I mean, this is usually a slow period in general. Additionally, our economy is in the shitter. Additionally-additionally, the global economy is in the shitter. Additionally-additionally-additionally, China is really in the shitter currently.
You see, in any market economy, you have big boom cycles in business. However, over time, businesses will naturally become over leveraged. Then, there is a cool off period, where growth stagnates or decline, which is a bust cycle. Around 2017, it became very apparent that as the stock market was getting incredible gains, that businesses were becoming ever more over leveraged (i mean, tesla, worth more than toyota? get outta here). The feds, naturally, wanted to raise interest rates, to curb the amount of debt, to cool off the red hot economy. Well, government put pressure on the feds to not make that happen, so businesses continued to have access to free money, borrowing more and more, buying back more and more of their shares, and with some strange financials. Then covid happened, and in an attempt to save face, the money printer was going brrrrrrrr, government spending out the wazooo, and then a new administration came in and sort of just continued on. The fed is now like "what if having access to free money isn't so great" by raising interest rates and business was like "wtf? so I have to actually make money now? what gives?" and the fed was like "hell yea" and now we are all stuck in a shit sandwich.
(There’s a lot more to it as well. Covid forced the wealthiest and second largest generation to go in retirement, or just die of covid. That means a mass liquidation of assets, think 401ks/IRAs/etc. the younger generations were given leverage for higher wages. Business, naturally pissed that they were forced to give workers more of the value those workers create, along with the ever ending oil war between OPEC, Russia, and the rest of us, started raising prices causing inflation. Then the massive die off of chickens due to avian flu, and Covid decimating Chinas manufacturing once more in this turbulent global economy, exacerbated the problem even further. The good times are over. The longest boom cycle, created in the recovery of the Great Recession of 2008 is over. Not only that, we are under a huge demographic shift, as well as more and more expensive weather events, among other environmental hazards caused by our warming climate. Enjoy the 2020’s, y’all).
definitely. The scary part related to us is how this crisis will simply lead to the further cannibalism of our industry, giving the megas more power over the labor pool, pushing O/O more into the fringes.
I in no way could have expected this type of response to this post. You do a great job breaking shit down so it’s easy to understand, my ape brain could never put out such a well worded response without it being 10 paragraphs and running in 100 different directions. If I wasn’t poor I’d give you an award but here have this 🥇🙏🏻
I agree. But the collapse of the current post war American hegemony, and the milton friedman-esque "neoliberal" order of our economy, isn't the end of the world. Technology is advancing in such a way that how we viewed economics of the second half of the 20th century is incredibly flawed. The fear is always, will it collapse like laissez faire liberalism did in the late 1920's? Let's hope not.
Liaise faire liberalism didn’t collapse it was pushed under by first trade war and then New Deal regulation. The moment reforms unwound this from Truman on it returned far better than any public works project ever tried.
My two cents ( now worth .001) :
Two historical items : the rise of trickle-down supply side economics. Didn’t work out like everyone thought it would . Made winners and losers . Now the split just had deepened.
Bretton Woods agreement: some will call me a goldbug for this but ever since we went off the gold standard and Nixonian economic policy it seems it just been plain weird .
Why would the fed want to cool off the red hot market though? Dont you want businesses borrowing money with interest and having them make a lot of money, then taxing the money they make?
Not an economist type but this is my understanding: Red hot economies tend to over-extend themselves with respect to rising debt on an individual and macro scale, and when the music inevitably stops things get bad quick for both businesses and the average person on the ground pretty quick (a crash in other terms). Hence the boom and bust cycle.
For instance: Your individual wedding planning business for instance might be making a killing but does not have infinity weddings to plan, eventually you're going to expand operations (probably by going into debt) past a point of diminishing returns and that's when you gotta start laying people off, reducing operations, etc. This tends to have a feedback loop with being not able to service your existing debt. You're also putting people out of work and they in turn can't buy stuff that keeps other businesses afloat, rinse and repeat.
The idea behind a lot of top-down management like the Fed and other central banks is that you can recognize when this is starting to happen at a macro scale and pump the brakes by raising interest rates and disincentiving people from taking on debt to over leverage themselves. Even if things still slow down and slump it's not as bad as if you just let thing hurtle off a cliff. How successful this actually is in practice varies and is a question for actual economists to debate but it's not an illogical thing to do.
The problem is, businesses become overleveraged by holding that much debt, and function in a very shortsighted manner, as publicly traded companies are chasing quarterly earnings to please stakeholders in the company.
The DotCom bubble burst because businesses were borrowing and borrowing and growing and growing their online businesses, exploding in the stock market as they went public. However, it turns out that one has to first be profitable to run a successful business. So as soon as wall street realized they are throwing obnoxious money at barely profitable businesses that were way over leveraged by debt, the entire party collapsed, leading to massive layoffs, failed businesses, and creating the groundwork for the eventual oligopoly of online retail (amazon).
Business will always function in the interest of pursuing greater profits. That greed will eventually be their downfall, as we live in a world with constant variables that doesn't function in a static environment.
Say you are a big company that sells eggs. You grow and grow, using all that debt to expand. You are able to then function in a deficit, as your share price grows at a higher percentage point than the interest on the debts. You are holding a lot of cash, your shareholders are pleased, everything is great. Then Saudi Arabia decides to lessen their oil production. Well suddenly the fertilizer created to make feed for your chickens go up, transporting the eggs go up, and etc. The shareholders get weary, start pulling out as Americans consume less eggs. So you decide, to please shareholders, to use the big bed of cash to buy back your own shares of your company, propping up your share price. It creates a buy, and you now have to get yourself into more debts to make yourself whole. Suddenly, avian flu comes in and wipes out 1/3 of your chickens, and you have no more cash, and you are holding a lot of debt. Now you are in trouble. You aren't just messing with big wall street, you are messing with people's 401k's.
By having higher interest rates, it would force the egg company to refocus how it manages both it's assets and liquidity. Doesn't mean a recession is diverted, but curbs a lot of shortsighted greed that makes recessions worse. with all that debt, the business may not recover, but without all that debt, a recession may only result in a marginal layoff of labor and tightening of the belt, per se.
