Bail, Bail, The Gang’s All Here!

In spite of the fact that …

• the Federal Reserve has admitted that the U.S. economy has taken a turn for the worse, citing a softening of household spending, tight credit conditions, the ongoing housing contraction and a slowing of export growth …
• and that Clarkson, the world’s largest shipbroker, has revealed that orders for new container ships have dried up as vessel charter rates and ocean freight rates tumble and volume growth slows on key liner trade routes …
• and that the faltering of giant U.S. investment banks is making it difficult to finance ships, even though the price of these ships is dropping …
• and that retailers are seeing little to cheer about this holiday season as consumers continue to struggle under the weight of rising joblessness, ongoing high gasoline prices and shrinking home values …
• and that the latest Port Tracker report from the National Retail Federation and Global Insight states that the decreasing TEU volumes in container imports would hold for the entire year as anticipated increases for October and December are no longer expected to materialize …
• and that Philip Damas, division director of Drewry Supply Chain Advisors in London, has stated that demand is dropping so fast that some carriers may be considering laying up ships. “It’s symptomatic of the severity of oversupply,” he said …
• …and in spite of the fact that the “Fed” – using taxpayers’ money – has committed more than $ 1 trillion in order to bail out the rich and famous in Wall Street, thereby increasing the already unbearable burden of the beleaguered majority …

… the CEO of the Port of New Orleans has once again addressed a gathering of Louisiana politicians and business leaders, insisting that the “state” fund the two-phased $ 500 million port expansion program.

New Orleans will lose market share to other ports without this investment, he said. “It has to happen. It’s not an option to not invest in the Port of New Orleans,” is the way he put it. “The Panama Canal opening in 2014 is going to open up some tremendous opportunities for us.”

What “market share” is he imagining? The one that Mr. Damas states is “dropping so fast”? And that $ 500 million “investment” from the “state”? That wouldn’t be an “investment”. Investments generate financial returns. That $ 500 million would be “appropriated” from the taxpayers, who weren’t, by the way, present at the aforementioned gathering of politicians and business leaders, and who, like those taxpayers stuck with the $ 1 trillion Wall Street bailout tab, have no say in the matter.

If $ 500 million is available in Louisiana, why hasn’t some of it been made available to the victims of Hurricane Katrina? And why couldn’t some of it be used to expand the shipbuilding industry? A few hundred thousand jobs could be created in Louisiana alone by building the patented container ship we’ve been describing. The ROI (return on investment) would be enormous. And guaranteed.