“The worldwide economic turmoil has created a situation we have not seen in our lifetimes,” an Evergreen Marine spokesman said when announcing its intention to downsize its North American operations.

“Speak for yourself, John,” Priscilla said a long time ago. Those who were alive during the Great Depression of the 30s have already seen such economic turmoil, and are now witnessing a repeat of the attitudes and reactions that were prevalent back then.

The terminology in use was different, but today’s approach to the problem is beginning to look a lot like the approach made by officials in those early days. They didn’t use the term “infrastructure”, of course, but the Civilian Conservation Corps (the CCCs) of the 30s was set up to do exactly what our incoming administration has decided to do.

The general feeling is that if three to three-and-a-half million people can be employed to build and repair roads, bridges and stone walls, then that should just about solve everything. Why we’d require new and improved roads and bridges, however, is a question that everyone should be asking.

Our automakers would dearly love to provide vehicles for use on our updated “infrastructure”, but according to reports, those same automakers may not even be around to provide those vehicles. The privileged few who were employed to repair our decaying highway system wouldn’t be in a position to afford those vehicles anyway because they wouldn’t qualify for a loan. With the salaries they’d be getting they couldn’t afford to keep up the monthly payments.

We’ve been down that road before, you must understand.

We were “bailed out” in those years by World War II, a premeditated conflict that called for massive make-work programs, but things are much different today. We were resolved to meet and defeat powerful aggressors during that international conflict, but both resolve and powerful aggressors are nowhere to be seen today.

We should have learned one lesson as a result of our cooperative efforts though. We should have acknowledged the truth in the statement that “Whoever builds ships builds worlds.”

No one can dispute that truism. The Dutch, the Spaniards and the English, in years past, became dominant commercial powers because of the presence of their merchant ships and navies. In recent years the Japanese, South Koreans, Chinese and Indian shipbuilders have made enormous strides in attempts to gain international recognition in the world of commerce.

But three-and-a-half million jobs? Forget that. We need the numbers that a “Manhattan-type” effort would require, and only a shipbuilding program could produce that number of jobs … a program to build not costly warships, mind you, but money-making – and patented – container ships.