By chance I currently watch my way through my collection of DVDs of Yes (Prime) Minister.

Timeless.

Priceless.

Simply good.

:D


The hissing, chopping sounds recently probably were the guillotine Johnson set up at Downing Street.

Has arrived today, shipping time in total around 10 days, so everything back to pre-Brexit normal. Saved me close to 300 coins. :yeah:



I just wonder how they get away with labelling it on the customs sticker as a "gift", the package obviously is form a retailer. Can i demand my money back now? A gift is a gift, I mean.

Hopefully the electorate will hold those responsible to account.

I have never said brexit hasn't played a role it has, but not as big as some people make out.

A lot of farmers are angry because they cannot get cheap foreign temporary labor, however why do they need cheap foreign labor when we have what 4.5% unemployed ?
Yes its true a lot of Brits don't want to do the jobs they do and I do believe it has a lot to do with a very generous welfare state.
If they curtailed some of that then maybe just maybe people will go ah i kind of need a job.

A lot of scientists were put out because a lot of them were EU funded, ok that's fine but when it comes to academia indoctrinating people with EU good UK Bad I'm sorry not happening in my world (started happening in my school in the early 2000s).

There does seem to be an air of superiority in the remain camp (not everyone I stress this) but I often find I am classed as " Stupid Uneducated and don't know what I voted for"
Well I do know what I voted for infact it was one question should the UK leave of remain in the EU.
I fully understood that leaving meant leaving the common market, the free movement and every other connotation and principles of the EU.
I fully understood that the UK would suffer in the short term but freed from the shackles of the EU there was a good chance we could regain that ground (which I would speculate will be around 2028/2030 time)

With regards to shortages, no one in my industry could have predicted COVID at all no one in the EU UK or anywhere could.
On top of that the consequences of COVID causing delays in the supply chain, the Ever Given running aground for over a week.

Our schedules are very tight even a 24 hour delay can be a big problem, so add a week into that mix plus covid shut downs well it kind of speaks for itself.
With that there's the knock on effect of container shortages and out of place containers in ports.
To give you an idea were now predicting the problem in this one area wont be over until Q2 2022 as per my discussions Monday, this is if nothing else goes wrong.

Driver shortages well this one has been on going since before the EU existed, exacerbated in the 90's it wasn't even solved by EU labor coming over our growth and the JIT network out grew the ability of job creation, a bit like the population out growing housing supply.

Again i state simply blaming shortages of labor and goods on Brexit is not wholly appropriate, while a contributing factor its not entirely the big picture.

Just saying that you cannot just quickly pick a job on the fields and get along. Most people simply physically are not used to the physical stress of kneeling or bowing all the time, you need to get used to that and "hardened" in your muscles and backbone. I did it once during student times, and after just a very few days (althoigh I still trained at that time) my back was so stiff and I had so sever pains that I could not bow again, I had to quit, i was almost partially paralysed.

And during the early pandemic last year enthusiastic young people went to their farmers and offered their work to him, and very many had to quit early, too, until farmers stopped hiring native Germans, saying they had to see most of them go in the first week, exhausted and in pain, and needing to pay them full wage but getting only 40% of the work done that a trained worker from the East would have acchieved in that time. These jobs not only must be mechnaically learned, but you need to build the stamina and physical toughness to endure a day. Some can do it easily, for others it is very ard. Some can never really adapt.



Its not so much heavy lifting or such things, its this monotonous movement and especially the arched, stooped and crooked back. The pain can stab you in the backbone and hips like a dagger. If you are really bad off, you can almost not move for days.

"Britain Signals Intent to Revert to the Imperial System"

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/w...es-return.html

or here

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/e...nds-and-ounces

"Since Britain formally split from the EU on Jan 1, after nearly 50 years of membership, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has touted his vision of a "Global Britain" that would flourish without being shackled by rules imposed by the 27-member bloc.

British officials have pointed to developments, such as changing the colour of British passports from the EU's burgundy to Britain's traditional blue, which was dropped in 1988, as bold and triumphant symbols of the country's new freedom."

Nevertheless, Mr Frost said on Thursday that the move towards the imperial system would be part of the broader changes Britain was making to "capitalise on new Brexit freedoms".

