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00:11Good morning. Welcome to the Mars Report Fast 15. It is Friday, May 29, 2026. Hi to Don Day,
00:20our meteorological magician. Good morning. Good morning, Don. Morning. And hi to Isaac Issa,
00:30our hauler of logistics and the country's needs. How you doing, Isaac? Good morning, Gary. We
00:36probably hauled that hat for you. Probably. By the way, Don, is it now safe to wear the summer hat?
00:43Yes, it is now safe. Okay, I'm glad to hear that. And hi, Bob Janetsky, our economist who makes
00:51boring economics interesting and even comprehensible to everybody. Oh, great to be here, Gary.
01:00Don, we are hearing things are warming up in Western Europe. What's happening? Yeah, I mean,
01:0790 degree temperatures in the UK this week, some record-breaking temperatures in France.
01:12France. It's been very warm from Spain to France to England, and we'll be here for another couple of
01:18days. Ironically, while Western Europe has been hot, Eastern Europe has been cool and wet. But
01:24we're starting to see, you know, these areas of heat as we get into the start of the summer season.
01:31And this will be a recurring theme. I think what we're going to see as we get into summer is
01:36short-lived heat waves. They're not going to be persistent, but they're going to be found around
01:42the northern hemisphere at times. Let me ask you, does a heat wave in Western Europe bring the same
01:49high energy prices as a really cold winter? No, absolutely. I mean, you know, the thing too is
01:57they're very, Europe ended very low with natural gas reserves after the winter, because it was a fairly
02:04cold winter over in Europe. And a lot of the countries over there are low on natural gas, and now
02:10they're needing natural gas not to heat, but to run electricity for air conditioning.
02:15Well, they also destroyed all their power plants, particularly the nuclear power plants, with
02:22their strange green policies. They've sort of like been shooting themselves in the foot.
02:30How are the droughts doing, how are the droughts coming along in the southeastern U.S.?
02:34Well, good news for the south. From east Texas to Florida, through Georgia and Alabama, Mississippi,
02:41the Delta region, which has been in drought, is getting more rain, and they should be getting
02:47more. So I see the drought areas in the south continuing to see relief.
02:52Okay. When is your balloon flight getting off the ground?
02:55Well, we're getting...
02:56Your transatlantic flight.
02:57Yeah, our transatlantic flight. We've been waiting for the right weather window. We haven't had it yet,
03:02but we do see maybe an opportunity either late next week or shortly thereafter.
03:09Planning for a window opportunity is sort of like
03:12Eisenhower planning for the window of opportunity for D-Day.
03:16Well, it's not quite D-Day, but there's some similarities because what you need to have
03:23is you need to have logistics and the weather combined to where you need the weather to be
03:30good on the front end, on the way, and where you land. And so there's some similarities.
03:36You know, flight planning and planning for military operations are very similar. So there's a picture
03:43of what the balloon will look like. This is a picture from an attempt that was made last year,
03:49but the attempt had to be scuttled because of that balloon you see right there sprung a leak,
03:55and you don't want to be over the ocean in a leaky balloon.
03:59One would think. But this is not really a hot air balloon. What is it?
04:04Well, you see that truck there? Isaac knows what that is. So that's a hydrogen truck.
04:11So those tubes have hydrogen. So it's flying with hydrogen. So the lifting capabilities of
04:20hydrogen gas is the best, a little bit better than helium. And so they're going to be filling
04:25that up with several thousand cubic feet of hydrogen.
04:29You made some mention that they're using sandbags as fuel. How does that work?
04:34Yeah, I know. There are the three pilots, Peter Cuneo, Burt Padelt, and Alicia Hempelman-Adams,
04:42two U.S. and a U.K. pilot. And then there's your sandbags. So they'll be flying with hundreds of
04:50pounds of sand. And you might say, well, why do they do that? Well, that's the fuel, because releasing
04:56sand allows the balloon to go up. Releasing hydrogen out of the balloon makes the balloon go down. But
05:04you have to have what we call ballast, or the sand, available to control the balloon. And as you run
05:11out of sand over time, you run out of that ability to control. And here's a view up to show
05:17you all of
05:18those colors. All of those are sandbags. Well, I take it the water bottles are for drinking?
05:22And ballast as well. Yes. Interesting. And what will happen, you know, this gas ballooning can be
05:30crazy. What could happen, and this happens frequently, is you start throwing things overboard
05:37that you don't necessarily need to keep because you want that weight to leave your balloon.
