Global Trade This Week – May 23rd, 2023
What’s going on in Global Trade this Week? Today Pete & Doug cover:
6:20 -Russia opening up the port of Vladivostok to China
10:39 -Final Mile Delivery Problem with EVs
19:45 -Halftime
27:47 -Zelensky goes to the G7 and It's a Major Statement
32:11 -A Different Perspective on AI’s Impact on Logistics
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Keenan Brugh 0:00
You're watching Global Trade This Week with Pete Mento and Doug Draper.
Doug Draper 0:10Alright, hello, everybody. My name is Doug Draper. And I want to welcome you to another episode of global trade this week. And we are back in the saddle again with my co host on the other side of the coast, Mr. Pete mento. Pete, you and I have not been together on camera here in in two weeks. So it's good to see you hat on backwards as usual. And I'm stoked about this episode, my friend. How are you doing?
Pete Mento 0:36
I'm good to man. I'm excited as well. I'm trying to decide you got two songs in my head, Doug. We're three, frankly, back in the saddle again. You know, Aerosmith boys are back in town. Excellent song. And the boys are back in town, the other version of it as well from the busboys, made famous, of course, by 14 hours with Eddie Murphy and McNulty. I wonder if I would have seen and seen that movie. We could have watched that this week as well. You were at Global Trade Week or global trade day for dinner last week, which I heard went exceptionally well. Sorry that I couldn't be there with you guys. But I heard it went well. And we are in big supporters of global of the gold Trade Center in Denver. So that was it, man.
Doug Draper 1:26
Yeah, the, the event was awesome. So it was like the first major, the first major event for the WPC Denver, but as far as the big conference like this, so 700 plus some really, really great speakers. And, you know, it's one of those deals where you get all these you know, eat economic analysis type of people and, and it was the keynote, and I was looking at the the title of the talk, and I'm like, Oh, my God, this is gonna be absolutely boring. Too much, and analysis, and it was a tax guy. And I'm like, I got to be respectful and sit up straight and not look at my phone. And I'll tell you what, knocked it out of the park. It was a very good, great perspective on on China, not only just what's going on right now, but a great history, which was able to set the stage which allowed you to really understand what's going on today. So great speakers. Great reception. The one thing I had some cosplay people walking around, which was kind of kind of kind of trippy, that I was like, Are you kind of like supposed to be in costume. Were you hired to come here? Or are you an exhibitor? That's just way over the top. And it looked like every booth the champ the Japanese Consulate had some folks the UK consulate, things of that nature. So it was it was good. I give it a an a, an A pause for sure. Pete I appreciate you asking about how are your our your talks in the last couple of weeks, you were all over the all over the place.
Pete Mento 3:09
They're crazy. So you know, I tapped two down in Dallas, which is mostly law enforcement. Talking about cargo security. It was excellent. It was it was great to be in front of all of them again, their spirit group. It was wonderful. The next day, of course, I had the World Trade Center in New York, which is you know, the big one granddaddy of them all. And it was excellent. Doug was excellent. I I fronted a panel, and we talked about the digitization of the supply chain, which we love talking about you and I love talking about so I had a killer panel man, like I had the I had one of the gentlemen who was in charge of ecommerce for Maersk there. I had the the freshly minted. She'd been doing it for like a year now the new port director for New York, New Jersey, She's incredible. I have a good friend of mine, who is one of the heads of sales for Avalon that was on the panel. And then a gentleman who runs the group that does the ATA carnies. So I mean, it was really crazy, just talking about overly honest problems for digitization things that people don't normally talk about. It was a lot of fun. And then I talked to the furniture and Home Goods group, the next day in Fort Lauderdale. So ping pong, ping pong around the nation, bro. And, you know, next next next week, I think is it next I think next week, I'm at Brand College in Rhode Island to wrap up the month and and I'm doing a panel they're just talking about globalization problems that are associated with world trade that we really haven't been focusing on on another fantastic panel. So it's pretty great. Speaking again, so I'll be down in South Carolina. Speaking into in California, I'm doing another one North Carolina got to in New Jersey. see one in New York like I'm back at it again, man. It's Pete mental world tour. 2020.
