Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Navy Needed to Unblock US Ports
The media have spent a great deal of time and energy on detailing the mess that ocean freight has become in recent weeks. Travel time between Asian factories and US ports has doubled. The Ports of Los Angeles and of Long Beach have dozens of container ships sitting off shore awaiting room to unload at the docks. Other ports have similar problems on both coasts. The Biden administration has developed a plan to have the ports work around the clock, but this will not be enough without more trucks available to carry things inland. It is a logistical nightmare, and no one does logistics better than the US military. The president needs the US Navy to ease the shipping problem.
The Wall Street Journal reports, "Despite some shortages, the availability of trucking equipment, warehouse space and labor is also far greater than at other ports.
"Shipping executives say other West Coast ports, like Oakland or Seattle, simply aren't large enough to handle the hundreds of thousands of containers that Los Angeles and Long Beach unload, store and move by truck or rail each week."
The president said, "Traditionally, our ports have only been open during the week -- Monday through Friday -- and they're generally closed down at nights and on weekends. By staying open seven days a week, through the night and on the weekends, the Port of Los Angeles will open -- over 60 extra hours a week it will be open.
“In total, that will almost double the number of hours that the port is open for business from earlier this year. That means an increase in the hours for workers to be moving cargo off ships and onto trucks and railcars to get to their destination, and more than that, the night hours are critical for increasing the movement of goods because highways -- highways are less crowded in the evening -- at night," the president said.
The Washington Post says, "The current supply snafus will only ease when consumers resume pre-pandemic patterns, spending less money on tangible goods and more on services, such as restaurant meals, sporting events and travel. That will take 'at least' until the second half of 2022, according to economists at Oxford Economics."
The situation is part of the restarting of the global economy after a Covid-19 shutdown. Turning an economy off is as simple as throwing a switch. Turning it back on is much harder. Not everything can start up at the same time. Retail stores need product, but product has to be made and shipped first, and that takes time. Meanwhile, prices rise because demand has returned but adequate supply is still in the future.
Nevertheless, the military has the ability to alleviate a great deal of the current pain almost immediately. The Navy cannot create ports out of thin air, nor can it build the massive cranes needed to off-load the largest ships. That said, the Navy does have its own berths and cargo warehouses. What the Navy can also provide is personnel to move the containers from the docks to trucks and even drive the trucks where the cargo needs to go.
Of course, this will bump into labor and union matters, but when the private sector can not get the job done quickly enough, the government needs to step in. At this stage, naval personnel will not be taking a single job away from anyone who wants one. The demand for labor is off the charts. The addition of naval personnel will only be temporary, and once the situation is manageable again, they can step aside.
© Copyright 2021 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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