0:14

Hey, enjoying me today is Ben. Ben,

0:16

How are you today?

0:17

Doing well. How are you? Gene

0:19

Pretty good. unfortunately, uh,

0:21

the potential nuclear conflict levels

0:24

keep going up as the tensions keep

0:26

rising and nobody wants to let off some steam.

0:29

yeah, this, it appears that uh,

0:31

you know, both on the Ukraine, Ukraine

0:34

front and the, the Russia front, it

0:36

it is not pausing at all. So,

0:38

Yeah. apparently Musk

0:41

isn't disabling Starling services

0:44

around the the contested areas

0:47

of Ukraine. After finding out that

0:50

Starling was used to trigger the

0:52

bomb on the Russian Bridge,

0:54

Interesting. That is I had not heard that. I,

0:56

I know that Musk had come on and

0:59

denied, you know, speaking

1:01

to Putin. And you know,

1:04

there, there was a bunch of controversy around whether or not he

1:07

had been in com communication ahead

1:09

of, you know, any of his Twitter

1:11

rampages. But I had not heard that the,

1:13

the Aon. So what kind of, what kind of precedent

1:16

do you think that sits though? I. Internet

1:18

being

1:18

company, do whatever they want. Right? That's what Google keeps

1:20

telling us and Facebook and everybody else.

1:23

very true, very true. But you know, some would say

1:25

that internet and access to internet

1:27

is a, you know, right.

1:30

In, in some cases, right. The ability to have information

1:33

and knowledge the ability to communicate

1:35

with others and in other areas.

1:37

But I don't know. It's, it's definitely an interesting

1:40

well is gps. Right?

1:42

You know, that's a good question. You know, the ability

1:44

can flip it off anytime they want. I'm

1:46

old enough to remember when gps

1:49

had what do they call it? There was a word

1:51

for it, but essentially

1:54

induced errors for the civilian

1:56

market. So you had to either have a,

1:58

a military receiver that was able to

2:00

correct for the errors to provide

2:03

up to the meter sensitivity or

2:06

as civilian equipment user, you

2:08

were stuck with something that was within

2:10

10 meter range for

2:12

this exact reason. Mind you, is, is

2:14

so that GPS isn't utilized

2:17

for guidance of munitions.

2:20

Yeah, GPS data can

2:22

be utilized by courts so that

2:24

there's legal precedent behind that. And there's legal

2:26

precedent to you know, sell companies

2:29

in regards to their, what they can use with your

2:31

GPS data. So, I you know, there's protection's

2:33

definitely in place on the. On

2:36

the, you know, as far as company

2:38

side or enterprise side. But it's interesting

2:40

to see what the consumer side of that would look like.

2:42

Well, and Musk kinda walked into it initially

2:45

when he, having read nothing

2:47

at all about the history of the region

2:49

just believed the the government being

2:51

on the good side and, and said, Oh, well,

2:53

I'll, I'll go ahead and start shipping receivers

2:56

for starlink to Ukraine,

2:58

and we'll give people free access if they're in that region.

3:01

And they can do that because they know exactly

3:04

where every one of the, I think right now there's

3:06

about four and a half thousand satellites but eventually

3:08

over 20,000 they're gonna be, And

3:11

so they can effectively enable

3:13

or disable the transmission of data

3:16

selectively, depending on which

3:18

region that satellite is flowing over. It's

3:20

the same reason that Musk can do a deal

3:23

with with China that will turn

3:25

off the receivers when the satellites

3:27

go over China and then turn back on once

3:29

they cross over into Mongolia.

3:31

Then the, the, I

3:33

don't know, that just, it seems like a crazy concept

3:35

that at the Pivotal moment

3:37

in which, you know, access to certain

3:39

resources like internet, right? And gps are,

3:43

are just now becoming on the forefront of being accessible.

3:45

Now we're seeing a company like, you know, for instance

3:48

Tesla or Elon Musk and SpaceX saying

3:50

we can provide it. To a whim

3:53

at, you know, to whom we, whom we decide

3:55

right from that market. So do, do you think

3:57

that's something that, you know,

4:00

Ukraine and, and the Russian War side

4:02

and you know, any, any future conflict potentially

4:04

with China aside, do you think that's something that is

4:06

gonna have ramifications in the long

4:08

Oh, absolutely. This is the reason that the

4:11

US government got on a highest

4:13

horse during Trump's administration

4:15

with Wuwe and, and

4:17

their equipment is because they want to

4:20

prevent the possibility of

4:22

China when it's

4:24

potentially in a conflict with the us, which everyone's

4:27

just counting down the hours until that happens of

4:30

being able to turn off a

4:32

lot of the US infrastructure, which

4:34

they already can do in most of the rest of the world

4:36

because the majority of the telecom

4:39

equipment is actually manufactured in China right

4:41

now. And so having

4:44

somebody else have the ability to

4:46

turn things off on

4:48

you should be

4:50

a fairly. Good reason

4:53

to ensure that there's at least two suppliers

4:55

for everything that a country

4:58

utilizes not to just trust on any single

5:00

supplier for anything. In this

5:02

case GPS has been around forever.

5:05

It is very easy to

5:08

prevent gps well, to jam

5:10

effectively. GPS signals super

5:12

easy to do. You can watch a video on YouTube,

5:15

learn how to do it illegal in the us,

5:17

but doesn't mean it's not illegal in, or

5:19

that it's legal in other countries, but

5:22

technologically, it's sort of trivial

5:24

to jam GPS systems a

5:27

little trickier to jam starlink

5:29

because it's new technology, it's proprietary technology

5:32

and and so, and it, it's made

5:34

to fix a lot of the problems that

5:36

GPS had because it's meant for large

5:38

data volumes, not just a a single,

5:40

single source. So, you

5:43

know, hence, if you're going to, let's

5:45

say theoretically, if

5:47

you're going to be in the war torn region

5:50

and you'd like to ensure

5:52

that the detonation occurs over

5:55

a specific area, then

5:59

the, the easiest thing to do is

6:01

to utilize a system which, you

6:03

know, the enemy can't jam. And

6:06

in this case, being star.

6:07

and, and that's some of the news that's coming out too, is, you

6:09

know, I believe Elon

6:12

posted a couple tweets couple months ago in regards

6:14

to starlink fighting off

6:16

you know, Russian jamming attacks faster than the military

6:18

could even. And that's you know that

6:20

Well, here's the problem that Musk is gonna run into

6:23

is he's not dealing with another company that's

6:25

competitor. He's dealing with a superpower.

6:27

right?

6:28

And much like the,

6:31

there are people in Washington that don't seem to believe

6:33

that Russia is capable of launching

6:35

nuclear missiles, which I don't understand

6:38

how people don't believe that. Absolutely is

6:40

and will, but much

6:42

in the same way Russia is fully capable

6:45

of turning off all the satellites.

6:47

It, this is something that both Russia

6:49

and China have tested

6:52

and it's, it's the same scenario

6:54

as with nuclear war, because once you start

6:57

detonating satellites, the

6:59

debris that you're generating much

7:01

like, the, the flying neutrons

7:03

in an atomic bomb are

7:06

going to damage

7:08

other satellites at which themselves

7:10

will be creating more debris. And

7:13

then there's a name for it that I'm blanking out. But

7:15

effectively if you damage enough satellites

7:18

that create debris

7:21

in orbit, That

7:23

will propagate. Once you cross over that

7:25

line, there's a minimum amount of debris

7:27

that you have to create. Once you cross

7:29

over that line, all satellites, everything

7:32

in orbit will just

7:34

get obliterated and turned into a

7:36

bunch of dust.

7:38

Yeah.

7:39

So it is absolutely within

7:41

Russia's capabilities to shut down

7:44

all satellite communication and

7:46

all spice satellites and all, you

7:48

know, the only satellites that would still

7:50

exist would be geo stationary

7:53

satellites. But the only reason they're gonna exist

7:55

is because there's a lot fewer of them and they're further away.

7:57

So it would actually take more explosions

8:01

at the, the height of the geo

8:03

stationaries to create the same

8:05

effect. And it's possible just,

8:08

I don't think there's enough rockets out there that can be

8:10

launched to do it. But in terms of

8:12

lower abid, oh my God, there we

8:14

have like 46,000 pieces

8:16

of tracted material floating out there,

8:19

and we're, we're constantly on,

8:22

on the brink of having

8:24

things crashing into each other just from random

8:26

circumstances. So doing

8:28

that as a targeted approach would not take

8:30

much and you could wipe out the entire

8:33

lower earth orbit orbit for

8:35

anything. It would also make rocket

8:37

launchers extremely

8:40

dangerous because you would have to cross through

8:42

that orbit at which point you may have

8:44

debris damaging the the rocket.

8:46

You think that debris wouldn't be able to be tracked by

8:48

our current system? So I, I know, cause I know

8:50

Well, here's the thing. The, the one Chinese

8:53

satellite that we tracked that got blown

8:55

up, that single satellite split off into

8:57

over a thousand smaller pieces

9:00

was that back in 2007

9:01

that now, that was maybe five

9:03

years ago. Yeah, I thought it was like 17.

9:06

2015. Okay. Maybe I might move out the decade wrong.

9:08

Yeah. And then Russia just

9:11

did another test that was much more

9:13

contained. But you know, they've

9:15

got the, the weaponry, they're they're not,

9:17

not making them anti-satellite

9:20

weapons. I remember them from the seventies.

9:22

This was something that was already

9:25

a, a worry for both

9:27

superpowers back in the seventies, that

9:30

the other guys would start creating

9:34

space weapons, not

9:36

necessarily for shooting lasers back

9:39

to the earth, like science fiction would say, but

9:41

space weapons that would disable

9:43

the other country's satellites. And

9:46

whether that was done with lasers, whether that was

9:48

done with kinetic you know, debris,

9:52

Look here's all you really need to do, right? So you,

9:55

you launch something that is a relatively

9:58

small and cheap rocket that

10:01

is filled with

10:04

ball bearings. Something

10:06

that is high density. And

10:08

spherical. And then

10:10

you just you launch them to a known

10:12

orbit and you just detonate 'em. You don't even have

10:14

to be close to anything. You just have to spread out.

10:17

You're doing a shotgun approach, and

10:20

you just spread out enough. They will start

10:22

impacting other traffic

10:24

in that orbit. And

10:27

once you do that and, and, and there's,

10:29

you can optimize it too. The first thing you would do is you wanna

10:32

launch it in a counter rotational direction. So

10:34

it's you're gonna be going against

10:37

the, the, the way

10:39

that most satellites are spinning around the

10:41

earth, which is west to east. And

10:45

the reason that's the case is because you get

10:47

free energy that way.

10:49

You get free delta V when you launch, when

10:51

you're launching in an eastward direction. And

10:54

once you establish orbit, it takes an insane

10:56

amount of energy to change

10:58

that orbit. And especially if you want to go the

11:01

opposite direction. So very

11:03

few satellites are launched counterclockwise,

11:06

most are clockwise or west to

11:08

east. You could also do

11:10

polar orbits, which are, you know, north, south, south,

11:13

north for things that where you wanna make sure

11:15

it goes every over, every part of the

11:17

globe. But, you

11:19

know, all, all this stuff is known, It's all calculated.

11:21

It's. math problem. That's

11:23

really all it is. If you want to destroy

11:26

low earth out orbit satellites,

11:29

the only thing you can't really do is do

11:31

it selectively, because once you start

11:33

the chain reaction, you

11:35

can't stop it. The more debris

11:38

there, the more chance that something

11:40

that still works is gonna get damaged and, and once

11:42

that's damaged, it'll create more debris.

11:45

Yeah, the idea of anti-satellite

11:47

warfare, Being implemented

11:51

in, in, you know, in a real use case scenario, right.

11:53

The, the Air Force and other organizations

11:55

have done projections, right, and have released

11:58

reports on these projections of what would happen in

12:00

those scenarios. But it's very, you know, it's

12:02

acutely concerning because satellites are

12:05

so important to everything we do in

12:07

a, you know, everything we rely on

12:09

as a modern society. And,

12:12

you know, when you look at how we protect infrastructure

12:15

on, on the on the ground, you know,

12:17

both from a kinetic perspective

12:19

as well as a, you know, cyber perspective,

12:22

you know, I don't think the general

12:24

population really knows how vulnerable that,

12:27

that, that satellite infrastructure is, Right? It's not

12:29

designed to keep a a person out

12:32

of it, right. It's more so designed to

12:34

Kessler syndrome. Sorry to up Joe, I just

12:36

looked it up finally while you were talking. It's

12:39

the Kessler syndrome is where you create

12:41

so much junk

12:43

that ends up. Hitting

12:45

other useful stuff and thereby

12:47

creating you more junk. And it really is a chain

12:49

reaction. Much like the same way that the, that

12:52

Atomical weapons work.

12:53

Yeah. Well, it's very similar to, you know, like an asteroid

12:55

breaking up in the, in the atmosphere or

12:58

an asteroid. You know, like we, we just did this test

13:00

on the asteroid on those asteroids or

13:02

come to break it apart with a sa

13:04

you know, it's interesting, you know, that,

13:07

you know, what does the debris field look like that what are

13:09

the future impacts from an orbit perspective?