Doug Draper 5:07
Nice. Nice. Well, everybody appreciates a world tour with with everybody. But
Pete Mento 5:13
Amy wants me home buddy. Like everybody went in. Yeah. So
Doug Draper 5:17
nice. Nice. Well, last thing, the benefit that you and I have this platform, so I gotta give a shout out. My son graduated from college last week. And that's why I was not around. And my daughter was in the big 12 rowing championship and her boats got a silver medal right behind Texas. So she's awesome. I got two happy kids at home and life is good at the Draper household. So congrats, man. I had to bring that up. Congrats.
Pete Mento 5:48
Congrats. You're so strong Draper genes, man. Yeah, yeah. Geniuses and athletes, you know, athletes.
Doug Draper 5:55
Yeah, thanks for that. So anyway, although people I care about my kids, not everybody does. And so let's jump into our topics for this week. Since I opened up, I'll let you jump in with your first.
Pete Mento 6:08
Alright, well, there's only three people that are in the production, this podcast and all three of them care about your kids ducks. Yeah, and if they don't care about your kids, they can turn this podcast off. But anyway, first things. First, first topic out of me this week, an interesting article that was sent to me by my friend Alex Johann off shout out to TrueNorth group about the opening of the flood of Stockport in Russia to their their new buddies in China. And it's important from a geopolitical standpoint, and its port importance from a Chinese economic standpoint, but of our stock and being a relatively important Russian military outpost, not so important Russian economic outpost, but what could easily be a very important Chinese economic port. But of that stock being a port that had been transitioned to Russia, because of a war treaty with picking a long, long time ago, and have been all but closed off to Russian transit and Russian commerce for years and years and years and years years. Because of its very important geographic position. It allows for both inter Chinese commerce, as well as Chinese exports, from parts of China, places like Dalian, in other other very important Chinese areas of commerce, that is waiting to get much more inexpensive for that particular part of China to export their goods. This is a big win. For China, it's a very big win for China, and their ability to export goods. And also it has a couple of problems. Because they're going to transit, that port will be inadmissible into the United States. You can't transit Russia, on your way to the US, you can't transit, a lot of country to get killed a lot of countries if you transit Russia on its way here, because of our current issues and sanctions. It's also a big political question. Because people are wondering if Russia is doing this, because they were told that they had to, this is not something that Russia would ever do. And I sent you guys an article about this, they actually said, Is Russia becoming a vassal state of China? Is this something they were told that they needed to do in order to get military goods to get funding and to continue the purchase of oil and energy by China from Russia, which right now, believe it or not, is not something China necessarily needs to do? Because the price of energy is actually dropping from other places, which could benefit China is a fascinating move from a geopolitical standpoint. Good for China, but not as good as you may think it is stuck.
Doug Draper 8:47
Yeah. And I wonder if it's coincident that dropped right after the g7 meetings up there, which were in the general area? And yeah, you know, the one thing that brings to mind on this is not the ambiguity, but the uncertainty. There you go, that's a better word is like, Okay, why did this happen? Whose side what's going on? And I think we will continue to peel the onion back and see, is this an energy play? Is it just the two nations flexing their muscles China's specifically related to Hey, when dignitaries go over to Taiwan from the United States, let's drop our our military might in the streets of Taiwan and just to kind of cruise around so people know that they mean business. So interesting, just the start of the story from my perspective, and we'll we'll see how that pans out. But yeah, it kind of flew under the radar. I didn't hear about it until you shot it over earlier. And I think we're gonna see a lot more of this to come come around in the near term.
Pete Mento 9:54
Side note postscript, Doug if you're ever in Eastern Europe and have a chance to get through Food from the Vladivostok region jump on it. It's very good. No?
