Speaker 1: This is America's Trucking Network with Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2: Lulhaba more.
Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning in on this Friday morning America's truck
Speaker 3: in Network, the show that is the exception to the
Speaker 3: rule that nothing good happens after midnight. There is a
Speaker 3: whole lot of good news out there, so let's just
Speaker 3: jump right into it. I've been watching over the last
Speaker 3: several weeks. We've been hearing people talking about gas prices
Speaker 3: getting down towards three dollars a gallon. They're talking about,
Speaker 3: you know, they've had to tweak the numbers a little
Speaker 3: bit to say that, well, you know, twenty seven states
Speaker 3: are below three dollars a gallon, this, that and the
Speaker 3: other thing, and then you know thirty states or below
Speaker 3: three dollars a gallon. Well, for the first time since
Speaker 3: May of twenty twenty one, the national average for gasoline
Speaker 3: dips below three dollars a gallon. National average for a
Speaker 3: gallon a regular gasoline hit a milestone this week when
Speaker 3: it dipped below three dollars a gallon for the first
Speaker 3: time in four years now. I see back in May
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty one. That was right after the Trump
Speaker 3: administration and before the Biden administration had a chance to
Speaker 3: really screw things up. But back during the Trump administration,
Speaker 3: gasoline was well below as a matter of fact.
Speaker 2: On this date in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Back during that period of time, gasoline in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: was at two dollars and twenty five cents a gallon,
Speaker 3: and it was a national average, and the diesel was
Speaker 3: at two dollars and fifty three cents a gallon. Now,
Speaker 3: we're seeing the prices of gasoline coming down, but we're
Speaker 3: not quite seeing the decrease in diesel the way I
Speaker 3: would like to see it. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 3: we're paying a little bit more per gallon this year
Speaker 3: for diesel than we were this time last year. As
Speaker 3: far as gasoline's concern, it's down about five cents a gallon. However,
Speaker 3: again dip below three dollars a gallon for the first
Speaker 3: time since May of twenty twenty one. Crude oil prices
Speaker 3: remained on the lower side around sixty dollars a barrel.
Speaker 3: Sluggish gas demand and cheaper to produce winter blend gasoline
Speaker 3: are also contributing to the drop at the pump.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 3: Today's national average is two dollars and ninety nine cents
Speaker 3: a gallon. Now, the last couple of days have been
Speaker 3: like two dollars at ninety nine. And you know when
Speaker 3: you go to the gas pump and you look at
Speaker 3: the signs there and it always says like two dollars
Speaker 3: and seventy five cents a gallon, But you have looked
Speaker 3: in the upper right hand corners two dollars and seventy
Speaker 3: five cents point nine nine tenths of a cent, So
Speaker 3: it's actually two dollars and seventy six cents. But that
Speaker 3: two dollars seventy five cents looks a lot better. And
Speaker 3: for the last last week or so, it's been at
Speaker 3: two two dollars and ninety nine cents, you know, two
Speaker 3: dollars ninety nine point five, so you round that up
Speaker 3: to three dollars.
Speaker 2: So I haven't been comfortable talking about that.
Speaker 3: But now we are officially below that three dollars a gallon,
Speaker 3: which is heading in the right direction. You know, we
Speaker 3: started we keep hearing all this crap from the liberals
Speaker 3: and the Democratic Party talking about affordability.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, where the hell were.
Speaker 3: These people during the trumpet or by the Biden administration
Speaker 3: when gas went from as I said, at the end
Speaker 3: of the Trump administration in December of twenty twenty at
Speaker 3: two dollars and twenty five cents a gallon, and then
Speaker 3: by May actually got up to three dollars a gallon.
Speaker 2: So even though.
Speaker 3: We are down below where we were four years ago,
Speaker 3: it was already up seventy five cents a gallon just
Speaker 3: in a four or five month period of time in
Speaker 3: the first four or five months of the Biden administration.
Speaker 3: By the time Russia invaded Ukraine, gas had already gone
Speaker 3: up to about a dollar twenty five higher than what
Speaker 3: it was during the Trump administration. Where was the affordability
Speaker 3: comments back then? All we heard from the people with
Speaker 3: as far as that when they started seeing the inflation, oh,
Speaker 3: it's transy, it's gonna it's you know, which means it's temporary,
Speaker 3: it's gonna go away.
Speaker 2: What was transitory?
Speaker 3: I guess in May, June, July, August, September of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one on into twenty twenty two, and then finally
Speaker 3: in March, I guess the Federal Reserve line Jerry Powell
Speaker 3: decided that, well, you know, it isn't transitory. We need
Speaker 3: to start cutting interest rates. But by then most of
Speaker 3: the damage have been done. Once Russia invaded Ukraine in
Speaker 3: February of twenty twenty two, then gas prices started spiking.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, in June.
Speaker 3: Let's not forget, in June of twenty twenty two, the
Speaker 3: national average across the board for gasoline short term memories,
Speaker 3: right was it five dollars five dollars and two cents
Speaker 3: a gallon? Five dollars and two cents a gallon? Where
Speaker 3: were the calls for affordability back then? Gas price has
Speaker 3: already gone up a dollar twenty five a gallons prior
Speaker 3: to the invasion, and then right after the invasion it
Speaker 3: went up to right around four dollars and fifty cents,
Speaker 3: and people were asking the Biden administration how long do
Speaker 3: you expect people to pay this amount of money? Because
Speaker 3: you know, when they first came in office, they started saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're not going to drill in the golf, we're not
Speaker 3: going to drill in Alaska, We're going to stop selling
Speaker 3: oil leases, even though that by law they were supposed
Speaker 3: to do that. So you know, again, where was the
Speaker 3: calls for following the law. And so the prices of
Speaker 3: gasoline we started importing more gas. We became the final
Speaker 3: year of the Trump administration, Let's not forget, we were
Speaker 3: energy independent for the first time since nineteen forty nine.
