Twenty-year truck driver: America’s “shipping crisis” will not end

https://medium.com/@ryan79z28/im-a-twenty-year-truck-driver-i-will-tell-you-why-america-s-shipping-crisis-will-not-end-bbe0ebac6a91

by stephenboyd • 5 years ago

96 68 5 years ago

medium.com

zephyr9• 5 years ago

Once you see there is no connection between money and work it's like seeing the code of The Matrix.

Wosiz• 5 years ago

I see this type of comment frequently but I dont know what this means...can someone pls explain it! Thanks!

rootsudo2• 5 years ago

Working hard does not mean you'll be paid well, or have money.

Then the other argument of money =/= wealth.

SkittyDog6• 5 years ago

Are you American? I don't know about other countries, but here in the US there's a cultural trope that our economic system finnacially rewards hard work & effort. It's hard to point to a specific piece of propaganda, but it's definitely baked into our social mythology.

OP is saying that the myth is a lie, and that hard work doesn't really guarantee you anything, in the United States.

SkittyDog6• 5 years ago

Watching the port of Los Angeles & Long Beach, since the COVID pandemic began, the growing backlog of container ships waiting outside the port has been obvious. But this article helps explain the strange part, which is that the shipping backlog has been getting worse even as COVID cases & restrictions have steadily proved in California.

I can't speak to whether this explanation is correct, but it's better than literally anything I've heard so far.

totalZero• 5 years ago

I get the feeling that the people in charge of the USA don't understand how markets work.

klyrs2• 5 years ago

No, but it sounds like the people managing ports sure do.

kwertyoowiyop• 5 years ago

Everyone understands their own bubble of experience, like this truck driver. But it seems like we often go off the rails on things outside that bubble, as this truck driver does when he starts generalizing (nobody will do this, everybody does that) and assigning motives (greed, stupidity, etc) to everyone else. I am trying to be better about this. It is definitely a bad habit of mine.

refurb• 5 years ago

I’m pretty sure a big percent of Congress has never worked a normal job in their lives nor created any jobs.

etempleton• 5 years ago

There are plans to fine companies for slow moving freight (https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2021/10/25/ports-of-los-ange...).

Additionally the east coast has been ramping up capacity for years. The port of Baltimore is experience no such slow-down and just added more cranes. It is one of the fastest growing ports in the nation.

OldHand2018• 5 years ago

The medium post predicted that the ports would start implementing fines for slow moving freight as a money making scheme, because they know the freight can't move any faster.

You know, your second point leads to a question: what would it take for a container ship to be willing to route to any of a collection of ports?

If I am order a shipping container full of stuff from Asia, do I really care what port it arrives at? Someone is driving it from the port to my warehouse (with maybe a train ride along the way)? I have to think that my top priorities are 'what time will it arrive' and 'how much will it cost', right?

But ships are waiting in a months-long line in LA and not rerouting to Baltimore. Or Oakland, Seattle, etc. So what gives?

lazide• 5 years ago

Once someone pays for it to ship, the shipping company has their goods. If it's stuck in line, they can't get it out, and there are endless others to point fingers at too.

slowhand09• 5 years ago

I can see (eyes on) ships waiting to enter the Port of Baltimore. 6 Ships this morning at 830am Eastern time..

AnimalMuppet2• 5 years ago

The medium post predicted that the ports would start implementing fines for slow moving freight as a money making scheme, because they know the freight can't move any faster.

It gets worse. They were talking about progressive fines. That means the slower it gets, the more money they make. That's not the incentive we want the ports to have...

ReptileMan• 5 years ago

How can you get to the East Coast if the container ship is bigger than panamax. And there may the bottleneck at the channel too. And you may not have enough fuel to go around cape horn and we are probably talking months anyway ... it is a total mess.

ralph84• 5 years ago

Hopefully we can use this failure of globalization to finally take a step back and acknowledge globalization has been a net-negative for the majority of Americans. Instead of trying to band-aid globalization to make a minority rich, how about we reduce the need for so much international shipping in the first place?

