Cato’s New Jones Act Billboard

I harbor no such illusions. A total war is very possible and maybe even probable. The issue is that it will be over so quickly that any and all shipyards will be glowing rubble. It will probably last about as long as an attempt to order the steel online.

As far as a war with China, we lost that one already. Our short sighted and kleptocratic political system has drained this nation of its ability to recreate the WW2 scenario that is so dear to the hearts of the militarists.

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No doubt from China !

You’re right.

I don’t know if the Jones Act is the solution but I do believe that the best way to avoid war is to be ready to fight the next one. And the Navy IS ready, the USAF IS ready , the Army IS ready. We are ready except for one minor fact: war requires moving vast quantities of fuel and heavy equipment. War requires merchant ships (which we could possibly requisition) and merchant mariners (good luck finding those).

And that’s just China. A threat from Russia is a much easier problem to solve, we have a far more dominant force, we just need to get there. Not easy to do without any icebreakers.

That’s true throughout history. Naval wars have always been decided in a matter of days… most are measured in hours.

But one more truth remains today: the pacific ocean is HUGE and war requires movement of fuel and equipment.

And so what if the Navy looses the BIG battle vs China and we fall back to defending this country. If that’s the case we will still need lots of ships to move equipment and fuel around the eastern pacific.

As General Mattis said at KP “There is not a single war strategy I have reviewed in which American sealift isn’t essential.”

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This billboard is not aimed at beginning or continuing a conversation about the Jones Act and how it might be changed as part of having an actual national maritime policy with associated funded programs. This is a message to the already converted, merely agitating a group that already exists. If you chose not to think very long or deeply about a subject this emotional message will provide you with a nice neat “narrative” to jump on and really just fuel animus which only serves the backers of such think tanks. You can accept that myth or not.

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Besides the fact that the billboard is just rabble rousing propaganda by oligarch toadies (COLIN GRABOW) who want to save a few cents per ton/mile on their domestic transport costs, I’m definitely not buying into the constantly disproven myth that “the next war won’t last long enough for XXXX issue to matter”.

Cato Institute considers themselves as libertarians, basically rich people who want the government to leave them alone. Low-tax conservatives who want to smoke pot in other words.

Which would explain why Grabow is eating popcorn.

Cato’s “free market” policy to reduce traffic is congestion pricing, which they don’t mention on the billboards.

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The one government “service” that just about everyone wants most is simply “to be left alone.” In a word, FREEDOM.

The biggest problem with government is not the high cost, its that it is like a low grade toothache that is constantly bothering us all the time, punctuated by being a major pain in the ass far too often.

When it comes to government, small is beautiful, and less is more. Some government is necessary, but we are getting far too much.

Remember how much smaller and less intrusive government was in the pre-computer era?

Remember how much better things were pre-9/11?

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Not going to speak for @Steamer but at least for me it would be more proper to distinguish between war as an existential ideological battle between political systems and the recent/present wars/actions so casually gotten into and endured which have no end in sight except tragic waste (and surprise, surprise a shunt to the US Treasury for our corporate entities). In the former if “mutual assured destruction” and or diplomacy does not deter the outbreak, shipping stuff to the front is a ridiculous concept. In the latter “war” has become just a opportunistic corporate event in which we all get to pay for the cargo and shipping too while our society becomes further splintered for the benefit of the few. Having a healthy merchant marine is valuable for many other reasons besides have a working fleet available for “times of war”. Any rebuttal to Cato-like attacks need to effectively outline those benefits and not repeat the myths. One would think the great thinkers at MARAD would jump all over this. Of course all the brilliant plans and ideas are worthless without action by the legislative branch and we all know how dysfunctional that is.

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One mans ceiling is another mans floor. I would have rather had effective government regulation and the legislature performing their jobs adequately than going upside down on my mortgage in 2008 in a few months time without so much as a fair-thee-well. Your concept of freedom seems to neglect the fact that financial institutions and that “industry” can limit your life in as many ways as a federal government can.

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Yeah, but when the Cato Institute says freedom they mean for the rich and powerful, they don’t give a shit about you or me.

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A parachute would be a good thing to pack with your hand luggage for your flight with Aeroflot.

Aeroflot flies Boeing, just like American Airlines:
https://www.aeroflot.ru/ru-en/flight/plane_park
But maybe not for long??:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/03/15/russias-aeroflot-will-cancel-boeing-737-max-order-if-safety-issue-not-solved-a64828

KP Chief gave you a better response than I could. Think about it.

John quoted one of the parasites:

“There is not a single war strategy I have reviewed in which American sealift isn’t essential.”

Gee, any guess as to why he and his cronies don’t think outside that box?

If MARAD, DoD, and the defense industry’s congressional toadies thought American sealift was essential we would have a vibrant merchant marine and a healthy shipbuilding industry supplying vessels to American operators in coastwise and foreign trades carrying more than part of one percent of our trade tonnage.

Bingo!

Now stop writing your congressmen and start writing the pentagon! Seriousy.

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AND

Start a PR campaign, MARAD won’t do it for us, each of us must do it ourselves, look for any opportunity to inform the public, my bet is if most Americans knew the issues, they would be on our side.

Also U.S. Rep Pramila Jayapal (DWA7) has been a staunch Jones Act and Maritime supporter.

Whilst I sympathise with US shipping and the hole the Jones Act has forced it into, perhaps better minds are thinking forward. The greatest days for US shipping were in the works of Henry J Kaiser who productionized the ship building process with the Liberties and then the C3/C4.

Now the she shipping industry orders in very low numbers, each being a series of prototypes.

Wiser minds have realised this and are calling for change.

Design bureaus have realised this.

If the US MM is to return then series production is the only way IMHO.

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Those “greatest days” were 100 percent funded by the British and American governments. The shipyards that existed already were paid to add capacity and where no yards existed, the US Maritime Commission paid to build them.

Please try to avoid conflating the “good old days” with the world’s largest welfare scheme. Kaiser “productionized” the shipbuilding process because he was an astute economic opportunist. The more ships he built in the least amount of time the more money he made. There was no underlying desire to improve the lot of the American merchant marine or mariner.

The Jones Act is not why the USMM is sinking, it is the corruption of the US government by corporate money and congressional apathy about anything not directly related to reelection.

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Welfare scheme? WWII was a welfare scheme? To me it was the crowning moment of America’s history! The only time when government, business and labor could unite and look at the results of that unity! 5000 merchant and 3000 naval vessels constructed in a mere 5 years all at the same time that a couple hundred thousand aircraft and many hundred thousands of military vehicles were also delivered! The USA out produced the entire globe during that period. In fact we over produced close to 25% of what was really needed to win. A full 200 ships were built during 1945 which never made one voyage to any warzone.

that is hardly welfare in my book but industrial might!

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I agree with different parts of the last three three posts;
The greatest days for US shipbuilding was during WWII and the Kaiser method of “mass production” of identical ships in large series were the key to it. But I also agree that he didn’t invent it purely out of his good heart and patriotic feelings.

That the same idea of serial building of standard ships with near identical equipment will be the future of shipping is also becoming clear.
Not only MacGregor’s CEO is seeing this, but also DNV and other major players in the business has the same view.

And it is not only in shipping, but in the Oil and Gas Industry that this is coming. Standardised layout and equipment on production platforms and FPSOs has been proposed by DNV and being implemented by Equinor and SBM.

Japanese shipyards are getting themselves positioned to compete with Korea and China.
They are getting ready to follow this trend by increasing their workforce and productivity:

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