This is "transportation month" on the Paperitalo Annual Editorial Calendar. I can't think of a timelier topic.

You and I have watched over the last year as delivery times have gone from stretching to disappearing.

My personal opinion that this is not a problem with a single ancestor, it has many origins. Some businesses lack the personnel, due to people being ill, in order to do the jobs, they would normally do. Others suffered a very large dip in business in 2020 and have not been able to recover the productivity they lost then.

I was very surprised last October to hear the ports, especially Long Beach and Los Angeles, were not already working 24/7 (and apparently they have not started doing so even yet). With the investment there is in ports, I assumed they were already in continuous operation.

I think trucking is waiting for the autonomous truck. There has been a truck driver shortage for years. It will likely finally be broken by driverless trucks. I have mentioned in these pages before that such trucks will first be deployed on controlled highways such as the Ohio and Indiana turnpikes, but it won't be long after that they spread across the country. At this point, it just takes some experience in controlled settings to make this happen.

In the paper industry (not the pulp industry) we tend to make the products in the country of use. It is just possible that some now depending on off shore pulp may wish they had stayed with domestic sources.

I saw this once before--in the early 1970's. It caused dislocations then, but we worked out of them. Barring a major international conflict, I am sure we will do it again.

Jim Thompson is CEO of Paperitalo Publications.