This is America's Trucking Network with Kevin Gordon.
Lulhaba more.
Thanks for tuning in on this Friday morning America's truck in Network, the show that is the exception to the rule that nothing good happens after midnight. There is a whole lot of good news out there, so let's just jump right into it. I've been watching over the last several weeks. We've been hearing people talking about gas prices
getting down towards three dollars a gallon. They're talking about, you know, they've had to tweak the numbers a little bit to say that, well, you know, twenty seven states are below three dollars a gallon, this, that and the other thing, and then you know thirty states or below three dollars a gallon. Well, for the first time since May of twenty twenty one, the national average for gasoline
dips below three dollars a gallon. National average for a gallon a regular gasoline hit a milestone this week when it dipped below three dollars a gallon for the first time in four years now. I see back in May of twenty twenty one. That was right after the Trump administration and before the Biden administration had a chance to really screw things up. But back during the Trump administration, gasoline was well below as a matter of fact.
On this date in twenty twenty.
Back during that period of time, gasoline in twenty twenty was at two dollars and twenty five cents a gallon, and it was a national average, and the diesel was at two dollars and fifty three cents a gallon. Now, we're seeing the prices of gasoline coming down, but we're not quite seeing the decrease in diesel the way I would like to see it. As a matter of fact, we're paying a little bit more per gallon this year for diesel than we were this time last year. As
far as gasoline's concern, it's down about five cents a gallon. However, again dip below three dollars a gallon for the first time since May of twenty twenty one. Crude oil prices remained on the lower side around sixty dollars a barrel. Sluggish gas demand and cheaper to produce winter blend gasoline are also contributing to the drop at the pump.
Again.
Today's national average is two dollars and ninety nine cents a gallon. Now, the last couple of days have been like two dollars at ninety nine. And you know when you go to the gas pump and you look at the signs there and it always says like two dollars and seventy five cents a gallon, But you have looked in the upper right hand corners two dollars and seventy five cents point nine nine tenths of a cent, So it's actually two dollars and seventy six cents. But that
two dollars seventy five cents looks a lot better. And for the last last week or so, it's been at two two dollars and ninety nine cents, you know, two dollars ninety nine point five, so you round that up to three dollars.
So I haven't been comfortable talking about that.
But now we are officially below that three dollars a gallon, which is heading in the right direction. You know, we started we keep hearing all this crap from the liberals and the Democratic Party talking about affordability.
All of a sudden, where the hell were.
These people during the trumpet or by the Biden administration when gas went from as I said, at the end of the Trump administration in December of twenty twenty at two dollars and twenty five cents a gallon, and then by May actually got up to three dollars a gallon.
So even though.
We are down below where we were four years ago, it was already up seventy five cents a gallon just in a four or five month period of time in the first four or five months of the Biden administration. By the time Russia invaded Ukraine, gas had already gone up to about a dollar twenty five higher than what it was during the Trump administration. Where was the affordability
comments back then? All we heard from the people with as far as that when they started seeing the inflation, oh, it's transy, it's gonna it's you know, which means it's temporary, it's gonna go away.
What was transitory?
I guess in May, June, July, August, September of twenty twenty one on into twenty twenty two, and then finally in March, I guess the Federal Reserve line Jerry Powell decided that, well, you know, it isn't transitory. We need to start cutting interest rates. But by then most of the damage have been done. Once Russia invaded Ukraine in February of twenty twenty two, then gas prices started spiking.
As a matter of fact, in June.
Let's not forget, in June of twenty twenty two, the national average across the board for gasoline short term memories, right was it five dollars five dollars and two cents a gallon? Five dollars and two cents a gallon? Where
were the calls for affordability back then? Gas price has already gone up a dollar twenty five a gallons prior to the invasion, and then right after the invasion it went up to right around four dollars and fifty cents, and people were asking the Biden administration how long do
you expect people to pay this amount of money? Because you know, when they first came in office, they started saying, Okay, we're not going to drill in the golf, we're not going to drill in Alaska, We're going to stop selling oil leases, even though that by law they were supposed to do that. So you know, again, where was the calls for following the law. And so the prices of
gasoline we started importing more gas. We became the final year of the Trump administration, Let's not forget, we were energy independent for the first time since nineteen forty nine.
