Global Trade This Week – Episode 167
What’s going on in Global Trade this Week? Today Trade Geek Pete Mento & Doug Draper of Inland Star Distribution cover:
5:15 -Chinese Made Container Cranes
10:00 -Port Strike Isn't Over - Automation Issues Remain
14:40-Halftime
24:18 -Nuclear Energy Is Gaining Ground
28:52 -Consumer Confidence Waning in Europe
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Keenan Brugh 0:00
You're watching global trade this week with Pete mento and Doug Draper.
Pete Mento
Hello everyone, and welcome to Global Trade this week. I'm Pete mento, and with me is my co host and friend. Doug Draper, Doug, how are you? What's going on, buddy?
Doug Draper 0:19
First of all, I'm doing great. I appreciate that. I'm on my monthly pilgrimage out to Fresno, California, so life is good, man. Yeah, I have no nothing to complain about. And ready to rock this show. We got awesome topics, so I love it. What about you? Where does this discussion find you today?
Pete Mento 0:40
I am in Norfolk, Virginia for VMA 24 so VMA is the Virginia maritime Association Conference. It is like a miniature version of TPM, and I've been coming to this conference for a very long time. It's an excellent conference. However, I'm not a big fan of Norfolk. So Norfolk is is continued proof that the US Navy can ruin practically anything. So this town is not the delight that it once was, and not necessarily the safest part of Virginia. I'll leave it at that. Yeah,
Doug Draper 1:16
interesting. Well, you said VMAs, my mind immediately went to video, music awards. I kind of just zoned out and started thinking about a Taylor Swift performance during that. So what did you say? Where are
Pete Mento 1:28
you, Virginia? Yeah. Well, you go to Taylor Swift. I go to, I go to Brittany and Madonna and Christina Aguilera in the 90s. Or I go to blink 182 doing all the small things. And, you know, I think of that used to be something I would actually watch Doug,
Doug Draper 1:43
yeah, yeah, like 25 years ago, right when, when it was happening, speaking of VMAs. And then we'll get back on topic. I saw a picture yesterday of Travis Kelty, uh, Kelsey, oh, boy. I don't know what's going on with that dude. He was in some crazy, crazy suit. He's I'm calling the he looks like the poor man's Anthony Kiedis from Red Hot Chili Peppers with some crazy mustache. And I was like, wow, right? Yeah, crazy. Anyway, Anthony Keenan,
Pete Mento 2:14
if he did a couple cycles of withdrawal, that's what he looks like. I I think he looks like one of those old boxers. You know they do Queensbury rolls with a little mustache and his haircut, yeah? But when you make that much money on your podcast, which we don't, I guess you start to get goofy haircuts and stuff.
Doug Draper 2:32
Yeah? Well, we would have to grow hair in order to get a goofy hair.
Pete Mento 2:37
At one point,
Doug Draper 2:38
I'll tease this one, and then we'll get into it. But we had kind of, let's have a discussion on potential sponsors that we need to go rally up to assist so we can make, you know what Pete I'd like to make more money than $0.00 on this podcast? Sure. Yeah, yeah.
Pete Mento 2:58
I mean, I think it has helped us to grow our network considerably. Yeah. I gave a seminar yesterday in Houston for DSV, and practically everyone there says they watch the show. Doug, it was really Yeah. People I spoke to, at least they all said, you know, we'll love the show. Love you guys. Why are you so mean to Keenan? I get that a lot, and my my knee jerk reaction is because he deserves it. That's normally what I say when people bring that up, yeah, yeah, he's young. He's young. He could take
Doug Draper 3:27
it. He's good people. Well, yeah, we just had a quick video of his 3d printer, classic Keenan. He before you jumped on, he just did a screen share, and there's a picture of the printer in action. And while, you know, it's got a time lapse film, it's not time lapse, it's taping it, so we can do a time lapse. But yeah, I'm like, wow, that is pretty I won't go into what he was printing. That's kind of private information. But, yeah, classic Keenan, here's, here's what I'm doing. I'm getting out of bed and trying to survive the day. And this brother's out there making 3d printing. I love it. Well, it
Pete Mento 4:10
just goes to prove that if we were doing an ocean ins 11 Sal heist, Keenan would definitely be the the gadgets and technology guy for us. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I don't know if you de Clooney or I'd be Brad Pitt or what, but we would definitely be the the brains behind the operation, that's for damn sure. Yeah,
Doug Draper 4:28
I love it.
