The fact the U.S. government is only now making noises about looking at/dealing with this problem that has been going on for months is just weird.
Additionally, as you read this piece, it appears some of the FTAV commenters have either become argumentative dullards or are deliberately missing the writer's larger point. I wish Izabella would come back and slap some sense into some of them as she did with "______ from Copenhagen."
From Claire Jones at FT Alphaville:
Demanding the logistics industry works round the clock won’t ease logjams, buying less stuff would.
Big supply chain news from the US overnight, with Joe Biden saying the Port of Los Angeles will run 24/7 in the run-up to the festive period. The port complex of Los Angeles and Long Beach (which announced a few weeks ago it would operate round the clock) is the US’s busiest, but we doubt opening it up all day and all night will help much with Biden’s aim of speeding up delivery times. Let us tell you why.
For starters, the port has been operating above full capacity for months, with staff working far more hours than they usually would. In theory, staying open at night and over the weekend could add more capacity and be the “game changer” that Biden believes it can be. But that’s only the case if the rest of the supply chain is purring. Which it isn’t. There are snafus all over the place. Seafarers have been stranded for months past the end of their contracts. The truck drivers and railway workers needed to take the cargoes from the shore to further inland are in short supply too. And even if they were not, it’s not clear importers have the space to store any more goods.
Biden seems to think these problems can be addressed by the rest of the US supply chain working at night too. But how can they do that when their staff are already stretched? And when warehouses are full to the brim? There are global factors, too. Most of those container ships that you see lined up waiting to enter the Port of Los Angeles have travelled across the Pacific from China. And guess what? There are delays getting into ports there too. According to project44, a data firm specialising in supply chain data, as of October 7 there were around 386 ships anchored and moored off Shanghai and Ningbo, of which 228 were cargo and 45 container vessels....
....MUCH MORE (plus the comments)
