Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
Breaking Records and Breaking Markets: The Impact of Trump's Tariff Policies
Cory Booker just made history by speaking for 25 consecutive hours on the Senate floor, breaking segregationist Strom Thurmond's record—a powerful symbolic moment as a Black senator surpassed the man who once fought against Civil Rights legislation. While Thurmond had used bathroom breaks and read from phone books during his filibuster against equality, Booker fasted beforehand to avoid breaks and delivered substantive content about veterans' issues, Medicare, and other critical topics.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has unleashed a storm of tariffs affecting imports from virtually every nation except Russia and North Korea, triggering an immediate stock market plunge that's hitting military veterans particularly hard. The hosts explore how the newer military retirement system, which replaced traditional pensions with stock market investments, makes service members especially vulnerable to these economic disruptions. For veterans who served 20+ years under the old system, they receive a 50% pension, but newer veterans must rely partly on market performance for their retirement security.
Locally, Colorado Springs is finally preparing to issue recreational cannabis licenses after years of prohibition while the rest of Colorado enjoyed the tax benefits. The hosts discuss how the decade of lost revenue could have funded city improvements, while simultaneously the city council has raised downtown parking rates despite citizen objections. This disconnect between policy decisions and everyday economic reality threads throughout the episode—from Trump's apparent confusion about grocery shopping to cabinet members dismissing Social Security recipients as "grifters."
The conversation examines how these tariffs might reshape global supply chains, potentially pushing countries toward stronger relationships with China while weakening America's economic leverage. With each economic disruption, the hosts highlight who bears the real costs: working people and veterans who find their futures increasingly uncertain while policymakers remain insulated from the consequences of their decisions.
Want to join the conversation about veterans' issues and politics in the Pikes Peak region? Subscribe now and follow us for updates on our upcoming protest on April 5th—we'll be there rain, snow, or shine!
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Hello everybody and welcome back for another episode of Left Face. This is the Pikes Peak Region podcast, where we discuss political topics through the veteran's lens. I am your co-host, dick Wilkinson, and I'm joined this morning with Adam Gillard. Good morning, adam.
Speaker 2:Morning Dick. How are you doing?
Speaker 1:bud, I'm doing well. Stayed home today and thought it might snow, but hasn't yet, so we're, I think we're in for some, but yeah, I can hear the wind howling out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just I'm just kind of getting ready. I guess I've lived in places, you know this. I've lived, as we are, with veterans who live all over the world and, uh, you get to see how people react to snow or weather. You know, and I lived in places where you know, if it's going to snow half an inch, people make a run on walmart and buy all the toilet paper and batteries and you know, like bottled water and it's like dude, you're not going to get snowed in and right have to fend for your life you know, yeah, that's when survivor was big, you know, everybody was really, you know, just itching for survival.
Speaker 1:You know situation um excuse to stock the garage full of stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, in uh, north carolina we had a nice ice storm one time and it shut everything down for like three days. And then the first day I showed up to work and they're like we, we canceled work. I'm like you can't cancel work, like well but. But so they probably just turned me around and sent me back home. I'm like, so it's, it's not safe for me to drive here, but you want me to drive home all right, man gotcha.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's crazy how they could just shut things down just for, uh, just for the weather. But I mean, tomorrow we should have a few few inches, but uh, we're still gonna have our protest on saturday, the uh, the 5th of April protest. Rain or snow shine, whatever, we'll be out there. I'll be driving back and forth from Denver for that too. I'll get the white knucklehead through the snowstorm there.
Speaker 1:Good luck. Well, white knucklehead, let's start with that. This week we had an interesting event take place, historical not just interesting, but historical event take place. Senator Cory Booker broke a record for an event taking place in the floor of the Senate. The conditions that he was giving a speech it was not a filibuster against any kind of legislation. That's what we usually think of when we see a senator get up and give a speech for a long time. But Cory Booker was simply on the floor, had been recognized, and then he got up and gave a record-setting length of how long he spoke at the podium in the Senate.
Speaker 2:It ended up being like 25 hours, 25 hours, yeah hours, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just insane, like to stand there for 25 hours, like I. I've worked like some 20 hour shifts where you're on your feet and just walking all day and like, yeah, you're just so burnt out and like just spent after that. It's a pretty, a pretty crazy thing to do it is and to do.
Speaker 2:It is and um, he's in his 50s, you know, and uh, he's like about six, three. So he, you know there's weight on those feet right like yeah, it's a physical.
Speaker 1:Uh, just just that, you know, stand up and just talk for 25 hours that most people would would not attempt to do that well.
