Posted on 10/04/2021 3:52:37 AM PDT by Chickensoup
Please Explain. Exactly Why Do We Have a Shipping Crisis?
Something tells me that longshoremen and truckers are making more than minimum wage. And didn’t Kalifornia set their minimum wage to $15/hr?
I don’t buy the wage argument one bit.
1) It predates covid
2) You left out the Teamsters and the ILU.
Your explanation doesn’t go far enough.. what is the root cause?
Did half of truck drivers die?
Or did half of them get sick for two weeks throughout the past 17 months and stay home? People get sick all the time for 10 days to two weeks.
Did the trucking companies crush half their trucks and trailers?
Did all the Sikh truck drivers go back to India?
Did all the truckers sit on their asses due to welfare payments?
Did the end of NAFTA curtail Mexican trucks and truckers?
Did half of refineries shut down and there was no diesel fuel to be had?
I have yet to hear a satisfying and logical explanation of what is going on and what caused it.
But we are not talking IT wages are we? We are talking govt assistance vs lower wage jobs. Again, is $15/hr to wash cars too low or is the govt teat too generous?
You can literally tell by looking whether a container ship is empty or full...that’s how easy it is to prove/disprove what you’re saying.
There are a dozen other less direct ways to tell also (fuel consumption, transit speeds, shipping company financials, etc)...not to mention the 1000s of people working crews and ports.
Get a grip son...
Ever put a container on a scale, man? They are damn heavy, with or without cargo. And all of the ships out there are fully loaded with containers.
It’s not as easy as you may think.
Hi Chickensoup:
Please watch this video, entitled, “Cargo Ship Dilemma: How This Will Impact You in Significant Ways”, just created on Saturday (2 Oct 21):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEdKaEVNg3M
Wow - a reasonable answer on FR. Thank you.
Winter is coming.
Aging Port infrastructure that desperately needs to be updated but is continually resisted by the Longshoreman’s union.
Too much is shipped to us. Shipping to US Ports is at record highs due to the US Fed easy money polices and the Us Federal government out of control spending
I agree with much of what you say. I think there is a lot to be said about the limitations of the criminal mind.
However, I have also thought that the trade with the US may be coming to a head in China. The US dollar was becoming worthless even before Biden. China was plowing its worthless IOUs from the US into expansionism in Africa and South America. If China’s money became the world currency they were angling for, America’s debt and value as a trading partner would go up in smoke, I would think.
In any event, China is probably on one of those “5-year-plans” and is committed to the outcome.
Fact is we make too little and buy too much from China as well as other countries.
We import too much. I would prefer we assist Mexico to do the low cost labor manufacturing - it would help their economy and would reduce dependence on China and shipping.
And like good little sheeple they just follow right along.
China has an even worse back up at her ports
It not and deep wicked plot. It the sheer stupidity of the US Fed and the US Government spending and easy money policies
“Fact is we make too little and buy too much from China as well as other countries.”
I give the labor unions credit for that situation. If they weren’t around, there would have been a far lower need to offshore (and load up with illegals too).
“Operators have been known to repaint their depth markers to avoid corrupt charges”
Crazy, man!
Have you gone to google maps and looked at the Long Beach harbor? Thousands of containers on the ground. Been that way since before the covid pandemic.
That pure 1970s era Marist dogm wihotu a clue of a hint of a notion of a fact.
The manufacturers invoice the buyers when the goods ship. They see no profit from their being stuck on ships.
They also lose ground because of the 80-20 rule. You never put all your procurment eggs in one basket. You spread about 20% around to secondary suppliers. So if a mythical business is “sitting on supply” it customers are busy shifting their purchasing to their 2d and 3rd level providers. All the hording business is doing is losing market share and thus profits.
While those ships are off shore the crews still have to be paid, the owners of the goods still have to pay their financing for their plants and equipment, the workers have to be paid etc etc etc. All of that outgo is not being balanced by income while those goods sit stuck on ships.
The same problem for the domestics disruption. All their bills still have to be paid while no income comes in because they do not have any goods to sell. So all this disruption is a cost for business that will never be off set by inflation on prices
This lie about the “supply chain being choked by bad actors” is just Biden Democrat public relations nonsense designed to deflect and distract attention off the logical consequences of the US Fed’s easy money and Us Fed Government’s out of control spending polices.
.Gov always blames “greedy corporations” after wild .gov spending sprees turn into inflation.
This is Jimmy Carter-land all over again....yawn.
Not only do we have a shortage of all the people who move/transport/unload these things, but all the ports are highly affected by “Covid protocols,” meaning a worker shows symptoms or tests wrong and he’s off for a week to 10 days.
Multiply that by THOUSANDS.
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