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The "Catastrophic Shutdown Of America's Supply Chain" Begins: Stunning Photos Of West Coast Port Congestion
One week ago, when previewing what may be the first lockout of the West Coast Ports since 2002, we cited the Retail Industry Leaders Association who, realizing that failure to reach an agreement between the dockworker union and their bosses, the Pacific Maritime Association representing port management would lead to devastating consequences for the US retail industry, had several very damning soundbites:
- "a work slowdown during contract negotiations over the past seven months has already created logistic nightmares for American exporters, manufacturers and retailers dependent on an efficient supply chain. A complete shutdown would be catastrophic, with hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk if America’s supply chain grinds to a halt."
- "A west coast port shutdown would be an economic disaster."
- "A shutdown would not only impact the hundreds of thousands of jobs working directly in America’s transportation supply chain, but the reality is the entire economy would be impacted as exports sit on docks and imports sit in the harbor waiting for manufacturers to build products and retailers to stock shelves."
And the punchline: "The slowdown is already making life difficult, but a shutdown could derail the economy completely."
Just so readers have a sense of what is at stake, this is what the average dockworker makes: $147,000 a year in salary, plus $35,000 a year in employer-paid health care and an annual pension of $80,000 (according to an association press release). It is the overtime compensation to the total shown here, which grosses to over a quarter of a million dollars, that dockworkers are negotiating to raise or else the key US supply-chains gets it.
Incidentally, the demands of the dockworker union and their leverage is precisely the reason for the dramatic discrepancy we showed in the following chart:
In any case, as of last night, the choking of the US supply-chain has officially begin, when as the LA Times reported last night, "West Coast ports — including the nation's busiest in Los Angeles and Long Beach — will partially shut down for four days as shipping companies plan to dramatically slash dock work amid an increasingly contentious labor dispute."
More:
Terminal operators and shipping lines said that they would stop the unloading of ships Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, because they don't want to pay overtime to workers who, they allege, have deliberately slowed operations to the point of causing a massive bottleneck. Thursday is Lincoln's Birthday and Monday is Presidents Day, which are holidays for the workers.
Slowing down work "amounts to a strike with pay, and we will reduce the extent to which we pay premium rates for such a strike," said Wade Gates, spokesman for the Pacific Maritime Assn., the employer group representing the shipping companies. The local union in Los Angeles and Long Beach has denied using slowdown tactics.
Accoring to the LA Times, it is not clear if the partial shutdown foreshadows a total closure of the ports. Fears of a lockout of dockworkers, who have been without a contract since July, have risen in the last week and the two sides haven't held talks since Friday. SF Gate was far more clear on what the dockworker action means: "West Coast ports to shut down 4 days amid labor dispute."
Work delays and stoppages over the past three months have caused mounting problems for Bay Area importers and small-business owners, who say they are losing money as trucks line up daily outside the Port of Oakland waiting for container ships anchored in San Francisco Bay to unload.
The shutting down of port operations is ironic because it’ll make the situation worse, said union officials who claimed the association canceled a negotiating session Wednesday and has not been available since last Friday.
“This is an effort by the employers to put economic pressure on our members and to gain leverage in contract talks,” said Robert McEllrath, president of the longshore and warehouse union. “The union is standing by ready to negotiate, as we have been for the past several days.”
Regardless of who is at fault for the (partial) shut down, one can't blame dockworkers for doing what Greece is actively doing at the same time in its own negotiations with Europe: maximizing its leverage. Because as Bank of America showed yesterday, in a piece dedicated precisely to this topic, nothing short of 3.5% of marginal US GDP is at steak, which translated into CAGR terms, means that the fate of America's estimated 3% growth in 2015 is suddenly in the hands of a few thousand port workers, and with that, whether or not the US has a recession.
Some more thoughts from BofA:
Could port activity grind to a halt?
Due to continued unsuccessful contract negotiations between West Coast port employers (Pacific Maritime Association) and workers (International Longshore and Warehouse Union), there is a growing risk of a shutdown/lockout at West Coast docks, possibly within days. This past weekend, ports temporarily halted operations, adding to uncertainty. In our view, although a port strike/lockout could weigh on operations and profitability in some industries, the economic fallout of a one-week strike is likely to be limited to a loss of $0.8-1.8bn, representing a 0.1-0.2% hit to annualized GDP growth in 1Q15.
Size matters
Since the fall, a notable disruption in activity at the ports has materialized, and the risk is the current delays could spiral into full-blown gridlock, or that employers could lock out workers. West Coast ports are an important component of US trade. As cited by our Transportation Analyst Ken Hoexter, the value of total traffic at West Coast ports (waterborne, air and land) accounts for 12% of GDP. However, drilling down specifically to goods arriving/departing by water vessels (and hence, impacted by the labor dispute) reveals a much smaller share, only 3.5% of GDP or roughly $600bn, as of 2014.
