Here is an example of why American mariners want to protect the Jones Act, and why the AJACs are so desperate to destroy it … they want the money in their pockets, not yours.
All the corporate news media are owned by the big money guys. One of the biggest opponents of the Jones Act is the Wall Street Journal which is owned by News Corp which owns Fox etc. Times Warner owns CNN and isn’t going to rock the boat very much. To hear all them and congress tell it the Jones Act costs consumers money. Since when have any of these people given one damn about costing a consumer any money? Heck they are trying to destroy the consumer financial protections consumers have now. Regulations, also known as protections, are bad everyone knows that ! They kill jobs, are a burden and probably cause cancer.
As to what controls the media just think about this. Drug companies in the USA charge consumers in the USA way more for the same drug by the same manufacturer in other countries. This causes everyone including all taxpayers to pay more. Why do the drug companies do this? Simply put they can. Why isn’t the news media reporting this? Watch your favorite news program and you’ll likely see a drug advertisement on the next commercial break. Money controls.
No regulation says news has to be fair, hasn’t been since 1987, There used to be a regulation called the Fairness Doctrine which lasted from 1949 until 1987 when that pesky regulation was abolished by the FCC. Congress voted to reinstate but it was vetoed by Reagan. Money/greed rule and without regulation will eventually control any government and its citizens. That is simply a historical fact.
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And since the Cheeto came to power greed has put decency, shame, and ethics far far in the background.
Our congress has been totally corrupted to the point it is no different than those of the 3rd world nations we are emulating.
The situation in Aussie is similar to what has been happening in the US for years with OCS waivers and work visas for foreign seamen in the oil patch. Thousands of America seafarers are unemployed, thousands more have had 50% pay cuts, while cheap foreign seamen are working in the US OCS.
And another one…
Maritime Commerce Can Thrive Without the Jones Act: Editorial
published Dec 22, 2017, 6:00:09 AM, by The Editors
(Bloomberg View) –
For all the flaws of the Jones Act -– the 1920 legislation requiring that all maritime commerce between U.S. ports take place on ships owned, built and crewed by Americans – there’s no faulting its professed goal. The U.S. needs a thriving maritime sector, for both economic and military reasons.
The best way to achieve this is to lift the Jones Act’s protectionist blanket. Granted, that’s not so simple, because the act is part of a complex regulatory and legal web. But some straightforward steps could bring immediate benefits.
First, grant at least a five-year waiver of the act to Puerto Rico. This would speed the island’s recovery. It would also test how best to regulate foreign-flag carriers, and provide data to show exactly what the act is costing.
Next, scrap the act’s “build-in-America” provision, as Senator John McCain and others have proposed. The global glut in container ships makes now a good time to replace the aging Jones Act cargo fleet with cheaper, cleaner vessels. Many components in “American-built” ships are already imported; some “American” shipbuilders and shipping lines are foreign subsidiaries.
Allow foreign-flag ships sailing from and then onward to foreign ports to deliver cargo to more than one U.S. port on a given coast. This would stimulate coastal commerce overall.
Make U.S. coastal shipping more efficient with new infrastructure and smarter regulation. Use the bulging Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to defray some of the cost. Update work, safety and crew-size rules to reflect risk-based analysis and international standards. Streamline overlapping federal and state environmental rules. Change tax structures that put U.S.-flag ships and their crews at a disadvantage. Curbing protectionism at home will also make it easier to go after other countries on that score.
What about security? Without resorting to maritime protection, the U.S. has plenty of ways to keep North Korean barges from plying the Mississippi, to cite one fantastical scenario. The U.S. already handles thousands of coastal port calls made each year by foreign-flag vessels, including along inland waterways.
Maintaining the edge and readiness of the U.S. military is crucial – but isn’t best achieved by relying on a shrinking, uncompetitive oceangoing fleet and shipbuilding industry. Instead, put the costs of national security where they belong – in the defense budget.
Rather than trying to build up the Jones Act fleet to ensure crew for strategic sealift contingencies, require the Navy to expand its active and reserve forces. Spend more on the four public shipyards that sorely need attention, and on training shipbuilders. Change procurement to ensure steadier work for military contractors, and hold them strictly accountable for defects.
Undoing the Jones Act will be disruptive. Workers who lose their jobs should be compensated. But U.S. aircraft and automobile manufacturers make better products because of foreign competition, and its railroads and trucking industry have done well since deregulation. The success of U.S. coastal shipping should be measured not by the U.S. vessels and sailors it employs but by its contribution to the overall U.S. economy.
On that score, the Jones Act is a failure. It has outlived whatever rationale it once had. Enough is enough.
–Editors: James Gibney, Clive Crook.To contact the senior editor responsible for Bloomberg View’s editorials: David Shipley at davidshipley@bloomberg.net .
