WEBVTT 00:00:00.730 --> 00:00:06.070 I can't hear you talk again are you there I. 00:00:06.070 --> 00:00:08.790 Got nothing I have volume set to low there. 00:00:08.790 --> 00:00:12.110 We are I can hear you now whatever you did fixed it. 00:00:12.110 --> 00:00:15.090 Well mainly speaking well. 00:00:15.090 --> 00:00:18.230 I heard I saw your mouth moving before but didn't hear anything. 00:00:18.230 --> 00:00:24.590 I think I may have my mouth may I doing this thing which I noticed confuses 00:00:24.590 --> 00:00:29.730 people which is where sometimes I am like thinking of something, 00:00:30.730 --> 00:00:35.970 but I'm kind of like mouthing what I'm thinking and so people keep thinking 00:00:35.970 --> 00:00:40.930 that I'm saying something, I'm trying to talk but I'm really going yeah, it. 00:00:40.930 --> 00:00:42.810 Just cut out again because you weren't. 00:00:42.810 --> 00:00:46.250 Speaking I did cut out because I wasn't speaking because in my mind I'm like 00:00:46.250 --> 00:00:51.090 thinking what the fuck are these people doing but I don't want to say that out 00:00:51.090 --> 00:00:55.630 loud but I keep going and like thinking it and going, 00:00:56.870 --> 00:01:02.930 mouthing it And so I'll tell you that I keep, I regularly keep confusing people 00:01:02.930 --> 00:01:06.070 and they think, hey, you're on mute. I'm like, no, no, no. 00:01:06.730 --> 00:01:12.330 That's just me being, that is by me being frustrated and wanting to say that, 00:01:12.910 --> 00:01:16.830 but me not, you know, doing this. 00:01:16.970 --> 00:01:19.810 And I, and I just did this to myself a little bit right now. 00:01:20.030 --> 00:01:23.350 It did say you were starting on a new track though, cause you, 00:01:23.510 --> 00:01:25.270 you know, changed your setting or something. 00:01:25.430 --> 00:01:28.230 But anyway, I, I did? 00:01:28.890 --> 00:01:29.550 I don't know. 00:01:30.230 --> 00:01:34.330 Heads up. New record. Yeah. New recording. Trump created due to changing your 00:01:34.330 --> 00:01:36.950 device. Hey, shit. The fuck is this thing? 00:01:37.550 --> 00:01:41.490 Well, that may have added something to it, I guess. But here we go. Do anything. 00:01:42.290 --> 00:01:44.310 Hello. Good to see you. Yeah. 00:01:45.550 --> 00:01:46.070 You too, fellas. 00:01:46.810 --> 00:01:51.070 Hello. It's been a while. Oh, my God. You got a RCT t-shirt. 00:01:51.210 --> 00:01:55.130 Damn it. Why didn't you say that? I think I have one there. 00:01:55.970 --> 00:01:57.350 Somewhere that I've saved. 00:01:57.490 --> 00:02:02.910 Okay i i have all of my shirts a while back to make sure they didn't deteriorate any further. 00:02:03.830 --> 00:02:05.390 Archive yeah sorry. 00:02:05.390 --> 00:02:12.190 I wish i wish i would have this is from last year's 75th anniversary gotcha 00:02:12.190 --> 00:02:15.450 you guys yeah you guys must have been on the other side of the room because 00:02:15.450 --> 00:02:17.290 i don't remember seeing you at the reception no. 00:02:17.290 --> 00:02:21.310 No no i way back yeah yeah we were way on the other side in a room like thousands. 00:02:21.310 --> 00:02:22.930 Of miles away. Yes. 00:02:23.510 --> 00:02:30.630 No, I had, um, no, I have some, well, I'm very good at keeping my old shit as Sam knows. 00:02:30.850 --> 00:02:37.570 I have shirts from when I was at CMU that are still in wearable shape that are RCT shirt. 00:02:38.090 --> 00:02:41.990 So yeah, I, I sadly don't. 00:02:42.190 --> 00:02:47.730 I have, I have one that I grabbed, you know, I did, I did shows in the summer 00:02:47.730 --> 00:02:49.930 right up until we started having kids. 00:02:50.270 --> 00:02:52.330 Cause I, I'm still in the Pittsburgh area. 00:02:52.790 --> 00:02:56.210 So I have one or two of those that are kind of hanging on by a thread. 00:02:56.820 --> 00:03:02.020 And this and and that's about it yeah i wish i would have held on to a lot of them but uh. 00:03:02.020 --> 00:03:08.000 Yeah at some point probably i don't know 15 years ago now or something i said 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:13.920 i i basically said these these are starting to deteriorate so let's let's pack 00:03:13.920 --> 00:03:18.220 them up stick them in a box somewhere so i still have them but they're no longer 00:03:18.220 --> 00:03:21.340 in the wearable rotation and of course. 00:03:21.340 --> 00:03:24.620 By sticking them in a box somewhere basically means that I. 00:03:24.620 --> 00:03:25.740 Think I'll never see them before. 00:03:26.500 --> 00:03:27.020 Yeah, basically. 00:03:29.860 --> 00:03:33.040 Apparently Sam named me his executor to his estate. 00:03:33.280 --> 00:03:39.580 So basically, I will probably at some point, if I outlive Sam, will find them. 00:03:41.080 --> 00:03:41.600 Okay. 00:03:42.100 --> 00:03:42.620 Possibly. 00:03:43.040 --> 00:03:43.400 Yeah. 00:03:43.600 --> 00:03:43.780 Okay. 00:03:47.960 --> 00:03:51.280 First of all, Todd, do you have a hard stop that we should respect? 00:03:51.580 --> 00:03:52.100 No. 00:03:52.360 --> 00:03:52.880 Okay. 00:03:53.400 --> 00:03:58.100 No, you said you'd go for about two hours. I don't know if I'll stay for two 00:03:58.100 --> 00:03:59.540 hours, but I don't need to stop. 00:03:59.880 --> 00:04:01.520 Okay, gotcha. Okay. 00:04:02.040 --> 00:04:06.420 My 12-year-old may wander in at some point because mom is going to do something, 00:04:06.580 --> 00:04:07.960 so I don't know. So just be aware. 00:04:08.200 --> 00:04:10.520 Yeah, my 18-year-old may wander in. We'll see. 00:04:12.380 --> 00:04:20.220 Okay, and my 15-year-old has been known to participate as well. Anyway, here we go then. 00:04:36.500 --> 00:04:39.840 Welcome to curmudgeon's corner for saturday may 00:04:39.840 --> 00:04:42.680 17th 2025 it's just 00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:46.140 after 18 utc as we're starting to record i'm 00:04:46.140 --> 00:04:49.600 sam minter yvonne bow is with us and we're 00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:54.040 gonna do something a little bit different uh this week rather than start out 00:04:54.040 --> 00:04:58.360 with our light and fluffy and then move on to more serious topics as we go we 00:04:58.360 --> 00:05:07.340 have a guest today and this is uh someone who yvonne and i knew a long long time ago in college um. 00:05:07.340 --> 00:05:09.300 A long long time ago. 00:05:09.300 --> 00:05:16.960 Yeah long long time ago okay yeah we don't wasn't that long yeah not not it 00:05:16.960 --> 00:05:20.140 was like last week right yeah um anyway. 00:05:20.140 --> 00:05:23.060 Listen you want to know a long time the other day i told 00:05:23.060 --> 00:05:26.240 this person i was at the office which is not common but 00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:30.780 i'm at the office that we had this this person and you know i i came back from 00:05:30.780 --> 00:05:34.900 rally having a really really rough day visiting customer okay this was just 00:05:34.900 --> 00:05:40.220 a disaster okay you know i'm just she sees me that i'm blown out exhausted and 00:05:40.220 --> 00:05:46.160 she's like why is that I'm like well look I started doing this shit in 97, 00:05:47.640 --> 00:05:53.840 I mean I've been doing this for a long damn time and she says oh 97 I was I was in the, 00:05:54.370 --> 00:05:56.570 I was nine years old at that time. 00:05:57.250 --> 00:05:57.410 Yes. 00:05:57.690 --> 00:05:59.970 And I'm just like, me? 00:06:02.110 --> 00:06:10.550 Here's one along those lines. I have been at my current employer for over 19 00:06:10.550 --> 00:06:13.370 years now, coming up fast on 19 and a half, okay? 00:06:13.930 --> 00:06:22.170 And that makes me realize that I am moments away from the summer interns being 00:06:22.170 --> 00:06:26.430 born after I started at this company. oh fuck. 00:06:26.430 --> 00:06:28.510 Come on man yeah. 00:06:28.510 --> 00:06:30.410 Oh fuck. 00:06:30.410 --> 00:06:32.610 What what what she's okay. 00:06:32.610 --> 00:06:39.950 Anyway so we we have with us a guest who i know they posted something on social 00:06:39.950 --> 00:06:44.350 media about tariffs and how it affected their industry so i invited them on 00:06:44.350 --> 00:06:51.450 so i'm gonna murder your last name todd so this is todd padizanan that's it I got it right? 00:06:51.710 --> 00:06:57.290 Yeah, yeah. Which is funny because I don't know if anyone back then ever knew my real last name. 00:06:57.370 --> 00:06:58.810 It was like Panzan or something. 00:06:58.890 --> 00:06:59.110 Yeah. 00:06:59.910 --> 00:07:03.750 Yeah. So anyway, let me let me introduce it. 00:07:04.390 --> 00:07:10.130 Let me let you introduce yourself a little bit and sort of who you are and whatever 00:07:10.130 --> 00:07:12.670 elements of your background you feel comfortable with. 00:07:12.790 --> 00:07:18.430 And then we're specifically going to start out this first segment talking to Todd about 00:07:18.810 --> 00:07:24.490 Trump tariffs and how they might impact his industry, industry in general, 00:07:24.770 --> 00:07:27.990 and just the whole tariff thing, which we've talked about a lot, 00:07:28.150 --> 00:07:32.490 but I felt like it would be useful to get somebody who's sort of directly impacted. 00:07:32.830 --> 00:07:38.190 And then after that, Todd may leave, Todd may stay, but we'll talk about other things after that. 00:07:38.450 --> 00:07:43.790 Yeah, sure. Todd Padasanin. We all went to college together once upon a time, Carnegie Mellon. 00:07:44.250 --> 00:07:50.010 So I have a civil engineering degree. I started in structural engineering, did that for a few years. 00:07:50.270 --> 00:07:56.810 My career evolved into individual sales and then about 11 years ago into sales leadership. 00:07:57.350 --> 00:08:03.790 And so I've been, you know, selling or leading teams selling into the utility 00:08:03.790 --> 00:08:08.630 scale power generation industry roughly since 2010. I was doing it occasionally 00:08:08.630 --> 00:08:12.130 before that, but really exclusively after that. 00:08:12.270 --> 00:08:15.990 And for the last three and a half years it's been exclusively utility 00:08:15.990 --> 00:08:19.030 scale solar photovoltaic power 00:08:19.030 --> 00:08:23.290 generation as well this is a logistics intensive 00:08:23.290 --> 00:08:27.750 industry there's executives i know at one of the big construction companies 00:08:27.750 --> 00:08:33.310 that do this kind of work who said utility scale solar power is a huge logistics 00:08:33.310 --> 00:08:37.130 operation that happens to also generate electricity whenever it's finished it 00:08:37.130 --> 00:08:40.870 they're massive these these These projects are hundreds of megawatts. 00:08:40.970 --> 00:08:42.630 They take up thousands of acres. 00:08:43.130 --> 00:08:46.250 And so during construction, they're very labor intensive. 00:08:47.150 --> 00:08:51.010 And our supply chain is very globalized. 00:08:51.170 --> 00:08:56.830 There are many components for a variety of reasons that don't get manufactured here in the U.S. 00:08:57.410 --> 00:09:00.970 Anymore. In some cases, because that technology never really took off, 00:09:01.010 --> 00:09:07.230 or in other cases, because over time it became more profitable to manufacture 00:09:07.230 --> 00:09:11.970 certain components and raw materials in lower cost countries. 00:09:11.970 --> 00:09:17.670 And a focus more here on construction, operations, services, and so forth. 00:09:17.750 --> 00:09:20.610 I'm talking specifically about power generation, but I think what I said probably 00:09:20.610 --> 00:09:22.810 applies to 100 industries as well. 00:09:23.530 --> 00:09:27.870 So that's what I've been doing for the last 34 years or so since we saw each other, guys. 00:09:30.390 --> 00:09:33.730 Yeah. So let's jump into it. 00:09:33.930 --> 00:09:40.190 And, you know, Yvonne's usually the econ person here, but let me start by asking, 00:09:40.190 --> 00:09:46.290 you know, So just over the last few months since the start of the Trump presidency, 00:09:46.750 --> 00:09:55.050 just at a very high level, how have the policy changes affected your industry? 00:09:56.670 --> 00:10:04.870 Until this rapidly and, in my opinion, ridiculously escalating trade war with China five. 00:10:04.970 --> 00:10:07.450 Six weeks ago. It's not just your opinion. 00:10:07.810 --> 00:10:08.310 Okay. 00:10:08.690 --> 00:10:11.530 Some people's opinion. most. 00:10:11.530 --> 00:10:14.730 People with a brain in business okay. 00:10:14.730 --> 00:10:18.870 I it it people 00:10:18.870 --> 00:10:23.450 in the industry in this part of the industry were paying attention but 00:10:23.450 --> 00:10:28.870 trump administration didn't do anything drastic to really slow our momentum 00:10:28.870 --> 00:10:36.070 for the first month or two there's obvious concern about terrorists before he 00:10:36.070 --> 00:10:40.250 started enacting them and there's concerns about you know what he and Congress 00:10:40.250 --> 00:10:42.170 might try to do to the Inflation Reduction Act, 00:10:42.190 --> 00:10:45.750 which has accelerated our industry. 00:10:45.930 --> 00:10:48.530 We don't depend on it, but it's accelerated our industry for sure. 00:10:48.650 --> 00:10:52.310 It's made some projects viable where they maybe would not otherwise have been. 00:10:52.730 --> 00:10:56.990 But it was particularly, I should say from my point of view, 00:10:57.090 --> 00:11:00.190 right, because I can't speak for the entire industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people. 00:11:00.410 --> 00:11:05.850 But from my point of view, these rapidly escalating tariffs on China that started 00:11:05.850 --> 00:11:10.030 about six weeks ago and then ended abruptly the beginning of this past week 00:11:10.030 --> 00:11:14.690 were extraordinarily disruptive because what it meant was any raw materials 00:11:14.690 --> 00:11:19.990 or finished components coming out of China in the span of a couple of weeks had to be repriced, 00:11:20.110 --> 00:11:22.010 repriced again, repriced a third time. 00:11:22.150 --> 00:11:27.110 And at the end of those couple of weeks, a lot of things cost 80 or 90% nearly 00:11:27.110 --> 00:11:29.490 double what they had just a couple of weeks prior. 00:11:30.530 --> 00:11:33.670 For projects that were just getting started, 00:11:34.190 --> 00:11:41.150 for the major construction companies that need to purchase millions or tens 00:11:41.150 --> 00:11:47.270 of millions of dollars worth of capital equipment or wiring systems or other 00:11:47.270 --> 00:11:49.290 materials that go into this construction, 00:11:49.590 --> 00:11:57.210 they had to slam on the brakes because nobody wants to pay 20 or 50 or 80% more 00:11:57.210 --> 00:11:58.690 than they were budgeted for. 00:11:58.690 --> 00:12:01.610 Or in fact, that would make many of these projects unviable, you know? 00:12:01.910 --> 00:12:08.230 So I know from my own individual experience that stopped progress on numerous 00:12:08.230 --> 00:12:10.570 projects, just almost entirely. 00:12:10.910 --> 00:12:15.330 Some of my competitors in the industry stopped giving price quotes. 00:12:15.610 --> 00:12:18.450 They, you know, they had to freeze 00:12:18.450 --> 00:12:22.190 sales activity and evaluate what their alternatives were going to be. 00:12:22.370 --> 00:12:26.430 My company happens to be fairly dependent on imports from China right now. 00:12:26.430 --> 00:12:31.030 We were already exploring diversification into other countries because, 00:12:31.030 --> 00:12:34.690 you know, after the election in November, everyone knew what might be coming. 00:12:35.190 --> 00:12:37.770 And so that's only accelerated our activities. 00:12:38.430 --> 00:12:44.790 But, you know, one of the byproducts of diversifying outside of China to countries 00:12:44.790 --> 00:12:49.310 with lower tariff impact is that things are going to cost a little more than 00:12:49.310 --> 00:12:51.370 they would have four months ago. 00:12:52.570 --> 00:12:55.290 That's a lot of words, guys. I don't know if I answered the question or not. 00:12:55.290 --> 00:13:00.150 Look, no, that's a good start. I mean, one thing that I immediately want to 00:13:00.150 --> 00:13:05.470 ask is, you know, you mentioned how things got ratcheted to the roof and then 00:13:05.470 --> 00:13:08.990 abruptly stopped, but it's still not back to where it was before. 00:13:09.270 --> 00:13:12.570 Well, yeah. What is the tariff percent that you're seeing right now on most 00:13:12.570 --> 00:13:17.970 of your products now with this downward change? 00:13:18.330 --> 00:13:23.190 Yeah, we're focused mostly on Chinese imports, my company at least, 00:13:23.250 --> 00:13:24.470 for another couple of weeks. 00:13:25.270 --> 00:13:28.030 Okay there's even there's even more nuance to it than that there's things 00:13:28.030 --> 00:13:31.190 that we can take orders for today that would come from other countries and 00:13:31.190 --> 00:13:34.310 that's the way we're going to operate going forward with with alternatives 00:13:34.310 --> 00:13:38.230 and so we'll price based on where people want to buy from and that affects lead 00:13:38.230 --> 00:13:42.630 times to an extent price to an extent not quality or design or anything like 00:13:42.630 --> 00:13:49.230 that thank goodness so at one point so i'm talking about incremental tariffs 00:13:49.230 --> 00:13:51.970 i guess so there were some tariffs in place before Trump took office. 00:13:52.130 --> 00:13:57.930 He enacted tariffs on certain imports from China. Biden never repealed them. The industry adjusted. 00:13:58.490 --> 00:14:04.330 So let's say that's the new zero. Okay. That, that, that threshold inauguration 00:14:04.330 --> 00:14:05.610 day, let's just call that zero. 00:14:05.750 --> 00:14:11.050 We're right now 30% higher than where we were at on day one of Trump administration. 00:14:11.470 --> 00:14:15.290 So 30 is better than 145, but it's worse than zero. 00:14:15.290 --> 00:14:19.390 So you're seeing 10. 00:14:19.990 --> 00:14:23.290 What you're seeing right now at the current level is 10. 00:14:23.810 --> 00:14:25.170 No, we're seeing 30. 00:14:25.710 --> 00:14:26.610 30. 30. 00:14:26.890 --> 00:14:27.150 30. 00:14:27.170 --> 00:14:31.610 And you said it was 30 above where Biden was. So that's actually still higher than that. 00:14:31.690 --> 00:14:32.070 That's right. 00:14:32.170 --> 00:14:36.650 That's right. But like, so the Biden tariffs, it started under the first Trump 00:14:36.650 --> 00:14:38.170 administration and they endured. 00:14:38.810 --> 00:14:41.490 Yeah, they didn't. They just didn't. Yeah, they weren't Biden tariffs. 