Chaos Strikes Global Shipping | Hacker News Reader

Chaos Strikes Global Shipping

nytimes.com

81 pointsdonmcc21 comments

As soon as the pandemic started, airmail services stated to shut down. Normally, airmail packets “hitch a ride” on commercial airliners already making the trip. But when those ceased, airmail service stopped. So what happened? All of the pending airmail got switched to “surface mail,” which is code for shipping on a boat. I had several packages go from an ETA measured in days to an ETA measured in weeks and months.

I imagine that the whole thing cascaded from that. Online orders that would normally take a plane trip got redirected to the surface, and then the pipeline kept backing up. Until the world is connected and back to normal, bottlenecks like this will probably still exist.

> hitch a ride

This reads as "subsidised by fliers" to me

Barely. A passenger airplane can fit a certain number of people. Their suitcases are unlikely to fill the cargo hold, so the airlines sell the extra cargo space

> Since they were first deployed in 1956, containers have revolutionized trade by allowing goods to be packed into standard size receptacles and hoisted by cranes onto rail cars and trucks — effectively shrinking the globe.

If you want to know more about this, there's a pretty good book on it: The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/52/hodes.php another interesting article in the same vein, about the importance of pallets

> Every container that cannot be unloaded in one place is a container that cannot be loaded somewhere else.

Never thought of it in this sense as a zero-sum game — but it does make a lot of sense why this is pushing the stock up for companies like Triton International.

That's the rationale for building "megaports." Few giant automated ports save on ships having to hop around smaller ports to unload few containers.

Where's Flexport when you need them? Weren't they supposed to disrupt this space?

compared to the size of entities like COSCO and Maersk, flexport has no clout, scale or ability to "disrupt" anything.

turns out that disrupting things in software is easier, disrupting physical things in the real world that are heavy and cumbersome, more difficult.

I have been watching too many Warhammer 40k videos on youtube and completely misunderstood the title of this article at first glance.

Interesting that the conclusion has to do with the type of consumption, because as I was reading the article I was unable to figure out whether there had been an increased consumption or "just" a lack of availability of containers and workers. But the article ends with:

> Some experts assume that as vaccinations increase and life returns to normal, Americans will again shift their spending — from goods back to experiences — reducing the need for containers.

Beyond masks, is it really the case that consumption of goods dramatically increased? Is it only a North America issue? A US issue?

Working in shipping. No, it’s the same in Europe and partially also elsewhere. People shift spending from services to home office equipment, furniture, electronics, ...

The article talks about dockworkers and truck drivers falling ill and quarantining, as well as what Americans spend their money on has changed. Instead of spending money on going out, we are spending it on home focused items, specifically ones that are shipped and made in China.

It's almost obscene how people refuse to ignore how much china benefit from all this histeria and the unscientific lockdowns

if businesses would not abuse cheap labor that china and other third world countries offer, we wouldn't be in this mess (or at least it wouldn't be as impactful)

besides labor costs, it doesn't make sense that an item that is bought in from X company with an HQ in Y country has to be manufactured in Z country and shipped thousands of miles to the consumer.

the amount of carbon generated from our reliance on third world countries must be ridiculously high, and wasteful.

"regions with low wages should not be permitted to increase the amount of available jobs and therefore increase the standard of living by shifting production there, this will <insert magic here> make things better"

Just don't pretend that essentially-slave labor in China doesn't lead to essentially-slave labor in other places if the sole purpose of practically applied economic theory is to arbitrage to the lowest common denominator.

Fixed-pie fallacy.

Not sure why the word "abuse" was the first one out of your vocabulary. Asia is much better off thanks to expanded trade with the West, and the West has likewise benefited greatly.

I don't understand why you have been downvoted. "abuse" is the right word.

The "success" of the current model relies on (a) low production costs (not only cheap labor but also less social security, lower safety standards, less regulations for environmental protection, local governments that take care of troublemakers etc.) and (b)cheap energy which is needed for cheap transportation.

Regarding point (a): Now that the Chinese workers are becoming too expensive (=they want two bowls of rice instead of one), companies are moving, like locusts, to other countries.

And point (b): As you said, the carbon footprint is terrible.

And the same thing happens in Europe too, on a smaller geographic scale of course. Danish and Dutch farmers send their animals to Germany for slaughter because it's cheaper there. Why? Well, if you followed the COVID news last year you know why.

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