WEBVTT - 59: O Trucker, Where Art Thou?

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<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by Bank of America. Merrill Lynch Seeing

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<v Speaker 1>what others have seen, but uncovering what others may not.

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<v Speaker 1>Global Research that helps you harness disruption voted top global

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<v Speaker 1>research from five years running. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and

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<v Speaker 1>Smith Incorporated. If all things were equal, you know, and

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<v Speaker 1>you worked an eight hour day and you made enough

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<v Speaker 1>money to pay your bills, it would be a decent job.

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<v Speaker 1>Because you're out, You're out on the road. I mean,

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<v Speaker 1>there is the freedom. One of the reasons I drove

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<v Speaker 1>a truck is because I don't like sitting behind a desk. Hello,

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<v Speaker 1>and welcome back to Bloomberg Benchmark Show about the Global economy.

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<v Speaker 1>It's Thursday October. I'm Scott Landman, an economics editor with

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<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg and News in Washington, and I'm Keith Smith, an

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<v Speaker 1>editor with Bloomberg in New York. Today we're going to

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<v Speaker 1>turn our attention to one of the biggest economic puzzles

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<v Speaker 1>of our time, one that seems to be a microcosm

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<v Speaker 1>of the U. S. Labor market. It seems like a

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<v Speaker 1>lot of numbers show it's in great shape, but below

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<v Speaker 1>the surface, some funky things are going on. And one

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<v Speaker 1>of those kind of funky things that you're talking about, Scott,

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<v Speaker 1>is where have all the truck drivers gone? That's right.

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<v Speaker 1>We'll be talking first with Justin Fox, a columnist for

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<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg View who has written about this issue, and then

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<v Speaker 1>with an actual truck driver who happens to be a

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<v Speaker 1>close relative of mine. What actually sparked this discussion is

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<v Speaker 1>a recent article by one of our U S economy reporters,

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<v Speaker 1>Patricia Eliah. She wrote that one trucking company is getting

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<v Speaker 1>so desperate for new drivers that they're handing out all

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<v Speaker 1>kinds of bonuses, including signing bonuses of up to five

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<v Speaker 1>thousand dollars. And Scott, when I read that, there was

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<v Speaker 1>just so fascinating to me because the idea of, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>the signing bonus here in the economy is just it's

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<v Speaker 1>so unheard of. That's I mean, that's something that's like

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<v Speaker 1>reserved for the NFL or the NBA or something like that,

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<v Speaker 1>certainly not truck drivers from what I would assume. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>I mean I was thinking of these draft picks that

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<v Speaker 1>get like a million dollar bonus if they're going to

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<v Speaker 1>be the next hot quarterback or something like that. But um,

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<v Speaker 1>you know, it's not just the shortage, the shortage of

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<v Speaker 1>labor that's driving up these bonuses and wage costs for companies.

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<v Speaker 1>And Patty explained to me there are a lot of

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<v Speaker 1>other factors going on. There's an age restriction, you have

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<v Speaker 1>to be at least twenty one to drive across state lines.

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<v Speaker 1>Certifications are expensive, truck drivers are aging, It's not an

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<v Speaker 1>easy job to do, and you're away from home a

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<v Speaker 1>lot um. So what gives here though? Is there really

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<v Speaker 1>a worker shortage or are they just not offering high

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<v Speaker 1>enough wages or something deeper going on. I want to

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<v Speaker 1>bring in Justin Fox, who's sitting with Kate in our

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<v Speaker 1>New York studio. Justin's a calumnist for Bloomberg View and

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<v Speaker 1>used to be the editorial director at the Harvard Business Review. Justin,

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<v Speaker 1>thanks for joining us, Thanks for having me so, Justin,

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<v Speaker 1>you also wrote a column of after seeing Patty's story,

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<v Speaker 1>and it was trying to figure out what's going on

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<v Speaker 1>with all of these truck drivers. So I mean, talk

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<v Speaker 1>to us about kind of some of your main theories.

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<v Speaker 1>What do you what do you think is the most

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<v Speaker 1>plausible here? Well, everybody's been talking a lot about this

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<v Speaker 1>looming threat of automation, um in trucks and cars and

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<v Speaker 1>everything else. And I mean one of the interesting things

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<v Speaker 1>is truck driving. In a time when manufacturing employment has

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<v Speaker 1>been on this long decline, truck driving has made up

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<v Speaker 1>for a lot of that, and it's something you don't

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<v Speaker 1>necessarily need a college education to be able to do.

