John’s Blog

September 15^th 2009

Dear Friends,

Sorry for the delay, I took some time off last week for vacation and watched as son Ross graduated from Army Basic Training at Ft Knox. A proud day on September 11^th to watch a platoon of young men reaffirm their commitment to serving the USA.

The positive news is that retailers are seeing improving sales as the US consumer comes out of hibernation. While the deep discounters have been okay some of the specialty stores are seeing sales click up. High end stores are still suffering.

There is pent up demand so when the consumer begins to feel safe in their jobs and the economy we should see the consumer driven economic engine move the country forward.

Even though the economy seems to be improving the lagging indicator has always been unemployment. The unemployment rate continues to climb jumping a half point to 9.7%. The positive spin on this is that the rate of job loss is slowing.

The Obama administration is not helping matters by starting a trade war with China targeting tires. I would think that we would be playing nice in that we are trying to help the US automotive companies and they are all trying to grow a presence in China.

This President has shown a preference to his union backers (Teamsters – killing the Mexican truck initiative) and it looks to he is listening to the United Rubber Workers. The problem with all of this is that protectionism never works and has been shown time and time again to be a job killer for US manufacturing.

From a transportation logistics perspective, there continues to be improvement in most modes. With diesel fuel finally coming down a little coupled with the marginal increases in traffic the carrier industry is feeling a little better. Railroads are seeing their highest car loadings of the year and the ATA truck index showed the smallest drop in freight in July as year over year numbers are watched.

At Wagner we have been extremely busy with new start up operations in Grand Prairie TX and Jacksonville FL. Our seasonal business in Kansas City is in high gear too. Thank you to all of the Wagner associates stepping up to the plate under some difficult time constraints.

Heading off to the annual CSCMP conference this weekend and will report more next week.

Be safe and have a great day!

John Wagner Jr.