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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3046 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 17, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Not an effort post, but two paragraph in a weekly brief my team writes:

In a unanimous ruling, the US Supreme Court ruled that a trucking freight broker could be sued for arranging freight shipments using trucking companies they hired negligently, e.g., ignoring red flags. This ruling upends the freight trucking industry and could push many smaller motor carriers and freight brokers out of business and many drivers out of trucking. Insurance costs for brokers are expected to increase by a factor of 5 to 10, and some brokers may not be able to obtain insurance at all. Truckload spot rates are spiking. At least some companies with spotty track records can no longer get loads to drive as brokers are already making more careful selections. Increasing trucking freight prices are likely to drive additional inflation faced by both producers and consumers.

A shortage of synthetic industrial lubricants is anticipated to start affecting the US and Europe over the coming weeks. Production at the Shell Pearl GTL facility in Ras Laffan, Qatar was halted after the facility was struck by Iran in March. The Shell Pearl facility, together with far smaller facilities in the UAE and Bahrain, produced 20-30% of the world’s supply of Group III base oils. These base oils are used in a variety of applications, including synthetic motor oils and automatic transmission fluid. Lower-quality base oils can be substituted for Group III base oils in some of these applications better than in others. Shortages of products containing Group III base oils can be expected to start appearing by June and July, as retailers face losses of new supplies; price increases are expected, and some products are likely to be reformulated.

This ruling upends the freight trucking industry and could push many smaller motor carriers and freight brokers out of business and many drivers out of trucking.

I heard that the influx of cheap "no-questions-asked" carriers already did it with many existing businesses. So maybe if those carriers are forced out, the previous ones would come back? This indeed could cause some raise of the prices, but the question is would it be a panic raise or "going back to the level of 10 years ago" raise?

the previous ones would come back?

Here I'm just speculating, but there are frictions. You can't just boot up a relatively capital intensive business just like so?

The rigs that are driven by cheap foreigners are rarely owned by them I imagine. Somebody owns them. That somebody could keep the rigs and start hiring natives?

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