Navigating Home Building Challenges: From Industry Hurdles to Political Insights with Bob Marini

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Bob Marini from Marini Homes joins us to navigate the intricate world of home building and the challenges plaguing the industry today. Discover how Marini Homes has evolved over four generations in Upstate New York, as Bob shares insights into the shift from the modest profit margins of the past to today's demanding 20% gross margin. We'll unpack the hurdles of modern housing, from supply chain issues to inflation, and their impact on both businesses and future homeowners.

The conversation takes a deeper turn as we examine the nationwide impact of COVID-19 mandates, focusing on the contrasting approaches of New York and Florida. We explore the political dynamics that drive these decisions, including the role of governors like Ron DeSantis and the migration trends shaping local economies. The episode doesn't shy away from controversy, either, as we discuss the ripple effects of rising costs on various industries, particularly the restaurant sector, and how inflation continues to stretch the limits of affordability.

In a political twist, we delve into the realm of public discourse and media influence, touching on the backlash faced by Joe Rogan and the potential impact of political division in America. An exclusive glimpse inside Mar-a-Lago reveals Donald Trump's personal reflections on his time in office and his candid thoughts on political adversaries. Whether it's navigating the complexities of the housing market or pondering the broader implications of political and economic turmoil, this episode offers a rich tapestry of insights for our listeners.

This is the Buddy For Junior Show — where faith, truth, and courage come together. Join us as we explore life’s deeper purpose and carry the torch of conviction. The show begins now.

Follow Buddy @BuddyFoyJr

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Folks, welcome.
Welcome to the Buddy Ford Jrshow.
I'm pumped up today.
I've got a guest on.
I've been trying to get on theshow for the last six months.
He's busy, he travels a lot,he's got the economy and COVID
and building homes that he'sdealing with and supply chain
issues and trying to balance hisfamily and work life and
everything else.
I've got Bob Marini from MariniHomes in the Capital Region in

(00:36):
Upstate New York.
Bob is here at location in AnnaMaria Island, florida and
before we get started, I alsowant to thank Marini Homes and
thank you, bob, for sponsoringthe Foy Rush YouTube series.
Everyone, if you haven't seenit, we have 14 episodes live.
Go to YouTube search for FoyRush or go to BuddyFoyJrcom and

(00:58):
you can find it up there.
Bob, tell us a little bit aboutthe company.
Give the audience a scale ofwhat you do in the housing
business.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, first of all, thanks for having me down here.
It's beautiful.
I'm about 1,100 miles from myhome base and it feels good to
be in 75-degree weather asopposed to sleet and freezing
rain.
My company was started by mygrandfather back in 19-.
Oh third generation, thirdgeneration yeah, and if you want
to count my children, it'sactually four generations in the

(01:24):
business now.
But we've been building homesin the Capital Region since 1947
, 75 years.
We've built over 4,000 homes inthe Capital Region.
It's fun business.
You get to meet a lot of greatpeople, a lot of successful
business people and we just havefun with it.
And we've been perfecting thatcraft for 75 years.

(01:46):
My grandfather used to buildall brick homes and I have-.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Was your grandfather a mason?

Speaker 2 (01:50):
He was, yeah, and he immigrated here from Italy,
settled in Yonkers, worked in acouple of factories during the
Depression.
Wow, moved up here to Albany,started building houses.
That's how we got started and Ihave documents from the homes
that he built in the 1940s.
It's kind of amazing how yousee the sales price of a home at

(02:11):
$5,500.
Wow, you know.
And then he lists all of hisexpenses at $5,500.
Wow, you know.
And then he lists all of hisexpenses that was used to build
the home.
I think he made about $500 ahouse.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
No kidding.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Back in the 40s, yeah .

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Now is the percentage on the sale about the same as
today.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
No, so that maybe was about 7%, 8%, and he didn't
even deduct his labor out ofthat number.
Wow, yeah, that was just afterhe paid all of his gross.
Yeah, all after he paid all ofhis hard costs.
You know, you know, typicallyin the home building business
today, in order to stay inbusiness you've got to operate

(02:50):
on about a 20% gross margin.
So if you're doing, you know,$30 million a year in sales, you
know you got to do 6 milliongross and then you got to pay
for your overhead and your salescosts and everything out of
that.
So our business is not muchdifferent.
It's very highly capital.
It's it's very capitalintensive.
Right, you know, sometimeswe're out eight to ten million
dollars buying the land, puttingthe pipes in the ground to

(03:11):
build the roads.
Then we get a building permitand it takes us six months to
build a house.
So sometimes it's two yearsbefore we collect back Our first
dollar.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
On that $10 million investment.
I tell you.
So, bob and I talk a lot Aboutpolitics.
And the last podcast.
I promised the listeners, bob,that I would take them through
our Trump Sit down.
Now we're going to tease youall with that.
You're going to hang out hereuntil the end of the podcast To
listen.
I figured I might as well havethe guy Now we're going to tease

