pb notable >>13946038 “Businesses are being hit hard by global shortages of shipping containers….”

logistical prob>

– lets look at domestic transport.

Port of Long Beach and other W coast ports have huge import of shipping containers, but they do not ship out as much, so containers become spread out over the us mainland.

China relies on new containers more than used ones, they have to because its cheaper than bringing empty ones back, since they export far more than import.

Domestically the supply, demand imbalance of trade and thus logistics of containers is arguably solved by free market transportation costs via rail, semi, barges, and air. The value of shipping containers as a needed asset is part of the transportation rate equation.

Whole deal is ripe for manipulation though because of the control of transportation and shipping by a tight group.

Trend is you end up having too many unused containers in chicago (from east and west coast) and too few in exporting countries.

Invariably inflation occurs as exporting nations need to either repatriate empty containers, subsidize goods for import (wow bananas are cheap!), or build new ones.

The biz is amazing with the infrastructure and uniformity of containers from factories to ships to 18 wheelers.