Pete Mento 4:29
I love it. So, all right, Doug, well, I open the show, which means you get to do your topic first. Oh, and before, because we always ask, I'm at the VMA 24 this year in Norfolk, Virginia, which starts in about two hours here, and I'll be here for the next three days. And just did a great seminar in Houston yesterday. I want to thank the the team of the branch down there. I have one seminar left for the year, buddy in Washington, DC. Yeah, so I'm doing that in November. It's hard to believe it's October, but we're almost done. So y'all be for the. Next couple of days, in the backdrop of an ended strike and all the terrible things that are happening with these hurricanes, it's pretty timely to have a couple 1000 maritime professionals in one place. Yeah,
Doug Draper 5:11
yeah, that is cool. All right, that's great. All right. Well, speaking of maritime, here's my first topic, man, I don't know if you saw first of all, I know you're aware, and I know that it's getting a little bit more press about us, tariffs on Chinese made container cranes, right? The whole thing about who's spying on us and went into the whole tariff was kind of lumped into the EV tariff discussion that happened a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month ago, but I didn't realize. I think I heard about it, but I didn't realize that the terrace was part of the Chinese made container cranes, and it's at 25% right, which is not catastrophic, but it's significant, right? And so what does all that mean, right? I know there's a couple of ports out there, Port of Houston, I think the Port of New Orleans, so some down in year old stomping grounds, right where they have these projects going, and they're like, hey, this 25% increase is going to add 25 $30 million to the project, right? And so I thought it was interesting for a couple reasons. One is about your topic that we'll get into here in a minute, and I'll relay back to this one. But the one thing I didn't know on this one Pete is that if the crane orders came in before May of this year, so ordered it before May of 24 and it's delivered by the end of 2026 it's exempt, right? So if you're kind of already in motion, you're not going to get dinged on your budget during port expansion, but anything after that. But it's, it's interesting that there's this automation discussion with the strike that we're going to talk about here in a few minutes, and then, and then the pushback, right? So I don't know, potential port delays, not delays of moving cargo, but just the projects that are trying to improve that aspect of it. And then I don't know what alternatives they are out there, and there's not a lot of companies making cranes in the US. I mean, that's the whole point. Put a tariff on it so you redirect your purchasing power domestically, but I don't think there's a lot of options out there. So I get the swiping and the signature of the pen with the 25% but I think this is one of those deals where there's some fallout, like, Okay, where do we go? I'm cool. I'll spend an extra 10% or whatever it may be to buy a crane domestically, but it doesn't exist. So I don't know. I know you've heard about this. What's your take on the 25% with the Chinese made cranes coming in?
Pete Mento 7:48
So friend of the show marine cyber impresario Alex honov. Captain Alex honov has brought this up to me so many times. This is an integral part of Port infrastructure that is and also also an important part of automation, but it's networked, and because it's networked, that means that any data that's going through it can be shared. It also means that it can be hacked. And the ban, they're trying to ban them Doug, and they're hoping that an additional 25% will encourage people to possibly look at a Korean or European manufacturer of these, which which there are. The second half of this is, is disallowing any technology originating from China inside of it. Because what we've learned is the technology in Chinese made a number of Chinese made cranes have the ability to not only send information back, but apparently was and was also able. And then, by the way, speculation, but apparently people believe that it would be able to be controlled off site as well. Now, if it was done for nefarious reasons, I'll leave that up to your imagination, but that's the main reason why there, there are alternatives. They are more expensive. But it brings up an interesting and you mentioned it. You know, with automation, the Longshoremen, you can't hack a longshoreman, right? I heard that over and over again during this strike. You can't hack a longshoreman. But the Longshoremen aren't out there, you know, 20 guys picking up a 40 footer and throwing it over the side of the ship. They're, they're using machines to do it, and these machines are data enabled. So there is an interesting question, right? This sort of, this sort of payoff between having more expensive labor but also having a more secure supply chain and using people to manipulate the cranes. And I can, I can see the argument there. I don't know if that argument outweighs the use of technology made by countries that are more politically aligned to us, and I think that's where that that argument doesn't fall apart, but it becomes a little less effective. Yeah?
