“Repeal the Jones Act of 1920” by Zvi

Balsa Policy Institute chose as its first mission to lay groundwork for the potential repeal, or partial repeal, of section 27 of the Jones Act of 1920. I believe that this is an important cause both for its practical and symbolic impacts.

The Jones Act is the ultimate embodiment of our failures as a nation.

After 100 years, we do almost no trade between our ports via the oceans, and we build almost no oceangoing ships.

Everything the Jones Act supposedly set out to protect, it has destroyed.

Table of Contents

1. What is the Jones Act?
2. Why Work to Repeal the Jones Act?
3. Why Was the Jones Act Introduced?
4. What is the Effect of the Jones Act?
5. What Else Happens When We Ship More Goods Between Ports?
6. Emergency Case Study: Salt Shipment to NJ in [...]

---

Outline:

(00:38) What is the Jones Act?

(01:33) Why Work to Repeal the Jones Act?

(02:48) Why Was the Jones Act Introduced?

(03:19) What is the Effect of the Jones Act?

(06:52) What Else Happens When We Ship More Goods Between Ports?

(07:14) Emergency Case Study: Salt Shipment to NJ in the Winter of 2013-2014

(12:04) Why no Emergency Exceptions?

(15:02) What Are Some Specific Non-Emergency Impacts?

(18:57) What Are Some Specific Impacts on Regions?

(22:36) What About the Study Claiming Big Benefits?

(24:46) What About the Need to ‘Protect’ American Shipbuilding?

(28:31) The Opposing Arguments Are Disingenuous and Terrible

(34:07) What Alternatives to Repeal Do We Have?

(35:33) What Might Be a Decent Instinctive Counterfactual?

(41:50) What About Our Other Protectionist and Cabotage Laws?

(43:00) What About Potential Marine Highways, or Short Sea Shipping?

(43:48) What Happened to All Our Offshore Wind?

(47:06) What Estimates Are There of Overall Cost?

(49:52) What Are the Costs of Being American Flagged?

(50:28) What Are the Costs of Being American Made?

(51:49) What are the Consequences of Being American Crewed?

(53:11) What Would Happen in a Real War?

(56:07) Cruise Ship Sanity Partially Restored

(56:46) The Jones Act Enforcer

(58:08) Who Benefits?

(58:57) Others Make the Case

(01:00:55) An Argument That We Were Always Uncompetitive

(01:02:45) What About John Arnold's Case That the Jones Act Can’t Be Killed?

(01:09:34) What About the Foreign Dredge Act of 1906?

(01:10:24) Fun Stories

---

First published:
November 27th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dnH2hauqRbu3GspA2/repeal-the-jones-act-of-1920

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---