![]() ![]() The system could not adjust, leaving containers in the wrong places, and pushing shipping prices to extraordinary heights. But that doesn’t reflect how the year unfolded - with a plunge of more than 12 percent in April and May, followed by an equally dramatic reversal. Viewed broadly, the volume of global trade dipped by only 1 percent in 2020 compared with the previous year. “All of the stuff that’s been growing has been basically pandemic induced,” said Alan Murphy, the research group’s founder. Disinfectants increased by more than 6,800 percent. Shipments of stoves, ranges and cooking equipment nearly doubled in that span. They outfitted their homes for remote work and distance learning.Įxercise equipment shipped by container from Asia to North America more than doubled between September and November, compared with the same period a year earlier, according to analysis by Sea-Intelligence, a Copenhagen-based research company. Deprived of vacations and restaurant meals, they bought video game consoles and pastry mixers. Pressure built as Americans refashioned their spending. Higher costs for transporting American grain and soybeans across the Pacific threaten to increase food prices in Asia. The ships, the trucks, the warehouses.”Įconomies around the globe are absorbing the ripple effects of the disruption on the seas. “All the links in the supply chain are stretched. Moller-Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Lars Mikael Jensen, head of Global Ocean Network at A.P. Every container that cannot be unloaded in one place is a container that cannot be loaded somewhere else. The pandemic and its restrictions have limited the availability of dockworkers and truck drivers, causing delays in handling cargo from Southern California to Singapore. According to Gun Facts, 42 states are either “right-to-carry”-where anyone without a criminal record will be issued a permit after receiving training-or require no permit at all.Containers that carried millions of masks to countries in Africa and South America early in the pandemic remain there, empty and uncollected, because shipping carriers have concentrated their vessels on their most popular routes - those linking North America and Europe to Asia.Īnd at ports where ships do call, bearing goods to unload, they are frequently stuck for days in floating traffic jams. Like many sheriff’s offices across the country, Fisher’s department has seen an increase in demand for conceal-carry permits over the last year. “The question for law enforcement is how do we support law-abiding citizens while working to keep guns out of the hands of criminals who, by definition, don’t obey laws anyway.” “Guns are here to stay and they’re part of our culture and constitution,” says Colorado’s Elbert County Undersheriff Dave Fisher. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly 75 times the size of the Chinese Army, the largest standing force in the world. There are roughly 150 million gun owners in America and, according to Gallup, 42 percent of American households reported owning firearms. Go to almost any range in America right now and it’ll be busy.” ![]() “Couple that with recent civil unrest across the country and people want to ensure their own safety. “We’ve seen record sales since the pandemic hit,” says Cody Osborn of Walther Firearms, the company famous for producing the handguns preferred by Ian Fleming’s James Bond character. According to a report by the Small Arms Survey, there are nearly 400 million guns in private ownership in the United States, nearly half of the global total. That’s on top of what is already the most heavily armed nation in the world. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, there were more than 2.5 million new gun owners in the first half of 2020, an unprecedented surge.
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