Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 Feb 04,1887 Although designed to regulate the railroad industry, by 1920, this act was the preferred weapon of railroad companies used against the trucking in... Read More >>

Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 Jul 02,1890 A practical piece of legislation which the Motor Carrier Act of 1935 literally mandated truck owners to violate to protect the financial interests... Read More >>

Elkins Act of 1903 Feb 19,1903 Proof-positive that the ICC was doing its job prior to the enactment of the Transportation Act of 1920 by restricting railroad companies from impo... Read More >>

Hepburn Act Jun 29,1906 More proof-positive that the ICC was doing its job prior to the Transportation Act of 1920. It gave the ICC power to establish maximum railroad ra... Read More >>

Mann-Elkins Act of 1910 Jun 18,1910 Strengthened the authority of the ICC over railroad rates giving them control over regulation of telephone, telegraph, and wireless companies. The... Read More >>

Clayton Antitrust of 1914 Oct 15,1914 Adding further substance to the U.S. antitrust law this was designed to prevent anticompetitive practices in their incipiency. The law was said to... Read More >>

Federal Aid Road Act of 1916 Jul 11,1916 This was the first federal highway funding legislation in the United States constructing public roads to those states which submitted plans. It ai... Read More >>

Esch-Cummins Act of 1920 Feb 28,1920 While originally for everyone, this was the legislative turning point where the ICC focused exclusively on benefit for the railroads. The law allo... Read More >>

Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921 Nov 09,1921 Defined the Federal Aid Road program to construct an immense, interconnected national highway system. The plan was crafted by the head of the Nati... Read More >>

Oppression: Why wealthy capitalists despised the early pioneers of American trucking (1920 to 1935) The Transportation Act of 1920 practically guaranteed financial assistance from the government to the railroad companies. It even mandated the ICC... Read More >>

Motor Carrier Act of 1935 Aug 09,1935 Amended the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 to regulate bus lines and trucking as common carriers. Read More >>

Control: The Rate-making Process and how it Was Used to Profit the Railroads From 1935 until 1980 there existed a rate making process enacted by the railroads which put rate restrictions on trucks. This system relied on adv... Read More >>

Subjugation: How Wealthy Capitalists Squashed Freight Rates for Truckers for 45 Years Major historical changes can often be traced back to a piece of legislation. Where freight rates for the trucking industry is concerned, that legi... Read More >>

McCarran-Ferguson Act Mar 09,1945 Exempts the business of insurance from most federal regulation, including federal antitrust laws giving railroads power to alleviate insurance con... Read More >>

Reed-Bullwinkle Act of 1948 Jun 17,1948 Formally exempted motor carriers from antitrust laws and allowed the ICC full regulatory and policing powers over the transportation industry prov... Read More >>

Jurisdiction: Inside the Reed-Bullwikle Act of 1948 Jurisdiction: Inside the Reed-Bullwinkle Act of 1948 The Reed-Bulwinkle Act of 1948 set a new standard in low and egregious behavior. The Motor... Read More >>

Federal-Aid Highway Act Jun 25,1952 This act coincided with moves by former railroad owners who pivoted away from railroads and toward other forms of shipping control. It expanded pr... Read More >>

Transportation Act of 1958 Aug 12,1958 This act attempted to reinvigorate the railroads by granting the ICC money for railroad loans and more power to fix their rates. In spite of this,... Read More >>

Department of Transportation Act Oct 15,1966 Began operation on April 1, 1967. The Secretary of Transportation is the head of DOT. The goal was to provide single organization control over coo... Read More >>

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 Aug 23,1968 As former railroad owners expanded their investment in shipping through alternative measures, this act expanded the Interstate Highway System by 1... Read More >>

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 Aug 13,1973 This ruling was in favor of mass transit, offering additional funding for interstate roads and new urban and rural primary and secondary roads. By... Read More >>

Federal-Aid Highway Amendments of 1974 Apr 01,1975 A precursor to a complete I-80 and mass deregulation where before had been monopolistic regulation, this act permanently implemented a national 55... Read More >>

The Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 May 02,1976 After the popular Penn Central Transportation Company filed for bankruptcy, alongside other railroads, this reform established mass deregulation t... Read More >>

