Wounds need a hit of salt? How about this? Not only are North American consumers buying fewer goods than they used to, the things that they are buying are a lot smaller.

Even econo cars are littler than they used to be. You can fit far more Smart Cars on a trailer than you could, say, Civics.

Think of how many ipods could be crammed into the same-size package as a ghetto blaster. And never mind the fact that people are buying software and music -- a list soon to include books and movies -- through cyberspace instead of off store shelves in brick-and-mortar buildings.

Imagine how lightweight a big-screen TV is, compared to its earlier, 32-in. version.

Not only that but companies such as Wal-Mart are rewarding minimal packaging. They've redesigned their milk cartons so it takes fewer truckloads a week to deliver the same amount of product.

What this radical morphing of commodities means, in part, is that it takes far less truck to move far more wealth.

So, according to Dave Ross, a transportation analyst with Baltimore-based Stifel Nicolaus Financial, even if consumer demand happens to improve over the next few months, there will be no definite corresponding increase in the shipment of consumer goods.

Yes, Ross agrees, the spinal cord of the economy is the North American consumer. But determining how consumer activity affects trucking isn't as clear cut as it used to be.

And retail purchasing power is just one of the 300-odd variables economic forecasters use to predict where the economy's going. No wonder so many people out there are sort of shaking their heads.

Ross and numerous other market-watchers assert that trucking will be gearing up when consumer confidence returns to the Canadian and American marketplaces. When people start buying houses again. When banks resume lending. When there's more confidence.

But at the moment, as Noel Perry, a managing director and senior consultant at FTR Associates put it, "it takes gross domestic product [GDP] growth of 3.5 percent or greater for freight to accelerate."

And in the last quarter of 2008, the American GDP actually shrunk. Any wonder freight has decelerated to the point where record numbers of American carriers have left the market?

Which way in '09? Some say freight will rebound by the second
half of '09. Those less bullish think there'll be no recovery until '10.

The most optimistic estimates have American GDP heading back into the positive figures sometime in the third quarter of 2009 -- and even that is a best case scenario.

Late last fall a FTR seminar entitled "Credit Crunch and Transportation: Update and Potential Effects of the Bailout Bill," Bill Witte, the director of something called the Center for Econometric Model Research, predicted the coming downturn will be worse than the previous two slides -- the early 2000s and the first part of the '90s, and longer than the recession at the beginning of the '80s.

Forecasting no noticeable increase in freight demand until the middle of 2010, FTR President Eric Starks said after the seminar: "We know this forecast will be a blow to many industry participants, but our instinct is to take the information we have and generate as reliable an outlook for equipment build as possible."

The less trucking that's being done, the less wear and tear on equipment, so trade cycles are lengthening. There's less demand for new builds.

It's no secret that economists and market watchers have had to revise their predictions. In past years, trucking industry types predicted that the high oil price in the summer (US $147 per barrel) would never decrease. Today it's around $35.

The loonie, so strong six months ago, slid partially in response to the American interest-rate cut to a point at which -- if the American economy were in good shape -- Canadian exporters and manufacturers would be high-fiving each other in anticipation of good times all-around.

Alas, and to nobody's surprise, the Canadian economy trails in the wake of the Americans' collapse.  Perhaps it was best described by Mak Kawahara, president of Isuzu Commercial Truck of America Inc. at a recent press conference. He was asked during a market forecast for the medium-duty truck market in Canada if it was any different than that of the American scene, and he said, "When we think of the Canadian marketplace, we just cut-and-paste American information."

For a few months, particularly during the Canadian federal election, Canadians who weren't in the trucking business could have been forgiven if they thought we were insulated from the American economic meltdown. Our banks, although they had some exposure to the mortgage mess in the States, seemed secure. We had a few plant closures but governments assured the country that more jobs were being created than lost.

And some companies did just fine. Even truckers. MSM Transportation's Mike McCarron reports that his company had a record year in '08.

