Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

99-year old trucking company Yellow shuts down, putting 30k out of work

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 143 posts

Re: 99-year old trucking company Yellow shuts down, putting 30k out of work

#131

Post by azinman2 »

gottorf wrote: post #46
EMM_386 wrote: post #22

"The closing is bad news not only for its employees and its customers, who generally used Yellow because it offered some of the cheapest rates in the trucking sector." Perhaps they shouldn't have offered the cheapest rates in the trucking sector while failing their obligations. Taxpayers ended up holding 30% of this company's stock and they still couldn't figure out how to become profitable after a $700 million infus…

Pensions seem like an outdated concept, when 401Ks and IRAs are options. Pensions are essentially a tradeoff of lower pay now in exchange for benefits in the future, with a sprinkle of an incentive for increased retention added in, but with the critical downside (to the employer) of it basically being an unbounded, undefined financial downside for them at the tail end. Employers should pay people, contribute to their…

401k and IRA were created in a system that included pensions. Now without them, we have a huge shift towards a volatile market with a lot less guarantees, and lower limits. This isn’t a good system we have. Most are ill prepared.

Re: 99-year old trucking company Yellow shuts down, putting 30k out of work

#132

Post by azinman2 »

dehrmann wrote: post #113
mech765 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some industries low worker mobility is very desirable for the company. Offering long time horizon benefits is a good way to reduce turnover. I would prefer my local nuclear plant operator to have employees that stick around and get to know the equipment very well.

Then pay them significantly more than they can get at their next job.

A pension would be a form of that.

Re: 99-year old trucking company Yellow shuts down, putting 30k out of work

#133

Post by candiodari »

davidw wrote: post #47
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This works in a vacuum, but in many industries you get undercharging and living off investments, be it Uber or a gajillion startups, many of them mentioned here on HN.

Fair enough, but...trucking? Isn't that kind of an established market?

That's why we have "financial innovation". Which in this case boiled down to using investment money to buy up competitors, with the benefit of scale (and monopoly pricing) to come later. And then the benefit doesn't come ...

Re: 99-year old trucking company Yellow shuts down, putting 30k out of work

#134

Post by plorkyeran »

nlh wrote: post #118
dkulchenko wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This mirrors my experience. Not once did I have a Yellow LTL shipment arrive on time, and typical delays ranged from 2 days to 2 weeks or longer. Shipments would get lost in a terminal, down to staff insisting it never arrived on the trailer, and then spontaneously reappear after a loss claim was filed. I would've loved to avoid them but vendors would often choose them due to their cost.

It's amazing to me that in 2023 when the small-package industry (USPS, UPS, FedEx) is SO SO SO highly optimized that I have a choice of 3 carriers to get a box across the country in 1-2 days and by and large it works pretty darn well, and yet if a company wants to ship a pallet the same place, the logistics fall apart into garbage "it'll get there when it gets there." I know FedEx and UPS offer freight services, but…

There is a very big difference in price. Slow unreliable shipping is something that established companies know how to deal with, while many of them don’t know how to get a positive ROI out of paying more for freight.

Of course, the fact that Yellow has shut down suggests that may not be as true as it once was.

Re: 99-year old trucking company Yellow shuts down, putting 30k out of work

#135

Post by nradov »

WkndTriathlete wrote: post #106
hibikir wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you? A defined benefit plan is ultimately involving someone taking a risk. One either makes the risk very small, and therefore being a very expensive benefit from the very beginning, or be aggressive, and risk being an underfunded benefit. Either way you slice it, someone providing defined contributions instead is far safer, and can safely outcompete the defined benefit company, as they aren't taking on either si…

> Can you? A defined benefit plan is ultimately involving someone taking a risk. Yup. No less than Warren Buffett, who spent literally his entire career performing risk analyses, could figure out a way to manage defined benefit plan risk, and stated as such in a (now famous) memo in the late 60s or early 70s. Couple that with the number of pension defaults and pension haircuts that have occurred and are likely to con…

In theory it's possible to make defined benefit pension programs work. In practice they almost always eventually fall apart. The risk is large as to make them essentially financial malpractice.

Defined contribution plans such as 401(k) are much safer for workers and taxpayers.

Re: 99-year old trucking company Yellow shuts down, putting 30k out of work

#136

Post by nradov »

pm215 wrote: post #71
gottorf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pensions seem like an outdated concept, when 401Ks and IRAs are options. Pensions are essentially a tradeoff of lower pay now in exchange for benefits in the future, with a sprinkle of an incentive for increased retention added in, but with the critical downside (to the employer) of it basically being an unbounded, undefined financial downside for them at the tail end. Employers should pay people, contribute to their…

My counterargument to this is: Pension/retirement arrangements where the contributions are defined but the benefits are not are a risk to the individual -- you have to figure out "how much do I want to invest, what do I think the market will do, where should I put the money?", and if you get it wrong you don't have enough money in retirement. For the company, on the other hand, they're very low risk, because the amou…

Defined benefit pension plans are actually more risky for workers because most companies eventually fail. This is counterparty risk.

Re: 99-year old trucking company Yellow shuts down, putting 30k out of work

#137

Post by nradov »

azinman2 wrote: post #131
gottorf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pensions seem like an outdated concept, when 401Ks and IRAs are options. Pensions are essentially a tradeoff of lower pay now in exchange for benefits in the future, with a sprinkle of an incentive for increased retention added in, but with the critical downside (to the employer) of it basically being an unbounded, undefined financial downside for them at the tail end. Employers should pay people, contribute to their…

401k and IRA were created in a system that included pensions. Now without them, we have a huge shift towards a volatile market with a lot less guarantees, and lower limits. This isn’t a good system we have. Most are ill prepared.

The guarantees provided by the PBGC are very limited and create a terrible moral hazard. Defined contribution plans such as 401(k) are much safer because the assets are in individual named accounts which aren't at risk if the employer or plan sponsor goes bankrupt. Most such plans allow employees to invest in risk-free assets such as Treasuries if they desire.

Re: 99-year old trucking company Yellow shuts down, putting 30k out of work

#138

Post by nradov »

cguess wrote: post #75
didgetmaster wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Pensions might have been practical back in the day when people worked for "the company" for their whole career. But when so many change jobs every 5 years or less, they make no sense.

Not every company is a tech company and not every worker is in their 20's. If you're a truck driver there's a good chance you do work for the same company for your entire career.

You've got to be kidding. Trucking has very high employee turnover. Drivers will jump quickly to a competitor that offers slightly higher wages or better scheduling.

Re: 99-year old trucking company Yellow shuts down, putting 30k out of work

#139

Post by gotoeleven »

sosodev wrote: post #125
jimt1234 wrote: post #90

My dad worked for Yellow on the loading docks from the day he returned from Vietnam to the late-90s. He earned a good wage for a guy who only graduated high school; provided a solid middle-class life for his family. And it was all because of the union. The Teamsters was like religion to my dad. I always respected the union for what it provided for my dad and his family. I can't stress that enough. However, I can't fo…

Plenty of companies have corrupt, inefficient groups of employees without unions though.

But only the union ones can't be fired.

Re: 99-year old trucking company Yellow shuts down, putting 30k out of work

#140

Post by nradov »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #81
didgetmaster wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Pensions might have been practical back in the day when people worked for "the company" for their whole career. But when so many change jobs every 5 years or less, they make no sense.

Union pensions are typically paid into by companies, but the pension is maintained by the union. Teamsters, IBEWs, etc pensions operate in this manner. You won't work for the same company your entire career, but you're likely to remain in the same field for it. Pensions work just the same as 401ks, but better when properly funded and governed, because your average worker is unsophisticated as it relates to investing.…

Union pensions were a scam foisted on workers by corrupt union leaders who wanted access to a huge pot of money.

https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/invisibl...

https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/pubs/states/newsrel/...

I would much rather have my retirement funds in a 401(k). The assets are in my name and can't be arbitrarily taken away.

Post reply on HN