1 It's not just a matter of "a lot more shipping," it’s that today there is far greater national dependency on that shipping.

We were highly dependent on Middle East oil in 1973, but oil did not, and does not, go through the Suez canal. The US trade deficit in 1973 was $6 billion, and was almost entirely due to oil. Today it is $83 billion and is virtually everything from tee shirts to computers.

When the San Onofre nuclear reactor needed a replacement steam generator, its management looked for someone to build it. This is 19th century technology, simply tubes in a tank heat exchanger, albeit quite large and operating at fairly high pressure and temperature. Still, nothing in any way outlandish. There was no one in this nation who could build it, and they had to have it built in South Korea. It came to California via ship.

The shutdown of the Suez Canal in 1973 was inconvemient, but major nations were self sufficient in those days, so it was nothing more than inconvenient. By shipping all of our manufacturing overseas to increase profits, we have rendered ourselves dependent on other nations, and on sea trade, and so closing the canal became a disaster.

2 Jack, I didn't remember that and learned a thing or two here. Thanks for posting!

Bill, you're right; we've become too dependent on international trade.

I once read about the Bronze Age and the fall of the Bronze Age civilizations. One of their problems was they became too dependent on international trade (in the Mediterranean). When the Sea People came and piracy became unmanageable commerce ground to a halt and the economies of many of the old Bronze Age cultures collapsed.

We are in a similar boat today, I fear.

We're overspecialized. If you have to go to someone else for something as simple as a steam generator it means an unfriendly power can strangle you.

I think it's only partly about profit. I think the international order wants us dependent so as to help forge world government. That has always been a fond dream of the Left. They used this approach in Europe, first by creating the European coal and oil market, then the Common Market, then the E.U. It was intentional; to weld Germany's economy to the French so the Germans wouldn't dare fight a war with France again. Then the rest of Europe joined in and now Europeans would no more dream of going to war than Kentucky would fight a war with Arkansas. They see themselves as the same country. I think that is part of the purpose of all this international trade, to make it so we see ourselves as "citizens of the world" and not Americans.

3 "I think it's only partly about profit. I think the international order wants us dependent so as to help forge world government.”

Timothy, I think you are falling into the error of attributing something to evil plans when it actually can be explained by sheer stupidity. There are a vest number of instances where today’s "leaders” do things based on short term gains when the long term loss is as plain as the nose on their faces. They simply do not think long term. Short term advantage is everything.

Eliminating the filibuster is a case in point. Democrats were gleeful when they eliminated the filibuster on presidential appointments, then later complained that Republicans were not playing fair when that change got Republican appointments confirmed. Having learned nothing from that, they now are arguing to eliminate the filibuster altogether.

Sort of like hearing hoofbeats and looking for zebras. These guys are just not smart enough to plan some kind of world government. They cannot plan past the end of their collective pointy little nose.

4 Bill, that may be for some, but for others - for the real insiders in the Ruling Class - I think we are seeing decades of planning.

Case in point; Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, gave up the game of what was really happening - a way to create world socialism. https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-a-back-door-to-communism-and-the-united-nations-admits-it/

"intentionally transform the economic development model” in place "since the Industrial Revolution.”. "This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history".

There are others. http://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/01/22/the-u-n-s-global-warming-war-on-capitalism-an-important-history-lesson-2/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwj94bzgk9jvAhUGLs0KHWAqDfQQFjAEegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw0IsOyWKQy-l75WK0IKdYP0

She just slipped up, but it is clearly what the U.N. and so many of the international bodies - and world leaders - want.

Bill, why do corporations promote all this "social justice" nonsense, up to and including the transgender stuff? They aren't doing it to make money, that is clear. They are appeasing somebody besides their customer base and their investors. Who do you suppose that is?

Bill, it's not stupidity. Well, it is on the part of some of them, but why is it the Left keeps winning if they are so stupid? How is it they now control our government if they are such fools? That didn't happen by accident. Yes, they stole this election, but how?

I know; you're claiming that it's just a quest for money and power and with some of the DEMOCRATS and most Republicans it is. But they aren't the ones who I am talking about, and they aren't the ones who matter. I'm talking about the true Deep State, the big corporate guys like Gates or Steyer or Buffet or Soros. I'm talking about the people behind guys like Obama or Joe Biden, the ones in the shadows. I'm talking about the people promoting so much of this radical agenda. I'm talking about the people who run the media (not the talking heads, who are fools.)

There are people and companies who are looking at this as a matter of profit, but the real insiders, the planners, the guys who go to Davos every year or to Renaissance Weekend or the other Ruling Class Woodstocks have a much bigger plan in place.

Or do you really think most people actually love this stuff? The Left gets a lot of deadheads, certainly, but why? How is it that Black Lives Matter is cool to young people?

Bill, I gave the example of the European Union above. That was in fact a CONSCIOUS strategy by France to keep the Germans off their backs. The idea was to tie the two economies together so the Germans wouldn't ever go to war with them. On May 9, 1950 French foreign minister Robert Schuman proposed the creation of the Coal and Steel Market. His exact words were that it was to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible". He got his way, and this led to the creation of the E.U. It was NOT about making money. Granted, money was a big issue and the internationalists always set it up so they can make lots of it, but there is an ideological bent amoynt these people. They all went to the same schools, read the same newspapers and magazines, and hang out in the same circles. They are true believers.

I don't see how this is really debatable.

5 I know of a nearby Air Force with Star of David insignias on their planes that could make short work of this freighter.