Tag Archives: economics

How effective was aid to business during COVID-19?

Posted on June 9, 2022 by | 1 comment

This podcast moderated by David Wessel of Brookings is very informative. It’s an assessment of the success and failure of several programs of aid to businesses the US government put forth when COVID-19 started to dampen US business activity.

The level of financial support offered to businesses during the pandemic was unprecedented, and clearly kept the decline in consumption less serious than it was feared.

There has been a lot of criticism of these programs, some positive and some negative. It’s important to understand how the programs did work and how they did not. In the future we may be faced with other economic crises and we should know which features worked as intended and which did not, and why not.

It’s a good listen, and there is also a link to a transcript.

How effective was aid to business during COVID-19?

How effective was aid to business during COVID-19?

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Posted in Labor Economics, Logistics, Macroeconomics

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Carriers adopt ‘hardcore’ blank sailing strategy as export bookings plunge

Posted on April 26, 2022 by | Leave a comment

It appears that many of the ships waiting offshore in Shanghai are not waiting to unload, but to get new cargo. shipments out of China seem to be plummeting.

It’s leading to blanked or rescheduled sailings.

Perhaps the avalanche of post-COVID goods for the US and the EU has stopped. Perhaps we have enough inventory here and in Europe. If so, we should soon see the queues of waiting ships at US ports drop to more normal levels, and the same with Europe.

It’s getting to look more likely that a recession might appear in the US, and I think the same will happen in Europe. the Ukraine instability is bound to cause consumers to cut back and try to spend less and save more. In both places, that is likely to induce a recessionary trend. Consumer spending is a major part of economic activity in these countries.

R$at3es for container shipping from Asia to the US and Europe are still high. How long will it take for them to plunge down?

By Mike Wackett 25/04/2022

Carriers adopt ‘hardcore’ blank sailing strategy as export bookings plunge – The Loadstar

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Posted in Logistics, Shipping, Supply Chains

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First European-owned vessel recycled at yard in the US

Posted on April 26, 2022 by | 1 comment

Seatrade reports that a European-owned vessel is in the US for shipbreaking. International Shipbreaking Limited (ISL) has invested a lot in bringing shipbreaking yards up to international standards for compliance with shipbreaking rules.

It’s a great advance to have compliant yards available and ready to recycle ships.

The abuse of labor in third-world ship recycling facilities is well known. True, it’s not perceived there as abuse. But the absence of safety standards for ship recycling workers, and payment by piece work, encourages unsafe behavior, and also unsustainable behavior by shipowners. These should stop. The EU regulation is a good first move, and having a place to do it is valuable.

Perhaps the next step is to have complaint yards for recycling empty containers in importing nations. Since it’s more expensive to ship them back than to buy new ones in China, it makes sense to salvage the metal here and also do away with the storage problem.

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Marcus Hand | Apr 26, 2022

First European-owned vessel recycled at yard in the US

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Posted in Logistics, Shipping, Sustainability

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