Cargo Is Piling Up Everywhere, and It's Making Inflation Worse

Re:Cargo Is Piling Up Everywhere, and It's Making Inflation ... by rglover on Tuesday June 22, 2021 @09:41AM (#27591487)

If it's made domestically, it costs less to move it around and get it to customers.

Harder to deliver to customers = more expensive

Easier to deliver to customers = less expensive

So, short of price gouging or labor shortages, no, it would make things cheaper in the long run (and people would have more money to buy things because they have jobs).

Edit: one addendum is raw material costs. If we don't have a ready domestic supply of some mineral or other raw material, then that could/would bump prices (because we're still stuck in the imports trap).

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Re:Cargo Is Piling Up Everywhere, and It's Making Inflation ... by jl6 on Tuesday June 22, 2021 @09:53AM (#27591613)

… but it turns out shipping stuff across the globe is still cheaper than paying a 1st-world minimum wage.

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Re:Cargo Is Piling Up Everywhere, and It's Making Inflation ... by rglover on Tuesday June 22, 2021 @09:58AM (#27591675)

Yes, but at the cost of supply chain vulnerability. So it's either really cheap stuff, or long-term security of goods.

Clearly the "really cheap stuff" angle has seriously embroiled American prosperity so it's arguable the benefits do not outweigh the costs in aggregate.

Personally, I'm in the "I'm happy to pay a bit more if my environment is peaceful because the people around me can eat and have a future" camp.

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Re:Cargo Is Piling Up Everywhere, and It's Making Inflation ... by jl6 on Tuesday June 22, 2021 @10:09AM (#27591809)

100%. I just think it’s remarkable that so many people who are otherwise in favor of high environmental and labor standards are happy to buy products made using far lower standards.

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Re:Cargo Is Piling Up Everywhere, and It's Making Inflation ... by rglover on Tuesday June 22, 2021 @10:19AM (#27591946)

Out of sight out of mind. Imagine if hypocrisy was an export. Boy howdy.

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