Shipping & Ports the Supply Chain Problems

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-07-02 17:53:18

Bernie Sanders calls on Buttigieg to take action amid flight delays, cancellations
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congre … -rcna35959

Buttigieg launches $1B pilot to build racial equity in roads
https://www.metro.us/buttigieg-launches … -in-roads/

Computer glitch sees TWELVE THOUSAND scheduled American Airlines flights left without pilots
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl … ilots.html

In 2017, American experienced a similar glitch in their system. It resulted in pilots being offered 150% pay in exchange for staffing the abandoned flights.

Buttigieg Takes Aim at Airline Customer Service Amidst Meltdowns and Long Call Center Hold Times
https://www.paddleyourownkanoo.com/2022 … old-times/

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-07-02 17:54:31)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-07-07 09:52:23

Pete Buttigieg says infrastructure help has come from outside America

https://www.953mnc.com/2022/07/03/pete- … e-america/

kbd512 · 2022-07-08 02:12:24

Mars_B4_Moon,

From the article:

“We’re thinking about a worker living in a rural area who can save money on gas or diesel with an electric pickup truck or even use that truck to power their tools while on the job. It’s about a family living near an urban who can breathe cleaner air and worry less about flooding. It’s about anyone in a grocery store who’s going to see lower prices when better supply chains help to bring shipping costs down,” said Buttigieg.

Well, Pete...

The rural worker is thinking you've never had to tow a loaded shipping trailer using an electric truck in your entire life, because if you ever had, and there are people who have, then you'd know how ridiculous that sounds. We are not upset that you don't know what you're talking about because you're a leftist and a Democrat. It's part of your nature to assert facially absurd things because you like the aesthetics of an idea. We are upset that you were put into a position for which you are so obviously unqualified to hold. Stop spewing your nonsense at people without the most basic of understanding about what you're saying to them. None of your target audience is buying into the crap that you're trying to sell to them. You don't need to convince your fellow religious cult members. They already believe whatever you tell them, because they don't think for themselves and never will.

Since the average rural worker can barely afford a well-worn 30 to 50 year old truck he has, he's also wondering how he's going to pay for a brand new truck that's 3 times as expensive as the gas or diesel powered models, but only has 1/4 or less of the actual towing capability over the distances he must drive it. Basically, he's wondering if Democrats know how to count, because unlike the federal reserve, he's not allowed to print his own money. It's not that he dislikes the idea of newer / nicer / cleaner vehicle or hates the environment, but he also knows that eating is way more important and he can barely afford to do that, as-is.

Families living near urban [areas] are way more concerned about your radical leftist DAs not prosecuting and imprisoning violent criminals than they are about "breathing cleaner air" or "worrying about flooding". People who want to breathe clean air don't live on top of each other like cockroaches. The entire reason conservatives and Republicans moved out of the cities and into the suburbs was to try to escape your insanity, but your party refuses to leave us the hell alone.

Your fellow moronic Democrats, and yes that was repetitively redundant, received billions of dollars to improve the drainage here in Houston, so instead of spending the money for that purpose, they stuck their thumbs up their butts, refusing to spend a dime of it, and eventually that money went back to the federal government. That's why flooding is a problem here. It doesn't have a thing to do with driving gasoline or diesel powered vehicles or climate change or anything else. It will flood here in Houston the next time we have a hurricane, but climate change didn't refuse to improve drainage, Democrats did.

The only thing that will bring down prices in grocery stores is drilling for more oil so that the millions of diesel-powered trucks that take food to super markets do not have to increase their shipping charges to cover the cost of diesel fuel. Since there's not enough Lithium in all the world's known Lithium reserves to power those trucks, your fellow moron in charge of Energy, as well as the moron in the White House, your Moron in Chief, will have to reverse course on refusing to approve new drilling permits, as well as building out new oil and gas pipelines for that to happen. We already know you won't do any of that, because your religious dogma won't allow you to, and you've stirred up your fellow zealots to such a degree that they'd rather die than admit their dogma caused a bit of a problem. To wit, when there are no electric trucks, then making the use of existing trucks unaffordable or issuing edicts that electric models be built is not a solution.

