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The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

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Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#131

Post by Yeul »

colechristensen wrote: post #24
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?

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 job…

American goods used to be exported across the world until somewhere in the 1960s Japan made cheaper cars and televisions.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#132

Post by fuzzfactor »

>The Nation Needs a Shipbuilding Revolution

Somebody noticed :)

Too late now, Nixon "opened up" China and Ronald Reagan said "NO!" to the kind of prosperity that would be needed in the 21st century.

It's like political parties haven't been paying attention at all for a "little" while now.

If American voters can not get over electing media "personalities" acting as leaders, those kind of fakers are not going to be far enough in the rear-view mirror to allow pulling ahead by the 22nd century :\

We're already 1/4 of the way to 2100.

And more gloomy than ever in the 21st century so far, recovering industrial leadership just got dramatically more unlikely in the last few months :(

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#133

Post by throw0101c »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #86

Interested readers may enjoy Freedom's Forge by Arthur Herman, which chronicles, amongst other things, how Henry Kaiser led the rapid construction of the shipyards used to build the merchant fleet that helped the United States win the second world war. The book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/208564/freedoms-for...

> Interested readers may enjoy Freedom's Forge by Arthur Herman

Please note that, while a good read, the book was initially financed by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a group of large corporations who have a vested interest in making business look good.

* https://www.aei.org/research-products/book/freedoms-forge/

I, too, have read this book and was struck by the tone the book took every time the topic of unions came up. You'd think that unions were Nazi sympathizers wanting to sabotage the war effort or something.

So while it's worth a read, please be aware of the slant of the book.

* https://www.aei.org/profile/arthur-herman/

* https://fedsoc.org/contributors/arthur-herman

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#134

Post by dani__german »

p00dles wrote: post #88
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…

All kinds of people from all kinds of places read HN, so maybe better to use more general language - referring to “Chinese shipbuilding capacity is over 230 times greater than _ours_”

tone policing lost the 2024 US presidential election. I wouldn't recommend continuing it. Have a great day.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#136

Post by kasey_junk »

suraci wrote: post #100
jonnybgood wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not a single chinese have a single thought about going war with the US Odd. Then who in China feels the need to outcompete US military technology? Why is China developing missiles like DF-27 that are difficult to counter and take out aircraft carriers? Who is coming up with these ideas and for what purposes?

that's the refelection you'll have if your neighbor is a psycho whose first thought every morning is to decide whether he should go around to shoot something, especially after the psycho neighbor has shooted to many ones already

You understand of course that you can replace psycho in your sentence with either party and it just describes the others beliefs.

There are living citizens of both countries that have shot at each other in a hot war. It’s not unreasonable in that case yo think it will happen again.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#137

Post by FrustratedMonky »

jabl wrote: post #129
throw0101c wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 The US used to subsidize the salaries of US merchant marines on ships (US salaries are higher than Filipino ones) so that there would be a trained population, but that was stopped in the 1980s because subsidies are bad, so…

It seems an unintended side effect of the Jones act was to insulate the US shipbuilding industry from international competition, leading to them resting on their laurels while the rest of the industry worked hard to improve productivity (see Japan, South Korea, and lately China). Which makes it even harder to repeal, since with a repeal of the Jones act the wildly noncompetitive (civilian) US shipbuilding industry wo…

"insulate the US shipbuilding industry from international competition, leading to them resting on their laurels"

This is what I don't get.

The Jones Act is about keeping ship building at home, in the US. So protective. By locking out foreign competition. It's a 'protective' law, to isolate and protect US industry.

How will opening the US to buy and operate foreign ships, somehow make the US build more US ships?

Look at other Industries that have been outsourced.

Once markets are open, the manufacturing "leaves" the US.

So how will repealing the Jones Act somehow reverse what is seen in every other industry.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#138

Post by FrustratedMonky »

p00dles wrote: post #88
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…

All kinds of people from all kinds of places read HN, so maybe better to use more general language - referring to “Chinese shipbuilding capacity is over 230 times greater than _ours_”

" referring to “Chinese shipbuilding capacity is over 230 times greater than _ours_”"

Is it not?

Why do we need to be careful not to offend the Chinese? Unless we are worried they are tracking HN accounts?

Or maybe you are saying, it should be more specific, and say "US" instead of "_ours_".

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#139

Post by HeatrayEnjoyer »

briandear wrote: post #73
plastic3169 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who would ever even attack the US? Massive military spending and they are isolated from all the potential enemies behind two huge oceans. Average american should worry about civil war or maybe nukes. Nothing else will ever reach them.

9-11 is a counter example. Asymmetric warfare is a constant threat.

A one-off terrorist attack (one that required years of planning) isn't a war, and cannot scale to a war.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#140

Post by justanorherhack »

jabl wrote: post #116
nickff wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jeune ecole thought that torpedoes and small torpedo boats would doom battleships; they were wrong. People thought SAMs would end bombers, and anti-tank missiles would end tanks. There’s always a new weapon, but it doesn’t mean the old ones are obsolete.

Not always, but sometimes it does. Cavalry charges aren't a thing anymore, for instance.

Or revolvers, bolt action rifles, muskets, bow and arrows, spears, swords, shields, catapults, castles/ land forts.
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