Bill Gates: The Best Books I Read in 2013

[Guest hellsten]

http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Personal/Best-Books-2013

 

The Box, by Marc Levinson. You might think you don’t want to read a whole book about shipping containers. And Levinson is pretty self-aware about what an unusual topic he chose. But he makes a good case that the move to containerized shipping had an enormous impact on the global economy and changed the way the world does business. And he turns it into a very readable narrative. I won’t look at a cargo ship in quite the same way again.

[yadayada]

yeah i thought that was interesting as well. In some industries if you have to modify your goods, it could be cheaper to load them into a container ship and have it done in some 3rd world country, and then ship them back again. Pretty crazy. Imagine if the oil runs out or becomes really expensive before they find an alternative way to power these ships. The world economy basicly runs on the shipping industry.

[value-is-what-you-get]

Our freight rate for products we import from China (less than container loads) is around 17% all in landed in Ontario Canada.  Goes from China to Prince Rupert, them on a train to Toronto warehouse.  Identical freight manufactured in California costs more to ship!  Was a pleasant surprise to be sure.  Reminds me of a quote by the foremost expert on the life of Andrew Carnegie.  He was asked what he thought Carnegie might say if told that today we mine iron ore, put it on a ship to China or Korea, they turn it into rolled steel and ship it back to North America.  He figured Carnegie would say it s a good time to get into the steel business!