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00:00One of the surveys said the whole economy that they were sampling was flat, absolutely nothing occurring, even possibly a decline.
00:09The other survey, obviously surveying different businesses, had exactly the opposite.
00:15They said July was the strongest month for their businesses that they had seen.
00:19Welcome, everyone, to the Myers Report Fast 15.
00:30It is Friday, August 8th.
00:33Don Day, our favorite meteorologist and high atmospheric manned balloon expert, is traveling today and will not be with us.
00:43A lagging forecast is getting some new life.
00:46On November 8th, 2025, the Myers Report forecasting team saw a peace settlement coming between Russia and Ukraine by March 31st.
00:57Our own sources said that the deal was done well before mid-February, only to be scuttled by that disastrous February 28th meeting in the Oval Office between Ukraine President Zelensky, our own Vice President Vance, and President Trump.
01:14In a public press conference, Ukraine's leader showed up dressed in casual clothes, which was not necessarily respectful, particularly since he wore a suit for Biden.
01:26And on the spot, he refused the already agreed upon deal.
01:32We are told that hours earlier, Zelensky had met with the Democrat leadership in the United States who convinced him not to make the deal.
01:41We know what happened then.
01:43Now, President Trump seems to be setting up a meeting with Putin.
01:48The markets think this time it could happen.
01:51Let's hope so.
01:52In the meantime, moving on.
01:53Isaac, it's week two for the baby.
01:55How is it going?
01:57It's going great.
01:58It's going great.
01:59It's amazing to see the amount of joy that a baby brings to a household.
02:03So it's been fun to watch.
02:06That's wonderful.
02:07It's going to even be better to experience now for the third time.
02:12But at least you're well-practiced.
02:14Yes, yes, yes.
02:15And you're changing diapers.
02:16I haven't changed his yet.
02:18It's all mine.
02:19I don't like, yeah, I get involved around month one.
02:24So once he turns the month, then that's when I start touching him more.
02:26Right now, very, very fragile.
02:29Okay.
02:30Which sectors, Isaac, of the freight industry are performing best and which are doing worst?
02:36Yeah, flatbed by far is performing the best.
02:38A lot of heavy hauling of construction material, things of that nature.
02:44Yeah, flatbed is up about 15% over dry band freight right now, which is performing the worst right now.
02:51So yeah, flatbed by far.
02:53Okay.
02:54How are freight volumes this week?
02:56Freight volumes, it's kind of hit and miss right now.
03:03I've been talking to a lot of my peer group.
03:05You know, you got some people who are completely flooded with imports.
03:09Some people completely dry.
03:11So it's definitely starting to slow down on the drage side again.
03:15So right now, this week, we've been pretty steady.
03:18But again, not the same across the board for other people.
03:21Isaac, when you talk about some weeks are great and some weeks are bad or whatever, we just had two surveys come out for July as to whether or not business conditions were improving or not.
03:35One of the surveys said the whole economy that they were sampling was flat.
03:40Absolutely nothing occurring, even possibly a decline.
03:44The other survey, obviously surveying different businesses, had exactly the opposite.
03:50They said July was the strongest month for their businesses that they had seen.
03:54So both of these are supposed to be characteristic of the economy.
03:58Obviously, they're giving us totally different answers, which is what makes it so difficult.
04:03If you don't know where the economy is now and what's happening, very difficult to anticipate where we're going.
04:10You have to at least know where we are.
04:12We don't know where we are right now, I think, because of all the major changes that are occurring.
04:18And that's shaking things up, making it very difficult.
04:21Oh, yeah.
04:21Yeah.
04:22And in our roles, right, leadership roles, you got to be able to articulate to your people what's going on in the economy.
04:28What's going on in the marketplace and what we see over the next six to 12 months.
04:32So, you know, it's a real it's definitely a challenge to be able to tell drivers, hey, here's where I see things.
04:39And like six to 12 things to six to 12 months, rather, when things are forever changing right now.
04:44So it is it's a challenging time to be to be a business person.
