In LATAM, dock workers make sure this goes undetected. I know of an IE who was championing a dock worker scheduling optimization algo, typical Operations Management stuff. Dude was killed.
I'd like to think that this kind of things do not happen here. But every time I've thought along those lines, I've been mistaken. It's just happens at a different scale.
https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-59379474
https://www.vice.com/en/article/belgium-netherlands-cocaine-...
https://www.occrp.org/en/project/narcofiles-the-new-criminal...
The argument here is that the union is directly involved in drug smuggling, which is why some of the union reps live in multimillion dollar luxury homes. They're opposed to automation because it would mess up their system
Harold Daggett has been the main labor leader getting criticized recently for a large salary. He's the leader of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), and makes somewhere in the ballpark of ~$1M a year. The ILA is striking right now in the hopes of getting a ~70% wage increase over the next 6 years, better healthcare benefits, and better retirement contribution.
If I were a longshoremen making $130k, and I stood to get a ~70% wage increase + benefits, I'd absolutely be okay with the person who could make that happen making a low 7 figure salary.
Generally, I think the discussion around labor leader salaries to be very insidious. The truth is that they're fighting for chump change against an industry that's pulling in hundreds of billions in profit. And the same goes for the Teamsters. I'll let the respective unions determine leadership profits, but I'll 1000% support whatever they agree upon, so long as the union leaders are making sure that workers get treated well.
> The ILA is striking right now in the hopes of getting a ~70% wage increase over the next 6 years, better healthcare benefits, and better retirement contribution.
And a permanent ban on automation, you forgot to mention that part. Also, the strike is on pause until January 15th.
> The truth is that they're fighting for chump change against an industry that's pulling in hundreds of billions in profit.
Ports aren’t private industry. They’re public infrastructure, owned by the public, and the ones that do turn a profit are a source of funding for public services.
> And the same goes for the Teamsters.
Teamsters are, among other things, a cop union.
Or are there ghost containers on ships, which are filled with drugs and not part of the manifest, that an automated system would flag but people with greased hands know to let it through?
Just divert the container to an area without cameras for a few minutes, pop it open and remove the kilos.
In a manual world, nobody notices that the container takes 15 minutes longer to reach the storage area.
In a manual world, nobody notices that the container suddenly became 100lbs lighter.
In a manual world, nobody notices the GPS trace showing the container going behind the warehouse where the camera coverage is spotty.
https://www.occrp.org/en/project/narcofiles-the-new-criminal...
On the other hand, if there aren't supposed to be humans around it's a lot easier to spot people who don't belong: that would be literally every single human.
The second season of The Wire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire_season_2) covers this, as they track containers that come off a ship and end up in The Stack, and never make it onboard a truck (at least according to the tracking system).
This is the real reason and one of the primary reasons productivity won't be optimized, especially at the LATAM ports.
Imagine halfway through a kitchen remodel, your contractor stops working and demands 70% more than the initial quote. But not only that, the government prohibits you from hiring a different contractor at market rates and forces you to negotiate with the original contractor. That's what union negotiations are like.
https://www.opm.gov/forms/pdfimage/sf61.pdf
There were existing laws on the books to remove the striking ATCs.
That’s not the case with the ILA. The most they can do is block strikes for 80 days.
The Taft-Hartley Act already made it illegal for public sector unions to strike (later replaced by a similar law, the same law from which the SF-61 oath is derived). That same act allows the President to suspend private union strikes, so I don't think there is a fundamental difference. It's been used 37 times since passage. There's even precedent in this specific area: President GW Bush use the Taft-Hartley Act in 2002 for a port dispute.
>The most they can do is block strikes for 80 days
The 80 days is part of the "cooling off" period: 60 initial negotiation days + 15 days of secret voting + 5 days of certification. While the President and courts can't stop a strike after a legal cooling off period, Congress may still have the power to do so. Congress has been given Constitutional authority to intervene is labor disputes that affect inter-state commerce (see the arguments around the recent rail labor dispute). "They" (as in the entire govt) still have cards to play after the cooling off period ends.
Given the historical and legal context, I don't think the OPs assumption that govt is inherently pro-union holds.
My original comment was assuming that Congress in its current state would be unable to pass such legislation.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2022/12/01/1140123647/rail-strike-bill-s...
Now add that to a bigger time scale and mass inflation happened between the batrhoom and he bedroom. They have to charge more just to keep buying power.
If it's that critical, give the older workers their pension early and let them enjoy their life. And the younger workers should he retrained to work with the automation. But we know that's never what happens when work gets more efficient. So it's not just about "advancement" for the ports. The fact that those things were never even on the table speaks for itself.
----
Alternatively, congress can always repeal the law and break whatever contracts they have. Surely their own dysfunction wouldn't bite them in the butt when it's in the government interest, right?
Companies aren't a monolith, and dock worker unions screwing over port companies isn't magically going to make all other workers better off. If anything the supply chain disruptions resulting from a strike and costs (as a result of lack of automation) is going to make their lives worse through higher inflation.
>If it's that critical, give the older workers their pension early and let them enjoy their life.
If your business is that critical, just pay the mafia protection money so they can enjoy their life!
no, it won't fix everywhere else overnight. But it'll remind other companies of what happens if they go too far (hence why they spend so much on union busting/prevention). Or show that unions can indeed work to the workers who think it's hopeless.
>If anything the supply chain disruptions resulting from a strike and costs (as a result of lack of automation) is going to make their lives worse through higher inflation.
And the current status quo is so much better as our buying power decreases slowly and goes to businesses? If companies are so greedy they'd rather crash the economy than pay workers fairly, so be it.
I'll clarify here that unionization is the best of the worst options. If the government properly kept housing costs down and minimum wage reasonable, and made it so companies can't just layoff because it's in fashion, we wouldn't need to collectively bargain just to survive and pay rent. But I'm open to other alernatives for this that's not "just lie down and hope things get better". Been hoping for decades.
>If your business is that critical, just pay the mafia protection money so they can enjoy their life!
I guess the Pinkertons had connections to the mafia. Gets harder to just kill people overnight in this interconnected era though. The Boeing stuff shows that old style mafia scheme is outdated and just makes your case worse.
How did the ports "go too far"? They agreed to 50% raises over 6 years. That's still well above inflation.
Laid off dock workers still get paid via container royalties. In fact, about half of the ILA isn't even working, they're being paid to do nothing by mere virte of the fact that they used to be longshoremen. Even if the get another job.
Increased shipping costs are a regressive tax: when the price of toilet paper goes up, proportionally the poor pay more because billionaires crap as much as paupers. Longshoremen already make well above average wages. They jealously guard union membership, a past lawsuit revealed that 50% of new union members had family ties to existing members, despite 20,000 people applying to just 350 positions. There is absolutely nothing progressive about this strike: their demands are to make the US economy less competitive, and to increase costs for the many to further enrich a privileged few.
