Speaker 1: This is America's Trucking Network with Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2: Welcome aboard, Thanks for tuning in on this Wednesday morning.
Speaker 2: We are finally starting to see a bit of a
Speaker 2: decrease in terms of gasoline prices.
Speaker 3: We saw that right before.
Speaker 2: The Thanksgiving holiday, and it's been interesting over the last
Speaker 2: well since inauguration that generally what you see around vacation time,
Speaker 2: what you see around holidays and even weekends, sometimes the
Speaker 2: gas prices seem to go up just a little bit
Speaker 2: right before those peak driving periods. And you know, the
Speaker 2: justification has always been, well, you know, it's a matter
Speaker 2: of supply and demand. When there's a lot of demand,
Speaker 2: the supply is pretty much the same. You can only
Speaker 2: put so many gallons in the tank underground and go
Speaker 2: on and that. If there's a lot of demand for that,
Speaker 2: then of course people are going to be you know,
Speaker 2: the demands there, so the supply is less and of
Speaker 2: course the prices go up. But over the last year
Speaker 2: we've seen pretty much around the time of thinks well,
Speaker 2: Independence Day, Memorial Day weekend and there that gas prices
Speaker 2: actually came down a little bit, were held steady right
Speaker 2: up to the Thanksgiving holiday. A lot of people were
Speaker 2: talking about and actually in the news they were talking
Speaker 2: a little bit about this, which was kind of interesting
Speaker 2: because it was positive news for the Trump administration, which surprise, surprise,
Speaker 2: they actually reported on, but talking about that gas prices
Speaker 2: were approaching the lowest that they had been in over
Speaker 2: four years.
Speaker 3: And that's that is not chump change.
Speaker 2: It's less than what I would want it to see,
Speaker 2: given the fact that we look at oil prices and
Speaker 2: oil prices basically well just let's get to it. West
Speaker 2: Texas Centermedia crewed Carling is at fifty eight dollars and
Speaker 2: sixty six cents a barrel. That's down sixty six cents
Speaker 2: from yesterday, which since the beginning of the year, West
Speaker 2: Texas Intermedia crews down eighteen dollars and twenty three cents
Speaker 2: a barrel, or twenty four percent. Rent crued sixty two
Speaker 2: forty six, down seventy one cents. That is down seventeen
Speaker 2: dollars and forty four cents since Inauguration Day, or twenty
Speaker 2: two percent. And I've been talking most of the summer
Speaker 2: we actually since oil price has been falling, that we're
Speaker 2: not seeing this reflected in gasoline prices. And I have
Speaker 2: quized several people on that. We've had Phil Flint on
Speaker 2: this program talking about that. And when they talk about
Speaker 2: going into the summer season, you have the summer blends
Speaker 2: and you have to have certain additives to that for
Speaker 2: pollution controls, and you know, the distillates and the processing
Speaker 2: going through the refinery and the costs of that. Also
Speaker 2: in the spring, when they start gearing up away from
Speaker 2: the heating oil and the decent you know, the heating
Speaker 2: oil during the winter months and getting into the gasoline season,
Speaker 2: then you have the changeover and the refineries and the prices.
Speaker 2: You know, the supply goes down because they're not refining
Speaker 2: as much. And then at the end of the term
Speaker 2: when the summer driving season is over and then shifting
Speaker 2: to the winter blends, that the maintenance goes down, and
Speaker 2: you know, all.
Speaker 3: That sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: But overall, the prices have not come down the way
Speaker 2: I would have expected them to see. I mean, given
Speaker 2: the fact that the raw material process going in there
Speaker 2: is down fifteen to twenty twenty five percent over the
Speaker 2: previous just since January, and you're not seeing that reflected
Speaker 2: in gasoline prices. We are starting to see a little
Speaker 2: bit of a decrease in gasoline prices generally because of
Speaker 2: what they talk about. Towards the end of the season,
Speaker 2: after you get out of the summer driving season, when
Speaker 2: you have the peak gasoline demand, the demand isn't there
Speaker 2: as much, and so then the prices come down. It
Speaker 2: made the net well headlines from the National News talking
Speaker 2: about the gasoline prices fall to a four year low
Speaker 2: on cheap oil, flat demand. Now again, when I look
Speaker 2: at gasoline prices and for the first time for a
Speaker 2: long time, technically nationwide the average for gasoline is down
Speaker 2: below three dollars a gallon. But you know, the way
Speaker 2: they put the prices on the Marquee and whatever, it's always,
Speaker 2: you know, two dollars and seventy five cents point nine.
Speaker 2: You might as we'll call it two dollars and seventy
Speaker 2: six cents. But right now the national average is two
Speaker 2: dollars ninety nine cents point eight, so eight tenths, so
Speaker 2: it averages out or you know, round up to three dollars.
Speaker 2: But it is technically below three dollars a gallon, which
Speaker 2: is a good thing. Uh, And prices are coming down.
