Oh, I know the answer. Better yet, I understand why the answer is what it is. Which is why I don't go running around like Chicken Little warning that the end is nigh simply because my favorite media pundit says coming inflation and mounting debt will bring about our economic demise. That's usually the totality of the argument. Which is why I gave you the benefit of the doubt and asked you to expand on your prediction...guess I should have stuck with my gut.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying things are good. I'm also speaking of the economic outlook in general, not just our particular industry. When I say we've seen the worst, I'm saying we won't see 6% contractions like we saw in the the 4th and 1st quarters. A zero growth quarter won't do much to change the current bad situation, but it's still better than a contraction. We've seen the worst, now we're destined to bounce along the bottom for awhile. It's a better situation but far from good.

As for freight and rates...maybe next year. I think the next two quarters could be ugly.

BTW, I'll sell you a reefer at the end of the year, lol.

Yeah, nice try trying to flip the script and make me sound delusional....what else you got, but for the sh!!ts and giggles just tell me what media outlet you are speaking about, everything i see tells me recession is over even though i think it has just started....

I do not need any media outlets telling me whatever you think they may tell me, i am looking at the facts behind the curtain my, ,,no worries'' friend, and the facts tell me that we are way too deep over our head with debt and printed money to just brush it off like you plan to do....good luck.
If you think its OK to run these deficits and debts and have a economy which purely relies on consuption where Americans spend money they dont have,and not production and savings, then its fine i guess...Name suits you well id say....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_debt...he_U.S._dollar

If it weren't for Chinese lending us this money, id ask you then how them rates R.


Now am going to put my tinfoil hat on... ... ...


...done !

You can tell how the economy is doing by looking at what is going on in the trucking industry. When there is plenty of freight then the economy is usually doing pretty well. There is freight, but there doesn't seem to be enough to go around and rates are still too low. Most business people with whom I talk are still concerned about the economy and most are not doing that well. I did make a delivery yesterday and the owner said they were doing well. I think we will know more how the economy is doing once we get into the holiday season.

This is my point...in all the words you've typed since my original question, you still haven't answered it. You initially said that inflation is coming and government debt is increasing. All you've done is reiterate those points. My question was, ok, what will the impact be? We've always had inflation. In fact, you have to have a certain level for a healthy economy. Just how much inflation are you talking about. Inflation is almost always accompanied by corresponding growth. Are you saying we're going to have stagflation or simply inflation that far outpaces the rate of growth or some different animal altogether. Inflation comes about from a weak dollar. Why will the dollar weaken substantially further and how far? Strength of currency is a relative condition. You can only measure the dollar's strength or weakness relative to other currencies. What other currency will fill the dollar's role as a reserve currency? Are we going to weaken against one in particular like the euro or the yuan, or will the dollar crash against all currencies? Why will those other currencies strengthen? Are they going to recover economically before we do and be substantially stronger?

And what of government debt? We've run massive deficits for decades other than a brief period during the 90's. The national debt has been staggering for years. What has suddenly changed? Where is the magic line that pushed us past the point of no return? Every other country with a significant economy has been spending massive amounts of stimulus as well. We are far from the only indebted economy. Indebtedness only becomes a problem when you can no longer service the debt. Have you seen the recent Treasury auction results? China continues to buy our debt because those purchases directly finance their exports to us. Their domestic markets are a fraction of their exports. In other words, without our market, their economy would be a fraction of its current size. And its current size can only barely keep up with the country's needs. They need us at least as much as we need them and probably more.

You make a simple statement like inflation is coming and our debt is too high. I ask you to expand and explain and you say the question isn't worth answering? I made the pundit comment because I've come across several people that have made similar comments. "High inflation and debt are bringing us down." When question them on why and how, they have no answer. They just say I need to listen to more Rush and Glenn Beck.

You may very well be right...but who would ever know?

There's some debate this time around that trucking won't actually lead the economy out, due to the unusual inventory cycle we're seeing. I'm not sure I'm buying into it, but if they're right, we won't see the recovery first. Like I said, by no means are we in good shape. But we are in better shape than we were. I'm seeing increased volumes all around. Rates aren't coming up, but rates usually trail volumes by a good amount. I happen to think we're just in a short inventory correction and we'll fall back down going into the holidays...we'll see. The business outlook in general is more optimistic now than it was 6 months ago. Many economists are calling for near 3% growth in the 3rd quarter. I have a hard time believing it will be that high, but the stimulus did have a substantial effect in housing and autos. I doubt it will hold up though.