Most of us are starting to wonder if mental retardation or demonstration of deliberately evil behavior is a requirement for being a Democrat elected or appointed to high office. Do their voters think idiocy and evil are good attributes for our elected officials to embody?

This is what the rest of us are thinking. Nobody from your side even attempts to explain what they're thinking. Repeating your dogma at us doesn't change ugly reality. Sometimes you don't get everything you want, at the moment you want it, because it's just not worth it. The rest of us understand this, even if you and your fellow climate doom cult members don't. Nobody is dying simply because the Earth gets 1 or 2 or even 10 degrees warmer than it already is. If that was even possible, then most of us would be dead already.

People really do die when food becomes unaffordable or unavailable at any price, because people like you have used government authority to make that happen. When people don't go to work because they can't afford to drive there, nothing gets done. When the distances are far enough, you need cars and trucks to go to work. Outside of very densely populated areas with an outlet on every street corner, a battery powered wonder gadget doesn't make much sense. This is pragmatism over ideology, and practicality over what is most aesthetically pleasing. There was a time, not so long ago, when everyone in both major political parties understood this, even if they didn't like it. You're only about a year younger than I am, so unless magic happened, you and I both grew up with pragmatic parents who did the best with what they had while they tried their best to make the future better for themselves and everyone else.

Go, back, Mayor Pete. Go back to that pragmatism of your parents. Release your attachment to your ideology before it becomes everyone's undoing, long before climate change gets a chance to do much of anything to anyone. Temper tantrums over what all of us can't obtain at the exact same time won't help anyone.

Calliban · 2022-07-08 05:21:54

Idealistic people always obsess over what they consider to be revolutionary solutions, rather than trying to better optimise tried and tested solutions that have been used for centuries. They often loose sight of the limitations of what they are trying to advocate, because they are too emotionally invested in what they are trying to push. About a week ago, I watched a cringeworthy video in which two EV obsessed millenials were trying to convince Peter Zeihan that fleets of autonomous EV trucks were going to replace freight railways. They appeared to be ignorant of the fact that rail and BEV trucks are relevant to different parts of the supply chain and aren't substitutes for each other. The first provides a very energy efficient way of moving freight in bulk between two hubs. EV trucks, with their much shorter range, are more suited to shifting smaller amounts of freight from hubs to distributed users over short distances. They are a small scale solution that is only relevant at the end of distribution. The US inland waterway system is an overlapping capability that does much the same job that rail does.

We are heading into a world where food and energy of all kinds are getting more scarce. This places a strong incentive on all energy consuming systems to become more efficient. If I were attempting to redesign a nation's freight transportation system to cope with this problem, I would be looking at ways of extending the capabilities of rail and water based transportation, because these are already tried and proven means of shipping freight with high efficiency. This reduces fuel consumption overall and reduces the length of the final stage of goods distribution, which involves shipping from the hub to retailers and industrial consumers. This reduces the amount of truck transportation needed and reduces the average journey length. By reducing the role of the truck to relatively short distance journeys at the end of supply chains, we improve the potential for battery electric or other low emission energy sources to become a relevant part of the supply chain. Such alternatives only make sense for journeys that are relatively short in range. They cannot replace diesel powered trucks in the distribution system as it stands today. They only make sense in combination with an extended rail and water based distribution system because their practical range limit is about 70 miles.

