🔴 BREAKING NEWS!! Government Is The Ruin Of Everything

What this episode is about

The discussion centers on the centennial of the Jones Act, highlighting its detrimental effects on American consumers through increased shipping costs while benefiting a small segment of the shipping industry. The speaker underscores the act's enduring political support despite widespread negative repercussions, particularly for residents of Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Alaska.

Key takeaways

• The Jones Act: A century-old law that benefits a few while burdening the many—Winston Churchill would be proud.
• America's shipping industry: Built for protection, now a sad ghost with a mere 98 ocean ships—talk about irony!
• While the U.S. limps along with 98 ships, China constructs 4,000 annually—who's really winning the maritime race?
• The Jones Act's lofty goals of wartime readiness are overshadowed by a decimated shipping industry—definitely not the dream!
• Shipping costs up across America, but few connect the dots to the Jones Act—politics prevails when ignorance is bliss.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Unknown Speaker (Host) · 23 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Jones Act, Shipping industry, Merchant Marine, Puerto Rico
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Jones Act, Shipping industry
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Jones Act, Puerto Rico, Natural Gas, Alaskan senators
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Jones Act, Puerto Rico, Alaskan senators, Lisa Murkowski
5. 20:00 – 22:47: Jones Act, Shipping industry, Alaskan senators, American jobs

Notable quotes from "🔴 BREAKING NEWS!! Government Is The Ruin Of Everything"

• This is nothing that we would want to celebrate it's just we've had to endure this for a hundred years and that is the jones act right the jones act was passed a hundred years ago today and i tweeted about it.

  about Jones Act · at 0:20

• Acts is that everybody suffers a little bit i mean some americans suffer more than others people living in puerto rico like i am or people that live in hawaii or people that live in alaska they suffer more from the jonah than.

  about Puerto Rico · at 1:26

• And so they are politically motivated to make sure that those benefits continue and so you know they have a lobbying to make sure that the jones act is there whereas the broader population they don't they don't really come together.

  about Shipping lobby · at 2:28

• This so this is i think was last year puerto rico wanted to import some liquid natural gas and they wanted to import it from the united states because we had a lot of natural gas the prices were low.

  about Natural Gas · at 10:30

• And last minute he got bombarded with lobbyists right in particular two republican senators from alaska came up right alaska is one of the states that is most hurt by the jones act right because you can't.

  about Alaskan senators · at 12:24

• It was the alaskan senators they came in these two republicans and it's ironic it's lisa murkowski is one of them and lisa murkowski just recently came out and says she doesn't…

  about Lisa Murkowski · at 16:00

• Prices and really screwing puerto rico even more than they were screwed anyway the whole industry is corrupt and we need to get rid of the jones act especially since the very purpose of the jones act right because we might need the merchant.

  about Shipping industry · at 18:56

• It and then of course you also have the idea that hey it does protect some union jobs and so there's some camaraderie right all the labor unions kind of stick together and it's like hey you know we need to.

  about American jobs · at 20:47

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Alaskan senators — Person · Collective political actors · 6 mentions · first at 12:28
  Described as intervening to stop the Puerto Rico LNG waiver and as key Jones Act supporters due to shipping-lobby funding.
• Lisa Murkowski — Person · Referenced political actor · 2 mentions · first at 16:03
  Named as one of the Alaskan senators tied to Jones Act support and described as influencing (via donors/lobby pressure) Trump's decision not to grant the Puerto Rico LNG waiver.
• Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill — Person · Referenced historical figure (quote paraphrase) · 1 mention · first at 0:40
  Invoked via a paraphrased quote to frame the Jones Act as a long-lasting law benefiting few while harming many.
  Earlier today and it reminded me of you know a quote or i paraphrased winston churchill because probably never in all of history has a law that benefited so few been in existence.

Companies & orgs

• Shipping lobby — Company · Primary antagonist organization · 2 mentions · first at 12:24
  Described as the force sustaining the Jones Act through campaign contributions and pressure, including influencing Trump's waiver decision.
• American companies — Company · Beneficiary/constraint subject · 2 mentions · first at 4:02
  Referenced in the Jones Act requirements (ships must be owned by American companies) and as potential beneficiaries of Puerto Rico buying US natural gas.
  So puerto rico was trying to get a waiver because it wanted to buy this american natural gas which would have benefited the u.s company that was selling it and it would have benefited puerto ricans because it was a good price.
• Congress — Company · Referenced governing institution · 2 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of representation and political incentives; Puerto Rico lacks voting members, affecting its influence over Jones Act policy.
  Cost of living is higher because of the jones act particularly in hawaii and alaska right puerto rico we don't have any senators we don't have any congressmen so we don't we're not involved in the discussions right.
• Air Force — Company · Referenced military capability · 1 mention · first at 19:14
  Mentioned to argue that modern warfare logistics differ from 1920, reducing the need for a merchant marine justification for the Jones Act.
  First of all times have changed in the last 100 years i mean 100 years ago we didn't even have an air force let alone a space force i mean we don't need the merchant marine for the next war and in fact go back to the gulf war.

