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Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will plummet 35% next week
- duxup 2y agoIt will be interesting to see if retailers choose raising prices or if they lean more towards ... just not offering some things.
- codingbot3000 2y agoGilead might be in for empty shelves like Venezuela and Cuba :-D
- duxup 2y agoI'll be sad, but amused, when Trump and Co declare that each state should build factories to fill their needs for basic products ... similar to proposals made during the economic collapse days in Venezuela.
- taylodl 2y agoThe United States has never had such incompetence in governance. Americans aren't accustomed to this degree of ineptness.
- dylan604 2y agoEveryone made fun of W about being the least competent, but then the GOP went and collectively said "hold my beer". Twice.
- bilbo0s 2y agoIt's surprising that we would actually vote for this of our own free will. That's gotta be something historians will puzzle over for the next two hundred years. It's mind blowing that we did that. Stepping a level lower even, how, on Earth, could our system possibly have produced Harris, Vance and Trump as the options? Then you step a level lower than that, and even the challengers were like, DeSantis and Haley? It was corruption and ineptitude the entire way down. How could that have happened?
- unethical_ban 2y agoThe two party system, forced on us by plurality voting, is the reason people feel they don't have a choice. Pick one of two very different sides. If a third candidate tries to enter the race, they harm themselves and the person they are similar to, and they help the opposition. Any form of ranked voting will rid us of this restriction and allow more candidates to run for an office, and allow citizens to vote their true preference. Yesterday, HR 3040 was introduced by a GOP member from Arizona, which intends to ban ranked choice voting from federal elections. The GOP has already banned it in the state of Florida. A radical party is terrified of a system that enables more electoral competition and throttles radicalism.
- School-Cotton 2y agoNo idea why you got downvoted. This is exactly the answer.
- unethical_ban 2y agoThe only "non-objective" component of my comment is the analysis of the GOP's motives to stop voting reform.
- taylodl 2y agoWhat you're talking about is known as Duverger's Law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law
- unethical_ban 2y agoYep! And the "spoiler effect" is when a voting system fails to meet the "independence of clones" criterion. In an election, the addition of a candidate similar to an existing candidate should not adversely impact both candidates.
- nradov 2y agoRight. The last serious third-party presidential candidate was Ross Perot in 1992. In terms of political platform and voter appeal he was slightly more similar to the incumbent Republican candidate George H. W. Bush, which probably enabled the Democrat candidate Bill Clinton to win (although it's impossible to know what would have happened if Perot didn't run). Some political analysts claim that Perot entered the race not really intending to win but rather as retribution against Bush. In 1979 the Iranian regime imprisoned two of Perot's EDS employees. Perot asked Bush, who was then Director of the CIA, to get them out. Bush refused to act and Perot held a grudge against him ever since.
- dowager_dan99 2y agoHis most die-hard supporters will hang on to the bitter end - and they're the least capable of doing so. I've gone from mocking them => feeling sorry for them => fear them - these people are definitely not harmless. these are sad/scary times.
- Loughla 2y agoI had a conversation with someone who I usually respect, and would say is an intelligent person. He's a trump supporter for the manufacturing support. He said, "It's just not that hard to get these factories back to the states. We can get that done this month." The amount of cognitive dissonance and just outright believing the lies is astounding. Trump won't say that states need to build those factories. He'll tell governors that they're failures for not having done it already.
- bjourne 2y agoHe's not wrong. It is technically possible. However, transforming the US into a command economy may not be the best thing to do.
- ajmurmann 2y agoWe can build a factory in a month, including permitting, acquiring the land, planning the building and constucting it, as well as procuring or building the machinery and setting it up in the factory, programming it and hiring and training the workforce during high employment? That's very impressive!
- masfuerte 2y agoHigh employment isn't going to be a blocker for much longer.
- lesuorac 2y agoPerhaps not a month but the US really can build things fast if that's actually prioritized. https://www.globalhighways.com/wh10/feature/building-replacement-bridge-record-time https://www.globalhighways.com/wh10/feature/building-replace... tbh, as far as I'm concerned the hollowing out of the USG is why we can't do things fast. How many times has your boss had the entire team submit a proposal on how long it would take each member of the team to complete a JIRA ticket and then use that bidding as to who to assign the ticket? Like if you could build bridges and stuff in-house then you really speed things up. Given that something like a factory is probably going to require eminent domain to get a large contiguous tract (or built in the middle of nowhere so no counter-lawsuit) it seems fine for the government to build the shell of a building and then sell it off to be customized.
