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Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

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Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#271

Post by skeletal88 »

codezero wrote: post #84

A little off topic, but these ports don’t usually store so many empty crates, so why do we have them now? Are we not exporting at the same rate? Is that even what empty crates are used for? I’m assuming they aren’t sent back to (mostly?) China empty. I read something about the prices to ship out of the US being very high, but isn’t the price coming in also similarly proportionally high, yet we still have a backlog of…

This is very bad for the rest of the world, and also for the US, since all the empty containers are stacking up there, then there aren't any empty containers available in China or anywhere else for exporters, so even getting your hands on an empty container can be very difficult or almost impossible, or they cost 2-3x more than usually.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#273

Post by codezero »

bobthepanda wrote: post #143
codezero wrote: post #84

A little off topic, but these ports don’t usually store so many empty crates, so why do we have them now? Are we not exporting at the same rate? Is that even what empty crates are used for? I’m assuming they aren’t sent back to (mostly?) China empty. I read something about the prices to ship out of the US being very high, but isn’t the price coming in also similarly proportionally high, yet we still have a backlog of…

The demand became a lot more lopsided for several reasons: * consumers were shifting spending from experiences that would've been COVID impacted (holiday travel, entertainment venues, restaurants) to online shopping * industrial supply chains in Asia were the least impacted by COVID due to the relative lack of explosion in cases there compared to the rest of the world, so we are legitimately shipping more from there…

Thanks a bunch, I think others have said it was the increased demand and I didn’t quite get it, or the scale of the lopsidedness it caused, until the way you described it!

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#275

Post by ilwu_member »

I am a member of ILWU 13. A couple thoughts after reading the comments:

The zoning change is for TEU storage outside the port. The port itself was not subject to that rule.

The Port of Los Angeles is a landlord and is not directly involved in operations.

Private companies, such as APM, EverPort, and others, rent piers/berths and are responsible for the actual operations and logistics.

Some speculation: recently I’ve heard of some ships not even waiting to load empty TEU’s as they normally would and instead they are immediately leaving for China, literally empty. I suspect this behavior is what turned the congestion we had before into the quasi deadlock we have now.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#276

Post by hbworn77 »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #260

I love how these commenters think they know something about shipping that the CEO of Flexport doesn’t (I’m referring to the person you replied to, BTW).

Most of them are usually the top comment on a thread like this, too, because there are a large number of people who consider them authoritative (or like what they say, or dogpile, or who knows). When it’s my industry being discussed here, I can usually predict who will be in the top spot (it’s only a few), and how wrong they’ll be. It’s a real problem but it’s also the immediate amnesia thing whoever-that-was talked about.

For the record that is one common prediction up there, in my experience, but I’m trying not to make it personal. There is very often a sense of reciting recent research into whatever the hot topic is, and little depth or mastery of any of those topics. But they score well, so here we are debating what is said instead of what is substantive.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#277

Post by mlindner »

mulmen wrote: post #74
mlindner wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why blame the rich people rather than the system that allows them to abuse it? Rich people will always exist. The solution is to make it so that abuse is not possible. One possibility: create a state system for zoning and override every local zoning system. Let local zoning boards decide how to zone but make zoning be based on a tiered zoning system. Namely every zoning is a superset of the previous zoning. So indust…

If you disagree with current zoning laws why would you want to weaken your ability to influence them by moving the decision to the state? Delegation of power to local authority is a central concept of American democracy. Do not throw that baby out with the zoning bathwater.

My post was actually about defining a system of zoning and forcing localities (if they want to allow zoning for industry at all) to also allow high rise housing and commercial in the same area as well. And anywhere that's zoned commercial also has to automatically allow residential. Localities can still choose how they zone, but the state sets the types of zoning possible.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#278

Post by throwaway984393 »

stackedinserter wrote: post #86
throwaway984393 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet somehow nearly no one in America is aware of this or concerned about it. I wish I understood why that is. Because people love zoning! NIMBY is the rallying cry at zoning board hearings, where whiny people who only care about themselves make sure those Chinese people don't put their stinky laundromats near our nice rich white neighborhood. It's the main reason zoning exists! Particularly the wealthy people who h…

> NIMBY is the rallying cry at zoning board hearings, where whiny people who only care about themselves make sure those Chinese people don't put their stinky laundromats near our nice rich white neighborhood. Yes some of prefer zoning to "mixed" and "diverse" neighborhoods. What's wrong with me not willing to see a laundromat or an office building next to my house? Or what's wrong with me willing to live in quiet fam…

Because the wording of such restrictions are often just window-dressing on the true motive, which is racial segregation.

The first zoning law in the country was in Los Angeles in 1908. Part of the law was crafted to force certain businesses to relocate retroactively. It was crafted specifically to target the Chinese businesses, which were the laundromats. White people just did not want to live alongside Chinese people.

Redlining was a further practice of both bankers and zoning having restrictions which were explicitly racially motivated. Levittown, the first planned community in the United States, was very explicitly "not mixed" - it had racial covenants that restricted blacks or jews from moving in. The intent was to sell more homes, as they presumed white people would not want to live in "mixed" areas with neighbors of an undesireable race. That practice continued throughout planned communities and zoning laws all over the country. Many of those racial covenants are still in place today.

As an aside: you can let your children go outside in most cities. The moral panic over children getting kidnapped or abused if they step foot outside the house has been overblown for decades, and at this point is just a bizarre psychological trope of America.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#279

Post by quickthrower2 »

_3u10 wrote: post #7

Wrong move. The container problem is way more of an effective tariff on China than anything else we could think of. The best part is every container impounded in the US is a drain on destinations that aren’t in the US like Europe.

I guess this means you can’t export either.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#280

Post by seoaeu »

Symbiote wrote: post #69
cracell wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. So basically zoning but pretending it's not called zoning.

No, since this alternative allows for an apartment building with a couple of shops on the ground floor (normal in most of the world), and any other reasonable mixed development. No one is suggesting heavy industry should be allowed in a residential area.

A set of local laws that says "heavy industry isn't allowed in residential areas" is a zoning code
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