When does all the top brass associated with Constellation get shown the door (with demotions and forced retirements)? That's when I regain hope that we are on our way back to being a serious Naval Power again.
I hope this is the first step (and as written, it's a YUUGE one) in addressing the industrial manufacturing problem(s) of the nation (Not just ship building). Holding people accountable for their failures is absolutely critical here. Without that, business as usual will continue, as the Iron Triangle (Senior DoD, Military Industrial Complex (TM) and Congress) continue their practices of enriching themselves while robbing the public treasury. "Pour encourager les autres" is not the desired end state, but likely a very necessary first step to set the conditions for long term success...Perhaps. We'll see.
What are the primary reasons America not build warships quickly? That would be good to put up front.
The what are the primary supply chains for the various classes of warships? How will they be affected by any potential global trade tariffs? What are the chokepoints and risks here?
Deadlines and suspenses in the EO are one thing, but what is our goal in terms of time to not just show progress, but be smashing champagne bottles on bows?
What are the primary reasons America not build warships quickly?
Lack of skilled labor and facilities. If we had a competitive commercial shipbuilding industry, then that would also ensure we could build warships quickly and efficiently.
It doesn't matter how skilled and plentiful labor is or how many shipyards you have when the Navy keeps changing the plans and requirements, dithers when it is time to decide and then decides to not build any ships for years at a time.
What about “cost-plus” military contracts? I did a six-month internship at Bath Iron Works during my MBA program. The dysfunctionality was mind-bending… kafkaesque!
Cost-plus contracts are the inevitable result of an ill-defined work scope. We see that in every “open and inspect” line item in an overhaul. To quote a certain television Marine, “Surprised, surprise, surprise!” Construction contracts: Define the freaking ship design early enough that contractor risk is reduced, then hold their feet to the fire regarding everything except “acts of war”. Of course, that would require ThePowersThatBe to understand what they really want. The thing that got my anger fired up was Gulf Coast construction contracts that got relief due to “unexpected” hurricanes. Summer on the Gulf Coast, and you’re surprised that a hurricane came near? Poppycock.
It is nice to see that they struck all the DEIA requirements out from from the 2024 FOA, but they did not increase the money to the overall program. I am assuming this is because Congress is still running off a continuing resolution. Grants cannot be the pathway going forward anyway, though they are helpful in getting new palyers and matching investment into the sector. I want to see more competitive opportunities. Getting real competition back into the defense sector. Ideally New Defense that has the innovation, production capacity, and on-time deliveries that New Space has brought us over the past two decades. Not everything needs to be an aircraft carrier or stealth attack/fighter/bomber. Small vessels, purpose built aircraft, UAV/USV drones, etc. can drive let new defense companies earn their chops.
Or the US Navy can build weapons all by herself. Some of our most effective weapons have been designed and build by naval personnel working on the government's nickel. I'm not talking relatively ancient history like Dahlgren, read up on the Sidewinder and China Lake.
One of the worst thing that Trump and Musk have done is denigrate the Civil Service. I went back to wikipedia to read up on China Lake and the Sidewinder. These guys were classic American tinkerers; pocket-protector wearing nerds who created a phenomenal weapons system out of spare parts. Today, DOGE would fire them for misuse of lab funds and unauthorized use of unpaid volunteers.
I don't think either DJT or Elon have denigrated "the Civil Service." Praise is to be, and has been, given to those who are working hard and trying to be more effective. You and I both know that "working hard and trying to be more effective" does not apply to every member of the Civil Service, and even for some of those to whom it does "at what" is also a valid concern.
I am also not one to conflate the skills and life experiences of a 40 year-old federal employee in 1965 with the same in 2025. For one thing, the individual in 1965 had not spent 12 years in public school and 4 years in college with America being trashed. The 40 yo in 2025 was not drafted into the GWOT, and far more likely than not ever served a day in their entire life. Those who trash the SECNAV's lack of military service are the first to canonize the unionized DOD worker with the same experiential hole. Razing Mordor on the Potomac (metaphorically) is a good place to start.
They often swap remaining staff photos to ensure their story matches their image of who should have done the work instead of who actually did the work.
