Discussion Question #4

Maybe you are getting ready for a big Super Bowl party.  The Super Bowl also comes pretty much at the same time that we begin to schedule mid-term exams in the academic quarter system.  What fun, eh!  Not in this class, though--your essays came in a few days before, and the next essay is not due for a while.

So, there you are sitting in front of the television and wondering whether the electrifying Reggie Bush of the Saints is the reason that USC will have its national championship yanked.  Of course, Bush might have his Heisman Trophy taken away too.

And then it strikes you that the television set you are watching all these was manufactured in China :)  Which is when you begin to forget about the Super Bowl and, to the annoyance of the rest of those at the party, you start talking to them, very loudly, about international trade and transportation, the box, and China.  And then yo wonder why all of a sudden you are all alone!

But you don't care, because you have done the readings for this week.  You know that this week is a continuation of some of the ideas from last week.  As Levinson notes in Chapter 12, "government investment in ports had been crucial to the development of container shipping in the 1960s and 1970s."  in 1977, "container shipping reached a landmark" writes Levinson.  What was that landmark?  You tell me, because you, too, have done all the readings.

But, governments were equally worried about a reverse of the "build it and they will come" approach: what if nobody came, and the ports with all the expensive equipment lay idle?  So, what did they do? Many of them decided to turn over the day-to-day operations to the private sector.  You can then see how the Dubai-based corporation I referred to earlier becomes a part of the story.

So, a wonderful confluence of events.  In 1977 that major shipping landmark.  In 1979, China's Deng Xiaoping famously declared that "to get rich is glorious" and unleashes economic reforms.  Fast forward thirty years and the reading I have included for you that China dethrones Germany as the top exporter.   

Which is where you begin to yell, "stop, Dr. Khe, I have a few things to say."  Sounds good to me.
Your task, for this Discussion Question, is to demonstrate your understanding of the readings for this week, with the following caveats:

• All the comments cannot be based only on the China/Germany news item
• All your comments cannot be standalone comments--after the first few, we need rejoinders and critiques and discussions.

Get set. Ready. Go
Nope, that is not it.  In football language, "hut! hut! hike!" :)

ps: if you read until here, well, you might be interested in this Super Bowl prediction!
pps: the reality is that I have no plans to watch the game. ha ha ha.  I am just an information junkie.