Doug Draper 9:47
Well, that's a agreed. You have a good way of putting all that together. So that kind of dovetails perfectly into your topic. I'm not trying to tell you which one of yours you go first or second, but that's a perfect, uh, segue into it. Yeah?
Pete Mento 9:59
So. My topic this week. My first one has to do with glory, hallelujah, praise be. The strike is over. You know, I last week I I'm not going to say I broke the story, but I've been looking everywhere Doug and I haven't seen anyone that broke it earlier than me, not on LinkedIn, not on Twitter, not anywhere. So I got a call from a friend of mine who works for carrier, who told me that he heard that it was over. I got an email from an industry professional who told me he heard that there was a tentative agreement and that it was over. And then I got a third email from a friend of mine in Washington, DC, with a particular government agency that said, I think we have a tentative agreement. And I told everyone, it sounds like, you know, Rumors are swirling, and then I end up being quoted in shipping. Watch, right? Like Pete mento DSV says that Rumors are swirling that the strike is over, I'm like, talk about weird reporting, you know, I got, I got three, you know, I got three confirmations on my story, and I didn't even go to journalism school. Okay, before I said anything, and then I said, it's speculation, but it turns out it was correct, but it would have been pretty sad if it wasn't correct. Doug, you know, but the the world got all happy and excited because the strike is over. In reality, the strike is not over. This the strike has been averted for now, because they've agreed on the increases to wages. What they have not agreed to yet is the changes to automation, and what's that going to mean for the future of this particular union that's going to get worked out now, which was more important to the union, their pay for the next six years, or reducing automation to increase their roles. And I don't know. I think short term the answer is the pay, but long term, it's absolutely automation. And over the next What's that three months? I think it's going to be a knock down, drag out. I think that the the union, you know, I think it's January 15, right? But after the election, but right before the inauguration, it's pretty good timing to cause a stink again, whoever the incoming president's going to be. So Doug, this is not by any means over. There's still a lot of political leverage, but for the next few months at least, it's going to be business as usual. So I would caution people into thinking that the East Coast is already and set to go, one of the most important topics they've ever had is going to have to be sorted out in the next couple of months. And I don't think that they're on the same page.
Doug Draper 12:35
Well, first of all, congratulations on being quoted, and I saw during the process you were updating LinkedIn on a regular basis. So that's the cool thing, Pete, you take this concept of the show, which is forward thinking, and sometimes we, you know, put ourselves out there to have forward thinking comments and do a little prediction. So kudos on you for doing that to the world on LinkedIn. And then you got quoted. Did they even call you on that, like, Hey, can we put this in? Yeah, no.
Pete Mento 13:03
If I put something like that on LinkedIn, I should, I should just, I should expect that people are gonna run with it. I just didn't think anybody would. In this case, it was perfectly fine, yeah, but I kind of work for a big company. I don't, I don't need, I don't need to smoke dude,
Doug Draper 13:21
yeah? But the bottom line is, you're you are correct. And most people like strikes over good. We're moving forward if they kick the can down the road a little bit, kind of like funding the government, right? How many times have you, have you heard that? Look, I swear to goodness, two years. How many times is there? It's almost like, back page news. Now that's like, okay, they'll do it, they'll work out something, and they'll fund the government, and we'll go on about our business. But anyway, it will be interesting as things kick up and the topics are diverted away from congestion and the holiday season everything. So yeah, crazy. All right. Well, that brings us to halftime, one of our favorite parts of the show where we can just pontificate on anything we want, whether it's supply chain related or or whatever. So it's brought to us by CAP logistics Keenan brughts for that company. I think the 3d printing he's involved with right now is not authorized, but it's in his garage at home. So I guess you can do what you want. But anyway, thanks cap logistics for making the show happen. So Pete Doug, before
Pete Mento 14:24
you go on, I just want to make it clear to everyone that Keenan to not printing a ghost gun while we're doing this. Just want to put that out there before the FBI shows up and breaks into his garage. Very
Doug Draper 14:36
good, very good disclaimer. Thanks for that. All right, yeah, go for it.
