Speaker 1: This is America's Trucking Network with Kevin Gordon. Welcome more.
Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in on this Thursday morning. I get
Speaker 2: to start off with saying that, well, yesterday, when I
Speaker 2: got off the air, I thought that I had said
Speaker 2: something wrong, so I went back and checked it, and
Speaker 2: actually I was right. So I was wrong about being wrong.
Speaker 2: Which what does that do? It actually makes me right right,
Speaker 2: So a good thing. I didn't have to correct it
Speaker 2: because you know that would lose you would lose faith
Speaker 2: in me, because you know, on this program atn we're
Speaker 2: never wrong.
Speaker 1: So good thing. I didn't misspeak yesterday.
Speaker 2: And I when I thought I was wrong, I was
Speaker 2: actually wrong about being wrong, So I guess it was right.
Speaker 2: You know, last week we talked about this government shut down,
Speaker 2: all these scare tactic tactics that everybody were going to
Speaker 2: be using, and one of the big things that they
Speaker 2: brought up was, well, you know, although social Security checks
Speaker 2: are going to be coming out, that's not going to
Speaker 2: be affected. But whatever the annual cola that cost of
Speaker 2: living index or cost of living allowance is adjusted, is
Speaker 2: going to be pushed back some and it may not
Speaker 2: get there by January. Now, mind you Okay, we're not
Speaker 2: in the age of you know, calculators and pencils and
Speaker 2: people having you do things manually. I made the comment
Speaker 2: at the time that you know, you make a credit
Speaker 2: card payment online and immediately, within seconds, the money's out
Speaker 2: of your account. Certainly they have got some mechanism that
Speaker 2: they can make this adjustment. And they talked about during
Speaker 2: that particular story that normally the adjustment last year came
Speaker 2: out on October the tenth, and that the government shut down,
Speaker 2: it wasn't due to be released until the fifteenth of
Speaker 2: this month, which is today, no yesterday. And so I
Speaker 2: mentioned at the time that even if it's delayed a
Speaker 2: few days, because most of these government shutdowns, the longest
Speaker 2: one was during the first Trump administration with the Democrats
Speaker 2: in charge, and that lasted for thirty five days, We're
Speaker 2: already into what three and a half weeks, so this
Speaker 2: should be ending pretty shortly.
Speaker 1: But I mentioned that, you know, this is just scare tactics.
Speaker 2: And the way the headline was written, and I've talked
Speaker 2: about this before, is that people generally, or there's a
Speaker 2: lot of people that all they do is they look
Speaker 2: at the headlines on their phones. They don't dig into
Speaker 2: the stories the way we do here on America's truck
Speaker 2: A Network, pick apart the stories, dissect them, and come
Speaker 2: up with the nuggets of journalism that's been committed within
Speaker 2: the story buried however, but we've dug them out and
Speaker 2: talked about it, and in some cases we pointed out
Speaker 2: that sometimes the last paragraph of the story pretty much
Speaker 2: negates everything that was said during the regular story. And
Speaker 2: I've brought up several times that the headline doesn't even
Speaker 2: match the story. So when we were digging into this
Speaker 2: details last week talking about this, the headline and as
Speaker 2: I said, most people will just be.
Speaker 1: Looking at the headlines.
Speaker 2: The headline said government shutdown could delay yearly Social Security
Speaker 2: payment announcement. Now, because there's limited space on your phone
Speaker 2: in terms of the sentences, they may have cut that off. Now,
Speaker 2: in some instances, when you look at Google and they
Speaker 2: kind of do an explanation of what the stories are,
Speaker 2: sometimes the last word or two are left off. Government
Speaker 2: shutdown could delay yearly Social Security payment. That might be
Speaker 2: what some people just saw. So they would be going,
Speaker 2: oh my god, you know, so security is going to
Speaker 2: be delayed, And I said, you know, let's be calm
Speaker 2: about this.
Speaker 1: They've got other ways. In fact, all they have to
Speaker 1: do is take.
Speaker 2: The average from the beginning of the year up to
Speaker 2: It'll be one month short. But take that average and
Speaker 2: use that well low And be hold all the handwringing,
Speaker 2: all the stuff that was last week that oh, this
Speaker 2: is going to be delayed. We don't know if this
Speaker 2: is going to get into effect by January. The effect
Speaker 2: that the checks may not be adjusted. They'll have to
Speaker 2: go back and adjust.
Speaker 1: That later on. Well, no, okay.
Speaker 2: New Social Security cola release date confirmed amid government shutdown.
Speaker 2: The announcement of the Social Security annual inflation adjustment to
Speaker 2: benefits has been delayed due to the government shutdown, but
Speaker 2: the agency responsible for handling the benefits increase has set
Speaker 2: a date for releasing the data next week. SOBI Security
Speaker 2: benefits undergo a cost of living adjustment COLA, as it's called,
Speaker 2: every year, which updates benefits amounts to account for inflation
Speaker 2: over the last year. The size of the annual cola
Speaker 2: is determined by the rise in the consumer price index
Speaker 2: over the prior year.
Speaker 1: And again, if they're.
