Global Trade This Week – Episode 157
What’s going on in Global Trade this Week? Today Trade Geek Pete Mento & Doug Draper of Inland Star Distribution cover:
2:52 -Mexico’s Tehuantepec Rail Corridor
8:58 -Europe’s 37.6% Tariff on EVs from China
13:55 -Halftime
23:26 -Truck Brokers, AI, and Outsourcing
28:16 -New Efforts to Devalue the Dollar?
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Pete Mento 0:00
You're watching global trade this week with Pete mento and Doug Draper. Good morning everyone from a is their sleep and Pete's eyes. Why is Doug looks so incredibly vibrant, and healthy? At 6am West Coast time edition of global trade this week? I'm Pete manto with me, as usual, not as always, but as usual, is my co host, Mr. Doug Draper? Dougie. We're both in California.
Doug Draper 0:32
Yeah, I love it. You know, it's, we're both in California it is 6:16am. And you're in a residence in and I'm actually in the office because when we ran the show a couple times from my hotel room, the internet just isn't powerful enough. So I come in, and I there's a Starbucks around the corner that opens up at 5am. Alright, so I got my Starbucks right here. And I walk in there guns blazing, what's up what's going on? How you doing? First order the day yada yada, yada. And these people behind the Starbucks look like zombies that might have a great day, you know, Baba, and they just looked at me like I was either a moron or a figment of their imagination or whatever I came in, their energy was flowing, and I left and then they look like zombies. You probably
Pete Mento 1:23
think you're a meth duck, frankly, this guy's like, run around like high fiving. Everybody, you know, it's like a like a, like a high school basketball coach just like firing up the team. Yeah,
Doug Draper 1:34
yeah. I got there about five minutes early. And they weren't open yet. So here's this. Here's this car. And it was three women. So here's this car with headlights on this idling outside of their store. And I was like, they probably think.
Pete Mento 1:50
Yeah, so now here's, here's what you have to do to complete the cycle. You gotta go back around like 11 because they're probably still going to be on their, on their shift and GP just as fired up. They say like, It's halftime. What's going on? When they're like Hulk Hogan at the RNC and like, tear off your shirt, you know, get everybody all jacked and pumped for the second half of their day.
Doug Draper 2:10
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Come in with this same cup and just have coffee dripping down it like it's all stained and everything like I just been drinking.
Pete Mento 2:23
I dug I'm telling you if you want to mess with with the Starbucks crew, and you're there all the time, right?
Doug Draper 2:28
I'm in one full week, a month. Yeah. But I hit the same Starbucks and all that kind of stuff, you know, creature habit.
Pete Mento 2:34
It would become almost like an SNL skit by the time I was done with that. Well, anyway, we want to thank everybody for joining us. Thank our good friends at CAP logistics for providing our platform. And with that, Doug, what is Topic number one for this show.
Doug Draper 2:51
All right, Topic number one, it popped up on my feed and the last week and it's about the to want a pic. I believe I'm pronouncing that YT te w a n ta the isthmus corridor has been completed down in in Mexico to want to pick and it is alive and kicking. And I did some more research on this beat. I had heard about it. And I said okay, that that's kind of cool. Like doing some more investigation. It's a north south corridor that connects the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. And it's designed to carry people in freight. And it opened up into June right. So the first movement, I think it was June 30 or July or something like that. And it transported like 13,000 tons of white corn from the port of Salina, Cruz up to Veracruz here's the thing I want you to I want to get into right is that it took three trips 45 bulk grain hoppers. And it did not move a boat didn't move a vessel and move the product on a train, which is fine. The isthmus itself I think is like 100 and some odd miles 330 kilometers. And they're pitching it as an option an alternative to the Panama Canal. So there's the pitches, Panama Canal. Second option. I get that right because of the craziness. So we've been talking about the Panama Canal and the delays and the drought. And, you know, that is mother nature and who knows that that's going to come around again, things have calmed down at the Panama Canal, but Mother Nature controls, it turns into a chaos again, so I get that. The other interesting thing PETA is it's owned by the government and they wanted it to not be privately controlled, which I can understand that as well. But here's the biggest thing is that you're not moving a vest All you're moving individual containers, and you have to have another vessel on the other side, right? So Panama Canal is let's take the whole vessel and just move it and, and keep it on its journey. This is unloading containers, taking it to a rail yard, moving it, you know, 100 plus miles, reloading it, there's got to be a vessel on the other side. So it conceptually sounds good. I think there will be a niche, or a niche, if you will. That will come maybe it's going to be grain and bulk commodities. But the concept of consumer goods or box, you know, boxes moving through the system to be offloaded move that shorter distance and reloaded on another vessel. That's a lot of extra cabbage to be putting at the movement of that, of that transport. So I don't know the practicality of it. Sounds kind of cool. You know, kudos to the Mexican government to at least come up with some some options, I think there will find a niche. But as far as a huge impact and really replacing and becoming a full on subsidy for the Panama Canal. I just don't see it happen. Have you heard about this? Do you have any take on it?
