If you haven’t read this article yet, but are curious about how the real world—as opposed to the liberal narratival world—works, I highly recommend this very thorough article at Zerohedge:
I've Been Driving Trucks For 20 Years, I'll Tell You Why America's "Shipping Crisis" Will Not End
The article is far too complex to easily summarize. However here are the first few sentences:
I have a simple question for every ‘expert’ who thinks they understand the root causes of the shipping crisis:
Why is there only one crane for every 50–100 trucks at every port in America?
No ‘expert’ will answer this question.
I’m a Class A truck driver with experience in nearly every aspect of freight. My experience in the trucking industry of 20 years tells me that nothing is going to change in the shipping industry.
Let’s start with understanding some things about ports.
Outside of dedicated port trucking companies, most trucking companies won’t touch shipping containers. There is a reason for that.
Everything that follows leads up to this conclusion:
My prediction is that nothing is going to change and the shipping crisis is only going to get worse. Nobody in the supply chain wants to pay to solve the problem. They literally just won’t pay to solve the problem. At the point we are at now, things are so backed up that the backups THEMSELVES are causing container companies, ports, warehouses, and trucking companies to charge massive rate increases for doing literally NOTHING. Container companies have already decreased the maximum allowable times before containers have to be back to the port, and if the congestion is so bad that you can’t get the container back into the port when it is due, the container company can charge massive late fees. The ports themselves will start charging massive storage fees for not getting containers out on time — storage charges alone can run into thousands of dollars a day. Warehouses can charge massive premiums for their services, and so can trucking companies. Chronic understaffing has led to this problem, but it is allowing these same companies to charge ten times more for regular services. Since they’re not paying the workers any more than they did last year or five years ago, the whole industry sits back and cashes in on the mess it created. In fact, the more things are backed up, the more every point of the supply chain cashes in. There is literally NO incentive to change, even if it means consumers have to do holiday shopping in July and pay triple for shipping.
This is the new normal. All brought to you by the ‘experts’ running our supply chains.
And the mandates will make it all much worse.
Finally found the article I read about the third rail that can’t be talked about…
https://www.joc.com/port-news/port-productivity/us-port-congestion-solutions-bump-third-rail-labor_20210413.html
A guess…
Longshoreman union or new foreign slip / pier owners may both be interested in causing an emergency…
It’s part of fight with union and new pier owners that are trying to cut costs and increase automation, where union just wants more money.
And with an emergency more outside pressure is being brought to bear that may cause on side to blink from their game of chicken.
The lack of work by the longshoreman union at nights and weekends seems to be due to a contract, and the pier owners don’t want to pay the 1.5 to 2x wages.
Ships are also waiting outside Chinese ports, but this seems to be due to Covid protocols and power issues.
There has been a lack of upgrades to the So Ca ports.