U.S. to suspend the Jones Act in a bid to curb oil prices
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
The total reserve is 415 M barrels [1], so this is 41% of the reserve!! And refineries use about 16.5 M barrels per day [2], so if refineries used _only_ this reserve oil, it would keep them busy for 11 days. Of course they aren't _only_ using the reserve oil. I'm sure it will still have an effect, but I think it's a shorter-term solution than it first appears. I don't think this will ease prices for more than a couple months. Would be happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken about some of this.
Edit: I guess that's why they're suspending the jones act, as a longer-term solution. But the article says the Jones act will only save "pennies per gallon, not dimes per gallon", so that also doesn't seem to really do much :/
[1] https://www.spr.doe.gov/dir/dir.html
[2] https://www.afpm.org/newsroom/blog/how-much-oil-does-united-...
Ridiculous to have laws that unfairly protect dead industries. Dockworkers next please so we can have automated container unloading.
I agree with your characterization, but I just wanted the parent comment to look up the ILWU, where they would probably see some of those facts for themselves and be more likely to understand my position.
As the human internet dies, I feel like it's more important for those of us that want some of it to survive to participate constructively.
The recently negotiated (nation-wide) deal:
In the deal, the union holds on to existing contract language that protects against certain types of automation, and has won guaranteed jobs where partial automation is put in place.
Port employers will still be blocked from implementing “fully automated” port technology: the employers cannot implement equipment that is “devoid of human interaction.” And the union and the employers have to agree on implementing any new technology; if they cannot agree, the question gets sent to arbitration.
This language prevents East and Gulf Coast port employers from implementing the more extreme forms of automation seen in other parts of the world, including the Long Beach Container Terminal, in Southern California, where autonomous trucks and cranes entirely replace human operators.
You should listen to Harold Deggett, the dockworkers union boss who threatened to cripple the US economy if automation was introduced:
https://ijr.com/union-boss-willing-to-cripple-america-made-m...
He also lives in a 70,000 sqft mansion:
https://nypost.com/2024/10/02/business/harold-daggetts-spraw...
In this case, Trump is the "worst person you know," but he's doing something that a lot of people across the left [¹] and right [²] political spectrums have wanted to do for years by repealing (edit: suspending) the Jones Act.
[¹] Free trade dems, Clintonite think tankers, third-way corporatists, the self-styled "neoliberal" dems, abundance dems, etc. Not all dems support doing away with it because in theory that hurts the maritime unions.
[²] Much broader support on the right because it maps onto the free market and anti-regulation ideologies.
Not repealed.
But yes.
> Free trade dems, Clintonite think tankers, third-way corporatists, the self-styled "neoliberal" dems, abundance dems, etc.
These are all very much part of the democrat coalition, i.e. the "left" on the US political spectrum. It's not the entire democrat coalition, but they are a large part of it. I'd call them centrist for sure, but certainly not right wing.
I would argue that when discussing politics on a global network on a site with global reach that there's no need to talk in terms of the range of each country's parties. On a global scale, the US has one major party that's center-right overall with a few left-wing members and another major party that's far-right with a majority of its membership being at least OK with if not actively pursuing fascism. We have "left compared to wannabe nazis" but not "left"
Our widespread use of the defective first-past-the-post election system prevents any significant inroads from being made by any alternatives regardless of how much many of us would like it, and the two major parties are actively trying to prevent the use of alternatives.
Good for the bottom line, bad for the worker.
Bad for most workers. Good for a cabal. The Jones Act directly lead to the failure of American shipbuilding.
Jones Act didn't kill American Shipbuilding, cost of American worker did.
However, whole reason for Jones Act is attempt to protect the American Merchant Marine. If you can't move things via water in wartime, you don't have an empire.
This has been studied to death. European shipyards have similar labor costs to a lot of America. They still build cheaper ships faster than we do. Same for Korea.
> If you can't move things via water in wartime, you don't have an empire
And yet here we are, entirely dependent on foreign shipyards for basically any meaningful production.
The Jones Act killed American shipping. It makes our shipyards uncompetitive. And it makes our waterways too expensive to ply because the only things one can legally float on them are uncompetitive, expensive ships.