Speaker 2: In the story they're talking about while gasoline prices tend
Speaker 2: to fall after the peak summer demand months, demand months
Speaker 2: when drivers hit the rather on vacation. The cost to
Speaker 2: fill your tank has been relatively flat this year, with
Speaker 2: prices held down by cheaper cruit. Now on the plus
Speaker 2: side of that, the gasoline prices haven't gone up. If
Speaker 2: you look at the prices as what they were last
Speaker 2: year versus this year, they are relatively the same or
Speaker 2: within a couple of pennies of each. So as far
Speaker 2: as inflation is concerned, when you look at energy prices,
Speaker 2: where you look at gasoline prices, that isn't affecting your
Speaker 2: your bank account or affecting your your you know, your
Speaker 2: monthly payments, your budget for the year or for the
Speaker 2: month on a on a major way, because again you're
Speaker 2: paying the same amount basically this year as you were
Speaker 2: last year, and depending upon how you drive, the fuel
Speaker 2: efficiency and so on will make a big difference. But
Speaker 2: it's been interesting that actually people are starting to talk
Speaker 2: about that and the fact that I'm actually starting to
Speaker 2: see this price is narrowing to the point where it's
Speaker 2: it's noticeable, but not as noticeable as it could be.
Speaker 2: And as I've mentioned, if prices on gasoline were about
Speaker 2: fifteen percent lower where I think they should be. We'd
Speaker 2: be paying a national average of about two dollars and
Speaker 2: fifty five cents a gallon, and there needs to be
Speaker 2: a little bit of Now. I know, these refineries are
Speaker 2: working at massive amounts. I mean they are working at
Speaker 2: ninety six ninety seven percent capacity, which is in efficiency,
Speaker 2: which is a lot higher than most businesses operate. And
Speaker 2: so credit to that. But again, as I mentioned before,
Speaker 2: we have not built a major refinery in this country
Speaker 2: in over forty seven years. We've upgraded some, we've expanded
Speaker 2: some within the territory or within the location of these refineries,
Speaker 2: but in terms of actually manufacturing a new or building
Speaker 2: a new refinery, it just hasn't been done. And then
Speaker 2: you see the gasoline prices out in California, which are
Speaker 2: more than two dollars, more than two dollars a gallon
Speaker 2: than the cheapest gas in the country right now, Gasoline
Speaker 2: in California is at five four dollars and fifty four
Speaker 2: cents a gallon, and at Oklahoma is two dollars and
Speaker 2: forty cents. Folks, that is a two dollars and fourteen
Speaker 2: cent difference. And you've got all these regulations on the
Speaker 2: gasoline prices in producing in California. They put all this
Speaker 2: mandates in terms of additives that have to go into
Speaker 2: the gasoline there to control, as they say, pollution in
Speaker 2: that part of the country. Yet they will push all
Speaker 2: these environmental controls in certain areas, but then allow these
Speaker 2: wildfires to go crazy, which wipes out all the stuff
Speaker 2: that they've done in terms of cleaning up the climate
Speaker 2: or cleaning up the environment.
Speaker 3: Out there, and it's all destroyed.
Speaker 2: Twenty to thirty years of looking after, you know, trying
Speaker 2: to reduce carbon footprint and to reduce pollution in California
Speaker 2: were wiped out in twenty two when that wildfire went
Speaker 2: through there. And when you look at the gat the
Speaker 2: pollution that was caused by the.
Speaker 3: Fire in January of this year that.
Speaker 2: Wiped out the palisades, that pushed them back another ten
Speaker 2: to fifteen years. So everything they've done out there has
Speaker 2: been useless based on their environmental policies as far as
Speaker 2: clear cutting, making sure that they keep the brush low
Speaker 2: and by the way, if you've got fire hydrants, make
Speaker 2: sure that they have water in them, filling the reservoir,
Speaker 2: doing the basic things that government are supposed to be
Speaker 2: doing so on top of that, on top of being
Speaker 2: a situation where you have a fire hazard on a
Speaker 2: yearly basis, and then you've got these right now, what
Speaker 2: I think, I don't even think of the eleven thousand
Speaker 2: structures out there. I think last count was that there
Speaker 2: had been something like fourteen hundred applications that have been filed.
Speaker 2: And again that number is down because of all the
Speaker 2: restriction and all the requirements going into cleaning up the
Speaker 2: site and making sure that it's ready to be built
Speaker 2: on before you even apply for the application. So the
Speaker 2: building permits that have been issued are paltry, the amount
Speaker 2: of applications are low because of all the government red tape,
Speaker 2: remember the press conferences that we're going to streamline all
Speaker 2: these things. So you've got this crazy situation out there,
Speaker 2: and plus the fact that they're paying two dollars and
Speaker 2: fourteen cents more per gallon because they have special refineries
Speaker 2: out there, and then they criticize those refineries and put
Speaker 2: more restrictions on them to the point where where the
Speaker 2: refineries there that can actually produce the type of gasoline
Speaker 2: that is demanded by that state they're moving out. So
Speaker 2: it's even more high because there's even less refineries that
Speaker 2: are doing that. So this environmental policy out in California
Speaker 2: is nuts. But at least across the country, what we're
Speaker 2: seeing as far as gasoline prices, they're starting to come down,
Speaker 2: and of course based on some of the more inexpensive
Speaker 2: they keep calling it cheap oil, but it's just less
Speaker 2: expensive oil that we have in this country. Coming up,
Speaker 2: we're going to be talking about some manufacturing numbers that
Speaker 2: we saw, which kind of a good news bad news situation.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck a network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1: What need this is the racing repord on America's drugging
Speaker 1: network on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 4: NASCAR's anti trust lawsuit got underway on Monday and North
Speaker 4: Carolina Jerry selections and opening statements took place twenty three
Speaker 4: eleven in front Row suing NASCAR at October of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four, claiming the sanctioning body runs a monopoly using
Speaker 4: its charter system, supplier contracts, and track agreements and to
Speaker 4: take it or leave it contracts to suppress competition and
Speaker 4: limit teams in commercial freedom. The twenty twenty five Formula
Speaker 4: One season will come down to one race. Following the
Speaker 4: action over the weekend at Abu Dhabi, Max verstapp And
Speaker 4: won the race and a championship leader Lando Norris fishing
Speaker 4: fourth for a staff and is now Norris's closest rival
Speaker 4: heading into next weekend, just twelve points behind.