I think you can look up all the stipulations dock workers had to put up with, especially over the pandemic. But just to keep it to this question: we had inflation a lot crazier than 7% or so they initially offered.
And given historical ways they use "automation" I would want better contracts highlighting what they do with workers when automation is stationed in. The whole bust of "okay we don't need you get out." is already way over the line of what EU and Asia would do. Especially for pensioned workers.
>they're being paid to do nothing by mere virte of the fact that they used to be longshoremen. Even if the get another job.
Yeah, sounds like a pension by another name of "royalties". I'm sure the first thing to automate out is whatever they define "container royalties" as. Even if it is indeed less efficient.
There's probably issues to address, but my general theme is that companies (including the government) will always keep trying to take from workers. If that means higher taxes, then whatever. They'd make up any other reason for tax hikes anyway.
>I think you can look up all the stipulations dock workers had to put up with, especially over the pandemic. But just to keep it to this question: we had inflation a lot crazier than 7% or so they initially offered.
Since the start of the pandemic (Jan 2020) till August 2024 (the latest date for which data is available), the cumulative inflation has been 21%. Inflation has also mostly returned back to normal. The last few prints were around 3% YOY. In light of all this, 50% over 6 years is ludicrous.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL
>Yeah, sounds like a pension by another name of "royalties". I'm sure the first thing to automate out is whatever they define "container royalties" as. Even if it is indeed less efficient.
The difference is that pensions are "earned" through years of service, and are agreed on ahead of time. Asking for payments for no work being done, under the threat of labor disruptions is closer to a shakedown.
Only of you think 21% raises makes up for years of lost costs, and ignore what inflation did to the rest of the economy that did not in fact come down.
>The difference is that pensions are "earned" through years of service, and are agreed on ahead of time
>Asking for payments for no work being done.
Sure, like a union contract. Or a job contract with pension. Given the amount of employee contracts broken, employees need to play hardball. Why would I sympathize with people have historically broken contracts in spirits.
They've proven they need actual, immediate consequences, because even suing them is just a stall tactic. I have no sympathy.
The work is done and still utilized. Thars how royalties work. Peolel who hate pensions say the exact same thing, "why am I paying this worker who isn't working"?
>under the threat of labor disruptions is closer to a shakedown.
Shakedown makes it sound like the poor USMX is some small businessman struggling to stay afloat.
Meanwhile they are paid with our money. If they can't keep labor happy with my tax dollars then they reap what they sow. The workers getting the money they deserve is great.
And if you only read that one report that says how a third of workers make 200k+, you should read their hours and actual hourly pay.
That overtime pay is probably also in their contracts. And if you would rather push overtime pay than hire more docks men, you reap what you sow.
> And if you would rather push overtime pay than hire more docks men, you reap what you sow.
The ports would absolutely love to hire more workers. It's the union that tightly controls membership, to rake in that lucrative overtime.
Overtime isn't a good thing to rely on. Especially blue collar work where your phyaical body is being whittled away. And yes, I wish we had more royalties for jobs. Everyone would jump on AI overnight if we got a kickback.
>The ports would absolutely love to hire more workers. It's the union that tightly controls membership, to rake in that lucrative overtime.
Seems backwards that people would want to work 14+ hours a day to make more money. What's money without a life to live? At least CEOs can vacation at their leisure. Blue collar overtime is just draining your life.
That's exactly what people are doing. The shipping companies would gladly hire two longshoremen to work at normal hours instead of paying one worker overtime. Unions are extremely restrictive with membership. There's no lack of people trying to become longshoremen. Only 3% of applicants were granted position in one port: https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/02/longshoreman-lottery-...
> Anyone can put their name in the drawing by sending in a postcard, but ILWU members get a specially marked postcard for their friends and family.
> The two are placed in separate barrels and drawn randomly from alternating piles.
Institutionalized nepotism.
> If it's that critical, give the older workers their pension early and let them enjoy their life.
We expect ports to be run like efficient businesses, who pays for that? Consumers I guess via increased shipping fees. Isn’t that just stealing from Peter to pay Paul?
I see many "easy" ways out of it. None that would satisfy the USMX. Because their primary goal isn't efficiency of process but of costs.
So I guess I agree.
>We expect ports to be run like efficient businesses, who pays for that? Consumers I guess via increased shipping fees. Isn’t that just stealing from Peter to pay Paul?
Sure. But the ILA didn't make that cost increase directly. The USMX decides instead to pass the costs to the people. Because they'd rather do that than simply pay their way into automation that satisfies the port workers.
In addition to fees from traders: our tax dollars? The USMX isn't some fully private company, it's a mixture of government funding and various private contractors. As long as the US needs ports they will budget for it.
>but we all pay in the end for these contracts, the money doesn’t come from some magic source, in the long run inefficiency and higher costs get passed on one way or the other.
Yes, to us. Becsuse the USMX isn't in risk of going out of business. They have little skin in the game. So we lose either way. If I'm gonna lose I may as well make sure others get something out of it.
But when it comes to the management of the majority of our lives (the system we conduct our lives within, and according to), right thinking people insist on mediocrity.
There are many paradoxes like this in the world, but for some reason it is not possible to get minds to focus on them. I wonder what the underlying cause of this is...perhaps there is a causal relationship between the two phenomena in this case?
Are you forgetting decades of Windows blue screens? It took Windows ages to become somewhat reliable, and when it finally did, they added a bunch of advertisements to it. Yet, in all that time of enduring BSODs, most people happily stuck with it instead of exploring alternatives that were proven to be far more reliable.
But the important part is that they had the choice of exploring other alternatives. Unlike ports, which have to deal with union workers and have no alternative labor options.
Really? In 1995-98? I'm pretty sure OS/2 offered a better experience for most things at the time, except gaming. And I don't think MS Office existed at the time; WordPerfect was pretty strong still, as was Lotus.
The part I'm interested in is that most people aren't averse to discussing improvements and alternatives, for these kinds of operating systems...but others are different.
How about this: imagine you're a multi-billion dollar per annum organization openly researching how to put tens of thousands of your core workforce out of a career, and they ask for more money to protect their families and livelihood. And the government forces you to negotiate.
More expensive shipping is a regressive tax: any product requiring shipping becomes more expensive. Dock workers are quite literally demanding worsening income inequality: they make well above average wages, and the cost of their demands would be borne by the public at large who on average make less than dock workers.
It is pretty unusual here for wageys to be targets of hits.
