This reminds me of our friends to the north, who I believe sold the toll roads around Toronto to the Europeans who immeadiately jacked the price of tolls up dramatically. When the citizens complained about the price increase, they were told that under EU rules, the owners were free to charge what ever they pleased.
As with the ports deal, I am all for free markets, but can someone explain, why if we are one of the greatest nations in the world with technology and managements skills which have created the highest standard of living on the globe, do we have to have our ports and highways managed by a third world nation. Sorry but this makes no g-d-damn sense whatsoever.
Sure it does. It's obvious to me that we simply value our "standard of living" more than anything else -- including our security, our financial stability, our civic institutions, etc. If selling off our assets to foreign countries is the only way to maintain this standard of living, then that's exactly what we're going to do.
The Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gassett explained it perfectly in his classic essay, "Revolt of the Masses." He was writing about the civil unrest in Spain in the 1930s in particular, but he was remarkably astute about how the flawed human condition manifested itself in idiotic public policy in democratic societies.
What EU rules were those, specifically?
Run by the same company that our idiot governor here in Texas wants to give toll roads to. Believe it or not, there are lots of supporters of this on FreeRepublic.