Country of Exiles (27 page)

12.
“People in Alaska eat, sleep, are born, sometimes die on airplanes,” Ted Stevens, Senator from Alaska, said on floor of the Senate in 1996 (C-Span, Oct. 2, 1996). According to
The Atlas of the New West
, “airports capable of private jet landings” had a greater presence in the West after 1980 than did ranches or mining shafts” (William E. Riebsame, General Editor,
Atlas of the New West
. A Project of the Center for the American West, University of Colorado at Boulder (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997, pp. 71–72). On “too many airports,” see
Journal of Commerce
, June 29, 1998, 8A.

13.
National Transportation Statistics 1997
, p. 7; and U.S. Department of Transportation and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics,
Transportation Statistics Annual Report 1997
(Washington, D.C.: 1997), pp. 228–29.

14.
National Transportation Statistics 1997
, p. 225; Rosalyn A. Wilson,
Transportation in America 1997
(Landsowne, Va: Eno Transportation Foundation Inc., 1997), p. 9.

15.
On San Diego, see “U.S. Border Towns Suffer From post-Nafta Syndrome,”
WSJ
, August 28, 1998, pp. B1, B4; on Woodstock, Vermont, see “War Is Declared as Giant Trucks Invade Tiny Towns,”
WSJ
, September 16, 1998, pp. B1, B4.

16.
Interview with Don Lotz and Dimitri Rallis, port analysts, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, World Trade Center (N.Y.C.), April 20, 1998.

17. The lengths of trucks, as well as their access to many highways and roads, was limited by the 1991 ISTEA legislation; see “Big Rigs Could Barrell Down Roads,”
WSJ
, June 16, 1997, B1. As this article indicates, states and cities frequently sought exemptions from the federal law.

18.
Anna Wilde Mathews, “Mr. and Mrs. Grimm Get a Load of Shrimp Cross Country, Fast,”
WSJ
, February 3, 1998, A1, A8.

19.
Phone interview with Thomas Klimek, transportation analyst, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Washington, D.C., May 18, 1998; see also U.S. Department of Transportation,
1997 Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Study
, vol. II, “Issues and Background,” draft (Washington, D.C.: 1997).

20.
On the number of truckers, see American Trucking Association,
American Trucking Trends
(Alexandria, Va.: ATA Statistics Department, 1997), pp. 2–5; on the government’s pledge, see
WSJ
, November 3, 1998, p. 1; and for an account of a “lost” trucker who drove down the wrong road and destroyed a footbridge on Saw Mill River Parkway in New York State, see
Journal News
, November 3, 1998, p. 2B.

21.
Transportation Statistics Annual Report 1997
, p. 212.

22.
Port of Long Beach Annual Report 1996
(Long Beach, California), pp. 4–5.

23.
“Shifting Trade Routes Affect American Ports,”
WSJ
, September 16, 1996, A1; and “As U.S. Seaports Get Busier, Weak Point Is a Surprise: Railroads,”
WSJ
, September 19, 1996, A1, A14.

24.
On America’s decline as shipping power since WWII, see Muller,
Intermodal Freight Transportation
, pp. 32–33; on increase in international trade, see
Transportation Statistics Annual Report 1997
, p. 212.

25.
Tim Ferguson, “Imports Ahoy!,”
Forbes
158:6 (September 9, 1996), 100–2; John Davies, “Skipping the Waves,”
International Business
9:5 (May 1996), 26–28; and Tony Carding, “Looking Back Over Thirty Years in Ocean Transportation,”
Intermodal Shipping
, July 1995, 18–21.

26.
For this observation, see Tom Baldwin, “A Gigantic Ship Squeezes In,”
Journal of Commerce
, July 24, 1998, 1A, 8A.

27.
On July 29, 1998, the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee of the House of Representatives held a hearing on “The Needs of the U.S. Waterways Transportation System.”
Nearly all those who testified invoked the
Regina Maersk
to illustrate the “competitive” challenge to American ports posed by megaships; see especially the testimony of Lillian Borrone, director of commerce at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; and John Arntzen, president, ACTA Maritime Development Corporation (transcript of testimony, in author’s possession, courtesy Ed Lee, staff of the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation). On the
Regina Maersk
, see
ibid.
, June 6, 1998, 1A, and July 27, 1998, 2B; and
Containerization International
, March 1996, 73.

28.
“The National Economic Significance of the Alameda Corridor,” Long Beach Harbor, February 1994.

