CARBs and Christmas Party Conversation Starters…
CARB
When is a CARB not a carb? When it is the California Air Resources Board. You know how there is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol? Same thing goes for carbs. There are good carbs and bad CARBs.
CARB is proposing phasing out older big rigs operating in the busy corridors in Southern California, shuttling shipping containers between ports, rail yards and warehouses and requiring that all new vehicles be powered by clean fuels starting in 2024. From a practical perspective, I don’t think CARB actually believes there is any such thing as clean fuel, but I digress.
Starting 2025, the state would bar trucks powered by internal combustion engines that have more than 800,000 miles on them from operating at ports and rail yards.
Weird how all of a sudden, mileage determines emissions.
That effectively gets rid of the small operator who can only afford to buy high-mileage trucks.
This is the same crew that passed rules mandating – there’s that word again – that all new car sales starting in 2035 must be electric; in California, that is.
Yep, starting in 2035, if you buy a new car, it must be electric. That also means dropping $1500 for installing a charger in your house.
Back to CARB. The joke going around logistics is that the exhaust coming out of a truck is cleaner than the air that goes in. OK, not really, but the progress made in the last 20 years in emissions is impressive. The problem is that the dollar cost for each incremental percent of improvement is exponential and very close to being unmanageable, no matter how much of your money the government throws at it.
Maybe it’s time to write a letter. It’s certainly time to plan for converting your fleet – again. Whether it’s one truck or dozens.
Christmas Party Conversation Starters – try these at your next mixer! Time for holiday parties and well wishes and to start a conversation for the umpteenth time with “What are you watching on Netflix?”. To help get you through that, here are some tips:
Did you hear unemployment is still down at 3.7%? That’s full employment! How is your company finding employees? I can’t get any new hires to show up!!
Jeep is closing it’s plant in Illinois; that’s 1,350 jobs gone. But there’s still 10.2 million jobs open. Crazy!
Did you see how empty the Carvana dealership tower was off the 10 freeway? Their stock is down 40% and they are negotiating with their creditors. EDITORS NOTE: None of the creditors are banks – way too much risk in that deal. It’s all private equity, which translates to high risk and high reward, or high losses.
There have been 140,000 layoffs at tech companies in the last several months. I think we are looking at a white-collar recession.
I still can’t find good employees; how hard do you think it would be to train a twitter worker to do an oil change?
Wholesale inflation keeps going up, 0.3% over the previous month. Everyone was expecting 0.2%. Who knew 0.1% was such a big deal?
The Federal Reserve meets next week. It’s expected that they will raise rates 0.5%. That will make the prime rate 7.5%. Just think; a year ago it was 3.25%. it’s a good thing I don’t have any credit outstanding to the bank. Do you?
Did you see Harry Kane miss that PK in the World Cup? EDITORS NOTE: Don’t be surprised to have most folks ask who Harry Kane is and what a World Cup is, so gauge your audience.
Did you know that 51.5% of the Inland Empire population is Hispanic? My sales reps that speak Spanish are knocking it out of the park! How are your sales?
Did you see that Caleb Williams won the Heisman? If he hadn’t pulled his hamstring, they would have beat-up on Utah and be in the playoffs. EDITORS NOTE: You do risk alienating any UCLA fan the instant you say that. And irritating pretty much any other football school, like Alabama.
Now that rates are so high, do you think the non-bank FinTechs can survive? They are going to need a much higher return on their loans.
Did you hear they are closing a prison in Blythe and in California City? They say there are not enough prisoners. Crime must be way down! EDITORS NOTE: Crime isn’t way down so you probably shouldn’t say that part. You could say “I was thinking of hiring about 50 guys to raid my competitors stores; I hear they are not prosecuting anyone that steals less than $1000 of stuff. I figure I can get about $50K in new inventory each week!” On second thought, you probably shouldn’t do that either; you could be giving your competition ideas.
Did you see California’s budget will be $213 billion for 2023? Just think, in 2014, it was $100 billion, but the population is only up 1.8% since 2014. Do you feel you got double your money’s worth in the last 10 years?
Hey, are you getting any contracts for the 2028 L.A. Olympics? I’m planning on it, maybe you should too.
It’s a short Report this week; hey, it’s the Holidays. But here is a takeaway from the construction company in Apple Valley:
Positivity Always Wins.
It really does, in spite of what the bank’s credit officer might say.
12 shopping days until Christmas.