Nineteen forty nine.
Seventy plus years, we were independent, energy independent for the first time. It took us longer to get to that than Queen Elizabeth sat on the throne of England as long as the USSR was in existence. It took us longer than that to get to energy independence. And it was during the Trump administration in his first term, and we were heading in that direction. At least. We are now driving the oil markets and we are driving the
energy prices worldwide, which is a good thing. But back then it was, oh, you know, gas price is one up the average national average across the board of five dollars per gallon. Where was the cause for affordability? Then now, all of a sudden, the Democrats are concerned about affordability when they had inflation at nine point one percent in
June of twenty twenty two. It just fries me that the people that create the problem are the people that are now tweaking and that are criticizing how it's done. And I heard the analogy the other day that Okay, you have a party and somebody gets.
Drunk, and the homeowner whatever.
Gets drunk and he gets out of control and he winds up throwing up on the carpet. And then when the person comes in to clean the carpet and is down on their hands and knees cleaning up the spots trying to get the stink out of the carpet. They are standing there telling them, well, you need to do this, this is how you need to do this, and criticizing the way that they're.
Doing the cleanup.
I mean, give me a break, so you know, I'm just it just bothers me that, you know what I keep hearing from the Democrats and when they start talking about affordability and so on. I'm going to post this story on Facebook because it's actually from the Triple A and they talk about they go through, you know, the national average and so on, but then they also give
some statistics in terms of ev charging. The national average per kilowatt hour of electricity at public ev charging stations stayed the same this past week.
At thirty eight cents.
They talk about the states the ten most expensive gasoline, of course California.
And what blows me away, is that California is.
Higher, is actually seven cents higher than Hawaii. Okay, there is not a refinery in Hawaii, aren't gas There aren't oil.
Wells in Hawaii.
They have to import everything, and you know, the gasoline has to be transported across the Pacific to get to Hawaii. And even with the transportation costs and the cost of that that Hawaii's prices are still lower than California.
Let's see.
Well, anyway, I'll put this on Facebook, but it's amazing California, Hawaii, Washington, Nevada, Alaska again up there in Alaska that California is the highest in the country and then of course they go into the lowest. So I'll post that on Facebook so that you can take a look at that weekly's Jabas claims, which we'll get to.
Coming up in the next segment.
Again, all this talk that we heard since Liberation Day on April the second, that we're going to have rampant inflation, that we're going to go into a recession, that the economic policies of this administration are horrible, and all this sort of stuff, and yet everything is starting to turn
in the right direction. And yet all of a sudden, we're hearing about affordability, and it just frosts me that the people that and of course they're not going to come up and say, here's how we would solve the problem, here's what we need to do to affordability. No, they just want to say, well, he's just not making things more affordable. Give me not cleaning up the vomit properly the way that you guys did when you soiled the carpet. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck at Network seven hundred WLW.
I need this is the racing repard on America's truck and needwork on seven hundred WLW.
The court case between twenty three eleven and front Row Motorsports suing NASCAR continued Friday in Charlotte, North Carolina. During the questioning of front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins, NASCAR was called out by Judge Kenneth Bell during the trial. Day three ended when stern warnings from Bell came after NASCAR's legal team violated court orders and evidentiary rule. Chris Gabeart has left Joe Gibbs Racing, and he was the director of competitions for JGR rumors are Gaye part is
moving to Spire Motor Sports next season. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is releasing a four part mini series documenting its historic repay that uncovered the Spiedsway's iconic brick race surface and the original crush stone tar track surface. The series will run December eighth through the eleventh and be available on the IMS social media channels including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok x, and YouTube. On Sunday, Formula one will crown the twenty twenty five world champion.
