I didn't mean we should keep importing to keep people busy. I'm sure that whatever was coming through those ports was ordered by a large number of companies/individuals.

Sure, if we were in a downturn it would slow but not come to a standstill.

From this article "Even during the COVID nonsense, the supply chain did not experience THIS kind of sudden shut down."

> I didn't mean we should keep importing to keep people busy. I'm sure that whatever was coming through those ports was ordered by a large number of companies/individual

Sure but you were being cynical and presented port workers not having having thing to unload as a major issue to worry about. In the whole scheme it seemed like not the first problem to solve.

It's not a downturn, it's a trade war, complete with effective blockade.

Yes, probably. Lose skilled, trained workers to another industry and it may be tough to get them back later on when you need them again.

> Yes, probably. Lose skilled, trained workers to another industry and it may be tough to get them back later on when you need them again.

I love it! If that's the case, then it's easily solved, just ship empty cardboard boxes back and forth to/from Hawaii. The workers can diligently load and unload them, and then load them right back. The truck drivers can do a few loops around Los Angeles even to keep up their training.

That that kind of happened during a phase of the Soviet Union's economic development. The economic success of a branch was measured by the amount of resources consumed and the allocated work done. So they had started building large couches and started running empty trains back and forth to consume wood or fuel and add up "miles driven" to their ledger. We can do the same /s

Or… undo the change that caused a temporary shock.

By all means, retrain the blacksmiths in the early 1900s… but this isn't that sort of situation. We'll need the port workers again.

Because that’s the only reason things are imported?

No but it's presented as the major problem to solve. There are lot larger issues at play and if keeping pork workers buys is the goal, then we should have them load and unload empty boxes /s

I don't think OP was specifically stating we need to save these specific jobs, rather they were pointing out the interconnected nature of the economy. Less importing hurts the workers in those industries. Taking that further, it will hurt businesses near the ports where the workers may have gotten lunch, etc. etc. etc. That's how recessions look at a microeconomic scale.

> rather they were pointing out the interconnected nature of the economy. Less importing hurts the workers in those industries.

Well I agree with that phrasing however the OP said it as:

> to be so cynical [...] that would mean a lot of dockworkers/longshoreman are out of jobs or not working right?

That leads to a different interpretation and sounds like something else than what you said (which I agree with).

> just

Well we don’t import things to just do that.

Sure, but it's presented as the major problem here. There are other problems to worry about at that scale

No, but we're not just importing stuff because it keeps port workers busy. We import stuff because there is demand for it, and port workers' labor generates many multiples of profitable business activity downstream.