WEBVTT - A Ship Stuck in the Suez

0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:10.959
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to on the Job. This season, we're focusing on

0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.440
<v Speaker 1>how people and businesses are getting back to work. Let's

0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.200
<v Speaker 1>call it a great transformation, a change in the way

0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:21.239
<v Speaker 1>workers are thinking. Employers need people to work more than ever,

0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:24.680
<v Speaker 1>putting laborers in a sort of position of power. We'll

0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.680
<v Speaker 1>be hearing from people navigating this new normal for themselves

0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:32.640
<v Speaker 1>as they find their life's work. Great transformations come after

0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.000
<v Speaker 1>moments of great calamity. The reason people are taking big

0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.400
<v Speaker 1>risks today and finding new jobs that fulfill them is

0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:42.320
<v Speaker 1>because COVID threw all of our values into question and

0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:46.800
<v Speaker 1>made us reevaluate. A similar event happened that through the

0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.640
<v Speaker 1>world once again into uncertainty, but may have been a

0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.720
<v Speaker 1>lesson that came and went. So today we look back

0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:55.640
<v Speaker 1>at the story of a ship, a canal, and some

0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:58.240
<v Speaker 1>gusts of wind that brought a global industry to a

0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:10.440
<v Speaker 1>complete standstill. People like stuff. We love stuff. If you're

0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:12.680
<v Speaker 1>listening to this right now, in your living room or

0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:17.520
<v Speaker 1>your office, look around. There's a lot of stuff. Chairs, computers,

0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:22.319
<v Speaker 1>paper clips, drywall, your phone, a coffee maker. If you

0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.399
<v Speaker 1>were asked, hey, where did that coffee maker come from?

0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:31.279
<v Speaker 1>You might say Walmart? But where does it really come from.

0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:33.759
<v Speaker 1>The truth is it comes from all over the world,

0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.720
<v Speaker 1>different parts coming from different countries, being assembled in factories

0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:41.360
<v Speaker 1>across the world, and crossing thousands and thousands of miles

0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:43.880
<v Speaker 1>of ocean to get to that shelf at the Walmart

0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.040
<v Speaker 1>fifteen minutes away from your door. And if your coffee

0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.520
<v Speaker 1>maker breaks, you know you can go get another one.

0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:55.720
<v Speaker 1>We are completely separated from the process of how we

0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.240
<v Speaker 1>get this stuff we want, and most of us are

0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.560
<v Speaker 1>probably totally okay with that as long as it's convenient.

0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:08.480
<v Speaker 1>Who really cares. But what happens when stuff hits the fan.

0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.840
<v Speaker 1>A giant container ship is blocking the Suez Canal, One

0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:20.840
<v Speaker 1>are the world's busiest waterways. The route is vital for

0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:24.880
<v Speaker 1>the movement of everything from oil to consumer. Almost all

0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:27.400
<v Speaker 1>the stuff around you in that room right now comes

0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.359
<v Speaker 1>to you on ships. Many of those ships passed through

0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:34.919
<v Speaker 1>the Suez Canal in Egypt, and on March the Siuez

0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:38.359
<v Speaker 1>Canal was blocked. This ship is so huge it's as

0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.000
<v Speaker 1>long as the Empire state building is tool and it

0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:43.480
<v Speaker 1>is blocking the entire witch of the Seouex Canal. Since

0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:45.840
<v Speaker 1>it run aground on Tuesday, the ship was called the

0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:49.120
<v Speaker 1>Ever Given and some of you probably remember this because

0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:51.200
<v Speaker 1>it kind of took the world by storm when it

0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:53.919
<v Speaker 1>happened during the six full days that it was stuck.

0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:57.200
<v Speaker 1>Why did this situation even now In the first place,

0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.880
<v Speaker 1>the entire globe was affected when this one ship with

0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.720
<v Speaker 1>crew members got stuck for six days. So today, instead

0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.360
<v Speaker 1>of interviewing someone within the economic landscape, we're going to

0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.280
<v Speaker 1>look at the economic landscape as a whole to talk

0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:15.080
<v Speaker 1>about what the ever given being stuck in the Suez

0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:18.919
<v Speaker 1>Canal says about us. I think most of us aren't

0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:30.160
<v Speaker 1>aware of just how much global trade hangs by a thread. First,

0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:35.280
<v Speaker 1>a little history. The Suez Canal was built and opened

0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.720
<v Speaker 1>in eighteen sixty nine as global trade continued to intensify.