Gauging the economy-wide risk during a shutdown
The economic fallout of a port shutdown is challenging to measure and depends heavily on the technique of analysis. Economic impact studies of West Coast port shutdowns have yielded loss estimates as high as $2bn per day. However, analysis by Peter Hall of the University of Waterloo and by the US Congressional Budget Office criticized such techniques as they fail to account for the ability for firms to substitute to alternative transportation routes, resulting in inflated loss estimates. Instead, according to research published by the CBO in 2006, the fallout is likely much lower, roughly $65mn to $150mn per day if Los Angeles and Long Beach ports were to shut down for a week in 2004. To get a sense of what the risks are in today, we gross that figure up to account for higher trade volumes, and include all West Coast ports. Our back of the envelope calculation suggests the daily loss to GDP would be $150-350mn per day, or $0.8-1.8bn per week. That would represent 0.1-0.2% hit to annualized 1Q15 GDP growth.
Learning from the past: short-term pain is likely
If history is any guide, a temporary port shutdown would acutely hurt the trade sector in the short term, but would not threaten to derail the recovery. In 2002, port workers at 29 West Coast ports were locked out for roughly 10 days in October, before President Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act to reopen the ports.
What could go wrong?
We highlight two key scenarios that may lead to greater downside risk relative to our base case:
- A protracted disruption could trigger non-linear (accelerating) economic costs as temporary contingency measures run their course, resulting in worsening supply chain disruptions. President Obama could intervene by invoking the Taft-Hartley Act as was done in 2002, but it is not clear if or how quickly the White House would be willing to step into a labor dispute this time around.
There is uncertainty regarding the capacity of alternative transportation routes. Extensive use of air freight and Canadian/Eastern ports may lead to capacity constraints at those sites, limiting the ability of industry to successfully substitute to alternative supply chains for an extended period.
So the bottom line is that nobody really knows what will happen if the "partial" stoppage becomes a permanent one, as dockworkers try lever their influence on the US economy (which according to financial comedy TV is so strong, it should have no problem to meet their demands, right?), but it is safe to say that the final outcome will be somewhere between the "catastrophic" devastation for the economy which the retail industry predicts, and anywhere up to a 3.5% hit to the GDP, which in turn means an economic recession, if only temporary.
One thing, however, about which there is no doubt at all, is the unprecedented congestion that has slammed the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach harbor: that is very much real, as can be seen on the series of photos below courtesy of Mike Kelley. From his blog:
As anyone who follows my work knows, I'm fascinated by industry and infrastructure. For the past few weeks, a labor dispute has been unfolding at the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach. After flying over the area while coming in to land at LAX, I saw all of these giant container ships anchored offshore and instantly knew that I had to photograph it.
The next day I called my pilot and said 'when is the soonest we can go up?!' Less than 24 hours later we were in the air. It was one of the most exciting experiences I've had doing aerial photography - being that far out at sea, with the huge swells underneath you, and these massive, massive container ships everywhere was like living a scene out of Walter Mitty's life.
Cargo ships have been backed up for weeks on end at the ports of LA and Long Beach amid a labor dispute.
The size of these ships blows the mind; many of them are over a thousand feet long.
We photographed them from anywhere between 200 and 5,500 feet, and even at this height the enormous size was something else entirely.
The haze and setting sun created an ethereal mood to all of the pictures
Cargoes from around the world are backed up right now
I've never seen ANYTHING like this, even rush hour at the 405 doesn't look so bad.
Colorful and massive, this ship is over 1000 feet from end to end.
From this angle, the scale and size of the city and ships becomes quickly apparent
* * *
Finally keep in mind that to many economists, or at least those who realize that the US economy is in a far worse shape than what official government data represents, an "exogenous" event like a West Coast port strike, just like a "Polar Vortex" is precisely what the doctor ordered. After all, what better scapegoat for the lack of growth than a few thousand dockworkers who are merely leveraging capitalism as much as they can... even if it means shutting down key US economic supply-chains in the process.
h/t @Theonlyexpert
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You are right on. I buy some stuff directly from China, and it says "made in China". I can buy it in the US, and it says "made in China". So if I buy directly from China, I simply bypass somebody that is adding cost without adding benefit. If it said "made in USA" and the cost was reasonable, I'd buy it. But the US government chased out all the manufacturing. China is the beneficiary of our de-industrialization. And so the sad story goes...
Let's try doing a little math.
I read recently right here on ZH that every Tesla automobilie imported to and sold in China is subject to a 100% import tariff. I don't know how this tariff is calculated: on some kind of wholesale pricing model or simply on the retail price in the showroom...
Apple supposedly has a nearly 40% profit margin. For every $100 in goods Apple sells it only costs about $60 to manufacture, distribute, advertise, etc.
IF Apple was manufacturing it's products in the United States without any domestic subsidies it would likely have to raise the prices of the devices to meet the higher labor and regulatory costs of the US; but, we will actually ignore THAT fact for the moment and I will come back to it in just a moment...
IF Apple was manufacturing it's products in the US, and China was imposing the same 100% tariff on the wholesale cost of Apple products that it is apparently imposing on Tesla automobiles, Apple would actually have to raise prices by more than 25% just to break even on it's sales in China even if labor and regulatory costs were the exactly same in the US and China.
