Recession Warning: The Real Economy Is 'Very, Very, Very Weak' | Craig Fuller @FreightWaves

Summary

• Market Outlook: The guest argues the goods economy is very weak, with freight volumes down ~17% YoY and a stagflationary setup in trucking: lower volumes but rising shipping rates.
• Trucking Operators: He predicts a major capacity purge as unqualified drivers are removed, raising rates and advantaging compliant, large asset-based truckload carriers whose shares have been hit.
• Railroads: Railroads are presented as attractive long-term investments; fears of disruption from autonomous trucks have not materialized, with Buffett’s BNSF cited as proof of durable value.
• Warehouse Operators: He notes warehouse operators (e.g., Prologis) as beneficiaries alongside trucking and rail if reindustrialization and domestic sourcing trends gather momentum.
• Reindustrialization Theme: Despite recent policy uncertainty, he expects U.S. reindustrialization to resume, supported by domestic sourcing and nearshoring, benefiting logistics infrastructure.
• AI Capex Context: Hyperscalers’ heavy AI/data center capex is inflating headline growth but may not translate into broad-based profits or jobs near term, posing risk if spending decelerates.
• Economic Risks: Manufacturing, autos, energy, and housing are weak, with rising bankruptcies; a trucking capacity crackdown could tighten freight supply and lift pricing.
• Overall Positioning: Favor core transportation infrastructure—particularly large truckload carriers and railroads—tied to a multi-year reindustrialization trend.

Transcript

And I can tell you unequivocally that the underlying economy is very very very weak. And it's interesting because the administration, Congress, the Federal Reserve is in this state of denial because they have the stock market at near record highs. They have uh all this capital investment going in through data centers and they're able to go out and tell people that the economy is great because they're effectively making up their own stats. And that's a very dangerous thing. [Music] Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm its founder and your host, Adam Tagert. The freight industry has long been thought of as the circulatory system of the economy. It's how things bought and sold through commerce get from point A to point B in the real world. Now, historically, when trucking freight loads diminish, it's usually correlated with a slowing economy and if it gets bad enough, a recession. Today's guest is Craig Fuller of Freight Waves, a price reporting agency focused on the global freight market and the leading provider of highfrequency data for the global supply chain. He recently released a prediction that the US freight trucking industry is about to experience quote the largest capacity purge in history. We'll ask him what that means for the economy as well as for the hundreds of thousands of workers he expects to be impacted by it. Craig, thanks so much for joining us today. >> Great to be here. >> Hey, real pleasure. So, Craig, I have been reading your work for a long time over the years. It's great to finally get to interview you here in person. Um, welcome to Thoughtful Money. Uh I think uh today's viewers are going to get a real um treat out of this discussion. If we can let's start with that report that you um that you recently released and if you don't mind um I just want to read like two paragraphs from it just to set the stage here. Um you said quote the freight industry is experiencing what experts describe as one of the most interesting times ever in freight though unfortunately not in a positive way for most participants. Motor carriers and freight brokers across the spectrum are feeling significant pain from weak freight volumes and a rapidly changing operating climate. What we're witnessing appears to be the calm before a significant storm with indicators pointing towards what could become the largest capacity wash out in trucking history. With a risk of the market eliminating 600,000 active drivers, the largest capacity purge in history may be coming, bringing COVID-like spot rates. The difference this time is that there won't be a flood of immigrants created by Biden's open borders, which offered an endless s supply of truck drivers. The capacity relief valve for shippers and brokers is forever shut, meaning carriers will have to pay up in terms of higher pay and bonuses for truck drivers. Capacity will also be much harder to find. So Craig, reading this as a non-expert in the industry, to me it sounds kind of stagflationary where we'll have a lot less jobs in the industry, but shipping costs will be higher. Am I taking the right things away from this? >> It it depends on I mean ultimately freight is a commodity. So if you're a producer, i.e. a trucking company, you want you want rates to go up. If you're a participant in the market, if you're buying capacity, if you're a shipper, if you're a manufacturer, a retailer, then you want rates to go down. And and so it's important to anchor our conversation around how the industry thinks about you have the natural longs, which are the trucking companies, which always want higher rates, and you have the natural shorts, which are the shippers that want the rates to go down, and then you have brokers and intermediaries that live in the sort of the middle of that. Think of them as the day traders. So, as it relates to a macro economy, then stackflation, uh, I think stackflation is the right way to think of it because ultimately you're going to have higher rates or higher prices for moving cargo at a time where you have pretty anemic volumes in the economy um, that is not reflecting an environment that should be tightening. And so I I think it depends on which side of that uh which side of that argument you take. Certainly if you're if you're a motor carrier, you want higher rates, but you also recognize that you have to pay more for truck drivers and so forth. >> Yeah. All right. Well, so I I guess at the high end, what does this mean to you for the economy? So historically, as I said in the intro there, um you know, decreasing freight volumes were generally a sign that the economy was slowing. um does that correlation still hold? And if so, what is this telling you? >> Yeah, it's important to understand when we say the economy, we're talking specifically about the goods economy. So, it's the portion of the economy that's tied to physical consumption of product. So, think of it as >> uh everything from energy uh to manufacturing to retail goods to automotive to housing. It's the stuff that is physical in the economy. freight does not really correlate or or have a lot to do with the service society of the economy, the financial side of the economy, government, education, healthcare. It is really focused specifically on the goods in the economy. And what I would say is it's it's not really a forecast to say that the freight market is soft. It already is. We've seen a decline in freight volumes down by 17% year-over-year, which is very great financial crisis like drop and and goods moving through the economy. And one thing to keep in mind is unlike a lot of the credit card data, I think Bank of America came out today with some credit card spending reports on that spending was up is what the credit card data won't tell you is the amount of goods purchased, the consumption of goods in the economy. And what it will tell you is the prices paid for those goods, >> right? What's being spent on on the >> correct? Even the GDP data, when you look at GDP as a as a metric and you say, you know, our economy grew by 3% year-over-year, what is baked into that number is inflation. Like as as inflation goes up and prices go up, it's naturally >> your economy is going to reflect your economic growth is going to reflect that. And so >> just to be clear, your G your GDP could go up, but you could have the sold the same number of goods. >> Correct. Or less. And we've seen that in recent years where uh we have actually sold less product but the GDP number is higher. And you know someone who doesn't follow this stuff very deeply may ask well how is that possible? And the reason that's possible is because ultimately uh as you have inflation you're going to have it. I I had someone who used to run supply chain at Walmart and this was years ago. This is before we we got into sort of hyperinflation. It was pre-COVID times. He made the comment to me that the retailers like some inflation. It actually is a positive thing for their same store sales models. So what they what they'll do is they'll report you know our our same store sales are up 4%. But a lot of times retail investors and even some institutional investors sort of miss I think particularly when inflation wasn't