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I’m from Puerto Rico and people there have been fighting for this since I can remember. This disproportionately hurts the poorest people there the most. Grocer

by eh9 4y ago

I’m from Puerto Rico and people there have been fighting for this since I can remember. This disproportionately hurts the poorest people there the most. Groceries are already exorbitantly expensive, doubly so because of this misguided act. Never mind the fact that Puerto Rico is in the middle of recovering from a Cat1 hurricane that nearly took the island out for a month (power outages still ongoing). While the island should have been prepared for that, it was still in the middle of recovering from Maria (a cat 5 hurricane in 2017). How much slower has relief been because of the jones act? How much longer can we keep subjecting people to colonialism?

ceejayoz 4y ago
Formally exempting overseas territories like Puerto Rico seems to me a reasonable compromise.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  But why do it at all? There's no evidence that the Jones Act has worked. The US ship building industry lags far behind places like South Korea that churn out bigger, better, and cheaper ships on a faster basis. South Korean ship builders aren't poorly paid either, they just have to compete on a global market.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    I'm all for repealing it, but politics is frequently about compromises. Start with the most obvious need, prove the world doesn't explode when you do.
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      I see your point, but a half measure is likely to stick around just as long as the Jones Act. If congress wants to phase it out and give some no interest loans to ship builders to modernize, then I guess I'm fine with that.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > But why do it at all? There's no evidence that the Jones Act has worked. But there are more options than that, like strengthening the Jones Act to make it work better. It's a false choice to present the options as a binary repeal or keep.
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      How could you make it work better by strengthening it? There are decades of work in economics point to how shitty the Jones Act is. It punishes island territories and makes US ship building less competitive.
      - tablespoon 4y ago
        > How could you make it work better by strengthening it? There are decades of work in economics point to how shitty the Jones Act is. So? Those people who did that "work" have certain priorities, but those priorities aren't the only ones. One annoying thing about economists (or at least many of the ones that spend their time pontificating to the public like this) and economics-minded people, is that they're almost always fixated on a small number of oversimplified metrics that they think should be overoptimism to the exclusion of all else.
- chimeracoder 4y ago
  > Formally exempting overseas territories like Puerto Rico seems to me a reasonable compromise. If you're going to exempt Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. then why not just repeal it entirely? At that point it doesn't really do anything.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    Hawaii isn't a territory and represents significant Jones act related commerce. While I'm not pro jones act it's worth noting Hawaii/Alaska have congressional participation in the democratic process so you can say it's kind of 'their fault' because they're held to the 'social contract' of the majority vote, to whatever weight that validates following laws. Territories do not have congressional representation and thus cannot be faulted for failures of democratic federal decision making. I think even from the pro-jones act perspective there's a compelling argument to exempt territories.
javert 4y ago
I live in Puerto Rico. I'm curious about the actual mechanics of how the Jones Act affects PR. For context, I'm against the Jones Act regardless of the exact effects it may or may not have---but I'm still curious about the mechanics. For instance, I used to believe we couldn't get produce from the DR without it first going through a US port (typically Jacksonville). But in reality, the Jones Act doesn't prevent ships from bringing DR produce directly to PR, even foreign ships. I'd like to get a specific example of something economically useful that the Jones Act forbids. For instance, you couldn't have a trade route by a DR ship that goes San Juan -> Ponce -> DR, if you want to be able to pick up goods in San Juan and drop them in Ponce. But is that really useful, anyway? Perhaps allowing non-US ships to brings goods between Florida and PR would be the biggest gain of dropping the Jones Act? Because shipping would be much cheaper. Like the case in the article where it's cheaper to bring fuel to the Northeast from Africa than from Texas.
- hellojesus 4y ago
  I think the issue is that a non-Jones ship going from DR to PR could then not continue on to another US port, which means that PR would have to have enough demand to unload the entire ship there or at another foreign port. The issue really comes into play with the fact that a non-Jones ship couldn't stop at a US port on the way to another US port, and that really hurts smaller outlying ports that are between a foreign nation and mainland US.
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    It's a bit of a further tangent, but my understanding is that this has a particular weird impact on cruise ship destinations and related tourism cash/investments. Because cruise ships aren't exempt from the Jones Act either and are often foreign flagged (many cruise ship companies are nominally headquartered in the Bahamas and fly Bahamanian flags on their ships), they also have to make sure that they alternate ports in the way that meets the Jones Act. They can't go from Florida or New Orleans straight to Puerto Rico without stopping somewhere else first (and with US sanctions still "weird" with Cuba the obvious stop isn't generally possible either) or travel directly between Puerto Rico and the USVI without a stop somewhere in between (such as DR). This seems silly for a number of reasons. I know a bit too much about it because a cruise charter group I go on cruises with has wished for certain itineraries to make logistics easier (PR has better concert logistics than most other islands, for instance, if you are trying to set up a single day concert in a park), but there are too few available PR routes for the sake of variety precisely because some of those routes that might be desirable are basically illegal under the Jones Act. It's not a showstopper in this group's case, but it is silly.
notch656a 4y ago
>How much longer can we keep subjecting people to colonialism? Puerto Ricans call themselves subjects of colonialism yet continually reject both statehood and complete independence. It seems like Puerto Ricans want the worst of both worlds.
- myroon5 4y ago
  Multiple referendums in the last decade where Puerto Ricans voted for statehood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Puerto_Rican_status_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Puerto_Rican_status_refer... US government's rejecting Puerto Rico's statehood
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    a third of the votes in the 2012 were blank in protest. Can not say that that vote proved anything at all. The 2020 vote seems definitive enough though, although it was quite close.
    - WorldMaker 4y ago
      Even as a protest vote an intentional abstention still supports the majority. (At least according to Robert's Rules. Which I know isn't directly applicable to referendums such as this but is still a useful interpretative lens.)
      - colinmhayes 4y ago
        Well the abstainers were explicitly against being a state so I don’t think it makes sense to just put them with the majority.
        WorldMaker 4y ago
        The abstainers weren't being explicit about that in the vote itself. They left an implicit vote so it could be (and was!) interpreted however one liked. That said, most of my awareness is Wikipedia and second-hand account, but I heard most of the abstainers weren't protesting "against statehood" but against the meaningless nature of the vote itself because it was non-binding to anyone, its results weren't going to be used to do anything (and indeed did not ultimately matter other than a couple of wishy-washy President Obama words but no actions). I'm probably wrong on that interpretation, too, but the two votes after the 2012 vote seem to align with that: there is a desire for statehood over alternatives, but that there also seems to a feeling of neglect that they can vote all they want and Congress itself has yet to certify the votes or to make the necessary movements towards an actual, binding vote.