The goal of the port operator is explicitly to lay off longshoremen so they don't have to pay inflated salaries. It is diametrically opposed to the union's goals in this regard, hence the dispute. The article largely acknowledge that automation succeeds in reducing the number of longshoremen required, which is its actual purpose. (It did question whether the reduced labor costs actually pay for the capital investment required, but didn't give any numbers. Since capital investment is a one-time cost but wages are a recurring cost, this calculation needs to be subjected to discounted cash flow analysis, which also requires that an interest rate be specified.)
Also while the article champions various process improvements to make ports more efficient that don't strictly require automation, it's not an either/or scenario. Implementing automation can make it easier to implement process improvements like scheduling, and process improvements which reduce variability make automation less expensive and more capable. It makes sense to pursue both in parallel.
Once automation works it often is more productive but not always.
On another hand, pure "economic determinism" about efficiency and quarterly results, that is included in this topic.. but some might say that those economic determinism people have a lot to answer for in an age of inappropriately priced fossil fuels, availability of credit in large amounts for unequal reasons, a system of law and associated prices that assume an infinite natural world to use up in any way, shape or form. etc.
1. Repealing the Foreign Dredge Act [1] (or amending it to be compatible with friendshoring);
2. Mandating truck appointment systems (maybe even a centrally-run one, at least for each coast); and
3. Moving to a 24/7 default for our nation’s ports.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Dredge_Act_of_1906
Long story short: the container terminal will always opt to please their customer (shipping line) over their non-customer (trucking companies). Truck appointment systems are usually used to force transporters to smooth out peak times not in the name of efficiency, but rather to lower the amount of dock workers the container terminal needs to hire. The truck companies generally end up footing the bill for this, both in increased workload and in detention/demurrage costs because they can't get their containers out and back in time. This money goes directly into the pocket of both the shipping line and container terminals as this is typically something they make heavy profits on.
Be very wary when container terminals and shipping lines start to push for centrally mandated appointment systems. They are much more consolidated than hinterland transport operators. I'm all for increasing efficiency but let's not even further increase market power for shipping lines and container terminals please.
I’m confused. Efficiency means you don’t need to hire as much, since your peak-to-trough ratio is lower. Or you can handle more load, if you were capacity-constrained.
I don’t get why this is framed as a secret “other reason”.
My understanding is that shipping is a competitive market, is this not the case? If it is you expect price decreases to be passed on to customers.
Also while shipping is a competitive market, the market for ports is not. You're either in a location or not. There are not hundreds of container terminals in a single port in competition because of economies of scale.
(The market for trucking companies IS competitive however, meaning that if you have to err on 'protecting' either party, you should probably pick that one)
Sounds like you’re arguing against a port-run appointment system versus a system per se. When I said centrally-managed I should have said federal. It strikes me as analogous to ATC.
Planes can declare emergencies, they can divert to alternative locations, turn around for maintenance issues. And this is just IFR flights. VFR flights can take off, and once outside of controlled airspace, can just fly mostly however they want.
Your doctor takes appointments. That's a more apt analogy for what port appointments will create.
At the most congested airports slots are highly valuable, to the point where they’re often listed separately as part of an airline’s assets, and airlines will sometimes trade slots.
Many countries will fine airlines if they miss their slot time for reasons that aren’t related to emergencies or bad weather, as well as fine them for any other slot misuse such as hoarding, strategic cancellation, etc.
Now, sure, it’s not a case where if you miss the slot you can’t land or take off. The airport and ATC will always try to accommodate flights no matter what. But it usually means fairly substantial delays to avoid impacting on other take off, landing, and gate slots.
Also airlines have been given waivers since the early 2000s because the FAA realized that they were simply operating empty "ghost flights" merely to keep their slots allocated to them. So we just give them waivers every year so they don't waste fuel on this stupidity.
The ATC/FAA model is entirely inappropriate for ports.
Neither the UK nor the Netherlands choose to not enforce slot misuse. We’re not talking only about the US and the FAA as examples here.
Whether it’s an appropriate model for ports and especially truck traffic at ports is a different topic, one I’m not qualified to speak on. I was just pointing out the misconception on how airline traffic at airports works and how it’s certainly not just a first-come, first-served ad hoc model.
ATC’s role is to help manage the reshuffling when slots are missed, because there’s still finite landing and take off capacity at very busy airports.
In both cases it’s centrally managed, rather than a free for all.
I’d argue, of course, that when you file a plan, you’re requesting an appointment.
Which makes the present, in which the ILU's boss has almost turned being an asshole on the internet into an art form, politically expeditious.
Here's a video from the trucker's viewpoint.[1]
If the container terminal had to pay for the trucker's time from the moment they entered the queue to enter the port until they left the exit gate, there would be more active loading stations.
>However, despite these significant contracts [above], the Korean shipbuilding industry is facing a growing sense of crisis. According to industry sources on Oct. 3, out of the 191 container ships of 7000TEU (1TEU = one 20-foot container) or more ordered this year, China took 177, accounting for 92.7%. This shift has been particularly evident in recent large-scale container ship orders by global shipping companies, which have increasingly favored Chinese shipyards over Korean ones.
>The industry assesses that China is gaining the trust of global shipowners by successfully carrying out projects with low prices and quick delivery times. In fact, it is reported that there is no longer a significant difference in delivery schedules between Korea and China.[0]
To be clear, Korea is still a major player in shipbuilding (basically tied with China) and based on an article from last year[1] it seems that they focus more on other ships besides 7000TEU. It is probably impossible for the US to enter this market in any reasonable time frame and it would need government support like in Korea China and Japan. Even Japan, which was the largest player in the shipbuilding industry for decades has lost its marketshare to Korea and China. The costs saved by not being subject to the Jones Act probably don't make up for the cost of those ships. In 2013, US container ships costed 5 times as much as foreign ones, and it's probably more than that now.[2] Maintenance is another factor.
[0] https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=...
[1] https://www.kedglobal.com/shipping-shipbuilding/newsView/ked...
> [1] Looking at upcoming deliveries, 20 dredgers are expected to join the global fleet in 2021
[1]: https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insight...
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-the-us-cant-build...
⸻
1. In fact, it occurs to me that loading the ship should be faster/more efficient than unloading as there’s not necessarily any reason to do any sorting beyond which ship a container goes on at the export point, while at the import point, there needs to be more direction of getting containers onto individual trucks and trains.
Import cargo is annoying in that it is mostly random access on pickup. For pickup by train, barge, or feeder ship, a vast minority, you typically don't have cargo manifests until a day or two before pickup at best, so in practice this is also random access-ish. The customs processes are also trickier.
My experience is mostly in Rotterdam and Antwerp, and I'd say the problems in the US probably don't have to do much with automation. Rotterdam and Antwerp have very different automation levels at the biggest container terminals, yet productivity is quite similar.
There is lots of low hanging fruit in optimizing operations, like more collaborative stowage planning, simultaneous unloading and loading operations, and 'modal shifting' from road to rail and water combined with early preannouncement of manifests for trains and barges.