Products & tech

• Natural Gas — Product · Key commodity in case study · 6 mentions · first at 10:34
  Central to the Puerto Rico waiver story: lack of Jones Act-compliant LNG carriers prevented importing US LNG, leading to purchases from Russia.

Concepts & topics

• Jones Act — Concept · Core topic · 28 mentions · first at 0:28
  The episode centers on the 100-year impact of the Jones Act, arguing it raises shipping costs, distorts markets, and fails its national-security rationale.
• Shipping industry — Concept · Core topic (industry impacted) · 7 mentions · first at 2:19
  Presented as the small beneficiary group of the Jones Act while also being paradoxically weakened in capacity and competitiveness over time.
• Merchant Marine — Concept · Historical justification concept · 4 mentions · first at 3:08
  Explained as the original national-security rationale for the Jones Act, which the speaker argues failed during wartime logistics (e.g., Gulf War).
  Especially since the very purpose of the jones act right because we might need the merchant marine in times of war first of all times have changed in the last 100 years i mean 100 years ago we didn't even have.
• American jobs — Concept · Debated policy outcome · 2 mentions · first at 12:12
  Discussed as the political justification for the Jones Act (protecting shipbuilding/union jobs) versus the speaker's claim it destroys more jobs economy-wide.

Places & events

• Puerto Rico — Place · Primary case study location · 11 mentions · first at 1:32
  Used as a main example of disproportionate harm from the Jones Act, including higher prices and the LNG waiver episode that led to buying gas from Russia.
• Russia — Place · Alternative supplier location · 1 mention · first at 17:45
  Mentioned as the source of LNG Puerto Rico bought after the US waiver was not granted, underscoring unintended geopolitical/economic consequences.
  Ship so because of the jones act puerto rico was forced to buy its natural gas from russia instead of from the united states and in fact a lot of american businesses end up selling their products.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:09 i want to actually talk about the 100 year anniversary and maybe anniversary is not a good word because you know that's you celebrate something when you refer to an anniversary and so this is nothing that we would want to celebrate it's just we've had to endure this for a hundred years and that is the jones act right the jones act was passed a hundred years ago today and i i tweeted about it uh earlier today and it reminded me of you know a quote or i paraphrased winston churchill because probably never in all of history has a law that benefited so few been in existence so long yet negatively impacted so many so many americans are worse off as a result of the jones act and there's a very small group who are better off yet the jones act has endured for a hundred years because of of politics and this is why the founding fathers were so you know worried about democracy and they called them factions and they

1:20 were worried about exactly what's happened because the problem politically with the jones acts is that everybody suffers a little bit i mean some americans suffer more than others people living in puerto rico like i am or people that live in hawaii or people that live in alaska they suffer more from the jonah than people that live in other states but certainly anybody who lives on the eastern or western seaboards they're suffering uh the whole country suffers to some extent but nobody really knows that their suffering is due to the jones act and they don't really know how much it is because all the jones acts does is it increases shipping costs right which you know and everything that we consume has to be shipped somewhere either it's shipped to us in a finished form or a lot of the raw materials get shipped around and so everything we buy costs a little bit more money because shipping costs have been

2:13 artificially inflated by the jones act now who benefits well you have a very small number of people in the shipping industry which is a tiny industry which i'm going to get into but they have an enormous benefit and the benefits are very clear and so they are politically motivated to make sure that those benefits um continue and so you know they have a lobbying to make sure that the jones act is there whereas the the broader population uh they they don't they don't really come together on this issue because for any one person the issue is not important enough for it to matter but for the people who benefit it's all they care about and if you go back to why we had a jones act right this was 1920 that it was enacted and the supposed impetus for this was to make sure that we had a good merchant marine in case we're in a war right that we needed the vessels to supply our troops or maybe even