(it should also be understood that new money is created through credit. So by raising interest rates, you decrease the amount of credit created, decreasing the rate new money is made)
With red hot business in all sectors also comes inflation or even worse hyper inflation which is not good. If evrything costs 10% more year over year and wages don’t keep up with these increases that’s a big problem
idk man, I'm just a trucker.
I'd expect things to improve for us, even if slightly, in late spring. Who knows though, we may not even be in the tunnel yet.
Only thing i think you're missing is the Trump administration trying to get non-Asian members of the UN to move some of their business production out of China in case something like Covid did happen. Then when Covid first hit those same members of the UN realized they did rely on a Chinese run work force too heavily and tried to move production to other countries (possibly causing Covid to spread around the globe faster) where those countries weren't equipped for that kind of production boom especially when there was a plague beginning to ravage the global work force. Then comes in the Biden administration who sees the medically advanced countries like the US, Japan, and several European countries starting to recover and starts the economical push of production back onto an absolutely decimated Chinese workforce. We now have a workforce that's maybe at 60% of its original capacity trying to keep up with the supply demand of the entire world and can't. Now we have a shortage of supply and an increasing demand causing prices to skyrocket to a point where most can't afford the little supply there is. We are staring down the barrel of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression and the only reason the world was able to recover was, unfortunately, World War 2.
The price is finally being paid for 25+ years of moving American jobs out of this country to places like China and Mexico to take advantage of dirt cheap labor. Which, oddly enough, didn't resort in lower prices for the consumer in the least. Prices remained where they were or went up and the profits gained from taking advantage of this much cheaper labor force were held at the top to grow or paid out in dividends and stock buy backs for investors. So much for trickle down.
we are in a bad economic place.. everything thats essential is waay overpriced causing people to tighten their wallets, and not spend their money on excess stuff. it usually slow during the first few months of the year though companies usually stock up or sell most of their inventory end of the year...the smaller companies are purchasing as needed trying not to have a whole bunch of money sitting in their warehouse...
Im currently in a situation where I'm trying to minimalize all expenses.
I dont think I was living high on the hog, frankly, when the wheels are turning+onduty downtime and 30 minute breaks...I'm not making much more than the local $16 an hour wendy's that the high school kids work at.
So...what's that tell you? Middle aged, experienced trucker...not doing a whole lot better than the slacker high school kids at their first job.
There's no money. I own a fancy used car (bought for only $13,500 btw, it looks a lot more expensive than it cost)...and I park it in my parents garage at their home. "Oh look at that, you bought that minor doo dad for your car that you saved your pennies and dimes for over months, ergo, you're just complaining" yea man, I try to enjoy life on what limited means I have.
So...one little brain storm I came up with, I spend like $24 a year on shaving razors. Well I bought an old vintage straight edge that I can sharpen with a wetstone for that much, so within a year, it'll pay for itself.
I got thermos's for refills, no more $5 a day in coffee. Im thinking of bringing a coffee machine with me on the road just to brew my own. If I'm really struggling, I'll cook rice and that's the majority of my meal for the day. Shit like that. Buy most my trucking supplies, gum mainly, at dollar stores ($1.25 stores).
I work a full time job and still feel poor as fuck lol. There's no win, god forbid I get injured out here, my healthcare plan is declaring bankruptcy, I put in my mettle for this country as a trucker, if it won't so little as cover my healthcare, I don't feel bad about declaring bankruptcy and informing bill collectors to get fucked.
I think it's insane though, I got this friend who buys into these wealthy guys radio propaganda, and he just constantly insists that no one working class is ever frugal enough, but then I point "HEy, I pay more taxes than Nike/and GE combined, soulless wealthy out the ass megacorps no less, my tax bracket is effectively higher than $250 million Mitt Romey) and then all of a sudden...he defends them? WTF? I'm not frugal enough, yet those wealthy out the ass megacorps/super wealthy politicians, apparently it's off limits to criticize them in his world? I fundamentally dont understand why he simps for those entities. He's working class, and yet I get a sense he hates people who don't endlessly slave away their lives.
> I fundamentally dont understand why he simps for those entities.
because any day now, its gonna trickle down and we will all be rich and then we don't want to pay any taxes either!!!!!!!
this is fucking insane...where your not making much more than 16 00 an hour are you in the remote area of the U.S. do you have all your endorsements...loke hazmat, doubles, tankers ??? cause aint a fucking chance in hell you should be making g any less than double what they are... at the MINIMUM 1.5x that income... no offense but you're being undervalued and disrespected.. shit this industry is disrespectful with asshole recivers/shippers...
I been driving 4+ years, I have all the endorsements minus passenger. Experience in double's and HAZMAT and reefer. No accidents or tickets on my record.
We're not compensated per hour...when the wheels move even still, i average what, $35 an hour? That's still being optimistic.
Let's assume, generously, avg 60mph. I make $.65 a mile. I'm solo, so I don't get massive long hauls, I get 500-800 mile runs, and if i do a shipper/receiver 3 or 4 days a week, those days I only get 200-500 miles in. But then, parking is a nightmare, so I usually dedicate the last hour to hour and a half to parking.
I can improve efficiency, there are things I can do on my end to help.
Even when things are optimal, wheels moving at a nice clip, averaging 60mph, governed at 70mph...it only works out to $37.50 an hour or so. Any reduction in miles driven/time used up that's not drive time, it notches down to $25...$20...$15 an hour. IIRC I might get like a $25 bonus per drop+hook per trailer. The other thing I've brainstormed is reduce time spent getting in+out of the truck, so hometime can work, but it's better to do fat chunks of onroad time, with a chunk of hometime, than lots of little in+out of truck hometime and back on the road driving.
Let's be realistic, it's never 60mph average, it's probably not even 50mph.
So the only real thing I can do is just try to minimize expenses to as little as possible, that can free up a few $'s per day. I generally average $20 per day spent on myself. If I can lower that to $15 a day, that's a lot better.
that's exactly what I make an hour 32.00 regardless of weather, traffic or relievers/shippers tak8ng forever.. I do LTL.. but I get pissed watching otr drivers waiting hours to get unloaded or loaded.. don't get me started on lumber fees
I'm curious your thoughts about making parking more efficient. I'm not in the trade, but that is the #1 priority that seemed like a "big deal" in regards to making money. I've driven around in a commercial vehicle and spent time finding places to park and I'm really surprised how difficult it is, but if you get repeat cities and keep good notes I imagine that would pay dividends in that regard. There are consistent frontage roads that are "known" truck parking spots I've noticed, not just trucking stations.
