As an aside, our freight transportation system is almost 100% petroleum dependent. This is a recipe for disaster, but the congressional mealy mouths don’t seem to recognize the problem.
It may mean that truckers can’t afford to wait 30 days for payment so they sell it to a factor. Diesel prices aren’t the only problem. Trucking has seen a big drop in shipments. Typically trucking is one of the first industries that knows when a recession has ended. Shipments increase. We’re not there yet. Quite a few companies are closing terminals to try to stay in business. Some are just closing their doors.
Factoring means that the trucking companies are selling their accounts receivables at a discount to factoring companies for immediate cash.
The Little People drive all them trucks around. What's that got to do with our congressional masters?
You know, all that stuff that shows up in stores gets there by way of the Restocking Fairies.
Wonder how many people in Washington ever worked a back dock?
So, how do you propose we ship freight across the country? Please help me to understand.
What are we going to do, bring back coal fired stern wheelers on the rivers and great lakes and coal fired locomotives on the rails? (I think the later would be kind of cool. Dirty, but cool. :) I'm old enough to remember the last of the heavy oil fired steam locomotives. Much more impressive than the diseil electrics of today. I lived about 1/4 block from the Burlington main line. Those old engines really made the house shake. Very comforting in it's own way. I miss 'em, but I also miss the trains in general. When we moved from that little house, we moved to one where the Rock Island main line was where other peoples' alleys were, but by them I think the steamers were gone. Now the Rock Island Line is gone too, and now it's route is a concrete biking and walking trail that runs behind my mother's house.