13:12

Of those debris and you know, I'm

13:14

sure NASA did all those calculations prior to,

13:17

to launching that project, but you

13:19

know,

13:20

Or did they

13:21

did they Right. who knows? Right? It's

13:23

like, it's like when, when China says that they

13:25

can't, or they don't know the current destination

13:27

or a route that, that their that the rocket

13:30

engines are going to be taking. Because when they launched 'em, they

13:32

didn't take that into consideration

13:33

Well, yeah, that's a bullshit story.

13:36

What I could tell you exactly why

13:38

I don't bother, because it's, it's a

13:40

cost thing. So what they wanna do

13:42

is utilize every ounce of

13:44

fuel that's in that rocket

13:47

to actually create you know, upward

13:50

momentum to, to use that up when

13:52

they're putting their space station or they're

13:54

putting their satellites up. And

13:57

if you don't have any fuel, then

14:00

the rocket's gonna fall where the rocket falls.

14:02

You, you better, first of all, hope.

14:05

It gets dumped, like it runs outta

14:07

fuel and that stage falls off

14:10

before you fully leave earth's

14:12

atmosphere. Because if

14:14

you don't, then what's gonna happen is, what we

14:16

did in the US is all of our

14:18

early rocket launches in the sixties

14:20

and through the seventies they just created space

14:23

junk.

14:24

oh

14:24

You know, there was no thought given to,

14:27

shouldn't we deorbit and burn this

14:29

up in the atmosphere? It was more like, no,

14:31

it, it was the same mentality that China has. We,

14:34

we've got a limited supply fuel we're gonna use every

14:36

last drop and do

14:38

that. We don't really care where

14:40

we leave the the

14:42

spent stages. And we had, I

14:45

think it was in the last year that we

14:47

had found one

14:50

of the Apollo stages that

14:52

was dropped on

14:54

the way to the moon. I don't think it was

14:56

Apollo 11, I think it was one the later Apollos.

14:58

And it, you know, it made a very complex

15:01

journey going between the moon

15:03

and the Earth and something else. And we finally tracked

15:05

that, yes, it looks like that's what it is, and now

15:07

it's actually spinning around the earth

15:09

again. It made its way back from the moon, but

15:12

it's the, the piece

15:15

that every side has to realize

15:17

is you're, you're

15:20

hovering over in abyss, and

15:23

the only way that everybody

15:25

gets to stay up, whether it's two or three or 10

15:27

or a million people, is if

15:29

y'all hold onto each other's hands, because

15:32

as soon as one person let's go, they

15:35

fall in and they drag

15:37

everybody else along with them. This

15:40

is the principle of mutually assured

15:42

destruction as a preventive

15:45

measure. When you're

15:47

afraid of dying, you

15:49

try to not do things that'll make

15:51

you die. And what

15:53

makes you afraid of dying is knowing

15:55

that the other side if

15:58

they don't have your cooperation, if

16:01

you don't hold their hand, that

16:04

they will start the chain reaction that le

16:06

leads to everybody's death. And

16:08

so this principle works as well with satellites, as

16:10

it does with atomic weapons and lot

16:13

of other things in life. But it seems to be

16:16

something that isn't thought of a whole lot these days.

16:19

Yeah. It's a, it's

16:21

a whole new frontier when it, when, when it, when you,

16:23

you start adding things like warfare

16:26

into that space and how does that look

16:28

long term? I mean the, the

16:30

infrastructure of our, our,

16:33

of the US military, right? You

16:35

need look at. Military is worldwide, is,

16:37

is largely dependent on those systems.

16:40

So, you know, what does that

16:42

look like? You know, from

16:44

a, you know, like you mentioned mutually

16:46

Sure. Destruction. What does that look like in the future

16:49

when you run into an adversary that

16:51

doesn't have that same principle?

16:53

You know, and, and, and you

16:56

know, when you think about those organizations

16:58

or those entities entering

17:00

that space, right? How do you assure that

17:03

you don't run into negligence, Right. Or

17:06

purposeful or otherwise.

17:07

yeah. You can have accidents

17:10

happening. And the, there have been a few that have brought

17:12

us close to nuclear annihilation

17:15

over the years and, and luckily

17:18

mechanisms that were put in place, like having

17:20

multiple keys and, and, and

17:22

split codes in order to

17:24

launch have averted disasters

17:27

when people decided to say,

17:29

you know, this seems fishy.

17:31

Maybe, maybe nuclear war hasn't already

17:33

started. Maybe we shouldn't launch either. But

17:36

you know, the, the more, the more

17:38

you push somebody in that direction, The

17:40

more you're having to rely on the safeguards,

17:42

the more you rely on the safeguards, the

17:45

more likely one of those safeguards is gonna fail.

17:48

Yeah. So what do you think we're closer to nuclear war

17:50

or satellite war? or

17:52

Well, I don't, I think nuclear war

17:54

is certainly on the horizon. I think

17:56

satellite, let's put it this way, if nuclear

17:58

war happens, satellite war is guaranteed

18:01

to happen as well. Satellite

18:03

war could happen before nuclear

18:05

war. But I also think

18:07

that the current administration is stupid enough to start

18:10

a nuclear war if satellite war happens.

18:12

you think I, you know, I

18:14

cuz they have to realize that the US

18:16

does not survive without satellites.

18:19

We literally, all our logistics,

18:21

everything that we're doing is

18:23

based around well,

18:25

it's, it's relying on satellites,

18:27

whether it's GPS for tracking, but

18:30

a lot more of that satellites are, are not

18:32

just for tracking, they're actually for moving data.

18:34

A lot of the a lot of the mechanisms

18:38

that a allow the data to flow

18:41

they are relying on

18:43

other, well, you know about this. You're, you're

18:45

a it security dude that

18:48

you can't have the control channel be embedded

18:50

along with the data channel.

18:51

No.

18:53

So the easiest way to do that is to separate

18:55

control and data. You run the data

18:57

on the high speed network, which is terrestrial.

19:00

You run the control channel along

19:02

with backup channels on satellite

19:05

or completely diverse connection

19:07

points in undersea cables. And

19:09

so you're by, by the way,

19:12

speaking of, I should probably do an intro

19:14

for you cuz we kind of jumped into it. I forgot

19:16

to do that. People might be wondering who,

19:18

who the hell is this Ben I'm talking to? Well this

19:20

is actually Ben. How are you Ben?

19:22

doing well. Thank you

19:23

Yes. So Ben just happens to

19:25

be another Ben who's an IT

19:27

guy whose real name is Ben. And

19:30

I figured, you know, I already do a podcast with a guy named

19:32

Ben. No, I might as well talk to another guy named Ben

19:34

who's in the same field as well.

19:36

And you actually know the other Ben,

19:38

Yeah, I do. Yep. I work with them actually.

19:40

I kind of always suspected people named Ben's

19:43

kind of had an inside connection to each other.

19:45

Yeah, we all have a uh, a shared Slack channel

19:48

and we can communicate on a regular basis. I'm

19:50

just

19:50

Exactly. Exactly. It's, it's the

19:53

the ben, the dude named Ben Consortium and

19:55

I'm not invited cuz that's not my name. Yeah.

19:58

That's awesome. Do you get time off work to go to the convention

20:00

for the Bens

20:00

That does require some pto, but yeah.

20:03

So, where are you at, Ben?

20:05

So I'm located out in Ohio area, so,

20:08

So the Midwest area, a lot of corn, right?

20:10

We, we talked about that, or you talked about that a little

20:12

bit

20:13

corn, that's, that's cold word for silos,

20:15

I believe.

20:16

It It is code word.

20:18

No. Yeah. A lot of corn, a lot of a lot of

20:20

farming

20:21

Mm-hmm.

20:22

We also, in the area I live in, in Ohio have

20:24

a large amount of data centers.

20:26

And it's, it's. Quite

20:29

fast when it comes to attracting

20:31

new manufacturing. You mentioned last,

20:34

I believe chip manufacturing and you know,

20:36

Taiwan all that fun stuff and

20:38

that's going on over there. Right. And you know that

20:40

Intel is actually investing

20:42

The foundries. Yeah.

20:43

in, quite a bit into the the Ohio area.

20:45

So that, that's something that's been quite exciting

20:48

around here. But but yeah, thank you for the introduction.

20:50

I've never understood why, I

20:53

guess I kind of know because I've worked in the industry

20:55

for a long time myself, but I think it's inertia

20:57

mostly that keeps manufacturing overseas

20:59

because it used to be cost, but

21:03

the single biggest cost was always labor.

21:05

US labor was just so high compared

21:07

to everybody else. That hasn't been true

21:10

for a long time.

21:11

Yeah, and, and I think that's a, a general

21:13

misconception that you, that you're pointing out in

21:15

regards to overseas manufacturing

21:17

being so, you know, heavily invested

21:19

due to expense when it comes to people. Right.

21:22

Cuz you, there's a lot of factors when it comes to

21:24

especially when you're looking at especially manufacturing

21:26

like chip sets, right? Or certain

21:28

components you look like auto manufacturing. There's

21:30

a reason why a lot of that is still, you

21:33

know, US based as well as

21:35

some, some other, you know, countries that we work

21:37

with like Canada, Mexico, right? But

21:39

there's definitely a good reason why a lot of that's still in the.

21:42

there's very little other than that

21:44

in the us and I think, I

21:47

did an analysis for a company not too long

21:49

ago. We were looking at Mexico versus the US

21:51

for costs for some manufacturing.

21:54

And you know, the difference was, I,

21:57

I wouldn't say it was negligible, but it was

21:59

pretty damn slim between

22:01

doing something in New Mexico or doing it in

22:03

actually in Mexico because most

22:06

of the processes were robotics, right?

22:08

They're, they're, they don't require a huge amount

22:10

of factory workers the way that factories used

22:12

to. It requires certain level

22:14

of competence in the people that are serving

22:17

c robots. It requires logistics, understanding

22:20

a few other things, none of

22:22

which are cheap jobs overseas.

22:24

Nope, that's exactly correct.

22:26

once you start adding up those costs and

22:28

knowing that the human cost is

22:30

the single biggest factor yes, there's

22:32

some fixed costs initially

22:34

if you're building a factory from the ground up

22:36

that you're gonna put in, but a lot of those are

22:38

gonna be amortized over decades. And

22:41

so once you start looking at the actual operating

22:43

costs US really should

22:45

be utilized for a hell, a lot more manufacturing

22:47

than it currently is. And

22:50

I think that right now on

22:52

Tesla I'll here in literally

22:54

three miles from me in their factory

22:57

in, in Texas they're doing a

22:59

bang up job of doing exactly

23:01

that. They're using a hell lot of robotics

23:04

and they're using people that, you

23:06

know, are coming in there to both

23:09

service robots and to ensure the process

23:11

is moving along. Whatever can't be done

23:13

by robots, done by people. But these are not

23:15

like low page cheap labor. These

23:18

are fairly high cost

23:20

people and there's a huge

23:22

demand for Tesla jobs. Like right

23:24

now, remember the guy's name,

23:26

but I talked to a guy that was getting

23:29

ready to start working in Tesla, or he was

23:31

putting together some stuff. And what he figured out

23:33

is if you wanna work at Tesla,

23:35

you first have to work at a

23:38

company that manufacturers parts

23:41

for the Tesla cars.

23:44

And then it's much easier to apply to

23:46

Tesla. It's almost like

23:48

the, you've already passed that initial,

23:50

you know, set of closed

23:53

doors that you made it through, and

23:55

now going from a supplier

23:57

of parts of Tesla to Tesla is much

23:59

faster process because there's like

24:01

10 people applying for every one job available.

24:04

no, I was reading a paper, you know,

24:06

I do a lot of work in the manufacturing space and,

24:09

you know, it was, you know, you

24:11

know the buzzword is Industry 4.0, right? The,

24:13

the move. Manual labor.

24:16

So the jobs that, like my, my, you

24:18

know, grandpa when, you know, he retired,

24:21

working the same job for 32

24:23

years, union, right? He worked

24:25

in a plant, used his hands you know, and

24:29

he worked, you know,

24:31

nine to five and, you

24:34

know, ba you know, didn't have, but didn't have any technical

24:36

bait background. No, no, you know, no,

24:39

you know, highly skilled like, you know,

24:41

skill set, right? On technology

24:43

or anything along those lines. But, but

24:45

you know, as soon as, you know, that plant

24:48

was in Ohio for up till about

24:50

2009, 2010

24:52

timeframe. And, and you know, has nothing to do with

24:54

the the economic, you know, decline

24:57

that happened during that time. But more so around during

25:00

that time, that company made an investment in

25:02

automating a lot of that. And

25:05

so the job that 200

25:07

people once did now can

25:09

get can get by with six or seven

25:11

people running automated, you know, automation

25:13

equipment. So these controls engineers, these

25:16

six or seven controls engineers per

25:18

shift replaced 200 people

25:20

per shift. And the output increased

25:23

you know, tenfold, right? They went from making three

25:25

or four of these steel rolls an hour

25:27

to making 10 an hour, right?

25:29

So, Each one's 40,

25:32

50, $60,000. Right? We're talking millions

25:34

of dollars gaining revenue daily just

25:37

by automating all that. So, you

25:39

know, I think that while we'll, and we're gonna

25:41

continue to see that more and more industry, right? Like, as you mentioned,

25:43

is, is moving towards that direction. But,

25:46

you know, I, I, I think

25:48

it was somewhere in the, the 300

25:50

million mark, almost 400 million people

25:53

will be displaced by, by

25:55

jobs or will be displaced by this technological

25:58

advancement within the next, you know,

26:00

decade or so. So I think

26:03

it's up to 800 million by 20,

26:05

I wanna say 20, 30 timeframe that

26:07

people, that'll be affected by this shift.

