Funny article thread
- Thread starter KYli
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Read it one more time!
The Heritage Foundation - 50 years [of cope].
I don't have the time to read through this study but what was so objectionable about it? One of the author served in the U.S. Navy for 26 years and therefore is fairly acquainted with the subject matter, not to mention has graduate degrees in national security from the National War College while the other author has a PhD in Economics a graduate of McGill University of Montreal, Canada which isn't a shabby school by any means. While the economist author is of the Libertarian strand (based on some of his writings but mostly from the institutions he worked for) we can expect some semblance of nuance with their analyses right?
If you don't mind providing a breakdown of the study that would be helpful and appreciated. If not, I'll find some time to read through the article and see what's happened with America's supposed premiere think tanks like the right wing Heritage Foundation.
Seems to me that one of the core concepts in the article is using helicopters and drones to transport the cargo containers. Or using smaller ships to transport cargo containers off and onto larger container ships because their ports lack the water depth.
Then they go on about some sort of novel concept of transporting cargo from Detroit Area to Chicago via helicopter and drones. Distance is ~320 to 330~ miles in a one way trip. I really fail to see how this is actually cost competitive… like at all.
Between East Coast to Puerto. Talks about offloading cargo to D.C, Baltimore, and Florida via helicopters and drones. While sailing to Puerto after going past Miami they would get refilled with cargo via helicopters, drones, and feeder ships. Is this really economically competitive? Not to mention the huge air congestion.
What is insane about it is that the authors propose to use helicopter, drone and ferry ships insteads of docks to unload container ships as a way to save cost. Except that:
1. No helicopter or drone currently can lift a 40 ton container (Mi-26, the largest helicopter in the world, can lift 20t)
2. A helicopter or drone capable of carrying a multi-ton payload would have to be turboshaft powered and therefore extremely expensive to acquire and operate
3. A helicopter or drone can lift one container at a time when a large ship can carry tens of thousands of containers and is thus extremely inefficient
4. In the diagram, the containers seem to magically teleport from the large ship into the smaller ferry
This is obviously a terrible idea from an engineering/logistics/economics/physics point of view. Which shows how detached from reality these "strategists" that work for think tanks are. And is it any surprise the rationale for this absurd plan is to "counter China?"
These are probably the same kind of people who hypes HyperLoop as the best thing since sliced bread. You know, the kind of stuff that is futuristic-sounding, sleek-looking-in-CGI-rendering, and completely divorced from reality.
This may have worked in SimCity 3000.... but then again SimCity 3000 was realistic enough to not have helicopter freight as an option
Like i said think tank and economist are just tea leaves readers. They aren't serieus engineers or business people anymore.
Unless we have the wrong idea and the objective is to sell expensive maintenance contracts for the helicopters and drone fleet if that is the objective then yes its an excellent idea. I would say its actually a 11 dimensional grifter move.
Because all of you guys just a short sighted commie empathy who know no shit. Superior race American will release the nano technology drone can travel 10000 km/h carry 1000 tons of cargo in multi dimensional. And best of it those drone have use Copium as fuel. And we already know US is world number 1 Copium producer.
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