Speaker 2: Nineteen forty nine.
Speaker 3: Seventy plus years, we were independent, energy independent for the
Speaker 3: first time. It took us longer to get to that
Speaker 3: than Queen Elizabeth sat on the throne of England as
Speaker 3: long as the USSR was in existence. It took us
Speaker 3: longer than that to get to energy independence. And it
Speaker 3: was during the Trump administration in his first term, and
Speaker 3: we were heading in that direction. At least. We are
Speaker 3: now driving the oil markets and we are driving the
Speaker 3: energy prices worldwide, which is a good thing. But back
Speaker 3: then it was, oh, you know, gas price is one
Speaker 3: up the average national average across the board of five
Speaker 3: dollars per gallon. Where was the cause for affordability? Then now,
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, the Democrats are concerned about affordability
Speaker 3: when they had inflation at nine point one percent in
Speaker 3: June of twenty twenty two. It just fries me that
Speaker 3: the people that create the problem are the people that
Speaker 3: are now tweaking and that are criticizing how it's done.
Speaker 3: And I heard the analogy the other day that Okay,
Speaker 3: you have a party and somebody gets.
Speaker 2: Drunk, and the homeowner whatever.
Speaker 3: Gets drunk and he gets out of control and he
Speaker 3: winds up throwing up on the carpet. And then when
Speaker 3: the person comes in to clean the carpet and is
Speaker 3: down on their hands and knees cleaning up the spots
Speaker 3: trying to get the stink out of the carpet. They
Speaker 3: are standing there telling them, well, you need to do this,
Speaker 3: this is how you need to do this, and criticizing
Speaker 3: the way that they're.
Speaker 2: Doing the cleanup.
Speaker 3: I mean, give me a break, so you know, I'm
Speaker 3: just it just bothers me that, you know what I
Speaker 3: keep hearing from the Democrats and when they start talking
Speaker 3: about affordability and so on. I'm going to post this
Speaker 3: story on Facebook because it's actually from the Triple A
Speaker 3: and they talk about they go through, you know, the
Speaker 3: national average and so on, but then they also give
Speaker 3: some statistics in terms of ev charging. The national average
Speaker 3: per kilowatt hour of electricity at public ev charging stations
Speaker 3: stayed the same this past week.
Speaker 2: At thirty eight cents.
Speaker 3: They talk about the states the ten most expensive gasoline,
Speaker 3: of course California.
Speaker 2: And what blows me away, is that California is.
Speaker 3: Higher, is actually seven cents higher than Hawaii. Okay, there
Speaker 3: is not a refinery in Hawaii, aren't gas There aren't oil.
Speaker 2: Wells in Hawaii.
Speaker 3: They have to import everything, and you know, the gasoline
Speaker 3: has to be transported across the Pacific to get to Hawaii.
Speaker 3: And even with the transportation costs and the cost of
Speaker 3: that that Hawaii's prices are still lower than California.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 3: Well, anyway, I'll put this on Facebook, but it's amazing California, Hawaii, Washington, Nevada,
Speaker 3: Alaska again up there in Alaska that California is the
Speaker 3: highest in the country and then of course they go
Speaker 3: into the lowest. So I'll post that on Facebook so
Speaker 3: that you can take a look at that weekly's Jabas claims,
Speaker 3: which we'll get to.
Speaker 2: Coming up in the next segment.
Speaker 3: Again, all this talk that we heard since Liberation Day
Speaker 3: on April the second, that we're going to have rampant inflation,
Speaker 3: that we're going to go into a recession, that the
Speaker 3: economic policies of this administration are horrible, and all this
Speaker 3: sort of stuff, and yet everything is starting to turn
Speaker 3: in the right direction. And yet all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: we're hearing about affordability, and it just frosts me that
Speaker 3: the people that and of course they're not going to
Speaker 3: come up and say, here's how we would solve the problem,
Speaker 3: here's what we need to do to affordability. No, they
Speaker 3: just want to say, well, he's just not making things
Speaker 3: more affordable. Give me not cleaning up the vomit properly
Speaker 3: the way that you guys did when you soiled the carpet.
Speaker 3: I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck at Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1: I need this is the racing repard on America's truck
Speaker 1: and needwork on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 4: The court case between twenty three eleven and front Row
Speaker 4: Motorsports suing NASCAR continued Friday in Charlotte, North Carolina. During
Speaker 4: the questioning of front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins, NASCAR
Speaker 4: was called out by Judge Kenneth Bell during the trial.
Speaker 4: Day three ended when stern warnings from Bell came after
Speaker 4: NASCAR's legal team violated court orders and evidentiary rule. Chris
Speaker 4: Gabeart has left Joe Gibbs Racing, and he was the
Speaker 4: director of competitions for JGR rumors are Gaye part is
Speaker 4: moving to Spire Motor Sports next season. The Indianapolis Motor
Speaker 4: Speedway is releasing a four part mini series documenting its
Speaker 4: historic repay that uncovered the Spiedsway's iconic brick race surface
Speaker 4: and the original crush stone tar track surface. The series
Speaker 4: will run December eighth through the eleventh and be available
Speaker 4: on the IMS social media channels including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok x,
Speaker 4: and YouTube. On Sunday, Formula one will crown the twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five world champion.
Speaker 2: Will it be Lando Norris? Will it be.
Speaker 4: Max for Staffan or Oscar Piastre. Those three are split
Speaker 4: by just sixteen points heading into Sunday's finale. Norris on
Speaker 4: any chance he holds the points lead, but barely.
