Breaker 1-9, this here's the Rubber Duck...
Summer '09: Fuel prices have doubled and [POD] doubled again in the past two years. There are disproportionately-fewer diesel refineries in the US as compared with regular unleaded, so diesel prices have escalated even faster. Do you know what that means to a trucker like me? Please insert card... please enter pin number... fueling...
Three Thousand United States Dollars.
I am NOT making that up. It costs $3,000.000 to fill up my rig. A few years ago, I charged less than that to run Chicago to Los Angeles, and now that's ONE tank of gas. A few vignettes:
Two customers are suing me, because I simply can not honor the price we agreed upon in their contracts and lose thousands of dollars a week. I can't afford a lawyer, so the word is that my best bet is to just demand a jury trial and speak my mind. And I am actually extremely sympathetic towards the plaintiffs: they based THEIR prices in part on their anticipated transportation costs, and now they can't meet their obligations and are no doubt getting sued in turn. You say: I should have had the foresight to include fuel surcharges in the contract? As a matter of fact, I did. All the way up to an increase of 50% over the course of five years, like THAT was ever going to happen... Beg pardon? 200% in two years? Well bugger me in the Ozarks...
Want your junk mail? Most of it is mouldering in warehouses in Ohio, if you want to drop by and collect it. The cost-effective method was to employ private trucking companies to deliver it pre-sorted in bulk to local post offices. Now, anything so non-essential as that isn't going to move for a long time, if ever. Except... it WAS essential, to an entire industry that once employed hundreds of thousands of people. And of course, the smouldering crater in the ground that was the United States Postal Service needs no introduction. I just spent forty bucks to FedEx my daughter her birthday card, because these days a stamp gets it there in time for Doomsday, at best.
Finally... I have turned to a life of crime. It's not much of a crime, stealing abandoned property, but it's a crime nonetheless. To supplement my poverty-level income as a trucker, I have become a part-time car thief. Have you noticed there are more broken-down vehicles pulled to the side of the road then ever before? I got news: they aren't broken down. Their owners ran out of gas, coasted to the curb, threw up their hands, and took the bus home. I go out at night with my partner, a diagnostic computer, and a few gas cans. We pour an eighth of a gallon in the tank, hook up the computer, and fire up the vehicle. If nothing is wrong, I drive it to the chop-shop while he scouts for another. We got lucky Thursday night and snagged an '07 Cadillac Escalade. "Lucky" as in it had an audio-video system worth a premium. The $60,000.00 vehicle itself? Most of it'll get crushed between a '91 Toyota Corrola and a '79 GM Gremlin. Ain't nobody gonna buy a Cadillac Escalade...
Now, things are looking really ugly with respect to Iran. They can close the Straits of Hormuz. And things look even uglier with respect to Venezuela. Maybe fuel prices will double YET AGAIN within a year's time. I'm just a simple guy with a Mack truck and a 52-foot trailer (well, technically, I have a Harvard degree, so I'm arguably not such a simple guy- long story). Anyway, I have no idea where all this craziness ends. Any thoughts?
Summer '09: Fuel prices have doubled and [POD] doubled again in the past two years. There are disproportionately-fewer diesel refineries in the US as compared with regular unleaded, so diesel prices have escalated even faster. Do you know what that means to a trucker like me? Please insert card... please enter pin number... fueling...
Three Thousand United States Dollars.
I am NOT making that up. It costs $3,000.000 to fill up my rig. A few years ago, I charged less than that to run Chicago to Los Angeles, and now that's ONE tank of gas. A few vignettes:
Two customers are suing me, because I simply can not honor the price we agreed upon in their contracts and lose thousands of dollars a week. I can't afford a lawyer, so the word is that my best bet is to just demand a jury trial and speak my mind. And I am actually extremely sympathetic towards the plaintiffs: they based THEIR prices in part on their anticipated transportation costs, and now they can't meet their obligations and are no doubt getting sued in turn. You say: I should have had the foresight to include fuel surcharges in the contract? As a matter of fact, I did. All the way up to an increase of 50% over the course of five years, like THAT was ever going to happen... Beg pardon? 200% in two years? Well bugger me in the Ozarks...
Want your junk mail? Most of it is mouldering in warehouses in Ohio, if you want to drop by and collect it. The cost-effective method was to employ private trucking companies to deliver it pre-sorted in bulk to local post offices. Now, anything so non-essential as that isn't going to move for a long time, if ever. Except... it WAS essential, to an entire industry that once employed hundreds of thousands of people. And of course, the smouldering crater in the ground that was the United States Postal Service needs no introduction. I just spent forty bucks to FedEx my daughter her birthday card, because these days a stamp gets it there in time for Doomsday, at best.
Finally... I have turned to a life of crime. It's not much of a crime, stealing abandoned property, but it's a crime nonetheless. To supplement my poverty-level income as a trucker, I have become a part-time car thief. Have you noticed there are more broken-down vehicles pulled to the side of the road then ever before? I got news: they aren't broken down. Their owners ran out of gas, coasted to the curb, threw up their hands, and took the bus home. I go out at night with my partner, a diagnostic computer, and a few gas cans. We pour an eighth of a gallon in the tank, hook up the computer, and fire up the vehicle. If nothing is wrong, I drive it to the chop-shop while he scouts for another. We got lucky Thursday night and snagged an '07 Cadillac Escalade. "Lucky" as in it had an audio-video system worth a premium. The $60,000.00 vehicle itself? Most of it'll get crushed between a '91 Toyota Corrola and a '79 GM Gremlin. Ain't nobody gonna buy a Cadillac Escalade...
Now, things are looking really ugly with respect to Iran. They can close the Straits of Hormuz. And things look even uglier with respect to Venezuela. Maybe fuel prices will double YET AGAIN within a year's time. I'm just a simple guy with a Mack truck and a 52-foot trailer (well, technically, I have a Harvard degree, so I'm arguably not such a simple guy- long story). Anyway, I have no idea where all this craziness ends. Any thoughts?
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