Last thoughts on DPW.
Dave raised an interesting point last night. As the Globe and Mail reported today, it turns out that the DPW buyout of P&O has reprocussions for Canada as well, not that anyone cares:
In a multibillion-dollar deal that is reconfiguring the container-shipping industry, British-based P&O Ports is selling off terminals in several major U.S. cities and one in Vancouver. Dubai Ports World, which is controlled by the United Arab Emirates government, is buying the assets.
Dave asks:
So, do we start ragging on Harper for selling out the 2nd busiest port in North America to the UAE? Or is that secret little Canadian Forces base in Dubai too important to ruffle the feathers of the Emirates? Or, is it even an issue?
Frankly, it's a very good point. It's not an issue to me at all, at least not beyond my vague academic concerns about the basic propriety of state-run multinationals competing with private enterprise on the global market. These aren't, frankly, the sort of concerns one can fairly apply to a single deal that follows the rules and meets global standards as they currently exist. (Surely, these questions were more relevant back when the West was debating admitting China into the WTO.) On a gut level, I couldn't care less if Dubai ports operates the Centerm hub in Burrard Inlet. Moreover, if, say, Paul Martin had made the sort of complaints that some U.S. Congressmen are presently making about foreign infiltration of our ports, I probably would have been put off by the anti-pluralistic hyperbole of the whole thing.
But if I lived in New York or Los Angeles, I expect I would care, very much, about the UAE's presence in my city's harbour. There are lots of theories about what's really behind the deal and Bush's sudden burst of free-market principle. (Most recently, John Judis thinks it's about American's stake in the Boeing-Airbus rivalry.) At the gut level, tough, this is an American story in the basic sense that it could only be a story in America. Opposition to the deal is built on quintessentially American concerns and fears (though not, as certain free-market fanatic op-ed columnists sanctimoniously assert, simple racism.)
Maybe it's as simple as that, even with Harper's Conservatives in charge, I trust the Canadian government more than I ever would its Bushie counterpart to balance business interests with the public interest. (Would we care if it a Kerry Administration had approved the deal? Would a Kerry Administration have approved the deal or tried to quietly scuttle it?) But maybe the problem is deeper, the residual of 911, or something from even further back, a product of the US' self-defeating, unlovely 20th Century history with the Middle East, one from which Canada is at least broadly exempt. At any rate, it's been plenty interesting watching the debate unfold on the liberal blogs. It seems like the rarest of all types of issues: on which reasonable people really can disagree.
In a multibillion-dollar deal that is reconfiguring the container-shipping industry, British-based P&O Ports is selling off terminals in several major U.S. cities and one in Vancouver. Dubai Ports World, which is controlled by the United Arab Emirates government, is buying the assets.
Dave asks:
So, do we start ragging on Harper for selling out the 2nd busiest port in North America to the UAE? Or is that secret little Canadian Forces base in Dubai too important to ruffle the feathers of the Emirates? Or, is it even an issue?
Frankly, it's a very good point. It's not an issue to me at all, at least not beyond my vague academic concerns about the basic propriety of state-run multinationals competing with private enterprise on the global market. These aren't, frankly, the sort of concerns one can fairly apply to a single deal that follows the rules and meets global standards as they currently exist. (Surely, these questions were more relevant back when the West was debating admitting China into the WTO.) On a gut level, I couldn't care less if Dubai ports operates the Centerm hub in Burrard Inlet. Moreover, if, say, Paul Martin had made the sort of complaints that some U.S. Congressmen are presently making about foreign infiltration of our ports, I probably would have been put off by the anti-pluralistic hyperbole of the whole thing.
But if I lived in New York or Los Angeles, I expect I would care, very much, about the UAE's presence in my city's harbour. There are lots of theories about what's really behind the deal and Bush's sudden burst of free-market principle. (Most recently, John Judis thinks it's about American's stake in the Boeing-Airbus rivalry.) At the gut level, tough, this is an American story in the basic sense that it could only be a story in America. Opposition to the deal is built on quintessentially American concerns and fears (though not, as certain free-market fanatic op-ed columnists sanctimoniously assert, simple racism.)
Maybe it's as simple as that, even with Harper's Conservatives in charge, I trust the Canadian government more than I ever would its Bushie counterpart to balance business interests with the public interest. (Would we care if it a Kerry Administration had approved the deal? Would a Kerry Administration have approved the deal or tried to quietly scuttle it?) But maybe the problem is deeper, the residual of 911, or something from even further back, a product of the US' self-defeating, unlovely 20th Century history with the Middle East, one from which Canada is at least broadly exempt. At any rate, it's been plenty interesting watching the debate unfold on the liberal blogs. It seems like the rarest of all types of issues: on which reasonable people really can disagree.
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