Moe Faddoul is founder and president of Moe's Transport, an eight-year-old Windsor, Ont.,-based fleet running about 150 tractors specializing in car parts. Faddoul says he has managed to keep operating with no cutbacks; and in fact, counts himself among those Canadians hard-pressed to spot the effects of the recession.

"I think the worst thing is, people are afraid," Faddoul told Today's Trucking recently.

"I took my kids out for a supper on Saturday and we had to try six different restaurants before we found one that didn't have a line-up. Where's the evidence that people are broke?

"You go to Michigan, the malls are packed. As far as I can tell, people still have money."

Like a lot of observers, Faddoul believes that the second half of '09 will see a measurable uptick in activity and consumer confidence. "I think we have to hang in there because the second half is going to be crazy. These car manufacturers are changing the products they make and they can adapt very quickly if they have to."

Up to road from Moe's is J&R Hall Transport, a third-generation family outfit providing expedited service between Toronto and Western Canada. President Andy Hall, like Faddoul, says he is definitely worried about the prospect of people losing their jobs, but adds "so far, so good."

Despite industry-wide concerns that medium-size fleets like Halls will delay equipment purchases because of the economy, he says he maintains his regular trade-in cycle, come what may. In fact, he says, this has worked to his benefit. Because of the wildly fluctuating Canadian dollar, the trucks that he's paying more for now as a result of the low Canadian dollar are offset by those that he bought when the buck was high, compared to the Greenback.

"It's hard to figure out what makes the dollar fluctuate like it does, but because we just kept buying throughout it all, we end up paying pretty much par for our equipment."

The biggest change for the Halls, he says, will be a move away from Cat engines, which have been his company's go-to power plants for years. Caterpillar's move out of the market, which was announced this past summer, will mean increased share for the other diesel manufacturers.

Kevin Snobel is general manager for Caravan Logistics, another fleet which has held its own throughout the tumult. When asked about how another fleet might follow suit and survive, Snobel echoed the popular idea that the current realignment of capacity will cull the national fleet and the strong will emerge. "But I have to say," Snobel adds, "it's kind of late to be taking action now.

"If a company had taken steps 16 to 18 months ago and redid their business plan, they'd be in far better shape to survive the next year."

Snobel says Canadian truckers would benefit if the Canadian dollar remains low. "We're an exporting country and if our dollar stays where it is, it'll be fantastic. We can't really afford to have it higher than 85 cents."

But the fact is, it's been a dreadful year for the overall industry. Some bottom feeders were giving their services away.

According to the CEO of the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) David Bradley, "carriers have been reducing their fleet sizes, getting rid of trucks and not buying new ones. Many trucking companies have left the market; either because they decided they'd had enough, or they couldn't get sufficient credit and/or they went bankrupt. Tighter credit has also made it more difficult for people to enter the marketplace.

And, he agrees with Carvan's Snobel: It's hard to run a business when you don't know how much your money is worth.

"The modest depreciation of the Canadian dollar that we have seen this autumn is not unwelcome, but when a currency loses almost 20 percent of its value over a period of weeks, then jumps back by four percent in one day, it's hard to run a business."

However, like Moe Faddoul, Bradley believes that 2009 will be wheat-from-chaff time. Faddoul, from his vantage point in Windsor, Ont., thinks that "the second six months of '09 will be crazy. We're all getting reorganized and re-orchestrated and the bankruptcies are slowing down."

Bradley is a bit less bullish. He reckons that, "it may take the better part of 2009, at least, for the North American economy to stabilize and begin to recover. But when it does, the demand for trucking services will likely outweigh the supply."

Rates, he says, which have been hammered, will be under pressure to rise again."

Bradley predicts that by the end of the year, capacity will be lower and the perennial pain -- the driver shortage -- will become one of the biggest issues facing the industry.

"Shippers, Bradley said, "would be advised to partner with carriers now to lock-in capacity for when things do inevitably start to come back."

In the view of Bradley -- and other optimists -- the Canadian trucking industry a year from now will be just like the ipod. But instead of delivering music, trucks will deliver freight. And like those amazing handheld devices, trucking will be tighter, more streamlined, user-friendlier and more powerful than anything that preceded it.