The dock strike has started, threatening to cripple the economy; the Secretary of Commerce's response?

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'I Have Not Been Very Focused On That'

She’s probably been busy helping Pete Buttincheeks chestfeed his adopted daughters, but whatever she’s been up to, it hasn’t been the looming strike.

David Strom:

If the port strike drags on for a few days, it will be a huge problem. It will be a disaster for America's economy if it drags on for weeks. 

Yet our Commerce Secretary says she hasn't thought much about the impact. She is too focused on "extinguishing" Trump, I suppose, since two assassins have yet to do so. 

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The Teamsters are just demanding higher wages — that can be worked out —their real demand is the elimination of automation and modernization in our ports. We already have the worst, slowest ports in the developed world; the Teamsters want to bring us down to the level of, say, Sierra Leone. That demand is critical to preserving their featherbedding jobs, and, on the other side of the dispute, the need of shippers for lower costs and speed.

For decades, the union fought shippers’ efforts to introduce container shipping (vs break bulk shipping, which required the unpacking and reloading cargos by hand, resulting in delays that meant it took as long to unload a ship as it did to sail it from its origin port). They lost that battle, eventually, because the cost of loading a ship dropped from $5.86 a ton (1956 dollars) to $0.16. 95% of the longshoremen lost their jobs, but the expansion of shipping brought about by the lower costs created far more jobs than were lost.

That same battle is being fought now, and it’s likely to a long, drawn-out fight. The Harris/Biden handlers should be concerned, but apparently, they aren’t paying attention.

we dodged a bullet, apparently