Nah, today one would be "working from home" when arrested for drunk driving at 3pm on a weekday while another has been having his mother answer his emails for the last two years while he runs a home inspection service full-time, while "working" from home.
Lorain Ohio would LOVE a shipyard, just a reminder.
Using more additive manufacturing is a good idea; in fact more contractors should use it WHEN THEIR DOD SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGER TELLS THEM TO TRY IT AND EVEN RECOMMEND A COMPANY TO DO IT!
Very good, but I hope it's not too late. The PRC's window is closing, and I hope we'll be allowed the time to execute this plan. Cause we all know: "you go to war with the army (and navy!) you have."
The retreat on tariffs was a bargaining tactic, and it worked. And remember, there will be a LOT of items for this industry we will need to import as we crank our own steel industry back up to speed in order to effect all of this. Low tariffs will help US. Someone on X there is a fascinating thread about how essential Germany and Austria and their tooled parts and expertise are in this matter at the present time because Clinton and Co. and those traitors after them sold off our steel industry and exported it to our enemies part by part.
https://x.com/RobertMSterling/status/1907989651991966030 Here. Very interesting. A rising tide lifts all boats, and a rising shipbuilding industry will entail a whole lot of other things to rise with it..... Last year I was visiting Texas, and a Texas-size storm rolled in.... the kind of wind and rain that Texans are used to. But some electrical towers snapped in half and left the entire region without power for a week or more. Houston, we have a problem... literally. In 13.5 years of living in Texas myself, that was a new one. I will always wonder if those towers had been made with cheap Chinese steel in the last 20 years. The kind that can't take Texas winds.
I hear what you are saying but free trade is the problem. You can remove all the artificial barriers you want but at the end of the day there is no way an America worker can compete against cheap foreign labor.
The investor class on Wall Street went bonkers this week at the prospect of seeing their wealth transferred to the working class on Main Street.
It depends on the industry. Some products are or can be heavily automated and labor cost isn't much compared with raw material cost, overhead or transportation / delivery to the customer.
Seriously, dip into Adam Smith. There is so much great stuff in his books. Even the corn laws discussion is interesting. And, the stuff he just throws off, amazing.
"There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people."
<i>The Wealth Of Nations,</i> Book V Chapter II Part II, Appendix to Articles I&II, p. 861, para. 12.
I should. Chamberlain came after my hero, Robert Peel. Free trade is like the tide, it ebbs and flows. My interest in English history pretty much stops at the 1852 death of Arthur Wellesley.
The British Empire was so vast, that imperial preference, tariff-less trade between the nations of the empire, was essentially free trade. Your boy Chamberlain and his opponents were at odds over the Mercantilists France and Germany. They were pretty much all free traders, there were the free trader inside the empire group, Chamberlain, and the free trade with everyone faction, Churchill et al. Of course, it all comes back to the corn laws.
Really, it all comes back to free enterprise. Do you want to live in a society where the government plans the economy, the socialist model, or one in which individuals are given the liberty to participate in a free market economy. "I know not what course others shall take, but as for me . . ."
Before you start cramming your progressivism down our throats, </sarcasm> I would encourage you to take a few hours and study some conservative philosophers. I’d strongly encourage you to study Adam Smith. Free trade is just trans-national free enterprise.
The fact of the matter is that every nation which has adopted free trade has grown to become a globe straddling superpower. Tiny little Holland practically ruled the world, she brought mighty France to her knees through the strength of free trade. England hired Holland’s free-trader and put him on the throne. She soon became an empire on which the sun never set. Our pluckly little Columbia followed suit, and look how we grew.
Free trade works because free markets work. Protectionism and Mercantilism fails because the power of the market is greater than the barriers to trade. The Mercantilist nation’s barriers cannot withstand the power of a free market.
Adam says, “It is the maxim of a every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy. The tailor does not attempt to make his own shoes, but buys them of the shoemaker. The shoemaker does not attempt to make his own cloaths, but employs a tailor. The farmer attempts to make neither the one nor the other, but employs those different artificers. All of them find it for their interest to employ their whole industry in a way in which they have some advantage over their neighbours, and to purchase with a part of its produce, or what is the same thing, with the price of a part of it, whatever else they have occasion for.
