Oh, hello. I didn't see you there
because I'm in a video. I'm just out driving my
foreign-owned boat ship, but not between American ports because of a little thing
called the Jones Act. 100-year old protectionists law that makes traffic worse
and stuff more expensive. Not to be confused with the
Davy Jones Act, which requires that all haunted pirates live
on the floor of the ocean or the Alex Jones Act,
which requires everyone to wear protective head foil
when discussing frog genders. No, the Jones Act requires
that any vessels sailing between American ports
must be American built, American owned, manned
by an American crew, flying the American flag. If your ship has a maple leaf on it or a falcon strangling an eel, or whatever this guy is up to, you cannot go between American
ports to sell us cheap stuff from your country, or even transport stuff from our country to other
parts of our country. The Jones Act regulates cabotage,
which prior to this video, I assumed was some kind
of floating cabbage, but it turns out, no, cabotage is the act of shipping goods between two
ports within the same country. So if you wanna sail
from Denver to Las Vegas on a foreign ship, you'd
be a moron (buzzer buzzing) because the Jones Act restricts cabotage to American vessels. By limiting which ships can schlep stuff in between our ports, it
makes shipping more expensive, which makes stuff more expensive. Particularly for places like
Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam or any new floaty states
I haven't got around to learning about yet. The Jones Act exists under the pretense of national defense because of Germans. During World War I, European
commercial ships normally used to transport top hats and laudanum to feed hungry Americans,
not got yanked out from our shipping lanes
to assist the war effort. Those ships were stuck in Europe, varying bayonets and nunchucks
back and forth trying to kill evil Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Don't worry, we got him. After the War, the
United States got worried that a global interconnected economy, like the one we currently enjoy which has lifted billions out of poverty, would mean having to rely on foreign ships which might suddenly skip
out on commercial shipping during the inevitable return
of zombie Franz Ferdinand. Worse yet, American politicians threaded that the next time we went to
a war on a distant continent, we might not have enough
ships to transport cannons or horses or horse cannons. We needed to figure out a way to ensure we had enough American ships to get in on that horse war. So we passed the Jones Act in
1920, forbidding foreign ships from operating between our ports. It's the economic equivalent of saying, Jiffy Lube closed once so we all better learn
how to change our own oil. So let's ban Jiffy Lube
in case it closes again. The Jones Act and the little
tweaks we've added to it over the years is rife with protectionism. For example, when American-owned
ships are repaired, only 10% of the steel can be foreign, 90% of that steel better
be from the United States. Foreign steel is too
flimsy and too foreign, it's basically shiny cheese. Protectionism has a big problem
though, it doesn't work. By outlawing foreign ships from cabotage, the Jones Act limits the
amount of available ships which drives up the cost of shipping. Driving up the cost of shipping, make shipping more expensive. That would be the supply
of law and demand. With less demand for shipping, shipping companies purchase fewer vessels which means fewer boats
next time we go to war with zombie horse Franz Ferdinand. The Jones Act not only requires that vessels undergoing
cabotage be American owned, it also requires that
they be American made, which means if you wanna fly
old stripey on your boat, that freighter better be
built in the United States. American built coastal
and feeder ships cost between 190 million and
250 million dollars, whereas the cost of a similar vessel of the foreign shipyard
is only 30 million. So the American companies, which the Jones Act theoretically wants to call upon next time
we go to a horse war, can only buy one American ship instead of eight foreign ships. Just a friendly reminder,
ships are inanimate objects and it doesn't matter where they're built. They don't have accents
or passports or souls. All things being equally floaty, buy the ship that's cheapest and hoist a flag of your choice. In the United States where
we restrict cabotage, only two percent of our
freight travels by sea, whereas in the European Union where member states can
freely engage in cabotage between them, or as they
call it, cabotage a trois, 40% of freighting is done by ship. Instead, because we've
made shipping more costly we rely on trucks which are more expensive and carbon-intensive than ships. Also, I don't know about you, I have never been stuck behind
a steamship on I-95 before. The Jones Act exists to try to
expand our shipping capacity and make us self-reliant,
unlike the Norah Jones Act, which is the soundtrack
I cry to in the bathtub. Anyway, we're a net exporter
of natural gas and yet in 2019, because there weren't enough
pipes to transport natural gas from Southern States to Massachusetts, nor enough Jones Act
compliant vessels to do so, Massachusetts had to
import it from Russia. Whenever we have a crisis, the United States government
temporarily rescends the Jones Act so that shippers can cheaply and quickly get food and
materials and blob them into the affected area. Then when the crisis
recedes, we reinstate it. The reason that stopping
the Jones Act works during these times is
because, follow me here, the Jones Act doesn't work. So why not permanently scrap it? Well that's, because of lobbyists. That's why, (beep) lobbyists. According to a 2019 study by the OACD, the US economic gains would be somewhere between 19 billion and 64 billion dollars. Now I realized that 64
billion dollars isn't even worth the Senator
getting out of bed for anymore but somebody has to keep an
eye on the pocket change. Given that the Jones Act
counter-productively shrinks our shipping capacity and
Merchant Mariner Fleet, makes life more expensive
for Islanders and is directly and obviously harmful every
single time we have a hurricane or Godzilla attack, in
that time we scrap it.
