AT THE READY

摘要

As those of us who work in the marine industry are very much aware, without maritime access for the import of goods into the U.S., life in the Continental United States will certainly suffer. While the United States has the capability to be self-sufficient in most of its commodities, the reality of our present situation is that we are heavily dependent upon foreign imports for any number of petroleum and non-petroleum based commodities, products and necessities. While I believe we Americans have the capability to ween ourselves from our dependency on foreign imports, this will take not only a considerable amount of time, but also a radical change in the mindset of U.S. consumers as well as a re-arranging of our financial reality, something that we as Americans are very familiar with of late. We would have to bear the additional costs of products produced in the U.S., where even minimum wage, in many instances, far exceeds the daily wage paid to foreign workers. While we would survive, life would most certainly change. While there is no indication that U.S. domestic policy will shift to that of an isolationist state anytime soon, there are conditions where, in the short-term, one or more of our major ports could be shut down for some extended period of time by a maritime incident thereby "isolating" certain areas of the U.S.