Reading Between the Lines

Now that GM chairman & CEO Rick Wagoner is out of the picture after a 30-plus year career–and a $20-million retirement package, we might as well add– the Obama Administration is getting down to brass tacks on exactly how they intend to breathe some real life back into America’s wheezing auto giants.

Turns out the answer may lie in applying the whole “bad debt bank” model to Detroit. That’s what The Wall Street Journal is reporting on its Auto Industry Tracker blog.

So, reports WSJ, the federal plan to fix GM and Chrysler LLC would use bankruptcy filings “to purge the ailing companies of their biggest problems, including bondholder debt and retiree health-care costs,” and essentially split both firms into their “good” and “bad” halves. Once that’s done, according to “people familiar with the matter,” the goal would be for the “good GM”– featuring such winning brands (says me) as Chevrolet and Cadillac (and I’d add Buick and GMC in there, too) to emerge as a stand-alone manufacturer, while the “good Chrysler” operation (which I hope will include Dodge trucks!) would be (hopefully) sold to Italy’s Fiat SpA.

And if all that doesn’t pan out, they can try my idea– which I floated last year for crying out loud!– of creating a USA Motors… out of all the best brands left rolling.



2010 Chevy Camaro convertible: Now we’re talking the heartbeat of America!

No matter how this all turns out, I am pulling for Detroit. American workers needs automotive jobs and American truckers need automotive freight and they need the trucks built by GM, Chrysler and Ford, too. What’s more, foreign transplant auto firms, Honda, Toyota etc., all need the extensive supplier base that is so dependent on our Big Three for them to build cars here.

And, yes, I think America– and the world– needs American cars, too. Geez, if you are not convinced at least of that, take a look above at what just hit dealer showrooms!

Well, I ain’t got nothin’ but time

So baby, if you wanna shine

If you take time to look

My number’s in the book

And you can call me any time

–Lyric by Hank Williams (1923–53)

The immortal Hank Williams (Sr.) might have felt right home at this year’s Mid-America Trucking Show (MATS) For sure, the downbeat mood this time around at what is annually trucking’s greatest event would furnish great material for one of the greatest American songwriters to pen a real old-time, bluesy honky-tonk hit.

Maybe he could title his MATS-inspired song: “How times have changed. And gone and changed again. “ I say that based on what I saw at my first MATS about 25 years ago and what I’ve seen at the Kentucky Fair & Expo Center every March since until this year.

My initial MATS was back when the International Trucking Show (ITS) was trucking’s big yearly gathering. ITS was held alternate years in Anaheim and San Francisco as it was sponsored by the California Trucking Assn.– that way they could nod to their members in both the southern and northern halves of the Golden State.

I was sent to MATS that first time on a fine March spring day by my then boss to check it out, as he’d heard it was an up-and-coming show. I flew into the Louisville Airport—which is practically across the street from the fairgrounds—took a cab over and walked the show floor for a few hours and then flew right back out again. There were no media events whatsoever and the show still had something of a regional (per its name!) feel to it rather than a national let alone an international one.

But very quickly after that, MATS—which had been launched in the early ‘70s– began to really catch on with attendees and then of course with exhibitors. No doubt its central location close to major highways, plenty of on-site truck parking and reasonable Kentucky prices for lodging etc. has had a lot to do with that. And the pork-chop sandwiches are a big draw, too. In any event, MATS began to seriously eclipse ITS by the early ‘90s and by the end of that decade, was secure in its position as trucking’s Number One Big Deal must-be-seen-at show.



Me, I’m wondering what the one and only Hank would write about at MATS…

And I do think MATS will remain in that top slot for the foreseeable future—but you would not know it from visiting the event this week. What’s going on in Louisville closely reflects what’s happening in trucking and right across our wounded economy.

MATS attendance is way down. I have no official numbers, of course, but it so spotty today—the first full day of the show—that it’s possible to park within a short stroll of the front door.

