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FreightWaves CEO Says “Supply Chains Are Never Returning To Normal”

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Ryan DeLarme
May 20th, 2022

The current worldwide supply chain problems are not likely to be stabilizing any time soon, at least not according to FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller.

In a recent article published by Fuller on the Freight Waves website, the CEO makes a compelling case as to why it could take upwards of a decade for things to “return to normal”, and that is assuming world events don’t continue to spiral into chaos.

In the article, Fuller lays out a series of challenges he sees that suggest “continuing challenges for decades to come”. Among those challenges, he lists that:

 

  • Supply chains will remain under constant threat of disruption for the next decade 
  • Supply chains operate best when the world is peaceful and stable 
  • A smoothly running supply chain requires “buffer stock,” which is challenging with declining population demographics 
  • There is a conflict between environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals and supply chains optimized for cost and speed. If we prioritize ESG, we will need to contend with supply chain risks 
  • Supply chain technology will become the big venture capital category winner as companies continue to make investments in technologies that can help them mitigate their supply chain challenges 

 

To be sure, we live in a world faced with the imminent possibility of tightening supplies, higher energy costs, heightened geopolitical risk, and strained transportation networks. Fuller seems to believe that advanced supply chain technologies will become “mission-critical” for many more companies.

In the article, Fuller explains how supply chains benefit from times of peace:

 

“Since the end of the Cold War, global supply chains have benefited from peaceful trade between developed and developing countries. Many poorer and less developed countries that were previously ruled by Communist or autocratic regimes took advantage of new markets in the developed world and used global trade to move beyond subsistence economies to prosperous ones. Some of these countries developed into capitalistic and democratic countries, while other governments exploited the free market system to solely benefit those already in power, and became wealthy and powerful enough to threaten the very system that enabled their ascension.The Eastern European countries that were formerly part of the Soviet bloc are examples of the countries that embraced capitalism and shifted toward democracy, while China did the opposite.”

 

The arbitrage (that is the capitalisation of risk-opportunities in financial markets)  between the developed and developing countries has been massive. The cost of producing goods in countries with cheap labor, lax environmental and labor regulations, and little regard for sustainable natural resources has enabled the world to enjoy unprecedented prosperity and peace, albeit at the expense of the planet and the oppressed.

According to Fuller, labor is key in supply chains. But cheap labor is becoming scarcer, particularly in Asia. This is largely due to aging populations – the average age continues to increase and there are fewer people working in these manufacturing jobs.

On top of that, ESG requirements hamper the stability of supply chains. ESG stands for “Environmental, Social, and Governance”, and refers to an approach to evaluating the extent to which a corporation works on behalf of social goals that go beyond the role of a corporation to maximize profits on behalf of the corporation’s shareholders. Typically, the social goals advocated within an ESG perspective include working to achieve a certain set of environmental goals, as well as a set of goals having to do with supporting certain social movements, and the third set of goals having to do with whether the corporation is governed in a way that is consistent with the goals of the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement.

These ESG requirements at least appear to be rooted in compassion, but according to fuller they are having a disastrous effect on the global supply chain.

 

“Companies have instituted ESG requirements that require disclosures and monitoring of how and where products have been sourced. This pressure means that goods that are produced in factories that don’t match Western standards for environmental controls and human rights may not be available to Western consumers. The factories that do produce goods that match Western standards will often be more expensive and therefore there will be less buffer stock in the system.  

The same ESG standards also create challenges for commodity producers, as the cost of adhering to environmental and social disclosures makes it more expensive and less productive. It also discourages investment in the production of environmentally sensitive commodities – most obviously in energy. 

Environmental concerns and regulations that have prevented exploration and production and killed pipeline projects are largely the reason that the world currently lacks sufficient energy resources to buffer against the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war. “

 

So then what recourse is left? Are we forced to remain dependent on cheap labor and pollution? Well, according to Fuller what he calls “Supply chain technology” will be the big winner going forward.

“Companies will look closer to home for product sourcing. They will prioritize production in countries that are far more stable and friendly to the United States. The Freedom Trade movement will drive supply chain professionals to prioritize production and sourcing in the Americas. 

