Welcome, friends, to another edition of Economic Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic

dimensions of our lives and those of our children. I'm your host, Richard Wolfe. Today's program is going to be

talking about the bankruptcy of a major trucking company and what it teaches us about the problems

of American capitalism. We'll also be talking about the U.S. versus China tensions that are shaping the modern economic,

global economy in ways that we haven't seen before, and that need a little historical context,

so we understand what's happening.

And finally, we're going to be talking about certain fundamental similarities between the Republicans

and Democrats that ought to be understood alongside the things that differentiate them.

And before jumping in, I want to remind you that we are very open to suggestions about

topics and questions to respond to, If any of you that are listening

or watching have such suggestions, please know that we have a volunteer, Charlie, who handles

them and transmits them to us. So if you have any, here is Charlie's email. Just send them in and we will look at each and every one.

Charlie dot info 438 at gmail.com. Once again, Charlie spelled C-H-A-R-L-I-E, Charlie.Info3-8 at g-mail.com.

Okay, let's jump right in.

The bankrupt trucking company, known as Yellow Freight, its former name was Y-R-C worldwide, is one of the, or I shouldn't say is, was one of the largest

trucking companies in the United States. It employed 30,000 people, 22,000 of whom were truckers,

members of the Teamsters Union here in the United States.

It was a special kind of trucking company because it was famous for carrying non-full loads.

In other words, if you had something to ship, but it wasn't big enough to take the whole

container, you could get part of a container, very important for many, many, many businesses around the United States.

This company has had its problems, but it was able to continue for quite a long time until recently.

The instabilities of American capitalism, the up and down bouncing, took its toll on all trucking companies, as is pretty well known, including yellow freight.

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