05:46ballooning. So in the old days of ballooning, they would throw everything out. Their food,
05:50radios, sleeping bags, all of those things. So it's quite the adventure.
05:57So that's, I take it that's a top view of the roof, not the actual basket itself.
06:04No, that was the bottom of the basket you were seeing.
06:06Really? Yes. Interesting. Thank you. Let us know when this thing gets off the ground.
06:15Isaac, are the freight markets in recovery yet?
06:20Gary, we're seeing volumes come back, but slowly. We're not seeing no huge uptick in volumes
06:25necessarily, but we are in the middle. We're already starting a super cycle. All rates have
06:32surpassed COVID rates on the spot market. We peaked right around COVID, right around that $3.65 per
06:38mile on the spot market for drive-in freight. We're near $4 a mile today, and we're about two
06:45months into finally declaring that our freight recession is over. So we are already surpassing
06:51COVID-like rates only two months into this super cycle that we are now just starting to begin.
06:59So there's a lot of rates. I was actually looking at flatbed rates the other day. Some of them
07:04have surpassed $6, $7 per mile on average, right? About 12 months ago, these were $2.30, $2.50 a
07:11mile.
07:12They were $2.50 a mile, and now they're $6 and $7?
07:15It's astronomical. We've never seen, I've been doing this for 15 years. I've never seen rates
07:20this high and increase so quickly.
07:23How's the profitability?
07:27It's gaining. It's definitely widening up. Money's being made in trucking. Our smaller
07:33outfits now, our independent contractors are the biggest winners right now because they're
07:38the ones riding the spot market. Unfortunately, for the market, but fortunately for them, they're
07:44price gouging. A lot of these guys are bringing home $12,000 to $15,000 a week as truck drivers
07:50right now. Wait a second. $12,000 to $15,000 per week?
07:55$1,000 a week. That is correct. Those are real numbers. Those are the type of numbers that
07:59we saw during COVID. The independent contractors that are, that is, these guys are the guys who
08:04gamble, stay on the spot market, price gouging when there's an opportunity, and these guys
08:10are bringing home big bucks today. And again, the biggest key here that the industry is, the
08:17biggest thing that the industry is looking at right now, a lot of optimism, a lot of
08:20excitement. This just, this just started. This party has just begun. And again, that'd be
08:26redundant, but we have already surpassed COVID rates.
08:30Is the capacity still shrinking?
08:32It's all about the capacity. Again, it's not the demand that's driving this. This is 1 million
08:37percent capacity. The lack of capacity that's driving these rates.
08:41During a recovery is, when we've gone through a downturn in any economic cycle, during the
08:49recovery is when the bankruptcies are increasing. Are you seeing that in the trucking industry?
08:54We're not seeing it increasing, but we're also not seeing it settling down either. You know,
08:59BMO just came out with a report, you know, their deficiencies on their loans in trucking
09:04hasn't, hasn't settled down at all with, you know, the rates increasing the way they are.
09:09So, but, so to your point, you know, we, we haven't seen bankruptcies increase, but we're
09:14not seeing a whole lot of settling down either. People are growing, people are using that to
09:18fund growth right now.
09:20Okay. Thank you, Isaac. Dr. Bob, for weeks now, we have kept seeing the stock markets hitting
09:28new highs. Why is this happening?
09:29Nine consecutive weeks, Gary. Nine consecutive weeks.
09:34That's pretty good, actually.
09:36It's incredible. Yeah.
09:37Why is it happening?
09:39Why it's happening? Investors basically are looking at two things. One, they're anticipating
09:46that Trump is going to win with Iran, that that thing is going to be settled and it's going to
09:51be
09:51settled in a very positive direction. And second, the earnings reports are coming in spectacular.
09:57Last time I looked, they were coming in like 27% above a year ago, far greater than ever before.
10:05The original estimates were they were going to be up maybe 17% from a year ago. They were coming
10:11in at 27%,
10:12according to the last figures from a year ago. And that 27% puts them 40% above the long
10:21-term profit
10:21trend. So we are seeing just a spectacular burst in profits in the economy. And that's driving the
10:28optimism in the market. If you base the market, as I do for some of my analysis, on long-term
10:36profit
10:36trends, we are now something like 68% overvalued. And much of that overvalue is because the profits are
10:45coming in so much better than that long-term trend.
10:48We have been saying that inflation rates are temporary. Do you want to explain why we see
10:57them as temporary?