If I could use a diesel powered locamotive to transport 10,000 tonnes of freight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, say, then the BEV truck may be useful in distributing that freight from the rail depot to businesses and retailers within and around the city. But the BEV vehicle is only relevant if the rail based distribution system exists to do 90+% of the distance. They provide a solution for that awkard final stage of distribution, which has to cover an area of hundreds of square miles, but with average journey length of just 30 miles or so from the railyard to the supermarket. That is where BEVs have the potential to fit in and actually make a meaningful contribution to reducing the vulnerability of supply chains to fuel shortages. But in order for BEVs to perform this task you need those rail links to urban and industrial centres. Instead of obsessing over some vague fantasy of 'EVs saving the world' these people should be campaigning to extend America's railways to improve both capacity and reach. Once that is done, BEV trucks have a place as end point distributers. But they have no relevance at all until the rail and water based regional distribution system exists to carry freight over long distances.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-07-08 05:59:45)

Calliban · 2022-07-08 06:20:45

PS. The sodium sulphur battery has energy density comparable to lithium ion. It is also made from commonly available and cheap materials. There are no resource limitation problems with expanding this battery solution.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium% … ur_battery

But...The NaS battery contains liquid sodium. Sodium polysulphides are highly corrosive and if liquid sodium leaks out, you are guarenteed to get a big fire. The battery also needs temperatures of 300+°C to operate. This makes the battery unsuitable for small scale uses and is mostly limited to stationary applications.

Could we use NaS batteries to power distribution trucks from rail freight depots? I think it is possible. The lack of clear resource limitations is a big plus. But we need good quality control and we would need to be sure to replace the batteries before design life limitations raise the risk of leaks that would inevitably cause severe fires. I wouldn't be prepared to put money on NaS batteries as a best practical solution.

There are other options for local distribution. Other battery chemistries that are more sustainable from a resource viewpoint. Compressed natural gas or biogas could be used to power short range trucks using petrol engines. For distances of just a few tens of miles, compressed air is an option. There are various hybrid options as well. Another option that we have discussed in the past, involves loading containers into barges, which are then carried from one location to another by water flow. In that case, direct wind power can be used as a power source for pumping the water. The problems with this option are slow speed and difficulty in handling any gradient.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-07-08 06:35:07)

kbd512 · 2022-07-08 10:15:02

Calliban,

It's ideologically-driven artificial scarcity. We're not actually running out of anything because we can't physically access it. We can produce more oil, but the current government won't approve new drilling permits or pipelines to carry the product to market. This is incredibly simple to understand, unless you've been mentally disabled by ideology.

All of these "more efficient" solutions never materialize after the energy sunk into them is accounted for. A Tesla Model 3 is no more efficient than a Nissan e-POWER series hybrid after all inputs and losses are accounted for, and will never achieve an energy efficiency payback. A Tesla doesn't have a tailpipe so magical thinkers believe that their car is "emissions free", and that's how it's sold to the public. Anyone who's seen how EVs are made and powered knows how ridiculous such an assertion is, but none of these people are forced to watch how the "secret sauce" is made, so they don't know any better. I think many of them would be aghast if they did see it.

Calliban · 2022-07-08 11:38:01

Kbd512, this is geologically driven scarcity that is aggrovated by ideology. The problems we are having with maintaining supply of liquid fuels are primarily due to resource depletion, but the actions of Biden in the US and the ESG mania in Europe and the US, have resulted in shortfalls that are worse than they otherwise would be. The Russian aggression has worsened the problem further.

Annual oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s. Annual production has outweighed annual discoveries consistently since the early 1980s.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/world-oil-reserves/

We have had 40 years shrinking reserves. This was inevitably going to result in production shortfalls eventually. In fact, production has been getting gradually more difficult since 1973. Between 1952 and 1973, production increased by a factor of 5, from 12mb/d to 58mb/d. That was the post war boom years. Between the oil crisis of 1973 and 2005, oil production increased by about 40%. Production growth was slow and incremental, as predominantly offshore oil was more expensive and marginal uses for oil, such as heating and electricity production halted.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2018 … s-are-not/

Since 2008, production has increased by 10mb/d. But US shale oil is the only new source of production and has offset otherwise outright declining production.
https://www.postcarbon.org/new-u-s-reco … roven-not/

Last edited by Calliban (2022-07-08 12:13:25)

kbd512 · 2022-07-08 18:41:08

Calliban,

Calliban wrote:

Annual production has outweighed annual discoveries consistently since the early 1980s

And yet... We keep producing more of it, to the point that we're "producing too much", according to all the people who want to destroy humanity. The same people are making the same claim about food now. We can't produce too much, because climate change. Really?

