Average Cost of Living in Pennsylvania: $49,040 per year On a cost of living level, Pennsylvania is about midway down. According to the 2022 MERIC cost of …
and right now, the problem is that there is not enough fresh water because of climate change. so in the short term, the impact will be limited. but i think it signals that climate change will cause problems in the future. so in a way, the panama canal was built for a world that increasingly doesn t exist any more. we need innovation, especially concerning energy and water preserving. it s another element in a series of developments that increase international trade costs. we ve seen an era of globalisation where trade costs fell because of political decisions to liberalise, because of reduced transportation costs. now we see step by step how international trade costs go up because of political decisions, new barriers, new tariffs, but also because of climate change causing choke points to be a real problem. we see this right now with the panama canal, where the capacity is reduced, and the result is that ships can no longer carry as much load,
we are dealing with climate change. instead of anticipating challenges that are coming, we are often responding only when the challenges are right here and already causing trouble. presumably this will increase the cost, isn t it, for those using the panama canal? exactly. it is another element in a serious development that increase international trade loss. we have seen an era of globalisation where trade costs fell because of political decisions to liberalise because of reduced transportation costs. now we see that thinner international trade costs go up because political decisions, new barriers, new tariffs, but also because of climate change causing choke points to be a real problem. we see this right now with the panama canal whether capacity is reduced and the result is that ships can no longer carry as much load, which means that they charge more every container going through. so, yes, costs are going up and consumers will pay
and jeremy, let me end on this. you and i have spoken before over the past few years about the whole supply chain chaos and how that sent the transportation costs through the roof. but eventually they came down. and now some in your industry say the prices have come down so much, it s just not sustainable. is that your view? well, i think certainly there s two factors there. one is that there s no doubt that the supply and demand squeeze was very tight during 2021 to 2022, and we saw freight rates much higher than the normal industry average. we ve had a rebalancing in 2023 due to an inventory overhang, so the sales to inventory ratios have been quite high. our customers are gradually burning through those inventories and will start their reordering cycles quite soon. and when that happens, some of the spot market rates will start to move up again. but the area that probably, you know, is the most important longer term is that as and when we move to these green fuels, it will be unsust