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<v Speaker 1>Traditionally the pay was pretty good and so um. I

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<v Speaker 1>Actually it happened to be that Patricia's story came out

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<v Speaker 1>the day before the monthly jobs report for September, and

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<v Speaker 1>so I like to dig around in the job's report

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<v Speaker 1>to look at things that other people aren't paying attention

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<v Speaker 1>to every month, and so I was just I thought, oh,

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<v Speaker 1>I'll look at trucking employment. And one interesting and somewhat

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<v Speaker 1>odd thing is it hasn't actually grown since mid two

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<v Speaker 1>thousand fifteen. There was a big recovery from the recession,

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<v Speaker 1>and then it's been pretty much flat since then. And

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<v Speaker 1>what is that? Because there, you know, maybe there's demand

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<v Speaker 1>in this one place. I think it was in floor

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<v Speaker 1>to the Patricia wrote about maybe it's not national, or

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<v Speaker 1>maybe it's just that trucking companies are having so much

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<v Speaker 1>trouble getting people. So then I looked at wages in trucking,

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<v Speaker 1>and I mean that should there's no dramatic developments in

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<v Speaker 1>that lately. They haven't suddenly gone way up, although you

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<v Speaker 1>might not capture these kind of signing bonuses thing in

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<v Speaker 1>that data anyway, but put some context, So what kind

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<v Speaker 1>of would be the range of truck driving wages? I'm

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<v Speaker 1>just I'm just curious if I've totally picked the wrong

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<v Speaker 1>career choice here. I mean, it's currently looks to be

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<v Speaker 1>around a little over twenty dollars an hour average hourly

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<v Speaker 1>earnings of production and non supervisory employees in the trucking industry.

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<v Speaker 1>And now the interesting thing is in nineties there was

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<v Speaker 1>a big truckers made a bunch more than most workers,

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<v Speaker 1>um and then somewhere around after two thousand that slid

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<v Speaker 1>down to where it's almost identical to the average private,

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<v Speaker 1>non farm, non supervisory worker. And how much war was

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<v Speaker 1>it back in kind of what you were saying, I mean,

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<v Speaker 1>I'm eyeballing a charge here. It looks like it was

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<v Speaker 1>about thirteen dollars to ten dollars. It was significant. One thing,

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<v Speaker 1>one other thing in Patty's story justin was that, uh,

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<v Speaker 1>some some companies, trucking companies were also reporting that they

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<v Speaker 1>needed to find workers, but they were unable to raise

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<v Speaker 1>wages because they couldn't really raise the prices they were charging.

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<v Speaker 1>Is that, you know, a broader conundrum in the economy

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<v Speaker 1>or dilemma? Um, I mean it definitely. These have not

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<v Speaker 1>been a great few years for trucking companies, and I'm

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<v Speaker 1>not exactly sure why that is. I think part of

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<v Speaker 1>it is just the recession came and sort of goods

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<v Speaker 1>trade volumes never quite boomed back to where they were before.

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<v Speaker 1>Maybe people are spending more time buying apps than buying stuff,

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<v Speaker 1>um so, and and trucking companies in general just had

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<v Speaker 1>a really tough time, So I would imagine that, I mean,

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<v Speaker 1>a it's just it's still a competitive enough, competitive enough

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<v Speaker 1>industry that, um, you know, they can't just set prices

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<v Speaker 1>as they will be. There's these new players coming in,

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<v Speaker 1>like most notably Amazon, that are probably making life tougher

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<v Speaker 1>for some of the incumbents. And it's also hard to

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<v Speaker 1>kind of talk about, you know, something like trucking industry. Right,

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<v Speaker 1>so it doesn't necessarily require a college degree, but it's

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<v Speaker 1>a steady job, it can pay pretty much. And like

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<v Speaker 1>as we've been watching this election, unfold. That's one thing

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<v Speaker 1>that keeps getting brought up. All our jobs are gone,

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<v Speaker 1>all our jobs are gone. But in reality it sounds

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<v Speaker 1>like we're talking about a job where they're having a

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<v Speaker 1>hard time attracting people. Yeah, but part of that is

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<v Speaker 1>it's no longer as good a job as it used

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<v Speaker 1>to be. I mean, the pay used to be better,