Disclaimer: I'm in the business of consulting and building software for container terminals, so I'll generally be biased towards those solutions.
As a general rule, container ships are unloaded tier-by-tier, breadth-first if you will, not shaft-by-shift (depth-first), so this is not much of a problem in practice.
That does start to change if you want to do simultaneous loading and unloading operations, then you'd want to clear out a vertical shafts first so you can start loading operations as quickly as possible. Which is one of the many reasons dock workers hate that style of operations.
Loading operations are much more variable, especially if your yard is not stacked well and you need to 'dig out' specific containers. If you run out of containers underneath your crane, your operations are stalled until the terminal vehicles catch up and bring you new boxes to load.
It's not done that way, much. When a container is taken off a ship, it's usually placed on something that moves - a truck chassis, a railroad car, or an AGV. If you clutter up the dock with containers, unloading will stall.
Using human-driven trucks on the dock side: [1]
Full automation with AGVs: [2]
This is a small container port with a two lane access road. Not much traffic. No automation. Container stacks are only two high, three high at most. Driver is led through stacks of containers until they find the one they want to pick up. After some yelling, someone driving a stacker removes the container from the top of the one they want, then loads the desired container onto the truck chassis.
Although there's one container ship at quayside, no loading or unloading seems to be happening.
There's a very British feel to all this.
Fascinating business nonetheless, this is definitely something different than I'm used to over in NL/BE. Thanks for sharing!
Did we read the same article? It’s constantly calling out examples in Europe and Japan, with every data source citing global patterns, not limiting itself to China and America.
South African ports ranks last, apparently.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-06-10-abysmal-r...
When you look at Europe each sea faring nation has at least one modern port that can facilitate the largest container ships. And Unions generally don't operate across borders so a strike can be broken by diverting traffic.
Notably I am assuming that shipping containers survive a large number of trips and their total number is not growing fast.
Not always, that's partly why shipping containers are so inexpensive to buy.
My favorite example is with rail ports. To pick up a container at a rail yard, the truck driver needs a pickup number. The pickup number is associated to the container and is shared (often times on a piece of paper) when the driver checks in.
The pickup number needs to make its way from the cargo owner to the truck driver. How does this happen?
Rail carriers issue the pickup number to cargo owners via email when the train arrives. Cargo owners email it to a freight forwarder. The freight forwarder emails it to the broker. The broker emails to the trucking company. The trucking company emails it or texts it to the driver. This needs to happen in less than 2 days, else someone along that chain is on the hook to pay a storage fee to the rail yard.
0) father of modern management and coiner of term "knowledge worker"
Shipping containers are also multimodal and are loaded up on trucks and rail cars at ports to be hauled away.
It's a loss all around, just about every way you can imagine it. The people who are complaining on r/antiwork about their Starbucks job can't pay their $3000/month rent... they work that job because all the real jobs left for Asia back in the late 1980s. Was the international trade good for them?
They did? If you mean STEM jobs, the Starbucks workers were never going to get those jobs in the first place. Anyone capable of doing those jobs got a college degree in STEM and got a job in that field in the US; there's plenty of STEM jobs available, and in fact a shortage of workers in many fields. The only jobs these Starbucks workers could have done was factory work, and that isn't going to pay for $3k/month apartments either. Even here, there's lots of hands-on manual labor work in the US, but it's not in nice cities with $3k apartments, but rather in generally crappy places to live (and a lot of the work is probably outdoors too, in frequently terrible weather conditions). I'm guessing most of these /r/antiwork people just don't want to move there.
No.
> there's plenty of STEM jobs available,
This sort of statement is always sort of bizarre. Did you mean there are "many"? Many and plenty aren't synonyms. But even if you meant "many", given the scale of the US population, the working-age portion of it, and so forth, the numbers that are often cited aren't many at all. And that's when the economy is doing great. We've been talking about layoffs here on HN for over a year at this point, it seems like one after the other, so we're not really in that cycle either. There aren't "plenty of jobs". No sane, honest person should be describing jobs as "plentiful".
> The only jobs these Starbucks workers could have done was factory work, and that isn't going to pay for $3k/month apartments either.
That's an interesting theory. I suppose if you figure the factory work is only going to pay McDonald's wages (seeing alot of $14/hour around where I am)...
> Even here, there's lots of hands-on manual labor work in the US
Where, roughly? And what's "lots" mean to you?
That's half the value. The other half is that standardized containers dramatically reduce "shrinkage" at the port. Which was a longstanding problem.
I don't think normalizing petty theft is good, but taking away 'perks' is still unpopular. Imagine the riots we'd get if FAANG workers couldn't take snacks home with them?
I can't imagine people getting up in arms about not being able to take home maybe $5 worth of snacks a day ($1300/year if you do it every working day), when their salaries are 6 figures.
I'm sure it will one day be viable on both ends. I'm very unsure if we're there yet, especially if each day of non-production did indeed cost $5b
Ships have always been as big as they can be, and fewer people handle more (retail value) quicker per person than during less-bulky links in the supply chain.
So fundamentally plenty of money is being made at the port, regardless of the state of automation, this boils down to the lowest priority until all the other elements leading up to the port are taken to a dramatically improved next level automation themselves.
I'm reasonably certain people alive today were born before 1956.
I resemble that remark ;)
I am quite few people indeed.
Starting a new company soon anyway, and it's going to take a lot more effort than just working there.
Plus it does have something to do with automation and cargo subcontracting in my niche domain.
>The industry completely changed in just a few years
That does sound about right, IIRC it did only take from 1956 until about the mid-1980'a before containers were everywhere, a relatively few years when it comes to cargo operations.
The striking docker workers called a bit of attention to themselves this month ... and this article makes the interesting point that US dock workers are one of the least efficient in the world.
It was only proven how big was too big once a few ultra-large had been built, and the point of diminishing returns had been exceeded enough so accurate math could finally be accomplished.
Routine commercial operation has been scaled back decades ago to less than the max.
Less than the max that is physically possible, focused now more accurately on better returns.
>yass! go labor unions! strike! power to the workers!
>NO, NOT LIKE THAT!
Some questions for those struggling with this:
- How will you reconcile your unconditional love for unions and laborers with the fact that you do not approve of what this labor union is striking against?
- Given that you believe these workers' complaints are invalid, will you continue to support the proliferation of unions?
- If you've deemed the complaints of a labor union to be invalid, what do you think should happen in that case? Would you like to see the union dissolved?
- Would you like to see "shell unions" that severely limit the power of the plebeians but still look good on paper because it's a union and "union == good"?
Surely a port built today from the ground up with automation in mind would outperform a port that was retrofitted 20 years ago? Or a port that was upgraded today performing much better than when it was first automated 20 years ago?
