Say What? This can't be real....

-- Lisa (lisa@work.now), June 23, 1999

Answers

First, that's a British site. Second, I can't imagine that kind of thing happening without hundreds of associated lawsuits....

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), June 23, 1999.

Here's a link to the original Financial Times article. It's not a surcharge on hoarders, it's a surcharge on shipping containers that will need to go back to Asia empty. Basically, $150 for a 20 foot container, $300 for a 40 foot container. Naturally, that cost will be built into the price of goods shipped by those shipping lines.

SHIPPING: Millennium Surcharge (Charles Batchelor, < em>Financial Times [U.K.])

The Register loves taking these kinds of stories and sensationalizing them. Go to the source, and it makes more sense...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), June 23, 1999.

Thanks, pshannon, for the clarification. Sending empty shipping containers back to Asia has been a problem since the start of the Asian economic slump. US exports to the rest of the Pacific rim fell off but our imports sure haven't. What to do with all of those empty freighters stacking up along the coast? Not very economical to send them back empty. Somebody predicted a couple of years ago that there would be a premium paid for shipping from Asia to the US because of the expected ship shortage (say that fast 3 times) overseas.

For once, I don't think this is Y2K.

-- Margaret (janssm@aol.com), June 23, 1999.