It seems like just yesterday I was first introduced to the Modec– an electric truck headed to the U.S. from England– by a rather eccentric and yet altogether fitting indoor test drive.
The Modec gets its good looks from its mother– the London taxi cab!
I took my silent spin in a Modec back in February at the National Truck Equipment Assn. (NTEA) Work Truck Show in Atlanta and my write-up ran in our April print edition but may be read online here.
At the NTEA show, the chairman of Coventry-based Modec Limited, Jamie Lord Borwick, stated that the OEM, whose roots are in the manufacture of London’s iconic black cabs, was exploring its options but gave no definitive time frame for when it might enter the truck market here.
Yet now I hear tell from William Doelle, director of business development for the young truck maker’s U.S. operation, that “in part owing to the favorable comments from journalists, and our winning the innovative product of the year [award] at the Work Truck Show, we have moved up our U.S. launch date… We are going to launch a select fleet of 50 Modecs– or more– in Washington DC starting in January of 2009.”
Like so many other things– good and otherwise– occurring anew in modern-day America, it’s happening first in the Golden State. Four-buck-a-gallon gasoline, that’s what.
Now, hold on, I know the rocketing cost of fuel is having a far bigger impact on truckers.
No matter how many times good scouts in the “mainstream” media, not to mention trucking advocates, point out the suffering of truckers and how the ridiculously high cost of diesel is boosting the prices all Americans pay for consumer goods, nothing will grab the attention of the Average Joe and Jane like forking over a C-Note every time they’ve gotta gas up their own four wheels. If that happens enough, may be more voters will vote this Fall and may be more voters will think long and hard about who they will vote for– this Fall and for a long, long time to come. One can hope, anyway.
This and a buck-eighty-five will get a four-wheeler filled up… and buy a cup of coffee.
I don’t catch him every night but it seems every time lately that he has started off a broadcast on the high cost of fuel he has done so by referencing right off the bat how hard-hit truckers are and then reiterates how what they are paying for diesel impacts all of us at the grocery and every other store.
I have heard Mr. Williams described pretty much as a self-made and self-effacing regular guy out of New Jersey. The Garden State is a trucking state for sure, so may be that explains it. Or may be he drove a truck once upon a time or has some truckers in his family tree.
Whatever the provenance of his informed view of trucking, it pleases me no end that at least one member of the much maligned Fourth Estate– outside the Trucking Press Corps, that is– cannot be accused of exercising an automatic bias against trucking.
NBC’s Brian Williams: He’s not all wet about trucking.
Writing in The New York Times this week, columnist David Leonhardt defined what is happening to the U.S. economy as “the new moderation.”
And while I think he is 100% correct (read what he said here), what is happening now I think can much more directly be described as “Welcome back to the 1970s!”
Who out there remembers the “Me Decade”? Actually, in my mind the go-go ’80s were much more of a “me-first” period but I digress. How I recall the ’70s– beyond the generally horrible taste exhibited in almost everything from clothing to furniture save for cars and popular (not disco!) music and television– is that it was for better or worse a truly middle-class era.
Yes, 35 to 40 years ago there were plenty of persons living below the poverty line and as well as legions of the working poor– although I dare say there are more today. But there sure were fewer truly well-off people tooling around in luxomobile SUVs buying every new piece of electronica or kitchen countertop option for that matter that comes their way. And there were far fewer wannabes willing to embark on whatever risky financial gynmnastics they calculate could vault them into appearing or at least feeling “rich” or “upper class.”
Such cotton-candy whispy dreams had to end. But that doesn’t mean we are heading into a nightmare.
If everyone from Wall Street to Main Street does their part to intelligently downsize– especially the ridiculous and much too widely held belief that “consumers” can keep consuming at a dizzying pace forever and ever and ever– maybe just maybe everyone in this country who already has far more than their basic needs being met can slow down and consider there is more to life than square footage, wide screens and third-row seating.
If that happens, well, then maybe we can start to re-direct our formidable national energy from selling each other stuff and “’services” we don’t really need to being not only the world’s economic powerhouse but also the home of the kind of genius that propelled mankind ahead with such inventions as universal electricifcation, affordable automobiles, the telegraph and telephone, radio, motion pictures and television not to mention the personal computer, the Internet and the cell phone.
This nation was challenged to greatness by John F. Kennedy a few years after we’d been humiliated by the appearance of a dinky satellite dubbed Sputnik. JFK’s call to action was answered resoundingly. In much less than 10 years our nation went from a space-race has-been to putting, as Kennedy envisioned, a man on the moon.
