Biden's Biggest Blunder

Quote: AZDuffman

Biden is to blame. The ports were not backlogged before he got here, now they are. This is not random. Probably if you dig some you will see some regulation or another that his admin put in is at the root of it.

At the very least his response is pathetic. The man he has in charge is absent. Just what you get when you put a Democrat in charge.

If you could cite a regulation that effects ports, I would be happy to concede.

But, it would also have to effect Ireland, India, UK ports, etc....

Quote: Gandler

If you could cite a regulation that effects ports, I would be happy to concede.

But, it would also have to effect Ireland, India, UK ports, etc....

I am not a wonk that reads regulations. But I do know that often some reg will be put in by a government type who never worked a day in their life and it has a cascading effect. Like when they required truckers rest periods to be at night. No good reason, and it caused problems.

It does not have to affect other ports, our ports are independent of them.

You have to ask why ships just started backing up at ports that had no problem before.

I could give a decent breakdown on what the issue with the supply chain might be, but because it's not political in nature, I feel like I would be wasting my fingertips.

Quote: Mission146

I could give a decent breakdown on what the issue with the supply chain might be, but because it's not political in nature, I feel like I would be wasting my fingertips.

Actually, let me check that. I guess it depends on whether or not you consider Covid-19 political, as the pandemic is the semi-indirect root cause.

Quote: Mission146

Actually, let me check that. I guess it depends on whether or not you consider Covid-19 political, as the pandemic is the semi-indirect root cause.

How would this be? Unless there is some kind of an outbreak affecting the longshoremen or truckers at the docks I cannot see it. We should have seen it before now. Ships were fine all last year.

Quote: AZDuffman

How would this be? Unless there is some kind of an outbreak affecting the longshoremen or truckers at the docks I cannot see it. We should have seen it before now. Ships were fine all last year.

It's the labor shortage, there are less truck driver and Port Authority workers, and Union Longshormen. It's just the reality on the ground, I know this first hand, at one of the largest ports in the country (and the largest Container Port in the country).

I don't know the cause of the shortage in all fields, but its reality.

Quote: AZDuffman

How would this be? Unless there is some kind of an outbreak affecting the longshoremen or truckers at the docks I cannot see it. We should have seen it before now. Ships were fine all last year.

Do you suppose that the ships (and, more importantly, the stuff on the ships) exist in the ether until they get near our docks?

The short answer is that there was a significant change in consumer habits as a direct result of the pandemic, which was also accompanied by a (positive) change in short-term financial well-being for a great many people.

In short, people had money, but were mostly not going anywhere and doing things; they were mostly just ordering goods to be delivered to their homes. As a result, there was a rapid (and not totally temporary) change from consumers spending mostly on service to spending mostly on goods.

In the meantime, you had the rent forgiveness stuff, expanded Unemployment benefits, increased Unemployment benefits and stimulus checks...most of that would have been under Trump---though I am not putting the current issue on Trump.

The result of all of those things was people with discretionary income who did not used to have discretionary income. In the case of some of them, they were probably just ordering goods that they were, "Behind on," or however you would want to put it, mostly owing to existing with just enough money to make ends meet prior to the pandemic. For many, you suddenly have all of this money, but you can't just go to a baseball game or restaurant---because all of that stuff is closed.

Resulting, you have a general supply chain that has been built to be as efficient as possible based on a demand breakdown that, Great Recession aside (which only decreased general demand for everything), had remained unchanged.

With that, we have covered the general increase in the demand for goods, rather than services.

And, you DID start to see the effects last year, it's just that most consumers didn't. Please see Page 20:

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/current_press_release/ft900.pdf

Going to April of 2020, you'll see that our imports plummeted over the course of a few months. Much of that had to do with economic uncertainty, but the biggest part of it was simply manufacturing halts as a result of the pandemic.

However, at that time, most companies were already well-stocked, not just in stores, but the warehouses were at their normal volumes.

It's a decline that takes a certain amount of time to play out. If you see a particular good that's out of stock, it's not because everyone in the country woke up on some random Tuesday morning and decided they were going to buy one. It's because demand outpaced the supply infrastructure that was already in place for that item for a number of months.

You used to cook for yourself two days a week and now you're doing it six...probably time to upgrade your kitchen inventory, that sort of thing.

Finally, you will look at imports for 2021, to date. Pick ANY month in 2021 and you will see that we are bringing in more goods than we did the highest month of 2019, which was May.

There's more consumer demand, companies are trying to react to the demand (and restock, in general), so there's more demand for the ports. Other countries are also pumping this stuff out just as quickly as they can because I'm sure they can use the money after last year.

So, you can't just click your fingers and new infrastructure magically exists. The current infrastructure that is in place was made to efficiently meet a relatively stable demand for goods, which is now being drastically exceeded.

Blame aliens from outer space: they're creating more chaos in an attempt to reinstall their Quisling puppet, Donald Trump in power.

Quote: missedhervee

Blame aliens from outer space: they're creating more chaos in an attempt to reinstall their Quisling puppet, Donald Trump in power.

We should just pick a handful of others and form our own country ruled as a Duopolist Oligarchy. There are really few things more frustrating than actually knowing the logical and rational answers to some of these things and seeing people just blame random Presidents. I really shouldn't have majored in Economics, or at least, spent more time drunk (or at one of my two jobs) and not paying attention in class.

Quote: Mission146

We should just pick a handful of others and form our own country ruled as a Duopolist Oligarchy. .

Congrats, I had to look up a word. I kinda guessed what it was but wasn't quite right.