Its like a scene out of Atlas Shrugged

[Greebo]

http://www.click2houston.com/news/20582765/detail.html

Houston Cruise Terminal Sits Empty

Gov't had BRILLIANT idea to spend taxpayer money to build a cruise terminal.

Only they forgot to ask the cruise lines if they WANTED a terminal in Houston...

[khaight]

Gov't had BRILLIANT idea to spend taxpayer money to build a cruise terminal.

Only they forgot to ask the cruise lines if they WANTED a terminal in Houston...

Oy. It's like cargo-cult planning. Galveston has a cruise ship port, and cruise ships stop there. All we have to do is build our own cruise ship port and the ships will stop here too! We're probably lucky they didn't go whole hog and build the thing out of balsa wood to save money.

[tito]

Next week they're going to build a goldmine and wait for the gold to turn up.

After all, everywhere there is a gold mine, there is gold. Therefore, mines attract gold.

[2046]

That story eerily reminded me of the Nampho Dam in North Korea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nampho_Dam

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/05/world/in...te-of-mind.html

Most foreigners seem to regard the dam as a vast achievement, and a useful one, but still not necessarily the best use of the resources of a nation that is so poor. They make much the same criticism of other large projects, including the spectacular new stadium that seats 150,000 people in the capital.

North Koreans, on the other hand, seem fiercely proud of the projects, and desperately eager for foreign recognition of what they have accomplished. The Korean Government has taken 19 foreign leaders, mostly from Africa, to the dam to show it off, and there is an English-language color booklet that the Government gives to visitors.

Foreigners tend to assume that ordinary Koreans are indignant at the sums spent on public works projects like the dam, and that they would rather spend the money on themselves. But a foreigner who has lived here for many years said that this is not necessarily so.

He said many of these projects, including the dam, appeal to a sense of Korean nationalism. The monuments are seen as showcases of Korean diligence and talent, he said, and so they generate a warm feeling of accomplishment when foreigners arrive to ooh and ah over the result.

The dam symbolizes much of North Korea today. It is an impressive achievement, acccomplished at enormous expense with little help from abroad. All credit is given to ''the Great Leader,'' President Kim Il Sung. And it is representative in one other aspect: it is just one of countless public works projects that divert resources from what the Korean people might otherwise spend on themselves.

Lol?

''It reflects pretty strange priorities,'' he said. ''There's a 105-story hotel, but no incubators in rural hospitals.''

The vulnerable agricultural sector experienced a massive failure in 1995-96, expanding to full-fledged famine by 1996-99. In 1995, a series of floods devastated about 40% of North Korea's arable land. As a result, grain production was reduced by 1.9 million tons, or about 30% of the total amount of grain necessary to feed the people.

Who needs food? We built a "big thing!" Praise to the great, all knowning, beneficent economic planners! Communism is alive in Houston.

Edited August 30, 2009 by 2046

[K-Mac]

As a native Houstonian, this actually surprises me. Granted, they shouldn't have built it until they had a cruise ship contract lined up (duh!), but the cruise terminal in Galveston has been extremely successful and is not that far away. I think they've even added more cruises over the past several years.

[Rearden_Steel]

"We're very, very confident we're going to have a customer,"

Can you imagine if a CEO of a private company uttered something like that.

[D'kian]

Oy. It's like cargo-cult planning.

It sure is. There's a hospital about a mile from my apartment building. Suppose we built an ambulance bay in the parking garage, would ambulances stop here? Somehow I doubt it.

We're probably lucky they didn't go whole hog and build the thing out of balsa wood to save money.

Wouldn't it make more sense to build it out of cardboard if no one is going to use it? At least you'd save money

Seriously, Houston is a good place for a cruise terminal. It already has a developed port infrastructure, a major international airport (the hub for Continental, actually), and it is a major city in its own right. However, since there is already a cruise terminal about 65 miles away, it makes no sense to try to compete with it (unless the existing terminal is already saturated).