This is a follow-up to the original explanation of the epicenter of the supply chain backlog issue, ie “The Clog“. {GO DEEP} You need to review the years-long and building background issue to understand the fubar that Joe Biden has just made worse.
From the White House perspective, the problem at the California ports, specifically the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and the Port of Long Beach (POLB), was visible due to hundreds of container ships sitting in a queue off the coast of Los Angeles awaiting their opportunity to offload their cargo. The media was reporting on the backlog of ships and Joe Biden was under fire.
The team behind Joe Biden wanted the optics removed asap. Hence, the White House meeting with the heads of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Gene Seroka and Mario Cordero, respectively.
The continuing supply chain crisis of empty store shelves, missing parts and component goods that are backlogged at the California ports may be politically represented by the optic of those floating vessels. However, that’s not the problem.
The problem is a shortage of CA emission compliant internal transportation trucks to move the containers out of the port and into the U.S. mainland.
As a result… the politically expedient goal to get rid of the optical problem (the ships) by offloading containers into a California port system, that is already overwhelmed with tens-of-thousands of containers, is only making the original issue exponentially worse.
With hundreds more containers being offloaded hourly, the port infrastructure needed to load trucks long-sitting in the queue to pick up containers that arrived weeks ago is collapsing.
Truckers are waiting for over 8 hours to pick up their freight because the yards are swamped with containers. As each hour passes, more containers are offloaded into the port that can no longer deal with the scale of the problem. Each individual container is now buried in an avalanche of more containers, and that is making the limited compliant trucking resources even more problematic….. “containergeddon“.
Long before the ships started lining up offshore, many massive multinational corporations could foresee what was happening. They diverted their contracted freight into alternative ports (outside California) and began setting up new transportation arrangements. Two things happened:
(1) The alternative ports started getting backed up due to the redirected cargo arriving; and
(2) The shifted Trucking and Railroad system priority now meant resources were pulled from California.
With trucking companies redirecting resources away from California, this exacerbates the California backlog. Suppliers and retailers then enter a bidding war for priority distribution to get their stuff and avoid the clogs. This is a perfect storm of disruption in the supply chain aptly called “containergeddon.” However, not all ports can offload ships with thousands of containers. Not all ports have massive gantry cranes that can efficiently offload the cargo.
Back in California (where POLA and POLB do have the gantry cranes), now you have Los Angeles port workers saying we are offloading ships at maximum productivity, and truck drivers saying they’ve been sitting around for hours, some even days, waiting to pick up their containers. Meanwhile, other ports outside California are under pressure from the rerouted backlog of container vessels, and a limited amount of resources, trucks and railroad shipments to clear their arrivals.
Port workers are saying it’s not their lack of offloading that creates the problem, and the truckers are saying it ain’t us… “we’re sitting here waiting”.
♦ Few people are paying attention to what actually created the crisis in the first place.
The backlog all comes from California West Coast ports. It’s the issues with the new California emission regulations {Go Deep} that created the regional bottleneck in the distribution pipeline. The growing issue started becoming visible several months/years ago when the California Air Resource Board (CARB) announced the new environmental regulations.
As a direct result, several massive multinational corporations, with specifically concerned supply chain and logical operations specialists, immediately recognized the issue they would face if 50+ percent of the diesel fleet (writ large) would be blocked from entering California ports. That’s why months ago massive corporations began exclusive shipping contracts to avoid the California created crisis:
REUTERS – […] “The dry bulk cargo ship has been drafted into the service of retail giant Walmart, which is chartering its own vessels in an effort to beat the global supply chain disruptions that threaten to torpedo the retail industry’s make-or-break holiday season.
[…] Other big retail players, such as Target, Home Depot , Costco and Dollar Tree, have said they are chartering ships to deal with the … slowdown of sea networks that handle 90% of the world’s trade.” (link)
It costs more money, a lot more money, to move an entire supply chain for billions of tons of goods coming. The increases in shipping costs are passed along to the consumer.
