12-23-25 America's Truckin' Network

of things in terms of the company looking ahead. And it's always interesting to talk to industry experts in terms of people that are on the ground, you know, boots on the ground, rubber meets the road, to find out what they are seeing, what they are seeing as far as the economy is concerned. And then of course I've got some anecdotal evidence based on what I'm seeing and of course what the actual numbers are as opposed to what the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media are

plucking out of the information to do their lead. And we'll get into that a little bit later on, but we had the opportunity to sit down with Rusty Rush last week and of course the founder and CEO Rusty Rush, and of course the chief operating officer, Jason Wilder, and had a wide range of questions were able to be asked. He remains hopeful. He spoke significantly about being hopeful about the trucking industry, adding their signs of life in the

spock market. But then again they said that there's not necessarily something in terms of a positive turnaround yet. He mentioned that looking ahead and looking at what's going on, mentioned again what a lot of people are mentioning and they're kind of surprised by this the third year in a row, or actually a third year or more of a freight recession from the truckload perspective, which most of these recessions as far as the trucking industry are generally

about twelve to fourteen months. So the fact that we were into basically almost a three year period of time is extremely unusual. And he mentioned that a lot of it that unlike pass cycles that corrected more quickly. He mentioned that excess capacity has lingered. He pointed to lenient lenders on foreclosures and repossessions. Too many trucks pushed into the market during the boom, and then demand that never

fully caught up. So again, there was a lot of times, you know, with the especially with the plandemic, when the people, you know, when everybody was depending upon trucks to keep the wheels of the economy going, and freight rates were way up, and there was a lot of freight being moved, although you know, stuff was being delivered to homes, to

the big box stores and that type of thing. Not necessarily the restaurants because most manufacturing and other places were closed, but there was still an awful lot of activity, and especially in the spot market. So anybody that had a CDO license that said, you know what I'm seeing my neighbors, I'm hearing about that people are making a lot of money, so I'm going to jump on board and jump into the market. And so they were able to do that.

I know that a lot of people bought new trucks, some people bought used trucks or late model trucks and jumped in and we're making a lot of money. But then when the bottom fell out to a certain extent after the pandemic, and things started going back to normal. Even though, and I remember specifically talking to a lot of people, they said that, well, freight rates are much lower than what they were back in twenty twenty during the pay pandemic as they referred to it, but of

course I refer to it as a plandemic. But even though those prices are a lot lower, they're still above what they were pre pandemic. So people that were wise, people that knew what they were doing, people that had been in the business for a long period of time, seeing the ups and downs over the period of time, know how to weather the storm. Always put a little bit of money aside so that when you do have those lean times, you got certain things to carry you over.

You know, all these things that you hear from these financial markets and these financial advisors talking about that you want to have a certain amount of reserve of cash on hand that in case. You know, sometimes I think I shouldn't say this, but I think sometimes they're a little bit more how should I say, pessimistic. They will say something in terms of having a six month worth

of reserves. I tend to think more in the turn in line of three to four months, because you've got to expect that, you know, in any period of time, it is very rare that you're going to go six months period of time without having any business walk through the door, with the exception of the pandemic, But as far as the trucking industry is concerned, you had a lot of people still on the road, and with the

spot market, a lot of people jumping in. Now. As far as restaurants and that, yes, they had some very significant and you know, you can drive, well, it's no news to you driving around or anybody that's out going to different strip centers, various locations, maybe a favorite restaurant of yours or a favorite place that you used to shop, or these specialty stores. How many of those are closed?

You go into these different strip centers, and generally when you would see full capacity at some of these strip centers, you see basically at this point in time, still about seventy five percent occupancy just about everywhere. I look that you drive through and you say, cheet, what was the store that was in that? Look? Yeah, that store had been in there for a number of years. Oh my goodness,

they closed. And how many times have you thought, you know something that you normally don't buy something that you buy only maybe three four times a year, and then you say, well about time to buy that, you go and check that particular company and they're out of business. So a lot of businesses, smaller business went out of business. Now a lot of the major corporations and stuff like

that were able to keep afloat. Then, of course, with the government payments coming in and with some of this reinvestment or funds available from the federal government to keep businesses afloat, which we've seen a lot of people that diged into that was fraudulent. But again, the recovery money that was available tied a lot of people over, and of course with any of the backup that they had

as far as any savings or anything put aside. But again, what we're seeing in the trucking industry is people that were not used to weathering this storm, and because the stimulus checks didn't qualify or didn't come to them in time,

a lot of people went by the wayside. And as Rusty was pointing out that as that is shaking out, we'll see a little bit better, and he said that again that the spot market, we're seeing a bit of an increase there not as much as they would like to see, mentioning talking about soft market, the company has leaned in its vocational segment, where you have a lot of trucks that are available that are for specific industries.

