As Eddie Murphy said in one of his movies “Happy New Year.” I hope all of you have a safe, fun, and successful 2023.
TC STL Holiday Party—January 18th from 4-9 at the “quirky” Hideaway, on Arsenal in south St. Louis. Free food, free networking, and a cash bar are the main things to remember about this event. The memories from past times there are too many to count, so many laughs. Seems like this event was the place where I met many long-time club members for the first time. You never know who will show up, and I like that. A fun fact about all our events is that people only go to certain ones. Like this one or say the Horse Races, or Annual Dinner, just to name a few out of ten or so. Over the years I usually sing a song or two but who knows this year? You will have to be there to find out.
Transportation Thoughts—From our side of the business it will be one of the most challenging years. On the flip side, Shippers are licking their chops at the thought of a more inexpensive freight spend. Truckers are mostly scared of how low they will go in rates for them. The fuel is still high and is at a potential breaking point for carriers. Carriers for the past few years have been getting outrageous prices, so the worm was always going to turn sometime. Over my 30 years, I would say that it is a shipper’s market seven out of 10 years. We all must remember that the products that we ship are the shippers’ loads, so they must do well moving stuff. I really have not noticed prices dropping to consumers yet, or prices dropping in the stores, so not sure how this will all work out. I would think that the shippers’ customers will, or are already asking them for discounts. Then, hopefully, with competition from other stores, they will be forced to drop their prices too.
Financial Thoughts
My favorite Financial Advisor, Ed Henrichs [email protected] (love giving shameless plugs to my regular readers) asks me every few months about our market trends. I tell him shipping is slowing down. Thus, I would assume that everything will slow down. I asked him if saw a Great Depression type of thing and his answer was “hard to see that happening when we still have so many jobs not filled.” Makes sense. On the record, I have done VERY well since he became my advisor. Thanks, Ed!
Personal Items—-Well, my big wish for Christmas did not happen as “all I wanted was my 2 front teeth” (I broke one on my birthday, Dec 12th in case you forgot my date) didn’t come true. I think that I may not smile, talk as much (amazing, not happening as that would make most of my friend’s dreams come true!!!), or sing very much due to a whistling sound or lisp. I will look like a Hockey player till April. Yuck!!!
On January 12th I will have 1,000 days in a row of at least 10,000 steps every day. My wife is also over 450 in a row. Harsh weather makes it harder. Not sure how long I will go with this continual streak, but I am only one hundred days for 3 straight years, so that is in my sights. Like most years people make a New Year’s resolution to lose weight or exercise more, for me lose weight (lots go into this part) but to exercise more, not so much.
I also started reading a motivational book called “On Fire” by John O’Leary this month. He is a St. Louisan. I read a ton, mostly google articles, sports, and transportation-related things but rarely a book. Great so far. The last book I read cover to cover was the Bible.
That’s it have a great month and year, AL