The Motor Carrier Regulatory Reform and Modernization Act of 1980 Jul 01,1980 Flooding the trucking market to ensure only the top companies, owned by former railroad capitalists, could maintain profitability, this eliminated... Read More >>

Deregulation: When Fast Wasn’t Fast Enough Deregulation: When ‘Fast’ Wasn’t Fast Enough Following The Motor Carrier Act of 1980 The Motor Carrier Act of 1980 created a highly competitive... Read More >>

Staggers Rail Act of 1980 Oct 14,1980 Similarly, this federal regulation of railroads authorized implementation details for Conrail, the new northeastern railroad system. Rails could e... Read More >>

Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Act Apr 02,1987 Nominally gave power to provide government funding to the Secretary of Transportation allocated when and where wealthy capitalists wanted it most.... Read More >>

The Beginning of Market Structure: Competition from Railroads The Beginning of Market Structure Changes: Competition from Railroads Within a few years of its passage, the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 achieved... Read More >>

Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 Dec 18,1991 Posed a major change to transportation planning and policy, creating planning organizations which converted dormant railroad corridors into rail t... Read More >>

Trucking Industry Regulatory Reform Act Jul 01,1994 Exacerbating the saturation of competition, this law promoted increased competition among interstate motor carriers by changing rules for rates, e... Read More >>

National Highway Designation Act of 1995 Nov 28,1995 Designated about 160,955 miles of roads, including the Interstate Highway System. Congress was given the power to prioritize highway road projects... Read More >>

ICC Termination Act of 1995 Dec 29,1995 No longer needed to regulate the industry, this act abolished the Interstate Commerce Commission and replaced it with the Surface Transportation B... Read More >>

Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century Jun 09,1998 Another program for federal surface transportation programs for highways, this act also provided additional programs to control competing trucking... Read More >>

Transportation Equity Act of 2005 Aug 10,2005 A funding and authorization bill, this continued regional transportation plans with federal spending designed to switch all state transportation p... Read More >>

Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act Jul 06,2012 This bill further governed United States federal surface transportation spending, reducing government spending by ⅔, enforcing environmental polic... Read More >>

Why is No One Talking About the Elephant in Long Haul Trucking? Long Haul Trucking is a Virtual Mountain of Gold Just Waiting to be Mined. What makes the proverbial mining of gold in the trucking indus... Read More >>

The BIG Picture: Industry Jumping by Wealthy Capitalists Scattered along the perimeter of the Amazon rainforest are cattle farming communities. Over the decades the Amazon rainforest has gotten smaller a... Read More >>

HERE’S WHAT HISTORY TEACHES US

TRUCKING IS RIGGED AGAINST TRUCKERS

Long-haul trucking is a zero-sum game between large trucking companies and the larger shippers—manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. But the game is rigged to subjugate trucking companies and take from them price control. Trucking companies, large and small, are powerless to affect change.

LOST WEALTH

Fleet owners are cheated out of billions of dollars every year. Long haul truck drivers (LHTDs) are exploited for their time and labor and stripped of their wealth while giving twenty years [of their life] more than is necessary, for a worse outcome.

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BIASED LEGISLATION

The Motor Carrier Act (MCA) of 1935 outlawed competition, suppressing growth, and limiting the revenue of trucking companies. The MCA of 1980 incited excessive competition to force a change in market structure to Perfect Competition.

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FRAGMENTED MARKET

Long haul trucking is plagued with problems that no one can solve, like the driver shortage, and its forty year old system for moving freight is unable to benefit from blockchain technology nor aid the arrival of electric trucks and driverless vehicles.

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HERE’S HOW MUCH HISTORY COSTS

TRUCKERS ARE BEING CHEATED OUT OF MONEY

Long haul trucking generates upward of $350 billion in gross annual revenue. Figure 1.0 below illustrates how the total net annual earnings from this segment is distributed among four contributing groups:

There is ample money in the system to pay LHTDs what they deserve. Upward of $10.8 billion every year after fifteen years. Compelling truck owners to exit the market is really about taking their future net earnings and giving ALL of it to LHTDs. By doing so, Alliance members effectively find ‘new money’ outside their existing [cash flow] system. We contend this money is far better served sitting in the pockets of LHTDs than in the bank accounts of smaller trucking companies.

