Good morning, and welcome to The Ship Show!
The NFL season is officially back, which means millions of Americans can once again spend their Sundays screaming at professional athletes for failing to produce enough imaginary points for a team called something like “Tua Legit Tua Quit.”
Fantasy football is a beautiful tradition. For roughly four months, grown adults who otherwise function normally in society become amateur scouts, statisticians, injury experts, meteorologists, and deeply unreasonable critics of a backup running back in Jacksonville.
Fantasy football takes an already emotional sport and adds another completely unnecessary layer of stress.
You can spend three hours watching your favorite team win and still leave furious because your quarterback handed the ball off at the goal line.
It’s beautiful.
But the most fascinating part of fantasy football isn’t winning. It’s what happens to the person who finishes last.
I’m talking public humiliation, gastrointestinal warfare, and consequences that make you question whether these people are actually friends.
Here are some of the finest fantasy football punishments humanity has produced:
Winning is fun, sure.
But the real joy comes from watching one of your closest friends make a series of increasingly terrible roster decisions, finish dead last, and then spend 11 hours in a Waffle House trying to physically consume his way back into society.
– Greyson Harris
In this week’s issue:
Canada’s response to the latest round of U.S. tariffs arrived Tuesday in the traditional language of international diplomacy: more tariffs.
Canadian retaliatory duties are now in effect on C$27.6 billion (roughly US$20 billion) worth of American goods, matching tariffs imposed by the United States last month.
The new levies range from 15% to 50% across products including steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics.
Anything you can do…
Canada’s new duties are a direct response to the 50% tariffs the Trump administration placed on roughly $20 billion in Canadian goods beginning August 22.
Ottawa designed its response to be essentially dollar-for-dollar. Products targeted by U.S. Section 338 and Section 232 tariffs are being hit with corresponding Canadian rates of 15%, 25%, or 50%.
The retaliation follows the collapse of three days of trade negotiations in Washington on August 21. Both sides agree that talks had made progress before falling apart. They disagree considerably on the part where they fell apart.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said U.S. negotiators introduced unacceptable last-minute demands involving Canada’s ability to negotiate trade agreements with other countries, French-language and cultural protections, and tariff treatment for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles.
U.S. officials have pushed back on that version, arguing Canada introduced new demands late in the process and walked away from what Washington considered a favorable agreement. No new formal negotiating round has been scheduled.
We should see other people.
The breakdown has prompted Carney to talk increasingly about reducing Canada’s dependence on its southern neighbor.
In a September 8 address, Carney argued that Canada needs to accelerate trade diversification and become less vulnerable to decisions made in Washington. He said the country has what it needs to “pivot and prosper,” while warning that the transition won’t necessarily be painless.
That is easier said than done.
The United States accounted for 71.7% of Canadian merchandise exports in 2025. That figure was already down from 75.9% in 2024, while Canadian exports to countries outside the U.S. grew 17.2% last year.
Canada has also begun pushing more manufacturing back home. Last week, Carney announced C$4.7 billion to build 313 new VIA Rail passenger cars in Canada, marking the first time in four decades that the railroad’s cars will be produced domestically rather than in the U.S.
Crossing the line (literally).
Behind all of the political back-and-forth is an enormous amount of freight.
The U.S. and Canada moved $712.8 billion worth of goods across the border in 2025. Trucks carried $396.8 billion, or 55.7% of that total, while rail accounted for another $89.7 billion.
The Detroit, Port Huron, and Buffalo crossings alone handled more than $321 billion in U.S.-Canada trade last year.
What began as another round of trade negotiations has quickly turned into both countries making longer-term plans for a relationship they can no longer assume will operate the way it used to.
Tariffs don’t automatically eliminate those shipments, but the longer the dispute lasts, the greater the incentive becomes for companies to reconsider suppliers, manufacturing locations, inventory levels, and transportation networks.
There are a lot of things that can derail a supply chain:
Now we can add the Pacific Ocean being way too warm to the list.
A rapidly strengthening Super El Niño could produce nearly $1 trillion in global economic losses in 2027, with the damage potentially stretching above $7 trillion over the following years as extreme weather disrupts agriculture, transportation, infrastructure, investment, and labor markets.
And unlike a tariff deadline or port strike, there isn’t exactly anyone to negotiate with.
What’s so “super” about this?
If you didn’t pay attention in high school science class, we got you covered.
