S2E7 Election Chaos: Is Your Small Business Prepared for Policy Shocks?

As election season heats up, we’re breaking down how political economics could make or break small businesses in the year ahead. From proposed tax changes to corporate policies, we dissect the stark contrasts between Harris and Trump on business taxes, revealing what these shifts could mean for your bottom line. Drawing lessons from economic crises like COVID-19, we explore the tightrope small businesses walk between staying profitable and keeping teams afloat, highlighting how the next election could tip the balance.

What happens when political promises clash with business realities? We dive into the friction between rising minimum wage demands and the growing role of tech, discussing how small businesses can stay competitive amid changing labor laws. With real-world cases, including Apple’s tariff struggles with China, we uncover strategies for navigating unpredictable trade and labor regulations, showing how profit margins drive growth, jobs, and benefits.

And then there’s healthcare—will policy changes lighten or worsen the load on small business owners? We compare the American healthcare system with universal models, examining the pros and cons as California grapples with its own financial hurdles. Wrapping up with a fresh look at tipping practices, taxes, and cultural norms, we consider how the upcoming election could redefine everything from your payroll to your profits.

Listen to all episodes of Paid to Create at paidtocreatepodcast.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everybody to another episode of Paid to
Create.
Today we're going to be talkingabout political economics
specifically for smallbusinesses.
The election is right aroundthe corner.
It's just a few days away andyou know there's different
reasons to vote.
People vote for differentpurposes and this is all about
small businesses and potentially, the outcomes of the election

(00:23):
will have massive effects onbusinesses, depending on which
way it goes, what policiesactually get passed and things
like that.
And so we just we're going totalk through some things and
kind of expand upon potentialbenefits, potential risks,
different things like that,cause we feel like it's very
important.
We've been discussing it quite abit and we figured you, the
listener, is probably alsothinking about this stuff.
So let's start with just taxpolicies.

(00:45):
Arguably, harris has said thatshe's going to raise corporate
tax, raising it up.
Trump said he's going todecrease corporate tax
Percentages.
All those things are kind ofirrelevant.
One side is planning to taxpeople who make money,
businesses more to kind of fundor distribute wealth back

(01:09):
through the government, you know, to people, and then the other
side is trying to give as manytax breaks from that.
So, looking at it from thatperspective, how do you sit with
those different facts?

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Well, I think that the Trump said he was going to
keep the corporate tax the wayit was or try to reduce it more.
That's probably not great forcorporate owners.
For Harris's way it wasn'tgreat for corporate owners, but
Trump's would be beneficial tome a corporate owner.
Keep my taxes the way they are.
I always pay my taxes on time.
It's super great, love doing itevery time.
But if it went up then it wouldmake me want to start to make

(01:47):
cuts elsewhere because I don'twant my profit to go down, but I
also have my own salary right.
It has to be considered, and soif I'm looking at like when
they made that health care thelaw, it changed the way every
business did things.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Because, when you look at the reason to raise
taxes, usually it's becausethere's new initiatives, new
things that need to be paid for.
With the economic situation,arguably people are in need of
money more than ever.
You know, people are struggling.
But the problem is, in myexperience with business, when

(02:26):
you increase the cost of doingbusiness, which a tax is an
increase in the cost of doingbusiness usually the owners
which, if you're private, isobviously maybe one or two
people, but a public company, alot of these public companies,
these are the big corporationsthat have the most amount of
employees Typically thoseadditional costs aren't absorbed
by the board or the owners orthe investors.

(02:50):
They're passed through, andthey're passed through either
from a standpoint of we're goingto increase our prices, so the
end user suffers, and we've seenthat like.
We've seen that at the grocerystore, we've seen that at the
Like.
We've seen.
We've seen these things since,since, you know, 2020,
everything, everything we allwent through.

(03:10):
We've seen differentcorporations, different
businesses trying to make up formoney.
They lost during those times,those difficult times, and they
did it by increasing prices, andthe prices haven't come back
down.
Hotel rooms are more expensive,you know, flights are insane.
Flights have gone up and nevercome down.
So when you look at that you goOK, if we raise taxes, then to

(03:33):
me I see that prices will go up.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Creating more inflation.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
And then the other side of it is during these times
when companies struggle to keepprofit margins because, again,
if you're a public company,you're not in business for the
end user, you're in business foryour investors, and if you
don't show growth every quarter,your job's at risk.
So the only way to grow is toincrease profit.
And when, even if you raiseyour prices, if profit doesn't

(04:01):
go up, the next step they oftentake is decreasing workforce and
firing employees.
And so when you create anenvironment that makes it harder
to make profit, you set it upthat people will raise their
prices and that people will losetheir jobs.
In my experience, on the flipside, when you lower taxes, well

(04:24):
, essentially it's not even atax issue, it's the cost of
doing business.
When it's cheaper to do business, companies will invest in
people because and you see, atsome of the very largest
corporations, they hirethousands of people more than
they need, because they justdon't want the talent going to
another company.

(04:44):
They don't want to miss theopportunity that one of these
people will have a breakthroughidea.
But as soon as times get tough,they'll lay people off, and
they'll lay people off in thethousands, right, which, clearly
, if you can lay off thousandsof employees, you don't really
necessarily need them in thefirst place, right?
They're essentially notessential.
So on one side, you've got asituation that potentially will

(05:07):
allow companies to be moreprofitable without necessarily
changing much.
On the other side, you'retrying to get money for
something, which I understand,but you set up a scenario where
it could have a chain reactionwhere things get more expensive
and people lose more jobs.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
You and your logic, I don't know.
Well, I mean, we saw that allthrough COVID.
So you've got the grocerystores that are owned like
Vaughn's company owns it, and sothey have to have less
employees staying this muchapart.
They can only service as manycustomers, so all of their costs
went down, all their customerbase went way down, so their

(05:44):
profits went down.
So then they had to raise theirprices, and so now we've got
the inflation.
Yeah, if you tax them more, ifyou make it cost more to do a
business, it's going to createthat problem again, which is not
what we want.
Luckily, thousands got laid offon zoom and not webinar jam.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
That's true.
That's true.
We like to stay pretty lean,though that was always a choice
of ours and there weresituations where it felt like
it'd be nice to have, you know,20 more people.
But I know at times when we hadexpanded without specific plan
for each individual.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Needing it necessarily.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, or like just hiring for potential growth, not
actual growth, right, likeoftentimes that it would create
issues.
So that's something that is,you know, you look at as well
with different companies.
But you know, I think a lot ofcompanies, when they have a lot
of stuff in motion, they do needpeople, like I mean, look at,
look at any company thatdelivers stuff, like Amazon, for

(06:38):
example.
Like during the holiday seasons, they have to hire more people
because there's more deliveries.
They can't keep those peoplehired when there's no deliveries
, right.
But again, go back to thiswhole thing If they're getting
taxed more as a company, thenthey're going to expect maybe
drivers to do a little bit more.
They're going to try to operatewith less drivers.

