Truckers' strike/slowdown

[Cloud]

Brian: my friend here whose husband is a trucker--well, they went out of business this week; they turned in the truck and will have to file bankruptcy. They tried to make it work, but his take home had been reduced by 2/3.

such a shame.

[tw]

From The Washington Post of 21 Apr 2008:

A Switch on the Tracks: Railroads Roar Ahead
Now he's in charge of raising the roof of a Norfolk Southern tunnel in southwestern Virginia to clear headroom for the double-stacked container cars that have become the symbol of the industry's sudden surge thanks to a confluence of powerful global factors.

"For years, we were looking for ways to cut costs to increase profits," said Billingsley, as a train rumbled by. "Now, we're building business to increase profits."

The freight railway industry is enjoying its biggest building boom in nearly a century, a turnaround as abrupt as it is ambitious. It is largely fueled by growing global trade and rising fuel costs for 18-wheelers. In 2002, the major railroads laid off 4,700 workers; in 2006, they hired more than 5,000. Profit has doubled industry-wide since 2003, and stock prices have soared. The value of the largest railroad, the Union Pacific, has tripled since 2001.

This year alone, the railroads will spend nearly $10 billion to add track, build switchyards and terminals, and open tunnels to handle the coming flood of traffic. Freight rail tonnage will rise nearly 90 percent by 2035, according to the Transportation Department. ...

A train can haul a ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of diesel fuel, about a 3-to-1 fuel efficiency advantage over 18-wheelers, and the railroad industry is increasingly touting itself as an eco-friendly alternative. Trucking firms also use the rail lines; UPS is the railroad industry's biggest customer.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Well quoted, tw.

[classicman]

I cannot be that buzzed - Did UG just agree with T-dub????
Someone help me out here please.

[tw]

Originally Posted by classicman

I cannot be that buzzed - Did UG just agree with T-dub????

Sorry. I posted that under the wrong account name.

[classicman]

What??? How many names do you have, and what are they?

[BrianR]

trucks are still needed to get the freight from railyards to customers. I know, I haul rail freight as well as box freight for all the major package senders (FedEx. UPS, DHL etc)

look at a freight train sometime, there are plenty of vans on those flatbeds.

Brian

[busterb]

I was driving back in 74, maybe, when the truckers went on strike. IIRC nothing changed, then

[BrianR]

and nothing will change now, either.

[BrianR]

I just paid $895 for 203 gallons in Wapakoneta OH.

Oh my! $4.409/gal. Where will it end?

[classicman]

OUCH!!!

[tw]

Originally Posted by BrianR

Oh my! $4.409/gal. Where will it end?

Show me where $3.50 per gallon has changed driving habits. Well, for the first time, anti-American designed vehicles (pickup trucks and SUVs with 1968 technology engines) have finally seen a downturn in sales. Mass transit ridership has only increases a paltry 5 or 8%. Price of gasoline went from $0.85 to $3.50 before we see such paltry attitude changes? Well, yah. Now how much higher must prices go before we actually do address the problem - Americans waste oil easily by a factor of two and probably a factor of four. We must decrease our oil consumption to 50% and maybe to 25%.

Same professionals that predicted $100 per barrel oil when the majority denied it are now talking about $200 per barrel oil because so many people in America remain so wasteful. Tens gallons of gasoline but only 1 to 2 do any useful work.

More numbers. $5.00 per gallon gasoline (previously as the point at which Americans will finally admit to the problem) means oil must go to $175 per barrel. History says oil must go to those prices before Americans finally decide that Cheney, et al (a famous liar and anti-American) was wrong about consumption and production being the solution.

Remember when George Jr was first elected? Government officials suggested we should increase the weight of automobiles to 4000 pounds so that SUVs don't kill so many people. Well, the SUV is so anti-American that - view a distance between the top of a front wheel and the hood line. A larger distance means the vehicle is that anti-American and does more to waste oil. Patriotic passenger vehicles have almost no distance between the top of its hood and top of front wheels. Every SUV could do that AND would weigh massively less. But that means engineering. And engineering only increases costs - according bean counters.

When will prices stop rising? Well when do the thousands of little innovation indicators - ie less distance between hood and front wheel - start to appear. Until we see things innovative - which also means patriotic and not as dumb as UG - only then are the reasons for higher oil prices being solved.

Every mid-size car I have owned since 1980s has routinely done 30+ MPG even in local traffic. Technology has always existed. But with so many so anti-Americans as to even need SUVs, well, who gets punished? BrianR suffers first. But again, another lesson from the 1970s when another scumbag president would also lie routinely.

What is the latest suggestion discussed by some government officials? Price controls. Who did that previously? Nixon - another lying president who cared more about his political agenda; America be damned. Obviously prices controls would not work then. Obviously price controls on oil would only protect those who most create this problem - the most wasteful of fuel - SUV and pickup truck owners who said, "Keep making crappy products."