(03:39):
you all with that.
You're going to hang out hereuntil the end of the podcast to
listen.
I figured I might as well havethe guy who invited me and got
me in the door and we'll talkabout how we felt about the
event and share our event atMar-a-Lago two weeks ago.
So I'm excited to have Bob hereIn true fashion of business and
politics.
We're going to dive into both,because Bob and I talk about
politics all the time.
We talk about business a lot.
He'll send me at least everyother week what's going on with
the housing costs and the lumbercosts, et cetera.

(04:01):
So from a business perspective,I'd love to unpack the
generational and how you guyssuccessfully went four
generations without killing eachother.
That's a hard thing to do, itis.
And then getting to theinflation conversation and the
economy and home sales today.
Advice for young entrepreneurscoming up, young kids in college
, and then we'll dive into apolitical conversation and talk

(04:24):
about our event at Mar-a-LagoDoes that sound good.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yep, I think what's going to shock your listeners
the most is the inflation that'staking off in my business today
and how it's affectinghomebuyers today and how it's
affecting homebuyers.
And then you step away fromthat and and you, you take a
deeper dive into what peoplehave to face every single day
between putting gasoline intheir cars, going to the grocery
store, heating their homes anddifferent things like that.

(04:48):
But when I, when I uncover whatis going on in the home
building business and the cost,the input costs, and how they've
risen, people are going to beamazed Wow.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
So, before we get into that, bob and I am amazed
by what you share with me withthe numbers, with windows and
doors and I got a restaurant inSarasota that we're trying to
open up.
By the way, bob and I are inFlorida right now at our Anna
Maria location broadcasting theshow.
And we're having issues, bob,in Sarasota, with getting
permits stamped because of thecontinuation of changing

(05:20):
materials on a job, with acouple hundred different jobs
going on, then the permittingprocess having to get started
all over.
Maybe that's not the right term, but they've got to submit
changes for the permits becauseof materials.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Right, you file for permits based on a certain
construction specification andnow that's changing.
So now you've got to go in andamend the permit for the new
material that you're putting inthe building, and it's all got
to be approved by the architectand the engineer and everybody
else.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
So it's getting expensive on all sides and the
biggest expense and I'm sure youdeal with it, is the time, as
you delay these projects, youhave a certain calendar in mind
that you're going to put themoney out there.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
I just got done doing a 38-unit apartment building in
Clifton Park, new York, andCOVID delayed me about seven
months on this project.
And the funny thing is when youbuild these things.
I got two years ofinterest-only loan to build it
and stabilize it.
So we rent it and then thatconverts to a permanent mortgage

(06:21):
.
Well, usually when you do thesethings you have about six
months' worth of interest-onlywhile you're leasing it up.
And I just burned off all theinterest-only and I just started
filling the building up.
So COVID really did a numberwith us on that.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Now how does that?
When you deal with COVID andyou get through COVID, would you
say that you came on the other.
Well, new York's still in COVID.
No, yes.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, if you want to talk about liberal politics and
you want to get off on thattangent yeah, it's still in
COVID You've got to wear a maskindoors.
There's a mandatory maskmandate that Governor Hochul
said she was going to evaluateat the end of January.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Now, does it affect your labor force?

Speaker 2 (07:04):
No, it hasn't, Other than the fact that people when
they get COVID they've got tostay home for five days and that
kind of delays things.
Five versus the 10 that it usedto be Right.
But she now has instituted,she's extended that mask mandate
through the end of February,Even with no science out there,
With no science.
And then she says she's goingto evaluate it then, which means

(07:26):
you know what she's going to do.
She's going to extend it intoMarch.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
Well, you and I have been talking about this.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
We predicted another shutdown in Florida happening
this year, I thought that thatwas going to happen.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, we predicted another shutdown in Florida
happening this year.
I thought that that was goingto happen.
Yeah, me too, I mean shedefinitely telegraphed it.
I mean electric surgery,elective surgery.
That's on hold in the hospitalsnow in New York.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Well, one of the things is, I was listening to
Kill Me this morning when I wasdriving here to see you and
they're talking about thesestatistics, about these people
who have died because they putoff cancer surgery.
They put off some of theseelective surgeries and it
actually has deteriorated theirhealth, which caused other
problems, which caused people todie.

(08:06):
As opposed to COVID, it's beenmore harmful to shut things down
than it was to keep things open.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, and so the latest research out that got
released yesterday and, by theway, this is where we got
released this week was the COVIDlockdown and all these
restrictions, what it did.
Is it saved, 0.2 percent or0.02 percent?
I've seen two different reports.
Either way, it's either 0.2percent or 0.02 percent.

