Matt Stoller has a very interesting article about The World’s Most Profitable Traffic Jam in which he lays out the economic incentives that are causing big problems with the supply chain. The crux of the problem is a very complex intermodal system that gives large transocean shippers an incentive to slow things down once they hit the ports because they collect fees for congestion and don’t bear the costs.
We might actually get some real legislation out of Congress to help sort this problem out. It feels like a long time since Congress did more than “fighting among themselves over symbolic nonsense” and this isn’t a done deal yet, but it seems like this will actually get passed and signed into law and end up helping people.
Money quote about the state of politics from the article:
Politics isn’t, or shouldn’t, be the annoying way that people yell at each other over cultural symbols on Thanksgiving. The true politics of the American state is about the underlying guts of commerce. And today, the people who move, make, and distribute stuff - regardless of whether they are a Democrat or Republican - simply can’t afford to let the system clog up the way it has. Ideologically, the moment is ripe for a new way of thinking about the relationship of commerce and the state. It turns out, all of us need a functional government and a functional Congress. And finally, in at least this corner of the world, it sounds like we are getting one.
Let’s hope this concept of politics begins to prevail again.