Free Trade

Bush Wants Poison Toys For Tots With No Insurance

Chinese newspaper scrap inside a new box of screws we bought today

October 30, 2007

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Astonishing, isn't it? After all the bellyaching over the lead paint on toys, Bush wants to cut even more, the product safety and testing arm of our government! And even as the criminals in the White House allow a flood of defective and dangerous products into this nation, they are yelling about the cheap yuan yet again. Meanwhile, Ford announces they are moving their research and development to China as well as their factories. And Japan's depression deepens as the government turns the screws on the people in order to keep super-low interest rates going. Namely, inflation rages there in the lower levels.

From the NY Times:

The nation’s top official for consumer product safety has asked Congress in recent days to reject legislation intended to strengthen the agency, which polices thousands of consumer goods, from toys to tools.

On the eve of an important Senate committee meeting to consider the legislation, Nancy A. Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has asked lawmakers in two letters not to approve the bulk of legislation that would increase the agency’s authority, double its budget and sharply increase its dwindling staff.

Ms. Nord opposes provisions that would increase the maximum penalties for safety violations and make it easier for the government to make public reports of faulty products, protect industry whistle-blowers and prosecute executives of companies that willfully violate laws.

It was obvious to me from the first day that the racket about China and the lead poison toys was pure propaganda. This racket, this cold-blooded scheme was supposed to cut back Chinese trade with the US but it backfired on Mattel, Disney and Sesame Street. I said back at the beginning, the US government and the US corporations making profits off of Chinese labor and Chinese contractors were 100% responsible for safety and regulations of materials, not the Chinese.

I even pointed out that Bush has enabled this sort of business and this was cheered on by the very same corporations who conspired to blame the Chinese. Now we see that corporate America and the GOP have zero interest in protecting the consumer and keeping our children alive. Coupled with Bush's veto of the Child's Health Bill and we can see where these criminals are coming from: hell. Eventually the government of China will do all the things our own Sovietized government refuses to do. Like any third world nation moving up the ladder, China doesn't have the same concerns we have. But eventually, they will get around to these matters.

Meanwhile, we move down this same ladder. The yelling about bad health toys was really an acknowledgement that we have lost control of production and the refusal to implement controls and testing of products means a continuation of the 'buyer beware' mentality of our ruling elites and the rich who run these corporations. The three child-selling giants all proclaim to be interested in the welfare of our children. But they cynically expose them to danger. All for a buck.

We owe the Chinese the same apology Mattel had to give. Shame on the USA. Bad, bad doggie. No bones for you.

From the NYT:

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said that Ms. Nord had not coordinated her effort to kill the legislation with the White House. But he said that the administration shared many of her concerns and that Allan Hubbard, President Bush’s top economic adviser at the White House, was preparing to send a letter to Congress “that is probably even more forceful than Ms. Nord’s.”

Hubbard is a traitor. He and his ilk have opened the doors to tainted products. He is an advocate for 'free trade.' And what is this letter going to say? 'Not only won't we protect our children, we hope they DIE'?

From the NYT:

General Motors announced Monday that it would build an advanced research center in Shanghai to develop hybrid technology and other designs.

It was the latest research investment in China by a foreign automaker despite chronic problems with purloined car designs.

G.M. already has a 1,300-employee research center in Shanghai with its main Chinese joint venture partner, the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation. The separate, wholly owned research center announced Monday, for the most advanced vehicle engineering and development, could help G.M. keep greater control over new technologies than through the joint venture.

Here is yet another sign that Chna, not the US, is in the driver's seat. China turns out far many more engineers and designers than the US. In the US, many of the graduates in these fields are now Chinese, anyway. IBM still hires some scientists in the US but they must go to China to do their work since the production is now in China. And all the mega-corporations in the US are tranfering not only their factories but now, their research facilities to China.

Not only does China produce many engineers and others in these fields, many of the graduates are of very high intelligence due to the very simple and obvious rules of evolution: the competition for slots in the universities and colleges are fierce and so this is a true survival of the fittest at work. Always, production is followed by research moving. We didn't move research to Mexico back when we moved our factories there and this was due to the factories being physically very close to the US and thus, easy to keep in a lesser role. China is on the other side of the planet.

Long ago, I explained this but the free traders who lusted for Chinese labor profits pooh-poohed people like myself. Remember all the lies about how we would work 'smarter' and hold 'higher-paying' jobs? This was based on the erroneous belief which is pure racism that the Chinese were inferior and couldn't compete with us for positions requiring intelligence and training! Right now, a Chinese rocket is surveying the possiblity of landing on the moon and exploiting lunar resources. Not that US readers have heard much of this!

China has wisely made it quite clear, they intend to be a top nation and to run things themselves. They are tapping into our free trade system and using it to strengthen China's industrial base and improve their infrastructure. And the end result is going to be them dominating the planet. And why not? After all, this is our goal! Why shouldn't it be theirs?

The NYT:

Honda, Ford, Volkswagen and other foreign automakers have all announced their own research centers in China in recent months, although none have been as aggressive as G.M. in transferring technology to China.

Monday’s announcement coincidentally came after the government’s National Development and Reform Commission disclosed Friday that it was drafting stringent local-content rules for alternative-fuel vehicles to qualify for expected subsidies. The rules will require that major components be made in China.
*snip*
The Chinese government’s move is aimed partly at Toyota, which assembles Prius gasoline-electric hybrid cars in China but ships critical components in sealed boxes from plants in Japan.

