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Re: Nearly Empty Eastbound Double Stack from Long Beach - Shipping Slowdown from Asia? It was down already.... But, it's all really a hoax.....
Author: BOB2
Date: 03-07-2020 - 04:09
TEU's at the Port of LA LB were reported last summer to be down over 20% because of the trade war already. US export valuation and volumes had already tanked, due the trade war, with loss of ag exports, and of US manufactured goods, as well as the impacts of the Boeing corporate "murder for profit" 737 scandal. RR TEU's have been down, year over year, for nearly two years now, with the number in the last quarter of 2019 down over 7%, which is truly a "recessionary" drop in volumes. So as the stock market continued to soar, the logistics indicators of "real" economic activities have been tanking.
It didn't take much of an economic "shock" to tank the stock markets which had reached 27-1 price to earning ratios on sluggish growth, a crappy retail Christmas with anemic year over year sales numbers, and the effects of the trade war. But, this is real serious.
I went to the store on Wednesday, and it was my first indicator of how bad this is going to be, because Trader Joe's was empty, and so was Ralphs The restaurants are empty. LAX was on the news and it has become a "ghost town" compared to what it should normally be. Massive cancellations of hotel, air, and cruise ship bookings have tanked all of those stocks, cancellation of events, concerts, sporting events, trade conventions, and other travel have cause airlines and even Amtrak to begin cancelling services.
I like how the Federal Reserve lowered the discount rate to "goose" the markets in response to political meddling. Of course, loosening monetary policy in the face of a "supply shock" has no known effect on the level of economic activity, and with increasing inflation, due to "shortages" due to supply disruption pushing up industrial and consumer prices, can even be "bad" policy... (some of you may be old enough to remember a decade of "stagflation" caused when we "monetized" those oil "supply shocks" of the seventies...???)
But, fear not, I heard the head of the Trump University School of Medicine, speaking this week on Hannity, telling us that this is all a giant "hoax", and that you should just go to work sick, and that this is going to "miraculously" go away very soon...
Thank goodness it's not Modelo virus..... And, always look at the bright side of life... At least you don't have to wait for a table at the Dim Sum place....
It didn't take much of an economic "shock" to tank the stock markets which had reached 27-1 price to earning ratios on sluggish growth, a crappy retail Christmas with anemic year over year sales numbers, and the effects of the trade war. But, this is real serious.
I went to the store on Wednesday, and it was my first indicator of how bad this is going to be, because Trader Joe's was empty, and so was Ralphs The restaurants are empty. LAX was on the news and it has become a "ghost town" compared to what it should normally be. Massive cancellations of hotel, air, and cruise ship bookings have tanked all of those stocks, cancellation of events, concerts, sporting events, trade conventions, and other travel have cause airlines and even Amtrak to begin cancelling services.
I like how the Federal Reserve lowered the discount rate to "goose" the markets in response to political meddling. Of course, loosening monetary policy in the face of a "supply shock" has no known effect on the level of economic activity, and with increasing inflation, due to "shortages" due to supply disruption pushing up industrial and consumer prices, can even be "bad" policy... (some of you may be old enough to remember a decade of "stagflation" caused when we "monetized" those oil "supply shocks" of the seventies...???)
But, fear not, I heard the head of the Trump University School of Medicine, speaking this week on Hannity, telling us that this is all a giant "hoax", and that you should just go to work sick, and that this is going to "miraculously" go away very soon...
Thank goodness it's not Modelo virus..... And, always look at the bright side of life... At least you don't have to wait for a table at the Dim Sum place....
