Nervous?

[scratch]

I am mainly a residential driver and I usually have Add/Cuts pulled off me everyday. I haven't noticed any volume drop at all on my area. I think some people are cutting back on spending when you see the gas prices jump a lot at the pump. But there is a case to made that it is cheaper to order things online then to spend your time and gas to go to the store. I think that our company will do fine if we can keep our rates in check.

I think that the current problems are caused by oil prices and the housing market concerns. Plus it is an election year and politicians always use scare tactics to get into office, they are looking out for themselves instead of the good of the people. But 93% of people pay their mortgage on time. There are a lot of people with bad or so-so credit that were allowed to buy houses they couldn't afford. A lot of these people also have two new car payments, a big screen TV, and a lot of credit card debt too. People need to live within their means.

 

[dannyboy]

Vette

Thankyou for that tidbit. I knew it was around that time, but not sure. I am glad you pinned the date down for me.

Point is, if you watch what you are doing, regardless of the economy, you can come out ahead. It might not even be at UPS. Or you could lose your butt, even while being employed at UPS. It all depends on what you do with what you have.

Even with UPS earnings down somewhat, what is the problem? In some areas things might slow down a bit, but in others, its full steam ahead.

If milk goes to 15 bucks a gallon, dont buy milk if you cant afford it. Same with Gas, Eggs, any item that you can live without. You would be suprised at what you think is a very needed item, but once you have done without a while, you realise that you really didnt NEED it as bad as you thought.

The one thing that I have not mentioned is that our debt to other nations is now only worth half in real value, cause the dollar has become worthless in many areas. Good for us in a way, bad for them, especially the Chinese and the oil nations. Holding trillions of our dollars that are worth less and less each passing day.

d

 

[dannyboy]

Scratch

You and I posted about the same time.

One thing you did not mention is that many of the forclosures are on speculators that were flipping houses. It seemed so easy to make the big bucks.......

Now you have three or four that are costing you a bundle each day that goes by, and you have no way to pay for them, after all you only planed on keeping them a month at most. But now they are worth less than when you bought them run down, and you cant take the loss........

It is kinda funny you mention new cars. All those people living in single wides with more in the wheels on their rides than they have in the home they are living in. Drive 80 thousand dollar cars, but live in a shack worth maybe 15 grand. Go figure.

d

 

[dcdriver]

internet sales are up 17% UPS will be just fine

 

[Package Car Jockey]

I am 2 1/2 years in as a driver and getting to drive 2 - 3 days per week!!!! This really sucks with the downturn in the economy. I covered one area for 2 days last week and another just for 1 day. I knew by the time I finished all pickups on fri. night our volume is down. I hadn't been on either areas for a few months; so it is hard to tell what the volume is doing when you get bounced 1 day here 1 day there. But my pickup volume was down quite a bit. Any other coverage drivers out there not getting much time behind the wheel??? Oh yes and they are cutting routes just as hard as they can!!

 

[Overpaid Union Thug]

The so called recession isn't going here in my area. As a matter of fact....this district has hired quite a few additional drivers lately. Including myself. Our volume has gone up so much during the past 5 years.

 

[Coldworld]

The so called recession isn't going here in my area. As a matter of fact....this district has hired quite a few additional drivers lately. Including myself. Our volume has gone up so much during the past 5 years.

good point, over the long haul when any area has growth ups and our competition will be adding routes to cover the extra areas, both business and resi. But the housing boom was just going so crazy it was bound to tank. many people felt like if they didnt take a leap into getting into a house then they were going to miss out....myself included.

 

[25yrvet]

Out west we have an energy boom. There's a sat. center in the middle of our state that can't keep drivers. They start at 1030 or so & work the usual crap 10 hours. Who wants to work till 2100 everynite @ 15 an hour when you can work in the energy fields starting at 23.
As was stated before, inventories will be lower and be replenished by ups instead of LTL or truckload. Alot of small towns don't have walmart, kmart, target, etc. and people don't want to drive as much=== qvc, hsn, penneys.
I know there's alot of states hurting bigtime, but thankfully, we are goin' great guns.

