It takes the giant Emma Maersk, which carries the equivalent of nearly 15,000 twenty-foot containers (TEUs), about three and a half miles to come to a dead stop. But there's no stopping the Triple-E, Maersk Line's even larger class of containership, from entering the liner trades over the next three years.

Judging from their actions, ocean carriers would love to toss out those irritating economics textbooks, with their tedious lessons about supply and demand. Too much capacity? No pricing discipline? Sluggish volume growth? Forget about it. Why should any of that prevent them from raising freight rates?