Speaker 5: Norris mentioned it before, it's US, of course, nailing weekends,
Speaker 5: maximizing points, not making mistakes where others do make mistakes.
Speaker 5: If that's driving mistakes, the mistakes, but we're in it
Speaker 5: and it will keep it interesting.
Speaker 4: Oscar Piastre slipped the third place in the standings with
Speaker 4: the second place finished, he's sixteen back.
Speaker 6: Pretty pretty gut wrenching, to be honest, I think you know,
Speaker 6: it felt like I drove probably the best weekend I've
Speaker 6: had this year, if not in F one. So to
Speaker 6: not have the to not have the results US is painful.
Speaker 4: And Norris clinging to the top spot with a race
Speaker 4: to go.
Speaker 3: Car was good.
Speaker 7: Oscar finished second and he was very quick, so nothing
Speaker 7: to complain about, just strategy as the second car is
Speaker 7: always just a bit worse, and how do you know
Speaker 7: it today? So no, not even that well and even
Speaker 7: the fight for a second call, we we should have
Speaker 7: done what we did, so simple as that one.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: This is the breathing repoard on America's Drugging Network on
Speaker 1: seven hundred WLW, say Dennison for a t N.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon, America's struck in Network, seven hundred WLW yesterday,
Speaker 2: actually the day before yesterday, I guess since we're into
Speaker 2: a new day the ism. The Institute's supply Management came
Speaker 2: up with their numbers for manufacturing sector in November, and
Speaker 2: the top number doesn't look so good, but some of
Speaker 2: the stuff underlying that looks pretty decent. The US factory
Speaker 2: activity shrank in November the most in four months, as
Speaker 2: orders weekend, indicating manufacturers are struggling to break free from
Speaker 2: the extended period of malaise. Now, if there are less orders,
Speaker 2: that means that they're that, you know, the customers have
Speaker 2: slowed down. And why has the customer slowed down? Have
Speaker 2: they slowed down because of pricing or because of demand?
Speaker 2: And if it's demand, could it possibly be because the
Speaker 2: interest rates are too high? If people are wanting more
Speaker 2: products and they're going to go out and have some
Speaker 2: of this stuff manufactured and provided for them, that maybe
Speaker 2: the market isn't there yet because of waiting on interest
Speaker 2: rates to come down. And it was funny yesterday going
Speaker 2: into actually going into Monday, all I saw, as far
Speaker 2: as the headlines Jerome Powell to speak. And this was
Speaker 2: the thing is if some you know, you're waiting for
Speaker 2: the Messiah or somebody to stand on a mountaintop and
Speaker 2: give some sort of a grand and glorious speech in
Speaker 2: terms of what's going on as the economy is concerned.
Speaker 3: And it's been.
Speaker 2: Proven time and time again that lion Jerry Powell doesn't
Speaker 2: have a clue as far as what's going on in
Speaker 2: the economy. He's not a supply side economist. And I'm
Speaker 2: not really sure that easy knowledgeable in terms of what
Speaker 2: goes on as far as the economy is concerned at
Speaker 2: all in the first place. But again, you know, and
Speaker 2: I backed that up by the fact that when you
Speaker 2: look at his track record during the Biden administration, when
Speaker 2: you had inflation month after month after month after month
Speaker 2: going up and up and up, he kept saying, well,
Speaker 2: you know this, this inflation is transitory, and no, we
Speaker 2: don't see in a situation where we need to raise
Speaker 2: interest rates in order to slow the economy. Down any
Speaker 2: or to slow the inflation rate down, none of this
Speaker 2: sort of stuff until it got to a point in July,
Speaker 2: in June of twenty twenty two, when we hit a
Speaker 2: nine point one percent I can't emphasize that enough. Nine
Speaker 2: point one percent inflation rate. It was the highest in
Speaker 2: forty years. Let that sink in for a moment. And
Speaker 2: yet the Federal Reserve kept talking about transitory inflation. This
Speaker 2: is only temper, it's not you know, it's not going
Speaker 2: to be there forever. Well, the problem is, and I
Speaker 2: keep pointing, and I kept pointing it out at the time,
Speaker 2: even and even today given some of the numbers, is
Speaker 2: that it's not a matter if you're starting off at
Speaker 2: at you know, if you're talking about a dollar today,
Speaker 2: it's not as if the inflation for that month bumps
Speaker 2: up and then you start all over back down to
Speaker 2: a dollar. So if your inflation goes up three cents,
Speaker 2: then the next month you've got a dollar three, and
Speaker 2: then if it goes up three percent from there, then
Speaker 2: it's now up to a dollar six, but a little
Speaker 2: bit higher than a dollar six, because you're taking three
Speaker 2: percent of a dollar three, not not three percent of
Speaker 2: a dollar. And so then the following month, if it
Speaker 2: goes up three percent, it's not going up three percent
Speaker 2: based on that dollar. It's going up based on what
Speaker 2: has already been layered on top of that. And then
Speaker 2: in the month at June when it went up nine percent,
Speaker 2: it doesn't come back down from that. The only way
Speaker 2: that that comes down is if you increase activity, you
Speaker 2: increase the purchases, and you increase the economy to the
Speaker 2: point where those prices do come down because there's so
Speaker 2: much being it costs less to manufacture the facility, the
Speaker 2: items that you're producing, or the amount of items that
Speaker 2: you're buying. Look at a truck. I mean people in
Speaker 2: the trucking industry, you know all about this. If you're
Speaker 2: driving a truck and the truck is full, then you're
Speaker 2: getting the most bang for your buck in terms of
Speaker 2: those items in there, and it's costing you. It costs
Speaker 2: you the same to run that truck. But if the
Speaker 2: load is full, then you're spreading that over the total
Speaker 2: of what's in the truck itself. So if your truck
Speaker 2: is empty, then you're costs for skyrocketed because obviously you've
Speaker 2: got no revenue on the other side. But the more
Speaker 2: revenue you have to offset that that cost of operating
Speaker 2: that truck comes down per mile based on what you
Speaker 2: have in terms of you know, the cost. The cost
Speaker 2: is the same per mile, but it spread over a
Speaker 2: larger amount of revenue, and so it doesn't look as
Speaker 2: bad and it's and it helps your bottom line.