Speaker 5: Yeah, nothing does change, Like I mean, he gets treated
Speaker 5: the same from everyone inside the team, just more excitement
Speaker 5: I guess for eye at the same time. So but
Speaker 5: apart from that, the work and how you approach it
Speaker 5: all remains the same.
Speaker 2: I need.
Speaker 1: This is the racing repard on America's Drugging Network on
Speaker 1: seven hundred WLW, everybody have a great weekend, segnetis and
Speaker 1: at night news Radio seven hundred WLW and iHeartRadio station
Speaker 1: Guarantee Human seven hundred WLW, HI Heard Radio.
Speaker 6: It's former Bengal and Pro Football Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz.
Speaker 2: You know me from my skin for good news.
Speaker 3: Here us weekly jobless claims tombow to the lowest level
Speaker 3: in more than three years. All right, we now have
Speaker 3: gasoline prices that are the lowest level nationwide that they've
Speaker 3: been in four years. We now have the weekly jobless
Speaker 3: claims the lowest in three years.
Speaker 2: Huh. You know what?
Speaker 3: You know, I've been talking about how the spoon fed
Speaker 3: regurgitators of the mainstream media have been trying to talk
Speaker 3: down the economy, trying to manufacture a recession, that all
Speaker 3: the lies that they're telling about the negative coverage of
Speaker 3: the administration the economic policies are wrong. And now we're
Speaker 3: seeing some of these numbers coming out. And you know what,
Speaker 3: I don't mind being right all the time. You know
Speaker 3: the fact that you listen to this show and you
Speaker 3: know what's going on, you hear what's going on, and
Speaker 3: push out all the negativity from the spoon federal regurgitators.
Speaker 2: You were so far ahead of the curve. They don't
Speaker 2: even see your tail lights. The number of.
Speaker 3: Americans finally for new application front employment benefits dropped to
Speaker 3: the lowest level in more than three years last week,
Speaker 3: allaying fears of a sharp deterioration in the labor market
Speaker 3: conditions and potentially arguing against another interest rate cut from
Speaker 3: the Federal Reserve, which I say is a bunch of crap.
Speaker 3: Also because again when we had the numbers yesterday, we
Speaker 3: were talking about retail sales and we were talking about
Speaker 3: the economy in Europe that they had been seeing. They've
Speaker 3: been experiencing a boom or you know, at least an
Speaker 3: increase in their economy there, and prices or shoppers going out,
Speaker 3: retail sales up because of the what do they call
Speaker 3: how do they put it, the series of interest rate
Speaker 3: cuts since last year. Interest rate lower interest rates put
Speaker 3: more money in your pocket, which means that then you
Speaker 3: could determine how you spend your money. If you want
Speaker 3: to put some of that money aside in the savings account, fine,
Speaker 3: if you want to go out and spend that money, fine,
Speaker 3: But it puts you in control of your money and
Speaker 3: making the decisions that you make instead of the policymakers
Speaker 3: like Lion Jerry Powell making sure that interest rates are
Speaker 3: so high that you're having to pay more in order
Speaker 3: to finance certain things on your credit cards, either on
Speaker 3: your home, buying a house, buying a car, buying a truck,
Speaker 3: expanding your business, and so on. So let the people decide,
Speaker 3: and lowering interest rates is not going to lead to inflation.
Speaker 2: So anyway, here we go week.
Speaker 3: Out Employment claims reported by the Labor Department on Thursday,
Speaker 3: the most timely on the economy's health, following on the
Speaker 3: heels of the ADP Employment report on Wednesday showing private
Speaker 3: payrolls decrease the most more than two and a half
Speaker 3: years in November. But again, as we talked about yesterday,
Speaker 3: the ADP numbers when they come out, generally the so
Speaker 3: called experts say that, well that's kind of an interesting report,
Speaker 3: but it's not very reliable and it's not one that
Speaker 3: the Federal.
Speaker 2: Reserve pays much attention to.
Speaker 3: And especially within the report itself that we were talking
Speaker 3: about yesterday, they started talking about the adjusted numbers. Well, again,
Speaker 3: if you're a payroll processing firm and you process X
Speaker 3: number of paychecks on a weekly, bi weekly, monthly basis,
Speaker 3: then you know how many checks you have processed. If
Speaker 3: those numbers go up, if they go down, you should
Speaker 3: know that number in real time. Why the following month
Speaker 3: would those numbers be adjusted shocks me. I mean if
Speaker 3: I go into if I go into a grocery store
Speaker 3: and I have I have fifty dollars in my pocket
Speaker 3: and I spend forty and I have ten dollars left
Speaker 3: in my pocket, I know in real time that.
Speaker 2: I just spent forty dollars.
Speaker 3: I don't go back later on the next day or
Speaker 3: two days later and say, gee whiz, I'm going to
Speaker 3: adjust my grocery purchases up to forty two dollars because
Speaker 3: they still have ten dollars in my pocket. I don't
Speaker 3: get this. So if they're processing the payroll and they
Speaker 3: know on a weekly, bi weekly, monthly basis how many
Speaker 3: payroll checks that they have processed compared to last month,
Speaker 3: they should have that number in real time. But again
Speaker 3: they have to throw that in here. The job losses.
Speaker 3: This is now, this is interesting. Usually this guy, Christopher Rupky,
Speaker 3: chief economists at Forward Bonds, generally comes up with some
Speaker 3: really stupid comments, But this time around I got to
Speaker 3: give him credit. Those job losses from other alternative measures
Speaker 3: alternative measures of labor statistics may be overstating the weakness
Speaker 3: of the nation's employment market. In other words, what they're
Speaker 3: saying is that all these calls that the labor market
Speaker 3: is weak is not apparently are not accurate, and he's
Speaker 3: actually finally seeing the writing on the wall. The t
Speaker 3: leave readers at the Federal Reserve may need to recheck
Speaker 3: their figures because it certainly does not look like economic
Speaker 3: growth is in danger of stalling out again, disproving all
Speaker 3: the negativity from the spoon federal regurgitators in the mainstream
Speaker 3: media trying to manufacture a recession, all the indications that
Speaker 3: they had, all the stuff that they've been talking about
Speaker 3: for the last well actually since Trump came into office.