00:14:41.690 --> 00:14:42.950 Biden just didn't rescind them. 00:14:43.270 --> 00:14:47.570 Right. Yeah. Yes. So let's call that zero, right? Because the industry adjusted 00:14:47.570 --> 00:14:50.270 to that over, you know, the five or six years that they were in place. 00:14:50.410 --> 00:14:56.530 That's zero. We're now 30% higher on imports from China than we were Inauguration Day 2025. 00:14:57.770 --> 00:15:00.750 So we can manage that. The industry can manage that. 00:15:00.990 --> 00:15:05.970 So let me explore that a little bit, because I think that's something that people 00:15:05.970 --> 00:15:07.290 have been talking about a lot, 00:15:07.470 --> 00:15:13.290 is that sort of there's a threshold where people will be like, 00:15:13.450 --> 00:15:16.450 you know, at 30%, let's say, you said, we can handle that. 00:15:16.450 --> 00:15:21.150 You know, maybe you absorb some of the cost, you pass some of it along to your 00:15:21.150 --> 00:15:28.310 customers, and maybe it slows things down a little bit, but it doesn't stop them. 00:15:28.530 --> 00:15:31.670 Whereas there's a threshold that's a little bit higher than that. 00:15:31.790 --> 00:15:35.310 And I've heard people throw around like 50%, 60%, something like that, 00:15:35.510 --> 00:15:40.510 where basically in a lot of industries, it would effectively be almost like 00:15:40.510 --> 00:15:44.250 a ban because prices would be high enough that people would just completely 00:15:44.250 --> 00:15:46.610 stop. It just wouldn't be viable to do it anymore. 00:15:47.030 --> 00:15:51.730 And so your thought is like at 30%, you're in that first zone. 00:15:51.750 --> 00:15:55.710 You're like, we can figure out how to make this work. 00:15:55.910 --> 00:15:59.010 It may have some impact, but it's not going to kill you. 00:15:59.370 --> 00:16:04.670 Yeah, I think so. This industry in particular is still evolving, 00:16:04.970 --> 00:16:07.690 innovating, driving costs down. 00:16:07.690 --> 00:16:13.410 And people are finding more efficient ways to construct, to deliver the solar 00:16:13.410 --> 00:16:15.170 modules, the panels, you know. 00:16:16.020 --> 00:16:23.520 Have become more efficient. They're economically viable in higher and higher latitudes. 00:16:23.700 --> 00:16:28.220 You can build utility scale solar production in Canada now, and it's profitable. 00:16:28.980 --> 00:16:33.380 So there's a lot of things going positive direction in the industry, 00:16:33.560 --> 00:16:35.160 but this is definitely 30%. 00:16:35.160 --> 00:16:38.520 I don't want to say 30% is manageable, even though I may have said that a minute 00:16:38.520 --> 00:16:44.900 ago, it won't kill the industry, but it's going to slow it down a little bit until we adjust again. 00:16:45.160 --> 00:16:49.800 But that 145 was unsustainable. And so let me make one other point about that. 00:16:50.160 --> 00:16:54.860 We're on a 90-day pause right now. I think we're on maybe day three of the 90-day pause. 00:16:55.160 --> 00:17:02.580 There are few things in my industry that you can order today and clear customs in 90 days. 00:17:03.060 --> 00:17:03.520 Exactly. 00:17:03.720 --> 00:17:04.560 And that's the biggest. 00:17:04.560 --> 00:17:10.940 Problem because you don't pay the tariff until this thing has landed and. 00:17:10.940 --> 00:17:11.660 It's cleared. 00:17:11.660 --> 00:17:17.700 Customs and this is the thing that people don't understand why people are well 00:17:17.700 --> 00:17:22.200 why won't you order anything well damn it i don't know what the hell i'm gonna 00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:24.740 have to pay to clear this damn thing at. 00:17:24.740 --> 00:17:28.000 This point our our conversations yvonne 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:30.700 have gone from a month month and 00:17:30.700 --> 00:17:33.660 a half ago asking our customers if they can 00:17:33.660 --> 00:17:40.560 wait until we have stood up new production in other countries and in some cases 00:17:40.560 --> 00:17:46.400 they can and in other cases they can't wait and there are and we have competitors 00:17:46.400 --> 00:17:50.920 who are impacted to a lesser extent because again if you remember a month, 00:17:51.020 --> 00:17:55.940 month and a half ago it wasn't just China there were seemingly arbitrary tariffs 00:17:55.940 --> 00:17:58.240 supplied to nearly every country, 00:17:59.140 --> 00:18:00.400 mysteriously not Russia, 00:18:01.320 --> 00:18:09.640 even those are on a pod my god those are on a pod those could come back too Sure. 00:18:10.040 --> 00:18:14.400 And the point, the only point I want to make is, and you could say this for 00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:18.500 any sort of industrial machinery, you can say this about gas turbine generators 00:18:18.500 --> 00:18:24.600 and steam turbine generators that are still used in nuclear and fossil power generation as well. 00:18:24.780 --> 00:18:27.560 No one can order and deliver that stuff. 00:18:28.220 --> 00:18:32.740 In 90 days in the case of gas turbines i don't know how closely you guys follow 00:18:32.740 --> 00:18:36.120 the power generation industry all of oh yeah i'm on that. 00:18:36.120 --> 00:18:37.320 Every day every. 00:18:37.320 --> 00:18:37.860 Day i. 00:18:37.860 --> 00:18:43.000 Mean i'm not gonna say close but i i follow it but obviously i'm not an expert but. 00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:43.540 I got. 00:18:43.540 --> 00:18:44.340 I have an idea. 00:18:44.340 --> 00:18:48.620 You know there there is a well publicized growing demand for electricity in 00:18:48.620 --> 00:18:52.160 the united states driven largely by new manufacturing but especially by data 00:18:52.160 --> 00:18:55.400 centers and ai and you know so full. 00:18:55.400 --> 00:18:59.340 Disclosure sure what my second largest customer is a is a is a utility company. 00:18:59.340 --> 00:19:03.340 Okay okay so there's probably 00:19:03.340 --> 00:19:06.400 going to be new natural gas fired power generation 00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:09.940 built but those turbines are sold out through 2029 if 00:19:09.940 --> 00:19:12.920 you place an order to ge or siemens or mitsubishi somebody like 00:19:12.920 --> 00:19:15.840 that today your plant's probably going to go online 00:19:15.840 --> 00:19:20.160 in 2030 or 2031 and that's if everything else goes right with the permitting 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:23.940 and interconnection applications and substation equipment all the other things 00:19:23.940 --> 00:19:27.680 that go into this all right i'm i'm really deviating from i think where the 00:19:27.680 --> 00:19:30.820 construct the conversation is supposed to be my point about the 90-day pause 00:19:30.820 --> 00:19:34.580 that's that's all right that's normal for our show so don't worry about it we are okay we. 00:19:34.580 --> 00:19:35.720 Are the tangential. 00:19:35.720 --> 00:19:42.280 Podcast okay i'm gonna i i i for better for worse i think i'm either gonna blow 00:19:42.280 --> 00:19:47.120 things way down or make things feel completely normal then as long as i'm on 00:19:47.120 --> 00:19:53.220 guys sorry i i'm losing my train of thought you're talking about the 90-day So basically. 00:19:53.220 --> 00:19:54.300 You're showing our age. 00:19:54.620 --> 00:19:58.540 This is swing. Now, I would love to say that this is middle age, 00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:01.240 but I think I was kind of like this most of my life. 00:20:01.540 --> 00:20:06.880 So this has become now a race to onshore as much as possible. 00:20:07.340 --> 00:20:11.420 Tariffs have come down. Sale prices have come down above, but a lot closer to 00:20:11.420 --> 00:20:12.480 where they were a month and a half ago. 00:20:12.600 --> 00:20:17.820 And now shipping costs are spiking because people are racing to get priority 00:20:17.820 --> 00:20:19.480 position, expedited boats. 00:20:20.020 --> 00:20:21.640 It's still cheaper than air freight. 00:20:22.320 --> 00:20:26.320 People are trying to get on the fastest boat front of the line so they can get over here and, 00:20:27.180 --> 00:20:31.980 I don't know if we all did. I took econ electives, I think, my second year at 00:20:31.980 --> 00:20:36.560 college. I've seen the supply-demand curves, right? We're creeping up. 00:20:37.480 --> 00:20:42.820 People will pay what they're willing to pay to get stuff here because it's more 00:20:42.820 --> 00:20:45.840 worthwhile to beat the tariffs than it is to save a few pennies on shipping 00:20:45.840 --> 00:20:47.320 right now. So shipping costs are going up. 00:20:47.760 --> 00:20:52.380 And just like tariffs, we pass that along to our customers then as well. 00:20:52.520 --> 00:20:55.200 Typically, our things are delivered duty pay to the site. 00:20:55.200 --> 00:20:59.440 Listen, but shipping costs are significant, okay? And that's the thing. 00:20:59.580 --> 00:21:02.200 It's not an inconsequential thing, you know? 00:21:02.500 --> 00:21:07.540 When shipping a container from China goes from like $4,000 or $5,000 to $20,000, 00:21:07.620 --> 00:21:11.960 $25,000, $30,000 all of a sudden, and all of a sudden you've got to bring in 00:21:11.960 --> 00:21:13.940 10, 20, 30 containers all of a sudden, 00:21:14.280 --> 00:21:19.140 you all of a sudden added like to your cost several hundred thousands of dollars. 00:21:19.140 --> 00:21:22.140 And especially depending on the value of the items 00:21:22.140 --> 00:21:25.640 that you're bringing in it could be that for some super high value items maybe 00:21:25.640 --> 00:21:30.300 that's significant but it depends on what you're bringing in if there are some 00:21:30.300 --> 00:21:33.760 relatively low cost items you're filling a container with them and all of a 00:21:33.760 --> 00:21:39.260 sudden your shipping costs just you know soared it becomes up it becomes material. 00:21:39.260 --> 00:21:41.920 Yeah yeah and this is 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:44.940 how i passed on to the consumer whether it is a business or an individual 00:21:44.940 --> 00:21:47.960 whether it's itemized or not you'll you'll see 00:21:47.960 --> 00:21:51.340 it in what you pay certainly businesses are 00:21:51.340 --> 00:21:55.240 going to try to absorb some of this because especially if you're in a very price 00:21:55.240 --> 00:22:00.100 sensitive market you kind of don't have a choice but in many but in many cases 00:22:00.100 --> 00:22:05.000 and for industrial machinery in certain industries and electric power generation 00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.400 for sure if there's still a limited supply then the end users are, 00:22:10.020 --> 00:22:13.880 oftentimes going to be willing to pay a little more because they have to get 00:22:13.880 --> 00:22:16.200 this because their project is still economically viable. 00:22:16.860 --> 00:22:20.920 Um, ultimately this gets passed on to all of us, right? Because we're electricity consumers. 00:22:21.260 --> 00:22:21.740 Right. 00:22:21.940 --> 00:22:27.720 So, you know, maybe the promise of levelized or declining electric power retail 00:22:27.720 --> 00:22:31.200 prices, you know, we're not going to see that benefit as much because these 00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:32.140 things are driving things up. 00:22:32.280 --> 00:22:37.040 And the point I ought to make about the pendulum swinging from tariffs to shipping 00:22:37.040 --> 00:22:41.680 is it's a complicated, multifaceted problem. 00:22:41.680 --> 00:22:48.500 Tariffs and shipping and imports and globalized manufacturing are all interrelated 00:22:48.500 --> 00:22:54.480 can't simplify it the way that our president seems to try to be forcing everyone 00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:55.900 to believe that it can be simplified. 00:22:55.900 --> 00:23:00.620 Well here's the thing he continues to be under the impression that like the 00:23:00.620 --> 00:23:07.700 chinese government pays the tariffs okay he keeps saying this china needs to 00:23:07.700 --> 00:23:11.340 absorb the terror i'm like What the hell does that mean? 00:23:11.640 --> 00:23:13.620 Look, if I have a factory, I'm Apple. 00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:18.400 I have a factory in China. 00:23:19.220 --> 00:23:22.720 It's my factory I'm shipping to me, you idiot. 00:23:23.220 --> 00:23:29.680 You know, who the hell do you think is paying this? The government isn't running this show. 00:23:29.820 --> 00:23:34.340 And by the way, he still doesn't seem to understand that the tariffs are collected 00:23:34.340 --> 00:23:41.480 when customs is cleared. This concept has completely evaded him, you know, to this point. 00:23:42.500 --> 00:23:50.480 I question Trump's judgment and competency in many areas, but I think that he's 00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:53.640 playing dumb and just lying. I think that he understands what's happening. 00:23:55.020 --> 00:23:57.280 I think he's a dumb fuck. 00:23:57.520 --> 00:24:02.020 I think on many topics, you're right. 00:24:02.680 --> 00:24:08.220 In this case, I am sure by now, if he ever misunderstood by now, 00:24:08.300 --> 00:24:10.100 he must understand how terrorists work. 00:24:10.280 --> 00:24:16.280 He chooses to not talk about this publicly because he's still depending on popular support. 00:24:16.660 --> 00:24:21.380 Well, OK, so it may be like what you're saying is that maybe when he first did 00:24:21.380 --> 00:24:23.000 it, he didn't understand. 00:24:23.240 --> 00:24:23.680 Yeah. 00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:28.740 But but by now, now somebody explained to him how it really works. 00:24:28.740 --> 00:24:33.920 And so he's maintaining the bullshit lie he said before because he's not going 00:24:33.920 --> 00:24:35.820 to admit that he didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. 00:24:35.880 --> 00:24:39.460 He must have, I'm sorry, he must have realized it in 2017, you know? 00:24:39.780 --> 00:24:47.240 He chooses to present it this way because he needs his base to continue believing 00:24:47.240 --> 00:24:48.560 it. Sam, go on, I'm sorry. 00:24:48.800 --> 00:24:52.920 Now, I was just going to ask because the one thing though, as part of what you 00:24:52.920 --> 00:24:57.580 talked about earlier, you mentioned, well, now there's a race to onshore. 00:24:57.580 --> 00:25:02.840 Does that actually mean that this is having exactly the effect Donald Trump 00:25:02.840 --> 00:25:04.720 wants? Because that's a stated goal, right? 00:25:04.880 --> 00:25:05.060 Yes. 00:25:06.200 --> 00:25:12.820 He fundamentally believes that any imports are by definition bad. 00:25:13.160 --> 00:25:18.540 We are losing money by spending money on things that are made elsewhere. 00:25:18.860 --> 00:25:24.540 And the goal is to bring it all back to the U.S. So like, is he succeeding? 00:25:25.080 --> 00:25:30.220 You're right to call me out for using that word onshore because probably that's the wrong word. 00:25:30.380 --> 00:25:34.220 What I mean is products, components, materials, machinery. 00:25:35.310 --> 00:25:42.130 Is racing to clear customs here in the u.s right you cannot you cannot build 00:25:42.130 --> 00:25:47.390 a factory to make the sort of components and materials machines that i'm talking 00:25:47.390 --> 00:25:51.130 about you can't build a factory to do that in 90 days right so. 00:25:51.130 --> 00:25:55.370 What so what you're talking about was just the thing that yvonne and i have 00:25:55.370 --> 00:25:56.750 talked about before which is. 00:25:56.750 --> 00:25:57.190 Just like. 00:25:57.190 --> 00:25:59.710 Everybody rushing to beat the tariffs and. 00:25:59.710 --> 00:26:00.250 Get them in. 00:26:00.850 --> 00:26:07.330 But this is an important point. Like his ultimate goal of bringing this manufacturing 00:26:07.330 --> 00:26:12.430 back to the United States, that's not something anybody's really thinking about at all, right? 00:26:13.370 --> 00:26:14.910 Or if so... 00:26:14.910 --> 00:26:18.090 Listen, the thing is that you can't bring it all back. There's a whole bunch 00:26:18.090 --> 00:26:20.590 of... Here's the policy about it. 00:26:20.950 --> 00:26:23.990 One of the reasons why so much manufacturing is distributed is because the only 00:26:23.990 --> 00:26:26.010 customer isn't the United States, okay? 00:26:26.190 --> 00:26:30.270 You're manufacturing to sell across the world in multiple currencies. 00:26:30.530 --> 00:26:34.330 And one of the things that you need to do is distribute the cost of these things 00:26:34.330 --> 00:26:36.390 amongst those currencies you're working with. 00:26:36.410 --> 00:26:39.230 Whether you're selling to Europe, or you're Asian, you're selling to whatever. 00:26:39.550 --> 00:26:43.110 So I go and I say, hey, well, let me bring all this manufacturing to the US. 00:26:43.490 --> 00:26:45.310 Well, you may not be able to build. 00:26:45.810 --> 00:26:50.430 First of all, it takes years to do it, number one. The second thing is, is the cost that it is. 00:26:50.550 --> 00:26:55.550 The third thing is, that you're probably only building some manufacturing limited 00:26:55.550 --> 00:26:56.950 for the United States and what it's 00:26:56.950 --> 00:27:01.870 going to wind up doing is limiting our options in terms of what we buy. 00:27:02.250 --> 00:27:07.490 And why do I say this? Because I saw this is what happened in Brazil for decades 00:27:07.490 --> 00:27:09.810 before they opened their markets. 00:27:10.530 --> 00:27:15.350 In the 70s, 80s, and 90s, where Brazil was a very closed market, 00:27:15.550 --> 00:27:18.810 they wouldn't allow PCs or computers to be imported. 00:27:19.350 --> 00:27:24.850 So what wound up happening is that their options for purchasing PCs and computers 00:27:24.850 --> 00:27:26.730 became extremely limited. 00:27:27.010 --> 00:27:32.810 OK, they basically because you the tariffs are so high, you basically it was 00:27:32.810 --> 00:27:34.070 impossible to bring one in. 00:27:34.370 --> 00:27:37.610 So then what you wind up getting is a series of very, 00:27:37.870 --> 00:27:42.890 you know, some companies like IBM, HP and a few manufacturing a limited number 00:27:42.890 --> 00:27:47.150 of products just to be sold in Brazil, which were wind up being of inferior 00:27:47.150 --> 00:27:51.950 quality and higher price because you were only building them to sell them at this damn market. 