STATISTICS TELL
THE SAD BUT TRUE STORY

by William R. Carr

How does the world's greatest maritime nation, (and the world's largest import/export market -- not to mention the world's only remaining "superpower") stack up against the rest of the world in terms of its merchant marine? Simply stated -- pitifully.

Number of Ships over 1000 gross tons

Greece was inadvertently omitted when this table was constructed, and should be about Number 4 or 5.

Ranking by tonnage

To grasp the magnitude of the relative decline of our merchant marine, take a look (below) at where we stood in 1964. By all measures, the late great maritime nation of the United States has traded positions with Panama as the greatest maritime nation in terms of merchant marine ships and tonnage. The statistics graphically reflect the "New World Order" of things. These statistics, of course, don't reflect actual ownership. United States' ranking, in terms of corporate ownership, probably hasn't change all that much. Only the flags have changed, as the American flag, American seamen, and American labor in general, have been sold down the river. We are supposed to believe that this is the result of good national policy and increasing prospects for a prosperous future.

I don't begrudge any nation their merchant marine. But I think our nation should at least have its fair share of the pie.

1964 Ranking by number of ships and tonnage.

What a difference three decades can make!

AND LOOK AT TODAY'S TRADE FIGURES...

As the American flag has disappeared from the high seas, the volume of our foreign trade has been growing at a phenomenal rate. The value of U.S. Trade (1997) was:

Imports: $870,671,000,000
Exports: $689,182,000,000

Total: $1,559,853,000,000

Trade Deficit: $181,489,000,000

I've included the Marshall Islands in the above statistics to illustrate two things. (1) Compare relative "advantage" of the Marshall Islands compared to the United States in terms of merchant fleets (see table below).  The Marshall Islands is a minuscule state compared to the United States, but has a comparable sized merchant marine and outranks us thousands to one according to comparative size, ships and tonnage. (2) The Marshall Islands flag did not exist until 1979, and few, if any, of its ships are owned or operated by Marshall Islanders. Most are probably U.S. owned. The Marshall Islands flag, like that of Liberia, Panama, and several recent newcomers, exists primarily as a runaway flag registry, (or flag of convenience) -- for corporations fleeing other, more expensive, registries and the cost of their own domestic labor.

The M.I./U.S. column illustrates "comparative advantage" of the Marshall Islands
to the U.S. by dividing the figure in the M.I. column by the figure in the U.S. Column.

OTHER FRIGHTENING STATISTICS

Here are a few other interesting statistics and comparisons relative to trade and the federal budget.

Total Federal Budget   (1977)   $409,203,000,000
Total Federal Receipts (1977)   $355,559,000,000

National Debt (1977) $698,800,000,000
Per capita amount:             $3,170

Total Foreign Trade  (1997) $1,559,853,000,000
Total Federal Budget (1997) $1,578,955,000,000

National Debt        (1997) $5,413,000,000,000
Per capita amount:                     $20,026

Total Federal Budget (1998) $1,651,383,000,000
Income Tax receipts  (1998)   $828,597,000,000 50.2% of Budget
Corp. Tax receipts   (1998)   $188,677,000,000 11.4% of Budget

Interest on Federal Debt (1998) $363,824,000,000
22.2% of Budget.

Source: The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1999.

Note that the 1998 Interest on the Federal Debt alone exceeds total receipts for 1977.

These shocking figures demonstrate the collective mental acuity of professional economists, Washington policy makers, and our mis-guided mis-representatives in Congress.

In fiscal 1998 we had an alleged budgetary surplus of $70 billion which neither Congress nor the president know what to do with. Provided the surplus is real (and I'm highly skeptical about that), it would take 77.3 years of such surpluses to pay off the national debt.

Clinton and the Democrats look at this alleged surplus as "found money" to be spent. Though Clinton once said that "The day of big government is over," he has many expensive plans to increase the size and power of government with the alleged surplus. Additionally, Clinton wants to "Save Social Security first." The Republicans say they want to give it back to the people to whom it rightfully belongs in the first place. Well, I'm for both both saving Social Security, and being able to keep more of my hard-earned money too. I don't think either will happen to a significant degree. It simply isn't within the genes of government. Social Security won't be safe until Congress learns how to set up a "real trust fund." Not much danger of that. Right now, the trust fund is a creative accounting joke, crammed full of government IOU's -- and there's really no "surplus" at all as long as there is a large and growing federal debt. In any case, now we've got to rebuild Kosavo and eventually the rest of Yugoslavia. We're still destroying Iraq, and will eventually be obligated to rebuild it. And we must be getting short of bombs. We'll have to make a lot more of them. Eventually, if "free markets" are to rule, we'll probably import the bombs from China.

The only real key to getting our economic house back into order is making national economic independence our goal. To make that a potentially realistic goal, we would have to consider serious monetary reform. No such thing is on the national agenda. In fact, quite the opposite. We're still bent on building a global regime of international interdependence, stitched together with pure debt money. Every dollar in existence is a dollar owed, plus interest -- in perpetuity! An impossible situation if there ever was one.

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