I suppose unions at public companies could always just buy the stock regardless of employee equity grants.
Employees with equity shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing!
I mean that says it all right? I get union's pretty much exist to protect jobs, but it'd be comically inefficient to still require toll booth attendants in this day and age.
And you can pretty much extrapolate this to every industry. Improving technology has always eliminated jobs, in pretty much every field.
There is no such thing however, not really. Yes, the world doesn't owe these workers indefinite employment in a specific job. But reality also doesn't owe us or the employer a steady progression towards more efficiency, and workers can (and often will) organize against it of they stand to be hurt.
Take a look at Walmart greeters. Why does that job exist? It's pretty much worthless. Now look at who works the job: elderly people past retirement age, physically disabled people, mentally disabled people.
Physical laborers often work a physical labor job for a reason. There's a reason they didn't go to college and sit at a comfy desk writing shitty websites.
It's not as simple as "oh those people can just work another job!" Extrapolate this out. Say we eliminate all physical jobs; how many millions of people will be left behind? What happens to them? Do they die?
Regardless of who you think that might be, Americans should make sure their voice is heard on this issue in the upcoming elections.
"The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers who opposed the use of certain types of automated machinery due to concerns relating to worker pay and output quality." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
If the response is to benefit people, then actions which benefit the economy at the expense of benefiting people are misaligned to our goals. It's an alignment problem and boy if we can't solve this, then I have some bad news for you regarding the next 30 years.
Is our economy aligned to the benefit of people? Are we capable of aligning it to our benefit? Do we have any obligation to people we hurt through the decisions we make?
That's not an alignment issue, because it's not clear if raising prices on everyone to support a few thousands workers is pro-worker or pre-human. You could just as easily argue (and I do) that lowering prices and freeing up man hours is pro-worker and pro-human.
It is a reality of misalignment discussions esp those involving AI. Part of that ambiguity is baked into the problem. For example, we can't be sure that AI is aligned with humanity if one of the fundamental issues.
The fact that we can't be sure that the economy is aligned with human benefit is itself a huge problem given the scope of the economy. The fact that we've normalized this is disturbing.
Having 100 people working doing something that could be automated is bad for mankind. It's a total waste. Might as well have them digging a hole then filling it back in.
The problem is that we don't allow for changing work requirements, both on an individual basis with retraining into jobs of equivalent satisfaction and compensation, but also into keeping areas which lose their industry relevant. This causes people to blame the automation.
It's nothing new, in the past workers who felt their livelihood threatened by automation flung their wooden shoes, called 'sabots', into the machines to stop them. ...Hence the word 'sabotage'.
These workers, in particular, I think would be the most ideal candidates to make and monitor this automation. Send them to college part time to learn the skills they need for this.
Re-training programs to teach them new skills to make a horizontal (or upward) shift in the workforce seems like a no brainer.
Problem is, who's going to front the capitol for this? If we forgo automation at the ports, it will impede the potential cost savings of shipping goods into the US, making importing goods less attractive to everyone involved. Re-training can be expensive as well, who's going to front the capitol to pay a mid-career worker with a family a similar salary to re-train?
Our system has failed horribly with this, and it needs to come up with something as more and more jobs are sought to be automated out of existence. There's no reason why we should have to avoid technical progress just to make sure people can keep collecting a paycheck.
What's the proposed solution here?
For WHOM?
There is a classical Roman legal adage "Cui prodest?" ("Who profits?"). I wish people started to apply it to situations and organizations before making blanket statements like this one.
A union is usually intended to protect its members. Is that a "good" thing? OK, imagine a teacher's union fighting to protect a job of John Doe, a member. Will you reflexively say that this is a "good" thing? Aren't you missing important context? What if John Doe is suspected of being a child molester? Still a good thing? After all, the union is meant to protect interests of teachers, not children.
For a slightly more absurd version, imagine a hypothetical Union of Terrestrial Network Workers trying to ban all sorts of wireless Internet: Wi-Fi, 5G, Starlink, or at least put heavy taxation on them. The absence of cables is stealing their jobs, because radio waves don't need nearly as much qualified maintenance. It is also harder to cut wireless Internet in case of a strike action.
In what sense would that be "good" for anyone but their own members?
In some contexts, a union can be a good thing, but it is fundamentally a self-interested cartel. It shouldn't be put into the same box with "really good things" such as cancer treatments or indoor plumbing.
Step 1 would be realizing what type of games unions promote.
A better example would be replacing all baristas with robots, or truck drivers with self-driving trucks. Those would have massive negative impact on employment and society in general, while bringing huge returns to some lucky corporate winners, in effect a massive transfer of wealth from workers to shareholders.
All that to say, the US definitely needs more unions.
Baristas provide a point of human contact and socialization which cannot be automated while preserving humanity. Truck driving can, and it’s an isolated job. Automating it would lower shipping costs, which lowers inflation, enables faster turnaround since robots don’t need to sleep, improve safety (theoretically) because robots don’t get tired and robots don’t take amphetamines to work crazy schedules, and can be programmed to respect speed limits etc.
Now that said, truck driving is also an absolutely huge job source. To replace that would be to kill of a decent income for a huge percent of the population. More important than a union, we need to have government/policy handle any massive workforce transition.
[1] https://nypost.com/2024/10/02/business/union-boss-harold-dag...
I’m actually completely happy mobile ordering and never making contact with a barista. Maybe automats will make a reappearance.
There will always be people who don’t want to interact with other humans. There are likely even more who do.
What do unions have to do with industries where not many humans are needed. If you use unions to protect legacy jobs, in the long run investors will just stop investing in them (or let their investments wither as they withdraw capital) and invest in new industries where unions haven’t stuck their hands in things yet. So goodbye cafes, hello drones delivering coffee via your chimney or something (no barista job was replaced by a robot, they just replaced the entire industry instead). You can’t distort the cost of labor for too long without strong government control over the economy; better to just spread the benefits of automation out more evenly via corporate rather than labor taxation (to fund UBI, universal healthcare, etc…).
For something less speculative, how about elevator attendants? Needing one in every elevator equates to a massive workforce, probably bigger than dock workers. Why shouldn't we bring those back aside from status quo bias?
> while bringing huge returns to some lucky corporate winners, in effect a massive transfer of wealth from workers to shareholders.
Everyone else would also benefit from cheaper espressos and goods (through cheaper shipping)
we're well on our way to replacing truck drivers; baristas are probably safer due to social acceptance more than technology
> Needing one in every elevator equates to a massive workforce, probably bigger than dock workers.
Back when elevators required an attendant, there weren't that many elevators compared with today. I'm talking about displacing large existing workforces. Also, people wouldn't spend their lives standing in an elevator; whereas millions of people do make a career out of truck driving or working at a port, both of which require skills developed over time.