Speaker 3: Same thing in the economy.
Speaker 2: If you don't have the goods being manufactured, and you
Speaker 2: have only a few amount of goods being manufactured because
Speaker 2: of things slowing down, but the demand is there, the
Speaker 2: price of those items are going to go up. But
Speaker 2: the more that it's available, then those prices come down.
Speaker 2: So and then on top of this, and I've been
Speaker 2: talking about this at nauseum here for several months, is
Speaker 2: that if you once you factor in not only you
Speaker 2: have the prior inflation of the Biden administration that you're
Speaker 2: dealing with. Now now you can you know, control that
Speaker 2: to a certain extent by lower energy prices and those
Speaker 2: types of things, cutting out some of the government regulations
Speaker 2: so it doesn't cost you so much in terms of compliance,
Speaker 2: which adds to the cost of the thing, the item
Speaker 2: that you're selling. So those prices will come down. But
Speaker 2: when you have so much activity going on, then it
Speaker 2: increases the amount of items available. So the only way
Speaker 2: to get those prices down is more volume. And if
Speaker 2: you have more volume and more people buying, then you
Speaker 2: wind up having the prices come down tremendously. But what
Speaker 2: they're not talking about is when you look at how
Speaker 2: many contracts have been negotiated the UAW, the railroad workers, ups,
Speaker 2: the dock workers. I mentioned railroad who else the well,
Speaker 2: I mentioned auto workers, and there's a couple other ones,
Speaker 2: But there's been some major contracts the dock workers on
Speaker 2: both the East Coast and the West coast. When you
Speaker 2: factor in those those prices in terms of the increase
Speaker 2: to produce those items or to move those items, that
Speaker 2: adds to the cost of the item itself. And so
Speaker 2: when you have added prices in terms of payroll is concerned,
Speaker 2: those prices are going to go up. You're not going
Speaker 2: to go back in at some point in time and say, okay,
Speaker 2: you know, in this contract UAW or railroad workers, you
Speaker 2: are getting a ten percent increase in your salary each year.
Speaker 2: And then when inflation starts coming down, you're not going
Speaker 2: to go back in there and say, well, we're going
Speaker 2: to take a percentage or two percent off of your pay. No,
Speaker 2: that pay is in there, and that's already baked in.
Speaker 2: Now again, I'm not criticizing, I'm not saying that people
Speaker 2: don't deserve higher wages, and especially when you take into
Speaker 2: consideration that there was such a freeze on wage increases
Speaker 2: going back to some of the pre pandemic some of
Speaker 2: these government some of these contracts with these union workers,
Speaker 2: it was locked into place and didn't come up for
Speaker 2: negotiation until twenty twenty, And of course they're not going
Speaker 2: to do anything to go siations during twenty twenty during
Speaker 2: the pandemic, So whatever contract expired in twenty twenty was
Speaker 2: pushed off and wasn't negotiated on until twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: and even into twenty twenty two when they finally hashed
Speaker 2: out all the deals, because again, when you had the
Speaker 2: supply chain issues and that going on, it was no
Speaker 2: time to go back in and renegotiate these contracts. So
Speaker 2: a lot of these contracts were on hold and people
Speaker 2: had not had some of the workers had not had
Speaker 2: a pay increase since twenty nineteen. So when you factor
Speaker 2: that into that twenty twenty three contract, of course that
Speaker 2: number has got to be made up. You've got to
Speaker 2: try to increase that a little bit because they have
Speaker 2: been basically losing money because if your price is fixed,
Speaker 2: if your hourly rate is fixed, and the inflation that
Speaker 2: was during the Biden administration was going up and up
Speaker 2: and up, you're actually losing money on a daily basis.
Speaker 2: So catching that up. But once that contract is in there,
Speaker 2: and that is part of what it costs to either
Speaker 2: move these goods, manufacture these goods, sell these goods, import
Speaker 2: these goods, export these goods, that's all going to factor
Speaker 2: in and that price is not going to come down.