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© 2017 Bloomberg L.P
WTF? There is nothing stopping a FF ship from delivering cargo to multiple US ports, they just can’t transport cargo from one US port to another.
This article is just one more example of ignorant bastards doing the dirty work for corporations and politicians that seem to have a hatred for American workers. Who do they suppose is going to buy all the crap those ships are carrying after they have starved the last American family out of existence?
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Jones Act shipping costs are what percentage of the US economy? Maybe 0.0001 percent?
The cost of prescription drugs are what percent of the US economy? Maybe 5 percent?
If we want to save consumers money, let’s start with the easiest low hanging fruit, pharmaceuticals.
Start slow, allow Americans to order their prescriptions from Canadian and Mexican pharmacies. Allow American pharmacies to buy their inventory in Canada and Mexico. It’s the same brand name product, made in the same factory, at less than half the price. Where is Bloomberg’s editorial supporting this?
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I feel like anyone who thinks that the Navy does cargo transportation and that the naval shipyards build ships has zero business talking about the maritime industry
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Exactly. Economist Dean Baker has been banging this drum for years- yes our jobs are protected from foreign competition, but so are the jobs of doctors and dentists, who must do residencies in the US (dentists also in Canada) and the rip-offs of intellectual property and ever-expanding patents are functionally a tax on Americans and strangle competition, especially in patented drugs.
I’m all for cutting bloat- start with the military- and having a frank, honest discussion about the Jones Act too, but the incredibly disingenuous, lie-filled editorials, petitions, and news articles we’ve been barraged by since September show the real intentions of these people. I wrote in to newspapers and magazines several times to correct the facts- I only got even acknowledged by Jacobin, of all places, and no one corrected the story. Either it’s Puerto Rican nationalists too cowardly to call for independence, or corporate finance types who are trying to export every job they can anyway.
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Don’t be naive. Cost savings don’t get passed on to consumers. As the consumer has proven a willingness to pay a certain price then there is no reason to reduce the price they are willing to pay. Instead cost savings are used to benefit the corporate or are passed on to investors.
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So true. Eliminating the Jones Act would not change change consumer prices. Most of the mark up on consumer prices is at the retail level.
If a shirt made in China sells $50 at in a typical retail store, the retail store only paid about $10 for it. Shipping cost about $1. Reducing shipping costs from $1 to $0.50 would have no meaningful effect on retail prices.
Jones Act shipping competes with trucks. The huge trucking industry in effect sets the shipping rates, the only way that Jones Act companies can compete with faster trucks is to be a lot cheaper, to be worth the extra shipping time. That mostly happens with low value and high volume bulk cargo. Other than bulk cargos, like oil grain, aggregates, coal etc., most cargos are trucked.
Railroads are much cheaper than trucks for high volume shippers, but they don’t try to compete with trucks for small volume shippers.
On the West Coast lumber is barged from BRitish Columbia, Washington and Oregon to California, but on the East Coast all the lumber is trucked from New England, Quebec, and New Brunswick to Florida.
Eliminating the Jones Act would mean larger profits for Jones Act carriers, but not add any volume. Nor would it result in any reduction in freight rates.
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It may surprise you, but I actually agree 100%
The profit level and the LARGE gap in earnings and living standards between the middle class wage earners and those who make their living from profiteering on the system you describe is so large that it is unsustainable in the long run.
It never cease to amaze me how the wealthy “upper class” have managed to convince the working stiffs (not to mention the less fortunate, for whatever reason) that the present US system is benefiting them. How can it???
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Because the unwashed masses are gullible and they can be manipulated by using fear of the unknown as the carrot on a stick.
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It does not cease to amaze me also. I wrote earlier in another topic on the Jones Act:
At the Health Wagon one guy who came for free treatment stated: “I am a capitalist and donot want a compulsory insurance.” What happened with these people which are dirt poor and suffering so much to say that they are a capitalist? Something went very wrong in the past…
Two views totally opposed.
So who is making the money? Not the US seafarer who has no career path nor the shipyard workers. The Act has become a gravy train for a privileged few.
Many components in “American-built” ships are already imported; some “American” shipbuilders and shipping lines are foreign subsidiaries.
So why propose cutting out the American component of the process? Just to transfer cash from American workers to foreign bank accounts?
Allow foreign-flag ships sailing from and then onward to foreign ports to deliver cargo to more than one U.S. port on a given coast.
As has been pointed out before, they are allowed to do this now. The Jones Act only prohibits them from up loading cargo in one American port and offloading at another.
As pointed out before, this article was written by an ignorant fool, a tool of the AJACs who might himself be replaced by a better educated foreign writer from one of the worlds major maritime nations which also have their own version of the Jones Act.
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I agree
Americans dont know lots of stuff they eat is banned in most of the world