Pete Mento 6:14
Hadn't heard a word about it until you sent it as a topic? And it looked into it? I was trying to figure out how much it costs? I didn't I didn't come across an article did you come across?
Doug Draper 6:27
They said two and a half to 5 billion. I don't know what's, you know, it's not fully developed out there saying it will be 100% operational another handful of years. But it's in the billions, but it's not astronomical.
Pete Mento 6:39
Yeah, look at us to the billions, but, you know, my money's in the ashtray of my jeep. Right. So the first first thing that hit me to this was it's a great, it's a great like, indication, it's a really cool example of how Mexico is working hard to modernize, I suppose and, and, and create more opportunities to become that leading trading nation. So that's nice to see. But then as far as a land bridge kind of concept, you know, bringing stuff over there, move it and it is a volume business, right it transportation is, the more you have, the lower your costs are going to be. There's a reason why we have the supermax ships and all the rest of it. I harken back to my academy days when Captain stinky weeks. Captain weeks we call them stinky because he smoked a pipe. Captain weeks just said over and over again, a ship only makes money when it's fallen down when it's fully, you know, full of cargo down to it safe loading marks, you have to move a lot to make a lot of money. And in this particular environment. And I don't know that that railhead, from what I saw that is going to be able to push in a volume to make sense that way. I also don't know what the next steps of their rail integration is going to look like and the increase to their overall infrastructure on rail. You hope that this is the first step and many we've been we've been whining you and I on this show for years now about American rail infrastructure and how we're big. We're big fans of rail. And we'd like to see more opportunities for people to push more through it. So you know at least let's give them a pat on the back for getting that worked on. But I don't think you'll ever move enough cargo of that type in order to make this really pay it back.
Doug Draper 8:23
Yeah, yeah. The other thing I read peed on my last comment on this one is that when it's fully operational, it's going to move 1.8 million te us a year and the Panama Panama Canal is at like nine. Yeah, so we've even at its its peak. It's it's not quite at that level. But I agree with you, you know, kudos for trying something the infrastructure provides economic value to that region of Mexico. So anyway, I you know, it's interesting, I'm not sure it's going to be as impactful as maybe they're hyping it. But anyway, good
Pete Mento 8:55
feedback. Yeah. Well, all right, man. So my first topic this week, because we can't talk enough about EVs and tariffs, the European Union has voted. And apparently, they're going to put in place a 37.6% tariff on electric vehicles coming into the European Union. And that is significantly lower than what we've done in the US at 100%. So that was a little shocking to me that it was as low as it was. The other thing that brought to mind was talking about a country who's kind of I mean, they're they're pretty comfortable. European Union is pretty cutting out a country or region. They're pretty comfortable with putting in non tariff barriers to entry and tariff barriers to entry. seems low, could have been much higher. And you've got so many car companies in Europe that are working so hard to get a foothold in the world on their EVs. This is a show a show of force and I think the world is genuinely scared. Scared of a Chinese EV manufacturing takedown of the rest of what would be the More traditional car companies, you know the Fords of the world BMWs, Volkswagen, Peugeot, the list goes on and on right now. Right. So so we we have an indication here that the world is afraid of China will a 3036 36 37.6%. Not I don't believe it will be. And then the other half of this is I think we've probably done too little too late. The Chinese are ready to flood global markets with inexpensive, reliable, believe it or not reliable cars that yes, they have a lower range of how many miles they can do in a day. Typical consumer isn't gonna be so worried about that. I don't think they don't think that people are, and in the next couple of years are going to realize I only did a couple of 100 miles a day. That's it. And if I can get a couple 100 miles a day for a car that cost me 10 grand. That's, that's a game changer. So I think it's too little too late. I'm saying it now. And July 23 2024. I think the automotive industry, the future of it belongs to the Chinese. Yeah.
