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Why billions of dollars of goods are stuck at sea

economist.com

151–160 of 224 posts

Re: Why billions of dollars of goods are stuck at sea

#151
post #5

Huh. For some reason I thought cargoes had bonds that would allow them to make port and unload. OTOH, some enterprising sailors could make some money relieving stranded ships of their contents.

"enterprising sailors", sounds like a euphemism for pirates.

Re: Why billions of dollars of goods are stuck at sea

#152

You occasionally hear about immigrants being smuggled into (a) country in shipping containers. Is that common enough that it's likely that one or more of the stalled containers has a bunch of people stuck in it? That seems like a really unfortunate scenario...

Most depressing thought I've read all day, and like most days in 2016 there's been plenty of depressing news.

Re: Why billions of dollars of goods are stuck at sea

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope the shipping company issues a bill of lading as the goods are received for shipping that sets out who owns the container.

The shipping company doesn't own the cargo, but I've read speculation that the creditors can seize the ships, then demand payment to unload the cargo, and if they don't receive payment seize the cargo to discharge the "debt". I don't know how a bill of lading would work in that situation, where the creditor wasn't the original party that the customer signed a contract with, and I'm curious how much latitude a credito…

It's really complicated. There are articles by lawyers.[1] There are many countries involved, with very different bankruptcy laws. Much of this involves admiralty law, which has a very different order of priority of creditors than regular bankruptcy law. Lawyers are struggling to figure out all the conflicts of law.[2]

[1] http://www.chinalawblog.com/2016/09/hanjin-shipping-and-arre... [2] http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/528816/Insolvency+Bankr...

Re: Why billions of dollars of goods are stuck at sea

#154
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with oil, it has to do with over-capacity in the industry.

Does over-capacity indicate a reduction in worldwide demand?

Short answer yes.

Long answer, when the global financial crisis hit it lowered demand. But shipbuilding has a long lead time and shipyards can't/won't stop production(what do you with a half finished ship, you can't just put in storage). So all the ships that were ordered get built. By now the economy is starting to recover but your shipping capacity is greater than demand. So prices fall and the least efficient companies go bankrupt.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Reve...

Shipyards are probably next.

Re: Why billions of dollars of goods are stuck at sea

#155

FWIW the person you're replying to represents everything that is bad about HN. If you read his post history you'd be lead to believe he's an industry insider in: Shipping, Irrigation, Crypto Currencies, Genetics, Nano Technology, Manufacturing, Microkernels and a lot more if you keep going back. There was a time I believed his posts, until I read one of his mini-essays on a topic I happened to know about (cryptograph…

I think he's annoyed because I criticized the poor auditability of Bitcoin. Yes, you can tell if someone received Bitcoins at some address. What you can't tell is whether they still have exclusive control of them. If someone else has a copy of the private key, the coins can disappear at any time. This happens in practice all too often.

(Yeah, multi-sig, etc.. Not that it helped Bitfinex.)

Re: Why billions of dollars of goods are stuck at sea

#156
post #145
post #59

This is a mess because Hanjin's top management was in denial about the possibility of bankruptcy. Just like the typical startup. They've been trying for months to get a bailout deal from somebody, anybody - a merger, loans, their parent chaebol, their stockholders (Korean Air is the largest), or the S. Korean government. Everybody turned them down. There's too much container ship capacity right now; nobody needed Han…

Uh does that mean I shouldn't get the new Samsung TV in looking at, best to wait a few months?

Expect some really good post-Xmas sales as containers of Xmas stuff arrive late.

Re: Why billions of dollars of goods are stuck at sea

#157

FWIW the person you're replying to represents everything that is bad about HN. If you read his post history you'd be lead to believe he's an industry insider in: Shipping, Irrigation, Crypto Currencies, Genetics, Nano Technology, Manufacturing, Microkernels and a lot more if you keep going back. There was a time I believed his posts, until I read one of his mini-essays on a topic I happened to know about (cryptograph…

When someone is commenting on a field outside your wheelhouse, what signs lead you to believe they are a faux expert?

Re: Why billions of dollars of goods are stuck at sea

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about the industry(shipping) that insurance was invented for. No industry has more experience with calculating risk than the shipping industry. This will undoubtedly have some effect, but I doubt anyone on Hackernews can reliably predict it.

The folks from FlexPort probably have expertise in this area, and they're often on here.

I smell a promotional blog post...

Re: Why billions of dollars of goods are stuck at sea

#159

I shipped my stuff from Beijing to LA a month and a half ago, without seeing it on this side yet (takes 1-2 months). Hoping it is not stuck on one of these boats!

Hrrm, best of luck with that. Are you finally bailing on China, Sean?

Re: Why billions of dollars of goods are stuck at sea

#160

I shipped my stuff from Beijing to LA a month and a half ago, without seeing it on this side yet (takes 1-2 months). Hoping it is not stuck on one of these boats!

Does Hanjin do most of their work shipping from Korea? If so your stuff is likely safe. Good luck!
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