Speaker 2:So here's something that I I learned too. Um, so he started fasting, uh, a few days before, yeah, yeah, so that he didn't have to like go to the bathroom and things like that. So he was super dehydrated for this too, which is kind of crazy, yeah, um, which kind of makes me want to go back and listen to the whole thing and just see if he like starts like kind of like talking crazy. You know, um, like some like prophecies in there somewhere around hour like 17 or 18.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he just let's start speaking terms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah but so so said he didn't go to the bathroom the entire time. Um, the thing, yeah, the thing that I've uh find like the best about this is that he you know a black man beat strom thurman for the longest filibusters, holding the floor for the longest period of time, and Strom Thurmond did that during the Civil Rights, when he was arguing against Civil Rights. He was trying to keep segregation. And so now we have a black man going up there and doing it for 25 hours, doing it longer and not going to the bathroom. But when Strom Thurmond did did it, he had his staffers put up a little tent on the side, yeah, so he would keep keep one like right outside the door, so he would keep one foot inside the senate and use the bath, use the bathroom, and they would like kind of shield him, yeah, and then, and then he would go back on the floor and keep talking and things like that. So like they had ways for him to like use the bathroom and just, and he wasn't doing anything like intelligent or anything, it was like reading from the phone book, it wasn't, you know, a whole like Booker's thing was.
Speaker 2:He said a lot of good things. I mean talk, you know bets issues, medicare cuts. He went through like that had been going on and he can answer a question to be able to take a breath. But it was an impressive 25-hour display of not just willpower to stand up there but knowledge on the situation and actually fighting for the cause. So I think he gave a lot of good information. Does it do shit for us?
Speaker 1:I don't know yeah, that's, that's my. Uh, you know it's I. I will call that a stunt, um, in that, you know, attempting to break a record, um, regardless of the context of the record, uh, I saw it as the last, the tone of the last two weeks in Democrats, at town halls, where people are showing up and talking to the representatives, either Democrat or Republican representatives A lot of the Democrats in the audience basically are saying what are you going to do, what can you do, how are you going to stop the dismantling of programs that affect me and my family? And there's just been sort of a shrug, a turn your pockets inside out.
Speaker 2:We don't have the votes.
Speaker 1:They can break the law. It's up to them. We just have to stand back and watch. This was an answer to that.
Speaker 2:It was something that could actually be done and give them a win. It was awesome, symbolical, but it's a win.
Speaker 1:Politics is about attention to the issue that you care about, right. Once you're a senator or representative, all your job is just talking at that point, right, Right yeah. Talking about the things that are important to your constituents right and making influential and persuasive statements about those. So you know, yeah, that's the value of what he did, but, like you say, you know is, did a Republican hear him talking and feel like they needed to shift their position on anything? I can't imagine that, that that happened, you know.
Speaker 2:No, honestly, it'd be interesting to see what the floor looked like. Like were Republicans even in there at all?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, you know what I mean. Like, if you know what's going on, like would you sit there? Because I mean at that point, like you say, if they're, if you're just talking against the wind, it doesn't really matter. Like, why waste your time? I don't know if you saw recently, but one of our local reps got caught coloring at, uh, at, the state legislator. Did you see that? No, no, so so, uh, yeah, amy paschal, she's up in manitou, she's a state representative there. Yeah, um, she was on her ipad, like doing like one of those coloring things where you tap the color, like you get those really cool pictures, yeah, and is that?
Speaker 2:it was at a period where, like they were reading stuff into the record. It was kind of like a non-consequential point. It was one of those points over. Like it just shit needs to be said into the record, yeah, yeah, and so like like, yeah, she's just kind of like killing time and so like, yeah, it was on like the national reddit pages where they're like, oh, look at this, this is lack of representation. And like Amy is one of the smartest people that I know she's a software engineer. Like having her sit there and not do six things, like that's just not going to happen.
Speaker 2:You know, but it just got. It was funny that, yeah, she got caught with a coloring book there. That's funny In the legislator.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's funny. Oh, man that. Yeah, I don't see that as a problem. You know, people are clicking around on stupid stuff on their computers and ipads the whole time you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a funny story, but it's a non-story like who cares, exactly like to see that get like national level attention, though it's just like that.
Speaker 2:That's so ridiculous. Like you have somebody that's highly qualified sitting there yeah it is. You know can do more than just like listen to somebody read uh, you know their testimony, you know that he was reading into it. Yeah, so you know that was ridiculous. Um, but the city council does that a lot too. Where, like they're, you see them looking down on their phones and things like that, and they're always like we're responding to text messages or we're looking up information and things like that or trying to listen to you, yeah it is what it is movie tickets for tomorrow.
