Truck Load Rates Halt 8 Week Slide 2.0

Sortof off topic but I watched a documentary recently about Stalin. It blew me away that here in the US that we aren’t taught more about that monster. It’s always Hitler, Hitler, Hitler... but it seems to me that Stalin was worse and taught Hitler what he came to know.

I do admit I have much to learn and you probably know much more then I. Would you concur?

 

Hitler was an lightweight compared to Stalin and Mao. They each killed many times more people than Hitler, and they killed their own people. Now we have a generation of Americans idolizing them and their form of government.

 

Both were equally evil. Stalin and Lenin murdered or eliminated anybody what they thought were the enemies of the revolution, indistinctively of who the people were. Whereas Hitler murdered methodically Jews - regardless who they were and his political opponents, or those who might pose a threat. He also used murderous repressive measures against civilians at the conquered territories whenever they were acts of opposition to the occupiers. Those acts of terror and repression meant to be bloody and conspicuous to instill fear. It was much more common in the Eastern Europe (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Western Russia) than West. Stalin did not round up civilians to take them to nearby forests and shoot them to make an example. He was very selective and not as conspicuous. Besides there was the NAZI ideology that made Hitler sort of more cynical... Übermensch and Untermensh in particular. Lots of non-Jewish people were rounded up and sent to Germany to concentration camps to do slavery labor and they died from exhaustion and starvation there too. They were not methodically gassed to death but for many of them it was not a blessing either.
Lenin or Stalin were mostly only distinguishing between red and non-red (the enemies). Among the red, they were of course, those who posed a political threat too. It was enough not to clap their hands after Stalin speech to raise his suspicions.
In absolute numbers, @SteveScott is right. The red revolution killed way more people than what Hitler managed to accomplish. But let's not make a mistake here, had he won the war, or had he had more time, he would have not been any better.

 

About the idolization....Interestingly, in days of great depression, in the 1930s, there was a huge sentiment - among top American educational circles (Ivy league included)- towards Soviet Russia and their central planning. I was amazed to have found a book form that period written by a economics professor in a local library to read about how America should take example from the 5 year planning as a way to fight the depression. Some even argue that the New Deal was formulated on the Soviets central planning. Indeed, the new Deal was the first ever-greatest Government involvement in economical matters. When you go to Libertarian sites (like this Mises Institute) and do some reading there, you'll see how they play down the accomplishments of the New Deal to the point of saying that without it America would have recovered much faster.
I'll stop here ... so far it is all history channel, economics and social science but not too far from politics either.

 

A truck driver is a truck driver. It doesn't matter if you're corralling livestock all morning or whatever it is these people do that makes them exempt. I have to strap, chain, and tarp my loads. Auto haulers have to drive their freight onto trailers and secure them. Household goods companies have to blanket wrap, pack stuff in boxes, and load/unload trucks. As soon as any of these people get behind the wheel and get on public roads, they should be no different than everybody else.

They should change the rules for everybody, not carve out exemptions for entitled industries.

 

With ELD it's much easier to find a good paying load of a load board early in the day. Before the mandate, all the brokers were holding up till the afternoon, because they knew people gonna play with logbook to make things work

 

Generally, If we talk about diseases that are transmitted through breathing and touching, the vaccines protect the vaccinated organisms from developing diseases against which they were vaccinated but don't necessarily stop their transmitting. So far, they say there is not enough data to answer the question of whether or not the currently available Covid-19 vaccines prevent the body from transmitting it. So there is some logic in what they say...assuming of course that wearing a mask has ever made sense at all with this virus.

 

Brokers still playing the praying for a cheap truck game in the morning, then when it's not being covered they more willing to pay better later on.

 

The main thing is money. OOIDA and other driver groups are chump change when compared to the Ag lobby in Washington. Back in 2012 when the ELD mandate was passed in the highway bill OOIDA and others thought they could beat it in court, meanwhile those of us hauling livestock at the time started putting the word out amongst buyers and cattleman’s associations as to what was coming down the pike.

And people want to complain about exemptions because they’re not fair yet have no idea what all goes on that they don’t know about. My cousin’s nephew is 16 years old and has been pulling doubles across I-90 in South Dakota the last couple weeks hauling their grain to Kennebec. No CDL. No annual inspection on the equipment. No logbook or anything. Perfectly legal. All because of the Ag lobby and what you can get done with a little bit of cash.