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Container shipping has cratered, as ship owners try to avoid unprofitable trips

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Re: Container shipping has cratered, as ship owners try to avoid unprofitable trips

#91

Post by maratc »

lynx23 wrote: post #88
maratc wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The truth is, journalism has cratered. There's an old quote addressing exactly that: "When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the…

Ahh, the good old "it is only for your good" argument. I don't buy it. There wouldn't be any unhappy media consumers if that statement were universally true. Everytime I read something which has been badly researched or which is blatantly trying to manipulate me and I feel like this is bad journalism, is the media givng me what I want right now? Nope.

You might be mixing between "giving people what they want" and "giving you what you want". The media is in the former, not latter, business.

Re: Container shipping has cratered, as ship owners try to avoid unprofitable trips

#92

Post by dragonwriter »

stonogo wrote: post #77
Grimburger wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> callous layoffs, unemployment, and misery for the workforce US unemployment is hovering around 50 years lows. Probably better to look at the actual stats rather than listen to the constant doom-peddling that comes from the media. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

US labor force participation rate is also at historic lows. A low unemployment rate only considers the active labor force. There aren't as many people working as a fraction of population as you think. Doom peddling and stats can line up. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/labo...

> US labor force participation rate is also at historic lows.

No, its not. It was at a local (but not historic) low during the deepest part of the pandemic recession, and has been recovering rapidly since, looking set to soon reach prepandemic levels and continue the upward trend that was general course since the post-2000 decline bottomed out in 2016.

Re: Container shipping has cratered, as ship owners try to avoid unprofitable trips

#93

Post by csunbird »

lynx23 wrote: post #78
carlmr wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good news reporting is an essential part of democracy. We don't have it anymore. Nobody wants to pay for it. We'll see how it goes.

Lamenting the unwillingness to pay for trash is a hopeless cause. The cat bites its own tale. Most news outlets I know have deteriorated so much in quality that I would never even think about paying for any of that propaganda. Give me a good, balanced, non-pliticized and honest news site, and I might consider supporting them.

I am looking for a neutral, down to the earth style newspaper, focused on world news, not only west/USA. I can definitely pay for that!

Re: Container shipping has cratered, as ship owners try to avoid unprofitable trips

#94

Post by carlmr »

lynx23 wrote: post #78
carlmr wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good news reporting is an essential part of democracy. We don't have it anymore. Nobody wants to pay for it. We'll see how it goes.

Lamenting the unwillingness to pay for trash is a hopeless cause. The cat bites its own tale. Most news outlets I know have deteriorated so much in quality that I would never even think about paying for any of that propaganda. Give me a good, balanced, non-pliticized and honest news site, and I might consider supporting them.

But you see the chicken and egg problem here. News outlets have deteriorated because they can't make money.

If people actually paid for them they might have a chance to hire competent people and do investigative journalism.

But now they're being paid mostly by ad revenue and a handful of subscribers. So they have to publish trash to optimize for clicks.

Re: Container shipping has cratered, as ship owners try to avoid unprofitable trips

#95

Post by b3lvedere »

maratc wrote: post #82
lynx23 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is, journalism has cratered. However, most are not ready to accept the truth, since they still believe the media are an essential part of democracy.

> The truth is, journalism has cratered. There's an old quote addressing exactly that: "When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the…

Willing to consume? That sounds like it is the consumers fault that the population is not getting acceptable trustworthy news, because they are not willing to consume it on some level. Very strange business model.

Personally i am not willing to consume anything that is even remotely forced upon to me. I will not watch the news when companies think i should watch it. I will watch it whenever and however i want.

I will not be forced into some weird guilt trip that news companies cannot publish acceptable trustworthy news because of my lack of interest and spending on it.

But hey, if for another big part of the population that business model works, good for them. I don't care.

Re: Container shipping has cratered, as ship owners try to avoid unprofitable trips

#96

Post by lynx23 »

maratc wrote: post #91
lynx23 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, the good old "it is only for your good" argument. I don't buy it. There wouldn't be any unhappy media consumers if that statement were universally true. Everytime I read something which has been badly researched or which is blatantly trying to manipulate me and I feel like this is bad journalism, is the media givng me what I want right now? Nope.

You might be mixing between "giving people what they want" and "giving you what you want". The media is in the former, not latter, business.

The average person is to dumb to deserve quality reporting is another way to put what you just said. Even if that might be true, it doesn't change anything about my perception of modern journalism.

Re: Container shipping has cratered, as ship owners try to avoid unprofitable trips

#97

Post by chx »

stonogo wrote: post #77
Grimburger wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> callous layoffs, unemployment, and misery for the workforce US unemployment is hovering around 50 years lows. Probably better to look at the actual stats rather than listen to the constant doom-peddling that comes from the media. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

US labor force participation rate is also at historic lows. A low unemployment rate only considers the active labor force. There aren't as many people working as a fraction of population as you think. Doom peddling and stats can line up. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/labo...

> US labor force participation rate is also at historic lows.

Looking at the graph you linked it seems this historic low is the new baseline as it has not changed significantly since 2010 aside from a temporary dip in 2020 (gee, I can't imagine why that happened).

Re: Container shipping has cratered, as ship owners try to avoid unprofitable trips

#98

Post by Denvercoder9 »

somethoughts wrote: post #32
CGamesPlay wrote: post #8

> The rates for both trade lanes are hovering around 2019 levels, but fuel and labor expenses are higher now than before the pandemic. Hard to really feel like this is a crisis, since all of the reporting is how there was a brief, glorious period (for the companies) of 10x prices, and the crisis is that the period is ended.

Definitely feels like there should be a "law of headlines" coined to effect of - something must always either be surging catastrophically or plummeting disatrously.

Isn't that just an intrinsic property of the news? If things are unchanging, there's nothing new, so it's almost by definition not news.

Re: Container shipping has cratered, as ship owners try to avoid unprofitable trips

#99

Post by lynx23 »

carlmr wrote: post #94
lynx23 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lamenting the unwillingness to pay for trash is a hopeless cause. The cat bites its own tale. Most news outlets I know have deteriorated so much in quality that I would never even think about paying for any of that propaganda. Give me a good, balanced, non-pliticized and honest news site, and I might consider supporting them.

But you see the chicken and egg problem here. News outlets have deteriorated because they can't make money. If people actually paid for them they might have a chance to hire competent people and do investigative journalism. But now they're being paid mostly by ad revenue and a handful of subscribers. So they have to publish trash to optimize for clicks.

Its even worse. In my country, the government has given a lot of money to media companies, right around covid. That magically made them all comply and report the same government propaganda. However, even non-conspiracy-theory-people have realized what is going on here. After the fact, I believe no sane person would want to give them money, because, you know "the state is already paying em, why should I?"

Re: Container shipping has cratered, as ship owners try to avoid unprofitable trips

#100

Post by noduerme »

mberning wrote: post #31
listenallyall wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can always find some people struggling. But your statement simply doesn't match reality. Retail sales are growing fast https://nrf.com/media-center/press-releases/nrf-forecasts-20... . Discretionary spending on travel is through the roof. https://www.mastercardservices.com/en/reports-insights/econo...

You seriously want to toss out travel spending as an indicator of how well things are going for the general population? Travel is a luxury, and rich people are not hurting yet. The people at the bottom of the economy ,your average walmart and target shopper, is who is hurting. Also, raw dollars is not a good metric for how much stuff is being bought. Sales in dollars can be way up, but the amount or quantity of goods…

>> goods are being purchased with a rapidly debased currency

cheaper goods re-base the currency. Cheaper goods is deflationary. There is no such situation where raw dollars buy more today and are worth less than they were yesterday; that would be an oxymoron. Of course dollars aren't a great metric for wealth, because they float around like any other fiat currency. But if your Big Mac Index buys you an extra Big Mac, whether because supply increased or demand decreased or shipping just got 90% cheaper, that's the opposite of inflation.

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