Trucking is in Trouble.

0:00From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now, or learn the stuff they don't want you to know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello. Welcome back to the show, my name is Matt. My name is Noel. They call me Bed. We're joined as always with our super producer, Dylan, the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. And let's give it up for the truckers. If you work in the transit, it's so cool. If you work in the transit or transportation industry, which as we'll see touches so many things, this one is for you because every single day in the United States and indeed

1:06around the world, billions of supplies, resources, products, they move through these labranteen network logistics, right? These global trade patterns and obviously, guys, we know air freight plays a big role, but it's so expensive that it's often impractical and cargo ships are irreplaceable. Check out our episodes on those, but you're not going to see a cargo ship barreling up by 75. Yeah. No, no matter how that cargo gets on to like a mainland, there is always going to have to be a truck that takes that stuff off of the dock, a truck that takes that stuff to a warehouse somewhere, you know, it, yeah, as you're saying, Ben, it doesn't go from plain to your Walmart. No, it's the thing that fairies the goods to its final destination. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Great. We are fans of trains, I think, as a group, but trains can only go where the railroad tracks

2:08let them go. So eventually, to your point, no, all cargo has to find a way to get to your grocery store, to your place of work, to your doorstep. Trucking is what makes it possible. For sure. And yeah, you know, it's, I've known some long haul truckers in my day and they really truly are irreplaceable in terms of their ability to do the job, the stamina that it requires to do that job. And you know, you want good ones out there who drive safe, you know, how am I driving? If someone's not doing well, you should maybe call that number. We know there are a ton of you out there listening right now in trucks. That's true. We do hear from you. Yes. Of course. You call in all the time. You send us emails all the time. Or you're doing the hard work so that we can have the stuff. And just as we said, we really do appreciate you. And I think anybody, you know, who's paying attention really appreciates you.

3:09Yeah. You're a big part of our show, one of our favorite parts of the show. And fellow conspiracy realist, whether you are in this industry or not in this industry, it does touch you. And the reality now, as we record on Friday, April 10th, 2026, is this trucking is in trouble. This is an I heart podcast guaranteed human. At the UPS store, we ensure your small viz stands out with a variety of high quality paper stock options, banners, posters, brochures and more. Most locations are independent. We owned product services pricing and hours of operation, a theory, see center for details. The UPS store, be unstoppable, come into your local store today and get your print on. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter and on my podcast, 2%. I break down the signs of mental toughness, fitness and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side, a happier,

4:12more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%, that's T-W-O percent on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Take us around, tell y'all right now, go get yours at blackaffect.com slash podcast festival. Don't play yourself, okay? Pull up.

5:15On paper, the three hosts of the Nick Dick and Polchow are geniuses. We can explain how AI works, data centers, but there are certain things that we don't necessarily understand. Better version of Play, Stupid Games, When, Stupid Brises, which by the way wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually thought it was, I got that wrong. But hey, no one's perfect, we're pretty close though. Listen to the Nick Dick and Polchow on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Here are the facts. All right, we said it before, but it bears repeating, most people have no idea that so much of the economy depends entirely upon this thing we call the trucking industry, like after all, it doesn't matter what you make. Even if you make the best widget in the world, it's Bupkiss unless you can get it to

6:15your customers. And this has been the way of the developed world since the mass adoption of the automobile in the 20th century. I mean, guys, remember, like before trucks were a thing, freight came on trains, right, came on ships, or you would have to find an unlucky horse and say, ride this wagon with me out to Bikipsi. Well, it's another reason that things like spiking oil prices are felt beyond just the price that you pay at the pump, because those increases get factored into the whole system. And that whole, you know, labyrinthine network of logistics that go into making sure that the stuff gets where it's going in a timely fashion and gets to you. So when we have stuff like that happening in the world, it's causing stuff like we're having happened right now in the world that causes these fluctuations and inconsistencies, you know, in oil prices, that is something that you are paying for, whether you drive

7:17a car or not. Yeah. And way before the invention of the automobile or the rule out, we had the same problems with transit, you know, like, oh, is horse feed increasing, right? What's our fuel? Shout out to Apollo, very big opinions on that one of the pre automobile, the logistics of getting stuff from point A to point Z were cartoonish. It was a messy bulless spaghetti. It was a bad bag of badgers. It was a hard barrier, seriously, to economic growth, because stuff could only go from one place to another at a certain non ideal rate of time and trucking fundamentally changes all of that because it revolutionizes transit. It revolutionizes, therefore, the world economy over all. We know that trucks first get extensively used by the military, like so many other technologies

8:19back in World War One. Yeah. In the past, just how important rivers are to any country, anywhere you live. You will notice that there are major metropolitan areas, usually right next to a river. A huge river, a river that is large enough to send large boats down. And that was because, along with real, that river was the only way to get massive, heavy amounts of goods from one place to another. And this concept of having another way to do that requires a bunch of things. The first thing that you need is roads, right? Because you can't have a whole bunch of heavy stuff clinking around on a big truck. Even if you got a big truck, it doesn't matter if the stuff you're carrying from A to B gets destroyed along the way because your truck can't handle whatever it is you're riding on. You didn't think of the shocks. You didn't think of the suspension. Yeah.

9:19Like, okay, so it's the 1930s at this point in the story. The civilian side of the industry begins to blossom in step with that earlier point, the rollout of paved road networks. And at this juncture in history, folks, automobiles still have that kind of new car smell. We're in a honeymoon period with them. Not everybody is a fan. There are lots of people complaining. These cars are too loud. There are a lot of breathless hit pieces in the media of the day. And there are a lot of public safety concerns because people are being run over by cars. Yeah. The conspiracy of J walking, right? Well, for sure. That's its own thing. Again, kind of putting the onus onto the consumer, right? Like now all of a sudden, if you're walking, you're part of the problem because you're like some sort of luddite. But also, hey, good thing we had lead, right? Quiet down those knocking engines. Stop knocking. Yeah.