Latin America will become a big winner, as it benefits greatly from having direct land transportation networks with North America and seas that are well protected by the U.S. Navy. 

The American South and Midwest will also see an acceleration in manufacturing and production, as they can offer predictable and resilient sourcing, without the geopolitical risks of foreign suppliers or the labor unions of the Rust Belt.

Automation, including robotics, will become more important. Nearshoring manufacturers will try to offset higher production costs with robotics and other automated production systems.

Supply chain market intelligence systems, a data category that monitors developments around supply and demand, will be critical for supply chain professionals who are trying to navigate increasingly complex and opaque markets. Materials and product supplies are no longer guaranteed, so the need for constantly refreshed data models that track the balance of supply and demand will be critical to the success of companies. 

FreightWaves SONAR provides near real-time market intelligence information, which has seen explosive growth in recent months as shippers have realized that supply chains are not returning to normal and the need for high-frequency data is increasingly critical for success. Historical models no longer work – as the world becomes far less predictable, peaceful, and safe – and supply chains are far more exposed to supply and demand shocks.”

Techno Fog: Day 2 of the Michael Sussmann Trial

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Via Techno Fog’s SubStack:

Day 2 of the Michael Sussmann trial started with some housekeeping. Here are the rulings of note:

  1. Robby Mook, who has a scheduled vacation in Spain, will testify on Friday. He’s a defense witness.
  2. Evidence of Steele’s meetings with Sussmann and Fusion GPS in July 2016, and his tasking to conduct research on Alfa Bank, according to the judge, “can come in.” The judge observed they are “relevant to Mr. Sussmann’s activities for the campaign and his attorney-client relationship, as far as it went, with the campaign as it relates to Alfa-Bank.”

Onto the witnesses. We start with the short testimony of Deborah Fine.

Fine began working for the Hillary Clinton Campaign (aka Hillary for America) as “one of several deputy general counsels” in May 2016. She answered to Marc Elias, the campaign’s general counsel.

After being presented with calendar entries confirming her daily calls with Fusion GPS, she testified that she worked with them as “part of my work for the campaign.” In fact, she regularly interacted with Glenn Simpson and co-founder Peter Fritsch. Fine conceded that Fusion GPS were seemingly free to conduct research on their own, stating she “personally didn’t direct them” to accomplish specific tasks.

On cross-examination, she admitted she didn’t know if Marc Elias spoke to anyone else at the Clinton Campaign about the activities of Fusion GPS. She was out of the loop regarding efforts to bring the Alfa Bank allegations to the NY Times or to the FBI.

Testimony of Laura Seago

Laura Seago worked with Fusion GPS back in 2016, where she reported directly to Fritsch and Simpson. She has been granted immunity by the Special Counsel for her testimony. She understood Marc Elias to be the Fusion GPS contact for the Clinton Campaign.

Seago stated she was present at a summer 2016 meeting with “Mr. Elias, my colleague Peter Fritsch from Fusion GPS, Mr. Sussmann, and Mr. Sussmann’s client Rodney Joffe.” As to the nature of that meeting:

“The general purpose, to the best of my recollection, was to discuss allegations of communications between the Trump organization and Alfa-Bank.”

Once the Alfa Bank allegations were developed, Seago met with journalist Franklin Foer (who would write the October 31, 2016 Alfa Bank article in Slate). The purpose of that meeting was to discuss “the allegations of communication between the Trump Organization and Alfa-Bank.”

They sold Foer on the Alfa Bank data at that meeting, telling him there were “highly credible computer scientists who seemed to think that these allegations were credible.” These “credible computer scientists” would ultimately be cited in Foer’s article. She admitted that Fusion GPS did nothing to validate the DNS records – something she said was “beyond my capabilities.”

Seago was walked through a number of e-mails she had with Joffe and other members of Fusion GPS. Some of these were privileged (the Joffe e-mails) so the Special Counsel was unable to discuss with Seago the contents. However, she did know about the contents of the Joffe e-mails generally:

Finally, she admitted to understanding whose interests were served by planting the Alfa Bank story.