04:47So, Isaac, there's about 139 days left to Christmas.
04:52What are you projecting for this holiday season?
04:55I see a soft peak season.
04:56I think I reported a couple of weeks ago that I was at a Lowe's and I already saw that they had Halloween decorations up.
05:04So inventory is already here.
05:06You know, the only reason the Halloween decorations are on the floor at Lowe's is because the warehouses are filled with Christmas stuff.
05:12You know what I mean?
05:13So all the stuff is already here.
05:15We're definitely bracing for a soft peak season, which is going to be pretty treacherous.
05:19It's going to be dangerous for a lot of carriers.
05:21Mind you, we've been in the three and a half year freight recession right now.
05:25So many, many, many people have been waiting for 2025 for what we thought would be a significant rebound that just never materialized.
05:32So were the distributors loading up with inventories in anticipation of higher costs from tariffs?
05:39Oh, yeah, absolutely.
05:41They've already done that.
05:42Okay.
05:43Check and check.
05:43Yes.
05:44Okay.
05:45Dr. Bob Genetsky.
05:47Yes, sir.
05:47How are the markets taking the possibility of a Trump-Putin meeting?
05:51So far, the markets are doing very well.
05:54They're still in the vicinity of all-time highs.
05:57There hasn't been much of a move for the past two weeks.
05:59But if you look at the economic data, and we went over the one that suggested that we're getting very different conflicting signals as to what's happening, it's difficult to figure out what's going to happen next.
06:13So what you do is you look at just pieces of what you see happening to try and determine if there's any real strength in the economy.
06:23What other good news are we seeing this week?
06:27Well, two good things.
06:29You already mentioned the meeting between Trump and Putin.
06:33I think most people are just hoping that that terrible war can come to an end, that people can stop dying.
06:40And the meeting between Trump and Putin is just one indication that something may be moving in the future to try and end that war.
06:48That's good news.
06:49The other piece of good news is the corporate earnings for the second quarter have been coming in.
06:54We now have about 80% of all the companies in the S&P 500 reporting.
07:01And the earnings are up double digits, 12% from a year ago.
07:05That's pretty strong earnings.
07:08So companies are doing well.
07:10They're making money.
07:10And if you look at the government reports of receipts for the second quarter, they are booming.
07:16They're up again, 11%, which is reflective partially of the tariff money that's coming in, but also reflective of a pretty strong earnings season.
07:26Overall, the companies are doing well for the most part, especially the larger companies, especially those associated with technological changes that are really changing this economy.
07:40And when we look at, for example, Isaac says it's really tough to see where the economy is going at the end of the year and into next year.
07:48And I would agree with that.
07:49But I would also suggest that I'm extremely optimistic that things are going to be picking up and picking up at a very rapid pace as we go into the fourth quarter and into the first quarter of next year.
08:01So I'm very optimistic on the economy.
08:03What's new with tariffs?
08:06Well, what isn't new with tariffs?
08:08It changes every day.
08:10I think the beginning Secretary of Treasury Benson was just on, I think, last night talking about tariffs.
08:21He says two-thirds of all the companies that they have talked to have now basically agreed with the U.S.
08:27And so those issues are out of the way.
08:29Just as they get out of the way, Trump put 50% tariffs this week on India, another 50% tariff on Brazil, which is crippling tariffs to businesses in those countries.
08:44In the case of India, he put it on because India said they're going to continue to buy Russian oil.
08:51And Trump is trying to have people stop buying Russian oil so that he can put pressure on Putin to end the war.
08:59And so he's using tariffs there for something that's not...
09:03You know, that's rather interesting.
09:05If India does that and that forces Putin to basically to get the war over, that would have a very positive benefit in that it would lower oil prices in general.
09:16Because it would take a lot of pressure by getting Ukraine back to a more normalized footing.
09:22So, yeah, a lot of good things would happen.
09:25So, it's one thing.
09:26It's had tariffs on Brazil because Brazil made a move with respect to, I believe it's its ex-president.
09:32And Trump didn't like the move.
09:34He thought that was not justified.
