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kleinbl00  ·  901 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: America Is Running Out of Everything

I don't think so.

I'd be curious as to your take; you know hella more about transportation than I do. But in my brief foray into surface shipping, that shit is medieval. Basically, the laws haven't been touched since 1915. Big, dumb container ships only make sense because maritime laws are a giant loophole not subject to globalization; international quarantines and global economic slowdowns not only blasted through that veil like a shotgun, but the general response worldwide has been isolationism.

Shipment by air, on the other hand, belongs entirely to the FAA. We've basically allowed an American post-war bureaucracy to dictate air transshipment since the end of WWII and pretty much whatever the FAA wants, the FAA gets. Does air travel suck for the environment? Hells yeah. But shipment by sea involves bunker fuel and magic pipes so it's not like the alternatives are great. Big dumb heavy commodities that only made sense to ship by surface? They make a lot less sense to ship. Small smart light commodities that often got shipped by air? They're gonna be more expensive, but not catastrophically so.

You know who this isn't great for? Amazon and Ali Express. "Just give me the cheap Chinese version of the thing I really want" is going to become a lot less compelling, I think.