on everybody's mind. So again this was sort of anchoring pre-COVID times. Um, what people often miss in that is that part of that growth is is naturally baked into the economy because you have inflation. And so when you see a 3 to 4% growth in same source sales, what you really need to understand is what the volume of shipments or volumes of goods that went through that that store is. And so when we talk about freight, what we're talking about is the the activity, the movement of cargo through the economy. And one of the great things about freight data is that it it foretell what's happening in the broader economy about six months before it sort of becomes before the rest of the economy sees it. The reason being is that supply chains tend to be I mean there there's a whole chain the the whole term supply chain uh if I'm ordering if I'm manufacturing good I have to have raw materials come in. If I'm selling goods at as a retailer, I'm bringing stuff into my warehouses and my distribution centers that tends to be upstream to consumption. And so one of the really interesting things about freight data is it gives us a barometer, a real-time barometer and probably an advanced perspective of what's likely to happen in the goods economy. And so we have been seeing a an epic collapse in freight demand since Valentine's Day of this year. and when you know a lot of it is just the there's so many factors driving that. Um but it's it's what we're seeing in the labor market should not surprise anybody who's been watching the freight data. Like it's interesting when you watch CNBC, Bloomberg, go you listen to a lot of folks on on various podcasts like like yours and others is is that people are so tied into what the stock market is telling them or they're tied into what the government employment data says and it's I go on a number of I I speak and oftent times um recently I feel like I'm I'm sort of the odd man out because I'm on these panels or these conversations at these conferences and you get people and it's you know you have three people on the panel, two of them are and myself are arguing about how great the economy is and they're always talking about how strong the labor market is. And then here I am talking about how bad the economy is. And it's interesting because I think the labor story is starting to catch up where the freight data has been telling us. And freight doesn't lie. The thing about freight that's very different than sort of retail purchasing uh and other type of economic indicators even different than any type of commodity because freight's ultimately a commodity is that people do not purchase freight movement unless there is demand on the other end. And so people are not moving things around for practice. But you do have inventory anomalies that happen in companies where they will take possession of a lot of product or they'll discount heavily to drive sales. What we look at when we're looking at freight is the activity, the throughput, the liquidity of goods moving through the economy. And that's why it's such a really reliable barometer to understand the underlying activity. So, you know, we've heard of this term K-shaped economy, um, where, you know, we've got some parts of the economy that are just white hot and on fire. AI, good example of that. Um, but other parts of the economy that aren't. And so, I know it's maybe sounds relatively simplistic, but we could, you can kind of say that, all right, you know, the real goods economy is is kind of on that downward shape of the K. um right now. Um and while GDP growth might still be decent um that might be a factor of the white hot upper half of the K keeping things looking elevated but but the kind of the real world economy is not necessarily doing so so hot. >> Yeah, I think that's exactly what's happening and I think it's important to unpack the what's actually important in those numbers. So we see the hypers scale the amount of capital expenditures I I think is larger than any point in history and you know in terms of the amount of capital by private enterprises not the government >> y >> uh but private enterprises and building cap capital infrastructure and these are companies that have massively uh strong balance sheets and uh substantial cash flows where that is driving a lot of the activity in the GDP number it's driving the stock market. But combined all of those hyperscalers employ two million people and that includes Amazon's staff. If you take Amazon's entire employment, 90% of the people work at Amazon work in a distribution center or warehouse. I mean >> but but it's hard to understand how many when you look at Amazon's data how many actually work inside their AWS hypers scale uh business but if you look at the entire and I think like I said a 2 million is a very generous number because uh a lot of those jobs are not in the hyperscaling AI parts of the businesses even at Microsoft it's people that are are doing customer service for Microsoft Word or something right >> and so when we look at the number of people employed by this hypers scales two million people uh total when we look at the goods economy that taking out uh retail but taking it and looking at the parts of the freight market that are really struggling and I want to explain the retail story here in a second because most people when I say freight they automatically think about their own experiences through the lens of retail but there's some important elements in the retail story that I think will actually be pretty revealing but when we look at auto energy housing and uh manufacturing and then combined the transportation logistics employment numbers that are a part of that that that ecosystem of those categories they employ 35 million total people. So we have an industry that is in a pretty significant recession. those four industries maybe five if you add transportation logistics and that >> that is experiencing severe economic distress you know and they all have their own story the energy problem is that oil I mean this is great for consumers but oil prices are at at basically a break even or slight margin basis where if you're an efficient oil producer you're able to make a profit it's probably a great environment for someone who who's because it's not a boon bus it's not we're not at situation where they're making so much money that it drives new entrance, but it's also they're able to make a profit, but it's a pretty soft market. There isn't a lot of activity going on in the oil sector because of the lack of confidence in the direction of oil prices. Uh, so it's it has its own issues. Then you get into like automotive, that's a credit problem for consumers. They can't afford to to buy a car. >> Uh, housing, I'm sure you guys, this gets taught adnasium. >> I've had a lot of housing experts on here talk about how the housing market's frozen and broken. Yeah. >> And so all those markets drive freight. And so if you think about that, they employ 35 million people and we're all excited about the 2 million people that are that are are a part of these hyperscalers. And so the underlying part of our economy, the it is a very K-shaped economy. And the other thing to keep in mind is that as people get wealthier, they don't tend to buy more products. they tend to spend more on products. And so a wealthy consumer is going to eat the same quantity of food by a on a weight basis. Yeah. >> As an affluent. One may get a fillet and one may end up getting a you know McDonald's hamburger. >> Effectively it's a mill of one. It doesn't matter. And so when you and then you think about the consumption of people that are super wealthy, they're tend to even if they're buying things, which we certainly are seeing in the data, they're buying more expensive things, but they're not buying more of the expensive things. So when we talk about the freight market, what we're specifically looking at is the entire activity across the economy. And so whether it's affluent people or poor people or people that are living at the sort of in the median side of of America, what essentially matters is the total activity. And I can tell you unequivocally that the underlying economy is very very very weak. And it's interesting because the administration, Congress, the Federal Reserve is in this state of denial because they have the stock market at near record highs. they have uh all this capital investment going in through data centers and they're able to go out and tell people that the economy is great because they're effectively making up their own stats. Um I mean they have some foundation but they're they're effectively uh you know using this data as a way to sort of dismiss the economic weakness that everyone understands that's happening. And that's a very dangerous thing. And