Speaker 1:I don't care about this and I can't wait to leave.
Speaker 2:Yeah having all this access to instant technology.
Speaker 2:It's definitely warped our brains and made us so apathetic to the process. And you know, back to city council. It kind of leads right into the election results from the first. You know Dave Donaldson won re-election. So the guy that you know blatantly goes out there to you know subvert the will. So the guy that you know blatantly goes out there to you know subvert the will of the voters, sure you know gets uh re-elected. Um, but it is a fairly low turnout again. I think he only had 10 000 some votes. Um, when I last looked um mariah, who was on our show here a month or so ago, uh, she lost. She came, came in second in a pretty deep race, but yeah, she had like 38% of the vote or something like that, I can't remember, but just came up short. So hopefully we see her again, I'm sure she's going to stay active.
Speaker 1:Congratulations for taking that step and putting your hat in the ring and having a second place. Finish on five. Well, there's five people on one, you know. Slot for the ticket, then that you know, that sounds like a pretty good turnout for her, so congrats.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know we had a or the party had a really good push at, you know, making a phone bank efforts for her and things like that. So they really came through big for her and closed that gap. Um, yeah so a lot of good promise there, uh, but yeah, so overall city council kind of shook out the way it was all expected to.
Speaker 1:Um now did we lose um as far as, like there was what? Basically two. I know the city council is unaffiliated, but yeah, there's. There was two people that are more left-leaning, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:Nancy Hengem. Nancy Hengem was reelected, so she's one of the like, more sensible people on the city council. And then Yolanda Avila was the previous for two, for two, and she termed out I think you only get to do two, two terms there, okay. So she turned out so kimberly gold won that election, so okay, uh, yeah, we'll see how she uh, how she shakes out, how okay, don't know what her affiliation is right now. No, um, I know the uh, the democratic party didn't uh endorse her, so I don't know if they talked to her at all or if she even looked for their endorsement.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I don't know, but the votes will tell, right, yeah. It'll be pretty quick to tell.
Speaker 1:I mean because they just had one.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, they just had one on city parking. That that's going to piss off a lot of people, because you know people. They did a survey like what do you guys want for city parking and things like that and this. You know all the folks responded and they just upped the prices for parking. Pretty much that's what they did.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say are they expanding the parking zones or are they upped the price?
Speaker 2:okay, gotcha yeah, so they upped the price and I think they might be putting in more parking. You know different whatever. But yeah, the whole parking plan came out and it didn't really listen to the survey that the city council put out to listen to, you know, and again, it's just all about how much revenue you can drive in. They even took away the free Sunday parking, so you know, in a tight economy, people can't even go down on a Sunday and just enjoy downtown without extra cost. Yeah, that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1:That's unfortunate yeah Well, we're going to have some tax money from cannabis sometime soon, right? So maybe we'll see what happens with that right?
Speaker 2:Too bad, we can't get them to be like hey stop charging so much for parking.
Speaker 1:We're going to, you know we get this other money.
Speaker 2:Funny story about that. I mean we're gonna. You know we get this other money. You know, funny story about that. I mean we're two weeks away. They I don't think they've issued any licenses yet.
Speaker 1:No, and that you know, I saw some signs in shops where they said you know, come back in april because every for the last few years and for our listeners that they don't know this, you know a lot of people show up in town in colorado springs they think I'm in colorado, I'm to go to a dispensary and be able to buy.
Speaker 1:You know, over 21, I'll just be able to buy something and I can't tell you. I mean it happened to me back when I used to visit and I didn't live here. And now I see people sitting in the lobby of the dispensary and they're sad or mad because they can't go back and buy something, right they're like open it up weed maps.
Speaker 2:Like where's weed maps? Take me, how do I get to manitou?
Speaker 1:yeah, that's where's how far away is pueblo you know is it worth the drive right um yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:So you see that right, and so now I'm starting to see shops.
Speaker 1:They put up signs that basically are trying to tell that person hey, come back, you know, in april.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll be, we'll be ready for you and I just can't imagine what we could have done for the last 10, 11 years with that tax revenue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I mean you turned down so much. I think the industry or the economy of cannabis in the city would be different too. I don't know that there'd be more shops, right, but just the footprint of everything would be different if it had been going on for years and years. But now it's locked into what it is, so I don't know. It's not really an open market as it stands. I mean we're going to have there are plenty of shops here, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I don't think more shops would be good for the industry, necessarily, but this limiting to only existing locations and stuff, I'll just. I'm just curious to see how many actually convert, if it's any difficulty for them to do that, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, last I heard like there was like 40 applications. Yeah, so not, and I can't remember how many total, so maybe like half.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. Well, I mean that's it versus there's four places basically in the whole county right now that sell rec. So you know to go from four to 40, nobody will be sad in the lobby anymore. I guess the people that show up won't be sitting there, like what do you mean?
