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Carnival Cruise Lines Cashes in with FEMA

By Last Night in Little Rock, Section Huricanes Katrina and Rita
Posted on Wed Sep 28, 2005 at 04:07:25 AM EST
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by Last Night in Little Rock

In FEMA's haste to play catch-up and provide housing in New Orleans, it contracted with Carnival Cruise Lines for three ships for six months, and did the deal overnight, as reported in today's Washington Post.

The problem with the deal with Carnival was a $236M no-bid contract that effectively paid Carnival twice the per person cost of a cruise, with full crew and entertainment, and the ships never leave port. Yet, the ships are only half occupied, so Carnival reaps even greater profits. Do the math: that's four times the cost of a cruise. Without a full crew, the profit is even greater.

Makes me wonder if anybody at Carnival was a big Republican supporter, or were they just incredibly lucky?

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    • Carnival Cruise Lines Cashes in with FEMA | 6 comments (6 topical)
    Re: Carnival Cruise Lines Cashes in with FEMA (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:24 PM EST
    No need to wonder.
    the Cruise Industry Community Fund -- gave $500,000 to the Republican Party of Florida. The industry thus became the party's single biggest donor for the year.
    More here from St. Petersburg Times No bid contracts that are given to cronies will come back to haunt these folks one day. People are starting to catch on to this BS.

    Re: Carnival Cruise Lines Cashes in with FEMA (none / 0) (#2)
    by Johnny on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:24 PM EST
    Wish that were true Greg-but to paraphrase PPJ, would you like the luxury cruise ships to show up 9 months late? (snicker) It is obvious to all but the biggest lamer apologists that the man that has been "voted" preznit is overseeing one wing-dinger of a cronyistic empire.

    Re: Carnival Cruise Lines Cashes in with FEMA (none / 0) (#3)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:24 PM EST
    It does seem to reek of cronyism - gasp! - but on the other hand, from the link, Carnival is/was the only game in town. They could well have just said "no" to a lesser amount. Plus, if I ran Carnival, dissapointing thousands of my customers by cancelling their reservations and taking my ships off the market for six months forcing my customers to go to other cruise lines, and taking the chance that they may discover that they prefer the other cruise lines, garnering me long-term negative impacts, might not be a risk I'd be intrested in taking. Or if I did take the risk, there would have to be a hell of an upside.

    Re: Carnival Cruise Lines Cashes in with FEMA (none / 0) (#4)
    by aw on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:25 PM EST
    If Carnival were the only game in town, why would they have to worry about the other cruise lines? Am I missing something?

    Re: Carnival Cruise Lines Cashes in with FEMA (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:25 PM EST
    Putting people up in cruise ships is absurd. The only reason they picked that method was to transfer more cash to their cronies. But thanks for playing, Suo. Glad we could count on you to try to throw ashes on the fire of outrage your corrupt liars have created. I bet it's a REAL BIG WINNER at the polls.

    Re: Carnival Cruise Lines Cashes in with FEMA (none / 0) (#6)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:25 PM EST
    Good point aw. Good night PIL.

    Carnival Cruise Lines Cashes in with FEMA | 6 comments (6 topical)