There's a shortage of investment dollars into oil, a shortage of drilling activities / infrastructure to transport it / refine it as a result, but there is no shortage of oil.

I've seen infinitely better evidence that there's a shortage of people with working brain cells in power than a shortage of anything else.

When you remove 2/3rds of all investment dollars from petroleum production, then it declines, because that's how math works.

kbd512 · 2022-07-08 18:54:24

This is not intended to give the morons any "bright ideas", but try to imagine for a moment what would happen if we cut 2/3rds of all investment dollars out of car production.

Does anybody think we'd get the same number of cars out the other end of the assembly line?

SpaceNut · 2022-07-09 17:30:43

A pipeline would be the simplest method to provide fuels from any location to another but it's the leaks and failed cleanups which has plagued where they are run. Just think have a cup of crude in your daily water that has resulted from a poorly built and maintained. Do better with that and no one will care as that is the method of choice for water.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-07-10 03:21:06

There's Still Over $40BN In Cargo On Container Ships Waiting Offshore

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/there … e?p=445546

Anchorages continue to fill with waiting container ships off East and Gulf Coast ports, where vessel queues have now far outgrown those off the West Coast. Along all three coasts combined, the number of waiting container vessels remains exceptionally high.

The ship queue off Los Angeles/Long Beach garnered the most headlines over the past year, yet the congestion epicenter has shifted: As of Friday, only 36% of waiting ships were off West Coast ports, with 64% off the East and Gulf Coast ports. Savannah, Georgia, now has the largest ship queue in North America.

Container ships waiting off U.S. and British Columbia ports on Friday had a combined capacity of 1,037,164 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).

How much cargo value is in all those boxes? On a purely back-of-the-envelope basis, assuming 90% utilization (some estimates are higher) and an average cargo value per import TEU of $43,899 (the average value of cargo imported by Los Angeles in 2020, likely conservative given inflation), the estimated value of cargo waiting offshore on Friday exceeded $40 billion.

SpaceNut · 2022-07-10 20:17:44

Can we even believe this Supply chains: How the pandemic may lead more manufacturers to the U.S.

More and more U.S. companies are moving their production and manufacturing facilities back home due to the pandemic supply chain snarls and the insufficient production abroad.
As a result, it has become "a huge incentive to set up shop here in the United States,"

that would be a first in nearly 40 years for most

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-07-29 04:11:39

Hershey warns of Halloween candy shortage
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail … 022-07-28/

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-08-01 11:04:41

Container ship stuck in River Clyde as incident dubbed Glasgow's 'Ever Given' moment
https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glas … e-24528513

In 2021 the Suez Canal was blocked after the grounding of Ever Given, a 20,000 TEU container ship The 400-metre-long (1,300 ft) vessel was moved by winds on tand ended up crashing wedged across the waterway with its bow and stern stuck in the canal banks, blocking all sea traffic. The ship was freed but the stuck ship became part of global culture and memes, in 2022, the American television show What We Do in the Shadows referenced the obstruction in its season four episode "Reunited." In the episode, vampire Nador is stuck in a shipping container on the Ever Given. In real life Tugboats trying to free the jammed ship, could be viewed from the International Space Station.

At least 369 ships were queuing to pass through the canal, this prevented an estimated US$9.6 billion worth of trade

Could the Great Lakes solve US shipping woes?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-62157479

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-08-01 11:06:26)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-08-27 14:51:22

New York runs dangerously low on gas & diesel

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles … se-warning

kbd512 · 2022-08-27 16:55:12

Mars_B4_Moon,

We elected mental midgets to run America, namely Biden and The New Democrat Party, so this is our punishment for voting for a bunch of evil clowns who hate their fellow Americans and humanity in general. I actually want 2 good options to choose from when I go to the polls to vote, but all I get is "Evil Lite" (Republicans) and "Seriously Evil" (Democrats), and there's nobody else on the ballot who stands a snowball's chance in hell of ever winning.