Doug Draper 11:05
Yeah. One of the topics we had remember a couple of weeks, maybe a month or two ago, it seems like China's Evie semiconductor semiconductors, you know, and battery storage and solar kind of seems to be their new, their new mantra, but the car thing is interesting, right? And correct me if I'm wrong, right, is it was a non so the vote for European Union. nonbinding, right, it was just kind of a show. And everybody that voted was anonymous. Right? That's right. You couldn't tell what countries? I mean, it'll get out right at some point, but it was just seeing, it's almost like they're putting their toe in the water to say, hey, is this gonna work? 37.6. But I think so that was interesting to me. The second piece, you said, there's a lot of car manufacturers in Europe that are aggressively trying to tap into this market. But you're exactly right. From a coupe consumer perspective, in the United States, there's going to be two cars, most families have two cars. One is the commuter car, what you just said 10 grand to get electric, and I do, I'm doing my part, and I zip around town, and I use a couple 100 miles a week. And then you got the road trip car, the one you take up on your, on your trip, going to the lake, going to the beach, going to the mountains, that one has nothing to do with electric that's gas all the way and it's going to have safe and insecurity and no distancing anxiety, your power, anxiety, whatever that term is. So you're right, it'll be interesting to see. And I think even tariffs are our I don't know, it's interesting, but your Gosh, darn right, China's turning the gas down or cranking up the juice, if you will, to become more dominant in that topic. I,
Pete Mento 12:49
I was thinking about what I took the train every day, you know, and I drove my car 10 miles to the train station, and I just left it there. Imagine if I could have plugged it in. Right got back into its charged as soon as I came back in brought it back, you know, I didn't have a bus I could take to the train, I didn't have any other type of or I would have done that too. But the amount of money I could have saved with a car that inexpensive for as little as I drove, it would have been an absolute winner. But I think that the US companies are going to have to make an inexpensive model and I mean, inexpensive in order to be able to compete here. And I think China's put themselves in a position where it's a it's an arms race, and they hold a lot of the cars cards. The high end Evie market, I think that's different. You know, I think it's gonna be different for a long time ever been in a review, and they're positively gorgeous, you know, the, the newer, higher ends Tesla's that are out there. They're incredible as well. So lots of to be done here. And there isn't a dominant brand in that way for the low end cars. So I can't wait to watch to see what happens. Yeah,
Doug Draper 13:52
interesting. Topic and evolution for sure. All right. Well, that brings us to halftime, as we mentioned before, brought to us by CAP logistics, the ones that make all this happen every week, and we can't thank them enough. So visit cap logistics.com. All right. So halftime, this is where we talk about whatever we want to talk about. Yours is very interesting, Pete so I'm gonna go first, I saw yours. And I'm like, that's a 5am. Kind of like, what am I going to talk about at halftime? So mine is a question to up. So I saw the other day that there was a beluga whale or two of them that were transported from the Ukraine. To Spain. We're getting the belugas out of the war zone. And they were flown. They were put on a plane and they were flown beluga whales peak by the way beluga whales need to stay on water in order to live right. You got to think that there was a gigantic pool in an airplane driving these animals from two different countries. So that was like that's cool. I started Googling, like who the hell did this? There are companies out there that specialize in the movement of animals and all kinds of crazy commodities and things that nature. So, kudos to getting to beluga whales. From the Ukraine to Spain, it's, it's, it was amazing. It caught my attention. Like, that's cool. So my question up is, what's the craziest commodity or scenario that you've seen in your career? As far as moving cargo from one part of the world to another?
