[weyland108]

“ The Flexport CEO may know more, but the Flexport CEO also has an agenda of being profitable for the Flexport CEO”

These are all for profit companies. It’s a bit utopian to suggest anything else would be better without providing any specific alternatives.

[bsder]

If you want me to believe that "profit motive" is aligned with "public interest", why is everybody running to the regulators to clear this instead of spending money?

It's a bit disingenuous to suggest that "profit motive" is aligned with "public interest" in the face of all the current evidence we have in other sectors that is quite to the contrary.

To start, it is not at all clear that super low cost, super low friction shipping from China is, in fact, in the general US public interest. But it is in the interest of WalMart. And it is in the interest of Amazon.

For example, from the standpoint of the public interest, consuming fewer Christmas goods (which are mostly disposable garbage and which is what the Asian shippers are all rushing to get transported) is probably preferable. A great deal of Asian garbage which is destined to be US garbage is currently clogging out the shipping of goods which have a steady demand and are far more necessary to the functioning of the economy.

You will note that "increased foreign shipping friction causing goods to be manufactured locally again" is not on the discussion table because it is not part of an agenda that people in the shipping industry wish to countenance.

[weyland108]

I never suggested profit motive was good for public interest. Your argument in fact suggests that profit motive is never good for public interest without suggesting any good alternatives either. It’s easy to make an argument that everything should be produced locally… what happens when there are no trucks or truckers to ship it from one state to another ? Should each state be responsible to produce everything locally….should each county be then responsible to produce everything locally ….at what point does it stop ? The point about “let’s just consume fewer goods” sounds pretty utopian to me. That’s not a plan it’s a hope and hope is not a plan.

[marderfarker2]

Ironically the US the largest exporter of unrecyclable garbage to Asia.