I wonder what life would be like if all of these morons immediately suffered the consequences of their idiocy.

Start a war?
Your son or daughter immediately becomes America's newest front-line combat soldier. Whatever you decide to fight over had better be worth the life of your son or daughter.

Steal public money?
We take everything you have until you have paid the public back, in full, for your crime. That change alone would probably take most of the thieves out of politics. Sure, you can still steal and some will because they can't help themselves, but you'll never be left with a cent in your own account as a result.

Make false allegations of criminal conduct to the media without so much as cursory evidence?
You're immediately brought up on charges.

We could rectify a lot of governance problems that way. We'd still have plenty of real issues to deal with, but attempts at running America into the ground wouldn't be amongst them.

SpaceNut · 2022-08-27 20:42:06

Prices on fuel started its rise under Trump and continue up until its peak and slow fall. Of course the sanction did cause a rise but they are still on and its falling...

https://www.hoover.org/research/what-ca … rices-jump

https://checkyourfact.com/2018/06/15/fa … price-gas/

kbd512 · 2022-08-27 21:18:15

SpaceNut,

Prices are not falling and demand is almost flat.

EIA expects gasoline and diesel prices to increase as U.S. economy recovers

Why go to some other website when you can go to the government agency that collects this data and aggregates it?

kbd512 · 2022-08-27 23:10:01

Here's a better view of what's really happening, also from US EIA:

Edit:
President Biden took office in January of 2020 for those who don't know. His cackling energy secretary has done little to nothing to improve energy availability. She did make it functionally impossible to obtain new drilling permits, so when the war in Ukraine kicked off, it compounded the problem. Russia has their village idiot running the show and we have ours here in America. Both are complete morons, who are surrounded by other complete morons, although apparently voted into office by budding rocket scientists. I put this in the category of, "Things that make you go hmm..." Anyway, while our village idiot and his merry band of morons are busy running America into the ground, likely intentionally, Russia has started a war with Ukraine and China appears to be looking to start another with Taiwan.

To those who can't buy a clue, Taiwan makes more than 92% of all advanced semi-conductor manufacturing. Kiss your computers, cell phones, electronic arcade games on wheels, and photovoltaics goodbye if China decides to bomb Taiwan back into the Stone Age, because all that stuff Taiwan makes didn't magically materialize overnight and it takes between 5 and 10 years to bring a new chip fab online. The 5 year figure assumes you have educated and trained workers to throw at the problem. The additional 5 years is to educate and train the workers, which is not a quick and easy process for what should be obvious reasons, but if it's not, making modern chips is one of the most technologically sophisticated and resource-intensive processes that we humans undertake. We won't have to worry about gasoline or electric cars then, because there won't be enough chips made for either of these types of vehicles to function.

Why We Can’t Build Our Way Out of the Semiconductor Shortage

From the article:

