Two years ago, a 40-foot container cost less than $2,000 to transport goods from Asia to the U.S:
Today the service fetches as much as $25,000 if an importer pays a premium for on-time delivery, which is a luxury. That’s translated into big money for container carriers, with the industry on track to post $100 billion in net profit this year, up from about $15 billion in 2020, says John McCown, an industry veteran and founder of Blue Alpha Capital.
On a related note, oil, gas, and coal companies are reaping huge profits from the current shortages, but they are not reinvesting in new production. They are paying down debt and accumulating cash.
How exactly does one reap huge profits from shortages? Doesn’t a shortage mean you don’t have enough merchandise to sell?
Unless it’s a fake shortage…
It would be impossible for US and European oil, gas, and coal producers to get permits to expand production anyways, so of course they are happy to see prices rise and will sell the same amount of product for additional profit.
Looking at the recent German elections it is time to trot out the Mencken quote: Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.