From the desk of Willie Delwiche.
Key Takeaways:
- Even with stimulus, the economy on a bumpy road
- Bottlenecks testing the resiliency of recovery
- Despite stress points, growth heading in a favorable direction
Apparently, there is a ship stuck in the Suez canal. Pictures show the “Ever Given” container ship turned sideways in the narrow waterway, with its bow wedged on one bank and its stern close to the other bank. This ship, according to the Wall Street Journal, is one of the largest in the world. It’s 400 meters long (longer than the Empire State Building is tall) and can normally move 20,000 containers. In the current situation not only is it not moving its 20,000 containers but has ground to a halt all traffic in both directions in one of the world’s busiest waterways. On average, 55,000 containers travel through the canal on a daily basis, in addition to numerous ships carrying oil and liquified natural gas. The goods are there, but they are not moving.
