[MRM]

That's such an old scheme it hardly even counts any more. In Caro's biography of LBJ, he tells about when Lyndon Johnson asked his investors, I mean supporters, to provide him with some financial security, Brown & Root sold him a plot of undeveloped Austin, Texas land. B&R graded the land and put in roads at their own expense and sold the land to LBJ at a slight profit over what they bought it for a few years earlier but not nearly what the land was really worth. And they sold it to him on terms he could aford - little down and the rest due when he sold the property.

You might have heard of Brown & Root recently. They now go by the name KBR. They're a subsidiary of Haliburton. The subsidiary of Haliburton that does overseas government contracting. Like no-bid contracts in Iraq.