0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.040
<v Speaker 1>It's a long, narrow corridor that runs through Egypt, connecting

0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.680
<v Speaker 1>the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. Before that, ships coming

0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.440
<v Speaker 1>from East Asia to Europe or to North America they

0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.520
<v Speaker 1>had to go around the entirety of Africa. So by

0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:57.320
<v Speaker 1>punching this canal through Egypt to the Mediterranean, the journey

0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:00.680
<v Speaker 1>for ships was shortened by about six thousand aisles or

0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:05.600
<v Speaker 1>ten full days at sea. This was obviously a game

0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.920
<v Speaker 1>changer for world trade. The Suez Canal connected the world

0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.120
<v Speaker 1>in a time of science leading up to the Industrial Revolution,

0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.920
<v Speaker 1>and was a historic milestone in human engineering and collaboration.

0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:21.000
<v Speaker 1>In a massive treaty called the Convention of Constantinople was

0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:25.560
<v Speaker 1>signed by Egypt, most European countries, the Russians, the Ottomans,

0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.200
<v Speaker 1>and in it there was a clause stating that the

0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:31.960
<v Speaker 1>Suez Canal was open for any country to use quote

0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:34.760
<v Speaker 1>in time of war as in time of peace, by

0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:38.400
<v Speaker 1>every vessel of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag.

0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.800
<v Speaker 1>The thing is, the Suez Canal became so important and

0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:48.839
<v Speaker 1>so vital that, maybe unsurprisingly, it became a point of conflict.

0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.320
<v Speaker 1>Power struggles over the canal led to a major crisis

0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.680
<v Speaker 1>between Egypt and Israel in nineteen fifty six, and then

0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.279
<v Speaker 1>it was completely shut down during the Six Day War

0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:03.440
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen sixty seven, closing for eight full years. The

0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:07.560
<v Speaker 1>Egyptian government underwent a nine billion dollar project to expand

0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:09.839
<v Speaker 1>the canal in certain parts in order to double the

0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.680
<v Speaker 1>number of ships going through from forty nine ships a

0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:17.640
<v Speaker 1>day to so By two thousand sixteen this construction was finished.

0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:20.760
<v Speaker 1>Global trade was booming, and that brings us up to

0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:27.240
<v Speaker 1>modern day the age of clicking a button on Amazon

0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:31.919
<v Speaker 1>and magically getting whatever it is you ordered in two days. Again.

0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.600
<v Speaker 1>That stuff it comes on boats. Everything from oil, gas,

0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.160
<v Speaker 1>your coffee maker, food, It all comes on boats. And

0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:43.640
<v Speaker 1>twelve percent of stuff on boats, twelve percent globally comes

0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.920
<v Speaker 1>through the Suez Canal. On average, fifty one massive boats

0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.320
<v Speaker 1>called ultra large container vessels or u c l vs

0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:55.320
<v Speaker 1>go through the canal daily, roughly equating to nine billion

0:05:55.320 --> 0:06:04.800
<v Speaker 1>dollars every single day. Until March, a ship called the

0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:09.800
<v Speaker 1>ever Given was about to enter the Suez Canal. The

0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.520
<v Speaker 1>ever Given is one of the biggest objects people have

0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.360
<v Speaker 1>put on water. It's a quarter mile long. Ships have

0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:20.080
<v Speaker 1>gotten this big over the years because consumers consume more

0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:23.240
<v Speaker 1>and more. But at a certain point, ships can't get

0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.360
<v Speaker 1>longer or bigger because they wouldn't be able to navigate

0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:30.120
<v Speaker 1>things like the Suez Canal. So shipping companies started stacking

0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:34.600
<v Speaker 1>their shipping containers higher and higher on board. On March,

0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:38.960
<v Speaker 1>the ever Given was headed toward the Netherlands, loaded up

0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:43.279
<v Speaker 1>with nearly twenty thousand containers, stood fifty meters above the water,

0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.680
<v Speaker 1>and was carrying about one billion dollars worth of goods.