Will it be Lando Norris? Will it be.
Max for Staffan or Oscar Piastre. Those three are split by just sixteen points heading into Sunday's finale. Norris on any chance he holds the points lead, but barely.
Yeah, nothing does change, Like I mean, he gets treated the same from everyone inside the team, just more excitement I guess for eye at the same time. So but apart from that, the work and how you approach it all remains the same.
I need.
This is the racing repard on America's Drugging Network on seven hundred WLW, everybody have a great weekend, segnetis and at night news Radio seven hundred WLW and iHeartRadio station Guarantee Human seven hundred WLW, HI Heard Radio.
It's former Bengal and Pro Football Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz.
You know me from my skin for good news.
Here us weekly jobless claims tombow to the lowest level in more than three years. All right, we now have gasoline prices that are the lowest level nationwide that they've been in four years. We now have the weekly jobless claims the lowest in three years.
Huh. You know what?
You know, I've been talking about how the spoon fed regurgitators of the mainstream media have been trying to talk down the economy, trying to manufacture a recession, that all the lies that they're telling about the negative coverage of the administration the economic policies are wrong. And now we're seeing some of these numbers coming out. And you know what,
I don't mind being right all the time. You know the fact that you listen to this show and you know what's going on, you hear what's going on, and push out all the negativity from the spoon federal regurgitators.
You were so far ahead of the curve. They don't even see your tail lights. The number of.
Americans finally for new application front employment benefits dropped to the lowest level in more than three years last week, allaying fears of a sharp deterioration in the labor market conditions and potentially arguing against another interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve, which I say is a bunch of crap. Also because again when we had the numbers yesterday, we were talking about retail sales and we were talking about
the economy in Europe that they had been seeing. They've been experiencing a boom or you know, at least an increase in their economy there, and prices or shoppers going out, retail sales up because of the what do they call how do they put it, the series of interest rate cuts since last year. Interest rate lower interest rates put more money in your pocket, which means that then you
could determine how you spend your money. If you want to put some of that money aside in the savings account, fine, if you want to go out and spend that money, fine, But it puts you in control of your money and making the decisions that you make instead of the policymakers like Lion Jerry Powell making sure that interest rates are so high that you're having to pay more in order to finance certain things on your credit cards, either on your home, buying a house, buying a car, buying a truck,
expanding your business, and so on. So let the people decide, and lowering interest rates is not going to lead to inflation.
So anyway, here we go week.
Out Employment claims reported by the Labor Department on Thursday, the most timely on the economy's health, following on the heels of the ADP Employment report on Wednesday showing private payrolls decrease the most more than two and a half years in November. But again, as we talked about yesterday, the ADP numbers when they come out, generally the so called experts say that, well that's kind of an interesting report, but it's not very reliable and it's not one that the Federal.
Reserve pays much attention to.
And especially within the report itself that we were talking about yesterday, they started talking about the adjusted numbers. Well, again, if you're a payroll processing firm and you process X number of paychecks on a weekly, bi weekly, monthly basis, then you know how many checks you have processed. If those numbers go up, if they go down, you should know that number in real time. Why the following month
would those numbers be adjusted shocks me. I mean if I go into if I go into a grocery store and I have I have fifty dollars in my pocket and I spend forty and I have ten dollars left in my pocket, I know in real time that.
I just spent forty dollars.
I don't go back later on the next day or two days later and say, gee whiz, I'm going to adjust my grocery purchases up to forty two dollars because they still have ten dollars in my pocket. I don't get this. So if they're processing the payroll and they know on a weekly, bi weekly, monthly basis how many payroll checks that they have processed compared to last month, they should have that number in real time. But again they have to throw that in here. The job losses.