If you date the semiconductor shortage to Nvidia’s Ampere launch last year — and for enthusiasts, at least, I think that’s when the hammer really dropped — we’ve now been stuck in a semiconductor shortage for eight months. The pandemic-related shortage came on the heels of an Intel-specific CPU shortage in 2018 and into 2019, and several GPU shortages have stretched back to 2016. Why haven’t we fixed this problem already?
The answer to that question is anchored in the long lead times and high costs semiconductor manufacturers face, as well as the long-term consequences of some bad business predictions from 10-15 years ago. First, no part of the semiconductor manufacturing process is fast, and many steps require cleanroom facilities capable of maintaining far lower particle counts than even a surgical theater. The factories that build microprocessors are typically referred to as semiconductor foundries. They cost between $10-$20 billion and can take 3-5 years to build.
...
Finally, low-level component shortages are preventing companies from manufacturing primary goods. Shortages of resins like ABF (Ajinomoto Build-up Film) can themselves slow production. The entire industry is stuck in a “For Want of a Nail” situation, and it extends down the supply chain to whatever level of fidelity you care to examine.
Adding It All Up
To summarize:
Foundries can’t build chips more quickly because every single part of the silicon manufacturing process is an exercise in patience. The market is in the position its in because demand for certain types of silicon grew in ways the industry didn’t foresee 10+ years ago. There is no immediate solution to this problem because of how long it takes to bring new foundries online. Hoarding shortages
What we’re seeing here is not “just” the pandemic. It’s the pandemic, cryptocurrency demand, increased adoption of AI in many markets, and the growth of 5G base stations and smart home shipments. A car today contains far more chips than it did 20 years ago, which increases the amount of silicon required per vehicle.
This semiconductor shortage is unlikely to dramatically resolve on any single day. It will gradually get less bad over time as product shipments and consumer demand align more closely. Nvidia’s second-generation Ethereum miners may help reduce demand for GeForce cards, for example. A future PlayStation 5 built on 6nm might help Sony increase availability. Foundries do increase shipments over 6-12 month time periods and yields on parts also tend to improve, so we should see continued production increases over the course of 2021 from these sources as well.

Want a New Factory to Make Car Chips? That’ll Be $4 Billion, Please

I knew a guy in Austin who did chip testing. He said it took years to learn what he needed to know and the equipment required is worth a mint all on its own.

If China really goes through with this, it could easily be another 20+ years before the industry as a whole recovers. All sorts of chips are designed here in the US, but we don't make most of them and have no ability to do so inside of the next 5 years minimum, 10 years more realistic.

Last edited by kbd512 (2022-08-27 23:38:26)

SpaceNut · 2022-08-28 08:41:24

Remember treaties are what drive war and a bombing back to the stone age would unleash war as well. It's also the reason why you do not start them.
Recently there was a chip bill that would restart manufacturing in the US. All of which left due to corporate greed in the first place. As the graph does show it is going down albeit not as fast as w2e would want or to the end game price.
I remember 39 cents a gallon but since everything has gone up by a factor of 10, I will be happy with $3.90. oh, look its below that already at $3.89 a gallon and lower if you shop around.

kbd512 · 2022-08-30 15:16:12

SpaceNut,

Consumers drive "corporate greed". Consumers wanted cheaper smart phones and computers and entertainment electronics, so now they make computer chips in Taiwan and assemble said electronics in China / Taiwan / Japan / South Korea / Malaysia. The companies only do what the market demands of them in order to make a profit or merely survive. Price sells goods and services, not lofty ideals associated with patriotism or paying your neighbor a living wage for his high-tech value-added labor.

Should we make our own electronics and chips? Yes, of course we should, but not for the reasons you harp on. People in business should not be financially incentivized or rewarded for moving production overseas when said production has consequential strategic / national defense implications. The people in charge of the steel mills did not think China would charge more for steel. After they shut down the last mill in America, China stopped dumping steel on the market at prices below what it cost them to produce it and immediately and sharply increased the prices charged. That was intentional. It was not an accident. It was another example in a never-ending line of examples of the bad behavior of communists.

As horrendous as the result would've been, America should've simply allowed large numbers of the Chinese to starve to death through their own stupidity, and then there would've been another revolution. Fortunately for the Chinese and Japanese and Germans and Iraqis and so many others, that is not the American Way. The world is a much better place because we do not, or at least did not, capriciously treat friend or foe based upon their government doing something we don't like. If they piss us off enough, then we'll eventually wipe out their government, but then we'll rebuild their country at our expense.

We gave the world computers and farming equipment and communications and so many other inventions because we correctly understand that all inventions which alleviate pain and suffering are more useful to humanity when spread far and wide. We don't see the point in jealously hording all of our advanced technology or even our weapons. We apply some controls, but for the most part we give people inventions to improve their lives and then they have to make the decision to use them for good versus evil. Certain countries use the inventions for more of the latter than the former. We won't allow everyone to suffer merely because some group has poor decision making skills. However unappreciative the rest of the world is, they only want for material goods through the suffering they inflict upon themselves.