LurkingPenguin• 5 years ago

Instead of trying to band-aid globalization to make a minority rich, how about we reduce the need for so much international shipping in the first place?

I think the answer is here:

Before the pandemic, through the pandemic, and really for the whole history of the freight industry at all levels, owners make their money by having low labor costs — that is, low wages and bare minimum staffing. Many supply chain workers are paid minimum wages, no benefits, and there’s a high rate of turnover because the physical conditions can be brutal (there aren’t even bathrooms for truckers waiting hours at ports because the port owners won’t pay for them.

Making the goods onshore won't change the desire to drive labor costs as low as possible. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about truckers or factory workers.

The American consumer wants more more more cheaper cheaper cheaper, and the people supplying the American consumer want as much profit profit profit as they can squeeze. This is always going to lead to a very unhealthy and unsustainable, and thus very vulnerable, supply chain.

The pandemic was the straw that broke the camel's back, but the camel wasn't in very good shape before the pandemic. We just didn't notice how bad the camel was.

dandotway• 5 years ago

how about we reduce the need for so much international shipping in the first place?

Because China has 1.44 billion consumers and the USA only has 330 million, and companies like Apple in the long run can sell more iPhones in China because there are more people to buy them. The Chinese see Western brands as more desirable and authentic, much like many affluent Americans would prefer a foreign Mercedes to a domestic Cadillac.

Starting pay for Chinese workers assembling iPhones is $3.15 per hour[1].

China does not have as strong of environmental regulations so massive toxic lakes can be produced there extracting rare earths like neodymium[2].

Chinese women have more children than American women because in America we are constantly told the earth is overpopulated and man is destroying the climate, and in America we are told it is medieval for women to focus on being mothers who produce and raise children who ultimately become the workers and consumers that are a nation's true wealth. (The goose that lays golden eggs is more valuable than the golden eggs.) But if a woman enters the workforce today instead of having children her immediate production and consumption can improve this quarter's profits, whereas if she instead has 4 children who won't enter the workforce until two decades in the future, well, that's two decades in the future and here in the West investors won't wait two decades for returns.

So we must increasingly have non-American women give birth to the workers who make and consume Apple products and other Western brands.

[1] https://archive.ph/yemy3

[2] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-...

leoedin• 5 years ago

Not commenting on the rest of your comment, but

Chinese women have more children than American women

The fertility rate of the USA and China is the same - 1.7 children per couple. China's facing a huge demographic crisis in the coming decades, primarily as a result of the one child policy.

yosito2• 5 years ago

how about we reduce the need for so much international shipping in the first place

While there are a lot of negative aspects of international shipping, one major benefit of interinternational economic integration is that it serves as a deterrent to physical warfare.

esarbe2• 5 years ago

That's actually a good point. I'm quite against international economic integration since it usually ends in exploitation, stratification and social de-integration.

But you've got a point with regards to physical warfare.

simonh4• 5 years ago

Ok, so you want to roll back globalisation and in-source as much as possible into the USA (or any developed nation). Making a lot more stuff in the good ole will employ tens of millions of people right? So, how many unemployed have you got to build those factories, make the equipment for them, run logistics and actually staff the factories themselves.

Well, most unemployed people are only unemployed for less than a year, because they are between jobs or have just entered the job market. So how many long term unemployed do we have to help us recreate the Chinese supply chain for the US on-shore? Well, before the pandemic hit that was barely over a million people. That's hardly going to substitute for 80 million Chinese factory workers, or even the subset of them making goods specifically for the US. So where are all these workers going to come from?

Then you have the fact that in-sourcing all that manufacturing will cause costs to shoot up. Everyone else in the US, including these workers too actually, will be paying a lot more for their goods. No more cheap products from China.

Then of course current on-shore manufacturing that depends on parts from abroad are going to get their supply cut off, or the costs of those parts will rise making their products uncompetitive internationally.