3:17 to to take these uh ships uh that were commercial ships and maybe we could use them in the military right we could use them in the war we could call them into service somehow and so in order to be safer right we wanted to have a a big viable merchant marine during peace time in case we needed them during wartime because you know we didn't want to be beholden to foreigners right i mean what if we were there was a blockade i mean we wouldn't want to be vulnerable to depend on having to use foreign ships so the idea is hey let's try to protect our industry from foreign competition so that we'll have a bigger more vibrant industry uh just in case we need it right so when they when they pass the jones act there there's three key provisions of the jones act right the ships have to be owned by american companies they have to be built in america right with american workers building the ships and then they have to be crewed by

4:11 americans so there are three important things that the ship needs to these criteria need to be met before it's allowed to transport any commercial cargo between two u.s ports right so if you're going to pick up cargo in new york and drop it off in florida you got to do that on a jones act ship right so that's the deal so anyway this law has been in effect for 100 years and what has the effect been the u.s shipping industry is virtually non-existent right we only have in america 98 ships actual ocean ships right the way they're defined it's you can carry a thousand tons in the ocean we only have 98 of them there are over 53 000 i got the number here 53 732 i mean maybe it's more by now but almost 54 000 ships america has 98 we have less than one-fifth of one percent of the ships that's it we build in this country our shipping industry we build about two to three ships per year right that's that's all we do china

5:32 china builds 4 000 ships a year four thousand we built two to three korea builds 2300 and i'm not talking about boats because they have other things that they built i'm looking at these big ships on the ocean korean builds 2 300 a year japan built 1600 ships right so those are real industries building ships i mean we do it for a hobby two to three ships turkey turkey builds 330 ships per year vietnam vietnam 327 ships per year america two three ships that's the industry that we're protecting it's ridiculous we got 98 ships and you know back in the year 2000 we had 193 we have fewer ships we're destroying the ships because you know they become obsolete and they get scrapped we're not even building enough ships to replace the ships that are scrapped back in 1980 we had 250 ships the industry is dying and it's the jones act that's killing it right the government said we're going to protect the shipping industry

6:44 and they destroyed the shipping industry in europe right 40 of all the merchandise that is delivered is delivered by ships 40 in america ocean liner ships in the ocean rather two percent two percent that's it that's all the cargo that moves in the us by water by ship now if you include the rivers right we have these big rivers and there's barges and stuff going down there yeah then it's about six percent but if you just look at chips it's two percent oh and by the way i meant to mention that you'll read a lot about you know that when all the propaganda the pro-jones act propaganda they'll say that there's 40 000 ships in the united states not 98. yeah there's 40 000 if you count all these little teeny ships more than half of those like 60 65 of those 40 000 are barges that are on the rivers you know with curl hauling garbage and stuff like that and then you got a bunch of little tug boats in those numbers so i'm talking

7:49 about real big ships on the ocean right that's the ones that we we uh we barely have any of and and so we're not using ships and this is how it works so so let's say a uh a ship comes over and it has merchandise from europe and it drops it off at a port in new york right it can only pick up merchandise in new york if it's destined to go to another foreign country it can't pick something up in new york and bring it down to washington or bring it down to north carolina or bring it down to florida even if it's going down to those ports anyway to drop off stuff it can't pick up any additional cargo and drop it back off so that means an american who has stuff he wants to ship down south can't put it on that boat even though there's empty space so he's got to hire a truck or he's got to put it on on a train and you know the most energy efficient right if you're trying to reduce your carbon footprint the most

8:49 energy efficient way to uh ship stuff is on a boat on a ship especially if the ship is going to go between ports anyway and it's got empty space you might as well load more cargo on it it's not going to take any extra energy it's not going to have any extra emissions if you put more stuff in there but the us government will not allow uh any more stuff to be put in there so as a result of this everything costs more you know if you want to ship oil from the gulf of mexico to new england right it costs about six dollars a barrel to ship it to canada which is further north right so it's more it's a longer trip it only costs two dollars so it's three times as expensive to shift stuff from uh the gulf of mexico to um uh new england than it is to ship it all the way north uh to uh to canada and so obviously this is hurting american industry and you know a lot of times um americans are forced to buy products from

9:58 foreigners as opposed to americans because it's cheaper to get stuff from foreign sources that happens all the time in alaska and hawaii and in puerto rico you know puerto rico we we buy rice in puerto rico we buy rice from china right why are we buying chinese rice i mean there's we do have some rice in the united states but the reality is it's cheaper to bring the rice all the way over here from china than it is to bring it from the united states you know this is uh another example of this so this is i think was last year um puerto rico wanted to import some liquid natural gas and they wanted to import it from the united states because we had a lot of natural gas the prices were low and puerto rico prebo which is the power company here a lot of the power uh is generated based on natural gas and so we need the natural gas to power the grid and so puerto rico wanted to buy the natural gas

