>"It's more valuable than liquid gold, truth be told," said Melanie Massiah-White,
KEK Massiah
Clogged supply chain sees 'meaningful progress' but cargo, ships linger ahead of holidays
Supply chain woes — ensnaring goods from around the world and adding to inflationary pressures as consumers and companies scramble to find scarce products — are slowly receding just ahead of Christmas.
At bottlenecked West Coast shipping hubs that have played host to countless cargo ships, port officials note that dock workers and terminal operators have moved nearly 9 million containers, half a million more than they will have processed in all 12 months in the year 2020.
Shoppers are still having a hard time finding goods, and companies are still struggling to meet soaring COVID-19 era demand. But at a press conference on Thursday, Mario Cordero, executive director of the Port of Long Beach insisted there are “some signs of improvement” in addressing the holiday backlog.
“As of [Thursday] morning, there are 74 container ships on their way to the San Pedro Bay Port complex. Just off the coast, there are 28 container ships waiting at anchor. This is down from 86, just three weeks ago,” Cordero said.
Cordero said that congestion at the twin ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which account for 40% of sea freight entering the United States, was a “temporary” situation, and part of the "domino effect" of the coronavirus.
"You'll see some normalcy in the supply chain, in my opinion, summer of 2022," the port executive added.
The number of container ships at anchor, or loitering within 40 miles of the ports, have improved due to the new queuing system which encourages ships to wait outside of a specially designated Safety and Air Quality Area (SAQA). That zone extends 150 miles to the west of the ports, and 50 miles to the north and South.
But other measures have found the bottlenecks still persist. According to data cited by trade outlet American Shipper, the actual tally of ships waiting outside L.A. and Long Beach hit an all-time high of 96 in early December, with 56 of those waiting outside the 40-mile zone.
The congestion at California's ports is “a bit of a mixed story," with bottlenecks still an issue amid some thawing.
“The situation on the ground is improving, but on the water it's not yet improving,” Sanne Manders, COO of Flexport, told Yahoo Finance Live last week. “The front end of the traffic jam starts driving, where the back end is still backing up.”
Separately, figures from Marine Exchange of Southern California show there were 113 container ships waiting inside the 40-mile zone as of Wednesday. And Flexport’s Ocean Timeliness Indicator (OTI), which measures from the point of production to the destination port, showed travel times hit a record high of 112 days last week — caused by longer times taken for ocean vessels shipping from Asia to Europe.
Trans-Pacific Eastbound, China-to-US routes, jumped to 106 days, based on the time taken to ship cargo to the Asian ports, Flexport found.
Meanwhile, there have been massive delays at ports like Savannah, Georgia to Newark, New Jersey — and in Britain, the Netherlands, and China, with roughly six hundred cargo ships globally left waiting to unload at one point last month.
Amid the delays, California port officials have postponed a plan to slap fines on abandoned containers that have become an eyesore for residents.
The “Container Dwell Fee” has helped expedite containers from the terminals across the port complex, but Cordero said officials will monitor the situation and reassess implementation as early as Monday. Since the October announcement of the new fee, the ports have seen a cumulative 47% decline in the amount of aging cargo on their docks.
“We are also evacuating empty containers from our terminals. Empty containers account for about 36% of all containers on the terminals – this is down from 45%, just a couple weeks ago,” Cordero said on Thursday. “We are not out of the woods yet, but we are making meaningful progress.”
==The fees came on the heels of the Biden Administration’s plan to establish around-the-clock operations at the L.A.-Long Beach hubs to ease pressure on the supply chain bottlenecks, but only one of seven container terminals at the port of LA has actually met the goal.
Meanwhile, individual major retail companies are taking measures into their own hands to bring products to the U.S. from overseas factories. Several retailers, including Walmart (WMT), The Home Depot (HD), and Target (TGT) and Ikea, have charted cargo ships to alleviate supply chain burdens on their own.
Big retailers might have “more clout” compared to “smaller” importers, Flexport's Manders told Yahoo Finance.
more
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/meaningful-progress-in-supply-chain-woes-but-ships-cargo-still-linger-as-holidays-loom-133411889.html
She's looking moar and moar like George Soros every day
Maria just gave a teaser before the break that suggests a Trump v HRC 2024 run.
O. M. G.
How disheartening.