There are plenty of exhibitors, of course, at what show management still proudly bills as the “largest heavy-duty trucking trade show in the world.” All the Class 8 truck OEMs are there—save for Kenworth and Peterbilt, which both opted out of the show altogether this year– as well as the leading suppliers of engines and other major components etc. etc.

But along with the falloff in foot traffic there is a discernible downsizing of media events, even compared to last year. With the notable exception of a big production put on by Navistar on the eve of the show, suppliers are being very circumspect and either skipping media briefings altogether or scaling them way back from what were, frankly, often excessive and ostentatious events in the past.

From around the show floor, the word from top OEM and supplier executives is they feel there are plenty of fleets out there with the cash on hand to buy trucks. Problem is those fleet owners are forced to play a waiting game. They need to see freight coming back before they can sign off on buying new trucks—gee, now there’s a lesson for Wall Streeters to chew on! Meanwhile, as they wait on the economy to bring on the freight, their fleets are aging and so their maintenance costs are climbing.

That is not a good conundrum to be in, but it is sure-fire sign of the tough times everyone in trucking is living through as this historic recession drags on. If nothing else, maybe some latter-day Hank will experience all of this and write some musical gold out of it…

The journalist in me always bristles whenever someone says they “get their news from The Daily Show” and can’t be bothered with ever tuning into a TV network or PBS newscast show or reading a reputable “newspaper of record” or even just checking the top news out at the companion website of such a show or paper.

That’s not to say I don’t get how funny Jon Stewart is and I certainly can tell he is smarter than most of us. Yup, I’ve watched The Daily Show a few times. But since I was about 10, I have been so immersed in the news– nowadays that means trucking’s, my hometown’s, my state’s, my country’s and sometimes at least some of the world’s– by the time I watch Stewart’s send-up of the news, I’ve already had enough of the absolute absurdity of much of what goes on in our world that frankly I do not need him to skewer the events and personalities of the day for me. I get it all by my lonesome.



Jon Stewart, an Edward R. Murrow for our times.

Yet I am glad as all get-out that Stewart has woken up a huge chunk of the U.S. population who had become critically news-deprived (for whatever reason) to what they should not only be laughing at, but paying incredibly close attention to, day after day after day.

So not being a regular devotee, last night I missed Stewart going after CNBC talking head and show host Jim Cramer for his contributions to the collapse of our nation’s once rock-solid financial system. From what I’ve read, I wished I hadn’t! It appears Stewart was channeling– for all of us– the news anchor portrayed by Peter Finch in the 1976 flick Network, who screamed he was “mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

Well, I am right with you on your dramatic call-out of the “Mad Money” man, Brother Jon. We should all be mad as hell at what has happened to our financial system and we should expect an accounting from everyone who helped bring it down– be they politicians who weakened perfectly good regulations, be they greedy bankers and investors or be they– perhaps worse of all– journalists who traded in their professional ethics for cheerleading costumes.

In case, like silly me, you missed the big smackdown, click here.

Bonus personal trivia: Exactly 28 years ago today my ink-stained career as a journalist covering trucking was launched, thanks to the late great James E. “Jim” Jones hiring me– 10 months out of college– for my first job. And thanks, too, to my first boss and fellow Iona College alumnus, the legendary Bob “Two Animals!” Deierlein, who taught me things I still benefit from today. Yes, that happy day came during the severe recession of 1981-82. And it was also a Friday the 13th.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

–Theodore Roosevelt

How any American cannot see that we are in a such a pit of economic pain right now that it requires all of us to beseech– yes, beseech– our government to do far more than what it has so done so far (under now two presidents!) is beyond me.

Let me start by saying the whole argument that tiny government always trumps big government is facile. A country our size simply cannot exist in the modern world without a large, active government in place– but it should be one with controls placed upon it by an engaged citizenry informed by a free and vital press, just as our forefathers intended.