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern caused by unusually warm water in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. It develops every few years and can rearrange weather patterns thousands of miles away, bringing drought and extreme heat to some regions while dumping excessive rainfall and flooding on others.
A normal El Niño is generally identified once Pacific surface temperatures rise significantly above their historical average. When those anomalies exceed roughly 2 degrees Celsius, the strongest events are often informally described as “Super El Niños.”
This one has already blown past that neighborhood.
Sea surface temperatures in parts of the equatorial Pacific reached roughly 2.6 degrees Celsius above average this summer, and the World Meteorological Organization says the event is still strengthening.
Forecasts now show a nearly 100% likelihood that El Niño persists through February 2027, with its intensity expected to peak toward the end of this year.
Weathering the weather.
When economists talk about nearly $1 trillion in losses, they are not simply counting flooded buildings, damaged roads, and destroyed crops. The bigger concern is what happens afterward.
Imagine a company planned to spend $10 million upgrading a factory. Then a flood damages the building. That money still gets spent, but instead of buying new equipment and increasing production, it goes toward replacing walls, machinery, and electrical systems that were already there.
You spend the money, but you do not get any bigger.
Oxford Economics says that dynamic can ripple across entire economies as governments and businesses redirect funds away from expansion, technology, infrastructure, education, and research, and toward rebuilding.
Add in higher insurance costs, tighter lending, damaged property values, and lost worker productivity, and a weather event that lasts a few months can leave an economic bruise for years.
Supply chains brace for impact.
For logistics, El Niño is especially frustrating because there is no single predictable disruption:
El Niño does not necessarily shut down one supply chain. It rearranges several of them at once.
The Panama Canal Authority has already announced reductions in daily transits after rainfall across the watershed came in well below historical averages. For ocean carriers, that creates a menu of unpleasant choices:
None of those options are particularly famous for lowering transportation costs.
Stacking L’s.
This is where the $7.2 trillion estimate starts making more sense.
A major weather event does not end when the rain stops. Infrastructure has to be rebuilt. Businesses borrow money. Insurance premiums rise. Banks become more cautious about financing assets in high-risk areas. Governments divert spending toward disaster recovery. Companies delay expansion, and supply chains carry more inventory because transportation becomes less predictable.
One disruption creates another cost, which creates another decision, which creates another ripple somewhere else.
🚢 Fuel costs, congestion keep pressure on ocean rates: Rising tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, stronger Chinese crude demand, and higher fuel costs are helping keep container rates elevated even as peak-season demand begins to cool. Trans-Pacific rates remain around $7,600 to the West Coast and $9,500 to the East Coast.
🚂 Intermodal leads another week of rail gains: U.S. rail traffic rose 4.1% year over year for the week ending Aug. 29, with carloads up 2.2% and intermodal volume climbing 5.7%. Metallic ores and metals led carload growth at 11%, followed by petroleum products at 8.4%, and grain at 8.3%, while motor vehicles and parts fell 6%. Through the first 34 weeks of 2026, total U.S. rail traffic is up 3.3% from last year, with intermodal leading the way at 3.9%.
✈️ Airfreight rates stay firm through summer lull: Global airfreight pricing was nearly unchanged in August, defying the usual summer slowdown as higher fuel costs and steady demand kept rates elevated. Cargo tonnage rose 6% year over year, while rates were 18.1% higher than last August. China-Europe prices fell 11.3% during the month, but China-U.S. rates climbed 28.7% year over year as trans-Pacific demand remained strong.
The NBA salary cap is supposed to make sure even the richest owner in the league can’t simply open his wallet and buy every superstar he wants.
The Los Angeles Clippers found a potential workaround: What if somebody else opened the wallet?
After a nearly year-long investigation, the NBA concluded last week that the Clippers repeatedly circumvented salary-cap rules by helping Kawhi Leonard secure millions of dollars in off-court endorsement income from companies that were also doing business with the team.
Dropping the hammer.
The league’s response was roughly the basketball equivalent of finding someone cheating at Monopoly and taking away the next five times they’re allowed to pass Go.
The Clippers were fined $30 million and stripped of five consecutive first-round draft picks from 2029 through 2033.
Owner Steve Ballmer was suspended from all team and league activities for one year, President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank was suspended for six months, and President of Business Operations Gillian Zucker was suspended for a year.
Leonard was ordered to pay $700,000, while his former business manager and uncle, Dennis Robertson, was banned from conducting business with NBA teams for five years.
The Clippers will also spend the next five years under a league compliance and monitoring program.
So, what exactly did everyone do?
