A Business Owner on Supply Chain Chaos, Inflation Risk, and Emergency Powers During COVID

American Industrialist [00:00:04] As the crow flies on the Vance Crow podcast, ask whatever you want. All right. You want, okay.

Vance Crowe [00:00:13] Rick Fox, welcome to the podcast.

American Industrialist [00:00:16] Thank you, Vance. Oh my gosh,

Vance Crowe [00:00:18] This is bizarre for us to be recording a conversation because you have been my long time mentor friend. We've even done some business together, and we are in strange times now that we can't get together and see one another in person. And so the first time we're ever doing a video call, we're recording it to, to publish. So, welcome. And I'm excited to talk with you.

American Industrialist [00:00:41] It's crazy. I've been watching your podcast all along. It's like, what am I doing on your show?

Vance Crowe [00:00:46] Well, you are an attorney, a businessman, an industrialist, and you have an insight into how the world works as far as trade and economics. And I have always enjoyed our conversations. I think they're among some of the best I ever get a chance to have. What do you think is going on with global markets right now? What's your impression of how things look in a week, in a month, that kind of thing?

American Industrialist [00:01:13] Yeah, that's what's, that's what's scary. We have a large vendor, it won't match the country, but their country got shut down and we're bringing in about 20 container loads a month from them. And, you know, they say it's gonna be a short term shutdown, and this country's a big country, third world country, and I don't see them coming back up for a long time. I mean, and if we can't know our, if ours went from, you know, two weeks to now, or a month and a half through April, this country's gonna be shut down for a long time. And luckily I have enough inventory on the ground I can get through. But in thinking about all these countries that, that are having their supply chain shut down,

Vance Crowe [00:01:54] I think that one of the biggest issues about getting the supply chains shut down is most people really don't know the scale of how much we import. And I had a chance of working on a ship, and the, my ship was really small, but it would come into these ports in San Diego or San Francisco or Mexico, all up and down. And you see, I've been at the Panama Canal. There is so much cargo in the ocean that everything, you're buying like thousands and thousands and thousands of cars, but not just the cars, all the little gears and ratio and, and brakes and all these things. Not to mention raw materials. And when these things get stuttered, the fact that you turn them back on and you have demand does not mean that the supply will be there. And I don't think most people realize that because they've never really seen the way the supply chain works.

American Industrialist [00:02:47] Well, two things. When Trump was increasing tariffs throughout all these countries, there was, this country wasn't under the tariff list, but we were having trouble getting containers to keep up with our demand. And it was because everybody was rushing to get it out of this country before Trump put Harriss on this country. So, you know, the the, our thin line of, of, you know, where, where we go over what, what the supply is is, is right there. So I can imagine countries that aren't able to get, or companies that aren't able to get their goods, when these countries do open up, everybody's gonna be rushing to get the materials. So there's gonna be a backlog there. When I ship, when I place an order, it's probably two months before I get the goods in stock. And so that's a big lead time. So if they turn it on right now, I'm two months behind.

Vance Crowe [00:03:37] You know, this, I, i, it, it strikes me, this is just a crazy idea. I don't know anything about the condition of shipyards now, but if you all of a sudden had a whole bunch of shipyards open, now is the time to get infrastructure built. Invest, invest, invest as much as you can because when we go to import export, that is going to be everything. How quick can we get ships in and then also get them back out filled with our stuff?

American Industrialist [00:04:03] Okay, so what we're talking about is an increase of demand and a short term supply curve that looks like this because they, they can't move that quickly. So what's gonna happen is prices are going up. So I don't think we've talked at all about, you know, two types of, in, in the media about two types of inflation, that demand curve that when this country opens up, man, people are gonna be just, you know, rushing towards a limited worth of supply. We've got backlogs, like somebody joked on Facebook how it's gonna take six months to get an appointment at the, at the beauty shop for these women.

Vance Crowe [00:04:36] Oh, I never thought about that person. They're gonna do, yeah.

American Industrialist [00:04:39] Yeah. I mean, every chair is gonna be taken. I mean, these, these, you know, these uni uni brows on these women are gonna have to be plucked by somebody.

Vance Crowe [00:04:46] I mean, I bought a pair of clippers. I, I bought a pair of like, I'm, I'm preparing to Yeah. Shave all mine off. Yeah. I,

American Industrialist [00:04:53] I don't have much to do, but I do my own

Vance Crowe [00:04:55] Are, I mean, maybe with hairdressers, right? Because there's gonna be a fear, there's gonna be a, a whole set of people that the way they kept inside was because they were afraid.

American Industrialist [00:05:05] Yeah. I think masks are gonna be a common attire for a long time when you're up close like that. But, so there's that type of inflation I'm worried about. And then the other thing is the monetary inflation where we we're printing money and just throwing it out on the streets like crazy. You know, I've applied for this PPP loan that they're doing payroll protection Yeah. Program. Thousands and thousands of, of millions of companies maybe are, are doing it. One bank had a webinar, they had 2000 of their customers on the webinar. Everybody that rush can get this request for money in. So this money's just being printed. It's not backed up by a growth in the economy or anything. And, you know, that's gotta, you know, that's classic hyperinflation policy, which we never would've done. And right now they're doing it for purposes of just keeping people alive, keeping people from panicking.

Vance Crowe [00:05:59] What do you keeping people from money? So I, I am, I have been very critical of this. I, because I was talking about inflation six months before we ever had a $2 trillion addition to our money supply. I've always been worried about inflation. Why? How, how do you, how, what would you do? You have just locked away all of the workers and told them they must stay in their houses. That's house arrest. As far as I'm concerned. We can't leave them there to starve. And so you do need some money to be getting out there. Now, I, I don't know how much of it was pork, but I, I would never have thought it'd be a good idea for the government to give people checks of money. But if you're, if you are absolutely mandated by how dangerous the disease is that people have to be locked in their houses, you gotta give them something.

American Industrialist [00:06:50] I mean, they're able to get out to go grocery shopping, right?

Vance Crowe [00:06:53] Yeah.

American Industrialist [00:06:56] So, but yeah. Yeah. The scary thing is when you see Mnuchin and, and Trump talking about what they have to do, and these, these $6 trillion bills getting passed, they don't, they're not even talking about inflation.

Vance Crowe [00:07:11] Why do you say 6 trillion instead of 2 trillion? So I've heard both numbers bandied about, I don't know what it means.

American Industrialist [00:07:17] I heard it was an up to 6 trillion. I I don't take me as as, I mean, I've heard 6 trillion talked about, so I'm thinking there might be some kind of 6 trillion number, but they've, right now they're at 2 trillion. They've like, they've done the first two, but I think they plan to go up further. Maybe they've authorized it or I, I'm not an expert there, but Yeah. But I did hear them talk, the media talk about a $6 trillion package. But

Vance Crowe [00:07:41] So one of the things that I've heard people say, and I don't understand what they mean by this, but some people say, oh, I'm not worried about inflation right now. I'm worried about deflation. Yeah. What is the core of that argument? Because I don't understand it. And is that also a concern?

American Industrialist [00:07:57] Yeah, I think deflation is actually more dangerous than inflation because deflation makes it, you know, hey, it's great for consumers, but deflation, there aren't any producers who wanna produce at that level. You know, it, it, there's no money in it. It could be prices could go below what their cost inventory

Vance Crowe [00:08:16] Is. What is deflation? Make, make the simple explanation of it.

American Industrialist [00:08:19] Deflation is where prices are going down. So, you know,

Vance Crowe [00:08:24] Gasoline isn't that because your money is more valuable. I mean, it means if the prices go down, it's because the, the dollars that you hold have more value than they had before. So if you have money in savings, that's fantastic.

American Industrialist [00:08:37] Yeah. I think deflation is based on the prices of goods sold. If the prices of goods keep going down because of less demand or lower costs like oil and gas costs, you know, there's inflation and deflation. Deflation somehow is worse. It's been a long time since I've talked about that. But the people that my financial advisors that know talk about deflation is more of a fearful thing. Inflation, you can keep under control. Deflation, I'm not sure we have any leverages for leverage for, and I think it affects the supply of goods.

Vance Crowe [00:09:15] And so, but you're concerned more about inflation. You think that there is gonna be so much money in the system that things aren't because this is a challenge because you think about there's gonna be a bunch of pent up demand people needing things.

American Industrialist [00:09:28] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:09:28] At the same time where there's dollars being injected. Do they balance out,

American Industrialist [00:09:33] You know, Matt, Tanya, I talked to you last week, that I'd like to get a bunch of smart people in the room and figure out all these variables that have different effects. Because one scenario is we could have deflation, one scenario we could have inflation, maybe even hyperinflation. And you know, what are the effects of those and which way are we going? 'cause you could make an argument that it's, it's deflationary. I mean, where the demand just isn't there. You know, people are sitting at home, they're not buying, they're not consuming, they're not traveling. Certainly

Vance Crowe [00:10:03] That, that's going on with fuel. I mean, right now, fuel coming outta the ground. People are not driving, they're not flying in planes. That's that. Those are the big uses. The big use right now is probably agriculture coming up. That's about it.

American Industrialist [00:10:15] Yeah. I, I joke around like this is, this is Bernie Sanders dream right now. I mean, we're, the environment is being cleaned up. We're not driving as much. But my, my fear is that people get used to this. Companies get used to it and they realize, you know what man, zoom is a great way to have these meetings. Why are we have all this expensive real estate? Why do we need to go back and have people in our offices? We spent all this time operating without it. And so now companies start letting go of some of their leases and real estate starts tumbling. That would cause deflation because now you got oversupply of real estate and undersupply of demand.

Vance Crowe [00:10:54] Well, there's definitely a concern about that because one, people are gonna find out that there are some that thrive working at home and they figure out how to connect with other people and it's not that bad for them. So they're gonna wanna work from home and then there's gonna be a whole bunch of other people there. They say, we don't actually need you to come back. We realized how much more efficient we could be just by focusing in these areas. I think there's gonna be layoffs because the corporations are gonna say, we've gotta bring our, our price down. And that, and a big part of that's employment. So once the PPP wears off, I think there's gonna be a lot of out of work people.

