And they are not all happy thoughts.
Might as well start with October 15's "Biden Appoints US Maritime Administrator With Zero Shipping Experience During Worst Shipping Crisis In Decades":
by Captain John Konrad (gCaptain) The FAA is headed by a pilot, NASA is headed by an astronaut, the US Marine Corps is headed by a Marine but for the fourth time in a row, and during the worst shipping crisis of the century, the US Department of Transportation, has appointed someone to the US Maritime Administration (MARAD) who is not a captain and has no commercial shipping experience.
Yesterday afternoon, President Biden announced his intention to nominate Rear Admiral Ann Phillips, US Navy (Retired), as the next US Maritime Administrator, a position that has been vacant since Rear Admiral Mark Buzby stepped down following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January.
Phillips is a highly decorated Navy leader with a long list of accomplishments and is highly respected by everyone gCaptain has interviewed. She was head of the Navy’s Climate Change Task Force and is a highly sought after consultant on climate security issues. She holds an MBA. She was chairman of a local government Sea Level Rise Preparedness and Resilience project. She once captained a Navy warship. The appointment looks great on paper except for one kinda big problem. This is not a warship position. It’s a commercial shipping appointment and she has zero experience aboard any commercial ships. She does not even have experience leading navy military sealift ships.....
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Skipping ahead to October 21, it's Bloomberg via gCaptain, "Clock Ticking as Biden Tackles Supply Chain Crisis With Few Tools":
U.S. ports are full of goods, U.S. yards and warehouses are full of goods, hardly anyone wants to drive a truck to pick up and deliver those goods and those who do sit waiting in lines, often unpaid.
And Americans continue to buy more stuff from abroad than ever.
A supply-chain crunch that stretches from overseas manufacturers into American ports and retail stores threatens the U.S. holiday shopping season. President Joe Biden and his administration have been working for months to smooth out bottlenecks, but his power to influence what is almost entirely a private-sector problem is limited.
While Republicans point to the supply chain as further evidence the president is mismanaging the economy, the issues are deep-rooted. Overwhelming volume generated by record, pandemic-induced consumer demand is swamping a system that was already creaking under the weight of high demand, low investment, labor shortages and regulatory battles.
It now costs as much as $25,000 to import a 40-foot container from Asia, up from less than $2,000 two years ago. Here’s where the supply chain is under stress in the U.S., what its executives, workers and experts say Biden could do about it, and what he’s actually doing....
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And October 24, again Bloomberg via gCaptain:
Effective Immediately And Set To Last For 90 days, Long Beach Eases Container Rules
Officials in Long Beach, California, relaxed restrictions on storing shipping containers in a bid to ease a bottleneck that’s left nearly 80 vessels waiting offshore to enter the biggest U.S. gateway for ocean freight.
The city manager, in a statement late Friday, said the temporary zoning rule, effective immediately and set to last for 90 days, will allow stacks of four containers high compared with long-time limit of two. The note posted online cited a “a national emergency related to the supply and distribution of imported goods arriving in our nations ports.”....
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Related Article: California Governor Signs Executive Order to Help Tackle Supply Chain Issues
