Revealed: The ghost fleet of the recession

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-The-ghost-fleet-recession.html#ixzz0R04TnM2N ^

[Orange1998]

The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination - and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-The-ghost-fleet-recession.html#ixzz0R0k4822N

[Orange1998]

Very interesting read. So much for the green sprouts.

[MNJohnnie]

We are so screwed.

[FormerACLUmember]

I just saw the exact same phenomena 3 weeks ago, as I sailed into the waters approaching Athens, Greece. Hundreds of mothballed oil tankers and cargo ships at anchor. All victims of the world wide economic devastation directly caused by Obama, Barney Frank, and the rest of the financially insane democrat ruling class.

Singapore harbor:

[BGHater]

How Google Earth explains the financial crisis

[Peanut Gallery]

ping

[Orange1998]

You would think after spending Trillion of dollars the ships would be on the move. Opps.... Instead Paulson gave it to the bank who held on to it.

[ken21]

and the church of england is going to be an islamic mosque.

[rellimpank]

-—more—

—http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2338474/posts

[blam]

[Orange1998]

Oops! Never seen it posted.

[tbw2]

This looks like a perfect opportunity for someone to buy up the ships and create a floating new nation. ObamaCare Jokes Obama Jokes

[Nathan Zachary]

I wonder why we don’t see all the envirowienies protesting at these ship parking lots about all the bilge oil floating around, demanding it be cleaned up.

Just goes to show they are only interested in destroying the US economy.

[Bean Counter]

Interesting read indeed.

A couple of months ago there was an article in the Oregonian about the mounting numbers of idle railroad cars that are being stashed on long unused sidings. The focus of the article was how people who bought land “with a view” and who always supposed that old railroad line would be converted to a nature trail, but are raising hell because the parked rolling stock blocks the view.

Much of those thousands of idle pieces of rolling stock are used to transport the containers those ships are no longer delivering, so it is easy to see how this snowballs in between Countries and industries. Shipping is so inter-modal now that if one sector is affected, you can bet that there are others that are at least as bad if not worse off.

[BGHater]

What’s not talked about is, these cargo shipping companies have ships being constructed right now!

They paid top price on them, what are they gonna do with them?

Floating condos? Lol. They will double their fleet in some cases. What a disaster.

[MNJohnnie]

Give them to the US Navy for live fire exercises.

[Nathan Zachary]

It isn’t just rail cars, but barges that carry billions worth of goods a year up and down the Mississippi river system are idle as well. Same as the great lakes waterways, not much moving at all.

[dog breath]

Maybe now is a good time to start seriously considering marketing, Democratic Party Commemorative Hobo Hooks, for hopping freight cars. they will come with a Obama, “What me worry blanket,” for the total kit. They make the cars a little taller nowadays so you will need a assist when riding the rails. I am also picturing a George Bush one for the Democrats.

[rellimpank]

—no problem—when I see a repost , I usually include a link so you can catch up on the other thread-many an article posted during the night needs a repost after everybody is up, IMHO—

[Orange1998]

How can the Feds claim we are on the road to recovery when the facts are plain as day. Until these ships, trains, barges get moving there is no recovery.

[Nathan Zachary]

"Floating condos? Lol. They will double their fleet in some cases. What a disaster."

A lot of those ships are past their usefull life, and will be scrapped, as well as single hulled oil tankers that are supposed to be banned from service already.

[DTogo]

The waters between Batam and Singapore have always been a parking lot of freighters.

[Oldexpat]

The weather in that area is so benign that they don’t have to worry about typhoons or a heavy monsoon. And the water is realtively shallow..so there are lots of places to anchor. Singapore has good support facilities and is a good location to start from.
If and when these ships start to move..then we will be seeing an upturn. I wonder whether anyone has a count of them by type.
It is amazing that so many big companies got caught to flat footed. The bubble was highly visible and only a fool could think that the commodity prices and borrowing would continue to grow.

[Nathan Zachary]

"How can the Feds claim we are on the road to recovery when the facts are plain as day. Until these ships, trains, barges get moving there is no recovery."

It's going to be interesting to see what happens when all the false economies of G20 countries that are surviving on "make work projects" paid for by heavy deficit spending comes to an end.

It didn't do diddly squat to get international trade moving at all.
I suspect we'll see the second floor break away in the markets, and a full depression underway around December when much of this money is spent.

[Paladin2]

vesseltracker.com is cool.

[Orange1998]

so is this one.

http://download.hellenicshippingnews.com/img/all_google_map.html

[Nathan Zachary]

"The bubble was highly visible and only a fool could think that the commodity prices and borrowing would continue to grow."

That was because when about 20,000 chinese factories collapsed and went bankrupt around Aug-Sept last year, it was hidden by both Chinese government and western media.. Commodity prices didn't fall right away as they should have, which would have alerted everyone that something was up. This train weck started in China, and when the big investment scam became exposed as a result of banks scrambling to cash in some investment capital only to find worthless paper, the entire floor fell out, rapidly.