Speaker 2:you can't sell it to me you know, you know it's kind of uh crazy because, you know, with cannabis it's always one of those uh inflation proof or markets where it doesn't like like the price hasn't really been going up at all but like it's been pretty stagnant. You know, you know you stay in steady with us. So there's not much, you know fear from the, the tariffs. But the tariffs have a lot of other folks on edge right now and last I saw for the stock market today I think we dropped like 1,400 points. The last I saw. Who knows A few more hours left in the day, it might still go lower.
Speaker 1:Would there be? Do you think? Well, yeah, I guess we're going to transition. Let's do that. Yeah, we're going to tariffs now. I guess we're going to transition. Let's do that. Yeah, we're going to tariffs now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to tariffs. Yeah, and so the Senate just voted against the Canada tariffs. Okay, did you see that vote at all? It was like 51 to 48, I think. Okay, maybe 49. But yeah, so four Republicans voted against the canada tariffs.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I don't know what that like I mean, I'll bet yeah, but it was an executive order, so they, you know they'd have to pass legislation that says that that executive order is not legal yeah, I don't know if, yeah, maybe this was the first step in it.
Speaker 2:um, but so he pulled up his chart of pretty much every piece of land in the world and put a tariff on it, including Antarctica, like okay. Oh no, he left out Russia and North Korea. So they're safe, okay, whatever. That's safe, okay, whatever.
Speaker 1:That's ridiculous, yeah.
Speaker 2:So all these things are taking the stock market right now. A lot of folks listening when you're in the military back in my day I did 20 years I get 50% pension. That's what I get from serving 20 years. I get 50% pension, right, that's what I get from, you know, for serving 20 years. Now they don't get that option. They have to take a stock option that ties their retirement directly into the, like, the stock market. So they'll still get some.
Speaker 2:I think it's like a 40% of their, you know, whatever their top three pay is, so they'll get 40%, and then that other 10% that was going somewhere goes into the stock market now and, like the military, folks are really going to be affected by, you know, the stock market tanking on them like this, especially if they're looking at their retirement, because I mean this has been going on for a good 10 years now too, this program, their retirement, because I mean this has been going on for a good 10 years now too, this program, yeah, um, so what are going to be some of these long-term ramifications of you know, the tariffs, the stock market tanking and what it's going to do to our veterans? But what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:well, let's, I'm going to share you know a funny anecdote, and this is, uh, fort carson. If you, if you're listening, you'll appreciate this. Soldiers like going out and buying vehicles. They can't afford, oh God, yes, it's like their favorite thing, right? And so now what's going to happen? We're talking about? Let's bring our active duty folks back into the conversation for a minute. Those cars that you already couldn't afford are now going to be much more expensive. Cars that you could already couldn't afford are now much more expensive. So if there's anyone listening that's thinking about going and buying a brand new corvette you cannot afford it?
Speaker 2:yeah, you can't, but but do it now, before it gets even more better by today, right, yeah?
Speaker 1:better buy it today. Um, yeah, but don't right listen here all you know the impact on vehicles. I'm concerned about that.
Speaker 1:And you know I don't buy new cars, but I do buy generally foreign cars that are foreign made. So that market of used cars is going to be pushed up just alongside the other tariffs and everything else, like all the other costs of just when the vehicle industry cost goes up, all the used cars are going to go up in price too, right? So, uh, you know, I'm not looking forward to my next vehicle purchase. I know that. Uh, you know. And even if you know, if it's a couple years from now, it's all still, you know even if it takes the tariffs away in like a month.
Speaker 1:That's gonna take. We talked about this a couple episodes ago. This stuff is not short. Uh, you can, you know, you can pop the flare, but it burns for a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it's not a yo-yo, yeah. You can't just like dip it in and pull it out. Dip it in, pull it out, yeah. Yeah. He's trying to use these tariffs as like, like, uh, bully negotiating tactics and like one antarctica doesn't give a shit.
Speaker 1:So good job on that, good job on winning that war yeah, maybe this is a way he'll convince greenland to come to america.