11:00 from the united states the problem was there was no way to get it here because we don't even have a jones act vessel that is capable of carrying liquid natural gas they don't exist right so it's impossible if you want to buy natural gas from the united states it's impossible to bring it to puerto rico now there are i forget maybe four or 500 of these ships in the world that can do it they're just not american ships because you know it cost what i say six times as much seven times as much to build the ship in america as it does to build it someplace else so none of these ships are built here so none of them are jones act compliant so puerto rico was trying to get a waiver because it wanted to buy this american natural gas which would have benefited the u.s company that was selling it and it would have benefited puerto ricans because it was a good price right so we wanted president trump to

11:52 sign a waiver just a one-time waiver that said hey you're allowed to buy this natural gas from an american business we will give you a waiver so that you can put that national gas natural gas on a foreign ship because there are no american ships that even exist that could do it so obviously granting the waiver right would not cost any american jobs in fact it would help create some american jobs because now we would be buying uh american gas well anyway so trump was about to sign this bill and last minute he got bombarded with lobbyists right in particular two republican senators from alaska came up right alaska alaska is one of the states that is most hurt by uh the jones act right because you can't transport anything to and from alaska and california for example uh because of the because of the jones act right other so they have to take things on rail or they have to use trucks to go through

12:59 canada to get to america or they got to put stuff on airplanes you know we actually uh put cattle live cattle on airplanes because we we can't put them on boats uh which would be a lot more efficient i mean we're we're spending a lot of money it's like it's ironic that the the legislation was supposed to help the um the the shipping industry but by destroying the shipping industry well maybe it helped the the trucking industry because now a lot of stuff that would have gone by ship goes by truck instead but you would think that alaska would be against the jones act or hawaii would be against the jones act right because they're an island right everything is coming by ship everything in hawaii is more expensive because of the jones act right and there's no shipping in they're not building ships down there right you know so i mean everybody's cost of living is higher because of the jones act particularly in hawaii

13:57 and alaska right puerto rico we don't have any senators we don't have any congressmen so we don't we're not involved in the discussions right but you've got congressmen and senators in alaska and puerto rico so why are they such strong supporters of the jones act in fact the strongest advocates for the jones act other than places like louisiana let's say where they do have a ship building industry right are the states that you would think that would be the most wanting to get rid of it the states that are suffering the most from the jones act requirement but no it's the senators in alaska and hawaii that are the strongest supporters of the jones act and at first that would be counterintuitive it's like why would that be those should be the guys that want to get rid of it except the uh shipping lobby knows this right the shipping lobby knows that hey alaska should really want to get rid of the jones act because they're

14:53 really disproportionately suffering the same thing in in hawaii so what happens is the lobbyists want to really give a lot of money to the senators in those states basically to be again to be in favor of the jones act because they know that without that money they're going to be against the jones act so they're basically bribing these senators right it to sell out their own constituents right to do something that harms their own constituents just to get campaign contributions which is what's going on and i'm sure the lobbyists also say if you do not support the jones act if you say anything negative about the jones act which is hurting your own people not only are we not going to give you any money we're going to fund your opponent we're going to find somebody else who is in favor of the jones act and we're going to fund their campaign and they're going to beat you right and so you're going to be out of

15:45 office and so that's why where where the stakes are the highest right the the states that suffer the most that's where the senate uh is most in favor of keeping it so what happened was when word was out that trump was going to grant this waiver it was the alaskan senators they came in these two republicans and it's ironic it's lisa murkowski is one of them and lisa murkowski just recently came out and says she doesn't even think she can support trump right she doesn't think he should be re-elected and that that infuriated trump and trump was out there saying well i know where i'm going to be in two years i'm going to come to washington i'm going to campaign against you anybody with a pulse just announce you're running i'll endorse you right he's really pissed at lisa murkowski meanwhile he basically backstabbed puerto rico he sold out puerto rico to appease her because she was like hey my backers

16:35 right i have these big donors that want uh to keep the jones act and and the thing is the waiver wouldn't have done anything right but the jones act lobbyists what they're afraid of is the camel's nose under the tent even though this what one time waiver would not have you know done anything to harm uh the the profits of the jones act businesses because puerto rico was not going to buy was not going to it's not going to use a u.s ship because it's impossible because the ship isn't there right so this one waiver would have done nothing right to diminish the profits of the industry but what they were afraid of is the precedent of the camel's nose under the tent hey where there's one wave or there's another waiver and then another waiver and then another waiver so they had to shut it down they had to nip it in the bud and so even though president trump was initially ready to um to sign the waiver

