Comments by "Dave Sisson" (@Dave_Sisson) on "Aircraft Carriers - The Fleet Aircraft Carrier in WW2 (1939-1945)" video.

@GrahamCStrouse @GrahamCStrouse In relation to ship building, it's more that areas specialize. East Asia does container ships and bulk carriers, Europe does 95% of passenger ships and Australia has a near monopoly on those large, 40 knot, catamarans that take up to 2000 passengers and cars. As we all know, sadly the United States largely excludes itself from the civilian ship market by a bunch of protectionist regulations including the Jones Act.
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@dusting1391 Good points, perhaps I should have said the USA can't export or even operate ships outside its own waters due to "a raft of protectionist measures, of which the Jones Act is the best known". But the passenger ships and ferries that Europe exports recieve very low subsidies and the big fast catamarans that come out of Australia get zero subsidies. So it is possible to export ships from high income companies if there is less red tape and less excessive regulation.
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@dusting1391 That's rather interesting, but I'd have to question your conclusions about Euro shipyards, as yards in Finland and Germany are outside the possible merger and all of the five biggest cruise ship and ferry ship builders in Europe have plenty of work at the moment. Anyway, forget the damn Jones Act, I mostly cited it because it is the only relevant one that most people know. I wasn't expecting to encounter someone able to write a thesis on it. So my revised statement is now... Other continents specialize in building particular types of ships, but North America has bureaucratic obstacles that mean it is effectively impossible for them to build any civilian ships except those entirely used on internal waters.
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Because the Americans decided to name their carriers after politicians instead. Which is a shame because an evocative name for a carrier is always better than a dodgy politicians name.
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Umm, the British had already done that with Malta before the United States finally entered the war. Malta endured the longest siege in history (yes, longer than Leningrad) and it largely defended itself with fighters, assisted by AA guns and submarines.
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