10:20Stop knocking. Give us more serious murderers and crime epidemics. Check out our earlier episode. I think about the stories that were sold to the American people to take on this massive expense of building all of these roads and highways across the United States, all the interstates and stuff. This is 1956, the creation of the interstate highway system, which was pitched to the public as an issue of national defense, which is also, I have a really weird paper about this. We should consider public health care a matter of national defense. So if you're feeling swirly, send us an email and we'll send you the paper. Yeah. And one of the primary things is sold to us as freedom. The freedom to get in your car that you probably have now are considering getting and you could drive anywhere you want. You could go anywhere you want, like this concept of the freedom of mobility.

11:22It really is an infrastructure gold mine for folks who have industry who produce goods and want to get them places. Absolutely. 100%. We know that this leads to the creation of local, regional and national government policies about especially the public outcry earlier about what vehicles can drive where and when and how long a driver can be allowed to operate a vehicle each day or each week. The interstate highway system is amazing, not too nerd out too much about it. But this changed the United States and therefore the world. It also made the trucking industry more effective, more efficient, more reliable and above all, more profitable. So it's a study in revolution. That's what the trucking industry is. Well, and as we've already kind of alluded with the truck driving, then are the industry

12:28as it, you know, kind of evolves and experiences this revolution. It becomes not just an economic piece on the board, but a piece of culture, an inextricably linked piece of American culture, this idea that sort of further emphasize that freedom that we're talking about. The open road truckers, this idea of them as being the modern cowboys almost in a way, right? Like that. Yeah, everybody listening now, please tonight, after this episode finishes, get the to your favorite audio platform of choice and check out Convoy, a song by CW McCall. Do not check out the sequel to Convoy, which did not age well. But do check out Convoy, check out things like, man, Cannonball run. This is the age of that in the zeitgeist. You can see so many songs and films about driving the open road, about that freedom, that

13:32freedom of movement, which doesn't happen in a lot of other countries. And trucking had this moment during the 1960s and 1970s, especially. We also see in step with this that the industry's workforce becomes a powerful voice of labor and workers rights. They're participating in strikes that donated to campaign to teamsters, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also participating in pretty gnarly corruption and linked up with the mob, shout out, Jamie Hoffa. But that's a discussion for other day. But Ben, I think it's so interesting, this idea of like, obviously that thing that we're talking about, this sort of line that was sold to the American people as freedom, it is kind of a line. I mean, it is very much like a way of tying something that is economically viable and super important to the economy and tying it to some sort of like romanticized vision of freedom, like almost like motorcycles, riding motorcycles and stuff like movies like

14:37Easy Rider. You see the same romanticization of that open road and freedom of all that associated with truck driving. But it very much is a gig and something that, you know, we absolutely rely on, you know, to get our stuff. And ultimately, these kinds of arguments always are at heart arguments about national defense. That's why even unsuccessful airlines don't really shut down, they get acquired by other airlines, right? Well, into your point about the lobbying power, let's say, of the, the teamsters union. I mean, that's power right there because a strike would bring industry to its very knees, right? 100%. Yeah. And that was leveraged by folks like Hoffa and it is the kind of power that can lead to corruption, of course. Another thing that's happening in the 1970s as we're talking about this depiction of

15:39the American trucker on screen, which is, you know, often in Hollywood, that is how we kind of get these iconic images burned into our minds of what a thing is or what a thing means. And in this time, we are dealing with an unprecedented energy crisis from 1973 all the way to 1980, which makes me wonder about the need to instill in the American public a desire to chase after a job like being a trucker because with an energy crisis, very similar to what's happening right now has a lot to do with Israel and Iran, Yom Kapoor war, a lot of stuff going on out there with this unprecedented energy costs that exist, corporations, companies that need to get their goods places have to rely on the trucking industry, but the trucking industry is this whole separate thing. And then it becomes just like we're going to get into today in the 1970s an argument about who actually bears the cost of these rising energy prices.

16:40Ooh, ooh, Matt, I think you're talking about the like, you're talking about like gas shortages, right? Like they hit the American consumers. Really incredibly well depicted in the movie, licorice pizza. I mean, it's sort of a comedy coming of age kind of thing, Paul Thomas Anderson movie, but there's a whole section of it where you're seeing that in real time as it affects the San Fernando Valley in those Los Angeles area. And effect is the key word there, no, because a lot of a lot of people outside of that industry, outside of trucking and transit, don't realize that transport as a concept is intimately tied into so many other industries. I would say the majority of industries in the United States, which means that breakthroughs in those businesses or changes for better or worse in those businesses will affect trucking. It is our canary as an economy. So you could think obviously about improvements in auto design, of course, but you also have

17:41to think about communications technology, refrigeration, et cetera. This all brings us to the modern day. The trucking industry in the United States alone is worth over $900 billion. It is so difficult to say that without doing the doctor evil voice, but almost, gosh, like almost 75% I think it's 72% of all domestic freight by weight is going to be on a truck at some point before it gets to you. There are like 15 million large trucks on the road, guys, that's a full 5% of all registered motor vehicles. If you want to nerd out with us and learn more of the specifics about Mac trucks and semis and all that cool stuff, and also, you know, the guys hauling bio hazards, please check out previous episodes of car stuff, but I guess the key point here that we want to convey

18:45is that we are talking about millions of jobs, millions. Yes, we are. Guys, I recently took a trip out Tennessee way to the mountains out there of kind of is right at the corner of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. We all know that place, that area over there. And as you're going through those mountains, you are seeing so many trucks that are either a climbing up one of these mountain roads or careening down, right? And you see on the sides, on the left hand sides of a lot of these roads, places for the trucks to go off as like an emergency brake system. To, you know, in case your brakes burn up a little bit, you got to save yourself over there. I'm imagining this entire situation, the one currently happening with the trucking industry and oil prices and all of this stuff, as like trucks, as one big truck, careening down

