NO ONE EVER WENT BROKE....:

Scandinavian ships flying the flag of Panama, where the vessel is registered, employing Filipino workers, regularly sail into the Port of Baltimore. A German ship flying the Greek flag arrives weekly at the Virginia Port Authority's terminals in Norfolk with cargo from China.

"This is a global business, not an American business. Maybe we as an industry have not done a good job explaining that, but we've never been asked," says Peter S. Shaerf, managing director of merchant banking firm AMA Capital Partners LLC, in New York.
Nevermind the general population, look at the surpassing ignorance of our betters inside the Beltway.

MORE:
Everything you need to know about seaport controversy (DARLENE SUPERVILLE, 2/26/06, Chicago Sun Times)

World trade and U.S. security have come into conflict in the nation's harbors, which thrive on foreign commerce but may be vulnerable to terrorist infiltration.

A deal to put a United Arab Emirates-owned company in charge of major operations at a half dozen U.S. ports has caused a backlash among both Republicans and Democrats. Dubai Ports World has agreed to postpone its move, giving President Bush more time to convince skeptical lawmakers the deal will not invite terrorism.

Here are some questions and answers about the deal, U.S. port security and the desert nation at the heart of the dispute...

At Port of Baltimore, Debate Hits The Docks (Dana Hedgpeth and Neil Irwin, 2/26/06, Washington Post)

Charles "Chaz" DiGristine, who's been working the docks for eight years as a longshoreman, said his 64-year-old mother called him the other night, worried that they were "selling the Port of Baltimore to a Middle Eastern company."

"She was freaking out," DiGristine said. "I told her: 'Mama, nobody's selling the port. It's owned by the state. One company is buying another company. It's not that big a deal.' "

Ports such as Baltimore's serve as America's gateways to the rest of the world. Eight million tons of cargo cross Baltimore's piers a year, and the volume and numbers of people needed to move it make security a constant challenge. A day at the Port of Baltimore shows how these complexities play out on the ground.

The port, owned by the state of Maryland, has five major terminals that are leased to British, Danish, Japanese and American companies. Britain-based P&O operates the largest of them, the Seagirt Marine Terminal, where most cargo shipped in large containers is handled, along with part of the nearby Dundalk Marine Terminal, which handles mainly cars and construction machinery.

Early Thursday morning, as the sun was making an unsuccessful attempt to pierce the fog, 20 ships lay in wait at the P&O terminals. Some had arrived the day before. Others had sailed up the channel from the Chesapeake Bay during the night, with a local pilot guiding them to a berth. The American-owned Independence had come from Charleston, S.C., bound for the Middle East. The MSC Tasmania, Swiss-owned and sailing under the Malaysian flag, had come from South America, loaded with lumber, furniture and machinery, and would leave Baltimore for Charleston.

P&O is a stevedore, a company hired by shipping lines to oversee the loading and unloading of ships. And it is a terminal operating company, moving cargo on and off trucks and rail cars.

Its managers tell the longshoremen who perform the work under contract when and where to move what. Every day here in Baltimore, P&O takes care of an average of three ships and hires up to 900 longshoremen, sending out computer messages or calling the union hiring hall with job orders.

Thursday morning, 40 or so men were in the union hall, a drab building on South Oldham Street around the bend from the port, awaiting a call. At 6 a.m., a computer message arrived from P&O. It was up to Fontaine, the senior dispatcher for the International Longshoremen's Association Local 333, to fill the work orders.

"I need two lashers, one groundman and a Paceco," Fontaine boomed over his microphone to the men waiting in the gymnasium-like hall. P&O wanted two men to secure equipment with heavy chains, one to give directions as equipment is driven around and unloaded, and another to operate a Paceco crane.

Men who qualified filed past Fontaine, scanning their ID badges into his computer, which sorted them by seniority. Men's pictures popped up on the screen, and the computer spat out the names of the four guys who would get those jobs, with tickets for the docks.

They headed to the Dundalk terminal with a 44-year-old Harford County resident named Surrendor McKnight, a union member known as a gang carrier who oversees the crew on the ground.

"Gotta go, gotta hustle," said McKnight.

They drove off into the cold, dark morning, parking close to the ship.

"Men," Fontaine called out to them, "welcome to another day in paradise."

Doesn't anyone in the chattering class watch The Wire?U.S. ceded control of ports (William Glanz, February 26, 2006, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)

The furor over a United Arab Emirates company taking over some operations at six U.S. ports underscores the global nature of the shipping industry and the minor role played by American interests.

Foreign-owned companies dominate the maritime industry amid the war on terrorism, and many U.S. ports would be drowsy backwaters without them. [...]

"I'm willing to guess there's a very large segment of the U.S. population that doesn't know where many things are made, or more importantly, how they got from where they are made to the target in Peoria," says Michael Berzon, president of Mar-Log Inc., a Maryland supply-chain and supply-chain security consultant.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 26, 2006 8:03 AM