> Everyone else would also benefit from cheaper espressos and goods (through cheaper shipping)
That's assuming the price of espressos and goods would drop; I don't think that's likely.
Sounds a lot like status quo bias. If you think truck drivers are worth keeping around as long as a jobs program, you should be in favor of introducing elevator attendants as one as well.
>Also, people wouldn't spend their lives standing in an elevator; whereas millions of people do make a career out of truck driving or working at a port, both of which require skills developed over time.
Does this matter? Whether it's elevator attendants, truck drivers, or even programmers, if they're out of a job because it's been automated, the impact is the same: a bunch of people who need job retraining. How much effort they put into their previous career is largely irrelevant.
> That's assuming the price of espressos and goods would drop; I don't think that's likely.
Globalization brought us cheap chinese shit from aliexpress, didn't it?
https://nypost.com/2024/10/04/business/how-did-50k-dockworke...
It is the same with the cab companies. It took Uber and Lyft for them to lift a finger and actually attempt to innovate and make it better for customers.
The article linked above doesn't go into detail on what container royalties are, but it sounds like it was a protection from being laid off negotiated in the past.
And in the context of AI so frequently discussed here, perhaps more workers will need those types of protections as automation takes hold elsewhere.
This is a complete rewriting of history.
The reason Uber "won" is because they operated on a loss. The reality is that running a Cab business typically has low overhead. You use phone lines, maybe a website, and then pay for cars and maintenance.
Uber "innovated" the field by doing the exact same thing with MUCH higher operating costs. How did they provide a cheaper service then? That's the kicker, they never have. They just ate the loss.
Cabbies, unfortunately, cannot work for a negative wage. Uber can pull that off then. And so, for 14 years, they never turned a profit. Losing hundreds of millions a year.
And that's how they won.
Of course, now Uber is actually more expensive than your average cab. Which makes complete sense when you consider calling someone's phone has got to be a lot cheaper than running one of the largest networks in the country.
And, is it really more convenient to tap around as opposed to make a call or even just stick out your hand? Maybe. But I think when it's double the price, people won't feel this way.
1) I know it will take card. Last time I took a taxi the "card machine was broken" and "I'll drop you at an ATM"
2) I know I'll get a receipt, as a PDF, which I put into my expenses. Taxi drivers tend to be very grumpy about giving receipts
3) I know I won't get adverts - maybe this is just a New York thing, but last time I took a yellow cab in New York I was bombarded with adverts
4) I know I'll be going to the right place, without having communication difficulties and ending up at the wrong hotel or whatever
Price doesn't come into it.
And if uber can't gets its operational costs down below a taxi firm paying for a dispatcher and manager to handle paperwork etc, given the scale they operate at, then they really need their tech stack sorting.
Better than cabs were 15 years ago but we should expect more transparency.
Look, I went to Russia, I took Yandex Taxi. I went to Indonesia and took Grub. Whether you pay double of half is i consequential compared to “Yes I take credit cards” then “Oh my credit card apparatus doesn’t work” then “Let me find an ATM for you, at your expense”.
The one brand than invested on marketing is for nothing in the death of the taxis; Everyone was wishing they’d disappear.
The price was the cherry on the cake, the bottle of water was the finger to every awful taxi driver that has existed in history.
It is game changing because now the drivers have a reputation from their previous customers and you know you won't be treated like a stupid mark at best, or sexually assaulted etc.
THAT was the game changer and good riddance to bad rubbish. Even such "tiny" details as the cars being clean and not smelly are, in fact, a major improvement in quality.
Old-style taxi guys had zero incentive to keep their cars clean. Many smoked in them outright.
I'm not even talking about the wage aspect of the business. Before Uber and Lyft, getting a cab was inconvenient. Mostly telephone or hailing it in-person. Uber and Lyft forced them to innovate. There are now apps available to get a cab in almost every major city.
Why did it take the Uber/Lyft disruption to get something like this? Because the cab companies didn't need to compete and the unions kept this monopoly in place.
Consumer don't actually care that much about this. They care about price - they're very price sensitive. Uber WAS cheaper, so they won. The experience being better matters a little, but not much. And, again, it's not that much better! Certainly, I can catch a cab much faster than an Uber, and consumers are also time sensitive!
> unapologetically exploitative
As opposed to Uber, who categorizes all their employees as "gig" so they don't have to pay out benefits. And they don't take on any risk with the capital, the employees bring their own capital.
Uber is extremely exploitative both to you, the consumer, and to workers. For you, you're not offered a fix rate. Your rate per mile varies by the minute and by who you are - not unlike a scammy Taxi. The difference is the Taxi's at least would sometimes not be scams and advertise a rate, this is not the case with Uber.
You are rewriting history here. Most NYers have a story about a cab that either tried to take them for a ride and take a shitty route, charged them an exploitative fee to return their cellphone, had their credit card machine "break" until you insisted you didn't have any cash and it was either a CC card or you are getting out right now... etc. There was absolutely no accountability for them at all and Uber fixed this problem- getting a ride is now actually pleasurable and everything is negotiated up front with no haggling and a full paper trail.
Your whole argument is ridiculous, not sure what your axe to grind against Uber is, but its clear you are not being objective here.
Tech company comes in, "innovates" by providing a product that's 2x as convenient for 10x the cost, and undercuts competitors by cheating.
To be very clear, Uber IS absolutely a better experience than taking a cab, and I've noted this multiple times. I believe, however, it's not convenient ENOUGH to justify the extreme infrastructure costs.
From an economic standpoint, Uber does not make sense. If you wanted to run an Uber service at that scale, it would be beyond expensive. Customers don't want to pay 20 bucks to go a few blocks down. So if that was the case from the beginning, Uber would have been dead in the water.
You're greatly underestimating how cost sensitive consumers are. Most people will willingly take a less convenient and shittier option if it's cheaper.
Second off, even if Uber is more expensive that's still not it's true cost. You, or anyone, would be happy to take an uber if it was 1.15x the cost of a taxi. Because that's worth it for you.
But this is the big idea here: "Tech company moves in a provides a product that's 2x as convenient for 10x the cost"
There's a point where it makes no sense to get an Uber, and we're well past that point. Uber made it only because they could hide the true cost.
Uber IS a better experience. But would you pay, say, twice as much for a better experience? I would say for most people the answer is no. Not for a transportation service.
When you're making a product it doesn't matter how amazing it is if it's too expensive to produce. There's some exceptions for some product categories, but ultimately operating inefficiency will bite you. From an economic standpoint, Uber does not make sense and has never made sense. Point blank, it's a stupid idea. As time goes on and Uber prices go up and up to try to make up their billions of dollars of losses, you will see this first-hand.
you are right about Uber bringing accountability, but Europe solved that through regulation. NYC could have done that-- the right to run a cab is linked to owning a government-issued medallion-- but regulation is not the US way.