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<v Speaker 1>and we may be hearing later that the work conditions

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<v Speaker 1>aren't as good. I don't know about that. What about

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<v Speaker 1>these stories that have been coming out recently. There's there's

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<v Speaker 1>one study by former Obama economic advisor Alan Krueger saying

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<v Speaker 1>that men are men who are out of the labor force,

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<v Speaker 1>a lot of them are on pain medication. And there's

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<v Speaker 1>other people citing a study saying men would rather play

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<v Speaker 1>video games. These are people who have kind of be

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<v Speaker 1>in the prime age for a trucking job. What do

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<v Speaker 1>you make of that? I mean, it's really this this

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<v Speaker 1>puzzle of why there's so many more men out of

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<v Speaker 1>the labor force than there used to be. I mean,

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<v Speaker 1>it's been the steady growth since the sixties, but pretty

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<v Speaker 1>dramatic um since two thousand and you know, there's a

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<v Speaker 1>bunch of different different explanations one of them. Part of

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<v Speaker 1>it is clearly on the the sort of demand for

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<v Speaker 1>their labor. So manufacturing jobs have declined, trucking jobs are

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<v Speaker 1>still there, but the pay is not as good. And

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<v Speaker 1>then there have been these other theories about I mean,

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<v Speaker 1>one big one is, um, the incarceration boom. They're just

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<v Speaker 1>a lot more people with criminal records than there used

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<v Speaker 1>to be. It's hard for them to get jobs. Um.

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<v Speaker 1>This video game theory from Eric Hurst, Chicago economist, is

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<v Speaker 1>just that, I mean, there is evidence that men who

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<v Speaker 1>are out of the lay refore spend a lot of

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<v Speaker 1>time playing games or watching TV. And one and I've

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<v Speaker 1>been thinking about this. When I was a kid and

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<v Speaker 1>I would be sick home from school, all it was

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<v Speaker 1>on TV was game shows and soap operas. Now, if

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<v Speaker 1>you're stuck at home, there's a lot of fun stuff

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<v Speaker 1>you can do. And so there is some argument that

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<v Speaker 1>actually there are other things out there if you've got

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<v Speaker 1>enough money to get by on and I don't know,

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<v Speaker 1>you're living in your parents basement and your twenty seven

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<v Speaker 1>you know the balance wing g Do I want to

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<v Speaker 1>go drive a truck all day and all night or

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<v Speaker 1>do I want to play video games? In the basement.

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<v Speaker 1>Maybe maybe that's a little bit of it, but I

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<v Speaker 1>can't believe. I mean, they're really big differences in male

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<v Speaker 1>labor force participation now between the US and a lot

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<v Speaker 1>of other wealthy countries. And I think the video games

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<v Speaker 1>are just as good in Japan and Germany as they

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<v Speaker 1>are in the US. So I don't know that that

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<v Speaker 1>explains a whole lot of it. We keep saying male

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<v Speaker 1>is obviously this the female statistics don't match well. The

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<v Speaker 1>problem with the female statistics, it's not problem, is just

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<v Speaker 1>that when you there's this category of people who are

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<v Speaker 1>not in the labor force, which means you don't have

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<v Speaker 1>a job, you're not looking for a job, and UM,

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<v Speaker 1>in the female category, people who are not in the

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<v Speaker 1>labor force, half of them are working, but unpaid, work

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<v Speaker 1>at home, they're taking care of kids, they're taking care

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<v Speaker 1>of elderly family members. Very small percentage of the men

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<v Speaker 1>who aren't in the labor force are doing that. And

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<v Speaker 1>so all it is is it just makes it hard

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<v Speaker 1>to compare the two. I think general sense, like with

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<v Speaker 1>the pain killers, if if you cut out those women

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<v Speaker 1>who are not in the labor force but are actually working, um,

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<v Speaker 1>the percentage of men and women who are taking pain

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<v Speaker 1>killers and aren't in the labor force is about probably

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<v Speaker 1>about the same. Interesting All right, well, Justin and Kate,

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<v Speaker 1>we're going to take a quick break now for a

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<v Speaker 1>word from our sponsor, and when we're back, we are

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<v Speaker 1>going to talk with my uncle who spent his whole

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<v Speaker 1>career as a truck driver. Brought to you by Bank

0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:03.920
<v Speaker 1>of America Merrill Lynch. Seeing what others have seen, but

0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:06.959
<v Speaker 1>uncovering what others may not. Global Research that helps you

0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:11.120
<v Speaker 1>Harness disruption voted top global research from five years running.

