The Port of Milwaukee (on the Great Lakes) which usually does a fair amount of shipping of grain, coal, cement, and a small amount of containers, seems less busy than last year or the year before. Granted, last year was a banner year for the Port, as high fuel prices apparently diverted a lot of truck shipping, and a huge local order of wind turbines came through in '07, but this year it seems awfully quiet when I drive over it on I-794.

Still seems to get lots of Canadian flagged ships bringing in rock salt, so when it snows at least the streets won't shut down.

Posted by: foilhatgrrl | Nov 25 2008 20:06 utc | 1

That's kind of wierd about Unifeeder, they share their Copenhagen office at Harbour House with my former (before I retired) employer, Clipper Group -- Clipper concentrates on dry bulk and has a large commitment with transport in the Far East, so they may be hurting in the coming time. Also, they have a ship "docked" at Puntaland, waiting on negotiations with her pirate captors.

More concrete, the Danish gov't had just come with a plan to slash taxes by $10 billion -- unfortunately, two weeks later it seems that the state budget, instead of being in the black by that amount, will be in the red by some $12 billion. In this case, it is the (North Sea) oil profits which have dimmed down -- that, and the fact that the economy will have grown by 0% by the end of the year.

Other than that, I repeat my observation that there still are a number of commodities, not staples, which have a sign in the supermarket saying that they are unable to get deliveries -- a small thing, true, but so is a canary.

Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Nov 25 2008 20:29 utc | 2

I've noticed the bulk food section of my local grocery co-op no longer carries pasta. I asked why and the store manager said they lost their supplier on short notice, and are discontinuing bulk pasta altogether, until further notice, when they can find a new supplier. It's a pretty good sized store - three small supermarkets across the city, and so I find that worrisome. That strikes me as a canary-in-the-coal-mine indicator, perhaps.

Posted by: foilhatgrrl | Nov 25 2008 20:54 utc | 3

foilhatgrrl, imported or domestic pasta? If imported, could be the US is playing one of its mini trade wars - some sort of mad tariff against Italy in retaliation for - who the **** knows? Berlusconi's views on Iraq? when we were in the deli business we were always running into things like that, particularly with French stuff. After France refused to join the Iraq murder spree, Dijon mustard couldn't be had for love nor money (just one more way the US makes itself loved and adored beyond these shores). Look for a lot more of this crap in the days to come.

Posted by: Tantalus | Nov 25 2008 21:13 utc | 4

unleaded at the gas station down the street is now $1.49/gallon. what's going on?

Posted by: b real | Nov 25 2008 21:23 utc | 5

A perverse impact of the lower volumes is that freight rates on the China-US West Coast route for ISO tanks (tanks with box frames) is rising as there is no backhaul traffic out of the US. So tank shippers like Stolt, Hoyer, etc have raised prices on that route in the last month to offset their increased costs to reposition the tanks.

So although BDI has crashed it does not mean that freight rates may not rise. All this reduction in shipping capacity will have an impact on prices.

Posted by: ab initio | Nov 25 2008 21:27 utc | 6

ab initio,

It's what my Blitz-era mum calls 'spivvery' - no misfortune to great to profit from, no excuse too flimsy to gouge the customer. She understands perfectly well what's going on: the spivs have taken over. It isn't really perverse at all that prices have gone up - if the tanks didn't need repositioning there'd be a cost in there somewhere as well.

(for any non-Britons needing an explanation of 'spiv,' see here.)

Posted by: Tantalus | Nov 25 2008 22:00 utc | 7

"The Air Transport Association is predicting 10% fewer people flying this holiday weekend from a year ago, as average ticket prices climbed and the domestic economy slid into recession. Airports normally busting at the seams with travelers could now appear relatively sedate."

Thanksgiving travel

Fares rise as fewer passengers.

Posted by: ab initio | Nov 25 2008 22:29 utc | 8

Here in the beautiful Champlain Valley in Vermont, two different carpenters friends who just six months ago were too busy to be able to help me out with a two or three day job are now hard pressed to keep busy.

Another friend, a builder who usually keeps several crews busy, is out working one of his jobs himself. A first for many years.

VT has few large industries in the state so are probably more economically immune than most other areas in the US. We have and are quickly further developing a strong local economic base. This year several Farmer’s Markets have found an indoor venue for the winter. There is a strong independent and interdependent ethos here,

...dedicated to exploring the proposition that Vermonters should peaceably secede from the United States Empire and govern themselves as a more sustainable independent republic once again.

and we seldom need a crisis to come together for the common’s good. Our town meetings are probably the underlying basis for this.