The Chinese government, much like the Russian government, is a bad-faith actor. America should never have started doing business with them. Unfortunately, President Clinton wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to foreign policy. His successor was fixated on foreign policy in Iraq, despite having bad or perhaps evil advisors like Cheney. Democrats and Neo-Cons reliably substitute their ideologically-held beliefs about how they think the world should work, above any prior demonstrated behavior or experience. Whenever results are counter-factual, they double-down on their ideology, no different than any other religious group. They will contort any event or result to fit their worldview. This is great for reinforcement of their ideology, but can also produce truly horrific results when their ideology is not congruent with reality. Roosevelt thought the Japanese would never attack America. Wrong! Kennedy thought the Russians would back-down (we were well within bad-breath distance of initiating WWIII using nuclear weapons, but the military officers involved on both sides thought it was completely insane so they took their toys and went home- the "live to fight another day" principle in action). Wrong! Clinton thought giving China "most favored nation status" would change their government's human rights abuses and belligerence towards other nations. Wrong! Bush thought al-Qaeda wouldn't attack America. Wrong! Obama thought Russia would play ball if given the right carrots. Wrong! Biden thought Russia wouldn't invade Ukraine or that they'd reconsider, given their horrendous losses in Ukraine. Wrong!

All those bad outcomes were a direct counter-factual results indicating that the people doing the evaluating and decision making cannot see past where their ideology fails them. When they don't get the result they're after, and despite the fact that their ideology isn't being externally reinforced by observable reality, they double-down on the ideology, to no avail. I'm floored by the number of people who do this.

So, what does this mean? Well... Steel is a strategic material. Steel is not a "nice to have", it's a "have to have". Similarly, chips and electronics are no longer "nice to have". Good luck making any modern vehicle, power plant, cellular communications system, radio, battery, or even a toaster over, function without them. What we are seeing is the result of allowing business people to make strategically-important decisions. Maybe buying from your fellow Americans means you can only afford to buy a new cell phone every 5 years vs every 2 or 3 years. To that I say, "So, what?" Communications equipment is strategically important. Both economies of scale and military forces don't function without them. If it's too expensive to make in America due to labor costs, then we need more innovation / invention to automate the process of making them. Basically, it is very important to us, but we still need to devote more people to taking out the garbage than to electronic gizmos, so we prioritize and spend more money on sanitation than we do on our electronic gadgets.

Let's circle back to brass tacks, though.

You wouldn't think twice about buying cheaper gasoline or a cheaper car or a cheaper computer if we're being honest with each other. You own a Toyota Prius because you prioritize home expenses over domestically-produced cars, which makes sense. However, you either couldn't (possibly) or wouldn't (more likely) pay more for an American-made car, so you bought a Japanese car. They make good cars, no doubt about that, but at what cost to your fellow Americans? To be clear, I'm not faulting you for your purchasing decisions, but you don't get to turn around and call decisions to offshore production, "corporate greed". Your purchasing decisions drive corporate decisions, not the other way around. You bought a foreign car, used or new doesn't matter, because you prioritized cost to you over spending money with your fellow Americans. Could you have paid a little more or even paid less for an American car? I don't know, but your money did the talking. Companies don't get to dictate what the market price is for their good or service. They either provide their widgets at a price the market (the majority of the consumer base) is will to pay, or they go out of business.