Europeans provide direct subsidy compared to American subsidy of just requiring certain ships to be built in America. Also, looking at recent trends, Europe has fallen out of favor as well with rise of Japan/Korea/China (https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/industrial-policy-lessons-shi...)
Also worth noting that Japan/Korea/China HEAVILY subsidize their ship building as well.
>And yet here we are, entirely dependent on foreign shipyards for basically any meaningful production.
Sure, because despite the subsidizes, economics was always going to make US ships unattractive.
>The Jones Act killed American shipping.
There is zero evidence that this did it because all evidence says if you repealed it, all shippers would just buy Chinese ships, flag them under flag of convenience and staff them all with overseas worker where they make 2000USD/yr.
BTW, there are Congressional proposals out there now called Ships for America Act (https://garamendi.house.gov/media/press-releases/garamendi-k...)
However, they are all just handing massive bags of money to shipbuilders. My guess is you have similar opposition.
> There is zero evidence that this did it because all evidence says if you repealed it, all shippers would just buy Chinese ships, flag them under flag of convenience and staff them all with overseas worker where they make 2000USD/yr.
You are both right, one in the long term, the other in the short term. The Jones act protected US shipbuilders from competition over a long term. Repealing it would expose them to extreme competition in the short term, when they suddenly need to compete with other shipyards on the open market.
There's probably no clean solution here. Repealing now would shake up the us market, some shipyards might close, others might scramble to catch up.
The thing is, if you wait 'till next year, it'll be worse. And the year after that even worse.
Meanwhile, compare eg the Netherlands with very high wages, punching far above its weight with Heerema, Mammoet, Damen, IHC, Boskalis, Van Oord, Allseas, Smit, and more. It's (mostly) illegal to operate their equipment in the US. Which makes all sorts of things more expensive than it should be. And american companies don't need to compete, don't need to even consider building heavy engineering hardware. The current situation is lose-lose.
(random example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvicq-kvVbw Heerema Sleipnir)
Exactly, the feeble American shipbuilding industry has been an existential risk waiting to explode for a generation. But corruption and profits speak louder than national security here.
the US still ends up without a merchant marine, at least compared to if it di have ships moving between US ports and not just arriving at/leaving from US ports
Now US shipbuilding has been shielded from competition for so long, that any kind of permanent repeal of Jones act will mean instant bankruptcy of US ship builders. Similar to what happened in Eastern Europe after 1989. That shock of not being shielded by iron curtain from competition has caused implosion of whole industries.
The problem with Iron curtain has been that you were not allowed to import stuff from the West unless you were specifically permitted to (i.e. military purposes). The ideology of Eastern block was to employ everyone, that caused low automation demand which caused high prices for goods. Furthermore lack of quality processes caused that products were expensive and also garbage. So after iron curtain fell you can buy cheap garbage from the east or expensive quality goods from the west.
That compounded with USSR imploding (losing market) and management of communist companies not being able to innovate because there was no demand for it and you got industries falling apart like Hindenburg.
Jones act has created exactly same trap. US shipbuilders are not being forced into innovation nor automation (so they can reduce labor costs) because they don't need to. And now with China eclipsing them 200 times, Jones act can't be repelled
Chinese, Korean and Japanese shipyards compete in the global market. Construction Physics has done an excellent series of write-ups on the technological leaps America shipyards didn’t have to invest in because they were guaranteed their tiny pie.
Not that it did a great job, so I don't think it's going to be a huge loss on the shipbuilding front either way. The defense budget will simply pick up the subsidization slack, or we're be even more unable to field a Navy in the future. Likely both.
What will be interesting is how folks think they are going to be able to keep a merchant marine floating on the water? Are a bunch of US shipping companies going to start up, buy boats from Asia, and start employing American crews with American flagged vessels? Doubtful.
But again - Jones Act didn't really keep those goals going either way. I just hope it's replaced with something other than thoughts and prayers. There is absolutely a strong case to be made that shipping prices can justifiably be higher and paid for by the American consumer so that we can have a robust and independent merchant marine fleet only the US can control. I don't know how we get there, but I do know without it there is no such thing as sovereignty.
> Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act is known as the Jones Act and deals with cabotage (coastwise trade). It requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried on ships that have been constructed in the United States and that fly the U.S. flag, are owned by U.S. citizens, and are crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents