you can skip past the routine details to the 4th paragraph…here’s the punchline: up to 98,000 seriously delinquent home loans with an unpaid principal balance of approximately $30 billion may be subject to such statutes of limitations (ie, mortgages that are more than five years past due in Florida or more than six years past due in New Jersey and New York). Moreover, roughly $1 out of every $10 of principal in private-label securitizations in these three states is tied to such a mortgage.
Let me pose a question: one of the jobs open to folks with high school education is driving trucks, yet we are hell bent on automating these jobs away. Should we decide to requre that every 18 wheeler must have a human sitting at the controls when in motion? (even if it is a somewhat make work job). The driverless truck will hurt the group of high school only workers, by taking jobs away, as well as likley depleting the ranks of entrepreneurs who buy a tractor and try to make it as an independent business, in favor of the big trucking companies.
Lyle – they already have driver-less long haul trucks. They are are called trains.
Trains currently carry 20% of trailer containers across the country. This is expected to double in the near future.
Trains once carried coal. But that is now dead (along with coal). To make up for the lost revenue the train companies are going nuts to increase truck traffic by rail. Warren Buffet is leading the pack on this trend.
There will always be jobs for truck drivers, but like most opportunities in America the number of those jobs will have to decline.
you can put me down as someone who’d rather see a flesh and blood driver behind the wheel of every truck, Lyle…sure, a human driver can screw up and cause an accident, but that’s something we’ve always been able to deal with….what i’m afraid of is when hackers take over a whole fleet of autonomous 18 wheelers for whatever purpose they might have in mind…
For what ever reason Bev’s article “I. LOVE. TOM. PEREZ. [Updated.]
Posted: 14 Mar 2016 08:08 AM PDT
He would be fabulous on the Supreme Court. But as the VP nominee, and as the V.P., he would be incredible, too. ____ UPDATE: Please read the exchanges between reader Nihil Obstet and me in the Comments thread. I might have jumped the gun on this. I’m not sure. Added 3/14 at 5:39 p.m.” failed to load on my computer.
A train can haul 100 trailer truck bodies at a time. It cost’s 1/4 to move a trailer by train. It is far less polluting, does not wreck roads and is safer.
You can try to fight progress, but you can’t fight Warren Buffett. In five years there will be less long-haul jobs than there are today. And High School kids most certainly will not be driving trains…..
Or will customers (who are gradually waking up to the implications of their choices) insist on the human interaction? Prefer the less efficient human mediated service even if it costs more? I’m guessing this would line up with your preferences.
And it’s not as unlikely as you might suspect. I’m not the only one who refuses to use the “self checkout” kiosks at the grocery store (in fact I noticed HEB just removed some of them and put some regular checkout lanes back). As customers realize how often their own jobs might require people picking “lower efficiency/higher costs” this might become a thing.
I have been preferring my less efficient local independent bookstore over amazon for years. Same reason I choose to ship UPS instead of Fedex, they pay union wages and benefits.
The mortgage thing is interesting, but not real informative. Until the states do actually decide if the statute of limitations applies in this situation, I see no reason it should be of a concern at all. Limited amount of exposure other than to private label securities, and I would think the investors have already accepted total losses on these investments.
What would be interesting is what percentage of these foreclosures have been stopped by the MERS nightmare. I seriously doubt that crowded courts are the main reason for these 5 and 6 year delays.
EMichael, both the report and i made it clear that nothing was cast in stone; ie, mortgages “may be subject to such statutes of limitations” and “courts are deliberating”….but to me, that mortgages might be subject statutes of limitations was surprise in itself, that possibility had never crossed my mind before seeing it here…that, plus i’ve written about this report monthly for over 5 years, way back to when it was being published by LPS, and it’s gotten pretty damn boring of late, so any new twist was going to be enough to get me to sit up and take notice…
Actually due to the fact most major railroads are unionized there are two people in the cab of the engine, an engineer and a conductor. The conductor has a button to stop the train in an emergency. According to some cab videos on youtube, the conductor and engineer both call out the signals and agree what they read.
60 years ago it was a crew of 5 the engineer a fireman, a conductor and 2 brakemen. The fireman was left over from steam where someone had to mind the fire. Brakemen were left over from when they had to climb up on cars and crank the brake wheels as needed. (Before air brakes) Brakemen and firemen where the routes to the higher level posts. Of course in steam you had to know the particular route to know when to stoke the fire and when to let it burn down, as well as mind the water level so that parts of the boiler floor were not uncovered and led to a boiler explosion.
Long-haul trucks are far less efficient than trains, pollute more, and cause more deaths.
The problem with mechanization is that there are fewer jobs for unskilled labor. Raising the Minimum Wage tips the economic balance from unskilled labor toward capital investments (ATM’s, self-checkout, self-service gas pumps, etc.).
When we raised the Minimum Wage in 2007, Black employment dropped the month after the higher Minimum Wage went into effect. Black teen employment dropped a whopping 9.1% (seasonally adjusted) the following month. (The higher Minimum Wage went into effect the last week of July.)
you know, i can’t think of a whole lot of cargoes where there is competition between trucks and trains, like you’re all making out in this thread…my county no longer has any active rails running through it, so i’m sure all the local stores are served by truck…even with all the malls in this part of the state, i can’t think of any that have rails nearby…yet i dont know of anyone who’d want to ship grain for export or oil to a refinery by truck…
that’s one railroad through one part of the county, Bruce; it certainly wont be serving all the Walmarts, Targets and Home Depots that are built next to interstates in Ohio & PA…
meanwhile, the article you cited says” “Average weekly carloads are down 20 percent from five years earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.”
meanwhile, the ATA says: Trucking serves as a barometer of the U.S. economy, representing 68.8% of tonnage carried by all modes of domestic freight transportation, including manufactured and retail goods. Trucks hauled just under 10 billion tons of freight in 2014. Motor carriers collected $700.4 billion, or 80.3% of total revenue earned by all transport modes.
Rail tends to be best for longer distance shipping. This is why Buffet bought BNSF, not CSX or NS. For example the BNSF premium trains which you can see crossing NM on US 60 have lots of unit UPS trains ground shipping things from LA to Chicago. Also loads of all container trains. This then works that the container on a train is brought to a multi-modal center in a metro area, and then distributed by truck to the destination. The big innovation in the mid 20th century was the shipping container that can be moved by ship, train, or truck without loading and unloading as the mode of transit is changed (again decreasing work for longshoremen and the like)
Or to take an example from the UP Apples are shipped from Washington State to the produce terminal near NYC and then distributed. Studies show that this takes less energy per apple than a locally grown apple.
The railroads main business is bulk commodities, such as Coal, Oil, and the like, Then long distance container shipments. So to take the Walmart example the container from Asia may make its way to a multi-modal center in say Western PA, and from there to the Walmart Warehouse, where it is resorted for trucks for each store and sent by truck from the Warehouse to the store. (Interestingly you can see a lot of Wal-Mart trucks on US 60 in Eastern NM also)
The practical self-driving vehicle is still quite a long way off. Highway cruising vs. negotiating city traffic is an even bigger leap than winning at go vs. winning at chess.
i notice they mention concern about excessive inventories, which have been discussed here at AB as well…it’s possible we’re shifting away from “just in time” back to where retailers and wholesales carry larger inventories like they used to decades ago…when prices are low, inventories are better than money in the bank at zero interest…
even though it’s not politics, i figure someone might be interested in this:
January Mortgage Delinquencies up 6.6%; 98,000 Bad Mortgages Face Statute of Limitations in 3 States
you can skip past the routine details to the 4th paragraph…here’s the punchline:
up to 98,000 seriously delinquent home loans with an unpaid principal balance of approximately $30 billion may be subject to such statutes of limitations (ie, mortgages that are more than five years past due in Florida or more than six years past due in New Jersey and New York). Moreover, roughly $1 out of every $10 of principal in private-label securitizations in these three states is tied to such a mortgage.
Let me pose a question: one of the jobs open to folks with high school education is driving trucks, yet we are hell bent on automating these jobs away. Should we decide to requre that every 18 wheeler must have a human sitting at the controls when in motion? (even if it is a somewhat make work job). The driverless truck will hurt the group of high school only workers, by taking jobs away, as well as likley depleting the ranks of entrepreneurs who buy a tractor and try to make it as an independent business, in favor of the big trucking companies.
Geee! Someone should have thought of that when the automobile came along and put all those buggy drivers out of work.
Lyle – they already have driver-less long haul trucks. They are are called trains.
Trains currently carry 20% of trailer containers across the country. This is expected to double in the near future.
Trains once carried coal. But that is now dead (along with coal). To make up for the lost revenue the train companies are going nuts to increase truck traffic by rail. Warren Buffet is leading the pack on this trend.
There will always be jobs for truck drivers, but like most opportunities in America the number of those jobs will have to decline.
Shall we also require that every ATM and cash register also have a human attendant? Shall we require every elevator to have an operator?
you can put me down as someone who’d rather see a flesh and blood driver behind the wheel of every truck, Lyle…sure, a human driver can screw up and cause an accident, but that’s something we’ve always been able to deal with….what i’m afraid of is when hackers take over a whole fleet of autonomous 18 wheelers for whatever purpose they might have in mind…
For what ever reason Bev’s article “I. LOVE. TOM. PEREZ. [Updated.]
Posted: 14 Mar 2016 08:08 AM PDT
He would be fabulous on the Supreme Court. But as the VP nominee, and as the V.P., he would be incredible, too. ____ UPDATE: Please read the exchanges between reader Nihil Obstet and me in the Comments thread. I might have jumped the gun on this. I’m not sure. Added 3/14 at 5:39 p.m.” failed to load on my computer.
“[They] already have driver-less long haul trucks. They are are called trains.”
Trains have drivers.
Warren – Are you kidding?
A train can haul 100 trailer truck bodies at a time. It cost’s 1/4 to move a trailer by train. It is far less polluting, does not wreck roads and is safer.
You can try to fight progress, but you can’t fight Warren Buffett. In five years there will be less long-haul jobs than there are today. And High School kids most certainly will not be driving trains…..
Or will customers (who are gradually waking up to the implications of their choices) insist on the human interaction? Prefer the less efficient human mediated service even if it costs more? I’m guessing this would line up with your preferences.
And it’s not as unlikely as you might suspect. I’m not the only one who refuses to use the “self checkout” kiosks at the grocery store (in fact I noticed HEB just removed some of them and put some regular checkout lanes back). As customers realize how often their own jobs might require people picking “lower efficiency/higher costs” this might become a thing.
I have been preferring my less efficient local independent bookstore over amazon for years. Same reason I choose to ship UPS instead of Fedex, they pay union wages and benefits.
“And High School kids most certainly will not be driving trains…..”
No, but people whose formal education ended with high school graduation will. They already do.
Am I kidding about what? That trains have drivers? No, I’m not. They call them “conductors” or “engineers”, but they are drivers.
rjs,
The mortgage thing is interesting, but not real informative. Until the states do actually decide if the statute of limitations applies in this situation, I see no reason it should be of a concern at all. Limited amount of exposure other than to private label securities, and I would think the investors have already accepted total losses on these investments.
What would be interesting is what percentage of these foreclosures have been stopped by the MERS nightmare. I seriously doubt that crowded courts are the main reason for these 5 and 6 year delays.
EMichael, both the report and i made it clear that nothing was cast in stone; ie, mortgages “may be subject to such statutes of limitations” and “courts are deliberating”….but to me, that mortgages might be subject statutes of limitations was surprise in itself, that possibility had never crossed my mind before seeing it here…that, plus i’ve written about this report monthly for over 5 years, way back to when it was being published by LPS, and it’s gotten pretty damn boring of late, so any new twist was going to be enough to get me to sit up and take notice…
Actually due to the fact most major railroads are unionized there are two people in the cab of the engine, an engineer and a conductor. The conductor has a button to stop the train in an emergency. According to some cab videos on youtube, the conductor and engineer both call out the signals and agree what they read.
Yes Lyle – two people replace 100. And yes, the conductor and engineer are union, and they have high paying jobs. It takes years to get these jobs.
The point was that there are fewer jobs for younger workers.