26:11

So when we talk about, you

26:13

know, where do you place those manufacturing plants,

26:16

right? At that point, you want them to be placed

26:18

in, in regions or countries that

26:20

have highly educated workforces,

26:22

Right? Because the, the

26:25

days of the menial and there's nothing wrong

26:27

with that, right? Like obviously the,

26:31

you know, working with your hands and, and all that is,

26:33

is definitely an admired trade. But the

26:35

days of being able to work in a factory right, and have

26:37

a, and have a good living and being able to retire

26:40

and have a pension, right? Those are, those are gonna be over

26:42

very soon,

26:43

Well, I don't think they're over. It's just that

26:45

there's a lot fewer people that work

26:47

in factories. Those people will still be

26:49

able to have a decent living and retire.

26:51

Just, you know, like you said, the,

26:54

you're, you got a factory running with 60

26:56

people instead of 600.

26:58

Well, and that brings up a good question. You know, where are those,

27:01

you know, where are those you know, when you were growing up in

27:03

the sixties and seventies, right? Not

27:05

to say that you grew up in thes seventies, but gen in

27:08

general, you know, where

27:10

are those same people gonna go for, for employment

27:12

in the future? Right? What does that look like now that we don't

27:14

have all this from

27:15

Well, they're all coders. What are you talking about? That's

27:18

the new, that's the new blue collar job

27:20

that that'll be auto, that'll be automated too.

27:22

There's some, there's some very, there's some

27:24

very advanced program in AI right

27:26

now that where you can put in your idea

27:28

for a code or,

27:31

or a website even, right?

27:33

Or even there's, there's AI that can

27:35

do art. Now you, you give it a concept

27:38

or an idea.

27:38

I've heard about that.

27:40

yeah. And, and so these, these,

27:42

you know, these AI that they're creating can,

27:44

can do a lot of that for you and automate

27:46

all of that. For the most part. Right now, there's, there's definitely

27:49

gonna be the, the QC that needs to be done

27:51

by the human, but

27:54

And I, I think that the,

27:57

this question was like, Well, what are we gonna do with all

27:59

the people was answered by the world economic

28:01

quorum by saying, Well, we just

28:03

need fewer people.

28:05

Well, yeah. I That's one answer, right?

28:06

And also nuclear war will help that

28:09

yeah. If we, if we look at.

28:12

it, it has a onet two punch, It reduces

28:14

the population and it reduces

28:16

the technological advancement level back to

28:18

the 18 hundreds.

28:20

It also reduces, you know, the

28:22

footprint of where people can, can go for,

28:24

for at least a time being. Right. Depending on where those

28:26

are used. That's, I, that's why I've, you

28:28

know, while I

28:29

not that long. I think there's a little bit

28:31

of an exaggeration on that too. And then,

28:34

you know, they, they, they love

28:36

pointing out that nuclear

28:39

radiation leaves its mark for

28:41

a long time. Fair enough. But, you

28:43

know, I, I've been in God, I'm blanking

28:45

out now in Hiroshima. In Hiroshima

28:48

and There's no fricking radiation there.

28:50

I was. I literally have my photo

28:52

next to the building that's on the famous photographs

28:55

of the observatory. You know, I'm not getting

28:58

cancer as a result of standing there. And it, and

29:00

when I was there, which was many years ago at that

29:02

point it was only like 50

29:05

years since the bomb dropped.

29:08

okay.

29:08

So yes, there's immediate

29:11

radiation danger for sure,

29:14

but is it pervasive

29:16

long term? Eh, you know,

29:18

if you look at the bikini islands where the US did a lot

29:20

of its tests right now. Humans

29:22

are still banned or barred

29:24

from the islands. There have been some news crews

29:26

that have gotten down there to shoot documentaries,

29:29

but all the wildlife, all the animals are there.

29:32

And those were some large tests of nuclear

29:34

weapons that we conducted there,

29:36

I, I guess too, it also depends on what type of nuclear

29:38

weapon is used, right? You know, we have

29:40

the, we have a lot of the intelligence reports right

29:42

now on the, the, the air

29:45

quotes, right? The missing Russian

29:47

sub that is carrying the what,

29:49

what the news call it, the tsunami bomb

29:52

Mm-hmm.

29:52

the beside and I believe that's carrying a assaulted

29:55

or cobalt assaulted weapon,

29:57

Mm-hmm. sounds right?

29:58

warhead is concerned, you

30:01

know, in, in that term, right,

30:03

What, what are the long term effects of utilizing weapon

30:05

like that, right? In, in a, in

30:07

either a populated area. So I guess

30:09

that's a, it just depends on what type of delivery

30:12

mechanism we see.

30:14

Like, you know, on your last episode,

30:16

right? You talked in, in regards to, you

30:19

know, a dirty bomb, right? You know, if, if,

30:21

you know, the, the Ukrainians

30:23

were able to,

30:24

scattering nuclear material. Yeah.

30:26

If they were able to utilize the you know, the, the materials

30:28

at you know, the plant that they have

30:31

back and forth control over, right? what, what does that look

30:33

like if, if that's used, you know, what are the long term effects

30:35

and such? So, I don't know. It, it, it's definitely

30:37

an interesting thing, but I think, you know, when, when.

30:40

generational, but I don't think

30:42

it's, let's put it this way, If

30:45

there are some people that survive

30:47

a nuclear holocaust by the time

30:49

that five to 10 generations of Alaska,

30:52

everybody that, that had damaged

30:54

DNA will have died off. And

30:56

the radiation levels, other

30:59

than, and you know, some areas

31:01

that were particularly concentrated

31:04

will be low enough that the survivors

31:06

can go on to expand back

31:09

on the rest of the earth.

31:10

Yeah. And, and you know, when you talk

31:12

about the, the scale of a, of a potential

31:15

nuclear war, you know, that, you

31:18

know, how, how, how does that coincide

31:21

with the population control argument? That that's why, you

31:23

know, when, when you talk, you know, I see a lot of those

31:25

posts on like Reddit and such where the people

31:27

talk about, you know, if, if the

31:29

global elites, so to speak, right. Quotation

31:32

marks, again, wanted to thin the population or thin to herd,

31:34

so to speak. You know, nuclear war

31:37

is probably the least likely option that they would utilize.

31:39

Right. There's, there's better mechanisms.

31:41

not the preferred option unless

31:44

you are not really concerned about

31:46

your own future. Which is to

31:48

say, I think people in their seventies and eighties

31:51

are a lot more likely to use

31:53

the nuclear option than people in their forties,

31:55

fifties.

31:56

So you're saying that the politic, the current politicians,

31:59

They won't have to deal with it for

32:02

very long at all. So it becomes

32:04

less of an issue. I, I've even found myself

32:06

just thinking that as well as like, you

32:08

know, maybe it's time, maybe it's time for

32:10

a really big reset because

32:13

the way things are going, I don't know that it's

32:15

gonna be good for society. Maybe society needs

32:17

to reset.

32:18

Is that every time we get an electric bill in the mail, so

32:21

Yeah. Yeah. There you go. It's I think

32:23

that, that the concerns

32:27

that are portrayed by the

32:30

you know, more of the folks we hang out with, where

32:32

it's like, yeah, they just wanna reduce the population.

32:34

They, they're very black and white, very

32:37

shallow perspectives because, While

32:39

you may disagree with this idea

32:41

that the elites have of reducing the population,

32:44

you have to understand that they're

32:46

not complete idiots either.

32:48

They're not they're not driven by

32:50

some, you know, cartoon

32:53

devil sitting on their shoulder that's

32:55

that's whispering to them. Yeah. Yeah. Get rid of all

32:57

those people. So there is a

33:00

lot more thought that goes into

33:03

how do we maintain power

33:07

and prosperity? Well,

33:09

one of the things to do that is

33:11

involves controlling the population

33:14

size. You can't, you

33:16

can't let something

33:18

that has a finite

33:21

amount of resources, such as the Earth

33:24

be allowed to get to a point where

33:26

the population growth is

33:29

so large that it, it, it

33:31

makes the possibility of utilizing

33:34

those resources a short

33:36

term prospect.

33:38

Yeah, I, I think that you, you, you know, you hit a good point.

33:40

One, you know, a lot of, a lot of folks that spout

33:43

the, the global elite agenda, right. In

33:45

regards to that. They, they oftentimes, when

33:48

you, you know, a lot of people don't consider the fact that at

33:50

the end of the day, everyone has one

33:52

or two items that, you know, they hold closest,

33:55

one being self-preservation, right? So,

33:57

and, and then the second one being comfort.

33:59

You know, I, you know, I, I think people take

34:02

that, that concept of comfort far

34:04

too for granted. And then the

34:07

desire to maintain one's comfort

34:10

Right, Like your routine, the,

34:12

the normalcy of, of things. I,

34:14

I think people that when you

34:16

look at, or or, or when

34:18

people cons, you know, theorize or conspiracy

34:21

wise around, oh, well the global

34:23

just wanna wipe, you know, that's something

34:25

that at the end of the day,

34:26

it's Maslow's hierarchy. So

34:29

the very basic core, and what happens

34:31

immediately in any disaster situation

34:33

is you worry about basic needs,

34:36

water, shelter, food.

34:38

ammo,

34:39

Yeah. Then the next one

34:42

is once you cover those is safety. That's where

34:44

the ammo part comes in is you need

34:46

to ensure that there you have safety.

34:48

And when you have those, then you start thinking about

34:51

social needs like happiness,

34:53

like, you know, having in an environment

34:56

that allows you to sleep enough to, to

34:58

not be constantly stressed out. And then,

35:00

so including things like now you

35:02

don't just want food, you want specific

35:04

food, you want specific things. And then you

35:06

go to steam needs. And these are

35:08

things that are purely driven by your,

35:11

your it, you know, it's the things that

35:14

you want, not necessarily the things

35:16

you need, but you think

35:18

of them as needs because all your actual

35:20

needs are completely. And so

35:22

whatever falls down from the next level

35:25

feels like it's a need, even

35:27

though it's far from back

35:29

when you just needed safety. You

35:31

weren't thinking about the brand

35:34

of potato chip that you wanted to buy,

35:36

or the, you know, the, you

35:38

want soy milk or cashew

35:41

milk. No, you're worried about getting enough calories

35:43

and getting enough liquid to not die. So

35:46

all these things, when you,

35:48

when you look at the elites, you have to

35:50

understand that they're coming from

35:52

a very different perspective than

35:55

what people that are, you

35:57

know, constantly on the lookout for elites and,

35:59

and are worried about 'em, are thinking

36:02

they're, they're not cartoon villains.

36:04

As much as I, I think it's hilarious

36:07

and sad at the same time that Hillary

36:09

has a, a bigger death list

36:11

than most gangsters in this country. Because

36:13

I do believe that the Clinton's had a, a

36:15

hand in all this stuff. But I

36:17

also understand if you look at the

36:20

history of where Hillary came from,

36:22

you could see the path that brought her to

36:24

exactly where she is.

36:26

Well, yeah, it's, it's pretty evident.

36:27

When she was a teenager, she was pestering

36:30

for Nixon.

36:31

Yeah, very true. You know, one

36:33

of the things that I found interesting that, that is, all

36:36

of this is, you know, one of my other side

36:38

I guess hustle right? Is I sit on a board of directors

36:40

for a a gun range and a store and have

36:42

ownership of it. And during Covid

36:45

when, when Covid was first happening, we

36:48

while most businesses were shuttering or trying

36:50

to find ways to be innovative, we had some

36:52

of the best months we've ever

36:54

had from a sales perspective, right? And, and,

36:56

and it wasn't, you know, you, you

36:59

know, you got the everyday Joe Schmo, right? Coming in and buying,

37:01

you know, their first gun or exploring,

37:03

you know, Oh, I gotta protect my home. And, you

37:05

know, you hear all these things about looters and riots and such.

37:08

But the, the real

37:10

interesting thing was we had, you

37:12

know, individuals coming into our store

37:15

who were either influential

37:17

in the community, who had, were, were,

37:19

were always, have, always been opposed to, to

37:21

firearms or that industry as a whole.

37:23

We had folks coming in that were,

37:26

you know, businessmen owning,

37:28

you know, either owners or, you know, executive

37:31

levels coming in and, and they. You

37:33

know, when, when, when you look at what they're purchasing

37:35

versus what everyone else, it's, it's

37:37

the bulk aspect of it, right? And so it's like one of

37:39

those, you know, that self-preservation when, when, at

37:41

the end of the day, when, when,

37:43

you know, when, when stuff starts hitting the fan proverbially,

37:46

right? Everyone's gonna have

37:48

that same mindset. I gotta protect myself,

37:50

my family my, my assets

37:53

my, you know, I gotta ensure my livelihood

37:55

going forward, you know, or at least

37:57

trying to maintain as close as possible. But to your point,

38:00

right, that's, it's, it's definitely an

38:02

interesting concept and, and I think back to the,

38:04

the earlier discussion about like nuclear war, right? You

38:06

have to take that mindset and you have to take, look at from the macro

38:08

perspective too, you know, at the,

38:11

at the end of the day, right, The,

38:14

at least we hope the, the folks

38:16

that are running the, the running, the

38:18

government agencies and such have

38:20

that mindset as well before they push any, any buttons

38:22

or, and, and, and on the other side as

38:24

well, right? You know, everyone

38:26

makes Russia out to be this,

38:30

you know, Maleficent type, you

38:32

know, organization or, you know, organization

38:35

or, but at the end of the day, you

38:37

know, they're, they're looking out for the best interest of their

38:39

fo their people as well. And, and you know,

38:41

as much as some people have bad say things

38:43

about Putin, and, and, you know, obviously

38:45

I'm not advocating for Putin, but at the end of the day,

38:47

he's, he's looking out for his family as well, which is,

38:49

which is, you know, as much as anyone

38:51

could do.