Making society reliant upon microchips and electronics is supposedly, "the way of the future". Is it really, though? What if most of the available supply disappears for a good long while? What then? The people in positions of authority should be asking themselves questions like this, but they don't because their ideology gets in the way. That's why I would never make a good politician. If something isn't working, then I move on to the next potential solution. I won't pursue dead-ends because I'm enamored with an idea. That's why I moved on to solar thermal from nuclear thermal. I know what nuclear can do, I know it would be more efficient and cost-effective overall, but the ignorant masses have been lied to enough that they think it's "black magic". I won't be changing their minds, so I selected the second-best alternative that can actually work at the scale required, and to the degree required. It'll require a lot more steel and concrete, but it's still doable. Those are the only viable options, long-term. Ditto for fossil fuels. There will be no replacement for stored chemical energy within our lifetimes, which is why we are (mostly) "stuck" with them. All our brain power can't concoct a workable alternative, because Physics 101 is a "real thing", not simply some college class based on intangible theory. I did not "make it so", the universe did that for us.

Anyway, Taiwan made / makes microchips better / cheaper / faster than any other country, so most of the advanced semi-conductor manufacturing industry moved to Taiwan. The decision was no different than any other purchasing decision, and it was certainly not done to harm Americans or consumers in general. However, it did have serious strategic implications. We looked at then-feasible alternatives and found all of them wanting, so Taiwan it was. That being the case, we will eventually have to defend Taiwan from China, because their government is run by dictators who do not think far-enough through the implications of their own decision making. China's communist government will screw over the Chinese people in the process (make their lives poorer without the blessing of advanced tech enabled by advanced microchips), which is what they've been doing since they took power. America has no ability to change that. It's up to them. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make a horse drink. So... Yeah, that the conundrum we face.

SpaceNut · 2022-08-30 19:06:03

Actually, matters little in foreign or domestic car purchase as I have had both types; it's about a given amount of money to purchase either and in this case, I was in need of a vehicle that did not use fuel at less than 15 mpg as well as stayed under 2500 dollar for purchase. I lucked out in timing that this one got bought from an auction and could be turned for that amount by the garage at where I have been buying vehicles.

Consumers do not set the price of a commodity and it was corporate greed that put profit above not raising what they made and its cost. Instead, they made the products cheaper and lost buyers of their products forcing recovery by the move to overseas.

kbd512 · 2022-08-30 21:03:13

SpaceNut,

"I, SpaceNut, will not pay more than $2,500 for my car" <- HEY, CONSUMER! THIS IS YOU SETTING THE PRICE.

If they raised the prices of cars, then you wouldn't be buying one if it costs more than $2,500, would you?

Almost any vehicle on the road can get 15mpg these days. That was clearly not a major criteria in your vehicle selection.

Price sells. You just proved it. Thanks for making my point.

SpaceNut · 2022-08-31 18:52:05

The fuel mileage was not that I was looking for a 15mpg but one that would achieve greater values since the last couple when fuel costs were lower seems to be a killer under the new price of fuel that we were coming into.

The limit was an arbitrary one and it's just an offer to purchase with ultimately the seller having all the cards. There are just a few exceptions where that is allowed and for the most part all others are you working still within the means of income as it's got limits as you must pay the bills first.

Anything else is a want; commodities are things not car or housing as these as store goods for sale.

As far as getting that car for the price I would like it's a desire and I have all sorts of options as to where to find one in that bracket of funds.

Oh, and the previous vehicles requirement since I was without one in winter was in a deep freeze able to start and move without shoveling it out after a long walk to buy it.

kbd512 · 2022-08-31 19:38:09

SpaceNut,

You, as the consumer, set the price and terms of purchase. You decided what you were willing to pay for. Your money did the talking. A company, or an individual involved in the car business, tried to get you what you asked for. There's only so much that a dollar can buy. Companies compete with each other for your dollars, and what you are willing to pay for determines what they will try to sell to you. If everyone quit buying Ford vehicles, then Ford would go bankrupt and everyone working there would lose their job. That is the way a market free from government interference actually works. This notion of "too big to fail" is what has thrown a monkey wrench into the works. Corporations that are excessively greedy, bad at management or supply chain or finance or IT, or simply hire people who are poor employees, will eventually go bankrupt if they have no customers and no government (public tax money) to bail them out.

If you think a particular corporation is overly-greedy, then don't buy from them. In a free market, you have options.

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