When almost everything we buy comes from somewhere else

Transport costs are going to rise, and, unlike Democrats who don’t understand how things get paid for, consumers (that’s us) will pay for the increases.

A few notes from “Everything is Awful Again”

“The Loadstar, a trade publication, has recorded that the most recent data indicates less than 10% of ships are arriving on time to Europe. Despite this, there have been a great deal of cancelled trips, as shippers try to get their ships onto some sort of schedule again, despite delays at load and discharge ports because of congestion.”

“Mega-terminals such as the one that I work to service, are operating at 100% capacity for extended periods to deal with the insane spike in imports. The shift to larger and larger ships means that, like rush-hour traffic, congestion is an issue even when ports are operating below capacity.” 

As for ships not arriving on-time in congested ports: “container ships lose MILLIONS by being a day late to port.” 

“It's an odd thing to see, a completely full containership, boxes stacked to the sky, riding high enough out of the water that the prop wash is full of foam …”

http://bigironbegfish.blogspot.com/2021/05/this-week-in-shipping-or-everything-is.html