Coming stock market/supply chain collapse?
The following is my opinion only, however fully supported by factual information.
Coming into the "giving" season we are standing on the edge of a crisis of our own doing. Here is how it shapes up:
At the core is a lack of truck drivers in America. We are currently somewhere from 100,000-150,000 short. That's one hundred thousand semi trucks who do not have their drivers seats filled at this very moment. Retirements, illnesses, over-regulation, taxes, and natural disasters, along with the Covid shutdown residual effects have all conspired to create the current situation.
When the economy shutdown in 2020, people locked up in their homes and started going to the web to buy things, mostly to keep them amused, build projects, catchup, or from boredom. The levels of purchases hit an all time high, exceeding normal Christmas season purchasing. The tempo has not decreased. Trucking companies have now been reporting working at levels exceeding 150% of what is normal for nearly a year now.
Ordering of product stepped up as well to keep up with demand. The source of many of our goods are China, of course, and India, and south east asia. All of that stuff comes in via ocean gong vessels. The ports, especially on the west coast reached maximum capacity fairly quickly, and with no place to unload tens of thousands of containers, the ships reach the coastal waters of the US and have to drop anchor and wait for a port space to unload.
Recently the port of LA alone is averaging 40 huge container ships anchored off the coast awaiting a berth. The mountains of containers at the ports cannot be quickly moved out because of the lack of drivers. If the trucks were all manned, perhaps we would be in a better state, but it is not so, and the problem is of the sort that heals over time measured in years.
So that is that. Does this mean we will suffer a Christmas devoid of teddy bears? Well, possibly but that is not the real issue here.
The economic engine for the entire planet is international trade. An animal that has grown to monstrous proportions and could sprint to fuel huge corporate profits is now held back at the starting line because the track is no longer clear. Those profits do things like pay employees, fund retirements and health care, and are taxed by greedy governments who in our case is currently busy handing out college educations to Haitians who just waded across the Rio Grande.
That money stream is starting to strain. We saw that strain yesterday in a nearly 400 point retraction of the DOW. The market on wall street sees all this and so the folks who are paid to protect the bottom line are pulling out of stocks and flowing into bonds, and land, and gold, and silver, and the pockets of politicians.
I may be wrong, but I see a classic setup for a stock market collapse fueled by nothing less than greedy Americans who can't stop buying their fourteenth television.
Any stock market crash will absolutely hit all areas. It sends out a shock wave which reverberates everywhere money is used, and those waves travel fairly quickly. Add to that the coming cooler weather when the Covid strain will again become active, and you have a setup for a crisis. This time our government who is sOOOOO upside down with debt, and only looking to fund welfare at the moment (Look into the $3.5T bill being debated in congress. Only $40B is actual bridge building, most of the rest is welfare in one form or another.)
We are a morally broken country. We are underwater financially. Covid is everywhere and coming back. We are possibly looking at a Chinese incursion into Taiwan or one of its lesser islands in the not too distant future, and our leadership is myopically focused only on the fast track to Lennin lane. We are in murky waters folks. The light is dim. The lifeguard is overweight and undertrained. The dryland is mostly quicksand. And the multitude of mice who are not noticing all of this??? I think they may be beginning to hear those familiar musical notes from the Pied-Piper!
Hang on!
