Marmaduke Freehold: Official Press Release

May 31, 2440

I run multiple businesses and I honor the contracts I put my name on. My companies are not obliged to work for free, nor accept contracts we would lose money on. We do not take every contract pitched to us. In fact, for twenty years AgriSolutions has turned down more work than we have accepted. We work within the limits of what we can deliver on, at the quality and reliability we are known for.

There are still independent contractors hauling between Memphis and Ames. If they use my roads, they charge you for it. Marmaduke Logistics is charged for the roads we use as well. That is the way of things in the middle of the continent. What is different is that we usually absorb the cost of the tolls in our pricing. Road maintenance must be paid for by someone. If you prefer to use someone else to haul your goods, you are free to do so. You are also free to start your own freight business. It is how I got started.

People talk as if I woke up one day and decided who eats and who goes hungry. That is not how this works. We build corridors, depots, and schedules. We sign contracts to move specific tonnage along those routes. When I say your local problems are not mine to fix, I am not saying I do not care. I am saying I will not lie to you about what I can actually do from Missouri with the assets I have.

If a city or a region wants help, they come to the table with a proposal and skin in the game. Sometimes that is money. Sometimes that is labor, land, or a long term concession. Sometimes I say yes. Often I say no, because overpromising is how infrastructure fails and people die waiting on trucks that were never coming.

You are free to be angry with me. You are free to take your freight and your attention elsewhere. That is the right of any customer and any citizen. My responsibility is to keep the roads I own safe, the contracts I sign honest, and the people under my care fed and paid. I will not promise you more than that.

Curated Social Media:

• @PrairieCoOpFarmer:
  I do not love all his answers, but at least Marmaduke talks like a grownup. Clear limits, clear terms, no fake “we care” slogan. Roads cost money, trucks cost money, people need to get paid. I can plan around that. Hard to plan around politicians who promise everything and deliver potholes.
• @RotterdamPolicyNerd:
  On one hand, he is right that logistics follows contracts and capacity, not feelings. On the other, “your local problems are not mine to fix” is a harsh line from someone who controls corridors half the planet relies on. It is coherent, but it raises the question: at what point do private obligations become public responsibility?
• @MemphisDockRat:
  Easy to talk about “start your own freight business” when you were born with a Trust name and inherited rail, ports, and half the grain in the Midwest. Our warehouses are empty and you are telling us to bootstrap a fleet from thin air while you rake tolls off the roads. Call it honest if you like, it still sounds like greed from here.
  • @MattMarmaduke: Two points. Port of Memphis is responsible for the river. If nothing is coming north, that is on their management, not mine.  If your silos are empty, ask why. Thousands of tons of grain are sold to the port authority every single day. Ask them where it goes after you hand it over.
    • @RiverBargeCap: As someone who actually ships on that river, I can back this. Port signs the contracts, sets the storage terms, handles customs and inspections. If grain is vanishing between weigh-in and export, that is a Port of Memphis problem, not a Marmaduke problem.
    • @BluffCityShopkeep: Honest question, though: if you know the port is broken and still sell “thousands of tons” into a rigged system, are you not profiting from the same mess the rest of us are drowning in? Feels like everyone gets paid except the folks on this end of the river.
      • @MattMarmaduke: If you want to come to me and buy it, you are welcome to come and negotiate prices. Until then, I have a fiduciary obligation to get the growers I represent the best price I can.
    • @OldManDelta: Easy to say “ask the port” when you own half the roads that feed it. Y’all built a maze of tolls, contracts, and NDAs, then act shocked when regular people only see higher prices and empty shelves. From down here, all the suits look the same.
      • @MattMarmaduke: Again: ask the Port, or better yet the people who offload thousands of tons of grain, what happens to it. I don’t own the Port of Memphis. They are a sovereign state, and I am not their boss or their mom.