(06:59):
But it's also going to bedetermined by how much money
people are spending.
And if people have less moneybecause they don't have the jobs
they had before, everything'scosting them more.
They're not going to be buyingas much stuff and that's really
like the key to success in theeconomy is people making money
and then spending money orputting money into motion, like
into investments, like you know,when someone spends money and

(07:19):
they buy a house, you know, andthen they rent the house out.
Like, technically, what they'vedone is they took their money,
they like they buy a house, youknow, and then they rent the
house out.
Like, technically, what they'vedone is they took their money,
they bought something, you know,and then they leveraged it to
make more money but rent'scheaper than a mortgage.
So the people you know and thatcomes to another policy, you
know, when it comes to like,fixed rent and attacking, you
know, these real estate mogulsor companies and stuff like that

(07:42):
.
And yes, yes, maybecorporations are taking
advantage, you know, like someof the bigger corporations
buying, buying all the homes upbecause they can, because they
have the money.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Only five homes per company.
You start another company anddo it again five homes, so you
just there's always a loophole.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Exactly and I think that the the issue is is like
even here in San Diego, where,where you know one of the most
expensive places to live inamerica uh, when you look at
like rent costs, like it's stillcheaper to rent than it is to
have a mortgage, so you can bemad that your rent is high, but

(08:21):
why are you mad or upset at thelandlord who is essentially
giving you a place to live at adiscount of what that home would
cost you if you bought ityourself?
That's a narrative that seemsto be manufactured to take the
pressure off of the bankingsystem or the government to

(08:42):
figure out how do actuallypeople afford homes the banking
system or the government tofigure out how do actually
people afford homes?
Because when most people arepaying half of their salary, if
not more, for the home they livein, the argument could be that
minimum wage is not high enough,which goes back to the
economics of business.
But I said this duringinflation.
You know we were talking aboutlike end of year bonuses and

(09:04):
things like that, and you knowpay raises and all those things.
Most of that stuff is abouttriple the price now, you know,
not our self-worth, but likemost stuff at the grocery store.
You know like things have goneup.
Yeah, either double or triplethe price.
If every business in Americadoubled or tripled the salary of

(09:25):
every single employee to likematch inflation right, I'm not
sure we'd have many businessesthat could survive.
Because, yeah, there is somebusinesses that have 80% profit
margin.
You know, like a digital bookpublishing business, there's no
hard, there's hardly any hardcosts, but, like most businesses
don't operate like that.
Most businesses, if they're at20%, they're considered very

(09:48):
successful.
And we have industries like theairline industry that operate
at 1% to 3% if they're lucky.
Restaurant industry, 1% to 3%.
So how do you say that abusiness should be responsible
for allowing If everything goesup?
It's the businessresponsibility to make sure the
the, the person on their team,can afford all that stuff at

(10:10):
some point.
There has to be something whereit's that that is, you know, put
into place to make sense of.
You know, we can't raiseminimum wage to 20 bucks an hour
because you have what we havehere where we have ai taking
drive-through orders.
Now to reduce workforce.
We have computers that you putyour order in to reduce
workforce.

(10:30):
We have self-checkout systemsthat outnumber the in-person
checkout systems because, again,reduce of need for staff.
So it's an interesting situationand on this point I'm not sure
if I do see a positive ofraising taxes unfairly to one

(10:50):
group of people.
I've always said I think offlat tracks across the board.
No write-offs is the fairestway.
But you never hear anyonewanting to do that.
Because when you think aboutwhat this country was formed on
and when you think about whomade the rules like the super
rich are the one who made therules.
So there's a reason.
The first 80 pages of the taxcode apply to the majority and

(11:11):
the rest of the book that nobodyreally pays attention to.
Where all the loopholes are isonly known by the minority,
which is the super rich, becausethese loopholes are in place so
they don't have to pay taxes.
And these are the same peoplewho are funding these campaigns,
who are putting all this moneybehind these candidates.
And if they actually thoughtthat, who really gets, who
really gets taxed here it feelsas if it's not really going to

(11:50):
be the billionaires.
Because again, you know, having, like you have stocks, I have
stocks it's worth nothing unlessyou cash it out.
It's not like you live on that.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Oh, they're worth a lot less since COVID.
But yeah, you know, but it didhappen.
When we did say, hey, everybusiness has to.
If you have more than fiveemployees, you have to provide
health care for all of youremployees.
It did happen.
We did see inflation then andwe did see businesses close or
they'd cut people out and keepit under five people if they're
a really small mom and pop orwhatever but then they're going
back to work you know, 60, 70back to their I don't know dry

(12:19):
cleaning business or something,because they don't want to hire
out and then have to pay morefor the same workload.
It just costs more.
But we did.
Even while we implemented thehealthcare change in our company
, we're like, okay, it's goingto cost this much more every
month for all of our employeesto have healthcare.
Most of our employees are not inthe US, so we didn't have that.
We didn't feel it too much whenwe got the numbers together for

(12:39):
our US staff.
We could either cut some USstaff or we could either cut
some of that staff or we couldmake the insurance policies.
What are we going to?
Let them even pick?
And I went to we covered, youknow, a certain 50% or whatever,
and then we've actually gone upfrom there.
Now we cover more and we've hadthe big profit years.
Now we're more generous withour profits, so it's a lot of
what was spent.
When you make profit as acompany a small company, I don't
know, we're probably smallishmedium- we're considered small

(13:03):
still 150 people is, you know, Iguess that's pretty small.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
I think small business is like when you have
less than like a thousand peopletechnically.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Oh well, then we're itty bitty.
Okay, well, we did.
Once we had the profits, wewere more generous to our
employees and we were spendingit and went back into the
economy.
We saved them their healthinsurance money coming out of
their paycheck and they had moreto take home and more to pay
taxes on and more to spend.
Yeah, and that brings up Kindof down the rabbit hole.
Work itself out eventually,yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, and that's the other, like the policies on the
labor law and the employmentlaws, you know, harris, seems
like it would be more strict.
There'd be more regulations inplace, more limits on how,
what's the expectation ofworking, you know, and some of
those things like I think youmentioned the other day, like a
salaried employee like doesn'tget overtime unless it's over

(13:50):
what?

Speaker 2 (13:51):
80.
Hours.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
So like double what most people work.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
If your salary over 80 hours, you do not have to pay
on them or on.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
Double pay right.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, you just pay regular.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah For the overtime , which is wild 80 hours is
insane.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, so there's obviously some regulations in
place that don't really makesense.
But at the same time, again, ifyou create and I think
Australia just did this wherethey put in a law that, like you
cannot contact an employeeoutside of their work hours,
which is a little weird too,because what if you have an
employee in a position where, ifyour software goes down, you
have to call them to come andhelp?

Speaker 2 (14:25):
you know, make sure it's okay.
Like in dev, it can be two inthe morning.
We're getting them up becausethe software's down.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
It affects, you know, tens of thousands of customers,
and that was one of my thoughtprocess, like we've had those
situations where, you know, I'vebeen like, depending on what
your product or service is likefor us.
People use our platforms tomake money.
They're running promotions,they have advertised, running to
their websites that are sellingthings.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
When our website goes down, motions are high.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Because you know it's like, especially if it's on the
day of their promotion, right,and all of a sudden, like you
know, know they've sent athousand emails out and the
landing page isn't workingbecause the software is down.
So you know it's an all handson deck situation and there's
emergencies that require thatthink about police and fire and
like things like that.
When there's like seriousemergencies, like it's not a

(15:20):
work and not clocking outbecause it's the end of the
shift, like some of these peopleare working double shift and
they're exhausted but they dowhat's necessary.
And so when I saw that andagain, I haven't looked into it
too much with the Australia, Ijust read one article but when I
saw it I thought to myself youknow, what's going to happen is
is you're going to, you're goingto get people who use that to
their advantage, like you know,can't contact me, can't do this,

(15:41):
can't do that and then you'regoing to have other people who
see it as an opportunity andthey'll be like well, I'm going
to be the guy that always showsup, I'm going to be a guy that
stays late, I'm going to be theguy that answers my phone, and

(16:04):
they're going to move up theladder and then people've agreed
to execute on and you get paidfor that.
Where in that equation equals,I should give you more money for
this job.
And the reason I say that and alot of people will probably hear
that and disagree with me,which is fine but the reason I
say that is because the truth isis most jobs, you can replace
somebody and you don't actuallylose much.
You know there's certain rolesthat, yeah, there's a level of

(16:26):
education they gain over theyears, but most roles are pretty
quick to learn and so, yeah, ifthey're highly skilled, you got
to replace them with anotherhighly skilled person.
But the reality is is like,let's take support or something
like that.
Like, once they're trained up,you know if they have the skills
already because they're comingfrom somewhere else, it's not
that difficult to replace people.
Um, um, you know, I think a lotof people overvalue themselves,

