Performance of Major US Shipyards in 20th/21st Century

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (04) ◽  
pp. 202-213
Author(s):  
William O. Gray

Since WW II, major US shipbuilders have been unable to compete in price with shipyards in other parts of the world, and often the quality from US yards has been inferior to world standards. Furthermore, the mistaken US government assumption that shipyards and ship owners have a common interest has led to laws to protect American yards from competition. It has also caused commercial shipping to lose out to alternative forms of transportation such as trains, trucks, pipelines, and tug/barge rigs from more efficient smaller yards and crews. The "US built" requirement of the 1920 Jones Act for domestic cargo has been a prime reason for this modal shift. Tragically for coastal shipping, most large US shipyards have failed to adopt the efficient manufacturing lessons of pioneers such as Admiral "Jerry" Land and Henry Kaiser that led to the "WW II shipbuilding miracle," that built nearly 6,000 merchant ships in 5 years, a feat that Winston Churchill said "saved Europe." After WW II, while foreign yards adopted these efficiency measures, that did not happen here, and our yards suffered from few repeat orders because of their high prices. Drawing heavily on SNAME's Journal of Ship Production pioneered by Professors Bunch, Storch, and Lamb, this paper describes not only the history and "secrets" of many successful yards abroad, but also many of the failures in US shipyards during the same Post WW II period. As a result of their failures, and despite "US Friendly" laws, big US yards seldom got multiple repeat orders which they rightly believe might solve their problems. The paper concludes that because of the very serious congestion now occurring on our near-coastal highways, together with major environmental and economic incentives to take cargo "off the roads and rails" should give US shipbuilders a new golden opportunity. Efficient yards should be able to get major repeat orders for a new fleet of fast roll-on/roll-offs (Ro/Ros) and feeder container ships, however, only if they will finally after nearly 60 years adopt the "lean production" principles pioneered in WW II and then exported to Asia and Europe.

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (143) ◽  
pp. 177-183
Author(s):  
Naomi Klein

Fitting to its doctrine of preventiv war, the Bush Administration founded a bureau of reconstruction, designing reconstruction plans for countries which are still not destroyed. Reconstruction after war or after a “natural disaster” developed to a profitable branch of capitalist investment. Also the possibilities to change basic political and economic structures are high and they are widely used by the US-government and institutions like the International Monetary Fund.


Author(s):  
Ana Elizabeth Rosas

In the 1940s, curbing undocumented Mexican immigrant entry into the United States became a US government priority because of an alleged immigration surge, which was blamed for the unemployment of an estimated 252,000 US domestic agricultural laborers. Publicly committed to asserting its control of undocumented Mexican immigrant entry, the US government used Operation Wetback, a binational INS border-enforcement operation, to strike a delicate balance between satisfying US growers’ unending demands for surplus Mexican immigrant labor and responding to the jobs lost by US domestic agricultural laborers. Yet Operation Wetback would also unintentionally and unexpectedly fuel a distinctly transnational pathway to legalization, marriage, and extended family formation for some Mexican immigrants.On July 12, 1951, US president Harry S. Truman’s signing of Public Law 78 initiated such a pathway for an estimated 125,000 undocumented Mexican immigrant laborers throughout the United States. This law was an extension the Bracero Program, a labor agreement between the Mexican and US governments that authorized the temporary contracting of braceros (male Mexican contract laborers) for labor in agricultural production and railroad maintenance. It was formative to undocumented Mexican immigrant laborers’ transnational pursuit of decisively personal goals in both Mexico and the United States.Section 501 of this law, which allowed employers to sponsor certain undocumented laborers, became a transnational pathway toward formalizing extended family relationships between braceros and Mexican American women. This article seeks to begin a discussion on how Operation Wetback unwittingly inspired a distinctly transnational approach to personal extended family relationships in Mexico and the United States among individuals of Mexican descent and varying legal statuses, a social matrix that remains relatively unexplored.


