From NIMBY to BANANA: America lurches toward sclerosis.

The Financial Times has a piece on ports not having to do with foreign investors spurned because of their nationality and skin color.

Yes, the paradigm for the fading entrepreneurial skills of the world's largest economy is moving from NIMBY to Banana ("build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything") The article does not mention that decades of activist zealots' tying up proposed expansions in court have resulted in a virtual victory of the Luddites over the infrastructures essential to maintaining a hyper-economy.

The US must increase investment in its congested transport infrastructure and sharply raise productivity at its ports or risk being overwhelmed by surging imports from Asia, industry leaders say. "Every aspect of the supply chain is stretched," Doug Tilden, chief executive of Marine Terminals, a port operator, told the Financial Times. "It’s not a question of whether [a congestion crisis] is going to happen. It’s a question of when."

The US needed to add capacity equal to the Port of New York and New Jersey every year to cope with a projected doubling in import volume by 2025, he said, but there was no sign of that happening.

While China is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into new infrastructure to support soaring exports, the ageing US transport system is failing to keep pace, they said. US transport users have been warning about congestion since 2004, when large backlogs formed at the country’s ports and railway terminals during the peak shipping months before Christmas. The country’s largest Pacific ports, in southern California, are in urban areas with little room to grow, while environmental regulations and hostile local communities restrict expansion elsewhere. According to Brian Maher, chairman of Maher Terminals, a port operator, public opposition to infrastructure expansion had widened from the Nimby ("not in my back yard") mentality to a new acronym: Banana ("build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything.")

And John Isbell, director of logistics for Nike, the sportswear manufacturer, has complained that the US has no coherent federal transportation policy: "The CEOs of corporate America need to go to Washington DC and get them focused on freight." Nike has joined other big importers in an organisation called the Waterfront Coalition to lobby for more funding and political support for infrastructure improvements. Ron Widdows, chief executive of APL, a shipping company, said productivity at southern Californian ports was half that of Hong Kong and Singapore.

"The biggest single issue we face is that we’re not very efficient," said Mr Tilden. "We can build our way out of trouble, but that is problematic because of environmental issues, so the best solution is increased productivity." He predicted serious congestion would strike US ports by 2008.

All this economic reality is being scrambled as the Eller Co. in Miami fights the Maher Company in NJ and the Seattle firm for the leavings of the failed DP World acquisition. Vultures at the feast, Eller at least is reported to be trying to bottom-feed a low-price buy using political clout. Guess the old can-do Yankee know-how ethos now morphs into feeding free at the trough. But where does that put us in the food chain?