- 2 days ago
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:19Welcome to the Myers Report Friday Fast 15.
00:23It is August 7th, 2026. We're heading into the close of our summer.
00:31Welcome to Dawn Day, our weather forecaster with the moistest who will give us an update on the fire.
00:40That was supposed to be the moistest, but moistest I figured was clever.
00:44Nobody, whatever.
00:45Okay, Isaac Issa is back from his Travels and Travails, and he has an update on trucking and costs.
00:53Bob Janetsky, our super economist, is riding the waves of change with market analyses.
00:59He's going to show us how to surf the changes from Michigan.
01:07Why not?
01:08Dawn Day, what's happening with the fires in the Northwest?
01:13Now we've got fires out there.
01:17Yeah, well, certainly very dry.
01:19This is a dry time of year in the Pacific Northwest anyways.
01:25But we certainly had a situation with the dryness and the drought, the time of year.
01:32Then you put arson on top of that, and you've got a mess like they have in Spokane.
01:36But there's other big wildfires in Oregon and Idaho.
01:40It is fire season.
01:42Some of these were started by lightning, but some of these, like the Spokane fire, the result of being intentionally
01:47set.
01:48What percentage of the fires are historically set by lightning versus arson?
01:56So just a little over 10% of fires are naturally started, wildfires.
02:01More than 80%, 87% of the latest statistics, fires are started by humans, either intentionally or by just being
02:11careless.
02:12So to paraphrase Smokey the Bear, only you can start a forest fire.
02:18That is really true.
02:19But, you know, there's other things.
02:20And this is something that just does not get talked about and not reported on, is that the forest management
02:28in this country, in the Western United States, went through some really big changes in the 80s and 90s.
02:35And we're paying for that now.
02:37And I'm going to go ahead and share my screen here.
02:41Go, Don.
02:42So speaking of the Pacific Northwest, I'm sure a lot of you probably remember the big controversy about the spotted
02:50owl.
02:51Yes.
02:52And how the environmental movement pushed very hard to end logging in Washington and Oregon and parts of the Pacific
03:02Northwest due to spotted owl habitat.
03:05Their argument was logging was removing the habitat.
03:10One second.
03:11Isn't logging, when they log, doesn't that, don't they replant trees and trees grow back so it's self-sustaining?
03:19You're being extremely logical, but that doesn't have room.
03:24Logic has no room in the minds of environmentalists, I'm afraid.
03:27A lot of them, not all.
03:29As you'll see here in the graphic.
03:31So basically what they did by stopping logging and taking timber harvest from 12 billion board feet a year to
03:422 billion.
03:43I mean, that's how much it dropped after the spotted owl designation went in for the endangered species.
03:50So what they did was, by doing that, caused a situation where fuels built up, dead timber was sitting there.
04:00So you have a situation where fires, when they start, get out of control because you're not logging and managing
04:07the forest.
04:08So this is what's happened.
04:10This is just classic government.
04:13The spotted owl population since then has dropped by 85%.
04:17Not because of logging, because of the lack of logging, because their habitat's burning.
04:27Oh, geez.
04:30Now, recently in the past couple of years, you may or may not have heard that the government now wants
04:35to shoot another owl, barred owls, because the barred owls are aggressive against the spotted owls.
04:42And the barred owl population's going up and is threatening the spotted owl.
04:46So they've gone from stopping foresting to let's shoot birds.
04:50I'm not kidding.
04:55The insanity of this is hard to imagine.
04:59Right.
04:59And a lot of this goes back to the Clinton era.
05:01And so here's a statistic.
05:03I have a good friend who's a retired U.S. Forest Service forester, lives in Wyoming here.
05:09And he's provided me this information.
05:12Okay, so in 1992, there were over 5,000 foresters on staff at the U.S. Forest Service, basically to
05:20manage logging and putting out, you know, the bidding out of the logging that takes place.
05:27That's gone down to, in 2018, to, you know, one-fourth, one-third of the amount that they had before.
05:34Now, this graph really shows you.
05:37So, you know, I'm not just making this stuff up.