the reason it's dangerous is that these are the people that could do something about it. The Fed and the president and Congress, if they actually accepted the fact that the economy was incredibly weak, then they would do something to sort of drive activity. But they're all in denial. And I don't even know if they if it's a matter of that they've selected the data they want to hear or they're so disconnected from reality. I've met with folks in Congress. I've met with the Federal Reserve. Uh, and I met people connected to the administration and they all look at me very strangely when I talk about how bad the economy is. And I believe they sincerely believe it's strong. They they just are in such denial using a select amount of data that they don't even understand that a large portion of America is struggling. So our last I checked our GDP is 70% uh consumer spending driven and and while while the hyperscaler spending is is really kind of distorting that right now we we are still largely a consumer spending driven economy. So when the majority, it seems, is falling further and further behind, right? They're going to they're going to be reigning in their spending as they can afford less going forward. H how you know, right now it's sort of like the you know, we talked about earlier the two ends of the K are kind of averaging to a number that looks decent, you know, to to somebody from a distance. >> Um is that sustainable? >> I I don't think so. I don't think you can I I think you end up creating and this gets almost philosophical in some ways. Uh but you end up creating so much social tension in the economy because you have these people that are doing exceptionally well. And if I post something, it's interesting because if I post something on my on my ex account about the economy, I get a lot of people attacking me that I know nothing about the economy because they're they're talking about the GDP now data at the Atlanta Fed or >> right or they're looking at the stock market and using that as a proxy, which is and the problem is that that people so you have this underlying base of employment because the majority of people are not working for hyperscolars, >> right? and and the the vast m you know people love to talk about the dollars spent on manufacturing capital deployment the vast majority of that money is going in two buck or three buckets number one is it's going into Nvidia to buy microprocessors the second bucket is it's going into companies that build data centers and the third bucket is it's going into the power grid but that's effectively all of the economic growth and activity that is related to hyperscalers is going into those companies. Now, the hope is that all of those investments are infrastructure and I'm talking these language learning models and AI and that infrastructure will drive productivity growth throughout the economy. But as we've seen many reports, it's not happening in the places that it needs to be happening. The the companies that are benefiting from AI are not the companies that make up the employee base that I've referred to. Like AI is not helping build houses faster. AI is not helping. I perhaps some automation inside of a factory is helping, but it's it's so marginal where most of the AI gains are in industries that are are frankly uh white collar jobs anyways. And and there's a lot of question about whether we're helping or hurting those industries to begin with. And so I I I just I look at this and think it's it's it's somewhat shocking how disconnected from reality again the folks that could do something about it really are. >> Yeah. Well, we'll get to that in a bit. But but to your point there, I think you use the term hope, right? So right now this is not um we're not getting we're not at the pro productive return on investment stage of this, right? Instead, we are making a big investment and there was a lot of hope that it is going to have huge results and and I don't think you know too many people doubt that AI won't be significant in the long run but we don't know what we're going to get from this spending yet and there's two elements I want to talk with you about that one is um I mean at some point we'll have built out a crap ton of data centers right and and the the the the wave of infrastructure spending will be over. There's going to be a big question of okay, so where are all the incremental, you know, revenues and profits that are going to come from this, right? We don't know that. That's a big question mark. Another big question mark, which to me personally, I I could be wrong. To me, I feel I've got more confidence in predicting this, there going to be a lot less jobs needed going forward in an AI economy, right? >> If they achieve the goals, right? Like that's the that's the sort of irony of all of this is that if these AI companies are successful and achieve what they claim that they will achieve or believe and I don't know that I I I certainly as a founder of a tech company you sort of believe your own press or believe your own you have to you have to fundamentally suspend reality for to to run a business. That's what being a founder really is is you have to believe that something can become that isn't. And so if if we if we take them at their at what they believe is going to happen then it certainly will displace tens of millions of jobs in the economy because that is what it's all about. I mean where I do see we use AI in some of our applications and where I see AI work really well is where there is cost efficiencies. I don't see AI today, at least what I've seen is that it's it's developing new revenue streams for companies. Now, if you're an AI company, it's developing new revenue stream, but but most companies are not AI companies. And the AI tool set is meant to be a cost efficiency. It's meant to make a business more efficient. And there are use cases even in my own business where I can point to things that we have built using AI or we use AI to make our business more efficient. And there's absolutely cases where we did not hire an employee because we were able to automate this role or we had someone leave and we didn't have to replace them with another employee because we found some productivity gains through technology. That is happening. But that's the case that these AI companies are effectively making to America is that all of that capital investment is going to deliver returns. And unless there is something new that they're growing, some new part of the economy, some new product iterations, it's a lot of it's going to be the fastest uh return on investment is in cost savings. And I think most businesses are thinking about AI in that lens, not thinking about how it can necessarily help them grow their business. Uh they're think or add new products. They're thinking about can I use this to cut cost. And I think that is the scary part is this is an automation technology that should improve efficiency but not necessarily add new jobs. >> So um let me ask you this then. So, I mean, just how what's your concern level right now that in the near to midterm we could we could have a realization that okay, the the the the brunt of the AI capex spending has been done and we're realizing that it's going to take longer than we thought to get the the incremental profits out of this than than we all thought while realizing at the same time, whoa, the rest of the economy is doing really bad. And so, you kind of have the worst of both worlds. don't get the the the short-term boon from AI you were hoping for and then you realize that the rest of the economy is worse than you thought. >> Yeah, Adam, it's it's we're sort of outside my lane because me predicting when the stock market will catch up to reality as it relates to AI spend and return on investment. I I don't know. That's there are people who profess to be much smarter at >> I I don't need a when I'm just saying are you worried that that that because we're talking about we we're masking the the downside of the K right now. >> Yeah. I >> you worried that we're going to get to a point where we realize whoa wait a minute. Well, I think at some point we are going to recognize that the underlying part of the economy, the goods economy, the main street economy if you will, that those businesses are struggling mightily. We're seeing a rise in bankruptcies, some of it tied to overexpo exposure and leverage. And we've seen that with like First Brands and and other other companies. Uh we've seen some sub uh subprime auto lenders that have gone out of business. Um we're going to see bank a lot of bankruptcies I believe in in businesses that are tied to the portion of the economy that I tend to focus on which is the the goods economy. Uh consumers are struggling, housing builders are