IF in 2006, twenty-five of the best of the biggest trucking companies had worked together to successfully take the drivers of their competitors, and the average gross revenue per truck in 2021 was $318,182, those twenty-five companies today, would be substantially larger and their combined annual gross income would have been $175.7 billion more in one year

HERE’S HOW WE REDRESS HISTORY

MODERNIZE LONG HAUL TRUCKING

Long haul trucking is a poorly-built distribution system worth $350 billion as a direct service and $17.3 trillion [intangible] as the principal utility to twenty major U.S. industries. Unfortunately, it is a functioning mess incapable of adopting quality innovation [IF it threatens the profitability of larger shippers and middlemen] and aiding in the advent of electric trucks and driverless vehicles.

An opportunity exists to reform, reorganize, upgrade, and consolidate the industry in such a way that it resembles the high efficiency of the Less-than-Truckload (LTL) freight shipment segment. Including systems and processes, methods and methodologies, the acquisition of land and buildings, and an entire rethink of inventory management and delivery systems, from Just-in-time (JIT) delivery to Same-Day and Next-day.

We propose the following:

How Do We Modernize Long Haul Trucking?

BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY
An ingenious system that offers trucking and shipping companies the power to match, manage, and move FTL freight shipments faster, cheaper, and more efficiently than any other system.
PROFIT REDISTRIBUTION
There is ample money in the system to pay LHTDs what they deserve. Upward of $10.8 billion every year after fifteen years.
MODERN INFRASTRUCTURE
Thirty-one new interstate freight lanes. 170 warehouses. 13 interstate travel plazas. 40 charging stations electric trucks and driverless vehicles. Located along interstates I-10 and I-20.
DIGITAL CURRENCY
Accepted by trucking companies as the preferred payment method for moving freight. Consumers pay retailers and retailers, distributors, and manufacturers (shipping companies) will pay trucking companies.

HERE’S WHAT WE BRING TO THE GAME

EFFICIENT MONEY + NEW INCOME + VIRTUAL TRAINING

Lead the Assault on Corrupted Systems

Provide Passive Income Options

Deliver Interactive Virtual Training

Industry

History proves that truck owners were duped, twice. First in 1935, and again in 1980. After 86 years of subjugation, it’s time truck owners and LHTDs come together to end the corruption, eliminate the waste, and take back control of long haul trucking. With our help, nothing is impossible.

Carriers

Overhauling long-haul trucking is impossible to imagine, at first blush. But it does get easier to believe once you realize that a disloyal driver is the one vulnerability that can collapse a trucking company within weeks, and that our passive income is the only product able to keep drivers with you and attract many others.

Drivers

Prosperity—as we define it—is something we believe every loyal LHTD should have. It’s also something that trucking companies will never be able to afford. In truth, Truckonomics was born from the belief that there was a way to deliver the seemingly impossible. We exist today because we found the only way.

Spouse

Every trucking company forgets to consider the needs and wellbeing of the spouse of their drivers. LHTDs regularly make sacrifices that carryover to their family at home. Often, the spouse is left wondering where the future leads. Our training and personalized plan ends all of that from day one.

HERE’S WHO BENEFITS AND HOW

EVERYONE BENEFITS

FTL Freight Segment
$0.00
25% fewer truck owners
Changing market structure to an Oligopoly ongoing
Career advancements for LHTDs
Establish city hub network
National systems upgrade ongoing
Infrastructure upgrade along autonomous routes
*ALL six outcomes above achieved in under 12 years
More details

Large Fleet Owner
$0.00
End your driver shortage in under 90 days
Attract the best drivers in the industry
Cut driver turnover in half
Double your profit in 10 years
8% healthy organic growth every year for 10 years
Raise driver quality and performance
*ALL six outcomes above achieved in under 12 years
More details

Long Haul Truck Driver
$0.00
Retire from driving, permanently
Own the family home unencumbered
Passive income that meets every need to live
Debt free and financially secure
Six-months worth of emergency money
Six-figures in retirement savings before retiring
*ALL six outcomes above achieved in under 12 years
More details

Spouse of Long Haul Truck Driver
$0.00
A plan you can both believe-in
Emotional support
Helpful financial tools
Knowledge and training
SMART goals: Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Realistic. Time-bound.
Realistic timelines for practical tasks
*ALL six outcomes above achieved in under 12 years
More details

HERE’S WHAT MAKES US UNIQUE

TRUCKONOMICS IS MULTI-FACETED

Truckonomics™ is an unconventional idea.