The Chinese are very annoyed about this. They want us to move all our technology to China. The Japanese secrecy will, in the end, bite them in the rear as other nations rush to fill in where Japan refuses to go. The Japanese will find themselves cut out of the growing Chinese markets while others will play the Chinese game. Because Japan has decided to literally kill its next generation, I predict here that Japan's ability to produce innovation and outstanding products will begin to collapse in the nearer future starting in about 10 years (assuming we are talking about the Chinese 50 year plans here). The Chinese are in this aggressive Darwinian fight for positions while Japan is giving up the ghost at home, in the lower grades.

The Japanese and Chinese have a long history of pushing each other down. They are very competitive and quite aggressive about this. Right now, the Japanese and Chinese are playing a currency game involving the world's #1 and #2 FOREX reserves. The Japanese want the yen to run at 130 to the dollar and it is now at 114 to the dollar and the Chinese keep raising the value of the yuan step by step. They plan to make the yuan rival the dollar and the euro as a world currency in the end but not because this will be bad for trade but because they will rule the planet. The fact that the US deliberately wants a weak dollar is a sign that we gave up this role.

From Reuters:

The United States is strongly committed to a strong U.S. dollar and financial markets there are recovering from the subprime crisis, some quicker than others, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Tuesday.

Paulson, speaking at a forum in the Indian capital of New Delhi, also said while innovation in U.S. capital markets had contributed to the subprime crisis, innovation was desirable and a contributor to growth in the world's largest economy. "I'm strongly committed to a strong dollar," he said in a moderated on-stage interview at the Fortune Global Forum, adding that currencies should be set in open markets based on economic fundamentals.

We now know that the US was pushed by the other G7 dwarves to make the dollar stronger. The Japanese certainly want this! The other 5 dwarves wanted Japan to strengthen the yen, too. But both the Japanese and the American dwarves refused. This irritable battle has pushed Goldman Sachs into mouthing platitudes about a stronger dollar while the US does everything in its power to kill the value of the dollar and kill domestic markets. Heck, kill small, teething babies. Why leave them out? And what is this about 'innovation in US capital markets?

That, alas, is mostly attempts by a bunch of fraudsters and criminals to circumvent both Great Depression banking and finance rules and evading product safety rules! All these products mainly produced two major goods: a gigantic trade deficit and an even bigger mountain of debt! Trillions of debt dollars! Which are part of the flood of US dollars that are now making the dollar as weak as a peso.

From Reuters:

Paulson, who was not speaking from prepared notes, said China still had some work to do to get to a market-determined exchange rate, and needed more yuan flexibility in the meantime.

And here it is: HAHAHA. Belly laugh time. Paulson wants a strong dollar but also wants even more, a stronger yuan which means a weaker dollar! The G7 dwarves certainly can be entertaining. They want the Chinese to be stronger but they also need the US dollar and the Japanese yen stronger. I would kindly suggest they give it up. The G7 are not on the same team or the same side or sane. Either they finally admit we are in a dog-eat-dwarf world or rather, a dragon-eat-dwarf world or they throw in the towel and admit that all that stupid propaganda about capitalism is all lies.

Except the Chinese believe in capitalism and are practicing it! Ruthlessly! Will wonders never cease? They will even make poisoned toys for the US tots if US corporations want this! The illusion of cooperation the Bilderbergian rules project is all fake. They want a controlled environment whereby they can milk whatever cows they wish and get filthy rich, to hell with everyone including our planet. But they do NOT want ANY real competition or other ways of doing things or other entities in control. Just as Britain is now kow towing to Saudi Arabia, so does the US. This is because SA has sovereign wealth. I wonder when Hu will visit us again? Last time around, the US rulers were very contemptuous.

Now, they will be forced to sing another song. Or maybe not! Maybe now the plan is to milke the Chinese cow while tasering it with electric cow prods? And pray, how long with that work? The answer is obvious.

From Bloomberg:

Japan's wages fell in September as an extra holiday in the month shortened working hours. Summer bonuses dropped, sapping household buying power and sentiment.

Monthly wages, including overtime pay, fell 0.5 percent from a year earlier, a ninth decline in 10 months, the Labor Ministry said today in Tokyo. Summer bonuses, which typically amount to about 10 percent of a worker's annual income, declined 1.1 percent, the first drop in three years.

The Bank of Japan, which is expected keep interest rates unchanged at 0.5 percent today, has said demand for workers should drive pay higher, stimulating consumer spending and sparking inflation. Unemployment climbed for a second month in September and the number of jobs for each applicant fell, reports showed yesterday.

``It's extremely difficult to be anything but pessimistic about consumption,'' said Glenn Maguire, chief Asia economist at Societe Generale SA in Hong Kong. ``The entire notion of the virtuous cycle of production, wages and consumption is completely unraveling.''

The yen traded at 114.76 per dollar at 11:04 a.m. in Tokyo from 114.69 before the report was published.

Wages have declined about 10 percent, or about 400,000 yen ($3,500) over the past decade. The end of tax breaks in June and higher prices of gas and staples such as bread and instant noodles have also eroded disposable income and damped consumer sentiment, which is near a three-year low.

Indeed. Now everyone knows that Japan has inflation. The fake inflation information put out by the criminals running the Bank of Japan and the obvious criminals running the LDP can be safely ignored. Japan's disgusting need to have near zero interest rates for industrialists is beginning to seriously bite into the lives of the people of Japan. Unlike the Chinese who are seeing some rise in income and buying power despite inflation of food, the Japanese are being ruthlessly depressed. Unlike China which has sovereign wealth, the Japanese have massive debts.

The Japanese desire to hold all the cards and treat China as a junior partner is doomed to fail. The US/Japanese desire to keep China below them is doomed if both base this on weakening their own currencies all the time. Eventually they will both have to hand over all world power to China if they both want weak currencies and no responsiblity over the quality of what is sold in their countries. Eventually, just as Japan used to be code for 'cheap and lousy' but now is seen as high quality, so it is with China: they are aiming to be the quality producers, not the cheap sellers.

