Just-In-Time Systems Are Bunching Up
Backlogs are popping up at the entry/exit nodes.
And for the first time, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Nissan have each asked to lease space from the port for these orphan vehicles. They are turning dozens of acres of the nation’s second-largest container port into a parking lot, creating a vivid picture of a paralyzed auto business and an economy in peril.
But the inventory glut in Long Beach is not limited to imported cars. There has also been a sharp drop in demand for the port’s single largest export: recycled cardboard and paper products.
This material typically goes to China, where it is used to make boxes for new electronics and other products that are sent back to the United States. But Chinese factories reacting to sharply falling demand are slowing production, so they need less cardboard. Tons of paper are piling up recycling businesses around the port, the detritus of economies on hold.
Graphic: Tracking Urban Sprawl
Dynamic map. Plug in any city in the United States and watch it grow over over time.
NOTE: Watch how Bolinas, CA hard limits growth by not allowing any additional water meters past November 1971.
China Collapsing
Good rundown of what’s going on in-country.
Now, that bargain is breaking down. Exports constitute nearly 40 percent of China’s GDP–far too high a figure. (By comparison, in the U.S., exports account for about 10 percent of GDP most years.) And the global financial slowdown is already taking a terrible toll. Some 10,000 factories in southern China’s Pearl River Delta area had closed by the summer of 2008. Gordon Chang, a leading China analyst, estimates that 20,000 more will shutter by the end of this year. In the third quarter of 2008, Beijing also reported its fifth consecutive quarterly drop in growth, and several private research firms expect a sharper slowdown next year. Additionally, unemployment is skyrocketing; in Wenzhou, one of the main exporting cities, about 20 percent of workers have lost their jobs, Reuters recently reported.
SNEAKEY: Teleduplication via Optical Decoding
Here’s an interesting bit of technology. Essentially take a picture from very long distances and convert the optical data to breaking analog security systems. Copying keys from close or afar. 2-10 megapixel cameras were used. Here’s the full paper.
Fracturing or Strategy?
In modern warfare, a shift in tactics is more likely to be an indicator of splintering than it is a sign that a strategic shift is taking place across the full organization.
To whit, the spike in violence in Peshawar may not be a Taliban invasion, but may be market dynamics defining the conflict instead of strategists. The fact that the violence has mostly consisted of assassinations confirms this trend.