0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.680
<v Speaker 1>It was a windy day, severe storm winds. They're often

0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.640
<v Speaker 1>our severe storm winds in the Suez, and they were

0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.800
<v Speaker 1>bad enough that day that some captains decided not to

0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:01.359
<v Speaker 1>go through the canal. But Captain is non Cantabell, a

0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:05.880
<v Speaker 1>very experienced seaman, decided to keep going. The reason he

0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:09.520
<v Speaker 1>take the risk is there are huge financial pressures to

0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:11.760
<v Speaker 1>get your cargo where it needs to be on time.

0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.360
<v Speaker 1>The shipping industry is a just in time business, so

0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:18.800
<v Speaker 1>Captain Canti Bell knew there was an enormous amount of

0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:23.800
<v Speaker 1>money riding on his delivery. From a bird's eye view,

0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:26.920
<v Speaker 1>the canal looks like a straight shot through, pretty easy.

0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.360
<v Speaker 1>But seafarer is going through it say, it's incredibly stressful.

0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:34.840
<v Speaker 1>It's narrow, it's shallow. Any mistakes could have huge consequences.

0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.560
<v Speaker 1>And there's a line of ships right behind you, also

0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.520
<v Speaker 1>with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, and

0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.400
<v Speaker 1>they're all in a hurry. So as they ever given

0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.480
<v Speaker 1>enters the south end of the canal, the wind starts

0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.720
<v Speaker 1>to push the ship. Because ships like this stack their

0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.760
<v Speaker 1>containers so high to make the trip worth it. There's

0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.600
<v Speaker 1>a ton of surface area and the entire ships starts

0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.160
<v Speaker 1>to act like a sail. The ship starts swerving back

0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.360
<v Speaker 1>and forth in the narrow canal. The captain and the

0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.320
<v Speaker 1>navigators on board are arguing with each other about what

0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.880
<v Speaker 1>to do. They decided to increase their speed, which the

0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.680
<v Speaker 1>way that these ships work would normally give it control,

0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:14.960
<v Speaker 1>but because of how narrow the channel is, physics takes

0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.720
<v Speaker 1>over and the boat starts to get pulled towards the sides.

0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:21.240
<v Speaker 1>The faster it goes. Orders are getting thrown around to

0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.920
<v Speaker 1>go hard left, then hard right, back and forth, essentially

0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:27.640
<v Speaker 1>fish tailing. And then one of these turns throws the

0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.680
<v Speaker 1>ship out of control where a hard turn can't recover it,

0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:36.200
<v Speaker 1>and the bow of the ever Given crashes into the

0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:41.720
<v Speaker 1>sandy bank. The ship is stuck in the front. Not

0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.280
<v Speaker 1>only that, but the back of the boat swings across

0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:48.120
<v Speaker 1>the canal and grounds itself on the other side. So

0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:50.840
<v Speaker 1>now you have a boat that's a quarter mile long,

0:08:51.040 --> 0:09:01.600
<v Speaker 1>diagonally lodged across the Suez Canal. The four hundred meter

0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.760
<v Speaker 1>long cargoes ship, the ever Given is stuck in the

0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.480
<v Speaker 1>Suez Canal and it is fouling up global trade. And

0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:09.839
<v Speaker 1>it is also apparently the ship was stuck for six

0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:13.319
<v Speaker 1>whole days. And you probably remember this because it was

0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:16.720
<v Speaker 1>a year into the pandemic and the story went totally viral,

0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:20.120
<v Speaker 1>with every armchair expert and news anchor across the world

0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.120
<v Speaker 1>all trying to figure out how to get this thing unstuck.

0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:27.160
<v Speaker 1>It kind of confounded everyone, like how did this happen?