- xnx 2y agoA retailer would be irrational to let stock run out instead of continuously raising prices.
- ARandumGuy 2y agoFor stuff that people need and will buy at heavily inflated prices, sure. But there are a lot of non-essential items that people probably won't buy if the price increases significantly. And for those items, I suspect a lot of stores will just let the shelves stay empty instead of spending a lot of money for inventory they can't sell.
- ModernMech 2y agoCandy bars for example. They want to charge $3 for a single candy bar now, but no one wants to pay that much so they're selling them 2 for $5. But retailers have studied that this trick isn't going to last because not everyone wants to buy candy bars in bulk, and they won't spend more than $3 for a single candy bar, which means if it goes any higher they won't by any candy bars at all.
- 9rx 2y agoThe customer will only bear so much, though, so at some point the businesses that keep buying stock and raising prices will be left with stock that cannot be priced any higher, leaving it to be unloaded at a loss. That can be a far worse situation than not having any stock at all. Either way, it is an uncomfortable gamble.
- duxup 2y agoDepends on the product and if your marketing is low prices do you want to be the one to first crank them up and get Trump all upset?
- teeray 2y agoNot enough greed: Stockpile in a back warehouse and raise prices on the two or three items per day you allow on the shelves.
- mindslight 2y agoAliexpress is already displaying tariff-inclusive prices. A curious dynamic: A seller importing a container of cargo to Amazon (or other US warehouse) has to pay the tariffs up front while trusting that dear leader won't lower the tariff amount before they can sell them. A seller that ships directly from China has a committed purchase with cash in hand by the time the specific tariff needs to be paid. I can see this leading to drastically less selection from US warehouses of long tail items that would otherwise sit around. Speculation: I wouldn't be surprised if Aliexpress (/Choice) charges sellers a fixed fee based on the current tariff rates, but still covers whatever the tariff ends up being when the item arrives at the port, to make it really straightforward for sellers. The kind of eat-it investment you get in a society working to build up institutions rather than tear them down.
- vjvjvjvjghv 2y agoI think it will be both. Raising prices for some goods because of tariffs (and adding some percent for good measure and profit) while also discontinuing others. It may go like the car market where cheaper options are slowly being phased out and the focus goes to higher priced vehicles.
- jmyeet 2y agoFor many goods a 145% tariff is a ban for all intents and purposes and no different to a 100% tariff or a 200% tariff. This is just more evidence (as if we needed it) that the administration has no idea what they're doing. Certain goods are extremely high mark up. For example, clothing is typically 100-200% markup. So if you buy a $5 t-shirt and sell it for $15, the tariffed price is now ~$12. You may find retailers will sell that at $20, absorbing some of the cost on a temporary basis. Also, many such retailers have already sought to diversify their supply chains (eg buying clothing from Vietnam and other places).
- mystified5016 2y agoPrices never really came down after the COVID shortages, I really don't expect this round of shortage to be any different. Companies have a convenient excuse to jack up prices with the comforting lie that they'll go back down when shortages are over.
- pelagic_sky 2y agoSeattle ports are currently empty, will be interesting to see if this holds true . https://seemorerocks.substack.com/p/port-of-seattle-empty-zero-inbound https://seemorerocks.substack.com/p/port-of-seattle-empty-ze...
- thehoff 2y agoI hate to be so cynical these days....but if this is true, that would mean a lot of dockworkers/longshoreman are out of jobs or not working right? Truck drivers, and who knows what other jobs are just not doing anything at this point?
- trymas 2y agoI think there were already multiple posts on HN about this. Most recent I remember UPS firing 20 000 people. Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43835849 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43835849
- toomuchtodo 2y agoThis was because UPS let an Amazon delivery deal roll off that was not profitable. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1090727/000109072725000046/exhibit991-earningspressre.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1090727/000109072725... https://about.ups.com/us/en/newsroom/press-releases/financials/ups-releases-4q-2024-earnings-and-provides-2025-guidance.html https://about.ups.com/us/en/newsroom/press-releases/financia...
