April 17, 2026 • 68 mins
The world's trade system is cartoonishly complex, and it depends on multiple factors: one of the most important being trucks. Without semis and truckers, the global economy will immediately collapse -- and, unfortunately, trucking is in trouble. In tonight's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel explore a catastrophe on the horizon. A spiraling economy, skyrocketing inflation, and disruptive new technology combine to put one of the world's most essential industries is on the verge of collapse. So what happens next?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call me Bed. We're joined as always with our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. And let's give it
up for the truckers. If you work in the transit, right,
(00:51):
it's so cool. If you work in the transit or
transportation industry, which, as we'll see, touches so many things,
this one is for you because every single day in
the United States, and indeed around the world, billions of supplies, resources,
(01:11):
products they move through these labyrinthine network logistics, right, these
global trade patterns. And obviously, guys, we know air freight
plays a big role, but it's so expensive that it's
often impractical, and cargo ships are irreplaceable. Check out our
episodes on those. But you're not going to see a
(01:34):
cargo ship barely, not by seventy five.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, no matter how that cargo gets onto like a mainland.
There is always going to have to be a truck
that takes that stuff off of the dock, a truck
that takes that stuff to a warehouse somewhere, you know it. Yeah,
as you're saying, Ben, it doesn't go from plane to
your Walmart.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
No, that's the thing that ferries the goods to its
final destination.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yeah, trains are great. We are fans of trains, I
think as a group. But trains can only go where
the railroad tracks let them go. So eventually, to your point, Noel,
all cargo has to find a way to get to
your grocery store, to your place of work, to your doorstep.
(02:20):
Trucking is what makes it possible for sure.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
And yeah, you know it's I've I've known some long
haul truckers in my day and they really truly are
irreplaceable in terms of their ability to do the job,
the stamina that it requires to do that job. And
you know, you want good ones out there who drive safe.
You know how am I driving? If someone's not doing well,
(02:45):
you should maybe.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Call that number.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
We know there are a ton of you out there
listening right now in trucks that's.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
True to hear from you.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yes, of course, you call in all the time, you
send us emails all the time.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
We know you're there.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
You're doing the hard work so that we can have
the stuff. And just as we said, we really do
appreciate you, and I think anybody you know who's paying
attention really appreciates you.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah, you're a big part of our show, one of
our favorite parts of the show. And fellow conspiracy realist,
whether you are in this industry or not, in this industry,
it does touch you. And the reality now as we
record on Friday, April tenth, twenty twenty six, is this
(03:30):
trucking is in trouble. Here are the facts, all right,
We said it before, but it bears repeating. Most people
have no idea that so much of the economy depends
entirely upon this thing we call the trucking industry. Like,
(03:52):
after all, it doesn't matter what you make, even if
you make the best the widget in the world, it's
bup is unless you can get it to your customers.
And this has been the way of the developed world
since the mass adoption of the automobile in the twentieth century.
I mean, guys, remember like before trucks were a thing.
(04:14):
Freight came on trains, right, came on ships, or you
would have to find an unlucky horse and say, ride
this wagon with me out to Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Well, it's another reason that things like spiking oil prices
are felt and beyond just the price that you pay
at the pump, because those increases get factored into the
whole system, and that whole you know, labyrinthine network of
logistics that go into making sure that the stuff gets
where it's going in a timely fashion and gets to you.
(04:48):
So when we have stuff like that happening in the world,
it's causing stuff like we're having happen right now in
the world that causes these fluctuations and inconsistencies you know
in oil prices. That is something that you are paying for,
whether you drive a car or not.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Way before the invention of the automobile or the rule
out hah, we had the same problems with transit, you know, like, oh,
is horse feed increasing, right, that's our fuel. Shout out
to Apollo, very big opinions on that one. The pre automobile,
(05:25):
the logistics of getting stuff from point A to point Z,
where cartoonish. It was a messy bull of spaghetti, was
a bad bag of badgers. It was a hord barrier
seriously to economic growth because stuff could only go from
one place to another at a certain non ideal rate
(05:46):
of time. And trucking fundamentally changes all of that because
it revolutionizes transit, it revolutionizes therefore the world economy overall.
We know that trucks f get extensively used by the
military like so many other technologies. Back in World War One.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, we talked about in the past just how important
rivers are to any country. Anywhere you live, you will
notice that there are major metropolitan areas usually right next
to a river, a huge river, a river that is
large enough to send large boats down. And that was because,
along with rail, that river was the only way to
(06:27):
get massive, heavy amounts of goods from one place to another.
And this concept of having another way to do that,
it requires a bunch of things. The first thing that
you need is roads, right, because you can't have a
whole bunch of heavy stuff clanking around on a big truck.
(06:48):
Even if you got a big truck, it doesn't matter
if the stuff you're carrying from a to B gets
destroyed along the way because your truck can't handle whatever
it is you're riding.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Because you didn't think of the shocks. You didn't think
of the suspension. Yeah, like, okay, so it's the nineteen thirties.
At this point in the story, the civilian side of
the industry begins to blossom in step with that earlier point,
the rollout of paved road networks. And at this juncture
(07:21):
in history, folks automobiles still have that kind of new
car smell. We're in a honeymoon period with them. Not
everybody is a fan. There are lots of people complaining
these cars are too loud. There are a lot of
breathless hit pieces in the media of the day, and
there are a lot of public safety concerns because you know,
(07:42):
people are being run over by and by cars. Yeah,
the conspiracy of jaywalking.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Right, well, for sure, that's the same thing again, kind
of putting the onus onto the consumer, right Like, now,
all of a sudden, if you're walking, you're part of
the problem because you're like some.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Sort of luddite.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
But also, hey, good thing we had lead right, keep
quite quiet down those knocket engines.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Stop knock it, stop knocking give.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Us, Yeah, give us more serial murderers and prime epidemics.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Check out our earlier episode.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I think about the stories that were sold to the
American people to take on this massive expense of building
all of these roads and highways across the United States,
all the interstates and stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
This is nineteen fifty six, the creation of the inner
interstate highway system, which was pitched to the public as
an issue of national defense, which is also I have
a really weird paper about this. We should consider public
healthcare a matter of national defense. So if you're feeling squirrely,
(08:47):
send us an email. We'll send you the paper. Well.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, And one of the primary things that sold to
us as freedom the freedom to get in your car
that you probably have now are considering getting, and you
could drive anywhere you want. You could go anywhere you want.
Like this concept of the freedom of mobility, it really
is an infrastructure gold mine for folks who have industry,
(09:13):
who produce goods and want to get them places.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Absolutely, one hundred percent. Yeah, we know that this leads
to the creation of local, regional, and national government policies.
Right about especially the public outcry earlier about what vehicles
can drive where and when and how long a driver
can be allowed to operate a vehicle each day or
(09:39):
each week. The Interstate highway system is amazing. Not to
nerd out too much about it, but this changed the
United States and therefore the world. It also made the
trucking industry more effective, more efficient, more reliable, and above all,
more profitable. It's a study in revolution, that's what the
(10:05):
trucking industry is. Well.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
And as we've already kind of eluded with the rank
of it all, I mean truck driving then or the
industry as it you know, kind of evolves and experiences
this revolution, it becomes not just an economic piece on
the board, but a piece of culture, anextricably linked piece
(10:29):
of American culture. This idea that sort of further emphasized
that freedom that we're talking about, the open road truckers,
this idea of them as being the modern cowboys almost
in a way.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Right, Oh, I like that? Yet, everybody listening now? Please
tonight after this episode finishes, get the to your favorite
audio platform of choice and check out Convoy, a song
by C. W. McColl. Do not check out the sequel
to Convoy, which did not age well, but do check
(11:03):
out Paul Envoy. Check out things like oh Man, Cannonball Run.
This is the age of that in the zeitgeist. You
can see so many songs and films about driving the
open road, about that freedom, that freedom of movement, which
doesn't happen in a lot of other countries, and trucking
had this moment during the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies especially.
(11:29):
We also see in step with this that the industry's
workforce becomes a powerful voice of labor and of workers' rights.
They're participating in strikes, they're donating to campaigns.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
To teamsters, right yeah, just so also participating in pretty
gnarly corruption and linked up with the mob.
Speaker 5 (11:51):
Shout out Jimmy Hoffa.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
But that's just a discussion for another day. But Ben,
I think it's so interesting this idea of like obviously
that thing that we're talking about, this sort of line
that was sold to the American people as freedom.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
It is kind of a line. I mean, it is
very much.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Like a way of tying something that is economically viable
and super important to the economy and tying it to
some sort of like romanticized vision of freedom, like almost
like motorcycles riding motorcycles and stuff like movies like Easy Rider.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
You see the.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Same romanticization of that open road and freedom of all
that associated with truck driving. But it very much is
a gig and something that you know, we absolutely rely on,
you know, to get our stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
And ultimately these kinds of arguments always are at heart
arguments about national defense. That's why even unsuccessful airlines don't
really shut down. They get acquired by other airlines. Right well.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
And to your point about the lobbying power, say of
the Teamsters union, I mean that's power right there, because
a strike would bring industry to its very.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Neaes right one hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Yeah, and I was leveraged by folks like HAFA, and
it is the kind of power that can lead to corruption.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Of course, another thing that's happening in the nineteen seventies
as we're talking about this depiction of the American trucker
on screen, which is you know often in Hollywood. That
is how we kind of get these iconic images burned
into our minds of what a thing is or what
a thing means. And in this time we are dealing
(13:39):
with an unprecedented energy crisis from nineteen seventy three, all
the way to nineteen eighty, which makes me wonder about
the need to instill in the American public a desire
to chase after a job like being a trucker, because
with an energy crisis very similar to what's happening right now,
has a lot to do with Israel and Iran sure
(14:01):
Yom kappor wre a lot of stuff going on out
there with this unprecedented energy costs that exist. Corporations companies
that need to get their goods places have to rely
on the trucking industry. But the trucking industry is this
whole separate thing. And then it becomes, just like we're
going to get into today in the nineteen seventies, an
(14:22):
argument about who actually bears the cost of these rising
energy prices.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Ooh ooh, Matt, I think you're talking about the like
you're talking about like gas shortages right like then hit
the American consumers. Really incredibly well depicted in the movie
Licorice Pizza. It's sort of a comedy coming of age
kind of thing, Paul Thomas Sanderson movie, but there's a
whole section of it where you're seeing that in real
time as it affects the San Fernando Valley in those
Los Angeles area.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
And effect is the key word there, nolled, because a
lot of a lot of people outside of that industry,
outside of trucking and transit, don't realize that transport as
a concept is intimately tied into so many other industries.
I would say the majority of industries in the United States,
(15:08):
which means that breakthroughs in those businesses or changes for
better or worse in those businesses, will affect trucking. It
is our canary as an economy. So you could think
obviously about improvements in auto design, of course, but you
also have to think about communications, technology, refrigeration, et cetera.
(15:31):
This all brings us to the modern day. The trucking
industry in the United States alone is worth over nine
hundred billion dollars. It is so difficult to say that
without doing the doctor Evil voice, but almost, gosh, like
(15:52):
almost seventy five percent. I think it's seventy two percent
of old domestic freight by weight is going to be
on a t at some point before it gets to you.
They're like fifteen million large trucks on the road.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
That's a full five percent of all registered motor vehicles.
If you want to nerd out with us and learn
more of the specifics about back trucks and semis and
all that cool stuff and also you know the guys
hot cauling biohazards, please check out previous episodes of car Stuff.
(16:27):
But I guess the key point here that we want
to convey is that we are talking about millions of jobs.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Millions, Yes we are, guys. I recently took a trip
out Tennessee Way to the mountains out there kind of
is right at the corner of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.
We all know that place of that area over there,
And as you're going through those mountains, you are seeing
so many trucks that are either a climbing up one
(16:58):
of these mountain roads or careening down right. And you
see on the sides on the left hand sides of
a lot of these roads places for the trucks to
go off as like an emergency brake ramp system and
to you know, in case your breaks burn up a
little bit, you gotta save yourself over there. I'm imagining
(17:19):
this entire situation, the one currently happening with the trucking
industry and oil prices and all of this stuff.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
As like.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Trucks as one big truck coreening down the Tennessee Mountains
out there and needs there needs to be some kind
of off ramp because the as the prices continue to
soar and all these problems build up that we're going
to get into today, somebody needs to build a dang
off ramp real quick, and we somebody needs to save
the dang truck so it can continue on. Sorry, I
(17:51):
just got that picture. It's a good way continue I
love it.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
I've seen you guys know that Dylan and I have
some roots in Tennessee, especially in the mountainous area, So
I've actually seen some trucks who had to pull that
ramp and it is scary. It's like learning a hippo
can actually run.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
If you've been through that, we would love to hear
a story like if you've if that's actually happened to you,
please email us or call our number.
Speaker 6 (18:15):
We'll tell you about it at the end of this episode.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
And we have high statistical confidence that we will hear
a story from you, fellow conspiracy realist, because going back
to our earlier point, this industry alone employees over eight
point four million people. Approximately three point five million of
(18:37):
those folks are directly truck drivers. And by the way,
thanks for tuning in, guys. Unlike other industries, this sector
is still dominated by small businesses. The majority of companies
operating and trucking, they are running one hundred or fewer trucks,
so you can still mom and pop this for now.
(19:00):
We're I think it's safe to say we are all
grateful for trucking. I certainly am, not just because it
makes the modern economy possible, but also because truckers are
a huge part of our audience. So thank you for
having us ride along with you and safe travels on
the road. We're big, big fans. And this is always
(19:23):
it's always been a study in change and evolution, but
now it seems some unprecedented paradigm shifts are on the horizon.
We lightly mentioned rising cost of fuel. We didn't mention
the rising cost of insurance, the concept of freight recession,
economic downturns, inflation, the ever increasing threat of automation. These
(19:48):
things have all combined in a very mean case idea
to squeeze trucking in a way we have not seen
before in history. Trucking is in trouble. So is happening
here and what does it mean for the future. We're
going to pause for a word from our sponsors and
we'll dive in. Here's where it gets crazy. All right.
(20:14):
We can start with the present issues, all of which
have been widely acknowledged for some time now but appear
to be worsening in recent years. First, guys, not to
sound like Andy Rooney from sixty minutes, but what's the
deal with the economy? Wait? That was Seinfeld? But yeah,
economic issues.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
Well, let's go back to that.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Statistically, throughout earlier ninety nine point three percent of companies
that are in this business operate one hundred or fewer trucks.
That means they're a small business. That means that when
let's say a single truck goes out and their fuel price,
their cost of operation, just when it comes to fuel
has doubled or maybe at some point triples. Sure, if
(20:59):
you think about, well, if you've ever expensed something for
a company, if you've ever you know, kept track of
how far you've traveled or how much fuel you've used
in a vehicle when you're traveling for work or something,
you imagine, Okay, well that money goes back to the
bigger entity. That bigger entity pays those prices, usually the
(21:19):
end user, unless you're an owner operator and you've got
a specific contract. Usually you're not as the truck driver
paying for that stuff, although there are situations where you
will be on on the line for that. But the
biggest deal here with a smaller business, if you only
got one hundred trucks, and now every single one of
those trucks out there has doubled the cost of you know,
(21:41):
taking a trip across the United States, that has tremendous impact.
Now because you are such a small operation, right, you
imagine it would have a big impact no matter what
size of the company. But the operation costs of a
smaller company, it just becomes it becomes a much more
dire situation, much more quickly.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Right because you can't soak stuff up. You can't make
the you can't make the classic handshake, back room favorable
interest rate on a loan.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
That's fascinating.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
I really didn't realize how many of these or these
operations were so small. I guess I think of like
you know, Swift for example, or some of the larger
ones that you maybe think of. But it makes sense.
I mean, so many trucks are also owned owner operated. Yeah,
you might have an individual, but that number really kind
(22:36):
of blew me away. So it really is kind of
the same sort of problems you see facing small businesses
when the big boys swoop in, you know, the Walmarts
and the barns and nobles, in the way they affect
like smaller retail shops or books booksellers and things like that.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
One hundred percent. Yeah, well, put because trucking is so
deeply tied to so many other industries that you might
not recognize at first blush. Trucking therefore becomes a kind
of canary in this country's economic coal mine. So when
companies and consumers buy less stuff or make less stuff,
(23:16):
truckers have less to transport. And when other industries stop
creating all their widgets and all their goodies, or when
factories close their doors, which is happening pretty often now,
trucking takes a hit. If you want to you know, guys,
I am slowly reluctantly becoming impressed with Newsweek, popular American publication.
(23:41):
Back in twenty twenty five, they had a phenomenal article
about the trends, and they said, quote Since at least
twenty twenty three, bankruptcies in the truck and industry have
been on an upward trend. Over thirty trucking companies have
file for Chapter eleven, which is an American type of bankruptcy,
(24:04):
since the beginning of the second quarter of twenty twenty five.
The latest forecast they report paint a highly uncertain picture
for the industry. And this all ties into something we
got to talk about. It might be a new term
to a lot of us, but I think we can
all feel what it means when we hear it. Freight recession.
(24:27):
So a freight recession is a significant, prolonged decline in
shipping volumes and the cost of shipping those things. And
this often occurs while the economy otherwise seems to be
an okay shape. So some people are saying, look, trucking
(24:47):
is in trouble because we're not keeping drivers. We're finding
that sixty nine percent of freight businesses are trying to
find while drivers like Noel, you made the excellent point
with the bumper sticker, right, the one you clocked was
how's my driving? Call this number. There's another one that
(25:11):
is just as ubiquitous that says do you want a job?
Call this number?
Speaker 5 (25:17):
All right?
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Yeah, because they're probably looking for and also you also,
we'll often see it referred to as in looking for
owner operators, meaning people who own their own truck and
might want to be a part of a certain type
of dispatch network.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
I guess is maybe how to put.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
It, Yeah, while carrying the burden of the operating costs,
that's that's a good Poyer operator. Yeah, it's a good
Poyer insurance and then hang out with us. I mean, look,
is it a is it truly an issue of a
shortage of drivers? Or is it a turnover issue? Because
the industry is getting squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter,
(25:53):
and more and more professional drivers are leaving this business.
They are searching for different and I get to point
out this career is, or historically has been a tremendous
engine of class mobility. Right, you don't have to have
a fancy, expensive degree from a university. Right, you get
(26:16):
your CDL, your commercial driver's license, You're off to the races.
Other people, I don't know, guys, this made me think
about what happened to us with podcasting. Other people are
going to argue that what we're seeing now the trouble
with trucking is due to the roller coaster of the
economy during and after COVID. Right, remember how podcasts blew
(26:40):
up when everybody had to stay at home?
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Of course, yeah, I don't know how could we forget?
It was definitely something that benefited us, you know, in
our career, and we benefited from as well with the
podcast that we enjoyed when it was COVID and we
were feeling isolated and wanting to you know, have that connection.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
So it definitely goes both ways.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
When when well, one thing.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
I just wanted to mention and maybe this is not
quite the same thing, but there are also factors that
could be affecting trucking at large in a similar way
to how Uber and Lyft sort of disrupted cab driving
and you know, more traditional industries like that. You do
have companies like I think it's called rov or something
(27:26):
along those lines, where you will have individuals that can
sign up and then do deliveries you know, in place
of more traditional but obviously that's not going to be
large freight. I mean, these are people maybe that have
vans or you know, slightly larger consumer vehicles, but I
am curious as to if there are any sort of
tech disruptions at play here as well.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
There definitely are.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Just to get back on the concept of potentially, there's
the shortage of drivers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
they're around eighty thousand fewer drivers than needed right now,
so a shortage of eighty thousand human beings. And they
that group, the BLS estimates there's going to be around
(28:11):
one hundred and sixty thousand drivers that are needed and
that don't exist by twenty thirty. And again that's a
tough statistic to even think about because of the rest
of the factors we're going to be talking about today.
Like you just mentioned, they're in all automation and those
I forget what they call them. They're like the short
(28:33):
that short route trucking that is becoming a bigger thing
that is becoming automated right now, and you know, will
likely have further automation in the future. But it does
feel to me, at least according to a lot of
places you look online. I was looking at Centerline Drivers,
which is an interesting website because ultimately they're trying to
(28:53):
sell you a service or to get you to sign
up with them, but they do make mention there of
the way truckers are depicted, And we spent some time
earlier in this episode talking about how you know truckers
are depicted in this specific time. You know, in nineteen sixties,
nineteen seventies, there's a lot of romanticization of this job.
(29:17):
But lately, and especially as you go on, and I
would guys, I would say it's tied directly to gas prices,
and as oil prices go way way, way, way way down,
there's something about the depiction of truck drivers become not
at all something you would imagine wanting to do, especially
if you're a kid just consuming television, watching movies. You're
(29:39):
not thinking, oh, I wish I could be a truck
driver like him, because the freedom isn't romanticized anymore. The
you know, upward mobility and potential to make good money
at your job isn't depicted.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
What gets shown.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Is, oh, I never see my spouse anymore.
Speaker 6 (29:57):
My kids are grown up without me.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
The human beings that are cast as truck drivers don't
look the same as they did when they're starring in
action movies, right. I think there's something to all of
that wrapped up in.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
This and people are still debating this issue, whether there
is a driver shortage or whether people are just having
high turnarounds and leaving the jobs because the industry is
getting tighter and tighter again. Now you will see folks
like Professor Steven Burks over at the University of Minnesota,
(30:34):
very smart guy, very much boffin. He is a professor
of economics now, but he's a former truck driver himself,
and he said the real issue, going back to my
earlier point about COVID and the economic roller coaster, people
like Professor Burks will say the real issue is excess
(30:54):
capacity because demand rose right during the pandemic when everybody
was locked in at home, and then it fell sharply
since the post COVID boom because as the COVID lockdown
eased up, trucking saw a huge renaissance in employment. I
think at least part of that is because a lot
(31:15):
of people wanted to get back out on the open road.
God knows. I drove in circles around two to eighty
five a few times during the lockdown, and Professor Burke said, Hey,
becoming a truck driver at that time was like a
golden handshake. This has been historically a great driver again
of class mobility. You got flexible hours, you don't need
(31:39):
that expensive education. You have the clear opportunity or growth
path to eventually become your own owner operator. Right now,
you can choose the cargo, you can choose the deals.
But the issue with a boom in any industry is
that booms do not tend to be permanent. It made
(31:59):
me think lot about how the farming industry lives and
dies on the whims of the.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Weather and the fertilizer available that's being produced in oh,
I don't know, the Middle East and goes through the
strait of horbos Well.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
And some booms can actually turn out to be bubbles, right, yeah,
exactly what's the difference between a boom and a bubble?
Speaker 3 (32:23):
And similar to what we're saying about the farming industry,
the trucking industry lives and dies on the whims of
the greater economy. It's a huge bag of badgers, different
factors that are beyond the control of any single individual
or any single companies. Now trucking is experiencing a dangerous downturn.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Just to stay on shortages of drivers one more moment.
The American Transportation Research Institute talks about the age of drivers.
We've talked before about aging populations and what that does
to economies, And according to the American Transportation Research Institute,
the average retirement age of someone in the trucking industry
is around sixty two years old. And right now, sixty
(33:11):
two percent of the trucking workforce is aged forty five
to sixty sixty two percent forty five to sixty. Only
twenty percent of truck drivers are under thirty five years old.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
It's not getting an injection of like new blood, like
an exact the industry.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Yeah, which is happening with a lot of trades that
makes sense, is yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
But specifically in this one. You know, trucking is not
an easy job when it comes to physically being in
a truck all day long. And there's just so many
things that are physically taxing about this job.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Well, and there's quotas, there's stress, there's pressure to get
you know, to make your deadlines and all of that stuff.
And sometimes that involves keeping really crazy hours and driving
through the night and you know, having to do things
that might even put you in jeopardy sometimes.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Yeah, and I won't get into it too much, but
there are professional drivers and truckers in my family, and
I'm sure a lot of us in the audience tonight
have similar relationships. If we look at the industry overall,
not just talking about the replenishment rate of individual operators.
(34:20):
We go to folks like Avery Vice, who is the
vice president of Trucking at FTR Transport Intelligence. And here's
how Vice describes the trucking industry now. He calls it
a quote severe hangover from the extraordinarily strong freight market
(34:41):
from late twenty twenty to early twenty twenty two. So
in less the economy in the US and abroad stabilizes
and less demand increases to those previous again anomalists extraordinary
levels of demand. This trend is going to continue, which
means that truck driving may no longer be the guaranteed
(35:04):
successful career it was in the past. It's terrible because,
like you were saying, no, people are having more and
more pressure put upon them, right, and you can't fast
forward the road. Those geographical distances are going to stay
the same. Every mile just gets more expensive.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Well, it just makes sense if people can't afford to
do anything, If inflation goes to these prices and affordability, yes,
that is the word, mister president. If affordability is at
levels to where it's unsustainable for us to buy any
new things, we all have to tighten our belt so much,
then it stands we don't need the new things to
(35:46):
be shipped anywhere. It doesn't matter how great the Amazon
deals are, because Amazon, let's not forget, is the biggest
player in the game here when it comes to filling
warehouses with stuff. Truck's just flowing in and out all
the time, and then the smaller Amazon vans that show
up around your neighborhood perhaps or down the street that
you see all the time.
Speaker 6 (36:08):
We can't.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
When human beings can't afford things, we don't need things.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
There's a tipping point, right, I mean, that's I think
like one hundred percent. There's there's that the realistic, logistic
aspect of it too, But then there's just.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
The breaking point of human beings.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
And I am absolutely not saying this is okay, but
I am fascinated by this story out of Ontario, California,
of a warehouse employee who set the place on fire.
A Kimberly Clark warehouse saying if only you had paid
us enough to survive. You know, that's a sentiment, and
I think another canary in the coal mine of like
where where we are as a country in terms of
(36:45):
these these crucial quote unquote you know, non negotiable essential services,
thank you, that are often staffed by folks who are
utterly taken for granted and are utterly treated and not
paid living wages. And yet we keep seeing the top
one percent, et cetera, just getting fatter and richer every day.
(37:07):
And there's going to come a point where people are
are going to start burning down more warehouses or like
not driving you.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Know, yeah, of course, yeah, And this will leads us
to our second big issue, uh with what an excellent
lobby way to enter this house of cards. Inflation. We'll
be back afterward from our sponsors. We're back. We've teased
(37:35):
it a little bit. Inflation, you know it, you know it,
hopefully don't love it. It is closely tied to the
other economic factors that we have previously mentioned. It affects
every single aspect of American life. And we're going to
be a little us focused for this one. You don't
have to look further than your grocery store right, or
(37:58):
you're Zillow or whatever, your local real estate market, your
gas station. People are paid more and more for less
and less across the board, and I would say there
is a conspiracy at play here. Now some people have said,
we're alarmist about this, but I will, I'll take a
(38:20):
bullet on this hill. During the pandemic, various corporations increased
prices logically as a result of rising costs due to
manufacturing and the breakdown of supply chains. But as the
lockdown eased, and we all know this, as the lockdown
eased and global trade networks reconnected and it became less
(38:42):
expensive to make stuff and get stuff to people, those companies,
a lot of them, they should have brought the prices
back down, but they just did not.
Speaker 5 (38:51):
And why would they.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
They're not in the business of rolling things back and
like going back to the old way giving people a deal.
I mean, you take that situation and you benefit from it.
That's how that's how capitalism works, and it sucks.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
The corporation literally cannot reduce prices.
Speaker 5 (39:10):
You have to show growth forever.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
It's in the body, the only way, it's in the
the existence. Like if you reduce prices. You are not
servicing your shareholders enough, and you got to service them
shareholders baby.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Year over year, year over year.
Speaker 6 (39:28):
Right, servicing them sharehold See.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
What you're doing here with that innuendo, and I'm here
for it. Service the hell out of those shareholders.
Speaker 6 (39:36):
They have to, it's their job.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
So these companies reasoned that they had normalize these new
costs because all of their research indicated that consumers, yeah,
we're buying less, but they were still buying stuff. And
this created an Uruburus right of feedback loop because the
concept of selling fewer things for higher prices meant that
(40:01):
the people and the companies were pushing against each other.
Now Here in twenty twenty six, things are becoming patently ridiculous.
Shout out to these seven dollars bags of Dorito's. Did
you guys see that news story?
Speaker 4 (40:16):
No, but well I can read between the lines context cluser, there,
I get it.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
My multiprocessed ranch flavored things or seven dollars now.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Right, just the corn and salty seasoning. Here's the thing.
This triggered a disaster for Pepsi Coo. They pushed the
envelope a little bit too hard when they hiked the
price of Dorito's and Cheetos and Lay's Chips to seven
dollars a bag. They realized that they had gone a
(40:50):
bridge too far, just like in I Think You should
leave when the guy tries to roll his hat down
and shouts at the lady.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
Well, Ben, this makes me think of something that Hassan
Piker said that I was listening to I thought was
really interesting. He said in American in particular, the thing
that's really going to cause revolution is when you start
taking away people's treats.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Oh and whether.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
That be and he was kind of couching it all
as one big bag of badgers.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
That is consumption, but you know.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
That is a big part of it, that level of inflation,
that level of pushing the greed envelope just a little
too far, and then once again prices of oil and
causing some of these things and us not being able
to get our treats anymore delivered to our door. We've
become so dependent on those, and that is when you
really start to see people getting upset and turning on
(41:44):
their politicians, like we're starting to see a lot of
Republicans doing once our treats are beginning to be threatened.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Yeah, I believe it was. I believe the quote goes
every nation is a couple of good snacks away from revolution. Definitely,
nobody fact check US. Truckers are consumers as well, so
they're already, like are folks listening now, You're already feeling
the pinch everybody else feels in your day to day lives.
(42:13):
But you are also experiencing dramatic price hikes in all
the stuff that you need to keep driving to keep
doing your job and chasing your coos bags of doritos. Sure,
cost of fuel, that's a constant concern. Energy drinks, of course,
well done, man, and insurance is going nuts, my monsters,
(42:36):
my white crosses. Ooh, that's a dated reference. And the
one thing that remains the same. I was playing around
with this a little bit earlier in the episode. But
the one thing that remains the same is the road
and the travel time. So the distance of your roots
of your job, they don't adjust with inflation. It is
(42:58):
always going to be seven hundred and seventeen miles from
Atlanta to Chicago.
Speaker 5 (43:04):
Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 4 (43:05):
It didn't really occurred to me, but that's so obvious,
Like the roads aren't getting any like more efficient, shorter,
The trucks aren't getting any magically faster, you know, Congestion
isn't getting any better, or if anything, maybe some of
these things are getting worse. And yet you're still expected
to meet the same quotas potentially for less pay and
with less time off.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
I love that you're vibing with that, because Okay, seven
hundred and seventeen miles just off the dom Chicago Atlanta, right,
that's about ten hours forty five minutes if you drive
legally and if traffic doesn't screw you.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
And many of these trucks, by the way, have things
on them called governors where you're not able like you're monitored,
and you're not like able to like, you know, put
the pedal to the metal, per se.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Right, So, if we're the hypothetical trucker, and that's a
great point, No, if we're the hypothetical trucker, we are
driving the same amount of time, we're driving the same
amount of distance. Our operating costs are skyrocketing, so each
mile is becoming more expensive for us. And I can't
remember which one of us set this a few minutes back,
(44:10):
but the question becomes, who pays for those costs. The
burden of higher costs will naturally translate to a higher
price for the end consumer. But we can't forget it
takes a huge bite out of the once normal profits
for truck drivers.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Let's talk about those roads some more.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Again, I don't get out on the road road that often,
but when I do, I take note on how well
the old infrastructure is doing. And we've talked about that
on this show a couple of times. We know our
friend John Oliver has been talking about that years and
years ago. Just the state of roads and then the
state of congestion as well. Guys, there are an insane
(44:53):
number of cars on the roads now, even smaller highways, states, routes.
It is insane. And then the number of those roads
that have massive holes in them, construction that is ongoing
that doesn't appear to be going anywhere. It is a
wild concept. When we're we're talking about that route from
(45:14):
Atlanta to Chicago, the number of things you're gonna have
to deal with along that journey, and just how treacherous
and dangerous that journey becomes. We've talked before about the
differences between flying air and the dangers of that versus
the dangers of riding around on these roads, especially if
(45:39):
you have like an equal amount of time on both
or something. Just how much more treacherous the highway is.
Even if you're riding in those far right lanes in
a giant truck, the danger of you being injured or
killed is crazy high.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Oh yeah, you know what, guys, Let's take a note
from our fare metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia and just keep
adding lanes to the interstate. Let's make the lane special,
you know, h O v oh express pass. Oh sorry, Ben,
there's a Honda Odyssey lane. Now, these guys the worst. Whatever,
(46:17):
Thanks for the beef, Dylan.
Speaker 4 (46:18):
Yeah, and that this is Matt. This isn't even to
mention like the ice truckers of it.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
All right, like the really crazy routes. Yeah, I mean
that exists too, of course.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Right, there's this there's this interesting piece. Oh gosh, I
can't remember where I was reading it. It was a
the concept of increasing the number of lanes in a
highway actually increases congestion and slows traffic down. Yes, which
is such a no, not an intuitive thing, right, It does.
Speaker 4 (46:46):
Make sense when you think about it, if you actually
participated in the system like here in Atlanta, because it
requires so much changing lanes, and everyone's trying to do
it at the same time, and everyone's psyching each other out,
and no one's really very good at it, and so
you end up with all these extra obstacles and extravariables
as opposed to just maintaining lane, which is what I
try to do, by the way, and I think it's
what most people should try to do.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Also, also just let people in occasionally. Please use your
turn signals. They're not a limited resources, not.
Speaker 5 (47:13):
A contest, it's not a demolition derby.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Every BMW driver tuning in right now, you need to
hear this. You don't have to respond, you don't have
to write to us. Just keep it with you, take
it inside and listen. You were not going to run
out of turn signals. Okay, Yeah, it's not a DLC,
it's not an ad on subscription. Just go nuts and
let people know when you're taking a left.
Speaker 5 (47:37):
We're not all bad guys.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
The apologies to BMW man.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
I got stuck behind a car for a long, long
part of my trip back to Atlantic and you guess
what type of vehicle it was.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
I am the worst, Noel. Can you guess because I
have I have.
Speaker 5 (47:56):
Did you feel like Odysseus out there?
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Matt?
Speaker 6 (47:59):
I did. I felt.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
This is the.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Closest I get to discrimination you guys. I hate those things. Oh, Man, Sorry, Honda,
I know there are a lot of We've had a
lot of people who rode in.
Speaker 4 (48:13):
I'm a Honda, man, I'm driving Odyssey, but I know
I do enjoy a Honda.
Speaker 5 (48:17):
I'm not going.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Yeah, So sorry for that predilection, Matt. I'm so sorry
man that you fell victim to the streets there.
Speaker 6 (48:24):
Oh, I'm just playing.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
My sister drives an Odyssey and it's a it's an
incredible vehicle, by the way, and fits her kids in
there great and a ton of stuff.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
I'm not sure. I'm sure it is.
Speaker 6 (48:35):
She's just a very safe driver.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
And I'm a little more on the skirt skirt yeah,
I mean not too much, but not a reasonable amount.
Speaker 5 (48:43):
I think you just like a little zooms in your life.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
You're a great driver. You just got a heavy foot sometimes,
and that happens all of us, you know. Uh, here's
the thing, this situation we're talking about the economic factors,
just those they don't seem set to resolve. Something has
to change. That leads us to the next issue. Everything
that Tennessee, Noel, Matt and yours truly are talking about.
(49:11):
Remember how we said technological breakthroughs in one industry often
affect transit. That's happening now. We are in the midst
of the AI and automation revolution. So if I'm an optimist,
if I'm like a flat Earth Thomas Friedman doing a
little Ted talk, then I'll say, oh, automated vehicles, autonomous vehicles,
(49:33):
that's the key to saving this whole industry. But more
pessimistic analyst, including a lot of truckers that we know personally,
see this as a death knell, right for whom does
the way mode toll? It tolls for thee.
Speaker 6 (49:48):
Who ends up making money?
Speaker 5 (49:49):
Now?
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Right, if you automate that stuff, that money goes directly
into the hands of whatever the primary distributor is, because
they're going to be the folks running the trucks. You're
not gonna have mom and pop automated trucking lines.
Speaker 4 (50:04):
And it's such a trickle kind of situation, much like
we saw with backlash against against Uber rideshare and all
of that stuff. Now we're starting to see.
Speaker 5 (50:14):
A tiny little trickle.
Speaker 4 (50:15):
Of automated vehicles, you know, even replacing the ride share
And it makes sense that we haven't seen it roll
out yet in the commercial shipping industry because people wouldn't
have it, People wouldn't stand for it right away. The
backlash would be huge, So they got to kind of
creep it in there, right.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
Yeah, Yeah, that's a you know, it's like a classic
bully tactic. Actually, just push the boundary a little bit further,
move the over to window of what is acceptable conversation
or behavior. And I love that point because here in
our fair metropolis, we're already lousy with way mos. Now
(50:51):
they're not big chalky boys, they're not mac or semi
trucks or what have you. But there is no shortage
of news stories that range from hilarious is to disturbing
about what happens when this imperfect emergent technology gets things wrong.
And if you live in a city with waymos, you've
probably seen it. Your hopefully favorite host have personal experiences
(51:14):
with waymos just sort of fritzing out right, not figuring
out the crosswalk, not being able to predict human drivers.
But the trend is unstoppable and it honestly is a
noble pursuit, really, if it's made in good faith, because
corporatetocracy aside. If humanity can get this technology right, then
(51:38):
civilization could enter a world with way fewer traffic jams,
far fewer auto accidents, and most importantly fewer people dying
on the road.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
And way fewer human beings with a living wage.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
But the thing is, yeah, exactly, it's a great point.
The thing is that a lot of companies are as
a greater good argument. The real motivation for these profits
seeking corporations is to make a ton of money. They're
huge rounds of investment already happening. There is an arms
(52:15):
race to become the first autonomous fleet vehicle provider, and
we're not there yet. Civilization is not ready just now.