Pete Mento 14:43
Well, I think I've said enough on this show. I hate Bitcoin. I don't know if hates the proper word. My my distaste for it is so much deeper than hate. But there is a new Max, HBO, Max, whatever the hell they're calling it. Stick with the name, damn it. There's a new streaming document. God, that's. Not like such an old man. There was a streaming, a streaming documentary about Bitcoin that intimates or speculates that was a person named Peter Todd, who is Satoshi, that came up with this Bitcoin. For those that don't know, there is this, this etheral, mysterious being that came up with the concept that apparently, still owns half of all the Bitcoin in the world. They've never sold any of it, etc, etc, etc. And the speculation is it was this Peter Todd, person who was a core Bitcoin software designer, and we were talking to Keenan about it beforehand, who does really follow cryptos. And he says he doesn't buy it. He thinks it was someone else. And more to the point, Doug, none of us know who the hell this guy is, which would make sense. You know that he's not one of the one of the marquee people involved in it. But I think more to the point, Doug, I I really don't care. I don't know who Peter Todd is. I don't want to know who Peter Todd is, and I could care less about anything that has to do with Bitcoin, because I think it's absolute hogwash. It's humbug, it's crap. And to put it, to put it even more succinctly, if you're still involved in Bitcoin, enjoy your beanie. But beanie buddies enjoy them, because it's only a matter of time before everyone else realizes that you've been, you've been trading digital baseball cards, and it's going to be worthless.
Doug Draper 16:27
Wow, pretty strong words there. I'm I'll have to check out the documentary. I think it's officially called Max, right? They took away HBO, which had the
Pete Mento 16:36
George Carlin was on HBO. So I'm going to call it HBO. It's gonna go,
Doug Draper 16:41
yeah, yeah. Is mama called a clay. I'm gonna call him clay. I'm
Pete Mento 16:45
gonna call him clay.
Doug Draper 16:49
There's the movie reference for the day. Yeah, yeah, that that is wild. So when, when we talked about this a few minutes ago, I actually owned Bitcoin. I own a whopping $250 with it, my son and I, I think it was probably during covid, so I was totally stoked. And I looked literally just a few minutes ago, and my bitcoin value is now $278 so yeah, over the course of two and a half years, I think I'd make 23 bucks. So I'm pretty stoked about that. So I think if I hold, if I hold my position. Pete, I can retire in about 250 years, so I'll be good,
Pete Mento 17:25
excellent. Yeah,
Doug Draper 17:26
yeah.
Pete Mento 17:27
What do you got? Doug,
Doug Draper 17:29
I got one I saw yesterday that popped up and I can't I'm big on acronyms, right? So bopis is something that was, that was one of the things when we started the show that we were talking about, buy online, pick up in store. This is BNPL, which everybody knows is, buy now, pay later. Biden, pull been like pimple, but we'll call it pimple that doesn't really work. So I'm just going to say, Pay Now, buy now, pay later. They're expecting $18 billion of buy now, pay later transactions during the holiday season, and you can actually so that's scary, kind of cool. But all that means is you're leveraging credit to pay for something on money you do not have here in Colorado, I know ski passes are big on that. I do it that if you put your payments over four or six payments to get your ski pass, a firm is the company that does that. And it's been great, you know, and I really enjoy it, but apparently you can pay the buy now, pay later via credit card, so then you're double dipping on debt, and people are concerned that that could create problems. So my take Pete is, I want to bring back layaway, and that will define our age. I think Sears, or JC Penney's was big on that. Do you remember layaway?
Pete Mento 18:50
I do, yeah, very much. So, yeah, yeah.
