10-27-25 America's Truckin' Network

Keys thereabouts. It looks like now that it's going to be veering off westward and only going to be hitting the I'm sorry eastward rather and hitting the east portion of Cuba. Now nobody's talking about this yet, However, you're going to be hearing it here on America's Trucking Network.

That is the area down in the southern tip of the southeastern portion of Cuba is where our Guantanamo Bay facility is there, and it's the only portion of Cuba that is owned by the United States, and we've maintained that for a number of years, even you know, during the communist regime and cast throw and all that, and that's where a lot of these how should we say, illegal deportees or the more I guess more dangerous criminals

are being held. So it's going to be interesting to see how that works out if this does in fact go in that direction. But right now, it looks like it's going to be hitting Jamaica. It's going to be some storm surges there. And if it goes in the trajectory that, it looks like it's going to take this eastwardly bent and maybe hit the south and the eastern tip of Cuba. So we'll keep an eye on that.

Some interesting thing we got this notification. We've got not a notification, but we got a latest release of a study from American Transportation Research Institute.

industries leading issues. This year's list include the economy, which you know, a lot of people will ask me that aren't familiar with the trucking industry or people that listen, why do you add why do you talk about the economy so much? And i'm it's the thing that affects the truckers. It's the thing that affects you out there. If the economy is not doing well, there's not going to be those number of loads for you to be carrying.

People aren't going to be buying stuff from stores, which means that the shells aren't going to have to be filled, which means they're going to be less trucks on the road filling bringing the goods to these locations. And for people that aren't aware of this, seventy two percent of everything you see on the shelves out there are brought

to you by a truck. And as people pointed out to me at the Mid America Trucking Associate or Trucking Show this past March, a lot of people came up to the booth and said, hey, you know, a lot of people keep talking about that seventy two percent figure. But if you take into consideration everything and every part of the economy, everything at some point in time.

by a truck at all. Also, so when you add all that into there, there is a tremendous amount and the truck well, most everybody that knows anything about anything realizes how important the trucking industry is. A lot of people learn that lesson the hard way during the pandemic, when some of the shores the shelves were empty and people were saying, well, gee, whiz, what happened and where

is everything. Well, trucks didn't get here or the stuff isn't available at the facility to be transported here, and so the trucking industry delivering good during that period of time. Actually we're treated as heroes a lot of times, and as soon as the plandemic was over, it's back to the same old, same old. You know, it's just no

respect for the trucking industry at all. So again people need to realize that not only the importance of the trucking industry to the stuff getting there on the shelves, but also the stuff that's getting to the individual locations for other supplies. As I mentioned hospital, the betting, the sheets, all the stuff is being cleaned and then the cleaning supplies themselves, so very important.

so to speak. And so there has been a little bit of a oversupply of trucks, oversupply of availability, and so the freight rates have come down tremendously, and of course the operating costs have gone up, as you're aware of. So there's been this squeeze as far as the trucking recession. Usually these trucking recessions last anywhere from twelve to fourteen months,

maybe eighteen months on the outside. But we are now into the third year of it, it seems and every time you turn around, there seems like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and once then eventually so it seems like that light dims and gets further away.

But a lot of people are anticipating. I'm seeing more and more stories about people being encouraged of what they're seeing and what they're anticipating over the next six months to be and then going on into twenty twenty six, well the last few months of this year as I'm thinking, but also the first part of twenty twenty six, so

people are very getting more optimistic about that. So looking through this, according to Andy Owen's third year of an extended freight recession, operating costs, operating costs climbed to their highest ever the same time the freight pricing has bottomed out.

Atr eyesnual analysis is so critical to our industry to not only quantify the issues, but more importantly, to understand what we can collectively do as an industry to address each The economy came in at number one lawsuit abuse, reform, and insurance costs and availability each rose one spot to be number two and number three of the top concerns. Lack of available truck parking dropped two spots this year to number four, and concern over driver compensation held on

to its position at number five. Driver training standard had been on the list of truck drivers concerns since twenty nineteen, but this year garnered enough votes to across all across all respondents to come in at number nine, which is now the addition to the list. So rounding out to give you an idea again the top ten. The economy came in at number one, lawsuit abuse two, insurance costs and availability three, truck parking for driver compensation five. CSA

came in at number six. English language proficiency came in

at number seven. Diesel emission regulations That was the other the fourth of the items that got onto the list, different from any of the prior years because there's been this discussion as far as the EPA is concerned, what they're going to be rolling back as far as emissions and then how that's going to affect the model year trucks that for twenty twenty seven and for some of the model trucks coming in in twenty twenty six, because a lot of that regulations that have been puted and

placed on that are already in the works. Some of that can't be pulled back, some of it can be stalled or whatever. So it's going to be interesting to see how these truck emissions and the regulations on that turnout. Finally, driver Training Standards and artificial Intelligence and trucking came in at number ten. We'll pick this up a little bit and get into some other things. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred w LW.

and Justin Algeyer. The Cup Series title on Sunday matches the winningest drivers of the season Denny Hamblin with six wins, Kyle Larson, Chase Briscoe and William Byron each with three on the season.

For the first time, a specific treatment can be matched to a specific type of cancer and a specific child. It'll be the biggest medical advancement for little patients in history. Dare to Dream with us support the Dare to Dream Project and all the work that the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society does at LLS dot org.

Over forty six percent of the survey respondse where motor carrier executives and personnel truck drivers represented thirty percent of the remaining twenty three percent made up.

asking for respondents to check in. As a matter of fact, at the Mid America Trucking Association American Trucking Show back in March, I had Rebecca Brewster on and we talked about some of the surveys, and she mentioned at that time how it's important and in order for them to get a clear picture of what's going on in the trucking industry that people participate in terms of some of the surveys that they were putting together at the time was the cost of operations and then some other things,

and especially this survey here. And so if you see those surveys, take the time and fill it out because again I understand being an independent trucker.

so you don't want to be a member of a group. However, when it comes to lobbying, when it comes to getting stuff changed, when it comes to knowing that your voice is being heard out there, the concerns that you have, if you don't fill out these surveys, if you don't participate in some of this stuff, if you don't take the time to do the individual surveys, people aren't going to know what your concerns are because as you can, as you see in these surveys, when they come out,

they will talk about, well, the trucking people in the trucking industry themselves, people that are the carrier executives and corporate workers. They have different concerns than you have, and so if this survey goes out and it's discussed in the media, they may pay more attention to what you know as far as Congress is concerned what these executives are talking about, as opposed to what's important to you. And of course truck parking, the economy and all those

things are very important to you. So again, over forty six percent of the service the survey respondents, remoter carrier executives, only thirty percent or the drivers. And you are the backbone of this, and so you need to participate more and more in these studies so that your concerns are out there and people know what they are. I talk about some of this legislation that goes on later on

in the week. I hope we can talk to get in touch with Louis Pugh from Owner Operator Independent Driver Association OWAIDA and talk about this licensing non domicile licenses that are being issued, as well as the English language proficiency and making sure that's enforced even though it's been on the books. But we saw the crash last week that we talked about. Three people died and then back

in August. Again, an English language proficiency person that couldn't even pass the test, couldn't even identify any of the roads. I think he could only identify what two out of twelve had failed his driving test for the owner operator or for the CDO license either.

But again you've got to be and when I put out the word in terms of some of these bills that are before Congress, and I'll give out the phone number of the switchboard, again, I got to emphasize that it is a very easy process. Is probably one of the best things that the government does is the legislator of the Congressional switchboard, because that handles the calls both for the House and for the Senate. All you have to do is call there. All you have to do

is give your name where you're located. And even if you don't know your senator or congressman, they know they can tell you which one it is, and then you can leave your message for them. Of course, leave it courteously and that type of thing. But if they hear from you, then that will change their vote or prompt them to vote on certain issues that are important to the trucking industry. And if you don't take advantage of that, your voice isn't going to be heard again. Twenty three

percent made up of other freight stakeholders. Among truck drivers respondents, driver compensation, truck parking in England language proficiency were the top three concerns. So again re emphasizing driver compensation, truck parking, and English language proficiency are your top three concerns. The top three concerns here on the overall survey were economy, lawsuit abuse, insurance costs. Truck parking came in at number four.

That's number two on your list. So again, as far as a respondence concern, compensation, truck parking and English language proficiency were the top three concerns.

this the driver Company Station lawsuit. Over forty two hundred trucking industry stakeholders participated in this year's survey, a fourteen percent increase over twenty twenty four responders including motor carriers, truck drivers, industry suppliers, driver trainers, and law enforcement, among other groups. The complete results and the course, you can go to the website there and I'll put this on Facebook and then a link there to where you can download the overall survey itself.

So I can't emphasize that enough. Last week, again towards the end of the week, we had that story about that horrific crash that happened in California, killing three people from a person that well, first of all, he was illegal that had somehow gotten a driver's license in California and couldn't speak English, couldn't pass the English language proficiency,

and was on top of it all intoxicated. They say that, you know, some of the reports said that he was on drugs, So again, being intoxicated, be under being under the influence, and driving an eighty thousand pound vehicle got you know, just horrific. And if you've seen the accident, if you've seen that dashboard camera of that, it is one of the most horrific accidents I've ever seen in my life. But again that kind of pushed some of

the economic news off to the side. And of course we had we talked about that, talked about it on our friend Dan.

southern Appalachians, with some instances of isolated flash flooding possible. Meanwhile, a new storm system organizing across the middle and lower Mississippi Valley by midweek, with widespread showers and storms expected, the central and eastern half of the country will start to see below average temperatures on Tuesday.

a seasonal adjusted two hundred and thirty two thousand. Now, that's up five percent from last week October the eighteenth, up from two hundred seventeen. Well, the number last week was two hundred and seventeen. Apparently that got adjusted up to two twenty, but they don't say when it was adjusted or how it was adjusted, but anyway, they're using the number of comparison of two hundred and twenty.

there and see that. And so we have had JP Morgan chase their people in their company as well as Goldman Sacks pulling that information down and then based on some of the states that don't report, and then they can do that there's a formula that the that the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out and so that they can say, okay, well, based on this, we can estimate this, and we can estimate that. So it's, you know, whatever formula they use, and then they do a seasonal adjustment

on those numbers as well. But Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan has been doing this the last couple of weeks. And as I've been pointing out, those numbers are available. So why are we waiting on the Bureau of Labor Statistics to do this for us? And why isn't it mandated that these states get their numbers in properly so there aren't these adjustments later on, because if they don't get their numbers in, you don't have an accurate information.

And if the Federal Reserve and all these other people, as far as the stock market is concerned, as far as businesses are concerned, as far as a reading of the economy, if that, if you don't have a complete set of data, how can you make the intelligent conclusion? And so the fact that these states, you know, they take their time getting this stuff in, and as they point out here, there's a.

percent increase. However, Goldman Sacks estimated the number at two hundred and twenty seven thousand, which is a three percent increase, and Goldman Sacks or I'm sorry, Goldman Sacks was at two hundred and twenty seven thousand, a three percent increase. JP Morgan put the number at two hundred and twenty nine a four percent. So if you're looking at unemployment rate and you see two hundred and twenty the previous week and see two twenty seven years, thinking, oh, that's

still in the twenties, not too bad. But because City Group and Nationwide came up with their calculations above two hundred and thirty thousand, that is what Reuters went with weekly jobas claims increase, more people collecting unemployment checks, economists estimate, but it do'll say that those are two outliers that hadn't even been participating in this over the last couple of weeks. Now all of a sudden, they come in

