Supply Chain Update for October 28, 2021″
“…Another week, another roundup on the supply chain issues plaguing America and the world.
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- The supply chain problem is one of the big reasons economic growth dropped to an anemic 2% in Q3. The Trump boom/post-Flu Manchu recovery has ended, and the Biden economy has kicked in.
- Here’s a pretty revealing thread about the Los Angeles/Long Beach Port problems:
3. Despite that, appointments are “full.” They have so many no-shows they don’t know how to plan the yard.
4. No pulls mean a full yard. Between dwelling imports and empties, there is no room to place new containers in the yard… 3/— Nathan Strang (@NavyStrang) October 20, 2021
6. Rail has caught up. They have almost no rail containers left waiting to go out.
7. One spot they are truly short labor is on maintenance. Spare parts are in short supply. So even if they did ramp into full ops they would struggle with yard equipment. 5/— Nathan Strang (@NavyStrang) October 20, 2021
10. These teams don’t have any context and seem to not be keeping up on the “why” behind this. They just know that there are odd things happening like 2 ships on the same service and the ships they used to rush to unload are now worked as any other ship.. 7/
— Nathan Strang (@NavyStrang) October 20, 2021
12. Even if they went to 24/7 ops is would just look like more of the above. They don’t have enough skilled labor and management to work full out 24/7. How long would it take to get there? A year or more, easily. Less working, after all, means fewer training opportunities. 9/X
— Nathan Strang (@NavyStrang) October 20, 2021
One more point! Important to note that they blame no one. Really, they don't. They find it all very interesting but at the end of the day they clock in, do their jobs, and go home to their families. They truly love the work and are proud of what they are doing.
— Nathan Strang (@NavyStrang) October 20, 2021
All this, of course, is on top of the previous banning of older trucks and non-union owner operators.
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- But remember: There’s no problem a government “solution” can’t make worse: “Biden hopes fines on lingering cargo containers ease congestion at major U.S. ports.” “The twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will charge carriers $100 per day for each container lingering past a given timeline starting Nov. 1.” Yeah, that’s going to magically conjure trucks and drivers out of thin air…”