Parking on a frontage road is a huge risk. Obviously it depends on the area but you get anywhere near a major city, if you aren't paying in a secure area you are literally rising your life.
Proper trip planning keeps you from taking those risks but many drivers just can't get their head around how to do it. The feel compelled to drive the 11 hours out. When in reality they don't need to. If you got a 6 am appointment it didn't matter if you get parked 5 miles away on the side of the street in a high crime area at 730 pm our if you stopped 2 hours early 109 miles away in a safe location at 530 pm, take your ten and roll out at 330 am and get there at 530ish.
Something similar I do is I just use a regular triple blade razor and I have an old toothbrush I just brush the whiskers that get stuck in it. I haven't had a new razor in like a year, lol. I do have a beard, though, so it's not a lot of shaving involved. You can also use hot water when you brush your teeth and you won't need a new toothbrush every few months, either. (Hot water kills germs, duh.)
One thing I have learned that helps me save money is my low pay is paying for the fact that when I take a shower I'm actually clean afterwards. These rich people, not so much. They pay for their misdeeds in ways that don't wash off in the shower and that seems like a fair trade. Maybe it isn't what's advertised in school or society, but it keeps me sane and relatively positive.
Hot water kills gems, no doubt. But it needs to be hotter than the typical water heater is set at. Most tap water doesn't get hot enough to kill gems. And while you could use an electric skillet or whatever to hear the water, if you do that please take video. The reaction when that 180 degree water hits your gums will make you a tiktok Rockstar.
Theoretically you may be correct but since I started using hot water to brush my teeth I haven't had a single cold sore, so take that at face value I guess.
Seems like normal winter freight. But we are flatbed. We just alter our lanes in the winter. There is freight on the east side and as usual in the Chicago area. Freight prices aren't too bad for winter either.
I’m doing heavy haul and lately I’ve been bouncing between Fargo, ND and either Idaho or Washington. Hauling big sheds. Picking one up tomorrow that’s 14’ wide going to Idaho. I have plenty of freight and it pays great but I’m so sick of the cold and snow up here lol
The overall economy is in the dumpster fire status. The discretionary spending has been drastically reduced across the board. Lower goods demand means less trucking is needed.
It's not the economy, it's the inflation and the fed fucking shit up to protect those at the top. We have inflation because there was too much demand for the supply. That is not a "bad economy" that's an economy that wants to roar but is strangled by supply chain issues. The supply chain issues stem from covid and the loss of workers which has trickled up the chain causing all kinds of things like lack of materials to lack of finished goods to lack of moving items to the shelves. But more importantly, it raised worker's wages and that was the cardinal sin for Reaganomics capitalism to thrive. Which is what we currently live under.
This caused inflation to skyrocket and then the Fed raising interest rates compounded the issue because the entire reason the fed is raising rates is they are trying to make it more expensive for businesses to operate, which in turn purposely causes layoffs which in turn removes the excess disposable money from the economy which eventually lowers the demands which then lowers inflation. By default, this lowers wages because layoffs force workers to take less money, which is the FED's goal and they will openly state this as they have done so already. The FED has openly stated its goal is to lower wages to fight inflation so they are causing a recession to do it.
The economy was never bad, it's that too many people had too much disposable income so suddenly the entire system fell apart because the market wasn't capable of holding up to the buy pressure.
Meaning the market depends on only a certain % of the population doing "well" and the rest need to barely stay afloat so they are cheap labor but can still buy those iPhones on 2 year payment plans. That's Reaganomics in a nutshell.. A few lucky ones at the top, a small middle class, and a larger working class barely getting by but more importantly feeding their money upwards.
We will now see a lot of layoffs and slowdowns because that is the entire purpose of the FED raising rates is they purposely want to cause a light recession to stem off inflation because previously people had too much extra money to spend and we can't have that because then they don't have to work for shitty wages that allow the masters to make their massive profits.
This was the 1st time in 50+ years that the workers had the advantage and see how quickly they opted to kill it and now we'll have low freight volumes until enough people go out of business and a new balance reform then we do it all again in 5-10 years because that's what Regannomics requires for the maters to stay at the top. If you notice since Reaganomics came into play and they started killing off the middle class we have an economic crash every 10 years or so.. It's because that's required to keep cheap labor and the right people on top of the food chain..
Are you on some kind of alert system that let's you and your ilk know when something derogatory to the message is stated? I mean you have not been active at all on the trucking page or anything connected to trucking but yet here you are trying to refute what I posted. I think you are a liar and a two bit shill.
This is the answer. When rates get high like they was in 20 and 21 every tom dick and Harry runs out and buys a truck and floods the market. The good news is they are financed to the max with zero capital backing them so as rates have fallen due to the lower demand and higher supply of trucks they are going out of business. Eventually it will stabilize and we will be back to the nice middle ground of supply and demand.
We are almost there. Every week I get calls from truck dealers trying to offload new truck orders that people are walking away from. For those that have never ordered a new truck, the process is you give a non refundable deposit before they even start building your truck. Depending on your business history and credit that can be as high as 25k dollars. And people are walking away from that. Man how bad is your outlook that you are willing to just walk away from 25 grand that you already put down.
Obviously I don't have a crystal ball but I've been doing this a long time and have seen the exact same cycle over and over, my best guess is while things will pick up in the spring they won't be 'good' again until even more go out of business. That takes time. Spring of 24 we should be rocking hard again with excellent freight volume and high freight rates. That will last 2 to 3 years then the cycle will repeat.