(16:49):
even even at our level.
You know, as owners of companies, you can overvalue yourself and
what you actually bring, andsometimes you have to think
about it and say, okay, yes, Ican say I'm worth this or I can
say that you know the value Ibring is that.
But the truth is it's kind oflike diamonds, it's only worth
what people will pay.
You know if suddenly, but ifthere was suddenly a flood of

(17:12):
diamonds on the market, theprice would drastically drop.
Scarcity, yeah, and it's thereason.
You know, luxury automotivecompanies only make five
supercars at three million.
Well, first of all, there's notthat many people who are going
to drop that money.
Second of all, if you make itlimited, people who get it have
a, so there's an incentive tothem to have it because it's
limited.
If there was, you know, as manyas people wanted made, people

(17:37):
wouldn't be willing to pay thesame price, and I think that
that's something.
Supply and demand.
That's something when we look atit, you go okay, so if we're
going to force certain rules inplace and we're going to raise
the costs again, raise the costfor a business to do business,
and it's and again, not thateverything we have now makes
sense.
There is things that definitelyseem unfair, but I mean I saw

(18:00):
headlines from 50, 60 years ago.
They were exactly the same asthe headlines are today, that
that the owners make too muchmoney and the employees don't
make enough and the owners aregreedy and we should tax the
owner.
Like this is narrative has beengoing on since the start of
business.
And it's like what's theincentive to do business if you
just start taking all the moneyaway?
Like, why would you be anentrepreneur if the headache and

(18:21):
the hassle you go throughdoesn't have a reward?

Speaker 2 (18:24):
If I have to pay more , I'm going to cut costs or I'm
going to figure out how to makemore profit, raise my prices.
There's.
No, I'm not going to.
Oh, I have to pay more, I'lljust take less.
No, I'm in business to makemoney and I'm in business to
make money for shareholders,family, et cetera.
And some people go to work.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
They have a job they're going to go get a second
job or have to work harder,find a higher paying job.
So you have to just go roundand round.
Yeah, I think that's the thingLike people are going to figure
out how to make more moneyregardless.
But if you do it where you takeit from the business and the

(18:58):
owners of the business, likethey're going to find more money
in their business and they haveonly a few ways to do that,
which we mentioned earlierraising prices, cutting
employees.
You know one of the policiesthat— Delivering via balance.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
That's our next product.
I'm just kidding.
She was she's brilliant.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
But another policy which actually I would side with
Harris on, versus Trump, is theregulation.
You know, in terms of likederegulation or regulation,
right, harris is more for moreregulation and Trump's for less
regulation, and he plans to makemoney with the tariffs and
stuff like that and bringcompanies back by giving it,

(19:37):
giving them breaks on terms of,like, certain things.
Now, he hasn't specificallysaid this, so this is just my
assumption, you know, based onElon constantly complains about
regulations and and stand andget, you know, get in trouble
for doing different things thathe feels shouldn't.
You know, and again, he's donesome things.

(19:57):
Well, I mean, most people do.
But the argument that, likethese regulations don't exist in
China or some of these othercountries, that countries that
companies have outsourced to forcheaper labor or cheaper things
like that.
Therefore, we should probablydo away with the regulations so
that we can bring that laborback.
That has bigger consequences,like it will improve the economy

(20:19):
, in my opinion.
So, like positive is like withthat policy, like trump's
thoughts on that, in my opinion,the the economy is going to get
strengthened from it now.
But in terms of the environment,the effects of the environment,
pollution, things like that,when you hear stories that you
know they essentially shutfactories down when biden went
to china so that the air wasclean, and that, like when, um,

(20:42):
you know the chinese I don'tknow if they call him a
president or general or leader,I'm not sure what his president,
okay, when he came over here tosan francisco, like we cleared
the streets of the homeless andcleaned everything up, like it
makes no sense.
But it's also very concerningbecause if you have to do that
to appear like you're green andclean, like what does it look
like normally?

(21:02):
What are the effects to thepeople?
Because I think, while thereare some serious concerns with
the environment, when you lookat what peter de bondis has put
out and the groups he works with, like we're actually getting
better, like we're actuallypolluting less, we're causing

(21:23):
less damage to the environmentbecause we are more aware of it,
so we're not just dumping allour waste into the ocean.
Now are other countries stilldoing that?
Yeah, but the old saying ofwell, he did it, so why
shouldn't I?
That's kind of an immaturethought process if you consider
the benefits of doing businessin the way that we have over

(21:46):
here.
Now are there regulations andrules in place that probably are
ridiculous and could be wipedto the side.
Yes, you do need labor laws andyou can't eradicate this stuff.
Like you said earlier, there'scertain things that it is good
to have in place and protectpeople because, let's be real,
in any position, any role, any,there's all good people and

(22:07):
there's people who would takeadvantage of others, right and,
uh, arguably entrepreneurs.
There's more people who then, ingeneral that that fall into
entrepreneurship who are good attaking advantages of others.
It it does tend to have a lotof people that you have to work
through, but maybe that's justbecause you're more aware of it,

(22:27):
because they have something tosell.
You know, when you're workingalongside someone like that, you
know at a job you don'tnecessarily get that interaction
.
But my point is is that it doesseem that the potential on one
side is, you know they're goingto make it real easy to do
business, but in doing sothey're not going to worry too
much about the environment orlabor laws or things like that,

(22:48):
and then the other side, itseems like it's going too strict
the other way.
So it's kind of like I'm notsure I'm in agreeance with
either of them on those policies.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
But what country doesn't have labor laws?
That aren't the communistcountries, that their taxes are
ridiculously high?
They don't get to live on much?
Yeah, I don't, but they don'thave rules regulations.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
They can make more product for us, for their
country, but not themselves yeah, when you look at like, well,
let's just say sweatshops, whichyou know, a lot of these things
aren't.
We have zero of those.
We have, yeah, yeah, butthere's I don't believe there's
any in in the us, although youknow, I do know that like they
use, like in the prison system.
There's a lot of talk aboutthat being a sweatshop system.

(23:27):
There's a.
There's a lot of talk aboutother things as well, like these
places that have bring inpeople with disabilities to do
that kind of work.
You know, arguably that's notnecessarily like the best and
arguably that's not necessarilylike the best, like treatment of
employees.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
I saw it positive because we had one of my
neighbors who was sometimes ourlike ride to church or school.
She had this one lady livingwith her.
That was very, very, veryspecial needs and she would take
her to her job with her packedlunch and she would go and like,
sort, like gadgets like thisgoes here, this goes here,
orange goes here, blue goes here, or something, and she loved it
.
It was like some playtime forher.

(24:08):
She's like I get to go to myjob, I'm going to, I'm going to
work hard, I'm going to get apaycheck and go get like a toy
or a present from, you know, theperson taking care of her.
So for her it was a bigpositive.
And then she got paid and thatyou know the government was
paying, mrs.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Smith to take care of this lady, but she was having a
great life.
So like there are ways you cando it right, but it's harder.
Yeah, I think when you havegood people running things, good
things happen, and that's the.
That's the.
The issue I see that America'sfaced with here is that the
candidates that are both running, or the party policies, because

(24:47):
I'm not really sure.
A lot of this stuff is just acandidate right.
They have to run on behalf ofthe party, and so there's it's
on the candidate.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, some of it seems a little unsighted.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
When you look at it, it's like in this instance, you
know, I'm not sure eitherdirection is right or wrong.
I think that that's kind ofsome of the issues here is it's
like it seems like we're oneextreme or the other, when it
doesn't necessarily need to be,and going back to like labor
laws and stuff.
You know, one of the things youknow the Democratic Party has
been pushing for for a long timeis this universal health care.