What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country, being always in proportion to the capital which employs it, will not thereby be diminished, no more than that of the above-mentioned artificers; but only left to find out the way in which it can be employed with the greatest advantage. It is certainly not employed to the greatest advantage, when it is thus directed towards an object which it can buy cheaper than it can make.”
Babe, I don’t even have to go to the bookshelf, I have “The Federalist” right on my desk. Alex loved a strong Navy. “The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.” His beef was that the Articles of Confederation, and the lack of a centralized authority left it without “troops, nor treasury, nor government.”
Hamilton was a free market loving capitalist. His “Report on Manufactures,” was just cribbed from Adam Smith. “If the system of perfect liberty to industry and commerce were the prevailing system of nations . . . a free exchange, mutually beneficial, might be carried on between them.”
Consider this quote: “The independence and security of a Country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures. Every nation, with a view to those great objects, ought to endeavour to possess within itself all the essentials of national supply. These comprise the means of subsistence, habitation, clothing, and defence.
The possession of these is necessary to the perfection of the body politic, to the safety as well as to the welfare of the society; the want of either, is the want of an important organ of political life and Motion; and in the various crises which await a state, it must severely feel the effects of any such deficiency.” Are you really taking the position that the man who wrote this would shut down U.S. Naval shipyards?
He said he was a free trader. Read his “Report on Manufactures,” it’s a straight-up recitation of Smith’s “Wealth of Nations.” Look at what he wrote in the Farewell Address.
“But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more.”
Free trade and free enterprise are inextricably intertwined, which is why real conservatives support free trade.
And yet...Hamilton still favored tariffs as a way to protect new industries in the early stages of their development, and, frankly, when it comes to things like shipbuilding we're close to being back at square one.
These things are true but they only work when everybody (labor, capital, governance) is playing in the same sandbox. The sandboxes are Very different between the highly social conscious US (and the hyper social conscious Europe) and those parts of the world with far less concern for worker standard-of-living, combined with government subsidy to improve their balance against the American worker.
I don't see a retreat. As he wrote in his book decades ago, the President announced [Oh My God it's crazy this will never work we don't know how to work with this guy] and most of the world said "let's talk about this and come to a reasonable solution" and he said "Sure!" and got most of what he wanted while isolating China in the process.
It occurred to me after Trump's latest tariff move that one thing he has achieved by, as a first step, lumping the world together, and, then singling out and isolating China with super-tariffs is that he's established in reality the framework for the New Cold War that pundits have been flirting with for a while.
I think that would be a good--and clarifying--thing. This EO fits in that, as do many other actions taken by Trump. And that reframing would be good. The West could get past the ridiculous notion that China is going eventually and inevitably to 'democratize,' and move to formulating serious strategies for China like those that ended the USSR. The 10% tariff world might go along with that for some distance just to avoid joining the 100%+ club.
nice to see that someone(z), somewhere, with proper influence and the ear of the current administration.......reads CDR Salamander and acts on it. BZ to building up our Merchant Marine!
Oh happy day! Sadly, this comment: "This reminds me: EOs, while great and needed, are only a band-aid waiting for the more permanent fix that can only be done through legislative action.
Congress: Get to work." Ummm ...we have found our weakest link. There are enough demoncrats and a few RINOs who would vote to prevent any funding of this just to spite President Trump. Traitors all. The only way to incentivize them would be if they could have insider info on the companies that would be involved in this to buy stock in before it goes up.... sigh.
An ultra wealthy elitist octogenarian who is married to the speaker of the US House of Representatives brings a homeless illegal alien male drug addict that lives in an abandoned school bus to his upscale home in SF for some pole smoking.
If Pauley didn't compensate you for your goo guzzling Tom, how would you have reacted?
As a student of history I have to point out that the one-party you Trumpanistas favor is a hallmark of dictatorships. It is the multiplicity of political parties that allowed Great Britain, and then the United States, to protect individual liberty.
It's great to be a Florida 'Gator, but the kind of unthinking partisanship that is suitable in a sports arena, is simply in applicable to citizenship in a republic. When you call your brothers and sisters "demoncrats" Putin and Xi chortle in glee.
