November 12, 2025 • 44 mins
Kevin covered the following stories: the National Retail Federation projects Holiday spending; data from GenLogs drive Trucking industry confidence; the National Federation of Independent Business released their October Small Business Optimism Index; KFF, formerly known as The Kaiser Family Foundation, released their Annual Health Benefits Survey; Kevin has the details; sifts through the data, puts the information into historical perspective, offers his insights and a few opinions along the way.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is America's Truck and Network with Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome aboard, Thanks for tuning in on this Wednesday morning.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I've got some great news to share with you those
of you.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
That are familiar with Rush Truck Centers Tech Rodeo that
they have every year. Well this year, the dates are
going to be in December. It's going to be December
the fourteenth through the sixteenth, and America's Truck.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
And Network is going to be down there.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
We are going to be conducting a bunch of interviews
with some of the suppliers and of course the attendees
and the participants in the rodeo. And I'm looking forward
to this the first time we'll be down there and
looking forward to an awful lot of fun. If you
happen to be in there, if you're planning on making
it way down there to see it, stop by the booth,
talk to me, give me a little bit of feedback,
(00:54):
say well, you know, let me know, Well, let me
know if you've been listening out there. Because we don't
get a whole lot of feedback.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I try to.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Post on Facebook as much as possible and look at
some of the reviews and some of the comments that
I get there. So anyway, this would be a great
time to meet people in person and stop by the
booth and talk and chat like we did down at
the Mid American Trucking Show in March, which, by the way,
we are going to be back down in Louisville in
March again next year, March March of twenty twenty six.
(01:26):
If any of those of you that are familiar with
where we were there, we're going to be in the
same location. We're going to be there at North Lobby.
Looking forward to that and being able to communicate and
talk to as many of you people that stop by,
as well as a lot of the vendors and a
lot of the different movers and shakers in the trucking industry.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
So looking forward to all that.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
So the ATN Show is going to be on the
road a couple of times here in the next several months,
so looking forward to that. Got some great news here
economic news wise, all this you know, I've been talking
about basically since the first of the year, when all
(02:06):
these pondans spoon federalcgurgitators in the mainstream media talking down
the economy, in my opinion, trying to manufacture recession, all
this doom and gloom, which when I see and you
listen to the program, you know that when these consumer
sentiment reports come out or consumer confidence reports, because there's
(02:27):
two of them, there's a consumer sentiment and consumer confidence report,
and some of those have not been very good over the.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Last well nine months or so.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
But I think the caveat with well not I don't
think I know the caveat with that. When you've got
ninety four percent or more bad coverage or misinformation, negative
coverage of the Trump administration, that's going to have an
effect on people. And when you have these spoon federalgurgitators
in the mainstream media trying to manufacture or recession. In
(02:59):
my opinion, they are trying to manufacture recession. And yet
the resilience of the American public, the facts that we
see on a day to day basis, and some of
the stuff that we know, we aren't as pessimistic as
they are. And reading into these consumer confidence and consumer
(03:20):
sentiment reports, I've been saying all along that I get
I get the feeling that people are because they one
of the parts of the survey talks about usually talks
about how are.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
You doing, how is your economy going.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And most of the time people are very positive on that,
but then they say, well, what do you think about
in the future, or what do you think about what
else is going on? And because of all the negative
negativity that they've been hearing, they're thinking, well, gee, maybe
my neighbor is suffering, maybe people down the street or
people in other states, because they keep hearing all this
bad news, and so the consumer sentiment.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
On that part comes down. Well, we've got a bunch of.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Stories here which it appears as though some things are
turning the corner, and hopefully we'll be pushing back on this.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
One of the big items.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
US holiday spending projected to eclipse one trillion dollars in
twenty twenty five, Holiday spending will surpass one trillion dollars
and set a record despite consumer caution, according to the
forecast by the National Retail Federation acronym and rf SO
(04:34):
that may be referring to that later on in the story.
Consumers planning to spend nearly nine hundred dollars per person
on average this year, while retail sales are expected to
increase in a range of three point seven to four
point two from the year early earlier. According to the
group and our F President and chief executive Officer Matthew
(04:57):
Say said during a conference call, we remain bullish about
the holiday shopping season and expect that consumers will continue
to seek savings in non essential categories to be able
to spend on gifts for loved ones. Now, just a
couple of weeks ago, and maybe it was last month,
they were talking about, oh, doom and gloom as far
(05:19):
as the holiday season is concerned. We don't think there's
going to be as much spending this year and so on,
and all of the indications. I wasn't getting a feeling
for any of that. I've been a lot of people
have said, you know, Kevin, you're very bullish on the economy,
and you know, where are you getting that, because I'm
we're sing, you know, we think inflation is going up
(05:41):
and so on, And every time I've gotten to a
conversation with somebody about that, I've said, well, give me
an example, and everyone and every one of the stories
that I've said, I've covered those here on this program.
Where there'll be this big splash, you know, because of terrorists.
Prices at Walmart price has gone up fifty percent, and
(06:03):
yet when you dig into the story, it's one item
that is the type of item that you would purchase
maybe ten years or maybe never again. And it had
to do with a frying you know, a set of
pots and pans done by a certain celebrity and her
name is all over it. And so that went from
like ninety nine dollars to forty nine dollars. But in
(06:25):
a lot of the other categories, everything else is coming down.
Sixty percent of everything in Walmart is from the food area.
And when you look at the price of eggs, when
you look at the price of a lot of the
other commodities and stuff in the grocery store, those are
all coming down. As a matter of fact, Walmart had
a thing, what was it last month, talking about there's
(06:46):
this basket of stuff that they've got for you know,
the preparation, all the stuff you need to do a
Thanksgiving meal has come down twenty five percent from last year. Now,
of course they've put pressure on their pliers and stuff
to try to get the best deal, but that's the
way things.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Go, that's the way people should operate.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
You look at certain things and if it's not the
type of price that you want maybe select something else
and eventually, and you know, if something sits on a
shelf for a while, people are going to start scratching
their heads and saying, well, gee whiz, maybe that price
is too high. And if as I walk through the
grocery store on a regular basis, I noticed that there's
these yellow tags on there where there's a price decrease
(07:29):
or new low prices and so on, and of course
it pays to look at those those circulars the newspapers
or however they advertise their specials for that particular week,
whether you go online and do digital coupons where you
look at their ads online and plan ahead as to
what you're going to spend. And I say, you know,
(07:51):
there's a lot of things you can do and a
lot of things you can save doing it that way.
And here we are. I mean, people have been talking
doom and gloom going to spend a record at over
one trillion dollars in the holiday season. Challenges Now, listen
to this, Okay, he's talking about these challenges right. Challenges
include the government shutdown, with delays in federal spending expected
(08:16):
to erode consumer demand, as well as trade uncertainty and
persistent inflation according to the NARF. According the NRF, retailers
are expected to absorb some of the tariff costs to
avoid major price hikes on essential lives. Let's go back
to that previous sentence talking about as well as trade
(08:37):
uncertainty and persistent inflation. All right, Inflation right now is
right around two point seven percent. The past five years,
inflation has been a total of twenty three point five percent.
That's an average over that five year period of time
of four point seven per year. Now, some of those
(08:59):
years have been way up in the five percent six
percent range, others have been down towards three percent or thereabouts.
But two point seven percent now compared to four point
seven percent on average over the last five years, I
would say things are coming down. You look at the
eight price of eggs. That was not done by terrace,
(09:21):
that was not done by greed, That was done by
a bird flu killing the flocks off and reducing the
supply beef prices. When I talk to people about beef prices,
realizing that our cattle herds are now at the levels
that they were back in nineteen fifty one, and you
can talk about the green news steel. Remember all the
(09:42):
push on well, you know, the grasslands, the pastures. They
are spending too much, the amount of grasslands that have
to be set aside in order to handle these herds.
That is killing the environment. We got to be concerned
about the environ climate change and so on. And yet
(10:02):
all of a sudden you're supposed to reduce your herds
and price is supposed to come down. Are they nuts?
We'll pick this up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck and Network.
Seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Seven hundred wlwis.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Need.
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This is the briefing report on America's drugging edwork on
seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
The nhr Mission Foods Drag Racing Series closes out the
twenty twenty five season with the running this weekend of
the In and Out Burger NHRI Finals in Pomona, California.
All four championships in this series will be decided this weekend.
A second World championship in three years is all what's
certain for Doug Kalitta, who will officially secure the title
by making a qualifying pass after waiting twenty six years
(10:50):
for his first world title. A dominant run through the
countdown to the Championship well and sure he won't have
to wait long to clinch his second world championship and
top fuel. Four time world champion Matt Hagan gave himself
a chance with his victory over Austin Prock in the
final round at Las Vegas, but proc still enters Pomona
with a healthy one hundred and one point lead as
(11:11):
he looks to slam the door in a second straight
world title. In funny Car for John Force Racing, a
Pro Sotocer winner take all final round repeat between Dallas
Glenn and Greg Anderson won't happen this year, but it's
still that pair of KB Titan Racing drivers in the
title hunt. Glenn's Las Vegas win makes him a heavy
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(11:32):
ahead of Anderson. In the category that has the biggest
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a pair of Vans and Hinds standouts. Richard Gadsden has
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carries a twenty one point lead over Gage Herrera heading
into the Pomona action. Also in NHRA News, the mission
food series was headed to the Rock. NHRA and Rockingham
(11:56):
Dragway has announced the historic track will host a full
and NHR National event for the first time in track history,
as part of the NHR seventy fifth anniversary celebration in
twenty twenty six. The NHR Nationals at the Rock will
take place September twenty fifth through twenty seventh, serving as
the sixteenth of twenty races and the second of six
(12:16):
races in the countdown to the Championship playoffs.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
I need This is the racing report on America's Krucking
Network on seven hundred WLW.
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Say Dennis, the're reporting for a t.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
N.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network, seven hundred WLW, talking
about this story of just holiday spending projected to eclipse
one trillion dollars. When you keep hearing inflation, and as
I said, you know there are certain items that are
up and there's I'm not denying that there isn't some
inflation in there, but I've got a story later on
that kind of pulls that into more clarity. But when
(12:58):
I talk to people about inflation, they'll give me examples
and like beef and stuff like that. I said, well,
you know, if you've got your herds that you know
there's been this disease, there's been drought in some of
these areas, and so the herds are at the nineteen
fifty one levels. And our population since nineteen fifty one
(13:18):
has doubled in size. So if the herds are half
or the same as they were back in nineteen fifty
one and we have twice the amount of people, that's
going to.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Create a little bit of a supply shortage.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Now the import beef and so on that's had to
be done, that has been affected, but again that has
to do with transportation costs. But when you've got these
green when you've got these climunists out there, and let
me explain that this whole climate effort, all these these
(13:52):
climate fanatics, they have basically taken over and that has
become the new communism because they want to control where
you live, how you live, how you heat your home,
how you cook, what you can cook, the food that
you can They want to limit as remember the Green
New Steel that came out with Alexander A. Cassio Cortes,
(14:15):
that she introduced that and it was accepted by the
Democrats and became part of their platform, and in there
they talked about the effect of cow farts on the environment,
and that how many acres were used to produce meat
for the stores, and we need to reduce the amount
(14:36):
of meat that we're buying and the amount of meat
that we're consuming and so on. Well, if you reduce
the herds, then of course you're going to have increase
in prices, and if you're going to have droughts, you're
gonna have these issues. That's going to be So where
is that coming from?
Speaker 6 (14:50):
All?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Right? Now?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Some of that is coming back up the fact that
some of these areas are getting a little bit better,
and a lot of people are paying attention now realizing
that the Green New Steel was exactly what I called
it from day one, the Green News Steel. It's merely
a transfer of wealth from you to a select few
of people that are pumping all this garbage out there
(15:14):
in terms of we need to do this, we need
to invest here, we need to spend money here to
the tune of one point five trillion dollars over the
last several years. And then all of a sudden, it's
like gosh, gee whiz, it's not working. It's not reducing
As a matter of fact, it's increasing our carbon footprint.
(15:35):
It's not efficient, it's not producing nearly the amount of energy.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
That we thought it would.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Well, if you what do you mean you didn't you
didn't figure out how much generation of electricity was going
to be done by these solar panels or by these
wind turbines and all this are these windmills. And yet
now all of a sudden, it's a shock to you.
And oh, by the way, shock of shocks, you know,
did you know? But solar power doesn't work when it's
(16:02):
a cloudy day, when you don't have the sun, there's
no solar power. And oh, by the way, here's another
surprise for you. When the wind doesn't blow, the windmills
don't turn, and when the windmills don't turn, that doesn't
produce energy either. What a shock. And yet they couldn't
figure this out. They couldn't figure out that certain times
(16:24):
of the year the wind doesn't blow in some of
these areas. So they're going to have to have some
backup plan. And then not only that, but you have
the transmission lines that you already have in place in
order to generate where you are currently generating power, and
then you have to have different transmission lines from where
the power is being generated by these solar fields and
(16:45):
these windmills. So now you've got double transmission lines, and
they're surprised that it's not working, that it's not efficient,
and that it's a failure.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Big surprise, Big surprise, big surprise.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
But you know, I've been talking about that for years.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Also, trucking grows more confident about the freight market upturn.
Confidence has grown in recent weeks with the upturn in
the freight cycle is approaching more quickly. The end of
let me see, upturn in the freight cycle is approaching
more quickly than previously expected. Data provided shows and acceleration
(17:24):
and carrier capacity exits indicating the tightening of the market
is edging closer.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
The observe the observercy.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
A number of macroeconomic dominoes starting to fall into place,
all this doom and gloom that we heard about from
the beginning of the year, that you know, this is
going to create a problem here. Yet some of the
people like me were saying that no, these tariffs aren't
going to increase inflation, that it's going to There's a
lot of different ways that can happen. This will also
(17:53):
push prices up in one direction, but push prices down
in others. Will lead to fair trade as opposed to
just trade, that there will be more competition and so on,
and that the prices will be leveled off the fact
that some of these changes within the administration with these
tariffs will reduce the teriffs in these other countries and
make more of our goods available there, which if we're
(18:16):
going to be exporting exporting more, then we're going to
be creating more. And then when you create more, you've
got more to export or consume, and prices come down
that way. So a lot of these, as they talk
about the macro economics of things, are starting to fall
into place. As recently as a couple of months ago,
executives expected a rough ride over the coming twelve to
(18:37):
eighteen months, while Tonnage data and the Logistics Managers Index
for September suggested a regression after positive signs in the summer,
but gen Logs data shows a five percent drop in
carriers applying their trade in the week that ended November fifth,
and a decrease of seven point three between October the
(18:59):
first in October thirty first, So some of the smaller
carriers are going out because they jumped into the market
over capacity during the pandemic, and now some of those
are going by the wayside. Genlogs tracks the unique Department
of Transportation numbers observed in the roads each day through
a nationwide network of cameras deployed along the major interstates
(19:21):
and highways. The cameras track truck traffic as they passed by,
and artificial intelligence is used to extract unique identifiers in
real time, such as dot MC markers, equipment types, and logs.
Genlogs CEO Ryan Joyce said that data indicated a decrease
(19:42):
in the number of smaller units carriers with one to
ten units, but the unique numbers show a eight point
three percent dip in the month of October. So with
the number of units out there, that means that there
is going to be then a supply shortage for that,
which means that the prices for freight and such could
(20:04):
will or should go up in the coming months.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
And they go through an awful lot of.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Statistics here, and I won't bore you with all that,
but when they talk about shippers paid more to move
less freight in the third quarter a clear signal that
industry capacity is exiting. This according to Bobby Holland, US
Bank Director of Freight Business Analytics, Todd Mark Cusick, a
(20:30):
customer insight manager at truck stop dot Com, many believe
the bottom may be near in terms of volumes and
are cautiously preparing for better days ahead. Our best CEO,
elect Seth runzer On said October fifth that the carrier
was not expecting a softer than normal early October to
continue into the first quarter of twenty twenty six, citing
(20:53):
the expected resolution of the federal government shutdown, greater clarity
over terriffs, and a growing impact from recent Federal reserve
interest rate reductions. A bunch of other carriers in here
chime in talking about how they are foreseeing stuff going on.
Customers are telling JB. Hunt, let me see. Director of
(21:15):
International Pricing Amy Horn told attendees at the American Trucking
Association's twenty twenty five Management Conference and exhibit, customers are
telling JB. Hunt it has been a shipper's market for
longer than any of them have expected, but they expect
to see change in the market soon. Let's see some
(21:35):
of this other stuff in here. Now this is interesting.
I this popped out of me. This is one of
the last lines in this particular story the national Let
me see several let me see they're talking about data.
As far as the freight, however, rates are steady. The
average rate for DAT Freight and Analytics top fifty drive
(21:58):
in in line haul lane by load volume remained unchanged
for the third week, averaging two dollars per mile and
twenty eight cents higher than the national seven day average.
National seven day rolling average for refrigerated carriers saw a
two percent decrease and so on. Now this is key.
(22:19):
They said that maybe in the short term headwind for
reefer carriers noted Crook and Kseh truck carrier in the
form of suspension of supplemental nutrition Assistance program that are
known as SNAP over the and they put in here
cut by the Trump administration. No, it was cut by
(22:40):
the government shut down forced by the Democrats. The SNAP
program helps feed forty two million Americans. SNAP recipients now
get this, spend twenty percent more on groceries than average.
SNAP shoppers represent almost ten percent in ELEE, seven percent
(23:00):
of total retail grocery spending. We'll dig into this a
little bit more coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network.
Seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Here's your trucking forecast for the Try State and the
rest of the country and the Try Sate. Overnight clouds
will gradually clear, the low down to thirty four Sunday
and warmer Wednesday, hies into the mid fifties, mostly sunny
Thursday high of fifty six mostly Sunday Friday, and the
high year sixty nationally on. Seasonably cold weather coming to
an end across the southeast coast in Florida, with the
West and Central US forming up. Snow expected to continue
(23:40):
across the lower Great Lakes region and interior northeast in
New England States. Meanwhile, heavy rainfall and mountain snow will
arrive to the West coast by late Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Seven hundred wl WON, Kevin Gordon. This is America's struck
In Network.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
By the way, if you miss any of our previous programs,
will miss any previous segments, hit up that iHeartRadio app
brought to you by your friends at rest truck Centers.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Now we were.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Talking earlier about and I can't emphasize this enough. You
know when you look at some of these things. And
I can remember having conversations with my mother years and
years ago when she graduated from college, she went into
a new form of a profession where she was a dietitian,
(24:30):
and back in the forties and fifties, that was kind
of unheard of in terms of people actually studying nutrition
and how to analyze things. And one of the things
she talked about was one of the things that was
going by the wayside were people understanding how to make
your dollars stretch, your food dollars stretch. One of the
(24:52):
tasks that they had in their class was to go
out and work with housewives or to go to certain
areas to teach people that, Okay, if you start the
week off with a chicken, and you make the whole chicken,
how many meals you can get out of that? How
much you can do in terms of using the bones
(25:15):
and whatever for the broth and then make soup out
of it. You can make chicken salad from some of
the stuff. And so the amount of being able to
stretch just by taking a particular item, learning how to
cook it and learning how to preserve it, and then
to make other meals out of it stretch the dollars.
And this is you know, coming out of the depression
back in the thirties and so and so with the
(25:38):
way things are now instead of going and just buying stuff,
learning how to cook, learning how to because for years
people were eating out a lot, and people were not
you know, they were bringing the take home meals and this,
and it was quite the phenomenon.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
You always hear about.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
All these people who have what they call gourmet kitchens
in their homes and basically for what there's very few
people that are spending the time cooking meals. And I
know people are busy. I know, things are you know,
kids are going off to this, that the other thing.
But there are ways of planning ahead and planning some
(26:19):
of these meals. And so with learning how to do
this and to learn how to cook and how to
prepare meals, how to buy groceries cheaper, you can extend
those dollars. But when you're giving certain things away. I mean,
this last line of this story that I was talking
about trucking, let me see talking about trucking grows more
(26:42):
confident and they were talking about the transportation disruptions as
a result of the SNAP benefits being held up, and
of course they blamed it on the Trump administration. Stopped
by the Trump administration. Hey, if by law you can
only spend what you have in a particular account, and
you can't spend any more, and the Democrats decide that
(27:05):
they're going to do a shutdown because they want to
take one point five trillion dollars to add to the
budget to spend on illegals getting benefits and so on,
health care for illegals and so on, Well, then yeah,
of course these benefits are going to get cut. And
they talked about and so I question that little sentence there.
(27:27):
But when they talk about that on average, SNAP recipients
spend twenty percent more on groceries, it's you know, when
you look at that number, twenty percent more on groceries
than the average person, it's as if along with that,
the government is just handing this out with no type
(27:50):
of maybe information for people, not any type of a
how to card or education as to how you can
use these benefits to feed your family and feed your family. Well,
I mean, if they're spending twenty percent more than average,
that means that pay you know, it's free money.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
I don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I'm just gonna go and PLoP the money down or
pop PLoP the card down and get all this stuff
instead of doing what you should be doing is shopping
for the best bargain. And if we've got I would
equate that to almost twenty percent waste if people are
spending more on you know, if you could buy something
(28:32):
for a buck and you're going to spend a buck
twenty for it, of course your benefits aren't going to
go that long, and you're gonna run out of money.
There's going to be a longer the month is going
to be longer than the paycheck, as they used to say.
And so just a twist in that, maybe spend some
time as far as the government is concerned, trying to
educate people within these programs how to use this and
(28:55):
use this wisely, rather than just shoving the money out
and trying to throw more money at a problem, instead
of trying to solve the problem and educate people along
the way. We had a government not a government survey,
but we had the survey monthly survey from the National
Federation of Independent Business. This is very telling here looking
(29:18):
at the data going through here. October twenty twenty five,
small business optimism takes a small step back as uncertainty eases.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
In October.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index declined by point six
percent in October to ninety eight point two, but remained
above the fifty two year average. Fifty two year average,
the average across the board over fifty two years of
ninety eight percent now granted at ninety eight point two,
we're just kind of ticking along that one, you know,
(29:50):
tickling that number, but it's still above the fifty two
year average. According to NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkle, Optimism
among small businesses declined slightly in October as owners report
lower sales and reduced profits. Additionally, many firms are still
(30:10):
navigating a labor shortage and want to hire, but are
having difficulty doing so, with labor quality being the top
issue for main street labor quality people qualified to do
the job? Is this perhaps maybe a report card on
the education system that people aren't qualified to go into
(30:30):
the workforce when they graduate. They cite twenty seven percent
of small business owners cited labor quality as their single
most important problem, up nine points from September. They go
through the different numbers in here, and again I won't
worry with all the all the different statistics, but it
was interesting. Fifty five percent of small business owners reported
(30:54):
capital outlays in the last six months, down one point
from September. Of those making expenditures, thirty six percent reported
spending on new equipment, twenty two percent acquired vehicles, and
fourteen percent improved or expanded facilities.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
You out there in the trucking industry, you.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Are a small business and this is some of the
feedback that the National Federation of Independent Businesses are getting.
And so as far as the trend in your business
into your own sphere of things, this kind of gives
you an idea what else is going on. Some of
the subheadlines here plans to increase employment is down down
(31:39):
one percent, but fifteen percent said that they were planning
on increasing employment, plan to make capital outlays, twenty three percent,
expect the economy to improve twenty percent. Current job openings
are up thirty two percent. Now a good time to
expand only thirteen percent of people said that that they
(32:00):
thought that that was the key or what they.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Were going to do. Now.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Going into the summary here, I found it was very interesting. Uncertainty,
while lower than in September, remained high and upcoming elections.
Of course, with the November elections that just occurred a
couple of weeks ago. Government shutdown likely played a role
in some of the downturn, but it's still around the
(32:27):
fifty two year average. Now, some of the quotes in
here are very very interesting, and we'll pick that up
coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's struck In Network seven
hundred WLW.
