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As some of you know I operate a small refrigerated freight carrier company. We have 6 over the road trucks and refer trailers. I just got a call from my dispatcher panicked... within 48 hours the rates have ABSOLUTELY tanked, so much so that we are electing to sit in Salt Lake City and Denver. We have been getting between $3.00 - $3.30 per mile, rates are now $2.00 per mile and lower. We simply can not make a profit at this number, we are literally losing money with every additional mile. The funny thing is this is across the board, the spot market is very quick to react to market conditions and there is very little fat. What this tells me is there is NO freight to move ( we move food) and there is a serious excess capacity with trucks. Between fuel cost, increased and unwarranted insurance increases they are KILLING small carriers such as myself. I also heard that Walmart and swift are cutting a huge % of their company drivers and back filling with owner operators. My gut is the insurance and maintenance costs coupled with downed trucks because of the lack of parts makes it hard to make a profit.

I hired back a driver that went to a company that had 46 truck fleet and 18 of the trucks were down waiting for parts (3-6 weeks for some longer for others)

As some of you know I operate a small refrigerated freight carrier company. We have 6 over the road trucks and refer trailers. I just got a call from my dispatcher panicked... within 48 hours the rates have ABSOLUTELY tanked, so much so that we are electing to sit in Salt Lake City and Denver. We have been getting between $3.00 - $3.30 per mile, rates are now $2.00 per mile and lower. We simply can not make a profit at this number, we are literally losing money with every additional mile. The funny thing is this is across the board, the spot market is very quick to react to market conditions and there is very little fat. What this tells me is there is NO freight to move ( we move food) and there is a serious excess capacity with trucks. Between fuel cost, increased and unwarranted insurance increases they are KILLING small carriers such as myself. I also heard that Walmart and swift are cutting a huge % of their company drivers and back filling with owner operators. My gut is the insurance and maintenance costs coupled with downed trucks because of the lack of parts makes it hard to make a profit. I hired back a driver that went to a company that had 46 truck fleet and 18 of the trucks were down waiting for parts (3-6 weeks for some longer for others)

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[–] • 0 pt

Well I thought I'd go get a CDL but clearly that isn't gonna happen.

assuming your post is in good faith, it means we are almost to the kinetic phase of u.s. collapse.

So my 32-64 day timeline may be correct after-all.

also, this is the first I've read anything from you RDunzy. Looking at your posts and comments, glad to have found another cynic.

[–] • 1 pt

My drivers all made north of 100k last year! Im happy to pay at the extreme high end of the scale. If you are willing and able to stay out 4 weeks at a time, you can do very well. I just helped my best driver buy his own truck yesterday. Im very happy for him.

[–] • 1 pt

Good on you for doing what you do. Long haul is best haul.

I remember growing up, going on long trips. Especially in bad weather. We did that all the time. Eight hour, ten hour, twelve hour drives, with nothing to do but watch the road and traffic.

[–] • 0 pt

Can you explain this to me like the retard I am?

OP is claiming LTL Trucking rates are dropping. Below the cost of fuel and operation.

Doesn't the market (the LTL providers) set that through their pricing? If Diesel is $6.30 a gallon as it is here in So Cal, that cost has to be recuperated.

Also Being a retard, I wanted to go out and get a license. I may be stupid but I can drive a truck.

[–] • 4 pts

I hope you don’t mind me chiming in. My brother retired a couple of years ago, he was a CDL instructor for one of the large truck driving schools. He stays in touch with people that are in the trucking industry, trucking company owners, logistics specialist and truck drivers. He tells me that the trucking unions and big logistics companies are in lockstep with the administration/government. There is a shortage of electronic parts for big rigs.

[–] • 2 pts

I sincerely appreciate the feedback. If often wondered if larger shippers and carriers were being supplemented to suppress rates to drive out smaller carriers. Start limiting parts for older trucks while newere trucks and trailers go to huge companies to accelerate the driving out of small carriers. Theses are theories of course but would certainly line up with what you are saying

[–] • 1 pt

Your brother is 100% correct.

[–] • 1 pt (edited )

Can you explain this to me like the retard I am?

tl;dr

  1. suppose you read a lot of news from a lot of different conflicting sources

  2. this news cites a lot of numbers what should we believe is true among all this noise?

  3. you look at only the largest and smallest numbers but from the most 'official' sources.

  4. You have a hunch that people have a psychological quirk.

  5. This quirk effects 'how big' a lie is, while still being believable

You might expect theres no rule to predict number 5.

But it turns out, generally, there is.

You know the myth of the "big lie"? That if people hear a big enough lie often enough they believe it?

Well it turns out, on average, that most liars have a psychological 'tick', or rule, that limits how big or small the lie can be.

And this can be formulate into a number, thats roughly equal to 8.55, or in some cases, the (number * 8.55)0.5

This covers large mis-estimates and large lies.

It shouldn't work, but it does.

So for example, it is said that 6 million jewish people died in the holocaust. But using this rule, it actually comes out to roughly 700,000. Which is within the ballpark of modern estimates.

But this rule doesn't just work for the holocaust. It also works for the estimates of human numbers who survived the toba-eruption genetic bottleneck, which used to be estimated at 10-12k survivors, but was then revised to 40 breeding pairs. Incidentally if you take 13k, divide by 8.55, and then get the square root, you get what? 38.99 and some change.

This, it turns out, works on a bunch of different estimates, successfully, including some estimates I made of fuel price spikes.

So anyway, I took some old estimates I had, based on other models, of a u.s. economic/political/military crisis occuring in 9-18 months and put it through this simple system. And out popped the 32-60+ day timeline. This was such an unbelievable estimate, even I found fault with it, and dismissed it at the time.

Its been two weeks (give or take a few days) since then, and since then I've seen numerous indicators, (including a certain asian nations backlog of ships being a precursor to a taiwan invasion) that the model is effective.

But then we also have to keep in mind that poal, like many other 'alt' places on line, besides being OSI chatter aggregators, are also platforms to influence and radicalize people, so everything any one of us believe, could be an entirely synthetic opinion that was essentially pushed on us without our awareness.

Which is why I don't commit to positions, I just post opinions.

If Diesel is $6.30 a gallon as it is here in So Cal,

Diesel delivery trucks, over inclines, average 3 miles to the gallon.

They likely can't deliver without losing money.

[–] • 1 pt

The only load we found yesterday out of salt lake required a 200 mile deadhead to NV and the a 700 mile haul into TX It was paying $1400. This would have taken 2 days based in timing of pickup and delivery windows. I cannot operate at a profit in $700 a day to the truck. This was the BEST load we could find mind you!