Hence, we see prices climbing as a result of increased transportation costs being factored in to the new logistics. Did you hear about massive increases in container shipment prices? Well, THAT’S WHY.
The entire supply chain from Asia to the United States was being modified from the closest port (California), which was cost effective, to the ports where internal transportation would not be an issue.
Ships from China and SE Asia were being diverted away from California, some through the Gulf of Mexico into Texas, Louisiana, Alabama ports or inland waterways. Some even headed to the East Coast. However, any shipment diverting from the West Coast has to go through the Panama Canal into the Gulf of Mexico. It takes twice as long and costs twice as much, if not more. Hence, massive shipping price increases per container.
Back in Washington DC, Joe Biden’s solution was to get rid of the ships floating off the coast of California by piling their cargo into Los Angeles ports that are already overwhelmed with cargo they are trying to organize. The emission compliant truck drivers are now charging the ports for their time sitting around waiting for the dock workers to locate their freight.
The more containers they pile into the port, the longer it takes a limited number of trucks to move them.
The California ports are running out of places to store containers full of goods that are getting off-loaded. Hundreds of thousands of them are piling up. The central issue is the inability of emission compliant heavy transportation in California to move those containers full of goods to manufacturing, warehouses and distribution points.
This California bottleneck has been building, and building and building for years, until now it has reached a crisis point.
FUBAR.
Let ’em burn
Build Back Better
Let’s go Brandon!
Can you say cluster-f^ck
In three languages. ?
Now match each container to the assigned truck.
Trucker: Yah, I’m here for the Merck Container 445GR667A.
Port: OK, that one is 776 deep, 14 below and 91 containers to the left from that one in the corner in this huge pile of 10,000 containers, each weighing 20 tons. Give me 17 hours to move the rest to get to yours.
Or do you think a trucker just picks up any old container to take it who knows where?
They pick up the one they’re assigned. Hopefully the unloading, stacking and pickup are coordinated.
Good description of the problem. If there were independent truckers there might be plenty of people willing to pick up any old container and take it wherever it needs to go. I suspect those kinds of drivers are the ones shut out of the market since only big corporations can afford to meet CA crazy standards and even then, a promise to comply can also mean they simply avoid that market instead of sinking money into expensive trucks to comply with the edicts from Sacramento.
I believe it’s more along the lines of they negotiate a deal to take particular container from point A to point B for $XXX. Each one is negotiated by a brokerage service. You don’t just show up and let them put something on your truck with out knowing what it is, how much it weight and what you are getting paid.
I keep hoping and praying for a Trucker strike to kill the Covid madness
…Just looking for a silver lining
The independent owner/operators were forced out by AB 5. They probably don’t have emission compliant trucks either.
I guess what California is going to have to do is start up wagon trains with rainbow-colored unicorns pulling the wagons. The question then is how many unicorns does it take to pull one loaded shipping container?
What I’d like to see is a list of ways the 49 other states can punish California for such stupidity. I’m all for kicking them out of the union.
I’m sure Secretary Bootyedgeedge has a good handle on the rainbow colored unicorns.
Right now Bootyedgeedge is into breast feeding his recently acquired babies…priorities ya know. He does not have time for trivial things like solving problems like moving containers from the ports.
Poor babies!
yeah. No milk there.
Actually the federal government could step in, taking legal action if necessary. Remember that one of the powers of Congress is ‘regulate commerce between the states’? Well, here we are … California’s laws are interfering with commerce and if Congress wants to stop that, they can — and that’s assuming that there’s not already a law that would allow the Bidet administration to act in advance of new legislation.
Typical Democrat solution: create a problem with stupid policies; instead of changing the policy, “fix” the problem with another stupid policy, thereby compounding the original problem. Get the fake news media to cover for you. Problem solved.
You have to remember that failure is the goal of the democrat party.
Billy and Hilly sold the party to China a long time ago.
Or easier yet. Just SAY the problem is solved. Maybe these ports identify as fine?
That’s it. Just “deem” the problem fixed, ala Pelosi
Self deleted
Lets Go Brandon
This would never have happened under Trump. He would have solved this in 5 minutes.
