Buttigieg. Marginal success and marginal failure as Mayor of South Bend. Very uneventful. Mostly unknown even in South Bend prior to his presidential run. Hired into a critical role because of his ability to bring a gay look to the Biden Administration. Other than that no qualifying experience or success in his area of appointment. Ditto for Kamala. Woke but no real success anywhere and plenty of failure. But sits down when she pees and passes the skin color test and that was the criteria for the job. Now we all have to deal with it. Ditto for LLoyd Austin. Who the hell knows what he does other than implement one of the biggest military fuck-ups in American history. But he did it while being black and woke so the whole thing is an extraordinary success. We are paying the price for these Klueless Klowns now.
I agree that Pete has no real experience to be placed head of the DOT, but he supply chain issues are occurring outside this country...DOT really has no pull here. FMC is trying to get involved but they also are realizing they cannot do anything about foreign carriers being sold out of space and being short of equipment. Port of Long Beach/LA is trying to expand hours but they are completely overrun.... U.S. government really has no tools to address these issues sadly
but let's see how OP felt about the previous sec. of transportation: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...nells-wife-investigation.345078/#post-5338015 oh that's right, OP is on ignore for continuously proving being a clown.
Nope. Everything from clogged ports and making sure that there is enough fuel and truckdrivers and interfacing with international trade is under his jurisdiction. The fact that there are other players too does not take his important role away from him. To at least his partial credit he agrees with that and is holding a number of high level roundtables around the country on those very issues. Ideally though, we would have someone who does that and is also experienced, rather than just the talky-talky stuff.
Roundtables are like hot girlfriends....they are just for fucking around but you never take them seriously There is enough fuel so that is not an issue... as for truck drivers.... private companies decide to hire more truck drivers but there is just not enough trucks to handle the backlog of ships and containers. Much like a building that floods on the top floor... you just have to wait until all of it filters out of the system. The issue wont get fixed by any politicians no matter how many roundtables, the demand has to fall off and my prediction is Summer of 2022.
And that is after it has reached the high-water mark. Whenever that is. And each country and sector is its own story so there is no one sentence answer to that. As the saying goes, "the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." This is true. But it is quite a bit longer if you are not headed in the right direction yet.
Honestly.....parts of me says 1Q of 2022 but then i see everyone rushing to replenish inventories after holidays so that will take us out until the summer
A supply chain pundit on Bloomberg was just talking about how operating ports 24/7 is just standard operating procedure. That was pretty much my reaction to Biden's "announcement" yesterday. It took them six months to set up a commission/task force to look at problems. First meeting was in June and here we are headed toward November and they are coming up with the rocket science idea of - which Joe takes all credit for- of implementing an extended work schedule? WOMP! Biden is some proud of that. He stands there like he is General MacArthur landing on the beach in the Phillippines. Put on an evening shift. What a concept. He also leans over backward to thank all his union buddies and the union longshoremen, blah, blah, blah. Looks to me like the union might be part of the problem. They traditionally go nutso when you re-jigger work schedules and take on more labor that has not been approved by them. I am underwhelmed. But Joe feels like he has just landed on the moon with a great idea so I will let him have his little fun. I gave it a pass until that guy on Bloomberg lit my fuse by saying what I had been thinking. The response has been very sleepy. Joe could not care less anyway. He just wanted to get to the part where there is some port funding in his mega-pork bill so that is we need to pass it. Really? You strip the port stuff out and double the amount and present it as a standalone bill. You would be surprised how much bipartisan support there would be.
Putting politics aside, the ports really dont run 24/7....mostly becuase of labor but also because of large traffic of trucks late at night or early in the morning. Many ports in Asia do run 24/7 but in U.S. between labor unions, city ordinances, and EPA stuff, it never happens. With all the ship backlogs importers have been demanding it and the LA/LB ports have been considering. Biden thinks he waved his hand and did something that people think was not already considered or even in the works anyway... typical president bullshit. Nothing a president can do to resolve logistics back ups building up for months..almost a year but let him have his fun and tkae credit for shit he has nothing to do with.
I was speaking with people from different sectors for their input (no great secret insiders, just people in differnet sectors of logistics and supply), and China slowed down production a bit due to all these logsitics issues and there is an artificial reprieve from the freight rate and space pressures for the moment. Black Friday is going to be SEVERELY restricted because stores cannot afford to sell out of inventory over Thanksgiving weekend and then have nothing for Xmas. So retailers will hold back on supply to make it last. Well when demand is strong and retailers hold back on supply you can imagine people treating Xmas gifts like they did toiler paper last year with a huge run on everything. retailers will be wiped out of product by the middle of December and begin ordering again to replenish stocks. 1Q 2022 is going to have a post Xmas hangover as bad as we are seeing in Aug - Oct.... Inflation will get worse and some people predict a market implosion sometime next summer. Makes sense because in the next 6 months the Fed will have to make a move on rates higher and that will suck all the air out of this bubble..