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There is no real mystery as to what’s causing the supply chain issues in the United States. For those of you who aren’t from the United States, allow me to explain. “Supply Chain Issues” means many of the shelves in the stores are empty.
Which, if you’re from America, is virtually unheard of.
I say “virtually” because there are times when store shelves can be expected to be empty. For example, before a snowstorm in the Northeast, or predicted rain in Southern California, you can expect all the bread and milk to be gone by the time you remember to buy some.
Same thing if you live near a Target store and there happens to be a mostly-peaceful protest in your area. You can expect the Target to be targeted by BLM and Antifa. The difference is that instead of just milk, bread and other staples, lots of other stuff also disappears. Because everybody knows, to effectively protest against social injustice, you need some new threads, kicks and electronics.
If you happen to live near a CVS in San Francisco, you’ve probably gotten used to seeing the shelves stripped bare by the homeless and local criminals helping themselves to anything that isn’t nailed down, and some things that are.
But, other than these scenarios, if you live in the United States, up until a few months ago you could pretty much buy whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. If you ran out of something, you went out and got more. There was always more. That’s what more means.
In the summer of last year, for the first time, there was a nationwide run on something that comes in handy if you have the runs. That’s right, I’m talking about toilet paper. Not only toilet paper but pretty much all paper products. Paper towels, napkins, corncobs and anything else that could be repurposed as toilet paper were impossible to find. Well, maybe not corncobs. But maybe so. I didn’t try to buy any so I can’t say for sure.
In any case, that was the first time that Americans, at least most Americans had the experience of going to the store and not being able to buy a necessity. And it groomed us to accept what’s happening now without so much as a second thought.
But, let’s do that. Let’s give this a good thinking through.
Off the coast of Southern California, there are approximately two hundred container ships anchored and waiting to be offloaded. Executives for The Port of Los Angeles estimate there are currently about 200,000 containers stuck on ships just offshore because there’s no place for them to go.
So, the stuff is near here. It’s just not here here.
But don’t worry. Governor Gavin Newsom is coming to the rescue. He recently signed an Executive Order to fix this crisis. He has directed state agencies to “identify additional ways to alleviate congestion at California ports”, and to “continue coordinating with the Biden-Harris Administration Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force”.
I don’t know about you but that doesn’t fill me with confidence. Essentially, Newsom is telling people who should already be working on the problem, to work on the problem. He didn’t provide any solutions, he just signed a document that said having a solution would be a good thing.
Well no shit Sherlock.
Then, Biden came up with a brilliant plan to have the dockworkers work round-the-clock shifts. Great. So, the dockworkers can unload the ships and stack the containers next to all the other containers that are already there.
I heard late last week that the new theory is that the problem is being blamed on “lazy gantry operators”. For those of you unfamiliar with dock-speak, a gantry is one of those big-ass cranes that lift the containers from the ships. The gantry operators aren’t the problem.
Anyone with half a brain can see what the problem is.
The problem isn’t a lack of cargo. As I mentioned, there are 200,000 containers waiting to be offloaded. The problem isn’t because of lazy gantry operators because there are already so many containers on the shore they’re running out of places to put them. And it’s not because the dockworkers aren’t working enough hours. Working them 24/7 isn’t going to make any difference.
Because the problem is that there aren’t enough trucks.
How I know? That’s easy. You know how when you’re at the airport, you see a bunch of taxi cabs waiting to pick up a fare? It’s sort of like that. Trucks only make money when they’re hauling something. So, it’s in the best interest of truck drivers and trucking companies to make sure their trucks haul as much stuff as possible.
We know that stuff isn’t leaving the docks because it’s not on the store shelves. But, all those trucks that would normally be hauling something need something to haul. So, what are they going to do? They’re going to wait in line like taxis at the airport hoping that they can pick up a fare. They can’t just go haul other stuff because, as I mentioned, there’s no stuff to haul.
If the problem was anything but a shortage of trucks, we would see a line of trucks miles long waiting to for a load. There should be so many trucks lined up that people mistake them for a Trump caravan. But there isn’t. Tell me one single time when you were shown a picture of even one single truck waiting outside the Port of Los Angeles to be filled with stuff to haul away.
There is no line. Because there are no trucks.
In a greatly simplified explanation, getting something from the ship to the store requires three steps. Step 1, unload the stuff from the ships. Step 2, load the stuff onto trucks. Step 3, drive the stuff to the stores.
Last year, the EPA started suing companies that didn’t meet California’s federally enforceable Truck and Bus Regulation which calls for reduced emissions for Trucks. All the older trucks on the road need to meet newer truck standards if they want to be able to carry cargo in California.
In one fell swoop, the EPA handed out over $400,000 in fines for noncompliance. Now companies have two choices, they could pump money into an aging fleet to get their trucks in line with the new law. Or, they could stop using the trucks. Guess which one they chose.
Biden’s plan to have the dockworkers operate 24/7 might get those 200,000 containers off the ships. And those containers will be stacked next to and on top of the ones that are already there. In fact, the city of Long Beach just relaxed their rules on container stacking to allow more cargo to be transferred off the ships and onto the docks. You’ll still be waiting for your stuff. The only difference is that your stuff will be waiting someplace else before it gets delivered to you.
The only person to benefit from Tetrising more containers in the same amount of space will be Joe Biden. Because the “optics” will look better since there won’t be a shitload of 700-foot ships anchoring offshore anymore.
But unloading the ships just addresses Step 1. Which isn’t where the problem is. Step 2 is where the problem is. Not because the dockworkers aren’t working hard enough. But because there aren’t enough trucks. What we need is a solution for Step 2. Because without Step 2, there can’t be a Step 3. And the shelves will remain empty.
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