American Industrialist [00:11:30] Yeah. And there's a continued fear about, about the virus. People aren't gonna just whip off their masks. Say, let's go party and let's, let's cram into our old office spaces. Again, there're gonna be people that are afraid. I mean, there are people that would rather give up their paycheck than show up in the office. You know, people that you would never expect that would've two nickels, rubb together. And they're like, I'm not coming in. Well, so whatcha doing, whatcha doing for food? You, and then we talked

Vance Crowe [00:11:53] Also. 'cause there, there are people that are out working, right? Like, I had some stuff delivered the other day and it was heavy and there were two dudes and they showed up and they, you know, got the thing off the truck and brought it down to my house. Like, people are still working. And if they weren't working, then I'd be having to take a lot more risk. I'd be going to a lot more stores because I, right now I can have basically everything brought to me.

American Industrialist [00:12:15] How about our food insecurity? Man, the food chain. I mean, let's say this, you know, this disease is pretty mild, right? It's got a one 2% death rate. You know, a lot of people that have it don't know they have it. Or mild symptoms. What if it was smallpox or what if it was a disease that had a huge, a really high death rate? You wouldn't get people to stock the, the grocery store shelves. I mean, what do we do? I mean, this is, this could be, I mean this is really exposed a lot of weaknesses. I mean,

Vance Crowe [00:12:47] Well, and stocking the shelves is only one component of it because a lot of that actually could be automated u up until the last, like picking the things off the shelves. Right. But a bigger part of it right now, people don't realize if coronavirus spreads into the countryside, farmers don't have a plan B. Right? Like you've got, maybe your dad could step in and do some of it for you or your neighbor. But if you have a big outbreak in these communities, you're talking about tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of acres not getting planted with just a small outbreak. Just a few people,

American Industrialist [00:13:22] Right?

Vance Crowe [00:13:23] And right now we are grain secure. Everybody could feel very confident we got all the grain we need. But you're really talking about do you have supply chain hook hiccups? Like we were talking about importing things from China or from Africa or even from Canada to be able to get the right fertilizers and pesticides and fungicides in, if there's a hiccup there, then 2021 starts looking not so good. And that's, that has been our major export is, is agriculture that's kept us floated and connected with the rest of the world. And we sell it to 'em for a profit and they buy it. Because if they don't buy it, they don't have food.

American Industrialist [00:14:02] So, you know, I think when this whole thing is over and it, it will be over, I think it, I think there it's like a pre nine 11 and post nine 11, this is gonna, there's the world is never gonna be the same. And when our president talks about, you know, we need to bring manufacturing back, and nobody understood that. And when he said, we're gonna bring back steel because we need it for our national security, it's like, it's a joke. We that, I mean national security, right? We need to build ships with it. What, you know. Yeah. Now we see how important manufacturing domestically is to our supply chain, our ability to, to grow food, to have medicine, have ventilators, you know, we're, and you know, you, you got one key po component in a ventilator that could, that's made overseas and you don't have a ventilator.

Vance Crowe [00:14:48] And that's why the agriculture thing is amazing because one of the things that's shown is that we can feed ourselves. Like we're gonna, we are, we are gonna figure it out. Now we may have hiccups, but there are other countries they're not going to be able to when this stuff hits. But as you say, the manufacturing, we gotta, we, there there's going to be a change. And the thing that I think might be interesting to hear from you is cities are gonna be where people move to go back to manufacturing. So what would you be telling a city mayor or a county executive to say, these are the changes you can make to the laws right now that will make it as, as enticing as possible for people to do manufacturing here so that our people that can do that level of work get jobs here.

American Industrialist [00:15:39] You mean in the city or just in the, in the us

Vance Crowe [00:15:41] I mean, where you and I live, we both live in the St. Louis metro area, but really any city, what, what is the advice that they should be taking to know, this is how it makes it easy for an in industrialist to do business here.

American Industrialist [00:15:54] Yeah. You know, reduced regulation and that for one, you gotta let, you gotta let entrepreneurs in business do their, do what they do best.

Vance Crowe [00:16:04] What's the regulation holding them back right now?

American Industrialist [00:16:08] Well, like, so in the oil and gas industry, look at California, the only companies in the oil, oil and gas industry that operate in California are the majors, the Exxons, the shells, all the, all those, the small mom and pops. And there's tens of thousands of small mom and pop oil and gas companies. They can't, they don't have the infrastructure to do all the paperwork, regulations, filings. And it takes, it takes a lot of, a lot of work, a lot of expense to, to drill an oil in, in California. And so that sort of thing versus, you know, you know, I don't know. Luckily, luckily regulation really hasn't affected my business much in the past. But, you know, that's, that's, you know, businesses want to do what we do best and that's make a profit by making something that people demand. And everyone is, everyone has benefited. You

Vance Crowe [00:17:02] Know, what I would like to see done and this keep, I keep going back to agriculture because it's the thing that I know about, but it's, but, but there is so much demand for beef right now. But if I try and go to the store and I buy as much beef as I wanna buy, the guy behind me is gonna be really upset. Right. He's gonna be like, why did you just buy out all of the beef here? We all are just taking what we can eat right now. So there should be a way to be able to just go out and buy a cow and have it delivered to my house. And you can do that. But there's not that many options. And one of the reasons is it is really hard to legally butcher and distribute the meat from an animal. You gotta do it through a packing plan. It needs to have all of this paperwork and certification. The butchers in the United States, they can butcher without having somebody stand over their shoulder and stamp something.

American Industrialist [00:17:50] Right? Right.

Vance Crowe [00:17:51] You need to take care. The people they have inside their companies, they do care about sanitary conditions and making it right. Let's just open it up and let them know that if you, if you really screw up, you're gonna pay for it. But if you don't screw up, people are getting beef, we gotta get it butchered.

American Industrialist [00:18:09] Right, right. Well it's, and it's like the environmental regulations when the, the Clean Water Act got slashed and the, you know, all these, all these talking points that Trump has ruined our water, ruined our air. When things get, you know, you can, you can make that emotional argument, but in reality what it means is some farmers' little pond is not gonna be hit hard with environmental regulations, you know, because it affects the, the groundwater, you know, and, and you can just, you can, you can make anything sound good, but in, in reality it's just a BS way to regulate, you know, it's not all or nothing.

Vance Crowe [00:18:50] It's not all or nothing is. Right. And, and we've done so much centralization of the rules where we've put them up at the top, the national government, whereas in reality, we are in a republic. We're in a federalist, you know, like system where the more local control you have, the more those cities can respond to this, the situation on the ground. And outside of whatever Trump's been saying, I, I mean like, in my opinion, the things he does on the, the stage at the White House is nothing more than theater, very well elaborated. It's a play. He's got different actors and actresses. They're genuinely doing their work, but it's just theater up there. But I do think the point of letting people get work done using the private sector to do what they know how to do, that has been a very sharp idea.

American Industrialist [00:19:42] You know what I love is, I love that he mentions company names up there because that caused, I mean that's like, that's un just invaluable advertising. Like the pillow guy and, and 3M and, and when General Motors, when he had to use the defense act against General Motors, I can imagine the PR department and General Motors, how they responded to that. That they had to use a defense act to get them to produce ventilators involuntarily when we have all of our hospitals screaming from ventilators. So Trump knows how to use business and entrepreneurship to get the most out of companies and that speak well about them.

Vance Crowe [00:20:22] Yes. Games. I'm, I'm totally with you on that. That, that he's very clever and he has figured out how to thread the needle so that he gets what he wants. He really hits the tumblers on the lock. But I will also say this, I watched what I think was a shameful thing. Go on Fox News with regards to 3M. They had the CEO on there and they were making, they were demanding why if he had any kind of production going to another country, that he should have to bring that back to the US and there should be no questions asked. We live in a democracy. People have lived in a capitalist system. Those people have masks promised to them. You're trying to point a gun at a guy and say he has to do this, other people are gonna die. And I think that that's the worst part of humanity when we start pulling out the laws like the the Defense Act. 'cause I, I think it's too much force. Well,

American Industrialist [00:21:18] I totally agree. And, and there's, Trump's gotten a lot of criticism from the left that he hasn't used it more. You know, the left would, I think would go in there and Dema just take over control of everything and say, you're gonna make this product, you're gonna make this product. And Trump, you know, he invoked it, but he didn't use it for a long time. And he always said, you know, it's a lot of power. You know, company's gonna be doing fine. They're gonna, they're gonna step up. They're gonna do what they need to do. And it kind of caught me in like, ooh, this, this is what it really means to be a, a state's rights person. You know, to say, you know, you don't want to, you have this power, but you don't have to use it. We're in a democracy. It's, we, we have freedom. You know, there's other forces at play to cause the company to wanna supply domestically. You know, you can call 'em out on it and all of a sudden their name gets blacklisted

Vance Crowe [00:22:06] And then maybe they get a chance to say, Hey, there's gotta be somebody that's making drive terrains for all the ambulances that we're trying to build. And switching us over to ventilators. Maybe, you know, central command of these things is, is not a good idea. I mean, I I I guess I'm more bold talking with you than I am with a lot of other people because you and I have known each other for a very long time. But I am, I have been continued to be very concerned about the willingness to use force over this. Yeah.

American Industrialist [00:22:36] And I

Vance Crowe [00:22:36] Put something up on Twitter to, to see what people's responses were about how long do you think the government will go before they use force to arrest somebody that's not following the stay at home order? And people like thought, you know, it's not gonna be in the next couple of days. It's not gonna be in the next couple of weeks. Will it be in the first couple of months? And then it was never, they won't and almost everybody chose never. And it's like, yeah, but you just gave them that power. They, they didn't ask for that power. Take that power 'cause they weren't gonna use it. They took it because they wanted it.