(08:33):
Lives it saved with theseinsanely dictated communist
lockdowns?

Speaker 2 (08:41):
It hurt a lot of people.
It hurt a lot of businesses.
There was no reason for it.
I'm on a local talk show up inthe Albany area with Paul
Vanderberg and I got to tell youPaul and I had, from the
beginning, had called this wholething a hoax.
Yeah, me too.
Too, I'm with you and I firmlybelieve that this was crafted on

(09:02):
some level to get rid of Trump.
And you know, if you remembercorrectly, it was stopped to
spread 15 days, to stop thespread, and 15 days turned into
two years.
And you don't deal with it muchdown here in Florida because
you know you've got a governor,ron DeSantis, that does a great
job't deal with it much downhere in Florida because you know
you've got a governor, ronDeSantis, that does a great job,
which is why we came down here,this place is free as free as
you can get, but you go up intoNew York, it's oppressive.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Well, new Yorkers are starting to come down here and
you can tell the New Yorkerswhen they're in the room.
Right, we get bad reviewsbecause we're not wearing masks.
Bad reviews because we're notwearing masks.
We get bad reviews becausewe're not social distancing, and
they want to bring theirparanoia down to Florida from
New.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
York.
You know it happened in thesuburbs when you get into
upstate New York.
They all used to beRepublican-based and then, as
the people migrated north out ofthe city of Albany and out of
New York City and they startedto come up the Saratoga and you
probably even see it up inBolton Landing, right with the
chateau up in Bolton, oh yeah,they bring their politics with

(10:03):
them and it changes the dynamicand the fabric of those
communities and now they'remostly Democratic.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Well, here in Florida .
For the first time in thehistory of Florida there's more
registered Republican votersthan there are Democrat voters.
For the first time ever in thestate history.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
As I like to say, if you're coming to this area,
leave your politics where youcame from.
Don't New York.
My Florida was the T-shirt thatI saw Assimilate to what we
have here.
Don't bring your politics herewhat I do.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Tell people, though, and then we'll get back on the
business.
Ron DeSantis did not win by alandslide, he just won.
We'll get back on the business.
Ron DeSantis did not win by alandslide, he just won.
It was a very tight race, soFlorida was literally a handful
of votes away from being alockdown state.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Think about that Ron DeSantis was elected because
Trump endorsed him.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
That's right and that's something that we talked
about at Mar-a-Lago, yeah,mar-a-lago, yeah.
So I tell people, listen, youknow the Florida was not that
red as everyone thinks.
It is because of the electionthat Ron DeSantis went through
was a tight race.
Then Trump endorsed him andtook him to another level, but

(11:07):
the reality is even the resultsof the election was tight, so
Florida was very.
That would have been anotherblue lockdown state.
I wouldn't be here openingrestaurants.
That's right.
And think about the amount ofjobs that would be impacted in
Florida had it not been a redstate.
You know.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
I believe that there's a bigger force at work
here behind the scenes,controlled by this green
movement, you know, in the nameof the environment, and all
these radical left democrats aretrying to push an agenda and I
haven't quite figured it out yet, but I, I think you're starting

(11:43):
to see the effects of what'sreally happening because of the
cost of of things that that you,we have to go, we have to.
First of all, the only thingworse than paying a higher cost
for something is not being ableto get it.
Amen, right, yep, I mean, I'mwaiting.
I just got word the other day.
Anderson Windows has just movedthe production of black windows

(12:05):
.
They're very popular in modernfarmhouse-style homes.
Ten months to get blackexterior-clad windows.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
And is it really ten months or is it a year?

Speaker 2 (12:16):
It's ten months 10.
So what do you do, bob?
Regular white windows I I uhregular white vinyl windows that
we used to, we used to get.
We used to wait eight weeks forthem, 21 weeks now so what do
you do?
normal windows well, ourproduction system puts those
purchase orders in the hands ofour suppliers months before we

(12:38):
need them.
So typically it's not a problem, but waiting 10 months for
windows is a problem.
So now we have to adjust.
Maybe we have to take thatmodern farmhouse style off of
the menu so that people can'tchoose it because we can't get
the product for it.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Now, is there any delay in manufacturing on your
end or building the homesbecause of these delays?
Have you witnessed that?
I mean you mentioned theapartment building being behind.
Are any of your houses behind?

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah, we're behind on average three to four months on
a house.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
That's about what I'm behind with opening a
restaurant down here in.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Florida, so it's across the board, it's everybody
.
But what's interesting is Istarted to see costs increase in
August of 2020.
And some of the price increasesin August of 2020 was a
reaction of natural marketforces.
Right, not enough supply, toomuch demand.

