Jones Act Debate | Center for Maritime Strategy & Heritage Foundation | Containerships & Dirigibles
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN recommends the channel for clear coverage of the history, cabotage rules and debate around the Jones Act.
What it is
Sal Mercogliano of What's Going on With Shipping? discusses a debate between the Center for Maritime Strategy and the Heritage Foundation over whether the Jones Act helps or harms American shipping and national security.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2024 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Recommends jakeogh · 2024-01 · on “Jones Act Contributions to Offshore Wind Difficulties”
Nice discussion on the history and future of the Jones Act. Dr. Salvatore R. Mercogliano on the Jones Act Debate | Center for Maritime Strategy & Heritage Foundation | Container ships & Dirigibles [this video]
Recommends throw0101c · 2025-02 · on “The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution”
> 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 there are hardly any US merchant marines any more. The US government used to own transport boats and lease them to US shipping companies, but they've not bothered to build news ones in decades, and so most transport ships are foreign owned. If there's a war, and you need ship ma
Cites npmanor · 2026-03 · on “U.S. to suspend the Jones Act in a bid to curb oil prices”
With deference to What’s Going on With Shipping[1], the Jones Act isn’t really the problem. The entire incentive structure and industry crumbled well after it was enacted. [1] [this video]