There was an additional matter I wanted to point out. The supply chain bottleneck seems to have changed. At the beginning of the year the bottleneck was largely in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Hundreds of ships were backed up in harbor or out at sea, waiting to be unloaded, their contents shipped by truck and train all over the United States.
Now there are only a handful of ships waiting in port in those ports. It’s not entirely clear to me what the nature of the bottleneck is today but, judging by the hundreds of ships waiting in China’s harbors or out at sea, waiting to enter China’s harbors, today’s bottleneck is China. I don’t know what the underlying problem is. It could be China’s recurring COVID-19 lockdowns. It could be a deliberate slowdown. I doubt that the Chinese harbors don’t have the ability to load and unload ships fast enough.
I have long believed that we were too dependent on China for strategic goods. An example of that emerged recently in which key components for a U. S. military jet were delayed because the metal used in manufacturing them was obtained from China. I don’t know about you but I find that confidence-shaking.
Now it appears that excessive dependence is not limited to strategic goods.