(25:19):
You know, whereas you know Ithink Trump is probably going to
not have anything to do withthat, although he did say he was
open to it.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
He tried to take it away and he couldn't.
But you know it's also youcan't.
How much can a president do andmake change happen?
It has to go through Congress,has to go through the House, has
to go through a lot more things.
You can't just say I'm going todo all these things if the
other sides of the governmentdoesn't agree you, if the other
sides of the government doesn'tagree you can't do it.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
I just listened to an interview of someone who
basically said it's very hard toget a lot done.
Like they try to get as muchdone as possible, but like it's
very hard to actually doeverything you want to do.
And it's set up on purpose likethat, so that you know Checks
and balances.
Yeah, because essentially wejust have two parties that have
to get, like they work together.
It's not like it's not like oneparty wins and the other party

(26:05):
packs up and waits four years toget a chance.
Like they're still in thesenate and the house and you
know they're still working inthe supreme court and they're
still meeting and they're stillhaving that.
There's still a lot of dealshave to be done between the
different people, especiallystates and things like that.
So it's not as if the this usversus them narrative continues,
like at some point.

(26:25):
Publicly it might continue, butprofessionally they have to put
their differences aside and andcome up with things that they
can both agree on and and moveforward on.
But when it comes to healthcare, you know, like when the
healthcare laws changed before,having full coverage for a
family of four out of your ownpocket is not worth like it's

(26:51):
bearing a catastrophe right Likea serious accident or something
, where there's just millionslike the cost is just
astronomical but like it'scheaper to just pay as you go
for like doctor's visits andstuff than it is to have health
care insurance.
It is insane.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Until a certain age, when something's going to go
wrong.
It's going to be expensive.
Exactly but then that costs theinsurers more than they want.
So you have to be in it whenyou're younger.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah, but like to have your whole family covered.
You know you're looking at overa thousand bucks a month, over
2000, depending on what coverageand all of that Like.
And we're talking about asituation you know if you're

(27:36):
here in California and you havea family, your rent is the
cheapest you probably got torent for is 2,300 bucks and like
I'm like that's like very hardto find here in San Diego for a
house for kids.
So so like you like anapartment maybe, but like so
let's just say 2,300, then youtack on insurance for another
thousand.
You're at 3,300 bucks for justright there, then SDG&E with our
electricity and whatnot.

(27:57):
I just went up as well, thatbill is like five to 800 a month
for most people if they have AC.
Uh, so if you have to keep thatoff, you know, maybe keep it
three.
But like you're looking at likefour to five thousand dollars
in expenses before you evenstart to buy food or do those
things.
So to be here and have a family, like you have to have two jobs
or make a lot of money, or likeboth parents have to work, you

(28:19):
know, and and for what?
And I think that's kind of the.
The struggle people have whenthey look at all these things is
this promise of free healthcare has been floating around
for a long time and it justdoesn't really exist.
And then for the people that dohave like state health care,
which is which is free you knowit's paid for by the tax players

(28:39):
but it's free to the personwho's getting it um, the the
quality of what they receivemakes them not want to do the
free stuff it's like, but butit's, they're forced into it.
But they're forced intosomething that they don't
necessarily get good treatmentfor.
So they kind of don't getbetter or don't fix the issue,
you know.
So it's very controversial,it's difficult to really know

(29:02):
what will happen, but when youlook at it it's like I grew up
in England.
You grew up in Canada.
Well, you lived in Canada for avery tiny period, but you know,
we had, we were a board of kids.
We went back and forth a lot.
We have free health care inEngland, yeah, and what happens
is is people with money justskip the line.

(29:22):
So, like my nan she's passed now, but she like fell and hurt
herself and she had to wait likesix weeks to get in to get an
MRI or something crazy like that.
And then when she did it, shehad to wait another amount of
time to get like even anoperation.
It was insane and I was like,oh, they would have took you the
first day and done it allwithin 24 hours and you'd be out
the door over here and theyjust give you the bill, you know
, but for her, because of herage, she wasn't considered.

(29:44):
Because she's older, older, shegot even worse treatment
because it's like in their mindit's like, oh, she's old, she
doesn't, she doesn't have a job.
She's like, yeah, so you get,you get put on this list and
people just jump over you basedon criteria or if they can pay
for it.
So you know the people it'ssupposed to help.
My point is the people it'ssupposed to help.

(30:05):
I'm not sure it actually endsup really helping.
Um, I imagine it does help inthose catastrophic situations
where you know someone gets in acar accident and they have to
be life flighted and thenthey're in a hospital for you
know, weeks on end.
That's different, that thathelps, because that would just
be crazy.
But in general, their general,their general doctors, the

(30:27):
people they see regularly forissues, you know, like just
getting an appointment and ittakes them like a month to go be
able to go see a doctor becausethere's so many other people
waiting to see a doctor.
And you know, anybody who goesto a doctor knows there's your
appointments at two and you get,if you, if you get there early,
you have to fill out paperworkand then you sit there and at
three you go into the back roomand you're like finally, and
then an hour later the doctorfinally walks in.

(30:48):
It's like it's like the same assomeone coming out to your
house and say I would be therebetween 10 and four.
Okay, that's a large window.
Like you know, recoachablecompany.
It's like do you not thinkanybody else works?
Like how many people do youthink stay at home nowadays?

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Well, it's funny, you have that experience because
you're from England.
But you know, my mom had myoldest brother in Canada and
then she was like that was awful, because we'd never want to do
that again.
So every kid was born in theStates after that.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
So free versus paid versus paid.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
But if you don't get good service.
You usually hire a privateinsurance, so then you do like
kind of skip the line orwhatever.
But my mom's favorite thing tosay is hey, how much do you love
the DMV.
Well, that's a state service.
That's what your hospital willbe If it's universal health care
and nobody's paying foranything.
That becomes DMV workers,become your nurses and she's
like here's your shower schedule, get up.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
And it's just a whoa, whoa, whoa.
Yeah, I think that is a verygood point, because when you
look at government, we did talkabout customer service and
customer experience.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Go ahead and flip it to universal healthcare and it
won't be an experience.
It'll go much lower.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah, the DMV is one of those things everybody's
interacted with and you don'treally ever I don't ever like
I'm not sure why there's notGoogle reviews and B&B reviews.
Right, because I guess becauseit is government, but like, yeah
, I can't see them getting goodBetter Business Bureau reviews
or getting a five star on Google.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
But they got one star .
Who cares?
You got to go to another DMV.
That's still one star too.
There's not a five star youwant to go to.
It's the same government,different building, different
workers.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
And the way around it is there's these little places
that can go on your behalf andso you pay them money and they
go through all the hassle foryou.
Yeah, yeah, I did it when I wasin, when I moved to Vegas, and
I had to do all that.
There was just like a littleplace you go to and they go
stand in the line and they doeverything and they get your
tags.
They can, because you know,like, if you're a dealership, a
car dealership, and you likeacquire cars, you have to go to
the DMV and like register andwe'll do all these things.

(32:42):
So they're like it it's otherpeople can go on your behalf.
Basically you know what, um,but again, it's a paid service.
So, like you, you cantechnically skip the line
because you just pay someoneelse to do it for you.
Oh, triple a does it as well,okay they do some like changing
um title registration.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Unless it's an out-of-state car gotcha, then
they don't.
So the truck I brought mydaughter not triple a I gotta go
.
Yeah, it'd be my favorite leastfavorite thing, favorite thing.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
But to your point, like that's the difference.
And I think if you go throughand look at all of the things
that you've experienced as alistener, you've experienced
that, were you know governmentversus private, that you'd be
hard pressed to find a privateexperience that is as bad as a
government experience.
And what the reasoning is forthat I really don't know, other

(33:28):
than just lack of organization,lack of funding, whatever it
could be.
But you know, just look atprivate school versus public
school.
Like where would you kids,where would you rather send your
kids?
If you had a choice, right andyou can go, private flights
versus public flying, right,where would you rather?
Fly?
Right, everybody would ratherfly private.
So not that everybody canafford it and there is need for

