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Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will plummet 35% next week

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Re: Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will plummet 35% next week

#131

Knowing someone who imports from China, there are ways around tariffs https://harris-sliwoski.com/chinalawblog/the-guide-for-legal... https://www.npr.org/2025/03/07/nx-s1-5318785/tariff-dodging-... Shady ways as well https://www.voanews.com/a/as-us-tariffs-expand-chinese-firms...

None of these are easy, and none of them are free. Prices are going up regardless.

Re: Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will plummet 35% next week

#132
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there were already multiple posts on HN about this. Most recent I remember UPS firing 20 000 people. Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43835849

This was because UPS let an Amazon delivery deal roll off that was not profitable. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1090727/000109072725... https://about.ups.com/us/en/newsroom/press-releases/financia...

UPS said it was because shipping volumes at Amazon are down, so it's not-profitable because shipping-volumes are down. lol

Re: Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will plummet 35% next week

#133

IMO For impact on normal people's day-to-day life, the suspension of the de minimis rule that allowed boxes under $800 declared value (i.e., construction cost) to be imported with no tariff will have more of an impact than any other recent change. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/what-the-end-of-the-de-...

That doesn’t apply to the containers Walmart/ bestbuy/ target/ etc import. They’re going to pay the insane tariffs but spread the cost over all of their inventory to help hide it from consumers. No matter what prices will go up. The locally sourced higher volume goods like food will end up subsidizing slower moving items like TVs.

Re: Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will plummet 35% next week

#134
post #64
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markets don't work that way. Supply is tuned to demand. When the supply is artificially constrained while the demand remains constant, it further strains already limited supplies, leading to empty shelves and rising prices. This is a fundamental principle of market economics. It's important to understand how these dynamics operate to grasp the broader implications of reduced imports from China.

In addition tik-tok/insta are having post after post warning people that the shelves are going to be empty which tends to feedback into itself. If you were going to buy 1 of X normally if you think X may be out for sometime you may end up buying 2-4 of X which will run the shelves out very quickly when 10-15% of purchasers do that unexpectedly. Other people see the shelves emptying and buy more too. Going to be messy…

> All I have to say is imagine if Biden did this, what the news would be saying.

Give it a few years. They'll say he did it.

"Why do you think Barack Obama wasn't in the Oval Office on 9/11?" "That, I don't know. Would like to get to the bottom of that." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPfRGJRMbN8

Re: Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will plummet 35% next week

#135
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States has never had such incompetence in governance. Americans aren't accustomed to this degree of ineptness.

It's surprising that we would actually vote for this of our own free will. That's gotta be something historians will puzzle over for the next two hundred years. It's mind blowing that we did that. Stepping a level lower even, how, on Earth, could our system possibly have produced Harris, Vance and Trump as the options? Then you step a level lower than that, and even the challengers were like, DeSantis and Haley? It w…

The two party system, forced on us by plurality voting, is the reason people feel they don't have a choice.

Pick one of two very different sides. If a third candidate tries to enter the race, they harm themselves and the person they are similar to, and they help the opposition.

Any form of ranked voting will rid us of this restriction and allow more candidates to run for an office, and allow citizens to vote their true preference.

Yesterday, HR 3040 was introduced by a GOP member from Arizona, which intends to ban ranked choice voting from federal elections. The GOP has already banned it in the state of Florida.

A radical party is terrified of a system that enables more electoral competition and throttles radicalism.

Re: Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will plummet 35% next week

#136
post #86
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump will back down and lift the teriffs the second there are widespread consequences. He’ll give some excuse, and his supporters will eat it up. That or he’ll make so many deals with CEOs for political support and financial contributions that we won’t even notice that a few smaller companies went out of business or pulled out of the US.

It may not matter. The ships that were supposed to be here, aren't. Even if the tariffs were lifted today, it would still take weeks for new orders to be shipped and delivered to the US. We're very much in the FO part of FAFO

Unfortunately, that has only fueled this madness. Because there is a lead time for shipments, things didn't instantly go bad when the tariffs were announced, so many people mistakenly seem to believe there's no problem. A lot of people apparently need instant feedback to understand cause and effect.

Re: Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will plummet 35% next week

#137
post #64
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markets don't work that way. Supply is tuned to demand. When the supply is artificially constrained while the demand remains constant, it further strains already limited supplies, leading to empty shelves and rising prices. This is a fundamental principle of market economics. It's important to understand how these dynamics operate to grasp the broader implications of reduced imports from China.

In addition tik-tok/insta are having post after post warning people that the shelves are going to be empty which tends to feedback into itself. If you were going to buy 1 of X normally if you think X may be out for sometime you may end up buying 2-4 of X which will run the shelves out very quickly when 10-15% of purchasers do that unexpectedly. Other people see the shelves emptying and buy more too. Going to be messy…

> All I have to say is imagine if Biden did this, what the news would be saying.

Surely you don’t mean to imply the media treated Biden less favorably than Trump?

Re: Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will plummet 35% next week

#138

The youtuber 'What's going on with shipping?' has a good description in; it includes pointers to loads of sites with the actual data. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GgcIuQ4X5k

> The youtuber 'What's going on with shipping?' The "Youtuber" is actually a professor and Chair, Department of History, Criminal Justice and Politics at Campbell: * https://directory.campbell.edu/people/sal-mercogliano/ * https://twitter.com/mercoglianos

You mean the chair of the department of history is actually a YouTuber.

Re: Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will plummet 35% next week

#139
post #91
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTA: Maybe not empty but less choice and alternatives not necessarily what you're looking for. “I don’t see a complete emptiness on store shelves or online when we’re buying. But if you’re out looking for a blue shirt, you might find 11 purple ones and one blue in a size that’s not yours. So we’ll start seeing less choice on those shelves simply because we’re not getting the variety of goods coming in here based on t…

So I look for shirts and only find pants. Not an empty shelf in the literal way but empty on my demand

Which will cause a significant revenue issue for the retailer.

And depending on how much you’ve thought ahead, a significant supply chain issue for you.

Notably, this is really going to screw everyone using JIT supply chains.

Re: Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will plummet 35% next week

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could get really ugly when the shelves start going empty. Retailers Fear Toy Shortages at Christmas as Tariffs Freeze Supply Chain: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/business/trump-tariffs-ch... In a Toy Association survey of 410 toy manufacturers with annual sales of less than $100 million, more than 60 percent said they had canceled orders, and around 50 percent said they would go out of business within weeks…

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No, we have to back off tariffs because they are a terrible idea.
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