Author(s):  
Danylo Kravets

The aim of the Ukrainian Bureau in Washington was propaganda of Ukrainian question among US government and American publicity in general. Functioning of the Bureau is not represented non in Ukrainian neither in foreign historiographies, so that’s why the main goal of presented paper is to investigate its activity. The research is based on personal papers of Ukrainian diaspora representatives (O. Granovskyi, E. Skotzko, E. Onatskyi) and articles from American and Ukrainian newspapers. The second mass immigration of Ukrainians to the US (1914‒1930s) has often been called the «military» immigration and what it lacked in numbers, it made up in quality. Most immigrants were educated, some with college degrees. The founder of the Ukrainian Bureau Eugene Skotzko was born near Western Ukrainian town of Zoloczhiv and immigrated to the United States in late 1920s after graduating from Lviv Polytechnic University. In New York he began to collaborate with OUN member O. Senyk-Hrabivskyi who gave E. Skotzko task to create informational bureau for propaganda of Ukrainian case. On March 23 1939 the Bureau was founded in Washington D. C. E. Skotzko was an editor of its Informational Bulletins. The Bureau biggest problem was lack of financial support. It was the main reason why it stopped functioning in May 1940. During 14 months of functioning Ukrainian Bureau in Washington posted dozens of informational bulletins and send it to hundreds of addressees; E. Skotzko, as a director, personally wrote to American governmental institutions and foreign diplomats informing about Ukrainian problem in Europe. Ukrainian Bureau activity is an inspiring example for those who care for informational policy of modern Ukraine.Keywords: Ukrainian small encyclopedia, Yevhen Onatsky, journalism, worldview, Ukrainian state. Keywords: Ukrainian Bureau in Washington, Eugene Skotzko, public opinion, history of journalism, diaspora.


Author(s):  
Christopher Hood ◽  
Rozana Himaz

This chapter describes fiscal squeeze in an era of high political volatility and major economic challenges, including mass unemployment, a sharp increase in oil prices, double-digit inflation (i.e. a period of ‘stagflation’), and high levels of trade union militancy. The most dramatic period during the episode occurred in 1976, involving a split Labour Government under two different leaders, with a leadership election following a sudden prime ministerial resignation. That government pursued fiscal squeeze against the background of a deep currency crisis and bailout deals with outside lenders (the US Government and the IMF). The squeeze episode also led to some important institutional developments, producing the first major privatization since the 1950s and a new system of controlling public spending through ‘cash limits’.


Author(s):  
Seth C Kalichman ◽  
Lisa A Eaton ◽  
Valerie A Earnshaw ◽  
Natalie Brousseau

Abstract Background The unprecedented rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines has faced SARS-CoV- (COVID-19) vaccine hesitancy, which is partially fueled by the misinformation and conspiracy theories propagated by anti-vaccine groups on social media. Research is needed to better understand the early COVID-19 anti-vaccine activities on social media. Methods This study chronicles the social media posts concerning COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines by leading anti-vaccine groups (Dr Tenpenny on Vaccines, the National Vaccine Information Center [NVIC] the Vaccination Information Network [VINE]) and Vaccine Machine in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic (February–May 2020). Results Analysis of 2060 Facebook posts showed that anti-vaccine groups were discussing COVID-19 in the first week of February 2020 and were specifically discussing COVID-19 vaccines by mid-February 2020. COVID-19 posts by NVIC were more widely disseminated and showed greater influence than non-COVID-19 posts. Early COVID-19 posts concerned mistrust of vaccine safety and conspiracy theories. Conclusion Major anti-vaccine groups were sowing seeds of doubt on Facebook weeks before the US government launched its vaccine development program ‘Operation Warp Speed’. Early anti-vaccine misinformation campaigns outpaced public health messaging and hampered the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.


2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larisa Miller

C. E. Kelsey's census of nonreservation Indians in Northern California in 1905 to 1906 was the first enumeration of its kind. It counted 11,755 Indians that were not supported by the US government, which was far more than were thought to exist. Intended as the blueprint for implementing Kelsey's proposed policy of providing federal relief through land purchases, the census was later used for population studies. The census lacks explanatory documentation and scholars have introduced errors to the population totals. Using archival sources, this article explores the context and purpose of the census and identifies those subsequent errors.


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