.6 ( production cost ) x2 = 1.2
Now, IF Apple products were actually taxed/tariffed at 100% of retail...
..Well, imagine that under a similar/same US tariff regime such as that which China imposes upon Tesla automobiles Apple would not be able to make a 40% profit margin on items sold in the US unless it raised it's retail cost per item considerably more: at least 60% more than the present retail prices Apple is presently charging...
.6 +1.0 =1.6
I'm not sure how many people would continue to purchase Apple products in China if the price were to rise by 60% or more from the present pricing levels..
Apple's global sales claims indicate that only 10% of it's products are now sold in the US. Even if ALL of these products were made in China and the US imposed a 100% tariff on the importation of these goods as China does on Tesla automobilies it would only affect 10% of Apple's global sales.
For a company as wildly profitable as Apple, with such a large percentage of overseas sales, imposing a 100% tariff only on the 10% of global sales made in the US would hardly constitute a hardship imposition if the US set a 100% tariff on ALL Apple products manufactured in China and sold in the US.
-That is, if US consumers would still buy Apple products at 125% or higher then the present retail prices and Apple did not jack the US retail prices more than the amount necessary to eke out a small profit margin in the US but very much higher in order to maintain the 40% profit margin -which would likely boost the retail price considerably higher than even the Apple obsessed segments of the US market might be willing to pay.
Now, about Apple manufacturing it's devices for sale in the US within the US... It would surprise me if the manufacturing costs were actually double that of manufacturing costs in China. It would likely cost Apple less to manufacture it's products within the US than to manufacture those products in the US than to manufacture them in China, import them to the US for sale and pay a 100% tariff.
Thus, it is rational to conclude that Apple would likely open factories within the US and manufacture ALL produts intended to be sold within the US as the new factories and the higher production costs would very likely be significanly less than a 100% tariff on foreign produced products. Domestic production would have the concurrent benefit of providing direct domestic employment and domestic consumption based on teh spending by new domestic Apple employees of those wages.
While I'm certain that many people who are both invested in and who utilize Apple products would not want tariffs imposed upon the products manufactured in China and sold in the US, or pay to the higher retail prices of the products that would result from imposition those tariffs; Apple could also easily afford to make less profit on the 10% of it's sales that constitute the US market.
It may be unpopular to condone such an approach to the problems associated with globalism; but, it is beyond obvious that China does not seem to have any compunctions against imposing heavy tariffs where and when it sees fit to do so in the interest of protecting it's markets and the stability of it's social structure.
It is notable that so called representatives of the citizens of the US are so active in doing and promoting the opposite..
There was a time, before the imposition of the income tax, that the US government budget was funded primarily by import duties and tariffs. Modern import duties and tariffs would both contribute towards closing the federal funding gap and also force repatriation of US dollars directly to the treasury as opposed to allowing the dollars to acrue in foreign central banks, soveriegn funds, hedgies and the like...
any non Microsoft ass licking links FFS?
-1 for lack of comprehension.
I've written nothing positive about Microsoft as there isn't anything positive to write.
YOU & MS can both go fuck yourselves...
Come on....that's too logical
Beacon of "enlightment" at the bottom of the shit stained toilet!
That's OK. The way it's going here lately, we won't be needing most of that stuff anyway.
Maybe the powers that be are fully aware that nobody has any extra $$ to buy the shit on those cargo ships anyways and have told those workers to strike.
Ask me if I care.
That's very white of you
According to this article, who pays the Obamacare luxury tax on the longshoremen's healthcare insurance is part of the problem.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/10/obamacare-tax-threate...
Any on-the-edge retail may go bankrupt.
Like Hitlery says - we can't be responsible for every undercapitalized business out there............ such compassion that woman has
The strikers are pretentious pansies. Please replace them with people that show up to get the job done, regardless if some union says it's okay or not.
Unions = Entitled Thugs
Goes for the "CEO" club too.
Meh. The lower Mississippi river pilots association has a real union. Over $300,000 per year.
I live here, and have been sailing and boating in this area for 40+ years.
Those ships are always anchored out there.
That anchorage area is to the South of the Ports Long Beach and Los Angeles, and anchored ships aren't in the path of the approaches to the two harbor entrances. There do seem to be more of them than in the past.
I asked a friend that was a high-up position in Port of Los Angeles "why all the anchored ships?" And his reply was "shortage of container chassis." When a container comes off the ship, it is loaded onto a "chassis" that has the wheels and brakes on it so the box can be transported over the road. One container needs one chassis. Even if it's only being moved inland to a railhead. Because the volume of incoming containes is cyclical, there needs to be an available over-supply of chassis to cover the needs of peak-periods.
These chassis used to be stored in under-utilized areas of the harbor stacked like cordwood. 10's of thousands of them in several locations near the harbor. These areas have been developed into additional wharf space, other uses like green space, parks and playgrounds, and other pork-projects that make politicians feel good and get them votes.
There's no longer an economical location to store chassis within a reasonable distance of the ships. So there is no longer an abundance of chassis available. The excess inventory of chassis has been scrapped.
That's what I was told, by someone that knows what he's talking about.