When will prices moderate? When will America finally concede that Americans who stifle innovation have always been the problem? Next post demonstrates how long ago everyone should have known this.

[tw]

GM now has lost something like $5billion this year. Trivial intelligence is necessary to appreciate why GM is losing so much money. Routinely perform HP/Liter calculations for their crappy engines. GM products need typically two extra pistons to obtain same horsepower. So the technology originally pioneered by GM in the early 1970s still will not be sold in that brand new car - using the same technology from 1955 models.

GERMAN automakers gave up pushrod engines long ago, in favor of more complex overhead-cam power plants. The Japanese have essentially quit making the old-design engines. Ford is down to just a couple.

But Chrysler, with seven, and especially General Motors, with about a dozen in 21 different forms, remain bastions of the pushrod engine, also known as an overhead-valve design.

Not only has G.M. continued to carry forward older engine designs, like the famous "small block V-8" in your grandfather's 1955 Bel Air (and your son's 2005 Corvette), it has been designing new ones. The Chevy Impala offers two pushrod V-6's that are new for 2006.

Today we have another GM solution. Promote more MBA types into top management. General Motors Corp., the world's largest automaker, appointed Frederick Henderson chief financial officer and vice chairman to help end losses in North America after he trimmed jobs at its money-losing European business.

Henderson will help Chief Executive Rick Wagoner eliminate 30,000 factory jobs and close 12 facilities in North America, where GM has lost $4.8 billion from its auto operations this year. Henderson since June 2004 has led an effort that included slashing 12,000 jobs in Europe, where GM hasn't had an annual profit since 1999. The European business in this year's second quarter posted its first profit in five years, before slipping to a $382 million loss in the third quarter.

They still design new engines with 1950 push rod, obsolete technology. Then promote more of the problem - bean counters - to solve their crap product line and stifled innovation.

Let's see. The government gave them how many hundreds of millions of dollars in 1994 to build a hybrid? Where are those products? It requires an MBA to worry about the product - to innovate. Finance people cannot innovate except on spread sheet. In some places, spread sheet innovation is still called fraud - when they don't contribute enough to Bush Cheney campaign funds.

Anything new here? It was not new when it was posted in 2005 as Kill the Messenger - this time the LA Times. Americans did nothing - bought even more of those most anti-American products. Economics then takes revenge including now paying $1.65 for things that once costs less than $1.00. Stay ignorant. Even listen to a lying president and his myths such as Man to Mars. Then suffer the consequences. Deja Vue the days of Nam and those like UG who got us into this. BTW, UG also criticized this reality when it was posted in 2005.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

That's because I'm brighter than you, you know, and I never tire of reminding you of that.

UG also denied what we now know as reasons for rising oil prices. Public denial.

When do things start getting better? Innovation takes four to ten years. We are only beginning to pay for easy money, mythical tax breaks, "Mission Accomplished", welfare to big pharma, and other things that UG, et al approved of. We have not seen the resulting bills yet. Deja vue days of Nam which was also created by people like UG who promoted those same myths.

[tw]

Appreciate how introverted the thinking was even in 2005?
Have gas prices affected you? Some here were so foolish as to 'know' a 140 HP engine was dangerous when small block mid-1970 V-8 only did 140 HP. Those were considered fast cars. Engines under 100 HP meant greater safety AND meant the driver was less likely to create crashes. But the mentality of "more power" was so inbred even in 2005.

Eventually, reality will take hold once oil prices get high enough. Eventually that 2005 mentality promoted by auto companies (with crappy engines) in will be replaced by world knowledge. Mindset forced when oil prices finally kill off what is now a world's worst passenger vehicle engine - the V-8.


Why do almost no Cosworth Mustangs exist from the 1960s. Engines were so powerful (about 200 Hp) as to destroy most every Mustang. No passenger car needs that much horsepower despite what others posted here in 2005.

Be stupid as to consume oil wastefully - eventually oil prices (economics) will take revenge. Unfortunately those who get punished first are BrianR and his peers. A lesson from history says significant job losses will result maybe two or more years from now.

A truck 345 horsepower to move 60,000+ pounds. A car of 3000 pounds needs a 200 horsepower and now a 300 horsepower engine? That's 11 times more power - why? Nïve know the truck does not accelerate – does not go fast enough. Funny. Some of the fastest moving vehicles on highway are trucks. Why do the naïve need 160 and 200 hp engines? A penis gets bigger when one is the first to a red light. That’s it. That justifies massive energy consumption and waste. Gasoline at $2.60 resulted in increased sales of the largest SUVs. Gas increasing from $0.85 to $2.60 was not sufficient to restore intelligent thinking.

Anyone owning passenger vehicles with a V-8 engine has no right to complain about gas prices because their ignorance (their contempt for innovation) is a major reason for those prices.

[Ibby]

That's almost a goddamn record, tw.
and i don't mean the prices.