on this administration. Any investigation must go through either Mitch McTurtle or his counterpart in the House Ayn RAyn, and that ain’t happening. Now, if she’d have asked for an investigation into the Clintons, that’s a different matter altogether. They got plenty of time for that. Oodles.