We’re fortunate and/or blessed here.

Posted by: Juannie | Nov 25 2008 22:34 utc | 9

Tantalus, thanks for increasing my vocabulary.

My point is never to take the conventional wisdom for granted. Note that during the dotcom blow up it was "disinflation leading to deflation" all the time on all the channels. Greenspan justified that to pump up the easy credit machine and the housing based ponzi scheme and Bush gave as even more "fiscal stimuli" through borrow and spend on the wealthy with their tax cut giveaways.

Now all channels have "deflationary depression" all the time. And lo and behold what do we have - even more easy money with an acronym soup of Fed lending vehicles on the basis of blown up bank assets and more borrow and spend once again on the wealthy but this time to feed big construction companies like Bechtel and the local asphalt politician - Big Dig redux.

Posted by: ab initio | Nov 25 2008 22:42 utc | 10

Wouldn't it be nice if this collapse could possibly sort itself out in terms of real wealth versus illth and maybe just plain silliness? Too much to ask, I know, as long as trade is only measured in money.

Which commodities are essential to world trade, which products are frivolous? I don't need to eat grapes from Chile and apples from New Zealand when I can eat the local versions in season. It's winter here, and there's plenty of squash and greens available.

As for Thanksgiving travel, I'm surprised there isn't a sharper downturn in passenger numbers--I swore off flying for turkey a couple of years ago after spending some miserable hours in a hideously crowded, torn up for construction, cold (physically and spiritually) airport concourse. I moved away from my family years ago. I like to see them occasionally, but not on the worst travel weekend of the year. I have friends here to give thanks with.

Posted by: catlady | Nov 25 2008 23:04 utc | 11

It's gtoes against my better nature to give that prentious lump of lard, english PM Gordon Brown, the heat off my pooh much less anythjing approaching kudos, but I have to say his plan to knock 2.5 percentage points offa the english consumption tax does warrant polite applause. I'm unsure what the VAT rate there is now up around 17.5% so putting it back to 15% isn't earth shattering since 15% is still gouging ordinary humanity to an unacceptable level, but still how often do we see a tax break that is good for Joe Bloggs nowadays. Normally tax cuts are vehicles for 'wealth redistribution' ie robbing the poor so the rich can have caviar with their daily breakfast of other people's babies.

NEWSFLASH I knew Gordy wasn't gonna give anything away. The cut is temporary after which Gordy had planned to whack the VAT up to an eye watering 18.5%!

I have lived in a few countries when consumption taxes were introduced and the most noticeable rise is on non-discretionary items, those we have to buy ie kai, tucker, food

Consumption taxes which are always iniquitous have been at the heart of the attack on humanity since the inception back in the Thatcherite Reaganomics days.
How great would it be to see that inquity which was used as the vehicle for allowing the top 2% of the population to keep their 25 million dollar bonuses because the bonuses no longer attracted the sort of punitive taxes which made the rip impracticable gone.

See the whole crooked tax the poor for their bread and milk horror thrown out with all the rest of the deregulations, fat assed blood sucking privatization speculators, warmongering arms makers and limp wristed socially democratic enablers of misery?
Well if the english 'social democrats' are anything to go by there's not much chance of that, that is if humans have to rely on them.
Buried at the bottom of the gruniad article I linked to is the most mealy-mouthed excuse yet for not taxing the rich, but since it is so closely aligned with the sort of excuse used to deregulate and encourage industry self regulation (ie put the crooks in charge of the sheriff's office) it doesn't surprise even if it does appall.

The institute for Fiscal Studies, Britain's leading tax experts, said today that the 45% income tax band for the better off might end up raising no extra revenue at all because higher earners will find ways of avoiding paying more tax.

Translated into humanspeak. "You can't tax the baby-eaters because they will just hire expensive mouthpieces to evade their taxes anyhow."

Yeah right. I wonder how long the promotion of new 'tax schemes' would last after the first smarmy tax lawyer was strung up for treason and his fat assed client was given the choice of either dobbing in his 'acquaintances' (the rich rarely have real friends) or facing the same fate.

So what the tax experts really mean is "We have constructed a beautifully arcane structure for gathering state revenue which is designed so that the poor who can't afford to fight it pay up, but the rich can flout it safe in the knowledge that any 'indiscretions' can be concealed and those that can't be hidden won't cause any real discomfort."