I agree. This is leading up to another "Polar Vortex" type dialouge.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing the perspective.
It's peeps like you...
...that keep this site alive!
THX for the report from the wilderness. Keep'em commin'.
"There's no longer an economical location to store chassis within a reasonable distance of the ships. So there is no longer an abundance of chassis available. The excess inventory of chassis has been scrapped."
thank you capitalism, neo-liberal economics, and the inability to think outside the box.
what an efficient and effective mode of distribution to ensure people get the right products they desire at the right time at the right place, very time.
:-P
Stocks are flying and the economy is in the crapper. Hmmmmm
McDonald's already rocked back on its' heels is contemplating a temporary suspension of "Happy Meals" and dividends due to loss of "toys".
Look at all that plastic fucking garbage from china floating around. And everyone wonders what's wrong with the US economy. At one time I had a big problem with these port workers making so much be after seeing how people are treated without a union (min wage, less than 30hours, no insurance etc) as far as i'm concerned I hope the dock workers break it off in their fucking asses and don't even offer a reach-around.
I'm calling bullshit on any dockworker making minimum wage. Illegal aliens demand more than minimum age.
Yeah. Who's buying all that stuff? I can't afford to.
That explains the spike in HARPEX. If its loaded with cargo and at sea it counts. Begs the question...what happens when the crews stop getting paid?
Cant get a polar vortex to blame, how about a shipping vortex.
Fire up the HAARP and create a Pacific Vortex. Pesky excessive product and people...gone.
I honestly don't care, let em burn.
Time to invest in more automation. Who needs those useless worker units anyways?
I hope they automate you out of your job, fool.
I guess some people need the /s.
You joke...but that is exactly what the outcome of ridiculous wages/demands/and stoppages will be.
These dumbasses will leverage their way right out of a job.
Yes, until we are all satisfied with the scraps that the corporate masters deign to toss our way, we must participae in the race to the bottom on the globalist wage war.
it all starts with that shitbag in the white house
your raycessistsistsists
if you've lost the plot, just google "sudden stop collapse" -
you can start here -
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11153
The pendulum swings:
Employer abuse = Union creation >>> Union develops power > Union Abuse >
Next page = fuck the bastards
When I worked for GM in 2008 the Union worker who swept my office (if he even bothered) made a fortune on Martin Luther King day. Triple Pay + one day off of choice + triple of some bennies.
Late 2009--what did the newly hired union person make on MLK day? Nothing, no work that day (new Union contract)
Ha thats a good one. He made a fortune cleaning your office you say? How many fucking fortunes did you manage to make then? I bet you never got a bit of dirt or grease under your fingernails did you? I'd say he should have been at least double your pay.
Move along people nothing to see here. Global Warming/ Climate change that is the existential threat. So get out of your car and drop that Big Gulp and get to work putting together the carbon credit exchange because our other Exchange is getting a little ripe.
If there were a free market in labour they could just hire new employees at a much more affordable cost.
But the present $147,000/yr++ bunch are protected by GOVERNMENT.
Takes a big government to protect big business, unions, banksters, etc
Congrats! You're one of the first people I've read who understands that government bailouts of bankers and hedge funds are no different from government bailouts of the unemployed, welfare & foodstamp recipients and unions.
WE pay for all of it.
Yep. Only way to limit competition without fail is to get government involved (or create a gubmit protected cartel like the Federal Reserve) which means more power and less freedom by increments for everybody as the burearacry grows like a weed. Why do you think most CEO's of LARGE companies are historically democrat and small entrepreneurs historically republican. It's all about barring entry for the little guys and can only do that via a LARGE protective gubmit.
Before junking me, I'm talking about back when there were actually differences between the parties. Now we really only have one party.
"$147,000 a year in salary, plus $35,000 a year in employer-paid health care and an annual pension of $80,000 (according to an association press release)"
Minus 10+% inflation, exponential plus QE, bail ins, poison food sources and radiation from the East equals = if these guys liva another year they will barely make minimum wage.
Isn't the largest port in Los Angeles owned by China?
Hmmm...
What effect will this, or has it had on the Baltic Dry Index?
We need a National Punch a Longshoreman in his pencil neck day.
What does this have to do with the 'economy'? Markets @ all time highs! Lol
I remember the horror of the 2002 shutdown, the bodies in the streets, people crying out for food.
No I don't, come to think of it.
Maybe Brian Williams remembers, let's ask him.
Brian lost 10 lbs when that happened
Replace the lazy socialist union thugs with Obama's illegal alien nephews...problema correctiva!
The reason the Corporate-Fascists want to import all those Illegal Aliens is to drive down wages. First they exported the jobs, now they want to import people who will work for rock bottom wages.
Next goal, slave wages. Then conscripted labor, like the NAZIs had all over Europe.
Next, work them to death wages like in the concentration camps.
Does it ever occur to anybody that these union crews might be the last people in the USA actually paid what their job is worth? That everybody else in the working class has been made to capitulate to the Fed and its machinations, and it's not that they're enormously privileged, it's just that everybody else has gotten fucked?
