Erik wrote:Why go to Asia, it would probably be enough to pass through Vancouver. I'm imagining that if it was cheaper someone would already do it. And the people in Alaska would probably order most of their stuff from Vancouver businesses. I'm guessing there's some regulations or taxes to prevent it, or at least making it not worth it.
As I understand it, something like that is currently done with cruise ships, because they are all foreign flagged. A US flagged cruise ship would be too expensive to operate.
All I know of the Jones Act was from Micheners book "Alaska". In the book it's described as a way for people in the lower 48, Seattle businessmen in particular, to keep Alaska under their control and make sure that they get a big cut of what Alaska produces. Essentially they want to run Alaska from Seattle instead of giving it the same rights as any other state. But although the book is based on real history it is still fiction, so I'm not sure that's the truth.
Haven't read the book, but it works a lot like that, in practice.
From my experience, high shipping cost usually has to do with either political reasons or volume, or both. Once you get enough volume of shipping to a place, the shipping cost drops as more shippers become involved and they can ship more efficiently. But there needs to be enough volume for it to be worth building the infrastructure. Unless there's a political obstacle to keep the cost up, like taxes, tariffs, regulations, VAT, etc...
It's hard to get the necessary volume from the economy we have right now. Truly open up resource development, and that can change. Get more mining going for our abundant coal, and maybe the cost of energy could even drop enough to build a significant manufacturing sector. Most of the US sees AK as being one big national park, going back for over a century. The economic ass-fucking literally goes back to the first Roosevelt administration. If not for that, we would have had rail transportation from the southern coast into the interior decades before it actually happened, and it would have been owned privately, not by the state.
Also needed is some way to break the hold that organized labor has over the state legislature (both parties), and make it a right to work state. Even during the mid 90s when the Republicans held veto-proof majorities in both houses, nary a peep was heard about this.
Since this is starting to look like a wish list, also get the federal government out of the land business here, and sell it privately, and DO NOT give it to the state. There is currently very little private land in AK, relatively speaking, beyond what has been doled out to the native corporations. And restore full property rights to landowners, including subsurface rights. The bullshit of the state owning all subsurface rights leads to a lot of socialism and socialistic attitudes here. People talk about the "free" money we get in the form of the PFD every year, but it is really not free. It is a booby prize that they hand out in exchange for having taken our mineral rights away.
I am kind of torn on whether to ask for getting rid of the PFD or not. On the one hand, I don't like the government doling out what started out as tax money, plus the fact that the permanent fund was never intended for that purpose. It is supposed to be a source of funds to cushion the blow once the oil money runs out. On the other hand, it's that much less that the politicians have available to spend, which is almost never a bad thing. And there is the point that it is partial compensation for theft of our property rights, even though it is implemented in a socialistic fashion.