When you live in a nation where masked men can whisk you off to indefinite detention in an alien prison, you have no business looking down on other countries.
What Mr. Yardley overlooks - as do all of his fellow leftists - is that, unless he, too, is a border trespasser, here illegally, he has a very little chance of being “whisked away” to an alien prison, no matter how deserving.
Doesn't matter how many parties you have if they are all stupid and feckless and sell their own nation out for filthy lucre. Not seeing a lot of individual liberty going on in UK ... glad I can pray in my own home without even closing the curtains. And I can post here without worrying about a knock on the door. You ignore the damage your demoncrap friends have done to shipping, culture, finance, the economy, the military, health.... i could go on.
As Lent draws to a close, is anyone irredeemable? I think not.
"And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise."
So, you’d have us believe that the Party of those who burn and loot when they don’t get their way, that now say murder is acceptable for those with whom they disagree, that THESE are the “Patriots?” The people who will not stand for a child, but will kneel for a criminal drug addict, that THESE are the “Patriots?” Shame on you.
Any current, former, retired military person who supports the anti-Founding, racist, DIE-divisive, depraved and perverted, authoritarian Marxist Democrat Party is a disgrace to the uniform and their Oath.
Tom, you and I have civil discussion, and I've found you have often valid observations to add to that conversation. I find this attack to be beneath my estimation of you.
When you pour out hate and contempt for our fellow citizens you cannot be a patriot. When you put party, or “faction” as our founders called it, over country, you cannot be patriotic.
One Party? Like Chicago, Saint Louis, Baltimore, and other multi-generational bastions of one party urban utopian dreams? The party that screams coexist as they burn and vandalize Teslas? That seems so much Krystalnacht than Republican don't you think?
Watching Sal's first video now. His strongest argument in favor of the Jones Act is national security. Unfortunately, if we need to requisition our Jones Act Fleet for a major war, it won't be up to the task.
Absolutely something we need to be prepared to do, but the legal basis is tenuous, and we'd still have to pay the owners fair market value for their use.
It's also a one-and-done thing because once we do it, neutral shipping won't come anywhere near U.S. ports.
Nice EO. Please excuse me if I wait to see the execution....In my humble opinion the bureaucratic herd still needs much culling. The rot is extensive and very little will change until we lose the barnacles that engulf almost every aspect of DOD. Just one example of the cluster flucks that abound are the shiny new FFG's that don't exist. We have been putting frigates in the water since the continental navy...one of which is still afloat in Charlestown Haaba.
Nice.
When does all the top brass associated with Constellation get shown the door (with demotions and forced retirements)? That's when I regain hope that we are on our way back to being a serious Naval Power again.
To be fair, there are some civilians in the DOD who have egg on their face as well for this. Don't just limit the purge to the FOs.
I'm all for it.
Confiscate all their Legions of Merit too.
I hope this is the first step (and as written, it's a YUUGE one) in addressing the industrial manufacturing problem(s) of the nation (Not just ship building). Holding people accountable for their failures is absolutely critical here. Without that, business as usual will continue, as the Iron Triangle (Senior DoD, Military Industrial Complex (TM) and Congress) continue their practices of enriching themselves while robbing the public treasury. "Pour encourager les autres" is not the desired end state, but likely a very necessary first step to set the conditions for long term success...Perhaps. We'll see.
I agree with you on the accountability. If we don't enforce it, then the culture will not change and same disincentives, obstacles will remain.
Good news.
Questions:
What are the primary reasons America not build warships quickly? That would be good to put up front.
The what are the primary supply chains for the various classes of warships? How will they be affected by any potential global trade tariffs? What are the chokepoints and risks here?
Deadlines and suspenses in the EO are one thing, but what is our goal in terms of time to not just show progress, but be smashing champagne bottles on bows?
What are the primary reasons America not build warships quickly?
Lack of skilled labor and facilities. If we had a competitive commercial shipbuilding industry, then that would also ensure we could build warships quickly and efficiently.