Unknown Speaker 10:04
Great. What's good about it?
Pete Mento 10:06
Let's caviar. Tremendous seafood. And the type of vodka drinks dishes and such. It's just very, very good. Very good. Not a lot of Russian food can be categorized as good. So the fact that I'm categorizing anything as good, should be shocking. If you can actually cut it up.
Doug Draper 10:28
Yeah. Well, I think I'll probably go there. Never. So I'll have to take your word for it. All right. All right. So this is a personal experience when I was out in California last week, but here's the here's the gist of it is that we have a serious final mile delivery problem in supporting the electrification of transportation. So here's a story Pete, this will take up the bulk of this topic, but so I was in Fresno last week. And at the car, the car rental place, they didn't have any cars, but I bought the manager special through Priceline. So they were like, Hey, you got the manager special. We don't have any cars, except for this one, which was a Pollstar electric car, which I thought was pretty cool. I've never driven electric vehicle before. So I'm zipping around. It's all fine and dandy. I had to go down to the Saleya, which is south of Fresno, and I wanted to make sure that I had plenty of juice. So I went to an Eevee. Station, it took me a while to find one. Right, it took me on the app, but it's not like a gas station on every corner, you had to go to a specific one. On Evie go, I think was the name of it. So it took me to this one that was closest. And I got out and I was ready to put my credit card in what you can't pay with a credit card, you gotta download the app, freaking downloading the app, as I'm doing that, again, it wasn't a very good part of town is there was this homeless individual, I believe that was probably strung out on drugs that had his pants off. That was running across the street and cars were stopping. So I'm trying to figure out what's going on over there. Try to load up his app, so I can use my car. It wasn't working. So I'm on the 800 number of the power station. This this individual and I'm looking at my right because that's where I was, starts coming over to me, right? I don't know what's going on. The guy has no pants on. And he's acting crazy. So I get in the car and I lock the doors. And I'm still trying to figure out I'm not even charging it Pete I'm just trying to figure out how the hell to charge. So he kind of laughed, and he went over to the front of the store. At that time, he flipped over a trash can. And the store owner came out a nice guy. So he's now running around because he has amazing space. I'm just trying to charge the GD car. So I finally got it, I got a plug in and I sat there for about 10 or 15 minutes, I got maybe 10% of juice, and I'm like, I gotta get out of here. This is nuts. So I finally got out of there, it was an hour and 15 minutes, an hour and 15 minutes to get 10% juice. I didn't know what I was doing. I will admit some of its operator error. But I'm dealing with this craziness around me, I want to pull up, plug this damn thing in scan my credit card. And I want to juice up quickly and get the hell out of there. So I started thinking, all right, well, the large solar arrays, the wind farms and the water cascading over dams are really impressive. And it makes for some good video fodder. But it's all about the connectors that we spoken about is that's cool. That makes a good press release. But ultimately until it can get effectively in the final mile into my car, or my truck, eventually that will be delivering freight. There is a lot to be desired. So I went to the Saleya I came back you have to deliver the car with the 80% full battery. Or you get things like turning your car in where you don't fill up with a full tank of gas. So I was down at like 45%. So I plugged it in again, I went to the same spot because at least I knew what I was doing. I sat for 35 minutes to take the car from 45% to 80%. So I didn't get dinged when I went to the when I went to turn it in. So the whole experience to me was pretty, pretty negative Pete to be frank with you, I'm never going to get another electric car as a rental. I'm sure there's some benefits. If it's your own vehicle and know where to go. You can charge it at your home at night. But I'll tell you what, man and so they figure out and they is the collective. How do you effectively get in and out of a charging station without having to navigate an app and download your credit card and create an account and deal with people without their pants on running across the street? wasn't a big fan. And I think that the general public is not going to put up with the time it takes to charge and it was a firsthand experience I had I wanted to share That final mile delivery of electricity into our vehicles is going to be a monumental step to overcome if we want to embrace this long term.
Pete Mento 15:10
I am just waiting for you to take your cane and shake it at the camera, Doug. Oh, man, oh, man.
Doug Draper 15:20
I felt that way. That's so funny because I was telling my story. And I was telling that story to my wife. And she's like, you're just that get off my yard guy. Yeah.
Pete Mento 15:29
Did you? Did you at least rough on the gas and go zero to 60 in three seconds or something? Did you do any of that?
Doug Draper 15:36
I did once just to kind of get a feel for it. I mean, there's there's some juice there and the car handle great. I have nothing against Pollstar. I've never really heard of that brand before they did a really cool car. It's the electrification trying to fill the damn thing up with juice to return it to the to the dealership to the rental car.
Pete Mento 15:54
So here's some initial reaction stuff. They are super fun to drive that is in as a cynical man, right? When you're driving, how often do you get in your car and these days, say, I'm really I really enjoyed driving. For me when I take the top off my Jeep, and I'm just bombing around on a sunny day, I do have a lot of fun driving my jeep. That's fun. But you know, when we're just driving around in the family truckster. It's not exactly fun to drive. When you get an electric car, and you're ROP on it, and you you know, this just blurry lines blown past you because you're going warp speed. That's kind of fun. And second question would be What did it cost you to fill her up? You know, was it expensive to put juice in it? You went on that app?
Doug Draper 16:48
It's like 27 bucks, something like that. I mean, it's definitely cheaper than it would have been to fill it up with with gas.
Pete Mento 16:54
But still, it still seems kind of expensive.
Doug Draper 16:57
Yeah, I could dig it up on my phone here. I got back did a screenshot that basically said how much time I sat there for the amount of juice. So it was less expensive than California gas. But time is money. Pete I didn't feel sitting there for 35 minutes.
Pete Mento 17:10
True. But it still feels a little expensive to. And this goes back to that whole infrastructure bill, you know, that was that we had not long ago where they were going to put just tons and tons of electrification stuff everywhere. And I said nothing. I don't know. You know, I don't know if there's a universal adapter for putting electricity into a car. I don't know if it's like, if you and I go to a gas station and put gas in our cars, it doesn't matter what kind of car you've got, you just put the little gas pump in there. I don't know if it's the same way if you've got a Tesla, or you know, if you've got a rivian or Pollstar Porsche, you know, I don't know. But I think that over time, what we're where we're at right now is the same place when when the automobile that was full of petrol first started, this people were just trying to deal with with that, and over time, these things will be overcome, but we are going to struggle with it for some time, and many people like you and I is going to try our patients and turn people off. And but there are folks that will simply adapt it because of the the joy that they get with helping the environment, adapting new technology, enjoying the new technology. It's just not you, Doug, you know, and right now, it's not me. I haven't been blown away yet. With something electric, although I do really love those Porsche Titans. I love how fast they are. But but I need it doesn't matter how fast Tesla is. I just don't like how they look. I'm being very honest. Man. I love barracudas. And I love Road Runners and I love all Mustangs and Camaros. Nothing about nothing about a Tesla to me is sexy, except for the science. The science turns me on that I don't want to drive the science. It's something that looks cool. So wait for something looks super cool before I'll probably ever by putting the electric engine in a 1970s TransAm with T tops and we're on baby. You know, I'm way too old school before I do something like that.
Doug Draper 19:13
Yeah, yeah. Cool. All right. Well, that brings us to the try that again, that brings us to halftime. Not only is this podcast powered by but the halftime is brought to us by CAP logistics. And I wouldn't be here right now talking and sharing our wisdom, quote unquote, without cap logistics. So please get out there. Check out their website, Cap logistics.com and see what they can bring to the table for you guys. So Pete, I love your halftime topic. I'll let you go.
