Global Trade This Week – Episode 121
What’s going on in Global Trade this Week? Today Trade Geek Pete Mento & Doug Draper of Inland Star Distribution cover:
5:14 -Black Swan to be a Buzzword in 2024
8:37 -Black Swans as an Excuse
15:32 -Halftime
28:00 -Truck Brokerage in a Tailspin (Market Correction)
32:39 -Are Supply Chains & Economies Ready for Another Pandemic?
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Keenan Brugh 0:00
You're watching global trade this week with Pete mento and Doug Draper.
Pete Mento 0:11
Hello, everyone, and welcome to what I'm sure it's going to be a memorable edition of global trade this week. I am Pete mento. And with me, as always, except when he's not, is my partner in crime. My co host, Mr. Doug Draper. Doug, how are you?
Doug Draper 0:27
I'm good. I'm doing really well. We are literally on opposite sides of the country. I'm in the great city of Fresno, California this week. And you can see that your background, your office, when you travel is a little bit more dynamic. I like I'm in a box, right. Usually I'm in a three by three box. When I'm at the co working space in Denver here. I mean, like a 10 by 10. white box. As you can see, from my background, it's okay, I got my laptop and an empty room. But that way I focus on business, Pete TCB, trying to close them. Close some business out here. Get it, buddy. Yeah, I'm in Indianapolis. In our office, Indianapolis. I'm giving a client seminar tomorrow to a bunch of our customers here in Indiana. And I guess, Ohio and we have some folks from Kentucky that are coming up. So that's exciting. I'll be giving 14 client seminars in the first and second quarter of next year. So hopefully I'll be seeing people at those. I was in California earlier this week. Duck I was in San Diego. Beautiful. I'm very jealous that you get to be in California as much as you are. The weather is pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, we wouldn't be a bunch of old bald men without talking about the weather because it is actually pretty nice here in Fresno. So yeah, hip replacements 401 ks weather. That's, that's how we roll buddy. Yeah. But Doug, I want you to I want you to take the opportunity to tell folks where we'll be in December. Yeah, speaking to hip replacements and old people. We're heading to Boca baby.
Pete Mento 1:57
Vegas, okay.
Doug Draper 1:58
boek not Boca del list. But Boca Raton, Florida. So we have been honored to print or not produced but take our show on the road. We're going to take our talents to Miami, so to speak. And the transported Asset Protection Association, as some of you may know, as Tampa is having their tappa T two annual conference down there on December 5 and sixth of this of this year. And Cindy, who's the executive director has invited us to come down. So we're going to do a live show seems like that's kind of a trend with podcasts nowadays. So we'll be there. I believe it's day one. We'll shake it all out with the time. But Pete We're going down there. We're taking our show on the road. And I'm very excited and I'm very grateful for tat and Cindy for extending the invitation. So I've never been but you have so tell me what we tell me what we should tell me what I should expect them and and what our listeners should expect as
Pete Mento 2:55
well. Well actually said Tampa is the absolutely the most prestigious of all the top of America's creates the standards, if you will for for secure transportation for goods across the world, international and domestic. And then those standards are audited by that organization, individual and organization. And those standards really set the stage for making sure that goods get from one place to another in the most secure possible way. logistics firms, transport transportation firms freight forwarders, three pls warehousing firms and the actual shippers themselves do a lot of work to establish these processes constantly improve them, based on the way that the environment changes as well. And they meet all over the world to collaborate with one another to talk about what's happening in the world of security, transportation interdiction to work on always making them better. So this meeting in particular, in Florida, I think it happens in Florida every year they meet in Nashville as well. Usually