Mason Jones

Proud Texan, UArk alum, outdoorsman. Founder, Old San Jacinto. Trade, public equities, real estate. Texas market analysis at @SanJacintoCap.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

Why every cruise out of Galveston goes to Mexico.

An 1886 law called the Passenger Vessel Services Act says a foreign flagged ship cannot carry passengers from one US port to another without stopping in a foreign country in between.

Nearly every cruise ship on earth is foreign flagged, because the law also requires US built ships for domestic routes and the US has not built a large cruise ship in decades. Exactly one big one flies the American flag, and it sails Hawaii.

So Galveston, the fourth busiest cruise port in the country, sends 3 million passengers a year to Cozumel whether they wanted Cozumel or not. Alaska cruises stop in Canada for the same reason.

The ship has to touch a foreign dock before it can bring you home, and Cozumel is the closest one.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

@JSeyff @wrightsbarbecue Hard to argue with that. Brisket, ribs, and beans under the red umbrella.

Proof accepted. That’s a proper tray.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

@JSeyff @wrightsbarbecue Wright’s is legit. Bentonville has a couple places that punch above their weight.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

@NickpxJ Absolutely. The void needs my opinions.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

@JIBONWEB3 @KobeissiLetter Much appreciated

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

@Polymarket The thing worth stealing from an AI lab fits on a thumb drive.

The thing worth stealing from a chip fab weighs forty tons.

We built forty years of export law around the forty ton problem and forgot about the thumb drive.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

@kevinxu The normies are down 2.7 percent and will probably find out at Thanksgiving when their nephew brings it up to them. They'll nod, say "yeah crazy," and go get more pie.

I'm jealous.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

@elonmusk Another 27 that nobody paid you to fly, and the satellite business clears $2.4 billion a quarter because of it.

Best internal transfer pricing in corporate America.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

@stats_feed Forget GDP. A country's wealth is measured in how many people will pay $7 for coffee without flinching.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

That is the opposite of the American pattern and the gap is widening.

SpaceX went public this June at 24 years old. The average US tech company now lists at 11 or 12 years, up from four in the late 1990s, because private capital will carry a company to a trillion dollars without ever asking the public to.

Asian startups listing at four or five is what the US market looked like before it decided retail shareholders get the company after the growth is gone.

Over there the IPO is still the beginning of the story. Here it is usually the last chapter.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

@stats_feed On that list a patrol boat and an aircraft carrier both count as one.

China has 841 and the US has 465, and the US is still the only navy that can put eleven carriers off someone else's coast.

Count tonnage instead of hulls and the order flips.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

The East West pipeline is the bypass. It is how Saudi crude gets to the Red Sea without going through Hormuz, and it was already shut for stretches this summer.

Hit the strait and the pipeline at once and there is no Saudi route left that does not involve a tanker under fire.

Every one of those barrels gets replaced from somewhere, and the somewhere with spare export capacity and no strait in the way is the Texas Gulf Coast.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

@consultingcmdy Surge pricing when it rains.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

Three freight numbers from this week that tell you more than the indexes.

1. Trucking tender rejections are at 13.9 percent against under 6 percent a year ago, meaning carriers are turning down loads at the price offered.

2. Accepted truckload volume is at its lowest non holiday level since January.

3. Asia to North America ships arrived on time 26.9 percent of the time in September.

Also filed Tuesday at the Court of International Trade:
The first lawsuit against the 50 percent Section 338 tariffs on Canada, seeking refunds on about $20 billion of goods. The IEEPA tariffs were two years old before the refund suits started. This one is two months old.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

Starlink adding 1.6 million a quarter while AT&T Fiber adds about 400k. Satellite scales a lot faster than digging up streets.

In a lot of the world that difference is the whole reason for fast adoption. Fiber still wins where it’s already built. Everywhere else the gap is closing quick.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

Oysters help filter water. They are filter feeders. That’s where they do best.

That’s why in the gulf the same oyster can grow to full size in 7-9 months, where an east coast oyster would take 20-24 months.

They are good for the environment and a food source we can produce domestically.

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

@chanmeetnarang @unusual_whales Always love a good moat

[Mason Jones @MrMasonJ]

@gogotamiko @unusual_whales If a hotel charged a cleaning fee and then left a list of chores, people would complain about that too. And not go there again.

Stripping sheets is one thing. A full chore list on top of a cleaning fee is another. And hotels don’t do either anyways.