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"Shipping things 5000 miles should not be cheaper than making them closer to home." The word "should" is used to contrast with reality. Crafting policy around

"Shipping things 5000 miles should not be cheaper than making them closer to home." The word "should" is used to contrast with reality. Crafting policy around something other than reality is not a good start. Surely there are some costs hidden somewhere, and that distorts things. But if water transport is not the right way to do things, then there must be a huge worldwide conspiracy that's lasted for millenia.

baq 5y ago
Reflexivity is the point of policies, no? It’s trivial to make local production cost competitive with customs, tax, subsidies, etc. It’s the second order effects that are dangerous if not considered.
tomByrer 5y ago
EPA regulations & labor prices (some blame unions) have a real cost impact on "Made in USA". Also why efficient mass transport (eg new bullet train lines) are too costly to build in USA.
Tijdreiziger 5y ago
The reality is that carbon emissions are killing our living environment. Current policies fail to account for this.
- chmod600 5y ago
  And if we did account for carbon properly, then would everyone get all their goods made in scratch from local producers? No, a lot of stuff would still come from 5000 miles away by boat. Because it is really that efficient, whether it "should" be or not.
  - Tijdreiziger 5y ago
    All? Certainly not. More? Very probably. Invest the earnings from a carbon tax in carbon-negative projects (such as renewable energy), and you've got a win-win situation.
    - chmod600 5y ago
      If oil was $10000 per barrel, they would power ships with nuclear or gasp wind power just like before. It wouldn't result in a silicon wafer fab near your house so you can have a locally-sourced smartphone. Even crops would come by sea for a large number of people. Sure, a different tax or cost structure will shift the equilibrium. But the concept that stuff from 5000 miles away "should" be more expensive, and that we should make policy based on that assumption, is just ridiculous. EDIT: if oil was more expensive, it would probably shift to more sea transport and fewer people living inland. If anything, land transport is the thing which has been given an unfair market advantage by externalizing costs.
      - Tijdreiziger 5y ago
        > If oil was $10000 per barrel, they would power ships with nuclear or gasp wind power just like before. Great! Nuclear and wind are both carbon-neutral. I would be very satisfied with that. > But the concept that stuff from 5000 miles away "should" be more expensive, and that we should make policy based on that assumption, is just ridiculous. No, that's not the argument I'm making. The argument I'm making is that stuff that has caused more carbon emissions 'should' be more expensive, and conversely, stuff that caused less carbon emissions 'should' be (relatively) less expensive. How many miles that stuff happened to travel is only material to the discussion insofar as transport tends to cause carbon emissions.
        chmod600 5y ago
        "more carbon emissions 'should' be more expensive, and conversely, stuff that caused less carbon emissions 'should' be (relatively) less expensive" It's not clear that such policies would reduce shipping stuff from 5000 miles away -- except by reducing the total amount of stuff made -- so I don't see a direct connection to the topic of this thread.
toss1 5y ago
The 'reality' of which you speak involves a lot of fobbing off external costs to others and to the future. Everything from sustainability of companies and economies, fossil fuel subsidies and regulatory capture, pollution and climate costs, and far more make shipping things 5000 miles APPEAR to be cheaper in the current time frame. That does not mean that it really is cheaper. It is like the problem of buying boots - do you get the $40 pair that might last you a year, or the $160 pair that will last you a decade, and perform better on every parameter the entire time? Which is really cheaper?
- chmod600 5y ago
  So water transport just "appears" to be more efficient due to some kind of market manipulation or slieght of hand? What manipulation is the culprit? It can't be fossil fuels externalities, because water transport has been used over long distances well before oil and coal were used as fuels. And it can't be due to a government policy because water transport has been used by pretty much anyone that has a coast or riverbank. Some realities are just to big and obvious to wave away with generalities.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - toss1 5y ago
    NO. It is not just water transport. Of course water transport has always been more efficient. If we were talking about economies where all the manufacturing and all the consumption was from communities that lived on connected bodies of water, that would be fine. But the reality is that everyone does not produce and put their work directly on a boat, and does not purchase goods right off the boat. And even if they did, the current boats are massive carbon polluters, externalizing those costs to the rest of the world. The reality is that global shipment involves far more than just boats - it is an entire exosystem of multi-modal transport, none of which works without the others — as we are seeing right now with the failures. Moreover, there are also massive societal costs to offshoring manufacturing that are fobbed off onto future generations. These have zero to do with the efficiency of water transport. So, I'm speaking of the entire system of offshoring manufacturing and transport of finished goods appears to be more efficient than local manufacture, but is in fact full of highly externalized costs that make the "efficiency" in fact a fallacy.
panarky 5y ago
> costs hidden somewhere It's much more perverse than just hidden and externalized costs. These disasters are extracting billions in additional profits from workers to the 0.1%. Why wasn't the Texas grid more resilient to cold weather? Because it was more profitable not to weatherproof the system, and then the inevitable grid failure was extraordinarily profitable to the tune of billions of dollars for the owners of energy corporations, at the expense of rate payers and tax payers. Logistics companies are raking in billions of excess profits due to the shortages of essential products that they themselves caused by not investing in a more resilient supply chain. Did Texas energy companies intentionally keep the grid vulnerable so they could profit? Did logistics companies intentionally break supply chains to benefit themselves? It doesn't have to be intentional, it's the natural mechanics of an oligopolistic market system. When we allow market participants to profit more by running at 100% of capacity than by building in resiliency, and then allow them to profit spectacularly when that lack of resiliency inevitably cascades into catastrophe, then that's exactly what they're going to do.

baq 5y ago

Reflexivity is the point of policies, no? It’s trivial to make local production cost competitive with customs, tax, subsidies, etc. It’s the second order effects that are dangerous if not considered.

tomByrer 5y ago

EPA regulations & labor prices (some blame unions) have a real cost impact on "Made in USA". Also why efficient mass transport (eg new bullet train lines) are too costly to build in USA.

Tijdreiziger 5y ago

The reality is that carbon emissions are killing our living environment. Current policies fail to account for this.

chmod600 5y ago
And if we did account for carbon properly, then would everyone get all their goods made in scratch from local producers? No, a lot of stuff would still come from 5000 miles away by boat. Because it is really that efficient, whether it "should" be or not.
- Tijdreiziger 5y ago
  All? Certainly not. More? Very probably. Invest the earnings from a carbon tax in carbon-negative projects (such as renewable energy), and you've got a win-win situation.
  - chmod600 5y ago
    If oil was $10000 per barrel, they would power ships with nuclear or gasp wind power just like before. It wouldn't result in a silicon wafer fab near your house so you can have a locally-sourced smartphone. Even crops would come by sea for a large number of people. Sure, a different tax or cost structure will shift the equilibrium. But the concept that stuff from 5000 miles away "should" be more expensive, and that we should make policy based on that assumption, is just ridiculous. EDIT: if oil was more expensive, it would probably shift to more sea transport and fewer people living inland. If anything, land transport is the thing which has been given an unfair market advantage by externalizing costs.
    - Tijdreiziger 5y ago
      > If oil was $10000 per barrel, they would power ships with nuclear or gasp wind power just like before. Great! Nuclear and wind are both carbon-neutral. I would be very satisfied with that. > But the concept that stuff from 5000 miles away "should" be more expensive, and that we should make policy based on that assumption, is just ridiculous. No, that's not the argument I'm making. The argument I'm making is that stuff that has caused more carbon emissions 'should' be more expensive, and conversely, stuff that caused less carbon emissions 'should' be (relatively) less expensive. How many miles that stuff happened to travel is only material to the discussion insofar as transport tends to cause carbon emissions.
      - chmod600 5y ago
        "more carbon emissions 'should' be more expensive, and conversely, stuff that caused less carbon emissions 'should' be (relatively) less expensive" It's not clear that such policies would reduce shipping stuff from 5000 miles away -- except by reducing the total amount of stuff made -- so I don't see a direct connection to the topic of this thread.

toss1 5y ago

The 'reality' of which you speak involves a lot of fobbing off external costs to others and to the future. Everything from sustainability of companies and economies, fossil fuel subsidies and regulatory capture, pollution and climate costs, and far more make shipping things 5000 miles APPEAR to be cheaper in the current time frame. That does not mean that it really is cheaper. It is like the problem of buying boots - do you get the $40 pair that might last you a year, or the $160 pair that will last you a decade, and perform better on every parameter the entire time? Which is really cheaper?

chmod600 5y ago
So water transport just "appears" to be more efficient due to some kind of market manipulation or slieght of hand? What manipulation is the culprit? It can't be fossil fuels externalities, because water transport has been used over long distances well before oil and coal were used as fuels. And it can't be due to a government policy because water transport has been used by pretty much anyone that has a coast or riverbank. Some realities are just to big and obvious to wave away with generalities.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- toss1 5y ago
  NO. It is not just water transport. Of course water transport has always been more efficient. If we were talking about economies where all the manufacturing and all the consumption was from communities that lived on connected bodies of water, that would be fine. But the reality is that everyone does not produce and put their work directly on a boat, and does not purchase goods right off the boat. And even if they did, the current boats are massive carbon polluters, externalizing those costs to the rest of the world. The reality is that global shipment involves far more than just boats - it is an entire exosystem of multi-modal transport, none of which works without the others — as we are seeing right now with the failures. Moreover, there are also massive societal costs to offshoring manufacturing that are fobbed off onto future generations. These have zero to do with the efficiency of water transport. So, I'm speaking of the entire system of offshoring manufacturing and transport of finished goods appears to be more efficient than local manufacture, but is in fact full of highly externalized costs that make the "efficiency" in fact a fallacy.

panarky 5y ago

> costs hidden somewhere It's much more perverse than just hidden and externalized costs. These disasters are extracting billions in additional profits from workers to the 0.1%. Why wasn't the Texas grid more resilient to cold weather? Because it was more profitable not to weatherproof the system, and then the inevitable grid failure was extraordinarily profitable to the tune of billions of dollars for the owners of energy corporations, at the expense of rate payers and tax payers. Logistics companies are raking in billions of excess profits due to the shortages of essential products that they themselves caused by not investing in a more resilient supply chain. Did Texas energy companies intentionally keep the grid vulnerable so they could profit? Did logistics companies intentionally break supply chains to benefit themselves? It doesn't have to be intentional, it's the natural mechanics of an oligopolistic market system. When we allow market participants to profit more by running at 100% of capacity than by building in resiliency, and then allow them to profit spectacularly when that lack of resiliency inevitably cascades into catastrophe, then that's exactly what they're going to do.