Doug Draper 18:53
So basically, you say, hey, I want this item, right? So you reserve it just for those that are younger than 40, right? You say, I want that item. They hold it for you. You put down a deposit, and then you make payments, which is like, you know, like the bait out, pay later, but you don't get the item until it is paid off, right, right? And which, which to me, I was like, okay, that's, that's the kind of thing that we need, right? It develops patience, right? So you have to have patience in order to get what you want, defer delayed gratification. There's discipline, because you need to be disciplined in how you save your money in order to do it. And it shows a commitment, right, that you're committed to this item that you're going to buy. And then there's some financial responsibility and financial literacy during the whole the whole process. So patience, discipline, what I say commitment, and, you know, financial literacy. So I say we bring back layaway and. And and teach financial literacy to the world again. So that's, that's my halftime man, a PSA, if you will.
Pete Mento 20:06
Your PSA. I remember layaway because my parents were big proponents of it. So they would, they would get household items, like we got a new microwave with layaway. I remember that my mom would go in, I think it was Montgomery Ward's. She would go in there, and after payday, she'd plop down another 10 bucks or whatever, until she paid for this thing. I love the idea Doug. I think where we run into problems is the idea of carrying inventory. The company is going to have to carry that inventory while it's being paid for, and you can't count it as a sale until the sale is complete. Now, a good thing about that is the company has the cash. So let's say someone pays for something over three or four or five months, the money towards that's going into their bank account, and that, I think you don't have to reserve it against the item. I'd have to talk to an accountant about that. But I think that's the only place where we stop people, and we talk about this all the time, man, dude, people want it now. I want it now. I want I don't want to wait two days on prime I want it now, you know. So I wonder if the modern American consumer has the patience, as you mentioned, and the the stoic attitude of something good will come when I do this properly. I don't know. It doesn't seem in line with our with our consumer culture these days. So I agree with you. I think it would be an excellent thing to do, yeah, but I don't know if, if current accounting principles would make it easy for companies to do. Yeah? Well, I was just
Doug Draper 21:28
literally, while you were just talking, I'm thinking, You know what, what's the modern day version of layaway Kickstarter? Yeah, true, where you basically put your you reserve your item, you pay for it, and then you get it later. So maybe I should take my comment back that. I guess Kickstarter is the modern day version of layaway, but
Pete Mento 21:46
I don't think people are using that on consumer products. I I've done a bunch of Kickstarters on movies where I've, you know, there's a director or an actor who wants to direct a movie, or writer I respect who wants to, and they'll say, you know, I'll put your name at the end of the film when it's done, or whatever. That's not the important thing. The important thing is, we're getting a chance to get something made by somebody we like, we you know, everybody throws in 10 bucks and it gets done. That's kind of
Doug Draper 22:11
cool. Yeah, yeah, interesting. So, yeah, I've actually participated in a Kickstarter for a backup a small, inexpensive backup generator. I'm kind of getting a little bit of panic up in Steamboat with the winter coming, and I'm like, What happens if the power goes out, right? I mean, I'm in in the town, so I'm not out in the boonies. I was asking my neighbor, I'm like, does the power go out here a lot whenever it snows a gazillion feet? And he said, every once in a while. So I'm like, I need to get some sort of not, not a patriot generator that costs $4,000 but something more in line with my budget. But anyway, layaway Kickstarter. There you go. Doug,
Pete Mento 22:51
I was going to ask this so you talked about your ski passes for the people who don't live in Colorado. What is the ski pass? An annual pass cost you? Um,
Doug Draper 23:01
well, they kind of here. I hate when people answer this way, but I'm going to say it depends. Yeah, it depends on you want full access to all the mountains, you know, because, like, Vale resorts owns a bunch of mountains literally all over the world. And so if you want access to those, it's a little bit more. If you just want to go to one mountain or a couple mountains, it's a little bit less. So, you know, $800 to 1200 right? But if you ski a lot, and you amortize the cost at the end of the day, you're like, hey, I only spent $90 a day, and I skied 15 times. So it's that they found the sweet spot where it makes sense to do the skis pass. But you know, unless you go 30 times a year. You know, the cost is pretty expensive, if you look at it, but you got to pass. The last thing I'll say in this Pete is one thing they market is, you know, Vail has resorts in Europe and Japan and New Zealand, and that's all included. So you can spend $5,000 and go ski for free. So that's
Pete Mento 24:01
assuming that you go to Europe and go to those places, but for you and Keenan, during the ski season, almost every Monday, when we catch up you guys, like I was at the ski interview boarding or whatever this weekend, and it It definitely sounds like you guys get your money's worth.