An outside-the-box approach to solve a complex problem. It’s a unique approach that others in long haul trucking would perceive as impossible, because of their existing paradigm and what they see as normal.

We see an epidemic failure to understand the history of trucking and its connection to costly problems that plague long haul trucking today. Manmade problems that impede the profit of large fleet owners, cheat LHTDs out of their time and money, and prevent the industry from adopting technology that improves its productivity and efficiency.

The problem we see as most troubling is the blatant mistreatment and exploitation of over one million LHTDs, and its normalization within long haul trucking. Our goal is to permanently end this problem in 10 years.

Our approach, which is congruent with the hidden history, is to lead a concerted and unified effort of large fleet owners and like-minded LHTDs to neutralize every contributing cause, many of which exist today as complex problems in long haul trucking. Most are interconnected and lead back to the Motor Carrier Act of 1980—deregulation—and the deliberate flooding of the market by hundreds of thousands of trucking entrepreneurs.

We aim to reverse the outcome—perfect competition—that was anxiously awaited by advocates of deregulation, and wealthy capitalists who were heavily invested in the larger shippers—manufacturers, distributors, and retailers—and expecting a virtual government-guarantee of the lowest freight prices.

Our Vision and Mission

DISRUPTIVE ACTION
Truckonomics is a disruptor that leads a counteroffensive against manmade wealth extraction subsystems using new and innovative technologies.
EQUITY
Truckonomics is an advocate of fair and equitable compensation—at any cost—for large fleet owners, and especially for LHTDs.
HEALTHY CHANGE
Truckonomics is a change-leader that aligns with successful, ambitious, and visionary business and industry leaders to affect healthy change, at any cost.
LEADERSHIP TRAINING
Truckonomics is an educator with specialized knowledge and training that empowers LHTDs to practice good habits and perform practical tasks while we do the heavy lifting for them.
NEW KNOWLEDGE
Truckonomics is a new branch of knowledge concerned with the creation and fair distribution of wealth in the trucking industry. In effect, Classical Capitalism 2.0, without Adam Smiths’ egregious Exclusion Rule.
RETIREMENT INCOME
Truckonomics, as a public equity firm, will offer tradable-securities backed by the profit of income-producing assets as the backbone of a premier retirement plan.

“We see the world, not as it is, but as we are─or, as we are conditioned to see it.” — Stephen R. Covey

When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms. Paradigm comes from the Greek root, paradigma. It basically means a pattern, a model, a representation, something that stands for something else. It comes from the mental image you have in your mind of the way things are ‘out there’.

CHOOSE YOUR NEXT PARADIGM-SHIFT

HERE’S OUR GAME-CHANGER INVENTION

A PREMIER RETIREMENT PROGRAM

Discovery

We know that wealthy capitalists forced a change in market structure—from an Oligopoly to Perfect Competition—by flooding the market with trucking entrepreneurs. We know that the opportunity-cost of forcing this change is substantially higher for large fleet owners and LHTDs than any other contributor. And that the cost is realized with low prices, inadequate drivers pay, high driver turnover and low driver retention, a worsening driver shortage, low quality and performance levels of active drivers, and near-zero organic growth. We know that LHTDs have only two options: quit early or retire broke or broken. And we know that nothing will change until ‘something’ new changes it.