by eh9 4y ago

ceejayoz 4y ago

Formally exempting overseas territories like Puerto Rico seems to me a reasonable compromise.

ch4s3 4y ago
But why do it at all? There's no evidence that the Jones Act has worked. The US ship building industry lags far behind places like South Korea that churn out bigger, better, and cheaper ships on a faster basis. South Korean ship builders aren't poorly paid either, they just have to compete on a global market.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  I'm all for repealing it, but politics is frequently about compromises. Start with the most obvious need, prove the world doesn't explode when you do.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    I see your point, but a half measure is likely to stick around just as long as the Jones Act. If congress wants to phase it out and give some no interest loans to ship builders to modernize, then I guess I'm fine with that.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > But why do it at all? There's no evidence that the Jones Act has worked. But there are more options than that, like strengthening the Jones Act to make it work better. It's a false choice to present the options as a binary repeal or keep.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    How could you make it work better by strengthening it? There are decades of work in economics point to how shitty the Jones Act is. It punishes island territories and makes US ship building less competitive.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > How could you make it work better by strengthening it? There are decades of work in economics point to how shitty the Jones Act is. So? Those people who did that "work" have certain priorities, but those priorities aren't the only ones. One annoying thing about economists (or at least many of the ones that spend their time pontificating to the public like this) and economics-minded people, is that they're almost always fixated on a small number of oversimplified metrics that they think should be overoptimism to the exclusion of all else.
chimeracoder 4y ago
> Formally exempting overseas territories like Puerto Rico seems to me a reasonable compromise. If you're going to exempt Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. then why not just repeal it entirely? At that point it doesn't really do anything.
- notch656a 4y ago
  Hawaii isn't a territory and represents significant Jones act related commerce. While I'm not pro jones act it's worth noting Hawaii/Alaska have congressional participation in the democratic process so you can say it's kind of 'their fault' because they're held to the 'social contract' of the majority vote, to whatever weight that validates following laws. Territories do not have congressional representation and thus cannot be faulted for failures of democratic federal decision making. I think even from the pro-jones act perspective there's a compelling argument to exempt territories.