Speaker 3: And let's not face I mean, let's face it. I mean,
Speaker 3: you go back to the ten years since Trump came
Speaker 3: down the escalator, the Golden escalator there at Trump Towers,
Speaker 3: nothing but ninety some percentage negative coverage of Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: ninety some percentage negative coverage of his first term, ninety
Speaker 3: some percentage against Trump while he was out of office,
Speaker 3: and then ninety some percent negative coverage since he's been
Speaker 3: in office, and ninety some percent negative coverage of his
Speaker 3: economic policies, even though we know what the statistics were
Speaker 3: back in five years ago at the end of his term.
Speaker 3: But again, you know, apparently they think that we're stupid
Speaker 3: and we can't go back and look these numbers up.
Speaker 3: But I finally, it's interesting that Christopher Rookie had some
Speaker 3: positive things to say, because, like I said a lot
Speaker 3: of times, he has kind of a bit off, should
Speaker 3: I say, Initial claims for the state unemployment benefits fell
Speaker 3: twenty seven thousand to a seasonally adjusted one hundred and
Speaker 3: ninety one thousand for the week ended November twenty ninth. Now,
Speaker 3: remember what we've been saying over the last several weeks
Speaker 3: or actually several months, that the range of unemployment claims
Speaker 3: has been going between about two hundred and ten thousand
Speaker 3: up to two hundred and fifty thousand over pretty much
Speaker 3: the last couple of years, and they have been and
Speaker 3: the economists have been talking about that that is somewhat
Speaker 3: of a comfortable range for them, that anything above that
Speaker 3: is put the caution light on. Anything above two hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty thousand in a week period of time should
Speaker 3: be looked at and as kind of put the flashing
Speaker 3: yellow lights on it.
Speaker 2: Why do I keep bumping my microphone anyway?
Speaker 3: And then we have in the low end of that
Speaker 3: at two hundred and ten thousand, that anything less than
Speaker 3: that is good news.
Speaker 2: If these numbers have dropped twenty.
Speaker 3: Seven thousand in one week down to one hundred and
Speaker 3: ninety one thousand for the week, that should be considered
Speaker 3: very good news. Lowest level since September of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: Economists pulled by rutters had forecasts that the unemployment claims
Speaker 3: were going to be two hundred and twenty thousand, So
Speaker 3: they missed their analysis and their forecast by thirteen percent.
Speaker 3: Unadjusted claims plunged n forty nine thousand, forty nine thousand,
Speaker 3: four hundred to one hundred ninety seven thousand, two hundred
Speaker 3: last week. The decline was more than double the twenty
Speaker 3: one thousand drop that had been anticipated by seasonal factors,
Speaker 3: the model that the government uses to strip out seasonal
Speaker 3: fluctuations from the data. So in other words, it has
Speaker 3: more than doubled what they had anticipated it to be.
Speaker 2: The drop that.
Speaker 3: Is, and so this is going to change things as
Speaker 3: far as the Federal Reserve is concerned. They keep saying
Speaker 3: that their mandata is to keep inflation low and to
Speaker 3: make sure that the job market is strong. Well, if
Speaker 3: the job market is strong, all this talk that they've
Speaker 3: been talking about as being weak over the last period
Speaker 3: of time, last several months, then with these numbers, it
Speaker 3: looks like the job market is steady and strong. And
Speaker 3: rather than them looking at that and saying, gee whiz,
Speaker 3: things are pretty good, We're going to give a break
Speaker 3: to the American public. We're going to give a break
Speaker 3: to the people, and we're going to lower interest rates
Speaker 3: so they have more money in their pocket. Don't count
Speaker 3: on it. It'll be interesting to see what they do. I
Speaker 3: hope they lower the interest rates, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: You never know. With Lyon Jerry Powell, Una justin claims plunged.
Speaker 3: I already said and said that last week's sharp drop
Speaker 3: and applications.
Speaker 2: Did not change the narrative of a stagnant labor market.
Speaker 3: Job cuts are prevalent most segments of the economy, and
Speaker 3: hiring is.
Speaker 2: Teppe at best.
Speaker 3: A separate report from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and
Speaker 3: Christmas showed planned job cuts in the US based employers
Speaker 3: declined fifty three percent to seventy one thousand in November now,
Speaker 3: the previous month, if my memory is correct, they were
Speaker 3: talking about that number being around one hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: thousand that they were anticipating as job cuts.
Speaker 2: So the fact that they.
Speaker 3: Blew that by well, the number dropped by fifty three percent,
Speaker 3: that should be a good sign and people should be
Speaker 3: applauding that rather than just throwing that number out there
Speaker 3: and just letting it hang. I we'll cover a little
Speaker 3: bit more of this coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, Merica's
Speaker 3: truck at Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 7: Eight and the rest of the country. In the Tri
Speaker 7: State overnight mostly Claude, need the load dropping down to
Speaker 7: sixteen mostly Sunday. Friday high at thirty four going into
Speaker 7: the weekend Saturday, mostly Claude, with the chance of flurries,
Speaker 7: highs in the upper thirties, mostly Claudia, the chances of snow.
