Article

2008-03-28 Home Front Economy

Shipping container shortage: It's the economy, silly!

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Posted by 3dc 2008-03-28 02:54|| || Front Page|| [11125 views ] Top

#1 Article starts off saying US exports are up YOY 16.6%. There are really not that many businesses that can increase their output by that degree and not fall short. Can the US increase its oil imports 16.6%? Can a doctor see 16.6% more patients a year? Each trucker deliver 16.6% more ton-miles per year? So on & so forth. Supply may rise to meet demand, but sometimes new facilities must be developed. Exports can go down as fast as they go up, so investors may be leery about sinking their cash into increasing the # of shipping containers. All the money in the world can't today supply more shipping containers & more space on ships if they don't exist today.
This seems mostly related to the depreciation of the dollar and subsequent rise in exports.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2008-03-28 03:21|| 2008-03-28 03:21|| Front Page Top

#2 That's funny. It seems to me that the shortage is caused by people whose mortgatges were foreclosed and are using them for cheap housing.

:-)

Posted by gorb 2008-03-28 03:42|| 2008-03-28 03:42|| Front Page Top

#3 Agreed, Ang. The price differential between east-west shipping has favored North America for years. Jeez, they're even building housing out of Chinese containers that aren't worth shipping back. A standard container is several thousand dollars cheaper going east. A Chinese tycoon is making millions shipping, literally, GARBAGE back to China.

I doubt that there's a shortage of containers. Maybe some issues regarding distribution, but that's about it. Cans and shipping is as cheap as it has ever been. If your products can't compete with "recyclable goods and agricultural products" (read: garbage and bulk cargo), you shouldn't be in business.

Posted by Vanc 2008-03-28 03:45|| 2008-03-28 03:45|| Front Page Top

#4 Back in the 80s I helped write the software that automated the port at LA/Long Beach for Matson, the largest Pacific shipper. The ship yard is well organized as are Matson's terminals and shipping companies.

However:

Cargo shippping isn't like airlines or trains, who own the seats they fill and who can therefore use operations research techniques to optimize loading vs. costs vs. price charged. Some but not all of the containers are owned by the shipping lines. Many are owned by the originating suppliers of the products being shipped and some are owned by the trucking and rail lines that feed into the port.

To call this a mis management of critical infrastructure by the government and multi-national corps is .... to not understand the industry. The industry coordinates to the degree that seems useful. When market conditions change rapidly it takes a little while for prices and mechanisms to catch up.

Of course, there is an alternative. You could just ask Washington to nationalize all ports, cargo vessels, rail lines and trucking firms and combine them into one agency run by unionized workers. Call it Transportation Supply Agency ... TSA - has a ring to it, no?

Posted by lotp 2008-03-28 08:50|| 2008-03-28 08:50|| Front Page Top

#5 In the largest sense, this is not a new problem. Any transportation system has to deal with the problem of what to do with empty boxes that are in the wrong place. I have a 50-year old book at home on railroad operations, part of my rail-geek collection. There's a whhole chapter on how to handle empties.

Posted by Mike 2008-03-28 09:05|| 2008-03-28 09:05|| Front Page Top

#6 So you're saying 'Container Futures' are the next big bubble to speculate on?

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-03-28 09:12|| 2008-03-28 09:12|| Front Page Top

#7 Is there anything that is right about this economy according to MSM?

Posted by bman 2008-03-28 11:25|| 2008-03-28 11:25|| Front Page Top

#8 Not until the Democrat party control the White House, Congress and the Judiciary bman. The MSN will not be happy until we are consider a totally socialized country and act just like Europeans.

Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2008-03-28 15:25|| 2008-03-28 15:25|| Front Page Top

#9 As the dollar goes up inports will become cheaper, exports more expensive, and we'll have all the shipping containers we could ever want.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-03-28 15:30|| 2008-03-28 15:30|| Front Page Top

#10 FARK.com > so BRITNEY SPEARS has been graphically proven to also had wiped out the US container industry, in addition to home mortages - PARIS + LINDSAY + KIM K. DEMANDING A RE-GRAPH???

D *** NG IT, ITS BEEN "GRAPHED" SO IT MUST BE TRUE!

Posted by JosephMendiola 2008-03-28 18:53|| 2008-03-28 18:53|| Front Page Top

#11 Global warming is the real cause of all our ailments. It says so in the Koran.

Posted by Tarzan Glavimble1277 2008-03-28 19:08|| 2008-03-28 19:08|| Front Page Top

#12 We could build some more if we hadn't sold our steel industry down the river already. Oh well, just call South Korea and ask them to make us some.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2008-03-28 19:15|| 2008-03-28 19:15|| Front Page Top

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