(13:32):
So naturally you're going toincrease the price of a home to
try and quell that demand andbalance it out.
But the other 50 percent ofthat component I started to see
costs increasing in my businessand actually got behind the
curve.
And so from uh, august of um2020, in April of 21, I didn't.

(13:54):
So I didn't touch prices fromaugust of 20 until april of 21,
and that's when lumber went from.
So, I'm sorry, say that onemore time.
So from august of 2020 untilapril of 2021, I didn't touch
prices you've left your pricesthe same.
I've raised them in in augustand, and I thought that that was
good and and historically Idon't raise my prices a lot you
know we've got consistency, um,in pricing and usually you'll

(14:19):
get a little bit of an increasehere or there every year from
your suppliers and your subs,but nothing like I'm seeing
right now.
And so in April of 2021, lumberwent from about $350 to $400 a
board foot, 1,000 board feet to$1, feet to 1700.
What it went up five fold, 5x,um and so what that did is that

(14:44):
put me way behind the curve.
So now it's costing me an extrathirty thousand dollars a house
to buy lumber when.
So when those price increasesget to me and I'm calling for
lumber, it's an extra extra$30,000 a house.
That's your margin hit.
Oh yeah, it was really bad.
But here's the interestingthing now Lumber, between April

(15:08):
and November, skyrocketed.
Then it corrected, it came down, it retraced about 50 percent,
but in that 50 percentretracement, everything else
went up and more than doubledwhat the compensation was, what
the reduction in lumber was soother components yeah, so
heating and air conditioningfurnaces they had three price
increases last year.

(15:31):
We had windows and exteriordoors, vinyl siding, roofing,
sheetrock, insulation,everything that goes into
concrete, everything that goesinto concrete, everything that
goes into a house, was going up.
Where normally you would see 2%to 3% a year, we're seeing 30%,
40%, 50% price increases.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
So do you pull the throttle back in that
environment?

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, I actually shut down sales.
I couldn't get control of itfast enough, so I just had to
pause my sales until I couldfigure out what was going on.
Now here's the interestingthing from august 5th.
Now here's here's a house thatI built.
It's a 2400 square foot, twoand a half bath, four, four
bedroom home, two car garage,full basement.
It was 395 000 in august of2020.

(16:11):
395 000, yeah, on jan 12th of22,.
Just a couple weeks ago,514,000.
So it goes from 395,000 to514,000.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
So does that change the demographic you're selling
to?
No?

Speaker 2 (16:27):
they're still there.
The low interest rates hasn'tstopped the buyer from buying
the house, but once we startgetting an uptick in interest
rates it's going to hurt.
So what does that mean to theaverage buyer of a new home?
Right?
So at the 395 number, you takea 30-year mortgage, right?
3.5% Principal and interest onthat is $1,439 a month.

(16:51):
You take the new number of 514,put the same 3.5% 30-year
mortgage on it, it goes to$1,848.
It's an increase of $409 amonth.
It's a car payment.
That's taxes.
Right, it's $4,800 a year.
And that doesn't includeincreases in insurance.
It doesn't include increases inyour property taxes.

(17:12):
That's just to pay for thehouse.
Wow.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
It's a big number.
Taxes that's just to pay forthe house wow, it's a big number
.
So how do these how yourdemographic for that price of a
home at the high threes?
Is that a?
Is that a new married couplethat are just got a job, their
first or second job?

Speaker 2 (17:26):
yeah, generally we have really two segment markets,
right, we have a lot of ranchplans for the empty nesters,
right.
Those are these people that wecall snowbirds, that want to own
a home in new york and andupstate and they'll come down
here for the winter, right, andthese are pretty much
maintenance free homes.
We take care of that, thatportion of the market, and then
we also take care of usually notnot so much first time

(17:50):
homebuyers but second and thirdmove up type of homebuyers that
are young families.
Move up type of home buyersthat are young families, right,
and they're moving out of thatthat split ranch or that Cape
Cod into something bigger in thesuburbs, right.
And that's been in their familymaybe Right, exactly, and that's
typically my buyer, but what Ithink, what you're going to see

(18:11):
now, and so that was the supplyside of the inflation.
It just went ballistic.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
That's inflation due to labor increasing and labor
shortage because of the mandatesRight.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Labor shortage, right .
What's interesting now is sothose were all input costs from
materials, so those are supplychain restrictions.
That's not being able to getproduct from the port to the
factory to make the product thatneeds to go into the house.
What's happening now?
And if you want to go back andstudy inflation in the late 70s

(18:49):
because I lived it in early 80sthe gas line Right, right labor
component of inflation startedto take off.
Because now, when you havesomebody working for you for $20
an hour and all of a suddenthey're paying double at the
pump for gas right, restore andthey see the effect of their

(19:10):
wage being eroded by thisinflation, they come to you and
say I can't work for you for $20an hour anymore.
I need 25, I need 28 and as anemployer, if it's a good
employee, you've got to pay thatprice.
So now you've got to go back tothe people that you're working
for and say, hey, I have toraise my price just for my labor
component.

