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The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

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Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#21

Post by sgt101 »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #18
frodo8sam wrote: post #4

The nation doesn’t just need a shipbuilding revolution—it needs a broader industrial revitalization. Strengthening semiconductor manufacturing, modernizing military and civilian aviation, reinvigorating automotive innovation, and more are all critical. Tackling this alone would be overwhelming, but collaboration with trusted neighbors and reliable allies could make these ambitions achievable. Luckily we have a real b…

Honest question, is it at all possible for us to have an industrial revitalization given that we have the highest average wages in the world?

- high wages are not evenly spread geographically in the USA

- high wages are not evenly spread demographically in the USA

- the wage distribution seems to me to be unusual in that it has a very long fat tail whereas the UK's is very clustered (I've forgotten the right term) on the median.

- modern industry can be highly automated

- modern logistics mean that industry can be decentralised

I believe that the last two are new since the USA and Europe outsourced large amounts of their industry to China. However the bigger issue is that competitive industries require very significant capitalisation because on the one hand modern products are staggeringly well engineered (with the trade offs of cheap, good and sophisticated taken into account) and on the other hand the processes used to make them require lots of tools, infrastructure, and robots.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#22

Post by paganel »

peepeepoopoo105 wrote: post #6

This will never succeed because the economies of scale are nonexistent without dominance in the commercial shipbuilding market. War planners should have pushed to repeal the Jones Act decades ago, but now Chinese shipbuilding capacity is over 230 times greater than ours because of their success in civilian shipbuilding. The proposed measures in this aricle are too little too late. The only logical course of action at…

I think when it comes to Naval Power the US's grand strategy throughout the modern era has mostly been based on the fact that the continental US is, de facto, a (very) big island when it comes to the connections with the rest of the world.

So, in the event of a new world war they would have two options: one, maintain naval power superiority and thus ensure that the things that the US needs to come from over-seas still come through, or two, return to autarky and economic isolationism (which, up to a point, they could sustain based on their home resources) and hope for the best. It's interesting that the current US administration is doing a combination of the two, see the debacle for the Panama Canal when it comes to my first point, and the return to economic isolationism and even hints of wanting to incorporate Canada when it comes to my second point.

On the other hand Air Power has never ever won a big war all by itself. The only war that let's say was won via said Air Power alone was the 1999 war against Milosevic's Yugoslavia, and, possibly, the First Gulf War. But the US won't be able to win a conventional war against China or/and Russia based on Air Power alone, never.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#23

Post by roenxi »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #18
frodo8sam wrote: post #4

The nation doesn’t just need a shipbuilding revolution—it needs a broader industrial revitalization. Strengthening semiconductor manufacturing, modernizing military and civilian aviation, reinvigorating automotive innovation, and more are all critical. Tackling this alone would be overwhelming, but collaboration with trusted neighbors and reliable allies could make these ambitions achievable. Luckily we have a real b…

Honest question, is it at all possible for us to have an industrial revitalization given that we have the highest average wages in the world?

Probably. The original industrial revolutions were happening in nations that quickly became wealthy, and the US was doing pretty well with high wages vs. Asia for most of its industrial period. Higher wages in theory should be linked to higher productivity and output per worker in the US due to deep skillsets - otherwise where do the high wages come from? But something might have broken that link.

The issue looks from afar like a double-whammy of (1) pushing capital investment offshore to China resulting in most of the productive capital formation happening in Asia and (2) banning a lot of industrial activity in the US for environmental reasons. A lot of what the Chinese did to get ahead was literally illegal in most Western countries - some of it was labour laws mind. Even today there I question whether something like Shenzhen would be legal in the US. If Shenzhen was magically transplanted to the US, what would happen when the lawyers move in?

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#24

Post by colechristensen »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #18
frodo8sam wrote: post #4

The nation doesn’t just need a shipbuilding revolution—it needs a broader industrial revitalization. Strengthening semiconductor manufacturing, modernizing military and civilian aviation, reinvigorating automotive innovation, and more are all critical. Tackling this alone would be overwhelming, but collaboration with trusted neighbors and reliable allies could make these ambitions achievable. Luckily we have a real b…

Honest question, is it at all possible for us to have an industrial revitalization given that we have the highest average wages in the world?

Sure.

We do not need to rely on foreign labor which is a tiny fraction of American labor to maintain our quality of life. Lots of things need to be reorganized to make this work and some people with a lot of wealth will have a lot less certainly.

