Interesting and troubling article, thanks.

Never heard of Moon of Alabama, but wow, that’s some excellent analysis.

Wait and see how long these inflation issues persist

Financial asset bubble could burst

Long term stagflation will also put an end to any dreams of large government spending programs. The capitalist system will only be able to have more austerity, accelerating its collapse

I’m trying to picture what’s going on. Here’s my oversimplified version:

Let’s say we just have trucking companies shipping things efficiently between distribution centers. Something happens and a truck has to wait an extra hour to unload. This means one less hour that the trucking company gets on the road shipping things. Then the next shipping center on this truck’s route has a load sitting there for an extra hour waiting for the truck to arrive. A different truck for a different trucking company is now waiting for room to be made before unloading, and the hour is now passed on.

This happens between many independent shipping centers and trucking companies. Each one says they have no control over how fast the last guy gets done. All companies involved independently adapt their business models to charge more for expedited shipping, since that’s now become more difficult. Doing this keeps their profits healthy and most of the cost is passed on elsewhere, so there’s not a lot of incentive for these companies to actually address the problem.

Meanwhile, truckers are not paid hourly, so truckers seeing that extra hour waiting to unload are frustrated at more hours with the same pay. Some quit. Grossly underpaid workers at distribution centers are also leaving. Both resignations accelerate the backlog at distribution centers.

Also, the secretary of transportation says “it’s up to the producers, the shippers and the retailers” but that we can expect relief once the pandemic is over, which I can only imagine is just around the corner.

If I’m being honest, I don’t know what a secretary of transportation actually does. Maybe I’m way off, but I pictured the position as existing for exactly this kind of situation.