The average dock works salary is $147,000 a year or $77 per hour. What do you think? Adjusted for inflation, minimum wage in 1965 based on the price of silver, would be $17.50 per hour. I think they don't have a leg to stand on.
I've never done it, albiet, but dock working is more complex and with more liability than flipping burgers. So they make about 3x minimum wage in real money - which doesn't seem that extravagant considering the tens of millions of dollars of equipment and product they're each responsible for daily.
Downvotes without rebuttals aren't very classy.
I myself make about 3x minimum wage ish, and I'm a glorified technoscribe. If I made the same wage in "real money," I wouldn't be standing far off from what these dockworkers are earning, but because there's no organization in labor the Fed machinations have been able to devalue the money in my pocket without increasing my wages in return.
Just a heads up...minimum wage is not $26/hr.
You are all wet.
Use the inflation calculator (courtesy of US gov). Punch in a 1965 salary of $18,000, and check it against 2014. Don't use silver, because the price is heavily manipulated in the markets and will skew your numbers. http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm. My dad was working then blue collar, was making around 15K, no college, so 18K is not off the wall. Some people were making much more than that.
Some people were making much less. My dad was a union employee, a maintenance welder (committeeman, whatever that is) at the old Frigidaire plant.
In 1965 he brought home about $125 a week. Figuring taxes and whatnot, he made about $8000.
He had worked there since 1950 or so, not sure snce I wasn't born yet.
I think 18,000 would be a mid level manager's pay.
I would say that you are about right. Their benefits are a bit up there, but the pay scale is not off too much from the equal value of similar labor adjusted for inflation comparing the early 1960's. What has happened is everybody's standard of living has dropped, they are about 10 - 15% above from that earlier period.
It occurred to me, thank you for bringing it up. We have gotten so used to Chinese level wages, that we have collectively forgotten what a good paying job looks like. If not for H1B visas, tech jobs would pay double or better what they are.
Thank You CZAR. One of hte most enlightened posts ever on ZH. We have all fallen victim to the only thing that Finance can do, albeit they do extremely well, is reduce whatever they touch to the lowest common denominator!
If they are allowed to go on long enough, Lloyd, Jamie and a couple others would own 100% of hte assets of the ENTIRE WORLD.
Break them up, Try them for treason, strip them of 100% of their ill-gotten gains, and decorate some light posts. Congressmen should not be exempt from this "Renaissance".
Did it ever occur to you that because of these union workers voting Democrat (not that voting truly matters) allowed the Democrats to bring us Obamacare, and when have unions not voted Democrat to get more freebies...
But when it comes to the dockworker's union losing their Cadillac health plans, I say fuck them. Go back and read the Obamacare exemption list sometime.
Yes, everyone else has gotten fucked by the unions by having to pay more for products and higher taxes to pay a small percentage of the population special wages, benefits and retirement.
All brought to you by government mandated laws - for special class of citizens.
Wow, when the new canal is finished and these ships dock in Houston, New Orleans, and Alabama, there are gonna be some really sad California Union guys. But hey, $147,000 is some pretty paltry wages.
when the water stops flowing
how long will the crops last
this is just a test
We need a Reagan move here: order the US military to run the ports, and bust the fucking longshoreman union. Those leeches are as bad as Goldman banksters. They make $150k per year (and up) to unload ships. . .
No, actually they are striking for the right reason: excessive and unreasonable taxes. But they were happy to throw everyone else in the USA under the bus, because they thought it would be OK for them. Well, now that it's NOT OK for them, why should we give a rat's ass? Next time they go to use their Cadillac health plan, they might be told by their doctor their medical device they need is sitting on a ship off the coast somewhere...
You'd call up the military on dockworkers for 200 grand a year, but 100 million dollar CEO bonuses fly right by you?
People like you are part of the problem.
And who do you think you ARE anyway? Who gives YOU the right to suggest using our military (which you are probably not part of..) to unload your container ships of crap for your useless little consumer-life?
These guys are there to protect the country from attack, not to run your damned household errands...they're not your "boy"...
So you're ok with the gov't using them to protect and harvest opium in Afghanistan?
Winter Storm Dockageddon providing just-in-time cover for demand side collapse of retail sales and the new lows in baltic index.
Bullish!
Don't worry, the Federal Reserve will take the appropriate measures.
We need moar progressive big government laws and agencies to force those people to buy health insurance.....er......to force those dockworkers to work!
But dockworkers don't worry, "if you like your dockworker job you can keep your dockworker job" because absolutely no boots will be on the ground there.
Grimaldus
The largest port in Los Angeles is owned by China.
If my new running shoes are on any one of those, so help me god!
Photos dont prove that this is not a regular/semi regular occurance.
I heard this strike is about Obamacare....their healthcare benefits are cadallic plans that are going to be taxed....its supposed to be a $40,000 plus healthcare plan that each worker gets.the Obamacare tax is like $15,000 on that....they do not want to pay it....you have to love the unions...they vote for the Democrats to get Obamacare..but do not want to pay for it...lol...makes me puke its so stupid..