Speaker 2: So if that's and that is in the inflation number now,
Speaker 2: and rather than trying to blame it off on tariffs
Speaker 2: or blame it off on other things, be specific about
Speaker 2: where these increases are coming from and be straight with
Speaker 2: the American.
Speaker 3: Public so that they get a full picture of.
Speaker 2: What's going on. And that's the thing that I've been
Speaker 2: talking about. Now, getting back to manufacturing, we'll pick this
Speaker 2: up coming up, because manufacturing numbers are down again. Is
Speaker 2: it because of the consumer demand or is it because
Speaker 2: of the weight and see in terms of people not
Speaker 2: wanting to jump in and have that increase as far
Speaker 2: as the interest rates being high and what that does
Speaker 2: to your operating costs. I'm Kevin Gordon, America Struck a Network.
Speaker 2: Seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 8: Here's your trucking forecast that Tri State. It in the
Speaker 8: rest of the country and the tri sit overnight, mostly cloudy,
Speaker 8: the low down to twenty mostly sunny. Wednesday, highs in
Speaker 8: the mid thirties, partly Sunday. Thursday high of thirty one,
Speaker 8: partly sunny. Friday a high of thirty five Nationally more
Speaker 8: moderate to heavy snow moving across the interior New England
Speaker 8: States through tonight. Arctic air forecast over the Midwest Thursday,
Speaker 8: while snow showers linger across the Great Lakes region along
Speaker 8: with the Great Basin and the Rockies. Moderate to heavy
Speaker 8: rain emerging along the western to central Gulf Coast.
Speaker 2: Seven hundred WLW. I'm Kevin Gordon. This as America Struck
Speaker 2: a Network. If you miss any of our previous segments
Speaker 2: or any of our other shows, hit up that iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: app and of course brought to you by our friends
Speaker 2: at Ross Truck Centers. Came back to this manufacturing slump
Speaker 2: deepens in November again. There's some mixed bag of information
Speaker 2: in here. Again getting back to the original paragraph, US
Speaker 2: factory activity shrank in November, is most of the most
Speaker 2: and four months as orders weekend, indicating manufacture are struggling
Speaker 2: to break free from the extended period of Melee's Institute
Speaker 2: for Supply Management Index eased point five percent basically, well,
Speaker 2: actually a half a percentage point to forty eight point
Speaker 2: two according to the data release December first, the measure
Speaker 2: has been below fifty, which indicates contraction for nine straight months. Again,
Speaker 2: even at forty eight percent, going down, going, let me see,
Speaker 2: going to fifty forty eight point seven percent, down to
Speaker 2: forty eight point two.
Speaker 3: It's still a little bit.
Speaker 2: Of a drop, but I'm not a major bottom falling
Speaker 2: out type drum. Survey suggestination manufacturing base remains bogged down
Speaker 2: by trade policy uncertainty and elevated production costs. Production costs
Speaker 2: based on what could it possibly be salaries. Of course,
Speaker 2: they're not going to talk about that USMISM. Manufacturing prices
Speaker 2: paid for materials picked up for the first time in
Speaker 2: five months and is about eight points higher than a
Speaker 2: year year ago. Now again based into that could possibly
Speaker 2: be terrorists also could be baked into those numbers, is
Speaker 2: the cost or the salary increases from the employees that
Speaker 2: actually make up those raw materials, mine those raw materials,
Speaker 2: gather those raw materials, or ship those those raw materials.
Speaker 2: So again, there's all kinds of factors that go into that.
Speaker 2: It's not straight terriffs as far as that's concerned. And
Speaker 2: if it were teriffs, based on the numbers that they've
Speaker 2: been telling us, that eight percent, that eight points higher,
Speaker 2: is a lot lower than what they were predicting. Customer
Speaker 2: demand has largely been uninspiring as well. Orders contracted in
Speaker 2: November as the fastt paced since July, while backloads shrank
Speaker 2: for the most in seven months. Well that's with the
Speaker 2: backlogs shrinking, that's not so bad. I mean, that's good
Speaker 2: on the one hand, because if you've got a bunch
Speaker 2: of orders that you're not getting to, then those people
Speaker 2: get a little frustrated because they're not getting what they're wanting,
Speaker 2: getting what they were requesting, and if they're not getting that,
Speaker 2: it's possible that they may choose to go someplace else
Speaker 2: and you wind up losing that customer. So if you're
Speaker 2: working off the backlogs and getting those down to the
Speaker 2: point where they're more manageable. Then you don't have as
Speaker 2: much in the pipeline. The problem is to get down
Speaker 2: too low, then you don't have anything coming in that pipeline,
Speaker 2: so that pipeline draws down, you wind up with zero,
Speaker 2: and then you wind up having the lay people off
Speaker 2: because you just don't have the business. Susan Spence, chair
Speaker 2: of the ISM Manufacturing Business Survey Committee, said uncertainly about
Speaker 2: tariffs is driving the pullback because customers are holding off
Speaker 2: on orders until there's more clarity as to the cost
Speaker 2: on the cost of goods. Well, you know, if the
Speaker 2: demand is there, if your customer base is looking for
Speaker 2: those items, and if they need those items, then based
Speaker 2: on the law of supply and demand, if the prices
Speaker 2: go up a little bit, they're still going to pay
Speaker 2: for that. But again, if the customers are holding off
Speaker 2: because they're expecting to see interest rates go down so
Speaker 2: that the cost of them buying those goods come down,
Speaker 2: that's a whole nother story and something that not a
Speaker 2: lot of people. People are just not talking about it
Speaker 2: as much as I would like them to talk about it,
Speaker 2: because every time we talk about every time I pick
Speaker 2: up the news on oil prices. They'll talk about, you know,
Speaker 2: leading up to the Federal Reserve, as to whether or
Speaker 2: not they're going to cut interest rates. They'll say that, well,
Speaker 2: with interest rates high, that lower interest rates spurs the economy,
Speaker 2: builds the economy, and that thus makes more demand for oil,
Speaker 2: and that would boost the price of oil because against
Speaker 2: are more demand based on the supply. But they recognize
Speaker 2: and then and all these other stories that I read,
Speaker 2: they always refer to lower interest rate increases business activity,
Speaker 2: puts more money in the pockets of the people that
Speaker 2: are looking to buy these things. They have more disposable
Speaker 2: end come to spend, and therefore they spend more, they
Speaker 2: buy more, which then boosts the economy. So again, the
Speaker 2: interest rates are a factor here, and you know, only
Speaker 2: rarely are people focusing on it except here on america'struck
Speaker 2: a network looking at some of the other things in here.