09:36So, he just slapped a 50% tariff on them.
09:39Again, he's trying to accomplish a number of things other than trade deals with the use of tariffs, just using the power of the U.S. economy.
09:49And I agree with Benson.
09:52I mean, Benson said two-thirds of the countries that they really want to deal with have already agreed to, and that includes the European Union country, which is basically our largest trading partner with the United States next to Mexico.
10:09So, what's happening here is Trump is just coming up with these tariffs.
10:14Now, tariffs, I continue to say, are disruptive.
10:19You just can't slap tariffs on a supply chain of 50% and not have some companies, some businesses adversely affected here in the U.S.
10:29And I think one of the reasons we're getting such mixed signals is because a lot of those businesses that are being harmed by tariffs are hurting a great deal.
10:39And that's reflected in some of the surveys that are showing us how weak the economy is.
10:44You will recall that back last November, we had forecast that Trump was going to be using tariffs for non-economic issues, which apparently he's doing.
10:56I still think he's going to run the table.
10:58He's going to get it done.
11:00How is it looking for interest rates, Bob, and why?
11:03Interest rates, the latest moves have been in a positive direction.
11:07I keep talking about the 10-year Treasury rate and the importance of the 4.5% yield.
11:17Now, why am I so stuck on that?
11:20It appears to me pretty clear that whenever that yield goes above 4.5%, financial markets are signaling that they don't have much confidence that we're going to get inflation under control.
11:31But when that rate goes below 4.5%, it's a signal in financial markets that financial markets are becoming more confident that we are getting inflation under control.
11:43Now, what's happened to that rate?
11:45It's gone from 4.5% to 4.4% to 4.3% to 4.25%.
11:50We're now at 4.25%.
11:52We're on the good side.
11:54And more important, we're heading down.
11:56So, the latest reaction in financial markets is that they're becoming a little more confident that inflation is going to be under control.
12:05Wonderful.
12:06Bob, the inaccuracy of the BLS jobs reports is now a big deal, particularly with the firing of BLS Commissioner Erica McEntaffer.
12:18I can pronounce that.
12:20McEntaffer.
12:21Was Trump right in getting rid of her?
12:24Yes.
12:26The numbers in the BLS have been terrible.
12:32They've been terrible for a long time.
12:36I read that there are 2,000 people putting those numbers together.
12:40And it's frustrating because we have one company, ADP, that does payrolls for 321 million workers.
12:51Now, the labor force is roughly 350 million.
12:54So, they have the payroll data every week, every month for basically the whole labor force and the real numbers.
13:03Now, what the labor department does is they take surveys and they ask people, are you employed, are you not employed?
13:11And they survey.
13:12And now they're complaining that a lot of people aren't answering the survey.
13:16So, they don't really have enough data.
13:18Well, they already have that ADP data and the government has more data than anyone can imagine because every company has to report on their payments to their workers every week almost, but definitely by every month.
13:34So, the government has all that data, they just haven't been able to take it and put it together in a meaningful way to give us reliable numbers.
13:41Well, I think they've got too many people.
13:43If you recall, back in early January, when the Department of Agriculture came out with the hog report, which is obviously very significant, that we came out and said that they had overstated the hog report, the size of the hog herd, by about a million and a half animals.
14:01Which, and we said that would be shown up in March, which is exactly what happened.
14:08And this occurs with just about anything the government does.
14:11So, the Labor Department, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is just typical of the fact that year after year, you've had a bureaucracy that has expanded and become progressively less efficient at performing the job that it's supposed to do.
14:27And so, I hope not only the head of the commission goes, I hope many of those people go, and that that system is totally reorganized and the government can make use of all the current data it has, because then we wouldn't be getting these crazy misleading...
14:41So, maybe the answer to getting better reports is to cut the size of the people who are doing the reporting and the analysis.
14:47Mm-hmm.
14:49Okay.
14:50With that, I want to wish everybody, say thank you, as usual.
14:53Have a nice weekend.
14:55Stay safe, and God bless America.
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