Pete Mento 15:30
First of all, we've done that. We've moved marine mammals, that DSP, I have no idea how they did it, I should probably ask somebody. Yeah, the craziest thing that I've ever had to move was racehorses, live resources that I was involved in some of those going from, mostly the US like Kentucky, and Virginia, and Tennessee to the Middle East. So they move those airframes, you know, it's pretty crazy. But when I was on a ship once, we had all kinds of animals on it. And I have a story about one of my professors from the academy, Captain Brown, telling us about moving circus animals and the monkeys got out of their cages. And we're just wreaking havoc for like a month as they cross the Atlantic. And I've always thought that would be hysterical. Like you're, you're trying to get through, you're watching some monkey walks into the, into the control room, and they're just jumping up and down on stuff. You know, I can't even imagine having to live with that. What's your well, this dog?
Doug Draper 16:30
There's two of them. And so I'll keep it super, super short. This was when you're in Denver. Not we were part of the packaging side of it at my old company, but we moved sand from a specific quarry. If you do sand in a quarry, but it was in southern Colorado, we brought it up. And they were shipping Stan to Afghanistan. And it was able to ship workers. Like, oh my gosh, I was like, What are you? Is this a joke? Right? So
Pete Mento 17:02
we're using it for fracking are they using it for do you know, now they
Doug Draper 17:05
were using it for building? Part of I don't know if it was bunkers, or whatever. But it was for for billing. And it was almost like a Part A and Part B because we had to label everything either a red tag and a blue tag. But it was, you know, part of the rules and regulations that the government if you can source it domestically, that's priority one. And so yeah, we literally we didn't take sand and dump it. But it came in buckets. And we had to pack it up and and make it secure. And I'm not talking like a couple,
Pete Mento 17:33
we probably did
Doug Draper 17:36
25 truckloads of sand that was then flown to Afghanistan.
Pete Mento 17:42
So I want to need to salesperson Doug that sold sand in the desert. Well,
Doug Draper 17:46
exactly that guy or gal needs, you know, commission check for sure. But there was so many people, I think I can't remember the details. But the government contracted with Halliburton and Halliburton contracted with these guys. And those guys, we were like number seven on service providers that were touching the sand to get it over to Afghanistan. It was it was not. And the second one is that being a University of Colorado is a big research institution. And we had to load up an ocean to ocean containers full of like, hundreds of 1000s of dollars of equipment and send it down to Central America somewhere. And it was all to test in a clip or not test to video. Observe. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Sorry about that. observe something happening astronomically. Literally two and a half seconds. So they sent all this stuff down there, they were going to set it up, they spent just an insane amount of money. And they had to get it there at a certain time. I mean, talk about pressure to get to get there with the lace. Literally move it to another country, hundreds of 1000s of dollars and material for two and a half second observation. So those are my two crazy ones. Didn't make it in time, Doug. I don't know that because we were just involved with the loading piece of it. I would assume it did. Right. But I don't know. There was trust me it was shipping. well in advance. well in advance. I think it was two months before the actual event took place. Crazy. I like horses. That's a little simple, simpler to Well, let me rephrase that. That process is not simple. But those are good stories for sure. Yeah. Dude,
Pete Mento 19:27
that I'm sure if I sat here and wrack my brain, I can think of some other crazy stuff. Oh, yeah. Yes. The end to a desert. That's pretty awesome.