- wavefunction 2y agoUPS said it was because shipping volumes at Amazon are down, so it's not-profitable because shipping-volumes are down. lol
- rdtsc 2y ago> I hate to be so cynical these days....but if this is true, that would mean a lot of But since we’re being cynical, is importing stuff just to keep the port workers busy a good idea?
- jqpabc123 2y ago[flagged]
- SecretDreams 2y ago> miracle
- coreyh14444 2y ago[flagged]
- kristopolous 2y agoPeople in the cult are over the moon about this. They think the guy is basically Jesus.
- SecretDreams 2y agoThey would deport Jesus if they saw him.
- garciasn 2y ago[flagged]
- SecretDreams 2y ago[flagged]
- jqpabc123 2y agoIn other words, a pretty obvious example of a "false idol".
- fundad 2y agoRunning government like a business... Theranos.
- WorldMaker 2y ago
- taylodl 2y agoThis could get really ugly when the shelves start going empty. This may make the toilet paper incident seem quaint in comparison.
- thehoff 2y agoFTA: Maybe not empty but less choice and alternatives not necessarily what you're looking for. “I don’t see a complete emptiness on store shelves or online when we’re buying. But if you’re out looking for a blue shirt, you might find 11 purple ones and one blue in a size that’s not yours. So we’ll start seeing less choice on those shelves simply because we’re not getting the variety of goods coming in here based on the additional costs in place. And for that one blue shirt that’s still left, you’ll see a price hike,” Seroka said.
- taylodl 2y agoMarkets don't work that way. Supply is tuned to demand. When the supply is artificially constrained while the demand remains constant, it further strains already limited supplies, leading to empty shelves and rising prices. This is a fundamental principle of market economics. It's important to understand how these dynamics operate to grasp the broader implications of reduced imports from China.
- pixl97 2y agoIn addition tik-tok/insta are having post after post warning people that the shelves are going to be empty which tends to feedback into itself. If you were going to buy 1 of X normally if you think X may be out for sometime you may end up buying 2-4 of X which will run the shelves out very quickly when 10-15% of purchasers do that unexpectedly. Other people see the shelves emptying and buy more too. Going to be messy. All I have to say is imagine if Biden did this, what the news would be saying.
- philipallstar 2y agoI'd imagine they'd be saying, "Why haven't we seen Biden in over 100 days?"
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- readthenotes1 2y agoIMO For impact on normal people's day-to-day life, the suspension of the de minimis rule that allowed boxes under $800 declared value (i.e., construction cost) to be imported with no tariff will have more of an impact than any other recent change. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/what-the-end-of-the-de-minimis-exemption-could-mean-for-your-online-orders https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/what-the-end-of-the-de-...
- Aurornis 2y agoI think you’re underestimating how many products have inputs that come from China and overestimating how many direct-ship packages the average person receives internationally.
- dylan604 2y agoThe GP sounds more like someone that routinely bought from places like Shein, Temu, etc.
- sigwinch 2y agoTaxpayers as a group will pay $1 for each $0.50 collected on that. We are not yet on track for a net savings on spending.
- clumsysmurf 2y agoI never shopped Temu / Shein but got lots of electronics from AliExpress. My last purchase was a spectrometer, I would never be able to afford it now with tariffs + de minimus gone. I think this will hurt the DIY / Maker / IoT community hard.
- c22 2y agoThe DIY / Maker crowd seems the most insulated from this, being in a prime position to recycle and repurpose materials that are already here to make their own tools.
- arrobbiato 2y ago
- xnx 2y agoWhat's a good/authoritative site for tracking activity of US ports. This tells a little bit of the story: https://www.drewry.co.uk/supply-chain-advisors/supply-chain-expertise/world-container-index-assessed-by-drewry https://www.drewry.co.uk/supply-chain-advisors/supply-chain-... Longer term trends would be nice.