struggling, real estate agents are struggling, auto manufacturers are starting to struggle. And the more that that the more we see of that and there isn't a course correction then the worse it's going to get because it compounds. You know when when an auto plant shuts down and we've seen this just in recent days where the auto plants have actually are mothballing factories. They're not building cars or trucks uh or they're they're cycling off a plant or abandoning projects entirely. They're doing so because it's in their it's in their economic interest to do so. And when they do that, they end up, you know, laying people off. And those people aren't consuming goods. And the small businesses that sell, I'm talking about your local dry cleaner, your local restaurants, all of that stuff starts to show up. And like I said, it doesn't matter that the hype the hyperscalers can go on to infin. Maybe they have just like we saw during the dotcom day. I was in college during the you know 99 and I remember watching CNBC and Henry Blahett is on there talking about this is a new economy. It's totally different and it reminds me of what happened back in 99 and 2000 these >> you know the internet broke all the rules and therefore we should ignore the amount of speculation going into the economy uh and into the markets. I hear a lot of the same arguments about AI and I know this has been covered extensively. But when I look at the underlying economy that I am exposed to that I that I am far more qualified to talk about then I see material weakness that is not getting better. And the irony of all of this is and I look I voted for Donald Trump. I was supportive. I thought we would have a oneanddone tariff policy against China. I thought he would come in and hammer the hell out of China and ignore the rest of the world and say you're all my friends and we're going to go build a great manufacturing a global manufacturing base and we're going to cut China out of the system. And that's what I think many people who were voting for Donald Trump's industrial policy thought they were getting. I know I'm going to get some hate mail after this from people say you you know you caused this you like that's what happens when you admitted you voted for him. But what what has happened is the manufacturing base has been destroyed and we are seeing we were promised that we were going to get a renaissance in manufacturing and we've gotten the opposite is that the the very parts of the industry and the industrial economy that we were supposed to see a renaissance is it we're not getting it. Uh and so that is the frustration and at some point that will compound through the rest of the economy because at some point unless we all want to be working for a hyperscaler or have seven businesses that that run the predominance of our whole economy, we cannot survive on seven companies doing well and everybody else left out. It just won't work. >> They just won't work. And and just again to their point, I think their business models largely are looking at how we can grow with fewer workers going forward, not more anyway. So they probably don't even want us. So >> I mean, we're all going to be told to do it on a computer. Maybe this is what it like I I don't I'm going to set off some people thinking I'm a conspirator. I'm not I'm not big into conspiracy theories, but it does strike you as somewhat shocking how um how distorted everyone that can actually change the way that the economy operates that has the power to do something about it are so caught up in this narrative that's just a lie that the economy is doing great. It is in one sector and maybe a couple of small portions of that sector, but it's not >> it's not anywhere else. Well, so let let me let me dive into a couple things and I'm sorry to to to have you know made it a lot about AI and we'll probably still talk about it a bit um because it is it is an important element here and I will say look I I I in one sense I get it from a national security perspective if they have determined that winning AI the IIA race is the same has the same priority as winning say the nuclear race like I I I I can understand that so I have to say I agree with everything they're doing but I I can understand them just saying Look, this is the one thing that we got to do whatever it takes. >> I I don't think that's it. I think that is a justification to justify the money and the amount of money that's going into these businesses. These are highly influential companies that have an enormous amount of money to influence policy. >> Yeah. >> And and I if it was strictly a national security issue, then I think we would talk about more investments in the grid, which is going to need to be there. And the conversation's happening. We would talk more about, and we're doing it. The administration is certainly doing things around rare earth minerals and processing plants, but we still need a manufacturing base. I mean, what won World War II is the fact that car factories were able to produce tanks. We produced 500,000 airplanes during World War II. Like, you win wars through supply chains and you win wars through manufacturing. That's what it will take to win a war. And if this is truly a national security policy, then we would be driving billions and billions upon billions of investment into the goods economy and trying to to drive uh to to to to prop that up and that's not happening right now. Well, so let me ask this question and it comes out of ignorance of the details, but the Trump administration, and again, I'm not I'm not here to argue any partisan side, but the Trump administration, I think, would say, "Hey, Craig, look, like, what do you think we're trying to do with all these trade deals and and tariffs, and we're trying to basically bring foreign investment back into the US and tell people we're going to tariff you unless you build your your cars or your whatever here in America and American factories, the American workers. And this stuff just takes time, but we're we're going bananas on it. We've been running all over the world for the past six months doing it. What would you say to that? >> Well, if it were working, the data says it's not. I mean, I think on its surface, the narrative is there and perhaps the intent is there, but when you look at the data, we are not driving manufacturing. There's no manufacturing renaissance happening. In fact, if you go back to the first quarter and when Donald Trump first took office, it it was daily. It felt like he had some CEO of some company that was talking about a billion dollar plus investment in America. And some of these were like a hundred billion dollars or whatever. >> We're not getting a lot of those announcements because companies have moved the sidelines. They moved to the sidelines because there's massive uncertainty. They don't know what is next. And the issue is if you're going to build a plant and let's say it's a billion dollars and you still source material from all over the world because raw materials do come from other places. If your tariff is 10% is that's one thing but if you can't predict what the tariff will be five weeks out or five years out or two years out whenever your products are going to come in it makes it nearly impossible to have the confidence to make investments. And that's what's happening is companies are not hiring. They're not uh expanding their operations. They're not um making the kinds of investments that would suggest that there's a manufacturing renaissance. And companies that want to make those investments, that want to actually produce uh to put manufacturing in place are not are not doing that right now. And we have not seen the administration come out in recent months bragging about all the investments that are coming in from ex company that's going to build a manufacturing plant. It's few and far between. It in the first couple of weeks of the administration, it was almost every day. And it was because so many were so many people were confident that they understood the policy of what Donald Trump was going to do. And there was certainty and confidence that that's the direction it was going. But we've gotten so much instability in policy that it's hard to keep track of it and it's just sapped anybody wanting to make long-term capital investments. >> Okay, so we the intent may be there, may not be there. Maybe reshoring is riding in the rescue. It's just going to take longer than we think. Maybe not. We don't know for certain. What we do know for certain is that freight volumes are anemic. And that >> freight volumes are anemic. And it's very easy looking at the data that we had to tell that it's not the retail. It's not retail goods that's the problem. It is the manufacturing. It's the manufacturing. It's