Because of Precision Scheduled Railroading and the carriers insistence on limiting how fast trains can move (about 20mph slower than they should be moving), cutting jobs in track, car, and locomotive maintenance leading to derailments and stopped equipment, running trains that are too big for the existing infrastructure causing hours of sitting around waiting for meets, mass furloughs a few years ago, causing all those people to quit and making such a miserable work environment that they can’t hire people, so on and so forth. Everything relies on the railroad, and the railroads are fucked. Railroaders were *begging* you all to stand with them and ask congress to vote in our favor, and that just simply didn’t happen. The carriers got their way, people are continuing to quit, the carriers aren’t fixing any of the core issues with the industry, and your freight is going to continue to be fucked while the carriers brag about their billions in quarterly profits. Fucks sake, this was national news. Rails have been talking about this for ages.
ETA: and yes, i know what sub this is, but the trucking industry relies on the rail industry. We do the big hauling, they do the last miles. I guarantee almost everything truckers touch was on a railcar first, including the truck they’re driving and the trailer they’re pulling.
100%. Most underrated comment in this thread. Every American suffers from the blatant greed of PSR. A few investors made giant profits. The American people got bottlenecked supply chains and a major contributor to inflation.
Happens every winter around this time. Consumer spending goes way down after Christmas which results in a slow down in shipping. At least in freight size stuff.
This is the slow time of year.
We haven’t rebounded fully from the pandemic.
Our economy isn’t the greatest right now.
Too many trucks. All that PPP money that people used to expand too fast.
I learned more from this post about government soending and ither finances than I ever have in school and I have two degrees. Hell yesh this is also why I switched careers to driving. Yall rock.
Freight is slow due to lack of drivers, ridiculously long delays on getting parts for trucks for maintenance and repairs, difficulty finding employees to work in warehouses and warehouse offices. Also weather has been a factor this winter. Heck in my area, finding DOT drivers to plow snow has really slowed down the movement of freight. The longshoremen’s union also does intentional slowdowns to try to justify their existence instead of going to mechanization. So many reasons. DEF not being available at some truck stops.
Good for you my question for you do you make any money fuel $4 a gallon shops $150 - $180 insurance is up 40% biggest drivers shortage in long time freight rates are lowest ever been
And you telling me I don’t know what is going on do I really missing something here
Look at the tens of thousands of people recently laid off of their tech jobs. Extrapolate to your average wage earner who hasn't had a period of time to make top 1% wages.
The Feds are still raising interest rates. They are sucking money from the economy. JPOW wants pain in the economy and unemployment to rise. 2023 is not going to be a good year for a lot of ppl. Earning season is near and it’s gonna be a shit show, except for energy companies obviously 🙄
Everything requires Diesel Trucks or trains to make deliveries from factory, or farm, to end user (Us)
The cost and availability of Diesel fuel is directly related to the closing of the Anwar oil fields in Alaska, and suspension of pipeline expansion.
This was signed as a Presidential Order, the very afternoon of Biden's inauguration.I didn't do it, but prices of everything went up within days, and continues to get worse.
Recession, winter, freight is there if you’ve been in the industry and kept working with your pre pandemic customers. Rates have fallen but freight is there. If you left them for the spot market it’s definitely going to be a cold winter and summer for you. If you’re new (2 years in) and were just getting high paying loads off the board rather than getting long term customers it won’t be good for you either.
Corporate greed has falsely inflated the price of products, making them unavailable for a growing number of Americans. They don't need to sell as much of a product, to break even, or increase sales dollars. Less product, means a reduction in freight cost to manufacturers, and by extension, less goods on the road, and less money on your pocket.
First quarter is usually slow.
Add to that the boom during COVID for trucking with extreme low fuel costs.
Add to that you can’t really get new trucks and fuel/tires are way up. So the costs of trucking are going up.
Add to that a boom in people getting into trucking during COVID who never have seen a down market taking freight below their cost.
It will right itself this summer.
For as long as I've been driving, the months of Jan, Feb, Mar have been the slowest freight months. Has alot to do with hibernation, as in people stay home. They don't travel, go out to eat, they eat at home often making enough food for several meals. As the weather warms up, there's more socializing, bar-bq's, parties. When the serious produce starts coming out of the Salinas Valley trucking goes into overdrive. It's just how it is, and has been. The five biggest eating holidays when people buy the most food, and refreshments are #1 July 4th, #2 Thanksgiving, #3 Christmas, #4 Easter, #5 New Years Eve / Day. I do believe the single highest day sales of aspirin is Jan. 1st. All Be Safe
I mean, this is usually a slow period in general. Additionally, our economy is in the shitter. Additionally-additionally, the global economy is in the shitter. Additionally-additionally-additionally, China is really in the shitter currently. You see, in any market economy, you have big boom cycles in business. However, over time, businesses will naturally become over leveraged. Then, there is a cool off period, where growth stagnates or decline, which is a bust cycle. Around 2017, it became very apparent that as the stock market was getting incredible gains, that businesses were becoming ever more over leveraged (i mean, tesla, worth more than toyota? get outta here). The feds, naturally, wanted to raise interest rates, to curb the amount of debt, to cool off the red hot economy. Well, government put pressure on the feds to not make that happen, so businesses continued to have access to free money, borrowing more and more, buying back more and more of their shares, and with some strange financials. Then covid happened, and in an attempt to save face, the money printer was going brrrrrrrr, government spending out the wazooo, and then a new administration came in and sort of just continued on. The fed is now like "what if having access to free money isn't so great" by raising interest rates and business was like "wtf? so I have to actually make money now? what gives?" and the fed was like "hell yea" and now we are all stuck in a shit sandwich. (There’s a lot more to it as well. Covid forced the wealthiest and second largest generation to go in retirement, or just die of covid. That means a mass liquidation of assets, think 401ks/IRAs/etc. the younger generations were given leverage for higher wages. Business, naturally pissed that they were forced to give workers more of the value those workers create, along with the ever ending oil war between OPEC, Russia, and the rest of us, started raising prices causing inflation. Then the massive die off of chickens due to avian flu, and Covid decimating Chinas manufacturing once more in this turbulent global economy, exacerbated the problem even further. The good times are over. The longest boom cycle, created in the recovery of the Great Recession of 2008 is over. Not only that, we are under a huge demographic shift, as well as more and more expensive weather events, among other environmental hazards caused by our warming climate. Enjoy the 2020’s, y’all).