05:39When you look at the number of board feet harvested on the, those are the black bars, then you overlay
05:49the number of acres that have burned since.
05:53Okay, so, so basically the story here is reducing logging doesn't necessarily mean you have more forest.
06:02Reducing logging means poor management, and you add the human element in of arson and carelessness, and you can see
06:10how many millions of acres have burned while they reduce timber cutting.
06:15So it's pretty dramatic.
06:17The data is, without a doubt, shows that it's like all good, you know, good intentions can be, lead you
06:24to hell, right?
06:24Well, let me ask you something.
06:27The forest fires create smoke.
06:29Yes.
06:30And debris that goes into the air.
06:33Isn't that more damaging to the economy than anything, particularly CO2?
06:39Well, ask the 7, 800 home people who own the 7, 800 homes in Spokane that have burned up.
06:45You know, to answer your question, yes, smoke isn't healthy.
06:49Forest fire smoke is natural.
06:50I mean, it's been around since the dawn of time.
06:52But not on this level.
06:54Not at this level, no.
06:56Exactly.
06:57So, you know, what people are rushing to do is they're blaming this on climate change.
07:01But you can only blame the weather for a little bit of this argument.
07:08Wow.
07:11Switching gears, Isaac Issa, Trump recently announced that military veterans who drove heavy trucks
07:19will be automatically CDL eligible and replace a lot of the illegals that were drivers that are, you know,
07:27that are being pulled off the road.
07:29Is this going to be enough to move the needle on supplying enough drivers to the country?
07:35No, no, it won't be enough.
07:37There's approximately about 60,000 drivers who have already been taken out of service over the last 12 months.
07:43Some are projecting close to about 200,000 as this tightening of regulation continues.
07:49And this was just announced.
07:51The veteran initiative was just announced last month.
07:54Some say, some are projecting it should produce about 20,000, 30,000 truck drivers to replace the already 60
08:01,000 that have removed.
08:02But the big key here is we've already taken out tens of thousands of drivers out of the available pool.
08:09Freedom haulers, these veterans, creates a very good pipeline to replace some of that capacity.
08:15But a pipeline isn't the same thing as trucks being seeded today.
08:19And freight that needs to be moved today.
08:21You can rebuild capacity overnight, like we've seen, but you can't rebuild qualified capacity overnight.
08:28One of the questions, it would seem also, is irrespective of getting the veterans in, they're still going to need
08:36some training, I would imagine,
08:38because some of those trucks, the trucks aren't necessarily the same as military vehicles,
08:44and these conditions on our highways are not the same as those in Iraq.
08:49Yes, yes, correct.
08:50They'll need some training, but this program is to fast track a lot of that training.
08:56It eliminates the, not eliminates, it significantly reduces the training, the written portion knowledge of the CDL exam,
09:08also significantly reduces the skills portion on the CDL exam.
09:13But it really goes back to, you know, to your point, Gary, it's our industry.
09:18You know, we went from, you know, we're in a tightening of a capacity environment.
09:22You know, we just came out of a 40-month freight recession, you know, as we've talked about, you know,
09:27time and time again.
09:28It's not necessarily a capacity issue.
09:31Even today, with capacity that's left to market, we still have a qualified driver issue.
09:37There's not nearly enough qualified drivers on our roads than what, you know, than what needs to be to move
09:46the freight here in America.
09:47Okay, how's service holding up across the industry right now with the driver shortage?
09:56It's deteriorating, absolutely crumbling.
09:59Routing guides across the entire industry are crumbling week over week.
10:04Rates, you know, rate increases are happening.
10:08Some of the, I guess, I'd say it's smarter shippers, you know, got ahead of this in early May, late
10:14April,
10:15when carriers like myself are signaling it.
10:17We have one of our larger customers where, you know, that we had to put in a 60-day resignation
10:23about 45 days ago.
10:25And we're two weeks away from that, you know, for us walking away from this freight.
10:29Now they're coming back.
10:30We're at once, we needed a 4% rate increase.
10:33When driver pay started itching up, we just submitted a 24% rate increase.
10:37And it's, and it's, it's...
10:39Oh, wait a second.
