Here's what I don't get about the port deal(s)

[Norquist Nemesis]

I guess I'm just profoundly naive on this thing. After 'learning' that something like 80% of our ports are managed by foreign owned/controlled companies, not to mention that this has been essentially going on since the early/mid 80's (under Reagan)...

The #1 question I have is: Why didn't they RENT them in the first place? Is that too simple or just incredibly stoopid? :shrug:

[Old and In the Way]

1. Remember GHW Bush talking about the 'New World Order'?

Perhaps this is a visible manifestation of his vision.

[northzax]

2. why didn't who rent them?

I don't understand your question, here, I'm afraid. I can explain a lot, if you'd care to clarify that.

And it has been going on a lot longer than the 1980s, you might want to go back to roughly the 1780s for private contractors working in US ports. And the 1580s for the colonies.

[Norquist Nemesis]

3. That's sort of what I'm getting at

and not asking very well. (I'll try to give it a shot.)

Private contractors are running them, right? Which means we taxpayers are paying them to run something that we, collectively, own as a country.

So, we pay them to run it and, as a business operating they seek to earn a profit. If I have a business, I either have to rent or buy the location from which the business operates. Why are we paying instead of charging "rent" (especially to a foreign country)?

[northzax]

4. you have it backwards

understandably. The private contractors lease the space from the port, in exchange for a set piece of the revenue. Say I want to run a container terminal at Baltimore. I lease the space, under certain restrictions, and guarantee a certain amount of traffic per year. I pay the port for the space, and, in order to meet my traffic requirements, I upgrade my terminal as much as possible, at my expense. I then collect fees from shippers who want to use my terminal, and pay a portion of those fees to the Port Authority, while keeping the rest to cover my expenses and make my profit.

the Port doesn't pay anything, the shippers using the port pay the terminal operator, who then pays the Port.
hope that helps.