"And what about the economic impact of non-cdl immigrants?" Nonsense. There have been studies and it is a fact that illegals and many immigrants are a drain on the economy. You only look at one side. The other is that many have multiple kids. School is 10-15k per year per child depending on location. Many work for cash and don't pay income tax. They also use the emergency room for healthcare. They take out much more than they put in. Something like 60% of immigrants are on some type of public assistance. Bessent, Treasury Sec, just stated that current immigration is a drain on the economy. He was on Wall Street for 30 years and knows what he is talking about.
I agree with your first sentence 100%, but Chris was calling me an idiot for saying that reducing capacity by 20% would result in reduced rates and spewed some BS about total freight tonnage to which I replied "averages are meaningless outside of context". Your spending might not be determined by your neighbors, but that would make you an outlier. What about if an otherwise good coworker was laid off? Would your spending remain the same or would you begin to economize in small areas? And if you heard about layoffs in other companies or industries? Or if you heard that default rates were rising? Consumer confidence is a strong force that can power through many economic stumbling blocks or crater an economy over a hiccup. Wave a magic wand and instantly remove every undocumented immigrant and the American economy would crater. Wave the magic wand again to remove all the TPS and DACA and we'd be calling the Great Depression "The Good Old Days". Please don't misunderstand me, I'm 100% against illegal immigration. I just understand that 100 years of ignoring illegal immigration isn't going to change without an impact. It's a complicated situation with multiple confounding variables.
I think you are a very smart guy. I realize we fall on different sides of the argument often, but I appreciate that you have an informed opinion. I certainly agree that this isn’t going to be a quick change. I’m not even sure that it isn’t all political bs. And it very well may have some growing pain. Much like tariffs, but if we collectively as a nation would have been doing the right thing all along it wouldn’t be as painful. But actions have consequences. And we must suffer them.
And even more that suggest illegal immigrants have a positive impact on an economy. Please see Scott Bessent's public statements on immigration before 2016. Or for that matter the position of the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institute, or the Cato Institute. All conservative and all have advocated for increasing legal immigration and amnesty for current illegals.
I think the upper escelon of both political parties have done nothing but exploit immigrants. Be it the conservative side for cheap labor or the liberal side for increased population and political power. They are both guilty of selling out the American worker for modern day indentured servitude
And this is one of the many problems I have with our current discourse on immigration. This isn't a binary question, it's more complex than multi-variable calculus. There is an oft cited study that 'proves' "replacement theory". The study simply says "if population remains stagnate then adjustments need to be made to retain the current standard of living, or we can increase the population through immigration and not make any changes". It's the same argument that Engels made about capitalism - the system is self reflective which creates an untenable unbalance which will result in revolution. Yet there are those who say "if only we could get rid of the immigrants (legal or otherwise), everything would be grand". Blaming immigrants for one's own economic status is a denial of free economics. The question really needs to be about qualifications - driver skill, insurance amounts, and oversight. I don't care about a person's immigration status, I care about how well they can run a CMV. That means more rigorous testing, not more expensive schooling. It means holding brokers and shippers civilly responsible for the actions of the carriers they book and holding carriers criminally responsible for the actions of their drivers. But that's not going to happen. Which is why I don't think the current 'enforcement blitz' is going to result in higher rates. When this whole thing started two months ago, an "esteemed member" stated that it would quickly result in 'covid era rates'. That hasn't happened, and won't because even assuming constant demand the barrier to entry will drop.
The only way it will possibly bring Covid era rates is if the capacity purge is on the upper end of estimates( which I think are optimistic at best) and volume drastically increases. I don’t see volumes radically increasing. Stagnant, maybe gradual climb at best. And the purge of drivers will take probably close to two years. It’s not like they are all magically gone overnight. So there will be no boom in freight.
If you had any idea how freight is calculated then you would know you're incorrect. Calculated on ton/miles, not volume, not number of loads. You were so sure of your numbers on the FMCSA inspections until I told you to go to A&I to get the real numbers. Got pretty quiet after that. So now why don't you go to the BTS to get the real numbers on freight moved. Or are you going to write another novel in response hoping to obscure the actual facts?
