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Heavy industry includes shipbuilding which used to be something we were very big at as well. We still build our Navy ships, of course, but when it comes to merchant ships we are history.
This in spite of the fact that many ships are still owned by US companies. They are just not US registered ships. They fly "flags of convenience" - Panama, Liberia, etc.
The thing is though, when those ships are threatened by pirates, they don't call the Panamanians or Liberians for protection, they call the US. We have this huge navy and air force and army, into which we have poured our national treasure. Yet, total suckers that we are, we don't set the rules of the game in a manner that enables us to get the least bit of benefit from it. Far to the contrary.
The rule we should have been following is that if you want US Navy protection, then you had better be a Made-in-USA ship flying a US flag. If we had done this, I suspect that we would still be one of the top ship builders to this day.
I'm not advocating a rigid protectionism across the board. Especially when it comes to things that can be driven on to a ship and hauled overseas, US manufacturers are going to have to compete on their own merits. The shipping thing has always stuck in my craw, though, mainly because it is one of the few things where we could have legitimately exercised some leverage in favor of US manufacturers. If we had done this, then maybe we wouldn't have to be quite so worried about the fate of other heavy industries today.
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发表于 2012-4-14 19:59
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