American Industrialist [00:23:10] Right. Did you're in New York just up their fine to a thousand dollars. If

Vance Crowe [00:23:14] What if you're

American Industrialist [00:23:15] Caught, if you're, if you're caught outside when you, you're not supposed to, you know, if you're not going to one of these assigned places, you know, groceries, doctor's appointment, a thousand dollar fine.

Vance Crowe [00:23:24] Well you could make a million dollars driving on I 64 from, you know, some, sometime somewhere outside of the city into the city. There are more than a million people running around right now. There's, this is while we're at stay at home, that's ridiculous because, and I don't think there should be force to be used. We need to keep things moving, but there would be millions of dollars coming your way.

American Industrialist [00:23:47] Right, right. Yeah. It's funny, I looked at the Missouri law that came out as letter and you look at the, the permitted activities versus the non permitted, nothing's changed. I mean, the only thing that's changed is the, the parking lot on the levee is closed. You can't park your car there to ride your bike on it ride. But you know, you can go to the grocery store. So if you get stopped by a cop, oh yeah, I'm gonna, the grocery store permitted use doctor's appointment work, you know, drug store. I mean, so every one of those cars going buy me on Highway 40, they can just say they're going to the grocery store. But what they don't want you to do is be walking to the park or having like, you know, parties outside.

Vance Crowe [00:24:29] So here's, here comes a question about how far does that force go? Because I, I, and I've had my, my view taken both ways on this. When they said, you are not allowed to go to church and if you see somebody going to church, call this number. So we're asking our citizens to report on one another. And I said, I thought that was a violation of the first amendment because people have a right to assemble, particularly in their, in their houses of worship. Now the pushback I got, which is reasonable, you have to be able to answer this, which is, well what about the nurses that will be impacted by the number of people that get sick because of these people gathering? And if it's a deadly disease, that's something serious. But I get to thinking about it and almost every other choice that a person that gets a person into the hospital comes from some personal choice that they took.

American Industrialist [00:25:24] What about Albany, Georgia? You heard about that little hotspot?

Vance Crowe [00:25:27] No.

American Industrialist [00:25:29] Oh, this little black church down there. This is where I go quail hunting. It's a great, wonderful place. It was early on there was a funeral. So all the, all the family members and friends come in and they're crying and they're sniffling and they're blowing their nose and they're hugging and kissing each other while there was one person there contaminated that whole church community. And that started a major hotspot. That's one of the biggest hotspots in the country right now. Albany, Georgia. So that's what they're afraid of. One church group that gets a little bit too close and friendly, not just affects them, but then they go out and they become super spreaders. So, you know, it's, it's a balance. It's like, hey, you can go out, you can have church services, but we don't want you more than 10 people and six feet apart. Have 10 groups of 10 go in the parking lot and just spread on out. But having everybody side by side in chairs in the pew, you know, is probably that's gonna affect us. It's gonna affect the curve. It's gonna affect how long we're out of business, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:26:30] Yeah, that's true. And, and you have laws to get people to cooperate so that you can have a civil society and, and that, and sometimes those things are, are things you wanna be doing. It's just, it's a question with civil liberties. Like are there any laws that you can't invoke? You know, are there, are there any things you can't do?

American Industrialist [00:26:50] It's like we got, we got the right under the constitution to peacefully demonstrate. But you know what, during a presidential election they will tell you where you're gonna have to stand to demonstrate. Right. So they can limit the space and time. But, you know, so what do you think there are limitations at all freedoms?

Vance Crowe [00:27:06] Do will, will people eventually have demonstrations that violate the, the stay at home orders? Or will the government release those before the people need to demand them?

American Industrialist [00:27:16] I mean, and most people don't want to, don't want to be that close. I mean, you know, so most of the country is, you know, without being told what to do, they're not gonna be doing that stuff. But there's some crazy people that, that are, and they affect everybody. So I think if it's

Vance Crowe [00:27:32] Crazy people and desperate people, people that are put in a situation where they, they feel like they have to

American Industrialist [00:27:41] Like, gimme an example.

Vance Crowe [00:27:42] Well if you felt like you were, didn't have enough money to be able to feed your family or you weren't getting the types of you, you were locked in an apartment and had no way to get out or, or you're a landowner and so many people have stopped paying rent that you can't do anything at all about it.

American Industrialist [00:27:59] Yeah. I mean even in Missouri, one of the exceptions is you can go out and says, you can hike, you can fish, you can hunt, you can exercise, you can go outside and do all that stuff. But that mass, that mass tight groups of people, I think that, I think that is a, something of the past for a while. Okay. And if somebody does do it, I think if somebody does do it, I think, I think I think you could put some limits on that

Vance Crowe [00:28:24] Up to the point of, of putting people in jail,

American Industrialist [00:28:28] At least finding them if they, you know, if they get 50, 50 people together in a small tight room to do a, you know, Easter service next Sunday or a hundred people, it does cross a lot of sensitive barriers. I mean religion and everything else, but it just, it, it gets a point where it is irre, it's reckless and endangers not only you, but the entire society. And we saw that in Albany, Georgia at a funeral and we see what that does that, that their system's already taxed from that one little funeral. So to some degree you gotta say, look, have your service, but do it in groups of 10, spread out different places. Do it online.