60 years ago it was a crew of 5 the engineer a fireman, a conductor and 2 brakemen. The fireman was left over from steam where someone had to mind the fire. Brakemen were left over from when they had to climb up on cars and crank the brake wheels as needed. (Before air brakes) Brakemen and firemen where the routes to the higher level posts. Of course in steam you had to know the particular route to know when to stoke the fire and when to let it burn down, as well as mind the water level so that parts of the boiler floor were not uncovered and led to a boiler explosion.
Yes, there are fewer jobs for younger workers.
Trucks, however, are subsidized by the government, in that they do not pay as much in taxes and fees as they cost in damage to the roads. Freight rail is not built with government money.
http://www.cfr.org/infrastructure/us-rail-infrastructure/p27585
Long-haul trucks are far less efficient than trains, pollute more, and cause more deaths.
The problem with mechanization is that there are fewer jobs for unskilled labor. Raising the Minimum Wage tips the economic balance from unskilled labor toward capital investments (ATM’s, self-checkout, self-service gas pumps, etc.).
When we raised the Minimum Wage in 2007, Black employment dropped the month after the higher Minimum Wage went into effect. Black teen employment dropped a whopping 9.1% (seasonally adjusted) the following month. (The higher Minimum Wage went into effect the last week of July.)
you know, i can’t think of a whole lot of cargoes where there is competition between trucks and trains, like you’re all making out in this thread…my county no longer has any active rails running through it, so i’m sure all the local stores are served by truck…even with all the malls in this part of the state, i can’t think of any that have rails nearby…yet i dont know of anyone who’d want to ship grain for export or oil to a refinery by truck…
i dont see either going away anytime soon…
Not a lot of cargo you say? Well tell that to Buffett:
“Buffett Builds Rail Superhighway to Grab Truck Freight”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-07/buffett-bets-on-rail-superhighway-to-beat-trucks-as-coal-fades
that’s one railroad through one part of the county, Bruce; it certainly wont be serving all the Walmarts, Targets and Home Depots that are built next to interstates in Ohio & PA…
meanwhile, the article you cited says” “Average weekly carloads are down 20 percent from five years earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.”
meanwhile, the ATA says: Trucking serves as a barometer of the U.S. economy, representing 68.8% of tonnage carried by all modes of domestic freight transportation, including manufactured and retail goods. Trucks hauled just under 10 billion tons of freight in 2014. Motor carriers collected $700.4 billion, or 80.3% of total revenue earned by all transport modes.
Buffett has his work cut out…
Rail tends to be best for longer distance shipping. This is why Buffet bought BNSF, not CSX or NS. For example the BNSF premium trains which you can see crossing NM on US 60 have lots of unit UPS trains ground shipping things from LA to Chicago. Also loads of all container trains. This then works that the container on a train is brought to a multi-modal center in a metro area, and then distributed by truck to the destination. The big innovation in the mid 20th century was the shipping container that can be moved by ship, train, or truck without loading and unloading as the mode of transit is changed (again decreasing work for longshoremen and the like)
Or to take an example from the UP Apples are shipped from Washington State to the produce terminal near NYC and then distributed. Studies show that this takes less energy per apple than a locally grown apple.
The railroads main business is bulk commodities, such as Coal, Oil, and the like, Then long distance container shipments. So to take the Walmart example the container from Asia may make its way to a multi-modal center in say Western PA, and from there to the Walmart Warehouse, where it is resorted for trucks for each store and sent by truck from the Warehouse to the store. (Interestingly you can see a lot of Wal-Mart trucks on US 60 in Eastern NM also)
The practical self-driving vehicle is still quite a long way off. Highway cruising vs. negotiating city traffic is an even bigger leap than winning at go vs. winning at chess.
welcome to Angry Bear
new index release today:
ATA Truck Tonnage Index Jumps 7.2% in February
that’s up 8.6% YoY and at an all time high..
RJS In case your still following this thread:
Heavy-Duty Truck Orders Tumbled 31% in May
Weak freight demand has trucking companies trimming fleets, vehicle factories laying off workers
http://www.wsj.com/articles/heavy-duty-truck-orders-tumbled-31-in-may-1464966210
thanks Bruce.
i notice they mention concern about excessive inventories, which have been discussed here at AB as well…it’s possible we’re shifting away from “just in time” back to where retailers and wholesales carry larger inventories like they used to decades ago…when prices are low, inventories are better than money in the bank at zero interest…