One of the world’s largest shipping companies is sinking in a sea of red ink, leaving sailors and cargo stranded in vessels anchored offshore and merchants worrying they won’t get goods in time for holiday shopping. South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping, the world’s No. 7 shipping company, is in bankruptcy and has more than 40 massive container ships stranded at sea. It’s estimated they’re carrying $14 billion worth of goods —
everything from Samsung electronics and Nike sneakers to furniture and food. “Our ships can become ghost ships,” Kim Ho Kyung, a manager at Hanjin Shipping’s labor union, told Bloomberg News. “Food and water are running down in those ships floating in international waters.” The ships are barred from entering many ports where Hanjin hasn’t paid the workers who unload cargo and the truckers and railroads which bring the goods to markets. READ MORE
