[backhoe]

Unresolved Questions- the Panama canal, good, bad, or a waiting disaster?--thread II

[waxhaw]

The old U.S. owned and operated Panama Canal was not exactly "non-profit"; it was unique among all U.S. government agencies in that it operated, maintained the canal and paid its workforce completely through the money gained by ship passage fees. Not a dime of U.S. taxpayer money was spent on the canal once it went into full operation in 1913. Jimmy Carter changed all that. While the Panamanians may talk big about their improvements I strongly suspect their plans will come to naught; the old vice of Latin American corruption, cronism and nepotism is already rearing its head in Panama and I suspect the canal will slowly deteriorate until it eventually becomes unusable. Panama, which used to be part of Colombia, was a major nothing until the canal was built by the U.S.; it will slowly return to being a big nothing.

[billorites]

Adventure writer Richard Halliburton swam the length of the Panama Canal in 1928. The toll for his trip was 36 cents.

[TheRedSoxWinThePennant]

thank you president carter and the chinese thank you too

[WoofDog123]

*The canal has not changed since its construction. A system of locks allows ships to be lifted to canal level at one end and then lowered on the other side.*

This is actually wrong; iirc the locks were expanded sometime prior to WWII; a third lock set was under construction when WWII broke out and was never finished, though the excavations are still visible, especially from the air.

[A CA Guy]

Should run the Canal give-away against Mondale now as well.