10-15-25 America's Truckin' Network

I just flat out say that every month, it seems that this consumer sentiment report that comes out by the University of Michigan, this is the thing that a lot of the well the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media kind of tend to glom onto because it's one of these well respected type of surveys that's done by the University of Michigan taking a look at consumer sentiment.

Now this is done based on a survey, and a month after month, I bring this up and I talk about it simply because this is the stuff that the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media talk about. Let's say, consumer sentiment went down and all this sort of stuff. So they put all these negative figures and these negative

thoughts into people's head. And I've explained this numerous times that as I look out at the economy and I look at at what's going on, knowing the resilience of the American public, knowing the resilience of the individuals who own businesses, knowing the resilience of people like you out in the trucking industry that you guys can get through anything. All you got to know is what rules are we playing by. We can handle just about anything. We are

rugged individualists in this country. We are the type of people we are. You compare us to any other people in the world, and we work harder, we work longer. Well maybe with the exception of the Japanese, but that's a whole nother story altogether. And they have their problems over there as well, some of the mental illness and stuff that's creeping up there because they have had this constant work, work, work, work, work ethics. Now you go

that to a further extreme. You look at the European Union and how that will take a month off just to I guess, just to relax, even though they don't do much to begin with. So anyway, we are a very resilient people and we can get through just about anything. And as I said, all we need to know is what the rules are. And once in a while, we'd like to get a little cooperation from our government, which we are getting, and we would like a little cooperation

from the Federal Reserve that we're not getting. And I keep harping on the idea or the fact that our interest rates are two damn high. If you're trying to stimulate the economy, if you want things to go along, if you want people to have more money in their pockets so they can go out and spend more, And you look at the numbers. Our unemployment is low, wages are coming up, Inflation is moderate in terms of where it is, and we'll talk about that coming up. And

things are on the surface all looking pretty good. Problem is is that when you look at the interest rates and what people think of in terms of well their credit cards are concerned going out and try to buy a piece of equipment, try to buy a new truck, try to add fleets of trucks to your fleet, young people trying to buy a house. All that stuff factors into it. But what we're constantly getting is the drum beat from the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media.

They from day one have been trying to talk down this economy and trying to manufacture, in my opinion, a recession. They've talked about how horrible the tariffs are going to be, it's going to cause inflation, it's going to run into a recession, and things are going to go to hell in a handbasket, none of which has happened. And as a matter of fact, things have gone extremely well. And so we when we look at the inflation numbers, which we'll look at later on, as I mentioned, these are

the things that are there. But yet we've got the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media constantly talking down the economy, talking about high inflation, talking about this, that and the other thing. And when you go out you serve a people on the street, we don't know. When the survey, they never explain what the percentage of Republicans, Democrats, independents, the demographics, in terms of the ages, in terms of the population, and any of that. All they do is

put out this survey. But it's one that people glom onto and talk about a lot. So let's go through this. The number of Americans, the numbers of the numbers, that's the title. Americans have soured on the prospect of finding new jobs. A new survey shows, well, that's all well and good if you're not working, but unemployment is low, so there's not that many people out there working, people

that have a job. Okay, if you're looking for another job, if you're thinking of job hopping, that prospects might not be so good. But at least you've got a job and you've got a paycheck coming in. And they're still frustrated by persistent inflation. Oh really, we'll talk about that in a minute, giving them little confidence that the economy

will improve soon. Well, the economy is pretty darn good compared to what it was back in the Biden administration, and when we look at energy prices, when we look at what is going on as far as food prices, and the prospects for economic prosperity. The first reading of the Consumer Sentiment Survey in October was basically flat at fifty five. According to the University of Michigan set on Friday,

the index has been hovering at levels typically experienced during recessions. Gee, you, I wonder why if you've got this constant drumbeat of negativity talking about the economy, ninety four percent negative coverage, ninety four ninety five percent negative coverage of Donald Trump. Of course people are going to have in their head or they're they're going to be having a bad taste in their mouth or affect their attitude. And so when you survey people like that, after this constant drumbeat of

bad reporting, people are going to react that way. Consumer sentiment helps gauge how Americans feel about their own finances as well as the broader economy. That's an important feature right there. People are looking at their own finances. Things seem to be going well on their end, but they're worried about other people out there that what they're hearing

as far as the economy is concerned. When you are hearing this concant drum beat as far as the economy, the teriffts are going to cause recession, inflation, and so on, you're not seeing it, but you're constantly hearing about it, and you're thinking, well, Geeve, maybe I'm not affected, but maybe everybody else is, and so that affects your viewpoint.

Got to get into the key details here. Consumers expected the rate of inflation to rise by four point seven percent in the next year, indicating that they see little chance of a slow down in price increases, which is absolutely ridiculous because how are you going to predict what the inflation is going to be based on what you're hearing or what you're knowing. All you do is you're basing that on what you're hearing from the spoon fed

regurgitators in the mainstream media. I wonder what the I'm going to have to go back and dig into some of these surveys and think what these people were looking at in terms of prediction when in a particular month of June of twenty twenty two, inflation hit nine percent. I wonder what the consumer sentiment at that point and what they forecasted inflation to be. You know, I'm not sure that they really even understand what the percentage of as far as inflation is. They probably don't even know

what the current rate of inflation is. Now. Current rate of inflation is two point nine percent based on the Consumer Price Index. Most economists and Federal Reserve officials expect inflation to top three percent by the end of the year. So if the so called experts are expecting a three percent, where are these people getting this four point seven percent. It's got to be this constant drumbeat from the spoon

federal gurgitators in the mainstream media. According to the director Joanne Sue Interviews reveal little evidence that the ongoing federal government shut down has moved consumer's view of the economy so far. They say in the survey that again that the government's shut down meanwhile has not registered much at all with the American people. Sentiment remains well below a pre pandemic high of one pH one. So at fifty five we are well below that one oh one, suggesting

US economy is unlikely to speed up anytime soon. Well, of course, if you've got high interest rates and you've got the federal reserve of tamping down on the economy, their foot on the break, so to speak, you're not going to have that high US tariffs and constant disputes over trade have weakened the labor market and broader economy this year. Where's the evidence of that? How have tariffs increased or decreased the amount of things that people are buying?

That it's not certainly causing inflation, it's not creating a problem as far as possibly job prospects or people expanding job or hiring new But we're in this position where companies are not hiring and they're not firing, which is a good thing, and acceleration and growth is not expected until next year, assuming the Trump administration finally settles on

trade levels. I mean no, not the Trump administration settling on trade levels, the rest of the cut, the rest of the world accepting the fact that their tariffs are too damn highs and ours are too low, and we're trying to level the playing field. FED cuts will depend on whether inflation actually begins to slow down again. If it doesn't, the economy would face rockier times. But again, the Federal Reserve has shown that they will claim they're

paying attention to the inflation. But like they did in September of twenty twenty four, when they're trying to get Kamala Harris elected, they said, oh, we're going to concentrate on jobs. We think the job market is low, so we're going to cut interest rates a full half a percentage point, trying to push her over the finish line. That didn't work, Thank goodness. We'll pick this up. I'm

Kevin Gordon. America's Struck A Network seven hundred w L I'm Kevin Lord in America, Struck A Network seven hundred WLW. We talked about this Michigan survey, and it's a survey that's done every month. They do it at the beginning of the month, and they do it at the end of the month in terms of consumer sentiment. And again, everybody glombs onto it. Everybody pays attention to it. It's in the news and all that. So we got to talk about

it here. But what I want to do is pull it apart, pick it apart, digest it, go through it, and basically dissect it and say, Okay, what are the facts in here? What's true and what's not true. We keep hearing about inflation. Okay, let's talk about inflation. Want to all right? We keep hearing that inflation is high that I saw a report the other day that they said, well, you know, we expect inflation to be higher than last year. Okay, Well they just left it at that, But until you

read the sentence. Last year inflation was our last year of the Biden administration, was two point nine. They're saying that this year they're expecting inflation to be two point nine two, So two tenths of a percentage point above two point nine. So inflation is going to be higher this year. Yeah, but you leave the impression that, oh, higher means to me that it's going to be like one two percentage point different. Let's do a little bit

of comparison, if you will. First full month of the Trump administration, February inflation was a two point eight percent. The previous year it was three point two percent. We were down four tenths of one percentage point. In March. We were down one point one percent in terms of inflation. Inflation in twenty twenty four was three point five two

point four in March. Inflation in April three point four versus two point three, so that was down one point one May it was down nine tenths of one percent three point three in twenty twenty four, two point four percent in May. So where are we getting anywhere near the inflation numbers from twenty twenty four at this point? All right? June two point seven percent was down two point seven percent, was down zero point two percent from

the two point nine to twenty twenty four. The one month this entire year that our inflation has been higher than the previous year was in August, when inflation was a two point nine percent and the previous year was a two point five percent. So we're still at that range where it has never gone above three percent during the entire time that Trump has been president, inflation has been two point eight two point four, two point three two point four every month. During twenty twenty four, inflation

was over three percent. So where the hell are people concentrating on all of a sudden now their focus is on inflation when inflation isn't anywhere near what it was during the Biden administration. The first full year of the Biden administration in twenty twenty one, inflation was up seven percent. In twenty twenty two was up six point five percent,

In twenty twenty three was three point four percent. Then we started hearing in twenty twenty four towards the end of twenty twenty four, is that, oh, well, the inflation rate in twenty twenty four is well below what it was in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two coming out of the pandemic. Well, it was still a two point nine percent, even though the previous year it was three point four. So where was all the concern Back then?

It seemed like nobody was talking about inflation. Maybe people like you and me were complaining about it, But the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media, they apparently kept that news to themselves. They didn't bother harping on it, they didn't bother talking about it, they didn't talk about

it NonStop in the news. But where is the evidence of this if you're talking about inflation and you're you know, we've seen the consumer price index, we've seen the consumer price index, producer price index, we've seen that personal consumption expenditure numbers all hovering around two point eight two point seven percent thereabouts. But then when you look at the wages in terms of the hourly rate and so on, that's been up four point one percent, three point five

percent in those ranges. So the increases in wages are going up higher than the inflation. So again, I when they start talking about inflation, well, the numbers aren't proving that. And when you do the comparison month by month from the previous year, they're a heck of a lot lower now than what they were then. And you know, and when you look at and I've talked about this before and I keep talking about it, at least as far

as grocery prices are concerned. Again, you're the main thing that you buy on a regular basis is groceries and energy. You look at gas prices, and gas price are coming down, they're at some of the lowest levels they've been in a couple of years. You look at food prices, you look at the grocery store and so on, and as far as what I've seen, if depending upon when you go,

there are certain things it is a trend. You go into the grocery store, there are certain days there certain weeks where the lost leaders and the milk and stuff like that, they have that very low in order to encourage people to come into the store and buy stuff. But you go down aisle after aisle, I tell you you've got to look at the advertisements, because you'll notice that it's like every couple of weeks, certain items go on sale, then they go back up. Just last week, for instance,

I buy Folger's coffee, Folger's black silk. It is normally on the shelf fourteen ninety nine. Last week they had it on sale for eight ninety nine. So if you're doing your inflation calculation based on the fourteen ninety nine versus the eight ninety nine, you're going to get a whole different type of perspective in terms of what inflation is as opposed to last year, a couple more weeks to go by, that coffee price is back up well

right now, it's back up to fourteen ninety nine. It'll be up there probably this week, next week, and probably the following week it'll come back down to the eight ninety nine. You go down the aisle and you look at these things, and it's a trend when you look at those on a regular basis. But I know far too many people that just don't plan ahead. They just go. And you know, they always claim they're in a rush, they're in a rush, they're in a rush, they're in

a rush. But then when you see what they do on a daily basis, how much time are they spending on their phone? How much time are they sitting there scrolling through stuff on pictures and stuff. I mean, my

wife and I we talked about this periodically. I Mean, one of the things is that I pay attention to these commercials and so on, and there's a commercial where this woman is just sitting She's all decked down, she's got a little turtlenecks sweater on, and the people are running around in the house and all this sort of stuff, and she's sitting there very comfortably looking at her phone and scrolling through the phones. The little girl comes running by and she just kind of looks up and smiles

and goes back to her phone. Doesn't pay attention to her family. She's not interacting with her family. Everybody else is doing stuff, but she's concentrated on her phone. Okay, So when you're concentrating on your phone like that, maybe

you should be checking prices. Maybe you should be checking planning ahead in terms of what meals you're going to have, and then go out and buy the ingredients on that and make sure that you are paying attention to what is going on as far as the food prices are concerned, instead of constantly getting this I don't know this mind garbage of scrolling through and watching stupid videos and stuff like that. So again, again, I keep going. I talk about this a lot. I pay attention to grocery prices.

I am one of the few men I know that enjoy grocery shopping. And I look at our bill, I look at what we're spending on groceries. And I'll say this again, I have, you know, looking at grocery prices and trying to save and trying to do certain things. I always wanted to try to get our grocery prices to where we're saving about one hundred bucks a month.

We are now into the tenth month of the year, and we are already have saved so far for this year over seventeen I think it's like seventeen hundred and

fifty dollars just the two of us. Now. Granted we're probably a family of three with the way I eat, but again, we have saved over seventeen hundred dollars just by It takes me fifteen twenty minutes a week to do a little bit of comparison shopping between you know, the stores that around us, and if I'm in that direction or if I'm in that area, I'll run and I'll pick up the thing that's on sale, or most of the time, I just go to our Kroger store which is right up the street, and pay attention to

those prices and our grocery bills. I'm not noticing any major increase. In fact, I'm we're feeling more of a decrease in terms of prices when it comes to food. So when they start talking about and whining about, I mean, maybe if you're out buying refrigerators two and three a year. If you're buying a car twice a year, if you're buying a television three times a year, that's where you're seeing the inflation. But again this constant talk about inflation.

Compare the numbers, get into the details, look at the numbers, and you'll find out that somebody's lying to you. And I guarantee you it ain't me. On America's Trucking Network, I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network, seven hundred WLW.

northern Rockies. Meanwhile, the Southern Rockies and the es Central High Planes will see the isolated severe weather both Wednesday and Thursday.

sounds pretty bad, doesn't it. North American Class eight truck orders remained below prior year results as tariffs continued to squeeze and already stress transportation sector in September. These tariffs aren't supposed to go into effect until November. So how are they squeezing now? My question? Now, some of the components that have come over that are being added to the American made trucks. Yeah, but the terraffs on trucks

being important haven't gone into effect yet. ACT Research preliminary data showed that orders decreased forty four percent year over year. So if you take our number from September of last year in September of this year, it's down forty four percent, but they increased fifty seven point six percent from the units reported in August. So this gets back to the thing that I've been talking about since the end of the pandemic. The pandemic kind of knocked things off its

normal schedule. When you look at business trends and you've seen this in your trucking business, you know when your customers are going to need you to haul freight certain times of the year, slow times, low times, medium times, and so on. A lot of this has been knocked off as a result of the pandemic. Things that you would expect to seem in January don't happen till February. Things you expect to see in March are now happening

in January. Worry, things that you expect to see in September may not happen till October, and July may happen in June. So all these things are there, and it's necessary to kind of look at these as kind of a sliding scale of over a three months trend or whatever. This kind of gets back to a comparison that like football coaches will do, they will break down a game, whether it be basketball, they'll break it into segments. They'll break it into basketball, college basketball games, or a half.

So they'll break it into a half of the half, so a quarter football quarter, they talk about winning that eight minute period of time, winning that fifteen minute period of time, So you're not worrying about, Okay, the first minute, we're down by three points and then the next we're down by two and whatever. You're worried about winning that

eight and eight minute segment. So it doesn't matter what happens at the first minute, second minute, third minute, as long as you were making progress and you wind up being ahead at the end of that eight minutes. Same thing. And like football, if you're winning every quarter, if you're winning that fifteen minute segment, the next fifteen minute segment, you're going to win the game. And so when you stretch these things out, Okay, January may not be what

it was January last year. February may be better than it was last year. March may be about the same as it was last year. But you look at those three together and you're ahead from last year. And that's the thing that people need to concentrate on as opposed to, well, this month last year compared to last month is bad, But then when you compare it to the previous month, things are looking good. So this is the thing that kind of throws these three things off. On a six

and twelve month basis, ors continue to trend down. So on the yearly basis they are down. And again I talk about what is causing this. Well, when you're talking about a eighteen, you know, a class eight truck, the tractor that you see hauling for people and not in the trucking industry, the cab that haulds that trailer, those sell for anywhere from one hundred and eighty thousand dollars to two hundred and twenty to two hundred and thirty

thousand dollars. That's not a cheap piece of equipment. So if you're going to buy that, chances are you don't have two hundred and thirty thousand dollars laying around. So you're going to finance that. And what happens when you go to finance that, you've got to talk about interest rates. And if interest rates are too damn high, you're not

going to buy that. If you're talking about doing that purchase over a five, six, seven, eight year period of time, and you're looking at a seven percent or a six percent interest rate versus a two percent interest rate, those payments are going to be astronomical. You're trying to go out and buy a truck for your company and for

your individual operation. The fleets are out there trying to up their fleets, trying to increase their fleet and turn over their fleet about twenty five percent every year, so you take about a quarter of the trucks that you own, and you try to replace those every four years. When you have an interruption like the plandemic, when you had all the businesses shut down, you had all the manufacturing

shut down, so you couldn't buy. Then then you go into the following year of twenty twenty one and you have supply chain issues and people aren't manufacturing as many vehicles as possible. Then all of a sudden, you get into twenty twenty two and you see these sales busting at the seams because people are trying to make up for the two previous years. So some of those vehicles that they purchased then are probably still outside that four year cycle, and so you're seeing maybe a little bit

of a shift there where people aren't replacing. Plus there's been a lot of businesses like Yellow that went out of business. They up their fleet that one of the things that one of the reasons that they got there they got a loan. Wait a minute, let's back up a second. Back during the plandemic, Yellow Corporation got a huge loan from the federal government, about a seven hundred

million dollar loan. They used that money to go out and replenish some of their trucks and build up their fleet because they were deemed to be an important component because a lot of their clients were the Navy bases, air Force military bases around the country, and to make sure that there was a supply of stuff during the pandemic of getting to those individual installations, they deemed it the importance of Yellow going into having those funds available

in order to buy the trucks. Unfortunately, Yellow, with the problems that they had been having, they weren't able to solve those. They went out of business, but through the bankruptcy, selling off the vehicles that they had, auctioning those off, looking at the various locations that they had, the warehouses that they owned, the distribution centers that they owned, the sales of that real estate, the sale of that more than had enough money and paid back the federal loan

plus interest. Far different than we had Solendra during Obama administration, where they got five hundred million dollars and paid not back one nickel he had. I forget the company that Biden administration lent money to went belly up, made some of the contributors very wealthy, or gave them a nice paycheck, but they went out of business, never recovered any money. At least when Yellow went out of business, they not only paid back the federal government the loan that they

had borrowed, but interest included. So those vehicles were out on the market and people were buying those and buying those up with the truck recession that we've had a lot of people that jumped into the market during the pandemic that said, hey, you know trucking industry, you know freight rates are way high, and I've got you know, I've got a CDO license. I'm going to go out and buy a truck and I'm gonna make I'm gonna

make me some money. And so they they just jumped into it both feet and forgot the fact that you know, you've got to know what you're doing. You've got to plan your expenses, you've got to plan your revenue and you've got to make good business decisions to stay in business. Well, when freight rates started coming down after the pandemic, they couldn't make it based on the operations that they had. They went out of business. So a lot of these

late model trucks are out there. That's why you've seen the late model trucks on the marketplace that you used truck industry being extremely high. So with people being able to go out and buy those, the emphasis on the new trucks, plus the fact you had during the Biden administration, you had these new emissions controls that they wanted to put on those and said that they were going to

implement those going into the year twenty twenty seven. So people were holding off their purchases to the end of twenty twenty six, to before they made their purchases so that they would get the latest model before the prices

went up tremendously. And so there's been this shuffling of the deck back and forth as far as when people will want to buy new trucks, the availability of trucks, between the tariffs possibly coming in and these emissions controls knowing where they're going to settle, and they're still waiting on these emissions controls and the final settlement where these emission controls are going to be before people jump into the market. We'll pick this up coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon,

America's truck and Network seven hundred WLW. This is America's trucking network seven hundred WLW. Continue on this conversation. Class eight truck order slide forty four percent. As Tariff's strain ACT Research which stands for America Commercial Transportation Research Company. They do these surveys and they go through and they they actually actually track the sales and then they report on the Carter Weiz Research Analystic ACT Research on a

six and twelve month base. Dis orders continue to trend down. We talked about that the longest four higher downturn in history continues to weigh on tract or demand as freight rates continue to run below inflation levels and even as more teriffts are imposed. The nation awaits a verdict on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act as far as tariffs are concerned in terms of whether they're going to be

affected by the teriffts or not. So if they're not going to be affected by the terriffs, you can put off whether or not you're going to make this purchase or not. Case the Supreme Court will hear in early November. Fife also pointed out that the industry is still awaiting the announcement from the Environmental Protection Agency on the future of the planned emissions regulations. The agency previously announced that that is reconsidering its heavy duty truck emissions regulations related

to the Phase three greenhouse gas emission standards. Magnus Coke, a vice president of Strategy and Marketing and brand management Volvo Trucks North America. The North American truck market continues to show weakness, with the September industry orders in US and Canada coming in just north of nineteen thousand units compared to thirty four thousand in September of last year.

Coke added that the customers are show allowing their fleets to age while navigating ongoing uncertainty around inflation, tariffs, and the upcoming emissions regulations. So, as I mentioned before, we are resilient people. You are resilient business owners of your independent operations. Once you know the rules, you can operate with almost anything. It's this idea of having this item up in the air this item up in the air.

One item up in the air would be bad enough, but when you're jumbling all these other things, it becomes extremely complicated. And people look at and they don't mention in here at all, which they should. You're not just you know, you're just not going out to the money tree and pulling money off and going out and buying a truck. You're looking at that in terms of financing that you're saying, I'm not going to get a return

on investment if I buy this truck. The amount of financing and the operations that I'm going to have, and can I afford this? Now, Also, you got to take into consideration that if you've got an older truck, the possibility of maintenance. So if you're looking at the maintenance end of it, every day that truck's off the road,

you're not earning money. So if you're looking at the truck from the stand of a newer truck in terms of a number of days on the road versus the maintenance days, you look at that versus what you're paying. And again I mentioned this. I'm not giving any tax advice here, but what you need to do is maybe talk to the person that prepares your tax returns, talk to it, set up an appointment if you don't have a tax attorney or a tax accountant, and may get

some advice from them. Because you've got this Section one seventy nine item from the IRS that in the one big beautiful bill that was put through, you can deduct from your taxes new equipment up to one point two five million dollars one one million, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of equipment purchases. You can depreciate that as an expense in the current year. You don't have to write that off for a five to seven year period

of time. So what you need to do and sit down with somebody and maybe pay a couple of hundred bucks to do this, is run the numbers in terms of, all, right, if my finance, if my interest payment on my loan's going to be X and such, if I'm not going to have the truck off the road because of maintenance, and what the maintenance would cost, if I've got the higher interest rates on this, if I've got this deduction that I can take, so whatever that I make, I

can deduct one point two five million dollars off of that Where am I going to be at the end of the year. Will I be making money or will I not be making money? Do I need to stand pat or should I take the plunge and buy a new truck. These are some of the things that have to be worked out, and I suggest that you do that. That one million, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars right off in one year is a heck of a carrot out there in terms of being able to purchase something.

Let's see what else we got in here. They just keep going on here about you know, the uncertainty in terms of when is the recession going to go the truck recession going to go over in terms of UH, the other agency, because you've got the ACT Research and you've got FTR that does their survey in terms of the trucks trucking purchases and their numbers are pretty much the same. So again it boils down to the Class eight truck sales are down this particular month compared to

the but they're up. They're up from the previous month, but down from this time last year. So these trends are have to be paid attention to and has to be taken into consideration over a six month period of time. Tell you what I want to talk a little well, I'll tell you what I'm going to get into this particular thing real quick, and then I want to talk about oil and gas prices real quick as well. New

NFIB Survey. Now this is a survey of small businesses and it's the National Federation of Independent Business Businesses and they do their survey that is different than the consumer sentiment survey that we had from the University of Michigan. These are actually business owners out there taking this survey and determining what the business is out there. New NFIB

Survey Small Business Optimism declines in September. That's the headline. However, when you read it, NFIB Small Business Optimism Index decline two points in September to ninety eight point eight. This was the first decline, first decline in three months, though it remains above the survey's fifty two year average of ninety eight. So yeah, it declined, but it's still above the fifty two year average, and it's still not it's still well above where it should be or where it

has been. It's also the first decline in the last three months. So the uncertainty index rose seven points in October. In August rather to one hundred. According to NFIB Chief economist Bill Dunkelberg, optimism among small business owners decreased in September. Well, yeah, a little bit, but not as dramatic as they would have thought. Supply chain and inflation issues stood out as

the key problem in the report. Net percentage of owners raising average selling prices rose three points, So there's three percent more of the business owners thinking about raising their prices. Let's see a net thirty one percent plan to increase prices over the next three months. Fourteen percent of the owners reported that inflation was their single most important problem fourteen percent out of the total hundred, so eighty six

percent that wasn't listed as their top priority. So maybe inflation isn't all that now the one thing in here that made me kind of scratch my head. A net negative seven percent of owners viewed current inventory stocks as too low in September, down seven points from October. Well, if your inventory stocks are down, how about making more or buying more so that you have more in your

inventory stocks. One bright spot was actual earnings changes, the percentage of owners reporting higher versus lower profits, which increase three months three points in September, so that is going up. So the bottom line on this survey is that their optimism over the period of time may be down a little bit, but if you look at them in terms of their current numbers, all of their current numbers are up, and they're very optimistic about what the current situation is

as opposed to the future. One of the areas in here that seasonally adjusted sixteen percent owners plan to create new jobs in the next three months, up one point from August. But they're one big thing that they're talking about is that when they go out and try to hire more people, they're not finding enough qualified applicants. So the jobs that they have to fill, they can't find the necessary people with the necessary skills to fill those positions.

Now that should be looked at as an indictment either of the employees themselves showing up that are not ready to take on this responsibility, or the failing of our schools not having these people up to the skills in order to go into the job market. We're not going to have time to get oil and gas prices. But it is falling and falling interestingly and those prices have come down, which again, when you have falling energy prices, that's going to be more money in your pocket, so

that you've got inflation under control. Well, folks, that does it for us. Stay tuned for Red Eye Radio at the top of the hour. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck A Network seven hundred WLW