Culture of Life News Main Page

Hutchinson-Whampoa Tid Bits Of History

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Time to look into a major Chinese conglamorate monster organization, Hutchinson Whampoa/Cheung Kong Holdings. It illustrates clearly, the history of the declining British Empire, the various pirate coves set up by the Crown and how the Chinese took over the Asian off-shore havens and the accumulated holdings there. The Chinese have, since 1970, accelerated their control over business in Asia. As a recession deepens in the West, it pays to look into the doings of the Chinese who happen to have used these recessions in the past to expand their control over the markets in Asia and now, the world. They have sovereign wealth.

The history of Hutchinson-Whampoa:

2000:

@In January, the Group teams up with the US's Name-Your-Own-Price Internet pricing system Priceline.com with a plan to bring buyer-driven e-commerce to Asia.

@In January, the Group and Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited form a joint venture named iBusiness Corporation with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited and Hang Seng Bank, with the aim to become the dominant service provider and business facilitator by capitalising on the resources, network and customer base of the four partners.

@In February, the Group accepts a revised offer by Vodafone for all of their Mannesmann shares. The consideration is 3,056,910,365 new Vodafone shares.

@In February, the Group forms a 50-50 joint venture with Computer And Technologies Holdings Limited, to set up an Information Technology Resource Centre with expertise in IT and e-commerce application development.

@In February, the Group and DLJdirect enters into a 50-50 joint venture agreement to expand DLJdirect's on-line investment service throughout Asia to Hong Kong and mainland China, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia. (The JV is subsequently renamed Hutchison CSFBdirect.)

@In March, the Group's China-related new media mega-portal, TOM.COM, commences trading on the Growth Enterprise Market ('GEM') of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (stock code: 8001).

This is just a small measure of the many actions taken by this conglomerate just 5 years ago. Here is what they did this last years:

2007:

@In February, Hutchison Port Holdings enters into agreements with Saigon Investment Construction & Commerce Company Limited (SICC), to jointly construct, develop and operate a new container terminal in Ba Ria Vung Tau Province, Vietnam, throughout the term of the 50-year concession. The new joint venture company is named Saigon International Terminals Vietnam Limited.

@In March, Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited announces the launch of its Indonesian mobile operation Hutchison CP Telecom (HCPT). The company commits to provide GSM mobile telephony services under the 3 brand with 3G network services overlaid in the key cities of Indonesia.

@In June, Husky Energy Inc has been awarded exploration licenses on Block 5 (2007-22) and Block 7 (2007-24) from the West Disko 2006 Licencing Round, offshore Greenland.

@In July, Husky Energy Inc announces the completion of its acquisition of the refinery in Lima, Ohio, USA from Valero Energy Corporation. The agreement to acquire the refinery was announced on 2 May 2007 and made effective on 1 July 2007.

@In August, Hutchison MediPharma Limited ("HMPL"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chi-Med, enters into a drug discovery and development agreement with Eli Lilly and Company ("Lilly"). Under the agreement, Lilly and Hutchison MediPharma will initially collaborate on the discovery and development of pharmaceutical agents focused on targets in oncology and inflammation.

@In October, Husky Energy Inc announces that Husky Oil Operations Limited and Esso Exploration Greenland Limited have been awarded a joint interest in an exploration licence on Block 6 (2007/27) from the West Disko 2006 Licencing Round, offshore Greenland.

@In October, Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited announces that its Macau mobile operation Hutchison Telephone ("Macau") Limited, has launched 3G services using WCDMA technology.

This mega-business machine is located in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was set up by the British to be one of their many, many tax-havens and piratical business invasive operations over 100 years ago.

History of Hong Kong:

The history of Hong Kong begins in 1842 at which time the Island known as Hong Kong, meaning "Fragrant Harbor," became the first British possession in China as a result of China's defeat in the so-called "Opium War" and the imposition of the first of a number of "unequal treaties" (a term used to describe treaties which were imposed upon the vanquished). Prior to Britain taking possession, the island was home to a few fishing communities; lacking good sources of water, it had few permanent residents. Britain had used Hong Kong and other islands as resting and refueling stops in its growing China trade; Hong Kong was also frequented by pirates and the British often colluded with them, especially in the banned opium trade. Britian requested the cession of Hong Kong so that it would have its own colony just as the Portuguese had had Macau for the previous 300 years (since 1557). One of the issues at stake in the Opium War (1839-1841) was the status of Macau as the Chinese had decreed that all ships, from all nations must trade with China ONLY through the offices of the Portuguese on Macau. The British were offended at this and wanted free trade, which the Treaty of 1842 partially provided.

Was it purely accidental that the British set up a pirate cove right next to China? I would suggest not. There is a very strong correlation between running off shore, often illegal operations and the British Crown. Far from being a nice, dithering sort of family, the British Royals, descendants of Viking raiders and invading hordes during the Dark Ages, they never lost this taste for piracy. Just as the Brits lost control of the United States but kept all their little islands intact and useful in various ways, so it was with Hong Kong. Banking and insurance cluster on these many little islands because they have no one watching what they are doing which is why Hong Kong started out as a criminal drug-running outfit.

It is of great interest to me to see Britain co-invading Afghanistan and that place suddenly becoming a global opium producing power. This is as natural as a rock falling due to gravity. Hutchinson Whampoa isn't merely an anonymous organization, the history of British rule and then the degradation of this rule as the Chinese, no slouches when it comes to money and capitalism, gradually and then very suddenly, took over.

From Wikipedia:

Hutchison Whampoa was originally two companies founded in 19th century,namely Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock, established in 1863, and Hutchison International in 1877. Hutchison International, under Sir Douglas Clague, gained controlling interest of Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock in the 1960s.