Income

In learning about the hidden history of trucking and its connection to the many problems in long haul trucking today, we suddenly realized two overpowering truths: that there is an urgent need for LHTDs to have a secondary—passive—income, independent of their job, and that the success and appeal of that program is the catalyst to overhaul long haul trucking. So, we designed a premier retirement program for LHTDs. The source of its income is long haul trucking, the income paid to each LHTD is a fair and equitable reward for the price they pay to be a LHTD, and best of all, the program does not rely on the pocketbooks of trucking companies—the employer—to fund its purpose.

Truckonomics SDB™

Never-before-seen in the finance industry, tradable securities backed by profit. Investment brokers and financial advisors are spellbound by this revolutionary new idea, which we designed specifically for LHTDs to beat the rigged game. Our idea is to buy our own trucks using our own money, align with a few of the large fleet owners, compete aggressively against their competitors, and then sell exclusive rights to the profit that our trucks generate to LHTDs who drive for the large fleet owners. All for a fee that they can afford. We further bolstered this idea by integrating it into the scam of IRS qualified retirement plans to leverage the pre-tax dollars on our trucks to profit LHTDs even more.

HERE’S WHY WE SAY ‘PREMIER’ PROGRAM

WE TAKE YOU TO THE MONEY

Premier means first. First-of-its-kind in the world of finance. Ours is a first tradable security backed by the profit of an income-producing asset. We are the first to offer a fixed percentage of the profit for a fixed term, rather than a margin of profit from trading the value of a stock. It’s the first retirement program to cater to LHTDs.

Earnings Disparity

Let’s start with how the story ends. In 2020, Knight-Swift Transportation reported net earnings of $410 million. That equates to $46,804 an hour. JB Hunt reported $506 million, which is $57,767 an hour. According to Glassdoor.com, the base pay of an LHTD peaks at $86,000 annually before taxes. If we assume that LHTDs pay 20% of their gross income in tax and keeps 10% after expenses, then we can say that their disposable income—the crude equivalent of a company’s net earnings—is $6,880 annually. That equates to $0.79 an hour. It means the owners of Knight-Swift and JB Hunt out-earn LHTDs by a ratio of 66,184:1. In other words, for every one dollar the LHTD deposited into his savings account that year, they deposited $66,184 into their savings account. What does it mean?

Harsh Reality

It means living paycheck-to-paycheck while you spend most of your life—8 years out of every 10—on the road. It sounds harsh, but the numbers don’t lie. Fortunately, the numbers also reveal a bright light at the end of a dark tunnel for LHTDs who want better. First, the earnings disparity between trucking companies and LHTDs proves the massive potential to prosper. Second, companies like Knight-Swift Transportation and JB Hunt are underperforming. Our numbers say they’re at 33% of their potential no thanks to an oversaturated market, high driver turnover, low driver retention, and poor driver quality. All unsolvable problems until now. Our solution is a premier retirement program that gives LHTDs what they want most, prosperity.

The Game

Finding where the money is starts with understanding the nature and structure of the game. Long haul trucking is a—rigged—zero-sum game with 16 independent groups (i.e. levels) that fit within one of six social classes, and compete for a share of $350 billion—more or less—every year. The higher up they are, the better chance they have to prosper. The only rule is ‘market sets the price.’ Entry to the game is limited. The object of the game is to move freight for profit. The winner is the player with the most profit at the end. The winning strategy is volume. Price is relatively less important. All money flows down. From consumers—at the top—who are the source of all profit to LHTDs who earn $0.79 an hour and their family at the bottom.

Asset-based 3PL++

Entry into the game is limited. This means that not everyone in long haul trucking—levels E and F—is actually playing the game. Yes, they’re contributing to the movement of freight and yes, they’re making money. But they do it to ensure the free flow of freight. Long haul trucking was rigged to impede the profit of trucking companies, without impeding the flow of freight. So, we designed our retirement program to benefit large fleet owners. This gets us entry to the game. But we didn’t stop there. We also wanted control of the freight, so we created preferential prices and return rates exclusively for the employees of manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. That puts us just above asset-based 3PL firms, which is where the smart money is.