0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:30.760
<v Speaker 1>And how was it so hard to fix? They eventually

0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.280
<v Speaker 1>tried to dig it out, scooping out the bank at

0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.040
<v Speaker 1>the front of the boat with huge excavators that just

0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.720
<v Speaker 1>look comically small next to this mammoth ship. A picture

0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:44.040
<v Speaker 1>of one of these little excavators became a meme synonymous

0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:50.679
<v Speaker 1>with trying to conquer a hopeless task. Every day the

0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:54.040
<v Speaker 1>ship was stuck. All this stuff, these ships waiting to

0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.640
<v Speaker 1>go through and deliver virtually anything you see around you,

0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:02.040
<v Speaker 1>those all stopped. The delay is costing essentially four hundred

0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:09.240
<v Speaker 1>million dollars an hour. I'll spare you the minutia of

0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.360
<v Speaker 1>how they eventually got out, But on March twenty nine,

0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:15.640
<v Speaker 1>six days later, due to some creative engineering and a

0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.280
<v Speaker 1>lucky super moon that pulled the tides up, Yes, a

0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:23.800
<v Speaker 1>super moon, the ship eventually became buoyant enough and got unstuck.

0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.640
<v Speaker 1>When it did. The innumerable ships and tug boats that

0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:35.240
<v Speaker 1>were on the canal all sounded their horns, celebrating. Over

0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.560
<v Speaker 1>those six days, one ship with twenty five crew members

0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:40.480
<v Speaker 1>got hit with some wind and got stuck in a

0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:44.720
<v Speaker 1>bank and disrupted more than fifty four billion dollars worth

0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:48.480
<v Speaker 1>of goods, affecting the entire global economy for months on end.

0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.800
<v Speaker 1>The fact that this ship being stalled in the Suez

0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:58.199
<v Speaker 1>is costing the global billions of billions of dollars by

0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.600
<v Speaker 1>the hour is a reminder that this instance we have

0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:13.760
<v Speaker 1>in place are not particularly resilient. We'll be right back

0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:18.960
<v Speaker 1>after the break. A strong work ethic takes pride in

0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:23.960
<v Speaker 1>a job well done, sweats over the details. This is

0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:28.320
<v Speaker 1>the kind of person you need. Express Employment professionals can help.

0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.640
<v Speaker 1>Finding the best people requires more than sorting through applications.

0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:37.480
<v Speaker 1>You need to conduct a thorough surge. Express understands what

0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:41.400
<v Speaker 1>it takes to hire the right person. It takes real people,

0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:47.720
<v Speaker 1>real interviews, discovering the talents you need. We find good

0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:52.199
<v Speaker 1>people matching their skills with the right jobs. At Express,

0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.800
<v Speaker 1>we find people for jobs and companies of all sizes

0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.160
<v Speaker 1>and industries, from the production floor to the front office.

0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.520
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes finding the best new employee really is about who

0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:09.080
<v Speaker 1>you know. Express Nose Jobs. Get to know Express, go

0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:16.520
<v Speaker 1>to Express pros dot com to find a location near you. Okay,

0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:18.960
<v Speaker 1>So the reason I wanted to tell the story of

0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.280
<v Speaker 1>the ever Given for this season is because we are

0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:26.760
<v Speaker 1>in this great transformation. When COVID hit in, it threw

0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:30.160
<v Speaker 1>everything we knew into complete chaos across the globe. It

0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:34.360
<v Speaker 1>affected everyone this flu and as we exist in this

0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.120
<v Speaker 1>new reality a couple of years into it, we can

0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:41.280
<v Speaker 1>see that COVID really showed us how unsustainable and fragile

0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.600
<v Speaker 1>this world is that we built. It's caused a lot

0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.599
<v Speaker 1>of people we've talked to on this show to reevaluate

0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:50.880
<v Speaker 1>what it is they want to do if they want

0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:53.640
<v Speaker 1>to spend the precious time that they have working a

0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:57.040
<v Speaker 1>particular job, because that's just the path that they chose.

0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.319
<v Speaker 1>It's made people want to take bigger risks because the

0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:04.000
<v Speaker 1>quote safe standard options they've been following turned out to

0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.439
<v Speaker 1>be not as safe and secure as they were made

0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:10.160
<v Speaker 1>to believe. The ever Given getting stuck in the Suez

0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:13.240
<v Speaker 1>Canal shine a light on the exact same thing that

0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.640
<v Speaker 1>we've created, a rapidly moving world that can't keep up

0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:21.520
<v Speaker 1>with itself and has real consequences because of it. The

0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:25.480
<v Speaker 1>world's consumers keep consuming more stuff and we want it cheaper,

0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:27.960
<v Speaker 1>and we don't really want to know or care how

0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:31.360
<v Speaker 1>it happens. What that means, though, is that more parts

0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:34.280
<v Speaker 1>four things have to come from more places to keep

0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:38.400
<v Speaker 1>the cost of things down, which means more ships. In

0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:42.640
<v Speaker 1>the average number of ships passing through the Suez Canal

0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:48.160
<v Speaker 1>was that average has almost doubled to fifty two ships

0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:51.120
<v Speaker 1>a day. That's a lot more stuff in a short

0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:55.319
<v Speaker 1>period of time. And we consumers still expect smooth delivery

0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.320
<v Speaker 1>no matter how much strain we put on the shipping industry.

