America has a truck driver shortage • Hacker News Board

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#311

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, May 29, 2018, 10:16 AM UTC

b1daly wrote: post #302

TeMPOraL wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about HN's technical focus. It's that for many of us here - myself strongly included - sales and marketing can be seen as a large-scale defection in the game of free market. In the ideal world, when you want to buy a product or a service, you would consider the value it brings to you based on hard facts, consider other circumstances impacting the costs - like e.g. product A is a bit better, but product B has…

I don’t mean to be glib, but nothing is perfect. What some of the other posters are alluring to is that the ability to organize deals and market a product is an essential skill in running a business. If product A is technically superior, but there is not sufficient business talent to sustain a business on it, then the quality is moot. What you’re describing here, sales people lying about capabilities and then failing…

And I'm not trying to make them sound simple, or to paint the world black and white. I was just trying to point out reasons for distaste other than "meh, it's not math, so it's boring".

Personally, I simultaneously appreciate just how hard those skills are (I like tech partly because it's much easier than dealing with humans at scale), despise the way those skills are most commonly used, and understand how some dabbling in dark arts is necessary to even have a fighting chance on the marketplace.

> What you’re describing here, sales people lying about capabilities and then failing to deliver, is something that maybe happens in complex business to business transactions, where the product is a set of services and products that defy “apples to apples” comparison.

> I don’t believe companies will survive if they practice outright fraud on their customers.

Well, outright fraud is illegal, and therefore happens less often. But between that and being fair and straightforward there's a whole spectrum, and from my experience almost all companies lean far towards the dishonest side. Just listen to any discussion of marketing people about their strategies. Would you apply similar methods on your friends and family? Would you skinner-box your niece for extra change? Would you price-anchor your mother with a birthday gift?

I simply believe that, as a society, we have way too low standard for business interactions. We allow ourselves to be manipulated at every way without question, and even praise the master manipulators who are skilled at what they do. I'd love for that to change, but I have no idea how to help - so for now, I just resort to expressing and explaining my distaste for manipulative practices.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#312

Post by reitanqild » Tue, May 29, 2018, 10:22 AM UTC

narag wrote: post #308

b1daly wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t mean to be glib, but nothing is perfect. What some of the other posters are alluring to is that the ability to organize deals and market a product is an essential skill in running a business. If product A is technically superior, but there is not sufficient business talent to sustain a business on it, then the quality is moot. What you’re describing here, sales people lying about capabilities and then failing…

What you’re describing here, sales people lying about capabilities and then failing to deliver, is something that maybe happens in complex business to business transactions, where the product is a set of services and products that defy “apples to apples” comparison No. It does happen, not "maybe", every day and for every kind of decision, complex and simple. If something is "apples to apples", the sales work is to mu…

> If something is "apples to apples", the sales work is to mud the waters.

... obviously unless you happen to work for the company with the good (or least bad) apples, in which case your jib is to spread the word that good apples exist.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#313

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, May 29, 2018, 10:24 AM UTC

reitanqild wrote: post #312

narag wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re describing here, sales people lying about capabilities and then failing to deliver, is something that maybe happens in complex business to business transactions, where the product is a set of services and products that defy “apples to apples” comparison No. It does happen, not "maybe", every day and for every kind of decision, complex and simple. If something is "apples to apples", the sales work is to mu…

> If something is "apples to apples", the sales work is to mud the waters. ... obviously unless you happen to work for the company with the good (or least bad) apples, in which case your jib is to spread the word that good apples exist.

The problem is, the market isn't static, but dynamic. You play an iterative game. It turns out that spending more money on spreading the word about your apples has better ROI than spending that money on ensuring you actually have the best apples... And even if you achieve best apples and best marketing, think of just how much money you had to spend on the marketing part. How much better still would your apples be if you didn't have to play the zero-sum game of advertising? How much better everyone's products would be?

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#314

Post by caf » Tue, May 29, 2018, 10:25 AM UTC

corodra wrote: post #286

gambiting wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. There is no such distinction over here - if you are carrying goods commercially, you have to have a tachometer, full stop. Also, while the driver can be given a ticket for certain things(speeding mostly) working over hours or any issues with the truck will result in a massive fine for the company(one of the trucks carrying goods for us was fined in Germany recently for 2500 Euro because one side had a small bu…

FYI, by independent I mean a guy buys a semi-truck and trailer, has his own little company and hauls loads commercially. By company, we're talking about 50+ employee operations. There's a whole bunch of contractors, "owner-operators" that are independent. Qualcomm, who has a gps and digital log system, is in nearly every decent sized company trucks. Also the trucks I ran were throttled to 63. The throttle ranges betw…

Don't the independent operators have insurance?

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#315

Post by adrianN » Tue, May 29, 2018, 10:30 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #267

andrei_says_ wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, shortage of people willing to forego having a personal life, are expected to speed/break the law daily and risk losing their job as a part of doing their job, are verifiably destroying their health long term in order to do said boring menial job for long hours in exchange for low to medium pay. Of course there’s a shortage. If pay was 200-300% higher and drivers could afford to work 2/3 of the time an…

Are you willing to pay dramatically higher prices for literally everything you buy? Solutions like “just raise wages” are simplistic. Markets don’t work that way. You raise wages, trucking gets more expensive and demand drops, causing all sorts of unintended consequences. What very few people talk about is eliminating taxes on diesel fuel. That would lower costs and increase margins which would result in companies be…

If trucking is less profitable, maybe we ship more things by train. That's a lot better for the environment too.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#316

Post by caf » Tue, May 29, 2018, 10:41 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #267

andrei_says_ wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, shortage of people willing to forego having a personal life, are expected to speed/break the law daily and risk losing their job as a part of doing their job, are verifiably destroying their health long term in order to do said boring menial job for long hours in exchange for low to medium pay. Of course there’s a shortage. If pay was 200-300% higher and drivers could afford to work 2/3 of the time an…

Are you willing to pay dramatically higher prices for literally everything you buy? Solutions like “just raise wages” are simplistic. Markets don’t work that way. You raise wages, trucking gets more expensive and demand drops, causing all sorts of unintended consequences. What very few people talk about is eliminating taxes on diesel fuel. That would lower costs and increase margins which would result in companies be…

How's this for economics: there's a market-clearing price for everything, including truck driving labour.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#317

Post by isolli » Tue, May 29, 2018, 10:42 AM UTC

shados wrote: post #164

rgbrenner wrote: post #4

If you're an employer and you cant find employees, the answer is virtually always to increase total compensation. Theres no reason $80k is the top end of the pay range for any job. The economy does not price jobs based on prestige, education level, or some other signal... that's a judgement made by certain people about what they think a job is worth.. not the market. The opinions of people about the worth of a job ar…

Depends on the profit margin in a field. Some industries have razor thin margins. Unless your competitors do the same as you do (and in some industries, your competitors are in other countries with different standards of living), you don't have a whole lot of choice. Software/SaaS is able to give ever increasing wages because of near infinite supply of investor money and/or insane profit margins (which won't last). S…

Yes, but even in industries with razor-thin margins the solution to a labor shortage is to increase salaries. Some of the companies will go under, and the most productive ones will survive. It's capitalism, quite simply.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#318

Post by chiefalchemist » Tue, May 29, 2018, 10:52 AM UTC

> "The ATA predicts that it's likely to get worse in the coming years"

Not really. These vehicles are at the top of the list to go autonomous sooner rather than later. In fact, aren't they being tested in Europe? Germany?

Editorial (and slighly off topic): Perhaps it's time for the USA to revisit its consumption based economy? Less good consumed means less goods to ship. Perhaps the driver supply is fine. It's the excessive demand that's gone mad.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#319

Post by jacobush » Tue, May 29, 2018, 10:57 AM UTC

caf wrote: post #314

corodra wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, by independent I mean a guy buys a semi-truck and trailer, has his own little company and hauls loads commercially. By company, we're talking about 50+ employee operations. There's a whole bunch of contractors, "owner-operators" that are independent. Qualcomm, who has a gps and digital log system, is in nearly every decent sized company trucks. Also the trucks I ran were throttled to 63. The throttle ranges betw…

Don't the independent operators have insurance?

Too expensive?

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#320

Post by Spooky23 » Tue, May 29, 2018, 11:06 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #267

andrei_says_ wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, shortage of people willing to forego having a personal life, are expected to speed/break the law daily and risk losing their job as a part of doing their job, are verifiably destroying their health long term in order to do said boring menial job for long hours in exchange for low to medium pay. Of course there’s a shortage. If pay was 200-300% higher and drivers could afford to work 2/3 of the time an…

Are you willing to pay dramatically higher prices for literally everything you buy? Solutions like “just raise wages” are simplistic. Markets don’t work that way. You raise wages, trucking gets more expensive and demand drops, causing all sorts of unintended consequences. What very few people talk about is eliminating taxes on diesel fuel. That would lower costs and increase margins which would result in companies be…

Transport is a tiny fraction of product cost. Union operators pay 50% more, compete in the market, and have little impact on consumer prices.

The owners probably make a little less.