Trade Deficit, Part 2

Dry bulk freight costs at record high
Asian countries, which export textiles and electronic goods, might obtain containers at discount rates as many of the vessels return empty from US, Canadian and Australian ports and could be filled with agricultural commodities.

Surely we aren't going to start shipping billions of hungry people our food. That's just crazy talk.

The International Grain Council, the industry body, last week said several important grain routes, notably from the US to Asia, had double the transit volume in the past year, contributing to rising dry bulk carrier freight costs.

Oh, I stand corrected. I wasn't all that hungry anyway.

Shippers chart polar bypass for clogged global trade routes
A combination of global warming melting the ice and new shipping technology means polar shipping routes will open up in the next few years, drastically reducing the time it takes for container traffic to travel from Asia's booming manufacturing centres to the west's consumer markets.

Wow, where do I start with that one? I don't want to get sucked into the global warming debate. Maybe I'll just whistle a happy tune and forget I read that.

The emergence of a northern passage across the Arctic connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans could not be happening at a more propitious time as far as global trade routes are concerned. It is estimated that 90 per cent of all the goods in the world, measured in tonnes, are transported by sea, and rapid global economic growth, fuelled by China and India, means existing routes are becoming clogged.

The oceans are becoming clogged? Just how many big screen televisions are we buying? Don't answer that.