By Bill Wade
The universally negative specter of questionably talented politicians mocking business leaders during endless Congressional hearings —while attempting to deflect growing guilt over the current economic situation—has me concerned.
Never before has the entire populace been treated to 24/7 coverage of every bounced check, every layoff, every case of management incompetence or insensitivity. Under the age-old rule that “if it bleeds, it leads,” media are serving up the latest “globalization victim” of the day, even from industries most of us never knew nor cared about.
Back in the time before universal bailouts, this country practiced a more or less free form of capitalism. Free market approaches to economic churn were at least the first option. Success or failure revolved around individual drive and smarts, with appropriate luck.
Our own trucking industry has thrived under this model. While major disruptions have been primarily due to regulatory (EPA, DOT, CARB) influences, one watershed case is worth an autopsy – deregulation from the Motor Carrier Act of 1980.
Talk about giving Darwinism a kick in the rear. Wrenching extinctions, no bailouts, spectacular growth … but not without temporary pain.
Between 1977 (the year before the Interstate Commerce Commission started to decontrol trucking) and 1982, pricing for truckload-size shipments fell about 25 percent in real, inflation-adjusted terms, with some shippers reporting declines of as much as 40 percent. Revenue-per-truckload ton fell 22 percent from 1979 to 1986. Unions screeched and fuel prices were all over the board.