That’s cap.
NBA salary rules are complicated enough that I’m pretty sure you need a minor in tax law to understand the second apron. Fortunately, the rule the Clippers broke is much easier.
Teams have limits governing how much they can pay players. For example, in the upcoming 2026-27 season, the salary cap is roughly $165 million, with additional tax and spending restrictions kicking in above that level.
Players are still free to make as much money as they want elsewhere. Nike can pay LeBron James. State Farm can pay an NBA player to pretend he’s extremely passionate about insurance. Nobody cares.
The problem comes when the team itself helps arrange outside payments as a disguised extension of the player’s contract.
Imagine your employer tells you it can only legally pay you $100,000. Then it tells one of its vendors, “Hey, we’ll give you a huge contract, but we’d really appreciate it if you also hired Steve over here as a consultant for another $50,000.”
Steve doesn’t do much consulting. The vendor gets the business. Steve gets his extra money. Your employer gets to pretend it still only paid him $100,000.
That’s essentially the type of arrangement the NBA says it uncovered in Los Angeles.
Board man gets paid.
The story traces back to Leonard’s arrival in Los Angeles and Robertson, better known around NBA circles as “Uncle Dennis.”
According to the investigation, Robertson pushed the Clippers to help Leonard generate roughly $10 million per year in additional off-court income. Rather than telling him those demands crossed a line, Clippers executives began connecting Leonard with companies interested in doing business with the franchise.
Those companies included Boingo Wireless, Daktronics, Lockton Insurance, and Aspiration Partners. All four eventually signed endorsement arrangements with Leonard.
The NBA says the Clippers didn’t merely make introductions. Investigators concluded the organization initiated opportunities, helped facilitate agreements, and, most importantly, offered or provided team business that encouraged the companies to pay Leonard.
Leonard ultimately received approximately $66 million in endorsement compensation from the four companies, according to the investigation.
Aspiring to break the rules.
The biggest piece involved Aspiration, a sustainability-focused financial company that became a major Clippers partner.
Ballmer personally invested tens of millions of dollars in Aspiration, while the company signed an enormous sponsorship agreement with the Clippers. Leonard subsequently received his own lucrative endorsement deal from Aspiration.
The arrangement was originally reported in 2025 as a four-year, $28 million contract, but investigators later concluded the full deal was actually worth as much as $48 million, including cash and equity.
Investigators described the compensation as extraordinarily high considering Leonard’s endorsement profile and limited obligations under the agreement. That’s particularly notable because Kawhi may be one of the least commercially enthusiastic superstars imaginable.
This is a man whose public persona has traditionally consisted of playing basketball, saying approximately seven words in press conferences, and occasionally producing one of the most recognizable laughs in sports history.
Yet here he was commanding tens of millions through companies connected to Clippers business.
Aspiration eventually collapsed, and co-founder Joseph Sanberg was sentenced earlier this year to 14 years in federal prison for defrauding investors and lenders of more than $248 million.
The company’s bankruptcy helped expose records surrounding Leonard’s endorsement deal, which eventually fueled reporting by journalist Pablo Torre and triggered the NBA investigation.
Flagrant foul.
The NBA treats salary-cap circumvention as one of its most serious offenses because the entire competitive system depends on owners agreeing not to do exactly this.
Ballmer, in particular, demonstrates why.
The former Microsoft CEO is worth tens of billions of dollars. If owners were allowed to supplement contracts through sponsors, vendors, friends, shell companies, or Steve from Accounting, there wouldn’t really be a salary cap anymore.
Commissioner Adam Silver called the Clippers’ actions “flagrant violations” and said the punishment reflected both the seriousness of the misconduct and failures within the franchise’s leadership.
Clipped.
Leonard avoided the most severe possibilities. His NBA contract wasn’t voided, and he wasn’t suspended. His $700,000 payment is also tiny compared with the financial and basketball punishment handed to the Clippers.
The organization, meanwhile, will be dealing with the consequences well into the next decade.
The Clippers have strongly disputed the NBA’s conclusions, saying they did not funnel money to Leonard or arrange outside compensation as a substitute for salary.
Before the final ruling, the organization argued that introducing players to team business partners is common throughout professional sports and does not automatically constitute cap circumvention.
The independent investigation ultimately disagreed, finding a broader pattern in which Clippers business was used to encourage companies to compensate Leonard.
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Less wandering. More rest.
Designed for shippers who want straightforward market insight and smarter freight strategies.