Bold, triumphant inching forward to freedom.
I sometimes thought there may be some really queer lifeforms on this planet. Now i know.

Which might seem like a lot but the cost of a new tractor trailer cab is about $125-150 grand and that's not counting insurance and all the other related costs. It should probably more like x4 or x5.

I did see a tweet from a person from weights and measures recently, it did state there has never been a problem with working in either imperial or metric, its just as other European nations often use metric so we followed suite.

I find this proposal just dumb to be honest.

Theres a lot of expenses in road transport some of which i didnt realise until i did my transport manager CPC which takes each cost down to fractions of pennys per KM / Mile

Owner operators beware its not that easy to maintain trucks with low paid freight, the trick is to get atleast one decent paying contract for a small company and build around it.

A lot of owner operators in the US and Canada are way to focused on RPM and not gross after all RPM doesn't pay the bills but try explaining that to them is like trying to put my head through the eye of a needle, guess thats why so many fail.

Its not just the UK and EU who are dealing with shortages caused by trucking and shipping deficiencies; the US is going through the same pains and it is particularly evident in the combined ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which directly abut each other; Long Beach is the older of the two harbors, a natural harbor, while the massive LA Port is a man-made facility built on landfills and reclaimed ocean floor; the combined ports are the largest in the US and the 9th largest in the world; a very substantial percentage of the goods imported into the US or exported out pass through the ports and their impact on the US economy is massive...


At the moment, the waters directly off the ports looks like an invasion fleet has massed offshore:

Backup in port of Los Angeles affecting truck drivers ability to work; cargo delivery --

https://ktul.com/news/local/backup-i...cargo-delivery


The report notes that nearly 70 container ships are anchored offshore, waiting for open berths (a local report last night stated the number at 66 ships); keep in mind, that is just container ships; there are some 25+ other ships (tankers, etc.) also waiting for berths, so the total is nearer to 90 ships idling offshore...

In the report, you see the truckers blaming the Ports and the longshoremen ("they get paid by the hour, we don't")and the Posts management blaming the Feds; sad to say, the various factions are trying to milk the situation for their own agendas: the unions to wrangle higher pay and loosened working quotas and perks; the trucker for, also, higher wages and perks; and, the Ports management for a larger slice of the Fed funds; all of this is not at all helping the situation...

Even if the Ports were to be able to process out the cargo in a timely manner, there are other problems; merchants who are receiving the containers often have a lag time between when the containers land, are processed, are ready for pickup, and the actual time the do, indeed have the containers hauled; sometimes this is due to the merchants not having sufficient available storage space on their own properties to take the containers, so the containers are stored at the Ports, and the usual outside port storage time is about 30 days; however, that storage time is now averaging over 60 days, and. in a rising number of cases, is approaching 90 days on average; decreased sales at brick and mortar retail sites and increased mail-order sales have caused inventory backups on many items taking up valuable storage space; with no space in their own warehouses, they are letting the containers sit at the Ports; also, they are equally dealing with a shortage of drivers for their trucks, so even if they had the warehouse space, they are in heavy competition to find drivers to move the products...

Since the beginning of the Pandemic, a lot of workers have rethought their career priorities and have shifted away from jobs they once thought they were only suited for; in addition to a large number of older drivers who opted to retire during the Pandemic, a large number of drivers have found employ in other field, often with better pay and conditions, and coaxing them back into driving again will be difficult; new drivers are equally hard to find since younger workers, often armed with college degrees, are not going to be flocking to jobs that are comparatively far more arduous than careers for which they are more qualified...

Then there's this to consider: despite what the Far-Right has claimed , that the woes are caused by the unwillingness of workers to seek employment because of unemployment subsidies, the figure coming out of states that ceased those subsides show the cutoffs have had little to no effect on turning around the inability of employers to find workers; why? well, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, there are some 8.4 million unemployed workers in the US, and the BoLS also reports there are some 10.6 job opening; it doesn't take a great deal of maths skills to see, if you have some 2.2 million more openings than you have workers, even if all the unemployed were working, the country would still be in a hole, jobs-wise...






