outsourcing of U.S. ports

Why outsource them anyways, why not pay american's to run them? They are our ports, after all. Why should our tax dollars be paying any foreigners instead of americans?

 

competition ideally leads to better service for the consumer..

 

Do you own anything which was manufactured outside of the united states?

 

The day I can choose between a list of governments and can choose who and how much to give my tax dollars to, then we'll talk about your recent statement.

 

I get to choose what I spend my money on at the store, do I get to choose where my tax dollars go? Why should I be forced to pay the government to pay a foreign company to do the work that it could be paying it's own citizens to be doing in a time where good jobs are becoming more precious.

Ya, free enterprise, yay capitalism, blah blah blah...but this isn't a private corporation this is the government.

 

Because that foreign company is obviously cheaper, better, or both. Economic nationalism makes no more sense for governments than it does for companies. I don't want the government to choose inferior or more expensive suppliers, that doesn't help me at all. Or maybe you want higher taxes?

Anyway, I guess you own lots of foreign manufactured products, otherwise you'd have answered the question.

Right. Remind me when it was exactly that good jobs were not precious?

 

Pointbreak: unless I can choose a cheaper government then no this is not acceptable.

Taxing someone against his will to pay to give his job to a furriner is immoral and wrong.

 

That's crap. Why should you be able to force the government to do things more inefficiently? That is wrong. I don't want the extra tax burden. You have no more right than I do to say how the federal government should be run. So it comes down to voting, like everything else. Don't like it, vote for someone who promises to raise your taxes and lower the standard of service, but with lots of flag waving sessions.

 

On Sunday September 30, 2005 The Sunday Times reported that P&O was in takeover talks with Thunder FZE, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. On November 29, the P&O board announced that it would be recommending an offer of 443 pence per share, worth £3.3 billion (US$5.7 billion) to its shareholders [2]. Ironically in early December P&O regained its status as a FTSE 100 company when BPB plc was taken over, but will be shortlived. A bidding war commenced when Singapore's PSA International made a £3.5 billion offer, which Dubai Ports World then topped with a bid of £3.9bn (US$7bn) [3]. Despite speculation that it would make a higher bid, PSA withdrew, and in February 2006 shareholders voted in favour of the offer from Dubai. [4]. The combined group will become the world's third largest ports operator. When the merger was approved by the U.S. federal government in February 2006, the Bush Administration came under fire from critics who questioned the decision to allow an Arab-owned company to oversee US ports. The move will place control of ports in New York City, Newark, Baltimore, Miami, New Orleans, and Philadelphia under the control of Dubai Ports World. Several states are seeking ways to block the move, citing security concerns as well as the possibility of losing related leases of foreign ports. [5] President Bush has stated he will veto any legislation created with the intent to interfere with the change. [6]

....are we paying them to run them?.....look's like it was either going to be UAE or singapore, no U.S company's put in a bid.

 

my understanding is that these ports were already outsourced to a british company. what is news is this outfit in turn having been sold to a dubai based concern.

=^^=
.../\...

 

here, my dad's take, he manages a terminal in the port of LA, which is actually in long beach. heh.