auto. It's energy and it's housing is where the problems are. It's that portion of the economy specifically. It's not retail. Retail is basically flat. So we we are not seeing a erosion in the quantity of goods purchased. Uh we we did in October. We're actually up 7% year-over-year. uh in goods purchasing or goods shipments uh through September. It dropped uh back to basically flat in October. A lot of that's probably related to SNAP benefits and government shutdown and things like that. Um but what I'm looking at right now when I talk about softness, we're talking about those sectors of the economy that again uh are the base of our economy, >> right? It's it's the get stuff done part of the economy that that is looking sick. in the retail like you said it's not it's not looking terrible but it's not looking super strong either and there too we have a tail of two stories where a lot of the the purchasing is being done by the top 10% um masking a lot of trouble in the bottom 50 plus% so let me ask you this so in in the um >> the the part from your piece that I mentioned which was which was largely focused around trucking but but I sense when you're talking about freight volumes you're you're putting everything in trains, shipping, all that stuff, right? Okay. Um, but just in the trucking world, right, where I believe I believe, correct me if the stats wrong, um, but I believe like the um number one middle class job in the country, I think, is trucker or something like that. I mean, >> the 29, it's the number one job in 29 states is is really the sort of narrative that's that's there. I mean, there's three and a half million truck drivers in the United States. >> Okay. So it is a as a job classification it is a very important job for for so much of the economy. >> Okay. So so number one job in 29 states. I mean this is a very material um sector. So you you put at the risk of the market eliminating 600,000 active drivers. >> Um what if that if that indeed materializes what are the knock-on effects of that? Right? because that that that that hits consumer spending not just from those 600,000 uh drivers but also all those businesses that depend on on you mentioned the the the corner coffee shop, the gas station, the you know >> I think it's important to know what those 600,000 drivers specifically are. We're talking about immigration, immigrants that drive those trucks. And and so what's happened is is that we we we've had such a sort of liberal and this is not a political conservative liberal but a very liberal orientation over the last say nine years certainly you know even during Trump's first administration was there was a belief that you know as it relates to trucking is that these jobs are the types of jobs that immigrants should be able to drive trucks and the the government the federal government uh as well as a lot of the constituents that are in trucking believe that allowing foreigners to drive trucks was a positive development. Is they >> sure well for them cheaper laboration you absorb all these illegals that are coming in or or >> they bought into this narrative that there was a driver shortage and they bought into this story that because of this perpetual driver shortage that we needed to basically open up truck driving jobs to anyone. And they ma they eliminated the barriers to entry. They they eliminated the retraining requirements, the qualifications. I mean, it's it's actually quite disturbing when you hear how easy it is to get a CDL and drive an 80,000lb truck down the highway. >> Well, we we've been hearing a number of nightmare stories about that now with, you know, folks that don't even understand English getting into, you know, >> but that's not even the half of it. If that was it. If the person uh didn't understand English and we stopped there, then that in itself is is not great. But that isn't the worst thing that that has happened. Um, the industry in 20 uh 21 came out with the Federal Motor Care and Safety Administration came out with new guidance that eliminated the training requirements for truck drivers. And basically they the there's 2,000 registered truck driving schools across the country. They basically the the feds came out with a new database that means that anyone can certify that like you and I Adam could open up a truck driving certification program today. We could have a YouTube video and we could start certifying. We we we registry and we say that we have certified that you know Johnny has completed the requirements because he he watched a couple YouTube videos. Never been in a truck. Johnny's never been in a truck. Never driven a truck. probably doesn't even know what a fifth wheel is. I'm sure many of listeners don't, but truckers will know what that is. >> Um, but doesn't has never even set foot on a truck. And as long as he can pass the CDL test, then he's on his way without any uh standards for what was acquired of them, >> right? Or pay someone to take it for him. >> Pay someone to take it for him, which happens a lot. And so, we've had so much fraud propagated that that it's made it so easy. And look, this is a natural phenomenon is you have immigrants that are coming from some of the worst places in the world to look if I were I have I have an enormous amount of empathy for immigrants who come over who who who were born in circumstances not of their own choosing who who just want a better life and are >> we would do the exact same thing. >> I would do the same thing. I don't I don't begrudge them at all. And um but trucking is the type of industry where you don't have to interact uh with your employer on a regular basis. Uh there's a lot of ethnic subcommunities in trucking. So if I am a Hispanic driver, there's plenty of trucking companies that are owned by uh Latinos. Uh there's trucking companies that are owned by Pujabis. I can find there's enough of these trucking companies out there that I probably can find someone who sort of meets my culture. And because we've eliminated the barriers to entry and the training qualifications as well as the language qualifications, we now have a safety problem and we have an economic one because we've made it so attractive for, like I said, 600,000 people to come into the industry. Many of them are not qualified to drive a truck. And the scary part is they're driving down the highway like it's it's insane. They're driving >> and they're getting into accidents. I mean, we're seeing some of these horrific. >> They are. And and it's going to continue to come. It doesn't And here's the statistically 5,000 people die on the highways every single year through a truck fatality, which is up 40% since 2014. >> Really? >> So, >> yeah. And and a lot of it has to do with again we've elim we're eliminating the barriers to entry, >> right? It's untrained drivers or poorly trained drivers. Yeah, >> it's poorly trained drivers, unqualified drivers. And here's the crazy part is even if someone took a CDL test and someone had some degree of CDL training, that does not qualify that person or prove that that person is proficient to drive a truck through a mountain pass or a high wind or a snowstorm or a flooding like or heavy traffic in the middle of Los Angeles like we they've not done anything to prove that they're qualified. And because we've lowered the bearish to entry and made the standard so weak, what has happened is and at the same time our immigration policy has been effectively open borders. You've just made it so attractive for people in the industry to get in. And that's that is like the legit side of the world. Now let's get into a lot of illegitimate things that happen in our industry is there's a large number of truck drivers that come over here on guest visas. So, we've talked about assuming that the driver has the immigration papers because that was the other thing. This thing called non-domicile CDLs, which when I first heard about I did not believe was a real thing. I was like, "This can't even be real." And this was like up to a year ago, I didn't believe it was real. It was trending on X and the people that were ask you guys are you're just xenophobic, man. Like, get over it. Like, you don't like the color of the skin of the person driving the truck. You just need to get over it. But what we've now learned is that this issue was so pervasive that back in and this is in 2019 is that the government issued guidance that said you could issue something called a non-din CDL which meant if I lived in one state it was really a mil for the military for people that were perhaps based in one you know that they were their home was California but they're living in Texas that they could go into the state DMV and and not have to be a resident of that state and be able to get issued a CD. CDL. That