17:38 he ended up not doing it and so then puerto rico ended up buying the liquid natural gas from russia and was able to come here on a foreign ship so because of the jones act puerto rico was forced to buy its natural gas from russia instead of uh from the united states and in fact a lot of american businesses end up selling their products internationally or up rather a lot of american business end up buying products from foreign companies rather than american companies because it's cheaper to bring the stuff across the atlantic or the pacific than to just run it up the coast because of the high cost of using a jones act ship so it's not just higher transportation costs all all american industry the the entire country has been rendered less productive as a result of the jones act also a dying industry that barely exists can hold on to some monopoly profits right and in fact some of these guys jones-ass companies

18:43 were actually convicted of um of a price fixing or racketeering with puerto rico and they had some of these guys went to jail they had to pay pay big fines because they were rigging the market and fixing prices and really screwing puerto rico even more than they were screwed anyway the whole industry is corrupt and we need to get rid of the jones act especially since the very purpose of the jones act right because we might need the merchant marine in times of war first of all times have changed in the last 100 years i mean 100 years ago we didn't even have an air force let alone a space force i mean we don't need the merchant marine for the next war and in fact go back to the gulf war right in the gulf war we had to supply all of the troops that we had in in iraq and in the middle east right and there were no american ships we had to rely almost 100 maybe we had one u.s ship out of the whole how many we used

19:41 uh 177 i think was the number i read 177 foreign ships were used to help bring supplies to support our troops in in the gulf war right so the reason we had a jones act was to make sure in times of war we had a merchant marine that we could rely on and then we had a war we had no merchant marine because the very protectionist legislation that was meant to to make us have a a vibrant shipbuilding industry is what destroyed the shipbuilding industry because it was no longer globally competitive it was protected from the competition that would have kept it vibrant and and our whole ability to have a shipping industry was destroyed uh because of because of this legislation so i don't know you know what it's going to take to ever get rid of it because as i said you've got this powerful lobby out there that is bribing uh the the very senators and congressmen that should be most in favor of getting rid of it

20:43 and those are the ones that are getting paid uh to want to promote it and save it and then of course you also have the idea that hey it does protect some union jobs and so there's some camaraderie right all the labor unions kind of stick together and it's like hey you know we need uh to support our brethren here in the ship builders union and so they kind of all come together even though organized labor doesn't realize that they're barely protecting any jobs the number of jobs that are being saved in the shipping industry right is tiny compared to the jobs that are being destroyed because we have the jones act if we had a more competitive economy right if we didn't have to use these jones act ships then a lot more jobs would be created in other areas see this is an example of the scene and the unseen right we see the bogus jobs that we have because of the jones act at least we think we do

21:35 because right now obviously if we eliminate the jones act i mean uh you know these jones acts ships of course would collapse in value and you know and probably there would be a lot of job losses uh because our industry had been protected for so long it just can't survive anymore uh so there would be these job losses uh i think we have a lot more people working in shipping had we never had this protectionist legislation for the last 100 years but because we've destroyed our industry with 100 years of protectionism it's very vulnerable so if we got rid of the jones act yes there would be an immediate loss of some jobs but then there would be massive jobs gained in other industries that are now much more competitive and because they're more competitive they can expand they can hire more people in fact what we can't see right now are all the people who are not employed because the jones act has destroyed their employment

22:26 opportunities so we don't see that we see the jobs that the joe zach creates or protects but we don't see the far more numerous jobs that the jones act has prevented from coming into existence or has outright destroyed

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "🔴 BREAKING NEWS!! Government Is The Ruin Of Everything"?

Unknown Speaker (Host).

What is "🔴 BREAKING NEWS!! Government Is The Ruin Of Everything" about?

The discussion centers on the centennial of the Jones Act, highlighting its detrimental effects on American consumers through increased shipping costs while benefiting a small segment of the shipping industry. The speaker underscores the act's enduring political support despite widespread negative repercussions, particularly for residents of Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Alaska.

What is mentioned in this GLOBAL NEWS PODCAST episode?

14 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Jones Act, Puerto Rico, Shipping lobby, Shipping industry, Natural Gas, Alaskan senators. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "🔴 BREAKING NEWS!! Government Is The Ruin Of Everything"?

The episode runs 23 min; the transcript is about 3,925 words in 23 timestamped sections.

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