Tomas Pueyo Profile picture
Oct 1, 2024 14 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Every American is poorer because of longshoremen's position

The worst is not the $1½-5 Billion per day the strike would cost the US economy

The worst is not their outsized salariesImage
It's not even the known ties they have with organized crime, or their extraction of rents for work they never did Image
The worst part is that they increase transportation costs, which destroys the wealth of every American, making us way poorer

As this tweet explains, longshoremen get hefty fees every time they touch a container. As a result, shipping avoids "touches"

Image
But road transportation is waaay more expensive than water transportation—up to 10x more

These increases in transportation costs seem like not a big deal, but the impact is massiveImage
Because here's the key: doubling transportation costs can reduce wealth by 90%:
• If you 2x transportation costs, you divide by 4x your potential markets
• But network effects grow with the square of nodes. 4^2=16
Doubling transportation costs can reduce trade potential by 16x!Image
Image
A 16x reduction is a 94% reduction in wealth
Of course, the full 16x is not achieved in reality, and also now transportation costs are low enough that they aren't an obstacle to all types of trade
But the impact on trade is massive, and hidden: You don't know how much trade never happened because transportation costs were too high!
So you should be irate when you hear that the productivity of "Other transportation and support activities"—which includes marine cargo handling—has declined by 29%
(source: )Image
The most outrageous part is not the rent-seeking behavior of asking for a 77% increase in salaries—an ask they can only do because they have a monopoly


Image
The worst part is that they're blocking automation. Every industry automates to make everything cheaper and get more business. But when you have a monopoly, you don't care. You abuse it. Image
The worst part is they should be looking forward to it, because, as they say, the work is back-breaking! Image
The worst part is that it would be better for longshoremen over the long term!
More productivity➡️Cheaper service➡️More business!Image
It should be a national mandate to allow port automation

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More from @tomaspueyo

Jun 25
Why did 🇮🇱Israel strike 🇮🇷Iran now, and not months or years ago or in the future?

A unique combination of a dozen factors converged to make the moment unique for 🇮🇱Israel: 🧵
1. No Hamas to its southwest
2. No Hezbollah to its north
3. No Assad threat to the northeast
4... Image
4. No more Syrian army to attack 🇮🇱Israel's planes: As the new forces of HTS took over Syria, Israel bombed all the existing Syrian military. No more fighter jets or surface-to-air missiles to threaten 🇮🇱Israel Image
5. Ability to fly over Syria to refuel
This is critical, because 🇮🇷Iran is ~600-1000 miles away from 🇮🇱Israel, so 1200-2000 miles round trip

The range of Israel’s stealth F35 is only about 1,350 mi
To operate inside 🇮🇷Iran, 🇮🇱Israel needed refueling over Syria Image
Image
Read 7 tweets
Jun 23
Was 🇮🇷trying to get a nuclear bomb?

1. From Feb 2025 to Jun 2025, it increased its amount of enriched uranium by 50%
2. It now had 400kg of highly enriched uranium, enough for 9-10 bombs
3. This is 60% enriched uranium. Fuel only requires 5% enrichment.
4... 🧵
4. It's easy to go from 60% to 90% (weapons grade), it only takes weeks
5. The only country on Earth with such enriched uranium and without a bomb is 🇮🇷Iran
6. The IAEA (nuclear watchdog) found 3 secret nuclear sites
7. When 🇮🇷Iran didn't respond to this accusation, the IAEA censured it
8. 🇮🇷Iran responded to the censoring by saying it would open a 3rd enrichment site in a secret spot
Read 9 tweets
Jun 22
Now that the 🇺🇸US has bombed 3 of 🇮🇷Iran's nuclear sites, where will the war go from here?
It depends on 🇮🇱Israel: 🧵
🇮🇷Iran never wanted the war, and its forces are being decimated. Its ability to send missiles to 🇮🇱Israel is being degraded every day. If it could sign a ceasefire while saving face, it would Image
Meanwhile, 🇮🇱Israel has kept striking Iran non stop. Its daily airstrikes didn't go down substantially in the first few days. Its ability to keep striking 🇮🇷Iran remains unabated

So when will it stop? Image
Read 13 tweets
Jun 19
Can there be an invasion of Iran? Hardly. Two maps explain why, and also why Iran is the way it is today, whether its regime will fall, what other superpowers will do, and in general why Iran is the way it is today

1. Iran is a mountain & desert fortress Image
Here's a topograhic map
West: Zagros
North: Caspian Sea + Caucasus, Albroz, & Kopet-Dag mountains + Karakum Desert
East: Mountains + Dasht-e Kavir / Lut Deserts
South: Sea

The only truly exposed area is the southwestern corner of Khuzestan, which is a swamp Image
The biggest superpowers lie to the west, and there the very broad Zagros make it really hard to conquer Iran. The mountain range is tall and wide, making logistics similar to Afghanistan. Very hard.

Iraq learned it the hard way when it tried to attack there in 1980 Image
Read 20 tweets
Jun 19
Was 🇮🇷Iran trying to develop nuclear weapons?

Listening to the debate, it looks like 🇮🇱Israel & the 🇺🇸US intelligence community disagreed, but that's not really the case!

Both thought Iran was weeks to months away from being able to develop the bomb

So what's the disagreement?
Here are more facts:
• Tehran had just announced a 3rd enrichment site in an undisclosed place
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had recently produced a report censoring Iran for the 1st time in 20y
• It accused Iran of 3 undisclosed nuclear sites
• It claimed Iran had enough enriched uranium for 9-10 nuclear bombs
• All the other countries in the world who have enriched uranium at the same level also have nuclear weapons. Iran is the only country that doesn't have these weapons yet enriches uranium as much
Read 7 tweets
Jun 3
Nuclear is the best source of energy across nearly all the factors that matter. It's the safest, cleanest, densest, most sustainable, geopolitically stable, predictable, dispatchable, and can be cheap.

1. SAFEST
It kills 1000x less than coal Image
Living close to a nuclear power plant for one year gives you less radiation than eating a banana (graph is logarithmic) Image
Image
2. CLEANEST
Accounting for all the lifecycle of all energies, it's the one that emits the least CO2 Image
Read 22 tweets

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