Dubai To Bid On U.S. Ports Despite the Outrage

[Chimichurri]

Dubai's DP World will on Tuesday start a second round of bidding for its US port assets, with Morgan Stanley, Carlyle Group and SSA Marine all among the last few bidders in the highly politicised sale.

Why hasn't the media picked up on this?

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=FT&Date=20060911&ID=6010996

[DeadManInc]

1. Dems need to raise holy hell over this!!

[Karenca]

2. Recommended..... eom

[AndyA]

3. Send the link to Lou Dobbs! He'll put a blister on their butts big time!!

Lou will turn five shades of red when he hears this.

I noticed of arch enemies The Carlyle Group are in there. A bunch of Nazis if ever there were any.

[northzax]

7. Carlyle is bidding against DPW

I think I'd rather have DPW, a company that knows how to run a port, than a holding company.

[AndyA]

12. Honestly, I'm not convinced that DPW and Carlyle aren't one and the

same when it gets right down to it. The fingers this group has stick in a lot of other pies.

[northzax]

13. probably not

DPW is owned by a whole other set of billionaires - Carlyle is simply an investment fund (a well connected investment fund, to be sure)

[whistle]

4. Did Dubai ever give up their port management contract? I was

...under the impression that following the initial flack, Dubai kept the management contracts but operating in low profile

[northzax]

5. yes, it's time for another round of good old fashioned nativism!

Ain't gonna be no ragheads running out ports! Don't they know? ports should be run by WHITE people, not brown ones. Plus, they're probably mooslims, which means they are definately terrorists (all muslims are terrorists, after all, it's practically the same thing)

I love idiots. I just don't expect to find them here.

[hughee99]

6. Damn straight...

We can't trust "those people", we need the good people from the Carlyle group running those ports!

[shadowknows69]

8. Oh fuck here we go

It has nothing to do with race or religion. Why can't these ports be run by American companies?

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[shadowknows69]

14. its not race to me

there are no American companies in the business of running large ports. none. zilch.
two: competitive bidding means allowing the best bidder to win, it's good for everyone.

Sheeit then someone give me a loan and I'll start one. Also whoever allowed this to happen, and unfortunately I fear our boy Bill might have helped by signing NAFTA, needs to be tarred and feathered and thrown off a boat.

Thanks for sinking to calling me an idiot. While it may be an issue of race or religion to you most people I've spoken with and my personal opinion is it is a security and a labor issue. As I said if there isn't an american company to run our ports then someone needs to start one or there needs to be a government agency running them, which would probably scare me as much as the UAE running them lol. I know all companies are globalized but a US "based" company would be more likely to employ americans and they should all be union workers.

I admit I was ignorant about who ran our ports before places like DU and braver journalists like Lou Dobbs brought it to my attention and I'm sure that is by design. It is one of those things I and many others blindly, and obviously foolishly, expect our government to take care of. That IS why we employ them right? To take care of little logistics like that?

I do remember hearing about the Chinese involvement in LA and was equally horrified I assure you even if I didn't get around to responding to any threads on it. Allies of ours, including the UAE if they truly are allies, I have less of a problem with but I still feel American shit should be watched over by americans. It's only common sense. It has nothing to do with "Arabs or mooslums or brown people" to me at least. The UAE has had glaring ties with terrorism in the past and I'm sure the chinese have less than beneficent future plans for us although actually I think they have more to gain in protecting future chinese territory.

I admit I'm somewhat isolationist but if you knew me you'd know it has nothing to do with race. Religion? Yes, but I'd rage as much against a bunch of priests running our ports as I would a bunch of islamic clerics. That's why you make the clergy wear the funny robes. So you know not to let them near the heavy machinery, or the schools, or the nukular football.

The thing that bothers me the most is when this came to light there was a public outrage, right or wrong, the majority spoke and the administration went through the motions to make it appear that they listened to the people for a change. Now we find out it was all just smoke and mirrors again and they just ignored us once again.

[northzax]

17. sorry, but you obviously have no idea

how these things work. Why does it matter who the boss is, if the people on the ground are the exact same? Take the Port of Baltimore, for instance, one of the ones covered in the original deal that sold P&O (a UK company) to DPW. The contract stipulates union labour in the port. Why does it matter if the company that owns the operation is in Singapore or Cincinnati? Paris or Peoria? the local managers are the same people, the longshoremen are the same people, the pilots are the same people, they just send their weekly reports to a different email address. One reason that US companies haven't been successful in remaining competitive in this market is that US-run ports are notorious for being plagued by Organized Crime. Would you prefer the Gottis to be running your ports? cause they basically are in New York and New Jersey (except for the two terminals run by, you guessed it, DPW.)

