million transport workers warned in an open letter that "Global supply chains are beginning to buckle as two years' worth of strain on transport workers take their toll. Their continued mistreatment is adding pressure on an already crumbling global supply chain." Their concerns come as travel restrictions and tight borders during the pandemic have pushed many workers, including seafarers, truck drivers, and airline workers to their limits. Ports in Southern California have had to wait weeks with $NUMBER_TOKEN billion worth of goods floating offshore because the rest of the supply chain can't keep up. - [Lester] The supply chain crisis has led to empty store shelves and soaring prices. - [Reporter] Inflation is expected to run at NUMBER_PERCENTAGE_TOKEN, and that is the highest we've seen in about NUMBER_TOKEN years or so. - [Reporter] Railways, truck routes, and warehouses understaffed and cargo ships stuck at sea. - There's still a shortage unloading those containers. That's just not gonna happen in time for the holidays this year. - Now, a collapse sounds pretty bad. It brings up images of buildings falling, governments crumbling, the Berlin Wall coming down. But is that actually what's likely to happen in the immediate future? According to experts, probably not. If these issues don't get resolved, what's more likely to happen in the short term is that products will continue to get delayed longer and longer and inflation will continue to rise, pushing the price of basic goods up higher and higher. In the past year, we've already seen prices on gas go up NUMBER_PERCENTAGE_TOKEN. Furniture is up NUMBER_PERCENTAGE_TOKEN. And basic food, including meat, poultry, fish, and eggs, are up NUMBER_PERCENTAGE_TOKEN. Some people will feel the effects more than others. If you're like the millions of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck, inflation on these items can push you to the edge. If our system remains unchanged, a collapse could look much worse in our future. Just as the consequences of climate change are going to take decades until we see the worst effects, so too will the stretching of the global supply chain. The fact is that what we're doing is unsustainable. The rate of consumption, the ways with which companies make these products, and the lengths that they go to save costs is only going to continue to make our system go closer and closer to that breaking point. But it's just too easy to point the finger at Amazon, Walmart, or any of these other massive retailers that have monopolized our global economy. Companies are always gonna try to squeeze out a better profit margin, no matter the cost. And if they don't, then they'll go the way of Radio Shack. And so if we're gonna point the finger at anyone here, it really should be ourselves. Daniel Walsh, President and Chief Executive Officer of TRAC Intermodal, one of the leading equipment providers for shipping chassis, said that the current supply snags we're seeing in NUMBER_TOKEN are a consequence of our own unrealistic demands. "They, the consumer, expect things to come faster, which puts pressure on everyone in the supply chain. They also expect to be able to return things without cost." It's easy to forget that when we click purchase on an item online or hand over a package for return at UPS, we're relying on this global supply chain to ship the package back and forth over and over again. And some of those people in the supply chain don't
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