Over at the American Prospect, Alexander Sammon has a good piece about the problems at our ports. Long story short, we've known this was coming for a while:
In July 2015, the Federal Maritime Commission, a federal agency with little name recognition and even less influence, released a report sounding the alarm about the state of America’s ports. A congestion crisis had been building for years and was fast becoming untenable; even the country’s relatively tepid economic-growth rate was straining against decades of disinvestment at its most critical trading hubs. Chassis weren’t available, trucks couldn’t get in or out, and terminals stayed perpetually clogged.
....Almost five years passed before the coronavirus announced itself on American shores, and another year after that before the disease gave an already fissured supply chain the nudge it needed to fully rupture. And while the circumstances of a global pandemic, its shutdowns and labor shortages, seemed exceptional, it was something as routine as a double-digit import growth, feared specifically by the FMC since at least 2006, that sent shipping container volume skyrocketing and brought the system to a grinding halt. A prophecy that few heard and no one heeded had finally come true.
The entire piece is well worth a read, not least because it confirms something I keep trying to get across: we don't really have a supply chain crisis. Generally speaking, our supply chain is working fine, delivering goods to American shores by the gigaton. The problem is a simpler one: we haven't invested in the capacity to handle ever rising demand for the stuff that consumers want and can afford thanks to the decade-long economic expansion under Obama and Trump.
This is not a supply chain problem, no matter how much we might like to place the blame on others. It's a problem with corporate forecasting. It's a problem with monopoly control of various links in the US transportation network. It's a problem with weak investment in infrastructure.
So let's stop pretending that our problems are the result of "chaos" in our overseas supply chains. The real problem is much closer to home, and it's up to us to fix it.
When people earnestly discuss whether America would/should go to war with China if it invades Taiwan, I have to chuckle. The country is so dependent on imports from East Asia that a sudden cessation would create indescribable economic chaos, followed quickly by significant human suffering and social unrest. That's why I imagine presidents past and present have been comforted to know there's no binding obligation to go to Taiwan's assistance.
"It's a problem with monopoly control of various links in the US transportation network. It's a problem with weak investment in infrastructure."
Ok. It's really not my problem to fix. I don't really want my tax money going to support it. Why should I? Let the companies pay for it. I'm not interested.
As the American economy became increasingly reliant on goods made in East Asia...
Isn't that the real root cause? Change that and the problem is solved without wasting money on this so called infrastructure. IF you want that infrastructure, pay more for the crap you buy from East Asia. That's why we call it capitalism... supply and demand. The profit motive.
"It's a problem with monopoly control of various links in the US transportation network. : Except it's the trucking component of the transortation that is failing. Ports are faling because there isn't enough trucks to put the stuff on coming off the ships. And trucking is the most free enterprise component of the supply chain. In the long term, markets work very well. But in the short term, they can be far worse than good central planning. And cyclic swings are fundamental to how they work in the long term.
Sorry to quibble, but port congestion does appear to be the major issue with goods being available in my area in the midwest. So yes. I think this is properly described as an issue with the supply chain. Maybe not covid related, but still it's an issue that negatively affects the flow of good into the country.
I agree, the root cause is 40+ years of generally under-funding government while whistling past the graveyard as bridges collapse.
I'm confused as to how "stuff piles up at ports, which is part of the supply chain" isn't a supply chain problem.