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An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

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Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#41

Post by zitterbewegung »

dustintrex wrote: post #6
zitterbewegung wrote: post #2

Just because they changed behavior doesn’t mean it will work.

This. As the old saw says, for every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong. I mean, it's not a bad thing they fixed the rule, but either way it's unlikely to cause or prevent the collapse of the US economy. My money is on the ports themselves being the problem. Having people waiting around for hours if not days is incredibly inefficient, and the Rotterdams, Singapores and Shenzhens of…

I agree with you but not only the ports it’s going to be the last mile of the supply chain.

Let’s assume they unload every ship in a week or two all of those trucks have to push the stuff to the right place. Maybe some of them had to layoff and or furlough truckers. Those truckers then get better jobs . So you still fail.

Also I think the deadline is gonna be Christmas .

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#42

Post by ncmncm »

MauranKilom wrote: post #27
sleibrock wrote: post #7

In Factorio design this is simply increasing the buffer size. If the truck-loadings-per-hour don't increase then it's not going to matter how large you make the buffer. Adding a secondary site for putting containers also seems like it's going to be a new challenge for the logistics company scheduling the rides (I have a friend who deals with train cargo scheduling). Truckers who are used to showing up at the port are…

Truck-loadings-per-hour will increase, but that does not help shrink the buffer if every truck picking up a container also brings back an empty one. Increasing the buffer size is a temporary relief, but clearly the underlying problem is an ever-increasing number of containers (empty or full), or we wouldn't have gotten into this situation. If we could dispose of the empty containers somewhere then this bottleneck wou…

This seems to be why he suggests a place other than the port to dump empties.

It would be better to require that the ships carry away as many empties as fit aboard.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#43

Post by bcrosby95 »

slobiwan wrote: post #31
bhy wrote: post #17

From what I heard, the real issue is the ships are not bringing these containers back, because: 1. there's not so much good for US to export (volume-wise); 2. shipping price is so high that to save time, ships do not wait to load empty containers. As long as US has a net import of containers, whatever buffer created will be filled up soon.

That's the popular consensus here in LA, it's cheaper to discard the containers than to ship them back empty (and nobody at the receiving end wants enough of what we have to make it worth sending them back full). However I drive through the port area frequently and always see containers stacked well above the 2-high limit. I suppose that means they are not empty containers? There definitely has to be some alternate u…

The limit of 2 was for off-port sites, within cities themselves. The article is wrong on that point.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#44

Post by jaywalk »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #35
jaywalk wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying we should do that, but it might be preferable to allowing the citizens of LA to hold the entire global economy hostage because they love their regulations.

LA county already has the two largest ports in the USA: Long Beach and LA. Maybe some other region can pick up the slack.

I agree, if/when we build a new port it shouldn't be in LA County or probably California at all.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#45

Post by daveevad »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #36
MauranKilom wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truck-loadings-per-hour will increase, but that does not help shrink the buffer if every truck picking up a container also brings back an empty one. Increasing the buffer size is a temporary relief, but clearly the underlying problem is an ever-increasing number of containers (empty or full), or we wouldn't have gotten into this situation. If we could dispose of the empty containers somewhere then this bottleneck wou…

> I gather that it's become harder to ship back empty containers though, and presumably just scrapping them is not a sound solution in the long run either. This is not obvious to me. The same ships are going back to fetch more goods, so why would they want to go empty? Surely the cost of manufacturing a new container is (or should be) less than the cost of putting it on an empty boat.

> the cost of manufacturing a new container is (or should be) less than the cost of putting it on an empty boat.

If you can prove that considering all externalities you would win a Nobel prize in Economic Sciences.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#47

Post by robbrown451 »

cyberge99 wrote: post #46

This is a regional problem. There are other ports in the US (East Coast, etc). I don’t see how it will be a global problem. Sure it will affect supply and demand significantly, but it’s not a global catastrophe.

You're suggesting the east coast ports for stuff shipped from China?

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#48

Post by mbauman »

All the dismissals here are fascinating to me — and sure seem to be exactly the overarching story of TFA. Yes, this certainly isn't the only problem here, but it's certainly the easiest to fix.

And yes, the narrative of the story is definitely important, because it avoided all the rabble you see here that was getting in the way of a simple first step.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#49

Post by dqpb »

justinator wrote: post #39

OK so this is essentially a self-written news story that was manipulated to make it feel-good. That's bad . Also, now that I know I'm manipulated, I'm skeptical that the changes will have the outcome that they want. It could but it's not good that you've told me you've manipulated me. That's also bad .

What do you mean by self-written?

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#50

Post by datameta »

slobiwan wrote: post #31
bhy wrote: post #17

From what I heard, the real issue is the ships are not bringing these containers back, because: 1. there's not so much good for US to export (volume-wise); 2. shipping price is so high that to save time, ships do not wait to load empty containers. As long as US has a net import of containers, whatever buffer created will be filled up soon.

That's the popular consensus here in LA, it's cheaper to discard the containers than to ship them back empty (and nobody at the receiving end wants enough of what we have to make it worth sending them back full). However I drive through the port area frequently and always see containers stacked well above the 2-high limit. I suppose that means they are not empty containers? There definitely has to be some alternate u…

We can get pretty far with passive solutions like internal and external insulation and painting the outside white. Burying them halfway into the ground would also give great benefits (albeit the trickier of the options) Perhaps we can even cover the roof with sod where available. May only need a minimal power active A/C.
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