by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
They’re getting passed on and feed into the inflation scenario.
Before we get to the spiking prices and expenditures that shippers such as industrial companies or retailers now have to pay to ship their goods across the US, I want to point at the volume of shipments.
Shipment volume in June was strong but down from peak year 2018, and has been lower than the peak year 2018 every month this year, according to the Cass Freight Index, which covers all modes of transportation, but is centered on trucking, with truckload (TL) shipments representing over half of the dollar amounts, rail in second place, and less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments in third place, followed by parcel services and others. But it does not include bulk commodities.