Speaker 1: This is America's Trucking Network with Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2: Welcome aboard, Thanks for tuning in on this. I guess
Speaker 2: basically first workday of the year, the new year for
Speaker 2: a lot of people. Well, of course you in the
Speaker 2: trucking industry, and it's just another day for you, because
Speaker 2: a lot of people didn't have the time off because
Speaker 2: they're keeping the wheels of the economy flowing. Also first responders,
Speaker 2: police and fire, hospital workers, food service employees, hotel motel workers,
Speaker 2: store clerks, convenience store employees.
Speaker 3: All of those worked over the holiday.
Speaker 2: And I hope they got a few compliments from people
Speaker 2: stopping by and saying, hey, thanks for being here because
Speaker 2: we're out having fun and you know, we need gas,
Speaker 2: we need to go to the hospitals and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 2: So again, hats off to all the people that work.
Speaker 2: But also, this is the ninth to day of Christmas.
Speaker 2: Because the Christmas season, the twelve days of Christmas are
Speaker 2: not the twelve days before Christmas. It's the twelve days
Speaker 2: after Christmas. And we've talked about that on this program
Speaker 2: numerous times now. This is like the first day after
Speaker 2: in my opinion, well, it seems like.
Speaker 3: This has been one of the most unusual weeks.
Speaker 2: You know, there are times when you have a holiday
Speaker 2: that falls on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, and people
Speaker 2: will say that, well, it feels like we've had two
Speaker 2: Mondays this week, because you know, they're off on Wednesday
Speaker 2: and then they come back into work on Thursday. They
Speaker 2: had the Monday and then now Thursday. But this holiday,
Speaker 2: or this Christmas season was kind of unusual because with
Speaker 2: Christmas being on Thursday, and then of course New Year's
Speaker 2: Day being on Thursday as well, some.
Speaker 3: People took off that Friday.
Speaker 2: And people were trying to cram in there final week
Speaker 2: of vacation, and they time that so that they could
Speaker 2: get that in before the end of the year. And
Speaker 2: it just seemed like some people and some businesses, like
Speaker 2: they are companies, they didn't know what to do with
Speaker 2: that time period in between. Do you just say, okay,
Speaker 2: because we're going to come back to work on that
Speaker 2: Monday after Christmas and then be there Monday Tuesday, and
Speaker 2: then half a day on New Year's Day or something
Speaker 2: along those lines. So it's been kind of a topsy
Speaker 2: turvy period of time. And I can't tell you the
Speaker 2: number of people I've talked to that when you get
Speaker 2: into conversation with them because of their mind being that, Okay,
Speaker 2: my day off or a day off is like a weekend,
Speaker 2: and then you ask them what it seems like a
Speaker 2: lot of people were confused as to what day it was.
Speaker 2: They said, oh, yeah, today's Today's Tuesday. It's not Monday,
Speaker 2: it's not whatever. And I think it was just because
Speaker 2: the way the holiday fell on a Thursday, and then
Speaker 2: some people again taking off on Friday, then coming back
Speaker 2: in on Monday, and then you know, the short work week.
Speaker 2: So at some point, like I said, a lot of people,
Speaker 2: I can't tell you the number of people that I
Speaker 2: talked to that they would be in a conversation and
Speaker 2: they go, well, okay, well I'm going to schedule this
Speaker 2: for well wait a minute, I can't schedule this for Wednesday,
Speaker 2: because that's that's New Year's even most people won't be off.
Speaker 2: And even some businesses and people that I tried to
Speaker 2: contact to get something scheduled should they were actually off
Speaker 2: for almost the entire well they kind of closed business
Speaker 2: on that Wednesday before Christmas and we're off the entire week.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Again, some people in the retail business, I don't know
Speaker 2: how people do that, but you know, there were a
Speaker 2: lot of people that did. I'm just you know, just
Speaker 2: ranting here because it's been kind of a confusing time,
Speaker 2: and like I said, there's a lot of people I've
Speaker 2: talked to that kind of seemed like they were off
Speaker 2: in terms of kind of figuring out what actually what
Speaker 2: day it was. And one of the stories I've seen
Speaker 2: that kind of piqued my interest talking about looking back
Speaker 2: in the rearview mirror, and everybody wants to look back
Speaker 2: on twenty twenty five and try to, you know, draw
Speaker 2: some of some sense to it or or kind of
Speaker 2: summarize it or whatever. But one article I read, the
Speaker 2: title of it was how Trump overturned decades of US
Speaker 2: policy in twenty twenty five. And like a lot of stories,
Speaker 2: and as you heard me talk about on this program,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of stories that when you see the
Speaker 2: headline and then you dig into the story itself, they
Speaker 2: kind of approach it with a certain I guess intent
Speaker 2: where they want to make a particular point and it
Speaker 2: tends to be somewhat negative. But then within the conversation
Speaker 2: or within the story itself, there are gems or certain
Speaker 2: things that you pick out and you say, well, wait
Speaker 2: a minute, this isn't kind of flowing with what they
Speaker 2: are trying to get across here, and let's just kind
Speaker 2: of explain that when we get into this.
Speaker 3: Okay, they say.
Speaker 2: Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald
Speaker 2: Trump has overturned decades of US trade policy. See building
Speaker 2: a wall of tariffs around what used to be a
Speaker 2: wide open economy. Well, right off the bat, my question
Speaker 2: is really trade and balance from World War Two. Now,
Speaker 2: tariffs in the early days of our country was the
Speaker 2: driving force of income to this country. There was no
Speaker 2: income tax prior to until right around World War One,
Speaker 2: and really got solidified after World War Two. But tariffs
Speaker 2: generally brought in a lot of money. After World War Two,
Speaker 2: with Europe being decimated, Japan decimated, and a lot of
Speaker 2: countries around the world being decimated because they were on
Speaker 2: the battlefield there, America was at a diss of Us
Speaker 2: was at an advantage because our factories hadn't been blown up.
Speaker 2: We were and we had the ocean between us and
Speaker 2: where all the conflict was going on. And so it
Speaker 2: was a heyday for American business because no factories in Germany,
Speaker 2: a lot of destroyed in England, of course, in China,
Speaker 2: Japan and so on, So we were making money hands
Speaker 2: over fist. Now as those economies started to build up,
Speaker 2: they started we started allowing them or when they put
Speaker 2: tariffs in to kind of protect as a protectionist situation
Speaker 2: for themselves. They wanted to keep their economy going, and
Speaker 2: they wanted their goods to be competitive. They were a
Speaker 2: little bit more expensive than ours, so they put up
Speaker 2: these trade barriers to slow down some of our goods
Speaker 2: coming into their country. We did not put tariffs on
Speaker 2: their goods coming into our country, so they were a
Speaker 2: lot more competitive. Some of their prices were even cheaper,
Speaker 2: and so people had alternatives to buy, which by them
Speaker 2: buying these foreign goods, then built up the economies in
Speaker 2: these other countries. Well, this went on for obviously for
Speaker 2: decades of where this protectionist policy of keeping our goods
Speaker 2: out of their country or making our goods that much
Speaker 2: more defensive. For instance, you hardly ever saw any kind
Speaker 2: of an American automobile in Japan. You didn't have any
Speaker 2: Ford f one fifties. If you look around Europe, a
Speaker 2: lot of people are driving taxi cabs that are Mercedes Benz,
Speaker 2: which are luxury items here in the United States, but
Speaker 2: they were relatively inexpensive there. You don't see American cars
Speaker 2: on the roads in Europe. Now, granted some of them
Speaker 2: are a lot more narrow, but you look at the
Speaker 2: Mercedes Benz, they're not all that narrow. So if they
Speaker 2: can negotiate those streets over there, so can American cars.
Speaker 2: So a lot of our goods, again, we're being kept
Speaker 2: out of these areas artificially because of terrace. Donald Trump
Speaker 2: comes along, looks at the trade deficit we have with
Speaker 2: all these different countries and says, you know, what we're
Speaker 2: at kind of an unfair advantage or a disadvantage because
Speaker 2: these countries are charging X number of dollars and we're
Speaker 2: not charging any. On Liberation Day, he put up the
Speaker 2: various props and showed all one hundred and eighty countries.
Speaker 3: He had them.
Speaker 2: You know, listen out. You know four different things that
Speaker 2: he showed. They were like a folders or a placards
Speaker 2: or whatever that you could hold up. But he showed
Speaker 2: each one of those and showed each one one after
Speaker 2: the other, showing what they charged on our goods coming
Speaker 2: into their country versus what we charged on their goods
Speaker 2: coming into our country, and the numbers were astronomical. Charging
Speaker 2: thirty five percent tariff on our goods going into certain countries,
Speaker 2: we charging hardly any going into ours. So he decided
Speaker 2: and said he was going to level the playing field.
Speaker 2: We're all for free trade, but we're also for fair trade,
Speaker 2: and so started increasing the tariffs on their goods coming
Speaker 2: into our country to level the playing field and to
Speaker 2: basically reciprocal tariffs. Now, of course, all hell broke loose
Speaker 2: at that point in time, and people were saying this
Speaker 2: was going to throw us into a recession, unemployment, rapid inflation,
Speaker 2: and so on.
Speaker 3: But those and when they in this article.
Speaker 2: As soon as he says that they used to be
Speaker 2: a wide open economy. And my question is, as I've
Speaker 2: been explaining, is a wide open economy for who? Not
Speaker 2: for our goods going into these countries, but for their
Speaker 2: goods coming in. And so again, that was a negotiating
Speaker 2: tool to get them to lower their terraces on our
Speaker 2: goods going into their countries, and to a large extent
Speaker 2: that has been successful. Continuing on here, Trump has argued
Speaker 2: that a steep new import taxes are necessary to bring
Speaker 2: back wealth that was stolen from the US. He says
Speaker 2: it was by a narrow He said, well, narrow America's
Speaker 2: trade deficit, old trade deficit, and bring manufacturing back to
Speaker 2: this country. It was out of balance when we realized
Speaker 2: how But anyway, we'll pick this up on the other side.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck a Network, seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 4: Here's your trucking forecast for the Try State and the
Speaker 4: rest of the country and the Tri State. Overnight, mostly claudy,
Speaker 4: the low down to twenty three, a mostly sunny sky. Friday,
Speaker 4: a high of thirty six. Going into the weekend. Saturday,
Speaker 4: mostly claudy highs again in the upper thirty sunny Sunday,
Speaker 4: a high of thirty seven, and for those finally getting
Speaker 4: back to workers school Monday following the holiday, sunny and warmer.
Speaker 4: The high year fifty. Nationally, the West Coast scene more
Speaker 4: wet weather to start the new year. Meanwhile, much above
Speaker 4: average temperature scene from the northern Rockies, through the plains
Speaker 4: and into the lower Mississippi Valley, while below average temperatures
Speaker 4: are expected from the Upper Mississippi Valley, Great Lakes region
Speaker 4: and the Northeast. Like effects, no expected into Saturday downwind
Speaker 4: of lakes Erie, Ontario and Eastern Superior.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred WLW. Continue
Speaker 2: our conversation from the previous segment, talking about this story
Speaker 2: how Trump overturned decades of US trade policy in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five. For the most part, in my opinion, it's
Speaker 2: been a good thing. And of course we'll see some
Speaker 2: of those numbers coming up. But I was talking about how,
Speaker 2: you know, are you that bringing manufacturing back to this country.
Speaker 2: We saw during the pandemic when all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you know, businesses were shut down, restaurants were closed, and
Speaker 2: everybody was buttoned up.
Speaker 3: People were unemployed people.
Speaker 2: You know, some people could work from home, but your
Speaker 2: restaurant workers are manufacturing a lot of that.
Speaker 3: Sort of stuff. Those businesses closed down.
Speaker 2: And when we saw how much of our goods were
Speaker 2: manufactured and brought in from China. You know, when you're
Speaker 2: going through the store, I don't know how many people
Speaker 2: pay attention to where goods are coming from. All they
Speaker 2: care about is they walk into the store, stuff's on
Speaker 2: the shelf, They buy the stuff. But when we started
Speaker 2: seeing how much medical equipment face mask gowns, that personal
Speaker 2: protection equipment had come from China. How much of our
Speaker 2: medicines came from China. That kind of woke people up
Speaker 2: to like, what the hell are we doing because they
Speaker 2: tried to deny it, but it was obvious that where
Speaker 2: the coronavirus had come from COVID nineteen. You know, of
Speaker 2: course they try again. They tried to deny it, but
Speaker 2: it was pretty clear where it came from, to the
Speaker 2: point where people are asking about, Okay, this is a
Speaker 2: country that started this pandemic, and yet they're the ones
Speaker 2: that are profiting by this because of all the goods
Speaker 2: and all the.
Speaker 3: Stuff that we're buying from them.
Speaker 2: So the thought at the time was that we need
Speaker 2: to start redomiciling a lot of our manufacturing and bringing
Speaker 2: that back to the United States so they're not so
Speaker 2: dependent upon other countries to keep our wheels of our
Speaker 2: economy flowing. So they go into this and they start
Speaker 2: showing the teriff rates remain elevated throughout twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: and so on. And they go into this and they're
Speaker 2: talking about twenty twenty five per data per the Yale
Speaker 2: Budget Lab, and they go through some of the numbers
Speaker 2: November's effective terif rate was nearly seventeen percent, seven times
Speaker 2: greater than January's average, the highest scene since nineteen thirty five. Now,
Speaker 2: let me just make a quick point here, all right,
Speaker 2: If the tariff rate was nearly seventeen percent, and this
Speaker 2: was charged on across the board on goods coming into
Speaker 2: the United States, if that was inflationary, and if it
Speaker 2: was going to cause rampant in a tremendous inflation, why
Speaker 2: wasn't the inflation rate around seventeen percent. Our inflation rate
Speaker 2: at the latest reading is at two point seven percent.
Speaker 2: As I said from the beginning, because going back to
Speaker 2: my studies of economics when I was back in school,
Speaker 2: they talked about tariffs do not necessarily lead to inflation.
Speaker 2: They are a revenue generating tool for a country and
Speaker 2: to try to balance out trade as far as exports
Speaker 2: and imports. Now, as far as that is concerned, again,
Speaker 2: at a seventeen percent rate, our inflation rate is his own.
Speaker 2: And what is causing inflation is out of control government spending.
Speaker 2: When they start issuing checks that don't need to be issued,
Speaker 2: when they start subsidizing things, and when they start this
Speaker 2: was an inflation reduction Act, which was nothing more than
Speaker 2: a payoff to the green energy or the climbiness as
Speaker 2: I call them, to try to bolster green energy and
Speaker 2: basically categorize and put in place the Green New Deal
Speaker 2: that was being proposed a couple of years before, or
Speaker 2: as I refer to it, the Green News Steel because
Speaker 2: it's a transfer of wealth from one sector of the
Speaker 2: economy to another. But again, when you're looking at this,
Speaker 2: the seventeen percent across pretty much on average rate of tariffs,
Speaker 2: our inflation rate was at two point seven percent. What
Speaker 2: happened and what had been being talked about by certain
Speaker 2: people like our friend Phil Flynn with Price Futures Group,
Speaker 2: Kevin O'Leary, Shark Tank Cudlow, Larry Cudlow from Fox Businesses
Speaker 2: and a very few handful of people around the country
Speaker 2: talking about tariffs we're going to be we're not going
Speaker 2: to lead to inflation and the fact that it levels
Speaker 2: the playing field. Now, when you look at how that
Speaker 2: is done, you look at the manufacturing country overseas that
Speaker 2: has very low hourly wages, like in China, their average
Speaker 2: hourly rate is between five dollars and seven dollars an hour.
Speaker 2: They don't have any benefits, they don't have any vacation
Speaker 2: time or whatever. So their cost per hour is about
Speaker 2: five to seven dollars. In the United States, our average
Speaker 2: annual rate hourly rate across the board, averaging every industry
Speaker 2: is around thirty seven and a half dollars per hour.
Speaker 2: Now that includes the fact that we've got certain things
Speaker 2: in terms of vacation pay and benefits and that type
Speaker 2: of thing, and so just on par the labor costs
Speaker 2: here are a lot higher. The manufacturers over there have
Speaker 2: a large margin between what they manufacture the item for
Speaker 2: and what they can sell it for. They're concerned about
Speaker 2: them keeping market share so that they don't price themselves out,
Speaker 2: so they ate some of those tariffs. The exporter that
Speaker 2: has some of the business and then shipping those overseas,
Speaker 2: they absorbed some of that tariff. Then on the other end,
Speaker 2: you got the importer that again wants to sell these
Speaker 2: products and keep the goods flowing, they absorbed some of
Speaker 2: that tariff. Then you have the wholesalers or distributors that
Speaker 2: again looked at that and said, well, you know, we've
Speaker 2: got a pretty decent market share.
Speaker 3: We don't want to overprice our products.
Speaker 2: And then them.
Speaker 3: Sit on the shelves a lot longer, and.
Speaker 2: So that goes to the they absorb some of this tariff,
Speaker 2: and then you've got the retailers again concerned about market share,
Speaker 2: keeping customers in their store as opposed to going to
Speaker 2: another store. They cut some of those things. Walmart absorbed
Speaker 2: some of that, and yet you saw the profits of
Speaker 2: these companies still going up, and we've reported that on
Speaker 2: this program. So again at a seventeen percent rate. Why
Speaker 2: is interesting? And you know the point of this is
Speaker 2: to kind of trash what was done as far as
Speaker 2: the Trump administration was. But within their article, there are
Speaker 2: things that if you read between the lines, like I'm
Speaker 2: doing that, that shows that a lot of the stuff
Speaker 2: that they were saying was crap. Again this line, November's
Speaker 2: effective tariff rate was seventeen percent, seven times greater than
Speaker 2: January's average, and the highest scene since nineteen thirty five. Well, again,
Speaker 2: we're not seeing that in the seventeen percent inflation rate.
Speaker 2: And so where did that money go? Where was it absorbed?
Speaker 2: And I just explained that Trump's higher tariffs, as they
Speaker 2: say here, are certainly raising money. They've raked in more
Speaker 2: than two hundred and thirty six billion dollars this year
Speaker 2: through November, much more than in the year's past, but
Speaker 2: they still account for just a fraction of the federal
Speaker 2: government's total revenue. And see this, this is one of
Speaker 2: those things that we started hearing about when Doze was
Speaker 2: going into effect and started to go into some of
Speaker 2: these agencies and cut money. They're saying, well, you know,
Speaker 2: this is overinflated, and we need to cut this budget
Speaker 2: here in this agency by a billion dollars. And people
Speaker 2: would say, well, a billion dollars, that's just a small
Speaker 2: fraction of the revenue. Well as somebody I forget who
Speaker 2: it was, but they were on one of these talk
Speaker 2: shows one time. I'm talking back during the time of
Speaker 2: a Johnny Carson. It was a senator or a congressman
Speaker 2: or whatever. He says, you know, a billion here, a
Speaker 2: billion there. Pretty soon you're talking about a lot of money. Well,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what for me, A billion dolls would
Speaker 2: do a whole lot of good for me. I'm sure
Speaker 2: a billion dollars would do a pretty good for you.
Speaker 2: But again, it's a small fraction of the economy, or
Speaker 2: a small fraction of the government spending. But with a
Speaker 2: government spending being as out of control as it is.
Speaker 2: Any cuts that we can make is a good thing.
Speaker 2: And to pull back some of that and put more
Speaker 2: money in the pockets in the American public, that is
Speaker 2: a good thing. So again saying, oh, well, it's just
Speaker 2: a small fraction of the budget, Well, like I said,
Speaker 2: a billion here, billionaire, pretty soon it adds up. US
Speaker 2: trade deficit, meanwhile, has fallen significantly since the start.
Speaker 3: Of the year.
Speaker 2: The trade gap peaked to a monthly record of one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty six point four billion in March, as
Speaker 2: consumers and businesses hurried to import foreign products before Trump
Speaker 2: could impose his tariffs on them. The trade gap narrowed
Speaker 2: to fifty two point five fifty two point eight billion,
Speaker 2: almost eighty billion dollars less, according to the latest numbers,
Speaker 2: seventeen percent ahead of January. Let me see, but you're
Speaker 2: to date. The deficit was still running seventeen percent ahead
Speaker 2: of January twenty ahead of the January to September twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four numbers. Growing economy, consumers buying more would have
Speaker 2: accounted for that, and why that is the seventeen percent increase.
Speaker 2: And then they start getting into these stories and you know,
Speaker 2: later on or actually will pick this up, but they
Speaker 2: start it almost seems like they're making excuses for and
Speaker 2: being fans of and protection is for China. We'll get
Speaker 2: into this coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network.
Speaker 2: Seven hundred WLW is.
Speaker 1: The last game of the season and the Bengals are
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Speaker 3: Hey running Jack no no no, no, no.
Speaker 6: No no, Live from those seven hundred W l W.
Speaker 3: I'm Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2: Before we get to some of these other things, I
Speaker 2: want to touch on, you know, what's going on as
Speaker 2: far as the energy markets are concerned, and the Energy
Speaker 2: report from our friend Phil Flynn was very spot on
Speaker 2: in some in terms of some of the things he
Speaker 2: was talking about in terms of what Donald Trump has
Speaker 2: been doing. Not only well, you know the article that
Speaker 2: we've been covering talking about how Trump overturned decades of
Speaker 2: US foreign policy, but what he's also done is actually
Speaker 2: put us back on a level of where we are
Speaker 2: going to be energy dominant and what that is going
Speaker 2: to do. And as I've talked about on this program
Speaker 2: numerous times, you look at what has done as far
Speaker 2: as energy prices. Energy prices go across the entire segment
Speaker 2: of this economy. I don't care what business you're in,
Speaker 2: there is energy involved. Obviously in the trucking industry, manufacturing
Speaker 2: with electricity. Even if you're in an office what white
Speaker 2: collar attorney's accountants, you depend on energy because of keeping
Speaker 2: the lights on, people transferring, you know, people traveling, salesman
Speaker 2: deliveries and so on based on gasoline, so energy cuts
Speaker 2: across all sectors of the economy, and if the energy
Speaker 2: prices go down, those are going to be very good
Speaker 2: and those things are going to be going to be
Speaker 2: very good for the economy. One of the things that
Speaker 2: started off as far as Phil Flynn's Energy Report was
Speaker 2: talking about how we are moving towards an area of
Speaker 2: energy independence back when what we were back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: So again that was recognizing something that needed to be done.
Speaker 2: But looking at oil and gas prices real quick. West
Speaker 2: Texas Intermedia crude is at fifty seven dollars and forty
Speaker 2: five cents a barrel. It's down fifty cents on the day,
Speaker 2: but just since January the twentieth, when Trump took office,
Speaker 2: West Texas Intermediate crued is down nineteen dollars and forty
Speaker 2: four cents a barrel, down twenty five percent. Brent krude,
Speaker 2: currently at sixty dollars and ninety cents a barrel, is
Speaker 2: down nineteen dollars just since January the twentieth, or a
Speaker 2: twenty four percent decrease. Looking at gasoline, current national average
Speaker 2: across the board is two dollars and eighty four cents
Speaker 2: for gasoline three dollars fifty seven cents.
Speaker 3: Again, across the board.
Speaker 2: Average US for diesel, looking at a year ago, gas
Speaker 2: prices are down twenty cents. They're down seven percent from
Speaker 2: this time last year. So if you're talking about your
Speaker 2: family budget and your gas that you're gassing up your
Speaker 2: car with is now down seven percent, and in some areas.
Speaker 3: Even more than that.
Speaker 2: I know in my neck of the woods here or
Speaker 2: where I live in Campbell County, gas prices are extremely low.
Speaker 2: They're low compared to the two dollars and eighty some cents.
Speaker 2: I think they're down now around I think, well, in
Speaker 2: my neighborhood right now, the gasoline is at two dollars
Speaker 2: and forty eight cents, So that is down from two
Speaker 2: dollars and eighty some cents at the beginning of the year.
Speaker 2: Diesel to night let me see, two sixty nine is
Speaker 2: down considerably. And again if you're paying attention to gasoline prices,
Speaker 2: and I'm you know, when I look at just in
Speaker 2: my neighborhood, the fluctuation of gas from the highest to
Speaker 2: the lowest. Sometimes if you pick up those apps that
Speaker 2: tell you where the cheapest gas is, you can save
Speaker 2: a lot of money, because there's sometimes when I look
Speaker 2: at these numbers and gallon and gas in one part
Speaker 2: and just this is just in my zip code. This
Speaker 2: isn't the entire county that I live in, it is
Speaker 2: just the zip code. Those prices can fluctuate by about
Speaker 2: thirty cents a gallon, So again that is something that
Speaker 2: needs to be paid attention to when we look at
Speaker 2: energy prices, When we look at gasoline prices compared to
Speaker 2: where they were back in twenty twenty, we are seventeen cents.
Speaker 2: Let me see, we were seventeen cents higher than we
Speaker 2: were back in twenty twenty, which again that's a six
Speaker 2: percent increase, but that's a six percent increase going back
Speaker 2: to five years ago. So again, energy prices are moving
Speaker 2: in the right direction. A truck tonnage nudges up zero
Speaker 2: point two percent higher in number.
Speaker 3: Again, this is very good.
Speaker 2: American Trucking Associations ATA seasonally adjusted to higher A four
Speaker 2: higher truck tonnage index rose point two percent sequentially after
Speaker 2: falling one point nine percent in October and point eight
Speaker 2: percent in September. In September, Federation said December twenty third,
Speaker 2: November ata's index came in at one twelve point four,
Speaker 2: up from one twelve point two in October. Pluminary figures
Speaker 2: had shown a two point one percent decrease. But again,
Speaker 2: as the truck volume starts going up and starts inching up,
Speaker 2: maybe we can start seeing an end to this tonnage
Speaker 2: and truck recession that we've been in now for more
Speaker 2: than three years. Going into some of the numbers a
Speaker 2: little bit further, the index based on twenty ten or
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen as one hundred nudged up point three percent
Speaker 2: lower year over year compared with November, but again is
Speaker 2: heading in the right direction bringing up some these numbers.
Speaker 2: According to ATA American Trucking Association's chief economist Bob Costello,
Speaker 2: November tonnage reading continue to point to a constrained freight market.
Speaker 2: Despite the smaller sequential increase, the index was also down
Speaker 2: from the year earlier, the second straight year over year decline.
Speaker 2: In addition to challenging volumes, more capacity appears to be
Speaker 2: leaving the industry after a prolonged freight downturn and increased
Speaker 2: government enforcement measures targeting unqualified drivers and non compliant carriers.
Speaker 2: So as the capacity goes down, those rates should start
Speaker 2: seeing a little bit of an uptick and then the
Speaker 2: tonnage for those left in the industry and the good
Speaker 2: ones left in the industry. I mean, we have talked
Speaker 2: a lot about some of these CDL mills, some of
Speaker 2: these people that are not qualified to be out on
Speaker 2: the road driving an eighteen wheeler, an eighty thousand pounds
Speaker 2: piece of equipment, and they can't read road signs, they
Speaker 2: can't read where they are, they're not even really proficient
Speaker 2: at being able to handle that kind of equipment. That's
Speaker 2: got to be good for overall. Let's see we talk
Speaker 2: about in here in terms of certain volumes in the
Speaker 2: capacity and in certain areas where it is up only
Speaker 2: see meanwhile, for higher freight shipments as measured by cocks
Speaker 2: by what was the number here by cast Freight Index
Speaker 2: rows zero point seven percent for the month. The shipments
Speaker 2: fell seven point six in October. Now, what they're talking
Speaker 2: about coming into this year frigid December weather might affect
Speaker 2: some of these numbers. But according to ACT Research senior
Speaker 2: analyst Tim Denauur, some of these items might affect Freight
Speaker 2: Transportation Research Associates FTR Transport Intelligence data for the whe
Speaker 2: weekending December nineteenth showed a much stronger spot market than usual.
Speaker 2: Drive in spot rates posted their best year over year
Speaker 2: comparisons since February of twenty twenty two. Meanwhile, flatbed spot rates,
Speaker 2: the key indicator of industrial and construction industry demand.
Speaker 3: Posted their largest year over year.
Speaker 2: Increase since mid twenty twenty two and reached their highest
Speaker 2: level since April of twenty twenty four. So, again, within
Speaker 2: certain segments of the trucking industry, certain components, some of
Speaker 2: these rates are going up, the spot rates are going up,
Speaker 2: and as that, hopefully that continues on into twenty twenty
Speaker 2: six and we can finally put this truck recession in
Speaker 2: the rearview mirror.
Speaker 3: That would be a good thing. Let's see.
Speaker 2: Again, there are certain companies that are not doing really well.
Speaker 2: FedEx is kind of lowering their expectations. There's been some
Speaker 2: switch in terms of what they are doing as far
Speaker 2: as their business outlook and business components. They have lost
Speaker 2: some major contracts to other people, and so when you
Speaker 2: do that, of course, your bottom line is going to
Speaker 2: be adversely affected by that. We're not going to have
Speaker 2: time to get into pending home sales. But let me
Speaker 2: just say that, certainly, let me just give it a
Speaker 2: thumbnail sketch. Month over month pending home sales because of
Speaker 2: interest rates coming down, and is if stress that one
Speaker 2: of the things holding back our economy is higher interest rates.
Speaker 2: With interest rates coming down, people have more affordability of
Speaker 2: getting into homes and actually being able to afford homes.
Speaker 2: Month over months saw a three point three percent increase
Speaker 2: in pending home sales and gains in all four regions
Speaker 2: of the country. Year over year, two point six percent
Speaker 2: increase in pending home sales, and that again crossed all sectors,
Speaker 2: all segments of the country. So a lot of good
Speaker 2: news starting off twenty twenty six, and hopefully we can
Speaker 2: keep the moment. I'm going well, folks, that does it
Speaker 2: for us? Stay tuned for Red Eye Radio at the
Speaker 2: top of the hour. I'm Kevin Gordon. America's Struck A
Speaker 2: Network seven hundred WLW