Bribery by another name?

Victor

From the Irish Times:
Helicopter 'offset deal' not on table
By Mark Hennessy, Political Reporter

An offer by a US aerospace company to spend over £60 million in Ireland if it wins the battle to supply helicopters to the Defence Forces cannot be taken into account, the Department of Defence has declared.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2001/0821/hom3.htm

Is this just bribery by another name? I know that this goes on all over the world (GE had to buy chickens in Malaysia), but other than creating potentially lucrative contracts for party hack´s - is there any good in it? Am I being too sceptical?

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Kill, kill, kill the laser mice.

Magwitch

I would not call it bribery, it goes on all the time. Mainly it is an aspect of the defence industry and as the irish government has been dreadful in its spending record we have not had reason to notice this sort of deal making.

Britian for instance gave a portion of its forign aid budget to Malysia who in turn employed a british company to build a billion dollor dam, also Churchill Matrix (a british company) recieved huge arms contracts from Malysia. It is using public money to grease the economic wheels but in many cases it does open up hither too untapped trade links.

Its business.

Victor

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Magwitch:
It is using public money to grease </font>

"Grease" = Bribery by another name

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Kill, kill, kill the laser mice.