Those are still going very well. He talked in terms of having a solid year as far as used truck parts and service and the body shop business. And again because Rush you know, not only sells new trucks, but they also service those trucks. They have used trucks, and then they also service the trucks in a large parts

department and body shops. They cover the whole gamut. And what we see generally, and we've seen this, you know in the four wheeler industry, and that when people hold on to their cars a lot longer, then you also see an increase in terms of parts stores. People you know, buying parts for cars. The parts industry is up as opposed to new car sales. So it's kind of this push and pull. So the fact that Rush enterprises is well diversified. You know, when one segment is down, the

other segment is up. He talked about medium duty didn't get a reprieve. There's a tremendous amount of truck inventories that were built up, OEMs caught up, built up. There were a lot of inventories sitting on dealers' lots. There's still more than your normal years this according to Jason Wilder, the COO of Rush Enterprises, there's still more. Let me see that meaningful improvement likely hinges on industry that medium duty vehicles serve, such as housing, landscaping, HVAC, and food delivery.

So when there's demand for that movement of vehicles or stuff that is transported by the medium duty, then when people need those trucks, then they go out and buy those trucks. Rush said Steady. Non explosive adoption of electrification talked about in a medium duty area where you've got local deliveries, that seems to be a niche area where people are going where you're going to see a lot

of improvement. If you notice around town the Amazon Prime people, a lot of their vehicles are electric and they're good for local delivery and that because they drive around during the day but then go back to the central location the headquarters at night, plug in and are available for the next day. As far as the trucking industry itself, for long haul overnight and from coast to coast. The

infrastructure just isn't there. The weight of these vehicles, the amount of less payload that they can carry is not sufficient for that area to be covered. So we're seeing that more in the medium duty industry wide. Rush sees opportunity for alternative fuels. He's been big on ultra fuels and he said they've been looking at that. He's been very a pet project of his for over eighteen years. Got a little bit more to talk about this, we'll

cover that coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck in Network seven hundred WLW.

Keselowski is working very quick and hopefully a full recovery work to get ready for Daytona. The Chili Bowl Nationals about a month away, and the entry list continues to grow. Defending winner Kyle Larson three time winner Christopher Bell have filed their entries for the Tulsa, Oklahoma event January twelfth through the seventeenth. Matt Crafton will run five to ten racist part time next season for ThorSport in the Truck Series.

Chief Executive officer and founder, Rusty Rush. Actually he is the son of the founder, but we got to speak with him and then the chief operating officer, Jason Wilder, and one of the things, one of the more interesting things that he said, he said, we love talked about how natural gas and some of the projects that he's been involved in with that. He's very big on that. He said, we love working on natural gas. We've invested

in the bays and the facilities to do it. Rush said, there have been a pet project of mind for the last eighteen years because I love trash. That's kind of interesting because a lot of the industry has moved towards natural gas in terms of trash removal. These vehicles that you see going into you know, collecting garbage, collecting the dumpsters and so on, and so that has been an area where you see a lot of natural gas being used and those trucks being propelled by that. And Rush

has those vehicles. Those are the vehicles on a lot of the vehicles that they sell. He says, we're still believing in it because a large customer base is largely invested in it too, and so any of these industries

that are looking to cut their costs. Of course, they're going to move to alternative fuels, and I think some of these alternative fuels really show a lot of promise in terms of what can be done as far as you know, lowering emissions, but also making sure and because natural gas is a resource, a natural resource, that we continue to drill for that and have that available as opposed to relying on something that is not sustainable and which is not very reliable, which we've seen so far

with wind and solar. At some point in time maybe those will be up in those ranges. And of course with the EV batteries, the weight of those things is just way too much, the expense of the trucks, way too much, the infrastructure to support that. I mean, I've made this comment several times before that if everybody right now today, on this day, got rid of their internal combustion engine and bought a electric vehicle number one, the wear and tear on the roadways right now would be horrific.