00:27:51.950 --> 00:27:57.770 It wind up being why in Brazil, IBM bet heavily on it, which is like why one 00:27:57.770 --> 00:28:03.730 of the biggest markets in the world for IBM midsize mainframes, like AS400 or whatever, 00:28:03.990 --> 00:28:07.890 was in Brazil because they were the only people that went and invested on building 00:28:07.890 --> 00:28:09.230 that kind of computer there. 00:28:09.230 --> 00:28:14.350 So every damn company had one because they were the only ones that bet on it. 00:28:14.510 --> 00:28:18.870 Nobody else could see the value in it. And that's what you're creating with the United States. 00:28:19.010 --> 00:28:24.830 You're creating this island all of a sudden where we are only 30% of the global 00:28:24.830 --> 00:28:27.970 economy and to a certain extent shrinking because the rest of the world is growing. 00:28:28.150 --> 00:28:31.230 And so you're going to wind up with this limited amount of manufacturing. 00:28:31.350 --> 00:28:34.170 By the way, our manufacturing is higher cost. 00:28:35.090 --> 00:28:38.050 Our labor is higher cost. you know the 00:28:38.050 --> 00:28:40.870 the the process of building all this we don't have 00:28:40.870 --> 00:28:43.510 the people everybody who is manufacturing in the 00:28:43.510 --> 00:28:47.010 united states at this point struggles right now to get people where 00:28:47.010 --> 00:28:51.550 are you gonna get all these millions of employees to go and build all this shit 00:28:51.550 --> 00:28:55.450 when even right now we struggle to get employees to do that and oh by the way 00:28:55.450 --> 00:28:58.590 we're deporting a whole bunch of them they're ones that we hired before anyway 00:28:58.590 --> 00:29:05.750 it's that the whole the whole thing has no plan of any kind whatsoever to bring manufacturing. 00:29:05.930 --> 00:29:09.630 And if you're a leader of a manufacturing company and you're thinking about 00:29:09.630 --> 00:29:13.290 doing it, you're looking at it and it's like, look, I just got to find some 00:29:13.290 --> 00:29:16.370 other place to move this shit because I can maybe move some stuff here, 00:29:16.370 --> 00:29:18.230 but there is no way I can bring all this shit here. 00:29:18.870 --> 00:29:24.450 I, that's a lot. And I'm trying to make notes and gather my thoughts as well. 00:29:24.610 --> 00:29:27.030 Cause Sam, I'm trying not to forget your question either. 00:29:28.690 --> 00:29:36.950 I can't, I can't say definitively no business is considering adding new manufacturing 00:29:36.950 --> 00:29:41.850 here in the U S because of expected tariff policy. I can't say that. 00:29:42.030 --> 00:29:45.490 I'm sure. I'm sure there has to be some, but 00:29:45.490 --> 00:29:48.870 it's the logistics of it are as as 00:29:48.870 --> 00:29:52.810 yvonne mentioned it's so long term for most things that 00:29:52.810 --> 00:29:55.590 and you need to have confidence that the 00:29:55.590 --> 00:29:58.790 situation is going to stay somewhat stable 00:29:58.790 --> 00:30:04.610 like for yeah just take the absolute extreme let's say instead of the 200 tariff 00:30:04.610 --> 00:30:09.270 or whatever it was just an outright ban you can't import from country x you 00:30:09.270 --> 00:30:17.990 know there would have to be some adaptation over time but you would have to believe that, 00:30:18.110 --> 00:30:22.350 okay, that's real and that's going to stay and that's going to stay for decades 00:30:22.350 --> 00:30:24.010 to make it worth your while. 00:30:24.410 --> 00:30:30.050 And one of the things we've seen, I mean, so far on every single one of these 00:30:30.050 --> 00:30:35.550 things that's hit, Trump has backed down when push comes to shove so far, 00:30:35.650 --> 00:30:36.810 there are all these pauses. 00:30:37.370 --> 00:30:43.870 And so if fundamentally you don't really believe that this is in fact permanent, 00:30:43.870 --> 00:30:50.530 then it doesn't make sense to make your long-term plans that won't bear fruits for a decade. 00:30:51.570 --> 00:30:57.190 And so part of the question as well that I was going to ask anyway was with 00:30:57.190 --> 00:31:03.010 that level of uncertainty, how are people, what are they doing to plan? 00:31:03.330 --> 00:31:07.950 Like, are they, are you planning for the worst case that like these tariffs, 00:31:08.490 --> 00:31:12.270 you know, the high tariffs come back at the end of the pause and they stay? 00:31:12.490 --> 00:31:17.530 Or is everybody sort of acting like, you know, Trump's full of it, 00:31:17.550 --> 00:31:23.250 and none of this will stay and be real on the long term. 00:31:23.790 --> 00:31:26.590 And so we kind of act differently. 00:31:27.300 --> 00:31:30.980 You know, there's a little bit more uncertainty, but we have to assume things 00:31:30.980 --> 00:31:35.860 will sort of work out okay in the end and the tariffs will be low enough that we can manage. 00:31:36.360 --> 00:31:41.480 Yeah. I, you know, I think I said it a couple of minutes ago, I got to stay in my lane. 00:31:41.580 --> 00:31:44.440 I'll tell you what I understand about the industry that I'm in. 00:31:44.520 --> 00:31:46.100 And I don't want to make broad generalizations. 00:31:46.600 --> 00:31:51.080 I know people in my industry are exploring supply chain diversification, 00:31:51.800 --> 00:31:55.980 adding capacity into countries that we hope, right? 00:31:56.080 --> 00:31:59.520 It's a calculated risk. countries where we think 00:31:59.520 --> 00:32:03.280 more likely than not any future trump 00:32:03.280 --> 00:32:06.840 tariff policies will be less disruptive than china 00:32:06.840 --> 00:32:11.680 and some other countries right but makes sense right how do you know makes sense 00:32:11.680 --> 00:32:17.540 how do you know because on day 91 he's going to tweet something out and it becomes 00:32:17.540 --> 00:32:23.720 policy and then we go we go back to the starting starting blocks again well and even. 00:32:23.720 --> 00:32:26.220 On that in terms of the how do you know, right? 00:32:26.620 --> 00:32:26.740 Yeah. 00:32:26.840 --> 00:32:31.200 I mean, it is not out of the realm of possibility, 00:32:31.880 --> 00:32:39.680 that if Trump hears that industry X is moving from China to pick your random 00:32:39.680 --> 00:32:44.480 country, Thailand or something, that he says, oh, well, we don't want that to happen. 00:32:44.480 --> 00:32:49.320 We want them to go to the US. So we'll raise the tariffs in Thailand too to 00:32:49.320 --> 00:32:53.800 block that because the whole point of this is we don't want foreign manufacturing. 00:32:54.400 --> 00:33:02.760 So I can tell you that that will have a very chilling effect on my industry and others as well. 00:33:02.940 --> 00:33:10.040 If there are such extreme policies that the only viable option is to manufacture in the U.S., 00:33:10.600 --> 00:33:15.920 Most projects become unaffordable, right? If you, if you have to make everything 00:33:15.920 --> 00:33:20.760 here, let me go back because I sort of make notes to answer one of your earlier questions. 00:33:20.900 --> 00:33:26.000 You asked, you asked, is this tariff policy going to incentivize people to add 00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:29.680 manufacturing capacity in the United States? Let's say that it did. 00:33:30.200 --> 00:33:34.900 One of my previous employers manufactures the utility scale inverters. 00:33:35.020 --> 00:33:38.700 These are the machines that convert DC power from the solar panels to the AC 00:33:38.700 --> 00:33:39.900 power that connects to the grid. 00:33:40.700 --> 00:33:45.860 So they're, they're, and they do more than that, but let's skip the details. 00:33:46.480 --> 00:33:53.840 They're, they're critical to renewable power generation, whether it's wind or solar or battery. 00:33:54.060 --> 00:33:58.700 This is the way those technologies interconnect to the grid and provide reliable electricity. 00:34:00.320 --> 00:34:06.320 The Inflation Reduction Act passed, what, three years ago or more by now. 00:34:06.320 --> 00:34:10.980 So we knew there were tax incentives coming for manufacturers to add capacity 00:34:10.980 --> 00:34:15.360 in the US, even knowing that there was incentive and there was ability to make 00:34:15.360 --> 00:34:20.180 that pencil out and be profitable and to still meet market price for those machines 00:34:20.180 --> 00:34:21.140 here in the United States. 00:34:21.140 --> 00:34:27.080 It took my old employer about two years to get to ribbon cutting on that factory. 00:34:27.940 --> 00:34:34.500 So more complicated manufacturing. Let's say, you know, maybe his goal is to 00:34:34.500 --> 00:34:37.080 onshore more steel, more automobiles, 00:34:37.360 --> 00:34:40.880 more gas turbine or steam turbine 00:34:40.880 --> 00:34:44.700 to try to shift electric power back to fossil away from renewables. 00:34:44.860 --> 00:34:47.200 Those factories take even longer to build. 00:34:47.720 --> 00:34:51.400 Trump won't be in office anymore when those new factories open. 00:34:51.560 --> 00:34:54.880 That's how far out you're looking. So no, 90-day pause is, 00:34:55.510 --> 00:34:59.330 doesn't incentivize anyone to bring manufacturing. It incentivizes everyone 00:34:59.330 --> 00:35:02.150 like, let's wait and see what's he going to do in August. 00:35:02.650 --> 00:35:04.730 That's where we are. 00:35:05.870 --> 00:35:12.710 I want to address something else also. Some of this manufacturing won't create 00:35:12.710 --> 00:35:15.170 the jobs that Trump wants his base. 00:35:16.050 --> 00:35:21.470 Unless he takes a really remarkable turn towards authoritarianism, 00:35:21.470 --> 00:35:23.430 Right. He's done in three and a half years. 00:35:23.810 --> 00:35:31.510 But there are senators and congressmen and aspiring politicians who are, 00:35:31.510 --> 00:35:36.870 you know, riding on his populist wave that, you know, they want to they want 00:35:36.870 --> 00:35:38.710 to keep they want to sustain that Trump message. 00:35:38.890 --> 00:35:41.530 Even when he's out of the picture, they're relying on the base, 00:35:41.630 --> 00:35:45.010 believing that higher tariffs are going to bring manufacturing back. 00:35:45.170 --> 00:35:46.730 And that means more factory jobs for everybody. 00:35:47.110 --> 00:35:50.270 There's a lot of stuff that's manufactured in China nowadays. 00:35:50.270 --> 00:35:54.610 Days i i think maybe the popular misconceptions everything they make over there 00:35:54.610 --> 00:35:58.710 whether it's barbie dolls or whether it's complicated electrical power generating 00:35:58.710 --> 00:36:04.970 machinery it's all manufactured by child labor forced forced leaguer like it is the. 00:36:04.970 --> 00:36:07.750 Most idiotic most idiotic thing ever i. 00:36:07.750 --> 00:36:11.110 It's robotics well it's. 00:36:11.110 --> 00:36:12.270 Not totally robotics. 00:36:12.270 --> 00:36:12.890 No listen. 00:36:12.890 --> 00:36:16.470 But but but the labor by the way they We have labor. The labor is expensive. 00:36:16.730 --> 00:36:21.910 Look, I had employees in China, in Shanghai and in Wuhan, okay, of all places. 00:36:22.030 --> 00:36:25.510 By the way, I ran an operations center in Wuhan when the pandemic started, 00:36:26.190 --> 00:36:28.330 okay, all right, of all the damn places, okay, all right. 00:36:29.410 --> 00:36:35.150 Look, my employees, the employees that I have in Shanghai basically made wages 00:36:35.150 --> 00:36:36.890 that were close to what we pay here. 00:36:37.370 --> 00:36:44.130 They weren't that far off, you know, 30,000, 40,000 a year for people, 00:36:44.330 --> 00:36:46.910 a manager, 60,000, 80,000. 00:36:47.150 --> 00:36:49.930 And so these people telling me that they think that we're using cellular, 00:36:50.130 --> 00:36:51.810 I'm like, what are you guys talking about? Yeah. 00:36:52.030 --> 00:36:56.610 So I'm realizing that I have hardly stayed in touch with either of you for over 00:36:56.610 --> 00:37:00.790 three decades. And I shouldn't presume what you may or may not know. 00:37:00.910 --> 00:37:03.850 What I've learned about China, you could probably validate, is they've taken 00:37:03.850 --> 00:37:07.550 a decades-long strategic approach to becoming the factory for the world. 00:37:08.110 --> 00:37:12.170 Yes, totally. They have extraordinary manufacturing capacity that we can't touch. 00:37:12.670 --> 00:37:15.930 And that is the reality. And not just that. 00:37:16.130 --> 00:37:20.730 Listen, the one thing that you get, the incredible support that, 00:37:21.210 --> 00:37:26.870 listen, we as a foreign company, local government, to set up stuff, okay? 00:37:27.230 --> 00:37:29.730 Like subsidized buildings. 00:37:30.270 --> 00:37:34.090 We got, during the pandemic, nine months of free rent, okay, 00:37:34.170 --> 00:37:38.690 all of a sudden from the government. and we were foreigners and we were getting 00:37:38.690 --> 00:37:40.050 that money, for example. 00:37:40.390 --> 00:37:43.950 And I'm like, what the hell, man? They're supporting us this way or that way. 00:37:44.050 --> 00:37:48.390 So yeah, they support the manufacturing. They've got the people. 00:37:48.510 --> 00:37:49.490 They've got the infrastructure. 00:37:50.210 --> 00:37:54.470 And I think that's the one thing that they don't understand how when you set 00:37:54.470 --> 00:37:59.510 up a factory over there, the level of skilled labor that is available, 00:37:59.630 --> 00:38:04.810 the pool of people that they're trained that we just don't have. It's just really... 00:38:05.590 --> 00:38:13.570 So I don't want to become a China apologist either, but this isn't North Korea. 00:38:13.710 --> 00:38:15.890 This isn't Soviet Union in the 70s and 80s. 00:38:16.050 --> 00:38:16.790 No, no. 00:38:16.890 --> 00:38:22.990 In terms of global economy, this is a capitalist country. They are authoritarian in other ways. 00:38:23.730 --> 00:38:26.650 They love their Starbucks. Let me tell you something. 00:38:27.390 --> 00:38:34.390 And the other misconception is sort of a decades-old information. 00:38:34.390 --> 00:38:40.810 Like people think of it as like a backwards third world country type of thing 00:38:40.810 --> 00:38:47.510 as opposed to modern technology that in many cases is ahead of ours yeah. 00:38:47.510 --> 00:38:52.750 Yes yeah yeah so i'm not going to take any more detours. 00:38:52.750 --> 00:38:54.770 Sure where. 00:38:54.770 --> 00:39:00.250 Were we about uh the tariffs manufacturing i understand where do we stay on 00:39:00.250 --> 00:39:07.890 brand we are we are we are i mean our tangents you know are yeah that's no anyway so we're gonna go. 00:39:07.890 --> 00:39:14.570 We were we were fundamentally talking about how industries you know your yours 00:39:14.570 --> 00:39:20.950 as an example but industries in general are reacting to the uncertainty of okay 00:39:20.950 --> 00:39:22.630 here's what things are right now. 00:39:23.190 --> 00:39:26.610 But it could be different in 90 days. 00:39:26.790 --> 00:39:30.710 It could be different in 30 days. You know, from what we've seen so far, 00:39:30.910 --> 00:39:32.150 it could be different tomorrow. 00:39:32.550 --> 00:39:38.090 Trump could wake up one day having watched some random segment on Fox News and 00:39:38.090 --> 00:39:40.390 decide to completely change the policy tomorrow. 00:39:40.990 --> 00:39:42.690 And so how do you deal with that? 00:39:42.690 --> 00:39:46.070 That's actually exactly how this happens a lot. 00:39:47.130 --> 00:39:50.210 This is maybe not addressing what you just said sam but i 00:39:50.210 --> 00:39:53.370 mean i could there's another fact just from things that i've been reading 00:39:53.370 --> 00:39:56.810 and listening to to keep up with the industry at large i 00:39:56.810 --> 00:39:59.530 talked earlier about the shortage of gas turbines there's more than one 00:39:59.530 --> 00:40:03.590 way to generate electricity i do solar but there's other ways and there's this 00:40:03.590 --> 00:40:08.230 well in the industry well publicized shortage of gas turbines the companies 00:40:08.230 --> 00:40:14.090 that manufacture them are also not interested in adding capacity because you 00:40:14.090 --> 00:40:19.410 think i talked about capitalism a second ago the you know publicly traded companies, 00:40:20.330 --> 00:40:25.630 more often than not, are strategizing ways to maximize shareholder value and 00:40:25.630 --> 00:40:29.070 making large capital investments, whether it's in the U.S. or anywhere else, 00:40:29.230 --> 00:40:33.010 does not always maximize return on shareholder value, right? 00:40:33.090 --> 00:40:38.250 So they're happy to charge premium prices and take orders that they won't deliver 00:40:38.250 --> 00:40:42.290 for the next four or five years, as long as it keeps the shareholder happy, 00:40:42.290 --> 00:40:46.670 as long as the board keeps the executives in place. I don't want to sound too cynical. 00:40:46.830 --> 00:40:50.730 I mean, that's a hard job that i don't have to do but it's 00:40:50.730 --> 00:40:53.450 not just so easy as to say look at all of these 00:40:53.450 --> 00:40:56.370 tariffs and it's and it's you know driving demand for 00:40:56.370 --> 00:41:01.410 manufacturing the u.s so hey you know giant global multinational companies why 00:41:01.410 --> 00:41:05.050 don't you build new turbine or generator or substation factories here in the 00:41:05.050 --> 00:41:08.930 united states well we're not gonna because that's a multi-billion dollar capital 00:41:08.930 --> 00:41:13.550 investment and the shareholders won't tolerate that right now there's more to it about tariffs yeah. 00:41:13.550 --> 00:41:17.530 And think about this when you're talking about that multi-billion dollar investment right Because. 00:41:17.530 --> 00:41:18.650 That takes years. 00:41:19.030 --> 00:41:22.870 Number one, for it to pay off. And the reality is that one of the things that 00:41:22.870 --> 00:41:27.070 if I'm any of these manufacturers, okay, and despite whatever the U.S. 00:41:27.250 --> 00:41:32.810 Is doing on energy policy, the rest of the world is moving and pushing towards 00:41:32.810 --> 00:41:35.090 renewables, okay, very aggressively. 00:41:35.470 --> 00:41:40.750 And so, therefore, you're talking about, number one, like you said, 00:41:40.830 --> 00:41:45.170 this president is changing in three and a half years, okay, all right, most probably, okay? 00:41:45.170 --> 00:41:48.070 And the rest of the world is 00:41:48.070 --> 00:41:51.630 moving towards these other sources of energy why 00:41:51.630 --> 00:41:58.410 am i going to do a massive capital investment in this when when it comes online 00:41:58.410 --> 00:42:03.250 maybe because of where the market's going i'm gonna wind up with this white 00:42:03.250 --> 00:42:08.510 elephant manufacturer factory facility that i've got nobody to sell shit to well. 00:42:08.510 --> 00:42:11.390 And i'll add there's no like, 00:42:11.910 --> 00:42:16.770 If you are truly going to have an industrial policy that tried to encourage 00:42:16.770 --> 00:42:19.890 this, you don't just put on the tariffs. 