Pete Mento 19:44
Yeah, so real quick for you. My halftime topic. happy marriage, National Maritime Day, everybody. Very quickly. Today's is maritime day. May 22. for about 60 years now has been national maritime day. So for all my friends to see a couple of Madhu, Washington Listen to the show, hoping for all of you to get home safe people love you, for those of you don't know, today's been set aside to celebrate the men and women who traverse the seas. And God bless each and every one of them. But my topic today is a fun one. I, I have a new workout regimen that I started trying out today, a walk the four and a half miles to the Starbucks from my house. And I had Amy meet me there. And we had coffee together and then she drove me back home. So sort of like, you know, destination workout, right. And on my walk out there. I was listening to the two bears one cave podcast. Bert kreischer was on it. And he had, he had Kevin Smith on, and he was like a big guest for the podcast. And I thought to myself, if we can have any guests on the podcast, who would we want? Right? So I'm gonna ask you, Doug, if you if we can have any particular podcast guest. We're gonna have anybody. Who would you want to have on the podcast? And why?
Doug Draper 20:58
Yeah, so I went a lot of different directions on this one, right? Something modern era, folks would be like, oh, let's get Lincoln on or Genghis Khan or something like that. Right? I did. So the down and dirty on to answer your question, because I went a little bit back in time. But Shakespeare, I think would be an interesting guest, because I listened to some Shakespeare if maybe my wife was quoting Shakespeare last week when we were graduate with my son's graduation. But his phrasing of words, and the way he brings things to the table is very unique. It takes you a while to figure out what he's talking about. But once he does, you look, and it's kind of like Yoda, like what the hell did he say? And then you listen to it again. You're like, yeah, that kind of makes sense. Once I think he wouldn't take himself too seriously. So that's the why, right? He could come up and give you some perspectives on what he meant by some of his, his plays, and like some outtakes, if you will from from his discourse, so nothing to say. So I think he has this amazing phraseology and unique way of developing a story. But he'd be able to talk in modern terms and get a lot of laughs. So that's, that's who I would say would be on the show. What about you
Pete Mento 22:21
know what, like, just you went in a totally different dimension, like I was thinking of practical professional guests, you know, there's two people, I would ask on one of them, because he's getting older, and I don't know if we'd have a chance to have him on. And one of the gentlemen at traffic tech, that I've got a big kick out if he was actually his bodyguard, so Henry Kissinger, I think that we would get a blast out of just like Kissinger stories, like you're going to China with Nixon, going to China with Reagan going to China with or talking to talking to China with Clinton, like I think, because Henry Kissinger is is sort of the Dark Hand behind everything that has to do with trade for the past how I don't know, my whole lifetime. So that'd be pretty cool. And then the second one, Doug, and this is going to be terrible. I would love to have Pete Buttigieg on the show the current the current Secretary of the Treasury of transportation, you and I would roast him into a fine powder of carbon like you and I would be on the show like a real pleasure to be on here to talk about transportation in the you and I would just like slay him we would we would turn him into a fine like tapioca pudding of blood and dust. By the time we were done with him. We like it another thing. He would take his soft show of like, you know, tool farts in the industry to have a chat of them. We just destroy him. On behalf of the entire industry Secretary Buttigieg
Doug Draper 23:53
we would like to score brothers. Have you ever heard of those those guys? We would just rifle through it just like
Pete Mento 24:02
yeah, he would. He would he would probably not be able to sleep for two or three days from the psychological scarring. Of the two of us. Yeah, be pretty bad. But everybody would love us. We'd be heroes. They put our faces on T shirts for the time we were done. Anyway, short your halftime buddy.
