For more than 30 years, the headline number from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals’ (CSCMP) “State of Logistics” report, the latest version of which was released Thursday, has been the ratio of business logistics costs to U.S. GDP. The lower the ratio, the more efficient the country’s logistics system because the cost of moving goods consumes a smaller slice of the total economic pie. Or so the argument has gone ever since the report’s inception.
The events of 2020, however,...