00:42:20.090 --> 00:42:24.090 You also have an industrial policy that actually supports it. 00:42:24.250 --> 00:42:25.990 Which is what Biden was doing. 00:42:26.170 --> 00:42:30.550 Which is what Biden was doing. But if you really and truly wanted this, 00:42:30.670 --> 00:42:35.290 you would have to add massive amounts of investment to encourage industry to do this. 00:42:35.510 --> 00:42:40.730 You would give them grants outright. You would give low-interest loans. 00:42:42.050 --> 00:42:46.850 You would give all sorts of other benefits and things that would make it worth their while. 00:42:47.150 --> 00:42:51.790 But this administration has zero interest in that side of the equation at all, 00:42:51.810 --> 00:42:55.690 because they fundamentally don't believe in doing that. 00:42:56.150 --> 00:43:01.550 And so you have the one thing, but not the other, which makes it completely ineffective. 00:43:02.710 --> 00:43:04.230 Yeah, I agree. 00:43:05.110 --> 00:43:09.870 There's some political desire for nuclear power as well. 00:43:10.890 --> 00:43:16.430 And once again, not a subject matter expert, but I try to keep up with the industry. 00:43:16.590 --> 00:43:20.210 What I've learned about nuclear power over the years, especially ever since 00:43:20.210 --> 00:43:23.110 Fukushima, I'm remembering the name of that plant correctly, 00:43:23.210 --> 00:43:24.590 right? Yeah, you got it right. 00:43:26.370 --> 00:43:32.030 Commercial banks are very, very hesitant to finance nuclear power construction. 00:43:33.550 --> 00:43:41.190 It's virtually impossible to build new nuclear without some kind of government 00:43:41.190 --> 00:43:46.850 guarantee whether it's a loan guarantee whether it's a direct loan the banks 00:43:46.850 --> 00:43:50.290 don't want to take the risk insurance companies don't want to take the risk. 00:43:51.550 --> 00:43:54.670 Yeah so listen but but you talk about that listen just 00:43:54.670 --> 00:43:57.470 the yeah commercial banks of course they don't want to learn about 00:43:57.470 --> 00:44:00.410 this look the last nuclear the big nuclear react georgia 00:44:00.410 --> 00:44:03.610 power yeah that hired westinghouse to build this massive 00:44:03.610 --> 00:44:06.410 nuclear reactor the this new one that came online in 00:44:06.410 --> 00:44:09.630 georgia that took that it's not only did it take forever 00:44:09.630 --> 00:44:12.370 to build not only did it go you know 00:44:12.370 --> 00:44:17.910 the cost overruns were insane okay but it literally drove the manufacturer bankrupt 00:44:17.910 --> 00:44:23.950 of making the nuclear reactor okay that's how that that is the last big nuclear 00:44:23.950 --> 00:44:29.910 project in the united states and it literally drove almost everybody that built it bankrupt i'll. 00:44:29.910 --> 00:44:34.570 Add a little more to that the the schedule got so far behind georgia power fired 00:44:34.570 --> 00:44:36.650 the construction company that was running it and. 00:44:36.650 --> 00:44:38.530 Replaced them it. 00:44:38.530 --> 00:44:44.890 Wound up finishing years behind schedule and this top of my head order of roughly 00:44:44.890 --> 00:44:49.690 double what the initial budget was supposed to be. Maybe you're looking at it right now. 00:44:50.210 --> 00:44:54.810 No, yeah, I looked it up. $14 billion was, you know, the owner pledged that 00:44:54.810 --> 00:44:58.350 the units would begin producing power in 2016 at $14 billion. 00:44:58.850 --> 00:45:06.190 Okay. It wound up taking to 2024 last year, and it cost $35 billion. 00:45:06.590 --> 00:45:10.030 Yeah, so a little more than double. There was another plant, 00:45:10.570 --> 00:45:14.530 same Westinghouse Reactive Design, started around the same time in South Carolina 00:45:14.530 --> 00:45:15.670 that was called VC Summer. 00:45:16.010 --> 00:45:21.150 VC Summer is a half-complete nuclear power station that will probably never 00:45:21.150 --> 00:45:25.410 be finished, and it ran that utility out of business. 00:45:25.570 --> 00:45:28.970 They went bankrupt and were acquired by Dominion Power out of Virginia. 00:45:29.750 --> 00:45:39.010 So now, you know, nuclear is financially risky, and so banks won't touch it, and I agree. 00:45:39.170 --> 00:45:41.870 I'm not universally opposed. 00:45:42.110 --> 00:45:46.410 Nuclear power. There's a lot of upside, right? Zero emissions, it's always on. 00:45:47.050 --> 00:45:53.950 That's a terrific baseload generation technology. People are justifiably afraid of it because, 00:45:54.930 --> 00:45:57.230 The accident rate's really low, but when there's an accident, 00:45:57.430 --> 00:45:59.110 they're terrified. Yes. 00:45:59.310 --> 00:45:59.530 It's bad. 00:45:59.730 --> 00:45:59.830 Right. 00:46:00.150 --> 00:46:03.510 And so I understand that completely. I'm certainly not trying to become a nuclear 00:46:03.510 --> 00:46:08.230 power advocate as well, but one of the risks is banks don't want the principals 00:46:08.230 --> 00:46:12.170 to go bankrupt and take that risk of not being paid back, 00:46:12.670 --> 00:46:15.150 $34 billion that they loaned out to build a plant. 00:46:15.250 --> 00:46:18.570 So they just choose not to do it. If the government is not going to back that 00:46:18.570 --> 00:46:22.050 with loan guarantees or things that seem to be more popular with Democratic 00:46:22.050 --> 00:46:23.970 than Republican administrations. 00:46:24.370 --> 00:46:28.090 Trump's never going to get the nuclear power that he claims to want unless they're 00:46:28.090 --> 00:46:32.510 going to take on some policy positions that are traditionally more Democrat 00:46:32.510 --> 00:46:34.610 than Republican. Anyway. 00:46:35.490 --> 00:46:40.130 The problem with all of these is what happened like in the first administration 00:46:40.130 --> 00:46:41.390 that we're living through this again. 00:46:42.110 --> 00:46:45.530 Trump announced infrastructure week every week for four years. 00:46:45.950 --> 00:46:49.070 Never did they pass an infrastructure bill and the 00:46:49.070 --> 00:46:51.930 problem is that everything is a shiny object which to 00:46:51.930 --> 00:46:56.310 talk about to get clicks you know somewhere and that's the only things that 00:46:56.310 --> 00:47:01.570 they're interested in actual hard work that goes behind the scenes to create 00:47:01.570 --> 00:47:06.810 a program build it pass it fund it you know you know get the industry on board 00:47:06.810 --> 00:47:10.570 to do all of that whatever who really wants that that's all boring shit. Okay. 00:47:10.770 --> 00:47:17.310 Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, I, I wonder how interested anyone in this administration 00:47:17.310 --> 00:47:22.110 really is in what you said, the hard work of actually executing policy. 00:47:22.250 --> 00:47:25.830 Even if I fundamentally disagree with policies that they want, 00:47:25.910 --> 00:47:32.270 like they don't seem to be able to think beyond we're going to fire a bunch of people arbitrarily. 00:47:32.410 --> 00:47:34.990 We're going to, we're going to make a bunch of inflammatory statements. 00:47:35.150 --> 00:47:39.450 We're going to test the limits in the courts of just, 00:47:40.770 --> 00:47:43.710 bypassing due process entirely. And now I know we're getting way, 00:47:43.750 --> 00:47:44.970 way, way beyond tariffs. 00:47:45.170 --> 00:47:45.990 That's okay. That's okay. 00:47:46.110 --> 00:47:50.570 But even, even in tariffs, that seems to be, they haven't thought this out beyond, 00:47:51.270 --> 00:47:54.390 China, your tariffs are 145% now. Okay. 00:47:54.550 --> 00:47:55.230 Now it's 175. 00:47:55.950 --> 00:47:59.670 Now what? You know, so I talked about the Inflation Reduction Act earlier. 00:47:59.890 --> 00:48:03.730 One of the big frustrations in the industry was, okay, you passed this bill 00:48:03.730 --> 00:48:08.710 that gives very general guidelines and then it all, it has to go to committees 00:48:08.710 --> 00:48:10.070 and organizations and departments, 00:48:10.670 --> 00:48:16.310 you know, the people who do the day-to-day work of executing government policy 00:48:16.310 --> 00:48:18.710 and providing government services, they had to write all the rules, 00:48:18.870 --> 00:48:20.670 all the details of how it's going to be executed. 00:48:21.270 --> 00:48:26.350 This shit takes time, right? It took over a year from when IRA was passed until 00:48:26.350 --> 00:48:32.110 we actually understood how it was going to be implemented and what our business 00:48:32.110 --> 00:48:34.070 choices really were, right? 00:48:34.150 --> 00:48:37.610 And it was then that, for example, a previous company and many of their competitors 00:48:37.610 --> 00:48:41.190 and many other manufacturers in the industry decided, okay, we're going to make 00:48:41.190 --> 00:48:44.270 the business decision to build a factory here because it's economically viable. 00:48:44.570 --> 00:48:51.430 And is it going to make a dent in the global supply chain for these pieces of 00:48:51.430 --> 00:48:53.030 machinery and these electrical components? 00:48:53.470 --> 00:49:00.210 Probably not. But it does provide supply chain security in my industry and a few others where. 00:49:00.870 --> 00:49:05.510 If, let's say, another country decided to start a trade war and escalate tariffs, 00:49:05.510 --> 00:49:08.450 now we're protected now we're becoming more 00:49:08.450 --> 00:49:11.750 self-sufficient to provide components and 00:49:11.750 --> 00:49:16.250 other machinery to build solar power generation which has become the least expensive 00:49:16.250 --> 00:49:22.230 way to add new electricity generation it has an Achilles heel it doesn't work 00:49:22.230 --> 00:49:25.970 after dark right it has an Achilles heel but then batteries come in and so there 00:49:25.970 --> 00:49:30.010 was also incentives there's also incentives to increase and make the U.S. 00:49:30.730 --> 00:49:35.250 More supply chain self-sufficient for batteries as well. 00:49:36.350 --> 00:49:39.410 And for some of the other machinery that goes into electric power generation 00:49:39.410 --> 00:49:43.110 he also did with the chips act to bring more semiconductor manufacturing 00:49:43.110 --> 00:49:45.910 back to the u.s i admit i know far less 00:49:45.910 --> 00:49:50.050 about that than i do about the electric power generation side but then infrastructure 00:49:50.050 --> 00:49:54.930 week for all of the talk of infrastructure week biden actually passed the largest 00:49:54.930 --> 00:49:58.510 i might be mixing up the infrastructure bill with the inflation reduction act 00:49:58.510 --> 00:50:04.090 but it was perhaps the largest infrastructure bill in the history of the country and. 00:50:04.750 --> 00:50:08.450 Hopefully, and maybe this wishful thinking, well, 00:50:08.810 --> 00:50:13.810 so maybe I don't know the details and I'm filling in my own wishful thinking, 00:50:13.950 --> 00:50:17.470 but hopefully learning from the mistakes of the American Recovery Act under 00:50:17.470 --> 00:50:20.990 Obama back in what, 2009 or so, 00:50:21.150 --> 00:50:24.970 they put a lot of money out on the street and there were not enough shovel ready 00:50:24.970 --> 00:50:27.530 projects and for better or for worse. 00:50:27.530 --> 00:50:29.850 And I was sort of in more of that industry at the time. 00:50:30.350 --> 00:50:33.870 Right before I got into power generation, I was more involved in civil construction. 00:50:33.870 --> 00:50:37.910 And what we saw was a lot of projects immediately being released to do things 00:50:37.910 --> 00:50:42.690 like adding handicap access at, at urban crosswalks and, you know, 00:50:42.770 --> 00:50:44.010 pedestrian bridges and things like that. 00:50:44.130 --> 00:50:48.630 But the really big capital intensive, labor intensive, manufacturing intensive 00:50:48.630 --> 00:50:52.690 stuff that needed to be done, like major bridge and highway reconstruction, 00:50:52.690 --> 00:50:54.230 those designs weren't ready to go. 00:50:54.230 --> 00:50:57.050 And maybe the industry, maybe the government learned its lesson over the last 00:50:57.050 --> 00:51:01.330 15 years that by the time Biden passed the infrastructure bill, 00:51:01.630 --> 00:51:07.630 there were major multi-hundred million dollar infrastructure projects ready to go. 00:51:07.850 --> 00:51:14.450 Like within a year, it was far more effective than the Obama plan was 14, 00:51:14.570 --> 00:51:16.410 15 years prior, if I'm doing that correctly. 00:51:16.410 --> 00:51:20.270 Even then, like you mentioned, it was a lot better than the last time. 00:51:20.450 --> 00:51:24.190 Even then there's a significant lag. And I think that's one of the things that 00:51:24.190 --> 00:51:31.290 is, you know, a problem in general of American politics is like connecting cause 00:51:31.290 --> 00:51:33.610 to effect for the general population. 00:51:33.610 --> 00:51:42.450 Because there's so much time lag between policy enacted and regular human beings sees the effect of it, 00:51:42.610 --> 00:51:49.130 that it's really, really difficult for anybody to... 00:51:49.900 --> 00:51:54.140 Even the people who are paying close attention, but certainly the sort of low 00:51:54.140 --> 00:51:57.860 information folks, just don't make that connection at all. 00:51:58.000 --> 00:52:01.460 Look at the Affordable Care Act. I mean, it was one of the things that, 00:52:01.480 --> 00:52:06.400 you know, it took really for everything on the Affordable Care Act to really 00:52:06.400 --> 00:52:08.620 be implemented. It took years. 00:52:08.800 --> 00:52:13.580 Okay. It took so long that people even later went and was like, 00:52:13.860 --> 00:52:17.320 well, I'm getting my health care through KY Connect or something, 00:52:17.500 --> 00:52:19.060 whatever. Hey, that's Obama. 00:52:19.060 --> 00:52:22.340 What yes what do you mean there i 00:52:22.340 --> 00:52:25.800 i i completely agree and so this is i 00:52:25.800 --> 00:52:29.560 think trump's real gift is he 00:52:29.560 --> 00:52:32.620 has this charismatic nature that the people 00:52:32.620 --> 00:52:36.000 who want to hear the things that he says he resonates 00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:39.420 with them so if he says as he 00:52:39.420 --> 00:52:42.820 has these tariffs have caused immediate effect 00:52:42.820 --> 00:52:46.060 and there are you know many many manufacturers 00:52:46.060 --> 00:52:49.140 coming to me saying sir thank you we're building new factories in 00:52:49.140 --> 00:52:52.960 the u.s sir it's this is the way he talks about this shit it's 00:52:52.960 --> 00:52:56.140 not true but it is what people 00:52:56.140 --> 00:52:58.920 want to hear they want to believe it and so 00:52:58.920 --> 00:53:01.900 they accept it and biden for whatever 00:53:01.900 --> 00:53:05.620 policy decisions that he made that i like is 00:53:05.620 --> 00:53:12.820 the opposite of trump's personality right he's low-key he's boring and he doesn't 00:53:12.820 --> 00:53:16.900 tweet about every stupid fucking thing every minute of every day for four years 00:53:16.900 --> 00:53:22.840 straight right it's right it's nobody does and in a in one of the in. 00:53:22.840 --> 00:53:29.400 One of the interviews after you know harris lost biden did say something like you know, 00:53:30.140 --> 00:53:33.300 maybe I should have signed the relief checks myself like he did. 00:53:33.520 --> 00:53:39.360 You know, because there were so many people out there who literally thought 00:53:39.360 --> 00:53:42.380 that Donald Trump personally was sending them checks. 00:53:42.860 --> 00:53:48.280 So I hate what politics has become because of him, but I think what we're talking 00:53:48.280 --> 00:53:53.680 about, the fact that the real effective hard work of executing policy, 00:53:53.920 --> 00:53:58.020 whether we think it's good or not, that real hard work of executing and of driving 00:53:58.020 --> 00:54:02.120 the results that you promised when you announced it, 18 months earlier that 00:54:02.120 --> 00:54:06.740 stuff needs to get advertised the way that trump advertises all of his petty grievances. 00:54:06.740 --> 00:54:09.700 Well and you mentioned some of the smaller projects but 00:54:09.700 --> 00:54:12.820 there's also front load with that stuff like if 00:54:12.820 --> 00:54:16.800 there is stuff that you can do fast and easy like what one of the criticisms 00:54:16.800 --> 00:54:22.040 of the ira like that i forget which journalist put out was like the low number 00:54:22.040 --> 00:54:26.980 of electric car charging stations that had been added like they promised however 00:54:26.980 --> 00:54:31.240 many and there There was like a small number that were actually implemented. 00:54:31.580 --> 00:54:35.260 Well, you know, that's the kind of thing. Figure out how to do the easy things 00:54:35.260 --> 00:54:37.520 faster, you know, and I don't know. 00:54:37.660 --> 00:54:40.960 That's a great point. That is a great point. And I was sort of, 00:54:41.080 --> 00:54:46.580 I was dismissing the handicap ramps at Urban Crosswalks earlier, 00:54:46.780 --> 00:54:52.280 but it is something, you know, you could get cameras out there and show people, 00:54:52.540 --> 00:54:54.760 like real people working, 00:54:55.580 --> 00:54:59.020 you know, getting paid to do labor, pouring concrete that's, 00:54:59.020 --> 00:55:01.040 you know, driving supply chain and so forth. 00:55:01.180 --> 00:55:05.400 And the other thing is marketing. And back, you mentioned the things that the 00:55:05.400 --> 00:55:10.200 Obama era version of this got wrong, but one thing they did do is they put signs 00:55:10.200 --> 00:55:13.420 up next to every project identifying... 00:55:13.420 --> 00:55:17.660 Listen, can I just say something? Look, I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. 00:55:18.000 --> 00:55:22.380 Okay, all right. And so when I was born, you know, one of the things that I 00:55:22.380 --> 00:55:28.940 liked when I first came here to live in college, because I didn't live in the U.S. 00:55:29.060 --> 00:55:35.460 Before I went to CMU, okay, was the fact that in Puerto Rico it drove me crazy 00:55:35.460 --> 00:55:39.520 that every fucking politician, when they did something, had their fucking picture. 00:55:39.620 --> 00:55:43.640 Just put their name with their fucking picture beside it, and it was just. 00:55:44.020 --> 00:55:49.260 I found it just terribly disgusting, because it was very much like this fucking 00:55:49.260 --> 00:55:54.240 podcast of bullshit, like the Nazis do, And like authoritarians do all the time 00:55:54.240 --> 00:55:58.000 on, you know, with their pictures on the side of every building and this shit. 00:55:58.280 --> 00:56:03.640 And I actually totally love that you would come to a project in the U.S. 00:56:03.740 --> 00:56:06.100 And you would see, hey, we're doing this new highway. 00:56:06.260 --> 00:56:10.660 It didn't say who the fucking politicians or whoever the hell it was that did 00:56:10.660 --> 00:56:12.940 it. It just said, hey, we're working for you. 00:56:13.220 --> 00:56:17.180 And the problem is, and I'm telling you, the one thing that I hate is. 00:56:17.520 --> 00:56:23.940 That has infected this fucking country right now is that so much of the shit 00:56:23.940 --> 00:56:26.480 that we're living with Trump is 00:56:26.480 --> 00:56:32.520 shit that you're used to seeing that drove people to emigrate to the U.S. 00:56:32.580 --> 00:56:37.380 From places like Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and all these places where you 00:56:37.380 --> 00:56:45.200 had Hugo Chavez on fucking TV all day talking nonstop gaslighting everybody about the same shit. 00:56:45.200 --> 00:56:47.880 Every my god i still remember when i was in 00:56:47.880 --> 00:56:50.680 caracas the last 2008 okay i can't 00:56:50.680 --> 00:56:53.460 like yeah you know he was google chavez was on every you 00:56:53.460 --> 00:56:57.660 would flip the tv and he was on every fucking channel okay it was ridiculous 00:56:57.660 --> 00:57:02.420 and he was announcing this project where they were building these homes we're 00:57:02.420 --> 00:57:07.100 giving homes to the poor and showing this thing or whatever and give it with 00:57:07.100 --> 00:57:12.960 the shovel and presenting these people in front of everybody how happy are you with your new home, 00:57:13.120 --> 00:57:15.440 blah, blah, blah, which, by the way, most of the project was a sham. 00:57:15.600 --> 00:57:17.660 They were stealing money to people that are his friends. 00:57:17.860 --> 00:57:21.340 Everybody's just stealing it. Listen, the whole thing about it is this entire 00:57:21.340 --> 00:57:25.360 crony thing where all his friends basically, you know, just stole all the money 00:57:25.360 --> 00:57:26.560 on all these fucking projects. 00:57:26.720 --> 00:57:30.960 But he's on fucking TV blasting this shit. And this is the kind of shit that 00:57:30.960 --> 00:57:34.120 I hate, that Trump does not stop to drive he crazy. 00:57:34.240 --> 00:57:38.020 And the thing is, that what you're saying is, and I get what you're saying, 00:57:38.020 --> 00:57:41.520 and I fucking agree that Democrats need to do this. 00:57:41.600 --> 00:57:45.520 But it yes so sam i 00:57:45.520 --> 00:57:48.460 don't want to lose my train of thought i don't want us to drift 00:57:48.460 --> 00:57:51.140 any more into cronyism than we already have in the 00:57:51.140 --> 00:57:57.040 last four months yeah however the like the genie's out of the bottle i'm not 00:57:57.040 --> 00:58:01.320 sure what the right metaphor is here but like we can't go back so there's there's 00:58:01.320 --> 00:58:06.540 another there's another former rct dj that i have stayed in in close touch with 00:58:06.540 --> 00:58:07.560 over the last year i'm not going 00:58:07.560 --> 00:58:10.440 to name because i don't know whether he would want me to name him here, 00:58:10.540 --> 00:58:14.200 but I've stayed in touch with this guy and you guys I'm sure would remember him as well. I. 00:58:15.000 --> 00:58:18.860 I share his opinion, although he kind of had to, he didn't take a lot to convince 00:58:18.860 --> 00:58:19.920 me, but he has convinced me. 00:58:20.320 --> 00:58:26.640 Democrats are playing a game that ended 10 years ago, right? It's a new game now. 00:58:27.180 --> 00:58:31.820 The rules are different, and it has unfortunately become more vulgar. 00:58:32.540 --> 00:58:37.540 They have to be willing to behave the same way. 00:58:37.780 --> 00:58:43.540 I'm not advocating for cronyism at all, but you've got to be more of a... 00:58:43.540 --> 00:58:46.780 Yes, you've got to be more of a charismatic personality. 00:58:47.040 --> 00:58:52.360 And so, you know, the stuff that AOC and Bernie Sanders are doing around the 00:58:52.360 --> 00:58:57.760 country right now, I'm not sure either of them are the best spokesperson for 00:58:57.760 --> 00:59:01.620 the way the Democratic Party needs to behave and needs to be led. 00:59:01.620 --> 00:59:09.920 But I think that's a better model than as, as, as much as I really enjoyed that 00:59:09.920 --> 00:59:14.300 joy and positivity of the Harris campaign, it was, 00:59:14.480 --> 00:59:18.880 it was the wrong time for that, right? We've, we've moved beyond that. 00:59:19.060 --> 00:59:22.680 Well, I, I, I'm just going to repeat something I've said on this show that I 00:59:22.680 --> 00:59:28.620 know you haven't heard before, but on my, I actually think the joy and positivity was working. 00:59:28.940 --> 00:59:31.780 I have this electiongraphs.com website where i 00:59:31.780 --> 00:59:35.280 track the polls and all this kind of stuff okay and in 00:59:35.280 --> 00:59:39.560 the first part of the harris campaign every week 00:59:39.560 --> 00:59:44.440 they were doing better than the week before until mid-september and roughly 00:59:44.440 --> 00:59:49.960 in mid-september they changed tone and they moved away from the joy and positivity 00:59:49.960 --> 00:59:56.220 and moved towards trump is dangerous and that's when they started losing ground again but. 00:59:56.220 --> 00:59:59.920 It wasn't just the joy on positivity it was the fact that they were mocking. 01:00:00.180 --> 01:00:03.500 Yes. Mocking him rather than taking him seriously. 01:00:03.900 --> 01:00:06.180 Isn't that interesting? So 01:00:06.180 --> 01:00:11.940 maybe you're onto something that our old Richard friend is onto as well. 01:00:12.020 --> 01:00:17.680 There's a better way to message this without sacrificing your dignity. 01:00:18.200 --> 01:00:23.280 Yes, and I think one of the problems, and we're starting to move onto other 01:00:23.280 --> 01:00:24.560 things. Maybe we should take a break. 01:00:24.760 --> 01:00:26.340 Hey, first, guys. How about those? 01:00:26.880 --> 01:00:28.740 How about those tariffs, Todd? 01:00:30.860 --> 01:00:36.840 But yeah, one of the things there is the existing democratic leadership. 01:00:36.980 --> 01:00:38.820 I think you're absolutely right. 01:00:39.020 --> 01:00:44.520 Stuck in the past, trying to emphasize normalcy, try to get back to the way things were. 01:00:44.920 --> 01:00:46.940 And fundamentally, you have to come at this. 01:00:46.940 --> 01:00:52.680 That was what Biden wanted to do. That was what Biden wanted to do. And I know. 01:00:52.960 --> 01:00:54.980 And listen, can I be honest? 01:00:55.580 --> 01:01:01.260 I was, okay. I, listen, call me naive, but I really wanted that too. 01:01:01.890 --> 01:01:08.110 I i mean i did okay and so i wasn't i wasn't opposed to it because honestly 01:01:08.110 --> 01:01:13.630 i didn't want that i wanted like i wish like i could just put a freaking trump 01:01:13.630 --> 01:01:18.070 on top of a rock and shot him to the moon or actually i would prefer jail okay 01:01:18.070 --> 01:01:20.930 but we didn't do either of those yeah. 01:01:20.930 --> 01:01:26.530 So i i i totally i think we're all kind of reaching the same conclusion or already 01:01:26.530 --> 01:01:32.690 have reached the same conclusion we i think we all long for quietly dignified 01:01:32.690 --> 01:01:40.370 efficient government action and you can't do that if you've lost power in all three branches right. 01:01:40.370 --> 01:01:41.370 Yeah they gotta. 01:01:41.370 --> 01:01:43.890 Win a fucking election and. 01:01:43.890 --> 01:01:44.410 Yeah and. 01:01:44.410 --> 01:01:48.990 And start crowing about the positive things that we're doing in this new 21st 01:01:48.990 --> 01:01:52.390 century way or they're never going to take power back and and. 01:01:52.390 --> 01:01:53.690 I don't even like i don't. 01:01:53.690 --> 01:01:57.150 Even like the way i say that they're never going to earn power back the way 01:01:57.150 --> 01:02:00.850 the country is supposed to operate right as a representative republic they're 01:02:00.850 --> 01:02:04.910 never going to earn that right from the voters to do it again if they can't adapt. 01:02:04.910 --> 01:02:07.910 To this 21st century message i mean let me tell you something the true story 01:02:07.910 --> 01:02:11.150 historically i know that over the years i probably have 01:02:11.150 --> 01:02:13.950 not gotten as far ahead in 01:02:13.950 --> 01:02:17.090 my career as i could have because i was 01:02:17.090 --> 01:02:19.910 of that biden school fight just due to hard work whatever 01:02:19.910 --> 01:02:23.030 and not being a big self-promoter okay i 01:02:23.030 --> 01:02:26.390 i i i i have not been that way you 01:02:26.390 --> 01:02:29.090 know historically okay but look i i have to say 01:02:29.090 --> 01:02:32.110 that this this month something happened and i i got remembered 01:02:32.110 --> 01:02:36.930 you know what i i have to stop doing that at this point but i am like i don't 01:02:36.930 --> 01:02:41.070 know look i'm fine in my career it's not like i'm i'm gonna be ceo of a company 01:02:41.070 --> 01:02:44.870 right now at this point or whatever that shot already went that that's okay 01:02:44.870 --> 01:02:50.110 at this point okay i already i already have my shot i got And I got torpedoed. So that's himself. 01:02:50.450 --> 01:02:54.650 But what did happen is that there was something that happened with a customer 01:02:54.650 --> 01:02:59.190 where I, behind the scenes, fixed a major problem. 01:03:00.230 --> 01:03:03.870 But the people that were There were a whole bunch of other people That were 01:03:03.870 --> 01:03:08.030 in front of the customer They made it at first kind of seem like they did it 01:03:08.030 --> 01:03:10.650 And they didn't do shit The guy 01:03:10.650 --> 01:03:16.210 that had solved it was me And it's a major customer of mine And I said, 01:03:16.410 --> 01:03:20.750 fuck, I can't do this I have to send a message I sent the message to the CIO Dude, 01:03:21.450 --> 01:03:28.910 I, by the way, just so you know That problem was fixed Because I went and escalated 01:03:28.910 --> 01:03:31.150 this mess and he got it fixed. 01:03:31.270 --> 01:03:37.630 And it was me, not anybody else. So don't buy the bullshit that anybody else solved the problem. 01:03:37.830 --> 01:03:42.130 I'm the fucking guy that went to the mat and fixed it. And I realized that in 01:03:42.130 --> 01:03:45.390 my life, I never had done that. 01:03:45.530 --> 01:03:48.010 And it's the same problem that you're saying with the Democrats. 01:03:48.330 --> 01:03:52.210 We can't go solving everybody's problems in the background, making sure you 01:03:52.210 --> 01:03:54.890 have the health care, making sure you have food, 01:03:55.250 --> 01:03:58.270 trying to help behind the scenes like you can afford a mortgage, 01:03:58.410 --> 01:04:01.190 trying to help behind the scenes so you can get afforded student education, 01:04:01.330 --> 01:04:04.110 all of this shit without being up front and saying, hey, you know what? 01:04:04.390 --> 01:04:08.690 Sign the, like Biden said, he was right. He should have signed the fucking checks. 01:04:09.190 --> 01:04:09.550 Yeah. 01:04:09.710 --> 01:04:10.210 All of them. 01:04:10.910 --> 01:04:11.310 Okay, wait. 01:04:13.490 --> 01:04:16.070 I'm just going to take a quick break. It's only going to be a few seconds. 01:04:16.190 --> 01:04:17.510 Helps us divide things up. 01:04:19.030 --> 01:04:22.270 And then if you can stick with us a little bit longer, Todd, 01:04:22.290 --> 01:04:26.990 we can pick up this conversation on the other side and officially say we're 01:04:26.990 --> 01:04:29.710 not talking about tariffs anymore. We're talking about everything else. 01:04:29.830 --> 01:04:30.430 We're not. 01:04:31.890 --> 01:04:34.130 Okay. We'll be back right after this. 01:04:36.920 --> 01:04:40.100 You're listening to this podcast do you 01:04:40.100 --> 01:04:42.880 like it no do you want 01:04:42.880 --> 01:04:47.180 to support the show no well after 01:04:47.180 --> 01:04:52.140 you have subscribed to the show followed us on facebook and told all your friends 01:04:52.140 --> 01:04:59.420 they should be listening to what else can you do i won't subscribe you can help 01:04:59.420 --> 01:05:04.520 fund our patreon at patreon.com slash curmudgeonscorner. 01:05:05.000 --> 01:05:10.000 Patreon is a way you can throw us a few bucks a month to help out with the expenses of the show. 01:05:10.360 --> 01:05:14.960 You know, web hosting, equipment, a little bit of advertising to promote the 01:05:14.960 --> 01:05:20.000 show, and maybe every once in a while, some much needed sedatives for Yvonne. 01:05:20.860 --> 01:05:24.320 At different contribution levels, you can get a mention on the show, 01:05:24.560 --> 01:05:29.020 our curmudgeonscorner postcard, or even a curmudgeonscorner mug. 01:05:29.240 --> 01:05:31.460 Fun stuff. Not fun. 01:05:31.860 --> 01:05:37.160 In any case, the contributions help tell us that you enjoy and appreciate the show. 01:05:37.360 --> 01:05:40.260 I really, really hate Curmudgeon's Corner. 01:05:40.860 --> 01:05:42.800 Are we worth a buck a month? No! 01:05:43.560 --> 01:05:49.280 Five bucks a month? No! Or if you are nuts about us, maybe even more. 01:05:49.900 --> 01:05:57.260 One hundred billion! Billion dollars! Even though you don't have anywhere near a billion dollars. 01:05:57.840 --> 01:06:04.460 If we're worth anything to you at all, send it our way at patreon.com slash curmudgeonscorner. 01:06:04.740 --> 01:06:09.740 Alex hates, really, really hates, curmudgeonscorner! 01:06:10.060 --> 01:06:14.460 That's really mean, isn't it? But I hate curmudgeonscorner, but I really do! 01:06:16.990 --> 01:06:20.030 Okay you know it's been a while since 01:06:20.030 --> 01:06:22.930 we've got like reviews online for whatever reason it 01:06:22.930 --> 01:06:26.250 used to be for a while that i i don't even check anymore i 01:06:26.250 --> 01:06:29.210 haven't checked in a while but you know aside from from 01:06:29.210 --> 01:06:34.730 from alex's like great review of a show okay we used to for some reason you 01:06:34.730 --> 01:06:37.670 know we had a whole bunch of five stars but but then we had a whole bunch of 01:06:37.670 --> 01:06:43.050 people that just would write you know shit how you know we're two idiots you 01:06:43.050 --> 01:06:46.810 know get an editor i don't know we we really got 01:06:46.990 --> 01:06:51.090 We got a lot of like, I like the negative feedback and I got to admit, 01:06:51.170 --> 01:06:54.610 it was funny to read the negative feedback. I like reading that. Yeah. 01:06:54.970 --> 01:06:57.770 So yeah, that's, that's bots eight years old now. 01:06:58.050 --> 01:06:58.450 Wow. 01:06:58.510 --> 01:06:58.650 Yeah. 01:06:58.750 --> 01:07:02.010 We've had that. That was my son when he was much younger than he is today. 01:07:03.170 --> 01:07:04.070 He's got a future. 01:07:04.630 --> 01:07:05.610 Yeah, there you go. 01:07:06.170 --> 01:07:06.570 Yeah. 01:07:07.390 --> 01:07:12.130 So we were, you know, I know I killed the momentum by doing the break, 01:07:12.270 --> 01:07:18.930 but we were talking about sort of how Democrats react to all of this stuff. 01:07:19.030 --> 01:07:24.650 Let me bring up one additional sort of part of that, that I think is a problem 01:07:24.650 --> 01:07:28.590 that is, how do you communicate with it, right? 01:07:28.590 --> 01:07:34.530 Like a lot of what, and I think this afflicted the Democrats during the first Trump administration. 01:07:34.550 --> 01:07:39.750 I think it's potentially happening again now, which is a lot of the conversation 01:07:39.750 --> 01:07:42.090 is about the worst case scenario. 01:07:42.590 --> 01:07:45.610 Like, for instance, you know, going back to tariffs for a second, 01:07:46.130 --> 01:07:51.290 you know, everybody's been talking about, oh, well, if the 150 plus percent 01:07:51.290 --> 01:07:55.450 tariffs stick, here's all the bad things that would happen. 01:07:55.810 --> 01:07:57.930 And then Trump backs off to 30 percent. 01:07:58.590 --> 01:08:02.450 And, you know, there's some effect, but it's not all those worst case things. 01:08:02.970 --> 01:08:06.490 Similarly, in the first Trump administration, there was, you know, 01:08:06.830 --> 01:08:10.070 I mean, Trump goes on about how Russia, Russia, Russia was a hoax. 01:08:10.210 --> 01:08:13.290 Well, it wasn't. There was a whole bunch of real stuff that did happen. 01:08:13.770 --> 01:08:19.270 But the worst case scenario that was sometimes promoted by certain people turned 01:08:19.270 --> 01:08:23.590 out not to be the case. It was less than that, but it was still bad. 01:08:23.970 --> 01:08:27.830 And, you know, just in general on a lot of these things, when, 01:08:27.990 --> 01:08:32.130 you know, the reaction is, oh, my God, he's doing X, Y, Z. 01:08:32.650 --> 01:08:37.870 It's going to be awful in these ways. And the worst case scenario is painted. 01:08:38.210 --> 01:08:43.910 And then what you end up with is even if it's 50 percent of the worst case scenario, 01:08:44.330 --> 01:08:48.810 people end up with the impression of, you know, the boy who called wolf. 01:08:48.810 --> 01:08:50.730 Because what you said didn't happen. 01:08:53.470 --> 01:08:58.790 You're hitting another thing, Sam. I wonder how much of this is Trump doing 01:08:59.200 --> 01:09:07.340 being, you know, unfocused and flighty and, you know, unable to maintain a train of thought. 01:09:07.800 --> 01:09:10.640 I have to be careful on how I criticize people on that. 01:09:14.620 --> 01:09:17.840 I shouldn't, shouldn't throw stones in that particular glass house, 01:09:17.840 --> 01:09:24.160 but how much of it is deliberate because he knows he's going to get this reaction. 01:09:24.320 --> 01:09:28.480 He's, he's going to make Democrats look like they're crying wolf maybe it's 01:09:28.480 --> 01:09:32.300 it's impossible to say right but it's probably a little bit of both i think that he. 01:09:32.300 --> 01:09:35.060 I think he's got a real instinct for this stuff i 01:09:35.060 --> 01:09:41.160 think there's a combination of he is actually a bit dim and doesn't understand 01:09:41.160 --> 01:09:45.980 a lot of stuff and doesn't want to understand that stuff but he's got an innate 01:09:45.980 --> 01:09:52.420 instinct for how to manipulate people's emotions that tie directly into this. 01:09:52.540 --> 01:09:56.360 That's his, that's his whole thing. That's his whole personality. 01:09:56.580 --> 01:10:04.880 That's his entire career is how do you influence people by this sort of, 01:10:05.020 --> 01:10:09.780 I mean, we've used the word gaslighting, but it's appropriate here, you know, 01:10:10.020 --> 01:10:15.820 but by, you know, getting them to believe and think and do things and get excited 01:10:15.820 --> 01:10:18.000 about this or get worked up about that. 01:10:18.680 --> 01:10:22.960 And, you know, in some cases to get them to follow you, in some cases to get 01:10:22.960 --> 01:10:26.920 them to fall on their face because they do something that looks stupid when 01:10:26.920 --> 01:10:28.880 you change what you're doing later. 01:10:29.340 --> 01:10:33.440 People have called this, what is it, the OODA loop or something? It's some loop. 01:10:35.560 --> 01:10:39.020 Yeah, it's okay. I'm going to have to look it up. 01:10:40.840 --> 01:10:45.420 Yeah, I will look it up, but it's basically a command and control loop that 01:10:45.420 --> 01:10:54.060 says, if you change what's going on fast enough to keep your enemy, there we go, OODA loop. 01:10:54.420 --> 01:11:00.020 It's a decision, I'm looking at the Wikipedia page, OODA loop, 01:11:00.340 --> 01:11:02.400 decision-making model developed by U.S. 01:11:02.560 --> 01:11:04.580 Air Force Colonel John Boyd. 01:11:04.740 --> 01:11:09.540 He applied the concept to combat operations process at the operational level 01:11:09.540 --> 01:11:10.920 during military campaigns. 01:11:11.440 --> 01:11:18.360 It's basically the decision cycle. It's basically saying that there is a loop 01:11:18.360 --> 01:11:21.560 where you get new information, you react to the new information, 01:11:21.740 --> 01:11:24.240 then you change what you're doing and it cycles, right? 01:11:24.400 --> 01:11:30.060 And the notion is if you can disrupt that loop, 01:11:30.550 --> 01:11:36.550 by changing the apparent facts on the ground faster than people can react to 01:11:36.550 --> 01:11:39.950 them, then you can end up controlling the situation. 01:11:40.550 --> 01:11:45.190 And I think whether it's an intentional, like Trump knows what he's doing, 01:11:45.370 --> 01:11:49.290 or whether it's just instinctual, he does this all the time. 01:11:49.710 --> 01:11:55.770 And I think this also ties into like Bannon's flood the zone with shit comments 01:11:55.770 --> 01:12:01.050 are exactly tied into this as well. You basically keep throwing out the chaff 01:12:01.050 --> 01:12:03.350 and people keep reacting to it. 01:12:03.450 --> 01:12:08.610 And in the meantime, you're pushing certain things forward and people are just 01:12:08.610 --> 01:12:12.390 not reacting to them properly because they're reacting to all this other stuff 01:12:12.390 --> 01:12:18.010 and not not reacting fast enough. I mean, and we talked about Democratic messaging. 01:12:18.390 --> 01:12:24.970 You know, one of the things that is the old guard is just too, too slow. 01:12:25.550 --> 01:12:30.370 Like Trump will do something like they're threatening Medicaid or Medicare or something. 01:12:30.630 --> 01:12:34.670 And so the Democrats will schedule like, OK, next week's going to be Medicare 01:12:34.670 --> 01:12:36.850 week and we're going to talk a lot about Medicare. 01:12:37.030 --> 01:12:40.110 We're going to have some news conferences. whereas like you 01:12:40.110 --> 01:12:43.210 know the reaction time at this point has to be measured 01:12:43.210 --> 01:12:48.710 in minutes and maybe hours but even hours is often too slow you have to be getting 01:12:48.710 --> 01:12:52.890 back on these comments like the instant they happen not we're going to spend 01:12:52.890 --> 01:12:59.070 a week deliberating and then schedule an event you know and and that's i think 01:12:59.070 --> 01:13:00.210 part of what happens with. 01:13:00.210 --> 01:13:09.330 Are there examples in you know global history where you've had a strongman type 01:13:09.330 --> 01:13:14.190 like Trump come to power and succeed with this sort of communication style. 01:13:14.550 --> 01:13:19.430 What are the effective and successful countermeasures to this OODA loop? 01:13:20.630 --> 01:13:22.150 Effective countermeasures. 01:13:23.010 --> 01:13:28.070 I was going to say, are there examples? Yes. I don't know how effective the 01:13:28.070 --> 01:13:33.430 countermeasures have been, but look, I cited Hugo Chavez. Let me tell you something. 01:13:33.590 --> 01:13:37.410 He reminds me so much of how Hugo Chavez ran Venezuela. 01:13:39.270 --> 01:13:45.230 And it is almost textbook, okay, in many cases, in terms of the messaging, 01:13:45.430 --> 01:13:49.290 in terms of enabling his cronies instead of sort of attacking his opposition. 01:13:49.290 --> 01:13:51.950 The one thing that he was able because he was able to 01:13:51.950 --> 01:13:54.610 control so much of the country is that he was able to 01:13:54.610 --> 01:13:57.530 just completely crush the opposition okay i mean literally 01:13:57.530 --> 01:14:00.490 just just annihilated out of existence that it and i 01:14:00.490 --> 01:14:03.270 but i think that the institutions in venezuela and the 01:14:03.270 --> 01:14:06.010 way that the country was structured also made that made that a lot 01:14:06.010 --> 01:14:09.790 easier to do okay in a certain way but the 01:14:09.790 --> 01:14:12.790 reality is that one of the things that is an outcome of this 01:14:12.790 --> 01:14:16.010 okay is that in terms of effectively running 01:14:16.010 --> 01:14:23.070 a country it's it's terrible it's it it it really doesn't it doesn't it it it 01:14:23.070 --> 01:14:29.770 serves to keep someone in power that it does do but does it help running the 01:14:29.770 --> 01:14:35.410 country better in any way the examples i'll show no no. 01:14:35.410 --> 01:14:43.490 But all right we just discussed earlier how the crying wolf and And, 01:14:43.490 --> 01:14:48.990 you know, constantly advertising worst case potential scenarios are not necessarily productive. 01:14:49.550 --> 01:14:56.670 However, if Trump really is trying to achieve the sort of country like Venezuela 01:14:56.670 --> 01:14:58.390 under Chavez, for example, 01:14:58.750 --> 01:15:06.950 where it becomes more difficult for opposition parties to win a majority, to earn back control. 01:15:07.730 --> 01:15:10.710 At some point, you have to panic. At some point, you have to, 01:15:10.790 --> 01:15:12.410 like, raise the alarm. Yeah. 01:15:12.650 --> 01:15:16.750 And the question is what the balance is. And like what I was saying about sort 01:15:16.750 --> 01:15:24.610 of the trajectory of the Harris campaign over time is like I would hope actually like calling out like, 01:15:24.770 --> 01:15:30.470 oh, my God, look what he's intending to do is an effective strategy. But it appears it is not. 01:15:30.770 --> 01:15:35.230 I mean, fundamentally, people tuned out everything of like, oh, 01:15:35.310 --> 01:15:38.610 he's a danger to democracy. Oh, he's corrupt. Oh, he's whatever. 01:15:39.430 --> 01:15:41.070 Just like when Hillary did it. 01:15:41.150 --> 01:15:45.130 Just when Hillary tried to do it. And, you know, 01:15:45.250 --> 01:15:51.650 what are the messages that seem to—and part of your problem is we are currently 01:15:51.650 --> 01:15:55.530 in a situation in this country where, you know, look, 01:15:55.630 --> 01:16:01.190 90% of the public is on one side or the other and will always vote that way no matter what, okay? 01:16:01.570 --> 01:16:08.390 And we are polarized in that way. That middle 10% that's potentially persuadable, 01:16:09.070 --> 01:16:11.990 is also the same group of 01:16:11.990 --> 01:16:14.950 people who fundamentally aren't paying attention and 01:16:14.950 --> 01:16:20.030 don't understand the details and don't want to know the details and and and 01:16:20.030 --> 01:16:26.390 so like how do you reach those people like if the if if that if that unengaged 01:16:26.390 --> 01:16:32.310 10 like if one side or the other had 70 support then they wouldn't matter but. 01:16:32.310 --> 01:16:34.910 We're in this situation so with this group. 01:16:34.910 --> 01:16:36.950 Of people is the deciding group. 01:16:36.950 --> 01:16:40.030 Sam i i i've gathered and 01:16:40.030 --> 01:16:43.630 i and i do kind of remember you posting about this social 01:16:43.630 --> 01:16:46.530 media maybe not recently or else um maybe the algorithm is 01:16:46.530 --> 01:16:49.910 just not showing you to me the way it did years ago you seemed 01:16:49.910 --> 01:16:56.410 you seem to be a lot more wonky about polling and and that sort of data so maybe 01:16:56.410 --> 01:17:01.770 you can answer something that i have no idea okay was trump was trump in 2016 01:17:01.770 --> 01:17:06.510 able to reach that same kind of voter who are not paying a lot of attention, 01:17:06.670 --> 01:17:07.470 maybe not participating. 01:17:07.890 --> 01:17:13.510 But his magic in both, well, in all three of elections, of his elections, 01:17:13.630 --> 01:17:15.610 it wasn't quite enough in 2020, obviously. 01:17:16.030 --> 01:17:24.970 But one of the key elements he had was he got voters to come out and vote who had never voted before. 01:17:24.970 --> 01:17:25.490 Yeah. 01:17:25.790 --> 01:17:34.010 And he reached a group of people who had felt alienated and unserved by the 01:17:34.010 --> 01:17:38.450 existing political process and and basically convinced them that, 01:17:38.550 --> 01:17:40.930 like, the system, you know, 01:17:41.510 --> 01:17:44.730 Democrats, Republicans, whoever, because it worked in the Republican primaries, too. 01:17:44.730 --> 01:17:47.650 The system is not working for you. 01:17:47.910 --> 01:17:52.810 I will come in, I will rip everything up and I will work for you. 01:17:53.290 --> 01:17:58.990 And he was able to bring in all of these people who just had not been engaged 01:17:58.990 --> 01:18:04.030 before and engage them in a way that, you know, nobody else had succeeded in doing. 01:18:04.170 --> 01:18:07.630 Or honestly, nobody had really tried. 01:18:07.850 --> 01:18:12.370 Yeah. it's it's it's i 01:18:12.370 --> 01:18:15.410 guess disappointing kind of sad from my point of view i grew 01:18:15.410 --> 01:18:18.790 up near pittsburgh and kind of a somewhat rural 01:18:18.790 --> 01:18:23.890 but also very blue collar very dependent on steel industry you know part of 01:18:23.890 --> 01:18:30.930 the pittsburgh region and when i was a kid in the 70s and 80s most of that side 01:18:30.930 --> 01:18:37.130 of my family that were doing you know more factory work were clearly Democratic voters. 01:18:37.850 --> 01:18:42.690 Almost all of my cousins now vote Republican. I'm an outlier. 01:18:43.810 --> 01:18:45.650 That I'm not a Trump voter. 01:18:46.130 --> 01:18:49.810 Let alone an enthusiastic Trump supporter. I'm sorry, you got conditioned, 01:18:50.310 --> 01:18:55.050 you know, you got brainwashed at this elite educational institution, 01:18:55.050 --> 01:18:58.990 you know, what the hell, you know, that's why they're battling these now. 01:18:59.070 --> 01:19:02.950 So, okay, I know you're being facetious, but I have these- But I'm being. 01:19:03.110 --> 01:19:06.430 But I'm not, because that's their line. 01:19:06.630 --> 01:19:10.350 They're attacking elite universities right now because they think that because 01:19:10.350 --> 01:19:13.750 we went to a university where all of a sudden we got exposed to all this. 01:19:13.810 --> 01:19:17.210 Other information you know which make you realize shit you know. 01:19:17.210 --> 01:19:23.730 Well also on a completely factual basis one of the largest predictors of the 01:19:23.730 --> 01:19:27.130 the political divide right now is educational love yes. 01:19:27.130 --> 01:19:32.470 Yeah 100 and and and and trump knows it and we'll talk about it in an insulting 01:19:32.470 --> 01:19:38.050 way that isn't hurt like he'll say i love the uneducated i love the uneducated voters, 01:19:39.670 --> 01:19:42.870 it's he's insulting the people supporting him 01:19:42.870 --> 01:19:45.850 and they either don't realize it or just don't 01:19:45.850 --> 01:19:49.070 care they're too stupid to know well no 01:19:49.070 --> 01:19:52.410 no they're being insulted listen 01:19:52.410 --> 01:19:58.570 now you're talking about my family in my old neighborhood i and i don't want 01:19:58.570 --> 01:20:02.570 to devolve in that way either i i've been trying especially the last six months 01:20:02.570 --> 01:20:09.910 to stop making this about the voters it's about the politicians that make impossible how to. 01:20:09.910 --> 01:20:10.830 Reach out yeah. 01:20:10.830 --> 01:20:12.830 Yeah well it's. 01:20:12.830 --> 01:20:16.070 It's impossible it's impossible promises but also 01:20:16.070 --> 01:20:19.330 and this this is a recurring theme i've had too so apologies to our long time 01:20:19.330 --> 01:20:26.090 listeners but it's also the american system is intentionally set up with well 01:20:26.090 --> 01:20:30.790 until donald trump is blowing them all up with checks and balances that make 01:20:30.790 --> 01:20:34.210 it so that if you elect somebody, 01:20:34.470 --> 01:20:39.470 there are all kinds of impediments to them actually doing stuff, even if they want to. 01:20:40.830 --> 01:20:41.910 And people... 01:20:42.180 --> 01:20:49.340 The vast majority of people are not government wonks who paid careful attention 01:20:49.340 --> 01:20:55.980 during civics class in middle school and, you know, know how everything works. 01:20:55.980 --> 01:21:03.980 One of the polls that I remember from before this last election, 01:21:04.220 --> 01:21:09.660 and before Harris even, it was earlier than that, it was about Roe versus Wade 01:21:09.660 --> 01:21:12.780 and the overturning of Roe versus Wade. 01:21:12.980 --> 01:21:16.600 And they asked people who was to blame for this. 01:21:17.440 --> 01:21:19.880 And even among Democrats. 01:21:21.300 --> 01:21:24.180 Something like— Biden was his fault. 01:21:24.180 --> 01:21:29.140 Well, 15 to 20 percent of Democrats and a larger percentage of the public at 01:21:29.140 --> 01:21:34.480 large said that the overturning of Roe versus Wade was Biden's fault because 01:21:34.480 --> 01:21:36.900 it happened while Biden was president. 01:21:37.200 --> 01:21:39.860 And that's as far as the thought process goes. 01:21:40.140 --> 01:21:40.480 Yeah. 01:21:40.760 --> 01:21:45.440 You know, and it's like, you know, did it happen while you were president? It's your fault. 01:21:45.800 --> 01:21:50.820 And by the way, that only works for blame. It does not work for credit. 01:21:51.260 --> 01:21:56.820 Sure. It's an interesting point. First of all, maybe too few people understand 01:21:56.820 --> 01:22:01.240 the intended independence of the judicial branch. 01:22:01.760 --> 01:22:04.940 For better or for worse, we have lifetime appointments on the Supreme Court 01:22:04.940 --> 01:22:07.440 and these kinds of things can happen. 01:22:07.980 --> 01:22:14.220 They can make a decision that affects legal precedent and policy and legal enforcement, 01:22:14.220 --> 01:22:19.240 despite who might be in the White House or majority in Congress at the time. 01:22:19.900 --> 01:22:23.000 And then, I don't know, I'm losing my thread here again. 01:22:23.400 --> 01:22:25.280 I mean, the point I was... 01:22:25.280 --> 01:22:33.100 Oh, I know what else I was going to say, Sam. What we're finding now is until, especially, 01:22:33.780 --> 01:22:39.000 Trump's second time around, we've mostly operated in a country where presidents 01:22:39.000 --> 01:22:43.120 ultimately abided whatever the courts tell them. 01:22:43.660 --> 01:22:48.360 We're starting to find out what happens if the courts tell the president you 01:22:48.360 --> 01:22:52.900 have to stop doing A, B, or C, and he chooses not to. 01:22:53.200 --> 01:23:00.960 And then Congress also chooses to not execute their powers to check and balance, right? 01:23:01.860 --> 01:23:06.980 This is the scary thing that, and back to the balance we were talking about 01:23:06.980 --> 01:23:11.440 earlier, it's like you don't want to cry wolf at every little thing, But the slower moving, 01:23:11.780 --> 01:23:18.740 larger threat is what if the president just decides I'm going to throw people 01:23:18.740 --> 01:23:22.560 out of the country without due process and the courts can't physically stop 01:23:22.560 --> 01:23:23.840 me. So I'm going to keep doing it. 01:23:24.000 --> 01:23:29.220 Well, and the key to this is that, well, first of all, like all of this was 01:23:29.220 --> 01:23:35.880 telegraphed, you know, either Trump or his supporters have said everything that 01:23:35.880 --> 01:23:37.100 they are actually doing today. 01:23:38.100 --> 01:23:45.060 But the question is, when the Democrats did cry wolf about it and say, 01:23:45.100 --> 01:23:48.180 he's going to do this, he's going to do that, look, he's saying he's going to 01:23:48.180 --> 01:23:51.180 do these things, people didn't care. 01:23:51.180 --> 01:23:54.620 Or at least that core group of swing voters didn't care. 01:23:54.820 --> 01:23:57.380 They were like, eggs cost too much. 01:23:57.820 --> 01:24:00.260 And so I'm voting against Biden. 01:24:00.260 --> 01:24:03.720 And, and, and, and, and don't forget, 01:24:04.020 --> 01:24:11.920 and don't forget, our American sports are completely overrun by transsexual 01:24:11.920 --> 01:24:18.980 people, you know, wanting to invade, you know, the different sports in our country. 01:24:18.980 --> 01:24:22.440 And by the way, we laugh about it, but here's the reality. 01:24:22.740 --> 01:24:30.460 That shit resonated so profoundly with so many people. 01:24:31.120 --> 01:24:36.980 That basically drove them to say, do you see, Democrats are trying to jam down 01:24:36.980 --> 01:24:42.220 my throat and, you know, all these transsexual people that I hate. 01:24:42.220 --> 01:24:48.140 And, oh, by the way, they're going to go and, like, groom my kids at school 01:24:48.140 --> 01:24:50.020 into being gay and transgender. 