America Faces No Greater Threat Than Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Their Assault to Our Borders Is As Great As Their Assault to Free Speech and Free Elections
Tuesday, October 12, 2021
NAFTA JOE BIDEN - FOLKS, WE CAN'T BE WORRIED ABOUT MY SUPPLY CHAIN CRISIS! - WE'VE GOT MILLIONS OF ILLEGALS TO SCATTER AROUND THE U.S. BEFORE FOLKS CATCH ON TO THEIR NEW NEIGHBORS
looming recession for the rich and depression for the rest of us
President Joe Biden is still struggling to meet the immediate challenge of clogged sea ports, as American consumers face major shortages ahead of the Christmas holiday season.
The president has been aware of the problems for months, promising in August to monitor the situation and offer solutions.
“My administration is bringing together the port operators, shipping lines, the labor unions, trucking companies, railroads, and others to speed up the port’s operations,” Biden said on August 11.
He reassured Americans “these bottlenecks and price spikes will reduce as our economy continues to heal” and promised to monitor the situation.
Biden appointed John D. Porcari to as a “Port Envoy” for the administration on August 21, joining Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to try and solve the shipping problems.
Container ships are anchored by Long Beach and Los Angeles as they wait to offload in clogged ports on September 20, 2021 near Los Angeles, California. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
But two months later, port delays continue.
There are 146 cargo ships off the California coast waiting to get unloaded, according to reports over the weekend.
During an interview with MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Thursday, Buttigieg struggled to offer any reassurance that the Biden administration was making progress as the problem continued to worsen.
“Obviously it’s an incredibly complicated situation,” Buttigieg admitted, posing that the government was handling the problem by holding video conference “roundtables” of private companies, port operators, and labor unions to discuss the problems.
He argued his department was making short term gains, but warned Americans that it was a long term problem.
“Some of these things have been years and years in the making,” he said.
Buttigieg cited concerns about the number of available truck drivers, but said he was working with the Department of Labor to create more apprenticeships.
A cargo ship filled with containers waits offshore for entry to the Port of Los Angeles on October 6, 2021 in Los Angeles, California as supply chain disruptions continue to affect the US economy. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
“We’re going to continue to see a lot of challenges, he admitted. “Not just going into the next year or two, but going into the long term.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki also struggled to demonstrate progress on the issue during the daily press briefing on Friday.
“The President recognizes that there are several, several layers of the challenge here that contribute to the bottleneck,” she said.
Psaki argued that Biden’s appointment of a port “envoy” was proof the administration was handling the crisis.
“The fact that he designated and — and appointed someone at that level with a range of vast experience shows that this is a part of the issue we’re absolutely focused on,” she said.
Report: Home Depot Joins Companies Chartering Private Ships to Circumvent Supply Chain Crisis
Home Depot on Tuesday is reportedly joining other large companies chartering private ships to circumvent the supply chain crisis.
Walmart, Costco, Target, and Ikea have already hired private vessels to ship goods to smaller ports to avoid the backlog at ports reportedly fueled by a lack of truck drivers, Business Insider reported.
Vice President of transportation at Home Depot, Sarah Galica, told the Wall Street Journal October 10 that such an idea of private shipping started as a joke.
Empty shelves for N95 masks are seen at a Home Depot store in Alhambra, California, on February 4, 2020. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
“It was almost started I think as a joke,” Galica said. “Let’s just charter a ship.”
While the large chartered vessels only contribute a small amount of Home Depot’s imported goods, Galica told the Journal the method helps the company maintain flexibility to keep certain items in stock. Those items include “plumbing supplies, power tools, holiday decorations, and heaters.”
“Using small boxships for transoceanic point-to-point sailings is something we’ve never seen before,” an Athens-based Capital Maritime Group chairman, Evangelos Marinakis, told the Journal.
Business Insider reports the chartered vessels are not as large as the typical container ships, “For comparison, they move an average of about 1,000 containers, as compared to typical vessels that haul as much as 22,000 20-foot containers.”
Containers stacked high are seen at the Port of Los Angeles on September 28, 2021, in Los Angeles, California. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
But the smaller ships are not less expensive. Chartering a private ship that can carry 3,000 twenty-foot containers can cost $40,000 per day on average, “a rate which can add up to be even higher than record rates of over $20,000 to ship a 20-foot container from Asia to the US,” according to Business Insider.
The ability of large companies to hire private charters is a huge advantage for the companies, as smaller businesses are unable to compete with large-scale private transit.
Douglas Kent with the Association for Supply Chain Management told Business Insider big companies always win when the supply chain is in crisis.
“Whenever we have a constrained supply like this it’s always the big dogs that win,” Kent said. “The smaller businesses just don’t have the capital to keep up. They’re already in survival mode.”