Still all of this does give an inkling of the vulnerable points in the capitalist carapace, the points where activists should concentrate their efforts to effect maximum pressure.

Most of us recognise that the changes to the social structure over the last handful of decades have shifted the the way that peeps see themselves. Our brothers and sisters are less likely to define themselves by their occupation (welder, machine operator, cleaner, the ubiquitous housewife of yore), than they are to see themselves by what they consume (Chevy truck-head, mac-user, vegan) so this is the hierachy that activists need to be exposing the iniquities and inequalities within.

A consumption tax is a handy place to start since it is vulnerable for being too generalist ie the flat 'tax it all' national consumption taxes much favoured by the economic rationalists (a quick aside on that you can take the Gordy Brown outta Scotland but you can't the hard hearted Scots Presbyterianism outta Gordy Brown, he is keeping the rip off taxes up at 17.5% on beer, thereby denying humanity the right to take the edge off their oppression and providing the thin edge of the wedge. The rationalists have always insisted that a flat tax must apply across the board to every item otherwise it becomes too "inefficient" [read expensive] to maintain,. Gordy's puritanical streak has just subverted that claim.)

On the other hand the older taxes much favoured by middle tier (state) governments for their revenue stream are riddled with obscure 'get outta gaol free cards' for favoured industries or popular past times and as such are also ripe for attacking the outrageous contradictions many of these 'exemptions' allow.

I won't turn this into War and Peace elaborating on the other point of attack (the retail and distribution monopolies) here.

Humanist oriented activists should be concentrating their efforts on facilitating access to foodstuffs firstly by way of action in alternative supply chains and secondly operating in concert to pressure local, state and national government on the blatant iniquities contained in all consumption taxes.
Yeah I know what's new? Maybe not much in what we are saying but certainly the environment we will be saying it in has changed. Peeps will be more receptive if the person edumacating them has just helped them get enough food on their limited budget.
Right now the forces of darkness are attempting to pull one of the lowest stunts pulled since Adam was a babe. They are attempting to use this disaster created by their greed and self serving 'derugulation' to institute a structure that allows even less control by the people and even more manipulation by/for the greedheads.

There will be no help from the new faces in Washington - they are all on board the bizness as usual express. Still strike early before the assholes feel secure in their 'new' roles. This is gonna be a tough winter for ordinary humans up there in the North and peeps will move to anger quickly when they see more and more of the same old faces turn up in the Obama cabinet. Especially when the same old faces continue to talk the same old shit.

We need to do what we can to help our brothers and sisters, and in doing so we will find that most won't need to be 'spieled at'. They will already be halfway there, especially if those helping others help themselves, can project a caring and sharing persona, free of any of the old clichés, but aligned with the timeless notion than standing together always beats falling alone, then the possibility for real change will emerge.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 25 2008 23:09 utc | 12

donations shrink as food banks fill with people, that was last month, I can only assume it's not gotten any better. The "pull your self up by the boot straps" crowd, are hurting here. My friend and part time commenter, lizard, can tell you more, as he works in the deeper community.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 26 2008 0:25 utc | 13

here, hell is presenting itself, imperceptibly but surely

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 26 2008 0:35 utc | 14

It would be interesting to know how much international trade has been killed by demand destruction vs. tight credit. My guess is that importers are having trouble getting letters of credit, which could spell serious problems for solvent consumers in the not too distant future.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081104/meltdown_shipping.html

Posted by: JohnH | Nov 26 2008 1:28 utc | 15

I just got an unsolicited fat 20th Century Art and Design auction catalog in the mail, the cheapest estimate is $1,000-1,500, with most items in the mid $30-50,000 range, and some going at a half a million....... I have no idea what this means. Unless there's a whole bunch of dumping going on to cover bets. The mere fact that it reaches me as a possibility, is a sure sign of desperation. Highly amusing desperation, at that.

Posted by: anna missed | Nov 26 2008 2:07 utc | 16

Why the h-e-double-hockeystick didn't Neel just grant $200B in doubled property tax and mortgage payment income tax deductions on a principle residence! Jebeezus!! Cut out all the middle-men, fee-men and brokers, and pipeline credit breaks directly to the folks who are upside down!! What the foxtrot-echo-charlie-kilo is Neel doing giving that $200B to the very same USURERs who got US upside down in the first place!? Could it be because they have no intention of cutting the Fed budget?

The IRS could have solved this whole credit.con thing in one single sentence on our 2008 1040 instructions: "Double deduction for property tax and mortgage payments on principal residence (only) and single deduction for residential rents." E.O.S.

Stop the money presses! Hyperinflation of elites avoided!! Oh, the humanity!
I'll have to go with Bilderburg Conspiracists here. Taxpayers are now subsidizing +28.9% usurers by floating their boat, even at the same time as we underwrite the usurer's risk, virtually ensuring them 12.5% pure profits after capital gains tax! (So ensuring that not a single Federal employee has to walk the plank.)

Neel just gave the credit companies a $25B handjob, and pimped up the 2008 Fed tax revenues by another $53B! What.a.con!!! What about all the homeless, Neel!?

Posted by: Yellow Tiber | Nov 26 2008 3:00 utc | 17

Interesting to note the difference between the harsh numbers of the Baltic Dry Index and the soft word choice of today's OECD report, which merely calls the global recession a "downtown".

Posted by: seneca | Nov 26 2008 3:02 utc | 18

anna @ 16,

I had been reading that the art auctions weren't going that well, but I've yet to receive an invitation in the mail, although I do get unsolicited opportunities to purchase condos at "reduced" prices.

Regarding shipping, the container ships still arrive on scheduled rotation and there are still the normal number of bulk carriers awaiting their turn at berth; they come here empty to load up and now is grain shipment season. A few sitting at fertilizer berths this evening. Coal traffic appears unchanged. Container ships appear to have a bit less aboard but winter is traditional slow season. Checked APL's site; they have cut back Atlantic traffic 25% and Pacific traffic 20% with a few service abandonments. Assume the same for other lines. Their site also carries a Canadian Pacific notice that they will no longer carry overweight containers; used to with a penalty charge - now simply rejecting and penalizing. Means a lot of shippers trying to cut costs by stuffing loads into a single container.

A few construction projects have been cancelled or abandoned but others are still proceeding apace, but industry layoffs are rising. $30/hour rates are going to get squeezed.

Posted by: Allen/Vancouver | Nov 26 2008 3:27 utc | 19

r'giap & uncle: your comments have provided a convenient lead in to what i was coming here to say tonight anyway.

hell is not, yet, presenting itself at the emergency shelter in this inter-mountain retirement/college/service industry town. we've got seventy beds, showers, washer/dryer, free medical screenings, HIV testing, case management, and coffee. coffee is very important.

part of my job is refining how we gather statistical information, so i've been sifting through all the records for the past 3-5 years, and our numbers are obviously going up, and money is definitely tight, but we've got, and are still getting, plenty of food.

our food rescue van makes daily rounds to grocery stores, both local and corporate, gathering expired food, and we usually give almost all of it away. but what hit me today, besides a clipboard, was the realization we are in no way prepared for even a doubling of the numbers as they stand today.

the pantry where we distribute food for non-residents requires recipients fill out monthly forms. it's a pretty relaxed system run by volunteers and a lot of discretion is used with how much food we give out. getting hit by a clipboard because the woman at the food window didn't want to lose her position in line by stepping out of line to fill out the form, as is the current custom, got me thinking.

i've been reassessing some of these "normal ways of doing things" because this particular non-profit, like many non-profits, are underdeveloped due to a systematic lack of funds and people who give a shit.

Obama is compelled to not give a shit by the people who financed him. even uttering poverty is apparently blasphemous. look forward to change that jingles as the system lurches on, bloating the the top 1% like ticks gorged on blood.

Posted by: Lizard | Nov 26 2008 4:58 utc | 20

Scary thing here in Australia is happening at the moment. Where ever I go through some commercial areas I see more and more signs " For sale/ lease " every day ...they are like mushrooms…not small stores and shops but big business ,whole shopping centers, warehouses , showrooms, industrial plants, office buildings...I simply can not believe how many of them I see every day. Looks like businesses (and even more owners of the commercial properties) are frantically after cash either to get on top of debts or to be able to buy cheep others when time comes. Friend who is owner of lunch bar business and is leasing it at middle size shopping centre last night told me that the owner of the shopping centre is actually owner of 30% of it while bank owns 70% and he is in deep shit. Some time ago that man was the richest man in QLD as they told us on TV then.
Job loses started and/or working hours are cut...contractors are first to go. In a huge international insurance company where friend works as IT engineer for 7 years they were told that 90 of them are about to lose jobs (contractors already gone).Friend (hydro - engineer) had to leave his young family in Sydney and come here in Brisbane for more secure government work project...Not good at all... It's going to be very bad year 2009.People are not even enthusiastic about Christmas...very few houses are decorated comparing to previous years. There is no shopping euphoria…they are buying but reluctantly…

Posted by: vbo | Nov 26 2008 12:44 utc | 21

Tantalus at 4 -

Domestic pasta, which is what makes it scarier, the co-op labels origin in its bulk section. Durum wheat grown in North Dakota should have no trouble being made into pasta and shipped to Wisconsin. Plenty of Italian pasta available for north of $2 per pound, bulk was closer to $1.50-1.75, but prices have been creeping up.

I never made the connection on the Dijon mustard a few years ago, just thought it went out of style for other (domestic) brands getting the shelf space. Interesting.

Posted by: foilhatgrrl | Nov 26 2008 14:33 utc | 22

Tantalus at 4 -

Domestic pasta, which is what makes it scarier, the co-op labels origin in its bulk section. Durum wheat grown in North Dakota should have no trouble being made into pasta and shipped to Wisconsin. Plenty of Italian pasta available for north of $2 per pound, bulk was closer to $1.50-1.75, but prices have been creeping up.

I never made the connection on the Dijon mustard a few years ago, just thought it went out of style for other (domestic) brands getting the shelf space. Interesting.

Posted by: foilhatgrrl | Nov 26 2008 14:43 utc | 23

Foilhatgrrl

I've remembered the story behind the Dijon shortage(!): it wasn't the Iraq war that caused that particular one, but France leading the EU in a ban of US beef owing to the fact that its hormone/antibiotic content far exceeded EU legal safety levels. So worse, in a way: buy our poison, or else! This stuff goes on all the time, often with 'unofficial' policies like stopping shipments on the docks until customs deigns to inspect them. Tons and tons of food gets destroyed that way. This sort of low level punitive crap seems to happen a lot. It certainly used to affect us, as retailers.

Posted by: Tantalus | Nov 26 2008 14:54 utc | 24

According to a recent column by the NYT's Joe Nocera we ain't seen nothin' yet.

This is very scary.

Posted by: Obelix | Nov 26 2008 18:23 utc | 25

Roubini:

The Treasury will be issuing in the next two years about $2 trillion of additional debt (on top of having to refinance and rollover another $1 trillion of maturing debt) while the Fed/Treasury/FDIC are taking on a massive amount of credit risk via outright bailouts and guarantees (TAF, TSLF, PDCF, ABCPFFFMLM, TALF, TARP, Bear Stears, AIG, Citigroup, TALF and another half a dozen new facilities and programs). These policies – however partially necessary – will eventually leads to much higher real interest rates on the public debt and weaken the US dollar once this tsunami of implicit and explicit public liabilities and monetary debt driven by rising twin fiscal and current account deficits will hit a world where the global supply of savings is shrinking – as most countries moves to fiscal deficits thus reducing global savings – and foreign investors start to ponder the long term sustainability of the US domestic and external liabilities.

Posted by: b | Nov 26 2008 20:06 utc | 26

"a world where the global supply of savings is shrinking – as most countries moves to fiscal deficits thus reducing global savings " (Roubini, quoted by b @ 26)

What does this mean, exactly? How do fiscal deficits reduce savings? Is it possibly the other way around, that absence of savings leads to fiscal deficits?

Posted by: seneca | Nov 26 2008 22:37 utc | 27

My local anecdote... The Big Isle of Hawaii's Domino's Pizza has shuttered their doors, surprising, in that we have a sizable college student population...!

Posted by: CTuttle | Nov 26 2008 23:50 utc | 28

What does this mean, exactly? How do fiscal deficits reduce savings? Is it possibly the other way around, that absence of savings leads to fiscal deficits?

Someone has to buy all those treasuries, gilts and bunds. It is not a real reduction of savings, but a reduction of available savings as credit supply for non-state actors, corporations and people.

Posted by: b | Nov 27 2008 3:22 utc | 29

"There have been calls from outside Germany for it to beef up fiscal support, but Ms Merkel has been wary of raising public borrowing to stimulate demand, fearing that the extra income could boost Germans’ savings rate, which is already high." (Financial Times, 11-27)

Not everyone agrees with b's position above.

Posted by: seneca | Nov 27 2008 15:13 utc | 30