The number 2021 will go down in history, I suspect, as a number we will not wish to remember. Coming — as it has — on the tail of the number, 2020.
But these two unforgettable numbers, which we will all try our best to forget, have been outnumbered, so to speak, by some other big numbers. “Big” in the sense of either “important” or perhaps “overblown”.
3,120%
The sudden increase in the price of GameStop Corporation stock during a January, 2021, stock trading fiasco. The struggling company’s stock price was being ‘gamed’ (or so it would appear) by hedge fund short sellers, who had driven the stock price down to about $17 a share (or so it would appear). Then a group of renegade retail traders from the Reddit social media website decided to save GameStop’s reputation, and in a frenzy of stock trading, drove the price up to $483, causing the hedge fund investors to sustain huge losses. Which all goes to show that the social media pen is mightier than the hedge fund sword.
But not mightier than the Book of Mormon, perhaps? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, through its investment manager Ensign Peak Advisors, reportedly bought 46,000 shares of GameStop in 2020, and saw the value of its investment jump 900 percent.
Did this event really mean anything to anyone, other than a few billionaires and religious leaders, over the long run? Probably not. But for those of us who hate hedge fund investors, it was a good reason to post funny memes on social media.
$10,377
The average cost to have a 40-foot shipping container delivered from Asia to the US, in September 2021. Compared to about $1,000 in September 2019.
America has pretty much given up manufacturing anything people want, and as a result, imports to the US filled about 26 million TEUs (Twenty-foot-container Equivalent Units) in 2021, which was an 18% increase from 2020, and the National Retail Federation expects retail holiday sales to grow by about 12% over last year, now that millions of Americans have quit their jobs and have nothing better to do than shop all day long.
About a third of the containers that arrive in the US are sailing back to Asia empty, because whatever Americans could ship to Asia is apparently worth less than an empty container.
Except beef. We’re still exporting a lot of beef. Asians really like US beef. Which is a good thing for the cattle industry… considering that everyone, over here, is switching to chicken.
140 million square feet
The amount of square feet of newly-built warehouse space constructed by Amazon in the US since the beginning of 2020. (Source: Economist magazine.) This is more square footage than Walmart has built in 59 years.
These warehouses are absolutely necessary, to temporarily contain the Asian products that arrived in the 26 million TEUs, until they can be shipped to the American families who ordered them — using the iPhones that also arrived in the TEUs from Asia — when we weren’t posting funny memes on social media.
$3 trillion
Total Chinese exports for 2021. Up about 30% over 2020 exports.
When I was a kid, the only export coming out of China was soy sauce. When I took my time eating certain portions of my dinner (the Brussels sprouts) my mother would chide me. “Finish your dinner, Louis. Children are starving in China.”
Later on, I started seeing plastic flipflops with a ‘Made in China’ label. I got a picture in my mind of starving children standing around in plastic flipflops, wishing they had a big plate of Brussels sprouts.
How things have changed. Those children are now ranking members of the Chinese Communist Party, and dine on choice American-grown beef and quinoa salad, pouring $300 bottles of Napa Valley wine.
I’m lucky to afford a Chicken McNuggets Happy Meal.