Spring Golf on May 7th at Eagle Springs
May is here, time again for another Al’s Corner.
First an update on the Annual Dinner. A smallish crowd attended this event at the MAC (Covid effect). The food and location, as always, was excellent. The speaker, Donald Broughton did a great job too. Bob Graf received a much-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award as well. Wendy Topp was introduced as our new President. Wendy should provide some interesting leadership to our group. Good luck!
Golf Time Again, May 7th, 11 am check in and lunch. For $90 you will get lunch, dinner, drink tickets, team, and hole prizes, and 18 holes fun golf and networking. Still need teams, so call Brad Reinhardt ASAP!
Transition Time is here—As we all know the past 15 months have been different, sad, challenging, and full of change due to a pandemic. In our business, high freight rates and capacity issues continue. My prediction on freight rates is the turmoil will continue the rest of the year, at least. With things getting more back to the way it used to be some, coupled with huge pent up needs to get out again, this will continue to drive the economy upwards. Some shortages in gas may occur since the lack of demand for gas went way down with travel stopping cold last year. Also, driving reduced as more people worked from home than we have ever seen or would have ever been predicted. Thus, Gasoline Drivers left the industry by finding something else, or retiring. Working from home is here to stay, somewhat, but travel is going to happen again bigtime! World travel, for business and pleasure helped spread the plague faster than it would have say, 30 years ago. It’s the new world now, and travel is going to continue to be a big part of it.
Rental Cars, Car and Truck Sales—I hear that rental cars are in short supply. Crazy stories of people renting U-Hauls for vacation trips because they cannot find a rental car. If they do find one, the price is 10 times higher. I have also noticed at large car dealers near me a huge drop in available vehicles. It looks to me like 80% drop. Some say it is a parts shortage issue. Crazy transition!
The vaccines are starting to make a big difference, as 200 million in the US have had at least 1 shot. Only 13% say they will not get the shot, which is small and hopefully will get smaller. Outdoor events and socializing restrictions are being lifted, while indoor is a little. Hopefully, other countries will get the vaccine as well, so this bad time will suddenly be over, for the most part. I am also confident that because of this new way of doing vaccines, and investment in these types of things, will help us deal better and faster to future viruses. To me, the future looks bright on this front.
A Big Concern for Many—is all the “free money” that is being given out. This appears to have made hiring for jobs like warehousing, restaurants and such, tough. The thought is some people now do not want to work and would rather take unemployment money (who wouldn’t?). This too will transition out and people will slowly get back to work this year.
Have a great month, see you at the golf tournament,
Al Hursey Rockfarm STL