In 1977, Hutchison acquired all stakes of Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock and became Hutchison Whampoa Limited.

Although Hutchison had a portfolio of valuable real estate interests in docks and retail ventures, the company ran into trouble, and had to be rescued by the Hong Kong Bank. The bank took a 22% stake in the company, and had Clague replaced.

On September 25, 1979, at the close of trade in London, the Bank announced it was selling its stake in Hutchison to Cheung Kong for HK$639 million.

The European name was kept because it is a great mask. The people running this organization are Chinese. Also, note how the organization run by the Europeans fell into difficulties during the 1970's and in 1979, when a recession hit Asia thanks to Volker in the US raising interest rates high enough to kill inflation, killed the various export markets and financial wheels and deals in Asia. Hong Kong, at this time, was the straw that was Communist China's only outlet to the West. China could have easily taken Hong Kong violently but instead, ran around at home, going nuts with the various hysterias launched by Mao and then, Madame Mao.

By 1979, she was a footnote to history and the New China rose from the ashes of some of the most wasteful and possibly psychotic rule on earth and this New China wanted to learn from the Chinese in Hong Kong as well as other capitalists. The Hong Kong people, working under British rule, had absorbed many lessons and they struck with decisiveness. Waiting until the Brits in London could do nothing, the bankers in Hong Kong made the deal. I will note here that the intention is obvious: they wanted only Chinese to run the organization. This is a sort of nationalism that Japan is quite familiar with: they do everything with this in mind.

The Cheung Kong family doesn't just run Hutchinson Whampoa, they run many other entities that have many arms and legs, a veritable army of centipedic corporations.

1. Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited(Cheung Kong Holdings) ( Chinese: 長江實業(集團)有限公司 Pinyin:Chángjiāng Shíyè (Jítuán) Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī) SEHK: 0001 is the flagship of the Cheung Kong Group, headquartered in Hong Kong, and one of Hong Kong's leading multi-national conglomerates.

2. In Hong Kong alone, the Group has nine companies that are listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited (長江實業(集團)有限公司) SEHK: 0001, a constituent member of the Hang Seng Index.

3. Hutchison Whampoa Limited (和記黃埔有限公司) SEHK: 0013, a constituent member of the Hang Seng Index.

4, Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Limited(長江基建集團有限公司) SEHK: 1038, a constituent member of the Hang Seng Index.

5. Hongkong Electric Holdings Limited (香港電燈集團有限公司) SEHK: 0006, a constituent member of the Hang Seng Index.

6. Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited SEHK: 2332, NYSE: HTX.

7. Hutchison Harbour Ring Limited SEHK: 0715.

8. TOM Group Limited SEHK: 2383. Previously listed on the Growth Enterprise Market as 8001.

9. CK Life Sciences Int'l., (Holdings) Inc. (長江生命科技集團有限公司) SEHK: 8222, listed on the Growth Enterprise Market.

10. TOM Online Inc. NASDAQ: TOMO, SEHK: 8282, listed on the Growth Enterprise Market.

Physical shipping, internet commerce, communications systems, real estate, business construction, port authorites, on and on, they are many things. The present Communist Chinese leaders are very aware of this family and its dealings. So long as they serve the interests of the Party, they are allowed to accumulate power. I don't know how deep the penetration is within this organization, I would assume the communists have moved some of their sovereign wealth funds deep inside. It would make perfect sense.

Just like the Queen's various pirate coves don't report what they do in the dark, so it is with China. We can guess a lot but we don't really know exactly what is going on. What I do know is, this mega-organization which is now part of China, are opening ports in Mexico. I have reported about them in the past, the controversy over the planned mega-highways running from Mexico to the heartland of the USA, are causing a great stir...on line. For the most part, few leftist organizations have focused on this and the Amero, the future currency we will probably be using for international trade. But the far right or the libertarian areas online have been quite vocal about all this. Whampoa is very much involved in creating this new trade system.

Bush has been financially entangled since the day his dad, right on the heels of my dad leaving China, came there to be the US Ambassador. When the Bushes need to be bailed out of their many financial messes, Chinese benefactors come and buy up dry well oil companies from them or fix banks run by them, etc. The Bushes never go bankrupt, everyone around them goes bankrupt. Except for the Chinese who are smarter than Bush and others around the Bushes. They know how to make money from this relationship.

I keep saying, 'Arrest Bush'. But he won't be impeached over this. Aside from war crimes, he should be raked over the coals over the entire clan being too intimate with these Chinese businesses. The rules for letting Mexican truckers invade the US were shoved forwards by Bush despite the GOP squealing like stuck pigs due to rage within Republican voters who are very much against this. Whampoa needs these truck regulations. The flood of goods from China will soon arrive on cheap, Mexican trucks. And this is the plan for killing inflation. The decoupling of essentials from the inflation stats means value-added manufactured goods will still come here even as our ability to buy food and fuel declines. The fake 2% inflation rate calculations will continue forever while the elderly and poor freeze or starve to death.

This chart, from Wikipedia, shows the layout of the Cheung Kong family organization. They own slightly less than half of the Whampoa part but of the port facility systems, they own the majority, by far.

From Logistics Today;

For instance, the port of Ensenada in Baja California, just 100 miles south of the Tijuana border, is revamping its facilities, dredging its cove to handle larger ships, and has begun intermodal deliveries of containers. Separately, late last year, Hutchinson Ports Holding of Hong Kong signed an agreement with the Government of Baja California to jointly carry out a feasibility study to build a port and a 150-kilometer railroad to connect with Mexicali. The study is due to be completed in July 2005. If undertaken, this would not be a federal Mexican project.>

This map, from the Whampoa Port organization, shows the deep penetration they now enjoy. They intend to control all Chinese trade, they and other Chinese-owned organizations, that is, and they intend to cut the US out from the money flow as much as possible. Except for any politically connected people they need to keep on board, of course.
From Hutchinson Whampoa's web site:

This chart shows the size of the facilities just built in Baja, California. It isn't that large a port compared to say, the US ports in Bayonne, New Jersey. But it is significant in that it is a start. A toe hold that will grow over the years.

