Stuart Drummond had worked in a call centre (the new factories of the north) and on a cruise ship (demanding New Yorkers, he says, were good training for local government).
There, the offer was described as "stop, shut, ship" — demanding that Iran stop enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity; shut the Fordo underground enrichment facility, which is heavily protected deep inside a mountain; and ship abroad its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium to be turned into nuclear fuel.
FedEx is often considered a barometer of the economy because shipping demand tends to increase as business conditions improve.
The CSX Corporation, the railroad operator, said Tuesday that its third-quarter earnings fell 23percentt from a year earlier because shipping demand remained weak.
"Dry bulk shipping demand has increased more dramatically than anticipated," Jefferies analyst Douglas Mavrinac writes.
As appears from interviews of ship owners in Aronietis et al. (2010), shipping demand is influenced mostly by cost considerations.
In good times shipping demand tends to outweigh supply, and in tough ones Rand's broad mix of shipments enables it to hedge against losses, Buonocore says.
As online retail continues to grow, shipping demand is also on the rise.
Before World War II, the international shipping demand for bulk products was low about 25 million tons for metal ores —and most of this trade was coastal.
In the 17th and 18th centuries these northern African corsairs, many of whom traced their ancestry to the Muslims expelled from Spain, seized privately owned ships, demanding ransom, selling captives into slavery and compelling conversions to Islam.