<O>

Just under half a tank full when I passed a local station this morning with only four cars on the forecourt so I filled the tank up. Passed again this afternoon and the queue was fifty plus vehicles.

I Have been privy to some inside information about the fuel crisis by someone in BP.

The mass panic was due to a lot of drivers walking off the job and securing other employment.

BP have subcontracted its transport to hoyer, now this is a normal everyday move for big producers to out source transport.

BP Stations are not owned by BP they are independent franchises, and in the contract BP guarantee them delivery or they get the delivery for free if they fail.
This is something passed on to the sub contractor they are bound by the same terms, any failed deliveries incur a fine of £500 per failed delivery and they have to transport the load for free.

Hoyer massively undercut the contract in order to win it, this meant drivers wages were cut right back, to give you an idea the starting salary for a dedicated BP driver was £42,000 per year with hoyer your lucky to start at £32,000.
Now with other companies offering up £45,000+ its easy to see why people have jumped ship.

The media are to blame really, this is a localized issue with one company not all of them, Shell Texaco, Esso, Total and others report no shortages and no problems with supply or delivery...... well until the media hyped it up and everyone panic bought fuel this then swung the balance of the supply chain and resupply network out of whack.

A typical busy forecourt gets two deliveries per day totaling 64,000liters of all fuel types which is more than enough to sustain it for 24 hours without hitting into the reserves.

Sadly because of the media hype and spin put on the balance has shifted simply because people are buying in excess of what they need and the tankers cannot keep up.

Port of long beach is a unionized workforce and my god have I had headaches with them in the past.
The reality of ships lined up waiting to get into port I can well believe, on average a containership should be able to turn around in 48 hours (even the 24,000TEU ones)
But without dock space they cant offload, and if the warehouse space almost full they end user cant receive goods either so the port becomes a holding yard which ties up the container for its reload and re shipment.

With regards to truck drivers I can see defiantly the USA and Canada have a problem with recruitment and retention, same as Europe.
This has meant a softening of immigration rules for truck drivers in both Canada and the USA.

When we talk about social security and welfare systems, quite frankly they are correct in a way, anyone on social security will not be able to afford to obtain a license, in Canada its around $8-10,000 and in the USA on average its $4-5,000, in the UK £3-4,000, no one living on welfare could afford that.

In the 1980's the UK addressed the shortages by using a government subsidy program allowing unemployed to obtain licenses with government help, many of those who took up that offer remained in the industry (some still are in it) but now these people are coming up to or are already at retirement age.

Feed corn and other animal feed has doubled in price this time last year

Bulk commodities did take a big hit with price over the last 16-18 months Corn going from $4.25 per bushel up to $6 on its high currently trading at $5.33

with the price high it also means transport costs have to become lower, MB to AB runs were ranging in the early part of 2020 $58 per MT now there at around $45MT

Now with fuel up at its high because the oil price is high WTI $74.98 per barrel that sort of costs per MT is not sustainable and indeed causes the transport companies a loss over all.
What that means is companies diverting to other goods or not operating

Some of the projects that I bid on take months to go through the approval process but my vendors are becoming more and more reluctant to commit to prices that far in the future. Makes it tough to put together a quote that will still be profitable by the time the contract is finally awarded.

The german SPIEGEL writes:

"Traffic jams at petrol stations, panic buying: the fuel crisis in the UK continues.

The nerves lay partly bare. The sticking point remains the lack of truck drivers. Fuel is available – there is a lack of drivers who bring it from the depots to the petrol pumps.

At the weekend, Prime Minister Johnson announced that he would issue 5,000 visas for foreign drivers. But in this parking lot in Warsaw, the offer does not meet with enthusiasm.

Jakub Pajka, truck driver: "No thanks, Prime Minister. I will not take this opportunity. No driver wants to move for three months just so that the British can really celebrate Christmas." The UK is estimated to be missing about 100,000 truckers. 25,000 mainly Eastern European drivers have left the UK because of the restrictions on foreign workers in the wake of Brexit. They have returned to their home countries – including Jacek Rembokowski.
Jacek Rembokowski
"There was a lot of uncertainty about how we would be treated afterwards, whether Brexit would upset the whole industry and whether drivers would continue to be welcome. I then made the decision to resign. Because of the money and because I wanted to go home again. Now I only drive in Poland."