19:45the Tennessee mountains out there and needs, there needs to be some kind of off ramp because the, as the prices continue to soar and all these problems build up that we're going to get into today, somebody needs to build a dang off ramp real quick. And we, somebody needs to save the dang truck so it can continue on. Sorry, I just got that picture. It's a good one. I love it. I've seen, you guys know that Dylan and I have some roots in Tennessee, especially in the mountainous areas. So I've actually seen some trucks who had to pull that ramp and it is scary. It's like learning a hippo can actually run. If you've been through that, we would love to hear a story like if you've, if that's actually happened to you, please email us or call our number. We'll tell you about it at the end of this episode. And we have high statistical confidence that we will hear a story from you fellow conspiracy realists because going back to our earlier point, this industry alone employs over 8.4

20:47million people, approximately 3.5 million of those folks are directly truck drivers. And by the way, thanks for tuning in, guys, unlike other industries, this sector is still dominated by small businesses, like the majority of companies operating and trucking. They are running 100 or fewer trucks. So you can still mom and pop this for now. And we're, I think it's safe to say we are all grateful for trucking. I certainly am. Not just because it makes the modern economy possible, but also because truckers are a huge part of our audience. So thank you for having us ride along with you and safe travels on the road. We're big, big fans. And this has always, it's always been a study in change and evolution. But now it seems some unprecedented paradigm shifts are on the horizon.

21:47We lightly mentioned rising cost of fuel. We didn't mention the rising cost of insurance, the concept of freight recession, economic downturns, inflation, the ever increasing threat of automation. These things have all combined in a very mean case idea to squeeze trucking in a way we have not seen before in history. Trucking is in trouble. So what is happening here and what does it mean for the future? We're going to pause for a word from our sponsors and we'll dive in. And Doug. There's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show. Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this your first date? Oh no, we help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Need a human? Him to a bird. Yeah. The bird looks out of your leg anyways. Only pay for what you need at Liberty Mutual.com.

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25:55Alright, we can start with the present issues, all of which have been widely acknowledged for some time now but appear to be worsening in recent years. First, guys, not to sound like Andy Rooney from 60 minutes but what's the deal with the economy? Wait, that was sign felt. But yeah, economic issues. Well, let's go back to that statistic we threw out earlier, 99.3% of companies that are in this business operate 100 or fewer trucks. That means they're a small business. That means that when let's say a single truck goes out and their fuel price, their cost of operation, just when it comes to fuel has doubled or maybe at some point triples. Sure. If you think about, if you've ever expensed something for a company, if you've ever kept track of how far you've traveled or how much fuel you've used in a vehicle when you're traveling for work or something, you imagine, okay, well, that money goes back to the bigger entity,

26:57that bigger entity pays those prices. The end user, unless you're an owner operator and you've got a specific contract, usually you're not as the truck driver paying for that stuff. Although there are situations where you will be on the line for that, but the biggest deal here with a smaller business, if you only got 100 trucks, and now every single one of those trucks out there has doubled the cost of taking a trip across the United States. That has tremendous impact now because you are such a small operation, right? You imagine it would have a big impact no matter what size of the company, but the operation cost of the smaller company, it just becomes, it becomes a much more dire situation much more quickly. Right. Because you can't soak stuff up. You can't make the, you can't make the classic handshake backroom favorable interest rate on a loan. That's fascinating. I didn't realize how many of these, or these operations were so small, I guess I think

28:01of like, you know, swift, for example, or some of the larger ones that you maybe think of. But it makes sense. I mean, so many trucks are also owned, owner-operated. Yeah, you might have an individual, but that number really kind of blew me away. So it really is kind of the same sort of problems you see facing small businesses when the big boys swoop in, you know, the Wal-Mart's and the Barnes and Nobles and the way they affect like smaller retail shops or booksellers and things like that. 100%. Yeah. Well put, because trucking is so deeply tied to so many other industries that you might not recognize at first blush. Trucking therefore becomes a kind of canary in this country's economic coal mine. So when companies and consumers buy less stuff or make less stuff, truckers have less to transport. And when other industries stop creating all their widgets and all their goodies, or when

29:07factories close their doors, which is happening pretty often now, trucking takes a hit. If you want to, you know, I, guys, I am slowly, reluctantly becoming impressed with Newsweek, popular American publication. Back in 2025, they had a phenomenal article about the trends and they said, quote, since at least 2023 bankruptcies in the trucking industry have been on an upward trend. Through 30 trucking companies have filed for chapter 11, which is an American type of bankruptcy since the beginning of the second quarter of 2025, the latest forecast they report paint a highly uncertain picture for the industry. And this all ties into something we got to talk about. It might be a new term to a lot of us, but I think we can all feel what it means when we hear it.

30:07So a freight recession is a significant prolonged decline in shipping volumes and the cost of shipping those things. And this often occurs while the economy otherwise seems to be an okay shape. So some people are saying, look, trucking is in trouble because we're not keeping drivers. We're finding that 69% of freight businesses are trying to find qualified drivers. Like you made the excellent point with the bumper sticker, right? The one you clocked was, how's my driving? Call this number. There's another one that is just as ubiquitous that says, do you want a job? Call this number. All right. Yeah. And also you also will often see it referred to as in looking for owner operators, meaning people who own their own truck and might want to be a part of a certain type of dispatch

31:11network. I guess this may be how to put it. Yeah. While carrying the burden of the operating costs, that's a good point, that's a good point operator. Yeah. It's a good point. And then hang out with us. I mean, look, is it a, is it truly an issue of a shortage of drivers or is it a turnover issue because the industry is getting squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter and more and more professional drivers are leaving this business. They are searching for different careers. And I get a point out this career is or historically has been a tremendous engine of class mobility, right? You don't have to have a fancy expensive degree from a university, right? You get your CDL, your commercial drivers license, you're off to the races. Other people, I don't know guys, this may be think about what happened to us with podcasting. Other people are going to argue that what we're seeing now, the trouble with trucking, is

32:14due to the roller coaster of the economy during and after COVID, right? Remember how podcasts blew up when everybody had to stay at home? Of course. Yeah. It was definitely something that benefited us in our career. And we benefited from as well with the podcast that we enjoyed when it was COVID and we were feeling isolated and wanting to have that connection. So it definitely goes both ways. When, when, one thing I just wanted to mention and maybe this is not quite the same thing, but there are also factors that could be affecting trucking at large in a similar way to how Uber and Lyft sort of disrupted cab driving and more traditional industries like that. You do have companies like, I think it's called Roe v or something along those lines where you will have individuals that can sign up and then do deliveries in place of more traditional.

