Forget CPI – Watch the ships
ANALYSIS: Container rates don’t predict the future. They are the future, just earlier.
Container shipping is the invisible backbone of global commerce.
Sohum Karl
Sat, 29 Nov 2025
© All content copyright NBR. Do not reproduce in any form without permission, even if you have a paid subscription.
The first tremors of global inflation in 2021 didn’t appear in spreadsheets or Fed minutes. The real economy hums across the Pacific in 40-foot steel boxes. When the cost of shipping a container from Shanghai to Los Angeles rocketed 1200%, it wasn’t a blip. It was the ocean warning Wall Street
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Sohum Karl
Sat, 29 Nov 2025
© All content copyright NBR. Do not reproduce in any form without permission, even if you have a paid subscription.