Nashville, they get together lots of great presentations, lots of collaboration amongst one another and this is a first to have someone come down there and give you know do their podcasts live in front of everyone. I generally do speak at Tampa Tampa has been absolutely wonderful to me in my career. City Rosen is one of my favorite people. Not just professionals but favorite people inside the industry outside of the industry she is an absolute joy to human being how she keeps that band of feral cats together. She actually lives in a species in bogus still, but thank you to her thank you to chuck Forsyth, thank you got the list goes on and on. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to mention like 1000 people doing this. Thank you to absolutely everyone at Tampa for inviting us. We're very excited to be down there. Very excited to be doing The show, and I promise you, for those of you that are going, we're gonna we're gonna bring a lot of great stuff when we're down there. So looking forward to seeing everyone in Boca. When we get down there,
Doug Draper 5:09
yeah, we're gonna bring the heat for sure. It'll be fun. It'll be fun. Alright, so we're gonna tag team, this first one, Pete. And it's, I forget where I know, sometime last week, I heard this term. And I was like, what was what? What does that term right. And I think it's going to be the buzzword for 2024 in our industry, and maybe a lot of other industries, but a black swan event, right. So other than probably what people could think that that means it's a extremely rare event that has severe consequences, whether direct or indirect, and PETA can't be predicted beforehand. Anyway, there may be some false claims that it should have been predicted, you know, catastrophic damage to an economy and negatively impact markets and investments and blah, blah, blah. So you can get an idea of what that what that looks like. So I believe, again, in a predictive nature of the show, because we've talked about what's coming up, not what has happened in the past, is that black swan is going to be a common term. And I think kind of like the news feed, I'm still old school, and I definitely watch the evening news. And everything they talk about is breaking news. Breaking News, this breaking news that and when you and I were growing up, breaking news was saved for maybe a term use once a week, right? Because of, but everything is great in term. And I hope that the black swan usage of that term does not go overboard. But you know, you got wars can create problems with fuel, and what is fuel do with international trade and domestic trucking companies and things of that nature. And then cyber attacks is more towards data flow and, and not keeping, you know, control of data. We've seen labor situations, which would be defined as a black swan event, but in reality, it's just labor negotiations. We've seen that in all kinds of industries specific to ours, ups and yellow, you know, that whole Suez Canal blockage that happened a couple of years ago, that kind of shut everything down. And then the climate, you know, the rivers in Europe, and what's going on down on the Panama Canal, you know, I don't know if these are black swan events, but they will be sold as that. So disruption in the flow of goods, higher cost, inventory is going to be out of whack, and you can't prepare for it. So the only thing that we could advise or at least what I would advise Pete is what we did way back in February of 2020. When you when I predicted the implications of COVID in our supply chain is that you better have a plan B and you better diversify your sourcing your carriers, your warehouses, anything that touches your supply chain, diversified, diversified, diversify, so you can pivot because the analytics and the consulting firms out there that are going to say go left or right, may not be accurate because of unforeseen circumstances which appear to be happening more and more. So I don't know if Black Swan is going to be a buzzword. I think it will be. And we better be prepared for it, Pete because it's not going to stop anytime soon. You have some good opinions on Black Swan. So I'm going to volley this over the core or over the over to you and we'll see what's up. What's your take on black swan events for 2024.