Actually, for supporting Obama's election, they were 'exempt' from Obamacare. They kept their Cadillac plans, but it didn't exempt them from the taxes, oops. Well, you get what you vote for, even in the Longshoremen's union.
How would you like a $15,000 / year pay cut.
I'd say, "No thanks, let's go out on strike."
As opposed to being unemployed? When was the last time you went job hunting?
I suppose I could dig out my speadsheetthat tracked my job hunting from Sept 2008 through March 2009 when I sent out resumes at the rate of 3 a day. Writing those cover letters was a bitch, and eventually I gave up writing them.
This is another play by the banks. Hear me out.
Importers put the money for the goods in an escrow account until they've received the items.
When they receive the goods, the money is released from the bank, to the exporters.
Follow the money...
They importing anything I need? Didn't think so.
Who fucking cares if they shut it down. Dickhead union fags dont get 200k/year with benefits to take a box off a ship? Fuck them. Route the shit thru Mexico and put it on a fucking train, and bypass these union assholes.
But then the plot would fail
Who do you think told the Unions to shut the ports, the crane operators?
I'm thinking this ploy was hatched while plotting the next excuse for a failing economy, that meeting would have likely been in a Bank's office on the oposite coast.
They're Brilliant, they get us every time - bend over while the suit pounds you and when it's done, the hobgoblin did it!
Wouldn't you like to have been a fly on the wall recording the pigs who plotted this?
NO surveillance less all be surveilled for all to see!
GDP is a FUDGED UP LIE !!!
The CA ports are on a lee shore with very little protected waters and good harbor space, so this would be an ideal time for a huge freak storm to roll in from the Pacific, blowing all these ships onto the beach.
I certainly hope their are no immigrants hidden in any of those container. They may pass their sell by date
Here's a suggestion. Call in the National Guard while the unions talk. In fact, how about closing some military bases around the world and put some of our troops to work in our ports instead of somebody's else's port.
How about following the Constitution and the laws and not devolving into Fascism / NAZIism.
If you have a issue, I have a tissue.
currency wars = trade wars = real wars as GC says.
Empty shelves at walmart would be a bad sign.
Funny but if you go on youtube and search 'economic collapse 2014' you'll hear so many of the same things we are hearing now at the beginning of 2015. Sure, at some point they will be right, but its good to keep it in perspective.
Ha! I isn't as easy to move all that real stuff around, is it? Not nearly as easy as it is to move around all that digital wealth...
Technology, meet the real world.
If there were ever a need for government intervention it was 6 months ago when this started. I guess setting up toll free phones for illegal aliens and convincing europeans to stop trading with russia is what the govt feels is a better job.
These greedy fuckers will be replaced by robots.
These greedy fuckers will be replaced by robots.
Move all the shipping to Baja Mexico, offload it for pennies on the dollar, and truck it up through San Diego.
NAFTA was created to do just that, and now you know why.
Fuck those union goons.
I'm stunned...
and amazed
FIRE THEIR WORTHLESS ASSES!
"... a temporary port shutdown would acutely hurt the trade sector in the short term, but would not threaten to derail the recovery."
Whew! You had me worried for a moment. As long as the recoverytm is still safe.
(edit: spieling error)
Just a thought. WHy does CNN say nothing about this story, while running now 24/7 with three dead Muslim students over a parking space? CNN Zionist Television, there is always a zionist agneda behind every word and every story, just look deeper and the goal is to promote Zionism.
CNN will cover it: As soon as the police move in and attempt to arrest one of the goons for assault or obstruction. They will turn on the cameras and promptly edit footage to show the oppressive nature of capitalism on poor hardworking union members who can barely feed their own starving families...oh boo-hoo fucking hoo with an extra helping of shit sauce.
Just like they always do.
Unions...
Another commie concept fucking up the works.
They had their time, now it's time to go.
....Only to be replaced by the very oligarcs who have gutted every worker right since they had the chance. The 28-hour work-week is a product of missing unions. The stagnating wages is a product of missing unions. The complete lack of benefits is a product of missing union power.
You think you hate unions? They were the only entities that gave you the 40-h work week, child labor laws, and paid benefits.
The UK is now in a state of labor rights collapse. In the form of a "Zero Hours Work Contract". To get a job, any job, the employee must sign a contract that says in effect. "We guarantee no hours per week, you are to be available for work all week, you must come to work within hours of being called, you can be sent home at any hour." In return you receive an hourly wage based on hours worked.
Don't laugh. There are now several million UK workers who are under these "Zero Hour Contracts".
And don't laugh. I once worked under a similar contract when I was just out of the military. The job offered a good hourly rate, Yet it was a "Zero Hour Contract". Every day I was waiting for a call, I had to get to wrk quickly at instant notice. Some days Zero Hours, others 3-4 or 7-8. In anycase, I point this out to show that the idea has been around for a very long time.
Unions are, just as an example, the reason it costs the New York Times more to print their newspapers than it would cost them to give every single regular reader a brand new Amazon Kindle each year.
They are still paying lifetime contracts to union members whose jobs were replaced by computers in the 1980s.
They stifle innovation in the same way government intervention does. Union are about as helpful in the United States as Obamacare.
