On Bottlenecks, Supply Lines and Dependency
For a nation hooked on cheap foreign goods and a financial community that heavily invested in offshore production, the smooth flow of goods from Asia through two California ports is critical. Right now, that’s not happening. Scores of ocean-bearing container ships are moored offshore waiting for their estimated half-million cargo boxes to be unloaded. The jam-up has slowed delivery of products, harmed manufacturers ability to produce efficiently and is driving upward economic inflation. What to do, what to do?

The President pulled together the key players in the Los Angeles/Long Beach Port bottleneck and they all promised to work harder. If there truly are a half-million containers floating offshore that need to be unloaded, the announced ramp up to 24/7 unloading operations is barely helpful. Doing the math, the shippers say these increased operations will process an additional 3,500 containers a week. So, in 43 weeks the CURRENT wait list will be unloaded. The cargo bottleneck has exposed other weaknesses in our supply chain processing capacity.

We don’t make cargo ships here anymore. We don’t make shipping containers here anymore. We don’t have the ability to quickly increase the number of trucks and railcars capable of handling shipping containers. Of course, underlying all of this is the disinvestment of production here and the increased reliance globally. In search of cheaper places where workers, governments and environments can be exploited, the financial guru’s have made us dependent on imported goods.

For a while we were talking about shoring up “critical” supply chains. Now we’re realizing the vulnerability goes much deeper than that. As cars sit at factories awaiting chips and people start to binge-buy Christmas gifts in fear of shortages we suddenly face the results of our own short-shortsightedness. Now we watch the Chinese economic output like hawks, realizing their stumbles become our inflationary spiral.

Want the truth. Unscrambling this immediate egg isn’t possible. We’re going to be stuck with both supply shortages and the resulting inflation for quite a while. Buckle up, buttercup! The only question that matters is “have we learned anything”? Are we going to re-shore our manufacturing capacity? Are we going to discourage predatory offshore investment? Longer term, if we want to consider the environment, the reduction of global shipping and long supply lines help our carbon emissions problems. In other words, will we have some solid and forward-thinking strategies and policies come out of this? Or will we just put Band-Aids on the bleeding areas of our global supply chain and wait for the next hiccup to starve our factories and economy of productive capacity?

Make no mistake about it. To fix this, dare I say the word, means taking on GREED. Yep. That’s what got us here and curbing it is the only path to getting us on a steadier path. Oh, Ike, you’re always going back to that! Give it a break! Okay, then let’s ignore the financial impulses that are breaking our economy. Let’s blame it on the President, or one Party of the other. Let’s totally ignore our part in cheering on the Walmartization of our nation. Don’t dare look at our own incompatible demands for both great jobs and cheap goods. Damn, there I go again. Asking us to look at ourselves and take control of our own destinies. Unfortunately, that’s what has to be done and as Jerry Garcia said, “the pathetic truth is that we’re the ones If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at: https://ikegittlen.substack.com/ and share. Let’s see what we can build together