(33:51):
it.
Like you can't just eradicateit and say, oh, like no,
everybody has to pay, becausethen you end up in a situation.
But the reality is is that Ithink people think that they're
going to get something for freeand there's no such thing as
free.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Nothing is free.
Money's got to come fromsomewhere to pay for it.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Someone's paying for it.
It's coming from someone andyou risk taxes, but you risk
huge resentment too, right, likewhen someone's working as hard
as they can.
And there is people that haveridiculous amounts of money who
aren't good stewards of it.
But in general, like most ofthe people, most of the progress

(34:33):
we've made in terms of in termsof environment, in terms of
health care, in terms of worldhealth, and in terms of poverty,
in terms of aid, in terms of,you know, research and
development, most of that isfunded by super rich people that
either have a desire to be, togive back, their motive to give

(34:56):
back.
Who knows, it may be a tax cut,it may be to do good.
I think you often see a lot ofpeople.
They get to a point and theyfeel like, well, what's this all
for they?
They, they get to the questionthe meaning of life, right, and
they come down to it and they go, oh, I should be helping people
, and so they shift becausethey're not driven to grow a
business anymore.
They're like on the next phaseof what's next for me, and

(35:18):
whether what they do, we agree,is good or not good, like they
believe they're doing good andthey believe they're helping
people.
And so when you look at that,if you take that away, who is
going to be those people?
Like, who's going to fund theseorganizations?
Because, let's look at it in aglobal perspective, like the US
funds most stuff around theworld.
Like we are trillions ofdollars in debt and we're giving

(35:41):
billions away to othercountries, how I can't get, like
, if I have debt at the bank andI write a check, they don't
cash the check for the otherperson and then just add it to
my bill.
I don't understand that either.
So, so like, as a country,who's our investor?
We're the rich country and we'regiving money to the poor
countries and I'm not reallysure most people think this is a

(36:03):
good thing, you know, becausewhen they look around they well,
wait a minute.
Like, I understand helpingpeople when you can help people,
but when you're, when you're ina situation like if you're if,
what do they say on the plane,put your mask on before you put
your kid's mask on.
That's your kid and they'rethey're even saying you've got
to put your life before you putsomeone else's.
Like, so shouldn't we put ourcountry first and then, with the

(36:26):
surplus and the extra, helpthese other places, because what
we seem to be doing is tryingto help people from an empty
bucket.
I'm not sure you can helppeople like that.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Well, it comes down to politics too.
And you look at their countryand they can't feed their own
people.
What's happening at the top?
Where is their money comingfrom or going?
Where is there usually war andpoverty issues?
You have to solve those or it'sgoing to continue just to need
money all the time.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, if the government official is living in
a mansion and then you get aquestion is that money getting
passed along the way it should?
And I've heard horror storiesabout aid that gets sent to
countries and then it's just putin warehouses.
It's not even given out.
So we don't have these problemsover here.
A lot of the things we talkabout are such like advanced
issues of an advanced societythat it's like you know if they

(37:13):
went and spent time in, likeIndia or, like you know, africa,
like with these tribes, theydon't even have clean water, yet
you know they have to like goto a river and scoop the water.
It's like miles away,no-transcript, and I think this

(37:57):
is kind of where business mindmay not be such a bad thing to
run the country is.
When you look at most of therelationships we have with other
countries, it's all throughtrade.
So when we look at tariffs andpolicies there, trump's big on
tariffs to replace a lot of theexpenses that taxpayers pay for
so he can reduce taxes, and whenyou look at it you go well,

(38:19):
yeah, if they're charging us tosell there, why would we let
them come here for free?
And a lot of it has been forvarious reasons, but a lot of
it's because American companiesare the one who has gone and
built in these other places andthey're importing their product
back to America.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
Well, how could the president make that change?
It still has to go throughCongress and the House, do you?

Speaker 1 (38:38):
think that would be voted Well, didn't they have the
tariffs before?
They all voted for it and thenBiden came in and removed the
tariffs.
I could be wrong on that, but Imean I think some things trade
and stuff like that.
It seems like the houses, orwhoever is, the final votes on
that seem to be in.
They seem to go either way.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Well, we have done tariffs to a country we're
punishing, we're giving them.
You know you're not followingall the rules, so you get some
tariffs or whatever, like we do.
Do that.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Whether this is true or not.
You know that plant that wasbeing built in Mexico like the
biggest car plant or whatever.
You know they stoppedproduction because Trump said he
was going to charge such hightariffs.
And what he's saying is I wantthem to build their factory
right here in Detroit.
You know, like I want them tobring that business here, not
build it in Mexico so they canmake it cheap and then drive it
across the border.

(39:27):
So I like that thought process.
I like that thought process.
But then I heard on a different, you know, interview that Trump
did that.
You know, tim Cook of Applecalled him up because they had
the tariffs for China, right,and he's like, hey, we import
that from China.
And like we can't afford thesetariffs.
If we do this, like our priceis going to go up and it's just
going to, it's going to kill thebusiness.
And he's like oh, well, here's,here's a special, you know,

(39:50):
pass, you don't have to pay it.
So a company that is a trilliondollar company Can't afford it.
One of the few trillion dollarcompanies is saying, oh, we
can't afford it, but I'm notsure if it's, they can't afford
it as much as it's like well, wedon't need to like lower profit
.
Yeah, we can keep money inother countries, like we don't
need to bring a money back intoAmerica.

(40:11):
And you know, like I believeApple's like headquarters for,
like technically is is Island,because something like that,
because and I could be wrong onthat Haven't done the research
to really understand the entitystructure, but I believe that
the like you know, know, evengoogle has like they get sued by
the european but it's like it'slike a subsidiary of, it's like

(40:32):
google's own company over there.
And I know like we were talkingabout that with like one of our
entities in a foreign country.
It's technically not actuallythe same company.
It's like to us it's the samecompany but to them, like we're
a different company in thatcountry and we're not treated as
if it's an American company,we're a company from that
country.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
So yeah, that's where the idea came from.
If you've got companies cominghere and building their
factories here, then you can say, oh it's, you know, now it's
American dollars or whatever,and then America keeps a lot of
the money.
That's just what we do withsome of our employees in our
country is we have to start acompany there and it's that
country's company.
It's not the same, you know,for us.
We have to keep some of ourcash that we make profit wise
from our company there, becausewe hired some people there,

(41:12):
which is really really hard todo and it makes it so, of course
.
That's where that company orthat country is getting extra
money from us.
Besides that, we hired thosepeople as employees and they pay
taxes already.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
Yeah, I think that's one of the things in the digital
world that's been it's beenamazing for so long like there's
been very little regulation interms of like where you sell,
like if you have a digital, ifyou have a digital product, you
pretty much can sell it anywherein the world and you're not
paying, like, the taxes locally.
Exactly that's my point.
Like all these things, allthese regulate because they're
realizing, oh wait, we're losinga lot of money here, like

(41:43):
there's a lot of money, there'sa lot of business being done
that we didn't pay attention to.
They're going back and they'regoing back five years and being
like oh, you sold, if you soldmore than 100 units in the state
of Texas, you owe us taxes.
And you're like wait a minute,the company's not in Texas.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
We have made sales in Texas.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
It's a digital product Like oh man.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
So I think that that's something where, like, it
may even not be in the futurecheaper, and I think that's what
trump's trying to get to, whereit's like, hey, you can make
your cars in you know whereveryou want, but you're actually
going to not be able, you're notgoing to be able, to import
those cheaper than you could ifyou just made it here, and by
doing that, I think it willbring business back to this
country.
The only downside to that andthis is, you know, I haven't
heard harris really talk on thispoint about I don't believe she

(42:30):
plans to do tariffs, but Ihaven't really heard a talk
against the tariff, so I don'tknow her standing on that, so I
can't comment.
But just from what I've seenwith the democratic party and
their kind of globalisticmindset, um, you wouldn't want
to take business from anothercountry because you're going to
be hurting their people, becausethey don't see them necessarily

(42:51):
as separate right?
So, like I, I don't think theywant to hurt another country's
economy.
Um, you know, which is?
I'm not saying it's going tohappen, but it is a potential
issue if you're saying that youcan't like if we're, if if
america is putting upessentially a wall and saying
we're not going to let anyoutside products in.
Those that come in are going tokind of like, if you go to the

(43:13):
grocery store, they have thatinternational aisle and it's
like the same food.
Like I love it because I canget food that I could get in
England, but it's like premiumLike it's like $10 for like
something that's worth like twobucks right, bucks right.
You're paying a premium for it.
Those companies aren't reallythat interested in trying to get
their products over here.
You know, like there's not anincentive to that.
So we lose some of theinternational trade, some

(43:35):
potentially, which isopportunities that we don't
necessarily have.
Also, from a manufacturingstandpoint, I don't know if we
have machinery over here.
I don't know who makes themachinery, because, like you
might say, oh, we've got tobuild a factory over here.
But if all the machines Chinesemachines because that's the
only country that's been doingthis for the last 20 years we're
still going to have to buy themachines from China.
So it's not going to make it.

