Why are we so concerned with fuel prices?

I know I won’t be hauling $2/mile every mile freight. I’ll be at home. You are free to verify this with me. Years back I quit subsidizing shippers and receivers.

 

Quite the opposite. Now many people can't get in, because price of equipment is very high.
Once it drops, there will be a new wave of company drivers buying trucks, plus all the people who will be losing jobs in other industries.

Before the 2008 crash, all the Eastern European people I knew in Metro Detroit were doing some kind of construction/carpenter or some other jobs. Now 90% if them is doing trucking.

 

I agree ..
JMO.. but this is going to be like living a episode of the Twilight Zone.. except we won't have the option to turn it off

 

Fuel price does not matter for anybody doing spot market, because technically rising rates should offset the rising fuel cost.
The problem is, consumers will stop buying things, then it's a chain reaction. Everything falls apart.
We start fighting on the spot market and prices keep getting lowered. Contract jobs drivers start laughing at us, saying that they still make a lot of money.
Then their rates start getting lowered, nobody is laughing anymore, we start seeing "say no to cheap freight" threads get posted in here everyday and then everyone enters a survival mode.
In 2 years, people get bored, start buying things again, freight prices rise and whoever survived, rips the benefits.
Rinse and repeat. The same scenario every single time

 

I think what will hit some hard is not just the cost of fuel. It is also the cost of everything else. Everything has risen from tires to toothpaste. I do a lot of the grocery shopping for the family and it is a sad ordeal seeing everything on average cost more. Not just a little bit more… a lot more…

That is the difference between what folks talk about in 2008 vs now. Fuel only is one thing… everything else and it will hit some a little bit different.

I can see the folks with the crazy priced used trucks with payments and who may have paid crazy high prices for a 15 year old trailer are going to take a big hit.

I’m coming up on medical procedure this next week so good lord only knows how long I’ll be parked. I reckon it all depends on the healing and if it all goes well.

 

100% disagree with your theory

 

Maybe, but I opened my MC in 2015 being pretty much broke. Bought a truck for $12k and had 45k in credit card debt. I was completely unprepared to run on my own.
If trucks were $30k+ , I would not have been able to get in

 

Trying to keep this short
This time the whole economy is going to be in serious trouble.. credit cards & lines of credit aren't going to mean a thing the middle American is going to be suffering...it quite possibly could take a 5 gallon bucket full of money to buy a loaf of bread .. it could very well end up being cheaper to wipe your arse with a 100.00 bill then buy a roll of toilet paper.. there won't be freight to haul because nobody will be buying anything .this is going to make the recession of 08 look like a birthday party..
Save this post and review it 1 year from today .. hopefully you can say I was full of S###
But if I had many doubts I wouldn't be typing this .. I don't like fear mongers

 

I hope you are wrong, and that this results in a painful but short correction. That would be a best case scenario, but depending what happens in Europe all bets are off.

 

The short correction was in 2020.