Speaker 2: Having problems with this, you already have January February, already
Speaker 2: have through the month of September. Well, yeah, August at least,
Speaker 2: so you got at least eight months worth of data,
Speaker 2: or maybe a and a half months worth of data.
Speaker 1: If you have a.
Speaker 2: Problem with that, that's right, because this Consumer Price Index
Speaker 2: comes out the middle of the month, so we already
Speaker 2: had September, so she got nine months of the year.
Speaker 2: Take the average of that, or take the number of
Speaker 2: that and use that that tenth month is going to
Speaker 2: make that big of a difference. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Speaker 2: releases the CPI on a monthly basis to gauge how
Speaker 2: much higher inflation has pushed the consumer prices. However, the
Speaker 2: September CPI data that was supposed to be released October
Speaker 2: the fifteenth and complete the COLA calculation was delayed by
Speaker 2: the government shutdown. BLS announced it had recalled some of
Speaker 2: the workers who were furloughed due to the government shutdown
Speaker 2: to complete the CPI report and allow COLA to be released.
Speaker 2: The BLS will now release the September CPI on Friday,
Speaker 2: October the twenty fourth, while the Social Security Administration will
Speaker 2: announce the twenty twenty six COLA the same day. Experts
Speaker 2: anticipate now this is what's interesting, which really wouldn't have
Speaker 2: changed if you would have taken the last CPI report
Speaker 2: where inflation was somewhere between two point seven and two
Speaker 2: point nine percent. If you were to used that number,
Speaker 2: that's exactly where they're going to be at. Experts expect
Speaker 2: that the twenty twenty six COLA will raise Social Security
Speaker 2: recipient's benefits payments by more than two point five percent.
Speaker 2: Senior Citizens League estimated last month that the COLA for
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six will be two point seven t Let
Speaker 2: me see. T SLC noted that the estimate in higher
Speaker 2: than what was PROMOTE projected in the outset of the year,
Speaker 2: when it was estimated would be two point one percent.
Speaker 2: The group also noted that two point seven COLA would
Speaker 2: be about average of what the historical standpoint, So if
Speaker 2: it was two point six two point seven, some are
Speaker 2: estimating its as high as two point nine percent. They
Speaker 2: knew this before the September data would even come out.
Speaker 2: And why they did all the hand ringing, why they
Speaker 2: did all the I don't know, trying to scare people,
Speaker 2: scare tactics put pre well, if they would put pressure
Speaker 2: on the Democrats to end the Schumer shutdown. That would
Speaker 2: be good, that would be good for the country, good
Speaker 2: for us. But quite honestly, have many people notice that
Speaker 2: the government has been shut down. I know there's been
Speaker 2: some things in talking about certain things going out as
Speaker 2: far as health premiums and insurance subsidies and that type
Speaker 2: of thing, but that's.
Speaker 1: All going to be worked out. That could be worked
Speaker 1: out a different way.
Speaker 2: So all these scare tactics they've been talking about, at
Speaker 2: least they're not in office and creating headaches for us
Speaker 2: during the government shutdown. So I just thought it was
Speaker 2: interesting that we talked about this just last week, talked
Speaker 2: about how that this isn't that big a deal, that
Speaker 2: there are numbers that they can use and are available
Speaker 2: that they could use and just implement that. And if
Speaker 2: they're implementing it, and if their system is up to date,
Speaker 2: it shouldn't take two and a half months to make
Speaker 2: an adjustment on those security payments. So bottom line, once again,
Speaker 2: America's truck A network is far ahead of the curve.
Speaker 2: We had this information last week, talked about it not
Speaker 2: big deal. Now all of a sudden Wednesday, actually Thursday,
Speaker 2: well yesterday of this week, they finally get around to saying, oh, whoops,
Speaker 2: never mind, it's just spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media.
Speaker 2: They always got to glom onto something. And as I've
Speaker 2: been saying all along, it appears as though that the
Speaker 2: mainstream media, the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media,
Speaker 2: and certain people I think within the Federal Reserve, are
Speaker 2: trying to manufacture a recession. And fortunately for you, me
Speaker 2: and everybody else in this country, we are way too smart,
Speaker 2: way too resilient to get through that or to allow
Speaker 2: that to happen, and we will push through because we
Speaker 2: are tough, rugged individualists. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck a
Speaker 2: network seven hundred WLW. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck in
Speaker 2: Networks seven hundred WLW. Well, it looks as though that
Speaker 2: even though there's a government shut down, and even though
Speaker 2: the government well isn't open, which means that it's not
Speaker 2: creating headaches for you and me, there are per people
Speaker 2: within the administration that are taking a look and have
Speaker 2: been taking a look at projects and things since the
Speaker 2: beginning of the year and making a termination of do
Speaker 2: we really need to be spending money on this kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. There was a report at the I think
Speaker 2: last week, the Department of Energy and seven point five
Speaker 2: billion dollars in grants. Now, seven point five billion dollars
Speaker 2: in grants may not seem a lot in terms of
Speaker 2: if we're talking about trillion dollar deficits. However, as I
Speaker 2: forget who it was, they were on either the Carson
Speaker 2: Show or one of these shows way back when, and
Speaker 2: they were talking about the budget. They were talking about
Speaker 2: spending and government and the federal government and so on,
Speaker 2: and this guy says, you know, a million dollars and
Speaker 2: back then a million dollars right, as opposed to billions
Speaker 2: of dollars now a million dollars here and a billion dollars,
Speaker 2: million dollars there.
