I’m A Twenty Year Truck Driver, I Will Tell You Why America’s “Shipping Crisis” Will Not End

MEDIUM.COM ^ | 27 OCTOBER 2021 | RYAN JOHNSON

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

I have a simple question for every ‘expert’ who thinks they understand the root causes of the shipping crisis: Why is there only one crane for every 50–100 trucks at every port in America? No ‘expert’ will answer this question. I’m a Class A truck driver with experience in nearly every aspect of freight. My experience in the trucking industry of 20 years tells me that nothing is going to change in the shipping industry.

[Alberta's Child]

As a Teamster he is almost certainly paid by the hour, not by the mile or by the load.

No trucking company that employs Teamsters would even think of using them to haul containers out of the ports -- for the reasons he describes in his article.

[Mariner]

Only the enemies of America and stupid people want to increase the capacity for importation of Chinese shit.

We need to be REDUCING this capacity and increasing the cost substantially.

As the writer notes, there plenty of capacity for domestic freight. The “issue” is limited to containers in and out of port facilities.

Freepers should be celebrating this cluster F.

[SgtHooper]

“In am of age and could afford to retire right now, but my company is making it worthwhile for me to stay. Maybe I’ll regret it, but I feel duty bound to hang in there a little longer.”

You might want to consider retiring from them with a pension, and then rehiring back as a contractor.

[Scott from the Left Coast]

“ In some cases they work 70 hour weeks and still end up owing money to their carrier.”

You load 16 tons
What do you get?
Another day older
And deeper in debt

[Vigilanteman]

That thought has crossed my mind. We’ve had a wave of boomer retirements and I’m seeing what they are paying . . . so I may be able to negotiate a better deal in a few more months with more data.

[Mr Radical]

I read the full article. The one thing (and I used to work in supply chain - but this applies to most enterprise) that the author doesn’t mention is that the government takes a 40-45% cut on everything at every step in the game (at least that’s the rate here in the UK, I guess it’s similar in Biden’s Eutopia.) The Socialism is slowly strangling enterprise. At some point this giant Ponzi scheme has to break.
Just like the dear old USSR.

[metmom]

Bread and circuses.

Just like the fall of the Roman Empire.

[Fury]

Good points to fill in the blanks.

As a UNP shareholder, I strongly support anything that increases rail traffic (haha!).

[Djester62]

American Truckers just need to shut down Washington DC. Stop all delivered goods & services. No TP will get their attention fast.

Better yet, turn off the water to their homes & city so they can’t flush. That’s going to elevate the situation.

The queen ant doesn’t eat unless the workers bring her food. What will the political a-holes do when there’s no food, water, power, gas, etc. DC needs to go dark and it’s the workers who keep the system running !

Defund the politicians.

[hinckley buzzard]

And if you wanted to know the real deal in the Army you would ask General Millie Vanilley instead of a seasoned NCO. Got it.

[lepton]

Why are we importing so much?
It’s labor cost driven.

---

A lot of it is also environmental policy driven. The first problem with that even for the environmentalists is that the Chinese produce 4-6 times the CO2 to make a given item as we do...so in no way does driving manufacturing out of the US make any sort of sense even using their bogus premises.

[gnarledmaw]

I personally havent any idea.

According to a link in a post about a week ago that lead to someone that claimed to be the expert that is consulted on such things for multiple ports, “There is going to be a choke point and you have to pick where it will be...The cranes are expensive and have to be kept running at all times.” (My recollection, not exact quote.)

It may have been he that also said that the cranes werent really the problem. Changes in local laws created a chasis shortage. There is no where left to stack the empties due to these laws so that full containers can continue to ship and there are chasis sitting around full of empties because its illegal to unload them anywhere nearby (laws/can only be stacked in designated areas/only 2 high in yards/fines/etc)

[GSWarrior]

Bookmark

[GingisK]

Back before we imported so much from China, most of our goods were made in the USA. They were priced right and usually were of a high quality. Then the outsourcing began. Once domestic manufacturing ceased to exist, prices at the retail outlets began to rise well above what we used to pay for goods made here, and the quality nose-dived.

What actually occurred was that the retailers, like Walmart and the like, decided they wanted obscene profit levels. That could only be achieved by finding cheap labor at the expense of our own people. They were profitable and competitive before the outsourcing. It just wasn't good enough for their greed.

Here is an example: The Singer company used to make the power hand tools sold by Sears. They made a 1-1/2 horsepower router, which sold to Sears for $7.28. Sears sold that machine for $72. Do you think manufacturing was treating Sears unfairly?

America is failing for a lot of reasons. Greed at the retail level is prominent on the list.

[aspasia]

It ALL needs to be fixed, and at the same time.

Evil is impatient.

[Nailbiter]

flr

[steve86]

He’s a mediocre writer. Article is so poorly organized — essentially not at all, just stream of consciousness — that I’m almost tempted to rewrite it in an organized and logical manner. Fat chance, though.

[sausageseller]

The port operations and train operations have two things in common.... Union control.
But never expect FRs resident union communist to ever say they create problems.

[mewzilla]

Not union control anymore...

Canada's CPPIB to buy Ports America from Oaktree to further infrastructure push

Watchdog raises concern about Canadian pension investments in China

[gitmo]

I’ve read many articles about the logjam at our ports. This is the first comprehensive explanation I’ve seen. It’s an excellent write up.

I had wondered how they unload the product from those shipping containers. Having to do that manually is problematic. We need a better design for shipping containers.

The supply chain for these things is too fragile. It needs to be re-engineered.