Obviously I think this is a necessary first step because the contract negotiation unfortunately broke off this weekend and doesn't seem likely to be restarted. We have to do something to reopen ports. The impact is going to get much worse over time.
People roll their eyes when you talk about short sea shipping on the West Coast. It just doesn't seem to fit.
Taft-Hartley is not a terribly effective tool. It's pretty much a lead pipe cinch that if there is an order to end this, we will not have the most productive reopening of the ports, ... That's why I was hoping there would be a negotiated settlement. But that's not going to happen.
No one is talking about handing over the ports to foreigners. That is what's so astonishing about this. We've always had foreign companies that leased land.
Mass retailers don't know much about order fulfillment on a one-time basis, ... Nothing turns a consumer off more than when you get sucked in, you want the product, and they don't have it. Brick-and-mortar retailers need to figure out these issues, and they're starting to.
I think that ultimately the Internet and the brick-and-mortars will be very synergistic, ... It is only a matter of time that Internet companies open stores. We have seen catalogers open stores, like J. Crew. The lines will blur and the Internet will just be one more store.
The fashion apparel will shift to air because their selling season is only six weeks, and then it goes to markdown. They can't afford to miss one day, ... But the price for the plane is going up, and space will evaporate very quickly as the Limited and Gap fill them up.
The cost of unrest could be enormously detrimental to the budding economic recovery.
You could order these guys back to work, but the question is what kind of productivity you're going to get out of those workers, ... Slowdowns can be almost more disruptive than flat-out work stoppages.
As long as they're extending the contract, I think that's a signal there will be no slowdown. Perhaps there will be a very long drawn out negotiating process that will give us a lot of gray hair.