Speaker 7: Sunday a high of thirty five Nationally, snow continuing to
Speaker 7: win back the Great Lakes region, interior Northeast Pacific, Northwestern Rockies,
Speaker 7: and then into the northern Plains over the next couple
Speaker 7: of days. The Gulf Coast scene moderate to heavy rain
Speaker 7: with isolated flash flooding possible. Some wintry precipitation expected north
Speaker 7: into the Appalachians and mid Atlantic. Friday. Aretic air fore
Speaker 7: tasks to challenge record low temperatures across the northern mid
Speaker 7: Atlantic to New England Friday.
Speaker 3: Seven hundred w lw IM This American Stark Network. I'm
Speaker 3: Kevin Gordon taking a look at this. I am just
Speaker 3: I am absolutely amazed by this report.
Speaker 2: This weekly job was claims. The initial job was Claims Report.
Speaker 3: Because you know, all we've been hearing about is, you know,
Speaker 3: the weakness of the economy, that things aren't looking as
Speaker 3: good as they should, and the consumer confidence level being down. Well,
Speaker 3: you know, if you keep being bombarded by negative coverage,
Speaker 3: negative information, and you have a tendency of thinking that, well,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe what I'm seeing is not what I'm seeing,
Speaker 3: and so you know, our spoon fed regurgitator's mainstream meter
Speaker 3: are basically gaslighting is And what we're seeing as far
Speaker 3: as the retail sales, which we'll get to here shortly,
Speaker 3: is the fact that people are comfortable within what they
Speaker 3: are doing as far as their individual economies. They know
Speaker 3: where they stand, they know what they're bringing in what
Speaker 3: they're paying out, what their discretionary income is, what they
Speaker 3: have left over after the government gets finished confiscating their wealth,
Speaker 3: what they have left over after they pay their bills
Speaker 3: and can go out.
Speaker 2: And have some fun.
Speaker 3: Yet all the negativity that they hear, they're thinking of, well,
Speaker 3: gee whiz, I wonder how my neighbors are doing. I
Speaker 3: wonder how the people up the street. I wonder how
Speaker 3: everybody else is doing. I'm hearing the things are going bad.
Speaker 3: So my confidence level in the economy is down, but
Speaker 3: my confidence level in my own economy is fine. So
Speaker 3: again they've got these mixed signals, which again is being
Speaker 3: created by the spoon fed regrigislators in the mainstream media.
Speaker 3: Let me see they were talking about. Let's see after
Speaker 3: they got.
Speaker 2: We picked this up.
Speaker 3: We ended in the last segment that the Challenger, Gray
Speaker 3: and Christmas showed planned job cuts in the US based
Speaker 3: employers decline fifty three percent from what they had originally predicted.
Speaker 3: But employers have announced about one point one seven one million,
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy one thousand million, one million, seven
Speaker 3: one hello, one million, one hundred and seventy one thousand
Speaker 3: jobs cuts so far. This year, up fifty four percent
Speaker 3: versus the first eleven months of twenty twenty four. Most
Speaker 3: of the layoffs have been in technology sectors as companies
Speaker 3: integrate artificial intelligence in some roles. Now what we've been
Speaker 3: hearing as far as the job market and what's going
Speaker 3: on as far as that, oh, tariffs, poor economic policy
Speaker 3: on the part of the Trump administration, No, the layoffs
Speaker 3: mostly had been in technology. So the people that are
Speaker 3: creating AI and the people that are jumping on board
Speaker 3: with this and jumping in with both beet are basically
Speaker 3: putting themselves out of business. So it's kind of interesting.
Speaker 3: The Bureau of Labor Statistics closely watched employment report for
Speaker 3: November originally do on Friday, has been delayed, so the
Speaker 3: number of jobs that were created last month. They've delayed
Speaker 3: that report until December the sixteenth because of the forty
Speaker 3: three day Schumer shutdown, So it'll be interesting to see
Speaker 3: how that plays out. But in the meantime, you're going
Speaker 3: to have the Federal Reserve, which on December the ninth
Speaker 3: and the tenth, they are going to be meeting and
Speaker 3: making a determination what they're going to be doing with
Speaker 3: job with interest rate cuts before the end of the year,
Speaker 3: which is going to.
Speaker 2: Kind of muddy the waters.
Speaker 3: But maybe the Federal Reserve should take the twenty three
Speaker 3: thousand employees take a look at that, have them do
Speaker 3: a little bit of you know, sharpening their pencils and
Speaker 3: come up with some numbers and come up with some
Speaker 3: accurate information so that they can give them to the
Speaker 3: Board of Governors so they can make an accurate decision
Speaker 3: on what they should do with interest rate cuts. But
Speaker 3: if they talk to the experts here on america'struck a network,
Speaker 3: cut those interest rates by at least a quarter, if
Speaker 3: not a full half percentage point, you'd see the housing
Speaker 3: market increase.
Speaker 2: You'd see people.
Speaker 3: Spending more, You'd see businesses expanding, people buying more vehicles,
Speaker 3: people buying trucks, people expanding their business and so on.
Speaker 2: But that's okay, that's.
Speaker 3: You know, that's my opinion, and you know I have
Speaker 3: an opinion and I'm not afraid to use it.
Speaker 2: Condomists view the.
Speaker 3: Labor market as remaining in a no no higher state.
Speaker 2: Well, again, that's been the situation for most of the year.
Speaker 3: As many as five of the twelve voting policymakers on
Speaker 3: the Central Bank's rate setting Federal Open Market Committee have
Speaker 3: voiced opposition to or skepticism about cutting rates further, while
Speaker 3: a core of three of the members Washington based Board
Speaker 3: of Governors want rates to fall as well.
Speaker 2: They should take a look at what's going.
Speaker 3: Well, not everything going on in Europe, but at least
Speaker 3: what their economy is doing as a result of the
Speaker 3: series of rate cuts that began last year by their
Speaker 3: central banks over there.
Speaker 2: I love this paragraph.
Speaker 3: Labor market status has been blamed for reduced labor and
Speaker 3: I had to look that.
Speaker 2: I said that they put the wrong word in there.
Speaker 3: But of course, you know, when these people decide that
Speaker 3: they're going to write an article, why use a twenty
Speaker 3: five cent word when you can use a five dollars word. Right,
Speaker 3: Status a period of or state of inactivity or equilibrium. So,
Speaker 3: in other words, the labor market equilibrium has been blamed
Speaker 3: on reduced labor supply amid the reduction of immigration that
Speaker 3: started during the final year of the former president Joe
Speaker 3: Biden's term and accelerated during Donald Trump's administration. Yeah, like
Speaker 3: the last month of the Biden administration, Suddenly they decided that, oh,
Speaker 3: you know what, after ten to fifteen million people invaded
Speaker 3: this country. Maybe we should stop that flow. So they
Speaker 3: got that message of the last month of the administration.
Speaker 3: Integration of artificial intelligence some job roles is also a
Speaker 3: routing demand for labor, with entry level positions taking the
Speaker 3: most of the hit. Economists also say Trump's trade policies
Speaker 3: have created uncertain economic environment that has hamstrung the ability
Speaker 3: of business, especially small enterprises, to hire. Really, where's the
Speaker 3: evidence of that. Where is the evidence that the economic
Speaker 3: policy in terms of expenses or inflation has created people
Speaker 3: to stop expanding or not hiring. Not mentioned in here anywhere.
Speaker 3: Our interest rate cuts the interest rates that people are
Speaker 3: paying to expand their business. And when they do the
Speaker 3: looking at their expansionary plans and do their rate of return,
Speaker 3: the rate of you know, the ROI return on investment,
Speaker 3: And when they look at that and they say, well,
Speaker 3: gee whiz, I don't know that I could make up
Speaker 3: that money because when I factor in the interest rates,
Speaker 3: it puts this thing out of out of sight or
Speaker 3: out of our way that we would actually review the
Speaker 3: policy to make it go forward. But with those interest
Speaker 3: rates coming, if they came down, maybe we could pull
Speaker 3: the trigger on that number of people receiving unemployment benefits
Speaker 3: over the initial week after the initial week of aid,
Speaker 3: a proxy for hiring slip four thousand. Wait a minute,
Speaker 3: I thought, I thought the job market was weak. I
Speaker 3: thought people weren't going back to work. I thought, you know, so,
Speaker 3: if the people that have been on unemployment are going down,
Speaker 3: even though it's four thousand, it's not skyrocketing the way
Speaker 3: that they had anticipated it to. So again, how how
Speaker 3: accurate is the information we're getting from these people? The
Speaker 3: elevated so called continuing claims suggests a steady rise in
Speaker 3: the unemployment rate A week hiring was confirmed by Challenger Report,
Speaker 3: which again their report indicated that there was going to
Speaker 3: be X number of layoffs and they cut that by
Speaker 3: fifty three percent, which showed planned hiring by US companies
Speaker 3: total four hundred and ninety seven almost five hundred thousand
Speaker 3: in the first eleven months of the year, the lowest
Speaker 3: year to date total since twenty ten, again down thirty
Speaker 3: five percent from the same period last year.
Speaker 2: But again, are their numbers accurate?
Speaker 3: Because if they keep flipping back and saying, well, unemployment
Speaker 3: is going to be x and such, and these companies
Speaker 3: are going to be laying off one hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: thousand over the next month, and they cut that back
Speaker 3: fifty three percent. Amazing. You know how far off they
Speaker 3: can be. Now, some additional good news we'll get to
Speaker 3: here shortly. As I was talking about retail sales and
Speaker 3: so on the five days straight, let me see the
Speaker 3: National Federation of National Retail Federation sites a record two
Speaker 3: hundred and three million shoppers for the extended weekend period
Speaker 3: of time.
Speaker 2: We'll bring this up coming up.
Speaker 3: I'm Kevin Gordon, America struck In Network seven hundred w LW,
Speaker 3: warming you up for.
Speaker 1: This year's crossdown shootown explanation point I must.
Speaker 2: Be care of.
Speaker 1: This is a Crosstown shootdown memory out by three, brought
Speaker 1: to you by Pinstation in East Cosa. Now your host, Moeger.
Speaker 6: February eighth, twenty fifteen, the d Davis Game Savior senior
Speaker 6: guard entered the shootout at UC shooting just twenty six
Speaker 6: percent from behind the three point line, but with the
Speaker 6: Bearcats almost daring him to shoot, Davis drilled all five
Speaker 6: of his three point shots, each one of them silencing
Speaker 6: the deafening fifth third arena crowd. The winning points for
Speaker 6: Xavier came from Trey von Bluer, who's two free throws
Speaker 6: with less than twelve seconds to go, gave XU.
Speaker 1: Lead for go be listing for the next Crosstown shootdown
Speaker 1: Memory on seven hundred wlw renned, We've been.
Speaker 3: Covering over the last couple of segments, So if you
Speaker 3: missed any of that or any of our shows, hit
Speaker 3: up that iHeartRadio app and everything's there, brought to you
Speaker 3: by our friends at Rush Truck Centers. I mentioned this
Speaker 3: in the previous segment. National Retail Federation sites record two
Speaker 3: hundred and three million shoppers for extended weekend and RF
Speaker 3: annual consumer survey December second found two one hundred and
Speaker 3: two point nine million customers shopped during the holiday weekend
Speaker 3: from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday. The figure is up
Speaker 3: from one hundred and ninety seven and ninety seven million.
Speaker 2: Shoppers last year. That's up three percent, my friends.
