"Don't Look at Stock Markets. Look at the Ports."

[moniss]

This is the headline from an article in "The Atlantic" dated 05/03/25 with a byline from Juliette Kayyem. It's behind the paywall but in the opening are some sobering things to contemplate. Eugen Seroka is the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles and on April 24th he made a statement quoted in the article:

"Essentially all shipments out of China for major retailers and manufacturers have ceased."

Supply chains for those goods will be greatly disrupted as well. The normal predictable flow of product sales and the scheduling of production and delivery of raw materials to manufacture those goods gets disrupted.

Here is a handy little graphic from a supply chain site called "Supply Chain Today":

?resize=1536%2C1536&ssl=1

https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/05/trump-tariff-shipping-ports/682673/

https://www.supplychaintoday.com/10-ways-tariffs-disrupt-supply-chain/

[SLClarke]

1. Seattle port as well

I had a friend return from Seattle last week and she commented on how strange it was to see NO SHIPS in the Seattle-Tacoma port. NO SHIPS. Which means no products - the projection is that we will begin to feel the effect of this from around mid-May with it getting really bad by mid-June. Jeez! How stupid is this!

[moniss]

7. I bought my long slot toaster before the shortages and tariffs

hit the price. I got my boots and new towels and washcloths too. Staple items like that are going to dry up if this goes very long. Even then in the best of normal times it's not like the stuff is just sitting on boats waiting to come here. There's a lot of disruption up and down the supply chain/transportation chain that causes delays in coming back from big disruptions.

[lame54]

2. IKEA is screwed

[Hekate]

3. KnR

[Iamscrewed]

4. Krasnov

Doesn't care because 1. he's making bank on his grifting 2. Insider trading, 3. So called campaign contributions, 4. The Saudi's, 5. The Israel's, tax dodges and God only knows what else behind the scenes.
He also doesn't care about what it costs everyone else because he's not paying for anything.

[3Hotdogs]

5. Let's say, China blinks or Anal Fistula blinks. How long, before stuff gets on boats and reaches US ports?

Are there toys and shit, sitting on shelves in factories, waiting for the "Go" whistle to put them on trucks and drive to Chinese ports?

If not, do the factories have blocks of plastic in their backyards, waiting for "Go?"

How long does it take for a ship to leave China and get to, say, L.A.?

[moniss]

9. Internet search reveals

that in normal times you could expect about 2-6 weeks for the ship to make it. Two or 3 might be for a real optimum situation of speed, weather etc. That's in normal times and with disruptions to normal workflows, raw material supplies, manufacturing schedules, equipment/labor availability etc. it can be a real backlog. Look at what happened with new vehicles during the recovery from Covid lockdown where vehicles could only be partially assembled because this component or that was backlogged at a supplier because of supply of labor/materials issues.

No the stuff typically is all lead-time dependent and planned out accordingly. Most manufacturing doesn't like to spend money on big warehousing operations for finished product and they try to have a handle on planning to ship what is made within a short time. So when things like this happen they stop production since they don't know when this will end and the lack of available warehousing and/or not wanting to add costs for warehousing to their overhead.

So some things that are in inventory can ship but it screws the schedules up, backs up the replacement production and things that are seasonal can really be screwed up if this goes for very long. Items in gift shops for example are usually ordered around this time for delivery in the Fall. But with owners of gift shops here being uncertain about price due to tariffs, timeliness of delivery etc. they are hesitant to order. Worst thing for them is to spend a huge amount on orders for the Christmas shopping season that mostly don't arrive until January for example.

Also for most businesses that are needing to order things now the question is the uncertainty of the timing of the tariffs and are they on or off because if they order now and the production does come in a couple of months are they paying nearly double for the product and a competitor who waits a couple of months is paying way less and can then kill them on price.

So the uncertainty of it all makes people pull back and once that starts it's a negative feedback loop of consequences.

[BurnDoubt]

6. Economy-ing Is HARD!!!!!

Who Knew???? On its best day, The Economy is a Faberge Egg balanced on the point of a pin. Sometimes the smallest bit of bad news or mis-information, or a "tip", can cause panic and spread ripples through the whole world. This Tariff Boondoggle is, literally, fishing with dynamite: kill everything, and scoop up what's left. Who do you expect will be doin' the scoopin'????? They're gonna need a lot of Tax Relief. "You're gonna get tired of all that Winnin'!". Remember who said that.

[Warpy]

8. nO SHIT. Also keep your eye on bonds, especially treasury bonds

and what the dollar is doing against other currencies.

If somebody doesn't get through to these witless assholes, we're heading for another Great Depression.

[moniss]

10. Yes and the average voter/consumer has no idea

how much all of this ties into the currencies and interest rates. Not just from the standpoint of a raw number but rather the way in which spikes in rates or currencies can have a big impact on the financing of business operations from raw materials production on through the entire process. Trillions of global capital borrowing by major corporations can be greatly impacted by those moves and projects get delayed or scaled back especially when facing a circus like this.

[Warpy]

11. They'll notice the price of coffee, if nothing else

I'm bracing myself for what will happen to chocolate (sob).

[moniss]

12. Yes indeed the really good chocolate

will begin to rival prime rib. The cheap stuff that you can feel leaving a smarmy coating on your tongue will always be in the discount bin somewhere.