38:52

And it's absolutely right. And that's, Putin

38:55

is absolutely a Russian patriot.

38:58

And I've said this many times is he's

39:00

a moderate, when it comes to Russian

39:02

politics there are people that are

39:04

way more hardlined than he is.

39:07

So in terms of where he

39:09

stands by American

39:11

standards, he'd be kind of like, maybe

39:14

Clinton,

39:15

I would say he probably has the same body count too.

39:17

as Clinton. Yeah. I don't know, maybe, but

39:19

he's, I, I would hope higher because

39:21

he actually worked for the kgb,

39:24

but maybe not, maybe not. Maybe Clinton's

39:26

there if there as well.

39:27

well, it depends on how many, how many of those body counts

39:29

you actually think are attributed to Clinton or not

39:31

yeah, Yeah. But

39:33

he is, his popularity has only

39:35

gone up in, in Russia with what's happening

39:38

right now because this is absolutely

39:41

in Russia perceived as

39:43

a, a war for survival,

39:46

a war for the Russian, a

39:49

ethnic kind of spirit.

39:51

It's, it's the, the idea

39:54

that we're doing our own thing

39:56

here. We're, you know, recreating

39:59

ourselves. We've shed off

40:01

communism, which allegedly was

40:03

the thing that NATO was created to fight

40:06

is the communist menace. And

40:08

yet this uber

40:10

militaristic country that is

40:12

the sole superpower at this point, keeps

40:15

bringing their troops closer and closer

40:17

to us every year. And

40:20

I think when Ukraine flipped,

40:22

it was absolutely zero surprise

40:24

to anybody that that move

40:26

was motivated by

40:28

the CIA and the State Department. This

40:31

was not a event

40:34

that happened in the vacuum. This was

40:36

a government overthrow. Now,

40:38

which is the same thing as a revolution. It depends

40:41

on which side news you're watching

40:43

or listening to. But the side

40:45

that got elected initially

40:48

and then got deposed calls it an

40:50

overthrow. The side that's doing

40:52

it calls it a revolution, but

40:54

in the end it's replacing an

40:56

elected leader with an unelected

40:58

leader and then solidifying

41:01

the power of the new administration

41:03

with international aid and help.

41:06

So it's really, it's not an unusual

41:08

event. It's not that far from what

41:11

the US did in the US Revolution when

41:13

we decided to say, Screw

41:15

you uk, we're not gonna send you tax

41:17

money back. And then quickly got the help

41:20

of France to help us

41:22

secure our newfound freedom. And

41:24

obviously plenty of 'em Americans died

41:27

in the Revolutionary War, but you

41:29

know, France saw the US now

41:31

as the enemy of Miami and

41:33

somebody that they can help as well. So

41:36

it's totally makes sense that the West

41:38

wants to help create

41:41

turmoil with any

41:44

other large countries

41:46

out there, anybody who's growing, because

41:49

any growing country is a

41:51

threat to US power. And

41:53

we've seen that in the Middle East.

41:56

Where we've seen that with Russia

41:59

and we've started seeing it

42:01

more and more with China. What

42:03

do all these countries have in common is

42:06

that they were advancing very rapidly

42:08

towards a greater role

42:11

in the in the world stage.

42:14

Yeah, I, anytime I hear, you

42:17

know, folks talking about, you know,

42:20

Russia this, or Russia that, or, you know,

42:22

I, I can't believe Russia's doing this in Ukraine

42:24

right now. I, I, I, I like to use an

42:26

analogy with them. I, I say, Okay, imagine

42:30

the US today and imagine China.

42:33

Put silos all around the

42:35

US borders in Canada and Mexico. Imagine

42:37

China decides that they wanna occupy

42:39

or put bases in Mexico,

42:42

in Canada. Right? Right. You know, right next

42:44

to our borders. Let's say China starts talking

42:47

to our out, you know, our bordering

42:49

states to Canada and Mexico and saying,

42:51

Hey, you know, we, we'd

42:53

love for you to, you know, how would

42:55

we react as a country to,

42:58

to China doing that to, to us, right? So

43:00

you, you put yourself in Russia's shoes, right?

43:02

You're, you're a country who's one very

43:04

proud of their heritage. You know,

43:06

they have a, a very fantastic and rich heritage.

43:09

You know, if you look past the political

43:12

economic categories that Russia's

43:14

fallen under in the last, you know, a hundred years

43:16

or so, and, and you look at specifically

43:18

just culture and the people you know,

43:21

and, and I think we miss that as a, you

43:23

know, at the end of the day, a lot of people

43:25

don't look at Russia as a culture and

43:27

a people,

43:28

Russia as a country has been around

43:31

for a thousand years.

43:32

right?

43:33

The city of St. Petersburg just

43:35

celebrated their 300th birthday. So

43:38

just, you know, one of the major cities

43:40

in Russia is older than the us.

43:43

Yeah. Just one.

43:45

it, it's and, and really moscow's

43:48

even older than that, St. Petersburg was a

43:50

manmade city. It was a city much

43:52

like Washington DC that was designed

43:55

on maps first and then

43:58

built to copy

44:00

the maps. And it was built as in sort

44:02

of a inspiration from Amsterdam.

44:05

Because much like Amsterdam, it's a city with

44:07

canals. And so there's a lot of bridges

44:09

and it's built on Delta, but it also,

44:12

you know, the, the, the people

44:14

cost was very high to build

44:16

it because it was built using surf labor.

44:19

And surfs don't have a whole lot of value.

44:21

It's good to have live surfs rather than dead surfs.

44:23

But if a surf die, So be

44:25

it. And so I, the numbers

44:29

are speculated anywhere from 20,000

44:31

to several hundred thousand people died

44:34

in the building of St. Petersburg.

44:36

And mostly in the winter, you know, freezing

44:38

to death because the the,

44:40

the way the city was built was essentially

44:43

every winter for a number of years,

44:45

once the ice freezes over,

44:47

they would haul sand

44:49

and rocks on slaves,

44:53

horse lays across the ice and

44:55

then dump it in order to

44:58

build enough of a foundation

45:01

to build the city on.

45:02

Hm

45:02

Cuz much like most deltas like New Orleans,

45:05

you know, it's a, they're basically swamps until you start

45:07

building there. But either

45:09

way I, I can get pulled into

45:11

a variety of topics. You started talking about guns. I

45:13

wanna talk more about that cuz I've been

45:15

talking about like, I've got almost

45:18

every show, a new gun that I mentioned and

45:20

you said you'd bought some new guns. What do you got?

45:22

So I picked up a Chris

45:24

Vector recently. It's a nine millimeter

45:26

so it's got the,

45:27

Good video game gun.

45:28

It, you know, you know, I, I have

45:31

a couple nine millimeters

45:33

same, same form factor as

45:35

the Chris Vector. I have like a sig sour mpx

45:38

and nine millimeter. I'm a, I have a

45:40

collision of cough KP nine in

45:43

nine millimeter as well, which is a similar form factor

45:45

as well. More, more AK style. But, you

45:47

know, I've I've always been a big fan of that

45:50

one that that round the nine millimeter.

45:52

And then I, I, like, I liked

45:54

the Crisp vector. I went to

45:56

my range a couple times and we had a, a model

45:59

on display that I wanted to try

46:01

out. So I, I got to shoot it next to

46:03

my, my sig. And I liked the balance

46:05

that it had. The getting used to

46:07

the controls and the mechanisms was a little

46:09

bit strange. But once I got my site lined

46:11

up which, you know, I know you guys have

46:13

talked about Hoon in the past, but I been

46:15

using Hoon for a number of years.

46:18

Never had problems with them. Wouldn't use

46:20

it for my,

46:21

They're, they're all gonna turn off

46:23

as soon as the US is in the conflict.

46:25

Right.

46:25

By China.

46:26

yeah, but no, but I, you know, I, I've

46:29

used it.

46:29

I think they're fine. I, the, the only

46:32

issue is just who they're owned by. It's not

46:34

really quality related. It's, it's more

46:36

of a who the ownership is for that company.

46:38

yeah, no, I 90% of the things we buy anyways

46:40

are made in China. So, I, I figure, I figure what's,

46:43

what's my reign, what's my site gonna impact?

46:45

But no, I do, I do have other sites I use, but generally

46:47

for like range purposes, indoor range, I

46:49

use a hall sun. But so I got a nice hall

46:52

sun on it and no, it

46:54

just done really well. And then I, you know, I have a a couple suppressors.

46:56

And so I was able, my put my,

46:59

you know, I'm able to throw my suppressor on there pretty easily

47:01

with the sig unfortunately, you

47:03

had to buy some configuration change some

47:06

configuration modifications to to get that to, to

47:09

thread correctly. But but yeah, no,

47:11

I'm, but like, you know, I have a, the

47:13

suppressor I use majority of the time, I can, I

47:16

can easily switch it between my,

47:18

my Crisp Vector or my, my sig

47:20

or even one of my ars that I, that

47:22

I utilize. So, I have a couple

47:23

Well, the, the vector's an interesting

47:25

gun design with the, the

47:29

it, it's a more modern design for people

47:31

that don't know it. I'm sure if you see a picture

47:33

you probably recognize if you've played

47:36

video games at all, they usually appear in video

47:38

games. don't know any professional militaries

47:40

that utilize them, but they're,

47:43

they're meant to counter muzzle

47:45

rise by having the recoil

47:48

actually go at an angle the the, the

47:50

recall weight in the gun. Have

47:52

you noticed that? Does it, does it shoot

47:54

flatter than your cig.

47:56

Yeah. So if I, if I'm using you know, I

47:58

can, I'd say with, with using my suppressor with

48:00

that, I'm getting a lot less uplift

48:02

than I normally get. And I

48:05

will say that with, in shooting

48:07

without, definitely, you know, by far I'm, I'm

48:09

not getting hardly any recoil. I'm not

48:11

getting any of that lift at the end of, you know,

48:14

at the end of, you know, a magazine, you know, that

48:16

you typically get. So I,

48:18

I'm pretty impressed with it so far. I know when

48:20

I was doing my research on, Cause I research, and again,

48:22

I purchased pretty thoroughly before I, I,

48:25

I, you know, I make that investment and I've made

48:27

purchases that aren't that way, but for the most part

48:29

I like to, to do a little research. But

48:31

you know, I

48:31

you'll sell your guns, Right? You, you don't like

48:33

buy a gun and keep it forever.

48:35

you know, so, so the weird, So I get being

48:38

in the, in the position I am, I used to

48:40

sell guns, but after I invested

48:42

in and, and bought into that and joined

48:44

the board on, on the current range that I'm part

48:46

of, I, I haven't sold any guns privately.

48:49

Mm-hmm.

48:50

mostly being that I get the guns at cost, so,

48:53

Typically I'm not paying

48:55

the full retail for

48:57

Right, right,

48:57

Yeah. So, so I, I don't

49:00

have to be as conservative on that aspect.

49:03

And I, I, by nature

49:05

for, for guns and other certain hobbies,

49:07

I tend to hoard them. So I don't, I like to keep ahold

49:09

of things. But but

49:10

Yeah, I just, I don't know. I, I,

49:13

I've been buying like a gun a week lately,

49:15

but it's, I don't necessarily wanna

49:17

keep 'em all, I'm mostly just buying 'em to test

49:19

them out.

49:19

they make ranges for that too,

49:21

I know, but, you know,

49:23

I've got a buddy with a ranch that I just

49:25

go out and shoot at in Tucker Max.

49:28

And then so I don't, I,

49:31

I guess I could go to a range. I

49:33

dunno, but it, but it's, I, I think

49:35

there's, like, I

49:37

just, I want to keep the gun

49:40

that I like the way it shoots. And

49:42

I, I have no emotional attachment to

49:45

a gun that I've shot and go, Nah, not for

49:47

me. And I just, you know, I don't

49:49

mind putting up for sale. Some people

49:51

never want to sell a gun cuz they

49:53

don't want to go through the hassle. Other

49:55

people never wanna buy a gun in a rain or

49:58

at a store because they don't want

50:00

to go through a background check. I,

50:03

I had my fingerprints

50:05

and background done so many times. I really do

50:07

not care at all.

50:09

Yeah. Unless you have a name that's like, not

50:11

unless you have a very common name. The

50:13

background check process anymore has been pretty quick. It's

50:15

not as like, I know, I know during the pandemic,

50:18

you know, you probably wait a day or two

50:20

unless you, you know, in some states, like in Ohio for

50:22

instance and it's, it's at the discretion

50:24

of the, of the, of the you know, ffl

50:27

that you're using. But if you, as long as you

50:29

have a ccw concealed carry permit or

50:31

concealed weapons permit, you can

50:33

usually walk away with it same day, even if your background check

50:35

has not come through.

50:36

Yeah.