It doesn't matter how skilled and plentiful labor is or how many shipyards you have when the Navy keeps changing the plans and requirements, dithers when it is time to decide and then decides to not build any ships for years at a time.
What about “cost-plus” military contracts? I did a six-month internship at Bath Iron Works during my MBA program. The dysfunctionality was mind-bending… kafkaesque!
I am sorry that I have only one "like" to give!
Cost-plus contracts are the inevitable result of an ill-defined work scope. We see that in every “open and inspect” line item in an overhaul. To quote a certain television Marine, “Surprised, surprise, surprise!” Construction contracts: Define the freaking ship design early enough that contractor risk is reduced, then hold their feet to the fire regarding everything except “acts of war”. Of course, that would require ThePowersThatBe to understand what they really want. The thing that got my anger fired up was Gulf Coast construction contracts that got relief due to “unexpected” hurricanes. Summer on the Gulf Coast, and you’re surprised that a hurricane came near? Poppycock.
Great! MARAD released their FOA for the Small Shipyard Grants program earlier this week. https://www.maritime.dot.gov/grants-finances/small-shipyard-grants
It is nice to see that they struck all the DEIA requirements out from from the 2024 FOA, but they did not increase the money to the overall program. I am assuming this is because Congress is still running off a continuing resolution. Grants cannot be the pathway going forward anyway, though they are helpful in getting new palyers and matching investment into the sector. I want to see more competitive opportunities. Getting real competition back into the defense sector. Ideally New Defense that has the innovation, production capacity, and on-time deliveries that New Space has brought us over the past two decades. Not everything needs to be an aircraft carrier or stealth attack/fighter/bomber. Small vessels, purpose built aircraft, UAV/USV drones, etc. can drive let new defense companies earn their chops.
Or the US Navy can build weapons all by herself. Some of our most effective weapons have been designed and build by naval personnel working on the government's nickel. I'm not talking relatively ancient history like Dahlgren, read up on the Sidewinder and China Lake.
And Sparrow, as well.
One of the worst thing that Trump and Musk have done is denigrate the Civil Service. I went back to wikipedia to read up on China Lake and the Sidewinder. These guys were classic American tinkerers; pocket-protector wearing nerds who created a phenomenal weapons system out of spare parts. Today, DOGE would fire them for misuse of lab funds and unauthorized use of unpaid volunteers.
I don't think either DJT or Elon have denigrated "the Civil Service." Praise is to be, and has been, given to those who are working hard and trying to be more effective. You and I both know that "working hard and trying to be more effective" does not apply to every member of the Civil Service, and even for some of those to whom it does "at what" is also a valid concern.
I am also not one to conflate the skills and life experiences of a 40 year-old federal employee in 1965 with the same in 2025. For one thing, the individual in 1965 had not spent 12 years in public school and 4 years in college with America being trashed. The 40 yo in 2025 was not drafted into the GWOT, and far more likely than not ever served a day in their entire life. Those who trash the SECNAV's lack of military service are the first to canonize the unionized DOD worker with the same experiential hole. Razing Mordor on the Potomac (metaphorically) is a good place to start.
They often swap remaining staff photos to ensure their story matches their image of who should have done the work instead of who actually did the work.
That was then, this is now.
Nah, today one would be "working from home" when arrested for drunk driving at 3pm on a weekday while another has been having his mother answer his emails for the last two years while he runs a home inspection service full-time, while "working" from home.
Lorain Ohio would LOVE a shipyard, just a reminder.
Using more additive manufacturing is a good idea; in fact more contractors should use it WHEN THEIR DOD SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGER TELLS THEM TO TRY IT AND EVEN RECOMMEND A COMPANY TO DO IT!
Very good, but I hope it's not too late. The PRC's window is closing, and I hope we'll be allowed the time to execute this plan. Cause we all know: "you go to war with the army (and navy!) you have."
Fine words, but just words with more words to come in future studies and reports.
I am very skeptical having spent so much of my career in DC.
How about an order requiring a certain percentage of merchant ships to be Jones Act compliant with that percentage rising over time?
The president’s retreat on tariffs does not fill me with confidence either.
There is no way to reindustrialize America without high tariffs that guarantee a market for domestic producers. Likewise for shipping.