Doug Draper 24:15
Yeah, yeah. So good. All right. Well, I'm gonna jump into my second topic, and it's related to power. And this one's about nuclear energy. We've talked about this Pete on the show a couple of times as far as renewables reducing carbon footprint, and we're like, Hey, hello, McFly, nuclear is out there. Second reference, movie reference on the show, and I think it's starting to gain a little bit of ground, right? I a couple statistics. I had no idea that there were 54 I just did a little research. Excuse me, 54 nuclear power plants in the US, and it still generates power. 15 to 20% the vast majority, are on the East Coast. Us, right? Which makes sense. There's one that is coming online in Michigan, coming up, and there's actually a company that just got a loan and a grant that they're going to bring Three Mile Island. You remember that again? You need to be over 40 to remember that whole thing. But when that thing melted down, they're bringing it back online by 2028 right? And, and I think it's great. I think in this day and age, it's they're more safe, and maybe they weren't even unsafe at the time things happen. But with data centers, AI, you know, you've talked about quantum computing, I mean the exponential growth of the energy demand that this country has, and really the world is just going to, you know, skyrocket, and so there needs to be something with clean energy that that goes on. So last comment on this, Pete is, I'm like, Okay, how does a nuclear reactor work? And what's the difference between fission and fusion? Because fusion is coming. And so I use chat GPT, and I literally said, Will you dumb down the concept of fission and fusion? And here's the examples they gave. And I love it. I love it. So I won't go into like, how it works and all that kind of stuff, but they basically said fission, which is what most of the power generation is right now. It's like cracking a big log into two pieces, and you release the energy when you break it apart, right? So you're splitting, and energy is released. So the heat that that creates is creates steam, and then that powers a turbine or a generator. So fusion is, is the opposite. So the example they gave was like squeezing two balls of clay together. Right? If you're in your hand and you're squeezing it and moving it around, the force of the squeeze in that example, is what releases the energy. So we're either talking about logs or balls of clay. Pete, that's how I'm going to double it. Dumb it down for everybody, but fusion, the squeezing of the clay, they're saying that is safer and can generate way more power than the current fission. And so China's working on it. We're working on it. It's kind of a race to see who can come up with that. But there you go. There's your this chemistry lesson,
Pete Mento 27:17
nuclear power physics lesson, yeah. The fusion energy is an incredible thing. There's no There's no residual effects. It's clean energy, and it's basically limitless. So it will be incredible, and America is absolutely leading the charge on that. But the the question of nuclear power, to me, has always been one of education versus just knee jerk reactions. And when you're around Navy ships, nuclear powered Navy ships, a lot, you come to realize two things. Number one, if you can get a bunch of high school kids with no degree whatsoever, and have a couple of really smart people that went to nuclear power school work with them, it doesn't take a lot. I don't want to. I'm not trying to diminish, you know, the the young enlisted people. I'm doing the exact opposite. I'm trying to beef them up. Most of these nuclear powered ships that are going all around the world are, for the most part, being run, managed and repaired by people who did not have not a master's degrees and PhDs in physics or engineering. They're learning it because the government made it easy to understand. And the second thing I'll say about that is we have the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire, and it's an I can remember when it went online. It's an important part of our overall economic structure and infrastructure. Nuclear power is the gap. It's the bridge, probably, between the gap between where we are now and where we want to be, and the fact that people's minds are changing, I think is a wonderful thing. Doug, I think more and more people are beginning to realize you want to drive your Tesla, you don't want to have to burn coal to do it, and this was a great way to get it to that point.