We would see a very serious problem as far as the infrastructure, the weight of those vehicles on the current streets.

Take that into consideration in terms of parking garages, the parking garages currently the way they are built and the way they were built based on what they anticipated the weight of vehicles to be and continuing to be given the fact that the weight of vehicles have gone down significantly from back in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and even nineties, jumping that back up to those ranges back then and even more, I'm not sure that the parking garages and

the infrastructure there could handle it. So again, from that aspect, that's one of the things, what things that people aren't even the unintended consequences that people aren't even thinking about. He expanded in the Federal Reserve, one of the things that was very curious to hear him talk about, and I mentioned this too on several occasions. Also expanded the Federal Reserve meeting in mid January and his expectations that

the governors will probably hold interest rates. I think, based in my opinion, I think there will be some cuts because there seems to be some division within the Federal Reserve. He recognized that and talked about that. I mentioned quote from him. I got to believe from what I've read, it's a rather divisive meeting this past meeting in December. But where there's smoke there's fire, I expect them to pause now. I think, though, that the pressure from the

Trump administration. I wish that Trump would have appointed the who he plans on replacing Lion Jerome Powell, Lion Jerry Powell, with would have been announced as a Christmas gift to the American public before Christmas, but it appears that that's not going to be announced until after the first of

the year. And then once that's done, maybe that will put some pressure on the Federal Reserve in January to continue to reduce interest rates, because we've got stories coming up that will verify that or will push in that direction. And most customers are more worried about unemployment and inflation, those concerns, and of course talking about some of the stuff, people are still waiting on the sidelines to see if and when or how tariffs are going to affect the

economy as far as inflation. I was listening to a couple of reports over the weekend and they've people have just absolutely how should I say, surprise shock that the so called experts talking about how tariffs we're going to add to inflation just hasn't materialized, and they're pretty much shocked by that. But again, as we as I pointed out on this program, it's not necessarily the terriffs because

in some instances prices go down, prices go up. The net effect across the board is generally small to minimum increases, if any at all, and in some cases may actually go down. But what really drives that is government spending. If you've got these back, you know the what was it, the uh, the Recovery Act the Biden pushed through in the final days or initial stages of the recovery from

the pandemic. People were telling him at that point that if they did that Infrastructure and Recovery Act, that the spending that would be in that would lead to inflation, which in fact it did. So when you flood the government, when you flood government money into the marketplace, that leads

to inflation, which then has to be controlled somehow. And unfortunately, when they start controlling interest rates, that burden falls on us, the public, to sustain or to take the results of and the pain of those higher interest costs in order

to bring the economy back within reason. So again, the Recovery Act that was put through by the Biden administration did add a lot to the inflation and not what we're seeing as far as the tariffs are concerned, because, as I've said before, when you take into consideration the companies overseas that have these big margins between their labor because they have lower labor costs over there and what the final product is, they have a big cushion as

far as margin is concerned. They can absorb some of those tariffs. The exporter can then absorb some of those tariffs before they send those out. Then the importer on the other end could possibly absorb some of these tariffs or increases. Then you get to the wholesale or distributors, they absorb stuff, get to the retail market, they absorb some of that stuff, and so it kind of is spread out over everybody. So all those people along the supply chain kind of share the burden of any increase

in tariffs. Getting back to some of the stuff having to do with EVS, this survey, and I kind of hesitated clicking on this because when you get these pop ups on your screen when you're going from website to website. Although it came from a reputable source of where I go on a normal basis, and this survey popped up and I thought, you know, just for the hell of it, I'm going to go ahead and take this survey. The way it was portrayed, I thought, God, this has got

to be some liberal organization that's putting this. You know, the time to ban gasoline internal combustion engines is now. And they said, you know, talking about how you know, there's been this push that there's lawmakers that are trying to eliminate the internal combustion engine, or as they call, the plan to ban gas cars. And I thought, man, this is some liberal group. I got to see in

terms of the survey where everybody stands on that. So I went ahead and well, they asked for my name and email address and phone number, which I was kind of hesitant to do, but I was kind of curious. So I voted no on that. Well, I see the survey results. Do you agree? And that the phrase is do you agree with lawmakers plan to ban gas cars in the US? Yes, Climate action is urgent and we must act now. Fifteen thousand, three hundred and seven votes No.

Lawmakers shouldn't dictate what Americans can drive nine hundred and twenty two thousand, three hundred and eighty five against if This was a I mean, like I said, this was kind of almost a push pull kind of of a survey, if you will. They said, you know, the time to ban gasoline, the powered you know, and all this is now a government is moving towards this. Where do you stand on this? And I'll bet that they're pretty much

shocked where this came from. And certainly the numbers that that is dictating coming up, We've got some more mischief. Get into I'm Kevin Bordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred WLW.

excessive brain is on tap for parts of southern California Wednesday. Meanwhile, above average temperatures expected for most of the country leading up to Christmas.

dictate to Americans what they can drive. My goodness, Wow, America's truck and network supports the mission of Recee Across America. You can hear us every truck and Tuesday at five am and ten am Eastern on Recee Across America Radio, available on the iHeart Radio app. Search the word Rease. Now it's wr eats for Reese Across America Radio. And thank you for all our truckers for the supporting the

mission of Reese Across America. Now, last week I didn't have a chance to get to this, but rececross America remember they had their and hopefully you participated in that. They had their reflaying ceremony on December the thirteenth. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to participate because my wife and I were on our way down to Nashville to participate and to attend the Rush Enterprise's twentieth anniversary of the tuch

Tech Skills Rodeo. And if you missed any of that, make sure you hit up that iHeart Radio app brought

to you by Rush Truck Centers. Now, some of the statistics from that December thirteenth wreath laying ceremony together they support We supported five thousand, five hundred and ninety eight participating locations, sponsored more than three point one million veterans wreaths, and mobilized millions of volunteers, a third of whom were children, across all fifty states, at sea and around the world. So there are locations different to veterans cemeteries overseas and

in US territories that participate in this as well. Three point one million reefs were laid at these tombs and again going to these individual locations. As they say, a veteran dies twice, once when he takes his last breath and the next is when his name is no longer mentioned. So the push eventually is to make sure that all veterans'

grave sites are have a reef placed at them. But right now the concentration is at the older sections of these graveyards where a lot of people back from the even as far back as well the Revolutionary War, Civil War, Spanish American War and thereabouts. A lot of those people,

their relatives have moved out of the area. As a matter of fact, I was talking to a friend of mine and he was telling me that a friend of his that her father is in the area and he does a lot of genealogy, and she's from the area. She's living in Cleveland now, but he does a lot of genealogy, and he just looked up some of the family members and they actually found grave sites of family members she didn't even know she had in one of

these cemeteries. And then the fact that they were they served what they served because through some of this genealogy and stuff, you can find out some of the mill ary records as well, and so she was astonished by that and the availability. So a lot of these veterans are buried in regular cemeteries, not just necessarily segments of one cemetery near where I live, there is a section that's set aside for veterans. But then in other cemeteries

they are dispersed throughout the entire cemetery. They're not necessarily reserved for just veterans. So this reesecross America again servicing those and making sure that these res are are put

at those areas. Now, some interesting things to keep in mind here is that now this is interesting through from now until December thirty first, the headquarters of Recross America through sponsored different sponsored groups that replacement at the RECE next year, which by the way, will be December the nineteenth, twenty twenty six, that headquarters will match all veterans sponsored

through a registered RECE Across America's sponsorship group. So if you go on their website now, and if you are associated with a particular group, and if you do sign up now and do the contribution or the donation or sponsorship of a wreath between now and December thirty first, that will be matched by Recross America headquarters. So that is also a good benefit there, so you can pretty

much double your effect along those ways. And again save the date the next wreath laying ceremony will be Saturday, December the nineteenth, twenty twenty six, and so hopefully I won't be out of town and I'll be able to attend that. But I do going back to one of the original things that was talked about is that of the various volunteers, almost thirty I think, what was it millions, a third of whom were children, and which is great that children are involved and they get to know a