Now we get to Marc Elias.

Elias meets weekly with Fusion GPS at his office. Typically Peter Fritsch and Glenn Simpson would be in attendance. Generally, those meetings involved discussions of Elias’s “needs” and Fusion GPS’s “work” – which included what Elias described as the “unusual connections” the Trump Campaign had with Russia. They would also report to Elias on their findings related to Trump during the election.

Notably, Elias mentioned Jake Sullivan as someone at the Clinton Campaign who knew about the Trump/Russia research (though there is uncertainty as to whether Sullivan knew about Fusion’s activities). Elias would give the campaign these updates.

A brief aside: Jake Sullivan’s wife is Margaret Goodlander – who serves as counsel to Attorney General Merrick Garland. We understand that she has not recused herself from anything having to do with the Special Counsel’s investigation. We further understand that Goodlander is keeping close tabs on Durham’s investigation. We’ll report on that down the road…

Anyway, Elias also testified that the Clinton Campaign paid them (Perkins Coie) a “flat fee” for their legal services. Why is this important? Because it explains why Sussmann would block the bill the Clinton Campaign (see tweet below). (“Block billing” is having a multi-hour entry with a generalized description. Example: “6.5 hours on a confidential project.) For flat-fee work, attorneys are generally allowed block billing because the client isn’t paying the hourly rate.

Read Techno Fog’s full article here.

Stock Market Sees Largest Drop in Years

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Ryan DeLarme,
May 19th, 2022

This Tuesday the U.S. stock market saw its worst day since June of 2020 as inflation strokes investors’ fears and cuts retailers’ profits. The S&P 500 sank by more than 4%, in what Yahoo Finance called the index fund’s “worst day since June 2020.”

According to Seeking Alpha, the Nasdaq Composite fell by more than 4.7%. The Dow dropped by nearly 1,200 points, or 3.6%, making it the “ninth largest single-day point drop in history,”.

This dramatic drop comes on the heels of major retailers reporting lower-than-anticipated quarterly returns, showing inflation’s toll on profits. 

 Bloomberg has reported that Target’s shares fell more than 20% in its worst drop since 1987,

“I think what investors realized was these seemingly safe haven stocks, the staples like Target, like Walmart, are not immune — that their costs are rising, they cannot pass their higher costs onto their consumers. And as Walmart said yesterday, their customers are coming in and buying groceries, but they’re not buying hard goods, they’re not buying other products where they have a slightly higher margin,” Cresset Capital CIO Jack Ablin told Yahoo Finance.

“So if you look at the consumer and recognize yes wages are up, but they’re not going up at the same rate as inflation, and the highest cost increases are food and energy, that’s funneling away spending that ordinarily would be spent at a more profitable side of Walmart and a Target,” he explained.

Attorney to Go After 51 Intel “Experts” Who Lied About Hunter Biden Laptop Just Days Before Election
Americans might actually see some kind of justice served against crooked intel officials.

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Ryan DeLarme,
May 19th, 2022

Just days before the presidential election – In October of 2020  – 51 former intelligence officials signed and published a letter that falsely dismissed the contents of Hunter’s ‘laptop from hell’ saying it had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

It’s more than a year and a half later and we now know the laptop did indeed belong to Hunter Biden. 

Back in March of this year, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) introduced a House Resolution that would strip security clearances from dozens of federal intelligence officials who signed on to the letter declaring the infamous Hunter Biden laptop as “Russian disinformation” shortly after it emerged leading up to the rigged 2020 election.

Now Americans might actually see some kind of justice served.

Tim Parlatore, an attorney working for Donald Trump, has launched an investigation into what is being called the ‘Dirty 51.’  The legal team, representing ordinary Americans, will target the 51 “experts” for the damage they wrought on freedom of the press, election integrity and the general welfare of this country.

Parlatore has already filed five letters with the corrupt agencies that allowed these lies to be perpetrated on the American public.

