News

With Ports Clogged, Some Retailers Are Looking for Alternative Supply Chains – Reason.com

Some major U.S. retailers have taken unprecedented measures to ensure that goods are available in stores despite congestion at ports and supply chain problems. This includes the chartering of cargo vessels to transport goods.

The Wall Street JournalReports indicate that Walmart and Target are the main retailers who have made the decision to import goods from the United States using the “if they want it done correctly, do it yourself” strategy. Worker shortages and COVID-19 protocols have slowed trans-Pacific shipping considerably—it now takes about 80 days to transport items from Asia to the U.S., about twice as long as it did before the pandemic, the Journal These are reports.

While politicians may be quick to point fingers at the international system of trade, the reality is that most of America’s supply chain bottlenecks can be traced back to domestic problems. While major ports in Europe or Asia are open 24 hours, American ports only have 60 percent capacity as they shut down at night and on Sundays. Inflexible union rules that regulate truckers’ and dockworkers’ work hours makes it impossible to satisfy the growing demand even when there are dozens upon dozens of vessels awaiting their unloading.

Walmart, a retailer, is looking for ways to get around the backlog by chartering private vessels to ferry their merchandise. That will cost more money—and those costs will be passed onto consumers—but that’s better than running out of inventory during the Christmas rush. Home Depot for instance, relies heavily on chartered ships to ship a smaller percentage of its total inventory. The focus is on highly-demanded items such as heaters, power tools and holiday decor. Journal These are reports.

It is just half of the job to get goods onto shore. You have to navigate other obstacles, such as the 25-mile delay in a freight train that caused a backup at an important shipping terminal outside Chicago. The port at Savannah, Georgia. The New York Times Reports claim that ship unloaders are running out of storage space, making it difficult for ground and sea-based transport to be managed.

It isn’t clear, frustratingly, how long it will take for it to solve what. AtlanticDerek Thompson has declared “the Everything Shortage”

In many ways, the global supply chain has been hampered by the pandemic coronavirus. Pandemic check sent billions of dollars to Americans suffering from the disease during a downturn in service industry. Most of this cash went to hard goods, particularly furniture and home-improvement material. Most of these items must travel from East Asia to get imported. The Delta virus, which is more dangerous than the previous versions of the virus in this region, has forced many to flee. Since the start of increased demand for electronic and automobiles, there have been several shut downs caused by Delta in Asia’s semiconductor plants. This has caused stops to the supply chain that are slowing down just when Americans want them to work at high speed.

None of the problems facing supply chains are interminable or unsolvable—just annoying. Supply chains are just annoying. JournalAccording to, profit motives are doing their best to maintain goods flowing. This is evident by’s reports. It encourages companies to think out of the box. This is how amazing the world of global trade is today. You can’t fully understand it when it works perfectly.


FREE MINDS

It’s the second Monday of October, which means it’s time to celebrate…America’s most confusing quasi-national holiday. The President Joe Biden has declared Friday October 11, Indigenous Peoples Day. It means that federal officials will be joining dozens cities and states to honor the contributions made by Native Americans today. The federal employees will get the day off as Columbus Day is October 11, according to Office of Personnel Management.

What is the difference? Why not…neither? Christopher Columbus is no hero—or, at least, he’s not an American hero. His legacy should not be restricted to Italian-American communities. However, elevating him above the status of a federal holiday seems a bit strange. Columbus is given his own holiday, while Abraham Lincoln and George Washington are forced to share.

And while Native Americans have been undeniably given short shrift throughout American history, co-opting Columbus Day as a way to recognize the accomplishments of Native Americans is always going to be at least a little bit awkward—and hardly makes up for centuries of mistreatment by the United States.

Creating new federal holidays isn’t a bad idea—Juneteenth, for example—and surely there is some other date or dates on the calendar that could become Indigenous Peoples Day (or weekend?) instead. People who are upset at Columbus’s removal from the rotation need to look into the origins of Columbus Day. In an effort to eliminate violent discrimination towards Italian immigrants, President Benjamin Harrison established the first Columbus Day. The political aspect is always a part of federal holidays. The current chaos is only creating more culture war grist, and that is what America doesn’t need.

Today’s federal bureaucrats need to be employed. This is what national unity requires.


GRATIS MARKETS

Biden’s administration has been considering an executive order to include new rules for cryptocurrency and the appointment a “crypto-czar”.

BloombergThese are the reports

The proposed directive would charge federal agencies to study and offer recommendations on relevant areas of crypto—touching on financial regulation, economic innovation and national security, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing plans that are still under consideration.

According to people, this initiative also aims at coordinating agencies’ efforts on digital currency across the executive branch. It would encourage all departments who have not paid much attention to crypto to give it more focus.


QUICK HITS

• Southwest Airlines canceled thousands of flights over the weekend. Southwest Airlines blamed staff shortages and air traffic control. The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association denied that Southwest Airlines pilots refused to work because of the vaccine mandate. However, there was widespread speculation online about this.

• A nuclear engineer in the U.S. Navy has been charged with trying to sell secret information about America’s submarines to an unnamed foreign nation.

• Obama campaign whiz kid David Shor says Democrats are heading for a wipeout in 2024.

• Closing nuclear power plants has forced some places to rely on dirtier options to backstop renewable energy.

• Even oatmeal is getting more expensive.

• A profile in courage from Rep. Steve Scalise (R–La.()

• Democrats threw lots of money at voters in the hopes of buying their loyalty. It doesn’t appear to have worked.

• When Facebook and Instagram went down for several hours on October 4, traffic to Pornhub spiked.