29.
For descriptions of this port (and others as well), see Charles F. Queenan,
Long Beach and Los Angeles: A Tale of Two Ports
(Northridge, Calif.: Windsor Publications, 1986); Committee on Productivity of Marine Terminals,
Improving Productivity in U.S. Marine Terminals
(Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1986).

30.
On this shadowy world, see Donald Axelrod,
Shadow Government: The Hidden World of Public Authorities
(New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1992).

31.
This pattern applies to all such port authorities; see Axelrod,
Shadow Government
, pp. 15–17.

32.
Interview with Bruce Lambert, trade analyst, Harbor Square Administration Building, Long Beach Port, April 11, 1997. See also “The National Economic Significance of the Alameda Corridor” (Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, February 1994; prepared by the Authority of the Port of Long Beach).

33.
On the number of port authorities, see Axelrod,
Shadow Government
, pp. 238–40. For an account of the origins of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the parent of Long Beach et al., see Jameson Doig, “Regional Conflict in the New York Metropolis: The Legend of Robert Moses and the Power of the Port Authority,”
Urban Studies
27:2 (April 1990) 201–32. Doig shows how port managers overcame the “provincialism” of local political control in New York City to impose their own “apolitical” dominance on a region. See also Doig’s forthcoming history of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,
Empire on the Hudson
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), especially
chap. 12, “Breaking an Airline Monopoly” (draft courtesy of Professor Doig).

34.
George Murchison (president of the Long Beach Harbor Commission), “Our Side of the COSCO Issue,” press release, April 25, 1997.

35.
The Port of Long Beach, “Fact Sheet About the Port of Long Beach” (February 1997); and Muller,
Intermodal Freight Transportation
, p. 110. See also Port of Long Beach,
Harbor Handbook
(1995 edition); “Ports Ready for ‘Jumboships,’ ”
Intermodal Shipping
(July 1995), 29;
Port of Long Beach 1996 Annual Report;
“The National Economic Significance of the Alameda Corridor” (Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, Long Beach, February 1994) 3.

36.
Port of Long Beach 1996 Annual Report
, pp. 4–5; on the deli counters in Wells, Maine, see
WSJ
, February 3, 1998, A1, A8.

37.
Port of Long Beach,
Harbor Handbook
(1995 edition), p. 1;
Port of Long Beach 1996 Annual Report
, p. 15.

38.
“As Economy Booms, Shipping Slows, Delaying Deliveries Across the Nation,”
WSJ
, September 30, 1997, A2.

39.
WSJ
, February 27, 1998, 1. The full quote is: “Today the unthinkable has happened. Once unthinkable mergers, from aerospace and banking to health care and telecommunications, are leaving some markets with only a handful of major players.”

40.
WSJ
, January 4, 1999, R8; see also
BusinessWeek
, December 8, 1997, 36; and
WSJ
, January 2, 1998, R6.

41.
WSJ
, May 11, 1998, A10; and
New York Times
(hereafter
NYT)
May 12, 1998, D1; for background of the NYNEX–Bell Atlantic merger, see
BusinessWeek
, January 8, 1996, 32 (though the merger itself took place in August 1997).

42.
“High-Balling Toward Two Big Railroads,”
BusinessWeek
, March 17, 1997, 32; “Rail Mergers Take Toll on Small Towns,”
WSJ
, November 29, 1996, A2; “Transport Firms Increase Prices,”
WSJ
, March 9, 1998, A6; and “U.S. Approves Plan to Divide Conrail in Two,”
WSJ
, June 9, 1998, A3. These companies were CSX, Burlington Northern, Union Pacific, and Norfolk Southern.

43.
“Delta and United Air Plan Huge Alliance,”
WSJ
, April 25, 1998, A3–4; and “Delta’s Alliance With United Is On Again,”
NYT
, May 1, 1998, D2. The Salomon Brothers’ quote appears in “Four
Airlines Set Two Alliances for Marketing,”
NYT
, April 24, 1998, D1.

44.
Miles, quoted in “Winds of Change,”
Containerization International
, February 1998, 35; and Reeve, quoted in “Mergers Reshape Shipping,”
Journal of Commerce
, January 5, 1998, 8.

45.
NYT
, January 21, 1998, D2; see also “Theater Consolidation Jolts Hollywood Power Structure,”
WSJ
, January 21, 1998, B1; and “Attack of the Giant Theaters,”
WSJ
, March 4, 1998, B8.