Speaker 1: Sooner or later it adds up to a little bit.
Speaker 1: It adds up to some money.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, when you're looking at the bloated government
Speaker 2: and the fact that every year, and I've talked about
Speaker 2: this before, Ran Paul Senator from Kentucky, every year around
Speaker 2: towards the end of December comes up with what they
Speaker 2: call the Festivus Report, where he goes down very various
Speaker 2: items that have come to his attention or stuff that they
Speaker 2: look at things he's picked out of the budget, waste, fraud,
Speaker 2: and abuse, and he puts those in a report. Last
Speaker 2: year's report was one point one trillion dollars in cuts
Speaker 2: of wasteful spend by the federal government, the Office of Management,
Speaker 2: Management and Budget, the Congressional Budget Office, these different agencies,
Speaker 2: the Inspector General's Report periodically come up with these lists
Speaker 2: of stuff that's being spent and what it's being spent on.
Speaker 2: And it's always a punchline or as part of a
Speaker 2: joke that people do, as opposed to saying, you know,
Speaker 2: when somebody says, well, you know, they spent this kind
Speaker 2: of money on this report, and isn't that just stupid?
Speaker 2: And rather than saying, you know what, call your congressman,
Speaker 2: call your senators, say what the hell are you guys doing?
Speaker 1: Why is this in the budget? Why are you reaching
Speaker 1: into my pocket?
Speaker 2: Why are you confiscating my taxes and spending you know,
Speaker 2: eleven million dollars on circumcisions in Zimbabwe, I mean, for
Speaker 2: crying out loud, I mean we have veterans living on
Speaker 2: the street, we have senior citizens that are struggling, We
Speaker 2: have army veterans that can't get the health care.
Speaker 1: That they properly needed.
Speaker 2: They are the ones that fought and died for this country,
Speaker 2: and yet we're spending billions and billions of dollars and
Speaker 2: in some cases trillions of dollars on other social programs
Speaker 2: that are just wasteful, that can show no actual progress
Speaker 2: in terms of what problem they're trying to solve. And
Speaker 2: we've talked about on this program a number of times.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're out there on the road every day.
Speaker 2: You see how the roads have deteriorated. I made a
Speaker 2: mention a couple well, about.
Speaker 1: Two years ago.
Speaker 2: I used to go back and forth between Cincinnati and
Speaker 2: Louisville on a fairly regular basis. Not I wouldn't say,
Speaker 2: you know, every week, every month, and every couple of months,
Speaker 2: i'd find myself going down to Louisville. And once you get,
Speaker 2: you know, to a certain area, I mean, it's clear sailing,
Speaker 2: it's really nice. But I hadn't gone down to Louisville
Speaker 2: for about I guess it was about two years, and
Speaker 2: I had to go down Louisville for something, and I
Speaker 2: was absolutely shocked. I thought it was I thought it
Speaker 2: was in a Connostoga wagon going through the wagon wheel
Speaker 2: ruts trying to avoid the potholes, and some of those
Speaker 2: things were like, you know, teeth chattering potholes, and I
Speaker 2: can you know when you see that and you know
Speaker 2: how much money goes into the Department of Transportation, goes
Speaker 2: into the Federal Highway Trust Fund, and then you realize
Speaker 2: that thirty three percent of that money is wasted on
Speaker 2: another project.
Speaker 1: We pointed out one the other day of where you know.
Speaker 2: The FMCSA, the salaries and wages of the FMCSA comes.
Speaker 1: Out of that budget.
Speaker 2: Department of Energy comes out of the regular taxes that
Speaker 2: are paid, the Department of Education comes out of the
Speaker 2: regular taxes that are paid. But the FMCSA that comes
Speaker 2: out of the Federal Highway Trust Fund. The money that
Speaker 2: we pay as a result of our gasoline tax, diesel taxes,
Speaker 2: excise taxes on your tractors, your trailers, the you know
Speaker 2: semis going down the street on your tires and so on.
Speaker 2: So all these excise taxes we've been told goes into
Speaker 2: the Highway Trust Fund that are supposed to repair our
Speaker 2: bridges and roads, that that money is going to be
Speaker 2: funded by that. No, they pull money out to fund
Speaker 2: the North What was it Northeast Corridor, that train that
Speaker 2: runs from basically Washington, d C. And New York up
Speaker 2: into Connecticut, New Hampshire and Delaware and so on, so
Speaker 2: that people can commute on the train, take a forty
Speaker 2: five fifty minute ride to get out of the city.
Speaker 2: But we're subsidizing that. Why are we subsidizing something that
Speaker 2: is not the highway, something that is not bridges and
Speaker 2: roads and stuff like that. Why are we subsidizing that?
Speaker 2: Why are we subsidizing hiking and biking trails that comes
Speaker 2: out of the Highway Trust Fund.