Result? Godawful mess. It might be possible, at exorbitant cost, on on-shore some manufacturing, but as many who have tried this found out it's incredibly expensive for very few jobs and the knock on effects can be worse than the benefits. This is why the USMCA is almost exactly the same deal as NAFTA with a few relatively minor updates, the effects of which have been negligible. It turns out more fundamental reform would have, for example, cut the legs out from under US export manufacturing relying on steel and parts from Mexico.

If you want to protect an industry, or subsidise it that has a cost. Those costs have to be paid for by somebody, somewhere, and that turns out to be ordinary citizens as every attempt at serious protectionism has found out.

rsj_hn6• 5 years ago

Well do you expect the US to keep running trade deficits of 2.8% of GDP every year?

In 1980 the foreign sector owned 10% of US assets. In 2020 it's 40%. Now that's not going to continue forever, because at some point the military wont even be able to make planes anymore, and the US government wont allow foreign ownership of Intel, SpaceX, Boeing, etc. Sure, we'll sell off McDonalds and Costco, but not Amazon or Google. Maybe we can reach 70% of our capital stock under foreign control after another 40 years, but not much more than that, so this party has a life expectancy of less than 40 years.

I don't care how irreplacable those Chinese workers are, they aren't going to work for free, so we will either need to produce more domestically or just do without, no matter how dependent we are on it, and no matter how unimaginable it is to live within our means.

At the same time, we are getting more and more domestic unrest as a result of the collapse of productivity as we outsource our increasing returns industries.

No productivity, foreign devaluation, supply disruptions -- that's a recipe for some serious social unrest, which will only increase once the supply of consumption drops from China comes to a halt.

So regardless of how unthinkable the alternative appears to be, the deficits will stop in the worst case with a currency crisis in the future. Many nations have gone through that, and it's terrible, it can even cause starvation, but it's not unheard of. Even if we do nothing about it, it will right itself, just through the dollar falling by a factor of whatever is required to bring the trade deficit into balance. At some nonzero factor that will happen. If it takes 100 dollars to buy 1 RMB, then we wont have a trade deficit with China, even if this means lots of industries become bankrupt. And if that's what it takes, then to bankruptcy they will go. If that means there are millions of people wandering the streets without jobs, and shortages of clothes, computers, concrete, and even basic machinary, well that's what it's going to be. Reality doesn't stop just because something becomes unthinkable. When Russia had its currency crisis, the life expectancy fell, inflation reached 84%, there were food shortages, and GDP contracted by half. We are not immune.

Bottom line, when you outsource your more productive industries, the standard of living has to decline. You can delay that decline for a while, but then the bill comes due and living standards drop. Your point, that we can't produce all these goods domestically, is just another way of saying we are living above our means. That will stop.

And if you think it's painful to stop the trade deficits today, imagine how much more painful it will be in 40 years when even more production has been outsourced, and we are able to produce even less domestically. Then a collapse of the dollar will be much worse than tightening our belt today and doing without. But the deficits will stop, it's only a question of how much longer we keep delaying it. Of course Trump didn't have the political will, or the mandate from our ruling class, to put an end to the party. But at some point we will have a President who will put an end to the party or the currency markets will do that for us.

PKop3• 5 years ago

Look at the working age male labor force participation rate. We have plenty of unemployed, and underemployed workers, especially in specific geographic regions that have proportionally suffered the most through globalization and exporting of domestic production. These places have steadily lost population. Meanwhile, more people have crowded into a subset of metros in US chasing the remaining jobs leading to real estate costs outstripping any potential wage benefit.

costs to shoot up.

So what? Henry Ford knew you could pay your workers more and they'd have more money to spend. The losers here will be multi-national corporations and wall st. who won't maximize profits by minimizing wages. My local area has lost many people in the last few decades. The people without good paying jobs don't have the income to benefit from supposed cost savings of cheap imports. If more people, and businesses, see increased production, complimentary business and economic gains will be seen in entire regions who have lost out from globalization.

