If you think about the building of the country, most people lived near the coast because the easiest form of transportation was by boat. Eventually, the railway age came to the US and every community knew that it wanted a railway or it would not grow and likely stagnate. Railways were built and then for a hundred years consolidations happened. After WW II, the interstate highways were built and only profitable railways were operational. At the present time, what is both convenient, practical or cost effective, and reasonable has evolved and the supply system fit into the operations of trucks and railways.

In an article by Peter Eavis of the New York Times News Service, the collapse of the bridge in Baltimore has thrown the supply system in a loop. All ports to a degree in specialize and for the port of Baltimore, besides everything else under the sink, the port specialized in farm and construction machinery and autos. The port handled 1.3 million tons of farm and construction machinery and 850,000 cars and light trucks.

In the article, an example was the green John Deere tractor, normally it was shipped from a factory in Waterloo, Iowa and went to Baltimore to go around the world. At the present time, the alternative is the port of Brunswick, Georgia. Griff Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Georgia Ports Authority, noted while the business is good, the capacity is limited. In April, the port handled 17,000 more vehicles than the normal 70,000 in a month. (if you ever been around a car manufacturing plant, cars and trucks take up a lot of space).

In the trucking industry, they are struggling to get drivers and loads to where they need to go on time and not lose money. Akram Ayyad of 410 Transport said he has to go to the Port of New York and New Jersey, which means his customers have to pay more for freight.

Beth Rooney, a director of the New York Port Authority reached out to the Baltimore people and now they are handling 2/3 of Baltimore’s container business and 1/3 of the auto cargo.

Before the bridge collapsed, Kathleen Kropp’s trucking business, Triple H Trucking with 15 trucks moved containers from the port to York, Pa about a 95 mile trip. Now the trucks must go from Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia to pick up the containers and then to York before returning to Baltimore. The customers pay more, the drivers earn less because they make fewer runs each week. For some companies do more in overtime, but how long do people wish to do overtime? It has taken a month before the ship was moved, but the bridge will take longer.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the infrastructure is built and it is very hard to move it so supply chains are built around the infrastructure. Similar to the Port of Balitmore, it is always possible to find alternatives for a short time, but costs and people will dictate what will happen in the future. For your investments, what are the alternatives for the supply chains?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.