33:17But obviously that's not going to be large freight. I mean, these are people maybe that have vans or slightly larger consumer vehicles. But I am curious as to if there are any sort of tech disruptions at play here as well. There definitely are. Just to get back on the concept of potentially, there's the shortage of drivers. But according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are around 80,000 fewer drivers than needed right now. So a shortage of 80,000 human beings and they, that group, the BLS estimates, there's going to be around 160,000 drivers that are needed and that don't exist by 2030. And again, that's a tough statistic to even think about because of the rest of the factors we're going to be talking about today. Like you just mentioned, they're an automation and those, I forget what they call them. The short route, trucking, that is becoming a bigger thing, that is becoming automated right

34:21now and will likely have further automation in the future. But it does feel to me, at least according to a lot of places you look online, I was looking at center line drivers, which is an interesting website because ultimately they're trying to sell you a service or to get you to sign up with them. They do make mention there of the way truckers are depicted and we spent some time earlier in this episode talking about how truckers are depicted in this specific time, 1960s, 1970s. There's a lot of romanticization of this job. But lately, and especially as you go on, and I would, guys, I would say it's tied directly to gas prices and as oil prices go way, way, way, way down, there's something about the depiction of truck drivers become not at all something you would imagine wanting to do, especially if you're a kid just consuming television, watching movies, you're not thinking, oh, I wish I could be a truck

35:23driver like him because the freedom isn't romanticized anymore, the upward mobility and potential to make good money at your job isn't depicted. But it gets shown is, oh, I never see my spouse anymore, the human beings that are cast as truck drivers don't look the same as they did when they're starring in action movies, right? I think there's something to all of that wrapped up in this. And people are still debating on this issue, whether there is a driver shortage or whether people are just having high turn around and leaving the jobs because the industry is getting tighter and tighter again. Now, you'll see folks like Professor Stephen Birx over at the University of Minnesota, a very smart guy, very much a boffin. He is a professor of economics now, but he's a former truck driver himself.

36:23And he said the real issue, going back to my earlier point about COVID and the economic roller coaster, people like Professor Birx will say the real issue is excess capacity because demand rose, right? During the pandemic when everybody was locked in at home and then it fell sharply since the post-COVID boom because as the COVID lockdown eased up, trucking saw a huge renaissance in employment. I think at least part of that is because a lot of people wanted to get back out on the open road. God knows I drove in circles around 285 a few times during the lockdown and Professor Birx said, hey, becoming a truck driver at that time was like a golden handshake. This has been historically a great driver again of class mobility. You got flexible hours. You don't need that expensive education. You have the clear opportunity or growth path to eventually become your own owner operator.

37:29Right now you can choose the cargo. You can choose the deals, but the issue with a boom in any industry is that booms do not tend to be permanent. It made me think a lot about how the farming industry lives and dies on the whims of the weather. And fertilizer available that's being produced in, oh, I don't know. The Middle East then goes through the straight of orbs. Well, and some booms can actually turn out to be bubbles, right? Yeah, exactly. What's the difference between a boom and a bubble? And similar to what we're saying about the farming industry, the trucking industry lives and dies on the whims of the greater economy. It's a huge bag of badgers, different factors that are beyond the control of any single individual or any single companies. Now trucking is experiencing a dangerous downturn. Just to stay on shortages of drivers,

38:30one more moment, the American Transportation Research Institute talks about the age of drivers. We've talked before about aging populations and what that does to economies. And according to the American Transportation Research Institute, the average retirement age of someone in the trucking industry is around 62 years old. And right now, 62% of the trucking workforce is aged 45 to 60. 62%, 45 to 60. Only 20% of truck drivers are under 35 years old. So it's not getting an injection of like new blood, like at all the industry, which is happening with a lot of trades. But specifically in this one, trucking is not an easy job when it comes to physically being in a truck all day long. And there's just so many things that are physically taxing about this job. Well, and there's quotas, there's stress, there's pressure to get, you know, to make your deadlines and all that stuff.

39:30And sometimes that involves keeping really crazy hours and driving through the night. And, you know, having to do things that might even put you in jeopardy sometimes. Yeah. And I won't get into it too much. But there are professional drivers and truckers in my family. And I'm sure a lot of us in the audience tonight have a similar relationships. If we look at the industry overall, not just talking about the replenishment rate of individual operators, we go to folks like Avery Vice, who is the vice president of trucking at FTR transport intelligence. And here's how Vice describes the trucking industry now. He calls it a quote, severe hangover from the extra ordinarily strong freight market from late 2020 to early 2022. So unless the economy in the US and abroad stabilizes,

40:32unless demand increases to those previous again, anomalous, extraordinary levels of demand, this trend is going to continue, which means that truck driving may no longer be the guaranteed successful career it was in the past. It's terrible because like you were saying, no, people are having more and more pressure put upon them, right? And you can't fast forward the road. Those geographical distances are going to stay the same every mile. Just gets more expensive. Well, it just makes sense if people can't afford to do anything. If inflation goes to these prices and affordability, yes, that is the word Mr. President, if affordability is at levels to where it's unsustainable for us to buy any new things, we all have to tighten our belts so much, then it stands we don't need the new things to be shipped anywhere. It doesn't matter how great the Amazon deals are because Amazon,

41:33let's not forget is the biggest player in the game here when it comes to filling warehouses with stuff. Trucks just flowing in and out all the time. And then the smaller Amazon vans that show up around your neighborhood, perhaps, or down the street that you see all the time. We can't, when human beings can't afford things, we don't need things. There's a tipping point, right? I mean, that's I think I 100% there's that, the realistic logistic aspect of it too, but then there's just the breaking point of human beings. I am absolutely not saying this is okay, but I am fascinated by this story out of Ontario, California of a warehouse employee who's set the place on fire, a Kimberly Clark warehouse, saying if only you had paid us enough to survive, you know, that's a sentiment. And I think another canary in the coal mine of like where where we are as a country in terms of these crucial, quote unquote, you know, non-negotiable, essential services. Thank you,

