It was expressing amusement at your effort of wishful thinking.
Anyway, I will wait for you to show me how any legislation affected Southern ship building, shipping lines, or any other activity as regards the logistics of the cotton trade or other major business activity. I’ll grow old(er) but I’ll wait.
I cannot help but feel you are flippant about this and don't really care about the information because you have already made up your mind to ignore it if it doesn't show what you wish to believe. It is not easy to remember where to find all this, but I managed to find some information on the subject which I had read a long time ago. Thanks to PeaRidge for compiling this information.
I believe there is more, and more detailed information in the linked discussion thread, but I think this addresses your interest in an accurate and somewhat detailed manner.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/3443027/posts?page=929#929>
Linking to other posters won’t cut it. I’m doing my own research. So far, I found no legislation actually titled “The Navigation Act of 1817” or anything like that. Maybe the Library of Congress will respond to my inquiry. In any event, no, I actually do care about your information. I’d just like more than “because you say so” or “some other poster says so.”
“Even when the Southern cotton bound for Europe did not put in at the wharves of Sandy Hook or the East River, unloading and reloading, the combined income from interests, commissions, freight, insurance, and other profits took perhaps 40 cents into New York of every dollar paid for southern cotton. This unnecessarily inflated the cost of cotton for overseas customers and crippled the Southern farmer.”
Assuming for a moment that statement above is true, how would all these costs have been eliminated had the commissions, freight, insurance, and other profits been in Southern hands instead? Would all that been done by slaves so it would have been free?
Do either of you actually understand how the plantation owner sold his crop?