About the same as a small-town Mayor to be Secretary of Transportation
Or a Secretary of Interior who was a career lobbyist for the oil industry or an EPA Administrator who was a coal industry lobbyist, or the previous Sec Trans whose former job was writing the “torture memos” that authorized waterboarding. Or maybe a Sec Labor whose previous job was as an anti labor lawyer fighting for the destruction of labor laws in place to protect workers.
I’ll accept a respected “small town” mayor whose previous job was a business consultant and analyst for a firm like McKinsey any day. The septic tank cabinet has been drained.
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Who happens to have been on paid leave since August, during the worst transportation crisis in modern US history.
“His time off allowed him to see that his children, now two months old, have different personalities, and that they prefer sleeping on their fathers’ chests to any baby swing or bassinet.”
"It seems that everyone now agrees that the bottleneck is yard space at the container terminals. The terminals are simply overflowing with containers, which means they no longer have space to take in new containers either from ships or land. It’s a true traffic jam "
You are right, he should have gone back to his office to phone the Secretary of Interior and order him to manufacture more land.
Then there is a former president who spent 22 percent of his tenure at one of his golf courses. Double standards for cult leaders and followers perhaps?
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Deflect much?
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Only in the interest of accuracy and honesty.
Please point out the inaccuracy and dishonesty in my post and skip the platitudes such as using the failings of a previous administration to excuse the incompetence of the current one.
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The current Sec. of Transportation nominee for the position of Senior Advisor for Safety at NHTSA has enough people upset to the point they started a petition online in an attempt to kick her out. Apparently posting threatening content on Twitter and other financial shenanigans is ok with the Biden administration.
The state academies where free just like kp. They survived mostly because they were allowed to start charging tuition. Even then they had a few close calls. In the late 90’s at schuyler we routinely got threats of closure from albany.
We don’t need to create more land we just need to order the ships to go to ports with available space. Of course the carriers will fight this because the are making record profits sitting at anchor.
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The government telling private business where to sell their product? That should keep lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians in new Maseratis every year for a generation at least.
The governor of Florida, a little Wilhelm Frick wannabe, is suggesting that the already gridlocked state become the new destination for Asian cargoes.
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It doesn’t have to be government telling them where to send cargo. The FMC could just tell them where not to send any more cargo (overtaxed ports) in the form of a tax that goes to building infrastructure in smaller ports.
A new Maserati every season!
Restraint of trade. Better call Saul!
Curing an “overtaxed” situation by imposing a financial tax on randomly selected (how are the twice overtaxed victims selected?) is certain to drown us in lawyer saliva.
How does the tax work? Does a taxman ride out with the pilot boat? Does the navy blockade ports to ships that haven’t paid the tribute to the NeoBarbary Port Pirates? Is there an AIS code for “tax paid” vessels and does the Coast Guard carry take a number machines out to each ship crossing the tax line?
The upside of that is maybe it will give the ambulance chasers another product, one which doesn’t foul television screens and billboards with stories of rich whiplash victims.
If the shipowners could make money going to smaller ports or filling the Panamanian bank vaults they would. Until there are no empty containers available to Asian manufacturers or the cost of sea transport matches air freight ain’t nothing gonna change.
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So I take it your also against a tax on imports aboard FOC’s and against tax incentives for US flag ships?
I think we should tax FoCs off the surface of the seas but that has nothing to do with what would happen if the FMC or anyone else tried to set up some fee based reservation system for offloading ships arriving in US ports or imposing some random port assignment. It is called “liner trade” for a good reason. How would it work if you bought a ticket to New York on Zoom Airlines and shortly before landing were told your trip would end in Chicago instead?
My position has long been made perfectly clear on this site. Ban FoC ships from American ports unless the ship owner meets the same standards as we apply to foreign air carriers. Subsidize at whatever level it takes to build and maintain an American flag fleet, and either close KP or open it fully to American mariners for low or no cost document maintenance.
The only thing I have changed is grudging acceptance of abolishing the domestic build requirement of the Jones Act.
That a former admiral is to be making decisions regarding commercial shipping is laughable. The former head was also a former navy guy and concentrated his efforts on having ships available to carry military supplies, he did a good job and that is fine if a country depends on being at war to support the maritime trade. Most of us civilians don’t need bullets and bombs, we just need the products from other countries that our business geniuses decided could be made cheaper in other countries. NO MARAD administrator is able to force companies to start manufacturing what the US consumer wants at a price they can afford to pay. You can tax imports or shippers all you want but that is just passed onto the consumer just as the former presidents tariffs were. The USA has not been self sufficient island for many years and will not return to one.
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FOCs are already held to the same international safety standards as every other foreign flagged vessel that arrives in US ports. You are not actually asking for the “same” standards but different standards for different flags.
Nothing is sailing thru congress right now. Geez, they can’t even agree that Medicare should be able to negotiate for lower drug prices just like the VA has been doing with great results. The USA is an oligarchy .
Well that’s the exact thing. The airbus A380 was a mistake because it going between a few mega-airports doesn’t make as much sense as flying direct between medium sized cities.
These mega ports don’t make sense either. They only serve the small handful of non-American companies that can afford to build mega-ships. Meanwhile american taxpayers are paying huge amounts of cash to service these 25,000+ teu monstrosities and everyone pays when they get stuck in the suez canal.
Raising the bayone bridge cost $1.4b and dredging ny harbor cost $2.4b. We spent $16B upgrading other ports to accept these megaships which helps secure the cartel’s monopoly and raises the barrier of entry for competition. Why?
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“Safety standards” is a near meaningless catch-all in that context.
I want the same overall standards for accountability, identification of ownership, financial responsibility, and technical competence, record keeping, and oversight along with open doors to American regulators that apply to foreign airlines licensed to landing rights in the USA.
Regulate the crap out of them.