As if there were not enough things wrong with the US economy, as early as next Monday a new threat could emerge: a national rail strike.
The deadline for President Joe Biden to intervene and keep 115,000 railroad workers from going on strike and disrupting deliveries of cars, crops, containers of imported goods and countless other products and raw materials is looming.
Biden is widely expected to name a board of arbitrators to review the contract dispute and make recommendations on how to settle it before Monday’s deadline. Once he does that, any strike or lockout will be delayed 60 days under the federal law that governs railroad contract talks.
Railroad employees have been working without a raise since before the pandemic, yet the unions and the railroads have yet to come to terms on a new contract.
Just how important are the railroads to the nation’s economy? We may soon find out.
Is it just me or isn't funny how, while the pandemic issue seem to be going away, everything else seems to be falling apart? Doesn't all this seem a little to convenient? I'm not a big believer in conspiracy theories, but there seems to be something going on here. Joe Biden is clearly out of it and a just a puppet, but somebody is doing something or have all of these people reached their level of incompetence at the same time?
It's not just you. However, I think we have to bear in mind that the Pandemic Panic catalyzed an unprecedented shutdown of economic activity literally around the world. While there have been global economic contractions and setbacks before (1872, 1929, and 2008 most notably), 2020 is the first time in all of human history when the leading economies of the world simply chose to stop working. The world quite literally shut down--and by choice, not by circumstance.
Unfortunately, much of the global economy has become "optimized" to work when complex and highly integrated supply chains that extend from one country into the next are operating smoothly and efficiently. There was (and arguably still is) no capacity within most nations for absorbing external supply shocks .
The global lockdowns (what I call the lunatic lockdowns for obvious reasons) were the economic equivalent of racing your car down the highway at high speed and then throwing it into reverse. One does not need to be a mechanic to realize that doing so is not likely to end well for the car!
So yes, now that the pandemic "crisis" (to the extent that it ever was truly a pandemic and truly a crisis) is receding, everything else is falling apart. The world's economic machinery has had more than a few gears pretty much shredded by the abrupt (and useless) stoppages.
Politically, societally, and economically, the global maladaptive response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus has triggered a series of chain reactions which are even now just beginning to work their way through just about everything.
I would say that the world's leaders did reach their level of incompetence at the same time--but back in 2020, when they all decided that destroying society was the best way to save society (spoiler alert: it isn't).
Is it just me or isn't funny how, while the pandemic issue seem to be going away, everything else seems to be falling apart? Doesn't all this seem a little to convenient? I'm not a big believer in conspiracy theories, but there seems to be something going on here. Joe Biden is clearly out of it and a just a puppet, but somebody is doing something or have all of these people reached their level of incompetence at the same time?
It's not just you. However, I think we have to bear in mind that the Pandemic Panic catalyzed an unprecedented shutdown of economic activity literally around the world. While there have been global economic contractions and setbacks before (1872, 1929, and 2008 most notably), 2020 is the first time in all of human history when the leading economies of the world simply chose to stop working. The world quite literally shut down--and by choice, not by circumstance.
Unfortunately, much of the global economy has become "optimized" to work when complex and highly integrated supply chains that extend from one country into the next are operating smoothly and efficiently. There was (and arguably still is) no capacity within most nations for absorbing external supply shocks .
The global lockdowns (what I call the lunatic lockdowns for obvious reasons) were the economic equivalent of racing your car down the highway at high speed and then throwing it into reverse. One does not need to be a mechanic to realize that doing so is not likely to end well for the car!
So yes, now that the pandemic "crisis" (to the extent that it ever was truly a pandemic and truly a crisis) is receding, everything else is falling apart. The world's economic machinery has had more than a few gears pretty much shredded by the abrupt (and useless) stoppages.
Politically, societally, and economically, the global maladaptive response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus has triggered a series of chain reactions which are even now just beginning to work their way through just about everything.
I would say that the world's leaders did reach their level of incompetence at the same time--but back in 2020, when they all decided that destroying society was the best way to save society (spoiler alert: it isn't).
https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/destroying-society-is-no-way-to-save
Are we going back to horses or donkeys... and they said progress was a good thing 😬😆
Some days you gotta wonder.....