For example, Global in New Jersey has many more cranes and it is only one of several huge terminals there. When I read about that port opening, a number of writers made it seem as if it was going to be huge, just huge. But so far, it is still very much a baby in size.

December 7, 2006

A Chinese company with close ties to the communist government owns 49 percent of the Lockheed Martin subsidiary that is negotiating a contract with the North American SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc. – the Dallas-based trade association – to place cargo monitoring sensors along as superhighway stretching from Mexico to Canada.

China's Hutchinson Port Holdings entered into a $50 million joint venture in 2005 with Savi Technology, a Lockheed Martin wholly-owned subsidiary, to form a new company called Savi Networks LLC. Savi Technology owns 51 percent and Hutchinson Port Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Chinese holding company Hutchinson Whampoa Limited, holds the rest.

This story from almost a year ago illustrates how the Chinese are carefully tip toeing into various organizations and deals they very much want. The Lockheed business interests me because I track this stuff a lot. Boeing and Lockheed have had to go hat in hand to China repeatedly. All our corrupt government negotiators focus on making deals for Lockheed and Boeing because our military/industrial complex is pretty much all we have left and the Chinese can't get access to this technology unless they forge iron ties with US elected officials like the Bush clan. Note how the Chinese kept their purchase at just under 50%. This is so they are not seen out in the open. This can wear an American face for the time being but the people whispering in the back ground speak Chinese.

Like so many Trojan Horses, the Chinese build these entities and then use them to pry open doors. The US talks brave talk about making the Chinese do business our way but I see it all going their way since they, not us, own our government at several important levels.

The right wing likes to focus on the Clintons as beneficiaries of Chinese corruption. Yet they refuse to understand how ALL our leaders are in the same boat. Paddling like mad at the orders of the Chinese communist government. So we go and negotiate with the Europeans about the yuan and then go off to China to collect more money and do more things the Chinese want us to do. Notice how nothing ever changes? The technology the Chinese want will be theirs, slowly, they are encircling all our systems and will gain what they seek for they have Sovereign Wealth Funds! We have SIVs that are worthless. We need them more than they need us.

From Bloomberg:

Bear Stearns Cos. and China's Citic Securities Co. agreed to invest $1 billion in each other in an alliance to pool their businesses in Asia.

Citic will buy the equivalent of 6 percent of New York-based Bear Stearns's shares as the banks collaborate to develop financial products and services in China, the companies said in a statement today. They will also form a Hong Kong-based joint venture to bring together their operations outside of China.

This is a full surrender. The wheel of history, the wheel of fortune, turns and we fall under it.

Culture of Life News Main Page

Deep Port Shipping Growing Greater

Elaine Meinel Supkis

My ex-husband was in the shipping industry. He worked for foreign companies just like I once did, too. Yesterday, I was at the deep water ports in New Jersey and saw some rather interesting things. First, the ports weren't as busy as last spring. Second, all the cars being imported were quite noticable. Time to discuss international auto shipping as well as sales and how they interact with modern 'free trade'.

From World Wide Shipping:

Roll-on/Roll-off

We offer Ro/Ro service from major U.S. ports to destinations worldwide. Ro/Ro vessels are designed with maximum flexibility to transport both rolling and non-rolling stock, including autos, motorcycles, boats and heavy equipment.

Roll On/Roll Off vessels are designed with maximum flexibility and are able to carry a wide variety of wheeled and non-wheeled cargo.The inside of the ship has a basic design of a parking garage. Ro/Ro vessels can carry up to 6600 cars and have up to 12 decks.

Worldwide offers Ro/Ro service from major U.S. ports to ports throughout the world. WSA will arrange delivery to the port for all types of cargo, including cars, pickups, trucks, boats on trailer or cradle, motorhomes just to name a few.

I walked all over the neighborhood, looking at shipping yesterday. Most shipping places now have hard to see through fences unlike in the past where everything was much more open. There were good views from the various bridges or the Polansky Skyway but I don't have a telephoto lens camera and besides, we were swiftly engulfed in fast moving fog and clouds from a huge storm that battered NYC as soon as I drove north.

These deep sea ports where built while my ex was working in NYC years ago, just as I used to watch the work on the WTC, I also would go visit the new port facilities. Ships used to dock at Red Hook, Brooklyn and even Manhattan, etc. But these were mostly pre-WWII ships. Hellenic Lines, for example, was based on this sort of old style shipping. But the revolution of deep port container ships turned sea trade from a small operation into a monster machine. The interstate treaties between New Jersey and New York had to be revised so they could build deep sea ports.

From the NY NJ Port Authority:

Throughout the 19th century, New York and New Jersey waged many disputes over their valuable, shared harbor and waterways. A dispute over the boundary line through the harbor and the Hudson River - settled by the Treaty of 1834 - once led state police to exchange shots in the middle of the river. The impasse eased when the two states agreed that the port area was, in effect, one community and that conflict squandered the port's potential. The states sought a governmental body to oversee port affairs and found a model in the Port of London, administered by what was then the only public authority in the world.

On April 30, 1921, The Port of New York Authority was established to administer the common harbor interests of New York and New Jersey. The first of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, the organization was created under a clause of the Constitution permitting Compacts between states, with Congressional consent. An area of jurisdiction called the "Port District," a bistate region of about 1,500 square miles centered on the Statue of Liberty, was established. In 1972, the organization's name was changed to The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to more accurately identify our role as a bistate agency.

