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I really love creative workarounds for ridiculous rules. Like many of our laws the Jones Act is trying to force a desirable outcome because the existing laws f

I really love creative workarounds for ridiculous rules. Like many of our laws the Jones Act is trying to force a desirable outcome because the existing laws forced people to adopt the undesirable outcome. In this case US laws make it too costly to operate a US flagged vessel. Instead of removing laws that were making it too costly we just added a new law to try to force operators to the desirable but costly path of being US flagged. If a law is preventing us from being globally competitive it is a bad law.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
I'm fine with global competition if it isn't arbitrage of environmental regulations. That used to be palatable to Americans when the polluting resulting from manufacturing their kewpie dolls in Walmart was a local concern of the third world factory. But global warming pollution isn't localized. Thus "being globally competitive" amounts to code words for bypassing environmental regulations and further dooming the entire human race. That is a big big big issue. So while this is amusing and farcical, loopholes are dangerous at industrial scale.
shuntress 5y ago
There are some pretty obvious drawbacks to this that you seem to be deliberately ignoring. For example, in cases where this competitive advantage is gained through means that cause what a reasonable person would considered an excess of human suffering and the relevant US laws prevent the actions that gain that competitive advantage in exchange for human suffering, does it make sense to submit that this human suffering is just a fact of life or would it be better to attempt to eliminate that suffering?
- tastyfreeze 5y ago
  I had thought of those cases but didn't mention them as I feel most people would agree that those are "good" laws and accept the consequences. However, there are currently vastly more laws and regulations that do not fit in that category. There is a lot of space between sacrificing decency and removing law/regulation cruft to improve competitiveness.
  - notpachet 5y ago
    This comment is much more nuanced than your original black-and-white "If a law is preventing us from being globally competitive it is a bad law." I appreciate the followup.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

I'm fine with global competition if it isn't arbitrage of environmental regulations. That used to be palatable to Americans when the polluting resulting from manufacturing their kewpie dolls in Walmart was a local concern of the third world factory. But global warming pollution isn't localized. Thus "being globally competitive" amounts to code words for bypassing environmental regulations and further dooming the entire human race. That is a big big big issue. So while this is amusing and farcical, loopholes are dangerous at industrial scale.

shuntress 5y ago

There are some pretty obvious drawbacks to this that you seem to be deliberately ignoring. For example, in cases where this competitive advantage is gained through means that cause what a reasonable person would considered an excess of human suffering and the relevant US laws prevent the actions that gain that competitive advantage in exchange for human suffering, does it make sense to submit that this human suffering is just a fact of life or would it be better to attempt to eliminate that suffering?

tastyfreeze 5y ago
I had thought of those cases but didn't mention them as I feel most people would agree that those are "good" laws and accept the consequences. However, there are currently vastly more laws and regulations that do not fit in that category. There is a lot of space between sacrificing decency and removing law/regulation cruft to improve competitiveness.
- notpachet 5y ago
  This comment is much more nuanced than your original black-and-white "If a law is preventing us from being globally competitive it is a bad law." I appreciate the followup.