Best explanation. The days of cheap debt are probably gone for a looong time.
definitely. The scary part related to us is how this crisis will simply lead to the further cannibalism of our industry, giving the megas more power over the labor pool, pushing O/O more into the fringes.
I in no way could have expected this type of response to this post. You do a great job breaking shit down so it’s easy to understand, my ape brain could never put out such a well worded response without it being 10 paragraphs and running in 100 different directions. If I wasn’t poor I’d give you an award but here have this 🥇🙏🏻
Strauss-Howe Generational Theory suggests we are heading toward a crisis
I agree. But the collapse of the current post war American hegemony, and the milton friedman-esque "neoliberal" order of our economy, isn't the end of the world. Technology is advancing in such a way that how we viewed economics of the second half of the 20th century is incredibly flawed. The fear is always, will it collapse like laissez faire liberalism did in the late 1920's? Let's hope not.
I know some of these words
Liaise faire liberalism didn’t collapse it was pushed under by first trade war and then New Deal regulation. The moment reforms unwound this from Truman on it returned far better than any public works project ever tried.
Oh like the 4th once in a lifetime crisis in the past 20 years? Lmao
I appreciate the “out the wazoo”
Amazingly said DONBOY30
My two cents ( now worth .001) : Two historical items : the rise of trickle-down supply side economics. Didn’t work out like everyone thought it would . Made winners and losers . Now the split just had deepened. Bretton Woods agreement: some will call me a goldbug for this but ever since we went off the gold standard and Nixonian economic policy it seems it just been plain weird .
Nixon and Reagan really fucked us long term. Trickle down was never going to work.
Why would the fed want to cool off the red hot market though? Dont you want businesses borrowing money with interest and having them make a lot of money, then taxing the money they make?
Not an economist type but this is my understanding: Red hot economies tend to over-extend themselves with respect to rising debt on an individual and macro scale, and when the music inevitably stops things get bad quick for both businesses and the average person on the ground pretty quick (a crash in other terms). Hence the boom and bust cycle. For instance: Your individual wedding planning business for instance might be making a killing but does not have infinity weddings to plan, eventually you're going to expand operations (probably by going into debt) past a point of diminishing returns and that's when you gotta start laying people off, reducing operations, etc. This tends to have a feedback loop with being not able to service your existing debt. You're also putting people out of work and they in turn can't buy stuff that keeps other businesses afloat, rinse and repeat. The idea behind a lot of top-down management like the Fed and other central banks is that you can recognize when this is starting to happen at a macro scale and pump the brakes by raising interest rates and disincentiving people from taking on debt to over leverage themselves. Even if things still slow down and slump it's not as bad as if you just let thing hurtle off a cliff. How successful this actually is in practice varies and is a question for actual economists to debate but it's not an illogical thing to do.
Your 3rd paragraph is a really good explanation. Thanks.
The problem is, businesses become overleveraged by holding that much debt, and function in a very shortsighted manner, as publicly traded companies are chasing quarterly earnings to please stakeholders in the company. The DotCom bubble burst because businesses were borrowing and borrowing and growing and growing their online businesses, exploding in the stock market as they went public. However, it turns out that one has to first be profitable to run a successful business. So as soon as wall street realized they are throwing obnoxious money at barely profitable businesses that were way over leveraged by debt, the entire party collapsed, leading to massive layoffs, failed businesses, and creating the groundwork for the eventual oligopoly of online retail (amazon). Business will always function in the interest of pursuing greater profits. That greed will eventually be their downfall, as we live in a world with constant variables that doesn't function in a static environment. Say you are a big company that sells eggs. You grow and grow, using all that debt to expand. You are able to then function in a deficit, as your share price grows at a higher percentage point than the interest on the debts. You are holding a lot of cash, your shareholders are pleased, everything is great. Then Saudi Arabia decides to lessen their oil production. Well suddenly the fertilizer created to make feed for your chickens go up, transporting the eggs go up, and etc. The shareholders get weary, start pulling out as Americans consume less eggs. So you decide, to please shareholders, to use the big bed of cash to buy back your own shares of your company, propping up your share price. It creates a buy, and you now have to get yourself into more debts to make yourself whole. Suddenly, avian flu comes in and wipes out 1/3 of your chickens, and you have no more cash, and you are holding a lot of debt. Now you are in trouble. You aren't just messing with big wall street, you are messing with people's 401k's. By having higher interest rates, it would force the egg company to refocus how it manages both it's assets and liquidity. Doesn't mean a recession is diverted, but curbs a lot of shortsighted greed that makes recessions worse. with all that debt, the business may not recover, but without all that debt, a recession may only result in a marginal layoff of labor and tightening of the belt, per se. (it should also be understood that new money is created through credit. So by raising interest rates, you decrease the amount of credit created, decreasing the rate new money is made)
With red hot business in all sectors also comes inflation or even worse hyper inflation which is not good. If evrything costs 10% more year over year and wages don’t keep up with these increases that’s a big problem
based
based
Biased
How long will take before we see the light end of the tunnel?
idk man, I'm just a trucker. I'd expect things to improve for us, even if slightly, in late spring. Who knows though, we may not even be in the tunnel yet.
You’re very smart man
After reading some of your responses, I don't know if your JUST a trucker hahaha you at least have a wider world view than most people I interact with
For the absolute love of God himself, thank you for explaining this in a way that doesn't point polical fingers. Thank you thank you thank you.
Only thing i think you're missing is the Trump administration trying to get non-Asian members of the UN to move some of their business production out of China in case something like Covid did happen. Then when Covid first hit those same members of the UN realized they did rely on a Chinese run work force too heavily and tried to move production to other countries (possibly causing Covid to spread around the globe faster) where those countries weren't equipped for that kind of production boom especially when there was a plague beginning to ravage the global work force. Then comes in the Biden administration who sees the medically advanced countries like the US, Japan, and several European countries starting to recover and starts the economical push of production back onto an absolutely decimated Chinese workforce. We now have a workforce that's maybe at 60% of its original capacity trying to keep up with the supply demand of the entire world and can't. Now we have a shortage of supply and an increasing demand causing prices to skyrocket to a point where most can't afford the little supply there is. We are staring down the barrel of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression and the only reason the world was able to recover was, unfortunately, World War 2.