“…in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon–if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”
–John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961
If we could do that back then with the crude technology of the day why can’t we do more to excel and advance as a nation now?
I’ve no doubt that Fed rate cuts and tax refunds or stipends or whatever they’re calling them this time around will stimulate the economy to some degree. You put money on the street, it gets spent. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
But what will stimulate our economy to where we really want it to be–way out front of every other economic power on earth– will be if Americans can individually and collectively start working toward more than their comfort.
Nostalgia is a dangerous thing, tis true. It can cover up all sorts of unpleasant truths. But what I remember most fondly about the ’70s was the sense of shared experience that existed in this country.
No, I don’t want to give up any of the progress made on any front since those days. But I do yearn for that feeling of “we are all in this together and let’s try to do something about it” that seems to have largely fled the good old U.S.A. in the last 30-odd years.
Maybe the next POTUS will be the kind of leader who will stir our nation once again to action if not greatness.
But the reality is it is up to all of us to make this a time worth recalling one day as the good old days.
According to The Wall Street Journal this morning, the Fed chairman has “endorsed a ‘quickly’ implemented fiscal stimulus package, saying it would complement the Fed’s efforts to provide monetary-policy insurance against an economic downturn.” The Journal also reported that in prepared testimony, Bernanke “repeated the pledge he made last week to enact ’substantive’ rate cuts if needed to counter the threat to the economy posed by fragile financial markets and weakening employment. ”
Way to go, Ben! What’s more, according to CNNMoney.com, our Lame Duck in Chief has indicated that he will support an economic stimulus package– even though it will mean making nice with the Frustrated Majority up on Capitol Hill.
On the other hand, we keep hearing that the $14-trillion– or some such unfathomable figure– U.S. economy is akin to the battleship that, no matter what harm’s way it is steaming into, cannot be turned on a dime.
Even so, there is such a thing as psyching people up. Americans both indiviudally and collectively as businesspersons are more apt to do what they can to help our economy if they feel the government is in there with them, shoulder to shoulder, trying to keep things moving at least forward.
By the way, The New York Times is running an extensive profile on Mr. Bernanke. It may be worth a look-see, if like me, you ever wonder much about how the hell things actually happen in this great, grand country of ours.
Where the money is…
SPECIAL BONUS !
Courtesy of Reuters, here is the Head Fed in Talking Head mode:
Sometimes you got to wonder what people, including high-powered eggheads in Washington, are thinking.
News item: This afternoon The Wall Sreet Journal reported that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had “opened the door to aggressive interest-rate reductions, saying downside risks to the economy ‘have become more pronounced.’”
According to the Journal, his remarks “support Wall Street’s expectation that officials could lower the fed funds rate by as much as one-half percentage point when they meet at the end of this month.”
I for one am glad Mr. Bernanke has at last perhaps fully realized that so-called “downside risks” to the economy are quite real and deserve a hell of a lot of his attention.
But, really, what took him so long to figure that out?
I am no economist– geez, I managed to get through college without taking an economics course– but it does not even take a real estate license to know our economy has been heading for trouble ever since the first “creative” home loans (much better, I think, if these financial insstruments were referred to only as “mortgages,” the meaning of which can be traced back literally to the phrase “death pledge”) were floated four or five years ago before Americans bent on being homeowners or speculators– despite what their actual finances may have suggested was prudent.
Of course, all those folks eager to get their piece of the American dream (or to “flip it”) were aided and abetted if not seduced by the massive forces of the great real estate-mortgage banking-home improvement alliance that seemed to be formed overnight ready to flog along and cash in on this nationwide bacchanalia.
The party was long and hearty and now the hangover is stacking up to be nothing if not world class.
But abstinence alone will not cure this beast. Rather, it is high time the Fed and other economic players in the U.S. government stop talking and swing into action to at least mitigate if not turn around this crisis before it gets any worse.
The Journal also reported this afternoon that its latest survey of economic forecasters “sees 42% odds of a U.S. recession this year along with mounting inflationary pressures, an uncomfortable mix that could influence the focus of the presidential campaign and complicate life for the Federal Reserve.”
Jim Hoffa, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) is no doubt a busy guy, especially these days what with a challenging freight environment impacting the union’s rank and file (and, yes, all of trucking), serious concern over hours-of-service reform or lack thereof, not to mention everything that must go in to the negotiations for new freight agreements with carriers.