Speaker 2: The soft demand conditions help explain a deeper contraction in
Speaker 2: factory employment. Last month, Roughly twenty five percent of respondents
Speaker 2: reported lower employment, the largest share since mid twenty twenty. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the group's production index rebounded in November, expanding at the
Speaker 2: fastest clip in four months. Despite the advanced output this
Speaker 2: year has been uneven. Again the term uneven. It hasn't
Speaker 2: been that the numbers that the fastest clip, that the
Speaker 2: production numbers have fallen dramatically. It's that they have been
Speaker 2: uneven throughout the year. They're not saying that they're down,
Speaker 2: they're not saying that they're up. They're not saying that
Speaker 2: there's been these large peaks or large valley It's just
Speaker 2: been uneven during the year, which bottom line, isn't all
Speaker 2: that bad given the dire predictions that we're receiving back
Speaker 2: on Independence Day, a liberation day, i should say, back
Speaker 2: in April, when these terraffs were put into place. Eleven
Speaker 2: manufacturing industry contracted in November, led by apparel, wood and
Speaker 2: paper products, and textiles. Four industries, including computer and electronic products,
Speaker 2: reported growth, the fewest in a year. Survey also showed
Speaker 2: the supplier delivery times of materials for manufacturers quickened for
Speaker 2: the first time in four months. So the ability to
Speaker 2: get the goods to manufacture the raw materials in has
Speaker 2: picked up considerably, so that end of the supply chain
Speaker 2: has improved. If the activity getting that in there has
Speaker 2: been building up and is available, then you not having
Speaker 2: to pay higher prices because that truck or whatever delivering
Speaker 2: those goods isn't busy someplace else. So if you're having
Speaker 2: the opportunity to get those goods in the door, that's
Speaker 2: a good thing.
Speaker 3: Producers and customers.
Speaker 2: Inventories continue to shrink, although the slower paces than a
Speaker 2: month early, so people will have these inventories, and generally
Speaker 2: what you do is you have enough inventory to get
Speaker 2: you through or you know, they just in time ordering,
Speaker 2: which has been very popular over the years, is that
Speaker 2: you have only the amount of inventory on hand that
Speaker 2: you need in order to conduct sales, and so that
Speaker 2: if the timing is right, when the last item comes
Speaker 2: off the shelf, the next item is right behind it
Speaker 2: getting loaded onto the shelf, and so you keep that
Speaker 2: supply chain going. And then what we experienced during the
Speaker 2: pandemic and there shortly after, because you had this interruption
Speaker 2: and because you had a break there, you had some
Speaker 2: of the shelves that were empty. But then gearing up
Speaker 2: and then restocking those shells became an issue. And also
Speaker 2: because of people being available to stock those shelves, people
Speaker 2: being able to transport those goods, all of that stuff
Speaker 2: was backed up, getting people back into the workforce. People
Speaker 2: were being available to come back to work. Companies hiring,
Speaker 2: whether or not they were hiring back to the same
Speaker 2: number of employees, trying to take a look at what
Speaker 2: their orders were, to see what their business was and
Speaker 2: adjust it accordingly, because you don't want to bring everybody
Speaker 2: back at one time. You had to layer that in
Speaker 2: otherwise you would have your employee costs way high and
Speaker 2: you don't have a whole lot at revenue. And on
Speaker 2: top of being shut down and not having any revenue
Speaker 2: during that period of time and barely getting by now,
Speaker 2: suddenly you throw into that more losses and that would
Speaker 2: push a couple of companies, would push companies under into bankruptcy.
Speaker 2: So again, with all that in mind, the fact that
Speaker 2: people are having inventories not only at the wholesale but
Speaker 2: at the retail level, that those inventory levels are shrinking,
Speaker 2: that to a certain extent to a you know, at
Speaker 2: some point is good when it gets down to the
Speaker 2: level of where that can be replenished on a regular basis,
Speaker 2: you don't run out of anything. But it's not they're
Speaker 2: not talking about that being in a dangerous level at
Speaker 2: this point. So some good news, bad news in the
Speaker 2: report and hopefully we can see again.
Speaker 3: I can't I can't stress enough.