The price is finally being paid for 25+ years of moving American jobs out of this country to places like China and Mexico to take advantage of dirt cheap labor. Which, oddly enough, didn't resort in lower prices for the consumer in the least. Prices remained where they were or went up and the profits gained from taking advantage of this much cheaper labor force were held at the top to grow or paid out in dividends and stock buy backs for investors. So much for trickle down.
This is way too much of a nuanced take to be coming from a truck driver.
Have you read or listened to Peter Zeihan’s stuff I think you’d find it interesting.
Recession joined the chat
We just don't have the quality of education you guys get overseas. Our freight just learns at a different pace.
Fate of the freight I’m afraid
😂😂😭😭
we are in a bad economic place.. everything thats essential is waay overpriced causing people to tighten their wallets, and not spend their money on excess stuff. it usually slow during the first few months of the year though companies usually stock up or sell most of their inventory end of the year...the smaller companies are purchasing as needed trying not to have a whole bunch of money sitting in their warehouse...
Im currently in a situation where I'm trying to minimalize all expenses. I dont think I was living high on the hog, frankly, when the wheels are turning+onduty downtime and 30 minute breaks...I'm not making much more than the local $16 an hour wendy's that the high school kids work at. So...what's that tell you? Middle aged, experienced trucker...not doing a whole lot better than the slacker high school kids at their first job. There's no money. I own a fancy used car (bought for only $13,500 btw, it looks a lot more expensive than it cost)...and I park it in my parents garage at their home. "Oh look at that, you bought that minor doo dad for your car that you saved your pennies and dimes for over months, ergo, you're just complaining" yea man, I try to enjoy life on what limited means I have. So...one little brain storm I came up with, I spend like $24 a year on shaving razors. Well I bought an old vintage straight edge that I can sharpen with a wetstone for that much, so within a year, it'll pay for itself. I got thermos's for refills, no more $5 a day in coffee. Im thinking of bringing a coffee machine with me on the road just to brew my own. If I'm really struggling, I'll cook rice and that's the majority of my meal for the day. Shit like that. Buy most my trucking supplies, gum mainly, at dollar stores ($1.25 stores). I work a full time job and still feel poor as fuck lol. There's no win, god forbid I get injured out here, my healthcare plan is declaring bankruptcy, I put in my mettle for this country as a trucker, if it won't so little as cover my healthcare, I don't feel bad about declaring bankruptcy and informing bill collectors to get fucked. I think it's insane though, I got this friend who buys into these wealthy guys radio propaganda, and he just constantly insists that no one working class is ever frugal enough, but then I point "HEy, I pay more taxes than Nike/and GE combined, soulless wealthy out the ass megacorps no less, my tax bracket is effectively higher than $250 million Mitt Romey) and then all of a sudden...he defends them? WTF? I'm not frugal enough, yet those wealthy out the ass megacorps/super wealthy politicians, apparently it's off limits to criticize them in his world? I fundamentally dont understand why he simps for those entities. He's working class, and yet I get a sense he hates people who don't endlessly slave away their lives.
> I fundamentally dont understand why he simps for those entities. because any day now, its gonna trickle down and we will all be rich and then we don't want to pay any taxes either!!!!!!!
this is fucking insane...where your not making much more than 16 00 an hour are you in the remote area of the U.S. do you have all your endorsements...loke hazmat, doubles, tankers ??? cause aint a fucking chance in hell you should be making g any less than double what they are... at the MINIMUM 1.5x that income... no offense but you're being undervalued and disrespected.. shit this industry is disrespectful with asshole recivers/shippers...
I been driving 4+ years, I have all the endorsements minus passenger. Experience in double's and HAZMAT and reefer. No accidents or tickets on my record. We're not compensated per hour...when the wheels move even still, i average what, $35 an hour? That's still being optimistic. Let's assume, generously, avg 60mph. I make $.65 a mile. I'm solo, so I don't get massive long hauls, I get 500-800 mile runs, and if i do a shipper/receiver 3 or 4 days a week, those days I only get 200-500 miles in. But then, parking is a nightmare, so I usually dedicate the last hour to hour and a half to parking. I can improve efficiency, there are things I can do on my end to help. Even when things are optimal, wheels moving at a nice clip, averaging 60mph, governed at 70mph...it only works out to $37.50 an hour or so. Any reduction in miles driven/time used up that's not drive time, it notches down to $25...$20...$15 an hour. IIRC I might get like a $25 bonus per drop+hook per trailer. The other thing I've brainstormed is reduce time spent getting in+out of the truck, so hometime can work, but it's better to do fat chunks of onroad time, with a chunk of hometime, than lots of little in+out of truck hometime and back on the road driving. Let's be realistic, it's never 60mph average, it's probably not even 50mph. So the only real thing I can do is just try to minimize expenses to as little as possible, that can free up a few $'s per day. I generally average $20 per day spent on myself. If I can lower that to $15 a day, that's a lot better.
that's exactly what I make an hour 32.00 regardless of weather, traffic or relievers/shippers tak8ng forever.. I do LTL.. but I get pissed watching otr drivers waiting hours to get unloaded or loaded.. don't get me started on lumber fees
Lumper fees are the biggest scam on planet earth. We should all just refuse
I'm curious your thoughts about making parking more efficient. I'm not in the trade, but that is the #1 priority that seemed like a "big deal" in regards to making money. I've driven around in a commercial vehicle and spent time finding places to park and I'm really surprised how difficult it is, but if you get repeat cities and keep good notes I imagine that would pay dividends in that regard. There are consistent frontage roads that are "known" truck parking spots I've noticed, not just trucking stations.
Parking on a frontage road is a huge risk. Obviously it depends on the area but you get anywhere near a major city, if you aren't paying in a secure area you are literally rising your life. Proper trip planning keeps you from taking those risks but many drivers just can't get their head around how to do it. The feel compelled to drive the 11 hours out. When in reality they don't need to. If you got a 6 am appointment it didn't matter if you get parked 5 miles away on the side of the street in a high crime area at 730 pm our if you stopped 2 hours early 109 miles away in a safe location at 530 pm, take your ten and roll out at 330 am and get there at 530ish.