46.
On hotels and gaming, see “ITT Accepts $9.8 Billion Bid, Forming the Biggest Hotel Chain,”
NYT
, October 21, 1997, 1; “Hilton Makes $6.5 Billion Bid for ITT,”
NYT
, January 28, 1997, D1; “Hilton Hotels to Buy Ball Entertainment for More Than $2 Billion,”
NYT
, June 7, 1996, D1; on gold mines, “A New Breed of Wolf at the Corporate Door,”
NYT
, March 19, 1997, D1; on department stores, see “Allen Questrom’s Quest,”
Business Week
, November 28, 1994, 116–17.

47.
For quote, see
WSJ
, August 1, 1995, A2, A5. See also “Wave of Mergers Is Transforming American Banking,”
WSJ
, August 21, 1995, A1; and
Business Week
, April 20, 1998, 40. On the $31.4 billion merger of Northwest and Wells Fargo, see
WSJ
, June 9, 1998, A2.

48.
On the Gannett chain, see Richard McCord,
The Chain Gang: One Newspaper Versus the Gannett Empire
(Columbus: University of Missouri Press, 1996); and
NYT
, August 7, 1997, B1. On the subject of acquisitions by the New York Times Company, see
NYT
, June 12, 1993, 47;
NYT
, February 19, 1996, D1; October 13, 1998, p. C8.

49.
“More Merger Mania,” editorial,
NYT
, April 15, 1998, A24; “A Monster Merger,” editorial,
NYT
, April 8, 1998, A18; and “A Big Bank Merger, Again,”
NYT
, June 10, 1998, A28. In the last editorial, the paper said that “if mergers are well executed, they hold little threat to banking customers, who might even benefit from the combined institution being able to offer more services.”

50.
Among such REITs was Starwood Lodging (headed by Barry Sternlicht), which in 1997 operated the biggest chain of hotels in the world; another was Simon-DeBartolo, a 1993 merged firm worth $16 billion. Simon-DeBartolo specialized in building shopping malls and strips. In the mid-1990s it owned the Mall of
America (Bloomington, Minn.), the biggest mall in the country. For analysis of REITs and their history, see
National Real Estate Investor
, September 1993; S. L. Mintz, “Lukewarm Property,”
CFO: The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives
, May 1996; “The New World of Real Estate,”
Business Week
, September 22, 1997, 78–87; “REITs Come of Age,”
Business Week
, December 29, 1997, 152; and John Holusha, “Trusts Are Making Strides as Investors in New York Buildings,”
NYT
, January 21, 1998, B7.

51.
Quoted in “Land of the Giants,”
BusinessWeek
, September 11, 1995, 34.

52.
Quoted in
WSJ
, November 22, 1995, A1.

53.
Ibid.
, A1.

54.
“Improved Distribution, Not Better Production Is Key Goal of Mergers,”
WSJ
, August 29, 1995, A1, A2.

55.
“Without today’s permissive climate in Washington many of [the current] mergers would not have been possible,” said
BusinessWeek
in 1995 (September 11, 1995, p. 34). For a good survey of this governmental policy toward mergers from Reagan to Clinton, see series on “Amalgamated America,” in
WSJ
, especially “Concentration,” February 26, 1997, 1, 8; and “Trust in Markets,” February 27, 1997, 1.

56.
Muller,
Intermodal Freight Transportation
, p. 28. On airline deregulation, see Steven A. Morrison and Clifford Winston,
The Evolution of the Airline Industry
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1995).

57.
U.S. Department of Transportation,
1997 Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Study
, II-6, IV-7, 9.

58.
U.S. Department of Transportation,
1997 Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Study
, especially review of deregulatory laws, IV-3-9; phone interview with Bob Withuhn, curator of transportation, the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., December 16, 1996; Bob Gatty, “Why Railroads Are Making the Grade,”
Nation’s Business
71 (May 1983), 42–44.

59.
For summary account of this bill, see
The Congressional Record
, House of Representatives, August 4, 1998, pp. H7011–7019; and for the limitations of the bill, see especially opposition by Henry Hyde, p. H7017. See also “A Sea-Change in Shipping,”
Journal of Commerce
, October 5, 1998, pp. 1A, 21B.

60. On surface freight transport, Clifford Winston, et al.,
The Economic Effects of Surface Freight Deregulation
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1990).