 

[rod]

Alot of small towns don't have walmart,quote]


Lucky them walmart sucks

 

[25yrvet]

I agree Rod, I try to avoid them every chance I get.

 

[brownmonster]

Sure, don't go to Walmart. Put another 8 dollar an hour employee out of work.

 

[rod]

I really don't know what walmart pays other than it is probably in the same ball park as other low paying jobs. My beef with walmart is that:

1. Their prices are nowhere near as low as they try to make you believe. In fact the last time I lowered my self estem and shopped at a walmart the prices were significantly higher than other stores in my area. "The prices keep dropping" my butt.

2. Their grocerys are for the most part not as fresh as other local stores and they aren't any cheaper either.

3. Their stores are just too full of low quality merchandise. They just plain have too much JUNK on the shelves.

4.It might just be me but for some reason (see #3) their stores appear to attract every low life dirtball with a dozen snot nosed kids. Man there are some ugly people there.

5. I hate being greeted by some poor senior citizen that is forced to smile all day. A walmart greeter has to have one of the worst jobs out there. (other than that person that collects the bull sperm)

6. Apparently walmart don't have a dental plan because finding a checkout clerk with a full set of teeth would be next to impossible.

7. Walmart I belive installed the 1st Self Checkout counters. Them things are someones pipe dream. Have you noticed that they always have a full time checkout person assisting the self checkout machines and these people are busy all the time--assisting.

 

[dannyboy]

My beef is that they used to advertise two things that they ran into the ground.

1, if we have more than three people in a line, we will open up another register. After several years of failure, and I think a lawsuit or two, the signs are not there anymore.

2, we buy American whenever we can. Well, as far as I know, china is not the 51st state.

Now, at one time they did. Several businesses in our area were forced to greatly expand thier operations because Walmart wanted to buy their products. They ended up letting all the former customers fall by the wayside because they could barely keep up with the walmart demand.

Fast forward about two years. Walmart comes in and anounces that they must be able to buy the items for 5 bucks instead of the 7 they had been paying. The business had about 5.5 in costs to produce the item, so they could not lower the price enough, and walmart left. Now, they have millions of debt because of the expansion, and no way to pay, or they can sell at a loss, and rack up even more debt.

Present day, the manufacturing sites are still empty, and wallyworld imports millions of containers from China. THe companies are long gone, as are many of the workers, many whom are now working at wallyworld to make ends meet.

There is one more thing. Wallyworld moves their stores about every 20 years. What they leave behind is not only an eyesore, but usually degrades all the property around it for miles. While they try to promote themselves as a good neighbor, its only when you can do something for them.

Buy American. Shop anywhere but Walmart!

d

 

[outamyway]

Once their value packs of ammo stopped being a value, I stopped going to WalMart. I buy my ammo exclusivly online now and it's only shipped UPS. Along with supporting our company in a small way, I also get to pick stuff up from my driver before he leaves in the morning.

Free early morning delivery

 

[DS]

Just curious,is this chinese crap only over here in north america? or is it everywhere.

 

[satellitedriver]

Once their value packs of ammo stopped being a value, I stopped going to WalMart. I buy my ammo exclusivly online now and it's only shipped UPS. Along with supporting our company in a small way, I also get to pick stuff up from my driver before he leaves in the morning.

Free early morning delivery

If you are buying 7.62's in bulk, guess where they were made.

 

[satellitedriver]

Just curious,is this chinese crap only over here in north america? or is it everywhere.

China manufactures 51% of all goods made in the world.
Easy to see their crap worldwide, and they have just gotten started.
We are only a few decades into their hundred year plan.
Moa screwed things up, but the Chinese are true capitalists and have a much longer view in their planning.

 

[outamyway]

If you are buying 7.62's in bulk, guess where they were made.

I don't have an AK.

 

[filthpig]

I'm extremely fortunate to live in an area wherethe economy is vibrant. Real Estate market hasn't taken a hit either. Our center is training new drivers.

where?

 

[rod]

I'm extremely fortunate to live in an area wherethe economy is vibrant. Real Estate market hasn't taken a hit either. Our center is training new drivers.

Must be in the area where Haliburton is headquartered