We were catching up on our supply chain news and came across this informative article from Freight Waves. The article points out that the Biden Administration has mandated truck drivers crossing the US border in Canada or Mexico will need to be fully vaccinated in order to cross the border.
We are keenly interested in this because Mexico and Canada are the U.S. largest trading partners and we care concerned about inflation impacting our portfolios and economic future. There is already a trucker shortage of approximately 80,000 truckers and high gas prices and inflation aren’t helping the situation. We suspect there is going to be a small to medium percentage of truckers that will be resistant to get vaccinated thereby exacerbating the trucker shortage problem.
All of this will lead to further supply chain delays and further inflationary pressure on goods and services. Ironically, some CEO’s are now calling for immigrants to come into the country to help alleviate the situation. We say ironically because the previous administration was largely elected on a strong anti-immigration stance and businesses are now asking for a reversal.
To add insult to injury the weather has been horrible for truckers this fall going into winter and used truck prices are soaring. This too adds to the mountain of trouble truckers are facing: bad weather, high fuel costs, labor shortages, supply chain shortages, higher used truck pricing, inefficiencies, etc.
There is nothing most of us can do about this situation other than to review our investment portfolio and seek out opportunities to invest.