01:24:50.420 --> 01:24:57.600 The thing is, too, you have to be careful not to move too far based on this. 01:24:57.900 --> 01:25:02.180 Like, obviously, there are problems that the Democrats have to fix before the 01:25:02.180 --> 01:25:05.000 next election. And they're sort of not doing it so far. 01:25:05.460 --> 01:25:07.440 But at the same time. 01:25:07.680 --> 01:25:11.200 Well, it's only been three months, Sam. I know it feels like it's been six years, 01:25:11.460 --> 01:25:13.940 but by the way, it's only May! 01:25:14.600 --> 01:25:18.220 Yeah, four months. But yes. Well, and more since the election. 01:25:18.800 --> 01:25:27.560 But the thing is, and now I'm the one losing my train of thought, but you have to... 01:25:29.020 --> 01:25:32.440 Not like it was close. 01:25:32.880 --> 01:25:38.160 Yeah. You know, our system of government exaggerates the difference because 01:25:38.160 --> 01:25:40.300 look, it's winner take all. 01:25:40.600 --> 01:25:44.200 You lost the house, you lost the Senate, you lost the presidency, 01:25:44.200 --> 01:25:46.120 you lost the Supreme court years ago. 01:25:46.660 --> 01:25:50.920 So you are completely and totally out of power. And that is a huge ramification, 01:25:50.920 --> 01:25:56.080 but you only needed to flip a few votes and it would have gone the other way. 01:25:56.080 --> 01:25:59.840 So it's not it's not like we're in a 70 30 country. 01:26:00.080 --> 01:26:04.200 We're in a 50 50 country and everything is right on the edge. 01:26:04.480 --> 01:26:06.260 And so, you know. 01:26:06.380 --> 01:26:10.000 You don't necessarily like the difference is only like three house seats. 01:26:10.500 --> 01:26:14.240 Yeah, it's like three Senate seats. So let me and Todd. 01:26:14.760 --> 01:26:21.360 You had mentioned earlier sort of how like AOC and Bernie are getting out there 01:26:21.360 --> 01:26:24.340 and having attention without compromising their values. 01:26:24.340 --> 01:26:29.220 And I think that's one thing that's actually key because you see a lot of Democrats 01:26:29.220 --> 01:26:35.240 and you see this in some of leadership saying, OK, the way we react to this 01:26:35.240 --> 01:26:38.460 is we're not going to talk about Donald Trump's corruption. 01:26:38.460 --> 01:26:40.900 We're not going to talk about the risk to democracy. 01:26:41.280 --> 01:26:45.800 We're not going to talk about trans rights and civil rights and more broadly. 01:26:46.800 --> 01:26:51.360 You know, OK, the economy is what mattered. Then the only thing we'll talk about 01:26:51.360 --> 01:26:54.820 is the economy. And I don't think that's the right way to do it either. 01:26:55.100 --> 01:27:00.680 You don't, it fundamentally like one of the things that, 01:27:01.540 --> 01:27:06.940 well, all voters, but especially this group in the middle can see through for 01:27:06.940 --> 01:27:13.540 miles away is people being phony and compromising and all of this kind of stuff. 01:27:13.540 --> 01:27:19.440 The fact that, you know, okay, maybe you lost some voters on the trans issue, 01:27:19.560 --> 01:27:23.260 but the right answer to that is not avoid the trans issue. 01:27:23.760 --> 01:27:30.200 It's defend your position on the trans issue and convince people and bring them over to your side. 01:27:30.200 --> 01:27:37.420 It's like lay down the line on what your values are and stand by them and be 01:27:37.420 --> 01:27:42.520 honest about them and push them and make people understand why you're right and they're wrong. 01:27:43.060 --> 01:27:48.800 When you just say like, oh, this position is polling a little bit weaker than that one. 01:27:48.800 --> 01:27:52.840 So we're going to sort of hide our position on that one or worse, 01:27:53.080 --> 01:27:54.800 back off from our position on it. 01:27:54.800 --> 01:28:00.100 People smell that from thousands of miles away and it seems phony and it seems 01:28:00.100 --> 01:28:05.380 dishonest and oh you're just another politician whereas the people who like 01:28:05.380 --> 01:28:08.380 stick to their guns like you know, 01:28:08.920 --> 01:28:13.160 AOC and Bernie were getting lots of reactions in red parts of the country, 01:28:13.420 --> 01:28:16.600 not because they were moderating their— And Buttigieg. 01:28:16.600 --> 01:28:16.900 By the way. 01:28:17.100 --> 01:28:21.520 And Buttigieg, too. He's doing great. But not because they were moderating their 01:28:21.520 --> 01:28:25.540 positions or saying, oh, okay, we can work with the Republicans on this one 01:28:25.540 --> 01:28:30.160 and, you know, be—we're not going to worry about this part as much. 01:28:30.780 --> 01:28:33.360 Basically, the Schumer-Fetterman approach. 01:28:33.600 --> 01:28:33.920 Yeah. 01:28:33.920 --> 01:28:41.600 So I'm more and more intrigued every year by AOC. 01:28:41.940 --> 01:28:48.980 I think that she has a truly authentic story, right? She doesn't come from wealth. 01:28:49.820 --> 01:28:53.440 She had a very blue collar life before she got into politics. 01:28:54.020 --> 01:29:00.180 She happens to be very talented at resonating the right message with these kind 01:29:00.180 --> 01:29:06.800 of voters. I am also very gun shy now because we've had two other women run. 01:29:07.240 --> 01:29:07.760 Yeah. 01:29:08.120 --> 01:29:12.720 And I don't want to draw the wrong conclusions, but man, there's that sense 01:29:12.720 --> 01:29:15.480 of kind of sexism both times. 01:29:16.000 --> 01:29:17.320 Sexism and racism. 01:29:17.640 --> 01:29:21.500 Oh my God, the sexism and racism. And I want to say that in, 01:29:21.600 --> 01:29:25.620 in my adult lifetime and in the whole, since I've been voting, 01:29:25.880 --> 01:29:30.780 I, I'm not sure there have been two better qualified candidates for president 01:29:30.780 --> 01:29:32.780 than Clinton and Harris, 01:29:33.200 --> 01:29:35.520 right? You look, they've both been in the Senate. 01:29:36.040 --> 01:29:38.520 Uh, Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. 01:29:39.140 --> 01:29:46.860 Um, they, uh, Harris was a DA has this long legal history and law enforcement prior to politics. 01:29:46.860 --> 01:29:55.100 Trump sells branding to hang his name on buildings and little else has been 01:29:55.100 --> 01:29:58.780 successful, but man, he, he makes things. 01:30:00.210 --> 01:30:03.730 I don't want to lose the threat. The 10%, right, that we were talking about 01:30:03.730 --> 01:30:06.310 earlier, I want to come back to the same, because I had a follow-up question 01:30:06.310 --> 01:30:07.470 that I was going to try to get to. 01:30:07.770 --> 01:30:10.790 And now I understand the vibe of this podcast. And I'm like, 01:30:10.790 --> 01:30:13.530 okay, well, just give up on follow-ups, right? Let's just... 01:30:13.530 --> 01:30:17.210 Yeah, yeah, fuck the follow-ups. Follow, follow, what follow? 01:30:17.390 --> 01:30:22.530 Yeah, I write the letter wherever it takes me. But there's still that set of 01:30:22.530 --> 01:30:27.990 voters who either don't participate or the summaries of polling that I read 01:30:27.990 --> 01:30:31.690 that probably you have more detail is there's people that just decided I'm not motivated enough. 01:30:31.810 --> 01:30:35.010 I don't want to vote for Trump, but Harris is just not exciting me. 01:30:35.110 --> 01:30:39.330 I'm going to stay home or I'm not going to mark anyone on my ballot. 01:30:39.490 --> 01:30:42.830 You know, I'll vote who I want in the others and I'm just not going to check 01:30:42.830 --> 01:30:43.830 anybody for president or whatever. 01:30:44.070 --> 01:30:46.310 Like, aren't there still reachable people there? 01:30:46.550 --> 01:30:53.170 I think there are. And that's, it's the thing that it's really, 01:30:53.310 --> 01:30:59.590 really hard though, which is why people have always had trouble with that. 01:31:00.150 --> 01:31:05.470 Because the people who don't vote are very stuck in not voting. 01:31:06.290 --> 01:31:11.190 And so political scientists have come up years and years and years of research 01:31:11.190 --> 01:31:19.830 saying that you're more likely to be able to swing that medium voter who does vote, 01:31:20.010 --> 01:31:25.930 but who makes up their mind in the last 24 hours and doesn't really pay attention 01:31:25.930 --> 01:31:30.770 in between than you are to get the person who's never voted before. However... 01:31:31.840 --> 01:31:38.200 Even this last election shows that going after those people does matter. 01:31:38.540 --> 01:31:43.300 And in this case, and actually Trump, all three elections has shown that. 01:31:43.520 --> 01:31:50.720 He has managed to bring out non-voters, and that has made a significant difference to him. 01:31:51.020 --> 01:31:55.660 There's just been recent analysis just in the last few weeks because they've 01:31:55.660 --> 01:32:00.460 started to get access to what's called voter files, which is like who actually 01:32:00.460 --> 01:32:03.600 voted last time. So not a poll, but who actually voted. 01:32:03.840 --> 01:32:08.320 It doesn't say who they voted for, but you can see who voted and who didn't 01:32:08.320 --> 01:32:10.760 and what the demographics were and all this kind of stuff. 01:32:11.280 --> 01:32:14.680 And then you can combine that with polling data and do some analysis. 01:32:14.940 --> 01:32:18.180 And academics have all kinds of techniques to do this that, you know, 01:32:18.280 --> 01:32:20.540 I'm not one of them, so I don't know those details. 01:32:21.560 --> 01:32:25.840 But they have determined that, you know, people have been trying to put like, 01:32:25.920 --> 01:32:27.960 what was the one cause of Harris's loss? 01:32:27.960 --> 01:32:32.380 And I think to a large degree, that's futile, because it was close enough that 01:32:32.380 --> 01:32:36.600 any one of dozens of things could have gone differently, and it could have gone the other way. 01:32:37.140 --> 01:32:40.840 Because even though it was like, you know, she lost all seven swing states, 01:32:41.000 --> 01:32:45.800 yes, but she lost all seven swing states by this much, a tiny little amount, right? 01:32:46.320 --> 01:32:50.860 But no, the recent research that I saw a couple weeks ago was that, 01:32:50.940 --> 01:32:55.120 you know, people talked about sort of Biden voters that stayed home. 01:32:55.440 --> 01:32:59.120 Would that have made the difference? And the answer is, it would have helped, 01:32:59.260 --> 01:33:00.380 but it wasn't quite enough. 01:33:00.580 --> 01:33:05.400 But the thing that was clear was first-time voters. 01:33:05.640 --> 01:33:11.480 And that includes both young people who are eligible to vote for the first time 01:33:11.480 --> 01:33:17.380 and also people who haven't been voters who are older but voted for the first time. 01:33:17.380 --> 01:33:21.200 And those tilted towards 01:33:21.200 --> 01:33:24.440 trump i i want to be careful how i say this trump 01:33:24.440 --> 01:33:30.240 didn't necessarily win those groups like trump did not win the under 20 voters 01:33:30.240 --> 01:33:38.040 but he did better with under 20 voters than republicans typically do by a decent 01:33:38.040 --> 01:33:43.580 amount and and specifically that difference was all with men in that age group. 01:33:45.320 --> 01:33:49.380 Trump has also significantly increased the gender divide in voting, 01:33:49.840 --> 01:33:52.360 blown it open much wider than it has been before. 01:33:52.580 --> 01:33:57.860 But it was those new voters, both the young ones and the ones that were brought in, 01:33:58.480 --> 01:34:04.040 where even if Trump didn't win all of those groups, all of the subgroups of 01:34:04.040 --> 01:34:10.020 new voters, in general for new voters, he did better than Republicans usually do. 01:34:10.020 --> 01:34:12.560 And that was enough to make the difference in the election. 01:34:13.850 --> 01:34:19.390 I, um, I, I, I, you didn't ask me anything. I've just been thinking of some 01:34:19.390 --> 01:34:21.150 other things about, uh, on this topic. 01:34:21.270 --> 01:34:25.630 Cause it's been on my mind a lot that I say I, I, in my own, 01:34:25.830 --> 01:34:31.250 whatever, whatever tiny little audience that I have on social media or talking to friends or. 01:34:31.530 --> 01:34:33.850 And this audience is tiny too, by the way. 01:34:34.030 --> 01:34:38.570 So, but even like, you know, whenever, whenever I'm feeling comfortable enough, 01:34:38.570 --> 01:34:41.390 even to discuss politics with colleagues, which I rarely do. 01:34:41.390 --> 01:34:44.990 I really do try to keep personal life, professional life separate. 01:34:45.170 --> 01:34:45.530 Separate. 01:34:45.610 --> 01:34:51.190 Yeah. I live out in the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh these days. 01:34:51.310 --> 01:34:54.830 And you go a little farther east, a little farther from town, it becomes more rural. 01:34:55.470 --> 01:34:55.730 Yep. 01:34:56.150 --> 01:34:59.890 And, you know, you can just, you could, well, you can tell by looking at the 01:34:59.890 --> 01:35:03.490 election result maps and you can tell by the political signs that are still 01:35:03.490 --> 01:35:10.110 out today, six months after the election, this is a very favorable Trump area. yet. 01:35:10.250 --> 01:35:13.970 It's also lower income, higher rate of poverty. 01:35:14.170 --> 01:35:20.490 I don't have data. This is just my anecdotal observations, higher prevalence of disability. 01:35:20.690 --> 01:35:24.210 I think there are people who obviously have trouble getting around, 01:35:24.590 --> 01:35:29.870 maybe are not working even though they're still working age and yet voted for him. 01:35:30.170 --> 01:35:36.430 I think there's an opportunity there to demonstrate what the Democrats used to be. 01:35:36.550 --> 01:35:40.110 What I talked about when I was a kid and the blue collar side of my family almost 01:35:40.110 --> 01:35:44.230 universally voted Democrat because they were union steel workers or they were 01:35:44.230 --> 01:35:48.310 union railroaders or iron workers or whatever trades people. 01:35:48.470 --> 01:35:53.090 And they recognize that the Republicans want to tear down all of the gains we've 01:35:53.090 --> 01:35:56.110 made in workers' rights and the Democrats want to protect that. 01:35:56.210 --> 01:35:58.470 And people don't feel that way today. 01:35:58.850 --> 01:36:02.550 If you can bring that back and let these people know the social security disability 01:36:02.550 --> 01:36:05.230 benefits that you're depending on, even if you don't realize that's what your 01:36:05.230 --> 01:36:07.550 disability check is, it's social security, right? 01:36:08.050 --> 01:36:13.730 Obamacare, the slightly less expensive access you may have to medical care now, 01:36:13.910 --> 01:36:18.410 or perhaps you're also benefiting from Medicaid because of disability or whatnot. 01:36:18.590 --> 01:36:21.530 Maybe you don't even realize that's what it is. Maybe you don't realize that's 01:36:21.530 --> 01:36:25.350 what's under attack, but we want to protect this because we recognize that your 01:36:25.350 --> 01:36:30.410 quality of life gets worse without these kind of unglamorous public services. 01:36:30.550 --> 01:36:34.210 I think the messaging to win back some of these people who would have voted 01:36:34.210 --> 01:36:36.850 Democrat if they voted at all 20 years ago if you're going to win them back 01:36:36.850 --> 01:36:41.870 it has to be about their quality of life and i'm convinced that trump's policies 01:36:41.870 --> 01:36:45.030 are going to improve people like that i don't. 01:36:45.910 --> 01:36:46.710 Policies are. 01:36:46.710 --> 01:36:48.570 Actively it's the worst. 01:36:48.570 --> 01:36:50.390 Trump's policies are actively. 01:36:50.390 --> 01:36:52.330 Making their lives worse. 01:36:52.330 --> 01:36:57.110 Yeah and well the and the thing is and this ties back to people addressing cause 01:36:57.110 --> 01:36:59.310 and effect too and And, you know, 01:36:59.970 --> 01:37:04.910 one of the problems, and this ties to calling woof as well, is that some of 01:37:04.910 --> 01:37:09.930 the worst possibilities of what Trump could have done last time around were stopped. 01:37:10.820 --> 01:37:16.680 Because of effective congressional resistance to implementing his policies in the first term. 01:37:17.060 --> 01:37:22.520 But that ended up with people saying, you know, oh, well, it wasn't that bad. 01:37:22.960 --> 01:37:26.700 But they don't get the message that it wasn't that bad because the Democrats 01:37:26.700 --> 01:37:30.240 stopped X, Y, and Z. Not just the Democrats. 01:37:30.540 --> 01:37:33.740 But the people that he had in his first ministry. 01:37:34.180 --> 01:37:38.400 Yeah, yeah. The people who, the Republicans who were the adults in the room 01:37:38.400 --> 01:37:44.420 that stopped him. But also what we have this time around, and some Democrats 01:37:44.420 --> 01:37:48.300 are actively encouraging this as what we do. 01:37:48.440 --> 01:37:53.600 Like, I think James Carville explicitly said, don't do anything. Just wait. 01:37:53.980 --> 01:37:55.840 Let him do the damage. 01:37:56.540 --> 01:37:59.960 And because, you know, and don't try to stop it. 01:37:59.960 --> 01:38:02.820 Like if he wants to shut down the government, shut down the government, 01:38:02.980 --> 01:38:08.820 let him do his worst, because the only way that those kind of marginal, 01:38:08.820 --> 01:38:15.200 not paying all that much attention voters will get the message is if you let 01:38:15.200 --> 01:38:17.080 Donald Trump actually hurt them. 01:38:17.480 --> 01:38:22.320 Yeah, I hate that. And I know it's probably true. 01:38:23.540 --> 01:38:24.920 Stay here, by the way. 01:38:25.060 --> 01:38:28.920 But so so how how far then do you let it go again? 01:38:29.600 --> 01:38:32.800 Well, and the problem is the further you let it go, the harder it is to come 01:38:32.800 --> 01:38:37.660 back from it anyway, especially if some of these things are the anti-democratic 01:38:37.660 --> 01:38:39.880 moves that make it harder to win in the future anyway. 01:38:40.340 --> 01:38:45.820 So I'm imagining, well, I don't know, maybe it won't feel so absurd. 01:38:45.880 --> 01:38:49.580 What feels absurd right now, I've never been politically active in my life, 01:38:49.660 --> 01:38:52.380 not to the sense that I would go out to a demonstration and make a sign, 01:38:52.440 --> 01:38:54.920 but I've done that a couple of times in the last month or two. 01:38:56.040 --> 01:38:59.180 Because i i i i can't 01:38:59.180 --> 01:39:02.020 keep like old man shouting a cloud i 01:39:02.020 --> 01:39:05.000 can't keep ranting to like-minded friends 01:39:05.000 --> 01:39:08.200 on facebook right it's that's not going to do anything so okay 01:39:08.200 --> 01:39:10.800 i'll go exercise my first amendment right what if 01:39:10.800 --> 01:39:14.460 it gets to the point where trump just decides well okay we can identify you 01:39:14.460 --> 01:39:18.400 with facial recognition out there holding a sign at the anti-trump demonstration 01:39:18.400 --> 01:39:22.540 so you know maybe i accidentally get deported to guatemala like is it going 01:39:22.540 --> 01:39:27.420 to come to that And I realize that that's probably carelessly racist of me to 01:39:27.420 --> 01:39:29.520 say, he's sending people to El Salvador and not Guatemala. 