Posted on 01/23/2013 11:24:27 AM PST by blam
I worked for a trailer manufacturer for about 15 years many years ago. It was no secret that the trucking industry was the first to tank and the last to recover in a recession.
I went through several of them. We would go from 6 months to 12 months backlog of orders to zero orders (all cancelled) in a few weeks when the recession started. When the economy recovered, people would want trailers immediately since they waited to buy a new one until the old one completely failed and could not be patched up one more time. If they couldn’t get it immediately, they would go elsewhere. When every manufacturer got busy again, no one could order something immediately from anywhere. Eventually, the backlog would start growing again when people learned to anticipate replacements for their fleet.
I am sorry to hear that Robert. I can assure you the lumber and housing business is picking up substaintially. We see starts exceeding 1 million next year and climbing back to 1.4 million over the next few years. I do not deal with many of the nationwide companies you mentioned other than Swift. Again that is only for flatbeds.
However, all of the flatbed carriers that we deal with have seen an increase in business over the last couple years. My company ships about 900 trucks a month throughout the United States and Canada. Our business is increasing.
Maybe you should consider getting into flatbed shipments.
The transport stocks are always the leading indicators.
In 15 years my prediction is that most long haul truck drivers will be redundant. Computer driven vehicles are coming along that fast.
Companies will be buying the trucks, they won’t be paying the drivers.
Never.
The housing bubble is being reinflated with the involvement of Fannie / Freddie and them dumping nearly $80b per month in liquidity into MBS's. This is the same illusion that will not garner different results. I have involvement in HHG's as well, and the HHG fleet (corporate and COD relocations) is down to nothing right now. This is the real indicator of the housing market.
Friend of ours is a railroad conductor. He said about what the trucking article said ... keep an eye on shipping because a slowdown will hit the railroad before anyone else.
railroad numbers are going to be distorted by the huge amount of oil that is being shipped by railroad these days.
Did you see 60 Minutes a couple weeks ago. They had a segment regarding robots taking over for so many of the tasks that humans currently perform. Many of these were the low skill labor jobs that are now being done in factories in China and India. They showed how a robot purchased for about $26k could learn a task and do that task 24/7 for 3 years(no coffee or potty breaks or sick days). It worked out to about $3/hour. This would be as cheap a current Chinese labor. The savings would be it could be manufactured right here in the USA.
Another part of the segment showed a robotic semi truck driver ,like you suggested in your post. It would be GPS guided and could follow electronic tracking built into the roadway.
They also showed a warehouse in Mass where robots fullfilled the orders coming in over the internet/sales office. The robots would travel around a warehouse the size of two football fields, and bring the items to the person that would then check the order, apply the shipping label and off it went to the shipping dept. The human would never actually leave their spot, the robot brought the items to them. It followed a tracking system built into the floor of the warehouse.
Some sectors of the economy are strong; others are weak.
In Houston it is obvious that drilling is going great guns all over the world. Everybody sees the unstable MENA as unreliable. The world MUST have oil and gas.
However, we are also seeing a surge in violent crime. There have been two attempted armored car robberies near me in the last year. I think the unemployable are getting restless and think they are entitled.
Despite being led by idiots who think they can tax, regulate, and spend the country to prosperity, entrepreneurs are finding ways to survive and grow. For example, I was at an industry dinner where we were briefed on ObamaCare. EVERY biz owner there spoke about their plan to lay off workers, go to part timers, and get below the limits of the new rules. They will quickly adapt and evade.
As for the future, I am convinced by the incredibly prescient Kyle Bass, i.e., “War and DEFAULT are coming”.
I used to think there was hope. The massive vote fraud of the last election proved that I was too optimistic.
Plus nobody seems to be thinking about all the programming jobs that would develop from this, or the jobs to maintain these machines.
This is bad news for the unskilled workers in many of these foreign Asian countries. It is good news generally for the US, Canada and Mexico. With NAFTA we will have cheap robotic labor and plenty of cheap natural resources between our three countries. If a robot can by manufactured that can learn an assembly job and perform it cheaper than the lowest human labor in the world there is no reason to build factories over in Asia anymore. There is a cost to ship raw materials from North America to Asia and then ship the products back here.
The only things I could see continuing to be made in China are items and materials that the EPA would not allowed to be produced in this country. For example, some of the lithium battery components are highly toxic. A manufacturer would not want to risk the lawsuits to manufacture those in the US.
An earlier thread on trucking and other areas as economic indicators. The FedEx Indicator (3/23/2012)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2863093/posts
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