This is now, this is interesting. Usually this guy, Christopher Rupky, chief economists at Forward Bonds, generally comes up with some really stupid comments, But this time around I got to give him credit. Those job losses from other alternative measures alternative measures of labor statistics may be overstating the weakness of the nation's employment market. In other words, what they're saying is that all these calls that the labor market is weak is not apparently are not accurate, and he's
actually finally seeing the writing on the wall. The t leave readers at the Federal Reserve may need to recheck their figures because it certainly does not look like economic growth is in danger of stalling out again, disproving all the negativity from the spoon federal regurgitators in the mainstream media trying to manufacture a recession, all the indications that they had, all the stuff that they've been talking about for the last well actually since Trump came into office.
And let's not face I mean, let's face it. I mean, you go back to the ten years since Trump came down the escalator, the Golden escalator there at Trump Towers, nothing but ninety some percentage negative coverage of Donald Trump, ninety some percentage negative coverage of his first term, ninety some percentage against Trump while he was out of office, and then ninety some percent negative coverage since he's been in office, and ninety some percent negative coverage of his
economic policies, even though we know what the statistics were back in five years ago at the end of his term. But again, you know, apparently they think that we're stupid and we can't go back and look these numbers up.
But I finally, it's interesting that Christopher Rookie had some positive things to say, because, like I said a lot of times, he has kind of a bit off, should I say, Initial claims for the state unemployment benefits fell twenty seven thousand to a seasonally adjusted one hundred and
ninety one thousand for the week ended November twenty ninth. Now, remember what we've been saying over the last several weeks or actually several months, that the range of unemployment claims has been going between about two hundred and ten thousand up to two hundred and fifty thousand over pretty much the last couple of years, and they have been and the economists have been talking about that that is somewhat of a comfortable range for them, that anything above that
is put the caution light on. Anything above two hundred and fifty thousand in a week period of time should be looked at and as kind of put the flashing yellow lights on it.
Why do I keep bumping my microphone anyway?
And then we have in the low end of that at two hundred and ten thousand, that anything less than that is good news.
If these numbers have dropped twenty.
Seven thousand in one week down to one hundred and ninety one thousand for the week, that should be considered very good news. Lowest level since September of twenty twenty two. Economists pulled by rutters had forecasts that the unemployment claims were going to be two hundred and twenty thousand, So they missed their analysis and their forecast by thirteen percent.
Unadjusted claims plunged n forty nine thousand, forty nine thousand, four hundred to one hundred ninety seven thousand, two hundred last week. The decline was more than double the twenty one thousand drop that had been anticipated by seasonal factors, the model that the government uses to strip out seasonal fluctuations from the data. So in other words, it has more than doubled what they had anticipated it to be.
The drop that.
Is, and so this is going to change things as far as the Federal Reserve is concerned. They keep saying that their mandata is to keep inflation low and to make sure that the job market is strong. Well, if the job market is strong, all this talk that they've been talking about as being weak over the last period of time, last several months, then with these numbers, it
looks like the job market is steady and strong. And rather than them looking at that and saying, gee whiz, things are pretty good, We're going to give a break to the American public. We're going to give a break to the people, and we're going to lower interest rates so they have more money in their pocket. Don't count on it. It'll be interesting to see what they do. I hope they lower the interest rates, but I don't know.
You never know. With Lyon Jerry Powell, Una justin claims plunged.
I already said and said that last week's sharp drop and applications.
Did not change the narrative of a stagnant labor market.
Job cuts are prevalent most segments of the economy, and hiring is.
Teppe at best.
A separate report from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas showed planned job cuts in the US based employers declined fifty three percent to seventy one thousand in November now, the previous month, if my memory is correct, they were talking about that number being around one hundred and fifty thousand that they were anticipating as job cuts.
So the fact that they.
Blew that by well, the number dropped by fifty three percent, that should be a good sign and people should be applauding that rather than just throwing that number out there and just letting it hang. I we'll cover a little bit more of this coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, Merica's truck at Network seven hundred WLW.