50:36

Cuz the assumption is that if you have

50:39

one and the local sheriff's department

50:41

hasn't taken it from you, that you're a legal

50:43

law abiding citizen.

50:44

yeah. And here it's even, I was just talking to a

50:46

buddy on the West coast who's,

50:49

you know, having to wait a week for his

50:51

freaking guns. He just bought the new

50:54

Rattler, Or not? Yeah, not

50:56

the Rattler, the, the new one just came out. You just picked

50:58

one up sig Is it the Rattler,

51:00

yeah. Sig Sig makes the Rattler, they make the Rattler

51:02

and

51:02

the one that just came out? It's something light.

51:05

It's got the word light in it.

51:06

I'm trying to remember the name off the top of my head. It'll

51:08

come to me, but no, I'm trying to think. It's

51:10

gonna bother me. The sbr,

51:12

maybe they had an mcx for

51:14

a while.

51:16

Well, either way I'll, I'll, I'll

51:18

look it up here. I'll just go to Sig. But yeah,

51:20

here in Texas where I'm at, the process is

51:22

super fast. I walk into the store,

51:25

they walk back to their warehouse

51:28

to grab my gun. I punch

51:30

in the data on the computer. They

51:33

bring the gout, the gun out and

51:35

ring it up, and just as they're ringing it

51:37

up, they get the A. Okay. So

51:40

it's literally five minutes

51:42

Yeah, there's, there's talks

51:43

and there's no reason it shouldn't be like that everywhere.

51:46

yeah. And, and there's talks too. And you

51:48

know, you know, you look at like the tsa

51:50

and, and this is a, you know, pivot

51:52

a little bit, but you look at the TSA and how they do, you

51:54

know, boarding and, you know, you go through the checks

51:57

and all that. So they have a, you know, program, you know, you can

51:59

be pre TSA check, right? So you can get

52:01

the t what they call that TSA

52:03

pre

52:04

Yeah. Well, so there's

52:06

a, a concept that's being, I,

52:08

I've seen it on quite a few rumblings

52:10

where you will, you can get

52:12

almost a pre-qualification where

52:14

you, you know, annually you'd have to go through

52:16

you know, rigorous background checks,

52:18

you know, all of that. But then you would

52:20

have a way or a means to not avoid

52:23

weights for those. There's also a

52:25

number you can get to with the ATF, where

52:28

it can fast track a lot of that.

52:29

Well, I think that's mostly useful if you have

52:31

one of those names that a lot

52:33

of criminals.

52:35

Yeah, no, exactly. But, but

52:37

you know, the, like, you know, you know the big argument

52:39

that we see that from folks that

52:42

are stringent on background checks

52:44

and such as you. Yeah,

52:46

it's really, it's really not that difficult of a process. Private

52:48

sales are still pretty, pretty common,

52:51

right? You see folks that'll just sell 'em on like

52:53

gun broker or one of those websites. But

52:57

you know, for the most part, we, we don't have a lot of

52:59

problems with background checks. If you're if

53:01

you're, as long as you're, you know, not, not, don't have any pending

53:04

felonies or, you know, domestic abuse

53:06

or anything like that, right? You're, you're, you're usually pretty

53:08

good to go. It's not not, not a tough process,

53:10

but yeah. I, I digress.

53:13

Yeah. No, it, it, it should go pretty

53:16

quick. There's no reason to for

53:19

it to take long and this, the whole, you

53:21

know, waiting delay bullshit

53:23

is just that. It's just bullshit.

53:25

Well, I will say my, the tax stamp that, that was

53:27

about 11 months when I, when I was waiting

53:29

Yeah. And it shouldn't be. That should be just

53:32

as fast. You punch in your info, you pay your money.

53:34

Boom, you're done.

53:35

Yeah. And, and that's why, so I, you know,

53:37

I have two currently, but the reason why I purchased

53:40

the, my most recent one so I picked up the

53:42

the Optimist Griffin. It's you can

53:44

configure, it comes with different configurations.

53:47

So you can put on like a nine millimeter short

53:49

config a two config that you can use

53:51

for like, like flash comp there's a

53:53

midsize config and then a full

53:56

Oh, it's a spear. Spear lt. That's

53:58

what, that's the one you just

53:59

you can shoot, you can shoot rifle, rifle calibers up to

54:01

300 wm. You can, you

54:04

know, 3 0 8 Winchester.

54:06

I can put it on my, my ar that shoots

54:08

5 56 or you know, I, I can put it

54:10

on my nine millimeter. It has a, has a modification

54:13

for that. I can put it on my 22. So, so

54:15

that's why, one of the reasons why I got that was cause I figured, you know,

54:17

So, which, which one did you get? What

54:19

the, the Griffin Optimist, so

54:22

yeah, and it comes with different configurations

54:24

and it runs about a, runs about a, about a K

54:26

or so, so about a thousand or so. But it was well

54:29

worth the investment. They had a, I've

54:31

Is that a baffle one or, or a ducted one?

54:34

baffle.

54:34

It is baffle. Okay. I've been really tempted to get

54:37

one of the abducted ones.

54:39

Really, What, what would you, what do you see the

54:41

the benefits there being?

54:42

It's cleaner. There's nothing to replace

54:45

There's nothing to do there. It's it,

54:48

if you, it won't blow up

54:50

if you shoot it coming out of water.

54:53

I've, I've gotten mine wet

54:55

before and I don't think I've had any problems

54:58

with that. But I'm trying to think. I, yeah,

55:00

I'd have to do more research on that one

55:02

Yeah, I, I think it's, it's a neat idea.

55:04

It's basically just variable

55:06

diameter, really long vents.

55:10

So if you look at the thing cut in half,

55:13

it basically looks like a

55:15

you know, like an oil filter with

55:18

paths to go forward, then loop back

55:20

in towards the back, then change direction

55:22

again, go forward again, then back again, and

55:24

forward again, and finally come out of the weapon.

55:27

So it's, it's, it's able to

55:30

compress that full stack

55:32

of air, which is probably about three feet

55:34

long in front of it while

55:37

continuously moving that air along.

55:39

So there, there isn't differences in pressure

55:42

the way there are in the baffle system in that thing.

55:44

There's just one continuous gradient of pressure

55:47

from start to finish.

55:48

interesting. Yeah, so I'm reading up on that. It looks

55:51

so Sigma's. Quite a few of these

55:54

from what I remember. Yeah, cuz I've seen a couple in our

55:56

shop,

55:56

there, there's, they usually started a thousand

55:59

and go up from there, which is probably the biggest reason people don't

56:01

buy 'em nearly as much as baffles. And

56:04

I think the, the idea that you can't

56:06

really clean 'em the way you clean baffles maybe

56:09

makes people think that baffles are the

56:11

way to go. But And I haven't pulled the trigger, but I am

56:13

kinda leaning towards

56:15

picking one of those up.

56:16

Well, you know, what they say about, you know, what they say about suppressors.

56:18

If you're thinking about picking one up, pick one up now

56:21

and then, or buy it now, you know, pay

56:23

for the tax stamp and then put it on layaway

56:25

until you, until you get your tax stamp back. So

56:28

Yeah. Yeah. I guess, the other thing is

56:30

in Texas here, we've got lawsuits with ATF

56:33

about Texas, Texas manufactured

56:37

suppressors not being within their purview,

56:40

really

56:41

that might be another way to go. Yeah. If you haven't do

56:43

Google search on that, if you get a chance. Basically,

56:46

Texas has passed legislation that says that

56:48

people are entitled to make suppressors

56:50

as long as it's manufactured and

56:53

sold in Texas, then it

56:55

doesn't have to go through any ATF stuff.

56:56

Well, I at the end of the day though, the, what the ATF

56:59

does in general is, is illegal.

57:01

Yeah, absolutely. Like

57:02

a, a government agency making decision

57:04

make basically writing law.

57:07

They can't make

57:08

Yeah. It's, it's like the whole argument about health

57:10

insurance practicing medicine, right.

57:12

yep.

57:14

it's

57:14

Which they absolutely do. Unless

57:16

you just decide to just pay outta pocket.

57:18

But the problem with paying out of pocket

57:20

for medical insurance stuff or medical

57:23

procedures is the, the prices

57:25

are artificially inflated in

57:28

order for the, the

57:30

negotiated rates that the

57:33

insurance pay. To look like

57:35

they're just a small percentage of the initial

57:37

claim. But you

57:39

know, when they charge you $5,000

57:41

a day to be in a hospital, nobody's

57:44

gonna ever make five grand off of that because

57:46

the negotiated rate with the insurance company is

57:48

like a thousand bucks a day. But

57:50

if you're paying that bill out of pocket without insurance,

57:53

they're gonna want five grand from you. And that's

57:56

the part that's really just sleazy. It's

57:58

this idea that large

58:00

for-profit corporations,

58:03

the insurance companies are

58:05

getting charged less for

58:07

the exact same procedures than

58:10

somebody that wants to just pay

58:12

immediately out of pocket. That's

58:14

just bullshit.

58:16

Yeah, one, my, one of my good friends who

58:18

just moved some, moved to, it was probably within the last

58:20

two, two years he moved to Germany and

58:22

he had to get his he get his gallbladder taken out,

58:25

cost him $1,900.

58:27

Mm-hmm.

58:28

in the US you, you go bankrupt,

58:31

19,000 just to start with.

58:33

Yeah, yeah. No, but just the,

58:35

but you know, it's the, it's the huge difference between

58:38

the different models. Right? Now, obviously I'm

58:40

not an advocate for, for universal

58:42

healthcare or anything like that, but

58:44

Fuck this capitalism. Bullshit man. Socialism's

58:47

the way to go.

58:48

at, but at the same time, the, you know, our, our,

58:50

our health system is, is

58:52

definitely very similar to the ATF

58:54

has kind of run wild for the last

58:57

for lack,

58:57

It, This is what happens with monopolies.

59:00

And you know, I'm a, a gamer

59:02

guy, so, I just started

59:05

playing the, what is it called?

59:07

Cyberpunk 2077.

59:09

Okay.

59:10

It came out like a year ago, but it was full of bugs.

59:12

And the advice that all the YouTubers

59:14

were giving is like, it's not ready yet.

59:17

Give it some time. Don't bother trying to buy

59:19

it right now or play it right now. You're only gonna be disappointed.

59:21

So I took that advice and

59:24

waited a year, but because of that, it

59:26

kind of got me all re invigorated on the whole

59:28

cyberpunk thing. So I started doing more reading

59:30

and more watching of stuff. And

59:32

I think that, you know, I've, ever

59:35

since I was a, a teenager, I've been

59:37

reading books on

59:39

this topic, Science fiction books books

59:41

in that cyber prong genre that, that,

59:44

that all have this commonality

59:47

of a a government that

59:49

is huge and overreaching,

59:52

combined with partnerships

59:54

with private industries, which

59:57

are companies too big to fail and again,

59:59

are overreaching this fear,

1:00:02

I think it's the best way to call it, has been expressed

1:00:04

by science fiction writers and readers

1:00:07

for easily 40, 50

1:00:09

years. But I think we're truly

1:00:13

recognizing that we are in that

1:00:15

state right now where

1:00:17

companies like Chase

1:00:19

Bank can kick out

1:00:21

a guy who is, if not a billionaire,

1:00:24

certainly a multimillionaire, and

1:00:27

say, Yeah, we don't like the statements that

1:00:29

you're making. We don't like what comes outta your mouth,

1:00:32

so fuck you and your money. We're not gonna do any

1:00:34

business with you. Kanye West

1:00:36

got his accounts shut down from Chase

1:00:38

Bank

1:00:39

Oh, because of, No. Yeah. I

1:00:42

now, they don't have to like

1:00:44

him. But at the same time, you

1:00:47

know, the customer was king for like

1:00:49

a good several hundred years. That

1:00:51

was the mantra of business, That was the

1:00:53

mantra of free enterprise. What

1:00:55

we have in this country right now

1:00:58

even though we keep talking about the Russian oligarchs,

1:01:01

but what we have in this country right now

1:01:03

is a much more corrupt, large

1:01:05

corporate structure or environment

1:01:08

for those structures than we've

1:01:10

ever had. And I think

1:01:12

at this point it's, it's definitely bigger

1:01:15

and worse than Russia. We have

1:01:17

companies that have their grubby fingers

1:01:20

in everything. Look at Google. What

1:01:22

does Google not have their hands in?

1:01:25

yeah. They have all of our data. They have and

1:01:27

you

1:01:27

they're the ones that are de platforming

1:01:30

guys that speak against them like Alex

1:01:32

Jones

1:01:33

Yeah. I mean

1:01:34

amongst others.

1:01:35

Well, amongst, yeah, amongst others. But you know, you look at. You

1:01:38

make a very valid point. You know, you look at the, the Russian

1:01:40

oligarchs that control, you know, large, the large

1:01:42

oil monopolies and, and you know, mining

1:01:45

our facilities for mining and such.