42:34that are often staffed by folks who are utterly taken for granted and are utterly mistreated and not paid living wages. And yet we keep seeing the top 1%, et cetera, just getting fatter and richer every day. And there's going to come appointment people who are just going to start burning down more warehouses or like not not driving, you know. Yeah, of course. Yeah, and this all leads us to our second big issue with what an excellent lobby way to enter this house of cards inflation. We'll be back afterward from our sponsors. And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show. Hey, everyone, check out this guy in his bird. What is this your first date? Oh, no, we help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Need a human, him to a bird. Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

43:35Only pay for what you need at Liberty Mutual.com. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter and on my podcast 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts and more to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side, a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's T-W-O percent on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

44:40On a recent episode of the podcast Money in Wealth with John Hope Bryant, I sit down with Tiffany the Budginista Aliche to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money. What would that look like in our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here? We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build real wealth starting with the mindset shifts too many of us were never ever taught. Financial education is not always about like I'm going to get ripped. That's great. It's about creating an atmosphere for you to be able to take care of yourself and leave a strong financial legacy for your family. If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more. Listen to Money in Wealth with John Hope Bryant from the Black Effect Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Real talent is defined by what people can do, not where they learn to do it.

45:42So by stopping at the education section of a resume, you might throw away the perfect tire. Skills first hiring helps you see talent others miss, like more than 70 million stars, skilled through alternative routes. Let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage because hiring managers who start with skills are 60% more likely to find a successful hire. Hireskills first learn why at tetherpapercealing.org brought to you by opportunity at work and the ad council. We're back. We've teased it a little bit inflation. You know it. You know it. Hopefully don't love it. It is closely tied to the other economic factors that we have previously mentioned. It affects every single aspect of American life. And we're going to be a little U.S. focused for this one. You don't have to look further than your grocery store, right, or your Zillow or whatever your local real estate market, your gas station. People are paying more

46:44and more for less and less across the board. And I would say there is a conspiracy at play here. Now some people have said we're alarmist about this, but I will I'll take a bullet on this hill. During the pandemic, various corporations increased prices logically as a result of rising cost due to manufacturing and the breakdown of supply chains. But has the lockdown eased and we all know this as the lockdown eased and global trade networks reconnected and it became less expensive to make stuff and get stuff to people. Those companies, a lot of them, they should have brought the prices back down, but they just did not. And why would they? They're not in the business of rolling things back and like going back to the old way, giving people a deal. I mean you take that situation and you benefit from it. That's how capitalism works and it sucks. The corporation

47:45literally cannot reduce prices. Oh, you have to show promo growth forever. It's in the boss the only way. It's in the the existence. Like if you reduce prices, you are not servicing your shareholders enough and you got to service them shareholders, baby. Yeah, over. Yeah. Yeah, over. Yeah. Right. Keep servicing them. Share. Right. Right. Madness. See what you're doing here with that innuendo. And I'm here for a service the hell out of those shareholders. They have to. It's their job. So these companies reasoned that they had normalized these new cost because all of their research indicated that consumers, yeah, were buying less, but they were still buying stuff. And this created an Uruburus, right? A feedback loop because the concept of selling fewer things for higher prices meant that the people and the companies were pushing against each other. And now here in 2026, things are becoming patently ridiculous. Shout out to the seven dollar

48:51bags of Doritos. Did you guys see that news story? No, but I can read between the lines context clues are there. I get it. My process branch flavored things are seven dollars now. Right. Just the corn and salty seasoning. Here's the thing. This triggered a disaster for PepsiCo. They pushed the envelope a little bit too hard when they hiked the price of Doritos and Cheetos and lays chips to seven dollars a bag. They realized that they had gone a bridge too far. Just like in I think you should leave when the guy tries to roll his hat down and shouts at the lady. Well Ben, this makes me think of something that Hassan Piker said that I was listening to. I thought it was really interesting. He said in American particular, the thing that's really going to cause revolution is when you start taking away people's treats. And whether that be, and he was kind of

49:54couching it all as one big bag of badgers that is consumption. But that is a big part of it. That level of inflation, that level of pushing the greed envelope just a little too far. And then once again, prices of oil and causing some of these things and that's not being able to get our treats anymore, delivered to our door. We've become so dependent on those. And that is when you really start to see people getting upset and turning on their politicians. Like we're starting to see a lot of Republicans doing once our treats are beginning to be threatened. Yeah, I believe it was, I believe the quote goes, every nation is a couple of good snacks away from revolution. Definitely. Nobody fact check us. Truckers are consumers as well. So they're already, like our folks listening now, you're already feeling the pinch. Everybody else feels in your day-to-day lives. But you are also experiencing dramatic price hikes in all the stuff that you need to

50:59keep driving to keep doing your job. Like bags of Doritos. Bags of Doritos. Sure. Cost of fuel. That's a constant concern. Energy drinks, of course. Well done, man. And insurance is going nuts. My monsters. My white crosses. Ooh, that's a data reference. And the one thing that remains the same. I was playing around with this a little bit earlier in the episode. But the one thing that remains the same is the road and the travel time. So the distance of your of your roots of your job, they don't adjust with inflation. It is always going to be 717 miles from Atlanta to Chicago. Isn't that interesting? I didn't really occur to me, but that's so obvious. Like the roads aren't getting any, like more efficient shorter. The trucks aren't getting any mat magically faster. You know, congestion isn't getting any better or anything. Maybe some of these things are getting worse. And yet you're still expected to meet the same quotas potentially for less pay and with less time