Speaker 6 (32:42):
After sixty years, the who has played their final show.
Now Pete Townsend is coming to iHeartRadio for an exclusive
private performance, playing his classic hits and talking to Iheart's
Jim Kerr about his life in music and his new
Quadraphenia Rock Ballet on the eve of its premiere. iHeartRadio
(33:03):
Icons with Pete Townsend listen on the free iHeartRadio apps
Classic Rock Channel tomorrow at seven pm Eastern.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Progressive commercial nose truckers can expect the unexpected when driving,
but a little ends up like this would still be nice.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
This as America struck In Network seven hundred WLW. We're
talking previously in a previous segment about this National Federation
of Independent Business and this is a good gauge for
you out there in the trucking industry because you are
a small business and the things that you're seeing and
the things that other businesses are seeing, you don't feel
(33:41):
like the lone ranger out there. And what was interesting
in here also you know some positive news. The optimism
is not as high as it was, but it's not
falling off a cliff. And so as things start falling
into place, as we saw with a previous story, I
think it was in the first segment, we are seeing
(34:01):
things fall into place where people were work. Well, maybe
some people were worried about it. But of course the
spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media were fanning the
fires of oh, you know, things are going to take
a downturn, We're going to have a recession, and so on.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
But I found very interesting some of the quotes they
associated with this.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
All right, this is from the construction a construction company
in Oregon. Government continues to put more financial pressure on
the construction business. There are more regulations and higher OSHA
fines against the people who actually build this country. Now,
I do take exception a little bit with that that
(34:43):
if you're operating an organization that is not OSHA compliant,
then you kind of get what you pay for. But
there has been some overreach in terms of OCEAN. As
matter of fact, years ago, I had a client. Of course,
people know that I'm a recovering accountant, and one of
the clients I had at one time they were curious
in terms of how they were compliant with OCEAN.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
I mean, you can see things in a manual and.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
All this sort of stuff, but to kind of get
a risk assessment to make sure that you don't have
potential accidents and what they actually called OSHA and asked
them to do an expection to kind of give them
an idea what they needed to change. And rather than
coming in, instead of being a friend or being cooperative,
they hit them up with a bunch of fines. Rather
(35:29):
than saying, okay, well this is kind of out of order,
thank you for bringing us here. There hasn't been any
accidents reported and all this kind of clear this up
and we'll be back in thirty days.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
No, they hit them with fines.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
So where you know that old saying that you know
the worst thing you hear and Ronald Reagan used to
say this, I'm here from the government. I'm here to
help you know that kind of thing. But again that
continues to be a problem government regulation. This is kind
of like the hidden hand you will, if you know,
compliance with some of these things, which in certain instances
(36:03):
are very very much necessary, but in other areas are
just too heavy handed. It's becoming increasing in this out
of manufacturing out of Ohio, It's becoming increasingly difficult to
provide medical insurance that a company and employees can can afford.
Manufacturing in Pennsylvania, the cost of health insurance goes up
(36:25):
every year since ACA, the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare.
With no small business with no small businesses can keep
up with the cost, this increase will surely kill many
small businesses in the next couple of years. Soon I
will no longer be able to offer health insurance to
my employees.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
In turn, this will cost me some good employees.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Again, this manufacturer out of Pennsylvania, agriculture out of Washington.
As usual, taxes at the county state level are always rising. However,
our price is to sell our goods remained similar to
last year. As consumers are struggling in this state with
the same tax burdens out of construction in Montana, economic
(37:13):
expecting and economic slow down due to interest rates still
being relatively high. Now, in those every one of those quotes,
which one of those had anything to do with tariffs
we kept hearing about tariffs are going to add dramatically
to prices and increase inflation. What people don't take into
(37:35):
consideration is the fact that, as I've pointed out on
this program, and I'm not again, i am not begrudging
these employment contracts that have been done with the various
unions that we've talked about on this program, because people
should be paid a certain amount, and in certain instances,
like with Ups and some of these others that had
their contracts on hold from twenty nineteen until about twenty
(37:58):
eight to twenty three, they're about four years without having
a new contract or price increases other than basically a
bare cost of living index, and in some cases not
even that. So over a four year period of time,
you find yourself behind and have to catch up. But again,
when you look at a ten percent increase every year
(38:19):
for the next six years, that's going to add to
the price of the goods that are going to have.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
To be sold. You have to recoup that cost.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Then when you factor in the increase in insurance, we'll
get to that in a second. But when you have
also the hidden costs in there of state, city, and
county taxes on there, that adds to it as well.
So you have all of these factors increasing. The people
who produce the raw materials, those prices go up, then
(38:50):
go to the manufacture where their prices have gone up
for insurance, for employee costs and so on. Then that
gets passed on to the wholesaler, and then the wholesaler
passes those along to the stores who again have probably
had to raise the hourly rage wage for their employees
and their health care costs, and that adds to their overhead.
(39:11):
So that accumulation effect. So nobody's talking about. Everybody wants
to talk about terraffs and how they're impacting things. And
so when you look at you know, when you peel
the curtain back and look at some of these things
that what's causing inflation, those some of the things that
need to be looked at and digging into the health
care costs, this came up. I just I just searched
(39:34):
for this today or yesterday while I was doing show
prep This just floored me. I mean, I knew it
was high. I knew it was health insurance premiums. But
get this, I hope you're sitting down. Family premiums for
employers sponsored health insurance reached an average of Okay, these
are premiums on the family shared by the employer and
(39:57):
the employee have average twenty six thousand, actually twenty twenty
seven thousand, twenty six nine to ninety three. This year
twenty seven thousand dollars in order to provide health insurance
for employers employeing providing that for their workers. Family premiums
(40:20):
are up six percent or one thousand, four hundred and
eight from last year.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
These are the.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Employer's employee's share of the insurance, up fourteen hundred dollars.
That's one hundred and seventeen dollars more per month out
of your pocket, similar to the seven percent increase recorded
in each of the previous two years. Six percent increase
(40:50):
this year, seven percent increase over the last two years. Now,
is that tariff related? Is that tariff inflation?
Speaker 5 (41:00):
There?
Speaker 2 (41:01):
No, this is the healthcare premiums. And it appears as
though you know again, and I'll stress this enough.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
The Affordable Care Act was not affordable and a.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Way, and I'm saying it's not affordable.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
It's the Affordable Care Act.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
It should have been named something else, as to an
act to abstract subtract more money from your paycheck. But
it You know, all these bills are always put up
with these glowing terms and they're anything but the Affordable
Care Act has been an absolute disaster. And this was
forced on us by the Congress, by the Democrats when
(41:45):
they were during the Obama years. And you know, people
don't talk about this enough. If it was such a
great plan, if it was so wonderful and everybody should
be a participant in it, and such a great plan,
that they didn't wait till people volunteer to be part
of it. They forced them to buy this and it was.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Such a great act.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
None of the members of Congress, they have their own
that Congress and Senators all have their own top of
the line healthcare plan. So if Affordable Care Act was
so wonderful, why aren't they participating in it? And then
when you look at this over the time, the premium increases.
In just this year in terms of health premiums are
(42:34):
up six percent overall inflation is two point seven percent,
So the healthcare increase is twice the rate of inflation,
and worker earnings are only up four percent. So healthcare
premiums are outpacing the increase in pay on a yearly basis.
(42:54):
So where was the media talking about these price increases
over the last couple of years. Were they silent because
the right party was in power as opposed to now
in their in their infinite wisdom. Now, one of the
things they talk about in here is some of the
(43:15):
health insurance and how some companies are now trying to
rein in some of these expenses by offering more plans
for people to maybe increase some of the healthcare that
they're doing and personal care. But basically kind of part
of the MAHA movement, if you will. But I just
found it amazing that if you dig in as far
(43:37):
as what's causing this inflation, it's absolutely amazing, and these
healthcare prices are just going out of sight and not
enough people are talking about it. Well, folks were way
up against clock here. Time for us to scoot out the door.
I'm Kevin Gordon. Stay tuned for Reddie Radio Top of
the r I'm Kevin Gordon Americas struck in network seven
hundred W LW
This is America's Truck and Network with Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome aboard, Thanks for tuning in on this Wednesday morning.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I've got some great news to share with you those
of you.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
That are familiar with Rush Truck Centers Tech Rodeo that
they have every year. Well this year, the dates are
going to be in December. It's going to be December
the fourteenth through the sixteenth, and America's Truck.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
And Network is going to be down there.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
We are going to be conducting a bunch of interviews
with some of the suppliers and of course the attendees
and the participants in the rodeo. And I'm looking forward
to this the first time we'll be down there and
looking forward to an awful lot of fun. If you
happen to be in there, if you're planning on making
it way down there to see it, stop by the booth,
talk to me, give me a little bit of feedback,
(00:54):
say well, you know, let me know, Well, let me
know if you've been listening out there. Because we don't
get a whole lot of feedback.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I try to.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Post on Facebook as much as possible and look at
some of the reviews and some of the comments that
I get there. So anyway, this would be a great
time to meet people in person and stop by the
booth and talk and chat like we did down at
the Mid American Trucking Show in March, which, by the way,
we are going to be back down in Louisville in
March again next year, March March of twenty twenty six.
(01:26):
If any of those of you that are familiar with
where we were there, we're going to be in the
same location. We're going to be there at North Lobby.
Looking forward to that and being able to communicate and
talk to as many of you people that stop by,
as well as a lot of the vendors and a
lot of the different movers and shakers in the trucking industry.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
So looking forward to all that.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
So the ATN Show is going to be on the
road a couple of times here in the next several months,
so looking forward to that. Got some great news here
economic news wise, all this you know, I've been talking
about basically since the first of the year, when all
(02:06):
these pondans spoon federalcgurgitators in the mainstream media talking down
the economy, in my opinion, trying to manufacture recession, all
this doom and gloom, which when I see and you
listen to the program, you know that when these consumer
sentiment reports come out or consumer confidence reports, because there's
(02:27):
two of them, there's a consumer sentiment and consumer confidence report,
and some of those have not been very good over the.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Last well nine months or so.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
But I think the caveat with well not I don't
think I know the caveat with that. When you've got
ninety four percent or more bad coverage or misinformation, negative
coverage of the Trump administration, that's going to have an
effect on people. And when you have these spoon federalgurgitators
in the mainstream media trying to manufacture or recession. In
(02:59):
my opinion, they are trying to manufacture recession. And yet
the resilience of the American public, the facts that we
see on a day to day basis, and some of
the stuff that we know, we aren't as pessimistic as
they are. And reading into these consumer confidence and consumer
(03:20):
sentiment reports, I've been saying all along that I get
I get the feeling that people are because they one
of the parts of the survey talks about usually talks
about how are.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
You doing, how is your economy going.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And most of the time people are very positive on that,
but then they say, well, what do you think about
in the future, or what do you think about what
else is going on? And because of all the negative
negativity that they've been hearing, they're thinking, well, gee, maybe
my neighbor is suffering, maybe people down the street or
people in other states, because they keep hearing all this
bad news, and so the consumer sentiment.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
On that part comes down. Well, we've got a bunch of.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Stories here which it appears as though some things are
turning the corner, and hopefully we'll be pushing back on this.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
One of the big items.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
US holiday spending projected to eclipse one trillion dollars in
twenty twenty five, Holiday spending will surpass one trillion dollars
and set a record despite consumer caution, according to the
forecast by the National Retail Federation acronym and rf SO
(04:34):
that may be referring to that later on in the story.
Consumers planning to spend nearly nine hundred dollars per person
on average this year, while retail sales are expected to
increase in a range of three point seven to four
point two from the year early earlier. According to the
group and our F President and chief executive Officer Matthew
(04:57):
Say said during a conference call, we remain bullish about
the holiday shopping season and expect that consumers will continue
to seek savings in non essential categories to be able
to spend on gifts for loved ones. Now, just a
couple of weeks ago, and maybe it was last month,
they were talking about, oh, doom and gloom as far
(05:19):
as the holiday season is concerned. We don't think there's
going to be as much spending this year and so on,
and all of the indications. I wasn't getting a feeling
for any of that. I've been a lot of people
have said, you know, Kevin, you're very bullish on the economy,
and you know, where are you getting that, because I'm
we're sing, you know, we think inflation is going up
(05:41):
and so on, And every time I've gotten to a
conversation with somebody about that, I've said, well, give me
an example, and everyone and every one of the stories
that I've said, I've covered those here on this program.
Where there'll be this big splash, you know, because of terrorists.
Prices at Walmart price has gone up fifty percent, and
(06:03):
yet when you dig into the story, it's one item
that is the type of item that you would purchase
maybe ten years or maybe never again. And it had
to do with a frying you know, a set of
pots and pans done by a certain celebrity and her
name is all over it. And so that went from
like ninety nine dollars to forty nine dollars. But in
(06:25):
a lot of the other categories, everything else is coming down.
Sixty percent of everything in Walmart is from the food area.
And when you look at the price of eggs, when
you look at the price of a lot of the
other commodities and stuff in the grocery store, those are
all coming down. As a matter of fact, Walmart had
a thing, what was it last month, talking about there's
(06:46):
this basket of stuff that they've got for you know,
the preparation, all the stuff you need to do a
Thanksgiving meal has come down twenty five percent from last year. Now,
of course they've put pressure on their pliers and stuff
to try to get the best deal, but that's the
way things.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Go, that's the way people should operate.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
You look at certain things and if it's not the
type of price that you want maybe select something else
and eventually, and you know, if something sits on a
shelf for a while, people are going to start scratching
their heads and saying, well, gee whiz, maybe that price
is too high. And if as I walk through the
grocery store on a regular basis, I noticed that there's
these yellow tags on there where there's a price decrease
(07:29):
or new low prices and so on, and of course
it pays to look at those those circulars the newspapers
or however they advertise their specials for that particular week,
whether you go online and do digital coupons where you
look at their ads online and plan ahead as to
what you're going to spend. And I say, you know,
(07:51):
there's a lot of things you can do and a
lot of things you can save doing it that way.
And here we are. I mean, people have been talking
doom and gloom going to spend a record at over
one trillion dollars in the holiday season. Challenges Now, listen
to this, Okay, he's talking about these challenges right. Challenges
include the government shutdown, with delays in federal spending expected
(08:16):
to erode consumer demand, as well as trade uncertainty and
persistent inflation according to the NARF. According the NRF, retailers
are expected to absorb some of the tariff costs to
avoid major price hikes on essential lives. Let's go back
to that previous sentence talking about as well as trade
(08:37):
uncertainty and persistent inflation. All right, Inflation right now is
right around two point seven percent. The past five years,
inflation has been a total of twenty three point five percent.
That's an average over that five year period of time
of four point seven per year. Now, some of those
(08:59):
years have been way up in the five percent six
percent range, others have been down towards three percent or thereabouts.
But two point seven percent now compared to four point
seven percent on average over the last five years, I
would say things are coming down. You look at the
eight price of eggs. That was not done by terrace,
(09:21):
that was not done by greed, That was done by
a bird flu killing the flocks off and reducing the
supply beef prices. When I talk to people about beef prices,
realizing that our cattle herds are now at the levels
that they were back in nineteen fifty one, and you
can talk about the green news steel. Remember all the
(09:42):
push on well, you know, the grasslands, the pastures. They
are spending too much, the amount of grasslands that have
to be set aside in order to handle these herds.
That is killing the environment. We got to be concerned
about the environ climate change and so on. And yet
(10:02):
all of a sudden you're supposed to reduce your herds
and price is supposed to come down. Are they nuts?
We'll pick this up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck and Network.
Seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Seven hundred wlwis.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Need.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
This is the briefing report on America's drugging edwork on
seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
The nhr Mission Foods Drag Racing Series closes out the
twenty twenty five season with the running this weekend of
the In and Out Burger NHRI Finals in Pomona, California.
All four championships in this series will be decided this weekend.
A second World championship in three years is all what's
certain for Doug Kalitta, who will officially secure the title
by making a qualifying pass after waiting twenty six years
(10:50):
for his first world title. A dominant run through the
countdown to the Championship well and sure he won't have
to wait long to clinch his second world championship and
top fuel. Four time world champion Matt Hagan gave himself
a chance with his victory over Austin Prock in the
final round at Las Vegas, but proc still enters Pomona
with a healthy one hundred and one point lead as
(11:11):
he looks to slam the door in a second straight
world title. In funny Car for John Force Racing, a
Pro Sotocer winner take all final round repeat between Dallas
Glenn and Greg Anderson won't happen this year, but it's
still that pair of KB Titan Racing drivers in the
title hunt. Glenn's Las Vegas win makes him a heavy
favorite for his first world title. He's ninety two points
(11:32):
ahead of Anderson. In the category that has the biggest
chance for drama, it's Pro Stock Motorcycle in Pomona, featuring
a pair of Vans and Hinds standouts. Richard Gadsden has
enjoyed a breakout season, winning twice in the playoffs. He
carries a twenty one point lead over Gage Herrera heading
into the Pomona action. Also in NHRA News, the mission
food series was headed to the Rock. NHRA and Rockingham
(11:56):
Dragway has announced the historic track will host a full
and NHR National event for the first time in track history,
as part of the NHR seventy fifth anniversary celebration in
twenty twenty six. The NHR Nationals at the Rock will
take place September twenty fifth through twenty seventh, serving as
the sixteenth of twenty races and the second of six
(12:16):
races in the countdown to the Championship playoffs.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
I need This is the racing report on America's Krucking
Network on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Say Dennis, the're reporting for a t.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
N.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network, seven hundred WLW, talking
about this story of just holiday spending projected to eclipse
one trillion dollars. When you keep hearing inflation, and as
I said, you know there are certain items that are
up and there's I'm not denying that there isn't some
inflation in there, but I've got a story later on
that kind of pulls that into more clarity. But when
(12:58):
I talk to people about inflation, they'll give me examples
and like beef and stuff like that. I said, well,
you know, if you've got your herds that you know
there's been this disease, there's been drought in some of
these areas, and so the herds are at the nineteen
fifty one levels. And our population since nineteen fifty one
(13:18):
has doubled in size. So if the herds are half
or the same as they were back in nineteen fifty
one and we have twice the amount of people, that's
going to.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Create a little bit of a supply shortage.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Now the import beef and so on that's had to
be done, that has been affected, but again that has
to do with transportation costs. But when you've got these
green when you've got these climunists out there, and let
me explain that this whole climate effort, all these these
(13:52):
climate fanatics, they have basically taken over and that has
become the new communism because they want to control where
you live, how you live, how you heat your home,
how you cook, what you can cook, the food that
you can They want to limit as remember the Green
New Steel that came out with Alexander A. Cassio Cortes,
(14:15):
that she introduced that and it was accepted by the
Democrats and became part of their platform, and in there
they talked about the effect of cow farts on the environment,
and that how many acres were used to produce meat
for the stores, and we need to reduce the amount
(14:36):
of meat that we're buying and the amount of meat
that we're consuming and so on. Well, if you reduce
the herds, then of course you're going to have increase
in prices, and if you're going to have droughts, you're
gonna have these issues. That's going to be So where
is that coming from?
Speaker 6 (14:50):
All?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Right? Now?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Some of that is coming back up the fact that
some of these areas are getting a little bit better,
and a lot of people are paying attention now realizing
that the Green New Steel was exactly what I called
it from day one, the Green News Steel. It's merely
a transfer of wealth from you to a select few
of people that are pumping all this garbage out there
(15:14):
in terms of we need to do this, we need
to invest here, we need to spend money here to
the tune of one point five trillion dollars over the
last several years. And then all of a sudden, it's
like gosh, gee whiz, it's not working. It's not reducing
As a matter of fact, it's increasing our carbon footprint.
(15:35):
It's not efficient, it's not producing nearly the amount of energy.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
That we thought it would.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Well, if you what do you mean you didn't you
didn't figure out how much generation of electricity was going
to be done by these solar panels or by these
wind turbines and all this are these windmills. And yet
now all of a sudden, it's a shock to you.
And oh, by the way, shock of shocks, you know,
did you know? But solar power doesn't work when it's
(16:02):
a cloudy day, when you don't have the sun, there's
no solar power. And oh, by the way, here's another
surprise for you. When the wind doesn't blow, the windmills
don't turn, and when the windmills don't turn, that doesn't
produce energy either. What a shock. And yet they couldn't
figure this out. They couldn't figure out that certain times
(16:24):
of the year the wind doesn't blow in some of
these areas. So they're going to have to have some
backup plan. And then not only that, but you have
the transmission lines that you already have in place in
order to generate where you are currently generating power, and
then you have to have different transmission lines from where
the power is being generated by these solar fields and
(16:45):
these windmills. So now you've got double transmission lines, and
they're surprised that it's not working, that it's not efficient,
and that it's a failure.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Big surprise, Big surprise, big surprise.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
But you know, I've been talking about that for years.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Also, trucking grows more confident about the freight market upturn.
Confidence has grown in recent weeks with the upturn in
the freight cycle is approaching more quickly. The end of
let me see, upturn in the freight cycle is approaching
more quickly than previously expected. Data provided shows and acceleration
(17:24):
and carrier capacity exits indicating the tightening of the market
is edging closer.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
The observe the observercy.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
A number of macroeconomic dominoes starting to fall into place,
all this doom and gloom that we heard about from
the beginning of the year, that you know, this is
going to create a problem here. Yet some of the
people like me were saying that no, these tariffs aren't
going to increase inflation, that it's going to There's a
lot of different ways that can happen. This will also
(17:53):
push prices up in one direction, but push prices down
in others. Will lead to fair trade as opposed to
just trade, that there will be more competition and so on,
and that the prices will be leveled off the fact
that some of these changes within the administration with these
tariffs will reduce the teriffs in these other countries and
make more of our goods available there, which if we're
(18:16):
going to be exporting exporting more, then we're going to
be creating more. And then when you create more, you've
got more to export or consume, and prices come down
that way. So a lot of these, as they talk
about the macro economics of things, are starting to fall
into place. As recently as a couple of months ago,
executives expected a rough ride over the coming twelve to
(18:37):
eighteen months, while Tonnage data and the Logistics Managers Index
for September suggested a regression after positive signs in the summer,
but gen Logs data shows a five percent drop in
carriers applying their trade in the week that ended November fifth,
and a decrease of seven point three between October the
(18:59):
first in October thirty first, So some of the smaller
carriers are going out because they jumped into the market
over capacity during the pandemic, and now some of those
are going by the wayside. Genlogs tracks the unique Department
of Transportation numbers observed in the roads each day through
a nationwide network of cameras deployed along the major interstates
(19:21):
and highways. The cameras track truck traffic as they passed by,
and artificial intelligence is used to extract unique identifiers in
real time, such as dot MC markers, equipment types, and logs.
Genlogs CEO Ryan Joyce said that data indicated a decrease
(19:42):
in the number of smaller units carriers with one to
ten units, but the unique numbers show a eight point
three percent dip in the month of October. So with
the number of units out there, that means that there
is going to be then a supply shortage for that,
which means that the prices for freight and such could
(20:04):
will or should go up in the coming months.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
And they go through an awful lot of.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Statistics here, and I won't bore you with all that,
but when they talk about shippers paid more to move
less freight in the third quarter a clear signal that
industry capacity is exiting. This according to Bobby Holland, US
Bank Director of Freight Business Analytics, Todd Mark Cusick, a
(20:30):
customer insight manager at truck stop dot Com, many believe
the bottom may be near in terms of volumes and
are cautiously preparing for better days ahead. Our best CEO,
elect Seth runzer On said October fifth that the carrier
was not expecting a softer than normal early October to
continue into the first quarter of twenty twenty six, citing
(20:53):
the expected resolution of the federal government shutdown, greater clarity
over terriffs, and a growing impact from recent Federal reserve
interest rate reductions. A bunch of other carriers in here
chime in talking about how they are foreseeing stuff going on.
Customers are telling JB. Hunt, let me see. Director of
(21:15):
International Pricing Amy Horn told attendees at the American Trucking
Association's twenty twenty five Management Conference and exhibit, customers are
telling JB. Hunt it has been a shipper's market for
longer than any of them have expected, but they expect
to see change in the market soon. Let's see some
(21:35):
of this other stuff in here. Now this is interesting.
I this popped out of me. This is one of
the last lines in this particular story the national Let
me see several let me see they're talking about data.
As far as the freight, however, rates are steady. The
average rate for DAT Freight and Analytics top fifty drive
(21:58):
in in line haul lane by load volume remained unchanged
for the third week, averaging two dollars per mile and
twenty eight cents higher than the national seven day average.
National seven day rolling average for refrigerated carriers saw a
two percent decrease and so on. Now this is key.
(22:19):
They said that maybe in the short term headwind for
reefer carriers noted Crook and Kseh truck carrier in the
form of suspension of supplemental nutrition Assistance program that are
known as SNAP over the and they put in here
cut by the Trump administration. No, it was cut by
(22:40):
the government shut down forced by the Democrats. The SNAP
program helps feed forty two million Americans. SNAP recipients now
get this, spend twenty percent more on groceries than average.
SNAP shoppers represent almost ten percent in ELEE, seven percent
(23:00):
of total retail grocery spending. We'll dig into this a
little bit more coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network.
Seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Here's your trucking forecast for the Try State and the
rest of the country and the Try Sate. Overnight clouds
will gradually clear, the low down to thirty four Sunday
and warmer Wednesday, hies into the mid fifties, mostly sunny
Thursday high of fifty six mostly Sunday Friday, and the
high year sixty nationally on. Seasonably cold weather coming to
an end across the southeast coast in Florida, with the
West and Central US forming up. Snow expected to continue
(23:40):
across the lower Great Lakes region and interior northeast in
New England States. Meanwhile, heavy rainfall and mountain snow will
arrive to the West coast by late Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Seven hundred wl WON, Kevin Gordon. This is America's struck
In Network.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
By the way, if you miss any of our previous programs,
will miss any previous segments, hit up that iHeartRadio app
brought to you by your friends at rest truck Centers.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Now we were.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Talking earlier about and I can't emphasize this enough. You
know when you look at some of these things. And
I can remember having conversations with my mother years and
years ago when she graduated from college, she went into
a new form of a profession where she was a dietitian,
(24:30):
and back in the forties and fifties, that was kind
of unheard of in terms of people actually studying nutrition
and how to analyze things. And one of the things
she talked about was one of the things that was
going by the wayside were people understanding how to make
your dollars stretch, your food dollars stretch. One of the
(24:52):
tasks that they had in their class was to go
out and work with housewives or to go to certain
areas to teach people that, Okay, if you start the
week off with a chicken, and you make the whole chicken,
how many meals you can get out of that? How
much you can do in terms of using the bones
(25:15):
and whatever for the broth and then make soup out
of it. You can make chicken salad from some of
the stuff. And so the amount of being able to
stretch just by taking a particular item, learning how to
cook it and learning how to preserve it, and then
to make other meals out of it stretch the dollars.
And this is you know, coming out of the depression
back in the thirties and so and so with the
(25:38):
way things are now instead of going and just buying stuff,
learning how to cook, learning how to because for years
people were eating out a lot, and people were not
you know, they were bringing the take home meals and this,
and it was quite the phenomenon.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
You always hear about.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
All these people who have what they call gourmet kitchens
in their homes and basically for what there's very few
people that are spending the time cooking meals. And I
know people are busy. I know, things are you know,
kids are going off to this, that the other thing.
But there are ways of planning ahead and planning some
(26:19):
of these meals. And so with learning how to do
this and to learn how to cook and how to
prepare meals, how to buy groceries cheaper, you can extend
those dollars. But when you're giving certain things away. I mean,
this last line of this story that I was talking
about trucking, let me see talking about trucking grows more
(26:42):
confident and they were talking about the transportation disruptions as
a result of the SNAP benefits being held up, and
of course they blamed it on the Trump administration. Stopped
by the Trump administration. Hey, if by law you can
only spend what you have in a particular account, and
you can't spend any more, and the Democrats decide that
(27:05):
they're going to do a shutdown because they want to
take one point five trillion dollars to add to the
budget to spend on illegals getting benefits and so on,
health care for illegals and so on, Well, then yeah,
of course these benefits are going to get cut. And
they talked about and so I question that little sentence there.
(27:27):
But when they talk about that on average, SNAP recipients
spend twenty percent more on groceries, it's you know, when
you look at that number, twenty percent more on groceries
than the average person, it's as if along with that,
the government is just handing this out with no type
(27:50):
of maybe information for people, not any type of a
how to card or education as to how you can
use these benefits to feed your family and feed your family. Well,
I mean, if they're spending twenty percent more than average,
that means that pay you know, it's free money.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
I don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I'm just gonna go and PLoP the money down or
pop PLoP the card down and get all this stuff
instead of doing what you should be doing is shopping
for the best bargain. And if we've got I would
equate that to almost twenty percent waste if people are
spending more on you know, if you could buy something
(28:32):
for a buck and you're going to spend a buck
twenty for it, of course your benefits aren't going to
go that long, and you're gonna run out of money.
There's going to be a longer the month is going
to be longer than the paycheck, as they used to say.
And so just a twist in that, maybe spend some
time as far as the government is concerned, trying to
educate people within these programs how to use this and
(28:55):
use this wisely, rather than just shoving the money out
and trying to throw more money at a problem, instead
of trying to solve the problem and educate people along
the way. We had a government not a government survey,
but we had the survey monthly survey from the National
Federation of Independent Business. This is very telling here looking
(29:18):
at the data going through here. October twenty twenty five,
small business optimism takes a small step back as uncertainty eases.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
In October.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index declined by point six
percent in October to ninety eight point two, but remained
above the fifty two year average. Fifty two year average,
the average across the board over fifty two years of
ninety eight percent now granted at ninety eight point two,
we're just kind of ticking along that one, you know,
(29:50):
tickling that number, but it's still above the fifty two
year average. According to NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkle, Optimism
among small businesses declined slightly in October as owners report
lower sales and reduced profits. Additionally, many firms are still
(30:10):
navigating a labor shortage and want to hire, but are
having difficulty doing so, with labor quality being the top
issue for main street labor quality people qualified to do
the job? Is this perhaps maybe a report card on
the education system that people aren't qualified to go into
(30:30):
the workforce when they graduate. They cite twenty seven percent
of small business owners cited labor quality as their single
most important problem, up nine points from September. They go
through the different numbers in here, and again I won't
worry with all the all the different statistics, but it
was interesting. Fifty five percent of small business owners reported
(30:54):
capital outlays in the last six months, down one point
from September. Of those making expenditures, thirty six percent reported
spending on new equipment, twenty two percent acquired vehicles, and
fourteen percent improved or expanded facilities.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
You out there in the trucking industry, you.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Are a small business and this is some of the
feedback that the National Federation of Independent Businesses are getting.
And so as far as the trend in your business
into your own sphere of things, this kind of gives
you an idea what else is going on. Some of
the subheadlines here plans to increase employment is down down
(31:39):
one percent, but fifteen percent said that they were planning
on increasing employment, plan to make capital outlays, twenty three percent,
expect the economy to improve twenty percent. Current job openings
are up thirty two percent. Now a good time to
expand only thirteen percent of people said that that they
(32:00):
thought that that was the key or what they.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Were going to do. Now.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Going into the summary here, I found it was very interesting. Uncertainty,
while lower than in September, remained high and upcoming elections.
Of course, with the November elections that just occurred a
couple of weeks ago. Government shutdown likely played a role
in some of the downturn, but it's still around the
(32:27):
fifty two year average. Now, some of the quotes in
here are very very interesting, and we'll pick that up
coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's struck In Network seven
hundred WLW.