And to those who would say our “big” government got us into this mess by its sheer bigness, I would say, “Yes, it did. Not by virtue of its bigness but by virtue of its dumbness– specifically by taking away controls placed on the “free market” decades ago that were proven to work time and again… and by we the people keeping our ignorant mouths shut at the time.”

Of course, there is no getting around this is a global crisis we are in– but much of the worldwide problem we are now dealing with stemmed from similar actions taken abroad. And, yes, there are many other factors that played a hand– rising oil prices, massive energy and resource consumption by the emerging capitalist-communist giant once known as Red China and the booming democracy India, not to mention our prosecution of two wars requiring a huge outlay in material and the dedication of our greatest resource, those men and women serving in our armed forces.

Why am I so wound up today? Complacency is why. In my view, too many Americans are still acting like all we are dealing with is a little slowdown, a little course correction. Sorry, but we aren’t. This is the biggest mess we’ve gotten ourselves into since the Great Depression and if we don’t start really tackling it, it may yet end up a bigger mess than the Great Depression. Even more than the national debt that terrifies so many, the legacy of living through something like the 1930s is one I would not want to foist upon my kids.

Don’t take my word for it. Take the word of The Wall Street Journal, whose editorial pages are as pro-business and anti-big government as any on the planet not published by crackpots.

So what did the august Journal report today that got me so hot under the collar? How about this headline: Recession Job Losses Top Four Million. Did THAT get your attention? It sure as hell got mine.

The story itself, by Brian Blackstone, starts off with this grabber lede: “The U.S. economy continues to hemorrhage jobs at monthly rates not seen in six decades, a government report showed, signaling that there’s still no end in sight to the severe recession that has already cost the U.S. over four million jobs.”

Let’s see, how many attention-getters are in that one sentence: 1) hemorrhage jobs at monthly rates not seen in six decades; 2) no end in sight to the severe recession; 3) already cost the U.S. over four million jobs.



Cartoonist Walt Kelly (1913-73) said it best.

Mr. Blackstone goes on to report that “The economy has shed 4.4 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, with almost half of those losses occurring in the last three months alone. And unemployment is lasting much longer. As of last month, 2.9 million people were unemployed for 27 weeks or more, up from just 1.3 million at the start of the recession.”

He noted that the unemployment rate shot up 0.5 percentage point to 8.1%–making it the highest since December 1983 and slightly above expectations for an 8% rate. What’s more, he added: “Some economists think it could hit 10% by the end of next year.”

Ten percent unemployment! By the end of next year! Not good news, not at all.

There is even more grim talk in this one report, including the expectation that consumer and business confidence will slide even further and if they stop spending, said an economist with Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, “the economy cannot get going again.”

Seems to me there are just two things we can do and must do:

1) Spend money… if for some reason any of us have it to spend!

2) Demand that your U.S. Senators and Representatives actually do their sworn duty to you and everyone else by standing up with President Obama to ensure that as he keeps swinging hard to get us through this catastrophe, he will actually be able to hit some over the fence.

Or you can sit back and whine and complain about the big bad government. We shall see just exactly where that gets us in this time of crisis that demands nothing short of national unity and action, action, action.

I guess you have to admire General Motors for having the guts to state flat-out this week in a government filing that “substantial doubt” exists about the struggling auto/truck maker’s ability to survive.

On the other hand, it’s a crying shame this once-behemoth engine of Detroit– and this goes for the other members of the Big Three, too– did not get real with itself long ago.

Had they had the courage to really, fully, deeply examine what they were doing over the past 20-odd years– indulging America with wave after wave of SUVs and gussied-up pickups among other poorly thought out strategies– this economic hurricane the whole world is dealing with would have only buffeted them severely and not have threatened to put them right out of business.

As reported on CNNmoney.com, the statement by GM’s auditors “presents another hurdle the automaker will have to clear as it makes the case that it deserve additional taxpayer support going forward. The Obama administration, under the terms of the $13.4 billion in federal loans GM has already requested, must determine that the company’s plans make it viable in the long run.”