Actually, there was a huge dispute over the Statue of Liberty that took forever to resolve. Tourists had to take this expensive ferry ride from lower Manhattan to the statue which happens to have a road from New Jersey that goes to the statue much easier and cheaper. Disputes over who owned access to Miz Liberty were bitter and long. Today, one can go to the statue from both New Jersey and New York City. But the other huge joint project, the WTC, has been utterly destroyed. Its destruction has spawned even more disputes than visiting Miz Liberty's tiny island.

The fact is, starting with oil tankers which mostly stood offshore to pump oil onshore, the mega-ship building process which began with Europe and Asia beginning to use many more cars than before WWII, caused ships to grow rapidly in size. The technology of ship building went through this revolutionary process of seeking ever-greater volume and girth and alongside this was building huge deep sea ports that can take these ships. New York had to concede this to New Jersey after bitter fights in the sixties because the ports in New York couldn't be made easily accessible to deep port shipping. I once lived on Coney Island and we could plainly see, the ocean was far too shallow too far out from the shore, to be turned into a huge port.

But the New Jersey shoreline south of Manhattan was capable of handling big ships. To develop these ports in New Jersey required not just changing the shoreline but also changing the road and rail interchanges and expanding a lot of services that run to and from ports. This was very successful, of course. And this became one of several important open doors to free trade that took off after this port opened.

Before 1972, there was very little in major trade. If you took all the ships that sailed into NY harbor in 1969 and bundled their cargo inside a modern ship, it would have taken less than a dozen ships to bring everything over. We put goods in wooden crates, this is how I shipped stuff from Asia to Europe and then, to America, it was a slow and tedious process that took months, in 1972, this all rapidly changed. The older shipping companies like Hellenic Lines, stuck with a pre-deep sea port fleet, blew their chances and went bankrupt. Others, like Maersk Lines, grew rapidly. Indeed, the smaller the company, the smaller the fleet, the easier it was for them to switch gears!

Newer Korean, Taiwanese or Japanese shippers got a head start, already using deep sea ports in Asia. The Asian advantage was hastened by their abilty to undercut prices of shipping that funnelled through European or American companies. Proud of their new prowess, these Asian companies color-coded their ships and painted their names in giant letters so everyone could see who was plying the Seven Seas. I used to sit out on the rocks at Grave's End, checking the ships entering the harbor and discussing this with my ex at his workplace.

So I was filled with curiousity as to how things are done today when I walked about Bayonne, New Jersey.

First off: The ships come here with lots of cars and goods but depart with nothing. This is totally different from the old days. In Hellenic Lines, the business of the main office on Broadway, just south of the new WTC, was to FILL THOSE TUBS! If there was an inch of space empty going in either direction, Mr, K., the Greek shipping millionaire, would be very angry and go about the office, prodding everyone to fill that hold!

So the aim of shipping was TWO WAY. All the competitors wanted to not just sail but insure that both directions, the ships were full as possible. This is in stark contrast with today's shipping. Nearly all shippers concentrate on one-way deals. Free trade has driven down prices but not by being efficient. The much older system was far more efficient in that it didn't waste space. Today, there is great volume but if you look at the ships going BOTH ways, the 'efficiency' rating is twice as BAD as it seems if it is calculated going only one way.

And because the ships had to be filled going both ways, this prevented one-way trade which is what everyone is trying to do today by the horrible mechanism of using monetary differentials. Everyone wants one way trade and currency advantage due to weakness! Which will cause the next depression.

I visited the docks for Global Shipping:

They had lots of European containers piled more than 4 stories high. The entire dock was filled with piles and piles of containers. Global Shipping is the modern Hellenic Lines: they take all sorts of containers from all sorts of businesses and pile them on their ships. Right next door was the BMW port of entry. The cars filled that lot. The shipping of cars are hugely responsible for one-way trade for the ships are seldom filled with much of anything on their return journeys to the ports in Europe and Asia. In the US, NOT ONE auto manufacturer was built next to a deep sea port. In Asia, they ALL are built this way. Toyota was most careful to NOT do this in the US, like here, all their factories were built in virgin countryside deep in the heart of the US. For NONE of these are meant to sail anywhere.

From Wikipedia:

Various types of RORO vessels include ferries, cruiseferries, cargo ships, and barges. A true RORO's ramps can serve all of the vessel’s decks; otherwise it is a hybrid type. New automobiles that are transported by ship around the world are often moved on a large type of RORO called a Pure Car Carrier (PCC) or Pure Car Truck Carrier (PCTC).

Unlike elsewhere in the shipping industry where cargo is normally measured by the metric tonne, RORO cargo will typically be measured in the more convenient unit of lanes in meters (LIMs). This is calculated by multiplying cargo length in meters by its width in lanes (lane width differs from vessel to vessel and there are a number of industry standards). Aboard PCCs cargo capacity is often measured in RT or RT43 units which is based on a 1966 Toyota or by car equivalent units (CEU).
*snip*
With the building of of the Wallenius Vilhelmsen's 8000 CEU car carrier Stockholm Faust in June of 2007 the car carriers entered a new era called the LCTC (Large Car & Truck Carrier)[2].

This is very significant: the standard auto unit for shipping is based on specifically, Toyota's cars. From the beginning of the US trade deficit in 1972, the US didn't bother shipping cars all that much but rather, 'expanded' and built factories in Brazil, Mexico and other places. They solemnly swore, this was for the domestic markets in South America, for example.