Doug Draper 28:51
Yeah, some on your topic. Pete, what's your fourth or second? The show's fourth. So
Pete Mento 28:58
There were articles in the Financial Times and The Economist and there was one more thing BBC, where they talked about how consumer confidence in Europe is waning. They're seeing savings begin to go up significantly. So amongst Europeans, where the money that they're making, they're not putting it back into the economy, because they see trouble ahead. Whereas the United States, our consumer confidence has been pretty steady. If anything, it's increasing, and that is an excellent indication of someone's you would hope, all right, we're assuming rational people here. You would hope it's a good indication of people's ideas and confidence in the overall economy. So as interest rates are going down, unemployment remains generally steady, and American imports and exports as well. It would appear that Americans feel much better about their economy than Europeans do. But if you open it up and you make it broader, globally, in Asia, is a return to savings which there hadn't been at the extent that it was before we're seeing this. Same lack of consumer confidence in South America, similar lack of consumer confidence in the Middle East. We appear to be the only country, pardon me, that's just Joey chestnutting out there shoving as many hot dogs in our mouths as we can. And I don't know if that's hubris or if they see something I don't see, but there will be a reckoning. It started. It's happening as we speak. I said that last February that the first domino fell. And if there was ever a time to not make big purchases, I think it's 2025 so I don't it's amazing to me the resilience of the complete irrationality of the American consumer. They just feel like they've got to buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. And I think that this interesting dichotomy between the rest of the world in America is a great indication that I don't think we learned our lesson from covid.
Doug Draper 30:45
Yeah, well, that pay, you know, buy now, pay later, you know, let's make it even easier to buy stuff that we don't need. You know, I think you I forget exactly how you refer to it, but by crap that we just don't need, and then
Pete Mento 30:58
money, with money, we don't have to oppress people we don't like in the first place. That Chuck palanchik, the guy that wrote Fight Club, yeah,
Doug Draper 31:05
yeah, exactly. That's good. It's interesting. When you shot this over to me, I did little research. So in a little research peak, that's what we is that if you're affluent and you have money in Europe, some of that is continuing. As far as the fear of larger purchases doesn't exist. There is no fear. It's still happening. It's the younger generation that's kind of ratcheting it down and saying, I want to have an experience, because that is really important we both have. You know, my kids just graduate from college, yours is in the thick of it, that experiences are important. So ratchet down the cost of that experience. It is interesting that that concept is is happening over in Europe and not here in the US. So again, it goes back to financial literacy and understanding the benefit of saving $1 which is cool, because all of our topics kind of hovered around two different, two different ideas that we spoke about. So
Pete Mento 32:05
yeah, it did this week, I bet. To bring this up, Doug, I was at an airport yesterday. I was in Charlotte, and this clearly a finance bro. Clearly a finance bro. He had a t shirt on that said, Don't fact check me bro. That I thought that was that's now in the vernacular. Fact checks in in, uh, in debates. Don't fact check me, bro. Yeah. So you know, global trade this week, don't fact check this. Don't fact check us, bro. Yeah,
Doug Draper 32:30
exactly. I'm surprised there wasn't a cuss word on the back of it or something, right? Surprised when you got people walking through airports with gigantic cuss words on their on their shirts. But yeah, well, he was the
Pete Mento 32:41
finance bro. So we had his Patagonia sleeveless vet, you know, his vest, have the zip up vest, and he had his his visor. He'd clearly been playing golf that day, but so I did not fact check him, bro.
Doug Draper 32:54
Alright, well, that's a great way to end the show. Want to say thanks to everybody who listens to us and Pete, I'm glad to hear that there's more people do you run into? You're out there mingling with more people than I am on a daily basis. So it's really cool. And I want to thank all of our listeners for for joining us every single week. And that's a wrap. Pete, another edition of global trade this week is over. Thanks to Keenan and capital logistics for making this thing happen and and good luck out in Virginia, and it's really cool that you have one more event before the end of the year, and there's still a lot of weeks left in
Pete Mento 33:29
the year. So that's my seminar. I have a speech next week in Columbus. I was supposed to be off. Now I gotta do this. I probably got four or five more speeches, man, before it's all over.
Doug Draper 33:37
Alright, good. Well, I think that's it. Have a good
Pete Mento 33:41
day, buddy. Have a good week. Thanks. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai