> "Today just 0.2% of all ships are U.S.-flagged. Many ships now fly under the flags of Panama, Liberia and the Marshall Islands — countries that allow ocean carriers to bypass a slew of safety regulations, labor laws and taxes. "
> The US has basically regulated itself out of the shipping business. Think about that for a second and then wonder if the issue is really greed. The US regulations has made it insanely more expensive to have a US flagged ship.
> How do we compete in a global market when the regulatory atmosphere is so lopsided?
IMHO: pass a law that prevents ships that aren't required to follow reasonable standards for "safety regulations, labor law" from unloading cargo at US ports. That'll reduce the perverse incentives for these flags-of-convenience pretty quick.
The major law involved here that you claim is safety related is this:
All officers have to be US Citizens and
"(1)Except as otherwise provided in this section, on a documented vessel—
(A)each unlicensed seaman must be—
(i)a citizen of the United States;
(ii)an alien lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence; or
(iii)a foreign national who is enrolled in the United States Merchant Marine Academy; and
(B)
not more than 25 percent of the total number of unlicensed seamen on the vessel may be aliens lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence."
What's interesting is that US Officers who meet standard international standards can serve on all these other ships / cruise ships flagged overseas and much more. But international crew cannot serve on a US flagged vessel, even one working entirely overseas.
So there is your reason why so few folks do US flag.
You could instead require safety (actual safety) and actual labor rules that simply applied to everyone, regardless of nationality. But nope, you've chosen to focus on citizenship instead.
We actually have an international standard for safety - STCW – Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers. But your UK wiper (a very junior grade) with totally current STCW can't work on a us flagged ship AT ALL.
You’re making the assumption that all of the regulations are just, required and proportional.
If 1 additional person falls overboard every million man hours worked but everyone gets cheaper shipping, do I care? No, not really.
If your answer is yes, then do you care about the safety conditions of the factories of the goods being transported? How far are you willing to take this?
> You’re making the assumption that all of the regulations are just, requires and proportional.
> If 1 additional person falls overboard every million man hours worked but everyone gets cheaper shipping, do I care? No, not really.
If that's your problem, write your congressmen asking for the repeal of safety regulations because you want cheaper prices. However, that's totally orthogonal to the problem I was addressing with my proposal.
> If your answer is yes, then do you care about the safety conditions of the factories of the goods being transported? How far are you willing to take this?
Yes. Let's go for it and ban imports from those factories with shitty safety conditions, too.
Sure, those specific numbers suck - point well made.
Is one death per 10,000 careers too many? One in a million? No regulatory scheme short of "no goods may be transported anywhere" is going to create the latter outcome, so you can either accept that a line must be drawn or accept that anyone who doesn't live on a farm must starve.
You don't provide a path forward, and only make fun of something that is true, inflation and the money printer are running rampant. As for taxing, wealth redistribution is a way forward.
Next time please think about what you write, your useless comments don't advance conversation.
> You don't provide a path forward, and only make fun of something that is true, inflation and the money printer are running rampant. As for taxing, wealth redistribution is a way forward.
No one's talking about printing money except you. Meme comments and other regurgitations will get the responses they deserve.
> Next time please think about what you write, your useless comments don't advance conversation.
LOL. If you were serious you'd have replied to the GGP.
> If people aren't able to get out of poverty because the job never existed in the first place, are they really better off?
i think this is a false dichotomy: there is no universal law that says people in poverty must put up with abuse, slave wages and unsafe work environments in order to dig themselves out
> If 1 additional person falls overboard every million man hours worked but everyone gets cheaper shipping, do I care? No, not really.
This is one of the most selfish comments I have read in a while. You don't even care. If your only goal is to be able to buy more stuff without any ethical consideration you are a danger for everybody else in other countries, in other states, or anybody that is not you.
Looking into three economic side, worse work conditions attract less people and jobs to vacant. Your conclusion very is simplistic.