There would’ve been nothing to solve under Trump. Gruesome wouldn’t have tried his nonsense if T were still in office.
Absolutely!!
It happened under Trump. Although if the media used the results of CA retardedness against him, he could have easily seen the true problem and possibly come up with a way to bypass these crazy restrictions through federal interference on behalf of the children and Christmas and all. What’s crazy to me right now is that they are even willing to acknowledge the problem at all, just blame greedy trucking companies and roll on. The usual two step. Joe’s handlers think too many people can see ships parked off the coast and that is the problem to be solved.
Right, this problem has been years in the making and the latest rules were imposed even under Trump’s administration. Trump has nothing to do with California state edicts.
I do think all the non-communist governors who have sea-accessible ports should do everything they can to ramp up their abilities to bring in and haul away cargo ASAP. Take advantage of California’s self-inflicted suicide.
California was never going to work with Trump, and the problems weren’t publicly obvious yet. Stirring up that hornet nest would have just handed the left another cudgel to beat him with.
There are ports on three sides of our country and down the St Lawrence. Can’t some of these ships go, like, to Texas where they have a governor who is NOT a fruit fly whacko unicorn?
Indeed there are other ports and many ships are being diverted to use them. Unfortunately those ports are farther away — to get to the Texas and east coast ports you have to go through the Panama Canal, right?
The diversion is not free and it takes more time.
We were warned by a certain letter of the alphabet to watch Long Beach Port.
I never figured which end was up with any of that mostly nonsense, but I have to admit a finger was definitely pointed that direction LONG before Trump left office.
You got that right.
Seems like just the other day PDJT took back the port of Long Beach from communist China.
https://www.judicialwatch.org/corruption-chronicles/trump-rids-major-u-s-container-port-of-chinese-communist-control/
Why couldn’t the ships be diverted to Washington and Oregon rather than the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Coast?
The West coast is pretty smooth, not a lot of deep water ports and most of them are man made over the years. The four major ones are in California San Diego, Los Angles, Long Beach, San Francisco. I can’t think of any in Origone. Then there is Seattle, Washington. No way Seattle is going to handle the load from the 4 California ports plus its still another day or two to get there. I also suspect Seattle is already operating near peak.
Too bad we don’t still have the manufacturing capability within the US to handle these supply chains. Maybe it’s time someone started putting America First! Maybe it’s time to Make America Great Again! Just sayin’! ?
Thanks for that.
I’m being too logical, I know, but if Oregon did any long term thinking they could dredge a deep water port, keep their emissions standards looser than California’s and steal a lot of business for themselves, even become a major freight hub.
It would take years and never get past their environmentalists. The key is in the middle syllable of that last word.
We have the deepest port in the country here in Massachusetts-New Bedford. Are any ships unloading here? NY is a mess too. They are using the two worst states in the country with the biggest losers running them to unload cargo.
Utah wanted to ship coal to Portland and sell it to China. The libs shut that idea down so the “new” solution is to build an inland port in Salt Lake City to the west of the airport Libs are still unhinged.
Creating a deep water port is a ten year job and that’s assuming you can get the permission of the hundred or so agencies with the power to say ‘no.’
A port would be tougher than a pipeline. How are we doing on pipelines so far?
Hubby tells me, he works for an expediting company, that Seattle is “at capacity” right now. Tacoma is still taking cargo.
I, for one, am willing to skip Christmas and pay almost any amount of additional money and suffer every shortage and my children’s hunger so Mayor Pete can be safe at home on long term “paternity leave”, in bed, with his newborns sucking on his dry, male nipple.
Foxtrot
Romeo
Echo
Alpha
Kilo
My brother-in-law does Harley performance. CARB drove him out of California. Motorcycle shops were getting hit with $25,000 fines. You can’t do anything to the engine. Lots of shops closed up, lots of people moved out-of-state. People in California go to AZ and NV to get stuff done.
CARB is a cancer.
Governor Newscum says no gas generators, lawn mowers, trimmers, etc etc.