0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:07.280
<v Speaker 1>Just get us our stuff. When you look at a

0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.720
<v Speaker 1>picture of the ever given, you can visually see how

0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:15.000
<v Speaker 1>crazy this looks. One giant ship with a billion dollars

0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:18.720
<v Speaker 1>worth of shipping containers stacked fifty meters above the water,

0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:23.840
<v Speaker 1>operating in risky environments. It's kind of preposterous and really

0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:28.480
<v Speaker 1>really risky. All companies account for risk and loss of goods,

0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:32.120
<v Speaker 1>but now with so much product on one vessel, the

0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:36.600
<v Speaker 1>loss when things go awry is huge, and today more

0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:42.720
<v Speaker 1>and more things are going awry than ever before. For one,

0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.560
<v Speaker 1>as we saw with the ever Given. The more stuff

0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.160
<v Speaker 1>on these ships, the harder they are to navigate, and

0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.400
<v Speaker 1>again they turn the ship into a giant sail. Another

0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.960
<v Speaker 1>byproduct of this overpacking is that it turns these boats

0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:58.560
<v Speaker 1>into political targets. If one country has a beef with

0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.800
<v Speaker 1>another and wants to see seriously disrupt their supply chain,

0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.520
<v Speaker 1>targeting even one of these massive ships would have a

0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:09.200
<v Speaker 1>huge impact. Iran and Israel have been engaged in and

0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.080
<v Speaker 1>on and off conflict where they harm each other's boats.

0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.760
<v Speaker 1>This is happening, and the laborers that work on and

0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:18.400
<v Speaker 1>depend on these boats are the ones that suffer greatly.

0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.440
<v Speaker 1>The kind of demand, an extraordinary value placed on these

0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.800
<v Speaker 1>boats and getting them to their destination on time causes

0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.560
<v Speaker 1>extreme pressure on the captains that are in charge of

0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:35.640
<v Speaker 1>them and can really clad their judgment. Take Captain cant

0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.400
<v Speaker 1>of Ball, for instance, Captain of the ever Given, he

0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:40.880
<v Speaker 1>knew that there were dangerous winds going into the canal

0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:43.800
<v Speaker 1>that day. It was so bad that other captains turned back.

0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.160
<v Speaker 1>But there is so much commercial pressure for crews to

0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.360
<v Speaker 1>keep on schedule and such huge demand from people at

0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.720
<v Speaker 1>home buying things during the pandemic that he had to

0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:57.640
<v Speaker 1>weigh that against the safety risks. In a perfect world,

0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:00.600
<v Speaker 1>the captain's priorities would be the safety of his ship

0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.840
<v Speaker 1>than crew, But the rising number of accidents on the

0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.720
<v Speaker 1>sea showed that ship captains are taking much bigger risks

0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:14.000
<v Speaker 1>under financial pressure. We are in the biggest spike in

0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.640
<v Speaker 1>maritime accidents in the last seven years, and three quarters

0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:21.200
<v Speaker 1>of those accidents are attributed to human error. Burnt out,

0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:28.240
<v Speaker 1>overworked crews making small mistakes with huge consequences, Captains who

0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.120
<v Speaker 1>look at heavy, dangerous weather coming and take it on

0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:33.680
<v Speaker 1>instead of waiting it out because they can't be late.

0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:37.600
<v Speaker 1>The general attitude is don't go around the storm, go through.

0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.920
<v Speaker 1>On top of that, this weather is becoming more unpredictable

0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:45.360
<v Speaker 1>due to climate change. Rough weather events are actually causing

0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:50.080
<v Speaker 1>massive amounts of containers to fall off of these ships.