But the fact that Brexit is supposed to be the main cause of the fuel crisis is not liked being heard in London. According to the government, the main reason is that so many driving lessons and exams have been cancelled or postponed due to the corona pandemic. Now soldiers are to help with the gasoline deliveries. This should provide relaxation in the next few days."


Also
"Because of the bottlenecks at UK petrol stations, criminals may be used to drive trucks.

"We have let prisoners and criminals work on a voluntary basis and unpaid," said Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister Dominic Raab of The Spectator magazine.

"Why not let them do paid work when there are bottlenecks, if there is an economic and social benefit?"

I take it while corona (and related border delays) and ageing truckdrivers are one thing internationally, brexit is the reason for UK problems being a bit 'different' in comparison.

Here they are taking about the coming Christmas crisis.

Here are a part of a Danish article about this shortage problems

"
A Christmas crisis with more expensive goods can no longer be avoided

The pandemic has created bottlenecks in the world's oceans. This has led Ikea to deploy trains that can pick up goods from the Far East.

Logistics manager at Ikea Denmark Peter Langskov must choose between kitchen knives or utensils.
He can not fit both on board container ships and trucks and must therefore prioritize what is to arrive and what is to be sold out.
- The situation is the wildest I have tried. It was impossible to predict that the pandemic would hit us this way, he says.
- Right now we actually do not know when many of our goods will come home. Normally, 45 trucks with goods arrive at Ikea's department stores throughout Denmark - at the moment we are experiencing days where only 35 arrive, says the logistics manager.

Container ships are queuing up on the Pacific Ocean
The shortage of goods is due to consumers around the world turning up the purchase of furniture and consumer goods, as the closure prevented people to spend money on travel and services.
In other words, demand is at a record high.
The number of containers transported on the world's oceans has increased by about six percent compared to the level before the pandemic, explains Peter Sand, a shipping analyst at the interest group Bimco.
"Especially the Americans have taken many more goods out of the Far East than they usually do," he says.

"

Markus

The City of Long Beach has made available several dozens of acres of land to take in the overflow from the Port of L.A. s a means of freeing up off load space; even with that, there still isn't enough space for all that's sitting off the coast; the unions are indeed a big pain and, as expected, they are trying to take advantage of the backup to force management and/or the Port authorities to give them more than the union's contracts provide, all with no real assurance the union workers will step up the flow of cargo in return; its been a long standing situation and has just gotten worse...


An added drain on the number of big rig, long haul, driver pool is the increase in hiring by the big box chain stores and the mega online retailers for their own delivery systems; truckers who were fed up with lower pay, erratic work schedules, and other hardships of long haul and some who were affected by a decrease in some sectors of trucking caused by Covid's effects on some businesses sales, are flocking to the higher compensation, better benefits, stable work hours, and other attractions of companies like Amazon, Walmart, etc. ...






<O>

These crises were caused by *us* - you, me, and everyone else who allowed governments to get away with making terrible decisions on a variety of things - taxes/tariffs, immigration, subsidies, regulation, lockdowns, and the list goes on.

When you make it so that foreign "refugees" have an easier time getting a commercial driving licence and that are willing to take vastly lower pay, your own citizens are less likely to take up or stay in the driving career.

When you lock down entire nations based upon scientists with a losing track record of computer modeling so that you can be seen to "be doing something" to try and stop an unstoppable pandemic, while simultaneously paying people not to work, there outcome is predictably fewer employed taxpayers with less disposable income.

When Biden's press secretary makes the claim that when businesses pass tax increases on to consumers, it would be "...absurd and unfair...," proving she has no understanding of basic economics, it pretty much sums up the complete lack of competence or qualification of most government employees - that utter incompetence being what drives a nation's economic policies. The outcome will be predictable, especially since inflation has already cut the average person's buying power.

Until every modern nation eliminates the people currently running their governments and oligarchical businesses from positions of authority, we'll continue to be in a depression with shortages and rationing. We're *already* in a depression but no one is willing to admit it.