Earlier this month, the first ocean-going vessel of the season arrived
at the Duluth, MN harbor.
The ship was built in China...
sails under the flag of Cyprus...
is operated by a Canadian company...
has a Polish captain...
crew members from the Philippines...
will carry grain from the US (most of it from North Dakota)...
to be made into pasta in Italy.
The name of the ship is the Federal Elbe. A little Internet research turned up additional information. It left Italy on March 16, arrived in Duluth on April 7, left about a day later, and is now east of Montreal. It is expected to reach Italy at the end of the month carrying the harvest of about 26,000 acres of durum wheat... that's the harvest of slightly more than a whole township's worth of land (40 square miles).
As a side note, if you ever get a chance to tour (or just observe from a distance) a major port facility of any kind, do it. Few things showcase economics so clearly.
UPDATE: In quoting this post, Tim Schilling advises that it looks like you have to pay for the link. I was surprised as I didn't have to pay, but then realized why. That newspaper is owned by Forum Communications, which has the rather odd policy of making an article freely available for one week and then charging you $2.95 for it after that if you're not a subscriber. So, my apologies that the link is no longer free, but you get the idea from what I quote.
The ship was built in China...
sails under the flag of Cyprus...
is operated by a Canadian company...
has a Polish captain...
crew members from the Philippines...
will carry grain from the US (most of it from North Dakota)...
to be made into pasta in Italy.
The name of the ship is the Federal Elbe. A little Internet research turned up additional information. It left Italy on March 16, arrived in Duluth on April 7, left about a day later, and is now east of Montreal. It is expected to reach Italy at the end of the month carrying the harvest of about 26,000 acres of durum wheat... that's the harvest of slightly more than a whole township's worth of land (40 square miles).
As a side note, if you ever get a chance to tour (or just observe from a distance) a major port facility of any kind, do it. Few things showcase economics so clearly.
UPDATE: In quoting this post, Tim Schilling advises that it looks like you have to pay for the link. I was surprised as I didn't have to pay, but then realized why. That newspaper is owned by Forum Communications, which has the rather odd policy of making an article freely available for one week and then charging you $2.95 for it after that if you're not a subscriber. So, my apologies that the link is no longer free, but you get the idea from what I quote.
Perhaps I missed it, but I don’t seen any mention on this site, of MMT (Modern Monetary Theory). This economics debunks many of the commonly held beliefs about our economy. It demonstrates, for instance, why federal taxes do not pay for federal spending, the government and Social Security cannot go bankrupt, FICA can and should be eliminated, and many other fascinating ideas.
There are excellent sites explaining MMT, among which are http://moslereconomics.com/ and http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell