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SkiingAway t1_iuiuuw1 wrote

Reply to comment by ZzeroBeat in New England Utility Urges Biden to Declare Emergency to Avoid Fuel Shortage by Nobiting

It keeps the very small amount of non-military US shipbuilding/shipping left alive. Whether or not you feel that's worthwhile is up to you, but that's the function.

In the event of more serious world issues, being unable to supply our non-contiguous territories with our own fleet is potentially a pretty significant national security issue.

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[deleted] t1_iuj7osx wrote

[deleted]

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SkiingAway t1_iuj9k84 wrote

Uh, yes. You're trying to be sarcastic, but that's basically 100% accurate.

The US commercial shipbuilding industry is pretty much entirely dead outside of that. We build about zero ships of any substantial size other than the shipbuilding that's protected/subsidized by the military + the couple dozen Jones Act ships.

If it isn't built here for purposes of complying with either military or Jones Act rules....it isn't built here, ever.

World shipbuilding is ~49% China, ~39% South Korea, ~9% Japan, and the entire rest of the planet is basically a rounding error with 3-4% total market share.

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ZzeroBeat t1_iujfsuo wrote

so it sounds like its not really working as intended anyways. might as well just open it up and help reduce energy prices. i don't see how holding back on that is worth the thousands or whatever it is of shipbuilders that may or may not exist.

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SplyBox t1_iujqe7s wrote

Because the US government doesn’t like killing any amount of US jobs if it can help it

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