(43:56):
I don't think they'll besharing those for free, right.
So the game goes both ways iswhat I'm trying to get at.
I'm not sure the tariffs arenecessary.
They're a good solution to makeus money.
They're a good solution toincentivize companies to come
back, but I didn't see a ton ofpeople flooding back to America

(44:17):
the last time Trump waspresident, when we did have
these policies and stuff.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
So now, if I have a country, I've got a couple
employees that now are chargingme, you know 25% more just to
start a company over there andthey'll hold a bunch of cash of
the companies I own over here.
It's like, well, I'm just I'mgoing to hire in America, even

(44:43):
though it was affordable to hiresomeone from another country,
that their money, they need lessright To live on a good income.
But now I'm looking at the USagain, going, hey, shoot, you
know, I'd like to just hirepeople here.
I guess We'll pay more hereinstead of having problems and
contracts and different laborlaws over there, like I have to
follow those now, which isawesome I do.
We are very careful about wherewe hire and making sure we

(45:05):
follow all of their.
Do they get a break, do theyget a lunch?
All those things that we do dofor the employees that we have.
But it's easier if they're allin the US at this point, because
it's getting harder and harderto hire in different countries.
Out of all those regulationsyou have to be super aware of or
you're in trouble and get fined.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
You know, I think that when you don't, when you're
small and you're hiring like acouple of people, it's
attractive because it's so cheap, yeah, of people it's
attractive because it's so cheap?
Yeah, but that's a little likein the grand scheme of things.
It's a little delusionalbecause we were talking and I'm
not going to specifically say,uh, who, what, what countries,

(45:39):
but we're talking about certainemployees in certain countries
and how, with all of the changes, it's actually not cheaper
anymore.
Like they're not getting.
They're not getting paid whatnecessarily an American would
get paid, but the cost of thatemployee to the company because
of all the additional expensesnow, with HR departments having
to be there and, like you said,money having to be there and

(46:01):
taxing.
You look at it and you go wait,it's actually be cheaper.
Like a lot of theseinternational hires are like
super enthusiastic, like sograteful for their jobs, really

(46:21):
really good at specialty sales.
They have a lower.
They have lower expectations interms of entitlement, right,
they're not, they don't.
I'll give a really good examplehere Year-end reviews US people
they're like, they expect theywant like 50 to 20% raise, like

(46:43):
international people.
Like you give them, you givethem a standard living raise of
3%, then maybe a couple percentbonus.
Maybe they get a 5% raise andthey're like so grateful for it
because they didn't have a senseof entitlement.
But I also believe that'sprobably because the cost of
living in their country and themoney they make is what it used
to be here.
It's what it used to be here,and we've seen that shift over

(47:05):
the years.
We obviously had employees inlots and lots of countries
countries we've cleaned that upa little bit so that's not as
many countries because of therules and regulations we had to
cut back and because of alwayswe had to form an entity in
every single one of thesecountries.
But like there is a differencebetween countries in terms of
entitlement and expectations,now, and especially in countries

(47:28):
that america has used for along time, they want to be paid
what the Americans are paidbecause in their mind they're
doing the exact same job, so whywould you not pay them that?
And so there is an acceptancefor less money because it's
worth more to them.
But the entitlement is growingin certain countries as we get
more connected.
It's coming.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
We did have a team leader in the Philippines who's
super great, took differentdifferent hours.
He could talk to us when we'reawake and then talk to his team
when they're awake and uh, hewas like we paid him really well
for the philippines and he wasso excited he goes.
I'm the guy with like thecadillac and like the levi's.
We're like whoa, I guess it'slike a big deal there.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
So I'm like okay, great, well, well done yeah, oh,
and you know you can't reallyoverpay for a good employee if,
if they, because the value of anemployee is is like roi, right,
it's a return on investment.
What's the return on investmentwhen I know who you're talking
about is overseeing a whole teamof people and it's hiring and

(48:28):
like make sure everybody's takencare of and and then the
production from that team, whatthey produce and how much sure
everybody's taken care of, andand then the production from
that team, what they produce andhow much money we were making
off of what they were producing,because they were producing a
lot of sales assets that soldproduct.
You know vs video, sales letters, and you know images and
graphics, things, that thethings that we used, um, you
know it.

(48:49):
It's it a little bit of yougoes oh, we were overpaying, but
then a piece of you's like well, we're not really, we're kind
of underpaying because if we hadto hire a us person to do that,
that would be a huge cost.
So again, it's like in thosesituations, you don't as a
business, we don't.
We didn't tend to talk aboutthat because it was like it
didn't, it wasn't like an issue.
You know, it was only an issuewhen the performance changed and
then it it's like wait, howmuch are we paying for this?

(49:10):
Like, oh, my gosh.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Like, oh, okay, like now we're or one of us your
fines and laws come in and thenyou're like shoot, it's going to
cost me so much more now.
It just doesn't make senseanymore.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Yeah the risk, right the risk, and have campuses with
5,000 employees working rightthere, Like ah, I understand
it's like rules and regulationsand things like that, so it is
very interesting, but I feel asif when companies do better,
employees do better.
That seems to be what I'vewitnessed.

(49:51):
That seems to be what I'vewitnessed.
You know, like it's very rarethat a company is making a ton
of money and simultaneouslytrying to not pay their
employees, like nowadays, likebecause everything is so easy to
find out.
You know, like employees talkto each other all the time, you
can't pay one person one thingand someone else a significantly
different amount.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
You can't call them out to talk about it.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Yeah, you're not allowed to.
Legally, you're not allowed to.
Legally, you're not allowed to.
And they do, and they talk toeach other and for sure they
don't.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
If one is coming from this area over here and they're
Georgia, they need to make $11an hour and we've hired them for
$15.
But in California we have topay $20.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
It's like, well, yeah , they over there, happy over
here, makes it harder, all right.
So, as a small business owneryourself and and for those
listening like, how do younavigate changes that come?

Speaker 2 (50:43):
as they come.
You don't know everything.
When you're starting a businessand you start a paper out,
you're like, okay, got thepapers figure out, they're going
to deliver into my.
They want them in the mailboxesby noon.
Which mailboxes counts?
You draw yourself a littlecrown map or whatever.
When we were little we had tofigure out which mailboxes got a
paper when we were on a paperroute.
And you figure it out as you goand you're like, oh, I got a
paycheck for taxes.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
You know when you're go Like either way.
We don't know what either waywould result for you as a
business owner, right?
Even if it doesn't matter who'selected.
Technically it doesn't starttill next year Like.
So there's time.
So at what point do you startlooking at, maybe, your pricing
strategy?
So there's time, so at whatpoint do?

Speaker 2 (51:44):
you start looking at maybe your pricing strategy,
your number of employees, likeyour policies, like your
international.
Like how do you prepare foruncertainty with the?
Each candidate is saying youcan take what Kamal and I are
saying about raising corporatetaxes and you know that that is
probably going to happen ifshe's elected.
So then you start looking atall those things Like is it less
employees needed?
Is more AI for support needed?