Doug Draper 19:35
Like, I don't even know but yeah, I mean, the crazy thing Pete is literally I remember counting I can't remember all the contractors but we were like number seven in service providers and you know not to be like who's paying for this the government? Okay, let's make sure we make some money on this thing because obviously they need to get sand to Afghanistan. So just the amount of money involved to export that and fly sand over to Afghanistan crazy.
Pete Mento 20:01
There's a reason why the government contracting division of most businesses is one of the most profitable. Yeah. Well, again, my my topic is a weird one, Doug. So if you've been listening to podcasts and interviews of Elon Musk for years now, you know that there is a, a popular theory that we are living in a simulation dug that this is, this is some kind of computer simulation that is been going on, that we're part of it. And it's not real, that this is just us, living through simulation. Not only is that a theory, Elon Musk believes it. He believes it, he says it's more likely than not that we are in a simulation and think about how wild this is. So there are people who say, Today's simulation is is really nothing like yesterday's, that you wake up with implanted memories of what happened the day before. And it's part of a very large computer model that we're all taking part in, and that there's billions of them happening at once, which explains the multiverse. And this just happens to be the one you're experiencing right now. And it's messed with my head dug that I've been thinking about this for like a year and a half. Am I living in a simulation? And then I look at the world around me doesn't seem so unlikely anymore, with the way things are happening and how completely just off kilter and weird things have gotten. And then the backup for this is when you look at the science of virtual reality, and our computing abilities. It's not that crazy to think that we would have simulations in the very near future that appear to be almost exactly lifelike. So Doug, are we living in a simulation?
Doug Draper 21:44
Wow, this is heavy man. So Isn't life in general, just a simulation? But the answer that is no. And I'd like you to one of those shows coming up. I want you to describe what's in your Bug Out Bag. Before the the you know the world freaks out and you're running to your to your bunker, right? So I don't, this is insane to me. I don't understand it. Now, Doug,
Pete Mento 22:08
Doug, what's gonna happen after the show is that Keenan and I are going to send you so many videos, because I'm quite sure he's been looking at this stuff, too. And you are going to be inundated with you live in a simulation videos. Saying that, like Alex shows, like everybody that brought me here is that we live in a simulation, it's not gonna be quite that bad. But we'll get you some learned ones that that will make you think it's not going to be so easy to have a doubt about this. You're gonna have a doubt you're gonna have a doubt.
Doug Draper 22:33
Well, if there's if we're in a simulation, when you turn off the simulation, right, there has to be a reality behind it. So the question is, what's the reality of the simulation stops? I don't know.
Pete Mento 22:45
Yeah, nobody. I think I'm beginning to believe it, though.
Doug Draper 22:49
Yeah. Well, that's a hell of a topic to end with on on halftime, again, brought to us by CAP logistics. Put that one in your pipe. Cleaning and, and see okay, but smoke it. But wow. Okay, I'll blame that partially on the 6am kickoff here. So anyway, thanks to cap appreciate their, their involvement cap. logistics.com Check them out. You You're,
Pete Mento 23:20
you're up next, buddy.
Doug Draper 23:22
All right. See, we can blame all of these snap boos too, early morning. So my thought and again, you know, a lot of our topics come from things that we see throughout the week is truck broker, brokerage and brokerage in general. They started to outsource the labor. They're starting to get involved with AI. And we saw ch Robinson doing some, some layoffs and some cuts and saying, Hey, a lot of what truck brokers and you and I have personal experience on this stuff is just banging and phones and trying to get business and doing the heavy lift, which is not fun in the sales environment when you're starting your career out. Right. So it was like, when you and I were growing up, it was like how many offices do you have as a truck brokerage company? And how fast can you enter markets and the more people the better and it was almost like you know, a call pit, right? If you will, like a bullpen environment. Most of them were fun, you know, I've been in plenty ch Robinson offices where it's just a gallery of everybody that's under 30 that starting their careers, they're having a good time with the puffy shot in the corner and and, you know, maybe beers with the group after five o'clock on a Friday. But that model is changing with AI and I think they're starting not I think the trend with some companies is like let's just outsource the back end operation which is already happened. But now let's outsource some of these jobs that just require high volume dialing for dollars, that kind of thing. So the the funny thing Isn't they've outsourced the trucks if I'm a brokerage firm, I don't own any assets. So I outsource the trucks. That's part of brokers. That's the whole base model. Now I'm outsourcing the labor, right? They're not even my employees, I'm outsourcing the labor to do the blocking and tackling. So my question, Pete is, are they going to outsource their entire existence? I mean, what we might, you know, what's the what's the purpose, right? You're outsourcing my trucks. I'm outsourcing my employees. I'm just a bank, facilitating payments and, and financial transactions. So that's not quite as crazy as living in a simulation. But it sure seems like we're going in that direction with AI. And let's just find that cheap labor and other markets. So I don't know if you heard about this, or what's your take on?