The most recent time I was in the EU, I used freenow everywhere for upfront fares and driver ratings - would it even exist if not for uber?
I've had Uber try to go through the Throggs Neck Bridge, over to the Triboro in order to take me to LIC from eastern Queens. Of course the Uber driver, who only spoke Chinese had no way of understanding why this was incredibly and obviously stupid.
lyft even shows a notification on the passenger's phone now when the driver deviates from the planned route
I have no problem with variable pricing, provided it's stated before I agree to pay, not after. It can't be a scam if customers have full information before they agree.
It absolutely can be, if customers don't know how that price is generated, which you don't. You agree but you don't have the full facts. Your friend could be paying half and you're getting ripped off.
And, to be clear, many taxis before Uber did actually advertise their rates. This is the same situation then, but even better, because you know your rate isn't for you, it's for everyone.
If you know the price, you can choose to accept it or not.
I never took a taxi with posted trip cost. Best was price per mile/time and the cabbies wouldn't tell you how for or long it would take
I am hinting at how ex-ante price disclosure or negotiation reduces transactions costs of triangulation and trust.
There are no liberals or conservatives. Their are people with lives that share common traits and a policy set that suits those traits best.
Remember that Jesus (the generous saint of the needy) is the hero of conservatives and that liberals are the chief NIMBYs for affordable housing.
Nobody has lifelong rigid beliefs, it's all a matter of convenience. Everyone is in it for themselves.
*yes this is a generalization and you can find outliers. But don't let those outliers distract you from what is going on.
Even if you are pro-union, they have a history of attacking or undercutting other unions. The port of Portland Oregon was bankrupted because of a slowdown that was organized over two jobs they wanted to take from the electricians union.
The former president of the ILWU refused to recognize the AFL-CIO. The ILA president has mob connections.
https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/stellantis-uaw-lawsuit-...
"The Jobs Bank, established by GM in the mid-80s and adopted by Ford and Chrysler due to pattern bargaining, generally prohibited the Detroit automakers from laying off employees," the automaker said. "By the 2000s, Chrysler had over 2,000 employees in the Jobs Bank at a staggering cost. These employees were on active payroll, but were not allowed to perform any production work."
https://www.npr.org/2006/02/02/5185887/idled-auto-workers-ta...
The Jobs Bank was set up by mutual agreement between U.S. automakers and the United Auto Workers union to protect workers from layoffs. Begun in the mid-1980s, the program is being tapped by thousands of workers. Many of those receiving checks do community service work or take courses. Others sit around, watching movies or doing crossword puzzles -- all while making $26 an hour or more.
What’s the alternative here? An alternative I can think of is a much stronger unemployment program on the federal level so layoffs don’t hurt the community. But this scheme not existing would’ve been devastating for the middle class.
People in greater society are not really an elastic resource.
And while ongoing payments are unusual, it's still basically a severance package. Those dock workers no longer work at the docks because they were let go due to automation. Do they have other jobs? Probably. The article doesn't provide any info about that either.
It is the NY Post though. So I'm not super surprised by the lack of substance, just allegations.
We have like 4 different ports here plus Wind Project took over the old NIT port.
Is that corporate speak for insecure employment?
But from a financial perspective, most of the cost for the machines is probably in buying the machines, where most of the cost of the worker is probably hourly wage (or similar). Turning off the machines probably saves less money than sending the people home.
You don't get royalties for nothing. All the references I have been able to find, say you have to work some amount based on Union agreements but somewhere between 700 and 1500 hours per year, and you have to have worked at the port for at least 6 years. They seem to mostly be paid out as an end of year bonus. I haven't found anything that ballparks the amount so I have no clue how much money we are talking about.
You have an incorrect, oversimple model of politics (e.g. business interests have shown much more capability in influencing government on economic policy to suit their own goals than pretty much every other group, and there are a lot of reasons for that).
You use "progress" in a really suspect way, like it's a line pointing one way. It's really about whose progress it is.
etc.
> After all, it's the job of a government, not a company, to serve the needs of the people.
I disagree, and I think that idea is actually at the root of a lot of problems.
I disagree, I believe I have a correct, appropriately complex model of politics. I guess our opinions cancel each other out, and we'll have to agree to disagree on this point, friend.
> business interests have shown much more capability in influencing government on economic policy to suit their own goals
I actually agree here: business is great at influencing policy in a way that suits their goals, but not necessarily in a way that suits the goals of society or individuals. The 2 goals are different, that's why we can't rely upon the former to achieve the goals of the latter.
It's the goal of business to make money, it's the goal of unions and people to make sure people are taken care of, so unions and people should vote for a government that takes care of people.
>> After all, it's the job of a government, not a company, to serve the needs of the people.
> I disagree, and I think that idea is actually at the root of a lot of problems.
That is a valid viewpoint. Another valid viewpoint is, thinking that idea is at the root of a lot of problems, is itself at the root of a lot of problems. Unfortunately, without any detail provided either way, all we have now is 2 conflicting, equally-valid viewpoints.
And what's that supposed to mean? It sounds like you feel they're low status and therefore undeserving.
> This isn't the hill to die on. People viscerally feel this isn't a job which can justify itself—because it can't.
But somehow, the job of just owning a bunch of shit and living off the proceeds doesn't seem offend people the same way, when it's literally the same thing.
> Besides, royalties are an artificial construction enforced by governments through courts and obedient police force that will kill you if you don't go along with what they say.
You know what else is like that? Private property.
Yes, with one key difference: They were smart enough to recognize the value of their labor in the market, and have joined together to have better leverage.
Software engineers don't really strike in a way that harms their company.
1. Labor is so automated that you need little to no workers.
2. Workers are exploited and union-busted to such a degree that they cannot organize.
You'll notice both outcomes are bad for the workers. What you're suggesting is so incredibly one-sided no worker in their right mind would take it up.
This is about compromise, as is all things in life. If your solution is "one side loses heavily and the other side wins everything", you don't have a solution, you have a delusion.
In the long run yes, it would be nice to not require labor, and everyone lives happily ever after. In the short run people suffer. They starve, they live on the streets, they turn to drugs, and they die. If that sounds harsh that's because it is. There's a reason these people are working manual labor jobs and aren't fucking around on a computer for 3 productive hours a day. There's a reason they've "chosen" to toil away for 8+ hours for a comparatively low wage. If you're not considering what happens to them, you're not seeing the problem as a whole.
Although I'd argue there should be a 4th
4. You have a negotiated CBA and re-negotiate in advance of it's expiration ...
They're plesionyms
Those two statements are equivalent. Or do you think the capitalist business owner is going to pay is employees more out of the kindness of his own hard, if only they couldn't strike?
