The impact of the supply chain snafus
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Grocery shelves are often empty in many parts of the country. We’re back to limits at some shops on essentials like water and paper goods, and building supply deliveries are unpredictable and delayed. Container ships line up at our ports with no means to unload and transport the goods where they are wanted. (I keep having daydreams of General Patton unclogging a similar wartime bottleneck by standing in the middle of the road and personally directing movement.) There are various explanations for the shipping snafus, and I don’t feel qualified to decide which of these is responsible. I have heard that the operators of the equipment are highly skilled and highly paid workers and are not easily replaced by, for example, military or National Guard troops. An engineer familiar with such things, says that is not true. The Wall Street Journal tweeted that “A pilot program offering 24-hour container operations at the Port of Long Beach hasn’t attracted any truckers more than two weeks since the extended hours began.” But a trucker there reported to a friend that the drivers aren’t coming because they do not get paid for loiter time and because the ports are not operating efficiently. Drivers may have to wait 12 hours to pick up a load. To make it even more complicated, many of the containers are reportedly “intermodal” which means the transfers need to be coordinated not only with the pickup but as well with the delivery at the other end. With truck drivers limited by federal standards to 11-hour workdays and a shortage of drivers, the problem -- which impacts almost everything -- seems to be getting worse. What matters to me is that there appears to be no federal office or officer with the capacity or will to help straighten out this logistical mess, a mess that to me does not seem utterly unsolvable with competent leadership.
Are port authorities angling for a match to the $11 billion bailout the Gulf ports got for their hurricanes?
Overall container volumes at the Port of Los Angeles have grown 30% so far this year over 2020, but Mr. Seroka said trucking capacity has increased by only 8%. The warehouse development is equally challenging, he said, as there is an estimated minimum 25% less storage space than needed.
“It’s impossible to effectively move such volumes if we don’t move to 24/7 operations across the supply chain,” said Mario Cordero, executive director at the Port of Long Beach. “They do it in other parts of the world.”
A variety of things besides food, Nikes, clothing, electronics, construction materials, and Christmas toys depend on the movement of goods from ports. A poster in the packaging business reports that label makers can’t get adhesives, and I am certain if I set out to do it, I would find hundreds of industries affected by the supply-side bottlenecks. It’s simply unconscionable that the administration dithers about idiotic nonsense while ignoring this.
And while they are ignoring this, the open border is creating new waves of illegal crossers which we apparently have no intention of deporting even though most of them have no basis on which to claim asylum, having earlier been residents of other countries than their homeland. Even criminals with mental illness will be met with open arms.
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Police, firefighters, nurses, and teachers in many places are being tested and mandated to take vaccine shots, causing many to leave when we most need them, but these illegal aliens are not tested, not vaccinated, and are being shipped around the country. How damn crazy is this?
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A major aspect of the shipping backing up off of LA is likely the result of dysfunctional leadership at the top in California. From Gov. Newsom on down things do not seem to be working anymore in a state where people live and poop on the streets. The Biden response to the pandemic has also had an impact on the number of truck drivers willing to work these days.
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