with a higher number. And that's the number you lead with, Not the people that you've been talking about over the last couple of weeks that have taken upon themselves to report this data. You've got to go with somebody for the first time. Unbelievable. The bias by the spoon fed

regurgitators in the mainstream media is just absolutely incredible. I keep pointing it out, keep pointing out how and again this goes to my opinion that a lot of these spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media from day one of the Trump administration have been trying to manufacture a recession. They're trying to put the idea in people's head that

things aren't going right in the economy. And day after day we talk about these things, and how we point to where the asenine predictions that they've come up with and the asenine statements that they've made are disproven based on the facts that they even present.

to your website, because that's where I got your information. Anyway, claims data was unavailable for Tennessee, Massachusetts, and Colorado, but economists made assumptions for the three states, similar to what the Labor Department would normally do when data is not available.

And again, if this information being so important, and it seems that whenever we talk about these numbers, Massachusetts is one of the ones that are always the latest, and it seems like the North Northeast is always late as well. I don't know if you recall, but a lot of times when we talk about tonnage coming in from the individual ports, we will get the reports from you know, the East Coast will get Savannah, we'll get the Charleston area,

will get the up in Virginia. But then the ports of New York and New York and Maine, those numbers always come in late. And then when we look at the West coast, those numbers always seem to come in on time. There's never anything of like, well, the Port of Long Ise or the Port of San Diego and Los Angeles, those two ports, and then you've got the ports up in Washington. Those reports never come in late.

But it always seems that the Port of New York or New Jersey, those always seem to come in late. So again there must be something there in the water where the people in the Northeast are late, because again Massachusetts seems to always be late with their numbers coming in on these unemployment numbers. States continue to collect the claims figures, submitting them to the Labor Department despite the shutdown of US government and has caused economic data blackout.

Economists have been have taken the unadjusted data to make estimates using seasonal adjustment factors and they go into the detail and all this the latest state level jobless according to this Orin Klatkin, he is a financial market economist at Nationwide. The latest state level jobless claims data suggests

the labor market remains steady and that layoffs have remained low. Interesting, the estimated claims have stayed within their pre shutdown range, suggesting there's not been a material pick up in layoffs, but there have been a spike in applications of federal employers in recent weeks or employees rather in recent weeks, likely related to the more than one hundred and fifty

thousand workers who dropped off the payrolls. However, those numbers for the federal workers are put in a different category, so it doesn't reflect this because these people haven't been laid off and they're not being called back. They're merely furloughed and when they do come back, they will be collecting back pay, so they're not part of these weekly

jobless numbers, which is a very important point. Let me see, the number of people receiving unemployment benefits for initial beyond the initial week proxy for hiring has gone up a little bit, to let me see, gone up to one point nine four to two million, up from one point nine to eight million, so not a big raise there. Calculations for these so called continuing claims by Goldman, Sachs, JP, Morgan and Nationwide were within the ballpark, so those numbers

are all within the ballpark. It was the initial job as claims that there was some discrepancy the elevated, continued claims readings suggests unemployed people are experiencing difficulties landing new position, jobless rate still holding at four point three percent. Gizella Young, an Economists and City Group, said these like this likely reflects the low hiring environment, as typically hiring would pick

up in October for the holiday season. She throws in here, some indications suggest holiday hiring may be less than usual this year. That's the first time I've heard that number or anybody talking about that. A lot of things that I've been reading saying that we're looking for a robust holiday season. So I don't know where she's getting her data, but we'll see who's right. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck and Network, seven hundred WLW.

seeing these reports on the inflation numbers. Okay, the consumer price indeck was scheduled to come in.

we were talking about how people were whining about. And it's not the consumers, it's the economists, mind you talking about and trying to stir up a controversy if you will, saying that, well, this is the this is the number that's so important for the Social Security cola, the cost

of living allowance increase. This is the period and if that number doesn't come in the delay in terms of putting that adjustment into those checks, it may not get there, to which I'm saying, Okay, we're talking about October.