It's easy to see why that looks "selfish," but it's less easy to see the distributed effects of higher prices, fewer jobs, and less efficient markets so that you can sit remote from all of it and declare yourself to be more ethical than your neighbor.
Yeah I would and do avoid that. And no, I’m not doing research to make maximally ethical decisions. I would greatly prefer if it were either outlawed or at least clearly labeled
Thank you for invalidating any point you tried to make.
My point, why worry about shipping when everything it’s transporting follows the same lax safety laws. First world society is largely supported on the backs of third world countries full of people working their arses off for little pay and no opportunity for betterment.
Slave children can mine the minerals in the electronics, slave labor can assemble them but by god, if a boat docks port with any crew that are unfairly treated!
Your whole comment is an example of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, which is surprising because the GP literally brought that concept up.
If you have to solve all problems to solve any problems, you'll solve no problems.
"Regulations reducing MOB situations by one person per million man hours worked" are not the issue.
The issue is that cargo ships are lawless and working on one of these ships, you have zero legal rights.
Nothing prevents ship operators from engaging in stuff ranging from not providing adequate staff levels and PPE, to wage theft, to human rights abuses like retaining people's passports / denying them shore leave / consular access. Need medical care? Tough shit. Don't want to work 100 hours? Guess you're not getting lunch today.
Life for a lot of these guys is barely a step above indentured servitude. Nobody cares. The spice must flow.
If that is your take, then how about we repeal all the existing labor and safety records in the US, at least then we can get the economic benefit from having the jobs here.
You are assuming all regulations are reasonable. In the case of safety it is possible some are not reasonable. There is actually a level of safety vs risk we are willing to take for a given activity. ( Think actually getting into a car ).
Mike Rowe has a great take on this and it seems like an interesting way to look at risk intersections as they pertain to 'reasonable' regulations. Regardless if those regulations are safety, environment, financial, etc.
You’re presenting price as though that’s the only relevant point.
I mean you can get an even better deal if you just stole all your neighbour’s stuff, if price is all that matters. Let’s just make that legal, and to hell with the side effects.
Any discussion about regulations has to actually involve the regulations and what they are trying to achieve. Maybe some of these are overzealous? Maybe the way it was implemented was crap (one sided while allowing others to circumvent), etc.
The way I see it in the workplace or any other facet of life: Any activity between two adults, where both adults are of sound mind and consent to the activity should be legal. If someone wants to sign up to work in a dangerous environment for $1/hr, so be it, as long as the risks and terms of payment were communicated and understood by both parties.
Theft is not consensual, therefore it wouldn’t be legal in a laissez-faire regulatory environment. Worker exploitation also would be illegal, if the employer broke the terms of their agreement with the worker.
The issues with that approach is that not everybody is well equipped with the ability to evaluate risk and price it accordingly. Furthermore, the employer typically has an information advantage over the employee, as they know how often the safety equipment is serviced/replaced, for example.
As such, it makes more sense to have an expectation of worker safety and that employees are not unnecessarily exposed to risks that are preventable and known to the employer.
You seem to be unaware of things like structural power imbalance and multi-agent coordination problems. One purpose of regulation is to avoid game theory traps that happen in environments like you describe.
What are the specific regulations you’re arguing against though? Regulations aren’t just about labour, but also externalities, like dumping chemicals in the water.
The Jones law cited in the article is about protecting local labour and manufacturing. Is that what we’re discussing or something else?
> The US has basically regulated itself out of the shipping business. Think about that for a second and then wonder if the issue is really greed. The US regulations has made it insanely more expensive to have a US flagged ship.
> How do we compete in a global market when the regulatory atmosphere is so lopsided?
IMHO: pass a law that prevents ships that aren't required to follow reasonable standards for "safety regulations, labor law" from unloading cargo at US ports. That'll reduce the perverse incentives for these flags-of-convenience pretty quick.