52:03off. I love that you're vibing with that because, okay, 717 miles just off the dome, Chicago, Atlanta. Right. That's about 10 hours, 45 minutes if you drive legally and if traffic doesn't screw you. And many of these trucks, by the way, have things on them called governors where you're not you're not able to like your monitor and you're not like able to like, you know, put the pedal to the metal per se, right? So if we're the hypothetical trucker, and that's a great point. No, if we're the hypothetical trucker, we are driving the same amount of time. We're driving the same amount of distance. Our operating costs are skyrocketing. So each mile is becoming more expensive for us. And can't remember which one of us said this a few minutes back, but the question becomes who pays for those costs? The burden of higher costs will naturally translate to a higher price for the end consumer. But we can't forget it takes a huge bite out of the once normal profits for truck

53:05drivers. Let's talk about those roads some more guys. Again, I don't get out on the road road that often. But when I do, I take note on how well the old infrastructure is doing. And we've talked about that on this show a couple of times. We know our friend John Oliver has been talking about that years and years ago, just the state of roads and then the state of congestion as well. Guys, there are an insane number of cars on the roads now, even smaller highways, state routes. It is insane. And then the number of those roads that have massive holes in them, construction that is ongoing that doesn't appear to be going anywhere. It is a wild concept when we're just we're talking about that route from Atlanta to Chicago. The number of things you're going to have to deal with along that journey. And just how how treacherous and dangerous that journey becomes. We've talked before about the differences between flying air and the dangers

54:11of that versus the dangers of riding around on these roads. Especially if you have like an equal amount of time on both or something, just how much more treacherous the highway is. Even if you're riding in those far right lanes in a giant truck, the danger of you being injured or killed is crazy high. Oh, yeah, you know what? Guys, let's take a note from our fair betropolis of Atlanta, Georgia, and just keep adding lanes to the interstate. Let's make the lane special, you know, H-O-V. Oh, express pass. Oh, sorry, Ben. There's a Honda Odyssey lane now. Whatever. Thanks for the beep, Dylan. Yeah, and this is the map. This doesn't even dimension like the ice truckers of it all, right? Like the really treacherous crazy routes, you know? Yeah. I mean, that exists, too, of course, right? There's this there was this interesting piece. Oh, gosh, I can't remember where I was reading it. It was a the concept of increasing the number of

55:15lanes in a highway actually increases congestion and so those traffic down. Yes. Which is such a not not an intuitive thing, right? It does make sense when you think about it, if you actually participated in the system like here in Atlanta because it requires so much changing lanes and everyone's trying to do it at the same time and everyone's cycling each other out and no one's really very good at it. And so you end up with all these extra obstacles and extra variables as opposed to just maintaining lane, which is what I try to do, by the way. And I think it's what most people should try to also also just let people in. Yes, occasionally please use your turn signals. They're not a limited resort. It's not a contest. It's not a demolition derby. Every BMW driver tuning in right now. You need to hear this. You don't have to respond. You don't have to write to us. Just keep it with you. Take it inside and listen. You are not going to run out of turn signals. Okay. Yeah. It's not a DLC. It's not an add-on subscription. Just go nuts and let people know when you're taking a left. We're not all bad guys. Sorry, apologies to BMW. Yeah.

56:21Ben, I got stuck behind a car for a long, long part of my trip back to Atlanta. Can you guess what type of vehicle it was? I am the worst. No, can you guess? No, come on, Ben. No, I have. Did you feel like Odysseus out there, Matt? Yeah, I did. I felt like I told you. This is the closest I get to discrimination you guys. I hate those things. Oh, man. Sorry, Honda. I know there are a lot of, we've had a lot of people who rode in. I'm a Honda man. I drive an Odyssey, but I don't know. I do enjoy a Honda. I'm not going to suffer a line. Yeah. So sorry for that predilection. Matt, I'm so sorry, man, that you fell victim to the streets there. Oh, I'm just playing it. My sister drives an Odyssey and it's an incredible vehicle, by the way, and fits her kids in there great and a ton of stuff. I'm sure it is. She's just a very safe driver and I'm a little more on the skirt skirt. Yeah. I mean, not too much, but not a reasonable

57:21amount. I think you're a fine driver, Matt. You just like a little zoom in here. You're a great driver. You just got a heavy foot sometimes. That happens all of us, you know. And here's the thing, this situation we're talking about, the economic factors, just those, they don't seem set to resolve themselves. Something has to change. That leads us to the next issue, everything that Tennessee, no Matt and yours truly are talking about. Remember how we said technological breakthroughs in one industry often affect transit. That's happening now. We are in the midst of the AI and automation revolution. So if I'm an optimist, if I'm like a flat earth, Thomas Friedman, do a little Ted talk, then I'll say, oh, automated vehicles, autonomous vehicles, that's the key to saving this whole industry, but more pessimistic analysts, including a lot of truckers that we know personally see this as a death knell, right? For whom does the waymo toll in tolls for the who ends up making money now?

58:29Right. If you automate that stuff, that money goes directly into the hands of whatever the primary distributor is, because they're going to be the folks running the trucks, you're not going to have mom and pop automated trucking lines. And it's such a, it's such a trickle kind of situation, much like we saw with backlash against, against Uber ride share and all of that stuff. Now we're starting to see a tiny little trickle of automated vehicles, you know, even replacing the ride share. And it makes sense that we haven't seen it roll out yet in the commercial shipping industry, because people wouldn't have it. People wouldn't stand for it right away. The backlash is to be huge, so they got to kind of creep it in there, right? Yeah, yeah. That's a, you know, it's like a classic bully tactic, actually, just push the boundary a little bit further, move the over to window of what is acceptable conversation or behavior. And I love that point because here in our fair metropolis, we are already lousy with waymo's. Now they're not big

59:31chunky boys. They're not mac or semi trucks or what have you. But there is no shortage of news stories that range from hilarious to disturbing about what happens when this imperfect emergent technology gets things wrong. And if you live in a city with waymo's, you've probably seen it. You're hopefully favorite hosts have personal experiences with waymo's just sort of fritzing out, right? Not figuring out the crosswalk, not being able to predict human drivers. But the trend is unstoppable. And it honestly is a is a newable pursuit, really, if it's made in good faith, because, uh, core protocracy aside, if humanity can get this technology right, then civilization could enter a world with way fewer traffic jams, far fewer auto accidents, and most importantly, fewer people dying on the road and way fewer human beings with a living wage.

