@john, You have clearly stated you want discussion, action, investigation, not further argument and disagreement. I think the investigation idea, under whatever name works, has merit. I’m not so sure we need less argument though. Regardless, I mean for this comment to be discussion, not argument. For simplicity I’m going to use the term US Flag to refer to all ships eligible for Jones Act trade in its current form.
I don’t follow your logic.
We want a stronger US Merchant Marine. Why? To improve the industry, improve jobs for mariners, improve coastwise commerce, improve the condition of our government fleet, reduce consumer costs, increase wages and status through increased fleet sizes and increased competition? If for those reasons then I’ll agree its worth looking into. If it is to improve war readiness via shipyard strength alone then I think you are fighting the last war, not the next, but that is maybe a separate post.
But the point I want to dig into is ships. If we want more jobs for mariners, we need more US Flag ships. If we want more coastwise trade, we need more US Flag ships. If we want a more robust military cargo fleet, we need more US Flag ships. If we want US officers on cruise ships we need more US Flag ships. If we want reduced consumer costs, we need more ships in the trade, more companies competing, and they need more US Flag ships. You said in Post 29 “they would build US ships if they could get money from the banks to build them”. You state in your video that we the average American mariner are making all the wrong assumptions about why American ships are so costly to produce. So please explain. I’ve been reading about the history of US shipbuilding. I’m reading reports from the government, from private sector, from organizations like Rand, all investigating and researching the cost of producing American ships. I’ve been to multiple US shipyards, multiple foreign shipyards, and I’ve worked on the build of several ships in foreign shipyards. Tell me why all my assumptions are wrong.
Shipbuilding like any other industry depends on economies of scale. We don’t have the scale currently, and my point is we can’t. Without a steady and increasing order book, shipyards can’t recognize efficiencies in two of the main components driving up costs, suppliers and labor. The more impactful one initially is arguably suppliers. So you say we need the US financial machine to back more US companies building US ships. But all the financing in the world doesn’t solve the capacity problem. Even if US shipyards had orders for 50 new ships, they don’t have the capacity to build them. And they don’t have the real estate to expand. The totality of annual output capacity of all US large-ship shipyards is a fraction of a single foreign major shipyard. So if we can’t realize the economies of scale, we will not see reduced ship costs. And at the end of the day we all recognize it’s about money. I simply don’t see a scenario where US build costs decrease to be competitive with foreign build costs. And would it not make for a much more competitive US Merchant Marine if a US company could get two or three or four ships for the price of one? It would absolutely be easier to pass a finance committee. That would vastly increase the number of jobs for US mariners, increase corporate balance sheets, increase profit available for wages and benefits, and more importantly growth. A reduced cost barrier to entry means more entries, more companies, a more robust industry with more jobs and more advocates all the way up the line.
We need more US Flagged ships period, no matter where they come from. I truly believe that more ships/new ships = improved merchant marine.
You said you are not against legislation, but that you are not talking about legislative change because it would be extremely difficult to enact. I am not against legislative change, and I think it is necessary despite the fact that it would be extremely difficult to enact. You state in post 51 “What I can tell you with confidence is what is NOT going to work (basically everything we’ve been trying to do these last 20 years).” What have we actually tried? What changes have we actually made that failed? I can’t think of any meaningful legislative or industry change in the last 20 years. Sure plenty of talk and discussion, but you can just discount that which has not actually been implemented.
Anyway, I agree with your recommendation for an “investigation” a la Truman.