Speaker 2:He'll say, listen, if you become a part of america, no tariffs, you know and so you know, a funny thing about the you know these tariffs now is that you know it happens immediately after the signal gate thing, where you know we leak classified information or have classified conversations. Yeah, um, I I read this morning that, uh, ilan omar from the rep, uh, I think minnesota, okay, she's drafting impeachment paperwork for it. Um, but like, even then, with it coming from her, it's not gonna go anywhere. You know what I mean. Like it just sucks. That that's the situation that we're in now. We're like even she's 100 right like or I don't know if it's maybe impeachment on him because he wasn't directly involved in it. Yeah, but but you know, anything that they do like this, like this, is just a stunt and you know it's not going to go anywhere. It's not going to really do anything because there's no real substance to it for impeachment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know of the president, you know they need to get rid of the.
Speaker 2:Hegseth.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it's just kind of sad that everything is being kind of done within the confines of the laws that they are writing on the fly yeah with, and you know the tariffs are within, you know his executive order rights to do that, and so this is one of the rare things that he's done so far in the administration. That is kind of clearly in bounds, but it's also one one of the things that seems like it's going to have the worst impact on the most people, you know the most legal thing he's doing is the worst thing for the most.
Speaker 2:I feel like he was having like a constitutional law class discussion and somebody was like, well, you can't do that. Well, tell me what can I do? And they read it to him and he heard the word terror. So it was like, well, what's that? I'm going to do that. Then I'll just do the hell out of that. And he just latched onto it and that's all he knows now. Because I mean, even if you go look back at Ronald Reagan's viewpoints on terrorists and things like that, you know, like the foundation of modern conservatism, uh, he talks about how you know, if they look attractive in the beginning, but long term they do a lot of damage. Yeah, that they start stifling innovation, things like that, you know, because you start creating companies internally that rely on the government state yeah, to keep other folks out. Yeah, uh, so you know, you start relying on that and then you, you stop innovating and so, like that's ronald reagan's viewpoint on that right.
Speaker 2:And yet here we are sucking it up and using ronald reagan's make america great again slogan, and yeah, you know it's just ridiculous what they pick and choose to listen to here I think that you know I like that side right there I.
Speaker 1:I see this one. You're right that donald trump somewhere along the way and I think this happened in his first term where he hit that event that you're talking about, where somebody said oh, the word tariffs. And he was like, ooh, ooh, ooh, taxes on other countries. We could do that. And they were like well, it's not really a tax on the other country. And he's like that's not what I heard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they kept trying to shine something over in the corner. Like hey look at this over here. Look at this over here.
Speaker 1:Let's get back to that tariff thing and so I see this as a reflection of a little bit of unfinished business from the first term, where he hoped that tariff policies and trade wars would, and changing NAFTA. He hoped that that would immediately like start turning things around, and whatever his thoughts were for america, he was. He thought that would just be an immediate shift. And when that didn't happen, I think that he's coming back for the second term and he's like well, the reason it didn't work the first time is because we didn't do it hard enough, and so let's be less selective, let's be more aggressive, let's be more um cantankerous towards our allies, so that even everybody's on their toes. We've got to put everybody on their toes and that's why it didn't work the first time is because we weren't aggressive enough. That fits the Trump playbook and mindset like perfectly.
Speaker 2:It's definitely. It's that corporate mindset of just eat or be eaten Wolf of Wall Street type of thing yeah, instead of just eat or be eaten Wolf of Wall Street type of thing, yeah. And again back to the Reagan. It worked when they overwhelmed with spending during the Cold War. It's just kind of a different version of that policy. Like you said, we just overwhelm them with what you can yeah, they don't know what they're dealing with.
Speaker 1:You also get this is the other part, I think, from the geopolitical perspective and what our military people are you're always looking out, especially now that we're in a relatively low period of deployment no major named conflict going on right now. You're looking at where's the next battle, where's the next front, where's the next theater, whatever right, and everybody talks about Pacific and China. I don't know the likelihood of a shooting war with China anytime in the near future. I don't know. But the political and the economic shifts that are happening, china is the thing on the other side of our scale, right Like for sure. You know, if there's two things balancing each other out, it's us and china these tariffs are terrible in that power balance situation.
Speaker 1:Yes, right now, in the near term, they are pushing people towards china and taking people who have a foot on both sides of the scale and they're going. You know what? I might take my foot off of your side of the scale completely because you're. I don't know what you're going to do. At least I understand the type of like rigging and corruption and abuse that's going to happen over on this side of the scale.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know how that works Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but over here you're shifting things around faster than I can change my mind, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And a big thing, you know, keeping the Chinese at bay is how entwined they are with our economy themselves. Yeah, you know, like our economies are so symbiotic with each other. But if we're severing that, if we're putting tariffs and everything in that, those bonds get weakened yeah, there's no reason for them to not be aggressive anymore. Right, and with those bonds weakened, if we try to sanction them for taking Taiwan, they're going to say well, we've already proven, we don't need you. Exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the concept like biting the hand that feeds you right, like right now, if someone was like let's escalate and get into a really ugly war or some conflict that leads to severe tariffs or a breakdown in trade, that would be biting the hand that feeds you. We've got to sell this stuff to somebody. Well, guess what? They're figuring out who somebody is right now, so that when we stop buying, they already know who is going to be buying. They don't have to turn down production. They're just establishing new relationships and so, yeah, we're removing our hand as the hand that feeds you and we're we're letting them redraw what that looks like and that, you know, from a military perspective is bad you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You don't want to see power in that situation, and that's what we're doing is. But from economic perspective, we're seeding power and, like you say, allies and relationships get built over. Keep that steel coming. Keep that you know cadmium and molybdenum that you dig out of your mountains in china. Keep that stuff coming, because I want to make computer chips in brazil now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah I'm not going to mess with america.
Speaker 2:I'm going to work with japan and china and just get to work, you know yeah, that was, you know, the global economy, you know everybody kind of working towards whatever nonsense that we were trying to build. This is a whole new dynamic where, after World War II, we decided that land isn't going to be bought for anymore or aggressively taken type of thing. Yeah, and this is kind of going to change all that because I think, as we pull back from those other locations and we need our resources, we're obviously looking at Canada already. We're going to start looking in down south, you know, looking at Mexico. There's no stopping to like our needs for growth here. So we're just going to be looking for that contiguous growth now, you know, looking for that contiguous growth.
Speaker 1:Now, you know, yeah, you know, I guess the idea that we're moving towards a recession is that is the contraction, that is the reversal of growth, right? So if you create an isolationist I mean here's the truth of the fact right? If your concept is that you want America to be quite isolationist, right, you want manufacturing, you want the whole end-to-end supply chain to happen within US territory. That is part of the goal here, right? I mean, it's not possible to do that really.
Speaker 2:It's what they say is the goal.
Speaker 1:It's not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think they give a shit about that. I think they're just trying to consolidate their own wealth. Yeah, it's not really possible to do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you know, for I mean, we are, we know. But the cost of labor, the cost of goods, the cost of everything, you know it's, it's just what. It is Right, there'll be counterfeits, there'll be people skating the system, there'll be, you know, there'll be ways around it. So you know the it won't really achieve completely what they're trying to achieve. But I see that isolation. You know it requires or it would drive a smaller economy. You know even internally it would, overall GDP, gross domestic product. But if you're not moving almost any of that product, if it's so much of it is meant to be contained inside your own bubble, that doesn't mean that you get to keep recycling that money and it adds value. It means that the whole economy contracts to whatever size of that cash flow actually is.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 1:So a recession is required to achieve that type of outcome? I don't know where and when there's never a good time to have a recession but if you're trying to achieve an isolationist dream you are guaranteed to have a recession in that process.
Speaker 2:so, yeah, yeah, and I mean, what can you uh really say towards like why they are doing it like this? Because I mean they had to have known that these tariffs are going to make, you know, the stock markets crash, but still it was like Newsmax and Rudy Giuliani ringing the bell this morning. So so, like they knew like this is going to be a nightmare and they're still putting up.
Speaker 1:You know it's out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's just yeah. It's just insane to me that they don't. Either they just don't know or understand, or they just don't care. I think it's more they don't care and they're just trying to sell off what they can.
Speaker 1:Well, there's the. Also the aspect of the media on the right has embraced the idea that, oh, there's going to be some trouble, there's going to be some problems, there's going to be some hard times, the austerity is. Clinton is close to God, yeah.
Speaker 2:Who is that one? There's that one billionaire that's in the cabinet. That was like if you're complaining about not getting your social security check, you're probably a grifter. Or like trying to call people out, so like, like you're already setting that into people's mind. Like you better not bitch about this, because I run into vets every day that feel guilty for getting a VA disability check, yes, and like, and they will go through some horrific things like IED explosions. Oh, but I'm not missing a limb. Yeah, you kidding me Like you have a plate in your face. You deserve something for that. It obviously has some mental things.
Speaker 1:I'm really upset when I hear people, too, that are clearly disabled in some way, but they have just like you said. They go even further and they're like I'm never going to apply for that, I'm never even going to talk to anybody about that, because I've got my retirement and I willingly volunteered to do X, y and Z. Right, okay, I can accept the. I willingly put myself in this situation Like, yeah, for sure, I, you did, and that's fine to think that way, but you, you did not. You were not guaranteed to be unable to work or have significant impact to your life after. That wasn't part of the deal. Really, yeah.
Speaker 1:It is possible that we want you to get through this alive well and healthy and okay. On the other side whether it's five years or 25 years, we've got programs in place to make sure that our people stay healthy, right, right.
Speaker 2:So if you're a union guy, if you're a union guy and you blew out your knee climbing a ladder with bundles of shingles on your shoulders, you would get that looked at and you would get long-term disability for that. You would get taken care of. You shouldn't feel bad because in the military something similar happens. And what I signed up for it? No, you didn't man.
Speaker 1:I do. I get frustrated because that it's just like the stigma around. You know, mental health care or using cannabis or anything else. It's part of the, it's part of a this like uh, I don't know corralling other people's behavior and saying like well, I think this way, so you should too, like this is the honorable way to live this problem. You know, and I'm like.
Speaker 2:And so that's what this guy did, like he set it up for that Like, if you're complaining about not getting your social security check, you're probably just a grifter, yeah.
Speaker 1:Come on, man, that's so shitty.
Speaker 2:Because, like these, are so many people that have to live with less than $2,000 in their bank account to get some of the benefits that they get, and these are the programs that were cut, yeah, so, and they're not going to get their money, and they have less than $2,000 in their bank account and if they bitch they're, they're just a whiner, they're just grifters, yeah, and that shows again the disconnect, you know, even if that person wasn't mentality that there's a total disconnect between the policies and the outcomes of the policies.
Speaker 1:uh, they, they will not affect donald trump, right, and that's the it. That's it, you know. Did you see?
Speaker 2:oh my god, did you see him talk about groceries the other day? I did, yes I yeah, it's a bag. It's. You just put stuff in it. Like what are you? No, man, like it's food we eat food. Every day we have to go get it and bring it home to us to eat food like that's why we work that's the only reason why we work is the groceries, the food, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the disconnect never, yeah, he's just never lived a day in his life, really, but like no no, no, I yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you know the fact that he was inside that mcdonald's near the thing last year. You know I was like I'm sure he was like man. I haven't been inside one of these since 1980 you know yeah when we, when we opened the one at the bottom of trump tower like that's the last you know, and again that's that's just that massive disconnect where you know, if you lose your job, oh well, you know, it's good for everybody. If you, you know, lose your Social Security, oh well, you're just a bum anyway, right.
Speaker 1:You know if you're a veteran and you lose your services. Oh well, you signed up for it.
Speaker 2:Right, well, and all these you know globalists that are selling their stocks right now and causing the market to crash. They're to blame for your pension getting taken right now and you have to work a couple more years. It's the globalists' fault for all this too, so there's zero accountability or any responsibility for their decisions. Man, we're in a mess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, and I am curious to see how quickly some of these get repealed, because we know he's been doing that waffling back and forth on the tariff stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for such a tough guy, he does waffle a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I mean, and these are, they're all meant to be political tools more than economic. Really, drivers, right, like the dollars don't matter as much as the bully tactic, right?
Speaker 2:right and so you know, trying to get back from. But that's what he doesn't understand. Is that, like, once you do it, it's like the train is rolling, like yeah, yeah, like the economic downfall, or you know, consequences are gonna happen and it's gonna be long term yes and yes.
Speaker 1:No, he does not understand that he thinks that if he just rips the band-aid off next week with half of those countries, then everything just goes back to normal.
Speaker 1:It's like eh it's too late for that. It'll take a long time for it to get back to normal. And even if things operate normally what we'll call normal again the confidence behind how those relationships will work, the deals, the actual movement, shipment of goods you know that confidence gets withered away. Even if you do repeal most of the stuff tomorrow, people are still going to go. Can I sell this somewhere else? You know they're looking for that market now.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I just hope everybody here just learns to not buy stuff Like if we just cut down our own, buying our junk and, like you know, disposable economies, disposable fashions, like everything is just garbage. Now Just buy quality products, have it for a long time and stop having a sense of you know this need to constantly purchase the Teemu trash pile that you know yeah have Amazon at your house every day Like, yeah, he should not be on my Christmas card, this man yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you. It's talking about that a little jaunt here. Uh, ordering groceries from Walmart they, when they don't have certain items, sometimes they'll mail them to you, and so for a while there my kids were ordering this one type of like ramen noodles in a cup. So the the ramen noodles are worth like a dollar, right and then walmart because they couldn't um, they didn't have it in the store.
Speaker 1:They mailed it to me and they got smashed all to pieces and it was just trash, right. That happened like three times and I just thought to myself it cost them a dollar, it cost them as much as the product that's inside of here to mail it to me.
Speaker 2:At least why you know like a first class envelope is like 79 cents now, so like a box. Yeah, that was easily over a dollar to mail that yeah, so just tell me it's not there right, yeah, right, yes this can't be the consumer's expectation over a product that's this cheap.
Speaker 1:If it was, I don't know, they have some kind of cutoff built in there to where you're like, hey, if it's over $10, then we'll give you the alternative to mail it to you, but other than that we're just going to say, hey, we don't have it. Try again next time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but we can't have that now Like no, I want my gum, I want my gum, I want my gum, yeah, bring it here now.
Speaker 1:Right, the tariffs people are. The Amazon, walmart and Target went to their Chinese suppliers and said hey, we need you to share some of the cost of this rise in prices. We need you to eat it. Basically, we're going to be paying you less for this or you're going to not be charging us the hit on these tariffs. We're not going to eat the whole tariffs and we're not going to pass it all on to the consumer. And if you don't do that, we're not going to buy Q-tips from you. If you don't play with us on this, we'll find somebody else to sell us batteries and Q-tips. And it's actually happening. Sell us batteries and q-tips, right, yeah, and it's actually happening. Right like they're. They're shutting down contracts with chinese suppliers already over like high volume products if they're not willing to take the hit with them.
Speaker 1:So that's the part where, again, donald trump had nothing to do with that, but it was something that was unforeseen or unpredictable. How will vendors deal with this? Will they just pass the cost directly on, or do they have some other tool in their tool belt? Well, they surprised us. They. They went out there and bullied their you know, super high quant, quantity and like low quality suppliers and said you gotta eat some of this, you know right, but but what's gonna be the the result with the product?
Speaker 2:you know that. Where are they going next? They're just going to go to another lower bidder that was that will meet that and probably have a lower quality yeah, we'll just get lower pieces of garbage or, you know, faster fill up the landfill yeah, the, uh, all the q-tips will have cotton in our ears right the batteries will last half as long.
Speaker 1:They'll say energizer on them, but they're all counterfeit.
Speaker 2:It's like Emergizer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can pull the label off and it's just all Chinese under there. You're like wait a minute, son of a bitch. Yeah, so that kind of stuff will happen, right? Also, counterfeit products are on the way, don't doubt it, right, because that's a way to not pass the price on to the consumer. Just sell them some crap. That wasn't wasn't worth the money they paid for it.
Speaker 2:The first like I was talking about earlier. We know people just buy shit, like they're just buying stuff for the look and the image anyways. So like yeah, from a distance you know a coach looks like a fake coach, just the same you know, so that's true yeah, yeah, there's not gonna be.
Speaker 1:Uh, a whole lot of product control no, and you're right, it'll just push people to buy the much, much cheaper version on the consumer side. Even if you're just looking at things, you go oh man, the last year, when I bought all these supplies for my garden, they, they did not cost me $600 to put everything out there. I'm going to shop around for this Now, same thing. They're going to buy stuff that's just way disposable. Basically, instead of durable goods, they're going to buy disposable goods in place of that because the right now cost is more affordable. Who knows, man, so many unforeseen. How does this bubble get squished in different directions? Right, like it's a water balloon, right? You know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we use one side and it all goes somewhere else, right, that's what we're about to talk about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like we always talk about it. That's their tactic, just to keep people guessing and you never know where it's going to get squished to next. Yeah yeah, signalgate will go away, and now we're on to tariffs, and next week it'll be some other catastrophe. Next week we're invading Canada, you know. So, who knows?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, if you make I guess you know this is historically true If you have a lot of basically very poor people or young men that are destituteitute well, there's a great way to do something with that let's go to war, right? Yeah, you know, if you, if you create some, some kind of problems within your own country, you go. Hey, I got an idea. You know, war is good for business. Let's, let's round up all these young people that don't have jobs and don't have anything to do and let's go invade Canada.
Speaker 2:Got a lot of natural resources up there. It can do a lot of good for us yeah. They're like okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, you don't have a job. Get on the bus, we're going to go, you know going north so who knows, who knows, that'll be the third term. That'll be the whole plan for the third term, project 2028.
Speaker 2:Jesus Christ, we're not that far away man, let's wrap it up on that, let's yeah. Yeah, sleep on that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, project 2028.
Speaker 2:All right, well, yeah, thanks for joining us everyone. Again, this is Left Face. I'm Adam Gillard, with Dick Wilkinson Tune in next week.