Eight and the rest of the country. In the Tri State overnight mostly Claude, need the load dropping down to sixteen mostly Sunday. Friday high at thirty four going into the weekend Saturday, mostly Claude, with the chance of flurries, highs in the upper thirties, mostly Claudia, the chances of snow. Sunday a high of thirty five Nationally, snow continuing to win back the Great Lakes region, interior Northeast Pacific, Northwestern Rockies, and then into the northern Plains over the next couple
of days. The Gulf Coast scene moderate to heavy rain with isolated flash flooding possible. Some wintry precipitation expected north into the Appalachians and mid Atlantic. Friday. Aretic air fore tasks to challenge record low temperatures across the northern mid Atlantic to New England Friday.
Seven hundred w lw IM This American Stark Network. I'm Kevin Gordon taking a look at this. I am just I am absolutely amazed by this report.
This weekly job was claims. The initial job was Claims Report.
Because you know, all we've been hearing about is, you know, the weakness of the economy, that things aren't looking as
good as they should, and the consumer confidence level being down. Well, you know, if you keep being bombarded by negative coverage, negative information, and you have a tendency of thinking that, well, you know, maybe what I'm seeing is not what I'm seeing, and so you know, our spoon fed regurgitator's mainstream meter are basically gaslighting is And what we're seeing as far as the retail sales, which we'll get to here shortly, is the fact that people are comfortable within what they
are doing as far as their individual economies. They know where they stand, they know what they're bringing in what they're paying out, what their discretionary income is, what they have left over after the government gets finished confiscating their wealth, what they have left over after they pay their bills and can go out.
And have some fun.
Yet all the negativity that they hear, they're thinking of, well, gee whiz, I wonder how my neighbors are doing. I wonder how the people up the street. I wonder how everybody else is doing. I'm hearing the things are going bad. So my confidence level in the economy is down, but my confidence level in my own economy is fine. So again they've got these mixed signals, which again is being created by the spoon fed regrigislators in the mainstream media.
Let me see they were talking about. Let's see after they got.
We picked this up.
We ended in the last segment that the Challenger, Gray and Christmas showed planned job cuts in the US based employers decline fifty three percent from what they had originally predicted. But employers have announced about one point one seven one million, one hundred and seventy one thousand million, one million, seven one hello, one million, one hundred and seventy one thousand jobs cuts so far. This year, up fifty four percent
versus the first eleven months of twenty twenty four. Most of the layoffs have been in technology sectors as companies integrate artificial intelligence in some roles. Now what we've been hearing as far as the job market and what's going on as far as that, oh, tariffs, poor economic policy on the part of the Trump administration, No, the layoffs
mostly had been in technology. So the people that are creating AI and the people that are jumping on board with this and jumping in with both beet are basically putting themselves out of business. So it's kind of interesting. The Bureau of Labor Statistics closely watched employment report for November originally do on Friday, has been delayed, so the
number of jobs that were created last month. They've delayed that report until December the sixteenth because of the forty three day Schumer shutdown, So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. But in the meantime, you're going to have the Federal Reserve, which on December the ninth and the tenth, they are going to be meeting and making a determination what they're going to be doing with job with interest rate cuts before the end of the year, which is going to.
Kind of muddy the waters.
But maybe the Federal Reserve should take the twenty three thousand employees take a look at that, have them do a little bit of you know, sharpening their pencils and come up with some numbers and come up with some accurate information so that they can give them to the Board of Governors so they can make an accurate decision
on what they should do with interest rate cuts. But if they talk to the experts here on america'struck a network, cut those interest rates by at least a quarter, if not a full half percentage point, you'd see the housing market increase.
You'd see people.
Spending more, You'd see businesses expanding, people buying more vehicles, people buying trucks, people expanding their business and so on.
But that's okay, that's.
You know, that's my opinion, and you know I have an opinion and I'm not afraid to use it.
Condomists view the.
Labor market as remaining in a no no higher state.
Well, again, that's been the situation for most of the year.
As many as five of the twelve voting policymakers on the Central Bank's rate setting Federal Open Market Committee have voiced opposition to or skepticism about cutting rates further, while a core of three of the members Washington based Board of Governors want rates to fall as well.
They should take a look at what's going.
Well, not everything going on in Europe, but at least what their economy is doing as a result of the series of rate cuts that began last year by their central banks over there.
I love this paragraph.
Labor market status has been blamed for reduced labor and I had to look that.
I said that they put the wrong word in there.
But of course, you know, when these people decide that they're going to write an article, why use a twenty five cent word when you can use a five dollars word. Right, Status a period of or state of inactivity or equilibrium. So, in other words, the labor market equilibrium has been blamed on reduced labor supply amid the reduction of immigration that started during the final year of the former president Joe
Biden's term and accelerated during Donald Trump's administration. Yeah, like the last month of the Biden administration, Suddenly they decided that, oh, you know what, after ten to fifteen million people invaded this country. Maybe we should stop that flow. So they got that message of the last month of the administration. Integration of artificial intelligence some job roles is also a routing demand for labor, with entry level positions taking the
most of the hit. Economists also say Trump's trade policies have created uncertain economic environment that has hamstrung the ability of business, especially small enterprises, to hire. Really, where's the evidence of that. Where is the evidence that the economic policy in terms of expenses or inflation has created people to stop expanding or not hiring. Not mentioned in here anywhere. Our interest rate cuts the interest rates that people are
paying to expand their business. And when they do the looking at their expansionary plans and do their rate of return, the rate of you know, the ROI return on investment, And when they look at that and they say, well, gee whiz, I don't know that I could make up that money because when I factor in the interest rates, it puts this thing out of out of sight or out of our way that we would actually review the
policy to make it go forward. But with those interest rates coming, if they came down, maybe we could pull the trigger on that number of people receiving unemployment benefits over the initial week after the initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring slip four thousand. Wait a minute, I thought, I thought the job market was weak. I
thought people weren't going back to work. I thought, you know, so, if the people that have been on unemployment are going down, even though it's four thousand, it's not skyrocketing the way that they had anticipated it to. So again, how how
accurate is the information we're getting from these people? The elevated so called continuing claims suggests a steady rise in the unemployment rate A week hiring was confirmed by Challenger Report, which again their report indicated that there was going to be X number of layoffs and they cut that by fifty three percent, which showed planned hiring by US companies total four hundred and ninety seven almost five hundred thousand in the first eleven months of the year, the lowest
year to date total since twenty ten, again down thirty five percent from the same period last year.
But again, are their numbers accurate?
Because if they keep flipping back and saying, well, unemployment is going to be x and such, and these companies are going to be laying off one hundred and fifty thousand over the next month, and they cut that back fifty three percent. Amazing. You know how far off they can be. Now, some additional good news we'll get to
here shortly. As I was talking about retail sales and so on the five days straight, let me see the National Federation of National Retail Federation sites a record two hundred and three million shoppers for the extended weekend period of time.
We'll bring this up coming up.
I'm Kevin Gordon, America struck In Network seven hundred w LW, warming you up for.
This year's crossdown shootown explanation point I must.
Be care of.
This is a Crosstown shootdown memory out by three, brought to you by Pinstation in East Cosa. Now your host, Moeger.
February eighth, twenty fifteen, the d Davis Game Savior senior guard entered the shootout at UC shooting just twenty six percent from behind the three point line, but with the Bearcats almost daring him to shoot, Davis drilled all five of his three point shots, each one of them silencing the deafening fifth third arena crowd. The winning points for Xavier came from Trey von Bluer, who's two free throws with less than twelve seconds to go, gave XU.
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Covering over the last couple of segments, So if you missed any of that or any of our shows, hit up that iHeartRadio app and everything's there, brought to you by our friends at Rush Truck Centers. I mentioned this in the previous segment. National Retail Federation sites record two hundred and three million shoppers for extended weekend and RF annual consumer survey December second found two one hundred and two point nine million customers shopped during the holiday weekend
from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday. The figure is up from one hundred and ninety seven and ninety seven million.
