Selling off America

http://www.startribune.com/484/story/554337.html

WASHINGTON — Roads and bridges built by U.S. taxpayers are starting to be sold off, and so far foreign-owned companies are doing the buying.


On a single day in June, an Australian-Spanish partnership paid $3.8 billion to lease the Indiana Toll Road. An Australian company bought a 99-year lease on Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway, and Texas officials decided to let a Spanish-American partnership build and run a toll road from Austin to Seguin for 50 years.


Few people know that the tolls from the U.S. side of the tunnel between Detroit and Windsor, Canada, go to a subsidiary of an Australian company — which also owns a bridge in Alabama.

http://www.reason.org/privatization/...tructure.shtml

Reality Check: Foreign Firms Already Manage Critical Infrastructure

...

Indiana is not unique. Here’s some perspective on the foreign operation of infrastructure assets and related security issues throughout the U.S.


Ports: Foreign companies already own most of the infrastructure used in the domestic shipping industry, including vessels, containers, handling equipment, and port facilities. Approximately 80 percent of U.S. port terminals are leased and operated by foreign companies, largely because federal law requires U.S.-based shipping companies to use American crews, making these firms less competitive.

For example, 80 percent of the terminals at the nation’s busiest cargo port, the Port of Los Angeles, are run by foreign companies (see below).
Six of seven companies that operate terminals within the Port of New York-New Jersey are foreign-owned.
At the Port of Houston, the British firm Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (the firm being acquired by Dubai Ports World) handles freight at several public terminals. Inchcape Shipping Services, the world's largest private shipping manager which was recently acquired by a UAE investment company, also has had a long-time presence in Houston.
At the Port of Boston, P&O Ports, a wholly owned subsidiary of Peninsular and Oriental, and the Massachusetts Port Authority have teamed up to operate the Black Falcon Cruise Terminal.
P&O Ports is also a 50% joint venture partner in Delaware River Stevedores (DRS), which provides stevedoring and terminal services in Philadelphia, PA, Camden, NJ, and Wilmington, DE
At the Port of Baltimore, APM Terminals, a division of the Danish A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, operates a private container terminal within Dundalk Marine Terminal. C. Steinweg (USA) Inc., a division of Dutch company C. Steinweg Handelsveem B.V., operates the Baltimore Metal & Commodities Terminal Inc. Terminal. Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics, a company born of a merger between a Swedish firm and a Norwegian firm in 1999, operates the Mid-Atlantic Terminal. Finally, Ceres Terminals Incorporated, of Japanese firm NYK, currently provides service at cruise terminals in Bayonne, NJ, Brooklyn, NY, and Baltimore, MD.
Foreign interests or their subsidiaries operate container cargo terminals at seven of the 10 busiest container cargo ports in the U.S.
Neptune Orient Line, which is 68 percent owned by the Singapore government, bought U.S.-based APL Limited in 1997 and now operates terminals in Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, and Alaska.
Yang Ming Marine Transport Company, which is partially owned by the Taiwanese government, operates terminals in Los Angeles and Tacoma.
Cosco Container Lines, a division of China Cosco, is owned by the Chinese government and operates a terminal at Long Beach.
A.P. Moeller-Maersk, a Danish company, is the largest terminal operator in the United States and owner of the world's largest shipping fleet. It operates terminals at the ports of Miami-Dade and Jacksonville, among others, and owns APM Terminals NA, which is building a $500 million private container terminal in Portsmouth, Virginia, scheduled to open next year.
At Norfolk, Virginia, Ceres Marine Terminals Inc. is one of the major stevedoring firms and is owned by Japanese shipping firm NYK Line. Norfolk is the U.S. headquarters of French shipping line CMA-CGM Group and Israeli shipper Zim-American Israeli Shipping Co.
According to Dennis Rochford, president of the Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay, of the 2,700 ships that pass through the ports of Camden (New Jersey), Philadelphia, and Wilmington along the Delaware River each year, 2,500 are foreign.

It is important to note that the ownership of U.S. ports remains squarely in the hands of local port authorities, and the responsibility for security at these ports lies not with the private companies that operate them, but with American security officials, including the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, port police, and local authorities, among others. In fact, every domestic port and terminal operator—foreign or domestic—is required to comply with the 2002 Maritime Transportation and Security Act and submit a security plan to the Coast Guard for approval.