Pete Mento 25:43
I think my first month at ch Robinson in 2009. They brought me to office they call Chicago Central. I don't know if it's still the same thing. But I wasn't, I wasn't ready for it, Doug, like I wasn't. I didn't understand truck brokerage in 2009. And customs broker and they walk into this gigantic office. And it was like in the city of Chicago, it was pretty cool location. But 500 plus people 500 plus people, just on the phone, you know, I got a load, I got a truck, I got a load, I got a truck. And someone over here like, yeah, you load and there was a huge, like control board up above everybody, like it was NASA, you know, where their assets were and trucks were. And they're just like barking over the phones that you might and I said, this reminds me of the boiler room, you know, it's like this, but but it was an incredibly profitable and highly efficient, believe it or not way to manage the business. And it was, again, a business of scale. So the more people you had doing that stuff, the better off they'd be. As technology creeps into all of our, all of our different corners of our business, there's two things that happen, it becomes more efficient, it becomes more profitable, the price goes down, it becomes a commodity. And then the second thing that happens is our customers gain access to the technology. So as our customers get access to the technology, it forces our business to evolve, or to perish. And where I'm concerned here is I'm excited, right that we have artificial intelligence in this brand new technology, pushing everything. But I'm also a bit concerned, buddy, because as history has shown us, our customers, our clients themselves will adopt similar technology, and begin to push us out of the middle. So Doug, I think you're absolutely right. I think we're where I would be concerned if I was one of these large customers is, at what point if I created such a good data driven process, that it can be co opted by the large customers that I serve, and I become nothing but a place where money and data transfers, which in and of itself can be a profitable business, but I don't think it'll be as large and as easy to hold on to as a beach front as having, you know, 5000 people around the country barking into a phone?
Doug Draper 27:54
Yeah. Well, I think you just described Uber.
Pete Mento 28:01
Yeah. Did Colorado company Uber freight? Are they in Colorado? No,
Doug Draper 28:06
no, no, no, I definitely know a handful of folks that live in Colorado that work for Uber freight. But yeah, anyway, it's potentially things move. So Gosh, darn fast. We'll have to see. All right, Pete, wrap it up.
