Why is FREIGHT SO CHEAP??

the problem is there is not enough beautiful women for every man in this country. that's why lots of men fall in to dipression and go trucking to find peace on the road. that's why Obama is pushing his trans agenda to turn a % of males in to beautiful women so there wouldn't be lonely men. Because lonely men go and become owner ops and lower the freight rates. this week I saw a lovely manlady trucker at Walmart dc in WA. she/he actualy smiled at me.

 

WOW !! Third-world trucking in the late, great USA !! I bet it has a shower in that walk-in sleeper. Maybe it's a side load ?

 

You guys just do not get it. A few are on the right track but many are clueless to the real reasons what has caused this.

Communications.

This thing called the Internet has allowed a lot of things to happen to this industry.

One thing is to allow competition to be created within the industry to the point that it is saturated with capacity far beyond the possible need of the industry. We have maybe 5 times the capacity that we would have needed in the past. Between the mom and pop carriers who are marginal operators and the large carriers, there is a spread of capacity resources across the country and the many niches that are in the industry.

The Internet has allowed someone to start a company without being a real presence, they can do almost everything without picking up a phone, allowing multiple carriers to operate under one person or having shadow carriers to sub-sell freight to capture some part of the rate. You can substitute carrier with broker, it is all the same.

The owner operator is also a problem in itself, many will run out, get an authority and a truck then drive down rates because they have to take anything they can get to make the payments in order to justify their mistake.

Then you have the surplus of drivers caused by the easy to get license and the affordability of insuring them through large policies. We cut our own throats when we promote easy entry into this, not forcing the industry to actually take us seriously by demanding respect as professionals but rather act as children when we are cheated out of things like detent pay or when we have to wait at a shipper we service.

The one thing that this internet thing has not done is to bring all of us together. We are a fractured bunch, in a way very selfish and greedy because we have to think we are the only ones that are dealing the issues and want a lot of issues fixed when just one issue or another is all we need to get a voice. We should be a tight group but it seems the Internet is our enemy, not our friend.

I can go on with this but frankly I look around and can't help wonder why we can't make a change.

 

Trucking isn't the only causality.

The buck Stopped here.



Maersk Line's profit plunged 60 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier as rising overcapacity and lower cargo volumes depressed ocean freight rates to historic lows.

The world’s largest carrier booked a net operating profit of $264 million, down from $685 million in the third quarter of 2014.

Revenue shrank by almost 15 percent to $6 billion from $7 billion last time due to an average freight rate decline of more than 19 percent.

The Danish carrier’s shrunken earnings were largely responsible for halving the parent Maersk Group’s third quarter profit to $778 million from $1.5 billion a year ago.

“The Maersk group — and especially Maersk Line — was severely impacted by continued low economic growth and significant market imbalances,” the Copenhagen-based shipping and energy group said.

“Global container demand is expected to have grown by 0-1 percent, whereas the global container fleet grew by almost 9 percent.”

Maersk Line said it defended its market position in a difficult quarter, with traffic increasing by 1.1 percent to 4.85 million 20-foot-equivalent units from 4.80 million TEUs last year.

The average freight rate slumped to $2,163 per 40-foot container from $2,679, due largely to depressed imports into Europe where rates hit new historical lows.

The carrier’s return on invested capital of $20.4 billion fell to 5.2 percent from 13.5 percent a year ago.

Unit costs decreased by 11.1 percent during the quarter, largely due to lower bunker fuel prices and the appreciation of the U.S. dollar.

The carrier expects to book a full year profit of around $1.6 billion, down from an earlier forecast of $2.2 billion.

Earlier this week Maersk said it will eliminate “at least” 4,000 of its 23,000 shore-based jobs by 2017 and reduce network capacity. It has also cancelled options for six 19,630-TEU ships and two 3,600-TEU feeder vessels and postponed a decision on whether to exercise an option on eight 14,000-TEU ships.

“There is no drama” in cancelling the options, according to Maersk Group CEO Nils Andersen. “We can order these ships slightly later...we will continue to invest and defend our market share,” he said in an earnings webcast.

“Rest assured we will be ready to fulfil our market share with capacity we have ordered.”

Contact Bruce Barnard at brucebarnard47@hotmail.com.


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Some good points here and a detailed breakdown of some factors that lead to supply and demand.

 

Just my 2c. Any of you all been to Elkgrove Village IL? you will see a big partial reason freight is driven so low. Almost every truck is a White Volvo or a Freightshaker with the bumpers torn off , a "company name" duct taped on cardboard . I've even seen DOT # in spray paint . buy a truck cheap, don't put anything besides fuel in it and just pound out the loads till the truck won't run anymore or the DOT shuts you down

 

The overcapacity caused by an immigrant (legal and illegal) population that finds it easy to get into this business cannot be overstated. As far as the rates go, supply and demand, now met by the ruthless efficiency of the internet is the another big factor. And the third is the general slowdown in the world's economy. There is no great big hand of unseen influence here. Economics 101.

 

I heard rail and boats are slow too, Elk Grove people must have started buying old trains and old boats and put them to work. ####, Chicago people, just messing up the whole global transportation industry along with the oil price, because their trains dont use any oil, since they have cheap overseas labor, pulling trains and trucks and only paying them few cents per mile

 

Not true at all. It takes time commitment and consistency to land companies to give you their freight as a broker. You are completely wrong when you say it takes 1-1.5hours to get contracts. It's people like you who think they can open a brokerage and then close their doors after a month since they don't have any money coming in.