Wow, I Love It When The Correct Question Is Asked -- Sunday, December 27, 2020

First things first: if I recall correctly, the "traditional" definition for a recession required two quarters of negative GDP growth.

Next: see this post. You can assume Target and Walmart are not standing by watching this build-out go unmatched. 

Which brings us to the question of the day: how is all that product getting to the warehouses and then to the customer? The product isn't getting there by itself. See this post.

After that question, comes the second question: what else is driving this? Historically truck manufacturers wait until the outcome of a presidential election to decide when / if to increase orders. This year's election was held November 3, 2020. Manufacturers know taxes will be going up in 2021.

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Railroads

Railroads slashed jobs in November to lowest in decades. Link here.

• jobs going away due to technology; of the 25 listed, #1 is locomotive firers;  

As is the case with many jobs on this list, improved technology and automation will make locomotive firers all but obsolete. Positive train control, or PTC, is a system of computers that communicate with each other to make train travel safer. The system is becoming widely used on American railways and is automating many aspects of locomotive firers’ jobs.

• railroads are slashing workers; cheered on my Wall Street to stay profitable:

“When you go to work now, it’s like going into a funeral home,” Hollandsworth said. “What three people used to do, one person is doing now.”

•  move toward automation, making railroads more efficient;

Automation holds great promise for the future of railroad safety and efficiency. Today, automation of inspection technology and Positive Train Control (PTC) has started to deliver on its great promise to reduce the impact of human error and go beyond human limitations to make railroad operations safer and more efficient. 

Recently, an advanced algorithm analyzed the track alignment — known as track geometry — of more than 1,500 curves in track in just a few hours, whereas it would have taken a team of four people 10 months to manually complete the same task. 

Today, all Class I railroads use some sort of automated technology for inspections to supplement the manual inspections required by federal regulation. With increased use enabled by next generation technology and modifications to federal regulation, railroads will be able to conduct safety inspections more frequently, detect more flaws more reliably and respond more quickly while keeping workers out of harm’s way.

• driverless trains are coming; what happens to the workers?