Pete Mento 8:38
When you mentioned this in your in your show notes, I said, I've been talking a lot about this in my public speeches. And the reason I've been talking about it is I'm not sure that in 2023, given our predictive analytics tools, given AI, and how much we've learned about the world around us, we can credibly use this term anymore. Anyone that looked at the early days of COVID should have seen what was going to happen. And I'm beginning to say a lot in public that the term Black Swan event is an excuse. It's an excuse for people who who if they would have just stopped for a moment and looked at what was going on, should have been able to note and warn that this was possible in the current global economy. Because there's so much fear for making a mistake. People are just afraid to put out an opinion that could be wrong. You and I don't have a problem with that. I certainly don't have a problem with that. I made a lot of predictions at the beginning of COVID that were right. I made some that were pretty damn wrong. And I was more than happy to get on this show and a lot of other ones and own the fact that I was I was off off the ball on a couple of them, I was terrifying the write about a lot of other ones as well. But if you look at many of the situations, that would be termed black swan events that would affect the supply chain over the course of the next 10 years. They're easily predictable dog. America being pulled into a war in Eastern Europe would would cause black swan events and supply chains crash to the American Housing Market. Chinese economy melting down, America being pulled into war in the Middle East. They a shale revolution in America coming back affecting the price of energy and how that would affect the cost of supply chain, all the things being neutral, a cyber event, a major cyber event, which is at this point, likely, it's likely. But you're not you and I both know, you and I both know that if there was a cyber event that hit a major American port, oh, is black swan event. Now discussing that happening. I will I will pull up 100 commentators on cybersecurity, who would have said, who can point to entire PowerPoint presentations that say if a cyber event hit a port, or air traffic control, or accustoms system, here's how it would affect the supply chain. So don't give me that. I think instead, what is more important is that we, as you just mentioned, begin to create a recovery plan for these, we began to stress test our supply chains for these and consider the possible outcomes through the use of regression mathematics and artificial intelligence. It's actually easier now than ever before, to predict how it would happen. If I were to say to a board of directors, there's a 20% chance that this could happen. And we put that in writing. And then it did happen. And you didn't prepare for it. You shouldn't be on that board anymore. If you were CEO that didn't have a plan for that shouldn't have that job anymore. So I'm just not in the mood to give a quarter or mercy to anyone that isn't ready to be prepared for these black swan events. But
Doug Draper 12:15
yeah, yeah, it's it's an interesting topic. And I like your take on it. Some of those things that you just said being drawn into war, cyber attack, like we're there, right? I don't want to say look it over a cliff, because that's a dramatic statement. And I just made fun of dramatic statements. But all of those things are potentially right there housing market, Chinese economy, the work, we're right there. So if those are defined as Black Swan, I agree with you. It's cool. We've been talking about it. Right? How can you talk about something and predict it? But yeah, call it a Black Swan? Because it's supposed to be unprepared? Meaning like,
Pete Mento 12:53
if I can give you one more thing to consider that right. So yeah, to earlier on this. Black Swan events can also be thinking of positive outcomes, right. So if you're an RC, not for our customers, but for you and I, the supply chain crisis was very good for shareholders. Because it drove up prices because the supply and demand, it was miserable to work through. It burned out a lot of people. It was very hard. But it was ultimately good for the bottom line. People talk about the rise of the Internet, of personal computer use cell phone, mobile data, the Internet of Things. That's funny, we're talking about people at Tampa, one of my favorite people ever again, in the business, Tampa, any of it, it's got an Allen gear. I believe Allen is still the president of Tampa. Now I worked at Microsoft. And one of the things he and I have in common is a deep, almost uncomfortable nerdy love of all things space. I think Alan has probably met every living astronaut that was in the Gemini Program and the Apollo program. He's just, he's one of those guys, you know, but when when you saw the space program, begin to rise, the scientific outcomes of that and how it affected the the American economy. A lot of those things were considered black swan events. Now, when we're seeing the rise of SpaceX, and what we're seeing with with what Amazon is doing, with their, with their satellites, what Tesla's doing with the Starlink, they're, they're being so impactful in the global economy. Those are not going to be black swan events, but I guarantee you people are going to call them that being able to give that level of high speed internet for Starlink as an example, how close we are to exploration of other planets going to the moon as individual businesses being able to bring lithium back from the moon at a price point. That's not ridiculous. I know it sounds crazy. But they'll call those black swan events when they begin to affect the production of goods back in America. No They're not, if you can, if you can imagine it happening now. It shouldn't be considered a black swan event.
