Word: conning
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...ships that are using Singapore's port at any given time. Most of the vessels outside Singapore are idle and have been stripped to skeleton crews of three or four in contrast to the normal contingent of 20-25. Nevertheless, they all require the services of companies like Con-Lash Supplies, the firm Lee works for. A one-stop shop for ships sailing through Singapore, it handles the immigration paperwork of oncoming crew, coordinates with ship fuel suppliers and ship repairers, and sells a wide range of goods from coffee to cooking oil to DVDs. "We're at the center...
...Indeed, the maritime parking lot seems to have been good for business at Con-Lash. "We're getting orders more easily," Tony Ng, its owner, says. He estimates that he's supplying nearly 50% more ships on an average week than he did this time last year. "We've been quite surprised." Ng's firm is one of more than 300 ship chandlers in Singapore, some of them still small mom-and-pop outfits. According to Douglas Inch, who runs the secretariat of the Singapore Ship Suppliers Association, most of them are doing well in spite of the downturn...
...Theroux's hero worked from a cramped Chinese shophouse and muttered darkly about his tight-fisted boss while sweating in a crowded bus to meet his customers. By contrast Ng sits in Con-Lash's spacious, modern offices on the western edge of Singapore where he presides over a 40-person firm with an annual turnover of roughly $17 million. Apart from the toy models of various clipper ships nearby, his office could belong to a stockbroker or management consultant. Gone are the days when he scrambled aboard ships to haggle over the price of eggs or beer...
...chandler's daily routine more regimented and less fun. "In the old days everybody used to knock on the side of the ship and have a beer," Inch recalls. "That's long over." And, as with nearly every industry, the emergence of a handful of big firms like Con-Lash has to an extent curbed the ship chandler's freewheeling spirit...
...latest polls show all the propositions but one, 1F ("No Pay Increases for Legislators During Times of State Budget Deficits"), going down to defeat. Special elections are notorious for low voter turnout, and many Californians, including those who have bothered to read the 52 pages of pro and con arguments in the Official Voter Information Guide, are baffled by the hodgepodge of measures, a mixture of liberal and conservative ideas on budgeting that critics say is less than coherent. (Read about how the financial outlook for states is getting worse...