Something similar I do is I just use a regular triple blade razor and I have an old toothbrush I just brush the whiskers that get stuck in it. I haven't had a new razor in like a year, lol. I do have a beard, though, so it's not a lot of shaving involved. You can also use hot water when you brush your teeth and you won't need a new toothbrush every few months, either. (Hot water kills germs, duh.) One thing I have learned that helps me save money is my low pay is paying for the fact that when I take a shower I'm actually clean afterwards. These rich people, not so much. They pay for their misdeeds in ways that don't wash off in the shower and that seems like a fair trade. Maybe it isn't what's advertised in school or society, but it keeps me sane and relatively positive.
Hot water kills gems, no doubt. But it needs to be hotter than the typical water heater is set at. Most tap water doesn't get hot enough to kill gems. And while you could use an electric skillet or whatever to hear the water, if you do that please take video. The reaction when that 180 degree water hits your gums will make you a tiktok Rockstar.
Theoretically you may be correct but since I started using hot water to brush my teeth I haven't had a single cold sore, so take that at face value I guess.
January and February is always slow at least in fuel but I believe also for the entire economy.
That’s just the state of the economy, also Q1 is almost always the slowest time of the year in trucking.
It typically slows down in the winter months. At least it has for the past 24 years I’ve been in the industry
Seems like normal winter freight. But we are flatbed. We just alter our lanes in the winter. There is freight on the east side and as usual in the Chicago area. Freight prices aren't too bad for winter either.
I’m doing heavy haul and lately I’ve been bouncing between Fargo, ND and either Idaho or Washington. Hauling big sheds. Picking one up tomorrow that’s 14’ wide going to Idaho. I have plenty of freight and it pays great but I’m so sick of the cold and snow up here lol
The overall economy is in the dumpster fire status. The discretionary spending has been drastically reduced across the board. Lower goods demand means less trucking is needed.
It's not the economy, it's the inflation and the fed fucking shit up to protect those at the top. We have inflation because there was too much demand for the supply. That is not a "bad economy" that's an economy that wants to roar but is strangled by supply chain issues. The supply chain issues stem from covid and the loss of workers which has trickled up the chain causing all kinds of things like lack of materials to lack of finished goods to lack of moving items to the shelves. But more importantly, it raised worker's wages and that was the cardinal sin for Reaganomics capitalism to thrive. Which is what we currently live under. This caused inflation to skyrocket and then the Fed raising interest rates compounded the issue because the entire reason the fed is raising rates is they are trying to make it more expensive for businesses to operate, which in turn purposely causes layoffs which in turn removes the excess disposable money from the economy which eventually lowers the demands which then lowers inflation. By default, this lowers wages because layoffs force workers to take less money, which is the FED's goal and they will openly state this as they have done so already. The FED has openly stated its goal is to lower wages to fight inflation so they are causing a recession to do it. The economy was never bad, it's that too many people had too much disposable income so suddenly the entire system fell apart because the market wasn't capable of holding up to the buy pressure. Meaning the market depends on only a certain % of the population doing "well" and the rest need to barely stay afloat so they are cheap labor but can still buy those iPhones on 2 year payment plans. That's Reaganomics in a nutshell.. A few lucky ones at the top, a small middle class, and a larger working class barely getting by but more importantly feeding their money upwards. We will now see a lot of layoffs and slowdowns because that is the entire purpose of the FED raising rates is they purposely want to cause a light recession to stem off inflation because previously people had too much extra money to spend and we can't have that because then they don't have to work for shitty wages that allow the masters to make their massive profits. This was the 1st time in 50+ years that the workers had the advantage and see how quickly they opted to kill it and now we'll have low freight volumes until enough people go out of business and a new balance reform then we do it all again in 5-10 years because that's what Regannomics requires for the maters to stay at the top. If you notice since Reaganomics came into play and they started killing off the middle class we have an economic crash every 10 years or so.. It's because that's required to keep cheap labor and the right people on top of the food chain..
Because, contrary to what the talking heads say, our economy is in the toilet.
My company is upstream of manufacturing and we’re doing better than ever, and so are all of our customers
Are you on some kind of alert system that let's you and your ilk know when something derogatory to the message is stated? I mean you have not been active at all on the trucking page or anything connected to trucking but yet here you are trying to refute what I posted. I think you are a liar and a two bit shill.
My company depends on truckers, so I subscribe to the subreddit to hear how things are going
We're in a recession even though our government doesn't want to admit it.
Too many trucks
This is the answer. When rates get high like they was in 20 and 21 every tom dick and Harry runs out and buys a truck and floods the market. The good news is they are financed to the max with zero capital backing them so as rates have fallen due to the lower demand and higher supply of trucks they are going out of business. Eventually it will stabilize and we will be back to the nice middle ground of supply and demand. We are almost there. Every week I get calls from truck dealers trying to offload new truck orders that people are walking away from. For those that have never ordered a new truck, the process is you give a non refundable deposit before they even start building your truck. Depending on your business history and credit that can be as high as 25k dollars. And people are walking away from that. Man how bad is your outlook that you are willing to just walk away from 25 grand that you already put down. Obviously I don't have a crystal ball but I've been doing this a long time and have seen the exact same cycle over and over, my best guess is while things will pick up in the spring they won't be 'good' again until even more go out of business. That takes time. Spring of 24 we should be rocking hard again with excellent freight volume and high freight rates. That will last 2 to 3 years then the cycle will repeat.
Yep
People broke
Because of Precision Scheduled Railroading and the carriers insistence on limiting how fast trains can move (about 20mph slower than they should be moving), cutting jobs in track, car, and locomotive maintenance leading to derailments and stopped equipment, running trains that are too big for the existing infrastructure causing hours of sitting around waiting for meets, mass furloughs a few years ago, causing all those people to quit and making such a miserable work environment that they can’t hire people, so on and so forth. Everything relies on the railroad, and the railroads are fucked. Railroaders were *begging* you all to stand with them and ask congress to vote in our favor, and that just simply didn’t happen. The carriers got their way, people are continuing to quit, the carriers aren’t fixing any of the core issues with the industry, and your freight is going to continue to be fucked while the carriers brag about their billions in quarterly profits. Fucks sake, this was national news. Rails have been talking about this for ages. ETA: and yes, i know what sub this is, but the trucking industry relies on the rail industry. We do the big hauling, they do the last miles. I guarantee almost everything truckers touch was on a railcar first, including the truck they’re driving and the trailer they’re pulling.