- Nezteb 2y agoA few options: - https://www.bts.gov/freight-indicators https://www.bts.gov/freight-indicators - https://www.marinetraffic.com/ https://www.marinetraffic.com/ - https://www.vesselfinder.com/ https://www.vesselfinder.com/
- eber 2y agoI looked for something like this yesterday, and came across this dashboard with trends for the Port of LA only: https://signal.portoptimizer.com/ https://signal.portoptimizer.com/ which seems to be a port activity dashboard (demo with real data) for the port of LA via portoptimizer.com You'll see the trends don't seem so bad yet, but they have a previous-12-weeks graph of current year vs previous year which will be interesting to follow
- trebligdivad 2y agoThe youtuber 'What's going on with shipping?' has a good description in; it includes pointers to loads of sites with the actual data. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GgcIuQ4X5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GgcIuQ4X5k
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- throw0101a 2y ago> The youtuber 'What's going on with shipping?' The "Youtuber" is actually a professor and Chair, Department of History, Criminal Justice and Politics at Campbell: * https://directory.campbell.edu/people/sal-mercogliano/ https://directory.campbell.edu/people/sal-mercogliano/ * https://twitter.com/mercoglianos https://twitter.com/mercoglianos
- dullcrisp 2y agoYou mean the chair of the department of history is actually a YouTuber.
- bombcar 2y agoSomeday colleges will have Tubers, who outrank Chairs.
- AStonesThrow 2y agoIndeed, and some Tubers will be Common Taters, while others will be Gingers, and some will rise to the ranks of Howard Cosell
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dehrmann 2y agoThe job is essentially the same: publish or perish.
- xyst 2y agoWhat’s the data on exports as well? Some stories of farmers taking massive hits with demand that was only fulfilled by global market.
- Aurornis 2y agoDepends on the commodity and any reciprocal (actually reciprocal) tariffs that were imposed on US products. Soybean farmers are hit hard because a lot of their crops went to China. Meanwhile some other exports are basically unaffected right now. Other countries have generally not been so haphazard in application of tariffs. They don’t want to actively harm their citizens and they try to plan tariffs with more precision and consideration.
- Zamaamiro 2y agoIt's also worth noting that some of the damage will be permanent. Trump's mini trade war with China in 2018 (for which he had to bail out farmers) led to US farmers permanently losing market share in soybean exports to Brazil. > In 2018, during Trump's first term, the U.S. and China engaged in tit-for-tat tariffs that led Beijing to take permanent steps to reduce its reliance on American farm goods. > The share of China's soybean imports from the United States dropped to 18% in the first 11 months of 2024, from 40% in the whole of 2016, while Brazil's share grew to 74% from 46%, according to Chinese customs data. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/chinese-buyers-switch-cheaper-brazilian-soybeans-ahead-trump-return-2025-01-17/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/chinese-buyers-s...
- ramesh31 2y agoThe port of Long Beach is the most mind blowing thing I have ever seen in my life. Hundreds of trucks stretching for miles, 24 hours a day. I would not wish that job on anyone... but the thought of it being empty is just terrifying.
- dr_pardee 2y agoKnowing someone who imports from China, there are ways around tariffs https://harris-sliwoski.com/chinalawblog/the-guide-for-legally-avoiding-todays-and-tomorrows-u-s-tariffs/ https://harris-sliwoski.com/chinalawblog/the-guide-for-legal... https://www.npr.org/2025/03/07/nx-s1-5318785/tariff-dodging-companies-exemptions-engineering https://www.npr.org/2025/03/07/nx-s1-5318785/tariff-dodging-... Shady ways as well https://www.voanews.com/a/as-us-tariffs-expand-chinese-firms-workarounds-come-into-focus/7990360.html https://www.voanews.com/a/as-us-tariffs-expand-chinese-firms...
- digdugdirk 2y agoNone of these are easy, and none of them are free. Prices are going up regardless.
- doctorpangloss 2y agoHa ha, the ribbon manufacturer is about to get a lot more than they bargained for. Who the fuck is going to buy ribbon in a depression?
- rtkwe 2y agoThe general disruption could wind up blocking or delaying even goods that are still viable and profitable or simply only available from China under the tariffs simply because the ships themselves are only viable if they are fully loaded so they'll wind up not coming to the US for long gaps if the broader "reciprocal" tariffs stop other SEA traffic as well.