The whole point of a strike is that it "harms their company," because being able to do that is the only way many workers have any leverage.
> Software engineers don't really strike in a way that harms their company.
Software engineers have been the beneficiaries of some really cushy market conditions over the last couple decades, which are pretty much guaranteed not to last.
The capitalist business owner will pay the minimum wage to get the employees they need. This isn't a bad thing.
You don't need a strike, you need a strong labor market.
> Software engineers have been the beneficiaries of some really cushy market conditions over the last couple decades, which are pretty much guaranteed not to last.
Yes, and unions are not gonna fix that. Machinists and factory workers are unionized and their jobs still kind of suck - simply because it is not possible to run a globally competitive company if you have to pay your machinists a ton.
Half of our economy is built around making as many people replaceable as possible so that their wages can be driven into the ground. Pearl clutching about people resisting downward social mobility by any means necessary is cringe. This put me off to the rest of the article.
Amusingly, this is both true and has the exact opposite effect of what you imply here.
The data does not show a downward spiral of individual wages and wealth, and in fact shows quite the opposite. And this is driven by real economic growth, which is driven by tech, which is frequently deployed in the hopes of automating away some work.
However, just from a first-principles point of view, more automation is better. We can't do things unintelligently just because that means more work. The goal is more wealth, not more work.
Not sure what data you are using. All data I have seen from the Federal Reserve and others show stagnant/negative wages accounting for inflation (since the 1970s). Not to mention the fact that key factors of social mobility like housing and education have outpaced wage growth drastically.
> However, just from a first-principles point of view, more automation is better.
I never said it wasn't. Automation is inevitable. However I am not going to complain about people smashing the machines meant to replace them. That is the only logical course of action for them, unless the government steps in with a free retraining program or someone else has unionized jobs lined up for them.
My point is that the author takes capital owners acting in their own naked self-interest for granted, and whines about workers/union leaders doing the same. Either be consistent or admit that you have disdain for the working class.
Imagine coming home and finding your car wrecked and your home appliances such as washing machine, vacuum cleaner and microwave smashed into pieces.
What happened is that a guy who could have been your horse guy and a bunch of people who could have been your domestic help (a maid, a butler) in 1900 got angry at the machines which displaced them. Also, a now-unemployed phone exchange operator from the 1930s smashed your phone; why should you be able to connect a call to another city without going through her first?
After all, as a programmer, you are likely a solid middle class, and middle class homes once used to support numerous manual workers to clean, cook etc. for them. Thus, they acted as important job creators. By adopting machines, you destroyed their living and sent them on the dole. Unfortunately, they didn't have unions strong enough to nip microwaves and washing machines in the bud.
From the point of view of 2024, an absurd scenario, right? Because this development is over and we are used to its consequences. Employing people to cook and clean after you is even considered a bit gauche.
The most successful automation usually displaces workers all over the globe, not just in a few factories. Having a phone that connects you from Texas to New York without living people in the middle is a result of many people acting in "naked self-interest".
Is that actually in their best interest? Opinions differ.
By the way, here are some examples of what I mean:
Real disposable income is up: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A229RX0
Real median personal income is up: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
I dislike how CPI handles housing costs: "If a unit is owner-occupied, the BLS computes what it would cost to rent that home in the current housing market."
This does not take into account quality of housing or things like closing costs or insurance payments.
CPI also does not factor in things like pensions or benefits. So we are unable to see what proportion of people's money they are spending on things like their 401(k) which potentially would have been paid for by employers in the past.
Education cost calculations are also not ideal:
"Various types of student financial aid are also considered for eligible colleges. Loans or other types of deferred tuition are not eligible for pricing. Charges for room and board and textbooks are covered elsewhere in the CPI sample."
And lastly, healthcare costs appear to not take into account deductibles:
"The CE tracks consumer out-of-pocket spending on medical care, which is used to weight the medical care indexes. CE defines out-of-pocket medical spending as:
patient payments made directly to retail establishments for medical goods and services; health insurance premiums paid for by the consumer, including Medicare Part B; and health insurance premiums deducted from employee paychecks."
https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/owners-equivalent-rent-an...
https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/college-tuition.htm#:~:te...
https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/medical-care.htm#:~:text=...
For example, how do you calculate the CPI on computers? They’re a million times better now, but are also cheaper. My Macbook is not the same product as my 486 from decades ago.
This affects everything. Take medical care as you said. The outcomes there are much better than before, so how do we calculate inflation on medical expenses?
If you provide a 10% better product/service for a 10% higher price, is that inflation? What if all of society gets richer and insists on the second, better version of your service as a minimum?
If houses get bigger and nicer and our standards for “a house” go up over time, and houses also get more expensive, then what is the inflation on housing?
I think they’re genuinely doing their best with the CPI calcs, even though it’s not possible to get a true number.
Long story short though, life has gotten dramatically better in material terms, for everyone, especially the poor.
For 'the poor' tt was hard enough to juggle multiple 'part time' jobs that companies created to avoid full time benefits, but now multiple part time 'zero hour' jobs is ridiculous (especially when both expect you to work around/prioritize their non-consistent schedule you get last minute).
Do you even know anyone who's 'the poor'?
This is a hard statement for me to agree with.
This inherent bias exists in all of us, whether we admit it or not. That's why we view knowledge workers getting paid more than they deserve in a MUCH different light than physical laborers getting paid more than they deserve.
I'd happily remain on my butt at a computer even if the trades started making double my salary. They are sacrificing their bodies for this theoretical higher wage. They deserve it in my eyes.
But of course, that's not how a lot of "smart people" think. "I can life boxes, why are they paid more"? Big difference between lifting a box, and lifting boxes for 20,000+hours for a part of a career. Life is short as is, I will try to make the best of it.
They can fight for a huge raise! That's good, because it will make it very profitable to just automate things.
Of course they know this and that's why they wanna ban automation
US ports are some of the least efficient in the world because of these unions and how effectively they've opposed automation.
If dock workers strike for higher pay? Fine. Pay them and then automate their jobs.
If they strike for automation? They get no sympathy from me. The costs of NOT automating the docks are paid for by all of us.
That's why your office worker can take a 15-minute walk and nobody bats an eye. But the grocery store cashier wants to sit down, and millions of people lose their mind.
But high shipping costs? That causes INFLATION. It's a cost they ask all of us to pay, unnecessarily, since they have blocked automation.
Alternatively they nepo-inhereit a company and they fight for lower taxes that they should pay. So they indirectly tax the middle/lower class more becsuse they basically take money from the government.
A trust fund is FUNDED. They are spending money that someone else made for them.
High port costs, on the other hand, are paid for by consumers.