All any of these economists are doing is guesswork. We can do the same thing. I am basing my guesstimates on my personal experience over the years. The main problem with myself and any of the pundits is that none of us have lived long enough to remember the crash of 1929 and it's aftermath. I still think that if we watch what happens in the trucking industry that we will have an indicator as to what is really going on in our economy. There are more loads than in the fourth quarter of last year and especially the first quarter of this year. Rates are down from a year ago, so that tells me that we are still in a position of over capacity. I would certainly not want to go into debt to purchase more equipment unless I could afford to pay cash and sit on the equipment for a while. I would not want to have to make payments during the next couple of quarters.

I have seen some rates come up the last couple of months in a couple of areas. One are where we sometimes haul the rates have dropped dramatically. A new logistics company went in and undercut CHR's rates and now they are too cheap for me to haul. They did tell me that they would pay if they could not move the load and it was late in the day. In fact, I was told that they would take money out of their pocket to move a difficult load.

I would be surprised if we had any real growth in the 3rd quarter of this year. And as far as the stimulus tax, I don't believe the auto rebates were part of that. I think that they added that to the expenditures. In fact, I am not sure that the housing discount was part of it, either. I think both of those programs came out after the stimulus tax.

I don't know of anyone in this business that is in great shape. I know plenty who are getting along as best as they can. I hope we all have a good 3rd and 4th quarter.

I thought it was self explanatory but i guess i was wrong.
Maybe I shouldn't only lead the horse to the water, maybe i should show him how to drink as well.
Ill do my best.....

Impact will be interest rates in near or above 20's, dollar replacement as the world currency reserve system (which underlines high interest rates as we would have to raise them to keep attracting foreign capital) and world de-coupling from American consumer which is broke. Economy which relies on borrowed money where its people spend $ that they do not have, is not real. We have hit NEGATIVE savings rate many times.

Yeah,in 07 was 2% when it was nice and calm. Is that what you think we've always had.

Only real inflation this country ever had was was in the 70's after the Brenton Woods agreement was scraped and dollar moved on to its FIAT status as a paper money. Paul Volker raised interest rates to over 20% to fight it off BUT here is a kicker....United States was a debtor nation and worlds leading manufacturing power which we are not today. Todays % rates are near 0 and what would happen if inflation starts to grow with no economic growth, are they gonna keep them at 0 to keep letting banks borrow cheap, or are they gonna destroy banks by raising them to fight inflation? Who will win?


Our economy is far from being healthy to withstand any level of inflation, and as our economy is 70% driven by a broke consumer, it aint getting healthy.

Only + thing that inflation does to the economy is reduces the level of debt by devaluing ones currency. BUT, if our 11 trillion dollar debt to foreign banks gets reduced in this manner than the world will loose confidence in our bonds and will start selling all at once just to get out of the asset that is depreciating in value, and it will not be back. In 70's inflation was over 13% which means whatever you have in the bank fell 13% in value. THat was a walk in the park.


So bigger the inflation, bigger the growth will be following it........
Great then, why not print up 10 more trillions and a have a hyperinflation hoping the growth will be at that rate as well...
Am talking depressionary hyperinflation with no economic growth. Federal Reserve as well as this entire country is in an uncharted waters as this has never been expirienced before and has it happened that the Feds balance sheet expanded in this manner. Right now Fed in the biggest bank in this country. They are not suppose to be involved in the market like Citi is or Goldman Sachs.


No it does not. Inflation means expanding money supply......
Inflation comes from Federal Reserve printing money, so called money supply rate or M-3 used to be published untill 2006 when they stopped.
File:Components of the United States money supply2.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , look at the graph..
Weak dollar comes from new dollars that are competing with each other for the same product, thats why prices have to be raised to buy that product, leading to inflation. Everything comes from Federal Reserve. If the dollar was tied to gold we wouldnt have to worry about it as we would not be able to print it up.


US Dollar Index Thats the current trend of the worlds reserve currency as posted on Wall-street...
Why will it weaken? Are you kidding me?
It will weaken because of these trillions that have been printed out man?

Dollar index measures its strength against a basket of other currencies, not only one.

It does not have to be one, it can be many.....
Special Drawing Rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is what our biggest creditor wants BBC NEWS | Business | China argues to replace US dollar specifically.
Or Gold for that matter......


It will not crash, it will weaken substantially, enough to actualy reflect the real economic growth of the US, not our overbloated GDP which consists of Americans getting into more and more debt for our country to prosper. When the dollar becomes weak, investment will dry up and we will not be able to rely on foreign capital propping it up anymore. Reason why we are still able to keep % rates at zero is because of the foreign capital that flew here during the economic crisis where everyone was looking for a safe status, returns or not( reason why treasury CD's are paying 1%..) Slowly that foreign capital is flowing away from the US and thats why dollar is flowing downstream with it.....
When we moved from gold standard only thing that kept the dollar strong was the economy which was flourishing back then. There is nothing holding it strong now as we have nothing to back it up with, unless a new invention comes along and replaces fossil fuels for example....

