Colin
New Member
I'm not one to delve into anything political, but the economy has me a little worried. I just read this and wonder what your thoughts/reactions are as Americans.
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The off-year elections in the United States have me thinking about boats.
No, not the ark I'm going to build to save my family and friends when the great republic to the south turns power over to a motley collection of creationists, gun nuts and people who want to get into government in order to get rid of government.
I think I've got enough canned foods, single malt and DVDs to ride it out until the Americans come to their senses, and until they start sharing my concerns about the Big Boat. It's called the Emma Maersk. Photos of and information on the ship turned up in my email, sent by a friend who obsesses about Wal-Mart.
You've probably seen "Maersk" on shipping containers or freighters. The Danish company has more than 500 vessels transporting almost two million containers around the world. The Emma Maersk, which has been in service for four years, cost $145 million to build and is one of the world's largest ships, able to carry 15,000 six-metre-long containers. It has 11 cranes that can unload the entire cargo in less than two hours.
At 400 metres, the Emma Maersk is longer than an aircraft carrier (with a crew of 13). The ship is too wide to fit through the Suez or Panama canals. You would think this might be a problem. It's not. The Emma Maersk sails a route that does not require canal shortcuts for its trips between the U.S. and China. It is one of three Maersk vessels commissioned by Wal-Mart. Two more will be in service by 2012.
A typical container ship travels at a speed of 20 knots. The Emma Maersk can hit 31 knots and cross the Pacific Ocean in five days, which means it can transport perishable goods. More than 90 per cent of the goods Wal-Mart sells are made in China. The value of these imports passing through San Diego every year exceeds the gross national product of 93 per cent of the countries in the world -- and that's just one U.S. port.
OK, your eyes are glazing over and you're wondering how much of this shipping news will be on the final exam.
Here's the scary part:
On its return trips to China, the Emma Maersk sails deadhead. The containers that were full of Chinese goods are empty going back.
Now I'm not an economics expert. But you don't have to be Paul Krugman or some other Nobel laureate to start worrying that one-way trade is not so great for a nation's economy. But don't worry. Everything will be fine once the Republicans cut taxes, waging what Krugman calls, in ironic reference to the war on terror, a "war on arithmetic."
Here's some grim math from a study cited by Krugman's fellow New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman:
The U.S. is 11th among developed nations in the proportion of 25-to 34-year-olds who have graduated from high school, 16th in college completion rate, 22nd in broadband Internet access, 24th in life expectancy at birth, 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college graduates who have degrees in science or engineering, 48th in the quality of kindergarten to Grade 12 math and science education and 29th in the number of mobile phones per 100 people.
Forty-nine per cent of U.S. adults do not know how long it takes the Earth to revolve around the sun.
U.S. consumers spend more on potato chips than their government does on energy research and development.
The average American kindergarten-to-Grade-12 student spends four hours a day watching TV.
During a recent period when two high-rise buildings were built in Los Angeles, 5,000 were built in Shanghai.
Sixty-nine per cent of U.S. public school students in Grades 5 through 8 are taught mathematics by teachers with neither a degree nor a certificate in math.
Friedman has been writing about this stuff for a long time. He thought the U.S.'s future in the world's economy should have been the overriding issue in the campaigns for the Senate and House of Representatives.
Americans, and Canadians, should be thinking about the Emma Maersk and wondering if China's authoritarian capitalism is what Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash calls "an alternative model of modernity."
Instead, we think about Justin Bieber and Lindsay Lohan. And U.S. congressional races focused on the alleged ineptitude of a chief executive who a not insignificant number of voters suspect is a Muslim communist.
Batten down the hatches.
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The off-year elections in the United States have me thinking about boats.
No, not the ark I'm going to build to save my family and friends when the great republic to the south turns power over to a motley collection of creationists, gun nuts and people who want to get into government in order to get rid of government.
I think I've got enough canned foods, single malt and DVDs to ride it out until the Americans come to their senses, and until they start sharing my concerns about the Big Boat. It's called the Emma Maersk. Photos of and information on the ship turned up in my email, sent by a friend who obsesses about Wal-Mart.
You've probably seen "Maersk" on shipping containers or freighters. The Danish company has more than 500 vessels transporting almost two million containers around the world. The Emma Maersk, which has been in service for four years, cost $145 million to build and is one of the world's largest ships, able to carry 15,000 six-metre-long containers. It has 11 cranes that can unload the entire cargo in less than two hours.
At 400 metres, the Emma Maersk is longer than an aircraft carrier (with a crew of 13). The ship is too wide to fit through the Suez or Panama canals. You would think this might be a problem. It's not. The Emma Maersk sails a route that does not require canal shortcuts for its trips between the U.S. and China. It is one of three Maersk vessels commissioned by Wal-Mart. Two more will be in service by 2012.
A typical container ship travels at a speed of 20 knots. The Emma Maersk can hit 31 knots and cross the Pacific Ocean in five days, which means it can transport perishable goods. More than 90 per cent of the goods Wal-Mart sells are made in China. The value of these imports passing through San Diego every year exceeds the gross national product of 93 per cent of the countries in the world -- and that's just one U.S. port.
OK, your eyes are glazing over and you're wondering how much of this shipping news will be on the final exam.
Here's the scary part:
On its return trips to China, the Emma Maersk sails deadhead. The containers that were full of Chinese goods are empty going back.
Now I'm not an economics expert. But you don't have to be Paul Krugman or some other Nobel laureate to start worrying that one-way trade is not so great for a nation's economy. But don't worry. Everything will be fine once the Republicans cut taxes, waging what Krugman calls, in ironic reference to the war on terror, a "war on arithmetic."
Here's some grim math from a study cited by Krugman's fellow New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman:
The U.S. is 11th among developed nations in the proportion of 25-to 34-year-olds who have graduated from high school, 16th in college completion rate, 22nd in broadband Internet access, 24th in life expectancy at birth, 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college graduates who have degrees in science or engineering, 48th in the quality of kindergarten to Grade 12 math and science education and 29th in the number of mobile phones per 100 people.
Forty-nine per cent of U.S. adults do not know how long it takes the Earth to revolve around the sun.
U.S. consumers spend more on potato chips than their government does on energy research and development.
The average American kindergarten-to-Grade-12 student spends four hours a day watching TV.
During a recent period when two high-rise buildings were built in Los Angeles, 5,000 were built in Shanghai.
Sixty-nine per cent of U.S. public school students in Grades 5 through 8 are taught mathematics by teachers with neither a degree nor a certificate in math.
Friedman has been writing about this stuff for a long time. He thought the U.S.'s future in the world's economy should have been the overriding issue in the campaigns for the Senate and House of Representatives.
Americans, and Canadians, should be thinking about the Emma Maersk and wondering if China's authoritarian capitalism is what Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash calls "an alternative model of modernity."
Instead, we think about Justin Bieber and Lindsay Lohan. And U.S. congressional races focused on the alleged ineptitude of a chief executive who a not insignificant number of voters suspect is a Muslim communist.
Batten down the hatches.
