Rantings of an Egyptian Sandmonkey has a selection of comments on the controversy over the management of U.S. port facilities, followed by his own insightful comments.
Rantings of an Egyptian Sandmonkey has a selection of comments on the controversy over the management of U.S. port facilities, followed by his own insightful comments.
Most of the popular debate over this controversy strikes me as nonsensical. “Are Arabs trustworthy? Are Muslims trustworthy? Is the government of the UAE trustworthy?” These are irrelevant questions.
Is Dubai Ports a competent and trustworthy firm? This is a reasonable question.
As for the laments that foreigners (and non-white, non-Christian ones at that!) are “buying up” all our assets…well, what else would we expect to happen when the U.S. insists on running enormous budget deficits and racking up debt like crazy?
Americans barely save on net, the U.S. government doesn’t save, (and borrows like mad); the difference is made up by foreigners, through net capital inflows into the U.S., i.e. purchases of U.S. assets by foreigners. And now that those foreigners don’t look sufficiently European, it’s a “crisis.”
If there’s a crisis here, it is U.S. fiscal irresponsibility, and not the foreign ownership that results.
I agree. Most of the criticism has been based on political cheap shots (Democrats smelling blood in the water), on ugly stereotypes, and on sheer bigotry. There are reasonable security concerns and they should be addressed in the same manner as if the firm were based in, say, France.
As I understand it, Dubai Ports is a government owned business. By allowing it to purchase port management, isn’t it advocating mercantilism? Surely, the U.S. does not need more government owned businesses.
If this deal was more public, I believe most Americans would not object to it. I have learned over the years that in secret meetings someone is going to get railroaded. And, most of the time it’s the person or persons not in the room.
Anyway, I am a little puzzled that people will trust their government officials to make honest business deals with other governments. Our government went at great length to bring celebrity justice on Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and others. But they didn’t do the same with the Abramoff scandal.
Why is that? Why haven’t any Congress or Administration person been arrested yet?
You guys want the same government administration that did not tell the truth about Iraq having WMD’s to have oversight and approve the ports management deal? What happen to limited government?
If this was a private business to private business deal I would say sell. However, since it’s government to government, maybe we should give it a little more time to make sure this is legit.