1:00:31But the thing is, yeah, exactly. It's a great point. The thing is that a lot of companies are selling this as a greater good argument. The real motivation for these profit-seeking corporations is to make a ton of money. There are huge rounds of investment already happening. There is an arms race to become the first autonomous fleet vehicle provider. And we're not there yet. Civilization is not ready just now. The technology is not ready just now for, uh, large-scale autonomous freight. But now we're no longer talking about if AVs or autonomous vehicles will become a thing. Now we're talking about when some people are going to tell you, oh, it's 20 years, right? There's a great art guardian article about this. Some people say five. Doesn't it seem like, uh, rail transport would be the first candidate for automation being that it's literally on rails.

1:01:34But I think that, and I say it out loud, but then I also then reminded that that infrastructure is like a hundred years old, you know, I mean, it is like, like literally they built the railroads and all of that. And we think about what other countries are doing with like things like bullet trains and like, you know, in Japan and the technology for trains is just being so far above and beyond we have here in the States. But that would seem like it would be something that would be being looked at because you know, a conductor is obviously important, but they're not exactly steering or avoiding, you know, small children in the road. You do have to watch out for Penelope pit stops tied to the train tracks, though. One thing about the rail industry, we know there are a lot of human beings that make, let's say, uh, a stop along the railway where you're actually loading cargo or, you know, taking stuff out of like, of the trains, there are a lot of human beings that function in jobs in those places. But if you think about the actual train, if you imagine a truck sitting there with a single truck driver, now imagine a train. How many human beings are running that train? Like,

1:02:40let's say it's got miles of stuff that is taking it three, right Ben? I saw you three human beings. So that's three jobs for that one train that gets automated and you don't need them anymore. Maybe one stays on to make sure everything's okay. Oh, yeah, like the, uh, the remote engineer who keeps an eye on what happens in the waymo. Yes, you know what I mean? But with that one automated train, you've effectively eliminated 66% of the healthcare costs that the company is having to pay, right? Because you have to imagine these corporations are thinking about this stuff in these ways. And, and I'm just kind of stuck on the jobs, just again, going on this recent trip and seeing the number of human beings that are in trucks, just going. And just that is their job, that is their lifeblood for their family, right? And all of these things as they're coming into play, it's just what, what do you do if you've been a trucker for 20 years? And that just is not even

1:03:43an option anymore. You can't even do it. Guys, yeah, I really quickly, I just have to recommend, I mean many folks are probably aware of this. It definitely was a buzzy movie. But, uh, Park Chan Wook, who made Old Boy, um, which I know we all love. His recent film is called No Other Choice. And it is about the human cost of automation. And that is only one small fraction or fragment of the plot of this movie. It is ultimately a, uh, very Hitchcockian thriller. But it depicts this, existential crisis and in a, uh, darkly comedic way. And I can't recommend it enough. The way it ends will leave you thinking about this in a very big way. And we'll leave you on the floor. Um, and you won't even kind of realize how hard it hits for like a couple of days, almost. I love, yeah, I love that one. Uh, and I love that guy. Uh, we also, yeah, our point here is thoroughly human. I heart radio guaranteed human. Uh, we know that Google Uber and Tesla are big players

1:04:47in the drive for AV or autonomous vehicles. But you have to realize those are three companies out of more than 260 companies who are all doing the same thing. These vehicles either eliminate driver jobs, human driver jobs or downgrade them a bit to co-pilots to proctors on a test. This is terrifying to a lot of people in the industry. Now, one exercise that moment of empathy, you know, what happens to these drivers when computers take over? It's similar historically to asking what happens to all the barriers when cars roll out, right? Now putting on horseshoes is becoming a hobby, right? Because horses are a hobby. They're at best a niche form of transportation. We know that the following states, North Dakota, Wyoming and Arkansas are probably going to see the biggest impact on their labor force because they have the most drivers relative to other

1:05:51occupations in their states. But if you look at the rollout of AV, then you're going to see that drivers in California, Texas and Florida are their jobs are the most at threat. And, um, guys, I wasn't sure if we were going to do this on Netflix or on the air. Um, we do have to mention the teamsters union with great respect. With great respect. Don't come get us with great respect to the teamsters. Uh, they've been no, seriously. I'm kind of scared of the teamsters. But yeah, they're tough and they're very powerful, even still. Yeah. Shout out to Hoffa. Uh, they have been instrumental in advocating, lobbying, pushing for new legislation. Uh, they're, they're aiming to, for instance, in California, have laws that mandate human operators in autonomous vehicles weighing over 10,000 pounds. These are chunky boys, right? So if your waimo gets a left turn

1:06:54wrong at a crosswalk, somebody honks their horn. But if this massive vehicle doesn't hit the off ramp in the Tennessee hills, people can die. Well, and this is, this is a good, a good, uh, moments to say, here's a great example of why unions are good, because they protect people, especially now, you know, given these existential threats to people's employment that is posed by, uh, all of this automation and AIification and stuff, you know, same things happening in Hollywood, you know, we're like the writers unions and people are writing in all these, uh, caveats to their bylaws, et cetera, and contracts with studios to, you know, the very least slow role the, uh, the tide stemmed the tide of AI. But the problem there is you can't fight it forever. And it's just kind of a slowing down of the flow, you know, stopping it down eventually, the new thing is going to win out. That's just how, how it works. Yeah. But yeah, and I love that point because really we're talking about mitigation. We're talking about civilization, taking a moment,

1:07:59walking outside and breathing. Touching the grass. How are we going to handle this? It's the old game, uh, legislation versus innovation, depending upon to your point, no, how quickly this rolls out, how quickly it gets adopted, how widely it spreads. We could be looking at millions of people out of work in the United States alone. So how are these folks going to find new jobs? How are they going to feed their families? How will governments cope with this? We'll have universal basic income by then, right? We'll be in a YouTube situation by then. And it's a universal basic income kind of communism, by the way, I just want to throw that out there. I think it's kind of human. Okay, but you know what I mean, though, like, I mean, I just feels like we're heading in this direction where we've we're looking to dehumanize so many aspects of American life without any plan for what to do for the humans. And there are there are things like the idea of universal basic income that seem vaguely, you know, socialists or communist, but there really isn't a rollout

1:09:02plan for any of that stuff. And it just seems to be a talking point to get people to stop freaking out. But I don't really see it working. It just seems like a lot of people are going to left be left behind. And there's going to be a spike in unhoused statistics and people that can't afford to pay to feed their families and their mortgages with the price of housing going through the roof and all of the, I don't know, man. Yeah, you you BI is a lot like the nice words. It's a lot like an ear scratch. You would give to an animal before you put it down, right? It sounds good. But the thing is happening. We have to keep a mind to your point, no, that if this occurs, if there is a mass unemployment crisis in the trucking industry, it will not occur in a vacuum. It will occur in step with other mass unemployment issues in other sectors of the greater economy, the indicator aspect like you're saying, right? Yeah, it will occur as part of a new sea change in automation. So let's say we're a hypothetical

1:10:03former trucker. We're very good at our job, but we have been automated out like so many human beings. The system has made us redundant. Now we're looking for a new career, but we're not in a normal job market. We're cast into a royally sea of countless other job seekers, programmers, administrative assistants, customer service representatives, data entry clerks, and podcasters. Yeah, a friend of mine did just point out to me like, you're not not on that list, buddy. You're not, I mean, just say it. We kid ourselves and say, no, no, people will always need humans to talk smack on the microphone, but the AI gets good enough and they can't tell the difference. I don't know about that though, because I would personally have a problem with that. I don't want to have. I want to hear from people, you know, I want a connection with people, and I hope that enough people do. I like people. I'm a fan of man. Me too. Really quickly, I want to take this to Australia, because we're talking about this being

1:11:07a universal problem, and we've talked a lot about, we know the US, because we live in the US. In Australia, they are in what they're considering a trucking crisis. Target rail trains, right? Yes, and also operators of trucks are lovingly referred to as truckies by even the folks in the legislature there. But there was, what is it? An emergency hearing very recently at the Fair Work Commission in Sydney, where you've got groups like the transport workers union, the TWU hanging out with people from the Australian road transport industrial organization and the national road freighters association, all hanging out and saying, hey, we, all of our, all the people we represent and are a part of the operators of trucks, we are eating the costs of these insane energy prices, the oil prices right now because of the craziness that the US is doing with Israel. And what they're looking for is for some kind of

1:12:08laws to be put into effect where folks who are manufacturing goods, folks who are selling goods to all actually help out with paying the cost of the rising energy prices rather than just the operators and the trucker, the truckies paying for it. And it reminds me a lot of the food crisis episode we just talked about. Oh gosh, yes. Where does the hunger crisis? Yeah. Who actually bears the brunt of the rising prices here when it comes to the manufacturing and getting those goods and services to you, the consumer. And they are, it looks like they're making headway this, with this thing called the fairer fuel bill, but it doesn't, they're not satisfied with it. Just quickly read a quote here from Michael Cain, not Michael Cain. Michael Cain. Michael Cain. Okay. Sure. From the transport workers union, he's the national secretary. He said, the problem we've got in road transport is that unless we grab this crisis by the scruff of the neck and deal with it, then road transport is going to come to a grinding halt. That is unsustainable.

1:13:10It's even more unsustainable in circumstances where there is no light at the end of the tunnel, which means theoretically here at least there doesn't seem to be an off ramp here for the problems facing the trucking industry. And if the trucking industry goes as we said at the top of this episode, the food goes. It's not in your stores anymore. All the stuff you need to buy doesn't exist anymore. You can't get an Amazon driver to show up at your house at 6 p.m. when you woke up at 11 and said, Hey, I need that thing. It just won't happen. Well, guys, what's the alternative? The answer isn't there isn't one, right? Like automation isn't there yet. So there's a real quandary here. Yeah, agreed there. You know, this is the issue to point there, no, without the right regulation and legislation, this can well be an economic disaster. Uncle Sam is not the only one predicting this. Australia, as we just saw, has also predicted it. Western Europe is talking about

1:14:11it. China is very aware of this. We have to end with a question that is on everybody's mind. What happens next? And we are not truckers ourselves. We're very big fans of yours. Thank you again for tuning in. As you can tell, we love you folks. Thank you for being so cool. And thank you very much for blowing the horn when we ask, would you drive? Do you guys still do that? Absolutely. I think they love it. Yeah. I think it's cool. And thank you for all the epic driving. And also thank you for getting all the stuff where it needs to go from point 8 point Z. We would love to hear your thoughts, especially if you're in trucking or related industries. Where do you see this heading? And especially when it comes to the autonomous vehicle revolution, are these worries overblown? Are they underestimated? Please let us know. We cannot wait to hear from you. We try to be easy to find on the lines should now sip the social needs. You can give us a call. You can always send us an email. Sure can. You can find

1:15:15as if they handle conspiracy stuff or conspiracy stuff show depending on your social need, flavor of choice. And there's more. Yes, we have a phone number one eight three three STD WYTK. If you can do it hands-free from your truck, we highly recommend that. Hopefully it's an okay sound environment for a voicemail. If not, that's fine. You can wait till you hit a hit that next stop that you're going to and give us a call. When you calling, give yourself a nickname and let us know if we can use your name and message on the air. If you want to send us an email, you can do that too. We are. The entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back. So for this one, for this missing, this piece of correspondence, please tell us about your favorite experiences at truck stops. Please tell us about the shadiest or strangest gas station encounters. We'll see you out here in the dark. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio.com

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1:18:40On paper, the three hosts of the Nick Dickenpole show are geniuses. We can explain how AI works, data centers, but there are certain things that we don't necessarily understand. Better version of Play, Stupid Games, When, Stupid, Brises. Yes. Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually, I thought it was. I got that wrong. But hey, no one's perfect. We're pretty close, though. Listen to the Nick Dickenpole show on the iHeartRadioF, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.