Vance Crowe [00:29:10] So maybe one thing that would make me more comfortable with this would be is before we take that right away, we describe the parameters under which those rights come back. And when I say rights, I know that rights are not real. They're completely constructed by, by us. But I'm saying like these ones that we've been under for the first, you know, couple hundred years of our civilization, they've proven to be really valuable and they keep other bad things from happening. So if we're gonna suspend it, what are the conditions under which we bring it back and we bring it back automatically so somebody can't stand in the way of it.

American Industrialist [00:29:49] Well we already, we already tell establishments how many people they can have in a room. Right. Occupancy limits capacity. So, so, you know, or how many doors need to be open? Like the, in New York there's the triangle shirt, factory fired. Have you heard about that? It's right down there in New York City by Washington Square Park, by NYU. It's the site of the biggest factory fire. And all these, you know, women, they were Jewish women 'cause those were Jewish immigrants that were just, you know, tailored make clothing makers. They were jumping out windows and many, many, you know, people died. And that was the start of like OSHA type regulations and factories about number of doors and exits and fire alarms and sprinklers and everything like that. So, so why couldn't we under that same premise of, of public safety control, how many people can, can pray in a church or synagogue and the density of that population. And I don't know,

Vance Crowe [00:30:50] I mean that's a, that's a fair point. One might also say that there's no business owner after a fire like that, that would wanna be in a building that had doors like that, that had, that had a situation like that. Because before that moment, they just didn't realize what could happen. Just like, just like this pandemic people have been telling us for years and years and years that this could happen. We didn't prepare for it. And so therefore next time we're gonna be a lot more ready and prepared for it.

American Industrialist [00:31:19] Yeah. Think about those survivalists that are up in Utah and Montana, you know, with a, with shipping containers buried underground, filled with

Vance Crowe [00:31:27] Oh, I know 'em.

American Industrialist [00:31:28] Tree and ammo.

Vance Crowe [00:31:29] I know 'em,

American Industrialist [00:31:29] That's pretty That's right. Now they're not so crazy.

Vance Crowe [00:31:32] That's right.

American Industrialist [00:31:33] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:31:33] And the, I just heard it from a friend that was saying he lives down in the Stanford area of San Francisco and he said a couple of his friends decided that they were gonna go up to their second house in Tahoe. Now this is on the California side, so it's not actually going in and crossing state boundaries. And they were sent letters. If you are a property owner up here and this is your second home and you haven't been up here, then don't expect to come here because we are checking the highways. Now, whether they actually are or not, who knows, could just be a person that wants to make it clear you're not welcome here. Or it could be that they're doing it, I don't know. But there are a lot of, lot of weird things going on right now and people taking pow people taking security into their own hands.

American Industrialist [00:32:19] What about Texas on an interstate highway stopping cars and making sure that they're not just fleeing from Louisiana, which is a hotspot into Texas. You heard this?

Vance Crowe [00:32:29] I hadn't heard that.

American Industrialist [00:32:30] Oh, oh, they, they're te they're asking people to prove to them where they're gonna stay for the 14 days that you're gonna be quarantined.

Vance Crowe [00:32:37] I did hear that. Yeah.

American Industrialist [00:32:38] And, and if if not they're, they're not letting 'em in the state. Now that is, that's tough. That is on an interstate highway, a state patrolman telling you you can't travel into another state

Vance Crowe [00:32:49] In the United States

American Industrialist [00:32:50] Or state

Vance Crowe [00:32:50] That's right.

American Industrialist [00:32:51] In the United States.

Vance Crowe [00:32:52] Yeah. That's, I mean I can you imagine being in, in Illinois and coming back and having somebody be like, Uhuh, you can't come in this border. Okay.

American Industrialist [00:33:01] The other thing that it's scary is at what point do we get where if our food stops, right? Food re you know, grocery stores are empty. What do people do? When do they start going crazy? When do they start committing crimes and stealing? And

Vance Crowe [00:33:19] So, I mean I think that that's why the things we've been talking about so, so much about deregulation is so important. So earlier in this podcast, one of the very first interviews I did was with a guy that was a trucker and he was talking about how, you know, in reality right now is the best trucking has ever been, they got rid of a whole bunch of rules that were designed around making it possible so that the people in the cars and the people in the trucks didn't get in too many problems. And eventually that regulation became pretty onerous to the degree where they couldn't really make the kind of money that they were making before. Well now there's no cars on the interstate or very, very few and you're flipping the trucks on. So he is hauling all over the place and getting things done. And I do think that we have that going for us in our system is that our vascular system inside of the country is strong. I'm not saying it's impenetrable. And and I do think people should be mindful of what could happen because a lot of things can happen in the middle of something as chaotic as this. But we are pretty strong. I wouldn't wanna sow panic in this thing.

