Senators spooked by ‘truck driver shortage’

And what does that have to do with either the 'driver shortage' or the back ups at ports?

 

Automation can help things - to a point. The problem the ports are dealing with isn't caused by inefficient workers. It's caused by inefficient planning. The system is set up to off load containers onto trucks or rail. What's happened is that containers are getting off loaded and stored at the port until the receiver is ready - or there is a carrier with capacity to haul the container. If ports were operating at 2018 levels, they wouldn't be facing back ups. We're operating at over 2018 levels. Coupled with the fact that freight volume was way over capactity in 2019 meant that companies decreased their equipment orders and overall fleet sizes (please see the "Freight Rates Halt thier 8 week Slide" thread). I know we cut hiring targets by over 50% in the last half of 2019 and the first half of 2020. In 2021 we're hitting record freight volumes and it's causing issues. Going from recession signals to a bull market is going to cause issues. Blaming workers isn't going to solve anything.

 

It's called a rolling warehouse.
It gets particularly bad at the end of the quarter and end of the FY.
As long as it's not in their warehouse, they don't pay taxes on it.
Once again, truckers and trucking companies taking it in the shorts
And you're right. The biggest problem is that trucking companies don't have the nads to say, "look hoss, you have 48 hours to unload this thing. After that, it's $300 a day storage (which is what it is)."

 

Or....it could be that......

The present global system is creaking so bad, and so many find themselves stuck, including many red blooded Americans, that some sort of change is inevitable. It's just so jacked on so many fronts, and it has been for awhile, but it really totally broke in 2008. Since then the money men, instead of "allocating capital" have to a large degree been focusing on how to keep absolutely insane amounts of "capital" suspended, so they retain their position as the global oligarchy. So, in fits and starts, the "global economy" has become more and more the machinations of the DC-NYC nexus, while simultaneously, they have pursued the same sort of backwards Marxist bull***" you read about in the era leading up to WW2. These people, presumably organized Jewry to a large degree, have used their tools to attempt to destroy the people these money men rule over. The guys on top are often out of ideas, so they do things like putting Jerome Powell in charge of the Federal Reserve, seeing as he has 50 million net worth invested in this system, and presumably will do whatever he can to keep his net worth "money good". And predictably, he has done so, enacting the programs his predecessor (Ben Bernanke not Janet Yellen) first invented in times of the tide rolling in. So, global billionaires presently rejoice, Jerome saved all of their #####. Only problem is, Jerome, while the hero of the moneyed classes, destroyed, at least for a time, "capital markets". So the real teeth of the global money men has now been shown, when push comes to shove, the people will deal with inflation, joblessness, ####, anything, so long as all the ######## capital oligarchy is held aloft. And they did it, and it's done, and the fact is none of the working people are none the wiser about what just happened. But I, for one, know exactly what just happened, and "free markets" don't have a lick to do with it. So, what is to be done?

Time moved on, and maybe it was in fact for the best. But, Social Security remains unfunded, and if the working people of the United States, the ones that have a Constitution which liteally does not advocate for their citizens being taken over by a global "money oligarchy" none truly know about or can begin to even understand, may seek just the same sort of bailout the global money oligarchy received. And as an unbiased observer, to the best of my ability to be that, contends, it would be just and correct should these money men take a real interest in fixing social security, because the success of this program is far more important than any of the other bull this group is selling.

So, if I were in charge, I would be telling these money men, what's right is right, and just because you all orchtrated all new highs in the "capital markets" while everything was closed, and the prize to the working classes, best I can tell, consist of unaffordable housing in most locales and extreme levels of inflation, again to make the money men (or the system) whole, the way I see it one group got really really taken care of while the other group got the shaft. So how might we make this right? Well, if I was in charge it gets made right when the Oligarchy takes a real interest in making sure social security gets fixed, even if that means some really healthy contributions from their group. And I see this as fair, because unlike most are taught, becoming a billionaire doesn't have much effect on ones happiness. And being an oligarch that simply seems to put their boot on the neck of the working class, really means they don't deserve their position. That position shouldn't come solely with the rewards, it should come with responsibility, the responsibility to understand they have to do what has to be done. And where I sit, Social security needs to be funded. And should they choose to do what they ought to do, then I think everyone is good, and we don't start to look at what might be done to disrupt things, similar bro what one sees in France, the french being more in tune to things of this sort.

I see the heading off of conflict as being better than crippling life for many who aren't in the fight. It's not our way over here to do that, except as an absolute last resort. And imo we aint there yet. Good men, of all various levels of wealth, ought be willing to do what need be done to keep us moving on down the way. And they know it, and I know it, they are gonna need to give, and perhaps give big. God willing they will do so willingly.

As an aside, we may be approaching a new world order, and that is likely timely and overdue as well. I have my thoughts on it, and my best summation of how it ought to go is that the Americans, The Europeans, The Asians are the bedrock of something new. But we will just have to see how all that turns out.

 

It's more than not paying taxes on it - they don't actually have to to pay for the stuff until they 'receive' it. Say the customer is on a Net 60 account payable. They need the stuff on November 15, it gets delivered on November 8 - bol signed 'subject to count'. While they have space in the warehouse they don't unload it until November 17, but the 60 day clock started on November 15.

The plant I'm working out of right now has 5 major customers. It costs the plant the same to run 30 truck loads worth of product XXX as it does to run 10 truckloads. They run the 30 truckloads of stuff that can't be delivered for two weeks but have no warehouse space to store the stuff, so they load it on trailers then complain about not having empties to load. One of the plants we deliver to also loads our trailers outbound. We are contracted for 10 outbound loads a week. Last May they had 60 outbound trailers loaded. We were bringing in loaded trailers, but not being able to get an empty to take back to the plant, so the plant couldn't load product going back to the customer, so the customer couldn't make product. Loading the empty trailers made it easier for the customer's warehouse but screwed up the customer's production. Complicating things further, we have some trailers that haven't moved since March, because the customer was done making product YYY until January and didn't want to clog their warehouse. In two cases, the customer had forgotten they had the trailer to unload. If I wasn't such a [redacted] retentive [redacted] those trailers could have sat until kingdom came.

The last two years working this account have been illuminating. I used to ##### about our customer service not doing their jobs, now I recognize that the customer isn't updating customer service that loads are or are not ready. Or the appointment time that the shipper arranged for off load is a figment of a crack head's imagination. I've learned that shipping departments will push stuff out the door so they hit their 'metrics' regardless of whether or not the consignee wants it. For years the transporters have been paying for the 'slack' in the supply chain. When we can no longer accommodate the inefficiencies dictated by the shippers/consignees we are the failures.

 

Just to be clear - you realize you are parroting Engels, right?

 

Money talks, and bs walks.
In my days in LTL, dude wants to refuse, I say, "no problem. You realize it will be X to redeliver and X for storage, right?"
99% of the time they took it.
So, really, in a way, it is a CS problem.
But I think Lofgren gutted the CS department so bad that all they can say is, ok.