Doug Draper 15:06
Yeah. Well, we'll see how that term evolves into the upcoming year. So and the the COVID, as as a precursor to the second half. We'll do our halftime here in a second, but the benefits of our industry with COVID. You know, there were some companies that were dramatically impacted, both positively and negatively. I'm gonna talk a little bit about that on the second half. But until that beat, this was halftime, baby, I love it. I love talking halftime is brought to us by CAP logistics, visit cap logistics.com. So anyway, I like yours. It's it's a topic and I won't even go into it. Because if I say the word people will know what it's about. So you go first
Pete Mento 15:51
movie guy, I love movies, at a level level level. And because I travel nonstop now I am. I'm usually gone Sunday. I come back on Friday, sometimes I travel over the weekend, because it's just easier than coming home because of where I'm at and where I've got to be. So what I do now because I got to go out and party anymore. It's one of the casualties of being in my 50s I don't we young people in the office that say, Hey, what about drink tonight? Doc, you want to go? Want to hang out with a branch and get loaded? No. Like, if not, I have to get up early in the morning and go walk on the treadmill and it will kill me if I stay up and drink with you people. So I do a lot of times is I pick a hotel that's close to a movie theater. And I go see movies almost every week. And I was very excited last week for the release of killers of the flower Moon, which is the latest Martin Scorsese epic for a number of reasons. First of all, it's Martin Scorsese. And I love Martin Scorsese films. Second of all, it's, it's based on a wonderful book that I've I tell everyone to read. It's it's an excellent book, which I'll talk a bit more about in a second. And third, because I'm Native, so be native. It's a story about Native people. I'm gonna love it, right. So without reading any reviews, without reading anything about it. I didn't even really know other than Leo and dinero, who was in it. I go to an AMC theater. And I get my thing of popcorn and a bagel Diet Coke and I sit down. So good and bad. Here's my review, Doug. It is almost four hours long. It is almost four hours long. So first things first, I think at this point, we need to bring back intermissions to movies. That's not a bad idea. I think at some point, having a film stop when it's that long and saying the movie full. Intermission, the movie will continue in five minutes, go pee, you know, maybe hit the enter hit the Stanford will some to drink, grab a pickle or whatever pickles and movie theaters love it. You know, low carb, high quality of return. And come back. That'd be great. But now it's sitting in a movie theater for that long. That's I think now that we're streaming movies at home, people feel comfortable making them that long, because you can just pause it go with you. So I think that's why they're doing that. Second of all, the book is incredible. And if you're, if you're if you're the kind of person that's still digging on the written word, and I hope you are if you watch the show, I hope people that watch this show are readers. It's one of those books, I cannot recommend enough. It's up there with the billionaires vinegar. It's up there with Tony Jehova. It's up there with with commanding heights, all those books I really think you need to read in the book is actually about the FBI. The book is actually about the rise of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. It's about the first big win the FBI had about how they were compelled to come to the Osage County where this very small, historically beaten down group of Native Americans ended up becoming in short order, per capita, the wealthiest human beings on planet Earth. They were the Saudis of their time, without just Ironically, when their their their tribe was about to become so poor, that they could support their own children. They found oil. And in doing so, they became outrageously wealthy. And because of some very unfortunate events, a lot of murders began to happen. But because of the way that the Indian Act was written, nobody was investigating the murders. So the federal government stepped in, and it was the first big win for the FBI. And the book is about 75 80% about the investigation. The movie is about 5% about the investigation. And okay, you know, I, I read the book, and I saw the movie. So it was it was fun for me to see this great character study of the people Will that were in the book and the people that the book was based on, but I was really looking forward to sort of this. This mystery in this investigation. And I didn't get that in the movie. Still a great movie. wonderful performances. It's Scorsese, so it's beautiful. It's it's well worth the watch. If you're not into sweeping historical epics, you're not going to like it. It is definitely. It's got a social message to it. There's definitely good guys and bad guys. And very violent. very bloody again. It's Scorsese. But it is not what I expected. Read the book. Read the book. I'm gonna give the movie three and a half out of five stars. Yeah, I'm gonna give him 10 stars out of five.
Doug Draper 20:57
All right, so the book is better than the movie as usual. Right?
Pete Mento 21:01
Apt significantly so so so much better. So much better than and I hate to say that, because I love Scorsese so much. But Leo Leo does. An app's he, he's incredible in this movie, actually incredible in this movie, and he plays somebody that you wouldn't expect him to play just the character that he plays makes. He's not what you would think he would play. Champagne. And also one more thing. The movie is littered with country music stars that play that aren't actors, like Sturgill Simpson said it for God's sakes. Like there's all these people that you're like, Why is this person in this movie? But they do an excellent job?