Shoppers last year. That's up three percent, my friends.
The previous record was two two hundred point four million, set in twenty twenty three. They also are predicting that this is going to be the first holiday season to break one trillion dollars in sales, and our f president Matthew Say said, we still believe we're on track to meet that forecast. Shay said during a meeting briefing after the survey was released. We feel very confident based on the results of this weekend and the way in which consumers are engaged, and so we think that a good
foundation for going forward and we're seeing real growth. Shay pointed out that the uptick and inflation increased the cost of goods.
Over the now this paragraph.
When I read this, I'm basically was scratching my head because where this comment comes from.
I have no clue, but this is what he said.
Pointed out that the uptick in inflation increased the cost of goods over the past few months, but he described the ten of the trend as a modesty increase that followed about two and a half years of flat goods inflation. Two and a half years of flat price increases. What planet is this guy on?
He did?
He not pay attention to the nine point one percent inflation in June of twenty twenty two, the four point three percent inflation over the on average during the Biden Urnament office. What's he looking at? And they don't explain it in here. There are times a year when we were engaged in commerce that is purchases out of necessity replenishment, the normal nay, day to day, week to week shopping that we do. Shay kept saying or mentioned, but holidays
are really much more emotional purchases. Families plan for it, families save for it, and they invest in it.
So there's talking about how people.
Start doing and have been kind of spacing out their holiday purchases where they basically start, you know, over several months.
Now.
They do concentrate when they bart when the bargains are there, and they anticipate what the bargains are going to be on Black Friday and then Cyber Monday. But again they are doing some of their purchases throughout the year. So when we start seeing holiday sales increase, which is the five day period or the holiday buying season, and those
numbers are up. If what he's saying is true that people started buying months ago, then that would have boosted those retail sales there and any retail sales increased now during this period of time is going to be icing on the cake. Top items purchase clothing and accessories, but fifty one percent, toys, thirty two percent, media, twenty eight percent, and gift cards twenty six percent. It exceeded our initial
expectations by approximately sixteen million consumers. Shayse said, I think there's a rarity of variety of reasons why people see let me seevity, variety of reasons why we see people out over the weekend. Certainly, many customers are looking for attractive deals that are out there. Others are there for social experience or as holiday tradition, and many others see this as an opportunity to get ahead of their gift shopping.
Logistics Managers Index slipped to a rating of fifty five point seven for November after two consecutive months of fifty seven point four. But then they start going into some of these statistics about let me see downstream respondents and what's going on.
But overall, I mean the numbers.
Robust in store sales, which is interesting because we've seen this trend over the last several years of where they're you know, we've seen all these different malls closing, these big box stores and brick and mortar businesses going by the wayside because people are.
Doing more on online shopping.
And I've seen this over this oh, I guess last decade or so, and the generation whatever that falls. But what's interesting is I've noticed with our grandchildren is that they are going to the malls now, or they are going out shopping. They're not sitting at home doing their purchases online. They're actually interested in going to the mall, touching, feeling, looking at certain things.
Maybe it's a situation, Well I don't.
