Crash.

Los Angeles is one of the world's largest, most vibrant international trade and logistics hubs. I didn't need this report to verify what I've been experiencing for months, but here it is, anyway: 

From the AP:

Despite gaining new customers from the shrinking U.S. presence of DHL and lower fuel prices, the world's two largest package delivery companies are battening down the hatches as they prepare for weak global economic conditions to get even worse.

FedEx Corp. said Thursday it will cut more jobs and trim wages again, after reporting its fiscal third-quarter profit tumbled 75 percent on sliding revenue."Our financial performance was sharply lower during the quarter due to the global recession," Chairman, President and Chief Executive Frederick W. Smith said. "While we are gaining market share in all of our transportation segments, the downturn in our industry and the severity and expected duration of the recession require that we take additional actions."

UPS Inc. Chairman and CEO Scott Davis had similar comments last month after his company reported lower fourth-quarter revenue. "The severe decline in economic activity around the world resulted in sharply lower package and freight volumes for UPS," he said.

Economists and analysts consider FedEx and larger rival UPS to be bellwethers of the global economy, since they deal with such basic indicators of company health as orders and product shipments. Both companies have been courting former customers of DHL, which pulled out of ground deliveries in the U.S. earlier this year.

In the past few months, several of my customer's customers have gone bankrupt or have been sold, my customer's staffs have shrunk like the number of educated people who vote Republican and shipping volumes have tanked. The transportation industry is, indeed, a barometer of the overall economy and the barometric pressure continues to plunge. 

I've always called the freight business the "world's second-oldest profession." I'm thinking I may need to get a red light and try my hand at the first.    

Click here for more on why the DHL connection mentioned above matters.