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<v Speaker 1>Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Venner and Smith Incorporated. Welcome back. Now

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<v Speaker 1>we're going to bring in a very special guest, someone

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<v Speaker 1>who knows a lot about the trucking industry because he

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<v Speaker 1>spent thirty seven years as a truck driver himself and

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<v Speaker 1>actually now drives a minibus locally. He happens to be

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<v Speaker 1>my uncle. Kenny Han joins us from his home on

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<v Speaker 1>Long Island in Central Islip, New York. Hey, uncle Kenny,

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<v Speaker 1>how's it going. It's going great. How's it going with you? Scott?

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<v Speaker 1>All right? So can you just give us a quick

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<v Speaker 1>recap of your career as a driver and how you

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<v Speaker 1>got started, Well, um, it was sort of something I

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<v Speaker 1>had to do. When I was about seventeen years old,

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<v Speaker 1>I got married and uh I believe it or not,

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<v Speaker 1>and so I just took whatever job I could get,

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<v Speaker 1>you know, and I started driving first. I first started

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<v Speaker 1>driving a van for florist, but I drove a truck

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<v Speaker 1>starting when I was eighteen, I started driving for a

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<v Speaker 1>kitchen cabinet distributor, and then back when around nineteen eighty

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<v Speaker 1>I got my my tractor trailer license and started driving

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<v Speaker 1>over the road and then became a teamster in four

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<v Speaker 1>and worked for the same company for twenty six years.

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<v Speaker 1>Retired from there and in two thousand and eight, and

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<v Speaker 1>then got my job with the town of Iliad driving

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<v Speaker 1>a minibus transporting seniors. So, Uncle Kenny, if I can

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<v Speaker 1>ask you a little bit about kind of what does

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<v Speaker 1>it take to be a truck driver. I mean, I've

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<v Speaker 1>read some I've read some stories that Bloomberg has written,

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<v Speaker 1>some some other ones. It sounds like it's a really

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<v Speaker 1>tough job. It is a tough job. It's not an

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<v Speaker 1>easy job. It's not one that everybody's gonna like. You're

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<v Speaker 1>you're on the road all the time. I mean I

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<v Speaker 1>spent probably most of my career in twelve to fourteen

0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.440
<v Speaker 1>hour days every you know, five days a week, sometimes

0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.320
<v Speaker 1>even six days. And uh, you know, it's tough on

0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:10.880
<v Speaker 1>your back, it's tough on your on your home life.

0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.400
<v Speaker 1>It's uh, it's a very difficult job to do. You

0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.320
<v Speaker 1>have to constantly be a you're driving, you know, anybody

0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.960
<v Speaker 1>who drives, even to work knows that it can be

0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.120
<v Speaker 1>pretty stressful. You're doing this with a with a forty

0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:26.400
<v Speaker 1>eight thousand pound vehicle. You know that that splits in

0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:28.960
<v Speaker 1>the middle and can spin around if you don't if

0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:30.800
<v Speaker 1>you're not careful, and you've got people cutting you off

0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.640
<v Speaker 1>all day. So it's a very stressful, stressful job. How

0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.840
<v Speaker 1>did you how did you balance you know, that job

0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:41.439
<v Speaker 1>with you know the obviously had had two kids and

0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.439
<v Speaker 1>you know, taking care of them part of the time too. Well.

0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:46.640
<v Speaker 1>I was divorced when I was twenty one and a half,

0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:49.920
<v Speaker 1>so you know, but I did have I did see

0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:52.800
<v Speaker 1>my kids on weekends, and uh, yeah, it was tough.

0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:54.880
<v Speaker 1>I mean I was married the second time, and I

0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:58.520
<v Speaker 1>was married for twenty years, and uh, I think one

0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:00.800
<v Speaker 1>of the reasons I got divorced the second time was

0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.640
<v Speaker 1>because I was never home and uh, you know, I

0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.880
<v Speaker 1>was always you know, when I came home, I said,

0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:08.760
<v Speaker 1>come home at eight o'clock at night. I'd have to

0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:10.080
<v Speaker 1>go to sleep because I have to be back at

0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:14.440
<v Speaker 1>work at six the next morning. So it was it

0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.440
<v Speaker 1>affected my home life a real lot. The pay, Like

0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:19.600
<v Speaker 1>you know, I was listening to what you guys were saying,

0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.200
<v Speaker 1>and uh, I could tell you that I started as

0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:24.520
<v Speaker 1>a teamster. And now, when I started driving a truck

0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:26.960
<v Speaker 1>back in nineteen seventy two, you know, the pay was,

0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:30.600
<v Speaker 1>you know, on par with what most people were making

0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.600
<v Speaker 1>in in you know, in lower level jobs like that.