Doug Draper 24:17
Oh, my halftime is what the hell's going on with with theme songs for all of the streaming service shows? Right? So I was thinking back in the day if I say Gilligan's Island, the Jeffersons facts of life, even friends to some degree you can write you could crank out the theme song. You could sing the whole thing, write the whole thing. And now it's just It's garbage. I've been watching a lot more more shows. And I don't know it's just like Sons of Anarchy. Here's the ones I was thinking of Sons of Anarchy severance, which is a crazy weird one on Apple succession. Shrinking is another one on Apple, Animal Kingdom. Like they're horrible. Like, I don't even I fast forward it and another one that's horrible that my wife loves is a podcast called smartlace. It is funny, but it is the worst intro of all time. So I don't understand why in this day and age, we can't have some catchy, nice sing along theme songs that are that are out there that, you know have been around for for decades. And I think the one of all time is the Jeffersons, right everybody knows that.
Pete Mento 25:37
Yeah, we had a halftime once we brought this up, Doug, I don't remember what episode it was. But I told you that the the two greatest two greatest theme songs ever, ever in the history of shows. Were for taxi and were for Barney Miller are my two favorites and I really disagree with me maybe that those were yours. I also like Sanford and Son is another excellent. You're right. The new ones are really just not very good. And I think that a lot of it has to do with them. Trying to they just hire some guy puts a digital thing together. And it's I don't think it's meant to be memorable. I will say there are a couple that I do like I liked the theme song for Castle if you know that, that show I think it's pretty good. But think of some of the more iconic like Dukes of Hazzard do with Waylon Jennings, just a good old boys how fair? That was I mean that would that get charted? seen elsewhere. NYPD Blue. Some of these shows had what was the one for there was another one that was a cop show in the 80s. Anyway, there's a bunch of them that that people remember. And how many folks can still build that Archie Bunker however many years later? It's so yeah, man. It's shocking how few folks remember all those. But you're right, Doug, let's bring it back garbage.
Doug Draper 27:01
And the thing is, is if you're watching it on a computer, it basically says skip intro, but you can't skip intro if you're watching it on on your TV, right so you're forced to listen to that garbage. Just incredibly disappointed. All those shows are good shows. The theme music is horrible. It just irritates me. And get off my yard by the way.
Pete Mento 27:22
Oh, get off my lawn. Yeah, soap opera themes, man. General, the restless General Hospital. Those all are all songs that they all charted. They were all songs that made it onto the list and charted. So yeah, I don't know what happened, man. That just they all fell apart my brother. It's sad. It's sad. All right, so
Unknown Speaker 27:48
my next topic? Yeah, keep rolling you.
Pete Mento 27:50
It's funny. You mentioned the g7. A little while ago. But everybody was in the news was talking this week about how Mr. Solinsky showed up for the for the party. Fascinating, to be sure. But what was not talked a lot enough about was the fact that the most of the g7 was openly engaged in discussing in ways to put China in a box. Literally, what are we going to have to do through diplomatic means, if necessary in the future, to ensure that China does not become a problem, and if necessary, put them into a position where they cannot be harmful. And they talked about sanctions. They talked about keeping chips out of China's hands, the Dutch and the English and the Japanese and the Americans talked about making sure that they sanctioned China made sure that they were using export controls to keep China at arm's length, doing what they could to keep cybercrime out of China's hands to make sure that cyber cyber theft was was toned down with them. I mean, it was outward at this point. And a big part of that had to do in step and this is his visit. China is supporting a land war that's being engaged in Ukraine by Russia. And although it might not be much different than what America is doing, and Germany and Great Britain and all these other European powers, they've picked a side that those countries aren't happy about. And I don't want to get too deep into it. But this idea that China is testing out their ability to financially walled themselves away from Western powers, in case they were to decide, decide to engage in a battle thrown in Taiwan. What will we be able to do now that we've shown our hands with the sanctions, a lot of that has to do with gold? It was a moment last week. I don't remember it was on the show or after the show, where Keenan talked about the repricing of gold as an example for the gold deposits that are in the New York Fed. And I've spoken a lot about it's funny, I mean, since you brought it up, we've spoken a lot about it. So the gold reserves that America has currently in the New York Federal Reserve Bank, down in a vault far beneath the surface of the New York bank, are currently they're currently valued at $44.22, of tryouts. But gold I think is valued at like $1,998 An ounce right now in the market, why? A lot of that has to do with the fact that we don't want the Federal Reserve to have too much sway there. And it's not the gold itself, it's gold, the gold death certificates. If America decided to take their billions of dollars worth of gold and revalue it, what would that mean for Chinese stocks of gold? What if they were to go out and start buying gold like China has they they're totally talking about ways missing the coin, doing things to mess with inflation, do things to mess with the Chinese RMB. And letting China know that they're serious about doing it? So they're, they're actually being very brazen, these western countries and talking about their means of financial warfare in a way that I have never thought that they would be so brazen. And it's interesting to see
Doug Draper 31:06
that. Yeah. Well, the one thing that you made mention just a second ago was choosing sides, right? Like this is, with your first topic. You have Russia and China, which opened up a port, that is one side, you have Zelinsky, coming over to the g7. That's another side. So I think it's just another tangible example of how the world may be migrating to left or right, one side or the other. And I think there's going to be a little nuances as things progress, with Ukrainian war as the catalyst and the rallying point behind one of the sides, so to speak. So it's just, I guess, my takeaway on that one very interesting. And I like to dumb it down. It's another example of how the world is separating into one or the other camp.
Pete Mento 32:00
Yeah, absolutely. It's scary, you know, biking itself to global conflict and the beginnings of the days of World War One. Yeah. Yeah. Bring us home, buddy.
Doug Draper 32:12
All right. So this is a different take on on AI. Right. That's been the hot topic for for months. And I think we're finally seeing applications or talking about applications beyond, hey, I need to write a quick report, or I need a fast little post on LinkedIn to hype up something and you have GPT take care of that. So here's my take, is chat GPT. The next RFID that was so hyped up in the 2000s. And then how blockchain was hyped up in the 2010s, so to speak, both are still around, both have some application, but that was going to change the world, things were going to be monumentally different. And neither one of them kind of took hold, it really did a whole lot. So a different take, and I know what you're thinking right now, as you look at me and getting boiled up. Could AI just be more hype in our in our industry? And I don't know, part of me is yes. Or dummies? No, it's a whole nother whole nother animal, I could go through all the different, you know, applications. If there's going to be savings for service providers like you and I are in. I think it's going to streamline well, all kinds of stuff. You and I could go down that long that litany, but this is a different take on it. Is it just another RFID? And a blockchain that got a lot of hype out of the gate? Or is there some substance here? So I would challenge our audience to say, take away the fact that it's gotten a lot of hype. And it's the cool thing to talk about, which is exactly what blockchain was, and exactly what RFID was. Let's let a calm down. And let's let it resonate a little bit. Is this just another hype that's going to come and go and the true applications are going to be missed? Or really not? Not relevant.
Pete Mento 34:13
Ai going to be your new drone?
Doug Draper 34:17
I don't think so. But now, I don't know. We'll see what he got. I want it. It will depend on your response.