was the original intention. But what they did when they issued the the guidance, they actually said foreign drivers could be issued a CDL so long as they proved that they had work permits. Well, we all know what happened because certain states, including Texas and Florida, it doesn't matter conservative, but it wasn't just California, but California and Illinois were just pervasive. Did not ask the question, do you have a work permit? Uh, and and oftentimes did not require the drivers to ever go through a CDL test. Oh my goodness. >> And so they would issue a CDL without verifying the person had a work permit. So they didn't have a right to work and uh didn't have the right paperwork of the training. So this is what happens. And then to compound it, the Department of Transportation sent out notices to this is all by the way, this was mindblowing to the point I did not I've seen so many things in trucking. I did not believe this was true. I was like there's no these guys that are telling me this are lying. But I went and researched it. It turned out there's been a lot of data on it since. But the DOT in 2006, this is 2016, sort of backing up. There's been a lot of errors here, sent out uh notices to the state DOS that they could not put a truck out of service uh based on the driver not having uh work status. So they could pull over to a driver who was had been in the country for 10 years illegally, did not have a work permit, and the state trooper that pulled him over could not put him out of work. >> My goodness. >> And so there's no enforcement. And so it was great for these guys because you're much more likely to see uh even when Biden was in office, you're much more likely to see ICE raid your chicken factory than you are to see him go to the truck stop. And that's what happened. and it became such a like a legit job. And then you get other things like people that come on 90-day visas for tourist visas that are also driving trucks. I've got stories of companies that were trucking companies that open. Remember, there are no requirements of what we do to have a CDL school. We have to teach someone to test. And so there are companies that recruit people to come over on guest tourists visas and drive for 90 days. My goodness. >> They do one day of training, have never been in a heavy duty truck, one day of training, come over, get are given basically a CDL, uh go and get the CDL, and then are given the keys and they're on their way. And they make so much money during those 90 days that they will make money for the whole year and they'll repeat it the next year. And when one driver leaves, another one comes. And there's a whole system of this and a lot of it's tied to organized crime. And so what we're talking about the 600,000 purge, we're talking about the percent of the industry. The other thing about this is a lot of these drivers drive what we not only are they non-documented illegal, they drive illegally. They don't respect our law. So a truck driver, an American truck driver, and I don't, you know, could be a Hispanic, second generation Latino, could be a first generation Latino that came over, has a has a visa, got citizenship. Um, but every single truck driver in the United States is allocated 11 hours a day. They're not supposed to drive more than 11 hours a day. But what you have, and there's a joke, there's a sort of this meme in freight called, because a lot of this is Eastern European, by the way. Like everyone assumes when I'm talking immigration, I'm talking Latinos. I'm not. A lot of this is actually a lot of Eastern Europeans, it's Pujabis, it's a lot of parts of the world. Uh but there's this saying in trucking strong uh strong solo Sergey which is the meme is this uh guy from Serbia who can drive 20 hours a day because he's the the joke is he's a strong solo like he he's willing to drive 20 hours a day when he's only allowed that kid 11. So what happens is these guys that come over that don't particularly on tourist visas don't respect our laws are willing to do things that no American truck driver should do. So what we've had is a situation where the the carriers, the motor carriers and the drivers that follow the law are going out of business. They're effectively insolvent because they cannot compete >> right >> with with the truck drivers that will drive twice as long or will pay less than market wages. Um they they they they simply and the thing is you can you and I can Adam the other thing is not only can we so we we could do this. We could go register a motor carrier. We could have it up and running in about three minutes and we we don't have to prove anything about who we are. There's no documentation required. >> We get a bunch of strong surrogates so we can undercut everybody. >> Correct. And in three minutes we can have a motor carri. And guess what? If we end up in an accident, we kill a family because our owners are over in in uh Serbia, we can just start up as a new company, we'll take the trucks and we'll take the drivers that work for our company that caused the accident over to a new co and we'll open up as another carrier and it doesn't it doesn't matter. There are >> So, this is frightening from a from an economic standpoint. Um but it's super frightening from just a public safety standpoint. >> Safety. supply chain issue like these people. >> I've been I've been nervous about this when I get on the highway. Now you're making me petrified. There should be because you don't know when you're driving next to someone whether that driver has been driving for 10 years and a million miles and has had zero accidents or some dude that was just left a CDL school, has never been in a truck, has never been in America, can't speak the language, doesn't know how to read the signs, barely passed a CDL test >> on histh hour and and maybe and you haven't mentioned this yet, but from what I've heard in trucking, there's a lot of incentive because you want to drive long and far and all that stuff you're you're coked up like you're you're taking >> as many as I I believe the number uh is 8% of the industry would fail an opioid test today are addicted on opioids speed is just one problem but we have you know we have every other kind of drug and it is true that uh amphetamines and cocaine are are certainly pervasive in the industry and a lot of it has to do with the fact that this industry in an effort to make it easier for companies to hire ended up committing sabotage of their own economics because a lot of the pe the special interests that wanted to make it easier to become a trucking a truck driver thought naively that they would be the beneficiaries of it. What they didn't anticipate was all of these criminals and these people who were desperate that would go create their own trucking company and would source freight from freight brokers and were never qualified to haul freight. If they had just been if they had been right that hey if we make it the if we make the the easier to become a truck driver, they probably would have won. But what they did was they actually caused a much much worse economic problem for themselves because now they're competing with people who don't who are not qualified to drive. >> Right. Right. The good the good guys are going out of business and the bad guys are the ones driving the trucks making the roads a lot less >> they're less safe and it's an economic backwater. So, the administration is cracking down on these things, and that's where that 600,000 truck uh that elimination of 600,000 drivers is what I was referring to in that article is that the administration's immigration crackdown will put those guys out of business. >> Okay. So, I just saw that 6,000 number and thought, okay, that's a bad thing because we're losing a bunch of, you know, middle class jobs. But actually, you're making me think it's a good thing because it's actually trying to clean up this mess. >> You're you're you're taking guys that have no business operating our industry. >> Okay. >> Like, you're taking Yes. It will increase rates because the rates have been a lot of these operators have been such bottom feeders and everybody in this industry that were op, you know, freight brokers and shepherds that were using these these truck drivers were in on the game too. They were aware of what was happening, but because that's how they make their money, they were looking the other way. And and so what we're talking about is eliminating is the bottom part of the market, the riffraff that should be expuned from the industry. Just get them off the roads like like just take them off the roads. I do not want these people driving next to my family. >> Okay. No, totally agree. And I think we probably freaked everybody listening to this out. They're never going to