U.S. Ports and Rooting for the Robots

U.S. Ports and Rooting for the Robots. www.watchdogonwallstreet.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah, US ports and rooting for the robots, yep, I'm
rooting for the robots. You're usually rooting against robots in
movies more often than not. I am a terminator two
you know, Arnold came back as you know, a good
terminator anyway, More often not, you're rooting against the robots.
I'm rooting for the robots when it comes to this

(00:36):
port stuff. So they came up with a tentative agreement
to return to work sixty two pay raise over six years,
needs to be finalized in December. However, it's not over.
The union has demands right now that it wants to
project protect their jobs forever forever. They want to ban

(01:04):
any and all automation at American ports. We want ironclad language.
This is Harold Daggitt, and we want the intent of
that language in writing. Bottom line, the ISLA does not
support any kind of automation, including semi automation. So basically
no technology whatsoever. Who the hell did these people think

(01:30):
that they are Again, I'm sorry, I've watched the picket lines. Okay,
it was a mass amount of fat people that were
standing around with signs for crying out loud. You can
be replaced very easily for crying out loud. Give me
a break to train a damn monkey to do your job.
And you know it. And you're demanding no technological advances

(01:54):
for crying out loud. Oh no, no, God forbid. We
have safer cranes marta crane's stuff that's more efficient. Again,
go online and watch a YouTube video of a Chinese port.
You're kicking our ass for crying out loud. They want
higher and pay with no productivity gains. That is unsustainable,

(02:21):
unsustainable in a competitive global market. We might as well
turn ourselves into the Soviet Frickin' Union if that's what
you want. Might as well the same concept. Everybody gets
to get a job, no matter what blooney anyway. The

(02:42):
World Bank Global Port Ranking shows what this means in practice.
From Wall Street Journal Today, The Container Port Performance Index
twenty twenty three ranks ports by the amount of time
a ship spends in port, not a single American port
crap cracks the top fifty top rank. Charleston, South Carolina
comes in at fifty three. Yang Shan in China is

(03:05):
number one, and China is investing in ports throughout Latin America.
We mentioned this last week on the program. In the
nineteen sixties, the container revolution marked a shift from stuff
and cargo inside the holds of a ship to putting
cargo inside steel containers. Containers reduce a number of dock

(03:26):
workers needed, and the ranks of Longshorreman declined as it
was adopted. Today, other nations are automating faster than the
United States. That means every becoming cheaper and more productive. Again,
you want jobs to come here to the United States.
Making the ports more efficient most certainly will help. Again,

(03:49):
then this happened in the UK with the British miners
and textile workers. That was about one hundred years prior. Again,
you could try to push back on the technological advances,
but you're going to fail into reality as we lose.
As a country watchdog on Wall Street dot Com,