Panic At Sea: 1.5 Million Containers Get Stuck Off Coast Of California As Shipping Crisis Aggravates

Extreme port congestion is causing serious systemic failures across the entire U.S. supply chain as the global shipping crisis continues to get worse. Industry executives are warning that the unprecedented backlog of containers won’t go away this year, and it could become one of the biggest problems of 2022. According to Goldman Sachs, “backlogs and elevated shipping costs are likely to persist at least through the middle of next year“. “No immediate solution for the underlying supply-demand imbalances at US ports is available,“ the bank’s economists concluded in the latest research report. That means more headaches are coming for the economy and American consumers because supply chain bottlenecks are pushing prices up, delaying shipments and deliveries, and leaving shoppers with limited options. Over the past year, consumer prices have risen at the fastest pace since 2008. Overall inflation jumped nearly 6 percent, according to official numbers, but non-official figures point to a spike of roughly 14 percent