Pete Mento 28:20
So along
Doug Draper 28:21
with conspiracy theories, let it rip. Well,
Pete Mento 28:23
no, it's not really a conspiracy theory. There's just a long history of American economists and particularly the Fed in the White House, talking about whether or not it will be a good idea to deeply devaluate the US dollar to basically do what China has done for years, which is to use means to artificially lower the value of the US dollar against foreign currencies, in an attempt in an attempt to try to make our exports less expensive to foreign countries have said over and over again, imports helped to drive consumption, but it's exports that create jobs. And when the US is on a level playing field, with a country like Japan or India as an example, it's very difficult for us to sell at the same level because our dollars worth just so much more money. So there's a positive side to that, right. And then there's a negative side, which would be that your dollar wouldn't buy as much of foreign goods would that slow down consumerism, which in turn would deeply slow down the American economy. We have a vice president nominee and JD Vance, who is a big believer in the concept of devaluing the US dollar in order to reinvigorate industrial manufacturing in America, particularly things like steel, and other you know, inputs into into industry. It's not a new concept, but I think it's gotten refreshed and people are taking a new look at it. When you have times where everything went to hell like the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act. And 100 years later, you look at and say, well, could we do it differently now? Have we learned enough about the triggers to put in a massive tariff on everything coming into America? I don't know. Let's look at it. Let's model it let's let's consider the mathematics and the changes in history. Well, the same is being done now, not on tariffs, but on devaluing the US dollar, how would we do it? Would the Federal Reserve and the central bank be in a position to do it? And how would that impact jobs in America? And how would it impact the broader globe? It's a situation where it could be great for American jobs, bad for American consumption. And I think, really bad for the broader global economy, I think it would, it would trigger a brush fire, and other nations that really do sort of depend on that lower value for the same product. China being a huge example here, as well as a lot of African and Sub Saharan Africa and South America. So if you're an American first kind of guy, I can see the appeal to this. But I think I'm a little more worried about the global, broader economy. And I'm not quite sure it's a great idea. But expect to start hearing this in political rhetoric leading up to November, the concept of devaluing the US dollar for the betterment of blue collar working class jobs in America.
Doug Draper 31:03
You know, to do something like this, the fragility, the balance, and the room for error is so small, that if it works, yeah, I can kind of see it, but I'll tell you what, man, it makes me nervous. You know, we're the world's dominant power and to come back and do something like this. And if it's not done, right, there's no going back. Right? It? I don't know, man. It's almost like, okay, there's government subsidies and manipulation. Right. How is that different than some of the the economies we've seen across the across the world? I don't like it. It's too fragile. The I don't know, man, it's
Pete Mento 31:52
let me give you an example from just today's show. Right? So the ability for China, to export these inexpensive EVs all over the place, a lot of it is driven by the function of their relatively low value currency. And having a lot of people there to work, of course, but they're low value currency. So the argument would be that our adoption of technology, along with a low value currency, could be a could be a hedge against that, it could very well be a hedge against that. So I, I hear what you're saying, Man, you know, in typical Don Draper fashion, I don't like it. I don't want to hear any this this is. It's a good get some butterscotch and play in the backyard kids. Right. That's, that's, you know, our typical reaction to everything. But I think it's a possibility. I think it's something that they'll consider, and I won't be surprised if it happens. But I think that there's a great line out there when you when you play god, you learn quickly, you're not. You're right. It's so intricate. Done. It's so there's so many strings to pull, and so many things that are unknown. I think that trying to play with an organism as big as the global economy. And our part as big as it is, I think that the the results of it are so far reaching that it would be ridiculous to think that you could control something like that.
Doug Draper 33:01
Yeah. Yeah. It's a good way to end it right. Couldn't be catastrophic. It just, it's too fragile. You know, that's why we got the bug out bags. I don't have one and you and Keenan have a pretty massive, elaborate suit dog bag, you're a bug out suitcase,
Pete Mento 33:21
not to buy a backpack. I have more than one. So that should be an indication. I also have a full EMT kit. Like it's gigantic. It's, I can I could do everything probably but but the surgery. Okay. Probably do some of that, frankly, what this is so, you know, hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Hope is not a strategy. Yeah.
Doug Draper 33:42
Yeah. Just like a gun. It's better to have one and not need it than need it not have it.
Pete Mento 33:46
Got St. Wife. Yeah, yeah.
Doug Draper 33:52
We thought in that. All right. Well, that ends our our show today, global trade this week, with my co host, Pete mento. Both of us are in California making the magic happen at 6am. It's always a pleasure to hear you pontificate on, on stories and we have a good ying and yang not only with our discourse, but our topics, right, we really cover quite a bit. And if it's happening in global trade, you'll hear it here. First, we take a forward lean on these topics, and we're not afraid to put out our comments and, and our projection. So again, thanks for CAP logistics for making that happen. And thanks for our listeners for engaging with us this week. So Pete, that's a wrap brother. Hey,
Pete Mento 34:34
enjoy your simulation today, Doug. All right. Take care.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai