Peter Zeihan too talks about how USA is perfectly suited to have transport boats on its waterways but because of the Jones Act and lack of US shipbuilding we have to use trucks and rail which not only are clogging our roads but are much more expensive as well.
Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships
171–180 of 328 posts
Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't like free markets and you cite semi-governmental-department Boeing and too-big-to-fail-gets-bailed-out-every-time banks and auto companies as an example? You'll find free marketeers everywhere complain about these exact companies, for the same reasons.
I like free markets. I just don't like that China is eating the West's lunch. They just seem better at playing the "free markets" game than anyone on this side of the globe and I think the USA is doubling down on the ideas that defined it in the 1970's, rather than saying— "it's a new world, let's see what we can learn from it to up our game". China has definitely learned plenty from the world, and fundamentally chan…
China in 1990 was a poverty-stricken, hungry backwater, following a philosophy that just bankrupted their richer big brother.
Ideological change was needed.
By contrast, the US system of capitalism + democracy is not only blowing the rest of the world out of the water, it has shown itself to be remarkably resilient and responsive to change.
China has thus far prospered by being great at manufacturing. Can they innovate and change as needed? We’ll see.
The US has thus far prospered by being great at whatever is currently most profitable. Will they change as needed? Yes. Change is how their system works.
Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships
#173Peter Zeihan too talks about how USA is perfectly suited to have transport boats on its waterways but because of the Jones Act and lack of US shipbuilding we have to use trucks and rail which not only are clogging our roads but are much more expensive as well.
If it was actually more efficient the jones act wouldn’t matter because the other options use US labor and vehicles constructed in the US so it’s a fairly level playing field.
Instead the issue is shipping point to point usually saves a lot of overhead compared to ports and the distances involved are rarely enough to offset that overhead. You do see a fair amount of traffic via the Mississippi because that’s actually efficient.
Also, people forget about is how much oil, gasoline, and natural gas gets shipped by pipelines. Without that we’d see more ships going from the gulf to east coast cities.
Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious why the US does not think this is a big problem. I mean, look at the US 80 years ago. The US easily out produced the Axis. We could produce faster and cheaper. There's really no excuse that the cost of making canon shells is 10x higher than Russia. Isn't being able to manufacturing cheaply the signature of a highly developed society? Besides, expertise is not just volumes of blueprints, right? We can only kee…
>There's really no excuse that the cost of making canon shells is 10x higher than Russia. Isn't being able to manufacturing cheaply the signature of a highly developed society? We have prioritized high wages for workers in the US, a phenomenon also driven by the reserve currency status of the dollar. Russians, Chinese, and Indians work for a fraction of the price we do. We have high labor costs and have to import man…
I'm pretty sure costs have gone up not due to workers' salaries...
Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
>However, then shipyards that haven't made an icebreaker for twenty years would become shipyards that haven't made one for forty years. Is there really much difference?
Yes. The longer that a shipyard goes with fewer and fewer contracts the more likely it is to go out of business. And it's far harder to get a ship built at a yard that is out of business than one that isn't.
Also, shipyards that recently built one are more likely to get contracts to build more. Because other countries will be facing the same question.
Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
It all stems from the Jones act. [1] The American shipbuilding industry has been allowed to atrophy in an idea that protectionism would lead to good commercial the results. What little gets built in the US is way behind the global peers in terms of economics and quality. As usual the end results are that the entire shipping industry works around the Jones act, for example cruise ships from Florida docking in the Baha…
Congress has been pushed not to eliminate would completely wipe out tiny remaining American Merchant Marine fleet. Most people who want to get rid of Jones Act are economists and other types who sole concern is "How much more money can we make from cheap shipping" while ignoring any national security concerns. We could talk about modify it maybe allowing purchase of specialized ships from overseas friendly countries,…
> economists and other types who sole concern is "How much more money can we make from cheap shipping"
This is most people? National defense and the domestic shipbuilding industry are important, but the value of cheap shipping should not be underestimated. Plus, giving credit to the Jones Act for the current state of US civilian and military shipbuilding is, in my opinion, perhaps the strongest possible argument for repealing the Jones Act. The current state of American shipbuilding is disgraceful.
Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US outproduced the axis towards the end of the war but it was a real mess for the first few years while industries retooled and the government broke through obstacles like the aluminum cartel. It was only after Pearl Harbor and the formation of the War Production Board in 1942 that manufacturing really picked up because everyone felt the existential threat and organized against it. The US can’t make cheap artille…
Russia is out producing the US on guided munitions and rockets fired from the ground as well (and missile defense). And icebreakers, of course. So it’s doable - just depends on priorities (ie, moving chip manufacturing back which seems to have us recent success).
US shipyards and military production are extremely low on any number of metrics. It's unclear even now whether the US has enough stockpiles and enough production of modern munitions to maintain an active war against a peer adversary like China with such massive production capacity and such a massive population. At some point, you do need constant production of enough munitions, doesn't matter how smart or precise those might be.
Just recently a US navy tanker ran aground and now they're scrambling to find some way to fuel the carrier group in the middle east because for some reason that's the only one that was available. The navy logistics group is woefully understaffed und under-equipped.
What are the priorities in actuality? Because maintaining a military at adequate readiness doesn't seem to be at the top of the list.
Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
> China is winning because they are intensely, directly investing in tech regardless of the financial circumstances. Investment can (and often is) different from protectionism. Typically, investment provides time-limited grants or other forms of support. If a company misuses them, a global (or local) competitor will outpace it. Protectionism ensures that companies are indefinitely protected from global competition, s…
The developed world is unable to compete on a level playing field against other countries when taking into consideration potentially enormous subsidies or developing world labor costs. Protectionism, when implemented strategically, can reduce these counterparty advantages. Investment is also a component, but they both work in concert to arrive at a desired outcome. And I think that’s really where this problem lies, t…
> The developed world is unable to compete on a level playing field against other countries when taking into consideration potentially enormous subsidies or developing world labor costs.
Cheap labor cost typically is only a fraction of a high-tech product. If anything, China was not the world's biggest factory, but the world's biggest assembler. It's changing right now, and China is producing more of its own high-tech components.
So a small amount of protectionism (like a 10-15% tariff) might be OK, and it will compensate for this labor cost discrepancy. But not tariffs that simply make the local industry complacent.
Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Russia is out producing the US on guided munitions and rockets fired from the ground as well (and missile defense). And icebreakers, of course. So it’s doable - just depends on priorities (ie, moving chip manufacturing back which seems to have us recent success).
US shipyards and military production are extremely low on any number of metrics. It's unclear even now whether the US has enough stockpiles and enough production of modern munitions to maintain an active war against a peer adversary like China with such massive production capacity and such a massive population. At some point, you do need constant production of enough munitions, doesn't matter how smart or precise tho…
> Because maintaining a military at adequate readiness doesn't seem to be at the top of the list.
I think Yamamoto Isoroku gave the answer to this challenge: just keep a booming manufacturing industry. When he was trying to convince the Japanese government not to have a war with the US, he said that he saw so many chimneys when flying over Philadelphia. All those factories would turn into a giant war machine if a war ever broke out.
That is, the economy of scale matters. When the US had its entire supply chain domestically, replacing a special screw could cost a few cents. When we were in good terms with China, it would cost a few dollars as we had to order the replacement overseas, but well, it was still cheap. Now that we are trying to cut China off, then what will do if we'd need to get a replacement? Setting up a shop from scratch with little expertise and no supply chain to back it up? Well, such replacement would then cost a few thousand dollars and we would be screwed.
Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is it that the US ship builders aren't competent Yes, they are woefully uncompetitive. They produce single-digit numbers of commercial oceangoing ships annually, at 2-4x the cost of elsewhere. It’s an industry on life support.
Curious why the US does not think this is a big problem. I mean, look at the US 80 years ago. The US easily out produced the Axis. We could produce faster and cheaper. There's really no excuse that the cost of making canon shells is 10x higher than Russia. Isn't being able to manufacturing cheaply the signature of a highly developed society? Besides, expertise is not just volumes of blueprints, right? We can only kee…
You adapt. Ukraine is emptying the US armories to kill Russians at scale.
You get smarter/more accurate with the constrained supply of shells, adopt drones etc.
In the 80s, expensive Maverick missiles were the primary airborne tank killer. Now the Ukrainians are dropping mortars into tank hatches from cheap drones.