Shipping container Inflation! (700%)

[Joe in PNG]

The container shortage and shipping slowdown (to get back to the op) is having a big effect on what I do as the shipping and logistics guy for our organization in PNG.
I've had to send out a few emails telling our people that shipping times have doubled, that available space will be limited to essentials, and that they may need to start buying their personal stuff here in country.

To make things even more fun, the US (and other) Postal Service still isn't' really delivering to the Asia-Pacific at the moment. Those packages get sent to New Zealand, thrown in a container, allowed to fill up, then is boated to POM.
DHL is working as normal, but ain't cheap.

[Joe in PNG]

Regarding the thread drift, notice that the more woke our employment policies become, the more they drift towards the old Roman model?

So, in a very rough correlation, we have a class of people that doesn't really want to work, and wants to be supported off the public coffers, and we're importing a class that will work, but is basically denied the various rights and privileges of citizens.
Already, a good number of people are already aping the old Patrician attitude that work is bad and evil and degrading, so we need a class of inferiors to do those jobs for us.

Now, it has been posted a few times that the generous and overt Fed benefits ran out a couple of weeks ago. Ignoring some of the other Federal & State panem et circenses, one does expect a fair amount of lag from the time the Fed checks stop coming to the time the money runs out; from to the time the money is gone to the time people start actually looking for work; from the time they get hired to the time there work actually has a benefit on to their employers.

[HCM]

I'm honestly not sure what sort of point you're trying to drive home. You seem a little touchy about the subject, but I figured I'd dive in anyway.

Your story isn't unique against today's 25 y/o trying to migrate their way through the workplace and scratching out some semblance of a career path which is a fleeting concept in today's marketplace for most people outside the public sector. Your starting salary in 1977 is equivalent to almost $44k today when correcting for inflation, so yeah it certainly wasn't bad at all given your lack of professional work experience. I started my current job at $46k/year before LEAP kicked in (we used to not get it during FLETC, which has since changed), and that was as a 30 y/o who served 4 years in the Marines as a commissioned officer, worked urban EMS and had some graduate education.....not someone that participated in a scam ring and drove a cab with Travis Bickle on graves.

I thank my lucky stars for how fortunate I am that my efforts have paid off, but for every "me" that my agency hires there's literally 99.3 other people who like me were qualified for the job but who are still on the cliff's edge, clawing and scratching to "get somewhere". What you just spelled out as your experience? I'm not saying this to be a dick, just trying to be frank and address what I see as an elephant in the room: you'd be a very low-ranked candidate in today's market and likely be one of the millennials who has a college degree with virtually no realistic way of ever paying it off or owning a house. I know people who are twice as accomplished as you were in 1977 applying to that job and yet they can barely even get interviews today. Specific to our profession, if we planted someone with your resume circa-1977 into the lobby of current day candidates waiting for their interviews at a random 1811 job, the interviewers would probably think their buddy from HR who compiled the candidates was either drunk or playing a joke.

Again, I'm not writing that to be a dick, but we should view things through a lens relative to the current day. The more I read your story, the more I think you probably had it easier than the average job candidate today....not harder.

Given the naivete of some people I've worked with, some time on the night shift with Travis may not be a bad thing.



Also how common was graduate education in the 1970s relative to today ?

[blues]

@TGS

There was no LEAP when I started, (nor AUO), since I had non-LEO position to start and I had to scratch and claw for a few years to get picked for an LE job, only after doing a 9 month undercover op prior to being recruited...

But I digress. The point was, which I was not being touchy about, your crystal ball notwithstanding, is that people, today, like in my day, have to suck it up and do what it takes to, first, get a job...and then get the job that they want, hopefully, down the road.

As opposed to the opposite.

But thanks for your mostly wrong interpretation of my intent. (And work history. You are making assumptions about the jobs done at the gov't prior... but I'm done wasting time.)

(As I said, I was pretty satisfied with the salary since I didn't have to worry about draw vs. commission, or how many fares I picked up, or doing something else to pick up what I needed to pay the rent, since I hadn't lived at home since high school and the jobs I had prior to Uncle weren't the most remunerative.)