Airports: Of the 517 domestic airports offering commercial passenger, 13 have management contracts with private companies, and all of these companies have significant foreign ownership or involvement. For example:

Indianapolis International Airport is now the largest privately-managed airport in the United States and is under a long-term management contract with BAA Indianapolis LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BAA plc (the privatized British Airport Authority). BAA plc also holds medium-term retail management contracts with Pittsburgh International, Boston Logan International, and Baltimore/Washington International airports.
International Terminal 4 at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport is operated under a long term concession deal between the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and a consortium that includes Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, which is a corporation run by the Dutch government.
International Concourse E at Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport is managed by a domestic subsidiary of TBI plc, a British airport management company. TBI also provides ramp control at four of Hartsfield’s six ramps and manages the Airport-wide Flight Information Display System.
TBI also manages both the international and domestic terminals, develops additional air service, and provides ground handling and cargo services for Central Florida’s Orlando Sanford International Airport. TBI additionally provides total airport management services at Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport.
AvPorts, a domestic subsidiary of the Australian-owned Macquarie Infrastructure Company, provides management and operations services at Albany International Airport, Atlantic City International Airport, Tweed-New Haven Regional Airport, and Westchester County Airport.
Stewart International Airport, located north of New York City, operates under a 99-year lease to the U.S. subsidiary of the U.K.-based National Express Group, PLC.

Like security at sea ports, security at airports is controlled by the federal government. The responsibility for baggage and passenger screening at all of these airport facilities is the responsibility of the Transportation Security Administration—not the companies that hold the management contracts.


Water and Wastewater: Out of approximately 54,000 publicly-owned water and wastewater systems, over 2,400 (5 percent) of them contract with private firms to provide system operations and maintenance services. Many of these 2,400 contracts are held by domestic firms with a foreign parent. For example, Veolia Water, the U.S. subsidiary of a French firm, serves more than 600 communities and 14 million people through public-private partnerships with local governments, including the nation’s largest water partnership in Indianapolis. Of the four largest water companies that provide operations and maintenance services to publicly-owned water and wastewater systems in the U.S., only one—OMI—is a domestic company.

In addition, 15 percent of the U.S. population is served by approximately 20,000 private, regulated water and wastewater utilities, including many small systems serving subdivisions or trailer parks. Most of these are owned by domestic subsidiaries of foreign firms.

Regardless of size or scale, the private firms—both foreign and domestic—that provide water and wastewater services to local governments and communities are subject to the same environmental and safety regulations as publicly-managed utilities, and all fall under the regulatory supervision of federal, state, and local governments.
Highways: Though increasingly common in Europe and other parts of the world, the phenomenon of privatized highway infrastructure is relatively new in the United States. But it is a rapidly growing trend here, as state and local governments discover they can provide vastly improved services for residents thanks to private capital and private-sector management and operations expertise. While there are few privately-operated highways, many of these are managed by foreign-owned companies. For example:

In 2004, the City of Chicago leased the 7.8 mile Chicago Skyway to the Australian-owned Macquarie Infrastructure Group and Spanish-owned Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte S.A. for 99 years at a cost of $1.8 billion.
The same firms were selected as the preferred bidder for the 75 year, $3.85 billion lease of the Indiana Toll Road. This deal is pending approval by the Indiana legislature.
Cintra is the majority interest in the consortium that won the $7.2 billion bid to design, build, and operate the first Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC-35).

http://www.stopthenorthamericanunion.com/

[BoredOutOfMyMind]

forget it, it is part of the Endtime. The sooner Amerika fails then the sooner the antichrist can take over.

Uh, that's what THEY want you to believe....

[BoredOutOfMyMind]

We watch Panama given away to a thug, and did NOTHING. We watched the Chinese set up Missiles and NOTHING. We have millions here illegally with a border so porous that al Quida can walk in with Nukes and we still do NOTHING.

Originally Posted by BoredOutOfMyMind

We watch Panama given away to a thug, and did NOTHING. We watched the Chinese set up Missiles and NOTHING. We have millions here illegally with a border so porous that al Quida can walk in with Nukes and we still do NOTHING.

Who is the "we" here?

The problem is WE THE PEOPLE have been expecting the gatekeepers to do their job, while WE THE PEOPLE have not been doing OUR job - watching the watchers....

Personally, I don;t think the PEOPLE will wake up until it gets REALLY bad...

The thing about tyrants and despots and other assorted criminal ilk is they can never "quit while ahead". They have to go "one more round", always. And the result? Criminals who get in positions of power push things to the limit. Which means that eventually, good old Bolshevik-style "social planning" will be in full swing.

Welcome to the dark ages.

Just say "no" to gun registration.

Bump for the afternoon crew...

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by BoredOutOfMyMind

We watch Panama given away to a thug, and did NOTHING. We watched the Chinese set up Missiles and NOTHING. We have millions here illegally with a border so porous that al Quida can walk in with Nukes and we still do NOTHING.

Yup and if you raise these issues you are labeled a racist by even people claiming to be Christians. American Christians are asleep

[RevDWW]

I heard a guy today tell Glenn Beck, on his radio show, that if a million American Citizens ould go out and buy a rifle it would send a strong message to our leaders.