But crapping in the street is encouraged, and you can legally shoplift up to $900 dollars a day till the stores close down.
One sure way to END this Stupid Merry go Round…….Stop Corporations from sending all their Manufacturing and Jobs over sea’s and to China as well as the Far East and India !!!!! No supply Train would exists if the Manufacturing was accomplished in the U.S. However, certain items will cost more to make and Buy !!!! But they would be available….Cheap Foreign labor has always been an Attraction of CEO’S in order to improve their bottom line and please Stock Holder’s (These same People in the Elite Class complain constantly about “Human Rights Violations from the same Countries providing them with cheap Labor ……Hypocritical, YOU BET !!! and we the Consumer get the Short end of the stick every time !!!! Like NOW !!!!
Nah,, we choose to be a free and open country that cherishes capitalism and not fascist policies dictating how companies do business (to this extent)
FUBAR
How many crises will there be under the Biden admin? It doesn’t stop. We are living in a dystopian future right now.
I have to disagree on there being a California emissions truck shortage and here is why-
My brother in law spent 30 years repairing heavy trucks and knows many drivers and he says this is not the reason for the backlog. He says the claim Sundance made yesterday stating that trucks have to be no more than 3 years old to pick up from ports is misinformed and that California utilizes the Drayage program for it’s ports that make virtually all 2007 and up class 8 (semi trucks) compliant (see page 22). Trucks built from 1994 to 2006 must have a particulate filter installed but most trucks on the road are newer. Here is the link to the port program which should be current as of today (drayage program semi truck emissions standards).
https://www.aqmd.gov/docs/default-source/ab-617-ab-134/steering-committees/wilmington/handouts-may9-2019.pdf?sfvrsn=8
so what IS THE REASON … you don’t say which means your brother in law is just guessing and has no idea …
My brother in law stated FACT and I provided the link to the FACT.
Your mindset makes zero sense.
I read most of the link. There are lots of requirements to stay compliant. The cost of upgrading the cost for the “filter” you write of is not cheap it seems. The filter and the upgrade are so cheap they offer LOAN programs to install and as all filters need to be replaced more expense and they seem to crack very easily it states in the brochure. So be careful with them.
There are idling regulations and so much more in that brochure. Fleets can afford and qualify for loans to upgrade. Owner operators are not so lucky it seems. Gee big boys win again with use of Lawfare.
Your brother spoke in generalities. You posted saying you had read it. I don’t think so. There are all kinds of rules and regs in that. It is confusing as hell, WEight of trucks, idling Times, pay CA for checks that are required.
YOUR mindset makes zero sense Gina is where
So, they somehow HELP CLIMATE by making ships go further (more fossil fuel usage) to make ships and trucks coming in and out lower the emissions around the globe?
2008 is when the mandates on our trucks started. Many of us own older equipment that used to go to CA, now it is not worth it financially, so a huge percentage of single owner operators and trucking companies will no longer go there. they created this mess, now let CA deal with it. As many of us in the business say, screw Commiefornia.
Well said Mike!
This is just the globalist plan. The virus made FOR a “vaccine”, that’s actually some kind of tracking system (everybody has to have it, at all costs). The new controls it put in place, the “mandates”, the stripping of our military, first responders, medical personnel, fire and emergency.
The “division” any way possible, the chaos, the “equity”, CRT, gender studies, the climate change (which for all the suffering it is causing – and has caused) will somehow change the weather of the earth atmosphere and’s sustainability – like 1% in 100 years – the control. The fall of our economy. The demographic of white America being changed through our southern border and immigration surge (these are people that don’t care about the American history or what it means to have national American pride), soon – Equity, climate change, new economic world money system – the globalist agenda. Will be complete.
Send them all back to China
I can’t wait to spend $650 on my next pair of made in USA Nike’s
It won’t cost anywhere near that at least once manufacturing is reshored.
Up front there will be some shortages and certainly labor costs will be higher but cost will stabilize and with more jobs wages will go up. Mostly the standard of living will rise.