1:01:47

And you look at the us you know, our

1:01:49

companies are our, you know, our Bezos,

1:01:51

our, you

1:01:53

They have company stores due to, you know, when

1:01:55

I, last time I was visiting a

1:01:57

friend who works at Facebook, it's like when

1:01:59

you're walking into Facebook, it

1:02:01

is the embodiment of

1:02:04

what I imagined Detroit

1:02:07

was like in the 1950s and sixties

1:02:10

where everything owned

1:02:12

by the company. Everything

1:02:14

is provided to the employees

1:02:17

through the company. So we're not just talking

1:02:19

about, you know, company health insurance,

1:02:22

but like, you need

1:02:24

to buy stuff. You buy

1:02:26

it through the company or the company gives it to

1:02:28

you and if they don't give it to you, you get a discount

1:02:30

when you get it directly through them. The

1:02:32

food they had this is, mind you, this is one

1:02:34

of their buildings, but they had three different

1:02:36

restaurants with easily

1:02:39

what would be a $50 lunch

1:02:42

that was just free to all employees that

1:02:44

work in that building and guests. So I got

1:02:46

a free lunch out of it too. But it was

1:02:48

kinda like, this is insane

1:02:51

the amount of both money being spent

1:02:54

on kind of keeping their employees

1:02:57

aligned with the company, but also. The

1:03:00

amount of money that's being made by these companies

1:03:02

to allow them to do something like this.

1:03:04

And the way they're doing it is by constantly

1:03:07

finding new ways to get our

1:03:10

information, frankly, and then

1:03:12

make money off it by selling it to somebody

1:03:14

else, or selling products directly to

1:03:16

us, or buying companies

1:03:19

that we happen to be customers of

1:03:21

so that we become their customers.

1:03:23

You look at, you look at movies like are you familiar with the movie

1:03:25

Legum? With with Matt Damon?

1:03:27

Yeah. You look at movies like that. I The, the world is be

1:03:30

becomes a basically a

1:03:32

giant factory for these global

1:03:34

elites who live in this ring right outside the you

1:03:36

know, they live on this basically space station.

1:03:39

Yeah. But that's also why you need to control the

1:03:41

population.

1:03:42

Right, exactly. And then you there, you know, there's other movies that've

1:03:44

had that same premise. I believe there was one called

1:03:46

Incorporated. It was more like sci-fi based,

1:03:48

but that also had Matt Damon, Matt Damon really

1:03:50

likes that whole cyber punk future theme,

1:03:53

I guess. But you know, it has that dystopian

1:03:55

future, right? Where corporations rule the world

1:03:58

that, you know, if you work for a corporation,

1:04:00

the higher up the chain and the ladder, yet the corporation

1:04:03

directly correlates to the class you are in. Right?

1:04:05

Or if you're, if you don't work for a corporation,

1:04:07

you're, you live in a slum, right? So it's

1:04:10

a, and

1:04:11

Yeah. It's, it's the destruction of the middle

1:04:13

class and. Where

1:04:16

you have essentially only the

1:04:19

upper classes and the surfs.

1:04:22

And if you're not in the upper class, well,

1:04:24

you're a surf, whether you know it or not.

1:04:26

You know, I could, and you know, I think we're closer to

1:04:28

that future than,

1:04:30

than any other future

1:04:31

Oh, absolutely. I I, I totally

1:04:34

agree. And that's, like I said, after kind of

1:04:36

getting sucked more into this black

1:04:38

hole of cyberpunk and watching

1:04:40

some of these videos. Like one, the,

1:04:42

I watched a documentary about it just recently, which

1:04:44

was great. I definitely will post

1:04:46

a link to that in, Actually, I'll post

1:04:48

it in this episode too, but I'll post it at No Gen,

1:04:51

The Social. But there's

1:04:53

a lot of movies that have been made over

1:04:55

the years that portray

1:04:57

a future, and like movies made in the seventies,

1:04:59

eighties, nineties, that portray a future

1:05:02

where the corporations basically are more

1:05:04

important than governments. They're the ones actually

1:05:06

running things. And the,

1:05:08

the job of the government is essentially

1:05:11

to keep the people

1:05:14

being the corporations

1:05:16

Right

1:05:17

In, in, in a nutshell.

1:05:18

me to be a devil's advocate here? You know, when you

1:05:20

look at, you know, obviously those movies oftentimes

1:05:23

portray being in a, in a very

1:05:25

villainous way. But realistically,

1:05:28

you know, and this is being devil's advocate,

1:05:30

right? I'm not saying this is something I support in

1:05:33

any matter, but realist, you

1:05:35

know, if you, if at the core of it, right,

1:05:37

government governments have always failed

1:05:40

no matter, you know, their, their

1:05:42

success rate, you know, you know, us

1:05:45

has it's lifespan,

1:05:47

you know, however long that might be

1:05:49

after this, right? And whatever form that may take,

1:05:52

whether it be a civil war otherwise.

1:05:54

But corporations

1:05:56

are for-profit entities

1:05:59

in the, for the most part, right? So they have every f you

1:06:01

know, how, how bad

1:06:04

realistically would a, what a role be run

1:06:06

by corporations where you

1:06:08

know, you, you'd have that security of,

1:06:11

you know, profit. Oh,

1:06:13

go

1:06:14

and obviously I'm, I'm, you know,

1:06:16

been a capitalist my whole life and

1:06:18

believe in that. But I think

1:06:20

that there's a distinction here in why,

1:06:23

why governments exist. And a

1:06:26

corporations main government

1:06:28

governing tenant is

1:06:31

the profitability for the owners,

1:06:33

stockholders, or single owner, or whoever

1:06:36

the owners are. So any action

1:06:38

that the corporation does has

1:06:40

to be measured by will this increase

1:06:42

or decrease profitability? now

1:06:45

beyond that, you have other factors

1:06:47

to view. But there are

1:06:49

lesser factors than the profitability. And those factors

1:06:51

are things like risk factor. Am

1:06:54

I increasing the risk factor for the

1:06:56

sustainability and survival of the company by doing

1:06:58

something, even if it's profitable. And

1:07:00

then you have to balance one against the other.

1:07:03

But nowhere does

1:07:05

the idea of altruism

1:07:09

come into play with a corporation,

1:07:12

with a a set of tenants like

1:07:14

the us government established

1:07:16

at its creation. The, the freedom

1:07:18

of speech, is that profitable

1:07:21

to anyone?

1:07:22

Well, and that's the thing too, you know, I, I

1:07:24

just, I just went through HR training recently,

1:07:27

No. I, I'm sorry. I feel bad for

1:07:29

you.

1:07:29

No, it was, it was, it was interesting to say at least, it's definitely

1:07:31

changed a lot since I last took an HR

1:07:33

training. But one of the things that it, it, it

1:07:36

specifically said was freedom of speech

1:07:38

is while recognized you

1:07:40

know, as being a government given

1:07:43

writer, you know, it was interesting it said government

1:07:45

given, right? It is not a right that,

1:07:47

you know, corporations have to realize. Right. So

1:07:50

you, and, and it even applies outside

1:07:52

of the work, right? So what you post on Twitter, what you post

1:07:54

on LinkedIn, what you post, you

1:07:56

know, in a podcast for example it is

1:07:58

not, you know, if you associate

1:08:01

yourself or it can be associated to you

1:08:03

where you work and you say something that the company

1:08:05

doesn't like, they have every right to

1:08:07

take action against that, Right? Which,

1:08:11

The, which is absolutely

1:08:13

true and, and it

1:08:15

un underlines my point, which is that

1:08:18

there may be things that are preferable

1:08:20

for us as a society, which

1:08:23

are not preferable for us

1:08:25

as a corporation. And

1:08:28

free speech is a good example of that. The

1:08:30

Second Amendment is a good example of that

1:08:32

because as a corporation, you absolutely

1:08:34

do not want all your employees

1:08:37

to bear arms while

1:08:39

they're working for you. You will, you

1:08:41

will select and designate certain

1:08:44

employees security to

1:08:46

do that job, but you don't want all

1:08:48

your employees doing it for multiple reasons.

1:08:51

One is very simple,

1:08:53

which is accident prevention. You

1:08:55

don't want people having

1:08:58

any chance of accidents, and if

1:09:00

they don't have the guns with them, they don't have

1:09:02

gun accidents.

1:09:03

lower insurance.

1:09:04

But in, but that's lower

1:09:06

insurance because of the lower risk.

1:09:09

So if you're a big enough company, you're not buying insurance,

1:09:12

you're self-insuring. So

1:09:14

it's really reducing risk

1:09:16

and potential loss for you

1:09:18

as a society, as a country.

1:09:21

You want to ensure that all citizens

1:09:23

have certain rights, including

1:09:25

the right to, to self-defense,

1:09:28

the right to be armed, the right to be

1:09:30

able to utilize

1:09:32

those arms. So there are country,

1:09:35

you know, drivers here for a corporation

1:09:38

versus a a country.

1:09:41

If I'm, if I own a corporation

1:09:44

and I'm a gun guy and I tell

1:09:46

my employees, Hey, feel free to bring your

1:09:48

guns to work cuz we believe in that shit. What

1:09:50

I'm doing is I am accepting

1:09:52

a risk that

1:09:55

is contrary to the

1:09:57

principles of maximizing

1:09:59

profitability and reducing risk

1:10:01

to the corporation. So I'm doing it

1:10:03

in spite of what's good for the company, not

1:10:06

because it's good for the company. So

1:10:09

I think it's, that's the danger that lies,

1:10:11

and again, coming from somebody who's very much capitalist,

1:10:13

but that's the danger that lies in

1:10:16

letting the

1:10:19

ization of America keep moving forward,

1:10:21

which it's absolutely been doing. The other factor

1:10:24

that you have to keep in mind with companies

1:10:26

is you, the point of company,

1:10:28

obviously, again, is to be profitable to make money.

1:10:32

Part of what helps you make money

1:10:34

and ensures your profitability is

1:10:36

the elimination of competition. So,

1:10:40

A company that has reached the pinnacle

1:10:43

of its ability to be profitable, has

1:10:45

killed off all competitors

1:10:48

either acquired them or disrupted

1:10:50

their business enough that they are

1:10:52

no longer competitors.

1:10:54

So then you run into saturation.

1:10:55

So you, you end up with all

1:10:58

mono companies. So you have

1:11:00

one company in each sector

1:11:03

and no competition between those.

1:11:06

And then what ends up eventually happening

1:11:08

naturally from that is

1:11:10

a consolidation of

1:11:12

those companies to where you start

1:11:15

having these multinational companies

1:11:17

like BlackRock that literally

1:11:19

own full stack

1:11:22

sourcing to distribution,

1:11:24

to production, to manufacturing,

1:11:26

to sales to,

1:11:28

you know, insurance

1:11:30

Yeah.

1:11:31

to housing markets. It's like they literally own

1:11:34

every piece we, like, we

1:11:36

joke about everything you buy is made

1:11:38

in China. Well, everything that

1:11:40

you buy, you buy from

1:11:42

a company old by Black Rock, doesn't

1:11:44

matter what it's cause they, they own the

1:11:46

piece of everything.

1:11:48

Yeah, I think there's what only about four or five

1:11:50

actual companies

1:11:52

that rub pretty much run everything. There's

1:11:55

a, there's a good graphic that I was looking at the other

1:11:57

day, and it shows, for instance,

1:11:59

like the food, the food industry

1:12:01

as a

1:12:01

Mm-hmm.

1:12:02

you know, the fast food train chains

1:12:05

out there, you know, you're Taco Bell versus your McDonald's

1:12:08

Yum. Brands, right? So they're

1:12:09

Yeah, exactly. It's all the same company.

1:12:12

Yeah.

1:12:12

they're all coming outta the same tubes. They're

1:12:14

just being put in different molds. From a shape perspective,

1:12:17

and I'm talking about the meat

1:12:18

Yeah. And that's, and that's because that's

1:12:20

what's efficient, That's what helps drive

1:12:23

profitability is if you're constantly

1:12:25

having to deal with a competitor, a

1:12:27

much better thing to do would be to collude

1:12:29

with the competitor or just

1:12:31

for them to acquire you, or yolk to acquire

1:12:34

them.

1:12:34

or if you can control the entire supply

1:12:36

and you can maintain the brands

1:12:38

so that people have the appearance of competition,

1:12:42

but in the end, all the money is going

1:12:44

up the same chain. Yeah. And that

1:12:46

this is not good for the consumer.

1:12:49

It's not good for the individual. And that's where

1:12:51

we need to ensure the rights of individuals,

1:12:54

not of groups. Groups should have no rights.

1:12:57

That that is a concept that that is flawed.

1:12:59

There should not be such thing as group rates. Only

1:13:02

individuals should have rights.

1:13:05

Yep. And there's there's 11 companies

1:13:07

that control pretty much everything

1:13:10

consumers purchase at this point. I think it's

1:13:12

like Nestle Craft, Johnson

1:13:14

Johnson Mandels General

1:13:16

Mills, Mars, Kellogg, Pepsi Co.

1:13:19

Unilever, Coca-Cola, p g, So

1:13:22

and they,

1:13:22

and I, I've worked for five of those.

1:13:25

that, that's But yeah, I and if you look at the acquisition,

1:13:28

so I, I'm looking at a chart here that shows recent acquisitions.

1:13:31

They, they do, they, you know, anything supply

1:13:33

chain related, so downstream that

1:13:35

can make something more efficiently just purchase the

1:13:37

Yeah. Yeah. And it, that's

1:13:39

the right move for them. You know? There's

1:13:41

nothing inherently, and that's why, kind of tying

1:13:43

back to the beginning of our conversation, this

1:13:46

is the problem I think with a lot of conservatives,

1:13:49

libertarians, thoughts on this idea

1:13:51

of the elites, is they're

1:13:53

thinking these elites are just evil.