Here's a good article covering the many ways regional economic loss occurs from globalized free trade where domestic production declines, through the lens of German and Chinese economies[0]

Here is quoted Chinese economic scholars describing the CCP policy of rejecting the American economic decline from loss of domestic production, in favor of embracing a German style industrial economy[1]

[0] "The Germany Shock: The largest economy nobody understands"

https://www.conradbastable.com/essays/the-germany-shock-the-...

[1a] "We have abandoned the American path for the German path."

https://twitter.com/ruima/status/1420109129847214084

[1b] https://twitter.com/ruima/status/1420060835313971200

nostrademons2• 5 years ago

I look at his as a reminder of all of the benefits of globalization, which are now being taken away because we can't ship things. We've enjoyed cheap imports and lower prices for decades because we can make goods cheaply abroad. Goods are about to get much, much more expensive, and it's already started. I'm not sure that once people see the results of an on-shore economy, they'll think it's an improvement.

Note that the 1950s utopia that many want to go back to wasn't a domestic economy, it was a globalized economy where we were the only industrialized nation left standing. Truly domestic economies are more like the 1930s and 1970s. The issue with the non-globalized regions of the U.S. isn't that their economies fell abruptly in the 90s, it's that they never really recovered from the 1970s, while the coastal metropolises have moved on with gleaming capital infusions from abroad.

iammisc2• 5 years ago

Instead of trying to band-aid globalization to make a minority rich, how about we reduce the need for so much international shipping in the first place?

Because if you propose any solution to such things, you are apparently a racist.

esarbe2• 5 years ago

Or a socialist, which is equally bad.

Isn't it interesting how the moneyed classes successfully arranged for the workers of each nation to despise each other while still being able to exploit all?

Classic!

yosito2• 5 years ago

Seem like the solution is simple: pay truck drivers to do the work that needs to be done.

SkittyDog6• 5 years ago

The article says different... The author's core claim is that unloading capacity is the bottleneck, specifically a lack of infrastructure (cranes - container chassis, mostly).

The costs of slowdowns at the unloading bottleneck is passed on to truckers, because most of them are contractors, paid by the load and not by hours worked... They're waiting in much longer lines than pre-pandemic, but aren't compensated for the additional time. So lots of truckers have quit driving.

So he's saying that the solution is to (A) invest in unloading infrastructure to remove the bottleneck, and (B) improve pay & working conditions to get the truck drivers back to work.

shapefrog• 5 years ago

It’s important to understand what the cost implications are for consumers with this lack of supply in the supply chain.

The sea is full of ships with 1000's of containers full of goods.

The port is full of containers with goods.

The warehouses are full of goods and have containers sitting around in the lots or on the streets, also full.

Where is the lack of supply exactly?

pif• 5 years ago

Where is the lack of supply exactly?

There's a terrible lack in moving capacity. Sea, ports and warehouses are full of static containers, and that's bad: the optimal state for a container is "moving".

SkittyDog6• 5 years ago

The lack of supply is in the market for cargo unloading at the ports... There are not enough cranes & container chassis to service the combined weight of regular demand plus the backed-up pandemic demand. The unloading infrastructure is very capital-intensive, and highly localized, and so far the shipping companies have been unwilling to invest in expanding unloading capacity.

ethagknight• 5 years ago

I'm having trouble understanding the premise here.

Why is there only one crane for every 50–100 trucks at every port in America? No ‘expert’ will answer this question.

Cranes should be THE bottleneck. They are massive, expensive and land intensive. Maybe LA needs more cranes, but it doesn't sound like that is the issue. The author states the problem is a trucker problem, "lines to get in, lines to get out" but that isn't a crane problem.

The author gets paid by the hour, others get paid by the job, job duration is variable and undefined, so wages are undefined. One solution is to pay drivers more, and pay them per hour. I've had containers full of goods waiting somewhere around the port of LA in the last year. If there were way to pay more to move them on through the system, I'd gladly pay, but its a giant black box.