- rayiner 2y agoStopping the flow of Chinese products, often made with child or forced labor, is a good thing: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods-print https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-o.... Weren’t we upset about the Uyghurs five minutes ago? Trade with China is bad. It means a race to the bottom with a foreign country that doesn’t have our labor protections or environmental laws, and whose “comparative advantage” is cheaper labor. This was a widely accepted belief among the left until recently: https://youtu.be/kHRZnz5oHsE?si=A3QViVdPHISAP6qI https://youtu.be/kHRZnz5oHsE?si=A3QViVdPHISAP6qI. It’s insane to give up on beliefs-especially when you’re right—because you’re mad the “wrong people” have finally come around to agreeing with you! What would the tariffs be if you made them only high enough to offset China’s looser regulation and cheaper labor? The current tariffs probably are in the same ballpark.
- andrewflnr 2y agoIf it was only China being tariffed, instead of including all the allies we need to stand against China, you would start to have a point. If they were based on something other than a 1600s child king's understanding of trade balance, maybe focused on particular kinds of manufacturing, or even just explicitly based on morals instead of this fantasy of manufacturing returning to the US, you would have a point. But none of those things are true. Trump is at best a stopped clock with gears poking out through the casing.
- rayiner 2y agoThat might all be true, but Trump is also the only one in decades to move the needle in the direction it needs to go. Even Obama was pushing us in the direction of even more free trade with TPP.
- otterley 2y agoPerhaps so, but that doesn’t mean he’s free from criticism. It’s important not just to fix problems, but also make sure you don’t break other things that were previously working when you do. We don’t applaud the plumber who successfully unclogs a drain and then causes a catastrophic water leak in the fixture.
- mstaoru 2y agoI'm moving internationally (from China to EU) and the quote is 2.5-3x higher than 3 months ago. Sea freight seems to be inspected at a much higher rate, and they don't recommend it, and air freight is more expensive because of much lower volume overall. Not a good time to ship your stuff. And that's when you think "I'm far away from the US and the madness does not concern me"...
- tim333 2y agoThe 2.5-3x higher is probably temporary while people rush to ship stuff before the tariffs. It may get much cheaper shortly.
- mstaoru 2y agoGood point, but several Chinese freight forwarders say, on the contrary, the shipping lanes are empty. The "ship" costs a fixed amount, if you can make a full load, the cost is shared between parties. With LCL (less-than-container-load), I'm very dependent on the volume. I've also seen pictures of empty roads to Yantian port circulating on LinkedIn (usually it would be completely jammed during May holidays).
- spacemadness 2y agoIf the assumed be negative indicators for the US economy come to light, and it’s made clear that the US has committed economic suicide, now with data, there aren’t going to be many safe harbors in the world for the average person.
- graeme 2y agoInteresting. Inspected more regularly by who?
- wing-_-nuts 2y agoThis is fascinating. I wonder what impacts island nations like New Zealand are facing?
- consp 2y agoIf the quote is higher, doesn't that mean the demand is higher and less empty containers are available? The EU does not have an extreme tariff on most products from china, only some. I guess I'm missing something here.
- jmyeet 2y agoThere are two things I want people to remember: 1. The administration has absolutely no idea what they're doing. Don't be tempted to think this is part of some grand plan. Don't believe any narrative about how short-term pain was intentional. There's borderline or actual panic in the administration, going so far as to sideline Peter Navarro to get Trump to back down [1]; and 2. All of this is happening so the wealthiest 1000 people, who already pay almost no taxes, can pay slightly less in taxes. They've already started the rhetoric about tax cuts for average people based on the 2017 tax cuts for people below the top bracket expiring this year. The cut in the top bracket and the corporate tax rate cuts were permanent. So another likely temporary tax cut will be sold while giving away trillions to the wealthiest people on the planet. [1]: https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-tariff-pause-navarro-bessent-lutnick-b9e864fb https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-tariff-pause-navar...