We can only hope things will look this good for GM…

It should be noted that, as the CNNmoney report points out, “the government has wide latitude in how it judges the company’s net present value, based on assumptions it makes about future sales, car prices and costs for the company going forward. The administration clearly does not want to force the largest U.S. automaker into bankruptcy.”

Indeed. No matter how much we all may like to figuratively wring GM’s neck for getting into this big a mess in the first place, I really don’t think anyone wants to see GM disappear. Least of all fleet owners who haul the freight this giant generates nor those owners who run GM and Chevy trucks in their fleets.

I guess it’s just my luck that most of the dear visitors who comment upon comments I make here are from the less-government-the-better school of thought and presume I am a fan of the more-government-the-better approach. However, I prefer to think of myself as belonging to the government-as-tool camp–meaning sometimes you need more government, sometimes you don’t. And like most things in life, what you need and when depends on the circumstances.

Right now the circumstances call for massive government action, and yes I know you have heard this before, on a scale not seen since the 1930s and ’40s. That’s why I for one was thrilled to see in the (online) newspaper this morning that Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke told Congress flat-out that it must act speedily and aggressively to fix the economy and pass the federal budget or our country could face not just a recession but “a prolonged episode of economic stagnation.”

His testimony today came as Congress began considering President Obama’s $3.55 trillion spending plan for fiscal year 2010, which figures on a deficit of $1.8 trillion this year alone.

As reported by Brian Knowlton in the The New York Times, “While the Fed would normally look askance at numbers like that, the testimony on Tuesday seemed intended to give a green light, as part of a no-holds-barred economic recovery program.”



Some good old days: 1950-2004.



Here is an interesting tidbit for all those who fear deficits more than any of us should: The Fed Chief’s testimony projected that failure by Congress to enact the requisite spending might result in an increase in public debt to the equivalent of 60% of economic output– compared with 40% before this economic crisis began! That higher mountain of debt would be in line with the debt accrued by the astronomical borrowing needed to prosecute (successfully, I might add) World War II.

I don’t think Bernanke mentioned it today, but that huge post-war debt was paid down amid America’s greatest economic expansion.

It doesn’t take an economist to tell you these are tough times for truckers. Nonetheless, if you are going to gauge exactly how tough these times are, it sure helps to consult some meaningful numbers.

A national carrier study recently conducted by Transport Capital Partners, LLC,, says managing partner Richard Mikes, reveals fleets are “adjusting to the new economic environment– most expect decreased volumes, shipper pressures for lower rates, staff adjustments and interest in both buying and selling companies.”

Mikes points out that the share of carriers expecting volumes to decrease in the next 12 months was 37%– compared to 34% reporting declining expectations back in November– while steady volumes were expected by 42%, compared to 38% in the earlier survey. Those expecting volumes to improve went from 16.5% in November to 21% this month.

Interestingly, those choosing the “no response” reply dropped from 12% in November to exactly 0%. Mikes says that “shows all respondents chose to express an opinion and that there is most likely not a real shift in expectations.”

I think the reason for that is things have finally gotten to the point that no one, in tucking or anywhere else, is uncomfortable stating a point of view about this recession– be it pessimistic or optimistic.

The survey also delved into such key factors as freight-rate expectations, shipper credit concerns, equipment acquisition decisions, and whether non-driver staff has been reduced.

Not everyone in trucking sees the glass the same way…

Also telling is that almost 25% of the carriers responding said they “had given serious consideration to leaving the transportation industry or liquidating if tonnage does not increase in the next six months.”

And while 27% said that they would be interested in selling their company in the next 18 months, 36% said they would be interested in buying a company in the same time frame.

The survey’s results certainly reflect tough times. But they also underscore the resilience and “can do” attitude that always sets trucking apart, no matter what is the shape of our economy.