"The Lonely Crowd" explains how the U.S. economy got taken over by salesmen who lie constantly. Why? Because, they're salesmen...
ZH: What Truckers And Railroads Just Said About the U.S. Economy
"The dynamics in the transportation sector are “clearly signaling that the US economy, at least for now, is ignoring all of the angst coming out of Washington D.C. about the trade wars,”
Ten years later:
"Truck manufacturers, which had been laying off people during the transportation recession [2016], now have their own capacity squeeze that goes all the up the supply chain. “It is a bizarre occurrence and it will not be resolved soon”
I suggest that it already has been resolved, considering that truck sales are lower today than they were 20 years ago.
"We haven't seen this much demand since...1998"
Herein lies the problem:
When corporations respond to minor fluctuations in business by laying off skilled workers in the middle of the cycle, then that creates self-inflicted capacity "constraints" less than two years later.
In the context of trucking orders languishing at a twenty year plateau, these self-inflicted bottlenecks cause industry insiders to mistakenly believe that this is a signal that the economy is doing great.
The cure for bottlenecks at the end of the cycle amid consumer sentiment at a one year low happens to be a one time backlog of truck orders.
That is already "priced in":
"The 'Conomy is doing great. For me I mean. Fuck everyone else..."