Pete Mento 34:24
So things like these large language models where their AI doesn't think right now, and not yet and who knows when it will. But its ability to gather tons and tons of information, sift through it and then spit out something is is is the new search engine. And I you know, you and I were young men were young men when when the search engine first came out, and men who are our age then looked at it and said, Well, that's what live bruiser for what is this contraction You guys are so excited about. And the information superhighway was going to change everything. And we were gonna play with it with our televisions and and our in our desktops and our laptops, that nobody saw the hardware change come. And they were idiots. And I think where we're making the mistake right now is that we're not blindly seeing the hardware change coming, that hardware changes quantum computing, when quantum computing becomes a reality, and that reality will come in the next 10 to 40 years, AI is going to radically change. Life. That will change. I can't like, I see a lot of crazy shit, Doug. But a lot of the crazy shit I sit like a lot like, like 75 to 80% of the crazy shit, I say. effing happens. So I mean, if I was a baseball player, they wouldn't pitch to me, I would walk every single freaking time on the bat. That's how good at predicting stuff. And I'm when quantum computing happens when you mix it with artificial intelligence, they're going to use it to do mass computation of problems. They're going to use it to do mass research in an artificial environment. And it's going to solve all of humanity's big questions. Hopefully, it's what we use it for. But we're probably going to use it to solve questions like through differential equations of what should I be investing in, markets are going to be pointless, like financial markets are going to be pointless, because it's going to it's going to use all kinds of bizarre qualifications to figure out what markets are going to do. It's going to figure out meteorological trends, whether it's going to be something we just know. Without it. Trust me on this. The same time, cybercrime is going to break the world. We're looking at a whole new period of existence, Health and Human Services, medications, health care, space exploration, military might, it's all going to change.
Doug Draper 37:33
So just to be clear, I'm a believer in it, the point of that was taking a different perspective of it right? All the things you spoke about are, are very real. And I think the implications of this moving forward is scary, unbelievably exciting, and unknown, all at the same time. So I was just taking a different perspective on it. I don't equate it to drones by any stretch. But speaking of drones, I wanted to bring that up real quick. There's some partner grown partner with Walmart that is in a bunch of layoffs, but their CEO guy last name, Walker, I'm sure he's super smart. But he basically said, they're shifting away from enterprise services, such as construction, real estate inspection, and move towards drone delivery, for items of paper towels, ice cream, and rotisserie chickens. Like, I think he should flip those around and say, I've ever been ice cream and chickens is something they need to move away from, and focus more on enterprise applications. So anyway, I just had to get a drone comment in and it hasn't been a while since I've done it. And I felt you and the audience was waiting and needing some feedback on drones,
Pete Mento 38:52
that we're gonna get a bet at some point where, where I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna force you to become a drone operator, like I'm gonna force you. Because I want one actually, because when me I me and I go to these rugby matches. There's sometimes you'll see someone operating a drone to get like above the game footage, or I think that would be so cool. If I was playing rugby, I'd love to see how the team was performing from that angle, and I want to do it for Hudson's games. So like I would, I'm going to probably end up doing it, then you're really going to hate me because I'm going to
Doug Draper 39:23
the drone delivery. I mean, if you start getting excited about delivering rotisserie chickens, I can't believe that that was brought up. It's the drone delivery. Trust me. There's a drone that flew over my daughter's race down in Austin, Texas. That was phenomenal. I loved it, but there was no ice cream or chickens that they were dropping out of the sky.
Pete Mento 39:42
I get DoorDash and Uber Eats pretty consistently. And I'm sure well, I live in a high rise, right? I got a penthouse apartment in high rise. And if you could have that drone drop off my phone guy on my balcony. No, probably I'll make me so happy. But right now I have some nice college kids. It drops it off down, you know, in the entryway, which is fine. Don't get me wrong. Beggars can't be choosers. But you know, I wouldn't mind that at all. If someone had a drone that dropped it off here, dog, when you've just got to admit the fact that the robots are taken over buddy, and it's okay. It's okay. It's okay.
Doug Draper 40:20
Yeah. All right. Well, I diverted the topic here at the very end. So I apologize about that, but,
Pete Mento 40:25
but it's okay. Hey, that's what this show is all about. You know, we have, we can talk about pretty much whatever we want, as long as you know, we keep it keep it classy. And we appreciate cat logistics for giving us that opportunity. And as always, we thank you and then for keeping, keeping the lights on in the train on the rails. While we do talk about it. And we thank all of our listeners and all of our viewers, for listening and viewing and for telling all their friends as well. And that is always mad. It's always pleasure, drone loving. And I'll see you again next week and we'll see you all as well next week. Thanks. Thanks, everybody. So you can share everybody thank
Unknown Speaker 41:04
you