1:13:56

They're not evil. They're

1:13:58

doing what they should

1:14:00

be doing in order to maximize

1:14:03

their comfort, their

1:14:06

finances, and their business

1:14:08

success.

1:14:09

Yeah, one of my good friends told me there's no such thing as evil.

1:14:11

It, there's only such thing as making your shareholders

1:14:14

happy. So

1:14:15

Yeah. And that's, that's exactly right.

1:14:18

And the shareholders

1:14:20

and this is the other part, is that the, a

1:14:22

largest reason why these companies have been allowed

1:14:24

to get as big as they have, why

1:14:26

they're so little competition is because

1:14:28

everybody keeps their money in mutual fucking

1:14:30

funds.

1:14:32

401ks,

1:14:33

Yeah. This is the problem. This is what's

1:14:35

created these mega corpses. Back

1:14:38

when people had to keep their money in a

1:14:40

bank or they made individual

1:14:42

investment choices decisions, there

1:14:45

was no opportunity for somebody

1:14:47

to come along. And be

1:14:49

able to make billion dollar plus

1:14:52

investments on the whim. You

1:14:54

know, the decisions of who gets the

1:14:56

aggregate of all the money, of all the

1:14:59

people that all have it in the same fund as you,

1:15:02

is literally done by a handful of guys.

1:15:04

If you watch the show Billions, and

1:15:06

I know it's totally fictional, but it

1:15:08

gives you a little bit of a sense of just how

1:15:11

little you should really rely on these folks

1:15:13

to make you money.

1:15:14

Well, it also, you know, that's a that's a great

1:15:16

show to reference the fact that when,

1:15:19

when you mentioned the, you know, the, the evil

1:15:21

aspect, you know, the, the main character

1:15:23

in that, in that show, you know, are

1:15:25

his actions. Would you

1:15:27

consider those evil or would you

1:15:29

No, not at

1:15:30

No. Yeah, cuz his end

1:15:32

goal, whether he, you know, is

1:15:34

screwing over another company

1:15:37

by purchasing them or, or you

1:15:39

know, cutting them out or even,

1:15:42

you know, shore selling them, you know, at the end

1:15:44

while he's impacting their lives. Right. And making,

1:15:46

you know, either banking erupting them as a

1:15:48

company, you know, in their eyes that could be perceived

1:15:50

as, you know, Ill contended

1:15:53

or what you would say would be evil Right.

1:15:55

Quotation marks. But at the end of the day, it's just business.

1:15:57

Right? He's,

1:15:58

E exactly. It is just business

1:16:00

and in the end

1:16:02

the, the best course of

1:16:04

action that you can do is just to grow

1:16:06

big enough that it makes it harder

1:16:09

for companies like his to

1:16:11

disrupt you. So companies

1:16:14

typically make good decision. For

1:16:17

themselves in a vacuum. The

1:16:20

aggregate of all those decisions

1:16:22

made in a vacuum that's good for the individual

1:16:24

companies creates an atmosphere

1:16:26

that's bad for all the consumers and employees.

1:16:29

yeah. So you know, and that ties into

1:16:32

the main problem or one of the, I think, main

1:16:34

problems currently in government,

1:16:37

which is super pacs

1:16:39

and pacs in general. Right. So,

1:16:41

most of the

1:16:42

Yeah, that's a, that's a tough one because

1:16:44

putting limits on who

1:16:47

you can give money to really empathizes

1:16:49

the fact that you are a slave and not a Freeman.

1:16:52

Right. No, I think that's to that exact

1:16:54

point. Right. But it also shows

1:16:57

that the, the

1:16:59

true independence from government

1:17:01

as a, as an entity and corporations

1:17:04

as entities, that they're very

1:17:06

fine in line. You mentioned BlackRock earlier,

1:17:08

right? How many, how many BlackRock executives

1:17:10

have served as Secretary of Treasuries

1:17:12

or in the secretary or in

1:17:14

treasury, or as some type of financial

1:17:17

advisor in, in a government capacity, and then

1:17:19

gone right back to BlackRock after they served their, serve,

1:17:21

their term,

1:17:21

Yeah. And again, these people are all doing what

1:17:24

is the most optimal course of action

1:17:26

for themselves.

1:17:27

the self-preservation

1:17:28

you can't, you can't fault somebody

1:17:30

for taking a job that

1:17:33

makes the most sense to take, you know, it,

1:17:35

it's, it's not corruption.

1:17:37

In the sense that they're,

1:17:40

they're keeping somebody else out. Everybody

1:17:43

is making the right decision for themselves.

1:17:46

If you are starting up a new administration

1:17:49

and you want to have the most impact on business,

1:17:52

would you rather hire somebody that was a university

1:17:54

professor or somebody that's

1:17:56

on the board? Directors of BlackRock?

1:17:58

Yeah. It's the whole premise behind

1:18:01

the private versus public argument in regards

1:18:03

to, you know, you, we you know, the,

1:18:05

one of the companies I've worked for being in cybersecurity,

1:18:08

you know, the, the biggest issue in the public sector.

1:18:11

Side of things for cybersecurity is, is retaining

1:18:13

talent due to due to the fact that they just

1:18:15

can't pay, right? They're, they're not a profit generating

1:18:18

entity. In, in, in, in the most of the

1:18:20

senses. Right. They're typically a service

1:18:22

right. Government governments are typically services to their

1:18:24

folks, right? So when

1:18:26

you look at private versus public, it's hard to retain

1:18:29

good talent on the public side

1:18:31

Yeah. I don't know, dude. When you start looking

1:18:33

at the actual payrolls of a

1:18:35

lot of government employees, I think people

1:18:37

would be very surprised. The

1:18:40

average salary for a policeman in the

1:18:42

US is over a hundred thousand dollars average.

1:18:45

In California, it's over $200,000

1:18:48

for a cop. Now people

1:18:50

already dislike.

1:18:53

Is that bribes included? No,

1:18:54

No, no, no. That includes overtime that,

1:18:57

that includes like $120,000

1:18:59

salary and $80,000 of overtime because

1:19:02

all cops work overtime. That's like

1:19:04

a standard thing that, that's part of the

1:19:06

gig that they, you're gonna be expected

1:19:08

to do. But also you understand

1:19:11

that you're getting paid substantially

1:19:13

more with overtime. So I'm

1:19:16

not saying that they're, like, they're

1:19:18

base salaries or 200 grand in

1:19:20

California, but the

1:19:22

average cop in California,

1:19:24

including, you know, small cities, so they're

1:19:26

balanced out by the large cities like San Francisco

1:19:29

their average is over $200,000

1:19:31

a year in taxable income.

1:19:34

No. Is that, that, that's probably scales though,

1:19:36

based on the

1:19:38

municipality that you're

1:19:39

Absolutely. So the, the San Francisco

1:19:42

cops, there's some making 300 grand and

1:19:44

that, that means there's some cops in Bakersfield

1:19:46

making 110.

1:19:47

And then, and then there's cops in, in pod towns

1:19:50

where I live that make 30, 40. So

1:19:53

Well, but again, I think you'd be surprised base

1:19:55

maybe, but if you actually did a, a

1:19:57

public records request for salaries, which you can

1:19:59

absolutely do from any municipality

1:20:01

you'd realize that even the cops that have

1:20:03

a base salary, I don't think anyone has 30,000

1:20:05

right now, but they probably have 50. But

1:20:08

even the cops that are on 50,000 base salary,

1:20:11

when you look at their total taxable income for the

1:20:13

year, is probably pushing a hundred.

1:20:15

yeah, I, I'd say it's pretty, the amount of hours that

1:20:17

some of the guys I know work, especially

1:20:19

Yeah, and, and I've talked about this too, the

1:20:21

personality type of a person

1:20:23

that goes into police work is just

1:20:25

a hair different than

1:20:27

the personality type of a person that goes

1:20:29

to prison. It's the

1:20:32

same freaking psych profile on

1:20:34

both of those

1:20:34

or goes to prison

1:20:36

Oh, no, no, no. It doesn't work in prison. They get

1:20:38

caught and put in prison. It's the

1:20:40

same psych profile for both types. This well,

1:20:42

well known fact. And, and

1:20:44

so what you have are people

1:20:47

that on average can't maintain

1:20:49

relationships. Neither criminals

1:20:51

nor cops. They, they

1:20:53

can't they, they are, what's the phrase?

1:20:56

Hyper predictive personality disorder to

1:20:58

where they, they

1:21:00

get obsessed with things and they bring

1:21:03

'em to extremes. Very

1:21:06

true of the average policeman as much is

1:21:08

of the average criminal out there. There, there's

1:21:10

an awful lot of commonalities that you

1:21:13

find between the two

1:21:15

groups. And one

1:21:17

of the things that the police do to

1:21:21

alleviate their

1:21:23

frustrations, let's say, is

1:21:26

doing that overtime work because

1:21:28

they're making more money and they're getting to

1:21:31

do more stuff that could result

1:21:33

in getting and actually, Spiking

1:21:36

down adrenaline. Cuz that's the other thing

1:21:38

that both of these groups have in common is that they,

1:21:40

they both tend to be adrenaline junkies.

1:21:43

Well and that same topic too. IQ plays a lot

1:21:45

in that too. IQ and eq. Cuz getting

1:21:47

caught I think is the biggest differentiator. Right?

1:21:49

Right. In a lot of that, cuz

1:21:51

There's a lot of cops getting caught lately. That's

1:21:53

Well, yeah, that's

1:21:53

cameras everywhere now is that more and more

1:21:55

cops are getting caught.

1:21:56

But I think the average American breaks,

1:21:59

what, 260? I'm

1:22:01

actually, I just Google it. 260 law. The average American

1:22:04

breaks 260 laws

1:22:06

or 200 breaks the law 260 times a year. Couldn't

1:22:08

get that out. Right. So the average Americans breaking about

1:22:11

thought you were gonna say per week

1:22:12

No, if not, per week two. So, so

1:22:14

the average person breaks the law

1:22:17

260 times a year or it's five times a week.

1:22:19

So on any given day, you're gonna

1:22:21

do something that breaks. Now it's

1:22:23

one, are you gonna get caught?

1:22:26

Are you, you know, and then, so, you know, and that ties

1:22:28

probably a lot to like intelligence. Like how often, Oh,

1:22:30

you don't have to answer that on, on in a public

1:22:32

manner, but, but how often do you think you

1:22:34

break the law?

1:22:35

I never break the law.

1:22:36

Okay. But just in general, like, you,

1:22:39

you'd be surprised, I imagine, like if you, if

1:22:41

you,

1:22:42

Oh, I don't know about that. No, I, I

1:22:44

think that the, There

1:22:47

is, I mean you bring up a fun point. I've got a big smile

1:22:49

on my face here cuz it's topic I've heard before,

1:22:51

which is that the view

1:22:53

of criminals is very skewed because the

1:22:55

only criminals that we have perspectives

1:22:58

on are the ones that get.

1:22:59

Yeah.

1:23:00

The, the guys that are the professional jewel

1:23:02

thieves, art thieves, et

1:23:05

cetera, that go on for

1:23:07

40, 50 years, making money

1:23:09

in that way, and they're

1:23:11

part of polite upper class society

1:23:14

never get caught and nobody

1:23:16

knows about 'em. And that's why the typical

1:23:19

view of what a criminal is, is really

1:23:22

technically not a view of the criminal,

1:23:24

It's the view of the criminals

1:23:27

who are bad at their job.

1:23:29

Well, it's the, you know, you also have to

1:23:31

consider too, like white call crimes versus,

1:23:34

you know,

1:23:34

Yeah. No, that's, that's absolutely true

1:23:36

as well.

1:23:37

You know, versus like, you know, actually violent crimes

1:23:40

or drug related crimes. Right? Like

1:23:42

we just saw Biden basically,

1:23:45

I don't know if that was considered an official pardon necessarily,

1:23:47

but, uh Right. He, he basically

1:23:49

is, is looking to wipe. And

1:23:52

you know, I'm not saying positively in any manner

1:23:54

cuz I'm not a fan of Biden by any stretch of the imagination.

1:23:56

But I'm, you know, he, he was able to string together

1:23:58

a sentence in which he said that he was, you

1:24:00

know, basically allowing anyone with a previous

1:24:03

possession charge for marijuana.

1:24:05

Right. To, to not either

1:24:08

have that on the record anymore or not

1:24:10

impact their ability to get student loans.

1:24:12

Like So Fafa loans. Right. Cause that was

1:24:14

Yeah. It still impacts your ability to buy a gun though.

1:24:16

Correct. Yeah, no, I mean,

1:24:18

very selective with their words.

1:24:19

well, of course we,

1:24:20

And the only reason he is saying it

1:24:22

is because we have a midterms coming up and as soon as

1:24:24

the midterms are over, he is gonna walk it back.

1:24:26

Yeah, but he's, he's, he's, I think he's looking at the wrong,

1:24:28

how many heads do you know that vote I

1:24:30

think he's looking at, I think he's talking to the wrong crowd when

1:24:33

he

1:24:33

they don't have to vote. The Democrats will vote on their

1:24:35

behalf.

1:24:36

Well, that's true. Or the old, Well, you know, the

1:24:38

So the problem is when you start going through the

1:24:40

voting records and you realize that people that are

1:24:42

voting are actually not allowed to vote,

1:24:44

we're not alive,

1:24:45

well that's always been the case, but

1:24:48

you know when, when a lot of the names

1:24:50

they're using to cast those Democrat

1:24:52

votes are people that

1:24:54

have criminal records that aren't allowed to

1:24:56

vote and that didn't bother going

1:24:58

and voting cuz they know better. But nonetheless,

1:25:01

their votes have been put in the system and counted.

