### q9 laws have consequences > But there is a specific *policy* choice that led to the mess Peterson is explaining. Why did we build these unstable, just-in-time supply chains run on ultra-large ships and mediated by monopolies and private equity firms? The answer is, as usual, found in law. In the 1990s, Congress, at the behest of large importers and giant shipping lines, drove a radical change in how we regulate shipping, through a bill called the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1998. > The OSRA eliminated a system that had kept shipping relatively stable through booms and busts. Prior to the OSRA, the U.S. regulated ocean shipping as a public utility, based on the [Shipping Act](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Shipping_Act_1917_and_the_Joint_Resu/UfgTAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22shipping+act%22+antitrust&pg=PA31&printsec=frontcover) of 1916. There are probably a jillion things I can cross-reference this with. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fmd7zg9nq40e4keejevbgzd9) - [[Too Big to Sail How a Legal Revolution Clogged Our Ports by Matt Stoller#q9 laws have consequences|View in Vault]]