American companies are in the tail end of a long process of destroying unions, not improving them. Name a growing US company that employs Union labour? I can't. What makes you think that American companies are more likely to hire Americans? been to a construction site lately? in fact, a foreign company is more likely to strictly follow the rules given the potential backlash to their global operations if they don't. (by the way, you know that the former CEO of DPW is an American, right, he was forced out after the hullabaloo last spring and left after DPW and the Dubai Port Authority merged this month) indeed, 4 of the 9 senior vice presidents of the new DP World company are either Americans or English. it's a global public company.

It may not be a racial, ethnic or religious thing to you, but you can't ignore the fact that it is for most people. If Chuck Schumer didn't know that the ports in his home city were partially operated by a UK company, then he's an idiot, if he did know, and didn't care until it was a Dubai company, then he's a pandering asshole. And so is Lou Dobbs (come on, I knew P&O built and ran the Elizabethtown Container Terminal, and I don't live in New York (full disclosure, I work on public-private partnerships in several industries, although shipping isn't one of them). None of these media or political elite cared a whit until they saw political and financial advantage in Arab-bashing. I, personally, see no reason to trust a well-connected American company any more than a well-connected foriegn one. Why would they run things poorly, or violate their contracts, risking the loss of a multi-billion dollar investment? DP World runs terminal operations globally, they know what they are doing, and frankly, do it well. Maritime security remains the provenance of the Coast Guard and the local port police authority, along with private security firms hired by the operators. Wackenhut is Wackenhut, you know?

In all seriousness, I have studied this issue, top to bottom. If I thought there was an increased security risk, I'd be the first to complain. But among the people I have talked to, who are extensive in the field, there is no real concern. it's a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" more than anything else.

Government oversight doesn't mean that a US company has to run the terminals, it means that the government should set decent regulations and enforce them. Security is the responsiblity of the government, not corporations, and if the Feds are dropping the ball, blame them, not the people working in the ports. Write decent contracts, provide decent oversight, and it doesn't matter who is writing the checks. Unless, for some reason, you think the businessmen who run this multi-billion dollar a year company will cast all that aside to make a poltical point?

[w4rma]

15. You do realize that it was Dubai royalty who were hunting with Bin Laden

that one time that Clinton could have dropped a missle on his head, except he couldn't because he would have killed UAE royalty, also.

Nonetheless, I don't want any country that is controlled by royalty to have control over what comes and goes through our ports. Especially a kingdom that has legalized child slavery.

[Elwood P Dowd]

16. Dubai also launders money for the Bush crime family

:mad:

[northzax]

18. so does Switzerland

and Luxembourg, and the Caymans. and the Jersey Islands. it's called banking.

[Elwood P Dowd]

19. Sounds like you work for and support the Bush crime family

Over half the $250,000 used to finance the 9-11 terrorists came to the US from Dubai.

[northzax]

23. and you know what bank they used?

BANK OF AMERICA. based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Every single penny used to finance the terror attacks of September 11th went through CHARLOTTE. obviously a hot bed of terrorism. If you belong to Bank of America, you are supporting terrorism. same difference.

you know, I am sure, that Dubai is home to many banks? that it has the least interference in the banking system of any country in the middle east? that most of the money for all purposes in the middle east flows through Dubai, because it's the safest place to bank in the region? Where else are you going to bank, Damascus? Tehran? Beirut?

the money didn't come from Dubai, it came THROUGH Dubai. there's a key differnce. Just like the money didn't come from Charlotte, it went THROUGH Charlotte. Are there criminals in Dubai? I'm sure there are. Is there money laundering thre? sure, just like in every decent banking system in the world. Unlike the US anymore, Dubai still has banking secrecy laws where the government can't track your money willy nilly.

What do you know about Dubai, the UAE, the rest of the Middle/Near East or the international banking system? apparently not all that much. learn something about the rest of the world, willya? you're acting like a typical uneducated American, it isn't pretty.

[Double T]

10. Dubai's DP World is just like bushco and the rethugs............

if THEY DON'T get what THEY want the first time, THEY'LL try AGAIN and AGAIN until THEY do. Hope Lou Dobbs is all over this crap AGAIN!!!!!

[Double T]

11. Dubai's DP World is just like bushco and the rethugs............

if THEY DON'T get what THEY want the first time, THEY'LL try AGAIN and AGAIN until THEY do. Hope Lou Dobbs is all over this crap AGAIN!!!!!

[Karenca]

20. Kick again, nt

[lonestarnot]

21. Damn another round of this, only worse.

[RB TexLa]

22. Yeah, let's put the sign out, US contracts "White companies only"

Don't worry Lou "if it ain't white it ain't right" Dobbs will pick up on it. Gotta feed his racists viewers their group of the week to blame for whatever it is they want to blame them for.

[mhatrw]

25. I think it's a bad idea to hand over the administration of US ports to

the state owned corporation of one of only three states that politically recognized the Taliban.

I guess that makes me racist. Right?

[mhatrw]

24. I knew this would happen. Wait for the furor to die down, then

simply do business as usual.