I love how these commenters think they know something about shipping that the CEO of Flexport doesn’t (I’m referring to the person you replied to, BTW).
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28972094.)
p.s. Animats is a great HN commenter who knows a lot about a lot of stuff (not everything, of course). I don't know how much he knows about shipping but if you know more, a much better way to contribute to HN would be to share some of what you know, so the rest of us can learn. Supercilious putdowns of other commenters just degrade the community.
For the record that is one common prediction up there, in my experience, but I’m trying not to make it personal. There is very often a sense of reciting recent research into whatever the hot topic is, and little depth or mastery of any of those topics. But they score well, so here we are debating what is said instead of what is substantive.
That gave me a chuckle.
Blanket dismissals of everything any commenter mentions without providing any basis or reason or counterpoint besides empty appeals to authority is no way to conduct a discussion. In fact, doesn't your criticism also applies to you and your dismissal of everyone else's comments?
But taking your criticism at face value, the only way that the scenario you've depicted becomes possible is if those in the know do not step in to point out misconceptions and clear up doubts. Nevertheless, even so experience does not grant omniscience or infallibility, not to mention that the expert beginner problem is also a thing. In that case, an inability to refute points or offer counter-evidence, accompanied by this need to fallback to various types of appeals to authority and seniority, might actually indicate a discrepancy between actual and perceived competence and insightfulness.
The point is that if you happen to believe some posts are not right or fail to take into account critical aspects, why not call it out? I mea, you're already taking your time to write relatively lengthy posts complaining and vaguely casting doubts on how fellow posters are contributing. If you have the means and opportunity to right what you believe are wrong, why aren't you doing so and instead opt to waste your time posting messages that aren't constructive or contribute positively to a discussion?
I suspect that this measure just delays the inevitable. I'm also wondering why the limit of 2-high stacks exists (I'm guessing safety related in event of an earthquake?)
He has a lot of ideas in his other tweet thread, but I noticed that in his long list of ideas nowhere to be found was "offer better pay and working conditions for truckers."
The core issue is not too many containers. It's not enough truckers picking up the new containers, so there's no room for the old ones. And because the ships can't be unloaded, nobody can take the containers back to other ports.
It doesn't help that the full-in-union longshoremen (not the part-timer union guys) get way, way over $100k a year, some of them making $300k...and with zero requirements to meet any sort of metrics. They shouldn't be incentivized to where safety is compromised, but surely there is a balance. Right now they have zero incentive to do anything about the problem. The port sits doing nothing...and they sit too, getting paid.
This doesn't make sense to me unless the truckers are currently extremely busy. And if they are, why is there now a problem? Are there suddenly far fewer truckers?
According to the American Trucking Association, turnover rates for drivers have been at about 90% for a decade. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/05/25/999784202/is-t...
I would assume that the tight job market is making things worse.
This may, or may not, align with being solutions and advice that benefits the public at large. In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that things are currently "optimized" strongly enough that squeezing more profit out of the system generally corresponds to finding a sucker to take advantage of--normally the public at large.
Startups and their leaders have a "move fast and break things" attitude that is no big deal when imaginary things like software is involved that becomes a big deal when non-imaginary things like people become impacted.
Stacking 6-high triples storage space, sure. But it doesn't stop container ships from running back to Asia empty.
So, that storage space will fill up quickly, and we're back where we started only now we have dangerously stacked high center-of-mass (because empty) containers (this is an active seismic zone, you know) that nobody wants to pay to get rid of until somebody dies and their insurance rates shoot up enough to make it necessary to dump the containers.
At which point, the shipping companies will magically make the shipping containers go away--probably illegally to somewhere you don't want them to go to.
These are all for profit companies. It’s a bit utopian to suggest anything else would be better without providing any specific alternatives.
It's a bit disingenuous to suggest that "profit motive" is aligned with "public interest" in the face of all the current evidence we have in other sectors that is quite to the contrary.
To start, it is not at all clear that super low cost, super low friction shipping from China is, in fact, in the general US public interest. But it is in the interest of WalMart. And it is in the interest of Amazon.
For example, from the standpoint of the public interest, consuming fewer Christmas goods (which are mostly disposable garbage and which is what the Asian shippers are all rushing to get transported) is probably preferable. A great deal of Asian garbage which is destined to be US garbage is currently clogging out the shipping of goods which have a steady demand and are far more necessary to the functioning of the economy.
You will note that "increased foreign shipping friction causing goods to be manufactured locally again" is not on the discussion table because it is not part of an agenda that people in the shipping industry wish to countenance.
I occasionally run into the higher levels these days and let me tell you, most of them are whip smart.