- macspoofing 2y ago>The administration has absolutely no idea what they're doing. In general, I agree with your sentiment, but there are competent people in the administration. However, all of them are paralyzed because Trump can alter any plan or policy at a whim, and he insists being involved in everything. And you can see that in the interviews Bessent or even Lutnick give - where they hedge everything because they know it could change any minute. For example, there was no plan to set 145% tariffs on Chinese imports, Trump just did it out of nowhere on TruthSocial. That's also true of foreign policy in general. Rubio and State Department have zero power at the moment. Neither the Russia-Ukraine peace plan, nor Iranian nuclear arms control, nor Gaza-Israel negotiations are going through the State Department. >All of this is happening so the wealthiest 1000 people, who already pay almost no taxes, can pay slightly less in taxes. I disagree with that. This all happening because Trump is incompetent but also arrogant and highly opinionated. I don't think there is a nefarious plan here. Trump probably really does think that you can replace income tax with tariff revenue.
- jmyeet 2y agoTrump is the culmination of the 50+ year Republican project, a project intentionally designed to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich. He's not an anomaly. He's the inevitable end product of decades of consistent insitutional destruction and corruption. I agree that Trump is delusional about tafiffs but think abou tit: income tax is pretty much the only progressive tax left. There's serious momentum in the conservative movement to get rid of it for that reason: it's further wealth transfer to the ultra-wealthy. It sounds like you're not seeing the bigger picture here: the wealthy view themselves as inherently better. In tech circles (including Elon and Thiel) transhumanism is popular. What is transhumanism ultimately? it's eugenics. It's why these weirdos fill the world with their IVR fetishes, spreading their "superior" genes. It's co-opted the conservative movement, which itself is rooted in eugenics (ie white supremacy).
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43843821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43843821
- guywithahat 2y agoNot too long ago I tried to raise money for a PCB assembly plant in the US, but couldn't raise the funding and got a "real job". Posts like these really make me wish I didn't give up lol
- Workaccount2 2y agoThis is something I am personally mixed about, working in electronics and having had boards made both domestically and in China. The thing is that China is just really damn good at electronics manufacturing. Their tooling is cutting edge, their workers are career electronics manufacturing workers, and their supply chain is insane. However I do have a feeling of "if you build it, they will come". But I think it would need to rely heavily on automation. And I'm also not sure how you would deal with the waste in the US. In China the volume is high enough to have local companies that deal with all the byproduct. In the US I would imagine you would have to pay through the nose to dispose of it through some small time contractor 6 states away.
- rhcom2 2y agoThese are the king of capabilities, like semiconductor manufacturing, that we want to have (at least some) locally for more reasons than just economics though. It seems like a national security issue.
- guywithahat 2y agoI think there are some things where a lot of the silicone actually comes from the US, or the designs are static enough that domestic manufacturing could make a lot of sense. I was specifically pitching consumer GaN power supplies, which are simple enough that you can build them without your supply chain blowing up every 3 months or without having to always get the newest and greatest machinery. Something like a smartphone would be borderline impossible to do well in the US and keep up with trends.
- mystified5016 2y agoAbout a year ago I checked out every US manufacturer I could find. Most don't offer any pricing of any kind, strictly 'call for quote'. The ones that did offer pricing either don't want small prototype runs, or charge 5-10x what China does, and with 2-3x lead time, even counting shipping. Only one or two I looked at offered an online quote tool, and none of them came even close to the usability and functionality of PCBWay's website. The best one I found was this ridiculously overbuilt system with an embedded 3D engine and one of those shitty 200MB web apps that take 30 seconds to register a click and breaks your back button. USA is simply not competitive with China on PCBs. For small, cash strapped business, domestic manufacture has never been an option. I expect prices will only go up and up as our entire domestic capacity is absorbed by big corps that can afford the premium. I have no idea how us little guys are supposed to get boards now.
- gonzo41 2y agoThe Bloomberg podcast odd lots recently had an episode about this. Essentially, there's bubbles in the pipeline now. Expect Halloween and the shopping around that time to feature lots of scarcity.
- dten 2y agoI found out yesterday that the port of LA has a free real-time dashboard (https://tower.portoptimizer.com/ https://tower.portoptimizer.com/) so you can check the stats yourself. While it's interesting that next (week 19) shows a 35% drop YoY, the following week predicts a 25% increase from w19 and "only" 8.7% drop YoY.