little bit of history. I remember when a couple of years ago I was in town and was able to attend the wreath laying cemetery at the local chapter, or the one closest to me. There were a lot of children there, and I was grateful to see that, because again you have to have the next generation step up to be there for our veterans and especially the fallen veterans who are in these cemeteries that died in time of war. And so again I can't say enough about

reefs across America and the stuff that they do. And of course if you go to their website across America dot org, you can learn all kinds of information. Maybe if you and a group want to sponsor a particular cemetery that's not currently being taken care of or that is not on their list. You and a group of people can sponsor that and actually have the sponsorship group for that area to take care of those reefs and

to lay those reefs at that particular cemetery. Or you can go online and you can volunteer at one close to you if you want to participate with them, and they're pretty quick about getting back in touch with you so that you can know where to go and on that particular day again, December the nineteenth, so it's only going to be about what was it nineteenth, It says, well, actually six days before Christmas. That's a little bit late in the month, but generally it's a little bit closer

to the beginning of the month. But hopefully a lot of people will be able to attend that and very worthwhile cause getting to last Friday, there were some numbers coming out from the National Association of Realtors and it was interesting to see how some of these things were covered in terms of who said what and what was covered and so on existing home sales. Now, this is doctor Lawrence Ewn. He is the chief Economists. Wage growth

is outpacing home price gains, which improved housing affordability. Still, future affordability could be hampered if housing supply fails to keep pace with demand. Existing home sales were up month over month point five percent, one half of one percent four point one three million homes existing homes now year over year, that was one percent down. Now as far as homes for sale month over month was down five

point nine percent from the previous month. However, on an annual basis so far year over year, the number of homes for sale is up seven point five. They talk about in terms of months of supply. As far as November home sales, four point two months supply is on hand. That is down from four point four in actually up a little bit from November at three point eight, but down from four point four in October. So some of the stuff going on in the housing market, there's some

things in this article we need to talk about. We'll pick that up coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, Americas Struck In Network seven hundred Wlwright.

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existing home sales edge up in November as mortgage rates ease. Now, what have I been saying all along that interest rates are holding back this economy. Lower interest rates, more people will jump into the market and more people will buy homes, and that is good for the economy. It's very good support of the GDP numbers, which will be out some believe tomorrow later on today, I believe, if memory serves

me correct. But anyway, when they get into the specifics here in terms of where some of the growth is a month over months, sales increased in the northeast and south showed let me see, sales increased in the northeast and south, showed no change in the west, and fell in the midwest. Year over year sales showed no change in the northeast and south and decreased in the Midwest

and west. Now, according to again Lawrence Young, he is the National Association Realtor's chief economist, existing home sales increased for a third straight month due to two lower mortgage rates this autumn. That is huge. The fact that interest rates are coming down and more people are jumping in

that is good for the economy. Again, when you have somebody who does not own a home that they're renting, and in some cases the rent is more than the mortgage would be on that property, and for them to jump away from that into a home, generally the home is bigger. They're going to buy more furniture, they're going to be buying appliances, they're going to be buying all

kinds of stuff to fill that home up. And so if they're spending less as far as a mortgage is concerned versus what they're paying in rent, they will have more disposable income for that and instead of paying a landlord, they're paying less on a mortgage. But then they're also having more money available for disposable income. And so that

again star's boosting the economy. And when the interest rates come down, then people can afford to get into the market, because again with interest rates high, with the amount of the value of these homes up, a lot of people are not able to qualify for that based on their income.

And what we've talked about in the past, I've talked about that on this program, the difference between your monthly payment at in terms of a particular income level, what you can afford based on a three percent mortgage versus a six and a half percent mortgage is astronomical. It's

about a seven hundred to eight hundred dollars difference. So if you're coming from a rental property and that price is coming down and you can get a lower interest rate, that then gives you even more disposable income and more people moving into the market. Now in here one of

the key features. Also when we hear from the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media about the softness of the economy, they start talking about, oh, you know, unemployment is up, which, by the way, I am not buying this crap of this four point six percent unemployment rate.