“They’re going to have to pass these costs on to customers and risk losing out to big-box retailers that can absorb the costs themselves,” Kent added. “As a result, we will likely see the shuttering of more companies due to these ongoing issues.”
In an aerial view, container ships are anchored by the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles as they wait to offload on September 20, 2021, near Los Angeles, California. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
The New York Timesreported Sunday the supply chain crisis has expanded to ports. For instance, 8,000 shipping containers are stuck at the Port of Savannah – a full 50 percent more than normal. The New York Postreported October 7 there were “70 cargo ships waiting to dock at the Port of Los Angeles,” but the Los Angeles port is already full of containers waiting for drivers to pick up the freight.
Trucking companies are also reportedly struggling to find truck drivers to ease port backlogs. Old Dominion Freight Line will reportedly hire any driver with or without experience, KHQ NBC reported over the weekend. The need is so large, Old Dominion held a job fair Saturday to “hire 10 line drivers who can haul several trailers across the state” while offering to train anyone who wishes to earn a commercial driver’s license.
The truck driver shortage has about 13 percent of the “world’s cargo shipping capacity tied up by delays,” the Timesreported.
But even if there were enough truck drivers, there is a shortage of warehouse space to put the freight. According to real estate company Cushman & Wakefield, warehouses are filling up and have scarce availability. Prices for the warehouse spaces are also at an all-time high.
Workers view a conveyor belt system that is under construction at an Amazon fulfillment center on August 10, 2017, in Sacramento, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
As a result, the supply chain crisis is increasing prices for consumers. In August, inflation rose 5.3 percent compared to 2020. A Moody’s economist told the Post Friday that inflation is costing American workers and families an additional $175 a month.
“For households earning the US median annual income of about $70,000, the current inflation rate has forced them to spend another $175 a month on food, fuel and housing,” the Post reported on Mark Zandi’s findings. Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø
CNN on Supply Chain Crisis: Consumers Can’t Expect to Shop Like Pre-Pandemic ‘Before Times’
President Joe Biden and his Departments of Commerce, Labor, and Transportation have failed to solve a supply chain crisis causing the backup of supplies at U.S. ports and cross country transportation as the left-wing media lays the blame solely on the coronavirus.
A CNN report said consumers can’t expect to shop like they did in the “Before Times” and highlighted manufacturers warning of limited food supplies:
If you hoped grocery stores this fall and winter would look like they did in the Before Times, with limitless options stretching out before you in the snack, drink, candy and frozen foods aisles, get ready for some disappointing news.
Many of the country’s biggest food makers are telling grocers that they will have limited quantities of a number of their products, including items such as Rice Krispies Treats, Sour Patch Kids, some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavors, McCormick gourmet spices and Marie Callender’s pot pies because of labor, commodity and transportation constraints throttling supply chains, according to emails viewed by CNN and interviews with grocers. Some suppliers are also telling grocers to cancel their promotions of these items and more over the holidays so products won’t disappear from store shelves as quickly.
Purchase limits from manufacturers were rare before the pandemic and are creating “lesser than full conditions” for customers in Morton Williams stores, said Steve Schwartz, director of sales at the New York area chain. Morton Williams is trying to tap secondary suppliers when its primary vendors for food and household essentials can’t fulfill orders.
“It’s not your ideal situation,” Schwartz said. [Customers] “just want to know why they can’t get their item.”
CNN reported Costco and Sam’s Club and other grocery outlets will once again limit customer purchases.
And data from a supply tracking company shows that 18 percent of beverages, 15 percent of frozen foods, 16 percent of snacks, 15 percent of candy and 18 percent of bakery items were out of stock at stores during the week ending on October 3, according to IRI.
Follow Penny Starr on Twitter or send news tips to pstarr@breitbart.com.
AMERICANS ARE ABOUT TO GET HAMMERED, DEBT HEAVY POPULATION, PRICES RISING, ENERGY, UTILITIES, FOOD
In response to another disastrous jobs report, President Joe Biden sought to present the payroll numbers, which were below even the anemic totals for August, as indicators of steady progress toward economic recovery.
President Joe Biden speaks in the State Dining Room at the White House, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021, in Washington [Credit: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik]
Nonfarm payrolls in the US grew by a seasonally adjusted 194,000, down from 235,000 in August and far below the 500,000 jobs widely predicted by economists. The slack hiring came despite desperate attempts by the ruling class to “normalize” the pandemic by ending federal support for unemployed workers, including self-employed workers, and reopening the schools to enable parents to return to work.
Biden attributed the slower than expected hiring to the impact of the Delta variant, as though the horrific spread of the disease, which is killing close to 2,000 people every day across the US, was an entirely external event, unconnected to the homicidal reopening policy and abandonment of mitigation measures pursued by his administration since taking office.
He then tried to take credit for the recent modest fall in the number of COVID-19 cases and recent rises in wages, without mentioning the rising death toll or the sharp increase in the cost of living.