The retreat on tariffs was a bargaining tactic, and it worked. And remember, there will be a LOT of items for this industry we will need to import as we crank our own steel industry back up to speed in order to effect all of this. Low tariffs will help US. Someone on X there is a fascinating thread about how essential Germany and Austria and their tooled parts and expertise are in this matter at the present time because Clinton and Co. and those traitors after them sold off our steel industry and exported it to our enemies part by part.
https://x.com/RobertMSterling/status/1907989651991966030 Here. Very interesting. A rising tide lifts all boats, and a rising shipbuilding industry will entail a whole lot of other things to rise with it..... Last year I was visiting Texas, and a Texas-size storm rolled in.... the kind of wind and rain that Texans are used to. But some electrical towers snapped in half and left the entire region without power for a week or more. Houston, we have a problem... literally. In 13.5 years of living in Texas myself, that was a new one. I will always wonder if those towers had been made with cheap Chinese steel in the last 20 years. The kind that can't take Texas winds.
I hear what you are saying but free trade is the problem. You can remove all the artificial barriers you want but at the end of the day there is no way an America worker can compete against cheap foreign labor.
The investor class on Wall Street went bonkers this week at the prospect of seeing their wealth transferred to the working class on Main Street.
It depends on the industry. Some products are or can be heavily automated and labor cost isn't much compared with raw material cost, overhead or transportation / delivery to the customer.
Seriously, dip into Adam Smith. There is so much great stuff in his books. Even the corn laws discussion is interesting. And, the stuff he just throws off, amazing.
"There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people."
<i>The Wealth Of Nations,</i> Book V Chapter II Part II, Appendix to Articles I&II, p. 861, para. 12.
I think you should read up on Joseph Chamberlain and imperial preference.
I should. Chamberlain came after my hero, Robert Peel. Free trade is like the tide, it ebbs and flows. My interest in English history pretty much stops at the 1852 death of Arthur Wellesley.
The British Empire was so vast, that imperial preference, tariff-less trade between the nations of the empire, was essentially free trade. Your boy Chamberlain and his opponents were at odds over the Mercantilists France and Germany. They were pretty much all free traders, there were the free trader inside the empire group, Chamberlain, and the free trade with everyone faction, Churchill et al. Of course, it all comes back to the corn laws.
Really, it all comes back to free enterprise. Do you want to live in a society where the government plans the economy, the socialist model, or one in which individuals are given the liberty to participate in a free market economy. "I know not what course others shall take, but as for me . . ."
Before you start cramming your progressivism down our throats, </sarcasm> I would encourage you to take a few hours and study some conservative philosophers. I’d strongly encourage you to study Adam Smith. Free trade is just trans-national free enterprise.
The fact of the matter is that every nation which has adopted free trade has grown to become a globe straddling superpower. Tiny little Holland practically ruled the world, she brought mighty France to her knees through the strength of free trade. England hired Holland’s free-trader and put him on the throne. She soon became an empire on which the sun never set. Our pluckly little Columbia followed suit, and look how we grew.
Free trade works because free markets work. Protectionism and Mercantilism fails because the power of the market is greater than the barriers to trade. The Mercantilist nation’s barriers cannot withstand the power of a free market.
Adam says, “It is the maxim of a every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy. The tailor does not attempt to make his own shoes, but buys them of the shoemaker. The shoemaker does not attempt to make his own cloaths, but employs a tailor. The farmer attempts to make neither the one nor the other, but employs those different artificers. All of them find it for their interest to employ their whole industry in a way in which they have some advantage over their neighbours, and to purchase with a part of its produce, or what is the same thing, with the price of a part of it, whatever else they have occasion for.
What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country, being always in proportion to the capital which employs it, will not thereby be diminished, no more than that of the above-mentioned artificers; but only left to find out the way in which it can be employed with the greatest advantage. It is certainly not employed to the greatest advantage, when it is thus directed towards an object which it can buy cheaper than it can make.”
I think you should read up on Alexander Hamilton.
Babe, I don’t even have to go to the bookshelf, I have “The Federalist” right on my desk. Alex loved a strong Navy. “The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.” His beef was that the Articles of Confederation, and the lack of a centralized authority left it without “troops, nor treasury, nor government.”