This would take a few years though.
There is a caveat to this, if the people that are engaged in the Great Resignation decide that they aren’t interested in stuff as much as they used to be and start to prefer minimalism, they won’t be lured back to work for money money they don’t want or need. Its possible we broke consumerism
The option to bring in more labor will create enormous problems worse than we have now so largely if a lot of people want less stuff, you’ll get less stuff.
The fix is not more immigration which destroys social cohesion and guarantees socialism but to fix marriage and family formation . If most people expect to have families and children they will bust rump to pay the bills and will need stuff as well.
No idea how to do this, part of the problem is economic, so jobs will fix that but the rest is social. Divorce, family court, hypergamy all that are tough to fix and it may take a collapse to do it.
I want Mike Lindell to get into the shoe business. Lindell loafers etc.
Real Americans don’t buy nike
Made in America sure would solve some of this chaos.
A friend at the port of Miam tells me they are very busy but no backed up ships. He may be about to get even busier.
Tell them to unload in FL
Government caused that mess as is usually the case. Just get the f**k out of the way.
Wait until container cranes begin to break down-and they will- to add to the confusion.
Time for you to go Joe….
The Idiot couldn’t operate a lemonade stand…
After thinking about this more, isn’t this the tariff on Chinese goods we always wanted but couldn’t get under Trump? Domestic goods are not impacted, and most imports to the US are from China, so them being scarce and pricy is basically like a tariff.
Am I right, or did I miss something?
Two things come to mind; isn’t about a third of California’s revenue earned from transshipping goods?
And, are there even enough new tractors available to meet California’s fantasy?
Here is a common sense solution – stop importing and produce domestically. It can’t be done overnight but the reason everything was off-shored was because it was less expensive to produce in China, Vietnam, or anywhere that had abundant, cheap labor. Well, if consumers end up paying as much or more because of added transportation costs, why not move operations back to the US? Again, it will not happen overnight because it takes more time to build than it does to shut down, but it would make sense to get started now. These problems are not going to go away if the environmentalist keep at it, and trust me, they are not going away because an entire industry has been created and has plenty of money to keep it running.
After reading through biographies, it seems that Buttigieg’s undersecretary, Polly Trottenberg, is actually more qualified than he is. I haven’t heard her name in this discussion. Admittedly, I have not read every comment. Is she in charge while B is on paternity/maternity (?) leave?
Crane operators making $250,000/year are part of the problem according to truckers.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/lazy-crane-operators-making-250-000-a-year-exacerbating-port-crisis-truckers-say
Doesn’t Biden have advisors ? like a Transportation Secretary who doesn’t give a damn about the current catastrophe nor about his fellow citizens ? The collective mentality is for everyone else.
Let the illegals unload them.
It should be noted that, given their lock on political power in California, the Evilcrats could repeal this mandate in about two seconds.
The formal solution would be for the feds to strike the state rule based on Commerce Clause/emergency considerations, but the very man who would be charged with doing this is Mayor Pete. Not likely.
Biden admin is creating an intentional backlog, and to make matters worse, his admin have pulled all permits for ‘owner operators’ to go to the ports. Owner operators aren’t allowed to transport containers. There is no driver shortage. So, why is Biden admin (or rather the powers behind the curtain) blocking owner operator semi truck drivers from helping clear the ports and help with the backlog? If you think this is about some “shortage of CA emission compliant internal transportation trucks”, you’re in for a rude awakening. This is INTENTIONAL. The more chaos, the better – Motto of the worldwide communist organization, NWO . Goodbye USA, goodbye freedom and prosperity for the people of this nation….that is, with the exception of those currently in power.
Newscum needs to wake up to reality and allow non-compliant trucks in to the state and in to the ports!
It’s backed up at the port of Houston too though https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.click2houston.com/news/local/2021/10/11/port-houston-being-overburdened-by-shipping-crisis-at-us-ports/%3foutputType=amp
Governors in Florida, Texas, I encourage you to look into discussion and legalities of having these ships move from Pacific to Gulf of Mexico and use Florida/Texas’s ports for unloading. If the ships are too large for these ports/possibly unload onto smaller ships and then unload in the ports. This will give jobs to your states and help rid of this planned disruption and possible famine.