American Industrialist [00:34:25] Yeah, un until they feel fearful. Right? Right Now the disease in a truck, you feel isolated, you're socially isolated. It's, you don't feel fearful. You can show up at our dock and pick up goods and never get out of your truck. But at the point that they are fear, you know, fearful, that's, that's when it could get, I serious. I, I guess, I guess during Cher Chernobyl, you know, the Russians found people that are willing to go in there and throw the radioactive rods back into the, back into the reactor. You know, at what point does the government force people to do their job, to do jobs if they don't wanna do that? That's a scary thought.

Vance Crowe [00:35:11] I mean the, the benefit of the, of the virus right now is it doesn't mean certain death. In fact, it's very, very low likelihood. Right. So the thing that you're talking about here is really the fear of the fear of coming in contact with something that may get you in may not, and it, but the chances that it gets here are pretty low.

American Industrialist [00:35:31] I mean, the next pandemic that that would've, it's worse. So from here, post post coronavirus, are we all start stocking non-perishable goods? Are we stocking cash? Are we, are we growing our own garden?

Vance Crowe [00:35:43] How much did you have to change your behavior to be, to be ready for what's going on right now? You're coming back from New York. Did you guys go stock up? Did you have a toilet paper problem?

American Industrialist [00:35:53] You know, it started in New York when you kind of walk through the grocery stores and you try to, and you walk slow and when you reach for something, you'd reach just for one. 'cause you just, like, you feel like if you run or grab a bunch, you're gonna start a panic. Right. So no, we didn't, we didn't panic. We didn't, we didn't do any of that stuff. But af you know, when the bird flew, remember the bird flew? Yeah. 20 years ago. That was like 40% deadly. I had seen a documentary about that, like a, a mockumentary, you know, where they kind of pretended that first guy gets on a plane and then you see all the dots expand. And at that point, you know, we started stocking food and cash and you know, our boys were involved en enrolled in a bird flu vaccine study. And I was, I was alerted to that. I was nervous. And that's why I'm surprised that I took this so lightly because I knew what's happening now is what I feared what happened during the bird flu. And I, and I didn't get back in the same mi mindset for this kind of caught me off guard.

Vance Crowe [00:36:52] Okay. So you said something kind of mind bendy there that you had your kids in a vaccine study. Yeah. What do you think is the amount of time a vaccine should be studied for in, in smaller populations before you make it widely available? And then ultimately, man, do you make it mandatory in the same way that smallpox and measles and

American Industrialist [00:37:12] Yeah. Okay, so we talked to our pediatrician before we enrolled them. It was the St. Luie program. And she says absolutely. She goes, you can do it. She goes, I do it with my own kids. She goes, and vaccines are completely safe. They're a dead version of the, of the virus and there's nothing that's growing, you know, it's, it's, it's dead. It cannot hurt you. So her opinion was absolutely, there's zero risk of doing it. So then they would give them, they'd take their blood, they'd give them a shot, you know, they'd space it out weeks or months apart and they just see how long it takes for your body to build up the antibodies a certain level and then how long you keep it. So I don't know if it's a time versus I I've never heard of a vaccine except for these non-vaccine craze going on. That vaccine can go bad. I mean, you know.

Vance Crowe [00:38:05] Yeah, I don't know. I, I know there are people that are very nervous about vaccines in general and I have never felt any problem going, you know, I go get the flu vaccine every year. In fact, it was actually late January that I went and got my flu vaccine, even though I didn't think coronavirus was a problem. I watched a guy on YouTube that said, Hey, if you want to get ready for coronavirus, there's nothing you can do. Why don't you go get your flu vaccine so you make sure you don't get the flu too. And I was like, you know what, that's a good idea. I can agree with that.

American Industrialist [00:38:36] I just got the pneumonia vaccine last week.

Vance Crowe [00:38:39] I didn't realize there was a pneumonia vaccine.

American Industrialist [00:38:41] Yeah, yeah. Walgreens has it advertised, so you gotta be like 60 or 65 to get it. I was able to get a prescription for my doctor. I'm 57, almost 58. But I'm thinking, you know, I have, I have like environmentally induced asthma at times, so I know what it's like to be short of breath. Anything I can do to keep me from getting asthma, I'm gonna do. Now I've read where it's not gonna help you with coronavirus, but it can't hurt is my attitude. Well,

Vance Crowe [00:39:09] I mean, the other thing is you don't want to go to the hospital for another thing. I I just yesterday interviewed a guy that is a journalist over in Germany in Berlin. He had an embolism in his lung and so he had, he had to go to the hospital and once he went to the hospital, then they were like, well, it might be coronavirus, so we're gonna test you. The test results didn't come back for seven days. So imagine sitting in a hospital waiting to find out whether or not you have coronavirus and you know, the people in the hallways they have it.

American Industrialist [00:39:40] Right. Right.

Vance Crowe [00:39:41] He, he was quite comfortable with it, but I gotta say I have enough fear of it that I would've been, it would've had, I would've had trouble sleeping if that was that close to me. Yeah,

American Industrialist [00:39:49] Yeah. I've got some, I've got some yard work I'm supposed to do with involving chainsaws and Karen and I both said, don't do it. It's not worth having an accident that you might have to go to the hospital for.

