> I have no idea how christmas is going to work.
As a cultural Christian, I’d love to see Christmas work as a holiday where people spend time with their families and contemplate the gift of everlasting life. And, also, eat simply and not buy anything.
Re:The Supply-Chain Mystery
by JoeAltmaier on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @10:29AM
(#28683212)
My sister's chocolate shop, its Easter. Took the hit in April - had hundreds of pounds of unwanted chocolate. Had to eat it (not literally).
As a cultural athiest, I will only be affected by food shortages. But, for many people, Christmas is peak sale time and so the economic consequence of an un-deliberate stall on christmas selling is huge.
For the religous, sure, its only got upsides. Maybe longterm it's only upsides. Right now, its an economic shock we might not want.
While I wholeheartedly agree with you and desire the same thing, I believe just about the entire retail sector depends on Christmas spending to stay afloat.
Re:The Supply-Chain Mystery
by GravitasFailure on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @01:29AM
(#28679629)
Missing out on yet another novelty trinket to be forgotten and thrown away seems rather pleasant, really.
When there is a demand for empty containers, and people who have them, why isn't it profitable to ship them somewhere? When shipping costs are rising overall, it should be worth it to pay for a delivery of empty containers, rather than continue paying the higher prices.
> I have no idea how christmas is going to work.
Maybe shipping things is not the important part of christmas. SCNR.
Yes, I too thought the problem would solve itself. It looks like the third party ownership in containers (they're a bizarre market in themselves) maybe broke things. As did port congestion. Low staffing because Covid compounds all problems. Maybe this is the trigger for more inter-modal automation at the ports?
As an atheist ecksmass is purely about food and friendship. As an industry "how it works" is goods get shipped. As a Christian religious ceremony it should be untouched or, as you and others say even enhanced.
Then, a significant disruption to normal intermodal container flow emerged. This immediately became a compounding problem because its actually pretty chaotic: The containers themselves form a 'just-in-time' supply flow, to meet market EXPECTATIONS of need for the various flows of real supply chain goods and material inputs: When this shock hit, the system stopped having surplus container capactity to move things, which meant it was blocked in "deadlock" around moving things, which made the supply chain fragility problem emerge.
The absolute number of containers hasn't dropped: they're in the wrong places and nobody is willing to fund a one-way zero-profit ship to fix that.
Really, I think the missing word here is "externality" -If the value of an empty container and ship was re-struck in this situation, or some adverse-possession/force-majure was undertaken, the container problem would heal: As it stands, its left to market forces and with nobody willing to carry the costs, nobody is moving to fix things. After all, the evidence is (evidence? Rumour!) there's a market shock coming: who wants to be left with surplus goods, and nobody buying anything?
Its cute to blame this on evergreen and the suez, but its way beyond that. Chinese ports shut down. There's a backlog. African ports clogged up. Moving masks and PPE around disrupted normal flows. Bodies on desks changed.
Shipping runs on paperwork, regulated arbitrage, and a huge amount of personal communications and trust. (as I understand it) much of this evaporated in the crisis.
I think that airline reboot with goods, not people might be part of the answer: absorb the surplus cost, but get things moving again by putting boxes on aircraft for things normally sent in containers on ships. Won't work for coal and iron ore, will work for the plastic bags you need, to start shipping the goods which you've made, which are held up waiting for plastic shipping bags.
Global post is still broken. Before this time, I had basically never lost a letter or parcel in the post. Now, I've lost one, and know of at least one other, and had a delivery from the US take 4-5x as long as normal. I have no idea how christmas is going to work.