Hamilton was a free market loving capitalist. His “Report on Manufactures,” was just cribbed from Adam Smith. “If the system of perfect liberty to industry and commerce were the prevailing system of nations . . . a free exchange, mutually beneficial, might be carried on between them.”
Consider this quote: “The independence and security of a Country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures. Every nation, with a view to those great objects, ought to endeavour to possess within itself all the essentials of national supply. These comprise the means of subsistence, habitation, clothing, and defence.
The possession of these is necessary to the perfection of the body politic, to the safety as well as to the welfare of the society; the want of either, is the want of an important organ of political life and Motion; and in the various crises which await a state, it must severely feel the effects of any such deficiency.” Are you really taking the position that the man who wrote this would shut down U.S. Naval shipyards?
Hamilton was a free trader? Next you will be feeling he won the duel with Burr.
He said he was a free trader. Read his “Report on Manufactures,” it’s a straight-up recitation of Smith’s “Wealth of Nations.” Look at what he wrote in the Farewell Address.
“But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more.”
Free trade and free enterprise are inextricably intertwined, which is why real conservatives support free trade.
And yet...Hamilton still favored tariffs as a way to protect new industries in the early stages of their development, and, frankly, when it comes to things like shipbuilding we're close to being back at square one.
These things are true but they only work when everybody (labor, capital, governance) is playing in the same sandbox. The sandboxes are Very different between the highly social conscious US (and the hyper social conscious Europe) and those parts of the world with far less concern for worker standard-of-living, combined with government subsidy to improve their balance against the American worker.
I don't see a retreat. As he wrote in his book decades ago, the President announced [Oh My God it's crazy this will never work we don't know how to work with this guy] and most of the world said "let's talk about this and come to a reasonable solution" and he said "Sure!" and got most of what he wanted while isolating China in the process.
No matter.
Trump is a quick learner.
This week the globalists were willing to tank the stock and bond markets in order to preserve their ill gotten gains.
Trump will be ready for them next time.
The victory at Normandy was made possible by the defeat at Dieppe
It occurred to me after Trump's latest tariff move that one thing he has achieved by, as a first step, lumping the world together, and, then singling out and isolating China with super-tariffs is that he's established in reality the framework for the New Cold War that pundits have been flirting with for a while.
I think that would be a good--and clarifying--thing. This EO fits in that, as do many other actions taken by Trump. And that reframing would be good. The West could get past the ridiculous notion that China is going eventually and inevitably to 'democratize,' and move to formulating serious strategies for China like those that ended the USSR. The 10% tariff world might go along with that for some distance just to avoid joining the 100%+ club.
nice to see that someone(z), somewhere, with proper influence and the ear of the current administration.......reads CDR Salamander and acts on it. BZ to building up our Merchant Marine!
Oh happy day! Sadly, this comment: "This reminds me: EOs, while great and needed, are only a band-aid waiting for the more permanent fix that can only be done through legislative action.
Congress: Get to work." Ummm ...we have found our weakest link. There are enough demoncrats and a few RINOs who would vote to prevent any funding of this just to spite President Trump. Traitors all. The only way to incentivize them would be if they could have insider info on the companies that would be involved in this to buy stock in before it goes up.... sigh.
I wonder how Paul Pelosi did this week in terms of stocks.
Ms. Pelosi was probably kept outside of the insider loop, so her spouse probably just got hammered again instead.
BAHAHAHA! Pauly got hammered again...funny!
An old man took a hammer to the noggin and you laugh? Deplorable.
After he refused to pay the young man he picked up in a bar for services rendered.
How deplorable? Like real deplorable? Like a whole basket of deplorable?
I guess there are different degrees of deplorable.
An ultra wealthy elitist octogenarian who is married to the speaker of the US House of Representatives brings a homeless illegal alien male drug addict that lives in an abandoned school bus to his upscale home in SF for some pole smoking.
If Pauley didn't compensate you for your goo guzzling Tom, how would you have reacted?