(52:04):
I don't want that.
I like the customer experiencebeing really high.
But if it is going to be a hugechunk of profits out of nowhere,
I'm like, shoot, I shouldactually prepare for that and
think of that.
Right, a huge chunk of profitsout of nowhere.
I'm like, shoot, I shouldactually prepare for that and
think of that, right.
Same thing if we get thecorporate taxes going down or
staying the same, then I knowwhat my profit margins are
staying or getting better.
So would I like to expand?
Would I like to hire morepeople?
Would I like to start anothercompany?
Because it's going so well?
The money is still going out,whether you have stocks, whether

(52:26):
you're starting companies.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
Yeah, I think that you should always be planning
for all things.
So when you look at it, it'slike you're going to be in
trouble if you don't know yourmargins, if you don't know your
numbers, if you don't know yourP&Ls, if you don't know your
operating costs, if you don'tknow where you can save money,
where you can't save money, ifyou don't know what excessive

(52:48):
software you have.
Like one of the things youalways did was go through all
the softwares that we usedinternally and say, hey, you
guys still using that, becauseoftentimes we do a trial, we'd
use it for 90 days and then itwould get forgotten about.
And here comes later as anannual rebill, and you're going
wait a minute, are we stillusing this?
Are we still using this?
So I think there's a lot ofwaste, right.
So like waste, right.
So like if you, if you'rerunning a company and you can't,

(53:10):
like you don't specificallyknow where all the money goes,
you don't specifically know whateverybody does, you don't know
the production, because youdon't know how long it takes to
do things, I like use an article, like to write an article,
someone writing an article, youknow, I I heard a thing like I
think it was buzzsprout or oneof these online, maybe digcom,
like they're're as a writer.
Their task was they had to writeone article a day.

(53:32):
That was it.
That's all they had to do isone article, uh, I think like a
thousand to 1500 words.
But you know, they had to doresearch, they had to, like, it
had to be a good article, butthey had to do an article a day.
That was when they did theirarticle.
They could go home.
Well, you do that with AI andyou're going to be done within
two hours, right?
Do you get paid for the day?
Well, that's the thing.
As a business owner, are youpaying for production or are you

(53:54):
paying hourly?
Right?
Because and that's thedifference with employees right,
some employees are hourly, somepeople are salaried, so you
need to understand thedifference in the roles.
And then I think, as an owner ofa company with technology,
advancements, ai, all of thosethings you should have already
been planning for notnecessarily a reduction in your
workforce, but an increase inyour production and so like, if

(54:18):
you're used to producing, let'ssay, one article a day, your
team should be able to crank outmore than one article a day now
, and so you know, theexpectation might be two or
three articles a day, and again,that's for the individual to
figure out.
But these are all ways that,like you combat, you create
growth, because growth is alwaysgoing to combat any changes.
Increased revenue is alwaysgoing to combat additional fees.
And it's like, if your merchantaccount suddenly goes, oh,

(54:39):
we're going to, like allmerchant accounts, go on the
same path, and so it's 5% now.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Well, they do have a monopoly.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
So it goes up.
It goes up a whole percentage.
In a bit we're going to take 5%of every transaction, Like,
well, I can't not use youbecause I can't collect money.
And if you go, oh, I just goover to this other merchant
account and then, oh wait,they've raised their prices too,
because everybody's inagreeance.
You know, this typicallyhappens in a lot of industries
where they're not supposed to,but somehow everybody at the
same time agrees to do the samething.

(55:06):
And we don't want them to you gowait a minute.
Yeah, okay, I guess I'm goingto pay the extra percentage.
There's nothing I can do aboutit.
But then you go okay, how do Imake that?
So if you already have the planin place and you're planning
for all these different things,if you're planning for an
increase in corporate tax andcorporate tax stays the same or
goes down, now you just haveadditional revenue.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
So if you Generally, you're trying to grow your
company.
You, if you're trying to growyour company, you're trying to
put out better products, moresoftware, more developers.
It's going to cost, so youdon't always take that profit
and put it in a jar in thebackyard.
You put it towards.
If you have extra income, youeither put it back into your
company, invest in yourself andgrow your company if you can, or
you put it into someone else'scompany with stocks or a house
and get the rental income ifthere is any At this point.

(55:49):
No, but you'll be paying off anasset Eventually.
It'll be a good thing.
It's always going out.
It's not staying in your pocketin your backyard, right.
But if you're sitting around,someone's collecting more on
that money, yeah, and so are youif what you picked went well.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
If you're a capitalist, which probably means
you're going to vote for Trump,because business owners not
everybody, but, like you know,most business entrepreneurial
type people like and obviouslythat's not technically true
there's a lot of people onsupporting Harris who are
business owners, but I'll usethe word capitalist probably
more towards the RepublicanParty now than that.

(56:24):
But if you're someone who issitting around like, oh, you're
just waiting to see what happens.
If you're sitting aroundwaiting to see why you're
playing a losing game, becauseyou should always plan for the
worst, because you never knowwhat's going to happen and you
need to understand how lean canyou run, like what's the minimum
you can run on, Because theremay be a scenario out of your
control.
That's not an election.
That causes that right.

(56:46):
Like we had that during COVID.
They had the chip issue for carsand so all of a sudden there's
no new cars and the price ofcars go through the roof.
Dealers couldn't sell cars, sothey were jacking the prices up
to try to meet the profitmargins.
People were upset so theyweren't buying cars, you know.
Then all of a sudden theydropped the loan rates because
they're like, oh, we get, sothen people start buying cars at
a premium price.
You know you're paying 100grand for a vehicle that's worth

(57:07):
50.
Resell on secondhand cars wasthrough the roof.
People were selling theirvehicles for more than they
bought them to for the firsttime ever.
Has happened.
Usually you drive off the lotvalue goes, they drive off the
lot value went up Weird.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
But if you're not prepared for any of this First
time ever, the value of your carwent up the lot.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
If you're scrambling, the moment something happens,
you're rolling the dice on yourfuture, whereas if you have a
solid plan and execute the plan,like, okay, corporate taxes are
going to go up, uh, we're goingto get taxed on unrealized
gains, like, if you startlooking at that, so if we did,
if you just if you just askyourself a question, if this
happens and everything goes tothe worst, it could, based on

(57:48):
what I know, what would be mygame plan?
Because then, no matter whathappens, you're prepared.
And, in fact, if you justimplement that stuff, even with
no changes, you should make moremoney.
So you should be able tobenefit from that.
And again, I don't think it's acase like I've seen a case
study scenario where it's likeyou know, ai can replace five of
your content team.

(58:08):
You know, from a business ownerstandpoint, what's the ethical
thing to do.
And I'm like the ethical thingto do is teach those five people
how to use AI so you can create15.
Well, 25.
Well, they're not all.
You've got five.
Five times five is 25.
So you've got 25 employees withthe same five people you had.
You're probably right, like youprobably should.
You should give some some.

(58:30):
Okay, we'll go through her.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
Yeah, I have a question.
I know Um, I can't, I don'tknow where, where to take it.
In my own, in my own head, Ithought about it just very
little, but when one of them was, it was a Trump said don't tax
tips.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
What in the world is that benefit or negative?
Um, if you get income, you haveto be taxed on your income, no
matter where it comes from.
If it's cash, you're supposedto report it.
I understand a lot of tippinggenerally doesn't, but you're
supposed to be taxed on all ofyour income.
But if you're not taxing tips,what is the point of?

