Ship scrappage and global trade

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We examine some of the less glamorous minutiae of global trade - like where old ships go to die, and who clears up the mess afterwards. We have a report from the ship-wrecking yards of Bangladesh. And we shine a light on that little square thing they place under heavy crates of stuff to lift them on and off lorries. Could the humble pallet in fact be the single most important object in the global economy? Marshall White, director of the Pallet & Container Research Laboratory at Virginia Tech University, thinks it might be. Plus the scourge of the license. The USA may have a reputation as the champion of unregulated commerce, but some 30% of its workforce require specialist licenses to work their trade, and our regular commentator Steve Fritzinger argues that such restrictions, put there in the name of consumer-protection, often border on the ridiculous. (Image: A ship-breaking yard in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Credit: FARJANA K. GODHULY/AFP/Getty Images)