I think when they adjust that, when they find out what the real number is, it's going to be closer down to around four point three four point four percent, which is a heck of a lot less because we were at four point one throughout most of the year than it jumped up slightly to four point two than to four point three. I think the current unemployment rate is probably closer to that than the four point six

that they're reporting. Now. One of the key features in here that they point out is that with distressed property sales at historic lows and the housing wealth at all time highs, homeowners are in no rush to list their properties during these winter months. Now. Distressed properties are where people are foreclosures, people are behind, they're about ready to lose their home. If they are at historic lows, then that means that people aren't struggling to pay their mortgages.

We saw a lot of distressed homes back in the housing crisis back in two thousand and eight to two thousand and ten. Basically, we saw distressed homes back during COVID to a certain extent, except that some of these recovery programs for banks were given to where people could refinance or postpone payments, or the companies would actually work with them in order to reassess the loans or to actually do a refinance type of thing that was available.

In some instances, they took some of the payments that hadn't been made and add those on to the tail end of the mortgage, so extended the length of the mortgage a little bit more, but at the same current interest rate. And in some cases I saw where some people actually kint a better interest rate than they originally did so the fact that distressed homes property as that historic lows is a good thing. In this they also talk about, as has been the case throughout the year,

single family home sales outperformed condominium sales. In November, the typical price of a sold condo was thirteen point five percent lower than the typical price of a single home family home. Well, in most instances, your condos are smaller square footage than what a normal house would be. So if you're talking about a I mean, I don't know, they don't mention what the average square footage of a

condominium is. But from what I see around the Greater Sins a northern Kentucky area, a place I'm most familiar with, most of the condos are between fifteen hundred to maybe two thousand square feet. Most homes I think in the area, or at least in the neighborhood where I live, are probably more in the neighborhood of two twenty five hundred and maybe three thousand square feet. So again, obviously the price for the condo is going to be less because

you're talking about less square footage. So in and of itself, that's not too bad. Now, skipping through some of the stuff in here. One of the things that was interesting. They're talking about some of the statistics having to do with homes. Thirty six days medium time on the market for properties, up from thirty four days last month. I don't really think, well, unless you're in a situation where you've already bought a home and you're now carrying two mortgages,

thirty six days on the market is probably bad. But for the most part, most homes from what I've been once, what I've experienced, is generally around that time. Thirty percent of homes were first time home buyers, unchanged from November, which is a good thing because as people move out of existing rental spaces and moving in there, they buy more stuff to fill that house and to equip the house. Twenty seven percent of transactions were all cash. Eighteen percent

of transactions were individual investors or second home buyers. So that's eighteen percent of the market, sixteen percent last month. Two percent of again, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, two percent of sales were distressed sales, foreclosures or short sales, unchanged from a month ago. So that would show that the economy is relatively strong. Not a lot of people

are underwater as far as their homes are concerned. They're not behind on their payments and they're making their mortgage payments. So if the economy were bad, that number would be more than two percent, and there would be a heck of lot more quote distressed homes on the market. Mortgage rates, the average thirty year fixed rate is six point twenty four percent. That's down from six point two five percent, not much in October, but at the beginning of the

year that number was six point eight one. And I saw a statistic and it was that, let's see, in mid January, interest rates were at seven point oh four percent, so they were just above seven percent, and you take that one percent off of a home loan the mortgage, and you see a dramatic difference in terms of price. Now, this was interesting. Not sure what he's saying here. The existing home sales figures suggest that the drop in mortgage rates in recent months has nudged demand up somewhat, but

not by enough to signal meaningful turnaround. Now, I'm not sure if it's because the interest rates have been more meaningful. If the interest rate cuts had been more meaningful, whether they would have been inclined to move. Now, that's something that you know, again they don't explain in the particular story. Let me see if I got time to squeeze this in.

There was one other thing in here that was kind of confusing because they were saying that people are reluctant to move and because of the uncertainty as far as the job market is concerned. Now, what wasn't clear is that whether or not that affects people that are not into a home wanting to get into a home, or people that are in a home that want to upgrade. That was left on Uh, you know, that question was

left unanswered. But anyway, well, we're up against clock, my friends, stay tuned for Red Eye Radio at the top of the hour. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Truck and Network seven hundred WLW