But foreign manufacturing of nearly everything is relatively new, you have to remember. America was plenty prosperous not so long ago before we started exporting so many jobs to Mexico, then China and beyond. We had the highest wages in the world then too.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#26

Post by rm445 »

Animats wrote: post #19
peepeepoopoo105 wrote: post #6

This will never succeed because the economies of scale are nonexistent without dominance in the commercial shipbuilding market. War planners should have pushed to repeal the Jones Act decades ago, but now Chinese shipbuilding capacity is over 230 times greater than ours because of their success in civilian shipbuilding. The proposed measures in this aricle are too little too late. The only logical course of action at…

Huh? The Jones Act was supposed to help American shipbuilding. It's a requirement that vessels which operate between US ports must be made in the US, crewed by the US, and flagged to the US. It didn't help much, but that was the plan. China's shipbuilding industry is so big that their aircraft carriers are being constructed by shipyards that make large cargo ships. Aerial photos show shipyards with drydocks full of c…

> It's a requirement that vessels which operate between US ports must be made in the US, crewed by the US, and flagged to the US.

The everything-bagel approach. One of those requirements incentivises US shipbuilding, the other two incentivise other things. Seems like the net effect was less US shipbuilding and a smaller US-flagged fleet. Given those effects, it doesn't seem likely to have increased the number of US merchant seamen either.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#27

Post by robinei »

zfg wrote: post #2

South Korea can train the US navy. Teach them how to build again: https://www.voanews.com/a/us-navy-looking-to-s-korean-japane... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJkyurhnAQo

And start treating the alliances as vital part of the whole, and stop betraying the fragile trust they are built on. Use Korean industry until the industry at home can catch up.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#28

Post by pzo »

roenxi wrote: post #23
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, is it at all possible for us to have an industrial revitalization given that we have the highest average wages in the world?

Probably. The original industrial revolutions were happening in nations that quickly became wealthy, and the US was doing pretty well with high wages vs. Asia for most of its industrial period. Higher wages in theory should be linked to higher productivity and output per worker in the US due to deep skillsets - otherwise where do the high wages come from? But something might have broken that link. The issue looks fro…

> Higher wages in theory should be linked in higher productivity and output per worker in the US due to deep skillsets

I don't think this always have to be true, e.g. I'm polish and used work in uk and by crossing border to uk overnight I increased my salary 2-3x but that doesn't mean my productivity increased 2x.

You want to google concept called "Dutch Disease", an economic phenomenon where a resource boom (like oil) causes currency appreciation and decline in other sectors. Norway and the Netherlands faced this issue.

Lyn Alden’s Broken Money argues that modern financial systems fail to protect savings. For high-income countries like the U.S., the issues include:

- Currency devaluation: Persistent inflation undermines wage growth.

- Debt reliance: Governments and households depend on borrowing, creating fragility

- Technological gaps: Financial infrastructure lags behind energy/tech advancements, exacerbating inequality.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#29

Post by roenxi »

pzo wrote: post #28
roenxi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably. The original industrial revolutions were happening in nations that quickly became wealthy, and the US was doing pretty well with high wages vs. Asia for most of its industrial period. Higher wages in theory should be linked to higher productivity and output per worker in the US due to deep skillsets - otherwise where do the high wages come from? But something might have broken that link. The issue looks fro…

> Higher wages in theory should be linked in higher productivity and output per worker in the US due to deep skillsets I don't think this always have to be true, e.g. I'm polish and used work in uk and by crossing border to uk overnight I increased my salary 2-3x but that doesn't mean my productivity increased 2x. You want to google concept called "Dutch Disease", an economic phenomenon where a resource boom (like oi…

You've not fully comprehended the nature of productivity. If a doctor saves the life of a lazy labourer then they've created a certain amount of economic value. If they save the life of a very hard working labourer they created more economic value with the same actions [0]. Your productivity isn't just you, it is the entire system your work take place in and what capital it interacts with. Otherwise engineers would be worthless, we barely do more than mumble and wiggle our fingers.

It is entirely possible that moving from Poland to the UK doubled the amount of wealth you were generating. Dutch disease is an expression of that - if all your customers are wealthy then the economy signals that you are more productive than if all your customers are poor. Because you are.

Although I'm all aboard with Lyn Alden’s complaints. The US keeps disabling economic feedback mechanisms rather than reform failures and it is starting to catch up with them since the Chinese just work harder than they do.

EDIT And I think you might want to talk about the Baumol effect, not Dutch disease. Dutch Disease is typically invoked for countries that find high mineral wealth and then experience problems but Baumol effect is more relevant to productivity increases.

[0] We make no moral judgement, but economics is a harsh accountant.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#30

Post by pzo »

Didn't warfare changed big enough that big navy might be more obsolete? Ukraine-Russia conflict showed that you can make hordes of cheap naval drones that can easily harass your very expensive ships or put them out of combat. By now probably you can still make more advanced but cheaper underwater drones, smart torpedos etc.
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