New Zeland or Canadian dollars have something to back them up, Canada had vast oil resources as well as New Zeland. Other countries do not have fiscal problems we now face. Chinese citizens save most of their money thats why Chinese economy still grows annualy at about 8%. They grew even when we were contracting. When secretary of state was in China she encouraged the Chinese government to keep buying U.S. Treasury bonds. This is the mechanism through which the Chinese government keeps down the value of the currency or "manipulates" its currency, in the words of some commentators. Buying U.S. government bonds keeps up the value of the dollar and depresses the value of China's currency.
Thats the same thing that Japan has done for the past 50 years and now they have a new government in place.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...cent_share.gif Japan holds over 20% of our treasures buying them to prop up the dollar from going down....

We have never had these debts with these economic problems before. Debt accumulated after WWII had a reason to be there, we were in a world war. Right now we are accumulating debt just to stay afloat, thats why i told you where would your rates be if Chinese didnt lend us money.
What has changed you ask?
A'lot actually, our manufacturing base is all but gone, We were #1 steel producer in the world once when we had debt which was ALOT smaller then what it is now. We were industrialized power house and we had ways of paying off that debt thru production and exports, not printed money and inflation...

When Greenspan artificially lowered interest rates to keep the economy going creating a housing bubble. When credit was used to fuel up our artificial growth, when Americans stopped saving and producing, when our debt to earning ration reached these levels.....when we started measuring ourself worth by how many thing we owned and bought even though we didnt have any money, and still dont.
You ask when, it started 20 years ago. It moves slowly just like dollar will, nothing happens overninght but days of American dominance in the world are numbered, its time to pass the torch on to those who know how to apriciate it.


Only one country that has followed us is UK, everyone else has been saying that its a wrong idea. But you are right, we are not the only country in debt, others dont even compare. You cannot compare Zymbabve with US, or Bosnia. If you want to compare, compare us with Japanese, Chineze, Germans and other ,,developed'' nation. Nowhere in the little ,,book of economics'' does it say that the problem of debt can be resolved by accumulating even more debt. It is a LUNACY....

China is in the process of stimulating its own economic growth thru consumption. They happen to have 2 billion people who save everything they earn, compared to Americans who spend money they dont even have, and there are only about 200 million of our consumers. You happen to think positively on even holding auctions? We should not even have them, they are a bad thing, not good. China continues to make us their slaves when it comes time to pay the pipper and you think its good if we sell bonds fast?
What will happen when Chinese citizens start enjoying fruits of their labor, when they buy that new car, new television set, they wont have to prop up those who have lived off of their savings for decades, that be us if you didnt get it. They wont have to export, they will consume their own products and be independent of anyone while still keeping tabs on its money invested in the US. Americans cannot overconsume everything forever. We spend 25% of the worlds oil which means that the rest of the world gets by on only 75% of it..same hold true for everything else expecialy if money that their exports is spend on, comes from Federal Reserve printing press and credit cards, capital which holds no value compared to the capital of those nations who produce and save...

So they are proping up our bad behavior and it is OK with you. Maybe California should run up debt even more. It seems that everything is fine with current system in your mind. Refer to my previous response to this argument of yours which is full of holes like a swiss cheese.

I am Libertarian, i dont listen to American news media as they do not speak the truth. I turn to other news sources like that of my own which is completely based on logical thinking and reasonable understanding of the things that are happening around me. Only thing you need to do is look at the facts and if you like, follow your own instinct. I bought Gold bullion when it was 675 per ounce, it has hit over 1000 now but not overnight just like our own demise will not happen in the next year or two, but it will happen sooner than later and what that later is i dont know. You seem to still believe these same economists like our own Federal Reserve chairman when it comes to the predictions of our future economic ,,growth''. Well, here is little som-some for you to see.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QpD64GUoXw

You dont understand, i HOPE I AM NOT RIGHT( not when it comes to my gold investment,please..). I hope that somehow we will overcome it but the things that our elected officials are doing just kills even that little bit of hope that I may have. Tougher times are ahead of that am sure, so i would hope that you, and bunch of your other no worrie type of friends go out and start spending the money that you dont have, just so that i can make some more of that paper and pay my house off. Am almost there, just need 1 more year for it and a truck. After that its all yours.

Good luck

It is like an unemployed person who pays his bills by borrowing money. It only creates more debt, when there is no legitimate way of paying down the debt.

Eventually there will come a time when that debt will come due, and we will have no way of paying it other than with a dollar we are forced to make worthless by printing more than our economy can handle. Then hyperinflation sets in. Yay.