 

The New York Post reported:

The former president has sicced uber-attorney Tim Parlatore on the Dirty 51. On Wednesday, Parlatore launched the first stage of a multi-prong strategy to make those who signed the letter pay for the damage they have wrought to freedom of the press, election integrity and the welfare of the nation.

His goal is to uncover alleged communications between the Dirty 51 and the Biden campaign.

Parlatore began by filing five letters of complaint with the agencies that formerly employed the 51, including the CIA — which counted 43 of its former officials among the group — the National Security Agency, the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Defense.

Each letter complains of “an egregious breach” by former agency employees “that appears to have been overlooked by your agency, as it has gone uninvestigated and certainly unpunished. Specifically, the unauthorized publication and dissemination of an intelligence assessment, purportedly based on classified information, that was used wrongfully to influence the outcome of an election.”

It points out that each of the Dirty 51 was “bound by the lifelong obligation” to submit the letter to their former agencies for pre-publication security review to ensure it didn’t contain classified information, a process that could take several months. The letter then would have been stamped with a disclaimer that the agency was not vouching for its accuracy.

“That would have destroyed the usefulness of the document,” says Parlatore, “plus the process would have delayed it so long, it would not be useful” because the election would have been over.

America First Elections Update 5.18.22.: Pennsylvania, Texas, North Carolina
America First candidates saw some strong wins, a lose, and yet to be determined toss-up.

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Ryan DeLarme,
May 18th, 2022

Editors Note: We at Vigilant News see the RNC and DNC as two sides of the same uniparty coin. That being said, we acknowledge that there is a growing contingent of anti-establishment, “America First” candidates emerging on the right side of the aisle. Though we may not always agree with these candidates on policy and idealogy, it is apparent that they are making a stand against the rapidly encroaching authoritarian globalist plutocracy backed by a corrupt global intelligence apparatus, the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC), the World Economic Forum, and the World Bank (IMF, BIS, etc). And so it is out of a desire to see the power return to the people of this country that we choose to cover these elections from an America First perspective, and not out of some perpetual tribalist back-and-forth.

-Ryan

Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Idaho, Oregon, and North Carolina all voted Tuesday for the 2022 midterm elections, and the results have thus far been a mixed bag for America First candidates. 

First, we have Trump-endorsed Ted Budd winning North Carolina’s Republican Senate primary by an impressive margin. Budd was also endorsed by the influential Club for Growth. He has said that Trump’s endorsement was a ‘huge’ factor in his victory against former Governor Pat McCrory and former Representative Mark Walker. Budd will go on to face Democrat Cheri Beasley in the general election in November.

Rising America First star Madison Cawthorn (R-Nc.) was defeated in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District last night.  Cawthorn lost by a razor-thin margin of 2% to State Senator Chuck Edwards (R-Nc.). 

The interesting part about Cawthorn’s defeat, and perhaps the biggest take-away, was that it came after the former Congressman made some shocking claims. He alleged that his Republican colleagues in Congress invited him to a “sexual get-together” and said it wasn’t uncommon to see them “doing cocaine right in front of you”.

With a victor decided in most primary races, the race that has been perhaps the most closely watched has yet to declare a winner.  In a three-way race between Kathy Barnette, Dave McCormick, and Trump-endorsed Mehmet Oz, Oz currently leads by a slim margin of 2,500 votes with 95% of the vote in.

 

 

The race will likely go into recount territory with establishment Dave McCormick trailing him and Barnette in third place.

On that note; the popular, outspoken, Trump-endorsed PA Senator Doug Mastriano has won his bid to become the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate in the November 2024 election.

Mastriano became a prominent figure in the fight to uncover election fraud after Pennsylvania, like so many other critical swing states in America, watched their elections being shut down in the middle of the night and blemished by multiple reported cases of voter fraud, rampant GOP poll watcher intimidation, and other voter irregularities.

Senator Rand Paul won his primary election for US Senate in Kentucky with 87% of the Republican primary vote. Senator Paul will face Democratic challenger state Rep. Charles Booker in the general election.

Rand released a statement after his early win last night.