Now, commodity prices are starting to move up a bit, but who knows if it's just because of stimulus spending in China and other countries? I suspect it is, and we'll find out soon enough.

[Ken H]

Baltic Dry Index says, "Looks like I'll have to roll over one more time."

[Paladin2]

You’re right. The Burns Harbor is downbound at the Soo Locks.

[Secret Agent Man]

I say we put all of our hardened criminals rapists and murderers on them in the middle of the ocean, no fuel, but toss a bunch of hand weapons on the decks, and let them go after each other. Anyone jumping off the ship will be shot. Last guy gets ‘freedom’ with a bullet. THen we throw the next batch on there.

[MNJohnnie]

I like the way you think.

[gogogodzilla]

I wonder if I could commission a sailboat on the cheap from all those now-idle shipbuilders in Korea...

:-)

(It’s always been my retirement dream to buy a 50-60 footer and live on it.)

[wideminded]

The focus of the article was how people who bought land “with a view” and who always supposed that old railroad line would be converted to a nature trail, but are raising hell because the parked rolling stock blocks the view.

I've noticed that parked rolling stock also seems to attract graffiti "artists", which will not be helping these views either.

[Orange1998]

https://webcam.crrel.usace.army.mil/soo/

Live cam has no ships, one would think it was closed. Although it does close mid Jan the Christmas shipping season should be in full swing.

[SAJ]

Throw in a new DVD featuring Slim Whitman singing 'The Big Rock-Candy Mountain', too.

;^)

[Vince Ferrer]

We can get these ships back in service shipping Chinese tires and US chicken.

[blam]

"How can the Feds claim we are on the road to recovery when the facts are plain as day. Until these ships, trains, barges get moving there is no recovery"

Maybe explained here:

Deflation Looms

[blam]

"The weather in that area is so benign that they don’t have to worry about typhoons or a heavy monsoon. And the water is realtively shallow..so there are lots of places to anchor. Singapore has good support facilities and is a good location to start from."

Yup. I stopped there in the mid 60's to refuel a couple times on the way to Vietnam.

[blam]

"We can get these ships back in service shipping Chinese tires and US chicken."

Don't forget steel pipes too.

China Condemns US Tariffs On Steel Pipes

[DuncanWaring]

I wonder if I could commission a sailboat on the cheap from all those now-idle shipbuilders in Korea...

Talk to Travis McGee; he'll tell you how to build your own.

[Paladin2]

"Vessel positions may be up to one hour old or incomplete."

http://www.marinetraffic.com

I don't see the Burns Habor now, though I did see it positioned below the locks, on it's was to Burns Harbor IN! a while ago.

[Paladin2]

https://webcam.crrel.usace.army.mil/soo/vid2/

pick camera 2 file #1 which is today.

Doesn't look like the soo locks cameras are updating. the pic I see is from yesterday.

[Orange1998]

Ok.

[hinckley buzzard]

Every Friday I get to watch trains during the hour I take for lunch. They are CSX line and generally one or two come by, heading in or out of Cleveland and Lorain. They are a lot shorter than they used to be, and significantly, hardly ever have any containers from COSCO. There are more containers from Europe than from China, and numerous domestic tank cars. Relatively few double stacked container cars. No auto carriers, ever.

And some days there are no trains at all.

[hinckley buzzard]

Every Friday I get to watch trains during the hour I take for lunch. They are CSX line and generally one or two come by, heading in or out of Cleveland and Lorain. They are a lot shorter than they used to be, and significantly, hardly ever have any containers from COSCO. There are more containers from Europe than from China, and numerous domestic tank cars. Relatively few double stacked container cars. No auto carriers, ever.

And some days there are no trains at all.

[muawiyah]

There’s a stretch of railroad along US 50 between Cincinatti and Seymour where they’ve kept a line of old glass topped cross beam telephone lines intact ~ it’s also lined with old rail cars ~ MILES OF THEM.

[Frantzie]

Well the midwest largely voted for Obama and got their Hope & Change.

The crash was enginnered by Soros, his hedge fund buddies and teh Cong Black Caucus, Barney Frank & Dood’s actions with Fannie & Freddie plus all of O’s cronies at Fannie & Freddie. .

[Frantzie]

Idle rich spending the summer sailing the islands of Mykonos. ;-)

EXACTLY - Fannie & Freddie (a branch of of ACORN) handing out money and loans to anyone. Dodd, Frank, Obama (he was there), Maxine Waters, Congressional Black Caucus, Frank Raines, Stan O’Neil who destroyed Merrill, the Sandlers at World Savings and Soros short hedge fund pals.

Also what country pulled $500 billion from money markets at the same moment in Oct 2008 and what country funded Obama’s campaign? Chaina? Saudis?

Thanks for the report - creepy.

[happygrl]

Wasn’t that called “Waterworld”?

[Straight Vermonter]

I suspect many of them were in service only because the demand for shipping had been so high.