01:39:31.280 --> 01:39:33.660 Or all kinds of other things to harass. 01:39:33.660 --> 01:39:38.400 By the way, I spent a lot of time the last year and a half in Guatemala. 01:39:38.640 --> 01:39:39.780 By the way, it's not that pretty. 01:39:40.640 --> 01:39:44.620 Yeah so i thought it was worse i look like 01:39:44.620 --> 01:39:48.000 does it have to get that bad and then is that 01:39:48.000 --> 01:39:50.980 too late right so i understand i understand the 01:39:50.980 --> 01:39:53.900 carvel idea of let your enemy bury 01:39:53.900 --> 01:39:59.160 themselves or whatever that you know art of war phrase is but at the other hand 01:39:59.160 --> 01:40:02.960 like if you let them go like in this case my enemy has all of the power and 01:40:02.960 --> 01:40:05.940 i have not my political opponent let's say has all the power and i have none 01:40:05.940 --> 01:40:12.620 so i don't know hey guys thanks for letting me hang around yeah at. 01:40:12.620 --> 01:40:15.360 You know it's time for us to wrap up anyway. 01:40:15.360 --> 01:40:16.060 Okay right. 01:40:16.060 --> 01:40:21.480 But uh so if if we're almost at the end stick with us a couple minutes. 01:40:21.480 --> 01:40:29.940 We'll wrap it up right now i was gonna say you guys carry on without me but it's about Yeah. 01:40:30.160 --> 01:40:33.840 So right around this time, we switch from our real topics to, 01:40:33.840 --> 01:40:38.080 like, saying goodbye, which takes us a few minutes, but we'll do it. 01:40:38.400 --> 01:40:41.420 So first of all, thanks for joining us. 01:40:42.780 --> 01:40:46.600 One personal note before we get to the end that I just want to throw in there. 01:40:46.720 --> 01:40:48.100 I'm not going to do the whole segment on it. 01:40:48.300 --> 01:40:51.880 Those of you on Necromedians Corner Slack know this, but for those of you who 01:40:51.880 --> 01:40:55.660 are just listeners, my mom had a major health event this week. 01:40:55.660 --> 01:40:58.880 And she was, she's doing well now. 01:40:59.560 --> 01:41:04.760 On Monday night, she had a fall at home and being the stubborn person she is, 01:41:04.880 --> 01:41:09.940 she didn't call us for help until Tuesday morning, like nine hours later. 01:41:10.540 --> 01:41:13.580 We took her in to be seen. They did imaging. 01:41:14.100 --> 01:41:19.600 She, from a fall a month earlier where she had hit her head, 01:41:19.740 --> 01:41:22.100 but decided that all she needed was a couple of band-aids. 01:41:22.360 --> 01:41:29.020 She had a bleed in between her skull and her brain that had been over the course 01:41:29.020 --> 01:41:32.500 of a month, building up more and more and more pressure. 01:41:32.720 --> 01:41:33.100 That's what you want. 01:41:33.660 --> 01:41:37.600 And so basically once we had her in the ER and they did imaging, 01:41:37.600 --> 01:41:42.960 they're like, you're going into surgery now, you know, to relieve the pressure 01:41:42.960 --> 01:41:46.280 and all this kind of stuff. They did emergency surgery Tuesday night. 01:41:46.540 --> 01:41:52.720 She was out of intensive care Thursday. She's in a regular hospital room over the weekend. 01:41:53.020 --> 01:41:58.500 They're planning to release her to a rehab facility Monday. She's already doing much, much better. 01:41:58.780 --> 01:42:02.620 I will add one additional piece of color without getting into detail. 01:42:03.120 --> 01:42:08.760 Additional complications were added to the surgery because she also admitted that 01:42:09.050 --> 01:42:15.570 That about a month ago, when walking the dog with my son, she had seen a bat 01:42:15.570 --> 01:42:21.290 on the sidewalk, decided to pick it up and put it in the grass. It bit her. 01:42:22.130 --> 01:42:26.630 And so they had to take anti-rabies precautions as well. 01:42:26.930 --> 01:42:33.710 All the CDC was called in. The surgeons had to wear extra PPE, all this kind of stuff. 01:42:33.710 --> 01:42:39.350 They don't think she actually has rabies, which is good because it would be 01:42:39.350 --> 01:42:42.650 fatal having waited this long before treating it. 01:42:42.830 --> 01:42:45.230 But she had to get all the rabies shots, too. 01:42:45.530 --> 01:42:50.210 So anyway, she is doing fine now. So I just wanted to throw that out there. 01:42:50.370 --> 01:42:53.490 After we're done here later today, I'll go visit her at the hospital again. 01:42:53.490 --> 01:42:57.150 I've been spending a lot of time just hanging out, sitting at the hospital next 01:42:57.150 --> 01:42:59.230 to her. But she's doing well now. 01:43:00.130 --> 01:43:04.550 Sam, I'm glad to hear that. and I'll just share that I have had similar misadventures 01:43:04.550 --> 01:43:07.330 with elderly parents over the last 10, 11 years or so. 01:43:07.470 --> 01:43:11.830 Yeah, me too. They're all very stubborn. Oh, yeah, no, it's fine. 01:43:12.870 --> 01:43:15.930 Your face is destroyed. What do you mean? You're mine. 01:43:17.330 --> 01:43:20.710 Yes. Yeah. Okay, with that personal note up. 01:43:20.850 --> 01:43:27.170 Before we continue, I am very intrigued as to what is that thing that you have 01:43:27.170 --> 01:43:33.610 right behind you, I see on your left side This little square with like some 01:43:33.610 --> 01:43:35.750 Lights on there what the heck is Oh. 01:43:35.750 --> 01:43:39.610 That's it's it's a laptop Stand right it's got some cooling. 01:43:39.610 --> 01:43:43.170 Oh it's just a laptop stand Yeah yeah I've had my work. 01:43:43.170 --> 01:43:44.570 My work docking station. 01:43:44.570 --> 01:43:47.310 Is behind me That's why I plug the laptop. 01:43:47.310 --> 01:43:49.230 In So then I have the you know two monitors. 01:43:49.230 --> 01:43:52.470 It looks like you know what it looked like And look what are these like these 01:43:52.470 --> 01:43:56.090 old style Calculators because it's got a little thing On the top and it looks 01:43:56.090 --> 01:43:57.610 like the screen I'm like Like, wait a minute. 01:43:57.830 --> 01:44:00.050 Is this like, well, it's just a, damn it. 01:44:00.230 --> 01:44:02.890 Yeah. What I thought you were going to do was ask me about my cat. 01:44:03.310 --> 01:44:04.690 Oh, ask me about your cat. 01:44:04.970 --> 01:44:06.050 Because he's got a fine. Says that. 01:44:06.270 --> 01:44:12.910 No, well, yeah, well, no, it was not the cat. I was more enthralled by that. Yeah. 01:44:13.090 --> 01:44:15.910 It's just a laptop stand. Nothing top secret. 01:44:16.090 --> 01:44:16.670 Nothing that exciting. 01:44:17.010 --> 01:44:21.510 Okay. Okay. So let's wrap this thing up so we can all go elsewhere. 01:44:22.710 --> 01:44:25.750 For everybody, you know where to find all the information about us. 01:44:25.750 --> 01:44:27.590 Go to curmudgeons-corner.com. 01:44:27.870 --> 01:44:31.430 You'll see the archive of our shows, transcripts of recent shows, 01:44:31.670 --> 01:44:33.330 links to our social media. 01:44:33.550 --> 01:44:36.430 I have not, I still have not yet linked to the TikTok. 01:44:36.730 --> 01:44:40.930 I'm waiting for a final resolution on TikTok before I bother doing that. But I am. 01:44:40.930 --> 01:44:43.510 You'll get final resolution when you get final resolution in a tariff. 01:44:43.630 --> 01:44:47.690 Yeah, exactly. Never. Maybe I'll go ahead and add the link at some point. 01:44:47.790 --> 01:44:49.750 But yeah, we are posting clips on TikTok too. 01:44:49.870 --> 01:44:53.510 There's a link to our YouTube, link to Facebook, all of the ways to contact 01:44:53.510 --> 01:44:58.410 us, all of that. very importantly we do also link to our patreon where as you 01:44:58.410 --> 01:45:02.150 heard in the break earlier you can give us money we love it if you give us money 01:45:02.150 --> 01:45:04.830 we will you know right now todd, 01:45:05.590 --> 01:45:10.710 We make a grand total. This makes a huge difference for our lives. 01:45:10.970 --> 01:45:11.590 It's a shocking amount. 01:45:11.930 --> 01:45:13.210 $27 a month. 01:45:13.590 --> 01:45:14.870 That is outstanding. 01:45:15.550 --> 01:45:17.650 Outstanding. A shocking amount. 01:45:18.950 --> 01:45:21.030 Is that $27 each? 01:45:21.470 --> 01:45:22.770 No, no, no. 01:45:23.110 --> 01:45:24.190 $27 total. 01:45:24.370 --> 01:45:25.310 $13.5 apiece. 01:45:25.750 --> 01:45:30.770 Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's part of my retirement plan. I already added it in there. Yes. 01:45:31.350 --> 01:45:36.090 But at various levels, we will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell for you. 01:45:36.310 --> 01:45:40.230 We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug. All this kind of stuff 01:45:40.230 --> 01:45:41.950 you can see on our Patreon. 01:45:42.230 --> 01:45:47.730 And importantly, at $2 a month or more, or if you just contact us and ask us, 01:45:47.850 --> 01:45:49.710 we will invite you to the Commudgeons Corner Slack, 01:45:49.930 --> 01:45:54.750 where throughout the week, Yvonne and I and various listeners are chatting and 01:45:54.750 --> 01:45:57.550 sharing links and all this kind of stuff. 01:45:57.670 --> 01:46:02.370 We would love to have more of you on there. So, you know, let us know if you 01:46:02.370 --> 01:46:04.750 want on the Slack and we'll send you an invite. 01:46:04.910 --> 01:46:07.430 So, Yvonne, go ahead, Todd. 01:46:07.930 --> 01:46:12.370 Tell me something about my business. I'm genuinely curious. What's your average 01:46:12.370 --> 01:46:13.710 listenership each episode? 01:46:14.070 --> 01:46:21.510 We get between right now. Let me bring up the chart. Let me bring up the chart. 01:46:21.710 --> 01:46:21.910 Okay. 01:46:22.310 --> 01:46:28.770 As of right now, we're averaging around 80 downloads a week. 01:46:29.010 --> 01:46:29.330 Yeah. 01:46:30.020 --> 01:46:34.480 So, and sometimes that dips a little bit lower. Sometimes that dips a little higher. 01:46:35.380 --> 01:46:39.700 Our all time, our all time maximum was a few hundred, a number of years back 01:46:39.700 --> 01:46:44.280 when we actually ran advertising for a few months and we boosted it up to like 01:46:44.280 --> 01:46:47.740 300 a week. And then it's, it's declined now. 01:46:47.900 --> 01:46:51.560 So like, and a year ago it was more like 50. So we're up from a year ago. 01:46:51.900 --> 01:46:52.040 Yeah. 01:46:52.120 --> 01:46:58.120 I mean, this is the podcast universe is an extremely crowded marketplace. 01:46:58.120 --> 01:47:03.980 And but that's a pretty good number guys i gotta say because 80 is clearly beyond 01:47:03.980 --> 01:47:06.460 now just close friends and family well. 01:47:06.460 --> 01:47:10.860 We don't know well yeah we don't know a download does not equal a listen. 01:47:10.860 --> 01:47:11.840 Yeah but. 01:47:11.840 --> 01:47:16.180 Listen but but regardless listen we listen we think not and then we keep being 01:47:16.180 --> 01:47:19.920 surprised all the time by some random person we have no idea who's listening. 01:47:19.920 --> 01:47:25.980 So that sends the message and feedback so so yeah i i because we we have this 01:47:25.980 --> 01:47:32.200 shared college radio heritage I am accustomed to speaking to very low numbers 01:47:32.200 --> 01:47:36.540 of people who are very engaged in whatever hyper-specific things you're doing. 01:47:36.980 --> 01:47:42.060 We did this for years. We've been going since 2007 on this podcast. 01:47:42.440 --> 01:47:49.280 And probably the first seven or eight years of that, we never broke 20. You know? 01:47:49.740 --> 01:47:56.840 Right, yeah. So we're doing good at 80. Now, would I have fun and be glad if it was 1,000? Sure. 01:47:57.920 --> 01:48:02.300 And a thousand Patreon people giving us $10 a month But listen. 01:48:02.640 --> 01:48:06.580 If you're having fun regardless Why the hell have you been doing this since 2007? 01:48:07.100 --> 01:48:11.420 Because we basically have fun And it's a good thing There's a way that Sam and 01:48:11.420 --> 01:48:15.280 I actually keep in touch We would not otherwise, 01:48:15.870 --> 01:48:19.090 Yeah, probably. Well, we would, but not as frequently. 01:48:19.330 --> 01:48:24.250 Not as much. Because we did before. Sort of. Yeah, but we do more so now than we did. 01:48:24.290 --> 01:48:24.910 Yes, exactly. 01:48:25.750 --> 01:48:29.430 And we have a few listeners that are on our Slack that we talk to all the time 01:48:29.430 --> 01:48:32.130 and keep up with what's going on in their lives as well. 01:48:32.310 --> 01:48:40.490 And I've got one previous, and a bunch of those folks have guest hosted sometimes when Yvonne is out. 01:48:40.490 --> 01:48:45.910 And there is one listener who finally guest hosted on the show like last year 01:48:45.910 --> 01:48:52.750 sometime who has actually listened to every episode since 2007 and who's a former 01:48:52.750 --> 01:48:55.250 co-worker of mine from 20 plus years ago. 01:48:55.490 --> 01:48:58.530 And so, yeah, it's fun. It's fun. It's a way to keep up with people. 01:48:58.530 --> 01:49:01.950 And when we get new listeners from out of the blue, that's always awesome. 01:49:02.410 --> 01:49:05.890 We have listeners from the – we have like one listener I know from the UK. 01:49:05.950 --> 01:49:09.150 We've had listeners from Columbia. Yeah, we've had listeners, 01:49:09.390 --> 01:49:10.310 probably some people I know. 01:49:10.410 --> 01:49:13.610 I know that downloads from all over the place, really. You know, like, yeah. 01:49:14.450 --> 01:49:18.170 I mean, I enjoyed this and I don't want to make empty promises. 01:49:18.170 --> 01:49:22.710 I have a pretty regular queue of podcasts that I try to get through each week. 01:49:22.730 --> 01:49:24.250 But I should add you guys. 01:49:24.390 --> 01:49:28.970 This was a hoot kind of catching up. It's truly been decades. 01:49:29.410 --> 01:49:31.870 And you're welcome to come back anytime, too. 01:49:32.430 --> 01:49:35.550 I'm not going to wear out my welcome, but if you ever want to talk more about 01:49:35.550 --> 01:49:39.970 electric power industry or the terrorist effects, or if you just, 01:49:40.050 --> 01:49:42.810 you know, you need a third voice, let me know. 01:49:43.310 --> 01:49:47.630 So, Yvonne, what I was about to ask you before that, that we always ask. 01:49:47.630 --> 01:49:48.090 Yeah, I'm ready. 01:49:48.390 --> 01:49:52.310 You got the sample of something that we've talked about on the Slack that we 01:49:52.310 --> 01:49:53.770 have not talked about on the show. 01:49:53.870 --> 01:49:58.470 Yes, and it's a very important thing. Okay, all right? I shared this, 01:49:58.490 --> 01:50:01.950 and my caption was, these fucking morons. Okay, all right? 01:50:02.610 --> 01:50:07.930 Max, once known as HBO Max, is calling itself HBO Max again. 01:50:08.610 --> 01:50:13.430 You know, got it? Listen, the stupidest ever marketing move, 01:50:13.550 --> 01:50:19.730 which when it happened, I came on the show and said, what the fuck are these people thinking? 01:50:20.130 --> 01:50:23.990 Nobody knows the Max brand. It doesn't resonate anywhere. 01:50:24.190 --> 01:50:32.610 How in the hell do you take that name off the damn thing to market your fucking streaming service? 01:50:32.790 --> 01:50:40.490 Are you just this stupid? So apparently, it finally dawned upon them after quite a while. 01:50:40.750 --> 01:50:46.550 Hey, shit, we've got this great brand. What the fuck are we doing? 01:50:46.930 --> 01:50:49.850 And so they put it back on TV. 01:50:50.120 --> 01:50:55.120 To the streaming service, by the way, which got made so much fun on social media this week. 01:50:55.340 --> 01:51:01.880 The fact that they came to their senses and said, hmm, maybe we should call this HBO Max again. 01:51:02.080 --> 01:51:06.780 I'll add, including themselves, their own social media put out a lot of stuff 01:51:06.780 --> 01:51:11.040 with a lot of big-name stars making fun of the move themselves. 01:51:11.620 --> 01:51:15.920 Yes. So, at least they had that sense of humor about, at least they had a lot 01:51:15.920 --> 01:51:18.520 of sense of humor about their security. Okay. 01:51:19.060 --> 01:51:22.320 With that, we are done. Thank you very much for Todd. 01:51:22.920 --> 01:51:28.500 Thank you very much for Todd. Thank you very much, Todd, for joining us. It was a lot of fun. 01:51:29.120 --> 01:51:33.900 Great to have another voice and get your insights about the industry as well. 01:51:34.700 --> 01:51:36.200 Thanks for the invitation, Sam. 01:51:36.840 --> 01:51:44.260 Oh, absolutely. And thanks to our listeners as well. We'll be back next week with another episode. 01:51:44.880 --> 01:51:49.260 Now that I realize that you're also in the Pittsburgh area because one of our 01:51:49.260 --> 01:51:53.740 listeners Pete Berger, who also is on our Slack, he listens. 01:51:54.040 --> 01:51:55.640 He's also in the Pittsburgh area. 01:51:56.000 --> 01:51:59.000 Damn it, Sam, now we have a reason why the hell we have to go, 01:51:59.140 --> 01:52:03.220 because he's been saying about us, go back to a reunion or something. Fuck. 01:52:03.600 --> 01:52:08.200 I remember Pete. That's another guy I haven't seen probably for 20 years or more. 01:52:08.440 --> 01:52:11.380 Well, he listens to it. He's on our Slack as well. So, yeah, 01:52:11.540 --> 01:52:13.960 he's very active on our Slack. So, yeah. 01:52:14.280 --> 01:52:18.040 Okay. So, I'm trying to say goodbye. I'm trying to say goodbye here. 01:52:18.220 --> 01:52:19.300 All right. We'll let you say goodbye. 01:52:19.980 --> 01:52:24.080 Stay safe have a good week all of the stuff i usually see we'll talk to you 01:52:24.080 --> 01:52:31.140 next time now everybody say goodbye goodbye bye you too todd goodbye there we go, 01:53:00.500 --> 01:53:05.160 Okay, I'll hit stop in just a second. And like I said in the chat earlier, 01:53:05.520 --> 01:53:08.100 stay on until it says it's finished. 01:53:08.620 --> 01:53:10.900 Okay, thanks again, Todd. Goodbye. 01:53:11.120 --> 01:53:11.620 Thank you, guys. 01:53:11.880 --> 01:53:12.000 Oh, yeah. 01:53:12.760 --> 01:53:13.180 All right. 01:53:13.320 --> 01:53:14.080 Hit and stop, Sam. 01:53:14.600 --> 01:53:15.400 I'm hitting stop. 01:53:15.740 --> 01:53:16.440 I'm hitting it. 01:53:16.480 --> 01:53:18.000 Hit it! All right. Hit it!