now there you go!
I don’t see the use of the term “Operating Differential Subsidy”
Here is The State of the U.S. Flag Maritime Industry from MARAD in Jan of this year.
The Maritime Security Program (MSP) subsidy program helps offset the costs of operating under the U.S. flag. The Maritime Security Act of 1996 (as amended) authorizes direct annual stipends for up to 60 active, commercially viable, militarily useful, privately-owned U.S.-flag vessels and crews operating in U.S. international trades, in return for the owner/operators’ agreement to make the vessels available to the Government in times of war or national emergency.
Operating Differential Subsidies were implemented in the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 and were offered to qualifying vessel operators until the issuance of new subsidy contracts was ended by the Reagan Administration (even though ODS subsidies are still in the US Code) vessels with existing ODS contracts kept operating with them until the contracts expired and since most contracts were for 25 years, it was not long after the termination of offering new contracts that the lines which relied on them began to close up shop hence the great bloodbath of the late 80’s which saw the end of the road for so many old names in the business including the defacto flagship and fabled US Lines which was dead and buried by 1992.
\with most ODS contracts expiring by 1995 it became apparent that the foreign trading US flag fleet was on its way to becoming extinct and only the prompt action of Congress to get the MSP going saved it although not too many of the old ODS players were left to enroll in the MSP. Most however were big European names such as Maersk and Wallenius who gladly took the cash and jumped aboard.
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I am now going to present a set of slides each from the Maritime Administration
this is the fantasy slide which came from a longago now dead era which might as well have been from a different universe!
and these represent reality
so there you it…a clearer picture of the death of a fleet I could never find…
and to think that there is yet to be a MarAd Administrator to kill himself right at his desk defies all belief!
and hey there Adm. Buzby Berkley…you never called John back. definitely low class
nice chest full of medals there…what did you get them for? your golf game?
nothing but another craven brass hat Navee BS artist
What you are looking at is world trade exploding and a nation without a strong maritime tradition not taking advantage of it. You lost nothing because you never had it.
Can’t you correlated the two bottom slides?
in 1946 the USA had more merchant ships than the rest of the planet COMBINED!
SO YOU CAN GO AND FUCK YOURSELF TO HELL AND BACK…SIR!
1946 was after 5 years of world war where the only nation building vessels was USA and trade was non existent. If you are to stupid to see a correlation I pity you.
NO TRADE?..WTF? There was MORE trade going than ever with more raw material imports needed for war production, food to keep Britain and other Allied nations fed, Lend Lease aid and then our own forces needing to be supplied. HOW IN THE FUCK CAN YOU SAY THERE WAS NO TRADE DURING WWII? ALMOST ALL TRADE TO SUPPORT THE WAR EFFORT BUT IT WAS STILL TRADE AND THE USA WAS CARRYING 85% OF IT GLOBALLY BY THE END OF THE WAR AND THE YEARS IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS! IT WAS US VESSELS THAT FED A STARVING POPULATION IN WESTERN EUROPE IN 1947/48 AND CARRIED THE CARGOES TO REBUILD ITS FLATTENED CITIES UNDER THE MARSHALL PLAN.
AND EFF YOU TOO
JUST DON’T GO SAYING WE NEVER HAD IT BECAUSE WE DID ONLY WE DIDN’T KEEP IT
So we had it but gave it away…and thus I blame the US Government for wanting corporations in the US to make higher profits than for the US to keep its merchant marine…(but still kept the Merchant Marine Academy…what a joke!)
so what is it that we don’t already know?
actually the fleet has continually gotten smaller and smaller which is somewhat understandable since a single ship today can carry probably what 30 ships carried in 1950 HOWEVER the fact that US global trade has grown so much but the US merchant marine’s share of that trade has gone from 65% to 3% of the total is beyond shameful…it is treasonous and I blame our leaders for allowing that to happen.
I still don’t see what stopping American mariners from sailing foreign if they want to.
Because all Norwegian mariners have the same education and certificates and can go work on the FOC vessels when they have sailed coastal or in the Offshore fleet.
Sure, someone holding pilot on Western Rivers or whatever is not going to sail FOC but there’s nothing stopping someone with a regular deep-sea MMC.
And still you manage to lose it in the span of 10 years? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
No mystery, U.S. ship owners created the FOC of Liberia, Panama and later the Marshall Islands and replaced American mariners with cheaper labor from former colonies.
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Do a unlicensed American mariner sailing foreign exist? Who would want one? So a second register to expand the pool of Officers and Engineers would be a plus?
My son has a U.S. MMC for 2 A/E which he used to get MMCs from Panama and Vanuatu with no issues. He has sailed on vessels of all three flags.
There likely are others.
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except I know of no FOC shipowner who wants an American mariner (officer or seaman) for reasons that have already been discussed at length here. We simply do not have that option and are effectively locked out (except for some FOC offshore vessels which carry US mariners because they are mandated to by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act).
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