In the late sixties my Dad, not connected with the railways in anyway, sat at our supper table one evening and announced the our government and corporations were making the biggest mistake in his children’s lifetime. He was referring to the tearing up the railway lines and putting everything over the road. He was a business owner in his own right but was not particularly political. He could see into the future it seemed regarding myriad of issues which did make him a success at what he did. At the time I did not understand exactly what he was talking about. But it seems the tire and truck manufacturers around that time decided they needed to assure their businesses would flourish so they all diecided to do away with rail. But anyone could see its less expensive, more environmentally friendly, faster, actually costs infrastructure less since there would not be the heavy trucks continually pounding the roads. and lives lost due to the competition for space with the over the road transport of the majority of our goods.
Once again, the government supposedly representing the public for their good bowed to the corporations and allowed this very bad decision to change our landscape, and put more lives at risk not to mention the chatter about the environmental impact of TRUCKS is now causing this ridiculous result.
My Dad was NOT an engineer, scientist or college educated perp, he was born to a farm family turned machinist so he was not the only person to see the long term effects of that decision, I am sure.
Big corporations moving their manufacturing to China and other Asian nations do more damage to the environment than we are preventng with eco friendly trucks, thanks to the vast distances required to deliver these goods. There is a steady stream of container ships carrying goods across 5,000 miles of Pacific Ocean to US ports, and then trucked through hundreds if not thousands of miles to every corner of the country. What powers these ships? Add to that the trash and waste being dumped overboard while enroute, damaging the oceans. Don’t forget the steady stream of Boeing 747s and other Boeing and Airbus freighters flying between Anchorage and Asia burning jet fuel 24/7 carrying goods that cannot go by ship. How much carbon is emitted from these ships and airplanes compared to the fewer transportation miles required by making these goods in the USA? Much of the pollution from China’s factories eventually drifts over to the US anyway, via jet-stream winds west to east across the northern Pacific. So we’re polluting the environment in multiple ways through all this “made in China” effort. The next election campaign should be centered around how moving manufacturing to the USA helps save the environment, sharply reduces the cost of goods through shorter delivery distances, reducing the demand for the expensive fossil fuel required to power these ships and airplanes, while reducing our reliance on hostile nations for critical goods. Trump’s effort to bring manufacturing to the USA was spot on, and these points will further support that position.
I have been telling my husband, he is an engineer and agrees. Using railways is better for all of us, even for personal travel. Don’t forget it is more safe for cars if trucks are limited on highways.( …sorry Mike, the trucker).
I left Michigan in 80s bc of lack of jobs. Our policies/politicians stink on ice.
Oh wait! If 99.999999% of what we buy didn’t have “Made in China” printed on it, but instead had “Made in USA,” we would be in this mess now, would we???
Dementia Pedo Beijing Burden is making things worse – that’s the saying for the last 50 years of his worthless, socialist, political “career”…he needs to be retired, along with the rest of his worthless socialist administration
Try Florida’s ports. Gov DeSantis says they are open and can handle all offloading. Wouldn’t it be great if all those in backlog could use open ports in FL and go around the California restrictions.
???
Buy American made!
If the government ran the Sahara desert in five years there would be a shortageof sand. It takes the government to f… things up good and hard.
If only there were a way to avoid busy ports, shipping the products we need from around the world to our country and depending on other countries to supply us with these goods. I got it…MAKE THINGS IN THE UNITED STATES! Maybe this could start a wake up call to all the big corporations that only produce products over seas. At some point, there won’t be a need for any of this crap anyway the our country is headed.
Agreed. Build new, highly automated factories to make toys, small appliances, etc. China’s biggest advantage is cheap labor. Robots work 24/7 with no bathroom breaks. I would think they would pay for themselves quickly on the savings in shipping costs alone.
Let’s go Dipshit