"You do know that this furor over the United Arab Emirate Republic taking over the "Port Security" in 6 East Coast US ports is a load of bull. The UAE bought the assets of the British Company P & O which included contracts to rent (mostly long term - 30 years) a berth in the ports that P & O had already had the long term agreements to rent.
This means that now the UAE is the tenant of record of berths in the 6 US ports. I don't know (or remember) which cities' ports other than NY/NJ and Baltimore are involved. In any case, the berths in question are anywhere from 80 acres to 200 acres in size with berthing for 1, 2 or 3 cargo container ships at a time. The UAE is leasing a berth in these ports and not "taking over the whole port and its security". And, FYI, there is only one "major" port on the East Coast and that is The Port of NY/NJ.
The UAE has to hire an American stevedoring company to manage (read "work") the Container Yard/Terminal for them. The stevedoring company is bascially a labor broker who hires the longshoremen to work the container and breakbulk ships on a daily basis. The stevedoring company may also provide cargo handling equipment such as Top Handlers, Side Handlers, Yard Tractors (called UTR's on the West Coast and maybe "mules" on the East Coast). These UTR's are not licensed to go out on the street, Transtainers, Fork Lifts, Bombcarts and Pick-up trucks, etc. The Port involved can rent the shoreside cranes (called "hammer-heads" or gantry cranes) to discharge the foreign ship OR, in many cases out here on the West Coast, the owner of the lease on the berth can bring in their own gantry cranes. This is basically the case in Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.
To illustrate how misinformed the politicians and media are, they keep talking about how this foreign country (the UAE) will be taking over port security when, in actuality, the stevedoring company hires an Amercian security company to handle the security on the container yard (CY) (also called a container terminal). The Coast Guard, US Customs, Immigration, Port Police, etc. all have free run of the CY and insure that the security in the CY is proper and complete. The Coast Guard and Port Police also patrol the harbor in their boats 24 hours a day.
The Coast Guard and Port Police are in control of the security of the port.
Moreover, to show you how little the US interests are in the Merchant Marine industry, I can think of only two U.S. entities that lease a CY in either of the ports of LA/LB and they are is Stevedoring Services of America (SSA) who leases and runs the Pacific Container Terminal (PCT) in Long Beach; AND Matson Lines which provides service to Hawaii and a couple of other US ports. My stevedoring company, Marine Terminals Company (MTC) does not (as far as I know) directly lease a CY in the Ports of LA/LB or Port Hueneme, Oakland, Sacramento, Stockton, Port Angeles, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle or Vancouver, B.C. MTC does, however, have joint stevedoring and CY management ventures with foreign companies, as does SSA.
In the Ports of LA/LB, the following foreign companies lease berths from the respective port authority; Rio Dulce Pasha (Brazil), TraPac (KKK Lines - Japanese), West Basin Container Terminal (WBCT) (my place of work) - Yang Ming Lines - Taiwan, AND China Shipping Company - mainland China, Seaside Terminal Services - Evergreen - Chinese, Yusen Terminals Inc. (YTI) - NYK Lines (Nippon Yusen Kaisha) - Japan, Maersk Sealand - Danish, Hanjin - Korean, Hyundai - Korean, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) - Italian, International Terminals Service (ITS) - K- Line America - Japanese, etc., etc. There are many other foreign companies bringing in cargo to the LA/LB ports; Zion Israeli Maritime (ZIM) - Israel, Madrigal Wan Hai (MWK) - Singapore Chinese, etc. ITS has been doing business in Long Beach under Japanese management for almost 50 years without anyone raising a stink.
Well, I may have missed a point or two, but when P & O was up for sale, no U.S. company wanted to buy it. P & O also leases CY's in the several overseas countries where it loads cargo coming to the U.S. When the old Sealand Rail operation company, CSX, was up for sale a couple of years ago, no U.S. wanted to buy that company either and no one objected to the UAE buying that company then.
Why the stink, now? It is purely political and demonstrates how uninformed and misinformed the Congress, the media, the teamsters and the longshoremen are. The U.S. abdicated its rights to a merchant marine industry many, many years ago; starting in the 1920's.
And that's how I see it."

 

''why the stink now''

You are such a spoil sport Kc....

 

ah, well. my dad has been in the industry for at LEAST 20 years. he's been around. my baby sis just got her longshoreman casual card, gonna learn to drive the cranes. i figure his experience and the fact that he's working for his first american company in all that time is pretty telling. people act like the UAE is gonna take over the port and suddenly only muslim extremists are gonna be loading and unloading ships and taking care of security. it's laughable.

 

I agree with you .. i would have thought the keen minds of the people who have posted within this thread could see it.. but seems not [on the whole].

I expect more jobs have been saved than lost.. in this 'take over'.



There are unlikely to be any job cuts as P&O will be run as a separate business, DP World says, as there is very little overlap between the operations of the two companies. P&O's pension fund, which currently has a deficit of £200m, will be protected through a one-off cash injection of £125m by DP World, followed by further payments over the next five years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4480542.stm

Why are some holding a 'taking all our jobs' mentality... ?.

 

knee jerk reaction and a way to justify their subconscious biases...

 

Published on Monday, February 27, 2006 by CommonDreams.org