My conjecture is that the REAL real issue is a very complicated and embedded union vs non-union vs contractor vs fed government vs state govt vs local govt pissing contest that could all be circumvented by federal government investing in alternative ports around the US border. Port of Louisiana, Port of Houston, Ports of Florida in the gulf. Lots of alternatives, and we are all sitting around like Port of LA is the sole option. Separately, I dont understand why Mexico isn't more prominent in container transport moved via trains into Texas.

PKop3• 5 years ago

It sounds to me like the bottleneck is wages paid to truckers, and probably other workers in the supply chain. The US has a ~$600 Billion trade deficit. It never really made sense to me that we could continue to massively import goods from rest of world (mostly China)...without eventually reaching some sort of labor parity where delivering those goods all the way around the world didn't make economic sense, and especially political sense, as the gains, whatever they are, mostly accrue to multi-national corporations profit margins and stock prices.

It seems, much of this is built upon a foundation of crappy wages and under-investment in the people and infrastructure it all functions on top of. Doesn't sound sustainable as structured, and for many reason we should invest in labor and domestic production more than we have been. Inflation, like in the 2008 oil price spike leading to domestic production, might end up being the catalyst to this change.

SkittyDog6• 5 years ago

The impact on truckers is a side effect... At the core, he's saying that the problem is a lack of unloading capacity. There aren't enough cranes, chassis, and railcars to handle both the regular shipping traffic, plus the backed up traffic from the pandemic... And the throughput gets worse, exponentially, as the system becomes overloaded. So the lack of capacity is making things worse.

But in the short term, the demand for cargo shipping is relatively inelastic. As costs rise, most shipping customers will just bite the bullet and pay the higher fees, because they'll go completely out of business without overseas shipping.

If everyone knew the port cargo crisis was going to be a long-term phenomenon, the shippers would probably invest money in buying more cranes, chassis, etc. to increase capacity. But those capital investments cost a lot of money up front, so they don't make good business sense if you expect the cargo crisis to end relatively quickly.

So far, the cargo shipping companies have just been jacking up prices, expecting that their customers will keep paying... But since they're not sharing the wealth with their drivers, by paying more & investing in infrastructure to improve throughout, they're exacerbating the problem.

ryanmercer3• 5 years ago

The impact on truckers is a side effect... At the core, he's saying that the problem is a lack of unloading capacity.

Right now that isn't even the real issue. The real issue is there simply aren't enough chassis to put containers on. Nott by a long shot, and many of the ones that are being used are barely usable.

The supply chain is currently impacted for umpteen reasons: lack of chassis, lack of drivers, a mass exodus of people out of the industry (customs clearance, handlers, drivers, dock workers, sort managers, maintenance, etc), weather, ongoing covid shutdowns at some facilities both foreign and domestic, etc.

It's nuts.

What's crazier is, after 15 years at my job, I make $4 more an hour than fast food is currently hiring at in my city... and I'm on like week 27 or 28 of 60-70 hour weeks with no end in sight. I haven't had a cost of living increase since 2008, TWO THOUSAND EIGHT.

sigh

FranksTV• 5 years ago

Lack of cranes means lack of operating cranes, I think. Most ports are still operating at reduced capacity due to COVID. So they can't run as many cranes as usual.

putlake• 5 years ago

From the article: "So when the coastal ports started getting clogged up last spring due to the impacts of COVID on business everywhere, drivers started refusing to show up. Congestion got so bad that instead of being able to do three loads a day, they could only do one."

I could not make the connection from the first sentence to the second. If drivers are not showing up, congestion (in the lines for drivers) should go down, shouldn't it?

throwawayswede• 5 years ago

Can't read because published on reader hostile platform.

ryanmercer3• 5 years ago

I've been in international air freight for over 15 years, I don't see things getting even remotely "back to normal" until 2023, if it doesn't continue to worsen before getting better.

mk81• 5 years ago

Make stuff closer to where it's used again.

Twenty-year truck driver: America’s “shipping crisis” will not end

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