A confession
OK, i confess.
Before last week, i never considered the question of who manages our ports. I grew up in and around New York; i used to ride the Staten Island Ferry out of South Terminal a couple of times a year with my grandmother. I went to a bunch of concerts in the early 80s on The Pier. The phrase "New York Port Authority" (or Port of Authority, as grandma used to say it) was something i heard so often as a kid that it really had no meaning to me until i started parsing it when i was a college radio news director and it would come up occasionally in a story. But i guess i just assumed that the Port Authority owned the port, and leased it out to whatever mafia front paid the best kickbacks and kept the workers in line, kinda like in On The Waterfront.
So my initial reaction to the Dubai Ports World mess was pretty much "what the fuck is a company owned by a foreign government doing managing the port operation for 6 major cities?" As it turns out, this wouldn't be the first instance. A company owned by the government of Singapore manages part of the port of Los Angeles, and nobody seems too upset about that.
And then some administration apologists started throwing the "r" word around, tarring critics of the plan with a certain xenophobia and trying to claim some sort of moral high ground which you'd think would be as inaccessible to the people who let New Orleans drown as the Promised Land was to Moses. It's not particularly helpful when voices on the left jump in agreeing with the argument that opposition to the DPW deal is racist.
SusanG has a post up at DailyKos which highlights the real security issues raised by foreign government ownership of port operations:
At a time when the President, however insincerely, is making the connection that dependence on foreign government owned energy sources is a threat to our security, how does it make sense to basically give the keys to back door to a different set of foreign government owned corporations?
but leaving aside the security issues, which i am clearly no more qualified to opine on than your average Fox News talking head, let's consider some macroeconomic implications, a field in which i have at least some background.
We hear that transferring management of the ports to a foreign company is no big deal; that the union contracts and jobs will remain, the management team will be the same, the whole transition will be seamless. Yeah, of course it will be. But where will the profits go?
In the past 3 years, the US trade deficit has fallen below $40 billion in only one month, and the 4 highest monthly totals ever recorded were the last 4 months of 2005, all around $65 billion or higher. We're increasing our debt each month in order to keep buying stuff that other people make. All of that stuff has to come in through one of our ports. Wouldn't it at least make sense to keep the profits from the port operations in the US, and offset at least some of the trade deficit, instead of shipping them abroad and increasing the trade imbalance? I'm not having much luck finding out exactly how profitable port management is, but looking at the players involved, you'd have to say it's at least pretty profitable. And the number that keeps coming up is that about 30% of ports are managed by foreign owned corporations. That's got to be a lot of money that we're just letting slip away. Think of it as shopping at Wal-Mart, rather than at your locally owned hardware store. That's money that leaves the community, rather than staying and boosting the local economy.
Before last week, i never considered the question of who manages our ports. I grew up in and around New York; i used to ride the Staten Island Ferry out of South Terminal a couple of times a year with my grandmother. I went to a bunch of concerts in the early 80s on The Pier. The phrase "New York Port Authority" (or Port of Authority, as grandma used to say it) was something i heard so often as a kid that it really had no meaning to me until i started parsing it when i was a college radio news director and it would come up occasionally in a story. But i guess i just assumed that the Port Authority owned the port, and leased it out to whatever mafia front paid the best kickbacks and kept the workers in line, kinda like in On The Waterfront.
So my initial reaction to the Dubai Ports World mess was pretty much "what the fuck is a company owned by a foreign government doing managing the port operation for 6 major cities?" As it turns out, this wouldn't be the first instance. A company owned by the government of Singapore manages part of the port of Los Angeles, and nobody seems too upset about that.
And then some administration apologists started throwing the "r" word around, tarring critics of the plan with a certain xenophobia and trying to claim some sort of moral high ground which you'd think would be as inaccessible to the people who let New Orleans drown as the Promised Land was to Moses. It's not particularly helpful when voices on the left jump in agreeing with the argument that opposition to the DPW deal is racist.
SusanG has a post up at DailyKos which highlights the real security issues raised by foreign government ownership of port operations:
The Marine Transportation Security Act of 2002 requires vessels and port facilities to conduct vulnerability assessments and develop security plans including passenger, vehicle and baggage screening procedures; security patrols; establishing restricted areas; personnel identification procedures; access control measures; and/or installation of surveillance equipment.(emphasis in original.)
Under the same law, port facility operators may have access to Coast Guard security incident response plans -- that is, they would know how the Coast Guard plans to counter and respond to terrorist attacks.
At a time when the President, however insincerely, is making the connection that dependence on foreign government owned energy sources is a threat to our security, how does it make sense to basically give the keys to back door to a different set of foreign government owned corporations?
but leaving aside the security issues, which i am clearly no more qualified to opine on than your average Fox News talking head, let's consider some macroeconomic implications, a field in which i have at least some background.
We hear that transferring management of the ports to a foreign company is no big deal; that the union contracts and jobs will remain, the management team will be the same, the whole transition will be seamless. Yeah, of course it will be. But where will the profits go?
In the past 3 years, the US trade deficit has fallen below $40 billion in only one month, and the 4 highest monthly totals ever recorded were the last 4 months of 2005, all around $65 billion or higher. We're increasing our debt each month in order to keep buying stuff that other people make. All of that stuff has to come in through one of our ports. Wouldn't it at least make sense to keep the profits from the port operations in the US, and offset at least some of the trade deficit, instead of shipping them abroad and increasing the trade imbalance? I'm not having much luck finding out exactly how profitable port management is, but looking at the players involved, you'd have to say it's at least pretty profitable. And the number that keeps coming up is that about 30% of ports are managed by foreign owned corporations. That's got to be a lot of money that we're just letting slip away. Think of it as shopping at Wal-Mart, rather than at your locally owned hardware store. That's money that leaves the community, rather than staying and boosting the local economy.
Since 1949, Durhamites have slept soundly, secure in the knowledge that, in our town, erection can be depended upon. Now, thanks to the power of the internets, we can spread that security all over the world.
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