Speaker 1 (59:02):
that Both parties have adopted that now.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
I don't understand it though.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
But so in the my understanding is that for
minimum wage for restaurantowners it's a lot less.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
It went really high in California.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Because they fast food, yeah, but for restaurant
owners it's different.
And weight the minimum wage,they factor in tips, tips, and
so if and I don't know specificnumbers, but let's say they
factor in you do you know you?
You, you make six bucks in tipsper hour, so they go 16, which

(59:41):
is minimum wage minus six.
Therefore, a restaurant can payyou $10 per hour because you
make six from the tip.
So what Trump is saying isyou'll get taxed on the $10 you
get paid from the restaurant,but the $6 you make from the tip
is just cash in your pocket.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
I know generally that is a lot of times how it works.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
Yeah, well, that's the thing with cash.
I mean, you know, you go to atattoo artist, you go to anyone
that can deal in cash, and theywould rather have cash because
they don't necessarily have toput it they should, but cash is
not, like it's tracked or traced, which is a big reason I
believe the governments in allcountries are trying to shift

(01:00:19):
towards digital currency,because then they can monitor
everything.
And I would love to not tip.
Pay your restaurant worker awage, but is food service that
slim a margin?

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Well, I think tips are ridiculous, but it's because
I grew up in England.
If your food costs more, you goout to restaurants a little
less.
But then when you pay the priceit's saying on the menu and
you're not tipping.
You can budget for that.
You can go and get what youwant when you're ready, when
it's appropriate, and theworkers get that pay and gets.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
I don't know.
Yeah, I don't think tips shouldever be fact.
If minimum wage is $16 an hour,they should get paid $16 an
hour and then tip on top of thatis just extra.
But we're at a point where ifyou don't tip 25%, you feel bad
about it because you know thewaitress or waiter is not making
very much money.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
When they make you feel bad about it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
If they did a bad job , I was like wait, wait wait,
sure, but the crazy thing is,like I've said this before, I
don't have preferences on whereI eat, like it doesn't bother me
if it's a chain restaurant, itdoesn't bother me if it's not a
five-star place, right, like Ilike expensive food and I just

(01:01:23):
as much as I like a good burgerand fries, right.
So I eat a lot of differentplaces and I've had some of the
best service in places that arejust like regular, you know mom
and pop restaurants, and thefood you know is $20, you know,
and you give 25%, but, like,you're tipping way less than you

(01:01:43):
do.
If you go to a steakhouse wherethe steak is an $80 steak to
start, so you get maybe a $200bill and then you're tipping 25%
on that start, so you get maybea 200 bill and then you're
tipping 25 on that.
It doesn't necessarily the, the, the, the money you pay.
Like.
I would rather people think like, oh, I'll just, I tip 10, like
I'll tip five bucks, or tip 10bucks and like, or 20 bucks and

(01:02:03):
you don't like, regardless ofwhat the cost of the meal is.
Like if you just tip five bucksevery time, right, but in some
restaurants they'd be like ohwell, thanks, you know, because
your dinner was seven bucks.
You know like I remember WaffleHouse back in Columbus, ohio,
where we used to eat.
You know it's like you'respending more than 20 bucks is
almost impossible there.
Everything's so cheap, it isimpossible.
But you tip them five bucks andthey're like do you need change

(01:02:25):
?
Because the cost of the billversus the tip.
In their mind they're like what?
But then you go to a fancyrestaurant.
If you tip five bucks they'd belike what did I do wrong?
Yeah, what did I do wrong?
So again, there's no logic intipping.
So it's super interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
We had this whole thing in Monaco where they would
bring us a bill.
We ordered this amazinglyexpensive, fantastic food
because we're like we just wantone really cool meal.
All the rest we could budget,whatever.
So we did, we got, you know,caviar to our room and we saw
the bill and it was much lowerthan I expected and there was no
line for tips.
So I was like, what do we do?
And she goes.
Well, if our service isexceptional, you know some

(01:03:01):
people tip around, you knowclose to 10%, but usually
nothing.
We get paid really well,because we get paid, we do a
great job.
We did a great job.
We did a great job.
The service was incredible.
Even the Uber guy like thiswasn't Uber, but it was like we
got a car for the day and theysaid, okay, it's this much money
for the car for the day and theguy will drive you anywhere for
this many hours or whateverno-transcript there, so

(01:03:38):
different.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
But again, it's because they get paid Like they
get the tips on taken out oftheir wage, like it's like you
get paid this much money andthey're happy, like most of them
are happy, right.
Obviously, most people aren'tbig fans of their job in general
.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
We tip at the pub anyway in England because we
thought we should.

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
But you tip and they kind of like it's like a weird
thing there, whereas over hereit's like if you don't tip and
if you buy a coffee and don'ttip, they look at you weird.
It's like you stood there, tookmy order, they flip the screen
around and it's got 15, 20, 25%.
I'm going for a $6 coffee thatyou're.
You just put it in the machineand the machine's making it Like

(01:04:16):
it doesn't feel right.
But if that person isn'tgetting paid and they're relying
on tips now, as the consumeryou feel bad, cause you're like
you can't afford one more dollar.
Well, that's true.
I mean, I always tip, but mostof the time it's out of guilt,
because you live here, but mostof the time it's out of guilt,
like it's not necessarily, likeit just doesn't make sense to me
.
Like I like the person gettingtipped benefits.

(01:04:39):
I like that they benefitbecause I think people should be
able to make more money.
And I think when you give a tip, you give it to a person and
you expect that person to keepthe tip right.
I like if they split it, that'scool.
But like when you give it, youdon't give it and then hope they
get 50 of that tip.
Like you give them the tip youwant to give them.
So I like all of that.

(01:05:01):
I just would prefer, like if Iget my hair cut, that when they
say it's 40 bucks, it's 40 bucks, not that I have to go okay, so
it's 50 bucks, and send you 50bucks like I would like to just
be told.
But it's the same as like whenyou like kids don't get this,
you know piece of candy.
Well, now it's like two dollarsand 50 cents, but it used to be
like 99 cents.

(01:05:21):
So you take your dollar to buythe candy bar and they'd be like
that's one dollar and threecents.
So you'd be like what, I have adollar, and they'd be like
sorry, and every now and againthey would take the pennies out
of the thing on the counter.
But all kids have had thatexperience in England.
If it says 99, it's 99 and it'slike here's a pound and they
give you a penny back and it'slike there's no guesswork and
it's like for me.

(01:05:42):
I just don't like the guesswork.
It's the same with taxes.
How much do I?

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
owe you.
Well, you get fines andpenalties, but if they take more
money from you than they should, they'll just give it back.
No penalties, no fines.
You can't fine them.
I would love to.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
But they keep it for a while.
It's not like they give it backto you immediately.
It's like let us hold it for aslong as we can get away with it
.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
It takes years.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
So these are things I think this is like.
Obviously, I'm not trying toget you to vote either way.
You vote however you want tovote.
A lot of people vote based ontheir principles and their like.
Business has nothing to do, butif you are a business owner,
you do have to think through theeconomics of business.
You do have to think throughthe changes that are going to
come, and all I could say isjust be prepared either way,
right.
So have a plan either way, andyou know one way you may

(01:06:30):
reinvest back in the company andgrow quicker.
The other way, you might haveto have slower growth.
But make sure you have a planso that, no matter what happens,
you don't find yourself in thissituation a year from now where
you're like, oh my gosh, likewe got it and you're in a state
of panic.
So that would be what I get Anyadvice on your side for
business owners.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
I've never been in a state of panic, that's for sure.
We have to make major changeslike all of a sudden, and then
it upsets all of the staff.
I don't know.
Like I said, the customerexperience versus the customer
service is a big deal to me as acustomer of lots of platforms
and then, as I want my customersto feel from my support, we

(01:07:09):
like that part.
As it gets more expensive, Iexplore more of the chat FAQs.
That will solve the problems.
There's less customer serviceticket so I could save a little
bit on customer service here andthere.
So I plan some of it.
But the major changes when youdo have to make them, are very
hard.
But you should have ABC infront of you with what changes
you think are coming.
Love it with what changes youthink are coming.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
Love it.
All right, everyone.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Whichever way you vote, westill love you.
Hope to see you on the next one.
Talk to you soon, bye.