But he is also committed to stopping Mexican trucks from rolling across the border and made his point in person earlier this month. According to the Teamsters, the union rallied with Hoffa right up front at the Otay Mesa border crossing near San Diego on December 5th to show they oppose “letting unsafe trucks from Mexico drive on U.S. highways.”
Exercising the right to free speech at the border
Hoffa declared that, “Mexican drivers don’t have the mandatory training that U.S. drivers have. Mexican drivers don’t have to meet the same strict drug-testing requirements that U.S. drivers do. Mexican drivers don’t have to comply with U.S. rules on how long they can drive. So someone could drive 10 hours in Mexico before arriving at the U.S. border and then drive another 11 hours inside the United States, even though U.S. rules don’t allow 21 hours of driving.
“I totally reject the argument that the Teamsters are against Mexican truck drivers,” Hoffa added. “We are against the companies that exploit them and the governments that don’t live up to their responsibilities to make sure the highways are safe.”
Based on the cold hard economic news that is peppering us like ice pellets of late, Santa Claus must be planning on delivering nothing but coal this Christmas Eve. That’s not all bad. Even though you can’t play with coal much and you sure can’t eat it, you at least can burn it to help hold down the heating bill that will soar as high as Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer this winter. Too bad you can’t fire up a truck with it.
Just the other night, Brian Williams ended the NBC Nightly News on a decidely sour note: with a report dubbed “Slow Going” that posited that when sales start to slide in the the RV –or “Motor Home” to the aficionados– industry it’s an indication the general economy is heading for a ditch, too. Apparently this year RV sales were down 10% and they’re expected to drop another 5% next year. The silver lining in the land yacht, though, is that if you’ve ever hankered for one and can actually afford one, now is probably the best time ever to get a deal on one!
But were the hand-wringing over RVs not enough to chase away dreams of sugarplums and whatnot so early this holiday season, yesterday came word via The Wall Street Journal that both GM and Ford plan to drastically cut back production early next year “reflecting toughening U.S. economic conditions and mounting challenges keeping their turnaround efforts on track.” Specifically, GM said it will slash production 11% in the first three months of ‘08 compared to the year-earlier period and Ford said it would reduce its first-quarter production forecast by 7.4%. The newspaper noted that those two were not alone: “Chrysler previously announced it will eliminate production shifts at several plants in the first quarter.”
OK, so we all (or me anyway) can live without an RV. Even the RV head honchos NBC interviewed admitted as much. But when the Big 3 automakers are rolling back production in the face of economic hardship, well, that gets my attention.
So much so I think it’s time to write a letter to Santa. For starters, I will ask him for a dose or twenty of intestinal fortitude. That will come in handy as I wait for my second request to be fulfilled next November– a new POTUS whom we can hope and pray will get this country to pull together and start moving again on all fronts.
Believe it or not, I tried three times to respond to the well-reasoned comment made by Don to my previous post using this site’s comment function (You can try it below). And each time my words spontaneously disappeared. Maybe it was operator error (highly likely with this operator) or maybe the computer just did not like what I was saying, but here’s hoping Number 4 is a charm—and to be doubly sure, I am posting my reply to Don as this blog entry, which uses a whole different mechanism.
Anyway, what I have been trying to say is that I agree pretty much with everything Don said, which, if I am summarizing correctly, amounts to sheer wonderment at the fuss being made about trucks from Mexico daring to cross “our” border.
Turning to the Teamsters, let me just say right up front I happen to believe trade unions have just as much right to exist and to advance their agendas vigorously as do corporate entities. That being said, I don’t speak for this union or any union or corporate entity for that matter so I can only imagine why the IBT is beating the anti-Mexico drum to a pulp. My guess is garnering publicity has something to do with it.
I agree that the Sierra Club, an organization I happen to have respect for, is sure barking up the wrong tree this time. And I will even go out on a limb and suggest that if Mexican carriers are to be successful operating here over the long haul, they’ll want to run equipment—and employ drivers— that will enable them to truly be competitive with U.S. carriers on service and not price alone.
As for the overall economic impact of letting Mexican fleets truck here and our fleets truck there (and the same applies in my book to every trucker and conducteur de camion in Canada!), I say again let the chips fall—or fly–where they may. That is what free trade is all about.
And remember, it cuts both ways– or three ways in this case. You can be sure there are industries in Mexico and Canada that are not thrilled with having “their” borders fully opened to American competitors. What also comes to my mind is a quote made famous by John F. Kennedy: “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
We might also try asking ourselves if we are of the land of the free and the home of the brave, why pray tell are so many of us so afraid of a little competition?