javert 4y ago

I live in Puerto Rico. I'm curious about the actual mechanics of how the Jones Act affects PR. For context, I'm against the Jones Act regardless of the exact effects it may or may not have---but I'm still curious about the mechanics. For instance, I used to believe we couldn't get produce from the DR without it first going through a US port (typically Jacksonville). But in reality, the Jones Act doesn't prevent ships from bringing DR produce directly to PR, even foreign ships. I'd like to get a specific example of something economically useful that the Jones Act forbids. For instance, you couldn't have a trade route by a DR ship that goes San Juan -> Ponce -> DR, if you want to be able to pick up goods in San Juan and drop them in Ponce. But is that really useful, anyway? Perhaps allowing non-US ships to brings goods between Florida and PR would be the biggest gain of dropping the Jones Act? Because shipping would be much cheaper. Like the case in the article where it's cheaper to bring fuel to the Northeast from Africa than from Texas.

hellojesus 4y ago
I think the issue is that a non-Jones ship going from DR to PR could then not continue on to another US port, which means that PR would have to have enough demand to unload the entire ship there or at another foreign port. The issue really comes into play with the fact that a non-Jones ship couldn't stop at a US port on the way to another US port, and that really hurts smaller outlying ports that are between a foreign nation and mainland US.
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  It's a bit of a further tangent, but my understanding is that this has a particular weird impact on cruise ship destinations and related tourism cash/investments. Because cruise ships aren't exempt from the Jones Act either and are often foreign flagged (many cruise ship companies are nominally headquartered in the Bahamas and fly Bahamanian flags on their ships), they also have to make sure that they alternate ports in the way that meets the Jones Act. They can't go from Florida or New Orleans straight to Puerto Rico without stopping somewhere else first (and with US sanctions still "weird" with Cuba the obvious stop isn't generally possible either) or travel directly between Puerto Rico and the USVI without a stop somewhere in between (such as DR). This seems silly for a number of reasons. I know a bit too much about it because a cruise charter group I go on cruises with has wished for certain itineraries to make logistics easier (PR has better concert logistics than most other islands, for instance, if you are trying to set up a single day concert in a park), but there are too few available PR routes for the sake of variety precisely because some of those routes that might be desirable are basically illegal under the Jones Act. It's not a showstopper in this group's case, but it is silly.

notch656a 4y ago

>How much longer can we keep subjecting people to colonialism? Puerto Ricans call themselves subjects of colonialism yet continually reject both statehood and complete independence. It seems like Puerto Ricans want the worst of both worlds.

myroon5 4y ago
Multiple referendums in the last decade where Puerto Ricans voted for statehood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Puerto_Rican_status_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Puerto_Rican_status_refer... US government's rejecting Puerto Rico's statehood
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  a third of the votes in the 2012 were blank in protest. Can not say that that vote proved anything at all. The 2020 vote seems definitive enough though, although it was quite close.
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    Even as a protest vote an intentional abstention still supports the majority. (At least according to Robert's Rules. Which I know isn't directly applicable to referendums such as this but is still a useful interpretative lens.)
    - colinmhayes 4y ago
      Well the abstainers were explicitly against being a state so I don’t think it makes sense to just put them with the majority.
      - WorldMaker 4y ago
        The abstainers weren't being explicit about that in the vote itself. They left an implicit vote so it could be (and was!) interpreted however one liked. That said, most of my awareness is Wikipedia and second-hand account, but I heard most of the abstainers weren't protesting "against statehood" but against the meaningless nature of the vote itself because it was non-binding to anyone, its results weren't going to be used to do anything (and indeed did not ultimately matter other than a couple of wishy-washy President Obama words but no actions). I'm probably wrong on that interpretation, too, but the two votes after the 2012 vote seem to align with that: there is a desire for statehood over alternatives, but that there also seems to a feeling of neglect that they can vote all they want and Congress itself has yet to certify the votes or to make the necessary movements towards an actual, binding vote.