> A little off topic, but these ports don’t usually store so many empty crates, so why do we have them now? Are we not exporting at the same rate? Is that even what empty crates are used for? I’m assuming they aren’t sent back to (mostly?) China empty.
My understanding is that the us doesn't send all that much back to china, and that it was a problem for a while but wasn't the bottleneck until recently.
I'm surprised it isn't worth it at some level to send a boat load (literally) of empty containers back? I know not every ship will just do the round trip China<->LA but presumably at least some number of them would.
The same podcast included a story about an entrepeneur _trying_ to ship empty containers but none of the shipping lines would eliminate the part of the lading contract that says they own the containers when you're done with it.
Anyways, right now the bottleneck isn't shipping containers in China, that was an early pandemic logistics story.
It is worth it in the grand scheme of things but there appears to be no mechanism to charge all the benefitting parties. There is cost shifting going on that’s creating bottlenecks
My understanding is that the us doesn't send all that much back to china, and that it was a problem for a while but wasn't the bottleneck until recently.