They did. They'recontrollingthe MASS Gaslighting & Fear Porn in History.
AH FUCK
We're waiting for the 218 CONGRESS
2018 will be GLORIOUS.
Ok, who ordered the MANUFACTURED CLIMATE CHANGE FOR CHRISTMAS?
Atmospheric river could snarl travel in the West as Christmas approaches
An atmospheric river, or a plume of tropical moisture in the atmosphere, is expected to build into the western coast of the United States this week, bringing inordinate amounts of rain and snow to the drought-weary West, impacting travel as Christmas grows near.
Rain and snow have been slamming the Northwest this weekend, particularly around Portland and Pendleton, Oregon, where thick snowflakes were falling across portions of Clark, Multnomah and Clackamas counties on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Rain fell at Santiam Junction, as shown on highway cameras.
Flakes were sticking to cars and grass in Vancouver, Washington, but melted upon contact with roadways, while heavy snowfall was filmed in the Corbett area of Multnomah County, causing roads to become slick. Portland also recorded its first measurable snowfall of the season with 0.2 of an inch as of Sunday morning, before the city even fell below freezing.
Camp Bonneville, Washington, recorded 4 inches of snow as of early Sunday morning, with Camas, Washington, not too far behind with 2.8 inches of snow.
Earlier last week, the Southwest also had its fair share of precipitation as moisture moved onshore and brought over 3 inches of rain to San Francisco in one day on Dec. 13. Los Angeles International Airport reported over an inch of rain the following day, Dec. 14, while downtown received over 2 inches.
The storm track delivering this precipitation will continue to target the northern half of the West on Sunday as most of the Southwest will experience dry conditions, according to the AccuWeather long-range team.
Those looking to do some last-minute holiday shopping across California and Nevada should head out now as the weather remains dry. The same can be said for holiday travelers, as the weather this week looks to increase in storminess.
The opposite will be true across the Northwest as valley rain and mountain snow falls on Sunday, said forecasters. Rain is expected to continue in Portland and Eugene, Oregon, while snow is anticipated late in Great Falls and Bozeman, Montana. From there, the focus of rain and snow will begin to wobble and vary each day.
"Precipitation is expected to return northward into Washington and northern Oregon by Monday," said AccuWeather Meteorologist Ryan Adamson.
On Tuesday, the storm track is then forecast to shift southward, returning the focus of precipitation to the Southwest, but there can still be some lingering snow and rain in the coastal Northwest early in the week.
"The storm still spinning offshore will send another cold front toward the coast," explained Adamson.
more
https://www.yahoo.com/news/atmospheric-river-could-snarl-travel-111547334.html
>"This is normal with many other vaccines
"normal is not NECESSARY
Big difference.
They say we need shots.
They lie.
Panda-monium: Giant panda escaping his Beijing Zoo enclosure is bear-y cute
A panda recently went viral for escaping its enclosure at the Beijing Zoo.
The “Kung Fu Panda”: The 6-year-old panda named Meng Lan stunned visitors by climbing over a six-foot-tall metal fence on Dec. 15.
Posted before I was ready.
Extremely Spoopy.
Child Trafficking. PANDA symbolism Y
Panda-monium: Giant panda escaping his Beijing Zoo enclosure is bear-y cute
A panda recently went viral for escaping its enclosure at the Beijing Zoo.
The “Kung Fu Panda”: The 6-year-old panda named Meng Lan stunned visitors by climbing over a six-foot-tall metal fence on Dec. 15.
Visitors were reportedly told to keep their distance from the panda; however, this did not stop them from filming the panda’s escape.
According to the staff, Meng Lan is their “most mischievous panda” at the Beijing Zoo, noting his history of “naughty” behavior.
While the panda made it to the buffer zone, which separates his enclosure from the public area of the zoo visitors, he was lured back into the cage with the smell of his food.
The officials assured the panda’s enclosure would be modified to prevent similar incidents.
According to NDTV, Meng Lan was born in 2015 at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. He was moved to the Beijing Zoo two years later.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/panda-monium-giant-panda-escaping-224129728.html
>justice is coming
And who are the "witches" in todays tale?
The free thinkers? The Deplorables?
The ones who refused to be lead like sheep to the slaughter? The ones who see the Deflection for what it is, and CALL THEM OUT?
Y.
History repeats itself.