re: #87 Rightwingconspirator

When I was walking around at Pepperdine 9/11 Memorial today among all the flags, I was embarrassed at how many I could not identify. Who were these people? Maybe here to trade goods or establish ties…

You mean the national flags of the victims?

The World Trade Center didn’t get that name by accident; it’s operated by the Port Authority and was always intended as a Center of World Trade. There’s some big financial firms that had a few floors each, but there was also hundreds and hundreds of 300 sq ft offices that were each the US Branch of some developing nation’s export industry. And companies whose business was facilitating deals between these various nations — instead of every African nation having to send a trade representative to every Central American nation, each country could have one trade rep each all getting together in New York.

(of course, the new building is going to have like ten floors of Conde Nast, but whatever.)