I see what you did there
As a student of history I have to point out that the one-party you Trumpanistas favor is a hallmark of dictatorships. It is the multiplicity of political parties that allowed Great Britain, and then the United States, to protect individual liberty.
It's great to be a Florida 'Gator, but the kind of unthinking partisanship that is suitable in a sports arena, is simply in applicable to citizenship in a republic. When you call your brothers and sisters "demoncrats" Putin and Xi chortle in glee.
There is no freedom of speech in Sir Keir Starmer’s UK.
When you live in a nation where masked men can whisk you off to indefinite detention in an alien prison, you have no business looking down on other countries.
You’re yankin’ us, right?
I bet Tom Yardley hates the Lone Ranger, too.
LOL…probably so!
What Mr. Yardley overlooks - as do all of his fellow leftists - is that, unless he, too, is a border trespasser, here illegally, he has a very little chance of being “whisked away” to an alien prison, no matter how deserving.
Doesn't matter how many parties you have if they are all stupid and feckless and sell their own nation out for filthy lucre. Not seeing a lot of individual liberty going on in UK ... glad I can pray in my own home without even closing the curtains. And I can post here without worrying about a knock on the door. You ignore the damage your demoncrap friends have done to shipping, culture, finance, the economy, the military, health.... i could go on.
You sir, do not deserve to live in America. Our nation should be reserved for patriots.
Tom, why don’t you just say what’s you really mean - deplorable and irredeemable.
Bitter clingers, too.
As Lent draws to a close, is anyone irredeemable? I think not.
"And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise."
Good to see you repudiate your earlier comment.
So, you’d have us believe that the Party of those who burn and loot when they don’t get their way, that now say murder is acceptable for those with whom they disagree, that THESE are the “Patriots?” The people who will not stand for a child, but will kneel for a criminal drug addict, that THESE are the “Patriots?” Shame on you.
BLM - Burn, Loot and Murder.
That’s EXACTLY what BLM is.
Any current, former, retired military person who supports the anti-Founding, racist, DIE-divisive, depraved and perverted, authoritarian Marxist Democrat Party is a disgrace to the uniform and their Oath.
Tom, you and I have civil discussion, and I've found you have often valid observations to add to that conversation. I find this attack to be beneath my estimation of you.
We’ve seen the real Tom. Just another hat filled leftist. He probably lives in a pup tent on the Columbia university lawn.
Three wrong statements about me in the same comment! Impressive!
When you pour out hate and contempt for our fellow citizens you cannot be a patriot. When you put party, or “faction” as our founders called it, over country, you cannot be patriotic.
Tom must be an avatar of George Soros.
One Party? Like Chicago, Saint Louis, Baltimore, and other multi-generational bastions of one party urban utopian dreams? The party that screams coexist as they burn and vandalize Teslas? That seems so much Krystalnacht than Republican don't you think?
This is a very good first step. You deserve a round at the bar for your steadfast, continued exhortations that helped turn attention to the issue. BZ!
But but I thought this administration doesn’t know what they’re doing! I was told they will destroy the USA!
This EO is indeed beautiful. One small step, but an important one!
Ctrl+f "Jones Act" - no mention of it or reform thereof. Sad!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95om9PGI758
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INYWATZI0Dk
Appreciate the links.
Watching Sal's first video now. His strongest argument in favor of the Jones Act is national security. Unfortunately, if we need to requisition our Jones Act Fleet for a major war, it won't be up to the task.
Not a problem. Seize all the ships needed that now fly flags of convenience.
Absolutely something we need to be prepared to do, but the legal basis is tenuous, and we'd still have to pay the owners fair market value for their use.
It's also a one-and-done thing because once we do it, neutral shipping won't come anywhere near U.S. ports.
All we need is a treaty with the Marshall Islands that allows us to “borrow” their ships when needed.
Throw in a bonus for the owners.
Nice EO. Please excuse me if I wait to see the execution....In my humble opinion the bureaucratic herd still needs much culling. The rot is extensive and very little will change until we lose the barnacles that engulf almost every aspect of DOD. Just one example of the cluster flucks that abound are the shiny new FFG's that don't exist. We have been putting frigates in the water since the continental navy...one of which is still afloat in Charlestown Haaba.