Doug Draper 21:42
Good. Yeah, the whole intermission thing. It's funny that you brought that up, because my wife and I were talking about that. And she had indicated that the last intermission movie she saw was sounded music in the theater when she was a kid. Because there's such a dichotomy between the first half of the movie and the second half of the movie. And that, so the intermission piece 100% Love it. And the other interesting comment that you made Pete is that you like pickles, in movie theaters. So yeah, that's all I can think about for about 45 seconds after you make that comment. You'll love it.
Pete Mento 22:16
After I get even F revenue popcorn for a long time, and you go to the they've got pickles, I love that movie, I saw their mission. I went to Cambridge, and I watched the Godfather in a big screen. And there's an intermission in The Godfather. And that was pretty cool. So I feel like the only time I've seen it. No, it's not true. I saw Gone With the Wind with my mom. And then intermission with that.
Doug Draper 22:40
Yeah. Well, I'm a great. Gotta bring it back. All right, brother. So my, my, my take is, I saw this on the news. And I It shocked me, right because of one major thing. So obviously, automation and robotics and warehouses in my industry is more prevalent. It's slowly becoming adaptable. It's financially becoming viable. For the three POS and other companies that can drop the level of money needed to be in there for efficiencies. So Amazon, which is traditionally the leader and automation, in my opinion, 10 years ago, they bought Kiva robots. And people are like, What's all that about? They're not a robot company, but it's a precursor to what they're up to. So the newest one is a robot called digit. Right? And be just like the movies, it's coming to a warehouse near you. Now that the actual time that this will be implemented is probably years away. Maybe not Amazon moves quickly. But if you've seen it, it literally looks like the Terminator. Its skin was was was torn off, right? When you really saw what Arnold Schwarzenegger look like, after everything. And it scared me, right? Here's this Terminator with legs. So it's a robot that has legs has, you know, kind of a head and arms and is designed so it can go up and down. Right? Robots usually have to be on a on a surface. But the idea is you can grab a box, apparently, and walk upstairs and go downstairs. Which is cool. I get the automation piece but oh my god, it literally scared me. I was like, what what the hell is this right? And it's just funny that that type of thing is going to be working with actual humans in freaking out. The second piece is that they say hey, it won't replace jobs, because the jobs that it will replace, right some degree, it will let me rephrase that. It won't put people out of work, because they still need individuals to support the automation and the robot. And the thing about that Pete is there's people out there that don't want to do that. There are people that are very content with doing a job where they stand and pick a box and the But down the line. And it's very noble work, and I get it. But not everybody wants to program a robot robot, not everybody wants to support that. So it'll be, it'll be interesting. But the point of this halftime Pete is that digit, scared the hell out of me and looks like the Terminator after Schwarzenegger, you know, went down to its core at the end of the movie when you were scared to death. So I don't know that I need to change it around or something but digit is out there, it's being tested, and it's coming to a warehouse near you.
Pete Mento 25:35
I think he just got a credit put up a picture. When we when we produce the show, you know, the big glowing eyes, and yes, laid eyes, you know, that's perfect.
Doug Draper 25:46
But put it put it next to the term, the real Terminator, and then put digit next to it. And people will see the similarities of what I'm talking about.
Pete Mento 25:55
There's that study they did where they had, they had the robot dog, and they had people play with it. And then the scientists came in and just beat the hell out of the robot dog. And everybody was all emotional about it, like don't read the robot dog like it's not, it's a machine. It's not real. And they just kept like, mercilessly beating this dog and everyone was so emotionally attached to it. And it's how we feel as human beings, right, like we have, we have an emotional evocative response to these machines. And I think we've been raised, particularly our generation, from all the science fiction that we've seen, do you to be free to them, or if it was, if it looked like our God to receive three POB be different. Now you don't they look a little soulless. And I think that's why it scares us. But the whole point of these machines is there'll be environments that are better suited for a machine than a person. And as populations go down. And as they become cheaper, that's just better labor than as human beings are set to do different tasks, you know, and I hear that American jobs, working on these things like, it's a great job working on cars in the 50s. It's great job working on cars, and 2023. But the technology of them is shifted. These are just machines that have made it easier. We're not working on horses, working on cars. Well, someday people work on automation. But getting used to walking through a warehouse for a guy like URI. And seeing 25 of these machines walk around picking up boxes around and forklifts to get used to men interested to see it was weird.