Speaker 2: I am feeling so good in terms of what's going
Speaker 2: on as far as our economy is concerned. I see
Speaker 2: a lot of things on the on the horizon that
Speaker 2: are looking very good. The problem is is that we
Speaker 2: just don't have the Federal Reserve on board helping along
Speaker 2: the line. And it doesn't help that the spoon fed
Speaker 2: regurgitators in the mainstream media every opportunity they have, they
Speaker 2: will talk down the economy. They will talk down the
Speaker 2: economic policies of this president, even though they know what
Speaker 2: the track record was. They knew what the track record
Speaker 2: was back in twenty seventeen when he took office, what
Speaker 2: the economy was humming along in twenty twenty, and the
Speaker 2: disaster that we had during the Biden administration. You would
Speaker 2: think that for the basis of their customers and because
Speaker 2: they concern about the American public in general, that they
Speaker 2: would be rooting for the economy to be strong. But again,
Speaker 2: you'd have to have a group of people that actually
Speaker 2: liked this country. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck a Network
Speaker 2: seven hundred w from the spoon Fed regurgitators. In the
Speaker 2: mainstream media, we hear about all the dire predictions and
Speaker 2: the unrealistic predictions that they make, even though we have
Speaker 2: kept seeing you unexpectedly low employment, unemployment unemployment claims, we've
Speaker 2: seen unexpected job increases, we've seen unexpected retail sales, we've
Speaker 2: seen unexpected generally on the good side, and yet we
Speaker 2: don't hear. All we hear from the spoon feeder regurgitators
Speaker 2: is bad news. They keep talking about how the trade
Speaker 2: policies with the terriffts, that is, that is hurting the
Speaker 2: American public, that is hurting our businesses. When you take
Speaker 2: into consideration the purpose of the terriffs that they were
Speaker 2: retaliatory against countries that have been taking advantage of US
Speaker 2: dumping their cheaper goods into our economy because they either
Speaker 2: subsidize those or there are lower terraffs on their products
Speaker 2: coming in here, and there are barriers to our products
Speaker 2: going into their countries, so that they have the best
Speaker 2: of both worlds. They have cheaper products coming into this country,
Speaker 2: which is better competitive with our goods, then they are
Speaker 2: blocking their entry of our goods into their country. So
Speaker 2: all they have is what's produced by their manufacturers, so
Speaker 2: there are a tremendous advantage. Trump tried to lower that,
Speaker 2: lower that playing field and make sure that we had
Speaker 2: fair trade, not necessarily free trade. And what is happening
Speaker 2: is that you know, any of these countries that started
Speaker 2: talking about having economic problems or that it was affecting
Speaker 2: their economy because of the tariffs, it's a very simple fix.
Speaker 2: Come to negotiating table, Negotiate with the president, negotiate with
Speaker 2: his team, get the prices down, get the tariffs down
Speaker 2: so that we have a better flow of goods and
Speaker 2: so that there's more competition out there, and that your
Speaker 2: people are not standing by the sidelines not working because
Speaker 2: the tariffs coming into the United States.
Speaker 3: You are in control of that.
Speaker 2: You can actually sit down at the negotiating table and
Speaker 2: get that down.
Speaker 3: But it's interesting to see.
Speaker 2: I saw the story Canadian steelmaker al Goma Steel Group Inc.
Speaker 2: Will let go one thousand employees and close its blast
Speaker 2: furnace in northern Ontario within months as it seeks to
Speaker 2: stem losses resulting from US teriffs. Now, if they're manufacturing
Speaker 2: steel there, and they're manufacturing steel at a cheaper price
Speaker 2: and bringing that into our country, which an and then
Speaker 2: they have an unfair trade or a balance of trade
Speaker 2: or unfair cost of their steel to our steel in
Speaker 2: the United States, then of course they're going to have
Speaker 2: more sales here. But if we level that playing field,
Speaker 2: then that puts them on part with our steel manufacturers
Speaker 2: in this country, and so people are inclined to buy
Speaker 2: more American steel. And which has happened, and the fact
Speaker 2: that Algoma Steel is now laying off one thousand employees
Speaker 2: because they're not selling as much into the United States.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're selling something, if you're selling the
Speaker 2: same item, the same exact item, into a particular country
Speaker 2: and you can produce it cheaper because you're paying your
Speaker 2: employees less us you're subsidizing those country companies and propping
Speaker 2: them up, then their prices coming into our country are
Speaker 2: going to be cheaper. And so if you've got the
Speaker 2: same item, the same quality, you're going to choose the
Speaker 2: item that's the cheapest. But now if you've now put restrictions,
Speaker 2: and then on top of that, you know it's cheaper
Speaker 2: coming into this country, but then our goods are being
Speaker 2: prevented from going into their country, so they're definitely in
Speaker 2: an unfair advantage. So if you then put up the
Speaker 2: barriers and prevent their items coming in here or the
Speaker 2: items that do are now on par with ours, people
Speaker 2: are going to pick and choose which ones are going
Speaker 2: to buy, and a lot of times don't wind up
Speaker 2: buying whichever one is manufacturing in the United States.
Speaker 3: But not necessarily. I mean, you have customer loyalty and
Speaker 3: so on.
Speaker 2: But the fact that there's been this barrier, there's not
Speaker 2: as been as much purchasing and much orders going into Canada.