Not going to happen though, no country has ever managed to abolish them, via force, but many govts who have tried were swept aside. The Soviet Union began to come apart in Eastern Europe due to polish shipbuilders in Gdansk striking for ~18 months. Same can happen in the USA.
The Polish govt tried to eliminate the union for most of the previous 10 years, including two years of Marshall law and copious harsh political oppression. In the end the Govt was forced to give up and negotiate with them. You simply can't eliminate unions by force.
The UN Declaration of Human Rights 1948 specifically states that it's a codified human right to join a trade union to protect your interests, as an employee.
That's what the world agreed to, as a necessary means to reduce social conflicts in countries, and to make more stable societies that are less prone to go to war, due to deprivation oppression and necessity.
That's not to say the mechanism is not corrupt or not criminally misused, as obviously it has been. But that's a matter for civil policing, banning is simply not possible, and invites mass demonstrations that would make OWS look like a small time picnic.
Cant imagine the general public feeling to bad about longshore wages even if obamacare reduces them. We all are getting hit with healthcare costs. What is avg income now $30,000 per year.
Yes!!!!!!!
If there is one thing I always maligned: It was retail. It appears the very thing we never really needed is one of the first things that get taken out by this looming world-wide depres--oops, I mean "recession."
My wife is an RN with 4 year college degree and 20 years experience half of which is critical ICU. She makes 47/ hr plus benefits. Thats a base pay of 97700/ year. We pay a portion of medical for famiy coverage about 500/month out of pocket plus co pays. Seems to me these guys get more than fair compensation for what they do. This is just another example of the dark side of unions. I say let em strike
You would get about £35k just a bit under $50k for that.
"I say let em strike"
I say REPLACE THEM !!!
wages seem rather for those workers?
Dock workers get paid skim money in Wall Street/China gambit. They shouldn’t be protesting as they are already taking rents in the form U.S. main-street job losses.
How that Gambit works:
1)
Wall Street and Captains of Industry lift American industry and install it in China.
2)
Chinese state banks may help the lifting by issuing Yuan loans in order to attract industry of step 1.
3)
Knowledge of the past and current know-how is then transferred to China. This knowledge represents the heredity of U.S. and Western Industry gained with sweat, labor, and ingenuity.
a.
Past knowledge is then shifted forward in time and gifted to China
4)
Industry now located in China uses workers transferring off the farm.
5)
Wage Arbitrage is taken on wage delta between U.S. and China.
6)
Chinese Goods are exported back to the U.S. at China price. China price is set to be just under America price.
7)
U.S. Navy insures Chinese/American transshipment at taxpayer expense.
8)
Goods enter west coast docks, and dock workers are paid skim from wage arbitrage profits.
9)
Goods transship to retail, and there they displace American Goods. Retail, like Wall Mart, take skiff (bribes) to place the Chinese good. Again, China good is priced just under American Price. T
This mechanism uses wage arbitrage to channel skim to dock workers and skiff to retail. American and Western Companies, producing in China, take wage arbitrage profits – which makes their stock go up. Western Bankers who funded with Credit, take their usury. 401K’s of American Labor go up in apparent value, making Wall Street a hero. However, Main Street looses their jobs, making them a zero.
Wage Arbitrage can go on forever, as China’s economy will become permanently efficient. Their state banks forgive loans in order to attract industry. China money supply composition, due to loan forgiveness, has a high percentage of debt free floating money. This type of money is extremely efficient which then makes for savings and cheap transaction costs.
China wins in the end, because their economy uses fiscal and monetary policy to their national benefit.
Dock workers are in league with Wall Street/China gambit, which in turn screws over main street goods producers.
Condensed version;
All union wage jobs are paid for by the citizens via higher prices on the goods sold.
Essentially the unions tax everyone else so they can have MOAR!
Condensed version: We've offhsored all our industry and now import it and we're fucked if we don't have someone to off load the ships and deliver it back to the towns in 'merica where the goods used to be made.
That is a very nifty summary of what has transpired since 1992.
The global economy meets socialism. Obumerang inaction.
and the archdruid strikes again with a nice turn of phrase:
"...but the glorious consumer’s paradise described in such lavish terms a few decades back got lost on the way to the spaceport, and what we got instead was a bleak landscape of decaying infrastructure, abandoned factories, prostituted media, and steadily declining standards of living for everyone outside the narrowing circle of the privileged, with the remnants of our once-vital democratic institutions hanging above it all like rotting scarecrows silhouetted against a darkening sky"
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.ca/2015/02/the-butlerian-carnival.htm...
More Kabuki Theater. Trade Union Marxists demand, the evil private cartel resists; the Obama NLRB/Fed. Mediation and Conciliation Service puts their thumb, no their jackboots on the scale, 'crisis' diverted. Another example just how much the US is mirroring the EU.
not everyone who works on the docks is a member of the longshoremen union
http://www.indeed.com/salary/Dock-Worker.html
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/dock-worker-salary-SRCH_KO0,11.htm
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Dock_Worker/Hourly_Rate
Propaganda - all docks are unionized
If you are talking about the Ports of Long Beach/Los Angeles, you are simply wrong. Even the workers that carry clipboards are unionized.
