This Week's Supply Chain by the Numbers - Truckload Capacity, China's Foreign Investment, Carbon Emissions, Economic Recovery

Supply Chain by the Numbers: Week of July 29, 2009

-July 29, 2009

The Supply Chain and Logistics Numbers Worth Knowing This Week: Carriers Down on Luck Idle Trucks, China Shops While Others Stop, Carbon Emissions' Lofty Goal, Economic Recovery Race - The Tortoise or the Hare?



150,000
The number of Class 8 trucks in the US that have been idled over the last five quarters through carrier bankruptcy, according to Lana Batts, an analyst at Transport Capital Partners, in a recent interview. That represents about 8-9% of what had been the existing market capacity. Additional capacity has been taken out of the market by voluntary idling of equipment by solvent carriers.

$52 billion

The level of foreign investment or acquisitions by China companies in 2008, double 2007’s level. Business Week magazine this week says that total should grow by 13% in 2009 – at a time when most other countries have pulled back foreign investment levels. “China goes shopping,” BW says.


41
The number of years by which the G8 industrialized nations recently set a target to reduce carbon emissions by 80% - meaning by the year 2050. That included the somewhat odd statement that a non-binding goal had been set by the group that “the Earth’s temperature shall not rise by more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over pre-industrial levels” – whatever that means.




37%
The percent of economists who predict a “moderate to fast” economic recovery starting in the fall, according to a USA Today survey. 63% of the economists surveyed, however, think the recovery will be “slow gradual.”