Speaker 2: They have had to now cut back and they're looking
Speaker 2: to lay off a thousand people. But what is interesting
Speaker 2: when you dig deeper into the story, the company, based
Speaker 2: in the city of Sault Saint Marie, is also shuttering
Speaker 2: its coke making operation as it plans to transition to
Speaker 2: making steel solely by electric arc furnace in early twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six, a year ahead of schedule. Al Gooma said
Speaker 2: December first in an email statement, they don't say in here,
Speaker 2: but I'm wondering if the coke making operation, if there
Speaker 2: are these coke fired plants, that if those are more
Speaker 2: labor intensive as opposed to these electric plants, could that
Speaker 2: be part of the reason that they're laying off employees.
Speaker 2: They want to blame it on tariffs, They want to
Speaker 2: blame it on the United States. But is it true?
Speaker 2: And I guess we'll have to see coming in the
Speaker 2: next few days, or at least maybe I have to
Speaker 2: dig into it and find out for myself. Spokesperson for
Speaker 2: the company, Devone, the Trump administration's fifty percent tariffs on
Speaker 2: foreign steel have fundamentally altered the competitive landscape and sharply
Speaker 2: limited our ability to access the US market. So again,
Speaker 2: raising the barriers on par with their barriers on our
Speaker 2: goods are leveling the playing field and they are finding
Speaker 2: it difficult to compete. Well, you know, if you've had
Speaker 2: an advantage all these years and now suddenly you don't
Speaker 2: have that advantage, yes, it does make it difficult free
Speaker 2: to compete. Algoma sales dropped thirteen percent in the third
Speaker 2: quarter and it's reported a direct tariff expense and they
Speaker 2: it was like eight eighty nine point seven million Canadian dollars,
Speaker 2: saying the US steel market had become largely closed to US.
Speaker 2: The company, which currently has about twenty five hundred employees,
Speaker 2: was given a five hundred million Canadian subsidy in emergency
Speaker 2: loans from the governments of Canada onto. So again they're
Speaker 2: subsidizing their companies up there, whereas you know, our country
Speaker 2: companies are having to compete with that. Let's see the
Speaker 2: layoffs come into effect on March twenty third. Also in
Speaker 2: the statement, they said transition is necessary to protect Algama's
Speaker 2: future in the face of these extraordinary and external marketing forces,
Speaker 2: and we will continue to advocate for competitive and fair
Speaker 2: trading environment for Canadian steel. Well, talk to your government,
Speaker 2: talk to the people that are in charge of negotiating
Speaker 2: up there. Make sure that they're doing the things that
Speaker 2: make you more competitive with what's going on as far
Speaker 2: as the United States is concerned, and that you're not
Speaker 2: charging less as far as teriffs, or that you're charging
Speaker 2: more on tariffs on our goods coming in there and
Speaker 2: not so much on your goods coming in here, so
Speaker 2: that we are now on a more competitive basis.
Speaker 3: So again, interesting, I.
Speaker 2: Saw this story FedEx to slash eight hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: six Texas jobs after a customer moves its business. Now
Speaker 2: this isn't a well, it's a reduction of processing in
Speaker 2: that particular location because a particular company, a particular client
Speaker 2: has moved, So it's not something that FedEx has done
Speaker 2: or anything that the employees have done. It's been the
Speaker 2: company that they were that they were providing these services
Speaker 2: for has moved. FedEx Corporation plans to cut hundreds of
Speaker 2: jobs in Texas after a third party logistics customer opted
Speaker 2: to move its operations to a new location in a
Speaker 2: different company. Memphis, Tennessee based courier will discontinue operations.
Speaker 3: At Copple, Texas.
Speaker 2: FedEx said that it will close its facility layoff eight
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty six workers after customers shifted its business.
Speaker 2: Company attributed the costs of the customer's relocation decision and
Speaker 2: noted they will occur in phases through late April, so
Speaker 2: that going on. FedEx said some of the employees may
Speaker 2: move into other roles or receive assistance as the firm
Speaker 2: continues a broader restructure of its shipping operations. Now, the
Speaker 2: interesting thing with us is the fact that a company
Speaker 2: moved away and moved their operations and chose a different
Speaker 2: carrier in a different location. So this isn't necessarily something
Speaker 2: that's bad as far as FedEx is concerned, or the
Speaker 2: products that they're doing or how they're moving things. FedEx said,
Speaker 2: notify the employees at the site will move in advance,
Speaker 2: and that some workers are eligible to other positions. Let
Speaker 2: me see they talk, and again they have to throw
Speaker 2: this in here just I guess as a dig. The
Speaker 2: move comes towards the end of the turbulent leayer with
Speaker 2: a logistics company which has been jolted by President Donald
Speaker 2: Trump's trade policies and have strained key shipping lanes, especially
Speaker 2: between US and China. Again, how can you squawk at
Speaker 2: a country that we're basically are, that is not a
Speaker 2: friend of the country and is an enemy of ours,
Speaker 2: that is trying to unfairly compete with us on the
Speaker 2: world stage, and for some of the disruptions that they're
Speaker 2: causing around the world. I mean, are you so concerned
Speaker 2: about your bottom line that you're willing to deal that
Speaker 2: you care more about dealing with an enemy of the
Speaker 2: country rather than cheering for our country to be on
Speaker 2: a competitive basis with them. Again, the way people look
Speaker 2: at these trade policies and the way they look at
Speaker 2: these teriffs is just mind boggling to me. Well, folks,
Speaker 2: does it for us? Stay tuned for Red Eye Radio
Speaker 2: at the Top the Hour, I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking
Speaker 2: Network seven hundred WLW