And you can bet that the taxpayers will be on the hook for the deference of what was paid for it when the deal went down earlier. And rightfully, the taxpayer should pay the difference! That's right: for collectively telling a foreign investor that "your capital infusion is not appreciated here because we view you as an enemy - okay, only a potential one - but still we need you to sell because we're afraid of you", we will not be able to also tell them that, "Oh, and by the way, even though we're going to force you sell your interest in this asset, it is none of our concern that you lose money when you're forced to sell it. Have a nice day!"
You better believe that we're going to pay for this with some form of reparation...and don't be too surprised if there won't be some form of trade retaliation either. At the very least, we have sent the wrong kinds of signals to the capital markets and have probably just slipped off of the top 10 of the 2006 Index of Economic Freedom.
I hope we're proud, are accepting of the coming recession, like the step backward from the embrace of capitalism, looking forward to the Republican Party demographic shift when the capitalists leave it, and more unlikely alliances between talk radio personalities and Big Government-loving senators.
The shark has been jumped, fellow FReepers, and some of you who are proud of your contributions to these developments now, will also be too pigheaded [and not bright enough] to understand the negative consequences that will probably happen later.
Sheesh, based on your post, we should just all apply for Dutch citizenship and have the doctors do euthanasia on us. Is the sky still up in the air where you live? I wonder?
I think the unions had a big hand in winning this one, that's if it can be called a win.
Hopefully not a recession, otherwise agree.
So I guess the USA is the only country in the world with no right to act in its own best interests and no right to respond to insults done to us? Buying a ticket on American Airlines Flight 77 was a simmple business transaction as well. If the USA reacted the way we are told the UAE will react, we'd be retaliating against almost every country on the planet.
Great post, LowCountryJoe. This is such a no-brainer it's difficult to understand the reactions of a lot of Republicans. Although, I'm behind Bush 100%, he's not much of a salesman when it comes to this kind of event.
The bottomline is this: Why not have some "trusted" Arabs 'involved' in operations activities within the ports - would it not follow that they would do everything possible to protect the ports, e.g. keep their eye to the ground in the Arab world, etc.?