But that was a lie. The output was shipped here. But not in the vast quantities as the Japanese. For the Japanese, being an island, could easily build their plants right next to deep sea ports. These ports were expanded and sponsored by...hold onto your hats, everyone: the US NAVY! Go, Navy.

We needed deep, complex ports for our aircraft carriers and our subs. Since we decided to leave the US naked to anyone who wants to attack, we spent most of our energy and minds on fixing Japan so it could be a deep sea port power so we could station our fleets over there. To keep Japan as our ally (HAHAHA) we didn't build these very big ports ourselves, we hired the Japanese and took on more debt. The Japanese then developed the tools, technology and skills as well as the corporations, for developing deep sea ports.

Then Fortress Japan, MITI and the LDP teamed up to turn Japan into the world's biggest deep sea port facility! And the need for mirror ports was very strong so they were quite happy that the US Navy made other deep sea ports in California, Washington and Oregon. For a while, the ships sailed there and then the cars were taken by rail to the East Coast. The Germans, our other allies who lost WWII to us but now were part of our empire, wanted the same thing on the East Coast for the same reasons: the Japanese were killing them in the import auto markets in the US. So the US built these fine ports that connect to the hinterlands much more efficiently than the western ports due to the many train links up here.

Wikipedia:

While the characteristics of seagoing RO/RO car ferries have inherent risks, there are benefits to its seaworthiness. For example the car carrier Cougar Ace listed 80 degrees to its port side in 2006 but did not sink, since its high enclosed sides prevented water from entering.

Indeed, as I stood watching the ports, a Toyota ship dropped anchor. It was this HUGE brown box. There were virtually no features on the outside except for a small box on top for the small crew and their captain. I have been on board the early container ships and they seemed more like ships than this monster. The huge ship also was missing something important: a name. Instead of 10 story tall letters like Hanjsin ships, for example, this thing was anonymous. The Toyota docks had a sign but not a pretty one in lights like the BMW lot. It was all very low-key but vast. A huge tarmac desert that rapidly filled up with the thousands of cars disgorged from this giant whale.

Now for a look in the far past: From CNN Money, September 10, 1990

THE NEW 1991 models will soon be rolling out, and all the attention is focusing on the superslick $64,000 Honda NSX, Japan's costliest sports car and its designated Ferrari fighter. Car buffs have all but ignored the relatively mundane Honda Accord station wagon, due to arrive in dealer showrooms in late November with a base sticker price of about $16,000. Don't be misled.

The Accord wagon is a revolutionary vehicle, one likely to excite consumers and unnerve U.S. carmakers. Designed by Americans in Torrance, California, and built at Honda's burgeoning complex in Marysville, Ohio, it is the most American car ever produced by the Japanese. The Accord wagon adds a third dimension to Japan's North American auto strategy.

The Japanese began as importers of their own cars, reaching a peak of 2.4 million in 1986. Their next move was to assemble the cars in America. Today, Honda, Toyota, and Nissan are well on their way to becoming nearly autonomous producers, able to research and engineer as well as to build and design the cars in the U.S. Except for their ownership, these top Japanese automakers are beginning to appear as American as General Motors, Ford Motor, and Chrysler. Already the world's most proficient producers of cars, the Americanized Japanese will reap big gains in marketing acumen, development time, and operating costs. Many industry analysts forecast that the Japanese, who already produce more than one in four passenger car sales in the U.S., could boost their share to one in three in the mid-Nineties -- approaching GM's.

I was frankly shocked. I didn't know these ships were so huge! The displacement of water was minimal considering the great size, the car cargo isn't dense. For example, the weight displacement of containers which are steel and have considerable weight, themselves, and then filled with more or less heavy items, outweighs, per square foot, autos. Also, if a container ship lists at sea, this is a catastrophe. More than one ship has vanished suddenly when hit by a mega-wave. These waves happen at sea in mysterious ways. So much so, back in the seventies, I would watch for ships to come to the harbor to insure they were actually coming in during storms like before hurricanes when the seas get rough.

The cargoes of these tragic sinkings sometimes float around the world for years. Scientists use them to study currents. Once, a ship filled with sneakers lost its cargo to the high seas between Asia and the US. The lose shoes were then tracked to South America, Australia, Asia and the West Coast. There are gyers in the sea where the ocean's currents form circles. In these areas, there are flotillas of debris from sunken ships, mostly plastic, floating around and around.

The 1990 article boasting about how Toyota was designing and building cars in the US, when we look at the huge ships coming in filled with Toyotas made in India, China and other places, we have to remember, this is all about PROFITS. Even with the shipping, the profit value to the Japanese of shipping cars from Asia are even greater today than in 1990. Also, the Japanse 'depression' began interestingly enough, right when they 'outsourced' their cars to the US and incidentally, increasingly to other Asian countries. The Japanese no longer are getting endless good-paying jobs with a paternalistic, benevolent corporation. They are on a long-term, starvation diet that is now being applied to our own auto workers.

From Ship Gazette, Scandinavia:

Emma Mærsk is even bigger according to survey

SSG-RINGKØBING. A. P. Møller-Mærsk’s E-class container vessel seems even bigger than the 14,500 TEUs claimed by several sources until now. AXS-Alphaliner, an international container research company, has done a new counting based on a detailed drawing of the type. Their conclusion on the capacity landed on: 15,200 TEUs with a capacity of 7,004 TEUs under the hatches and 8,208 TEUs on deck. This capacity is still a theoretical number of boxes, but the ships have the possibility to take that many containers. The new figure raises the World record by some 700 TEUs. The E-class now consists of six vessels (Emma, Estelle, Eleonora, Evelyn, Ebba and Elly) Another two units is under construction at Odense Steel Shipyard.
Published: 19.10.07 15.44

There is this race between the European ship builders and the Chinese to see who can make the world's biggest container ships. Even the Japanese have given up on that business. They build their huge car ships and leave it at that. But the push for ever-swifter, ever-bigger one-way ships has not diminished, it is growing. Indeed, the harder it is to make a profit, the more these ships will grow.