Speaker 3: The previous record was two two hundred point four million,
Speaker 3: set in twenty twenty three. They also are predicting that
Speaker 3: this is going to be the first holiday season to
Speaker 3: break one trillion dollars in sales, and our f president
Speaker 3: Matthew Say said, we still believe we're on track to
Speaker 3: meet that forecast. Shay said during a meeting briefing after
Speaker 3: the survey was released. We feel very confident based on
Speaker 3: the results of this weekend and the way in which
Speaker 3: consumers are engaged, and so we think that a good
Speaker 3: foundation for going forward and we're seeing real growth. Shay
Speaker 3: pointed out that the uptick and inflation increased the cost
Speaker 3: of goods.
Speaker 2: Over the now this paragraph.
Speaker 3: When I read this, I'm basically was scratching my head
Speaker 3: because where this comment comes from.
Speaker 2: I have no clue, but this is what he said.
Speaker 3: Pointed out that the uptick in inflation increased the cost
Speaker 3: of goods over the past few months, but he described
Speaker 3: the ten of the trend as a modesty increase that
Speaker 3: followed about two and a half years of flat goods inflation.
Speaker 3: Two and a half years of flat price increases. What
Speaker 3: planet is this guy on?
Speaker 2: He did?
Speaker 3: He not pay attention to the nine point one percent
Speaker 3: inflation in June of twenty twenty two, the four point
Speaker 3: three percent inflation over the on average during the Biden
Speaker 3: Urnament office. What's he looking at? And they don't explain
Speaker 3: it in here. There are times a year when we
Speaker 3: were engaged in commerce that is purchases out of necessity replenishment,
Speaker 3: the normal nay, day to day, week to week shopping
Speaker 3: that we do. Shay kept saying or mentioned, but holidays
Speaker 3: are really much more emotional purchases. Families plan for it,
Speaker 3: families save for it, and they invest in it.
Speaker 2: So there's talking about how people.
Speaker 3: Start doing and have been kind of spacing out their
Speaker 3: holiday purchases where they basically start, you know, over several months.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: They do concentrate when they bart when the bargains are there,
Speaker 3: and they anticipate what the bargains are going to be
Speaker 3: on Black Friday and then Cyber Monday. But again they
Speaker 3: are doing some of their purchases throughout the year. So
Speaker 3: when we start seeing holiday sales increase, which is the
Speaker 3: five day period or the holiday buying season, and those
Speaker 3: numbers are up. If what he's saying is true that
Speaker 3: people started buying months ago, then that would have boosted
Speaker 3: those retail sales there and any retail sales increased now
Speaker 3: during this period of time is going to be icing
Speaker 3: on the cake. Top items purchase clothing and accessories, but
Speaker 3: fifty one percent, toys, thirty two percent, media, twenty eight percent,
Speaker 3: and gift cards twenty six percent. It exceeded our initial
Speaker 3: expectations by approximately sixteen million consumers. Shayse said, I think
Speaker 3: there's a rarity of variety of reasons why people see
Speaker 3: let me seevity, variety of reasons why we see people
Speaker 3: out over the weekend. Certainly, many customers are looking for
Speaker 3: attractive deals that are out there. Others are there for
Speaker 3: social experience or as holiday tradition, and many others see
Speaker 3: this as an opportunity to get ahead of their gift shopping.
Speaker 3: Logistics Managers Index slipped to a rating of fifty five
Speaker 3: point seven for November after two consecutive months of fifty
Speaker 3: seven point four. But then they start going into some
Speaker 3: of these statistics about let me see downstream respondents and
Speaker 3: what's going on.
Speaker 2: But overall, I mean the numbers.
Speaker 3: Robust in store sales, which is interesting because we've seen
Speaker 3: this trend over the last several years of where they're
Speaker 3: you know, we've seen all these different malls closing, these
Speaker 3: big box stores and brick and mortar businesses going by
Speaker 3: the wayside because people are.
Speaker 2: Doing more on online shopping.
Speaker 3: And I've seen this over this oh, I guess last
Speaker 3: decade or so, and the generation whatever that falls. But
Speaker 3: what's interesting is I've noticed with our grandchildren is that
Speaker 3: they are going to the malls now, or they are
Speaker 3: going out shopping. They're not sitting at home doing their
Speaker 3: purchases online. They're actually interested in going to the mall, touching, feeling,
Speaker 3: looking at certain things.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's a situation, Well I don't.
Speaker 3: My wife buys a lot of stuff online for the house,
Speaker 3: but every time it seems that she buys clothes, she
Speaker 3: has to kind of figure out, Okay, this manufacturer from
Speaker 3: what I've had in the past, is their sizes you
Speaker 3: have to buy the size up or in this manufacturer
Speaker 3: you got to buy the size down, and then you
Speaker 3: got to kind of pick and choose and kind of
Speaker 3: figure out to the minefield which ones are going to fit,
Speaker 3: what aren't going to fit. Now, for the first time
Speaker 3: in a long time, this past year, well actually for
Speaker 3: the first time ever, I've bought some clothes online and
Speaker 3: almost every one of them had to go back because
Speaker 3: they don't fit. And so what makes me curious about
Speaker 3: this is how are some of these you know, online
Speaker 3: companies actually making money Because not only do they give
Speaker 3: free shipping depending upon how much you buy and it's
Speaker 3: a good price based on what you could get in
Speaker 3: the store, So it's a it's a you're getting a bargain,
Speaker 3: But then also you're not paying for shipping, and then
Speaker 3: if it doesn't fit, you got to send it back
Speaker 3: and so they're stuck with the item and they've paid
Speaker 3: for shipping twice. So I you know, it's it's amazing
Speaker 3: that and especially if you're buying anything having to do
Speaker 3: with a manufacturer in China, you know, how how does
Speaker 3: you know a fifty inch chest size as far as
Speaker 3: a jacket or a shirt or extra extra large, how
Speaker 3: does that equate to a thirty two chess or a
Speaker 3: forty four chess with the Chinese economy, I mean, or
Speaker 3: they're numbers. I thought they were supposed to be somewhat
Speaker 3: smart in terms of math. Fifty inches is not forty
Speaker 3: four inches is not forty eight inches. And so when
Speaker 3: they say something and you go to a sizing chart
Speaker 3: and you do the measurements, and you say, okay, this
Speaker 3: is my signs, and then they come and you're buying
Speaker 3: an extra two x, extra large, extra extra large, and
Speaker 3: then what you get is about either a large or
Speaker 3: maybe a one x. So it's just I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's just kind of nuts. But again, National National Retail
Speaker 3: Federation seeing some very positive statistics as far as the
Speaker 3: holiday season and how that is kicking off. A couple
Speaker 3: of other stories well kind of related to that. CNBC
Speaker 3: had their story talking about this. They're talking about will
Speaker 3: consumers and this is a kind of an interesting line.