Speaker 1: Not opposed to hiking and biking.
Speaker 2: Trails, But by god, if they can tax us for
Speaker 2: our tires, tax us for our gasoline, taxes for our diesel,
Speaker 2: can't they put some sort of a tax on the
Speaker 2: bike helmets, the bike gloves, the bicycles themselves, the tires
Speaker 2: on the bicycles, and put a little bit of money
Speaker 2: aside to build these hiking trails, biking trails and so on.
Speaker 2: Look at all the equipment that goes into the hiking boots,
Speaker 2: the socks, there's certain shorts, there's walking sticks, all this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff that's done.
Speaker 1: They could tax that.
Speaker 2: They could put a small price on that and then
Speaker 2: fund these things.
Speaker 1: Instead of us. Because again when.
Speaker 2: They're told, you know, when you're going through these highways
Speaker 2: and you come upon a toll, they are told they
Speaker 2: are tolling that road because they didn't have the money
Speaker 2: in order to fix that road or to build that road.
Speaker 2: And they're saying, well, it's a user fee, you use it,
Speaker 2: you pay for it. Well, if you're using the biking trail,
Speaker 2: and you're using the hiking trail, or you're using the
Speaker 2: train going up to Connecticut, that's the same train that
Speaker 2: Joe Biden bragged about using every.
Speaker 1: Day so he could go home to his family. Applaud
Speaker 1: him for that being home for his kids.
Speaker 2: That's probably one of the nicest things I can say
Speaker 2: about it, and the only nice thing. But again, we're
Speaker 2: subsidizing those trips for those commuters going to and from work.
Speaker 2: Who's subsidizing aren't who's subsidizing our gas and oil?
Speaker 1: It's not anybody else. We're paying for that.
Speaker 2: And then to have this money pulled out of the
Speaker 2: Federal Highway Trust Fund is ridiculous. Again, it's they tell
Speaker 2: us the tolls are a user fee, all right, Well,
Speaker 2: then put a user fee on the hiking trails and
Speaker 2: biking trails. Don't put that, don't take that out of
Speaker 2: the Highway Trust Fund, and quit whining to us the
Speaker 2: fact that you don't have enough money to repair these
Speaker 2: resident Oh, by the way, let's not forget that when
Speaker 2: the highway system went into place in the first place,
Speaker 2: back in nineteen fifty six during the during the Eisenhower administration,
Speaker 2: after he saw during World War Two what the autobahn
Speaker 2: did in Germany from the troops being able to be
Speaker 2: moved from one end of the country to the other,
Speaker 2: and recognize that in the United States, if you're going
Speaker 2: from one end of the country to the other, it
Speaker 2: would take you two and a half to three weeks,
Speaker 2: two and a half to three weeks from going from
Speaker 2: the east coast to the West coast, or vice versa.
Speaker 2: He recognized what a that was, especially going into the
Speaker 2: Cold War, said we're going to develop the Federal Highway
Speaker 2: Fund or the Federal Highway System, and it was put
Speaker 2: as the National Defense System and Highway Fund, and so
Speaker 2: this was part of the federal government. The federal government
Speaker 2: at that time paid ninety percent of the cost of
Speaker 2: the Federal Highway interstate highway system and if they recognized
Speaker 2: that that was a national security issue, why isn't part
Speaker 2: of the money coming out of the Defense Fund to
Speaker 2: repair repair bridge and bridges and roads. Why isn't that
Speaker 2: still part of the federal the Defense Fund. We've got
Speaker 2: the Highway Trust Fund which can do that as well.
Speaker 2: But again, the government at the time recognized the importance
Speaker 2: of this not only for troop movement, but then also
Speaker 2: as a side benefit, a benefit to the consumers out there,
Speaker 2: so that they could travel from one end of the
Speaker 2: country to the other in a short period of time
Speaker 2: and enjoy more of leisure life in terms of their
Speaker 2: family vacationations and stuff. And how much that opened up
Speaker 2: in terms of being able to spend time with their
Speaker 2: family going to different places. I mean, if you live
Speaker 2: in Michigan and you can go all the way to
Speaker 2: Florida in a couple of days as opposed to a
Speaker 2: four or five day trip down there, at benefited us
Speaker 2: in terms of our leisure time. So the fact that
Speaker 2: they recognized this at the time should be something that
Speaker 2: they recognize today. So again, all this stuff, as far
Speaker 2: as these projects and this money being spent, is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And we'll get back to what I was.
Speaker 2: Going to talk about in the first place, this seven
Speaker 2: point five billion dollars in grants that have been pulled back.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon, america'struck a Network, seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3: Here's your trucking forecast for the Try State and the
Speaker 3: rest of the country and the Try State. Over Night,
Speaker 3: partly cloudy, the low down to forty eight Sunday, Thursday
Speaker 3: high of sixty nine mostly Sunday. Friday high of seventy
Speaker 3: one Saturday, mostly sunny with a slight chance of afternooner
Speaker 3: and warmer Ahia eight two. Rain moves in overnight and
Speaker 3: continues into Sunday. Nationally, heavy snow will be seen uper
Speaker 3: parts of the Northern Rockies Thursday, while there is a
Speaker 3: chance of showers and storms upper parts of the Northern Plains,
Speaker 3: of the Southern Plains and Upper Great Lakes region Wednesday
Speaker 3: and Thursday.
Speaker 1: Seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 2: I this is America's Hello, seven hundred w LW's Americans
Speaker 2: Tracking Network.
Speaker 1: I'm Gavin Gordon.
Speaker 2: By the way, programming no Thursday night football game Bengals
Speaker 2: are on. They're playing Pittsburgh Steelers, so we will be
Speaker 2: preempted tomorrow. So there will be no Friday show. By
Speaker 2: the way, if you miss any of our programs, make
Speaker 2: sure you hit up that iHeartRadio app of course, brought
Speaker 2: to you by our friends at Rush Truck Centers.
Speaker 1: I was talking about this particular story.
Speaker 2: Department of Energy ends seven point five billion dollars in
Speaker 2: grants for Biden approved projects. Department of Energy terminated seven
Speaker 2: point five billion dollars in grants for two hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty three projects approved by the Biden administration. Imagine how
Speaker 2: many roads and bridges or something that that could fund,
Speaker 2: or benefits for veterans who are out on the street,
Speaker 2: housing for homeless veterans, and so on. Seven point five
Speaker 2: billion dollars has not jump change. On day one, the
Speaker 2: Energy Department began a critical task of reviewing billions of
Speaker 2: dollars of financial awards. This, according to Chris Wright, the
Speaker 2: Energy Secretary looked at critical task of reviewing billions of
Speaker 2: dollars of financial awards many rushed through the final months
Speaker 2: of the Biden administration with inadequate documentation by any reasonable
Speaker 2: business standard. President Trump promised to protect taxpayer dollars, expand
Speaker 2: America's supply of affordable, reliable, and secure energy today's cancelations
Speaker 2: deliver on that commitment. Rest assured the Energy Department will
Speaker 2: continue reviewing awards.
Speaker 1: To ensure that every dollar works for the American people.
Speaker 2: Wright's office stated that twenty six percent of the projects
Speaker 2: worth more than three point one billion dollars were awarded
Speaker 2: between election day and inauguration day. I'm sorry, my friends
Speaker 2: that once the election was determined and we knew who
Speaker 2: the new president was going to be, there should have
Speaker 2: been damn little that was shoved through in terms of
Speaker 2: additional spending or grants issued between election day and inauguration day.
Speaker 2: To me that and follow the money is probably a
Speaker 2: bunch of payoffs to a bunch of cronies.
Speaker 1: The total of three hundred and twenty one financial.
Speaker 2: Awards were approved under the Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy,
Speaker 2: the offices of Clean Energy Demonstrations, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy,
Speaker 2: Fossil Energy, grid Deployment, Manufacturing, and Energy supply Grants. I mean,
Speaker 2: there is so much redundancy in the federal government that
Speaker 2: every little department has to have their little section of
Speaker 2: the pie. And the more that they can grow these things,
Speaker 2: the more power that they get for themselves. And this
Speaker 2: is some of the things that need to be looked at.
Speaker 2: And as I mentioned before, Rand Paul Festivus Report every
Speaker 2: year is put out. Last year they came up with
Speaker 2: one point one trillion dollars in just those deductions alone,
Speaker 2: or those eliminations from.
Speaker 1: The federal budget.
Speaker 2: That would prove to be amazing Office of Management and
Speaker 2: Budget Inspector General's report they go through every year in
Speaker 2: issue reports of waste, fraud and abuse. And again to
Speaker 2: reemphasize what I said in the previous segment, rather than
Speaker 2: that being a punchline, rather than that being a ha
Speaker 2: ha moment as opposed to an aha moment where people say,
Speaker 2: you know what I need to We need to put
Speaker 2: our you know, harass our federal agencies to eliminate this.
Speaker 1: Crap that's coming out of our pockets.
Speaker 2: But anyway, going back to this particular story, I don't
Speaker 2: want to get off on a tangent again. The governors
Speaker 2: of Washington and California amazing, amazing, amazing, surprise, surprise, surprise
Speaker 2: that a lot of these energy grants went to the
Speaker 2: liberal state of Washington and oh, by the way, California,
Speaker 2: which is you know how liberal they are. Washington Governor
Speaker 2: Bob Ferguson blasted the Trump administration for stopping one point
Speaker 2: one billion dollars for seven Department of Energy grants. The
Speaker 2: previously authorized federal awards included one billion dollars for the
Speaker 2: Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub, as well as sixty eight million
Speaker 2: dollars for two pack Car Inc. Projects linked to the
Speaker 2: Super Truck three program. Now, the super Truck three is
Speaker 2: an electric vehicle, and as we've seen, electric vehals are
Speaker 2: not ready for Electric vehicles are not ready for prime time.
Speaker 2: The infant structure isn't there, the number of charging stations
Speaker 2: aren't there. And when you take in take into consideration
Speaker 2: the weight of these vehicles, the fact that electric tractor
Speaker 2: trailers are the cabs themselves weigh a third more than
Speaker 2: what the normal cab weighs. So if you're hauling freight,
Speaker 2: you can only you would be hauling one third less freight.
Speaker 2: So for every one of these trucks electric trucks that
Speaker 2: you'd buy, you need one point three trucks in order
Speaker 2: to carry the same weight, not to mention the fact
Speaker 2: that the normal tractor costs between one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: and two hundred and thirty two twenty thousand dollars. The
Speaker 2: cost of an electric Class eight truck is four hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty five thousand dollars, almost twice the cost of
Speaker 2: a regular truck. And when you look into okay, all right,
Speaker 2: if you buy the nonsense that an electric vehicle is
Speaker 2: a lot cleaner than a regular vehicle, well you got
Speaker 2: to take into consideration to wear and tear on the roads.
Speaker 2: You're talking about more weight and breaking down the roads
Speaker 2: a little lot more so, the construction equipment, everything necessary
Speaker 2: in order to repair that road is going to be
Speaker 2: a carbon footprint. The fact that you're charging these stations
Speaker 2: and what are you charging these stations with electricity? And
Speaker 2: where are you getting that electricity? You're going you're not
Speaker 2: going to do it by solar panels. You're not going
Speaker 2: to be doing by windmills because they have proven to
Speaker 2: be very inefficient and not reliable. So you're going to
Speaker 2: be burning more coal. You're gonna have to be producing
Speaker 2: more electricity. So where is the offset that they're talking about. Again,
Speaker 2: it's not ready for prime time, and to cancel these
Speaker 2: contracts is not in my opinion. Now, when it comes
Speaker 2: to hydrogen, I have seen a lot of things having
Speaker 2: to do with hydrogen. It appears as though that that
Speaker 2: might be something that could be done in the future.
Speaker 2: But again, when I see all of these different projects
Speaker 2: going out there, you would think that if you're developing
Speaker 2: something new, that there would be some sort of like
Speaker 2: a what do you want a clearinghouse, if you will,
Speaker 2: in terms of well if somebody else, if somebody's over
Speaker 2: here doing this experiment, you don't want to subsidize and
Speaker 2: fund somebody over here doing the same experiment.
Speaker 1: You want to have some cross negotiation there.
Speaker 2: But one of the things that we learned as you
Speaker 2: pull back the curtain on the pandemic and what was
Speaker 2: done as far as some of these vaccines are concerned,
Speaker 2: and some of the scientific technology way back when Fauci
Speaker 2: had it put through that some of these patents that
Speaker 2: are done are then the property of that person or
Speaker 2: that institution like a college or a university that develops
Speaker 2: that item, and then they get the royalties from that.
Speaker 2: So US as the tax subsidize this research, the research
Speaker 2: is developed, and then they get the royalties from that
Speaker 2: that doesn't pass through to US to reimburse US for
Speaker 2: the grant. And so instead of collaboration, people are tight knit,
Speaker 2: we're not going to share our information with somebody else,
Speaker 2: because if they get to the finish line before us,
Speaker 2: we're not going to get our share of the pie.
Speaker 2: And so the same thing I think is probably done
Speaker 2: with these hydrogen experiments and stuff that's being done. And again,
Speaker 2: it might be the wave of the future, and it
Speaker 2: may be something that is very cost productive in the future.
Speaker 2: But again, unless there is some sort of a clearinghouse
Speaker 2: or some sort of an overseeing of this to make
Speaker 2: sure that it has done efficiently efficiently, I'm not so
Speaker 2: sure about it. And of course Gavin Newsom is whining
Speaker 2: about technical centers in California that they're not getting their
Speaker 2: share of the pie termination of one point two billion
Speaker 2: dollars from the Department of Energy State Hydrogen Fund. And
Speaker 2: let's not forget the billions and billions and hundreds of
Speaker 2: billions of dollars that they've wasted on this high speed
Speaker 2: rail system out there where they haven't even laid a
Speaker 2: track yet and they're what five times over budget. Anyway,
Speaker 2: the efficiencies in California, I'm not so sure that money
Speaker 2: pouring into California for any kind of research grant is
Speaker 2: going to get us anything that what we need.
Speaker 1: I'm Kevin coming up.
Speaker 2: We've got to talk a little bit about We've got
Speaker 2: to get to oil and gas prices.
Speaker 1: I haven't talked about that in a number of days.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network, seven hundred WLW. This
Speaker 2: is America's struck in Network, seven one hundred WLW. I'm
Speaker 2: and Kevin Gordon. Let's take a look at oil and
Speaker 2: gas prices. We have not talked about this much over
Speaker 2: the last week or so. There's just been too much
Speaker 2: news and too much other things going on. So before
Speaker 2: we get to the Fed minutes and talk about inflation
Speaker 2: and so on, let's look at oil and gas prices currently.
Speaker 2: West this intermediate crued is it fifty eight dollars and
Speaker 2: forty cents a barrel? That is down thirty cents thirty
Speaker 2: cents from yesterday, or a half a percentage point. Brent
Speaker 2: krude currently is at sixty two dollars and two cents
Speaker 2: of barrel. That is down thirty seven cents or point
Speaker 2: five nine, a little over half a percentage point just
Speaker 2: since January the twenty, is when Trump took office. West
Speaker 2: Texas intermediate creued is down eighteen dollars and forty nine cents.
Speaker 2: That's a twenty four percent decrease. Twenty four percent decrease.
Speaker 2: That doesn't lower energy prices. I don't know what will
Speaker 2: Brent krude. Currently is it, as I said, sixty two
Speaker 2: dollars and two cents. Just since January it is down
Speaker 2: seventeen dollars in eighty eight cents a barrel, or twenty
Speaker 2: two percentage points. Gasoline is starting to fall finally come down,
Speaker 2: not as much as I would like to have had
Speaker 2: to see it come down. I think gas prices should
Speaker 2: actually right now be about ten to fifteen percent less
Speaker 2: than what they are. The current national average right now
Speaker 2: is at three dollars and seven cents a gallon. Now
Speaker 2: that is offset by the fact that in California, their
Speaker 2: gasoline average price in the state of California is four
Speaker 2: dollars and sixty five cents a gallon. That is a
Speaker 2: dollar fifty nine higher than the national average because of
Speaker 2: all their regulations, all of their additives, all of their
Speaker 2: special gas blends there, and all the taxes that they
Speaker 2: put on gasoline out there, which I don't know why
Speaker 2: the people in California tolerate that. You've got a high
Speaker 2: in California four dollars and sixty five cents a gallon
Speaker 2: to a low of two dollars and fifty eight cents
Speaker 2: a gallon in Oklahoma. National average is three dollars and
Speaker 2: seven cents of gallon. Back in twenty twenty, when we
Speaker 2: are energy independent for the first time since nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 2: gasoline was down around two dollars and twenty four cents
Speaker 2: a gallon. We are thirty seven percent higher than that
Speaker 2: number if you shave off and fifteen percent off of
Speaker 2: the gasoline prices, and they are coming down. We got
Speaker 2: the summer blends that we're in there during the summer,
Speaker 2: and now that summer is over and into the fall,
Speaker 2: those summer blends and that additives that go in there
Speaker 2: reduce the cost of gasoline, and we start should start
Speaker 2: seeing that at the pump. What we do have is
Speaker 2: a little bit of maintenance that goes on this time
Speaker 2: of the year at the end of the driving season
Speaker 2: because the demand for gasoline is not that much, and
Speaker 2: so they start doing their maintenance on these refineries. But
Speaker 2: when you take into consideration that refineries in this country,
Speaker 2: which is something that needs to be done and needs
Speaker 2: to be done very soon, because we have not built
Speaker 2: a new refinery in this country, a new refinery in
Speaker 2: over fifty years.
Speaker 1: Every one of the.
Speaker 2: Refiners we've had refinery shut down because when they go
Speaker 2: in to do maintenance, sort to do expansion, or to
Speaker 2: do additions to that, then it's almost like they've been
Speaker 2: told that they have to revamp everything and bring that
Speaker 2: up to what the current standards would be. And so
Speaker 2: in order to do that, it's not cost efficient to
Speaker 2: do that. That's why a lot of this refining has
Speaker 2: been done overseas and then import it into the United States,
Speaker 2: which again is not a very cost effective way of
Speaker 2: doing gasoline. And it's been this situation where for as
Speaker 2: long as I can remember, they've been talking about ending
Speaker 2: the internal combustion engine. We've been talking about, oh, we
Speaker 2: need to clean the environment, we need to lower the
Speaker 2: we need to increase the mileage standards and all this.
Speaker 2: And yet because there's been such a pressure on trying
Speaker 2: to kill the oil industry, they're saying, well, shoot, I mean,
Speaker 2: we're not going to invest more money into this country.
Speaker 1: We're not going to invest more money into refineries.
Speaker 2: If in a five, six, seven, eight year period of time,
Speaker 2: they're going to be shut down.
Speaker 1: They have been pushed out.
Speaker 2: Of the market in California, and now all of a
Speaker 2: sudden in California, looking at their prices going up dramatically
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, Gavin knew him as saying, well,
Speaker 2: you know what, maybe we should reopen way, maybe we
Speaker 2: should open refineries here. Well, if that's the case, Gavin,
Speaker 2: why did you close them in the first place or
Speaker 2: chase them out of the state. So our energy policy
Speaker 2: in terms of oil refining and that needs to have
Speaker 2: a strong look at it. And again with our oil
Speaker 2: prices and gas prices being as high as they, well,
Speaker 2: the oil price is coming down, the gasoline needs to
Speaker 2: follow that. The fact that again we're thirty seven percent
Speaker 2: higher than we were back in twenty twenty, again when
Speaker 2: we were energy independent for the first time since nineteen
Speaker 2: forty nine. We need to get back to the point
Speaker 2: of where we are energy dominant to keep these prices down.
Speaker 2: And the policies of the Trump administration have been pushing
Speaker 2: and because we have a good relationship and he has
Speaker 2: a good relationship with some of the members of OPEC,
Speaker 2: as you saw the other day when he went to
Speaker 2: Egypt after addressing the Israeli kannesse It. When the hostages
Speaker 2: were returned, he then flew to Egypt to this conference
Speaker 2: with the different Arab groups to in order to make
Speaker 2: sure that they put forth a piece plan themselves. And
Speaker 2: so with the benefits that he has there and with
Speaker 2: the warm relationship that he has with the folks there,
Speaker 2: Opek has been behaving themselves and keeping the energy production
Speaker 2: up and their volumes that they're doing have increased, which
Speaker 2: some are estimating that by next year we are going
Speaker 2: to actually have an oil glut, which is one of
Speaker 2: the reasons when you have a lot of supply and
Speaker 2: demand stays the same, and if your supply goes up,
Speaker 2: that actual cost goes down because the demand remains the same.
Speaker 2: And that's one of the reasons why oil prices are
Speaker 2: as low as they are, and they're trying to contain
Speaker 2: their or maintain their dominance. Oil prices dipped on Wednesday,
Speaker 2: holding near a five month low for the second day,
Speaker 2: pressured by escalating US China trade tensions and the International
Speaker 2: Energy Agency's prediction of supply surplus. In twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: Bank of America said Brent prices could dip below fifty
Speaker 2: dollars a barrel if US China trade tensions intensify, while
Speaker 2: OPEC plus production ramps up again. The Saudis and OPEC
Speaker 2: Plus because as a favor, to let's face it, Trump
Speaker 2: administration in Israel took out Iran's nuclear capabilities. They were
Speaker 2: the bully of the Mid East and everybody was in
Speaker 2: fear of them, and so they were doing certain things
Speaker 2: that were kind of more I guess favorable to Iran.
Speaker 2: Now that they don't have to worry about that, they
Speaker 2: are relieved that this potential of an adversary there with
Speaker 2: a nuke they don't have to worry about. So of
Speaker 2: course they're going to be ramping up their production in
Speaker 2: order to help the economy of the United States. On Tuesday,
Speaker 2: the IEA said the global oil market could face a
Speaker 2: surplus next year of up to four million barrels per day,
Speaker 2: wider than the previous forecast, as OPEC Plus and others
Speaker 2: raise output in demand remains sluggish. The trade dispute between
Speaker 2: the world's two largest oil consumers has reignited over the
Speaker 2: last week, with US and China imposing additional port fees
Speaker 2: on ships carrying cargo between them. The tip for tat
Speaker 2: moves could disrupt oil freight flows. US Traasury Secretary Scott
Speaker 2: Besson on Wednesday insisted that Washington did not want to
Speaker 2: escalate the trade conflict, stressing that President Donald Trump is
Speaker 2: ready to meet with Chinese President Jizing Ping North in
Speaker 2: South Korea later this month. That was an on again,
Speaker 2: off again thing. Oh, we're not going to meet. Yes,
Speaker 2: we are going to meet. The fact that they are
Speaker 2: going to meet is a good sign. Last week, China
Speaker 2: announced that would increase rare earth export controls and Trump
Speaker 2: threatened to raise tariffs. Deflationary pressure persisted in China, with
Speaker 2: both consumer and producer prices falling in September as a
Speaker 2: prolonged property market slump and trade tensions also weighed on
Speaker 2: their economy, and the US investors are becoming more convinced
Speaker 2: that the Federal Reserve are going to be freeing up
Speaker 2: interest rates.
Speaker 1: China's economy being such.
Speaker 2: A closed society over there, and we don't get a
Speaker 2: whole lot of news, but the people that are close
Speaker 2: to that and watching that their economy is not as
Speaker 2: strong as they would like to project to the world,
Speaker 2: and the fact that putting sanctions on Russia and China
Speaker 2: being the largest purchaser of Russian oil. With that not
Speaker 2: being available, they are suffering. In the past, they've been
Speaker 2: trying to stockpile oil, which in my opinion, what they're
Speaker 2: trying to do is stockpile oil so that they can
Speaker 2: go on some sort of a nation building if you will,
Speaker 2: or put pressure on some of the other countries to
Speaker 2: Taiwan to take them over. So keeping them in check
Speaker 2: and their economy not being as strong is and recognize
Speaker 2: that and keep putting pressure on them will make the
Speaker 2: world a heck of a lot safer. So again, China
Speaker 2: is not nearly as strong economically as everybody would like
Speaker 2: to think, and some of the pressure that's being put
Speaker 2: on by the Trump administration is having a drastic effect
Speaker 2: on them. Even though they are vague at and again,
Speaker 2: they're always looking for a way of you know, because
Speaker 2: the Oriental mind, they have to save face. So you're
Speaker 2: constantly in a battle back and forth. But then when
Speaker 2: you've got the upper hand, you've got to figure out
Speaker 2: a way that they can save face and make it
Speaker 2: seem as though that they decided that they were going
Speaker 2: to do certain things.
Speaker 1: It's kind of complicated, but.
Speaker 2: I have more confidence in Steve Bessen and Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Than I do Jijingping well, folks.
Speaker 2: As a fresh stay tuned for ATI radio Top the Hour,
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon. America struck a network seven hundred WLW