The technology is not ready just now for a large
scale autonomous freight. But now we're no longer talking about
if avs or autonomous vehicles will become a thing. Now
(52:39):
we are talking about when some people are going to
tell you, oh, it's twenty years right. There's a great
Guardian article about this. Some people say five.
Speaker 4 (52:47):
Doesn't it seem like a rail transport would be the
first candidate for automation, being.
Speaker 5 (52:54):
That it's literally on rails.
Speaker 4 (52:56):
But I think that and I say it out loud,
but then I also then am reminded that that infrastructure
is like one hundred.
Speaker 5 (53:02):
Years old, you know.
Speaker 4 (53:03):
I mean it is like like literally they built the
railroads and all of that. And we think about what
other countries are doing with like things like bullet trains
and like you know in Japan, and the technology for
transit just being so far above and beyond what we
have here in the States. But that would seem like
it would be something that would be being looked at
because that's you know, a conductor is obviously important, but
they're not exactly steering or avoiding you know, small children
(53:26):
in the road. You do have to watch out for, penelope.
Pit stops tied to the train tracks.
Speaker 5 (53:30):
Though.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
One thing about the rail industry, we know there are
a lot of human beings that make let's say, a
stop along the railway where you're actually loading cargo or
you know, taking stuff out of like of the trains.
There are a lot of human beings that function in
jobs in those places. But if you think about the
(53:52):
actual train, if you imagine a trucks sitting there with
a single truck driver. Now, imagine a train. How many
human beings are that train? Like, let's say it's got
miles of stuff that is taking three right, ben, So yes,
three human beings. So that's three jobs for that one
(54:12):
train that gets automated and you don't need them anymore.
Maybe one stays on to make sure everything's okay.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
Oh yeah, like the the remote engineer who keeps an
eye on what happens in the way. Mow, Yes, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
But with that one automated train, you've effectively eliminated sixty
six percent of the healthcare costs that the company is
having to pay, right, because you have to imagine these
corporations are thinking about this stuff in these ways.
Speaker 6 (54:40):
And I'm just kind of stuck on the jobs.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
Just again, going on this recent trip and seeing the
number of human beings that are in trucks just going
and just that is their job, that is their lifeblood
for their family, right, and all of these things as
they're coming into play, it's just what you you do.
If you've been a trucker for twenty years and that
(55:04):
just is not even an option anymore. You can't even do.
Speaker 4 (55:06):
It, guys, really, quickly. I just have to recommend, and
many folks are probably aware of this. It definitely was
a buzzy movie. But Park Chan Wook, who made Old Boy,
which I know we all love, his most recent film
is called No Other Choice, and it is about the
human cost of automation. And that is only one small
(55:27):
fraction or fragment of the plot.
Speaker 5 (55:29):
Of this movie.
Speaker 4 (55:30):
It is ultimately a very hitchcocky and thriller, but it
depicts this existential crisis in a darkly comedic way, and
I can't recommend it enough.
Speaker 5 (55:41):
The way it ends, we'll leave you thinking about this in.
Speaker 4 (55:44):
A very big way, and we'll leave your on the
floor and you won't even kind of realize how hard it.
Speaker 5 (55:50):
Hits for like a couple of days, almost boil. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (55:54):
I love that one. I love that guy. We also, Yeah,
our point here is thoroughly human. iHeart Radio guaranteed human.
We know that Google, Uber, and Tesla are big players
in the drive for av or autonomous vehicles, but you
have to realize those are three companies out of more
(56:15):
than two hundred and sixty companies who are all doing
the same thing. These vehicles either eliminate driver jobs, human
driver jobs or downgrade them a bit to copilots, to
procters on a test. This is terrifying to a lot
of people in the industry. You want to exercise that
(56:37):
moment of empathy. You know what happens to these drivers
when computers take over. It's similar historically to asking what
happens to all the farriers when cars roll out? Right now,
putting on horseshoes is becoming a hobby, right because horses
are a hobby, They're at best a niche form of
(56:59):
transper rotation. We know that the following states North Dakota, Wyoming,
and Arkansas are probably going to see the biggest impact
on their labor force because they have the most drivers
relative to other occupations in their states. But if you
look at the rollout of a v then you're going
to see that drivers in California, Texas, and Florida are
(57:24):
their jobs are the most at threat. And Guys, I
wasn't sure if we were going to do this on
Netflix or on the air. We do have to mention
the Teamsters Union with great respect, with great respect, don't
come get us with great respect to the Teamsters. They've
been No, Seriously, I'm kind of scared of the teamsters.
Speaker 4 (57:47):
They're tough and they're very powerful even still.
Speaker 3 (57:51):
Yeah, shout out to HAFA. They have been instrumental in advocating, lobbying,
pushing for new legislation they're abing to. For instance, in
California have laws that mandate human operators in autonomous vehicles
weigh over ten thousand pounds. These are chonky boys.
Speaker 5 (58:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
So if you're wayboat gets a left turn wrong at
a crosswalk, somebody honks their horn. But if this massive
vehicle doesn't hit the off ramp in the Tennessee Hills,
people can die.
Speaker 4 (58:25):
Well, And this is this is a good, a good
moment to say, here's a great example of why unions
are good because they protect people, especially now, you know,
given these existential threats to people's employment that is posed
by all of this automation and aiifification and stuff. You know,
same things happening in Hollywood, you know where like the writers'
(58:46):
unions and people are writing in all these caveats to
their bylaws, et cetera, and contracts with studios to you know,
the very least slow roll the tide, stem the tide
of AI.
Speaker 5 (58:58):
But the problem there.
Speaker 4 (58:59):
Is you can't fight it forever, and it's just kind
of a slowing down of the flow, you know, stopping
it down. Eventually the new thing is gonna win out.
That's just how it works.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
Yeah, but yeah, I love that point because really we're
talking about mitigation, We're talking about civilization. Taking a moment,
walking outside and breathing, touching some grass. How are we
going to handle this? It's the old game legislation versus innovation.
Depending upon to your point, know how quickly this rolls out,
(59:33):
how quickly it gets adopted, how widely it spreads. We
could be looking at millions of people out of work
in the United States alone, So how are these folks
going to find new jobs? How are they going to
feed their families? How governments cope with this?
Speaker 4 (59:48):
We'll have universal bas aga income by then, right, We'll
be in a utilh tree situation then and it's a
universal base againcome kind of communism, by the way, I
just want to throw.
Speaker 5 (59:57):
That out there.
Speaker 4 (59:58):
I think it's kind of human Okay, but you know
what I mean though, Like it just feels like we're
heading in this direction where we've we're looking to dehumanize
so many aspects of American life without any plan for
what to do for the humans. And there are there
are things like the idea of universal basic income that
seem vaguely you know, uh, socialists or communist, but there
(01:00:21):
really isn't a rollout plan for any of that stuff.
And it just seems to be a talking point to
get people to stop freaking out.
Speaker 5 (01:00:28):
But I don't really see it working. And it seems
like a lot of.
Speaker 4 (01:00:30):
People are going to let be left behind, and there's
going to be a spike in unhoused statistics and people
that can't afford to pay to feed their families and
their mortgages with the price of housing going through the
roof and all of the I don't know, man.
Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Yeah, you UBI is a lot like the nice words are.
It's a lot like an ear scratch you would give
to an animal before you put it down, right. It
sounds good, but the thing is happening. We have to
keep in mind to your point that if this occurs,
if there is a mass unemployment crisis in the trucking industry,
(01:01:05):
it will not occur in a vacuum. It will occur
in step with other mass unemployment issues in other sectors
of the greater economy.
Speaker 5 (01:01:14):
The indicator aspect, like you're saying, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
It will all occur as part of a new sea
change in automation. So let's say we're a hypothetical former trucker.
We're very good at our job, but we have been
automated out like so many human beings. The system has
made us redundant. Now we're looking for a new career,
but we're not in a normal job market. We're cast
(01:01:39):
into a royaling sea of countless other job seekers programmers,
administrative assistants, customer service representatives, data entry clerks, and podcasters.
Speaker 5 (01:01:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:01:52):
A friend of mine did just point out to me, like,
you're not not on that list, buddy.
Speaker 5 (01:01:57):
You're not.
Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
I mean just saying, you know, we we kid ourselves
and say no, no, people will always need humans to
talk smack on the microphone, but the AI gets good
enough and they can't tell the difference.
Speaker 5 (01:02:08):
I don't know about that though, because I would personally
have a problem with that. I don't want to have
I want to hear, dude, I want to hear from people,
you know.
Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
I want a connection with people, and I hope that
enough people, you know, do.
Speaker 5 (01:02:21):
I like people.
Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
I'm a fan of man me too really quickly.
Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
I want to take this to Australia because we were
talking about this being a universal problem, and we've talked
a lot about we know the US because we live
in the US. In Australia, there they are in what
they're considering a trucking crisis.
Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
A talk trains right, all kinds of yes.
Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
And also operators of trucks are lovingly referred to as
truckies by even the folks in the legislature there. But
there there was what is it an emergency hearing very
recently at the Fair Work Commission in Sydney where you've
got groups like the Transport Workers UNI in the TWU
(01:03:02):
hanging out with people from the Australian Road Transport Industrial
Organization and the National Road Freighters Association all hanging out
and saying, hey, we all the people we represent and
are a part of the operators of trucks. We are
eating the costs of these insane energy prices, the oil
prices right now because of the craziness that the US
(01:03:24):
is doing with Israel. And what they're looking for is
for some kind of laws to be put into effect
where folks who are manufacturing goods, folks who are selling
goods to all actually help out with paying the cost
of the rising energy prices, rather than just the operators
and the trucker the truckies paying for it. And it
(01:03:46):
reminds me a lot of the food crisis episode we
just talked about.
Speaker 7 (01:03:49):
Oh gosh, yes, where does theeah who actually bears the
brunt of the rising prices here when it comes to
the manufacturing and getting those goods and services to you
the consumer.
Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
And they are it looks like they're making headway this
with this thing called the Fairer Fuel Bill, but it
doesn't they're not satisfied with it. Just quickly read a
quote here from Michael Kine, not Michael Kane, Michael Kine
from the Transport Workers Union.
Speaker 6 (01:04:18):
He's the national secretary.
Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
He said, the problem we've got in road transport is
that unless we grab this crisis by the scruff of
the neck and deal with it, then road transport is
going to come to a grinding halt that is unsustainable.
It's even more unsustainable in circumstances where there is no
light at the end of the tunnel, which means theoretically
here at least there doesn't seem to be an off
(01:04:41):
ramp here for the problems facing the trucking industry. And
if the trucking industry goes, as we said at the
top of this episode, the food goes. It's not in
your stores anymore. All the stuff you need to buy
doesn't exist anymore. You can't get an Amazon driver to
show up at your house at six pm when you
woke up at eleven and said, hey.
Speaker 6 (01:05:01):
I need that thing. It just won't happen.
Speaker 4 (01:05:03):
Well, guys, what's the alternative? The answer isn't. There isn't one,
right like automation isn't there yet, So there's a real
quandary here.
Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
Yeah, agreed, there, you know this is the issue. To
your point, thereal without the right regulation and legislation, this
can well be an economic disaster. Uncle Sam is not
the only one predicting this. Australia, as we just saw,
has also predicted it. Western Europe is talking about it.
(01:05:32):
China is very aware of this. We have to end
with the question that is on everybody's mind, what happens next?
And we are not truckers ourselves, we're very big fans
of yours. Thank you again for tuning in. As you
can tell, we love you folks. Thank you for being
so cool, and thank you very much for blowing the
(01:05:56):
horn when we ask would you drive? Do you guys
still do that?
Speaker 5 (01:05:59):
Absolutely? I think they love it.
Speaker 6 (01:06:00):
Yeah, I think it's cool.
Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
And thank you for all the epic driving, and also
thank you for getting all the stuff where it needs
to go from point A to point Z. We would
love to hear your thoughts, especially if you're in trucking
or related industries. Where do you see this heading and
especially when it comes to the autonomous vehicle revolution? Are
these worries overblown? Are they underestimated? Please let us know.
(01:06:26):
We cannot wait to hear from you. We try to
be easy to find on the lines. Should thou sip
the social meds, you can give us a call. You
can always send us an email.
Speaker 5 (01:06:35):
Sure can.
Speaker 4 (01:06:36):
You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff or
Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on your social med flavor of choice.
Speaker 5 (01:06:43):
And there's more.
Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
Yes, we have a phone number one eight three three
std WYTK if you can do it hands free from
your truck. We highly recommend that. Hopefully it's an okay
sound environment for a voicemail. If not, that's fine, you
can wait till you hit that next stop. That you're
going to and give us a call when you call in,
(01:07:04):
and give yourself a nickname, and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you want to send us an email, you can
do that too.
Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet I'm afraid sometimes the
void writes back. So for this one, for this missive,
this piece of correspondence. Please tell us about your favorite
experiences at truck stops. Please tell us about the shadiest
(01:07:30):
or strangest gas station encounters. We'll see you out here
in the dark. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call me Bed. We're joined as always with our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. And let's give it
up for the truckers. If you work in the transit, right,
(00:51):
it's so cool. If you work in the transit or
transportation industry, which, as we'll see, touches so many things,
this one is for you because every single day in
the United States, and indeed around the world, billions of supplies, resources,
(01:11):
products they move through these labyrinthine network logistics, right, these
global trade patterns. And obviously, guys, we know air freight
plays a big role, but it's so expensive that it's
often impractical, and cargo ships are irreplaceable. Check out our
episodes on those. But you're not going to see a
(01:34):
cargo ship barely, not by seventy five.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, no matter how that cargo gets onto like a mainland.
There is always going to have to be a truck
that takes that stuff off of the dock, a truck
that takes that stuff to a warehouse somewhere, you know it. Yeah,
as you're saying, Ben, it doesn't go from plane to
your Walmart.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
No, that's the thing that ferries the goods to its
final destination.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yeah, trains are great. We are fans of trains, I
think as a group. But trains can only go where
the railroad tracks let them go. So eventually, to your point, Noel,
all cargo has to find a way to get to
your grocery store, to your place of work, to your doorstep.
(02:20):
Trucking is what makes it possible for sure.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
And yeah, you know it's I've I've known some long
haul truckers in my day and they really truly are
irreplaceable in terms of their ability to do the job,
the stamina that it requires to do that job. And
you know, you want good ones out there who drive safe.
You know how am I driving? If someone's not doing well,
(02:45):
you should maybe.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Call that number.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
We know there are a ton of you out there
listening right now in trucks that's.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
True to hear from you.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yes, of course, you call in all the time, you
send us emails all the time.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
We know you're there.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
You're doing the hard work so that we can have
the stuff. And just as we said, we really do
appreciate you, and I think anybody you know who's paying
attention really appreciates you.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah, you're a big part of our show, one of
our favorite parts of the show. And fellow conspiracy realist,
whether you are in this industry or not, in this industry,
it does touch you. And the reality now as we
record on Friday, April tenth, twenty twenty six, is this
(03:30):
trucking is in trouble. Here are the facts, all right,
We said it before, but it bears repeating. Most people
have no idea that so much of the economy depends
entirely upon this thing we call the trucking industry. Like,
(03:52):
after all, it doesn't matter what you make, even if
you make the best the widget in the world, it's
bup is unless you can get it to your customers.
And this has been the way of the developed world
since the mass adoption of the automobile in the twentieth century.
I mean, guys, remember like before trucks were a thing.
(04:14):
Freight came on trains, right, came on ships, or you
would have to find an unlucky horse and say, ride
this wagon with me out to Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Well, it's another reason that things like spiking oil prices
are felt and beyond just the price that you pay
at the pump, because those increases get factored into the
whole system, and that whole you know, labyrinthine network of
logistics that go into making sure that the stuff gets
where it's going in a timely fashion and gets to you.
(04:48):
So when we have stuff like that happening in the world,
it's causing stuff like we're having happen right now in
the world that causes these fluctuations and inconsistencies you know
in oil prices. That is something that you are paying for,
whether you drive a car or not.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Way before the invention of the automobile or the rule
out hah, we had the same problems with transit, you know, like, oh,
is horse feed increasing, right, that's our fuel. Shout out
to Apollo, very big opinions on that one. The pre automobile,
(05:25):
the logistics of getting stuff from point A to point Z,
where cartoonish. It was a messy bull of spaghetti, was
a bad bag of badgers. It was a hord barrier
seriously to economic growth because stuff could only go from
one place to another at a certain non ideal rate
(05:46):
of time. And trucking fundamentally changes all of that because
it revolutionizes transit, it revolutionizes therefore the world economy overall.
We know that trucks f get extensively used by the
military like so many other technologies. Back in World War One.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, we talked about in the past just how important
rivers are to any country. Anywhere you live, you will
notice that there are major metropolitan areas usually right next
to a river, a huge river, a river that is
large enough to send large boats down. And that was because,
along with rail, that river was the only way to
(06:27):
get massive, heavy amounts of goods from one place to another.
And this concept of having another way to do that,
it requires a bunch of things. The first thing that
you need is roads, right, because you can't have a
whole bunch of heavy stuff clanking around on a big truck.
(06:48):
Even if you got a big truck, it doesn't matter
if the stuff you're carrying from a to B gets
destroyed along the way because your truck can't handle whatever
it is you're riding.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Because you didn't think of the shocks. You didn't think
of the suspension. Yeah, like, okay, so it's the nineteen thirties.
At this point in the story, the civilian side of
the industry begins to blossom in step with that earlier point,
the rollout of paved road networks. And at this juncture
(07:21):
in history, folks automobiles still have that kind of new
car smell. We're in a honeymoon period with them. Not
everybody is a fan. There are lots of people complaining
these cars are too loud. There are a lot of
breathless hit pieces in the media of the day, and
there are a lot of public safety concerns because you know,
(07:42):
people are being run over by and by cars. Yeah,
the conspiracy of jaywalking.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Right, well, for sure, that's the same thing again, kind
of putting the onus onto the consumer, right Like, now,
all of a sudden, if you're walking, you're part of
the problem because you're like some.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Sort of luddite.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
But also, hey, good thing we had lead right, keep
quite quiet down those knocket engines.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Stop knock it, stop knocking give.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Us, Yeah, give us more serial murderers and prime epidemics.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Check out our earlier episode.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I think about the stories that were sold to the
American people to take on this massive expense of building
all of these roads and highways across the United States,
all the interstates and stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
This is nineteen fifty six, the creation of the inner
interstate highway system, which was pitched to the public as
an issue of national defense, which is also I have
a really weird paper about this. We should consider public
healthcare a matter of national defense. So if you're feeling squirrely,
(08:47):
send us an email. We'll send you the paper. Well.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, And one of the primary things that sold to
us as freedom the freedom to get in your car
that you probably have now are considering getting, and you
could drive anywhere you want. You could go anywhere you want.
Like this concept of the freedom of mobility, it really
is an infrastructure gold mine for folks who have industry,
(09:13):
who produce goods and want to get them places.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Absolutely, one hundred percent. Yeah, we know that this leads
to the creation of local, regional, and national government policies.
Right about especially the public outcry earlier about what vehicles
can drive where and when and how long a driver
can be allowed to operate a vehicle each day or
(09:39):
each week. The Interstate highway system is amazing. Not to
nerd out too much about it, but this changed the
United States and therefore the world. It also made the
trucking industry more effective, more efficient, more reliable, and above all,
more profitable. It's a study in revolution, that's what the
(10:05):
trucking industry is. Well.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
And as we've already kind of eluded with the rank
of it all, I mean truck driving then or the
industry as it you know, kind of evolves and experiences
this revolution, it becomes not just an economic piece on
the board, but a piece of culture, anextricably linked piece
(10:29):
of American culture. This idea that sort of further emphasized
that freedom that we're talking about, the open road truckers,
this idea of them as being the modern cowboys almost
in a way.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Right, Oh, I like that? Yet, everybody listening now? Please
tonight after this episode finishes, get the to your favorite
audio platform of choice and check out Convoy, a song
by C. W. McColl. Do not check out the sequel
to Convoy, which did not age well, but do check
(11:03):
out Paul Envoy. Check out things like oh Man, Cannonball Run.
This is the age of that in the zeitgeist. You
can see so many songs and films about driving the
open road, about that freedom, that freedom of movement, which
doesn't happen in a lot of other countries, and trucking
had this moment during the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies especially.
(11:29):
We also see in step with this that the industry's
workforce becomes a powerful voice of labor and of workers' rights.
They're participating in strikes, they're donating to campaigns.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
To teamsters, right yeah, just so also participating in pretty
gnarly corruption and linked up with the mob.
Speaker 5 (11:51):
Shout out Jimmy Hoffa.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
But that's just a discussion for another day. But Ben,
I think it's so interesting this idea of like obviously
that thing that we're talking about, this sort of line
that was sold to the American people as freedom.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
It is kind of a line. I mean, it is
very much.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Like a way of tying something that is economically viable
and super important to the economy and tying it to
some sort of like romanticized vision of freedom, like almost
like motorcycles riding motorcycles and stuff like movies like Easy Rider.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
You see the.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Same romanticization of that open road and freedom of all
that associated with truck driving. But it very much is
a gig and something that you know, we absolutely rely on,
you know, to get our stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
And ultimately these kinds of arguments always are at heart
arguments about national defense. That's why even unsuccessful airlines don't
really shut down. They get acquired by other airlines. Right well.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
And to your point about the lobbying power, say of
the Teamsters union, I mean that's power right there, because
a strike would bring industry to its very.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Neaes right one hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Yeah, and I was leveraged by folks like HAFA, and
it is the kind of power that can lead to corruption.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Of course, another thing that's happening in the nineteen seventies
as we're talking about this depiction of the American trucker
on screen, which is you know often in Hollywood. That
is how we kind of get these iconic images burned
into our minds of what a thing is or what
a thing means. And in this time we are dealing
(13:39):
with an unprecedented energy crisis from nineteen seventy three, all
the way to nineteen eighty, which makes me wonder about
the need to instill in the American public a desire
to chase after a job like being a trucker, because
with an energy crisis very similar to what's happening right now,
has a lot to do with Israel and Iran sure
(14:01):
Yom kappor wre a lot of stuff going on out
there with this unprecedented energy costs that exist. Corporations companies
that need to get their goods places have to rely
on the trucking industry. But the trucking industry is this
whole separate thing. And then it becomes, just like we're
going to get into today in the nineteen seventies, an
(14:22):
argument about who actually bears the cost of these rising
energy prices.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Ooh ooh, Matt, I think you're talking about the like
you're talking about like gas shortages right like then hit
the American consumers. Really incredibly well depicted in the movie
Licorice Pizza. It's sort of a comedy coming of age
kind of thing, Paul Thomas Sanderson movie, but there's a
whole section of it where you're seeing that in real
time as it affects the San Fernando Valley in those
Los Angeles area.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
And effect is the key word there, nolled, because a
lot of a lot of people outside of that industry,
outside of trucking and transit, don't realize that transport as
a concept is intimately tied into so many other industries.
I would say the majority of industries in the United States,
(15:08):
which means that breakthroughs in those businesses or changes for
better or worse in those businesses, will affect trucking. It
is our canary as an economy. So you could think
obviously about improvements in auto design, of course, but you
also have to think about communications, technology, refrigeration, et cetera.
(15:31):
This all brings us to the modern day. The trucking
industry in the United States alone is worth over nine
hundred billion dollars. It is so difficult to say that
without doing the doctor Evil voice, but almost, gosh, like
(15:52):
almost seventy five percent. I think it's seventy two percent
of old domestic freight by weight is going to be
on a t at some point before it gets to you.
They're like fifteen million large trucks on the road.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
That's a full five percent of all registered motor vehicles.
If you want to nerd out with us and learn
more of the specifics about back trucks and semis and
all that cool stuff and also you know the guys
hot cauling biohazards, please check out previous episodes of car Stuff.
(16:27):
But I guess the key point here that we want
to convey is that we are talking about millions of jobs.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Millions, Yes we are, guys. I recently took a trip
out Tennessee Way to the mountains out there kind of
is right at the corner of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.
We all know that place of that area over there,
And as you're going through those mountains, you are seeing
so many trucks that are either a climbing up one
(16:58):
of these mountain roads or careening down right. And you
see on the sides on the left hand sides of
a lot of these roads places for the trucks to
go off as like an emergency brake ramp system and
to you know, in case your breaks burn up a
little bit, you gotta save yourself over there. I'm imagining
(17:19):
this entire situation, the one currently happening with the trucking
industry and oil prices and all of this stuff.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
As like.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Trucks as one big truck coreening down the Tennessee Mountains
out there and needs there needs to be some kind
of off ramp because the as the prices continue to
soar and all these problems build up that we're going
to get into today, somebody needs to build a dang
off ramp real quick, and we somebody needs to save
the dang truck so it can continue on. Sorry, I
(17:51):
just got that picture. It's a good way continue I
love it.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
I've seen you guys know that Dylan and I have
some roots in Tennessee, especially in the mountainous area, So
I've actually seen some trucks who had to pull that
ramp and it is scary. It's like learning a hippo
can actually run.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
If you've been through that, we would love to hear
a story like if you've if that's actually happened to you,
please email us or call our number.
Speaker 6 (18:15):
We'll tell you about it at the end of this episode.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
And we have high statistical confidence that we will hear
a story from you, fellow conspiracy realist, because going back
to our earlier point, this industry alone employees over eight
point four million people. Approximately three point five million of
(18:37):
those folks are directly truck drivers. And by the way,
thanks for tuning in, guys. Unlike other industries, this sector
is still dominated by small businesses. The majority of companies
operating and trucking, they are running one hundred or fewer trucks,
so you can still mom and pop this for now.
(19:00):
We're I think it's safe to say we are all
grateful for trucking. I certainly am, not just because it
makes the modern economy possible, but also because truckers are
a huge part of our audience. So thank you for
having us ride along with you and safe travels on
the road. We're big, big fans. And this is always
(19:23):
it's always been a study in change and evolution, but
now it seems some unprecedented paradigm shifts are on the horizon.
We lightly mentioned rising cost of fuel. We didn't mention
the rising cost of insurance, the concept of freight recession,
economic downturns, inflation, the ever increasing threat of automation. These
(19:48):
things have all combined in a very mean case idea
to squeeze trucking in a way we have not seen
before in history. Trucking is in trouble. So is happening
here and what does it mean for the future. We're
going to pause for a word from our sponsors and
we'll dive in. Here's where it gets crazy. All right.
(20:14):
We can start with the present issues, all of which
have been widely acknowledged for some time now but appear
to be worsening in recent years. First, guys, not to
sound like Andy Rooney from sixty minutes, but what's the
deal with the economy? Wait? That was Seinfeld? But yeah,
economic issues.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
Well, let's go back to that.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Statistically, throughout earlier ninety nine point three percent of companies
that are in this business operate one hundred or fewer trucks.
That means they're a small business. That means that when
let's say a single truck goes out and their fuel price,
their cost of operation, just when it comes to fuel
has doubled or maybe at some point triples. Sure, if
(20:59):
you think about, well, if you've ever expensed something for
a company, if you've ever you know, kept track of
how far you've traveled or how much fuel you've used
in a vehicle when you're traveling for work or something,
you imagine, Okay, well that money goes back to the
bigger entity. That bigger entity pays those prices, usually the
(21:19):
end user, unless you're an owner operator and you've got
a specific contract. Usually you're not as the truck driver
paying for that stuff, although there are situations where you
will be on on the line for that. But the
biggest deal here with a smaller business, if you only
got one hundred trucks, and now every single one of
those trucks out there has doubled the cost of you know,
(21:41):
taking a trip across the United States, that has tremendous impact.
Now because you are such a small operation, right, you
imagine it would have a big impact no matter what
size of the company. But the operation costs of a
smaller company, it just becomes it becomes a much more
dire situation, much more quickly.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Right because you can't soak stuff up. You can't make
the you can't make the classic handshake, back room favorable
interest rate on a loan.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
That's fascinating.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
I really didn't realize how many of these or these
operations were so small. I guess I think of like
you know, Swift for example, or some of the larger
ones that you maybe think of. But it makes sense.
I mean, so many trucks are also owned owner operated. Yeah,
you might have an individual, but that number really kind
(22:36):
of blew me away. So it really is kind of
the same sort of problems you see facing small businesses
when the big boys swoop in, you know, the Walmarts
and the barns and nobles, in the way they affect
like smaller retail shops or books booksellers and things like that.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
One hundred percent. Yeah, well, put because trucking is so
deeply tied to so many other industries that you might
not recognize at first blush. Trucking therefore becomes a kind
of canary in this country's economic coal mine. So when
companies and consumers buy less stuff or make less stuff,
(23:16):
truckers have less to transport. And when other industries stop
creating all their widgets and all their goodies, or when
factories close their doors, which is happening pretty often now,
trucking takes a hit. If you want to you know, guys,
I am slowly reluctantly becoming impressed with Newsweek, popular American publication.
(23:41):
Back in twenty twenty five, they had a phenomenal article
about the trends, and they said, quote Since at least
twenty twenty three, bankruptcies in the truck and industry have
been on an upward trend. Over thirty trucking companies have
file for Chapter eleven, which is an American type of bankruptcy,
(24:04):
since the beginning of the second quarter of twenty twenty five.
The latest forecast they report paint a highly uncertain picture
for the industry. And this all ties into something we
got to talk about. It might be a new term
to a lot of us, but I think we can
all feel what it means when we hear it. Freight recession.
(24:27):
So a freight recession is a significant, prolonged decline in
shipping volumes and the cost of shipping those things. And
this often occurs while the economy otherwise seems to be
an okay shape. So some people are saying, look, trucking
(24:47):
is in trouble because we're not keeping drivers. We're finding
that sixty nine percent of freight businesses are trying to
find while drivers like Noel, you made the excellent point
with the bumper sticker, right, the one you clocked was
how's my driving? Call this number. There's another one that
(25:11):
is just as ubiquitous that says do you want a job?
Call this number?
Speaker 5 (25:17):
All right?
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Yeah, because they're probably looking for and also you also,
we'll often see it referred to as in looking for
owner operators, meaning people who own their own truck and
might want to be a part of a certain type
of dispatch network.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
I guess is maybe how to put.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
It, Yeah, while carrying the burden of the operating costs,
that's that's a good Poyer operator. Yeah, it's a good
Poyer insurance and then hang out with us. I mean, look,
is it a is it truly an issue of a
shortage of drivers? Or is it a turnover issue? Because
the industry is getting squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter,
(25:53):
and more and more professional drivers are leaving this business.
They are searching for different and I get to point
out this career is, or historically has been a tremendous
engine of class mobility. Right, you don't have to have
a fancy, expensive degree from a university. Right, you get
(26:16):
your CDL, your commercial driver's license, You're off to the races.
Other people, I don't know, guys, this made me think
about what happened to us with podcasting. Other people are
going to argue that what we're seeing now the trouble
with trucking is due to the roller coaster of the
economy during and after COVID. Right, remember how podcasts blew
(26:40):
up when everybody had to stay at home?
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Of course, yeah, I don't know how could we forget?
It was definitely something that benefited us, you know, in
our career, and we benefited from as well with the
podcast that we enjoyed when it was COVID and we
were feeling isolated and wanting to you know, have that connection.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
So it definitely goes both ways.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
When when well, one thing.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
I just wanted to mention and maybe this is not
quite the same thing, but there are also factors that
could be affecting trucking at large in a similar way
to how Uber and Lyft sort of disrupted cab driving
and you know, more traditional industries like that. You do
have companies like I think it's called rov or something
(27:26):
along those lines, where you will have individuals that can
sign up and then do deliveries you know, in place
of more traditional but obviously that's not going to be
large freight. I mean, these are people maybe that have
vans or you know, slightly larger consumer vehicles, but I
am curious as to if there are any sort of
tech disruptions at play here as well.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
There definitely are.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Just to get back on the concept of potentially, there's
the shortage of drivers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
they're around eighty thousand fewer drivers than needed right now,
so a shortage of eighty thousand human beings. And they
that group, the BLS estimates there's going to be around
(28:11):
one hundred and sixty thousand drivers that are needed and
that don't exist by twenty thirty. And again that's a
tough statistic to even think about because of the rest
of the factors we're going to be talking about today.
Like you just mentioned, they're in all automation and those
I forget what they call them. They're like the short
(28:33):
that short route trucking that is becoming a bigger thing
that is becoming automated right now, and you know, will
likely have further automation in the future. But it does
feel to me, at least according to a lot of
places you look online. I was looking at Centerline Drivers,
which is an interesting website because ultimately they're trying to
(28:53):
sell you a service or to get you to sign
up with them, but they do make mention there of
the way truckers are depicted, And we spent some time
earlier in this episode talking about how you know truckers
are depicted in this specific time. You know, in nineteen sixties,
nineteen seventies, there's a lot of romanticization of this job.
(29:17):
But lately, and especially as you go on, and I
would guys, I would say it's tied directly to gas prices,
and as oil prices go way way, way, way way down,
there's something about the depiction of truck drivers become not
at all something you would imagine wanting to do, especially
if you're a kid just consuming television, watching movies. You're
(29:39):
not thinking, oh, I wish I could be a truck
driver like him, because the freedom isn't romanticized anymore. The
you know, upward mobility and potential to make good money
at your job isn't depicted.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
What gets shown.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Is, oh, I never see my spouse anymore.
Speaker 6 (29:57):
My kids are grown up without me.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
The human beings that are cast as truck drivers don't
look the same as they did when they're starring in
action movies, right. I think there's something to all of
that wrapped up in.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
This and people are still debating this issue, whether there
is a driver shortage or whether people are just having
high turnarounds and leaving the jobs because the industry is
getting tighter and tighter again. Now you will see folks
like Professor Steven Burks over at the University of Minnesota,
(30:34):
very smart guy, very much boffin. He is a professor
of economics now, but he's a former truck driver himself,
and he said the real issue, going back to my
earlier point about COVID and the economic roller coaster, people
like Professor Burks will say the real issue is excess
(30:54):
capacity because demand rose right during the pandemic when everybody
was locked in at home, and then it fell sharply
since the post COVID boom because as the COVID lockdown
eased up, trucking saw a huge renaissance in employment. I
think at least part of that is because a lot
(31:15):
of people wanted to get back out on the open road.
God knows. I drove in circles around two to eighty
five a few times during the lockdown, and Professor Burke said, Hey,
becoming a truck driver at that time was like a
golden handshake. This has been historically a great driver again
of class mobility. You got flexible hours, you don't need
(31:39):
that expensive education. You have the clear opportunity or growth
path to eventually become your own owner operator. Right now,
you can choose the cargo, you can choose the deals.
But the issue with a boom in any industry is
that booms do not tend to be permanent. It made
(31:59):
me think lot about how the farming industry lives and
dies on the whims of the.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Weather and the fertilizer available that's being produced in oh,
I don't know, the Middle East and goes through the
strait of horbos Well.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
And some booms can actually turn out to be bubbles, right, yeah,
exactly what's the difference between a boom and a bubble?
Speaker 3 (32:23):
And similar to what we're saying about the farming industry,
the trucking industry lives and dies on the whims of
the greater economy. It's a huge bag of badgers, different
factors that are beyond the control of any single individual
or any single companies. Now trucking is experiencing a dangerous downturn.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Just to stay on shortages of drivers one more moment.
The American Transportation Research Institute talks about the age of drivers.
We've talked before about aging populations and what that does
to economies, And according to the American Transportation Research Institute,
the average retirement age of someone in the trucking industry
is around sixty two years old. And right now, sixty
(33:11):
two percent of the trucking workforce is aged forty five
to sixty sixty two percent forty five to sixty. Only
twenty percent of truck drivers are under thirty five years old.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
It's not getting an injection of like new blood, like
an exact the industry.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Yeah, which is happening with a lot of trades that
makes sense, is yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
But specifically in this one. You know, trucking is not
an easy job when it comes to physically being in
a truck all day long. And there's just so many
things that are physically taxing about this job.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Well, and there's quotas, there's stress, there's pressure to get
you know, to make your deadlines and all of that stuff.
And sometimes that involves keeping really crazy hours and driving
through the night and you know, having to do things
that might even put you in jeopardy sometimes.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Yeah, and I won't get into it too much, but
there are professional drivers and truckers in my family, and
I'm sure a lot of us in the audience tonight
have similar relationships. If we look at the industry overall,
not just talking about the replenishment rate of individual operators.
(34:20):
We go to folks like Avery Vice, who is the
vice president of Trucking at FTR Transport Intelligence. And here's
how Vice describes the trucking industry now. He calls it
a quote severe hangover from the extraordinarily strong freight market
(34:41):
from late twenty twenty to early twenty twenty two. So
in less the economy in the US and abroad stabilizes
and less demand increases to those previous again anomalists extraordinary
levels of demand. This trend is going to continue, which
means that truck driving may no longer be the guaranteed
(35:04):
successful career it was in the past. It's terrible because,
like you were saying, no, people are having more and
more pressure put upon them, right, and you can't fast
forward the road. Those geographical distances are going to stay
the same. Every mile just gets more expensive.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Well, it just makes sense if people can't afford to
do anything, If inflation goes to these prices and affordability, yes,
that is the word, mister president. If affordability is at
levels to where it's unsustainable for us to buy any
new things, we all have to tighten our belt so much,
then it stands we don't need the new things to
(35:46):
be shipped anywhere. It doesn't matter how great the Amazon
deals are, because Amazon, let's not forget, is the biggest
player in the game here when it comes to filling
warehouses with stuff. Truck's just flowing in and out all
the time, and then the smaller Amazon vans that show
up around your neighborhood perhaps or down the street that
you see all the time.
Speaker 6 (36:08):
We can't.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
When human beings can't afford things, we don't need things.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
There's a tipping point, right, I mean, that's I think
like one hundred percent. There's there's that the realistic, logistic
aspect of it too, But then there's just.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
The breaking point of human beings.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
And I am absolutely not saying this is okay, but
I am fascinated by this story out of Ontario, California,
of a warehouse employee who set the place on fire.
