Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about the ports, jobs, products, and Trump.

The San Pedro Bayport complex, that's LA and Long Beach, is the busiest seaport in the Western

Hemisphere. About 40% of all containerized imports to the

United States pass through the port. It doesn't matter where you live in the contiguous U.S.

Something in your local store came through that port. The port has been pretty busy, but now it's

dropped. Port officials say about a third of the traffic

has stopped. The burst of activity since Trump was elected and all of those imports that were shown

in last quarter's GDP were U.S. companies getting ahead of the tariffs. They were pulling in as much

inventory as they could could as quickly as they

could before Trump's tariff tantrum destabilized the economy. Experts say they pulled in enough

inventory to last a month and a half, maybe two. But inventories aren't the only worry. Before you see less products, there are other lesses that will be apparent. See, less ships means less containers. Less containers means less over-the-road truck and rail shipments. That means less over-the-road truck and rail jobs.

Less truck and rail shipments means less boxes in the warehouse.

That means less warehouse jobs.

Less boxes in the warehouse means less local truck jobs to get them to retailers or destination points to be turned into finished products or used. That means less

local truck jobs. From here it gets a bit fuzzy. This is where you get less products on the

shelves and maybe it means less retail jobs or maybe it means people will pay more for substitute

products. Inflation will go up and other bad things.

But paying more does mean the retail jobs are safer for the time being. See, the production

capacity in the factories doesn't exist yet, so many of the products literally can't be made here.

Once the higher priced alternatives are gone, we don't really know what's happening at that point. Most of the items disappearing

first are non-essential inexpensive things with low profit margins, plastic cups, soaps and so on.

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