HERE’S WHAT WE THINK

IT’S TIME TO STEP OUTSIDE-THE-BOX

McDonalds

Yes, trucking companies have got it all wrong. They’re missing the real opportunity. And the story of McDonalds is the best way to explain it. Consumers think of McDonalds as a burger restaurant, but in the business world, McDonalds is considered a real estate company. They own the land the stores are built on. From Time Square in New York to Red Square in Russia. They realized they could make more money as a landowner. All they had to do was give their franchisees a 15 cent hamburger to sell. “The Founder,” a 2016 film about McDonald’s history explains the dynamic succinctly:

“You don’t build an empire off a 1.4% cut of a 15 cent hamburger, you build it by owning the land on which that burger is cooked.”

Unlike McDonalds, trucking companies today still think of themselves as a transportation service. They haven’t realized that the McDonalds way and their version of a McDonalds franchisee is the long haul truck driver, and that the 15 cent hamburger they need to give them—to build their empire—is retirement from driving in 10 years, which is not only possible, but precisely what our premier retirement program was designed to deliver. The empire to follow is the product of healthy organic growth at 8 percent every year for at least 10 years. For a trucking company with 1,000 trucks, that means a highly-efficient 3,000+ truck machine with the best drivers and best operating ratio in history.

Paradigm Shift

Every LHTD—IF asked—will tell you they deserve more money. But what they won’t tell you is what ‘more money’ means to them in real dollars. Or when it equals what they deserve. Because they don’t know. Nobody knows, not even their employer, which is a massive problem—arguably—the second most costly problem in long haul trucking today. Underpaid LHTDs become disgruntled and disenfranchised, and then they quit. This leads to high driver-turnover and low driver-retention, a never-ending shortage of quality drivers, relatively high operating ratios, near-zero organic growth—and ultimately—hundreds of millions of dollars in lost earnings, every year.

The problem is old-thinking and complacency. Both large fleet owners and LHTDs only see what they know. Unfortunately, they they don’t see what they don’t know, but need. Moreover, nobody is asking the questions that push traditional boundaries. For example, why do LHTDs not share in the profit of multiple trucks? Why do large fleet owners not go outside of their own system to pay their drivers what they deserve? Why is buying trucks more important to large fleet owners than retiring their drivers in 10 years? These are the questions that allow them to see what they don’t know.

Unique Selling Proposition

Service and serviceability are two areas in business that too many trucking companies either don’t understand or ignore completely. For those who don’t understand, that being in the ‘right place at the right time’ is not a competitive advantage, nor something to depend on, even IF being in the right place at the right time has proven profitable. The same is true for large fleet owners who win the coverage-game by having 1,000+ trailers. This is not something to depend on, especially now. A competitive advantage you can depend on is something that distinguishes you from everybody else. With the help of our premier retirement program, here’s how your new USP would read:

“Simply the best full truckload freight service ever.”

It’s a claim you would back up by delivering the best of everything. Best Coverage. Best Equipment. Best Drivers. Best Systems. Best Visibility. Best Support. Best Contingency Planning. Best Image. Best Attitude. Best Price. Best Service. Sounds wonderful, but the obvious question is: How? How do you deliver the best of everything? The same way you eat an ox… one bite at a time. The McDonalds way is to start by giving your drivers—a 15 cent hamburger to sell—the chance to retire from driving in 10 years. This will trigger a tsunami of new driver applications—of all levels—from past and present drivers around the country, and permanently end your shortage of quality drivers and push retention to the top.

TRUCKING IS RIGGED AGAINST TRUCKERS

TRUCKERS ARE BEING CHEATED OUT OF MONEY

MODERNIZE LONG HAUL TRUCKING

EFFICIENT MONEY + NEW INCOME + VIRTUAL TRAINING

Industry

Carriers

Drivers

Spouse

EVERYONE BENEFITS

TRUCKONOMICS IS MULTI-FACETED

“We see the world, not as it is, but as we are─or, as we are conditioned to see it.” — Stephen R. Covey

A PREMIER RETIREMENT PROGRAM

Discovery

Income

Truckonomics SDB™

WE TAKE YOU TO THE MONEY

Earnings Disparity

Harsh Reality

The Game

Asset-based 3PL++

IT’S TIME TO STEP OUTSIDE-THE-BOX

McDonalds

Paradigm Shift

Unique Selling Proposition

Interesting links

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