highway again. Yeah, >> they should be. >> I'll tell you a p a personal story on this. So, I moved states this year and so, um, you know, we loaded up the 26 ft, you know, U-Haul and I drove it 5 hours, uh, over the Sierras between California and and Nevada and uh, and just pulling out, you know, in California with this 26 foot truck, which still drives like a van. I mean, it's not a it's not a it's not a whatever you called it, a a super heavy truck or whatever, right? >> Yeah. I'm thinking like, wait a minute, I'm not so sure. I'm, you know, I mean, I may be kind of a danger on the road here because this is a much bigger vehicle than I'm used to having driven before. Um, and I did have a couple of little scrapes, you know, where turning it it it it it took a lot long, you know, I I did not appreciate the length of the car, but but going up the Sierras, um, bad weather came in, right? So, all of a sudden, you know, winds and rain and and this thing's kind of hard to handle. And I'm just thinking like I can't believe they just asked me for my driver's license and then let me take this massive, you know, heavy weapon out on the road and nobody's put me through any requirements. And that's an easy thing to drive relative to these massive trucks you're talking about. >> Absolutely. A lot of the equipment is like I assume it's a U-Haul that you were renting from. >> It was just a U-Haul. Yeah. I mean, >> so that's probably better maintained. As bad as ratty as that thing is, cuz I've rented a U-Haul, they're not great. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's not probably in better shape than a lot of the trucks on the road. One out of every five trucks on the road is not qualified to drive. Like it's it's one out of every five is some safety violation. These are government stats, by the way. >> Um so imagine an uns but Adam, you were probably more qualified because you're more familiar with our roads. You're more familiar with our laws. You um you speak the language. You were probably more qualified to drive an 18-wheeler than a portion of the industry. that's driving down the highway making a living. >> That is frightening. That is so frightening. >> And you're doing it for, you know, you're probably well rested. You're doing this over the course of a couple of hours, maybe a couple like at most a day or two. These guys, this is their lifestyle. Many of them, it was years ago. I was I was having dinner with the Federal Reserve. They do these beigebook interviews as I'm sure you know >> and the conversation of homelessness came up because there's a pervasive homelessness problem in the United States. And the Fed Beige Book uh lady who who's who ran it out of Nashville started talking about truck drivers is the Fed had identified that that truck driving because they can live in their truck as a way to sort of uh deal with homelessness is effectively you're taking people off the roads off the streets streets and putting them into the to the trucks. >> And that's exactly what's happened is some of these immigrants have come over quite a few of them. They don't have housing. They live in a truck. They drive three people in a truck and they're driving down the highways that are not qualified to drive. We like you should be outraged. You should be like I'm not saying stuff to outraged people. But here's the reality is there will be more accidents. We're going to hear more about the immigration problem. And the reason being even if the statistically the immigrants were safer, which they're not, but if they were, it still would happen because inevitably statistically there will be an accident this week that will be caused by an immigrant truck driver. Just the numbers alone will do it. And the administration needs something that they can go and talk about the immigration problem that will outrage people. So, we're going to hear a lot more about this immigration problem in trucking for a long time because it is the it is the a very safe argument that most rational people would agree that we need unsafe truck drivers off our highways and some of these immigrants are not qualified to drive. And so, even if they were safer, which they're not, there will be accidents that include them. And you'll hear a lot more about it because the administration, it's a very safe argument. It's very different than showing up at uh you know at a construction site and and arresting a bunch of of Latinos uh that run off the site or you know taking somebody out of their home where their kids are there. That's a very bad look for the administration. But taking an unsafe driver off the road that is something I think most Americans would support and that's why I think we'll hear a lot more about it. >> All right. So I I got to imagine just about everybody watching this video is for safer roads, right? So, um, it sounds like this purge is underway where they're they've agreed, okay, look, you know, whether it's 600,000 or whatever the number is, we want to get rid of the drivers who are unqualified. >> Is that going to happen or is there something that that concerned um citizens watching this could say, hey, you know, is is there a line they can call or someone they can write to say, I'm throwing my weight behind this because I don't want to be fearing for my life when I'm out on the road. I mean there is a so there was a court case uh I mean effectively the only thing stopping the administration and immigration are the courts and and and so there was a court a DC court uh uh federal court did rule that the uh department of transportation could not reject non-diamond solid CDLs and so these are people who are non US residents getting CDLs that did happen so they put a stay on it that will be litigated I again that's for someone else who's more it's a brand it's a brand new case and so but I think what will happen is that the insurance companies the shippers are going to start mandating that the people that pick up their freight are qualified to drive and are non non-dimeile CDLs and can speak the language and I think that is going to happen. The English language proficiency rule has been around since the 1930s. It was not enforced up until recently. And to me, that seems like a it's the courts have no because that is already on the books. That's not it's not been contested. And so I I I think that if you are outraged what you hear, as you should be, you you need to have conversations with their congressmen because they're the ones that can pass laws even if the court system's open. >> Okay. So So this is this is still it's not a fat comp plea. This is still a write your congressman and lend your voice. >> Unfortunately, yeah. We all know how that works. >> All right, let me um let me let me go tangential here on the same topic. So, um hopefully this gets cleaned up whatever, right? Hopefully the trucking system gets the reform it needs here. That said, going forward, um I think one of the more common predictions about trucking is that it will eventually move to a zero human or lowhuman um state where, you know, in theory, long haul trucking probably should be one of the easier things to automate, right, with with self-driving technology, right? And maybe it's as simple as you just have a lane that's dedicated to just self selfd driving long haul freight and it's going wherever it needs to go to some what do they call it droidage or whatever you know location >> a dre operator yeah >> yeah where you know whether it's whether self-driving happens locally at the end point who knows but but certainly kind of long distance pointtooint I mean it kind of makes sense is that where it's headed >> eventually but I think we have to be very careful to talk about eventualities. We're probably talking 2040. You know, it's a decade out before we see pointto-oint autonomy. Okay. >> Like I did a New York Times interview in I believe it was 2017 and um in fact I don't have it's somewhere here. Uh the prediction was that we would see autonomous trucks. I didn't make this prediction but it was it was made by the New York Times author interviewed a bunch of people and the prediction was we would have pointto-oint autonomous by 2020 >> and you know when when that article came out I think it was like 30 ventureback companies that were in autonomous trucking and now there are two >> and so what we've seen is the promise of the technology is is certainly there it this is both a technology issue but also a regulatory one and we've talked talked about how many jobs are tied to trucking. And in order to have point-to-point transportation, you're going to need the municipalities, the states, and the federal governments. I mean, that or the federal government, but the branches of government to all agree that an autonomous truck is both