Early Hellenic Lines ships had a large crew of dozens of men. First, they were Greek and Eastern European. Then, to save money, North African and then, Bangladesh and Chinese. Finally, this sort of shipping died off and the container ships had on quarter the crew and dropping. The thinking is, if the square feet and tonnage is increased while staffing drops, this will increase profits. This pushes things towards more international shipping. Local shipping makes less money due to smaller ports and smaller loads. It takes a bigger crew to ship locally than internationally.

Another side story from Shipping Gazette:

The ferry Vironia vill sail on its last voyage between Sillamäe in Estonia and Kotka in Finland on 19 October. The service will be closed down after negotiations with Russia to be allowed to pass east of Hogland have failed. The move would have reduced the voyage time by two hours to four hours. Saaremaa Shipping Company’s managing director Tõnis Rihvk says to SSG that the negotiations stranded already this spring and that any hopes of new negiotiations vanished when Russia announced that they will build a radar station on Hogland. The vessel Vironia will be sold.

Russia is squeezing Europe's balls at every turn. He has made it crystal clear, they must negotiate as equals and treat Russia as a major power, not as someone they can push around using the US as their bully boy. I have warned everyone, using the US nuclear arsenal as a diplomatic tool is pure folly, totally insane. The US navy can't stop Russia from destroying all of Europe so they better learn to triangulate fast or we will have serious problems that will make WWII look like a walk in the park. This same warning goes to Japan. The Russians need to build this radar station because Bush wants to build attack missiles all over Europe. So now things will be tough for the Scandinavians who live very close to this very angry Bear.

Another story from Shipping Gazette:

The EU Commission has adopted a strategy and an action plan for an integrated maritime policy in the European Union. The strategy contains steps such as a European maritime transport space without barriers, an integrated network for maritime surveillance and a review of EU labour law exemptions for the shipping and fishing sectors.

Europe is trying desperately to make itself into a Neue Heiligen Romänisch Reich: the New World Order. They think all they must do is build up their naval facilities and missile bases. There was another article about how the Scandinavians can't find enough sailors for their wretched, tiny military navy. Again: they don't have to do this, all they must do is triangulate. During the Yeltsin years, everyone thought triangulation meant strangulation. This is why Putin and not some rich guy is running Russia. Certainly, not Goldman Sachs.

From Bloomberg:

General Motors Corp. posted a 4 percent gain in quarterly global sales, bolstering its bid to hold off Toyota Motor Corp. and extend a 76-year reign as the world's largest automaker.

The 2.39 million vehicles sold set a third-quarter record, Detroit-based GM said today in a statement. Toyota's combined sales in its biggest markets -- the U.S., Japan and Europe -- fell 3.8 percent in the quarter. Toyota will release its worldwide totals on Oct. 22, spokeswoman Mira Sleilati said.

None of these Fords came oveseas via huge box-like carriers. They were nearly universally built overseas. So this 'good news' means squat diddly here in the US. Our trade deficit continues to be very bad. During 25 years of GM's supposed reign, cars poured into the US. From $1 billion a year to $400+ billion a year. This is destroying our economic base in many ways. This doesn't produce all that many jobs. If 6 people can deliver 6,000 cars, this is a very low number versus material goods.

And this is more bad news:

During the quarter, GM again recorded a sales decline in North America, its largest market. Sales there fell 6.1 percent to 1.21 million vehicles.

Not only didn't we export cars, the huge boxes coming in from Japan didn't fill up with American cars going to Japan, GM's market share here continues to shrink. This means, GM might grow...IN CHINA...but this will make our trade deficit worse because they will import these cars...FROM CHINA! Toyota makes expensive cars because this is where the profits lie. But the Chinese are now underselling them, underselling using GM cars made in China, for example.

More Bloomberg:

Industrywide sales in the U.S. may slip to 16.2 million this year, the lowest level since 1998, according to J.D. Power & Associates, based in Westlake Village, California.
*snip*
During the third quarter, Toyota sales in Japan fell 3.8 percent, its U.S. volume dropped 4.9 percent and European deliveries were down 0.1 percent, according to data from the automaker and the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers.

The Europeans sell nearly only very-high value-added cars here. This is why I visited the BMW lots to see how active it was. Japan is desperately crushing inflation at home to keep the fiction of a weak yen and auto sales are collapsing there but not as fast as here! We are IN A RECESSION ALREADY. The news yesterday was all about Wall Street suddenly figuring out this obvious fact. They tried to pretend housing wasn't a problem, they thought the 'consumer' would save the 'economy' which is nearly entirely based on brown, box ships with no name sneaking in from Asia and dropping off zillions of cars made far away from here.

From the China Times:

Chery grew from a small town player into a nationwide player and is now aspiring to become an international player, but Chery has found that shipping is a problem and what seemed like the best solution was to just buy a ship maker.

The Anhui Daily News reported on Saturday that the WuHu Xinlian ship building company held its ‘reopening’ ceremony on Saturday to celebrate its take over by Chery. The company will be building bulk cargo vessels that will be used to ship vehicles, oil, and other chemical products.

Like army ants, the Chinese manufacturers are coming, they won't accept any barriers. And note how they will do what the Japanese, Koreans and Taiwanese did: they will use their own ships to do their deep sea portage. And they will expand into shipping aggressively. I remember when the Asians first hired Americans in the shipping industry. The Americans disliked the long hours and the difficult stresses. To keep offices here, the Asians had to hire some US managers to keep people from rebelling.

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