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When I Saw the Container Ships of Long Beach

Posted by Abaco 3 years, 9 months ago to News
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Yesterday on the afternoon news they showed the image of 28 or so massive container ships stacked completely full of full containers from Asia sitting anchored or loitering just outside the port of Long Beach. The story said, "They can't come in and unload..." but completely failed to explain why. I've never seen such a sight. It was visually stunning!!! I stopped, pointed and almost yelled "Atlas Shrugged!" It seems like something right from the pages of the book! Amazing... We are descending into some dark times in this country. It's happening faster since Joe took over than I expected it would. The wheels are really starting to come off the cart...


All Comments

  • Posted by Lucky 3 years, 9 months ago
    Same situation outside Port of NY.

    Related maybe, big holdup in UK on roads especially near ports dealing with traffic with Europe. Hundreds of parked lorries (trucks). Explanation, no truck drivers! Many were EU nationals and had to leave.
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  • Posted by Owlsrayne 3 years, 9 months ago
    I read the Wall Street Journal online article about the containership parking lot in the Port of Los Angeles, Long Beach including Portland shows how inadequate the west coast container ports are. All those vessels sitting there are costing the shipping companies $10K+ a day at anchorage. It shows how inadequate those ports are at handling a large volume of containers. Not just the JB Administration continuing to pay unemployment benefits that keep people from being employed. the social infrastructure bill isn't going to help get products onto store shelves. The moochers in congress want to tax corporations more when they are going to need their reserves to find innovative ways of unloading containers and getting products to market. The unholy Dems are trying to manufacture massive product shortages in the country. While the moochers can have their everyday needs flown into them.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 3 years, 9 months ago
    "While the numbers fluctuate from day to day, there were 70 container ships in the queue on Monday with total capacity of 432,909 twenty-foot equivalent units."
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  • Posted by Ben_C 3 years, 9 months ago
    The consensus of opinion in my neck of the woods is that we are living in a welfare society. One of my friends owns an upscale restaurant and cannot find servers - even though they make $40/hr. Other business owners agree - they pay stupid money and workers may show up it they feel like it. The agricultural communion works hard and take care of their livestock and farms. The manufacturing and service industries - not so much.
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  • Posted by CaptainKirk 3 years, 9 months ago
    This is why I have 90+ Days of Protein in the house.
    I replenish it every week.

    The Dark side of me has tried finding videos on butchering, for when the frail start dropping... But I can only find ones on ANIMAL Butchering... I am going to have to wing it.

    Although I have plenty of wood for the smoker. I figure Ribs are Ribs!

    This is going to be a BRUTAL winter. Death counts will scare people, and then enlighten them!
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 3 years, 9 months ago
    This is almost the equivalent of not being able to ship the wheat out of Minnesota in Atlas Shrugged.
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  • Posted by JohnWesley 3 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Reminds me of the oil shortage in the seventies. I was living in Cape May, N.J., and we couldn't count all of the oil tankers waiting to get up the river to the Philidelphia refineries.
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  • Posted by JohnWesley 3 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I saw news from Australia with the store shelves empty because of a trucker slowdown. Our American truckers are trying to organize a work stopage. Time to put on the Big Boy pants.
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  • Posted by 3 years, 9 months ago
    I imagined that they aren't able to find crane operators to unload those big iso boxes. Impressive engineering and manufacturing involved with the whole process.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 3 years, 9 months ago
    ie. Do your Christmas shopping now. Between shortages and inflation, you may not get a second chance.
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    Posted by DrZarkov99 3 years, 9 months ago
    Here's the deal, to use a Biden phrase: the trucking industry is short on drivers, so products moving by truck are slowed down; rail companies yard container capacity is maxed out for lack of local truck transport, so they're not accepting more containers than they can handle; container storage at the ports is maxed out, because of the rail slowdown, so they can't unload more containers from the ships (so don't blame the dockworkers, who are just as frustrated as the rest of us).

    I got all of this from two sources: a friend who relies on foreign components for the products he manufactures and sells; and a relative who's a Long Beach ship captain, kept busy supplying fuel to all the waiting ships. I hope that helps clear things up.
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  • Posted by mccannon01 3 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Dock workers (union) are usually well paid so I wonder if something else is at play here. I recall back in the 60's and 70's Japan made up rules to block American goods from being imported and kept ships at sea waiting to port, so I wonder if something similar is going on. I don't know, Dino, but it smells fishy.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 3 years, 9 months ago
    So are lots of dock workers not working for drawing government stay at home checks?
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    Posted by Commander 3 years, 9 months ago
    This is what happens when Just-In-Time hits a big upset. The demand for faster logistics will drive inflationary pricing and wage increase demands to fill labor shortage. Just in time for holiday shopping push...retailers are dependent on Black Friday....sorry that was racist of me.
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