0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:36.000
<v Speaker 1>But when I when I became a teamster in the

0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:41.000
<v Speaker 1>night four, the pay scale was thirteen twenty three an hour. Now,

0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:43.720
<v Speaker 1>I worked for the same companies as a teamster for

0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.680
<v Speaker 1>twenty six years, and when I retired, my pay scale

0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.040
<v Speaker 1>was only up to twenty one dollars and changing out,

0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.040
<v Speaker 1>which means in twenty six years we are pay only

0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:55.480
<v Speaker 1>went up eight dollars an hour. Now, the way I

0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.640
<v Speaker 1>made up for that was by working only over time,

0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:00.720
<v Speaker 1>because luckily for me, being a teamster was an early job.

0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:03.600
<v Speaker 1>But this driver is that you know that like he

0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:05.679
<v Speaker 1>was saying twenty dollars an hour, you make it twenty

0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:07.839
<v Speaker 1>dollars an hour. And there's a lot of these trucking

0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.480
<v Speaker 1>companies that don't want to pay you when you have

0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:12.280
<v Speaker 1>to sit around. They don't want to pay you when

0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.160
<v Speaker 1>you when you're on layover. And so these guys are

0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.640
<v Speaker 1>working twenty four hours around the clock on the road

0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.640
<v Speaker 1>and really not really only getting paid for like maybe

0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.440
<v Speaker 1>ten of those hours. Are that teamsters as active in

0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:26.000
<v Speaker 1>the industry now as they work during your time. Well,

0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:31.280
<v Speaker 1>the teams have been decimated by by the regulation from UM.

0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:33.440
<v Speaker 1>When I first started driving, there was a hundred and

0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.840
<v Speaker 1>sixty two trucking companies teams to trucking companies, and we're

0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:38.720
<v Speaker 1>down to two now. One of them is a company

0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.040
<v Speaker 1>I worked for, a BF and the other one is

0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.040
<v Speaker 1>Yellow Roadway, which is a combination of two major companies

0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.880
<v Speaker 1>that had to combine because they weren't making any money

0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.920
<v Speaker 1>and uh, you know, they can't find drivers anymore to

0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.440
<v Speaker 1>be teams. Is because the pension plans are going into

0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:57.160
<v Speaker 1>the toilet. And uh, you know, my pension in particular

0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:01.360
<v Speaker 1>has been cut by nineteen hundred dollars because they because

0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:05.040
<v Speaker 1>the pension is going broke. So even those were the

0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:09.400
<v Speaker 1>best jobs in trucking, and those jobs stink. So you

0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:11.720
<v Speaker 1>can only imagine, you know, working for companies like J

0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:14.000
<v Speaker 1>Beyond that want to work you like a dog and

0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:16.360
<v Speaker 1>not pay you anything for for your for your efforts,

0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:18.840
<v Speaker 1>how hard it is for them to find drivers. If

0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:21.320
<v Speaker 1>I can jump in. That just doesn't seem like a

0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:23.320
<v Speaker 1>long term model, you know. I mean we were talking

0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:25.960
<v Speaker 1>about how you know you can't these people are having

0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.280
<v Speaker 1>a hard time hiring drivers. I mean, you've been in

0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:31.120
<v Speaker 1>the industry for quite a long time, you know it intimately.

0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:33.400
<v Speaker 1>I mean that just seems like a kick go on

0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:35.360
<v Speaker 1>for very long. It's just not a not a good

0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.760
<v Speaker 1>long term model. It's not it's not a good long

0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.520
<v Speaker 1>term model, and it's not good for you know. I mean,

0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:43.760
<v Speaker 1>if if all things were equal, you know, and you

0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:45.680
<v Speaker 1>worked an eight hour day and you made enough money

0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:49.120
<v Speaker 1>to pay your bills, um, it would be a decent job.