Vance Crowe [00:40:00] I'm exactly in that same way.

American Industrialist [00:40:02] I, and I actually probably about two weeks ago, I cut my finger when I was getting ready to make dinner sharpening a knife and I had to get, go in and get stitches. I went to the Chesterfield urgent care and luckily I was the only patient in the, in the place at the time.

Vance Crowe [00:40:17] Wow. Yeah, I mean, there are things that you need to be able to go and as far as I know where we're at on April 7th, 2020, we don't have to worry about going into an urgent care like we are okay to go in there. So, I mean, I, I think it's good to have a healthy fear. My wife and I are in base total isolation. We've not come into contact with anybody outside of us. And that's, that's because with her being pregnant, I just don't want to, I Right.

American Industrialist [00:40:43] I don't

Vance Crowe [00:40:43] Wanna run that risk.

American Industrialist [00:40:45] Right.

Vance Crowe [00:40:47] Well, Rick, this has been a fantastic conversation. There was one question that I wanted to ask you before we get done, and then I've got my question that I ask everybody. But you think about economics in a very different way than most people. So I'm curious to hear if people go into the financial position that they can't pay their rent and the government says, don't worry about not paying your rent right now, try and work something out and they don't do it for one month or two months. How long does this go on before it becomes a major problem? And how does this get resolved? There are people that have barely enough money to pay their rent as it is, let alone pay back rent, things like that. How's all this gonna fall through the chain?

American Industrialist [00:41:32] Hey, I'm talking to friends now who are landlords on these buildings and it's, it's already a problem. Like 40% of the people in buildings are not paying rent. You know, then you then you ask, you know, does it go downhill? Can a, can the bank that's financing the building for the landlord for, you know, foreclosing the building? So they'll probably have some leeway and then the bank who's paying interest on the money that they've, you know, that they've got from their depositors, it's like, where does it end? So I think when we're back up and running, they'll be able people be able to, you know, evict again. But, you know, this is just unprecedented times. No, it is like no, no aspect of society and business and life has been unaffected by this. And it, you know, nine 11 was such an isolated incident at a specific moment. This every day it's happening and you look at the people that should know, and I don't even think, not only don't they know what's going on, what's gonna happen in the future. They're trying to figure out what to do today. And that's the scary part.

Vance Crowe [00:42:44] And for the people that know there's nobody coming to save them and they don't have a bunch of other options because the option they had was the best one they knew how to get. This is a scary time

American Industrialist [00:42:53] And the only cancellation is that the entire world is going through it. It's not like just an American thing. So, you know, the world is in this together. So, you know, you gotta pray that we got good leaders that know what to do.

Vance Crowe [00:43:04] And if you don't, then become a good leader yourself. So here's my final question. It's April 7th, 2020. What does the world look like two weeks from today?

American Industrialist [00:43:16] Well, we're still in shutdown. I've, I've got good faith, good hopes for these treatment drugs like the hydro

Vance Crowe [00:43:26] Chloroquine

American Industrialist [00:43:27] Chloroquine and the, and the zinc and the Z-Pak.

Vance Crowe [00:43:31] I have a buddy that did a video that goes by chubby IMU on YouTube. He's a medical doctor and a mechanical engineer. He made a video about that hydroxychloroquine and why it is, it's got some hope, but the study that that was used to make it say that it was valuable is not good. It's worth watching because it will give you a more nuanced view than what you're seeing on CBS or CNN or whatever.

American Industrialist [00:43:55] So it kind of reminds me after nine 11, I remember laying in bed thinking this, I, I don't know the answer to this. How do we fly again safely? How do we prevent people? You know? And then you realize, you know, smart people thi we're not static. So they came up with the, you know, the door to get in the pi the pilots thing in the cockpit, you know, the people on board, you know, like the, the plane, the crashed in, in the countryside, right? Let's roll people. That's the first time they stepped up to, to fight back. So my point is with this, it's not just, we're not just watching a static movie. Companies and people are change, are trying to change it. Right now every country in the world is come or company in the world is coming up with, you know, if they can the vaccines or treatments. So, so luckily because of the cap, because of capitalism primarily the mo the profit motive is so high that the first one to come up with a cure or a good treatment for this is gonna win big. So as we're sitting here talking, there are companies out there just scrambling to find the answer to this question. You know, Israel's supposed to a company, Israel's supposed to have a vaccine in two weeks. I don't know what that means, but that was the headline on the article from a reputable website. But that's just one company. So you know, we're gonna bend this curve somehow and it's gonna be done with very smart companies and people and scientists and it's what we don't know that we don't know that's gonna save us probably.

Vance Crowe [00:45:27] Wow, that was a great way to, to wrap up. So in two weeks we'll we'll know a lot more of what we don't know right now. Yeah. So thanks Rick and we'll be safe and tell your family I said hi.

American Industrialist [00:45:39] Okay, thanks.