with me? But anyway, so it was a week delay, and they're talking about much delayed numbers. But anyway, they were talking a couple of weeks ago about well, if this number doesn't get out, then you know they're not going to be able to adjust these Social Security checks. I'm thinking, you know, we're at the we'll be at the end of October. They got all of November, they got all of December, and the first checks don't come

out until January. We're not in the process now where we're sitting there with you know, the green eye shades, the sleeves rolled up and those little armbands on there, people sitting at ledgers and writing in the numbers in the little boxes and that type of thing, and then that has to go here and go over there. They're on computers. They can be adjusted. It should just be a mere programming thing that can be done easily. But then again, we're talking about the federal government, so maybe

I'm talking wrong here. But anyway, the number inflation a three percent lower than expected. Prices that people pay for a variety of goods and services rose less than expected in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Now, the people that were in the Bureau Labor Statistics, they had been furloughed and because this cost of living index was to be calculated they brought them back in specifically

to do these numbers. No other data but the cost of the Consumer Price Index and then this cost of living adjustment for Social Security.

So I'm not sure where they're getting that three percent, but that's what they put in here. Now they're talking about here that some of these adjustments and what they're looking at. They break that down in terms of where the gains came from. Let me see, the annual rate was three percent compared to estimates and so on. I love this this guy. I guess this guy thinks he's some sort of a well, I don't know, a novelist

or something like that. So he comes up to this phrase John Kirshner, like an oasis slaking the thirst of a weary desert traveler. Today's CPI number offered investors the first tidbit of information from the barren wasteland of government data that has existed since this shutdown October one. All right, this was written on the twenty fourth. We're talking twenty three days. And he's out in this information desert. He's out there in this wasteland. He's waiting for his thirst

to be slaked, which means quenched. But you know, he has to throw this five dollars word in there and actually make this analogy as if you know you're out in the middle of the desert, you just can't get this information. But as we've pointed out, this data is available through other sources. What these people are talking about is that this data being collected by the federal government.

Them doing this and then releasing it. All the levers, all the switches that they pull, and levers that the switches that they switch, and the buttons that they push and the levers that they pull, that numbers are all available to these people themselves. They can pull this number out, Like we looked at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. As far as the unemployment ombers, A lot of this number of this information is already available. They're just waiting on it to be spoon fed to them so that they

can make their economic analysis. God forbid that they do a little bit more leg work in order to.

Coffee is purchased from overseas down in Brazil Columbia, those areas down there, and because of drought, because of weather, because of transportation, because of problems with their government down there, some of this stuff isn't being done, so the supply is down and therefore the prices are up.

increase that everybody's been talking about. What it is is just again conditions having to do with those particular areas where these cattles are are raised, and so when they dig into these numbers. It was interesting to see how they kind of backed off and they start talking about how tariffs really haven't shown up in the numbers, and that some of the tariffs that have been put into place.

We don't have to get a little bit into that tomorrow, but where the tariff increases have been coming, they are actually these companies are actually sourcing from different countries that have lower terraffs and kept that tariff, kept that amount lower. One thing I want to do before we get out of here, as we're talking about Social Security and that what that rate was. Now, we talked about that two weeks ago and we talked about how the Social Security

benefit would be somewhere. People were estimating between two point seven and two point eight percent, and so they came up so Security two point eight percent COLA for twenty twenty six benefit. And they go through how they came up with the number, and it's based on the inflation rate.

What I found interesting as I was looking at this, they provided a chart that said what the adjustment for Social Security now, the cost of living adjustment for Social Security is done based on the inflationment.

on a two percent inflation number? I find that interesting that they want during the Trump administration the inflation rate down almost a half a percentage point than what the average has been over the last twenty years. Isn't that Ama? But they're not political, mind you? Well, folks, that doesn't for us. Stay tuned for ATI Radio Top of the Hour. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred WLW.