0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:51.320
<v Speaker 1>Because you're out there, you're out on the road. I mean,

0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:53.000
<v Speaker 1>there is the freedom. One of the reasons I drove

0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.480
<v Speaker 1>a truck is because I don't like sitting behind the desk.

0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.120
<v Speaker 1>But you know, and there is that freedom. But you know,

0:15:58.160 --> 0:15:59.920
<v Speaker 1>you're not working an eight hour that you're working a

0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.800
<v Speaker 1>call up the fourteen hour day and you're and and

0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:08.160
<v Speaker 1>it's very hard work. So it's a poor model to

0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:10.520
<v Speaker 1>begin with. It's always been a poor and to drive

0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:13.360
<v Speaker 1>a truck. You know where the old wagon train people

0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.760
<v Speaker 1>again know peas where a horse uh where you know

0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:19.640
<v Speaker 1>they control the horses on on a horse and wagon.

0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:24.320
<v Speaker 1>You know, so we're still there. So it is it

0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.240
<v Speaker 1>is one of these jobs that you know, people can

0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:29.640
<v Speaker 1>can do. It's not it's not it's not a job

0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:33.640
<v Speaker 1>that's going to move to China or overseas or somewhere else.

0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:36.960
<v Speaker 1>They're they're going to need truckers to move goods around

0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.520
<v Speaker 1>the country no matter what. You know, it's probably gonna

0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:44.440
<v Speaker 1>take a long time to become truly automated. I mean,

0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.960
<v Speaker 1>why why can't the Why do you think wages are

0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.400
<v Speaker 1>going to stay low? Why won't they go up? Well,

0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:55.640
<v Speaker 1>because because there's competition from all corners, you know, the deregulation.

0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:58.920
<v Speaker 1>Anybody and everybody opens up a trucking company. You know,

0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.320
<v Speaker 1>the reason why somebody drug companies went out of business

0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.160
<v Speaker 1>was because, uh, you know, when when there was when

0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:06.959
<v Speaker 1>trucking was regulated, they could control their prices and they

0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:08.840
<v Speaker 1>could you know, and they were making a decent living there.

0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.000
<v Speaker 1>Prices were set and you know, shippers could not take

0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:14.639
<v Speaker 1>advantage of one truck and company over another because there

0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:16.679
<v Speaker 1>were there was you know, lanes that they had to

0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.440
<v Speaker 1>deal with. But now it's you know, whoever gives them

0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.119
<v Speaker 1>the best price, and there's you know, there's there's like

0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:24.679
<v Speaker 1>in any other industry, there's dogs out there. They are

0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:26.840
<v Speaker 1>going to go in there and undercut whoever they can

0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.080
<v Speaker 1>undercutt and uh, you know something, and it doesn't seem

0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.640
<v Speaker 1>to be that service matters as much as how much

0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.320
<v Speaker 1>the pain for the shipping. Kenny, thanks so much for

0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:37.359
<v Speaker 1>joining us. We're gonna leave it there. Did you want

0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:39.200
<v Speaker 1>to get in a plug for your own radio show?

0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:41.600
<v Speaker 1>A show? I do a Blue Show on w USB

0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:46.040
<v Speaker 1>ninety one FM on Long Island and at Stonybrook University

0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.960
<v Speaker 1>every other week from ten pm to midnight. It's a

0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:53.040
<v Speaker 1>great show. I do my friend Jovi, and uh you

0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:55.720
<v Speaker 1>can listen to it online for anybody who's listening around

0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:59.160
<v Speaker 1>the country or around the world at w USB dot fm.

0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:01.959
<v Speaker 1>It's streams. So yeah, thanks for letting me do that

0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.800
<v Speaker 1>because I really love that. That's my that's my passion. Now,

0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.480
<v Speaker 1>all right, I'm gonna check that out. Thank you, Thanks well.

0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.040
<v Speaker 1>Benchmark will be back next week and until then, you

0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.280
<v Speaker 1>can find us on the Bloomberg Terminal and Bloomberg dot com,

0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.520
<v Speaker 1>as well as on iTunes, pocket casts, and Stitcher. While

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0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.840
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0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:32.439
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0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:35.439
<v Speaker 1>at a Fox just and my uncle is also on

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<v Speaker 1>Twitter at at blues Lover three one two Thanks a lot.

0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.200
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