Commentary

Capacity is king in trucking today, and the truck driver is the coin of the realm.

Ocean carriers and retailers had plenty to say about the outlook for the global economy in releasing their financial reports for the most recent quarter, but they sounded for all the world like they w

Q: I’ve lately been getting quite a few e-mails from a collection agency that says it’s working for one of our major parcel carriers.

Many truckload carriers are pumping money into driver recruitment and training programs and still say they’re having trouble finding enough drivers.

Famous mathematics professor John Allen Paulos is quoted as saying, “Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” Major world

Vacations are supposed to take you away from your job, but when you work in transportation and design a family road trip in the American Southwest the shipping business can turn up in surprising ways.

There was an interesting and telling contrast last week at the meeting point between business and politics.

Q: We sent a shipment intended for a customer in the Dominican Republic to a Florida freight forwarder hired by our customer. The value was $10,000.

What interest does a beneficial cargo owner — the large shipper of goods through the supply chain — have in the question of limiting greenhouse gases from container ship engines?

Weeks before Washington politicians took government dysfunction to a new level and the Eurozone crisis threatened to engulf Italy, a respected forecasting firm signaled an economic slowdown ahead.

With President Obama first striking a deal with car makers to double fuel efficiency by 2025, and now finalizing

Q: Your June 13 and July 18, 2011, columns request views regarding enforceability of National Motor Freight Classification provisions that a non-participating carrier has incorporated into its transpo

In the inquiries that followed the at-sea hull fracture and subsequent scuttling of the MSC Napoli in early 2007 in the English Channel, investigators discovered a disturbing truth.

The congressional failure that led to the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration will not, just to be clear, particularly pinch any freight or even passenger transport touching the Un

Harold Daggett fired up his troops with a pugnacious inaugural speech after his election last week as president of the International Longshoremen’s Association.

With the prefab debt ceiling crisis behind us for now, a truly serious threat is emerging. More and more people are again talking about recession.

In Ancient Rome, the period between July 24 and Aug.

Q: I keep reading your column, I don’t know why, looking for some semblance of integrity, of equity, in your responses.

U.S.

Every silver lining, it seems, has its cloud.

I met with a container line executive earlier this month and found him to be in a grumpy mood.

It’s taken on faith in the shipping world that the volume of trade moving through ports, railyards and truck terminals is a leading indicator of the economy’s direction.

When Federal Maritime Commission Chairman Richard Lidinsky looks across the U.S.-Canada border, he sees a “twilight zone.”

The economy may still have the slows, but suppliers of equipment to the freight transportation sector say solid demand is filling their order books.

The International Longshoremen’s Association is still smarting over the 200 jobs it lost in Philadelphia last year when Fresh Del Monte shifted its fruit imports to a terminal that employs non-I

Bill Cassidy reports an impressive string of rising profits at truckload carriers as tight truck capacity pushes over-the-road rates higher.

We’re a year into the National Export Initiative’s five-year plan to double U.S. exports.

These past couple of weeks showed serious signs of déjà vu for the shipping and trade sector.

Q: We recently gave a shipment to a 3PL (broker) we use regularly. The broker then gave the shipment to a particular carrier.

Logistics costs are rising, but where is the response from shippers in terms of truly changing fundamentals of their distribution center networks?

Ocean carrier executives must be looking at railroads and trucking companies and wondering if they got in the wrong business. That would certainly be a rational response.

It’s probably a good thing that fictional characters usually keep away from the business of Congress, but J.K. Rowling’s favorite wizard briefly swooped into a U.S.

It’s accepted faith that the railroads helped build the American industrial economy with their push toward transcontinental networks.

I think we’re rapidly approaching the shipping industry’s “time of departure” that will separate the strong from the weak, the truly serious from the also-rans.

Q: This is regarding your June 13, 2011, column about whether a carrier can reference the National Motor Freight Classification in a contract if the carrier doesn’t “participate” in

From the cab on an 18-wheeler, a government shutdown means fewer places to park, as truckers driving in and through Minnesota found over the past two weeks.

FTR Associates transportation analyst Larry Gross showed a revealing chart at The Journal of Commerce Inland Ports Conference in Chicago last month.

Even John Mica doesn’t believe in the transportation spending plan he released this month.

Keep those fingers crossed, but the U.S. is on track to accomplish an important job-creating goal from President Obama — doubling the nation’s exports in five years.

Anyone who follows Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood must agree he has no peer in the Cabinet or anywhere in government when it comes to supporting the infrastructure of social media.