While the official unemployment rate fell to 4.8 percent in September, down from 5.2 percent in August, a more significant measure, the labor force participation rate, showed a slight decline from August. Significantly, this includes workers of prime working years, defined as 25 to 54 years old.
The leisure and hospitality sector, which had been a major driver of job growth since February, added only 74,000 jobs in September after an increase of just 38,000 in August. This is despite the fact that average hourly wages for restaurant workers now surpass $15 for the first time, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Average hourly wages for leisure and hospitality workers rose to $18.95 in September, up 10 cents from August.
The number of manufacturing jobs increased by just 26,000, down from 31,000 in August. Overall, the number of manufacturing jobs is down by 353,000 since February 2020, reflecting both the shortage of workers and global supply chain disruptions.
The August jobs report came as a shock to financial markets, which had counted on a resurgence of hiring to boost profits and underpin the massive debt bubble. The poor hiring numbers served only to intensify the drive by the ruling class to end any pandemic mitigation measures and drive workers back into the schools and factories.
To the horror of the corporate-financial oligarchy, not only are workers still refusing to accept low-wage jobs under unsafe conditions, a surge of workers’ struggles has broken out across the US, as workers reject miserable contract terms that employers and unions are trying to shove down their throats. Thousands of workers are already on strike, including 1,400 workers at Kellogg’s, Warrior Met miners in Alabama, and nurses in Massachusetts and Buffalo, New York. Tens of thousands more have taken or are taking strike votes, including 60,000 television and movie production workers and 24,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses in Northern California.
In contrast to the president’s sanguine talk, the financial press reacted with alarm to the September jobs figures. The New York Times wrote: “The combination of stagnant labor force participation and rising wages creates an alarming picture for economists and investors, one in which costs are increasing as the outlook for growth is increasingly grim. With fewer people working and earning paychecks, the economy can produce less over time. And as employers must pay more to attract workers, they may have to increase prices to cover their rising costs, feeding into high inflation.”
The herd immunity policy of the Biden administration and all sections of the US ruling class has had the inevitable consequence of driving up the rate of infection and death, including among the most vulnerable layer of the population—children. According to one report, there were over 2,000 school closings due to COVID-19 across 470 school districts in 39 states through the middle of September, a number that has only increased since. State of Michigan health officials report that last week an average of 375 children under age 12 contracted the virus every day.
Despite the best efforts of the corporate media propagandists to present the pandemic as virtually over, the reality of widespread infection and death is generating continuing hostility and resistance to a return to unsafe workplaces. Compounding the difficulties faced by the ruling class in reopening factories are far-ranging disruptions to the global supply chain related to the pandemic, from the lack of computer microchips to the scores of ships sitting outside the port of Los Angeles, unable to unload.
Reports indicate the pandemic is the main reason that employers are having a hard time recruiting workers, both because workers are afraid of contracting COVID-19 and because of difficulties in securing childcare. According to US Labor Department figures, there were nearly 11 million unfilled jobs at the end of July, the highest on record and more than the number of unemployed workers seeking jobs. Total US employment is still down roughly five million jobs compared with February 2020. Some 2.7 million workers have been out of work for six months or longer.
The stock markets were mixed in response to the jobs report, ending a highly volatile week that saw large swings. The fear is that rising inflation may force the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates despite stagnant job growth, potentially destabilizing the financial house of cards created by the endless pumping of government cash into the markets.
The signs of economic dislocation caused by the pandemic belie the empty-headed talk by the Biden administration of an economic recovery. They also refute the rationale for ending pandemic-related assistance programs and the moratorium on evictions. As inadequate as these measures were, including expanded and extended unemployment benefits and a $300 weekly supplement, they were all that were keeping many families above water.
Trying to change the subject from the jobs report, Biden boasted of the “progress” being made on his social welfare and climate bill. He noted the dismal state of infrastructure in the US as well as indices of social distress, such as lack of access to early childhood education. However, he failed to mention that his administration had capitulated to right-wing forces by massively scaling back the already inadequate $3.5 trillion measure ostensibly aimed at addressing these ills.
Biden’s pitching of his budget and infrastructure bills was couched in stridently nationalist terms, directed largely against China. “These bills are not about left versus right, or modern [moderate] versus progressive, or anything else that pits Americans against one another,” he said. “These bills are about competitiveness versus complacency.”
As workers have learned through bitter experience, “competitiveness” is a catch-word for the sweating of ever greater levels of production out of workers and the evisceration of social benefits.
Every concessions contract rammed through by the unions has been defended on the grounds of the need for greater “competitiveness.”
The jobs report is a further sign of the deepening crisis of US and world capitalism. The Biden administration and the US ruling class have no response except to deepen their attacks on the working class while they step up their plans for confrontation with their overseas competitors, in the first place China.
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