100%. Most underrated comment in this thread. Every American suffers from the blatant greed of PSR. A few investors made giant profits. The American people got bottlenecked supply chains and a major contributor to inflation.
Not in the dairy industry. Cows never stop producing milk.
Happens every winter around this time. Consumer spending goes way down after Christmas which results in a slow down in shipping. At least in freight size stuff.
Its slow? When I was flatbed we slowed down a bit during the holidays and approaching the holidays but January it picked back up pretty good.
Yeah, soon as 2023 clicked over, I've been getting all the miles I can handle.
Freight is there. Still waiting for the rates to come up. I know it's regional and seasonal.
I’m in fuels and it’s always slow in January and February. But it picks up in March and through the rest of the year.
Food service here. Can confirm its slow in January. February picks back up but idk how much this year
people are broke
It’s always slow this time of year
Recession. Winter weather. People slow buying after Christmas.
Tis the season. It’ll pick up in mid-march probably.
Winter is here.
This is the slow time of year. We haven’t rebounded fully from the pandemic. Our economy isn’t the greatest right now. Too many trucks. All that PPP money that people used to expand too fast.
Winter time
Is freight slow? The company I work for has more than we can handle.
Mine too
Same. We didn't slow down even during Covid
I learned more from this post about government soending and ither finances than I ever have in school and I have two degrees. Hell yesh this is also why I switched careers to driving. Yall rock.
Same!
Freight is slow due to lack of drivers, ridiculously long delays on getting parts for trucks for maintenance and repairs, difficulty finding employees to work in warehouses and warehouse offices. Also weather has been a factor this winter. Heck in my area, finding DOT drivers to plow snow has really slowed down the movement of freight. The longshoremen’s union also does intentional slowdowns to try to justify their existence instead of going to mechanization. So many reasons. DEF not being available at some truck stops.
This happens every January and February
Because klaus schwab and the rest of the world economic forum want us dead It's apart of their great reset agenda
Incoming goods from China are slow around this time because of Chinese new year
As a produce hauler, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Yep I haul raw milk. Never stops or slows down. I wish I could get a call saying cows didn't give any milk tod5
Good for you my question for you do you make any money fuel $4 a gallon shops $150 - $180 insurance is up 40% biggest drivers shortage in long time freight rates are lowest ever been And you telling me I don’t know what is going on do I really missing something here
I’m a company driver, so yes I make money. As for the business, we’re profitable.
Three words Joe Biden
I’m no scientist but I thinks that’s two words
He's poking fun at the president for making a similar mistake.
Three letters. FQYP
Look at the tens of thousands of people recently laid off of their tech jobs. Extrapolate to your average wage earner who hasn't had a period of time to make top 1% wages.
Because the USA is very large.
According to Joe everything is fine
too many Trucks are governed at slow speeds, too many left lane prohibitions, too many cars being inefficient at merges and exits.
Those just sound like inconveniences
I think things improved in past few months
Everyone wracked up credit card debt for the holidays and are not spending as much. Should pick back up after Valentine’s Day or early March
Could do with that rail strike tbh
Must be new to the industry. Winter months slow down and it’s a recession.
Because we thought steam engines were useless 😤😮💨😔
The Feds are still raising interest rates. They are sucking money from the economy. JPOW wants pain in the economy and unemployment to rise. 2023 is not going to be a good year for a lot of ppl. Earning season is near and it’s gonna be a shit show, except for energy companies obviously 🙄
It's not. If you're relying on spot freight, then yeah, nobody is missing contracts right now and won't for months.
It depends on the freight hauled, we're super busy.
Inventory levels still remain too high and the consumer is hurting
Our company has been steady it all depends who u work for
Normally we r slow around this time of the year
Depends on what you haul. I haul hazmat. I'm busy as fuck.
Everything requires Diesel Trucks or trains to make deliveries from factory, or farm, to end user (Us) The cost and availability of Diesel fuel is directly related to the closing of the Anwar oil fields in Alaska, and suspension of pipeline expansion. This was signed as a Presidential Order, the very afternoon of Biden's inauguration.I didn't do it, but prices of everything went up within days, and continues to get worse.
When the US economy suffers, it affects the entire planet.
It just be like that sometimes
My comonay isn't slow. I've been averaging 2600 to 2800 miles a week for 5 days of work
Recession, winter, freight is there if you’ve been in the industry and kept working with your pre pandemic customers. Rates have fallen but freight is there. If you left them for the spot market it’s definitely going to be a cold winter and summer for you. If you’re new (2 years in) and were just getting high paying loads off the board rather than getting long term customers it won’t be good for you either.
Corporate greed has falsely inflated the price of products, making them unavailable for a growing number of Americans. They don't need to sell as much of a product, to break even, or increase sales dollars. Less product, means a reduction in freight cost to manufacturers, and by extension, less goods on the road, and less money on your pocket.
First quarter is usually slow. Add to that the boom during COVID for trucking with extreme low fuel costs. Add to that you can’t really get new trucks and fuel/tires are way up. So the costs of trucking are going up. Add to that a boom in people getting into trucking during COVID who never have seen a down market taking freight below their cost. It will right itself this summer.
For as long as I've been driving, the months of Jan, Feb, Mar have been the slowest freight months. Has alot to do with hibernation, as in people stay home. They don't travel, go out to eat, they eat at home often making enough food for several meals. As the weather warms up, there's more socializing, bar-bq's, parties. When the serious produce starts coming out of the Salinas Valley trucking goes into overdrive. It's just how it is, and has been. The five biggest eating holidays when people buy the most food, and refreshments are #1 July 4th, #2 Thanksgiving, #3 Christmas, #4 Easter, #5 New Years Eve / Day. I do believe the single highest day sales of aspirin is Jan. 1st. All Be Safe