- globalise83 2y agoCould it be similar to weather forecasts where the further out the forecast goes the more it relies on seasonal averages?
- jhickok 2y agoYeah I was wondering if those models try to smooth those bumps.
- thfuran 2y agoI think two weeks is pretty much the low end of transit time for a container from China to US, so I wouldn't expect needing much modeling within that window.
- crote 2y agoShips can be rerouted while in transit. I bet it is extremely unusual for a container ship, but we do live in interesting times.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoContainer ships did get rerouted when that ship got stuck in the Suez Canal.
- hnaccount_rng 2y agoBut that’s “same port, different route” rerouting right? Here you would have to have “different port” rerouting (or some really weird weather making the Pacific intransitable”
- danans 2y agoThis Verge Decoder podcast interview with Flexport's CEO is a good take on the situation: https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel/649986/trump-tariffs-china-ryan-petersen-flexport-interview https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel/64...
- guywithahat 2y agoA surprising amount of LA's economy is just warehouses. This could have an interesting effect on the cost of housing in LA, which would have an effect on Phoenix, which has seen massive growth in warehouses as LA has gotten expensive
- darkwizard42 2y agoHousing won't be affected in LA because the issue is zoning + cost to get started. There are too many reviews blocking housing; it isn't blocked by warehouses being "more valuable" than housing in those lots
- fckgw 2y agoThe vast amount of warehousing in SoCal is in the Inland Empire, the logistics capital of the country, not LA proper. There's very little warehousing being done in LA and there's still ample land in the IE and high desert areas. It should have zero effect on housing prices in the area, they already moved further inland since ecommerce took off 20 years ago and only accelerated since the pandemic.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dfilppi 2y ago[dead]
- spacedcowboy 2y agoDoesn't seem to be affecting prices much. My best quote for moving a household's belongings via container from US (California) to the UK (Northwest) is ~$26k including insurance (which is mandatory).
- energy123 2y agoI don't see why it should increase the costs of shipping. Can you outline a plausible mechanism?
- Schnitz 2y agoThat’s what winning looks like!
- relwin 2y agoGamers Nexus essentially produced a 3-hr doc on how changing tariffs affect the US computer industry: "The Death of Affordable Computing | Tariffs Impact & Investigation" https://youtu.be/1W_mSOS1Qts?si=pBVt65SMqb1p-Zte https://youtu.be/1W_mSOS1Qts?si=pBVt65SMqb1p-Zte . Best part is having a product manager show a spreadsheet of costs and margins and explain in real terms ($$$) what tariffs do to their business.
- fnordpiglet 2y agoIt’s even farmers and growers - https://youtu.be/aCI9xlMrb1w https://youtu.be/aCI9xlMrb1w Seeds sourced from China - which a lot are - have skyrocketed in price.
- georgehm 2y agoMaybe I am being foolishly optimistic, the section in the video (~ 4:50) where it is mentioned that some giant seed corporation is staying the course betting that this thing will blow over in a quarter or so actually gives me some hope ?
- fnordpiglet 2y agoIMO, which isn’t worth a lot, it’ll go on as long as Trump refuses to eat crow. China hunkered down under extreme duress during COVID and emerged stable. We barely managed to survive much milder restrictions. And that was a global natural disaster of no one’s choosing. In this situation it’s all artificial, but it stokes the nationalism of literally every other country than America. The imperialism and condescension at work, the pure malice towards our allies and partners, it all works against America. China will never bend and nor do they need to or should they. In fact at this point it’s probably a point of national pride to maximize the embarrassment of Trump, and national strategy to push him into a corner hoping he lashes out more and further isolates America from its partners. This is an opportunity for China to break out of the corner America and its partners put it into and flip the roles. Once done, and Trump is neutered and America reduced, China will have a clear path to ascendancy as the primary global super power. I’m actually not sure this is all bad. A flatter more multipolar world is probably better for everyone, including America. But I think it’ll be a tough time in our history and the people who voted for Trump will be the ones who bear the most pain for his delusional misunderstanding of the way the world actually is vs what he wishes it were. But if I were to put $5 down, I’d wager this lasts until the GOP political fortunes have been decimated through their hubris and magical thinking and Trump is personally hung out to dry for his strategic blunder in launching a 195 front war.
