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It's not about simply "making things cheaper". It's that the costs imposed by the Jones Act are so imbalanced that they lead to effects like this: >Significant
by scythe 4y ago
It's not about simply "making things cheaper". It's that the costs imposed by the Jones Act are so imbalanced that they lead to effects like this:
>Significant opportunity costs also can be observed in the loss of revenues experienced when, for example, a hog farmer in North Carolina purchases corn feed from Canada instead of from a farmer in Iowa because exorbitant delivery costs make the latter’s price uncompetitive.
Clearly, this is not effectively protecting American business from foreign competition. Even if that is considered a reasonable goal, it should actually, you know, be met.
>Any earnest proposal to repeal the Jones act should address how the [military] goals of the act can be met in other ways. [brackets mine]
The Jones Act was passed in 1920. At that time, US military spending was a tiny fraction of what it is today, and the idea that the Navy would borrow commercial ships instead of simply using its own was a lot more sensible. Today, the US Navy is by far the largest in the world, focuses primarily on blue-water power projection rather than defense of the homeland, and naval battles are primarily fought by aircraft, which was unimaginable in 1920.
If the Jones Act continues to bring military benefits, the onus, in my opinion, rests on its supporters to show what they are, because modern naval warfare looks almost nothing like it did in 1920.
- kilolima 4y agoJust to respond to a few of your more landlubberly comments: Naval battles are fought by aircraft carried on ships. Modern naval warfare is still about global power projected by ships. That hasn't changed since 1920. Global power projection has always been the focus of the US Navy since its inception. North Carolina and Iowa are far from each other separated by mountains. Until the advent of giant cargo airships, it will always be cheaper to move bulk goods by sea.
- scythe 4y ago>Naval battles are fought by aircraft carried on ships. In other words, there's a whole new cost and technology center. Modern naval warfare was unimaginable in 1920. The fact that "there is a boat involved" is not sufficient justification. >Global power projection has always been the focus of the US Navy since its inception. The US Navy was founded in 1794. So no. >North Carolina and Iowa are far from each other separated by mountains. Iowa is on the Mississippi, the Chicago Portage exists, the Erie canal exists, etc. I was quoting the author who had studied the issue: you should give your opponents more credit than that.
- kilolima 4y agoOrigins of the US Navy as a blue-water force: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Act_of_1794 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Act_of_1794 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-War A Mahanian would argue that sea power endures regardless of the technological limitations of the contemporary weapon delivery mechanism, i.e. shell, aircraft, torpedo, or missile. The USS Langley (first US aircraft carrier) dates to 1921 and Billy Mitchel sank the SMS Ostfriesland in the same year, the first sinking of a major warship by aircraft. Of course, submarines had already came close to starving Britain in WWI. These are all the elements of "modern naval warfare."