A Kimberly Clark warehouse saying if only you had paid
us enough to survive. You know, that's a sentiment, and
I think another canary in the coal mine of like
where where we are as a country in terms of
(36:45):
these these crucial quote unquote you know, non negotiable essential services,
thank you, that are often staffed by folks who are
utterly taken for granted and are utterly treated and not
paid living wages. And yet we keep seeing the top
one percent, et cetera, just getting fatter and richer every day.
(37:07):
And there's going to come a point where people are
are going to start burning down more warehouses or like
not driving you.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Know, yeah, of course, yeah, And this will leads us
to our second big issue, uh with what an excellent
lobby way to enter this house of cards. Inflation. We'll
be back afterward from our sponsors. We're back. We've teased
(37:35):
it a little bit. Inflation, you know it, you know it,
hopefully don't love it. It is closely tied to the
other economic factors that we have previously mentioned. It affects
every single aspect of American life. And we're going to
be a little us focused for this one. You don't
have to look further than your grocery store right, or
(37:58):
you're Zillow or whatever, your local real estate market, your
gas station. People are paid more and more for less
and less across the board, and I would say there
is a conspiracy at play here. Now some people have said,
we're alarmist about this, but I will, I'll take a
(38:20):
bullet on this hill. During the pandemic, various corporations increased
prices logically as a result of rising costs due to
manufacturing and the breakdown of supply chains. But as the
lockdown eased, and we all know this, as the lockdown
eased and global trade networks reconnected and it became less
(38:42):
expensive to make stuff and get stuff to people, those companies,
a lot of them, they should have brought the prices
back down, but they just did not.
Speaker 5 (38:51):
And why would they.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
They're not in the business of rolling things back and
like going back to the old way giving people a deal.
I mean, you take that situation and you benefit from it.
That's how that's how capitalism works, and it sucks.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
The corporation literally cannot reduce prices.
Speaker 5 (39:10):
You have to show growth forever.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
It's in the body, the only way, it's in the
the existence. Like if you reduce prices. You are not
servicing your shareholders enough, and you got to service them
shareholders baby.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Year over year, year over year.
Speaker 6 (39:28):
Right, servicing them sharehold See.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
What you're doing here with that innuendo, and I'm here
for it. Service the hell out of those shareholders.
Speaker 6 (39:36):
They have to, it's their job.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
So these companies reasoned that they had normalize these new
costs because all of their research indicated that consumers, yeah,
we're buying less, but they were still buying stuff. And
this created an Uruburus right of feedback loop because the
concept of selling fewer things for higher prices meant that
(40:01):
the people and the companies were pushing against each other.
Now Here in twenty twenty six, things are becoming patently ridiculous.
Shout out to these seven dollars bags of Dorito's. Did
you guys see that news story?
Speaker 4 (40:16):
No, but well I can read between the lines context cluser, there,
I get it.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
My multiprocessed ranch flavored things or seven dollars now.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Right, just the corn and salty seasoning. Here's the thing.
This triggered a disaster for Pepsi Coo. They pushed the
envelope a little bit too hard when they hiked the
price of Dorito's and Cheetos and Lay's Chips to seven
dollars a bag. They realized that they had gone a
(40:50):
bridge too far, just like in I Think You should
leave when the guy tries to roll his hat down
and shouts at the lady.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
Well, Ben, this makes me think of something that Hassan
Piker said that I was listening to I thought was
really interesting. He said in American in particular, the thing
that's really going to cause revolution is when you start
taking away people's treats.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Oh and whether.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
That be and he was kind of couching it all
as one big bag of badgers.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
That is consumption, but you know.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
That is a big part of it, that level of inflation,
that level of pushing the greed envelope just a little
too far, and then once again prices of oil and
causing some of these things and us not being able
to get our treats anymore delivered to our door. We've
become so dependent on those, and that is when you
really start to see people getting upset and turning on
(41:44):
their politicians, like we're starting to see a lot of
Republicans doing once our treats are beginning to be threatened.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Yeah, I believe it was. I believe the quote goes
every nation is a couple of good snacks away from revolution. Definitely,
nobody fact check US. Truckers are consumers as well, so
they're already, like are folks listening now, You're already feeling
the pinch everybody else feels in your day to day lives.
(42:13):
But you are also experiencing dramatic price hikes in all
the stuff that you need to keep driving to keep
doing your job and chasing your coos bags of doritos. Sure,
cost of fuel, that's a constant concern. Energy drinks, of course,
well done, man, and insurance is going nuts, my monsters,
(42:36):
my white crosses. Ooh, that's a dated reference. And the
one thing that remains the same. I was playing around
with this a little bit earlier in the episode. But
the one thing that remains the same is the road
and the travel time. So the distance of your roots
of your job, they don't adjust with inflation. It is
(42:58):
always going to be seven hundred and seventeen miles from
Atlanta to Chicago.
Speaker 5 (43:04):
Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 4 (43:05):
It didn't really occurred to me, but that's so obvious,
Like the roads aren't getting any like more efficient, shorter,
The trucks aren't getting any magically faster, you know, Congestion
isn't getting any better, or if anything, maybe some of
these things are getting worse. And yet you're still expected
to meet the same quotas potentially for less pay and
with less time off.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
I love that you're vibing with that, because Okay, seven
hundred and seventeen miles just off the dom Chicago Atlanta, right,
that's about ten hours forty five minutes if you drive
legally and if traffic doesn't screw you.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
And many of these trucks, by the way, have things
on them called governors where you're not able like you're monitored,
and you're not like able to like, you know, put
the pedal to the metal, per se.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Right, So, if we're the hypothetical trucker, and that's a
great point, No, if we're the hypothetical trucker, we are
driving the same amount of time, we're driving the same
amount of distance. Our operating costs are skyrocketing, so each
mile is becoming more expensive for us. And I can't
remember which one of us set this a few minutes back,
(44:10):
but the question becomes, who pays for those costs. The
burden of higher costs will naturally translate to a higher
price for the end consumer. But we can't forget it
takes a huge bite out of the once normal profits
for truck drivers.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Let's talk about those roads some more.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Again, I don't get out on the road road that often,
but when I do, I take note on how well
the old infrastructure is doing. And we've talked about that
on this show a couple of times. We know our
friend John Oliver has been talking about that years and
years ago. Just the state of roads and then the
state of congestion as well. Guys, there are an insane
(44:53):
number of cars on the roads now, even smaller highways, states, routes.
It is insane. And then the number of those roads
that have massive holes in them, construction that is ongoing
that doesn't appear to be going anywhere. It is a
wild concept. When we're we're talking about that route from
(45:14):
Atlanta to Chicago, the number of things you're gonna have
to deal with along that journey, and just how treacherous
and dangerous that journey becomes. We've talked before about the
differences between flying air and the dangers of that versus
the dangers of riding around on these roads, especially if
(45:39):
you have like an equal amount of time on both
or something. Just how much more treacherous the highway is.
Even if you're riding in those far right lanes in
a giant truck, the danger of you being injured or
killed is crazy high.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Oh yeah, you know what, guys, Let's take a note
from our fare metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia and just keep
adding lanes to the interstate. Let's make the lane special,
you know, h O v oh express pass. Oh sorry, Ben,
there's a Honda Odyssey lane. Now, these guys the worst. Whatever,
(46:17):
Thanks for the beef, Dylan.
Speaker 4 (46:18):
Yeah, and that this is Matt. This isn't even to
mention like the ice truckers of it.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
All right, like the really crazy routes. Yeah, I mean
that exists too, of course.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Right, there's this there's this interesting piece. Oh gosh, I
can't remember where I was reading it. It was a
the concept of increasing the number of lanes in a
highway actually increases congestion and slows traffic down. Yes, which
is such a no, not an intuitive thing, right, It does.
Speaker 4 (46:46):
Make sense when you think about it, if you actually
participated in the system like here in Atlanta, because it
requires so much changing lanes, and everyone's trying to do
it at the same time, and everyone's psyching each other out,
and no one's really very good at it, and so
you end up with all these extra obstacles and extravariables
as opposed to just maintaining lane, which is what I
try to do, by the way, and I think it's
what most people should try to do.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Also, also just let people in occasionally. Please use your
turn signals. They're not a limited resources, not.
Speaker 5 (47:13):
A contest, it's not a demolition derby.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Every BMW driver tuning in right now, you need to
hear this. You don't have to respond, you don't have
to write to us. Just keep it with you, take
it inside and listen. You were not going to run
out of turn signals. Okay, Yeah, it's not a DLC,
it's not an ad on subscription. Just go nuts and
let people know when you're taking a left.
Speaker 5 (47:37):
We're not all bad guys.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
The apologies to BMW man.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
I got stuck behind a car for a long, long
part of my trip back to Atlantic and you guess
what type of vehicle it was.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
I am the worst, Noel. Can you guess because I
have I have.
Speaker 5 (47:56):
Did you feel like Odysseus out there?
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Matt?
Speaker 6 (47:59):
I did. I felt.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
This is the.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Closest I get to discrimination you guys. I hate those things. Oh, Man, Sorry, Honda,
I know there are a lot of We've had a
lot of people who rode in.
Speaker 4 (48:13):
I'm a Honda, man, I'm driving Odyssey, but I know
I do enjoy a Honda.
Speaker 5 (48:17):
I'm not going.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Yeah, So sorry for that predilection, Matt. I'm so sorry
man that you fell victim to the streets there.
Speaker 6 (48:24):
Oh, I'm just playing.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
My sister drives an Odyssey and it's a it's an
incredible vehicle, by the way, and fits her kids in
there great and a ton of stuff.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
I'm not sure. I'm sure it is.
Speaker 6 (48:35):
She's just a very safe driver.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
And I'm a little more on the skirt skirt yeah,
I mean not too much, but not a reasonable amount.
Speaker 5 (48:43):
I think you just like a little zooms in your life.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
You're a great driver. You just got a heavy foot sometimes,
and that happens all of us, you know. Uh, here's
the thing, this situation we're talking about the economic factors,
just those they don't seem set to resolve. Something has
to change. That leads us to the next issue. Everything
that Tennessee, Noel, Matt and yours truly are talking about.
(49:11):
Remember how we said technological breakthroughs in one industry often
affect transit. That's happening now. We are in the midst
of the AI and automation revolution. So if I'm an optimist,
if I'm like a flat Earth Thomas Friedman doing a
little Ted talk, then I'll say, oh, automated vehicles, autonomous vehicles,
(49:33):
that's the key to saving this whole industry. But more
pessimistic analyst, including a lot of truckers that we know personally,
see this as a death knell, right for whom does
the way mode toll? It tolls for thee.
Speaker 6 (49:48):
Who ends up making money?
Speaker 5 (49:49):
Now?
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Right, if you automate that stuff, that money goes directly
into the hands of whatever the primary distributor is, because
they're going to be the folks running the trucks. You're
not gonna have mom and pop automated trucking lines.
Speaker 4 (50:04):
And it's such a trickle kind of situation, much like
we saw with backlash against against Uber rideshare and all
of that stuff. Now we're starting to see.
Speaker 5 (50:14):
A tiny little trickle.
Speaker 4 (50:15):
Of automated vehicles, you know, even replacing the ride share
And it makes sense that we haven't seen it roll
out yet in the commercial shipping industry because people wouldn't
have it, People wouldn't stand for it right away. The
backlash would be huge, So they got to kind of
creep it in there, right.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
Yeah, Yeah, that's a you know, it's like a classic
bully tactic. Actually, just push the boundary a little bit further,
move the over to window of what is acceptable conversation
or behavior. And I love that point because here in
our fair metropolis, we're already lousy with way mos. Now
(50:51):
they're not big chalky boys, they're not mac or semi
trucks or what have you. But there is no shortage
of news stories that range from hilarious is to disturbing
about what happens when this imperfect emergent technology gets things wrong.
And if you live in a city with waymos, you've
probably seen it. Your hopefully favorite host have personal experiences
(51:14):
with waymos just sort of fritzing out right, not figuring
out the crosswalk, not being able to predict human drivers.
But the trend is unstoppable and it honestly is a
noble pursuit, really, if it's made in good faith, because
corporatetocracy aside. If humanity can get this technology right, then
(51:38):
civilization could enter a world with way fewer traffic jams,
far fewer auto accidents, and most importantly fewer people dying
on the road.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
And way fewer human beings with a living wage.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
But the thing is, yeah, exactly, it's a great point.
The thing is that a lot of companies are as
a greater good argument. The real motivation for these profits
seeking corporations is to make a ton of money. They're
huge rounds of investment already happening. There is an arms
(52:15):
race to become the first autonomous fleet vehicle provider, and
we're not there yet. Civilization is not ready just now.
The technology is not ready just now for a large
scale autonomous freight. But now we're no longer talking about
if avs or autonomous vehicles will become a thing. Now
(52:39):
we are talking about when some people are going to
tell you, oh, it's twenty years right. There's a great
Guardian article about this. Some people say five.