- Kneedler 2y agoI was going to purchase a shipping container for my property in the US a few days ago, but the company I was talking with has raised their prices 70% over the quote I got 2-3 weeks prior.
- kaikai 2y agoOh no, I’m in the same situation and was wondering how this would affect the quote.
- nonethewiser 2y agoWouldn't there be an excess of containers?
- bluGill 2y agoNo because containers are in high demand overall. While the US is importing less, stuff to the EU is taking the long way around Africa and that means more containers are needed.
- roxolotl 2y agoContainers are also manufactured… in China. Container, sea and others, are products in and of themselves so importing them for use even just to transport goods domestically will cost more.
- nonethewiser 2y ago>While the US is importing less, stuff to the EU is taking the long way around Africa and that means more containers are needed. OK, then the unavailability of containers is actually due to piracy in the middle east. The US importing less, by itself, decreases the demand for containers.
- bluGill 2y agoBoth of those are factors. There are other factors neither one of us knows about (even if you are in ocean transport - your competitors are doing things they are hiding from you until they happen). How they balance out is not something I know, someone in the field likely has a reasonably good idea despite not knowing everything.
- hello_computer 2y agogood. we have too much shit. too much noise. i grew up without most of it, and life was fine. inb4 trump ballwasher: i’d applaud regardless of party or personality.
- Havoc 2y agoThere is a good yt channel that deciphers all shipping related news (collisions, cable cuts etc) and makes it more digestible to non-sailors like me here. Definitely recommend. https://www.youtube.com/@wgowshipping https://www.youtube.com/@wgowshipping He pointed out that these stats are week on week so tend to understate how big the drop really is on a more long term scale [not affiliated, just like the channel]
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoOf all the death and terror caused by this administration, at least we might get an American build of Lua
- djha-skin 2y agoUnpopular opinion: this isn't that big of a deal for most people. Gdp, consumer index scores, all that stuff is a measure of how much poor people are willing to spend and how hard they're working. What really matters is, can these people buy a house? Can they buy eggs? I don't know how many of them will be all that caught up that they can't buy some disposable flip-flops on Temu anymore. We need to focus more on how hard it is to live than how hard it is to import stuff.
- torben-friis 2y agoWell, if their business relied on reselling those flipflops they won’t be buying many eggs. Same if they were transporting them to the store, or delivering them to a home, or…
- tomcar288 2y agoi agree. but i think most people are worried about second order effects (the impact of supply chains on the whole economy) rather than whether or not you can buy 3$ shoes on temu.
- throwaway894345 2y agoThese things are being talked about in the context of predicting a future recession, in which case it may be very difficult for people to afford housing and other essentials. [^1]: Of course, the whole "eggs as an economic indicator" was far right propaganda to conflate the bird flu with the broader economy
- Zamaamiro 2y agoIt's an unpopular opinion because it's wrong. No single aspect of the economy exists in a vacuum. Tariffs and lower shipping volumes portend thousands of small businesses potentially going under, translating to many more thousands of people losing their jobs and incomes. This has many unforeseen knock-on effects in declining economic activity.
- djha-skin 2y agoAre we really subscribing to Reaganistic trickle-down economic theory now? How sure are we that those imports aren't mostly just lining the pockets of the rich? We're measuring the wrong things. We need to measure cost of living instead of how empty or full a Port is. We don't know if these two things are correlated yet.
- thrance 2y ago2025, in which Americans realize Greatness is never achieved alone.
- janis1234 2y agogood sick of all the cheap Chinese products that break in a week and have to order another. Even the clothing seems to fade and be useless in 6 months.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y agoYou could always buy more expensive clothing, now you’ll be forced to
- tehjoker 2y agoIf I haven't bought a ps5 yet, is now the time to do it?
- znpy 2y agoLess traffic means less pollution, i guess it's good.
- derwiki 2y agoIt’s Trump’s plan to save the environment