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The Flexport CEO may know more, but the Flexport CEO also has an agenda of being profitable for the Flexport CEO. This may, or may not, align with being soluti
by bsder 5y ago
The Flexport CEO may know more, but the Flexport CEO also has an agenda of being profitable for the Flexport CEO.
This may, or may not, align with being solutions and advice that benefits the public at large. In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that things are currently "optimized" strongly enough that squeezing more profit out of the system generally corresponds to finding a sucker to take advantage of--normally the public at large.
Startups and their leaders have a "move fast and break things" attitude that is no big deal when imaginary things like software is involved that becomes a big deal when non-imaginary things like people become impacted.
Stacking 6-high triples storage space, sure. But it doesn't stop container ships from running back to Asia empty.
So, that storage space will fill up quickly, and we're back where we started only now we have dangerously stacked high center-of-mass (because empty) containers (this is an active seismic zone, you know) that nobody wants to pay to get rid of until somebody dies and their insurance rates shoot up enough to make it necessary to dump the containers.
At which point, the shipping companies will magically make the shipping containers go away--probably illegally to somewhere you don't want them to go to.
- weyland108 5y ago“ The Flexport CEO may know more, but the Flexport CEO also has an agenda of being profitable for the Flexport CEO” These are all for profit companies. It’s a bit utopian to suggest anything else would be better without providing any specific alternatives.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bsder 5y agoIf you want me to believe that "profit motive" is aligned with "public interest", why is everybody running to the regulators to clear this instead of spending money? It's a bit disingenuous to suggest that "profit motive" is aligned with "public interest" in the face of all the current evidence we have in other sectors that is quite to the contrary. To start, it is not at all clear that super low cost, super low friction shipping from China is, in fact, in the general US public interest. But it is in the interest of WalMart. And it is in the interest of Amazon. For example, from the standpoint of the public interest, consuming fewer Christmas goods (which are mostly disposable garbage and which is what the Asian shippers are all rushing to get transported) is probably preferable. A great deal of Asian garbage which is destined to be US garbage is currently clogging out the shipping of goods which have a steady demand and are far more necessary to the functioning of the economy. You will note that "increased foreign shipping friction causing goods to be manufactured locally again" is not on the discussion table because it is not part of an agenda that people in the shipping industry wish to countenance.
- weyland108 5y agoI never suggested profit motive was good for public interest. Your argument in fact suggests that profit motive is never good for public interest without suggesting any good alternatives either. It’s easy to make an argument that everything should be produced locally… what happens when there are no trucks or truckers to ship it from one state to another ? Should each state be responsible to produce everything locally….should each county be then responsible to produce everything locally ….at what point does it stop ? The point about “let’s just consume fewer goods” sounds pretty utopian to me. That’s not a plan it’s a hope and hope is not a plan.
- marderfarker2 5y agoIronically the US the largest exporter of unrecyclable garbage to Asia.
- sbierwagen 5y agoI mean, storage containers are made of structural steel. It's not like they're radioactive waste. They're valuable, and there's an active secondary market for used containers. There is absolutely no situation where empty containers would get dumped at sea or whatever.