Speaker 4 (52:47):
Doesn't it seem like a rail transport would be the
first candidate for automation, being.
Speaker 5 (52:54):
That it's literally on rails.
Speaker 4 (52:56):
But I think that and I say it out loud,
but then I also then am reminded that that infrastructure
is like one hundred.
Speaker 5 (53:02):
Years old, you know.
Speaker 4 (53:03):
I mean it is like like literally they built the
railroads and all of that. And we think about what
other countries are doing with like things like bullet trains
and like you know in Japan, and the technology for
transit just being so far above and beyond what we
have here in the States. But that would seem like
it would be something that would be being looked at
because that's you know, a conductor is obviously important, but
they're not exactly steering or avoiding you know, small children
(53:26):
in the road. You do have to watch out for, penelope.
Pit stops tied to the train tracks.
Speaker 5 (53:30):
Though.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
One thing about the rail industry, we know there are
a lot of human beings that make let's say, a
stop along the railway where you're actually loading cargo or
you know, taking stuff out of like of the trains.
There are a lot of human beings that function in
jobs in those places. But if you think about the
(53:52):
actual train, if you imagine a trucks sitting there with
a single truck driver. Now, imagine a train. How many
human beings are that train? Like, let's say it's got
miles of stuff that is taking three right, ben, So yes,
three human beings. So that's three jobs for that one
(54:12):
train that gets automated and you don't need them anymore.
Maybe one stays on to make sure everything's okay.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
Oh yeah, like the the remote engineer who keeps an
eye on what happens in the way. Mow, Yes, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
But with that one automated train, you've effectively eliminated sixty
six percent of the healthcare costs that the company is
having to pay, right, because you have to imagine these
corporations are thinking about this stuff in these ways.
Speaker 6 (54:40):
And I'm just kind of stuck on the jobs.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
Just again, going on this recent trip and seeing the
number of human beings that are in trucks just going
and just that is their job, that is their lifeblood
for their family, right, and all of these things as
they're coming into play, it's just what you you do.
If you've been a trucker for twenty years and that
(55:04):
just is not even an option anymore. You can't even do.
Speaker 4 (55:06):
It, guys, really, quickly. I just have to recommend, and
many folks are probably aware of this. It definitely was
a buzzy movie. But Park Chan Wook, who made Old Boy,
which I know we all love, his most recent film
is called No Other Choice, and it is about the
human cost of automation. And that is only one small
(55:27):
fraction or fragment of the plot.
Speaker 5 (55:29):
Of this movie.
Speaker 4 (55:30):
It is ultimately a very hitchcocky and thriller, but it
depicts this existential crisis in a darkly comedic way, and
I can't recommend it enough.
Speaker 5 (55:41):
The way it ends, we'll leave you thinking about this in.
Speaker 4 (55:44):
A very big way, and we'll leave your on the
floor and you won't even kind of realize how hard it.
Speaker 5 (55:50):
Hits for like a couple of days, almost boil. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (55:54):
I love that one. I love that guy. We also, Yeah,
our point here is thoroughly human. iHeart Radio guaranteed human.
We know that Google, Uber, and Tesla are big players
in the drive for av or autonomous vehicles, but you
have to realize those are three companies out of more
(56:15):
than two hundred and sixty companies who are all doing
the same thing. These vehicles either eliminate driver jobs, human
driver jobs or downgrade them a bit to copilots, to
procters on a test. This is terrifying to a lot
of people in the industry. You want to exercise that
(56:37):
moment of empathy. You know what happens to these drivers
when computers take over. It's similar historically to asking what
happens to all the farriers when cars roll out? Right now,
putting on horseshoes is becoming a hobby, right because horses
are a hobby, They're at best a niche form of
(56:59):
transper rotation. We know that the following states North Dakota, Wyoming,
and Arkansas are probably going to see the biggest impact
on their labor force because they have the most drivers
relative to other occupations in their states. But if you
look at the rollout of a v then you're going
to see that drivers in California, Texas, and Florida are
(57:24):
their jobs are the most at threat. And Guys, I
wasn't sure if we were going to do this on
Netflix or on the air. We do have to mention
the Teamsters Union with great respect, with great respect, don't
come get us with great respect to the Teamsters. They've
been No, Seriously, I'm kind of scared of the teamsters.
Speaker 4 (57:47):
They're tough and they're very powerful even still.
Speaker 3 (57:51):
Yeah, shout out to HAFA. They have been instrumental in advocating, lobbying,
pushing for new legislation they're abing to. For instance, in
California have laws that mandate human operators in autonomous vehicles
weigh over ten thousand pounds. These are chonky boys.
Speaker 5 (58:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
So if you're wayboat gets a left turn wrong at
a crosswalk, somebody honks their horn. But if this massive
vehicle doesn't hit the off ramp in the Tennessee Hills,
people can die.
Speaker 4 (58:25):
Well, And this is this is a good, a good
moment to say, here's a great example of why unions
are good because they protect people, especially now, you know,
given these existential threats to people's employment that is posed
by all of this automation and aiifification and stuff. You know,
same things happening in Hollywood, you know where like the writers'
(58:46):
unions and people are writing in all these caveats to
their bylaws, et cetera, and contracts with studios to you know,
the very least slow roll the tide, stem the tide
of AI.
Speaker 5 (58:58):
But the problem there.
Speaker 4 (58:59):
Is you can't fight it forever, and it's just kind
of a slowing down of the flow, you know, stopping
it down. Eventually the new thing is gonna win out.
That's just how it works.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
Yeah, but yeah, I love that point because really we're
talking about mitigation, We're talking about civilization. Taking a moment,
walking outside and breathing, touching some grass. How are we
going to handle this? It's the old game legislation versus innovation.
Depending upon to your point, know how quickly this rolls out,
(59:33):
how quickly it gets adopted, how widely it spreads. We
could be looking at millions of people out of work
in the United States alone, So how are these folks
going to find new jobs? How are they going to
feed their families? How governments cope with this?
Speaker 4 (59:48):
We'll have universal bas aga income by then, right, We'll
be in a utilh tree situation then and it's a
universal base againcome kind of communism, by the way, I
just want to throw.
Speaker 5 (59:57):
That out there.
Speaker 4 (59:58):
I think it's kind of human Okay, but you know
what I mean though, Like it just feels like we're
heading in this direction where we've we're looking to dehumanize
so many aspects of American life without any plan for
what to do for the humans. And there are there
are things like the idea of universal basic income that
seem vaguely you know, uh, socialists or communist, but there
(01:00:21):
really isn't a rollout plan for any of that stuff.
And it just seems to be a talking point to
get people to stop freaking out.
Speaker 5 (01:00:28):
But I don't really see it working. And it seems
like a lot of.
Speaker 4 (01:00:30):
People are going to let be left behind, and there's
going to be a spike in unhoused statistics and people
that can't afford to pay to feed their families and
their mortgages with the price of housing going through the
roof and all of the I don't know, man.
Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Yeah, you UBI is a lot like the nice words are.
It's a lot like an ear scratch you would give
to an animal before you put it down, right. It
sounds good, but the thing is happening. We have to
keep in mind to your point that if this occurs,
if there is a mass unemployment crisis in the trucking industry,
(01:01:05):
it will not occur in a vacuum. It will occur
in step with other mass unemployment issues in other sectors
of the greater economy.
Speaker 5 (01:01:14):
The indicator aspect, like you're saying, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
It will all occur as part of a new sea
change in automation. So let's say we're a hypothetical former trucker.
We're very good at our job, but we have been
automated out like so many human beings. The system has
made us redundant. Now we're looking for a new career,
but we're not in a normal job market. We're cast
(01:01:39):
into a royaling sea of countless other job seekers programmers,
administrative assistants, customer service representatives, data entry clerks, and podcasters.
Speaker 5 (01:01:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:01:52):
A friend of mine did just point out to me, like,
you're not not on that list, buddy.
Speaker 5 (01:01:57):
You're not.
Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
I mean just saying, you know, we we kid ourselves
and say no, no, people will always need humans to
talk smack on the microphone, but the AI gets good
enough and they can't tell the difference.
Speaker 5 (01:02:08):
I don't know about that though, because I would personally
have a problem with that. I don't want to have
I want to hear, dude, I want to hear from people,
you know.
Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
I want a connection with people, and I hope that
enough people, you know, do.
Speaker 5 (01:02:21):
I like people.
Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
I'm a fan of man me too really quickly.
Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
I want to take this to Australia because we were
talking about this being a universal problem, and we've talked
a lot about we know the US because we live
in the US. In Australia, there they are in what
they're considering a trucking crisis.
Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
A talk trains right, all kinds of yes.
Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
And also operators of trucks are lovingly referred to as
truckies by even the folks in the legislature there. But
there there was what is it an emergency hearing very
recently at the Fair Work Commission in Sydney where you've
got groups like the Transport Workers UNI in the TWU
(01:03:02):
hanging out with people from the Australian Road Transport Industrial
Organization and the National Road Freighters Association all hanging out
and saying, hey, we all the people we represent and
are a part of the operators of trucks. We are
eating the costs of these insane energy prices, the oil
prices right now because of the craziness that the US
(01:03:24):
is doing with Israel. And what they're looking for is
for some kind of laws to be put into effect
where folks who are manufacturing goods, folks who are selling
goods to all actually help out with paying the cost
of the rising energy prices, rather than just the operators
and the trucker the truckies paying for it. And it
(01:03:46):
reminds me a lot of the food crisis episode we
just talked about.
Speaker 7 (01:03:49):
Oh gosh, yes, where does theeah who actually bears the
brunt of the rising prices here when it comes to
the manufacturing and getting those goods and services to you
the consumer.
Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
And they are it looks like they're making headway this
with this thing called the Fairer Fuel Bill, but it
doesn't they're not satisfied with it. Just quickly read a
quote here from Michael Kine, not Michael Kane, Michael Kine
from the Transport Workers Union.
Speaker 6 (01:04:18):
He's the national secretary.
Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
He said, the problem we've got in road transport is
that unless we grab this crisis by the scruff of
the neck and deal with it, then road transport is
going to come to a grinding halt that is unsustainable.
It's even more unsustainable in circumstances where there is no
light at the end of the tunnel, which means theoretically
here at least there doesn't seem to be an off
(01:04:41):
ramp here for the problems facing the trucking industry. And
if the trucking industry goes, as we said at the
top of this episode, the food goes. It's not in
your stores anymore. All the stuff you need to buy
doesn't exist anymore. You can't get an Amazon driver to
show up at your house at six pm when you
woke up at eleven and said, hey.
Speaker 6 (01:05:01):
I need that thing. It just won't happen.
Speaker 4 (01:05:03):
Well, guys, what's the alternative? The answer isn't. There isn't one,
right like automation isn't there yet, So there's a real
quandary here.
Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
Yeah, agreed, there, you know this is the issue. To
your point, thereal without the right regulation and legislation, this
can well be an economic disaster. Uncle Sam is not
the only one predicting this. Australia, as we just saw,
has also predicted it. Western Europe is talking about it.
(01:05:32):
China is very aware of this. We have to end
with the question that is on everybody's mind, what happens next?
And we are not truckers ourselves, we're very big fans
of yours. Thank you again for tuning in. As you
can tell, we love you folks. Thank you for being
so cool, and thank you very much for blowing the
(01:05:56):
horn when we ask would you drive? Do you guys
still do that?
Speaker 5 (01:05:59):
Absolutely? I think they love it.
Speaker 6 (01:06:00):
Yeah, I think it's cool.
Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
And thank you for all the epic driving, and also
thank you for getting all the stuff where it needs
to go from point A to point Z. We would
love to hear your thoughts, especially if you're in trucking
or related industries. Where do you see this heading and
especially when it comes to the autonomous vehicle revolution? Are
these worries overblown? Are they underestimated? Please let us know.
(01:06:26):
We cannot wait to hear from you. We try to
be easy to find on the lines. Should thou sip
the social meds, you can give us a call. You
can always send us an email.
Speaker 5 (01:06:35):
Sure can.
Speaker 4 (01:06:36):
You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff or
Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on your social med flavor of choice.
Speaker 5 (01:06:43):
And there's more.
Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
Yes, we have a phone number one eight three three
std WYTK if you can do it hands free from
your truck. We highly recommend that. Hopefully it's an okay
sound environment for a voicemail. If not, that's fine, you
can wait till you hit that next stop. That you're
going to and give us a call when you call in,
(01:07:04):
and give yourself a nickname, and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you want to send us an email, you can
do that too.
Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet I'm afraid sometimes the
void writes back. So for this one, for this missive,
this piece of correspondence. Please tell us about your favorite
experiences at truck stops. Please tell us about the shadiest
(01:07:30):
or strangest gas station encounters. We'll see you out here
in the dark. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
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