The problem is far more oversupply than lessened demand - all the container ship companies built capacity frantically over the last ten years, building giant new classes of carrier without taking older ones out of service. The numbers in the articles are also only for a five year period, which is too short to draw any useful inferences from on something of this scale.
Global shipping moves something like 560 million containers a year. It just hasn’t increased as fast as the mega-shippers bet on.
The other day, my wife and I walked through an outdoors mall to pick up a couple of things and see the decorations. She commented that she used to enjoy shopping. She wanted so many things, but lacked the money to buy them. Now that she can afford pretty much anything she wants, she doesn’t want anything - and hates shopping.
I started another thread about “casual” gifting. We’ve long told our kids and family that we do not want any gifts - other than maybe a small “saw this and thought of you.”
But there are tons of things to spend on. New, upgraded tech. And services/experiences. I could see consumption/spending trending away from “objects” to tech services, dining, travel…
::cough::Hatchimles::cough::
Once a person has food, clothing and shelter they have fulfilled all of their personal needs. For replication of the species there needs to be some human contact in the form of sex. Beyond that, it’s all fulfilling wants/desires, and the good Madison Ave. folks will make sure we never fulfill all of those!.