(Now, there are independent contractors and such that do work there, but...the longshoremen's union has a lock on regular workers involved in moving cargo.)
and from the onion:
Health Experts Recommend Standing Up At Desk, Leaving Office, Never Coming Backhttp://www.theonion.com/articles/health-experts-recommend-standing-up-at...
A perfect opportunity for a false flag event?
Hilarious when one considers that all of these dock workers will be out of work, or Chinese slaves in a few years time.
The banksters need to repay us.
Most Americans have no idea of the tsunami of misery heading there way.
well I agree with you, and I do know what is coming at us like a freight train...that is NOT a light at the end of the tunnel!
Stocks up, nearing all time high.
----------------------------------------
The solution to this problem should be obvious to all. Simply replace the puling union workers with illegals, who will gladly take the jobs that the union workers apparently do not want.
-- Paul D. Bain
paulbain@PObox.com
--------------------------------------
You are making this statement based on the assumption that the dock workers have NO SKILLS.
If you are going to do that, then you have to base your thinking on the assumption that YOU have NO SKILLS, and YOU can also be replaced just as easily as they can.
This would be bullish news for a PINKO FASCIST COMMIE.....
Simple solution, just get Kerry to come out and say "there will be costs", and Obama to overuse the words "the American people" and then everything really falls apart.
I don't see any oil tankers waiting to be unloaded.
Useless plastic crap from china backing up? So what? Fuck em along with those overpaid motherfuckers...
There is a LOT of other stuff, not just Chinese junk, Laws...but I agree with the the last statement wholeheartedly!
150K salary in LA or Seattle is like 50k anywhere else. Theyre not getting paid that much.
Bullshit. Let them go someplace else then.
Plenty of other ports to go to, fuck em.
$150k with great benefits is more than 95% of STEM workers get in Los Angeles, a lot more in most cases.
Cmon. silverserfer, wake the fuck up! WHY do you think the prices are high already, because of the greedy bastard unions, and the stupid ass politicians, and the greedy banksters!
Just give em more money? They already make too much, for fuck sake!
Shut down the ports? Shut down marginal oil production? All leading to eventual shortages,,,,causing skyrocketing prices?
Humm. Maybe the Fed's way of stoking it's cherished inflation?
GREED AT THE PORT
"$147,000 a year in salary, plus $35,000 a year in employer-paid health care and an annual pension of $80,000 (according to an association press release)."
Don’t worry dock workers!! Obama will kiss your asses and give you a “living wage” of say $250,000 a year plus $70,000 medical with $150,000 pension and 26 weeks off a year. Why not? What is a few billion more to Obama...
stopped reading at "nothing short of 3.5% of marginal US GDP is at steak".
You don't like steak or you can't afford it?
Good eyes. You must be eating your stake, tomatos, and potatos.
Allof this to receive rubber dog shit and other worthless crap from Shanghai, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo, Dalian? With this level of greed by the unions, the sector should up the R&D significantly for mechanized longshoreman.
The Chinese should just send over a few shipments of Chinese dockworkers, all of whom are probably making $100 per week over there.
Then, we'd all be enraged that foreigners are stealing our jobs - and the U.S. Union Workers would hustle their drunk asses back to the docks.
I think it's fair to say, though, they have tough jobs and deserve to be well paid. But, I think most of us here would agree that $200K is a little steep. Maybe the foreman and head crane operators should be up in that range, but the 'average' wages should be nowhere near that.
Holy crap.... the South was right!
There was a dockworkers' strike a few years ago. I don't remember anything catastrophic, from that.
What a bunch of greedy bastards, I propose a "Wipe your ass day" holiday, these peckerwoods STINK! Just what we need to turn the economy around NOT!
I can't take it anymore, my head is about to explode!
What a fucking shame, people getting fucking irate about folks who do a job most of us wouldnt for a decent wage?
Wheres the fucking outrage at that little fucking child molesting bastard Bernanke, or for that matter Blankfiend, Paulson, Cameron, Sotero, Osbourne, Hollande, Merkel. the fucking utter outrage I feel as these fucking pieces of shit live off of not just you but your fucking kids? Wheres the outrage they live off of your expense, with mother fucking interest and you say fuck all?
You are taxed to fuck, to allow these cunt monsters to live the life you could nevever even imagine, with money printed from thin air with your fucking back as servitude to their excess, and they have enslaved your fucking kids, and you get the fucking lip on with folk doing a real dangerous job for a pitance of what these child raping bastards leech from us?
Grow the mother fuck up. And point your anger where its fucking due, and its not fucking dock workers.
Cunts
And fuck off correcting me on seppling mistakes, I couldnt give a fuck.
These fucking imbecilic inbred cunts at your expense are fiddling with kids, raping the purse, and selling you down the river to enrich themselves, so dont get a bit touchy with dock workers, get a bit touchy and fucking feely with them cunts, the bastards who think they were born to rule.
Got it? Dock workers? Go fuck yourself.
??