legal and able to operate on all the roads. Good luck with that. So, I think we're talking at least a decade out before we see um before we see point autonomous. >> So, let's say it's 15 years, okay? just just pick a number. What does that do just to the fabric of society or middle class where you you are essentially perhaps vaporizing maybe that's too strong of a word but the number one job in 29 states? >> Well, I mean it's it's a major concern, but it's not trucking is not the only it will be easier to automate factories than it will be to have driverless trucks because I can control the environment. And so I think what we'll actually see is in farming is going through the same and there's farming automation, farming robotics and in in fact farming is are arguably easier to automate than a an over the road truck. And so trucking will eventually get automated, but those jobs will be pretty late in that cycle because what I have with a moving truck is I have a truck going down 70 miles per hour down the highway at 80,000 lbs and I can't control the environment that that autonomous that automation takes place. Whereas I can automate my factory and a lot of the manual stuff that goes on in my warehouse, my factory, even my farm. I'm in a much more controlled environment which makes it much easier to um to run the kinds of simulations I need to drive the automation. Whereas trucking is one of those jobs that will actually be very one of the last jobs to automate simply because it you can't control the environment. You cannot predict what that truck will see on the roads. You can't control wild animals jumping out in front of the truck. You can't control people and all this >> all the things that could take place. And so >> it will be later in that cycle. But I I think to your point, there are, as I talked very early, there's 35 million jobs that are potentially going to be impacted because these are the jobs tied to the goods economy that I think we should be concerned about. It's manufacturing again. how even even you see jobs in construction that are people are are doing degrees of automation auto manufacturing uh certainly uh but we're going to see levels of automation but it strikes me that trucking will be one of the later ones to actually have automation >> okay super interesting um all right I'm looking at the time so we're near the end of the hour so I got to start wrapping this up um one question for you really just more to see if it'd be fun to talk about at some point later in the future um I see behind behind you, you have all the different kind of um types of of freight transport and one of them is space and there's been a lot of you a lot of transformation in terms of um bringing down the cost of getting freight up into space. Um would that be an interesting discussion for us to have at some point in the future? >> Yeah, ultimately it's a supply chain problem. like space commercialization is a supply chain problem and that's >> in fact years ago during co when when we were having fun >> because Frank was good and everything everything was great and we're all at home and kind of bored >> uh we did something with NASA we partnered with NASA called space waves which was about space commercialization >> and they had something called the deep uh space logistics lab the DS and basically their job is to sort of plan out what is it what is what does it take to build a supply chain on Mars or the moon or deep space like Saturn and you know one of Saturn's moons and stuff and so the these are people who are dealing with these problems but it's ultimately a supply chain problem is like how do I and so I we absolutely could talk about that I think space commercialization is a really cool thing and it it is a logistics problem it's just another form of you you have the physics but the physics is fairly predictable it's then the question is where do you get the material to build your space colonies I just think it's pretty cool >> okay cool all right well look well if folks, if there's interest in that, let us know in the comments section below, and if so, we'll add that to a future discussion here with Craig. Um, all right. So, um, you know, this is a a wealth building channel, um, given its mission, and I'm just curious, given what we've talked about today, are there any investment themes that come out to your knowledge here, Craig? You know, is it like, hey, short these uh the these freight operators because their costs are going to go up? Is it um >> I don't pick individual stocks. In fact, we have a policy that we don't trade stocks, freight stocks, because we're >> we can move the market as we do. We could put out a report and it actually moves the market. So, I I've learned that the hard way. We put out something, the market would move, and we realized we had some influence over people how think about these things. So, we just as a policy, we don't take positions on any of the stocks and transportation. But what I would say is um there are companies that will benefit as the cycle turns and these are the large truckload operators. Their stocks have been obliterated. Uh they will be the beneficiaries of lower amounts of competitive capacity. So as we see the immigration um and regulatory environment change for trucking then the larger assetbased operators will be in a much better position to benefit from that. I think the railroads are are great long-term investments. Uh Warren Buffett figured this out 10 years ago. People were predicting automated trains and uh autonomous trucks would destroy railroads. >> It's not happening. Warren Buffett got it right. He bought BNSF. Uh so I think the railroads are an interesting play. Uh and then things like uh you know, warehouse operators like Prologis. Uh and I I think ultimately you're betting on a re-industrialization. I think a re-industrialization is going to happen. uh we're going to be even under a Biden we were doing it. I mean this all started really in and Trump won. Uh but re-industrialization is going to happen. I I it's regretful that that the momentum of re-industrialization has slowed down frankly because the policies have done the opposite. Uh but I it will pick up steam because you need to have more domestic sourcing or more nearshoring. And so companies that are tied to this theme, which include the railroads, the trucking operators will benefit uh and the warehouse operators as as that story plays out. >> All right. Um very much appreciate you sharing that with us. Folks, if you'd like to get some help from a professional financial adviser and figuring out whether any of of the potential opportunities that Craig just suggested make sense for your portfolio and maybe helping you figure out certain targets uh to invest in. Um feel free to talk to one of the financial adviserss that Thoughtful Money endorses. You can set up a free consultation with them by filling out the short form at thoughtfulmoney.com. Uh, and please join me in thanking Craig for having uh just a really fascinating um thought-provoking um and and really despite some of the serious things we talked about, Craig enjoyable inaugural appearance here on Thoughtful Money. So, please thank him by hitting the like button and then clicking on the subscribe button below as well as that little bell icon right next to it. Um Craig, it it has been wonderful this discussion. Very wonderful to meet you. Um, very thoughtprovoking, like I said, kind of kind of maybe petrifying for those of us who are going to be on the highway next, but at least at least maybe you're you're increasing people's situational awareness, so hopefully they'll be less likely to get in an accident uh with one of these drivers. Um, but anyways, I thank you so much for coming on and giving so much of your insight here, >> Adam. Appreciate it. Thanks for your time. >> Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Sorry, I almost forgot the most important question. So for folks that have really enjoyed this Craig and would like to follow you and your work between now and hopefully the next time you come on this channel, where should they go? >> So best place to find me is on XF freight alley or you can go to freightways.com if you're interested in some of the deep dive news or context that we talk about these stories we cover every day. We have a team of journalists all over the world that are covering supply chain stories. >> Okay. And as I said, I read Freight Wave's work quite frequently. It's excellent. Um folks, highly recommend you go check out Craig both on X but also freightwaves.com. Um again, can't thank you enough, Craig. This has been wonderful. So nice to meet you. >> Appreciate it, Adam. Stay safe, everybody. >> All right, and everybody else, thanks so much for watching.