Speaker 6 (32:42):
After sixty years, the who has played their final show.
Now Pete Townsend is coming to iHeartRadio for an exclusive
private performance, playing his classic hits and talking to Iheart's
Jim Kerr about his life in music and his new
Quadraphenia Rock Ballet on the eve of its premiere. iHeartRadio
(33:03):
Icons with Pete Townsend listen on the free iHeartRadio apps
Classic Rock Channel tomorrow at seven pm Eastern.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Progressive commercial nose truckers can expect the unexpected when driving,
but a little ends up like this would still be nice.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
This as America struck In Network seven hundred WLW. We're
talking previously in a previous segment about this National Federation
of Independent Business and this is a good gauge for
you out there in the trucking industry because you are
a small business and the things that you're seeing and
the things that other businesses are seeing, you don't feel
(33:41):
like the lone ranger out there. And what was interesting
in here also you know some positive news. The optimism
is not as high as it was, but it's not
falling off a cliff. And so as things start falling
into place, as we saw with a previous story, I
think it was in the first segment, we are seeing
(34:01):
things fall into place where people were work. Well, maybe
some people were worried about it. But of course the
spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media were fanning the
fires of oh, you know, things are going to take
a downturn, We're going to have a recession, and so on.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
But I found very interesting some of the quotes they
associated with this.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
All right, this is from the construction a construction company
in Oregon. Government continues to put more financial pressure on
the construction business. There are more regulations and higher OSHA
fines against the people who actually build this country. Now,
I do take exception a little bit with that that
(34:43):
if you're operating an organization that is not OSHA compliant,
then you kind of get what you pay for. But
there has been some overreach in terms of OCEAN. As
matter of fact, years ago, I had a client. Of course,
people know that I'm a recovering accountant, and one of
the clients I had at one time they were curious
in terms of how they were compliant with OCEAN.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
I mean, you can see things in a manual and.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
All this sort of stuff, but to kind of get
a risk assessment to make sure that you don't have
potential accidents and what they actually called OSHA and asked
them to do an expection to kind of give them
an idea what they needed to change. And rather than
coming in, instead of being a friend or being cooperative,
they hit them up with a bunch of fines. Rather
(35:29):
than saying, okay, well this is kind of out of order,
thank you for bringing us here. There hasn't been any
accidents reported and all this kind of clear this up
and we'll be back in thirty days.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
No, they hit them with fines.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
So where you know that old saying that you know
the worst thing you hear and Ronald Reagan used to
say this, I'm here from the government. I'm here to
help you know that kind of thing. But again that
continues to be a problem government regulation. This is kind
of like the hidden hand you will, if you know,
compliance with some of these things, which in certain instances
(36:03):
are very very much necessary, but in other areas are
just too heavy handed. It's becoming increasing in this out
of manufacturing out of Ohio, It's becoming increasingly difficult to
provide medical insurance that a company and employees can can afford.
Manufacturing in Pennsylvania, the cost of health insurance goes up
(36:25):
every year since ACA, the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare.
With no small business with no small businesses can keep
up with the cost, this increase will surely kill many
small businesses in the next couple of years. Soon I
will no longer be able to offer health insurance to
my employees.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
In turn, this will cost me some good employees.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Again, this manufacturer out of Pennsylvania, agriculture out of Washington.
As usual, taxes at the county state level are always rising. However,
our price is to sell our goods remained similar to
last year. As consumers are struggling in this state with
the same tax burdens out of construction in Montana, economic
(37:13):
expecting and economic slow down due to interest rates still
being relatively high. Now, in those every one of those quotes,
which one of those had anything to do with tariffs
we kept hearing about tariffs are going to add dramatically
to prices and increase inflation. What people don't take into
(37:35):
consideration is the fact that, as I've pointed out on
this program, and I'm not again, i am not begrudging
these employment contracts that have been done with the various
unions that we've talked about on this program, because people
should be paid a certain amount, and in certain instances,
like with Ups and some of these others that had
their contracts on hold from twenty nineteen until about twenty
(37:58):
eight to twenty three, they're about four years without having
a new contract or price increases other than basically a
bare cost of living index, and in some cases not
even that. So over a four year period of time,
you find yourself behind and have to catch up. But again,
when you look at a ten percent increase every year
(38:19):
for the next six years, that's going to add to
the price of the goods that are going to have.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
To be sold. You have to recoup that cost.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Then when you factor in the increase in insurance, we'll
get to that in a second. But when you have
also the hidden costs in there of state, city, and
county taxes on there, that adds to it as well.
So you have all of these factors increasing. The people
who produce the raw materials, those prices go up, then
(38:50):
go to the manufacture where their prices have gone up
for insurance, for employee costs and so on. Then that
gets passed on to the wholesaler, and then the wholesaler
passes those along to the stores who again have probably
had to raise the hourly rage wage for their employees
and their health care costs, and that adds to their overhead.
(39:11):
So that accumulation effect. So nobody's talking about. Everybody wants
to talk about terraffs and how they're impacting things. And
so when you look at you know, when you peel
the curtain back and look at some of these things
that what's causing inflation, those some of the things that
need to be looked at and digging into the health
care costs, this came up. I just I just searched
(39:34):
for this today or yesterday while I was doing show
prep This just floored me. I mean, I knew it
was high. I knew it was health insurance premiums. But
get this, I hope you're sitting down. Family premiums for
employers sponsored health insurance reached an average of Okay, these
are premiums on the family shared by the employer and
(39:57):
the employee have average twenty six thousand, actually twenty twenty
seven thousand, twenty six nine to ninety three. This year
twenty seven thousand dollars in order to provide health insurance
for employers employeing providing that for their workers. Family premiums
(40:20):
are up six percent or one thousand, four hundred and
eight from last year.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
These are the.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Employer's employee's share of the insurance, up fourteen hundred dollars.
That's one hundred and seventeen dollars more per month out
of your pocket, similar to the seven percent increase recorded
in each of the previous two years. Six percent increase
(40:50):
this year, seven percent increase over the last two years. Now,
is that tariff related? Is that tariff inflation?
Speaker 5 (41:00):
There?
Speaker 2 (41:01):
No, this is the healthcare premiums. And it appears as
though you know again, and I'll stress this enough.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
The Affordable Care Act was not affordable and a.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Way, and I'm saying it's not affordable.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
It's the Affordable Care Act.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
It should have been named something else, as to an
act to abstract subtract more money from your paycheck. But
it You know, all these bills are always put up
with these glowing terms and they're anything but the Affordable
Care Act has been an absolute disaster. And this was
forced on us by the Congress, by the Democrats when
(41:45):
they were during the Obama years. And you know, people
don't talk about this enough. If it was such a
great plan, if it was so wonderful and everybody should
be a participant in it, and such a great plan,
that they didn't wait till people volunteer to be part
of it. They forced them to buy this and it was.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Such a great act.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
None of the members of Congress, they have their own
that Congress and Senators all have their own top of
the line healthcare plan. So if Affordable Care Act was
so wonderful, why aren't they participating in it? And then
when you look at this over the time, the premium increases.
In just this year in terms of health premiums are
(42:34):
up six percent overall inflation is two point seven percent,
So the healthcare increase is twice the rate of inflation,
and worker earnings are only up four percent. So healthcare
premiums are outpacing the increase in pay on a yearly basis.
(42:54):
So where was the media talking about these price increases
over the last couple of years. Were they silent because
the right party was in power as opposed to now
in their in their infinite wisdom. Now, one of the
things they talk about in here is some of the
(43:15):
health insurance and how some companies are now trying to
rein in some of these expenses by offering more plans
for people to maybe increase some of the healthcare that
they're doing and personal care. But basically kind of part
of the MAHA movement, if you will. But I just
found it amazing that if you dig in as far
(43:37):
as what's causing this inflation, it's absolutely amazing, and these
healthcare prices are just going out of sight and not
enough people are talking about it. Well, folks were way
up against clock here. Time for us to scoot out the door.
I'm Kevin Gordon. Stay tuned for Reddie Radio Top of
the r I'm Kevin Gordon Americas struck in network seven
hundred W LW
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