0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:53.360
<v Speaker 1>In over three thousand containers were recorded to be dropped

0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:55.800
<v Speaker 1>into the sea, with that number is staying steady Over

0:16:55.800 --> 0:17:01.040
<v Speaker 1>the last couple of years. Almost a hundred billion dollars

0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.719
<v Speaker 1>in cargo was just lost overboard due to accidents like this.

0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:13.360
<v Speaker 1>A hundred billion, and most importantly, these accidents are extremely

0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.520
<v Speaker 1>dangerous and sometimes fatal for the cruise on these ships.

0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:20.040
<v Speaker 1>Being on one of these ships when huge stacks of

0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:23.520
<v Speaker 1>forty ft containers are all toppling over during a raging

0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:28.080
<v Speaker 1>storm stuff of nightmares, so much so that PTSD is

0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:30.840
<v Speaker 1>pretty common among shipping crews because of things like this.

0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:36.040
<v Speaker 1>The mishapps that happened in the shipping industry have a

0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:41.040
<v Speaker 1>real human cost, physically and economically. And those mishapps are

0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:44.359
<v Speaker 1>byproducts of a system we've demanded and one that is

0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:50.720
<v Speaker 1>constantly under an extreme amount of strength. When we buy stuff,

0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.520
<v Speaker 1>we don't really think about how that stuff gets to us.

0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:57.760
<v Speaker 1>It's truly just a marvel of efficiency and speed. Happens

0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.680
<v Speaker 1>like magic, And while we don't have to think about it,

0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:04.359
<v Speaker 1>what that physically looks like is the twenty thousand containers

0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:06.760
<v Speaker 1>stacked on the ever given about to go through the

0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.520
<v Speaker 1>Suez Canal, but the captain who wants to get that

0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:14.919
<v Speaker 1>stuff delivered on time despite the risks. The entire world

0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:18.080
<v Speaker 1>was brought to a halt in when a virus broke loose,

0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:20.560
<v Speaker 1>and we lived in a society that wasn't built to

0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.480
<v Speaker 1>stop for a second and fix it. A year later,

0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.280
<v Speaker 1>a global shipping industry was brought to a halt by

0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:29.639
<v Speaker 1>some unfortunate gusts of wind and an economy that couldn't

0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:35.919
<v Speaker 1>afford to wait it out. Most of the people we

0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.800
<v Speaker 1>talked to in this show are reacting to situations just

0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:42.160
<v Speaker 1>like this in their personal lives. They're going about their

0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:46.360
<v Speaker 1>day as they always did until something happens, and suddenly

0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:49.359
<v Speaker 1>they realized that the way they're living isn't really making

0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:52.359
<v Speaker 1>them happy, or it just doesn't make sense at all,

0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.439
<v Speaker 1>and they decided kind of oud of desperation to change

0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:00.840
<v Speaker 1>course into their own great transformation. Maybe the lesson here

0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:03.800
<v Speaker 1>is that the ever given in our shipping industry have

0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:09.160
<v Speaker 1>not changed course. Ships keep having accidents, containers are still

0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:12.600
<v Speaker 1>going overboard, and the Suez Canal is as precarious as

0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:15.800
<v Speaker 1>it was two years ago, and we still just want

0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:19.440
<v Speaker 1>our stuff. It's all proof that if a major calamity

0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:21.679
<v Speaker 1>shows you the error of your ways, do you have

0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.600
<v Speaker 1>the capability to get back on the water and make

0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:30.199
<v Speaker 1>those same errors again. But you don't have to. If

0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:32.639
<v Speaker 1>you're in a job or a life that doesn't make sense,

0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.320
<v Speaker 1>a house of cards that could fall to a gust

0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.119
<v Speaker 1>of wind, you do have the choice to steer away

0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.680
<v Speaker 1>and make a new course. If you don't, you could

0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:55.920
<v Speaker 1>really get stuck for on the job. I'm Modus Gray.

0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.240
<v Speaker 1>Thanks for listening. Special thanks for the sources on this show,

0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:03.280
<v Speaker 1>Elizabeth rows article in Foreign Policy and and Co's article

0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.400
<v Speaker 1>in The Economic Times, and Bloomberg's reporting on the Ever

0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:13.320
<v Speaker 1>Given music by Blue Dot Sessions mm hmm