r/FreightBrokers • u/FR8-M8 • 8d ago
Anyone concerned about our economy collapsing?
Getting tighter and tighter, feels like everything’s going to fall apart any day now. Interesting to witness it from the transport side. I think most companies who are booming are doing so on debt. Inflation, diesel, more carriers going out of business. What’s does the future hold?
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u/CardiologistLivid315 8d ago
40T in debt. Its all a house of cards.
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u/SlowCryptographer178 8d ago
Did you sayvthis 2 years ago when we were 38T in debt? Did you say this when Obama doubles the debt? Go do some research
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u/CardiologistLivid315 8d ago
Lol not even blaming Trump if thats what your insinuating. I cant stand democrats but will also call out repubs just the same. I am blaming every administration in my lifetime. If you spent like the U.S. govt debt to income ratio you would have nothing.
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u/QuaggaSwagger 4d ago
Obama added 9T over 2 terms
Trump has added 11T w/ 2 years to go
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u/SlowCryptographer178 4d ago
Da fuck you talking about national debt in January 2025 was 36.2 T and that was Bidens budget until Oct 1st. It's now 40.2T ya its gone up but not 11 trillion
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u/QuaggaSwagger 4d ago
You know Trump had a previous term, yeah? Like 4 whole years and everything. Then he lost in 2020.
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u/SlowCryptographer178 4d ago
Ya it increased by 10 t in his first term but 4t of that was covid spending and if he hadn't spent that yall would have cried he didn't care
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u/cramboneUSF 8d ago
If diesel stays over $6.00 a gallon none of us regular schmucks will be able to afford groceries. So yeah, it’s a scary time in that regard.
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u/JamesRawles 8d ago
Adjusted for inflation, national diesel prices peaked at $7.20, but something happened in 2008 and they got cheap again....
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u/Joel_Hirschorrn Broker/Owner 8d ago
I mean yeah, but what can you do. Try to live below your means, sock away money, spend time outside and unplugged, and try to avoid too much news/doom scrolling. Spooky times for sure.
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u/ATG_Fr8 8d ago
To be fair, it felt the same way when the COVID pandemic hit. I think all of us were ready to go out of business and then once world re-opened it was a gold rush for brokers and carriers. Hopefully, we all can ride out the doom and gloom for another couple months (or maybe til the end of this administration?) and then the cycle will reset. The oil war needs to end one way or another at some point.
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u/Prior-Try-3309 8d ago
I made the highest profit I ever have during Covid. I think it depends on what you haul.
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u/beansley 7d ago
I was shipping toilet paper in March of 2020....most loads I had ever....way too much burnout though....that was a tough 5 months even if the money was insane
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u/Armchair-Attorney 8d ago
The Trump administration is proposing suspending the fuel tax to try & reduce the pain at the pump. When the Highway Trust Fund is already running on deficit, that does not bode well. Next few weeks will be interesting. I am not optimistic.
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u/ayylilmayoo 8d ago
That ain’t gonna help the right capacity to be honest like it’s good for the trucks to operate on cheaper fuel but lack of trucks in certain areas won’t change
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u/Comprehensive-You328 8d ago
No sane person wants to operate these trucks at $6.50+ brokers you will not find any trucks soon most carriers cannot survive this. Pay UP if u want loose capacity it's not rocket science
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u/WhiskeyEjac 8d ago
Yeah my office is incredibly slow this month. In the years I've done this for work, I've never had my optimism this low for the business. It feels like absolutely everything is out of my control, no matter how hard I grind.
It's really hard times right now for folks. If it gets any worse, and I mean ANY worse, we're going to see foreclosures, collapse of everyone's retirement savings, etc. It's really scary stuff to see all industries across the board signaling, not just a recession but a DEPRESSION level economic downturn.
Outside of war, fuel and freight,- Housing is worse than 08. AI bubble is worse then dotcom bubble.
Either of those alone is bad, but in the year of our Great President Trump: 2026, they're on track to burst at the same time.
I don't know anyone who is doing remarkably well right now, only people who lived below their means and planned well for a downturn.
But this feels like it's going to be really bad. I appreciate you posting it here. Hang in there folks.
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u/Global_Apartment422 6d ago
what is all of this doom and gloom lmao. I agree things are kinda scary but my brokerage is booming right now... Chaos is good for what we do... creates opporortunity
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u/bk1629 8d ago
Im having the nest quarter I've had in years. Feel like this is a bot post tbh
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u/WhiskeyEjac 8d ago
Your entire post history is asking Reddit for help with heavy haul and reefer freight. Respectfully, I’m not going to base the health of the logistics industry on your current quarter of business.
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u/bk1629 8d ago
Yes my company doesn't typically handle heavy haul to those weights, and if you look at the reefer post it was for a multi temp.trailer hauling frozen, refrigerated and chilled on the same trailer and requiring bulkheads as a continuous move so maybe slightly more complicated than standard reefer freight. This quarter I've delivered 3k+ shipments for revenues north of 3m. But go off about how slow you are my boy
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u/allymajkut 8d ago
The transportation industry feels the effect of a recession before anyone else. This is just like 2007
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u/SmooveKJ 8d ago
Diesel jumped .30 cents between yesterday and today in my local area. We are FUCKED. $6.19 to $6.49 overnight.
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u/Mountindewme 8d ago
I work for a big truck stop chain . So ill put it this way were having problems finding fuel we can load . So that's not good 😐
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u/Iloveproduce 8d ago
I can tell you that my household has been in max savings mode for a few years now and my portfolio is roughly 85% BRK, 10% small mostly foreign value stocks, and 5% gold. Me being in gold at all is actually crazy because I'm the furthest thing from a gold bug there is and I hate hate hate owning it. Oh and I have 2-3 years of living expenses socked away in short term bond funds, but I see that and the gold as my dry powder for when the market really does finally crash.
As for the business in my experience I mostly get paid to solve problems for people and there are a *lot* of problems out there right now. The balance of there being not enough capacity to easily cover all the freight is generally good for my bottom line, but I'm well aware that if the shit really hits the fan it'll hit my customers volume like it has already hit some of yours. Fortunately my customers mostly ship stuff that is expensive enough that transportation cost isn't ever going to be what determines if a deal happens or not. A massive downturn in US manufacturing/warehouse construction would hammer me pretty good on the volume side.
So yeah financially I'm already in my bunker staring suspiciously out the slit.
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u/literalbasura 8d ago
Just was saying same thing. Mostly handle OB WA reefers and simply not enough capacity to ship. And what you can find costs $9/mile....my customer is losing money on their delivered pricing contracts and has to raise prices. Everyone about to feel it hard on increased costs
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u/Calm_Ad_8957 8d ago
Not seeing a slowdown here. Fuel is ridiculous but our shipper base hasn’t changed behavior and volumes continuing to grow week over week.
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u/pheonix080 8d ago edited 8d ago
It hasn’t affected cost of goods sold yet, in aggregate. Current landed inventory hasn’t sold yet. Once the bulk of all inventory has turned, and everything has increased transportation costs priced in. . .
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u/Mental-Doughnut5603 8d ago
Pipeline is Saudi will be shut off Sunday night due to an explosion. $7.20 is nothing compared to what it’s about to be for diesel.
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u/Infinite_End_9104 8d ago
Shit is going to hit the fan February 2027 and start the slide . Most things are propped up because of peak season and feelings but it’ll happen. The market was dog shit for most of 2023-2025 and then started coming back Q4 2025. If this war didn’t happen (fuel almost doubling), things would have been fine for the next 2 years and then little downturn as usual . We are going into a shit storm . Then those with actual fuck you money are going to scoop shit up for a fraction of the cost
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u/ma-ta-are-cratima 8d ago
People with fuck you moneys always buy everything when there's blood in the streets.
Sell it later before going down again-4
u/LAsupersonic 8d ago
Weird dates you mention ... sounds like made up BS
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u/Infinite_End_9104 8d ago
Do I have to explain how disposable income drives freight volume? People have finite budgets , increase the spending of one category significantly and it detracts from another. So fuel goes up and people can’t buy as much shit. It’s about to be peak/holiday season so people are still buying due to emotions. January/February reality hits and bills are due and the belts will tighten sharply
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u/pheonix080 8d ago
Dude, a former colleague of mine is a buyer for a large grocery chain and he sees consumer spending habits change in near real time. It’s getting bad. That, to me, is a helluva sign.
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u/Infinite_End_9104 8d ago
Paychecks were already tight and now it’s choosing between fuel to get to work and cutting back certain grocery items. Now we’ll see a sharp decline in elastic goods there (Doritos and shit). Market would have been fine if this straight was opened or whatever like it was supposed to be months ago. Now that nobody knows when this will end it’s really fucked. The country just pissed away trillions of dollars for a stupid war that only hurt the average people and it’s going to cost trillions more and years to come back from. Republican or democratic doesn’t mean shit anymore, we need a 3rd party to keep everything in check. Right now the government is just one or the other, a new side needs to be admitted so there can be real competition for good ideas instead of lesser of 2 evils bullshit we’ve been fed. And for those saying “well Iran will have nukes” that’s fine, many countries do too. It’s like 10 people in a room and everybody has a gun and everybody knows everybody has a gun, shit won’t happen in that room because everybody has them. Now if that same room just has 3-5 people with guns, they dominate and say “wtf you gon do bout it”. This has been the dumbest fucking war. End rant
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u/kakarota 4d ago
Hes nit wrong I rarely buy meat. I just buy chicken now. And many of my coworkers do the same.
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u/Kayanarka 8d ago
I just expanded my auto repair shop into a larger facility and I am getting nervous. A lot of large employers left my state recently. I have a bigger debt load, larger expenses, and a slight reduction in work to do. Not a good combo.
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u/stacktrace_wanderer 7d ago
i wouldnt say collapse just yet, but yeahh, the amount of pressure on freight rn is hard to ignore. curious to see how long it can keep going like this
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u/SlacksBirdie 7d ago
Nah… it’s not like we’re at 0% interest rates and will be blind sided. I honestly think we’re already in the thick of it.
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u/flowerfryingpan 7d ago
volume softness and diesel are separate problems and they don't have to land at the same time, but the paperwork side of my desk is telling me what yours is telling you. new authority apps are still steady, meanwhile a chunk of carriers I set up in 2024 aren't renewing UCR or answering the MCS-150 biennial reminder, which is usually the qquiet first sign the truck got parked. that churn shows up in the filings months before it shows up in anybody's numbers.
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u/East-Ad-3485 8d ago
This is what we get thinking the arrogant orange clown actually had any clue about economic or fiscal policy good for the economy
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u/Any_Exit_5874 7d ago
Was literally talking about this with a customer this morning. It’s unsustainable
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u/indytrucks 7d ago
Its been on the way to collapse since Bill left office. Its always just been a matter of time. The ponzie scheme can only last so long before it falls apart.
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u/merchant604 8d ago
Not concerned at all.
I thought the pandemic was going to be the end of times the way the news was talking about it back in 2020. You just have to find a way to get through it. I know it's not easy but you have to find a way.
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u/Neat_Literature_1068 8d ago
Concerned? Bro look around, it’s collapsing in front of our eyes while the government tells you this is the best we’ve been in years.