Doug Draper 27:34
Now, it'll be interesting. So I don't know, you know, if it's marketing or whatever, but you know, I, Amazon's did a good job of promoting warehouse automation. And I'm sure there's people out there that say our workers have been treated like robots for years. And then here comes the the challenge of treating the workforce appropriately. But anyway, we'll we'll have Keenan put a side by side up there so our viewers
Pete Mento 27:58
can check it out.
Doug Draper 27:58
So it's like man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just Yamma jump into my second one. And it's related, as I said to, to COVID. And the brokerage, the truck brokerage industry that we're seeing is in a tailspin right now. And it'll be interesting to see how long it lasts or how long it'll take to reset. And level set maybe is a better word. So first of all, digital brokerage, that's been a buzzword right during COVID When all of this VC money was coming in because our industry was crushing it as far as financially goes during during the pandemic. In my opinion, digital brokerage doesn't exist. It's just a fancy word to wrap around brokerage. Yes, AI is coming chat GPT. And before the show, we talked about some functions that will be replaced, but you still need a person to talk to people and manage the flow of communication. Be we've talked about this before our industry, specifically in trucking is still decentralized. And there are companies like FedEx and UPS that own the rails that have a control of all aspects of it. But the vast majority of how things move across our country and how they're managed, once they get into the United States is decentralized mom and pops that have a truck or a small fleet that are just trying to put food on the table and just trying to pay insurance and just trying to pay off the truck. They do not have time to engage with technology to push back and understand line trying to get this container out of the port. Or I'm just trying to bump the dock on this warehouse so I can keep the wheels turning so I can keep earning and everything else that the digital brokerage concept is just a fancy word for brokerage, right. So that's step one, or point number one, the second one is Flexport convoy, and there's some you know ch Robinson and coyote, Uber freight, these are all companies in the last 18 months that have reduced their staff because they overstepped during the brokerage. So it's unfortunate that there's so many people that got an entry into our industry and new graduates and new college people and that folks were trying to get in our industry had the opportunity. But excuse me, I'll tell you what, man, things are getting right sized, and they're getting right sized real quick, and they're cutting deep. And when you have big players like CH and convoy, Coyote that are right sizing, it's interesting to see what's going to happen and mortar that Pete is the rates are gonna go right back up and in the spot market is going to probably be more impacted. And, you know, contract rates until the contracts are up. So anyway, brokerages and truck brokerage domestic truck brokerage is in a really unique situation right now, I think it's going to come down. I don't know how much more they can cut. It's kind of like the tech industry for a little bit. But anyway, that's interesting to look. And if anybody wraps the term Black Swan around what's happening, I'm gonna punch him. Yeah, well, you predicted
Pete Mento 31:10
it. So if they do, you can, you can do a little dance on their head. Yeah, you talked about this, in the beginning of last year, you were expecting this to happen. And you were right. The volume is a very important part of this, you know, the money's in it, when people when supply and demand hammers it and your ability to have relationships with carriers. When people need space, being able to fill that your relationship game becomes more important than the digital game. When it's when it's a speed issue, just like stockbroker, and right when when it's just speed and data, versus being able to have information that you're able to work off of at the speed of light. And there's a lot of individuals to three person operations to do extremely well for themselves, as truck brokers, and will continue to do because they have relationships, they've got customers that depend on them. But these large companies that work off of volume, they're migrating to a digital platform, they've got great systems, you've got to write size, you've got to move with the market. But also keep in mind, they brought in a lot of young people that were making great money when it was supply and demand. And now, you know, those people aren't delivering when things are hard. So you could swing a cat and make money two or three years ago without a lot of talent. And unfortunately, those people don't have a lot of talent, they've got to go find someplace else to spend their time. And that's a that's a sad part sad reality of our business. Yeah. You can't just your whole half for sure.
