Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 220 posts

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

#151

Post by mschuster91 »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #149
mschuster91 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CMA-CGM has made 40 billion € of profit in the past three years. And it seems like they didn't do the responsible thing and set it aside in a rainy-day fund, but instead they and their competitors went on a shopping spree. Honestly, the way things have went in the past, I'd say a maximum of three years before the first one whines and calls for government subsidies.

What'd they purchase? It's arguably better for some of that money to continue circulating in the economy vs being parked in investments and savings that essentially create money out of nothing, accruing interest or profiting from speculation. Of course it does make sense to do that with a portion, perhaps, but I wouldn't say "all". And I do share your disdain with government bailouts.

> What'd they purchase?

Quite a lot (and barely anything of that is mentioned in Wikipedia):

- 2023: Bollore Logistic, 5 billion € / https://www.dvz.de/rubriken/logistik/detail/news/cma-cgm-gib...

- 2022: GEFCO, .5 billion € / https://trans.info/de/cma-cgm-logistiker-284312

- 2022: Spedag Interfreight, unknown price / https://trans.info/de/cma-cgm-ceva-logistik-296514

- 2022: Colis Prive, unknown price / https://www.dvz.de/rubriken/see/detail/news/cma-cgm-investie...

- 2022: 9% of Air France KLM, .25 billion dollars / https://simpleflying.com/air-france-klm-cma-cgm-partnership/

- 2021: Ingram Micro, 3 billion dollars / https://www.dvz.de/rubriken/see/detail/news/cma-cgm-kauft-ko...

And their competition hasn't been sleeping either, there has been a wave of consolidation and acquisitions.

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

#152

Post by Arkhaine_kupo »

golergka wrote: post #126
Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vice News used to be great and essentially apolitical. One of the founders founded the proud boys. >They went to interesting, dangerous places and reported what they saw by showing you what they saw. They were rich nepo kids going into places and doing a ton of poverty porn. Seeing the inside of a favela on the eyes of a brooklyn kids whose dad makes pharma patents was edgy in 2000s but boy does it not hold up. > A…

> One of the founders founded the proud boys. That's ad hominem, not a counter argument about Vice's content. > They were rich nepo kids going into places and doing a ton of poverty porn. Seeing the inside of a favela on the eyes of a brooklyn kids whose dad makes pharma patents was edgy in 2000s but boy does it not hold up. Yes, so? This description is good journalism. You're just trying to come up with derogatory t…

> That's ad hominem

Pointing out overt political activism by the founders is pretty important context when discussing the "apolitical" nature of their ventures.

> Yes, so?

Edgy != good. The journalistic value of interviewing a "cartel" member with 0 verifcation, sources or journalistic codes is not good journalism. It is just titilating porn for middle class people. The person being interviewed might just be a kid with a mask, an airsoft gun talking about how much heroin he sells and how many people he tortures.

Or worse, they might actually be in a cartel and try to impress the kid with the camera and shoot someone to shock them. (Something close to this happened while they filmed cartel members doing coke at a bar in mexico). Absolutely no journalism happened that night.

> while there's nothing wrong with any of that.

Shitting all over the word journalism, ignoring lessons learned by countless of better, braver, more talented men and women and going for shock over reality is all pretty good reasons.

I only used buzzwords because I think the naivete of rich kids pretending to be journalists being exploited for profit by a company founded by a wannabe neonazi is too obvious to have to spell out.

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

#153

Post by Majromax »

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...

You're seeing demographics at work, rather than the upthread theory of "demand destruction."

If you look specifically at the prime-age labor force participation rate (25-54 years, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=15nxN), the current figures match pre-pandemic highs, which in turn match the 2004-7 level (pre-financial crisis).

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

#154

Post by Lendal »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #104
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.

Did we really stop paying for good reporting? Or did reporting get bad first, and people stopped paying after? I'd pay for a good, reliable news source, but I can't find one at all, and I don't pay.

We stopped paying first. As we got more comfortable over the past few decades, we wanted the news to do our bidding and confirm our prejudices. Because you can't please everyone, they failed, and so we stopped paying. Now all we get is corporate PR and AI-generated clickbait like this. It's a pay-to-play world.

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

#155

Post by carlmr »

account42 wrote: post #132
lynx23 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

Here the government gives the media companies money all year every year. And its not even the government's money (from taxes) but my money that I am forced to pay for a contract that I never agreed to or want and can't opt out of.

Are you both Germans? What is here?

>And its not even the government's money (from taxes) but my money

If you're a tax payer the government's money is your money, no?

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

#156

Post by carlmr »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #117
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.

Aka The Fourth Estate. I laugh (read: cry) everytime I hear a wannabe "journalist" lament the "threats to Democracy", not realizing - or at least not acknowledging - that they and their ilk have been leading that effort, shamelessly, for years. If there's any group that knows first hand about what "the threat to Democracy" looks like, it's contemporary "journalism".

They are victims and perpetrators at the same time though.

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

#157

Post by LanceH »

sophacles wrote: post #137
golergka wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the founders founded the proud boys. That's ad hominem, not a counter argument about Vice's content. > They were rich nepo kids going into places and doing a ton of poverty porn. Seeing the inside of a favela on the eyes of a brooklyn kids whose dad makes pharma patents was edgy in 2000s but boy does it not hold up. Yes, so? This description is good journalism. You're just trying to come up with derogatory t…

It's not ad hominem in the context of discussing bias to point out that a person who founded one biased organization also founded a political advocacy group (aka another by-definion biased organaization), it is describing a pattern.

Taking one data point and extrapolating a quality onto the other isn't a "pattern".

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

#158

Post by sidewndr46 »

tedivm wrote: post #144
prng2021 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"fuel and labor expenses are higher now than before the pandemic. “Spot rates are at a level that in the long run are not sustainable, with costs up by 25% to 30% since 2019" We all speak English here and read the same article right? Shipping fees are back to prepandemic levels but operating costs are much higher. Why doesn't that count as a crisis or as something worth reporting?

Companies reach records profits: invisible hand of the market. Wages go up: crisis that could destroy our economy.

I guess the way I've interpreted that is:

Company profits go up - economic growth

Wages go up - inflation

Post reply on HN