10:58Yes. And this is a fascinating chart. And Gary, you get credit for this. This was a great chart
11:04showing the percentage change in oil prices from the time of Trump's inauguration on January 20th of
11:142025. And you can see that during most of the period, oil prices were headed down as a result of
11:21the
11:21aggressive use of oil production, taking off all sorts of restraints, artificial restraints. And then
11:30all of a sudden, starting with the war, March, April, and May, we had a complete reversal with,
11:37instead of a decline in prices, we see huge increases in prices. That's totally associated with the war.
11:45As soon as the war is resolved, I would expect, and I think most people would expect that to go
11:51right
11:51back down again. Now, if you look at the futures markets, futures markets are not all that optimistic
11:57at the moment. They do believe that prices are going to go down, but they believe that prices will
12:03end up somewhere in the vicinity of $80 a barrel by the end of the year. So that's still a
12:08significant
12:09increase in prices. And that's- By the way, I think that the prices are going to go below 80.
12:15They're not going to go back to where they were. I do too. And Gary and I have been going
12:20back and
12:21forth on that. And obviously, neither one of us know. But $75 would be consistent with the gambling
12:29markets. $80 a barrel at the end of the year would be consistent with the futures markets. My guess,
12:37and I don't know about you, Gary, but I think it's going to be below 75. So I think that
12:42markets are going
12:43to adjust and we're going to see a significant drop once this thing is resolved. One of the things we've
12:50seen in the last three weeks, and Isaac, you may have a feeling about this, is that fuel prices are
12:57dropping gradually. The last three weeks, they've gone down both for diesel and for gasoline. Have
13:05you seen anything like that, Isaac? Oh, yeah. We stare at the prices on the way into work every
13:12single day. Yeah, they're going down, but to your point, gradually, right? They spike like a rocket.
13:17They fall like a feather. Bob, what are the highlights of the other economic indicators?
13:25What are they showing us? Well, again, we're going through such major changes, both with respect to
13:32still the changes from the Trump administration, but also the changes from the war in Iraq. So
13:38we've got a lot of things going on and the economic data reflect that. On a positive side, going into
13:46April, we see a spectacular, it looks to me to be a spectacular increase in new orders for durable goods,
13:54which should generate more employment and more better paying jobs as we go into the summer and fall. So
14:01that's the good news. The bad news is right through March, the economic data are much slower than I
14:08had anticipated. We're seeing increases in total wages. Now, total wages is all the wage increases
14:16that people will be getting normally, plus any new workers that are coming on. And that was usually
14:23coming in at five, six percent a year. In the past three and six months, the latest figures ending in
14:31April suggest that that's only coming up by three percent a year. That's not keeping tabs with
14:37inflation. And it suggests to me that a lot of the job games so far have not been in full
14:44-time jobs,
14:45but they've been in part-time jobs. So that's a negative for the economy. So we're looking at,
14:50again, when you have major changes, you see economic data all over the place. I still am
14:56convinced that as soon as the war is over, and the inflation comes down because of oil,
15:00we're going to see a spectacular rise in economic growth.
15:04I absolutely agree. Our question for the day, guys, is peace at hand with Iran finally? Don?
15:14I'm skeptical because this is what Iran does. They just draw things out. So I'm a little skeptical
15:23right now. Bob? Yeah, I have Don skepticism as well. I do not trust Iran. They
15:34if you look at what that country has done to its people and the repression, and if you look at
15:41the
15:41polls that have been taken, which are again questionable, but they show 70 to 80 percent
15:47of the country's population does not want the Alatola and does not want to live the way that
15:53they've been living before. These are people that are terribly oppressed, and we have a regime that
15:58basically wants to create trouble, not just for its neighbors, but for the United States. It's an
16:04awful regime, and I don't think that they are going to settle calmly for anything. They will agree
16:10to anything, and write anything on paper. But I think Trump is smart enough to insist that at each
16:17step of the way, before they get anything, they're going to have to prove that they mean what they say.
16:24Isaac, and your take on this? You have contacts over in the Middle East.
16:28I agree with both Don and Bob, but I am very optimistic. I'm hoping there's a deal to be made
16:33here very, very soon. I'm looking forward to not only peace, you know, for all, but an economic boom
16:40from the likes that we haven't seen in quite a bit. So, very optimistic.
16:46I am guardedly optimistic because I see the pressures are quite strong on Iran and what their
16:54situation is intolerable. But for our midterm elections, waiting them out would not be difficult.
17:03So, that's the only political point on our end. With that, I want to have a nice weekend,
17:10be well, stay safe, and God bless America.
17:33God bless America.
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