1:25:04

That's a problem for the Democrats.

1:25:06

Yeah. But no, I just, I

1:25:08

think that it's an, it's an odd thing for him to

1:25:11

him to do. But I think you're right. It's definitely a play for the,

1:25:14

for the midterms. So, but I think there's a lot of other

1:25:16

things going on that are not going so

1:25:18

well for, for him. So, but no

1:25:20

back to what you were,

1:25:22

what you were talking about a couple minutes ago in regards to

1:25:25

you know, we, we kinda lost our train there, but

1:25:27

but the, the, the cop thing and, and going back

1:25:29

to, you know, in regards to pay scales

1:25:32

and, and such, you know, I from a, from a

1:25:34

government percentage, you know, I, I, I

1:25:36

can definitely see where you're going in regards to, I'd

1:25:38

be surprised from a public to private

1:25:40

perspective what, what people are making.

1:25:43

But you know, I would also say

1:25:45

that yeah, there's, you know,

1:25:47

a gap in, in, in some of the industries

1:25:50

in regards to private versus public,

1:25:53

Yeah, there, there might be a gap, but I, I think

1:25:55

it's it, it's not so much a

1:25:58

problematic gap, it's just in

1:26:01

a symptom of how slowly

1:26:03

the government moves, because

1:26:05

at some point there was no gap

1:26:07

within that industry, and the government

1:26:09

was paying exactly what private industry was.

1:26:12

But as talent became less

1:26:14

available or as the, the need

1:26:17

for that talent increased, private

1:26:19

industry was able to change its pay rates

1:26:21

much faster than government does. But another

1:26:23

one is like FBI agents. Tons of a

1:26:25

FBI agents right now are

1:26:28

over the $200,000 mark. And again,

1:26:30

when it comes down to is don't just look

1:26:32

at the base salary, look at the full package that

1:26:34

these people are making. The government is very

1:26:36

successful at recruiting new hires

1:26:39

to the fbi. And because

1:26:42

typically when they're hiring to the fbi,

1:26:44

they're not looking for somebody coming right out of college.

1:26:47

They're looking for somebody that's in their

1:26:49

late twenties, early thirties. Somebody

1:26:51

that's got like a decade of experie. And

1:26:54

you know, whether it's for the cyber crime task force,

1:26:56

whether it's for you know, the anti drug task

1:26:58

force or, or whether it's for international

1:27:01

related task forces, but they're,

1:27:03

they're typically looking for people

1:27:06

that they don't have to train from scratch,

1:27:09

but that they just have to kind of get them

1:27:11

into the FBI mindset.

1:27:13

Yeah, I, I wonder if that's regional though. So I'm,

1:27:15

I'm looking at an fbi the title exactly.

1:27:17

It's the fbi,

1:27:18

Mm-hmm.

1:27:18

Agent Cybersecurity Technology. And obviously

1:27:20

I'm using the cyber security as a

1:27:21

Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

1:27:22

the field I'm in. But you know, the benefits

1:27:24

show a range of 66,991

1:27:27

to 86,000

1:27:29

yeah. That's the base rate.

1:27:30

That's the base rate. Right.

1:27:31

Yeah. Yeah. But you're gonna get at least

1:27:33

double that when you start adding in

1:27:36

the the travel pay, the

1:27:38

overtime pay, the special

1:27:40

task force, bonus pay, and all these other

1:27:43

categories that all

1:27:45

add up at the end of the year. This is, this is the distinction you have

1:27:47

to make and, and what people use when they

1:27:49

try to obfuscate the issue is they

1:27:52

show you the base pay for that particular

1:27:54

level of government job. What

1:27:56

you need to look at is what are the actual

1:27:58

taxable incomes of the average

1:28:01

person in that position. And obviously

1:28:03

somebody in their first year working there isn't gonna

1:28:05

get those top salaries, but I've,

1:28:07

I've interacted with folks on a business

1:28:10

perspective that have retired from the FBI

1:28:13

in their forties. And so they're still gonna

1:28:15

be making a pension

1:28:18

for the rest of their life. And

1:28:20

in their forties, they're young enough to go

1:28:22

off and, and have a, a, you know, a

1:28:25

new career making six figures

1:28:27

at their, whatever the other job, or starting

1:28:30

up a new business and be entrepreneurs about it.

1:28:32

Yeah, that's a

1:28:32

There's a lot of benefits that come

1:28:35

to a government job. The insurance

1:28:37

coverage is unsurpassed. And with

1:28:39

my other co-host, Darren, he just talked

1:28:41

about it, I think last week or two weeks ago.

1:28:44

His wife has a government job now, and he's just

1:28:46

raving about all the benefits that she's

1:28:48

now able to get, which,

1:28:50

you know, she didn't have at her job

1:28:52

in a, a commercial company.

1:28:54

Yeah, that's a great point. I'm glad you I'll have

1:28:56

to little do a little more research on that. I've

1:28:58

Why? You wanna go work for the feds? Is that what you're saying?

1:29:00

no, not, not, not at all. I'm quite happy

1:29:02

with my current career and investments

1:29:05

that I made, but you know, we, we

1:29:07

have you know, it's just good to know and,

1:29:09

and, you know, you, you take those misassumptions,

1:29:11

right? And, you know, you just kind run with them for a long time

1:29:13

and you don't do any research or and

1:29:15

then it's nice having someone with

1:29:17

yeah. Well, you also look at the

1:29:19

teachers and it's the same thing everyone. Oh, teachers

1:29:21

are underpaid. They're underpaid. No,

1:29:23

they're not underpaid. First

1:29:26

of all, if you want to make sure that your kid

1:29:28

gets a first rate education, you're gonna send 'em

1:29:30

to private school anyway. You're not gonna, or.

1:29:33

Better yet home school, that'd be the ideal. But if

1:29:35

you can't do that, then it's a private school. But

1:29:37

even in public school with what they're complaining

1:29:40

about, Okay, let's look at teachers. So teachers work

1:29:42

for nine months out of the year. Most

1:29:45

of 'em don't just sit back and chill for

1:29:47

the whole summer. They work

1:29:49

summer school jobs or other jobs. So again,

1:29:52

you can say, Well, the teacher salary,

1:29:54

that's only $55,000 a year.

1:29:56

That's not enough money for what they do.

1:29:59

Okay, but that's for nine months. Let's look

1:30:01

at what the actual taxable income for that

1:30:03

average person is. Oh, it's $80,000

1:30:06

a year. Well, all of a sudden maybe

1:30:08

that's not so bad for a teacher.

1:30:10

That's a good point with the the month's work

1:30:12

and such.

1:30:13

Yeah. And they get, and they're in jobs that get overtime.

1:30:16

I think, I think the argument there stems from that

1:30:19

the from a teacher's perspective, if

1:30:22

you are working nine months out of the year

1:30:24

in one job, the ability

1:30:26

to get a second job that would pay as well

1:30:28

Mm-hmm.

1:30:29

would be difficult just for those three

1:30:31

months to make up

1:30:32

But there, but there, there are a lot of opportunities

1:30:35

either within the school district or, you

1:30:37

know, it's like you are, what are you really being paid

1:30:39

for as a teacher? You're hurting kids.

1:30:41

Yeah. And, and

1:30:42

not hurting her, ding,

1:30:44

hurting kids.

1:30:45

There's a lot of, there's a lot of options too right now

1:30:48

for online colleges,

1:30:50

in schools. You know, I just recently

1:30:52

graduated my master's and I did it 100% online,

1:30:55

and the, the, the teacher that, or the professor

1:30:57

that I had he is a,

1:30:59

a doctor in cybersecurity and, but he also

1:31:02

Jesus. That's hilarious to hear.

1:31:04

no, there's, yeah, there's doctors for cybersecurity, there's cyber,

1:31:07

cyber forensics you know, all that fun stuff.

1:31:09

But but as I graduated my master's and,

1:31:11

and he, I was talking to, to him when I was

1:31:13

submitting my, my final paperwork for that.

1:31:15

And I was like, So do you do this

1:31:17

full time? He goes, No, I also work at

1:31:20

a high school.

1:31:20

mm-hmm.

1:31:21

And it's a private school as you mentioned.

1:31:23

And, and he he teaches a couple classes

1:31:26

there during the year, but he also does

1:31:28

work online and he makes quite

1:31:30

a bit of money doing that on, He's like, I

1:31:32

can do this. You know, the nine to five

1:31:35

with the, with actually signing nine to five. It's, you

1:31:37

know, like eight to eight to two with

1:31:39

the kids, and then I can go grade

1:31:42

papers for college and make a ton of money doing that

1:31:44

online. He goes, I can work for as many college as I want. They don't have

1:31:46

non-competes.

1:31:47

or be a tutor for rich people

1:31:50

for that topic. There's a lot of, lot of things

1:31:52

that you can do. There's

1:31:54

nothing that says that you have to make

1:31:56

all your money from one single

1:31:58

job. In fact, more and more Americans can't

1:32:01

do that because their single

1:32:03

job doesn't pay enough.

1:32:05

Yep. And.

1:32:07

So I, you know, I'm not. Like,

1:32:09

I'm not an anarchist. I would never

1:32:11

categorize myself into that category,

1:32:14

but I also feel like I'm a lot

1:32:16

more anarchistic,

1:32:19

anarchistic, I guess it's the word than

1:32:22

lot of the conservative friends that I have.

1:32:24

I don't see a huge amount

1:32:26

of benefit

1:32:28

to maintaining a lot of the

1:32:30

institutions that we currently have in

1:32:33

their current form. I think

1:32:35

that they've grown fat

1:32:38

and not horribly

1:32:40

useful and counterproductive

1:32:43

in some measures. And that

1:32:45

doing resets on these things with

1:32:47

some regularity to get them back to

1:32:49

inefficient and lean state would be

1:32:51

very advisable. But of course,

1:32:53

it, it'd be disruptive and people are always bitching

1:32:56

about not wanting to be disrupted.

1:32:58

Middle management has always been a, been a,

1:33:00

been an issue, whether it be corporations

1:33:02

or government entities, right? the,

1:33:05

the lean organization is oftentimes

1:33:07

the most efficient and quickest

1:33:09

to be able to pivot. And I think that's the big issue

1:33:11

we run into is there's a lot of bloat

1:33:14

when it comes to the, the

1:33:17

people that you talk to or the people that you interact

1:33:19

with in an organization versus the, the folks

1:33:21

actually, you know, running shop.

1:33:23

So,

1:33:24

Yeah. No, it, it's,

1:33:26

it's very true. And part

1:33:29

of it really has to do with the fact that what do

1:33:31

you do with people? like, you don't wanna lose

1:33:33

them, so you gotta do something.

1:33:36

So you gotta promote 'em

1:33:38

you know, I,

1:33:39

And then that's who becomes middle management

1:33:41

I, I've worked in leadership positions before and there's been people

1:33:43

that we've had to eliminate roles

1:33:45

and, and these were union positions that,

1:33:47

that I managed for, for a while. And so it's a d it's

1:33:49

a little bit different, right? Cuz they, there's, you know, you have to

1:33:52

go by the contract and, and whatnot. But it's

1:33:55

the same mindset as well as when, you know, when you're downsizing

1:33:57

like that and you, and you have folks

1:34:00

or that you wanna retain. There, there's ways

1:34:02

to retain them without creating bloat in the organization.

1:34:05

You know, finding, finding

1:34:07

something of value that they do and maybe

1:34:09

but the, but I guess at the end of the day there's, there's

1:34:11

ge tried to implement

1:34:14

the system to prevent

1:34:16

that kind of blow from happening. And

1:34:19

I think it worked out pretty well for them

1:34:21

initially. And then they started getting a bad reputation

1:34:23

about it. And that, I can't remember the actual

1:34:26

term for this process, cause it existed

1:34:28

before GE implemented

1:34:30

it as well. But the idea is

1:34:32

that every year you cut 20%

1:34:34

of your workforce. So your, your

1:34:37

lowest performers always

1:34:39

get cut every year. And then

1:34:41

you just, you're hiring continuously throughout

1:34:43

the whole year. And so

1:34:46

you're really trimming,

1:34:50

It's like trimming the fat off the, the

1:34:52

slab of meat. Continuously

1:34:54

at every opportunity. And eventually

1:34:57

getting to a situation where not

1:34:59

only do you have the best people, but even the people

1:35:01

that are getting trimmed off now that are

1:35:03

the bottom 20%

1:35:06

would be considered pretty good performers

1:35:08

in other companies. And that gives you

1:35:10

a huge competitive advantage in only having

1:35:12

top players. Amazon did that for quite

1:35:14

a few years. They actually emulated GEs

1:35:16

policy. They got a really bad rap for that as

1:35:18

well. And they changed their tune back

1:35:21

about five years ago, I believe.

1:35:23

So that right now there's a lot more bloated

1:35:26

Amazon than there used to be.

1:35:28

Yeah, they call it the Vitality Curve typically.

1:35:30

The company I worked for

1:35:31

there you go.

1:35:32

prior to the last two companies, I,

1:35:34

I, is, is a very large telecom

1:35:36

company. Who, who their logos blue and