I always thought Ross was a succesful selfmade man, who knew a lot about business. Apparently, he knew how to get government contratcs: "Hypocrite: Got Rich Off Exorbitant Government Contracts Perot got rich off government money -- Medicare and Medicaid, to be exact, two of the programs contributing the most to the deficit he talks about so much. How much does his company (EDS) make off the government? Consider this; in 1980, EDS won a contract that paid over $390 million per year for administering Medicare -- just in Texas! That's not the cost of the actual health care -- it's purely administrative expense for doing the paperwork. Medicaid is separate, and EDS has similar contracts with states around the country -- using software that they charged the federal government for developing, but kept the rights to. EDS barely turned a profit before it began government work. In 1964, its fourth year, the company made $4,100 on revenue of $400,000. In 1965, when it started government work, that rose to just $26,487 on revenues of $865,000. By 1968, EDS grossed $7.5 million, and made a profit of $2.4 MILLION - nearly 30% profit. Ever since, the company has faced critical audits, congressional investigations, and charges of poor quality work and exorbitant fees. But they built a dominant position in a new industry by investing heavily in political connections, notably with the Nixon Administration, and by personal contacts (Perot himself was a consultant for EDS' first Medicare client, Texas Blue Cross.) They have maintained profits from government work with their near-monopoly power and, in part, with vicious, sleazy attacks on any potential competitors. (See Posner, chapter 4, "Welfare Billionaire")" http://www.amazon.com/H-Ross-Perot-...MJSO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325016242&sr=8-1
. . . interesting . . . . but that's how companies make >>>$$$ these days! . . . a major contribution to the economic chaos! C'est la vie!
The only reasonable to solution is to shrink government and return a lot of it's function over to local control - where the money will be better spent.