My wife buys a lot of stuff online for the house, but every time it seems that she buys clothes, she has to kind of figure out, Okay, this manufacturer from what I've had in the past, is their sizes you have to buy the size up or in this manufacturer you got to buy the size down, and then you got to kind of pick and choose and kind of figure out to the minefield which ones are going to fit,
what aren't going to fit. Now, for the first time in a long time, this past year, well actually for the first time ever, I've bought some clothes online and almost every one of them had to go back because
they don't fit. And so what makes me curious about this is how are some of these you know, online companies actually making money Because not only do they give free shipping depending upon how much you buy and it's a good price based on what you could get in the store, So it's a it's a you're getting a bargain, But then also you're not paying for shipping, and then if it doesn't fit, you got to send it back and so they're stuck with the item and they've paid
for shipping twice. So I you know, it's it's amazing that and especially if you're buying anything having to do with a manufacturer in China, you know, how how does you know a fifty inch chest size as far as a jacket or a shirt or extra extra large, how does that equate to a thirty two chess or a forty four chess with the Chinese economy, I mean, or they're numbers. I thought they were supposed to be somewhat smart in terms of math. Fifty inches is not forty
four inches is not forty eight inches. And so when they say something and you go to a sizing chart and you do the measurements, and you say, okay, this is my signs, and then they come and you're buying an extra two x, extra large, extra extra large, and then what you get is about either a large or maybe a one x. So it's just I don't know, it's just kind of nuts. But again, National National Retail Federation seeing some very positive statistics as far as the
holiday season and how that is kicking off. A couple of other stories well kind of related to that. CNBC had their story talking about this. They're talking about will consumers and this is a kind of an interesting line. While consumer sentiment has tumbled and the growing number of major companies have laid off thousands of employees, retail sales data remained solid. So if there's been major layoffs, why isn't the unemployment rate going up? Why isn't the weekly
initial jobless claims going up? And why isn't the overall unemployment rate going up? You know, I just it's amazing when you dig into these numbers and see what they're talking about and trying to figure out where in the heck they're coming up with their numbers. Again, when I was talking about previously, total of one hundred and twenty nine point five million consumers shopped in stores over the
five days, a three percent year to year increase. The survey found as more Americans have done more of their Black Friday shopping online in recent years. The online shopping turnout jump up even more by nine percent, but then the in store traffic has gone up three percent. So it's interesting to see the trends that in some instances not only are the online purchases going up, but then again also the in store purchases are going up and the in store traffic is going up, which is good news.
Now the Trump administration and some other more good news before we have to get out of here, The Trump administration yesterday pushed major cut to the miles per gallon standard.
Just kind of hitting the highlights here. Trump administration proposed cutting the Biden era twenty thirty one fuel economy standards from about fifty miles per gallon to thirty four point five miles per gallon and ending the credit trading, starting credit trading starting in the twenty twenty twenty eight model year. So again, the EPA during the Biden administration, in the last year of the Biden administration, raised these fuel standards
to an unreasonable level. And if the mandates are there and the mechanics necessary to get to that isn't there and hasn't been developed yet, then these car companies are a disadvantage if they don't meet those standards, then they wind up paying billions and billions of dollars in fines to the federal government. This is one of those dirty little secrets that people don't know a lot about, is that because of these carbon credits.
And this fact that you're not making these fuel standards, you're paying.
Billions of dollars to the federal government for what are they taking those profits?
Are they taking those billions of dollars.
And turning them into some sort of non pollution fund or something like that, or funding other mechanisms. No, they're just confiscating the wealth. And who pays for that? You think the car companies are going to absorb that that they're not going to pour that back into the cost of a manufacturing a car. No, wonder, the cars have gone up on average and now some of the app of buying a new cars around forty seven thousand, fifty
thousand dollars, pushing the price of these cars up. And in order to meet those fuel standards, they have to push evs on people that they don't want. And again they claim there's no EV mandate, But when you look at the factors that if you don't sell more evs, you're going to be fined even more so, lowering these standards or lowering these miles per gallon goes within those and would cut the number of fines that are And
people may say no. Stay tuned here. Officials say the rollback and save Americans one hundred and nine billion over five years, while the environmental groups warned it will increase gasoline use and boost oil into sea profits. What are they not saying there? They are not saying that it's going to cause pollution. Wouldn't you think the environmentalist would be concerned about whether or not it's going to cause pollution. Wouldn't you think that that would be the top of
their list. No, they're worried about the profits of the oil companies.
Who doesn't like capitalism? Who doesn't like profits? Oh?
That would be communists? So are environmentalists more aligned with the communists? And as I call them, climmunists. Now kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it. I'm Kevin Gordon. Stay tuned for REDI Radio the top of the hour. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck in Network seven hundred WLW