I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge in this space the outpouring of support I and the other members of the FleetOwner editorial & art staff have received from persons near and far in response to the tragic passing of Terry Nguyen, our beloved friend and colleague, whom we lost two weeks ago.
Everyone on FleetOwner has mentioned receiving phone calls, emails, cards and letters expressing sincere condolences. These kind words have come to us not only from all quarters of the U.S.-Canadian trucking industry but literally from the four corners of the globe– truly a witness to the positive impact Terry had in his short time with us.
I know each of us on FleetOwner has been deeply touched by these gestures of sympathy and have been honored to convey them to Terry’s family and friends.
“No worries.” I can’t tell you how many times my young friend– 21 years my junior to be exact– said that to me over the past three-and- a- half years as we worked together. And I know if he saw me now, he’d say it to me again, calming me down and lifting me up at the same time, were he still here among us. But sadly, terribly, Terry Nguyen lost his life to the fury of an ocean at the still tender age of 27 less than a week ago, on the afternooon of June 1st. Now it’s up to me to breathe life again into that line for him and above all to tell you a little something about the wonderful guy who had served so terrifically as the FleetOwner web editor since early in 2004. I only hope I can do his memory justice.
When Terry joined our merry band at FleetOwner, I didn’t know what to expect. He was our second web editor ever and back then, in February ‘04, some of us ink-stained types (me, anyway) still weren’t all that comfortable with the online world we were being asked to embrace alongside our familiar print environment.
I was charged in part with showing Terry, who was just a few years and jobs out of college, the editorial ropes. I pretty much had to cover everything from what cost-per-mile is to what a private fleet is with sidetrips to such arcane stopovers as journalistic style and, of course, why male FleetOwner editors are almost always clean-shaven.
Terry took me all in his calm stride– the bad-mood mornings, the better afternoons, the insane way I can only write well under withering pressure or late at night. Very soon, and faster than anyone I have met before or since, Terry grasped what our readers are about and what kind of information they need as well as how to get it for them. And that he did like a terrier. A very well-mannered terrier but a terrier none the less. I can’t tell you how many Washington big shots and trucking kingpins he interviewed or at least got a meaningful comment out of, often getting what he needed from them to meet a deadline before many of us had had our second cup of coffee.
Yes, I may be a veteran journalist but I learned so much from watching him, getting a refresher course in journalistic gung ho that I now treasure. Indeed, before long I found he was as much mentoring me as I him.
In fact, I would not be writing this blog entry– even have this blog to write in– were it not for Terry’s low-key encouragment that I could make it happen with, yes, “No worries.” And low key is key. Terry was not one to yell, let alone raise his voice above a conversational level. Yet we all heard him, even the several members (me included) of the staff who are more than a little hard of hearing. Maybe that’s because he always spoke quietly yet confidently, sure of himself without ever being cocksure.
That, I think, is one of the main reasons– along with his gentlemanly kindness– that he was so well liked and will be remembered fondly long after many blowhards yet to be born have come and gone.
Here you see Terry in a shot cropped from a photo of he and a friend posing (I’m pretty sure) outside the White House on a vacation trip he made to D.C. Terry loved to travel and his travel always meant visiting friends and family. When he got back from a trip, I was always astonished not by what he saw, but how many people he managed to see! By the way, that’s his trademark cap he’s wearing– the one he wore (but only outdoors) nearly every day.
He was on such a trip when his life was cut far too short. Terry was in Florida for a few days of vacation with a couple of college buddies after the Memorial Day weekend. The details are sketchy but after lunch on Friday of that week the fateful decision to go swimming was made. Churning beneath the Atlantic surf off Delray Beach were rip currents, which can challenge even the most experienced swimmers. I don’t know who went in first or who knew what about the rips running that day, but my understanding from local news reports is that all three went in and all three came out only with the help of lifeguards. His two friend survived the ordeal, thank God, but Terry could not be revived.
This is the point in the story where Terry would join in and say, “No worries” then somehow add a few words to the effect that everything will turn out as it should. And it always seemed to. Till that day.
If you knew Terry, or even if you just liked hearing about him, please keep his family and friends in your thoughts and prayers as they struggle through tough days ahead.
As for my colleague and dearly missed friend, to paraphrase the old Irish blessing, I believe Terry is now safely resting in the palm of God’s hand. And there he indeed has no worries.
