• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Biden/Schumer/Pelosi Accountability Thread

It's not unfair to criticize Buttigieg for the port and trucking mess, in the sense that the response has been so delayed. This has been coming for months and experts in the arena have been sounding the alarm bells since last fall. DoT should have been out in front of this issue and not on their back foot reacting to it now. The late delay just hands Republicans a talking point to drive home.

The Biden admin didn't cause this. Nor did Trump for that matter. But he inherits the problem and needs to lead on the solution. Failure to do so aggressively is going to have a very negative effect on the midterms.

Same with inflation.
 
And to be honest, I've yet to read anything that indicates this is a problem that is quickly solved. It's very likely Buttigieg is used as a sacrificial lamb on this.

It took us 20 years to offshore so much of our supply chain. It won't be reversed in short order.
 
Isn’t a lot of the problem just down to covid and labor shortage? Idk why that lands squarely on a cabinet secretary. Regardless from what I understand about Pete he’ll land on his feet no matter how he comes out of this.

I do think there’s something to be said about how the supply chain issues will disrupt people’s Christmas or their immediate quality of life disruptions and how that material change will be easily scapegoated somewhere.
 
People have convinced themselves that the “economy” is some self-sustaining system that runs on capital. So when there is a shortage of people who truly drive the economy due to a global pandemic and decades of offshoring to reduce labor costs people flip out and want to blame somebody.
 
TownieDeac said:
Isn’t a lot of the problem just down to covid and labor shortage? Idk why that lands squarely on a cabinet secretary. Regardless from what I understand about Pete he’ll land on his feet no matter how he comes out of this.

I do think there’s something to be said about how the supply chain issues will disrupt people’s Christmas or their immediate quality of life disruptions and how that material change will be easily scapegoated somewhere.
Click to expand...

Some of it is labor shortage. Some of it covid related. A large part is due to not having enough trucks or rail capacity to move the volume of freight we are seeing. The estimate is well over 2 years to undo the current backlog.

There are short term problems that are compounding long term inefficiencies in the system.
 
Christmas disruptions is just the canary in the coal mine of a problem that's been growing.

We need a national quartermaster. Actual experts I'm supply chain logistics working this problem.
 
I love that Walmart, Amazon, etc are pitching in shipping resources. I'm curious who is coordinating it. Where is it being stored. Who is responsible for getting the empty containers back to port (a single shipping container costs about 20k to book vs 2k a couple years ago).

There are literally entire cargo ships that refuse to take on containers of goods here in the US for export and are instead taking loads of thousands of empty containers back to China because of the insane profit margins.

An example of where the DoT could step in is when DeSantis made his public "come to Florida for offloading" proclamation. DoT should have coordinated that and directed them to Mobile and Houston because of proximity to more rail facilities to get the goods to the heartland. Or should have halted it all together because it would have moved part of the traffic jam from port of LALB down to the Panama Canal.

Sorry to rant but this stuff is a bit of an amateur love of mine. I did some contract work on supply chain software a few years back and went down the rabbit hole and it is fascinating the dance so many people must do in sync to get item A to point B and eventually to your doorstep.
 
“The supply chain is fucked and all Senator Sanders wants to do is throw money at it to try and fix it”
 
Manchin…Republicanesque posturing (dishonest, destructive) is the key to mah power.
 
MHBDemon said:
I thought capitalism distributed resources efficiently.
Click to expand...

It's actually a really good discussion to have right now regarding the trucker shortage. Why hasn't the market driven trucker pay up commensurate with the cost of the goods they are transporting?

It's not just a recent problem. It's just another small piece of the supply chain puzzle.
 
Biden and others can talk all they want about 24/7 port operations, but it falls apart immediately when there are no trucks.

 
Liquid Karma said:
It's actually a really good discussion to have right now regarding the trucker shortage. Why hasn't the market driven trucker pay up commensurate with the cost of the goods they are transporting?

It's not just a recent problem. It's just another small piece of the supply chain puzzle.
Click to expand...

Because all that money flows straight to the top and those people have not felt the supply shortage yet? If you can get all the goods you want because you can afford the premium price or have access/availability where others down the ladder don't there is limited incentive to make a change. I would guess if it goes long enough AND they feel impact to their daily lives the powers that be make changes. Maybe.
 
WFFaithful said:
How many of those older trucks are actually on the road?
Click to expand...

Good question and I don't have the answer. Just repeating something I've heard from a couple people in the freight forwarding industry. Given that CA is way ahead of the country in emission standards, I'd bet there are plenty of trucks out there rolling around the rest of the country.

That's just one small thing. There is no magic bullet.

Another issue:

A large number of the West Coast Port truck haulers are non-union, independent operators and are skipping the long unpaid wait times to take gigs with superior pay and less downtime. Why are there long unpaid wait times if there is so much cargo to be unloaded? Because they have no place to take it...downstream warehouses are full, etc. There is simply too much volume in the chain at this point in time creating multiple chokepoints. It's more cost efficient for these truckers to go work hauling goods for local distributors instead. Doesn't matter if we are paying them double if they have no place to move the cargo re: freight from ports.

One huge question - what influence, or even authority, does the DoT have over private cargo carriers? Could it be that Congress needs to be directly involved, or Commerce?
 
Liquid Karma said:
It's actually a really good discussion to have right now regarding the trucker shortage. Why hasn't the market driven trucker pay up commensurate with the cost of the goods they are transporting?

It's not just a recent problem. It's just another small piece of the supply chain puzzle.
Click to expand...

cc: Juicecrew
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top