10:40You were looking originally for 4%, but the market conditions caused you to go to 24%?
10:46The market conditions over the last 60 days, specifically, in driver pay has forced us to go to 24%.
10:5724%.
10:57And that's what we're seeing.
10:58DAT, which is a huge truckload platform.
11:02Schneider as well, actually, as well.
11:04Well, you know, spot rates are up right now 39% year over year.
11:10Rates are screaming.
11:13Drivers who've been kicked in the face financially for the last 40 months want to make money.
11:18You know, I just did a big, you know, to, I just did a big report about a week ago
11:23on driver pay.
11:25And I pulled up a bunch of recent, you know, in the last 5, 6, 7 days, Indeed ads for
11:32specifically teen driver pay out of Texas.
11:35Now, Texas is a whole other beast within itself, which once was, not too long ago, 3, 4 years ago,
11:40a backhaul market.
11:42We'd go into Texas making money, 250, 260 mile, come out of Texas, 90 cents a mile, literally running at
11:50a loss after fuel and driver pay.
11:52Texas, because of the cross-border activity, has become a boom market in transportation.
11:59There's ads for teen drivers specifically out of San Antone.
12:04Did you say teen or team?
12:07Team, team.
12:08Two drivers in a truck.
12:10Team.
12:10Okay.
12:11Hey, Isaac, I have a question.
12:14And we're seeing some signs since the beginning of the year of a sharp acceleration in business activity.
12:24What's the volume you're seeing here?
12:26Are you seeing an increase in volume or not?
12:28Slightly.
12:30Slightly.
12:30Just a slight increase in demand.
12:31If anything, the only, so to answer your question, slight increase, this is very much driven by a capacity issue,
12:41everything that I'm describing.
12:42Slight uptick, but also to that point, Bob, it's a lot of the imports we're seeing are coming in to
12:50build data centers right now.
12:52So the increased uptick is primarily for that segment of the economy, like, but yeah.
13:00So that's what we're seeing.
13:02But I do want to share this.
13:03We're talking about just some staggering numbers.
13:06You had a dollar a mile to company drivers out of San Antonio where 12 months ago was $0.55
13:14a mile, $0.60 a mile, $0.65 a mile would have been considered high.
13:19$10,000 sign-on bonuses that we haven't seen since the heart of COVID, and it took 12 months to
13:27get there.
13:27We're three, maybe four, three and a half months into this, and we're already surpassing COVID sign-on bonuses, COVID
13:35spot rate, spot rates.
13:38There's a couple companies, one that I saw because the silliness has started, and the drivers are seeing this.
13:46For owner-operator teams, so two men in a truck, two men, two people in a truck that own their
13:52truck, so not a company driver where they're going right now is a dollar a mile,
13:55which is approximately $3,000 a week per driver, you had, I pulled up some advertisements off of Indeed, real
14:04data, $650,000 a year for team drivers.
14:10Now, mind you, that split, so three and a quarter apiece for truck drivers.
14:13That's still a lot of money.
14:16The last time I told my in-laws these stories during COVID, my in-law, my mother-in-law, who's
14:23a nurse, said,
14:24Isaac, I got to go get my CDL.
14:25I go, listen up, listen up, you need to stay home with the dogs, okay?
14:30So, yeah, it's happening.
14:32It's happening.
14:33For me, it's, you know, we're very optimistic.
14:36Again, the industry, you know, I could say this all day, but the industry, you know, it's not necessarily an
14:41inflation issue.
14:42It's a, you know, we've suffered from deflation over the last 40 months, and this is, you know, shipper transportation
14:48bills finally coming up.
14:51But to me, the biggest thing to point out is three months into this cycle, we've already surpassed every spot
14:59rate per mile benchmark, every sign-on bonus advertising, you know, all of it.
15:05We've already surpassed it three months into it where it took us 12 months to get to in COVID.
15:11Okay, thank you, Isaac.
15:13Bob, oil prices fell back to $78.
15:17They're now $77 and changed.
15:20How did the stock markets react to the drop in oil prices?
15:24Well, the stock market has been reacting, I think, to two things.
15:29One is the drop in oil prices, but the drop in oil prices is a response to what's happening with
15:35the war in Iran.
15:37And about a week ago, we went from one extreme to the other.
15:41The extreme went from, uh-oh, we're going to be involved in this for a long, long time, to all
15:47of a sudden, President Trump saying that, no, things are just about settled for a deal.
15:54And the markets react to that.
15:56And they've been believing that very significantly because for the past five days, we've seen nothing but up markets, very
16:03strong up markets.
16:05But it's not just an up market, as Isaac alluded to.
16:09The real strength in the market is from the data centers and from AI.
16:14We're seeing an absolute revolution in the economy, something that last occurred with the Internet and with the iPhone.
16:23It's creating the potential for a huge increase in productivity.
16:28And the question is, when do we start to see this?
16:30And I think we're starting to see the first signs of it right now at the middle of the year.
16:34Up to now, I've been talking about business surveys being in conflict with S&Ps showing the economy just barely
16:43moving ahead.
16:45And another different set of surveys showing the economy booming.
16:49Well, in July, they both kind of agreed.
16:52The S&P says, well, we're revising our assessment.
16:55We think the economy is now booming, too.
16:58So we're also seeing back in June, real strong new orders in manufacturing.
17:04But in July, it looks like the service sector of the economy is also really strong.
17:09So a lot of signs here that we're going to be growing.
17:14The Atlanta Fed does an estimate very early based on the data they're looking at.
17:19And they are assuming real growth in the third quarter is going to be something like 6% relative to
17:26real growth of maybe 1% or 2% in the second quarter.
17:29So that would be a huge change.
17:32I don't believe their figures.
17:34They're very erratic.
17:36They go up and down.
17:38But they are seeing at least preliminary signs of a real shift in economic activity.
17:43This is all in line with our forecast that we thought the second half of the year would be a
17:48very strong half.
17:49We also expect inflation to be coming down.
17:52But, Isaac, if you guys are going to keep raising your rates, inflation is going to come down very slowly
17:57or not at all.
18:00Thank you, Dr. Bob.
18:02I do have to add this.
18:04What?
18:04I do have to add this.
18:06What, Isaac?
18:06Yeah, trucking companies raising their rates.
18:08But that is very much cost-precious for driver pay right now.
18:13These are drivers.
18:15I'm spending most of my day trying to communicate with customers on the whys and trying to talk my drivers
18:21down on the whys.
18:22Right?
18:23We need our customers.
18:24We're not here to price gouge.
18:25And it's trying to keep that balance right now.
18:27So this is not, you know, mind you, the trucking companies, you know, we're getting back margin.
18:33But this is not a price-gouging trucking company situation.
18:38This is a calm-down truck driver.
18:41You know, I know you're backed up.
18:44But you're going to make some money.
18:46But it can't all be made in a month.
18:47Calm down.
18:49That's what's really going on here.
18:52Thank you, guys.
18:53Okay.
18:54Our question for the week.
18:56With the big election interference reveals that have been coming out, and there are more coming out yet, what do
19:05you think the impact is going to be on the midterm elections?
19:08Don Day.
19:09You know, it's hard to say.
19:11I don't know if all of this is coming out in time to have a big impact or not.
19:16Let's hope positive.
19:18But I think it may have to wait until the next cycle.
19:22Isaac.
19:24Yeah, I agree with Don.
19:26Let's hope positive.
19:28But I'm not as optimistic as I would have been six months ago.
19:33Bob Janetsky.
19:34I'm still a wide-eyed optimist.
19:36I think things are going to turn out really well here.
19:39But we have to wait and see.
19:42I am also optimistic about it.
19:46I won't even say guardedly optimistic.
19:48I think that the news is coming out, and I believe that the American public is going to be outraged
19:54over the foreign interference and the bad things that were going on.
20:02Be that as it may, I think our country absolutely will prevail.
20:06In terms of our Constitution, we will prevail economically.
20:10Our system will prevail.
20:13I think the tide has turned.
20:15With that, be well.
20:16Have a nice weekend.
20:18Stay safe.
20:19And God bless America.
Comments