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Comment by mindslight | Hacker News Reader

If you ever rent a truck/trailer, please have someone else load it. Wild oscillation is not desirable behavior.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mW_gzdh6to

The actionable advice here is if you're loading a trailer, you want weight / center of gravity as close to the front / cab as possible. If loading, y'know, 40,000 lbs for a tractor trailer and you're loading it with pallets, alternate the pallet rows as far to the left and right as possible, switching direction every row. This prevents tipping and also does a favor to the person who has to unload it at the destination as it prevents weird slippages of pallet orientation and crunching. Poorly loaded trailers can definitely kill the trucker and other drivers. The oscillation severity really depends on the spread between the greatest and least weight of the items going into the trailer.

I mean, I have probably loaded and driven heavier loads than you have. This analogy is about as strained as it gets.

Perhaps. It wasn't an analogy, but rather a vibrant reference to the concept of oscillation. Your original comment declares a simplistic version of "working" based around having reached one specific condition, while writing off the dynamic system behavior and other effects that occurred while getting to this point.

Now, do we have reasons to be believe that this oscillation between shortage and surplus will grow or diminish? Will the next half-cycle of the oscillation create negative qualitative effects, even if it is ultimately diminishing?

I'm not saying there are easy answers to those questions, but we're better off being able to ask them.

Maybe we can ask a related question: How can we profit from these oscillations? If they're predictable, there should be an arbitrage opportunity.

I just bought a shipping container so I am doing my part

How about you suggest an actual business plan than an abstract idea?

Doesn't arbitrage reflect pricing inefficiency? What is inefficient in container pricing?

I can certainly see opportunity to profit through stock market inefficiencies. Eg transportation stocks that were overpriced on supply chain FUD

The way to profit from gluts and squeezes is to warehouse products. Warehousing perishable products is much harder.

If you store the products in containers, it's easier to ship them when there's a squeeze, and you're also warehousing containers ;)

Of course, the more people who buy the glut and sell the squeeze, the less of a glut and a squeeze there is.

Of course, if you do warehouse products, and then try to take advantage of a squeeze, then you may get accused of price gouging.

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