want to buy. You wouldn’t have to
go through all this nonsense of
negotiation. But in our free market,
it doesn’t work that way. It would
have tremendous ramifications.
That is a huge threat on the horizon,
and we have increased our presence
on Capitol Hill to deal with that.
A related issue is that of taxation.
We fought a provision in Texas two
years ago that would have taxed
service industries at their gross revenue level, not at net cost.
Washington and we don’t like what
you’re doing.”
Q
Let’s shift gears a little. What
are the biggest challenges
your members face in serving their
customers these days?
AWell, the biggest challenge
right now is the lack of freight.
Everybody is facing it. As a result,
we’re seeing the strong preying on
the weak to get more volume—for
example, they might be offering to
pay the carriers even faster.
try are really hurt. But I talked to a small
member last week who does a lot of work
with a box company—a cardboard box
company—and its freight is picking up.
I have a call out to the oracle of Delphi,
but she hasn’t returned my call yet, so I am
not sure. I hope it is soon.
Q
That would be a bit onerous,
wouldn’t it?
AYes, very onerous, and other
states are looking at this same
thing, so as an industry we have got
to get our hands around this. We
have to figure out how to mobilize
the opposition at the state level
because, frankly, no state wants
somebody from Washington coming in and saying, “We are from
Q
I almost hesitate to ask
because nobody wants to go
out on a limb and make a prediction, but we have to go through the
routine. Is there an end in sight to
this freight recession?
AI don’t know. I’m hearing different things from the group’s
members. The members who are
heavily involved in the auto indus-
Q
We all do. I recall market analyst John
Larkin saying at your annual conference, “Every day we are in this situation, we
are one day closer to being out of it.”
AWell, I think that’s right. I recently
went back and read Franklin
Roosevelt’s first inaugural address. In it, he
told the people that things were not as bad
as they had been in the past. We are not
plagued by locusts and other biblical
plagues that our forefathers persevered
through.
Things are certainly better today than
they were when Roosevelt took office. What
we have—and what America in 1933 didn’t
have—is a modern sophisticated logistics
and distribution system. In March 1933, in
the depth of the Great Depression, we left
food rotting in the fields because we couldn’t get it to market. We don’t have any of
those problems. At the depth of the
Depression in 1933, we had 25 percent
unemployment. Today, we are pushing at
10 percent—or maybe a little less.
Anyway, we have great things in place.
Now that we have passed the stimulus bill,
everything should be good. It is time to
start instilling hope instead of selling fear.
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Q
The economic environment aside,
what does the future of logistics
hold? If we were to take a nap and wake up
10 years from now, what would the market
look like?
AOh, man, if I knew exactly what the
market would look like 10 years from
now, I would be really fat, dumb, and
happy.
I think it will look a lot like it does today
but with more logistics companies. Over
the past 20 years, shippers have shed jobs
from what used to be their traffic departments. They are not going to hire those
back. They are going to have high-level
experts in their systems to oversee outsourced providers and work with them in
partnership.
