People have been sheltering at home for survival. They only go to stores for essentials. They buy everything possible on line. This is a sudden and radical change. The change has overwhelmed the supply chain with a demand spike. It cannot cope with the spike and cannot be made capable of coping without a massive rebuild that could take years.
The demand spike and supply chain failure is growing worse. Being that it can’t be fixed, it will collapse. Nobody is going to pay the cost that it is adding to product delivery. The supply chain is a component of Chinese product manufacturing, sales, and marketing to the U.S. They will lose that component as the supply chain collapses. We will suffer a shortage of merchandise, but China will suffer a severe economic setback due to loss of product sales.
It would have been wise to have built extra capacity into the supply chain to handle possible surges. But we instead focused on just in time philosophy which implies do only what it needed at the moment.
Are you writing a doomsday science fiction novel? I feel like I’ve already reviewed a couple chapters.
Perhaps now is not the best time to build new? Let the swell of the resurgent economy peak, and taper off some first?
People’s unwillingness to be flexible is what makes them such sitting ducks.
Eventually once the system equalizes we’ll get back to the point where one middleman will have to cut the other middlemen’s throats in order to grow market share, and we’ll all be happy once again. [:-,]
How do the wealthy gain through inflation as a rule? I suppose individual circumstances could result in some poeple gaining through inflation, but give me some examples. And what would give extra advantage to the wealthy?
I sometimes wonder if many people realize what the full potential of inflation is once it get out of hand. The popular veiw of inflation seems to be that prices of things they purchase are increasing. And that is viewed as a moderate annoyance.
Eventually when the supply chain gets choked with hinges that nobody in their right minds are gonna pay $30 for a pair and a half for, then heads will come down out of the clouds and a return to sensibility can prevail. [swg]
WAY outside the scope of this forum, and frankly not anything that I’m interested in debating. But, if I own a $40 million office building while you own a $50,000 house, and everything is inflated by 7%…who gains more? We’re still both gonna pay $7 for a cheese burger, an issue of trains magazine is gonna cost us both the same, a coke is a coke regardless of which of us is buying it . So the relative gain available to one versus the other is different.
A thorough examination would have to include a comparison of discretionary vs non-discretionary expenses, and that’s way more effort than I’m willing to expend here, so either agree, or don’t. You won’t offend me either way. [8-|]
I have not watched this yet on 60 min but I know from UP CEO remarks and looking online at LA/LB Port status reports, Kind of humorous but did you notice how each player is acting in their own silo instead of acting as part of a larger integrated logistics team. I wonder if the shortages would be as severe or the problem as big if they were all playing like an orchestra instead of each individually with different sheets of music. Tampa, FL ports spokeperson last night: “Unlike LB and LA we always have worked a 24 hour shift round the clock so we do not have these excessive wait times”…ouch!
I have a million in the bank, you have $1000. Because of inflation, my million will only buy $930,000 worth of goods, while your $1K will buy $930 worth of goods. Who lost more buying power?
At roughly 8 minutes into the segment, the authority states that the majority of available chassis are sitting under empty containers waiting to go back to the ocean. And with those chassis out of the circulation, that’s trapping freshly unloaded containers from leaving the ports, causing the logjam.
BTW, in regards to inflation…Papa Johns has shrunk their large pizza by 2-3 inch in diameter and increased the price slightly. I just had one a few days ago Large is slightly larger than what Medium sized used to be. Very noticeable. My expectation was if inflation was short-term they would hold the line on prices and pizza sizes but apparently not this time.
Question: regarding all those chassis stranded under returned empty containers. Since containers on chassis are only “one high”, wouldn’t they be better off bringing in a couple reach stackers, liberate the chassis, and then inventory the waiting empties “five high” until their turn to go back to sea?
Seems like it would be a more efficient use of floor space, and at the same time free up available chassis for more productive work.
FORCING ME TO WONDER, what percentage of returning containers are typically loaded on the boat for the return trip empty, versus how many are loaded (at the port) with export goods before being sent back out onto the big salty?
Somebody’s got to have a good excuse for not sending those empty containers out, and just watching the circle of finger pointing, I’m sure there’s gotta be some blame to be handed out there.
I saw a discussion recently about how the wealthy don’t maintain much cash in the bank. They hold on to their investments and borrow against those when they need cash, but keep their actual banked cash low.
Under such a circumstance, inflation would increase their wealth as it’s tied up in shares or investments which will rise in value while cash value decreases. In such a scenario, would not the poorer person with less investments suffer more loss?
I’m not rich, so I wouldn’t really know first hand.
I feel I am wealthy so I can help you out here. Inflation has more of an impact on the poor folks because their income is lower and your right most do not invest and live paycheck to paycheck.
Stating that inflation increases money for the wealthy…I have to see some proof to that. There has to be something that makes a person believe that inflated money moves in opposite directions based on income class. So I would like to hear what it is exactly that makes people believe that.
Inflated Stock values is a hedge against inflation it is NOT a wealth increase in nominal terms of real money because of inflation…more like not losing as much as someone that does not invest or holding steady with inflated values. Any capital appreciation above the inflation rate is more due to the stocks performance not its’ behavior due to inflation.
I don’t use banks period. They rip people off six ways from Sunday. I use credit unions or Financial Investing accounts at wealth management firms. Your correct that all my savings is invested in stocks except for a small amount of cash on hand. Investing in stocks long-term is a hedge against inflation. And in my opinion investing in stocks as a hedge against inflation is a hell of a lot safer than GOLD or SILVER.
When I hear the interest rates that organizations I’m familiar with are getting on their savings accounts (they can’t really invest in the stock market, etc), I’m almost amazed that the banks aren’t charging for the privilege of holding the money…
The matter of local governments not putting money into their terminals. Do make a generalized statement. The ports of LA and Long Beach have put billions of dollars into improvements at their ports…maybe where they need to invest more is automation.
The ‘lack of investment’ statement was directly pointed to the ports of LA and Long Beach. While they may have put Billion$ into their port terminals, maybe they SHOULD have been investing tens or even hundreds of billion$.
In the video clips shown - the biggest present need, for whatever the multiple reasons, is more land area to ground containers - both inbound and outbound. Each additional container level can be considered as stuffing an additional pound into the over full bag. If they are talking container stacks being 9 high - that is, to my mind a safety issue as well as a material handling and logistics issue.
