Posted on 06/26/2024 7:52:42 PM PDT by Cronos
Southern California appeared to be under siege from a blockade.
More than 50 enormous vessels bobbed in the frigid waters of the Pacific Ocean, marooned off the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif. As days stretched into weeks, they waited their turn to pull up to the docks and disgorge their cargo. Rubberneckers flocked to the water’s edge with binoculars, trying to count the ships that stretched to the inky horizon.
This was no act of war. This was what it looked like when the global economy came shuddering to a halt.
...Given the scale of container ships — the largest were longer than four times the height of the Statue of Liberty — any single vessel held at anchor indicated that enormous volumes of orders were not reaching their intended destinations. The decks of the ships were stacked to the skies with containers loaded with the components of contemporary life — from clothing and electronics to drums full of chemicals used to concoct other products like paint and pharmaceuticals.
...By early 2023, the worst disruptions of the pandemic years had subsided. The floating traffic jams had all but disappeared, shipping rates had plunged and product shortages had eased. Yet the same foundational perils remained, awaiting an inevitable future disturbance.
...The pandemic laid bare the consequences of relying on faraway factories and container ships to keep humanity supplied with goods.
It exposed as reckless the world’s heavy dependence on a single country — China — for critical products like protective gear and medicine, especially as Washington and Beijing were locked in a trade war.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Yep, reports of that from the media did concern me.
Fo’ sho’
But it turns out, nothing much happened. Weird, huh?
Plan ahead. When President in Exile Trump is back in office, he’s gonna be kickin’ butt and taking names and taxing (tariffs) the H#LL out of every import.
Not that there’s anything WRONG with that. MAGA! If we can’t make it here in America...we. don’t. need. it.
“taxing (tariffs)”
Financial balanced by nation trade needs to be the rule. The US must switch to a blocked currency like India has and what Great Britain had.
If China can produce for half the cost of the USA, a 50% tariff simply means consumers pay 50% more than absolutely necessary and Democrats in DC get hundreds of billion$ to buy votes.
“If China can produce for half the cost of the USA, a 50% tariff simply means consumers pay 50% more than absolutely necessary and Democrats in DC get hundreds of billion$ to buy votes.”
Sounds good, but the unions would simply force American companies to raise their prices even higher.
A fair-enough proposition, but the author merely resorts to tired, stupid, and old cliches greedy "capitalist cost-cutting," exploited workers, unregulated, monopolistic behemoths, etc. etc
No blame for government, the fact we have tens of millions of adult Americans permanently out of the workforce and on welfare, absurd environmental policies, monetary policies, asinine covid lock-downs, etc...
Typical NY Times.
I remember approaching PCH from HWY 39 and halting, dumbfounded at the site of a massive container ship RIGHT OUT THERE OFF THE SHORE behind the Huntington Beach Pier.
I had mispent a large chunk of my youth at that beach: surfing, bodysurfing, fishing, clam-digging, grunion hunting, swilling beer around the fire pits, ogling the sea of beautiful bikini-clad young women, but I had never witnessed such a startling sight. Giant vessels so close you could almost touch them.
Not to mention that the leftist anarchists are going to be losing their minds and giving us a repeat of 2016-2020 on steroids.
No matter which way the election goes, we need to be prepared. It's going to be a rough ride either way.
Worldwide the supply chain issue was not caused by the Pandemic. It was caused by the wholly unnecesary shutdowns and other unnecessary “mandates” that prevented normal operations. The virus did not cause the supply chain issue. Stupid governments did.
“The entire aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and, hence, clamorous to be led, by an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
- H.L. Mencken
Well they didn’t have any problems getting all those face diapers I saw everywhere.
The waters off those two ports and most of the waters from Los Angeles to Imperial Beach are nowhere near the author's term "frigid". The winter waters call for a wetsuit if surfing or swimming, but it's not like there is ice floating around.
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