Speaker 3: While consumer sentiment has tumbled and the growing number of
Speaker 3: major companies have laid off thousands of employees, retail sales
Speaker 3: data remained solid. So if there's been major layoffs, why
Speaker 3: isn't the unemployment rate going up? Why isn't the weekly
Speaker 3: initial jobless claims going up? And why isn't the overall
Speaker 3: unemployment rate going up? You know, I just it's amazing
Speaker 3: when you dig into these numbers and see what they're
Speaker 3: talking about and trying to figure out where in the
Speaker 3: heck they're coming up with their numbers. Again, when I
Speaker 3: was talking about previously, total of one hundred and twenty
Speaker 3: nine point five million consumers shopped in stores over the
Speaker 3: five days, a three percent year to year increase. The
Speaker 3: survey found as more Americans have done more of their
Speaker 3: Black Friday shopping online in recent years. The online shopping
Speaker 3: turnout jump up even more by nine percent, but then
Speaker 3: the in store traffic has gone up three percent. So
Speaker 3: it's interesting to see the trends that in some instances
Speaker 3: not only are the online purchases going up, but then
Speaker 3: again also the in store purchases are going up and
Speaker 3: the in store traffic is going up, which is good news.
Speaker 3: Now the Trump administration and some other more good news
Speaker 3: before we have to get out of here, The Trump
Speaker 3: administration yesterday pushed major cut to the miles per gallon standard.
Speaker 3: Just kind of hitting the highlights here. Trump administration proposed
Speaker 3: cutting the Biden era twenty thirty one fuel economy standards
Speaker 3: from about fifty miles per gallon to thirty four point
Speaker 3: five miles per gallon and ending the credit trading, starting
Speaker 3: credit trading starting in the twenty twenty twenty eight model year.
Speaker 3: So again, the EPA during the Biden administration, in the
Speaker 3: last year of the Biden administration, raised these fuel standards
Speaker 3: to an unreasonable level. And if the mandates are there
Speaker 3: and the mechanics necessary to get to that isn't there
Speaker 3: and hasn't been developed yet, then these car companies are
Speaker 3: a disadvantage if they don't meet those standards, then they
Speaker 3: wind up paying billions and billions of dollars in fines
Speaker 3: to the federal government. This is one of those dirty
Speaker 3: little secrets that people don't know a lot about, is
Speaker 3: that because of these carbon credits.
Speaker 2: And this fact that you're not making these fuel standards,
Speaker 2: you're paying.
Speaker 3: Billions of dollars to the federal government for what are
Speaker 3: they taking those profits?
Speaker 2: Are they taking those billions of dollars.
Speaker 3: And turning them into some sort of non pollution fund
Speaker 3: or something like that, or funding other mechanisms. No, they're
Speaker 3: just confiscating the wealth. And who pays for that? You
Speaker 3: think the car companies are going to absorb that that
Speaker 3: they're not going to pour that back into the cost
Speaker 3: of a manufacturing a car. No, wonder, the cars have
Speaker 3: gone up on average and now some of the app
Speaker 3: of buying a new cars around forty seven thousand, fifty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars, pushing the price of these cars up. And
Speaker 3: in order to meet those fuel standards, they have to
Speaker 3: push evs on people that they don't want. And again
Speaker 3: they claim there's no EV mandate, But when you look
Speaker 3: at the factors that if you don't sell more evs,
Speaker 3: you're going to be fined even more so, lowering these
Speaker 3: standards or lowering these miles per gallon goes within those
Speaker 3: and would cut the number of fines that are And
Speaker 3: people may say no. Stay tuned here. Officials say the
Speaker 3: rollback and save Americans one hundred and nine billion over
Speaker 3: five years, while the environmental groups warned it will increase
Speaker 3: gasoline use and boost oil into sea profits. What are
Speaker 3: they not saying there? They are not saying that it's
Speaker 3: going to cause pollution. Wouldn't you think the environmentalist would
Speaker 3: be concerned about whether or not it's going to cause pollution.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't you think that that would be the top of
Speaker 3: their list. No, they're worried about the profits of the
Speaker 3: oil companies.
Speaker 2: Who doesn't like capitalism? Who doesn't like profits? Oh?
Speaker 3: That would be communists? So are environmentalists more aligned with
Speaker 3: the communists? And as I call them, climmunists. Now kind
Speaker 3: of makes you wonder, doesn't it. I'm Kevin Gordon. Stay
Speaker 3: tuned for REDI Radio the top of the hour. I'm
Speaker 3: Kevin Gordon, America's truck in Network seven hundred WLW