Grounded Ever Given Tells Much About The State Of Our Economy

Grounded Ever Given Tells Much About The State Of Our Economy

STUCK SHIP EVER GIVEN, SUEZ CANAL -- MARCH 26, 2021: Maxars WorldView-2 collected new ... [+] high-resolution satellite imagery of the Suez canal and the container ship (EVER GIVEN) that remains stuck in the canal north of the city of Suez, Egypt. Please use: Satellite image (c) 2020 Maxar Technologies. The encumbering of the supertanker MV Ever Given in the Suez Canal is the image of the week, or perhaps the year. It speaks to a world economy that has overgrown its natural infrastructure - a vessel greedily stacked with cargo that becomes so unwieldy that it is grounded by a puff of wind (high winds and a dust storm did for the Ever Given). It takes little imagination to think of problems like climate change and inequality taking the place of the tanker in the channel of the world order. It is also an image that brings home the tangible elements of globalization - as I write 300 ships are stuck behind the Ever Given (at a cost of USD 400mn per hour), and their delayed passage through the Suez Canal will deprive people of vital goods, like toilet paper. Besides demonstrating what a 'house of cards' globalization has