Doug Draper 32:41
All right, my man, what are your thoughts on once you got on your last topic,
Pete Mento 32:44
the last topic again, on a single black swans for today, it has been exceedingly rare that a pandemic, or that a major disease event in the world has not been immediately followed. Within a decade or so of another major disease event. Even in modern history, when we've had some sort of a, you know, an animal flu wasn't long before another one came out. And if we look at the past couple of years with the way that the entire supply chain was disrupted by COVID, here we are, in 2023, the world has, for the most part, and I want to get to politics, but the world is for the most part agreed that the COVID-19 calamity, we've we've moved past it, and the supply chain is is leveling itself off. We're right around the world before 2019. And we're growing again, along with global numbers for global trade growth. If in fact, we're going to see another pandemic, within the next 10 years, or another global health event, in the next 10 years, have we done anything to deal with the infrastructure and to deal with our transportation infrastructure to be ready for it. The next time that we have a major health scare on the level of COVID, if it were to happen, if we were to have a pig flu, we would have a chicken flu that were to go through the world. If there were to be another COVID event with the supply chain, be ready for it with the economy be ready for I'm not sure that it would be for a number of reasons. One of the biggest being just the regular human reaction to how we would deal with it across America as an example. Depending on the state that you live in, depending on your own personal reaction to what was going on. Where I live, most of the time in New Hampshire, we probably wouldn't just shut down our economy. If the if another pandemic were to happen without the federal government forcing us to people would probably just go about their day unless folks started dropping in the street. And I think that our industry would have a very different reaction than we did last time. I don't think that we would, as I said earlier, cinch up the hose and feared a reaction of a lowered amount of consumption. I think we would learn from the past I often say we should probably be prepared if anything for ramp up and a need for imports and exports around the world. Based on what we saw last time we haven't seen done is a change to the infrastructure, more railheads more efficient ports, more technology, more automation, more people prepared for this. If anything, nothing has changed. So if we were to be hit with another one of these events, I think we'd find ourselves very quickly in the exact same position that we just were in two years, nothing changes, nothing changes in dog, nothing's changed.
Doug Draper 35:38
Yeah, it'll be I think the key thing is not if when right is going to happen. And the reaction on the individual level, right, forget the economy, forget, you know, inventory levels, and all that kind of stuff, the way people will react to it is going to be dramatically different. I mean, I mean, I was in a slight panic when this happened, when they were trying to get respirators from different parts of the country, I called my broker and was like, you gotta get everything in my 529 for my kids out of it liquidated, right? I don't care if it makes no money, I don't want to lose money. And if that's just me, as an individual person, trying to protect myself and my family, that reaction is going to drive a lot of things, but you nailed it with the infrastructure hasn't changed the look. And we'll see what see what happens there. It's going to happen some form or fashion in the near future. So I think that's it. So again, I want to close by talking about the topic conference down in Boca Raton, December 5, and sixth can't thank Cindy enough for inviting us, it'll be wild. We were in front of Casa Bonita, with beers in hand at a picnic table. Now we're going on stage with with with lights and some great discourse. Maybe we should take some questions from the audience. Or we'll come up with some Zinger to make sure people remember are
Pete Mento 37:04
going to remember it.
Doug Draper 37:08
Don't know if I should leave immediately after the event or hang around for the entire event. I gotta figure that one out.
Pete Mento 37:13
Definitely. Yeah. So we're hanging around.
Doug Draper 37:17
All right, good. I'll get to meet all your cohorts. So anyway, thanks. And you appreciate that. And thanks, everybody for listening to another edition of global trade this week. What's that?
Pete Mento 37:30
Thank you the cat logistics as well.
Doug Draper 37:32
Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Pete. We got to do that. They provide the soapbox that you want to you and I are on every single week. So I think that's it. Yeah. I don't know where I'm gonna see you next week. But it'll be somewhere hopefully, in a safe place in the wonderful office so we can see behind you. So if you see. Cool. All right. I'll be back in Denver. All right. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it. Talk to you later.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai