My thoughts on Jim's questions:
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Questions I ask myself:
1. How will these changes effect imports? A pick and pack in Sparks NV might not make sense.
***Right. We moved to Sparks when that emerged as the standard. Sparks is still growing, but a DC in KC would make a lot of sense. I could see the Mexico super-port get some side business re-consolidating to run boxes up to LA, the largest market west of the Mississippi.***
2. How will these changes affect exports? Are there commodities in the mid-west that the rapidly expanding Chinese would want?
***If there are, they are already moving, so geography is not destiny. Ocean freight is dirt cheap, and will remain so. The KC savings will be in management, not in oil. Everyone blames labor, but such entities as the Port of Seattle are astonishingly wasteful and featherbedding operations.***
3. What is the low hanging fruit during this transition?
***Change costs money, so not sure there will be initially... I think they’ll accomodate autos and grain, rail-specific stuff, and then get around to monuments. This thing will lose money for 20 years before Li et al start to clean up.***
4. How to be one step ahead?
***Product design. It is a siren to study changes in law and logisitics and then contemplate how to game the system. We follow the crowd on everything except design, and by design of product stay one step ahead.***
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