Finis.

[TGS]

Also how common was graduate education in the 1970s relative to today ?

Definitely not as common, and actually a good thing to point out.

You had people with less education, and less debt, getting jobs that paid just as well or better than today. I remember someone who doesn't hang around the forum anymore mention a few years back about how he worked for minimum wage, blah blah blah millennials are lazy, etc etc. When he was working that job for minimum wage after high school with zero professional experience, accreditations, certifications or higher education.....that minimum wage was equal to $26/hour today.

The "walk in proud with your resume and give'em a firm handshake" boomer-gumption-thing doesn't really work like it did back then. I know people that have college degrees and are not slackers, and they are working menial service jobs. The idea of a middle-class man with a spouse who doesn't work that can own a house and raise a family is an absolute fantasy compared to that being the norm "back in the day". To @Blue's point, I'm just trying to point out that people are "sucking it up and doing what it takes" just as much today as they were in the 70s when you could buy a house while working as a low-end salesman at a shoe store.

[blues]

To @Blue's point, I'm just trying to point out that people are "sucking it up and doing what it takes" just as much today as they were in the 70s when you could buy a house while working as a low-end salesman at a shoe store.

I wouldn't know. I never lived in a private house. My parents never did. My wife never lived in one. And we bought our first home when I was 51.

So, I'll have to take your word for it. Most of the folks I knew growing up, who worked for a living, and whose families did as well, couldn't afford a house.

But, it must've been different in your neighborhood.

Have a good one. I think the one with the bug up his ass is not me.

[TGS]

I wouldn't know. We never lived in a private house. My wife never lived in one. And we bought our first home when I was 51.

So, I'll have to take your word for it. Most of the folks I knew growing up, who worked for a living, and whose families did as well, couldn't afford a house.

But, it must've been different in your neighborhood.

Have a good one. I think the one with the bug up his ass is not me.

Sounds like you just need to suck it up.



*ducks, runs*

[littlejerry]

Interesting. So 1.6% of the over 16 crowd works out to what, ~4 million people?

Even if everything went back to normal today the total dead and permanently disabled from covid would account for a chunk of that. Once you factor in early retirements, the possibly prolonged "dual income families become single income families while one parent turns their unemployment into full time child care", etc I don't think even conscripting all the people who just "don't want to work" is going to get the labor force participation numbers back to where they were pre-covid.

I doubt those numbers are going to look "normal" for quite some time.



I think the moratorium ends in TX on Oct 1. I guess we'll find out what the impact on labor force participation is soon.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...vid-by-age-us/

Over 50% of the deaths were aged 75 and up, which were never part of the of the labor force... If anything we've seen a net reduction in people not in the labor force due to COVID deaths of people who had already aged out of the work force.

580k of the 680k deaths were 65+

You keep saying "show me the data" and then keep ignoring it. People who could work, aren't. Lots of possible why's, but it's not even remotely debatable that it's the current reality.

[DDTSGM]

I wouldn't know. I never lived in a private house. My parents never did. My wife never lived in one. And we bought our first home when I was 51.

So, I'll have to take your word for it. Most of the folks I knew growing up, who worked for a living, and whose families did as well, couldn't afford a house.

But, it must've been different in your neighborhood.

Have a good one. I think the one with the bug up his ass is not me.

I don't want to get hit in the crossfire, but......

From reading your posts in this thread, I'm curious as to whether you had a desire to stay in the NYC area, or lacked the financial wherewithal to move someplace else to seek employment.

[DDTSGM]

Anyone have insight on these claims ?

I don't know about the ports.

What I've noticed is more extremely long trains of shipping containers coming through our area. Long enough to have a couple engines pulling, an engine or two in the middle, and one or two in the rear. Not unusual to wait for t10-12 minutes as one passes through.

About a month ago, the manager at Home Depot told me that their region distribution center had 51 loaded trailers sitting waiting for tractors to haul them.

So I think there are a lot of forces at work.

And I'm sure there is some unethical/illegal stuff going on as well.