(19:30):
Now we did the material thingsix months ago last month.
Now I've got to deal with mylabor, and so now you have
another kick in inflation, andthat's the one that really gets
away from you when you starttalking about inflation.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Especially if you're in a jam, you're in the middle
of a project, you're justthrowing.
You know, I hate to saythrowing raises out, but what do
you do?

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Friday.
Friday I had a meeting becausewe have a lot of rental
properties and some lightindustrial properties that we
rent to to to tenants and I haveone landscaping company that
takes care of all this andthey've been doing it for years
and I had a conversation withthe owner of the business on
Friday morning and he felt bad.
He had to come in and explainto me why he had to raise his
prices 23 percent to you, to methat's his labor we have.

(20:14):
He's got gas yeah, we, we haveone community where, um, there's
160 units and it's it's kind ofspread out.
So there's a lot of spread out,so there's a lot of grass to
mow, there's a lot of grass tofertilize and mulch and edging
and all that kind of stuff.
And that project was around$90,000 for landscape

(20:34):
maintenance for the whole season.
It just went up to $120,000.
My God, and who absorbs that?
Well, so now what we've beendoing is rents have been going
up because of the cost ofhousing.
So this pendulum swings right.
The real estate market buying ahome goes up.
The rental market, becausethere's a shortage of

(20:56):
high-quality rentals now, nomatter where you go, no matter
where you go, because there's ashortage of high-quality rentals
now, no matter where you go, nomatter where you go.
And the effects, I think, aregreater down here.
Yeah, because I've heard storiesof people where rents have gone
from $3,000 to $5,000.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Overnight.
Literally that doesn't happenwhere we are.
It's happened on the East Coasta lot of.
Florida.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
And you know we're now getting you to ten percent
increase in our rents.
And now does this change?
When you say, when you talk,you're bringing up a lot of what
I'm going through, but in adifferent industry, right?
So we're looking at opening anew restaurant, we're looking at
dishware and side plates, etc.
So, redoing our menu, we'regoing to do our menu.
Where we're going to decomposeor deconstruct our dishes?
Where you got it, you wantmushrooms, you got to them.
We can no longer put them in adish up front.
It's going to be up to theconsumer how much they want to

(21:44):
spend Now.
That requires more dishes.
We're sitting there looking atthings.
We're literally saying okay,how long does it take to wash
this dish?
We love the dish, it looksbeautiful, but it's too hard to
wash.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
I don't have enough dishwashers, so when you're
thinking about landscaping goingup, do you start looking at
your projects going?
You know what we're going to dostone, not grass like?
Does this start changing theway we do business overall?
It's a consideration andeverything that we do design
wise.
Now we tear things inside andout and look at it and say do we
really need this?
Wow, and if the answer is no,we eliminate it, so nice to

(22:17):
haves are goneaves are gone,they're gone.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, I just had that conversation with my wife about
the windows At our new location.
We want to.
First of all, our new locationwas we wanted to open up in
December.
We were hoping March.
Now we're probably not going toopen until October because I'm
in a little bit of a pickle.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Bob.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
Down here you have to play the seasonal game and I
got to gun to my head in a monthto open down here, replace my
New York staff, get them back onthe lake in Lake George, and
that just creates a majorproblem for me.
So we're probably out toOctober and then Jen's like well
.
So now my wife, being acreative designer, starts saying
okay, well, that gives me moretime to design, you get more
creative.
No, it doesn't.

(22:58):
No, it doesn't.
Things are too expensive.
We can't throw more money atthis because there's more.
We've got to wait longer toopen, I've got to carry the rent
.
And all of a sudden, you know,she starts having a conversation
about pretty doors and bifolds,et cetera, et cetera.
The nut goes up.
Another hundred grand we usedto build.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
you know there's projects that I just finished,
that, that if I had to get inthe ground with these projects
today and build them, itwouldn't pencil out.
The project would lose money.
So you've got to shelve it,you've got to wait for your
input costs to come back down.
And I've got news for you.
I don't believe I've never hadpeople come to me and say hey,

(23:35):
you know what?
We've oversupplied the marketand therefore your sheetrock
price is going to come down by25%.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
I've never seen that happen.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
So I call this the great reset in terms of
inflation and pricing.
And a lot of this was allbrought on by the far-left
liberals and the Democrats andthe engineering that they did on
this economy by shutting itdown.
See, that's the effect that isjust rearing its ugly head right

(24:07):
now, and the fact that theyhave to come out with these
massive spending bills.
You know as well as I do, whenthere's too many dollars,
chasing too few goods, that'sthe match that ignites inflation
.
That's right.
Chasing too few goods, that'sthe match that ignites inflation
.
That's right.
And we're just beginning towe're in like the third inning
of this.
Well, how about the?

Speaker 1 (24:26):
money we're printing, yeah, the, the printing of
money in the last two years.
You, if you're going to do agraph that shows the hockey
stick, we would have to removethe three floors above us to do
a whiteboard.
That's right and yeah, I mean,it's literally straight up.
So where does you know?

(24:46):
I had a conversation last night.
Being in a restaurant business,you get to talk to a lot of
people right in a lot ofdifferent industries and I I
think what I talked about lastnight when we talked about this
new report, that's out that the,that all these restrictions
really did nothing.
Someone said to me well, howmany lives is?
0.2%?

(25:07):
I'm like, wait a minute, we'renot even calculating in there
the deaths that took placebecause people couldn't have
surgery, because we're notincluding in there the
psychological damage to ourchildren because they were
locked in a bedroom.
I moved my kid to Florida, wegot out and put her down here.
Bolton, they were locked in abedroom.
I moved my kid to Florida, wegot out and put her down here.
Boat landing was a littledifferent.
I don't want to get into toomuch into that, but they did
stay open.
They're in New York, they'reupstate.
They stayed open with the maskson.
I appreciate that, but a lot ofkids were stuck in their

(25:28):
bedrooms, no sports, et cetera.
So we're not even calculatingin the fallout of that, but I do
believe we've had a giganticculture shift in our country
through these mandates.
Call it 20% of society, 30% ofsociety, whatever you want to

(25:48):
call it.
I mean you see them walkingdown the street with a mask on
outside.
You see people in Florida.
There's no helmet law.
They're wearing masks on ourmotorcycles With no helmet.
With no helmet, yeah Right.
So you see people in their carsby themselves wearing masks and
no, they're not uber drivers.
I look for the uber tech.
So you've got this nuttyculture, this almost cult-like

(26:10):
culture that has come out andthey believe they have more
rights than me and you do.
And what's the long-term effecton that?

Speaker 2 (26:16):
on all our economy and our businesses, etc and if
you don't wear a mask, you'reracist and somehow you're
insensitive to the people thatthey're trying to protect, right
?
So these people make no senseat all.
They want to argue from anemotional point of view and not
from a factual one, and that'sthe problem with this country

(26:36):
right now is these people aregiven too much leeway in the
media.
I mean, you go on TikTok andyou look at some of these people
that are on TikTok.
I want to grind my teethagainst a chalkboard because I
don't understand it.
That's right, right.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
Well, look at the attack on Joe Rogan.
Joe Rogan had two doctors on.
One owns nine patents.
I think it was nine patents ofthe RNMA.
I had it in a podcast a coupleweeks ago.
I'll put it in the show noteswhat the actual vaccine is.
Pardon me folks, he Dr Malone,it's a three-hour podcast.
Bob, it took me five days tolisten to it, three-hour podcast

(27:13):
, and it was informative.
The whole podcast was asoundbite.
You know how you like to clipsome sounds or take some notes.
Forget it it like to like clipsome sounds or take some notes.
Forget it.
It's three hours of content.
That's all notes.
Right, Vaccines for dummies, Iwould call it, or you know, the
lockdown for dummies.
And he takes us through all thescientific data.
And Joe Rogan is now beingthreatened to be shut down on

(27:35):
Spotify because ofdisinformation.
You get people on the Viewtalking about him.
You got Neil Young Right, Neil.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Who's Neil Young?
Anyways, he's all washed up,right.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
You have Neil Young's Younger version of himself
Dying right now that he's notstanding up Against the big
Corporate machine, right, thebig government agency, yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
And the reality is.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
Who of these people Actually sat there and listened
to Joe Rogan For three hours?

Speaker 2 (27:58):
None of them.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
And.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Neil Young back in the prime of his career.
He was anti-government.
He was a protester Right Right.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
All these people.
It's wild.
So I do believe I've said itbefore.
I think I said it to you.
I believe that and I said it tomy Democratic friends and this
podcast we talk to people thatare busy like you and I, that
aren't necessarily as involvedin politics as much as you and I
are.
You and I consume this stuff 247 and we talk about a lot yeah,

(28:26):
we consume it because we'rearound it every single day.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
Well, I mean, we're faced with it every day.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
But a lot of people don't?
A lot of people that are busyrunning it out of manhattan,
running their jobs, don't feellike they have time to do it.
That's why I do this podcast tokind of download it to them as
well.
As we talk to college kids andBob, I have said I do and I want
to say it again here.
There's a couple things I'dlike to say.
First of all, I do think we'llbe a I used to say socialist
nation.
I believe we'll be a communistnation in 10 years or less.

(28:56):
I really do believe that.
I believe there, the Democratsof my grandfather OK, I don't
want one of the parties to be acommunist party, right, I don't
want the Republican Party thanthe Communist Party.
So I do believe in all that andI want to and talking to the
Democrats out there that arelistening and talking to the
college kids to help themnavigate their professors.
This lockdown when it, when itcame to the risk of our

(29:18):
businesses, bob, and seeing anew statistic of 0.2% effect on
this, I truly believe, bob, ifHillary Clinton won the election
, the lockdowns never would havehappened.
It would have been a bad fluseason.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Perhaps I truly believe that I would not
disagree with that.
And while we're talking about0.2, and let's assume it's not
0.02, and let's assume it's 0.2,because that's the higher
number, Right.
That means that it didn'taffect 99.8% of the population,
imagine.
And so we went through theseexercises and this pain and

(29:54):
suffering, and let's not evenget into what it's still doing
to these kids that are going toschool that have to mask up In
New York City.
If it's above 32 degrees,you've got to go outside and eat
your lunch.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
For the kids.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yes, Still, still.
It's unbelievable.
And so these kids now aresuffering long-term consequences
of having to put these masks on.
They can't go to school.
They can't see anybody's face,their nose, their mouth.
They can't see any expression,no emotion, it's emotionless.
They have difficulties learning.

(30:28):
Some are suffering fromdepression, which is the future
of our country.
Eating disorders, right Druguse, alcoholism All these things
are happening to these kids andit shouldn't happen.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
All in the name of political warfare.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
All in the name of political warfare?
Yes, all in the name ofpolitical warfare.
It drives me crazy.
Yeah, I got a granddaughter.
That's next year she's going togo to preschool and we're
already talking aboutalternative forms of preschool,
like even if we went out and gotan educator and we got a bunch
of people that we knew and weput together our own makeshift
school so that these kids don'thave to be in masks.
That's what we're prepared todo now.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
I do believe that this dramatically impacted our
businesses and I do believe thata lot of the country now knows
that, so that for the first timein our nation, there shouldn't
be a whole lot of debate overthe different political sides
and what the agendas are.
At least I hope there shouldn'tbe.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
There shouldn't be.
There shouldn't be a difference.
But given where we are rightnow in terms of how far radical
the left wants to push thingsExactly and the media gives them
the platform to do it 100%, itdoesn't go away.
Yep, it stays here.
I do believe that what's goingon here, in my business in

(31:42):
particular, is gonna have Not in22, but in 23.
There's a winter coming.
There's a recession coming.
There's going to be.
There's a lot of houses acrossthe country that are in the
pipeline, things that have beenapproved or are getting approved
and are going to go underconstruction, apartment projects
, and I'm talking the Sunbelttoo.

(32:02):
It's going to happen down here.
Just like they overbuilt thehousing market in South Florida
during the financial crisis 2009, 2010.
Oh yeah, a.
They overbuilt the housingmarket in south florida during
the financial crisis 2009 2010.
You couldn't.
You couldn't give a house away.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
yeah, my father had three condos on this island
houses got cut in half.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
I remember I was up in palm beach at the time right
and the related companies wasbuilding city place.
They had whole floors ofcondominiums that were for sale
and they were trying to packagethem up 10 at a time and you
could buy them for two hundredthousand dollars a door.
You know they're back up tofive, six hundred thousand a
door right now.
How you think this is going tohappen in florida again?
You think there's going?

Speaker 1 (32:38):
to be a.
I think it's going to happennationwide now, even though the
mass migration of floridabecause we don't have a lot of
inventory- yeah, but you have,there's a lot of inventory in
the pipeline, okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
So, no matter how you slice it across the country,
see, builders are no differentthan anybody else.
We're creatures of habit andwe're creatures of tending to.
When things are good, weoverproduce, and when we
overproduce, we create aninventory that's out there.
And so what you got to realize,too, is that the Fed is

(33:11):
withdrawing liquidity from themarket, right, they're going to
raise interest rates, and if youtake interest rates from a
three and a half to four to fourand a quarter percent, that's
going to pull people out of themarket.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
But it's going to, hopefully it's supposed to write
inflation, you know.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
I heard the statistic the other day 75% of America
has mortgages below 4%.
Wow, so now, when you takemortgage rates and you shove
them up over 4%, let's call toreplace that 3.5%, that 3%, that

(33:50):
2.75% mortgage With a new houseWith 4.5%.
Right, yeah, and so that?

Speaker 1 (33:57):
And the refinancing won't happen to take equity out,
which stimulates the economy.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Correct.
So you have all this productand it doesn't happen overnight.
It could take two years, but asthe product builds the
inventory and the peoplewithdraw from the market because
of other external forces.
It could be interest rates,right, could be, you know, could
be the fact that house has gotso expensive and the
affordability index has droppedthrough the floor.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
nobody can afford them right, and that could leave
a lot of inventory on themarket and and and the.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
The other phenomena, that's that's taking taking over
is single-family homes for rent.
I'm sure a lot of yourlisteners have gone out there
and seen this concept ofsingle-family detached homes for
rent.
There are business models andcompanies that are funded for

(34:44):
the purpose of buying upsingle-family detached homes and
renting them.
There's a model.
There's a model where thatwhere this what?

Speaker 1 (34:50):
running them on a long-term, year-to-year basis?
Yes, not.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
Airbnb, and so what happens?
is when these guys see the peakin the market and they want to
push that inventory from rentalto sale because they can cash
out, they can make money onthese units, that's more
inventory that gets added to themarket.
You see, see how the inventorystarts to build now.
Oh, yeah, yeah, and so you'llhave a correction in pricing.

(35:14):
It'll take a good recession.
You've got all this inventorythat's getting pushed on the
market.
Then what happens is thelenders they want it back out of
the market.
They don't want to loan onthese projects anymore because
the risk factor has gone up, andso now the liquidity for
building new stuff dries up andyou got this overhang of supply.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
prices have to come down now the difference that's
phenomenal and the differencebetween we talk about financial
crisis, the interest ratesrising at the last housing crash
.
A lot of people are holdinginterest-only product.
Is that still a thing now?

Speaker 2 (35:46):
interest-only consumer loans no, but on the
commercial side you haveinterest-only.
But on the housing side veryrarely do you see anybody
getting an interest-only loan.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Okay, so that's one checkbox.
That's for the better.
That could avoid a housingcrisis.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
But on the commercial side, there's a lot of
properties that are financedwith interest only loans,
whether they're multifamilyapartment projects, light
industrial buildings.
So rent goes up, um well, whenthose things start to reset.
So let's just say, for exampleum, I've got an interest only 10
year loan.
Yeah, at the end of that 10year period, if interest rates

(36:28):
are double and I financed it at3% and now interest rates are 6%
after that 10-year period, I'mgoing to have problems going out
and refinancing that thingbecause I'm not going to meet my
debt coverage ratio that thelenders require me to meet,
which means now I have to put upmore equity in the building.
Right?

Speaker 1 (36:46):
How do you do?

Speaker 2 (36:47):
that.
Well, it's cash.
But there's some people outthere you know that are
underfunded, let's say, orundercapitalized, and when that
comes time to to do that, tohave to cough up more cash to
refinance that project.
Or they got to raise the rentsbecause if your rents are
factored in down here at a threepercent right interest rate and
now you're paying six,something's got to change right,

(37:08):
that the person in thatbuilding who's renting that from
you has to pay more money.
So it's an interesting dynamic.
It's happened before but it'shappened throughout the last
hundred years.
And you can't always go on achart.
If you look at a chart rightLike, look at the NASDAQ right
now it goes from the lower leftto the upper right.

(37:28):
It just keeps going up and ithas been that way for the last
10 years.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Well, that trend eventually has to reverse well,
I think the biggest differenceis what the new ingredient or
the, the influencer in theequation is.
The government right, gettinginvolved with our staff and
increasing and inflate our wages.
Increased based on competitionwith government, not with each
other, bob, no doubt about it.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
What's that impact?

Speaker 1 (37:56):
because we're paying people more wages all of us,
restaurant people and newbuilders and landscapers.
We did it because thegovernment had them collecting a
kicker of what $600, $400,whatever it was.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Well, they paid them to stay home.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Paid them to stay home, yeah, so now we've got to
incentivize them to get offtheir couch and come to work.
So the government competedagainst us for the increase of
wages.
So it's really a false increaseof wages.
It's not based on ourindustry's booming and our
profit margins going up.
It's based on a third partygetting involved, which is the
government.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
And the interesting thing too is my business is a
long cycle process, from thetime I sign a contract to obtain
a building permit to build thehouse to moving the customer in.
That process could takeanywhere from seven to 12 months
, right, right, and I have noidea what's going to happen to

(38:54):
my costs in those seven to 12months.
Historically I did, but I don'tanymore.
Um and so now you see somebuilders coming out with
escalation clauses in theircontracts.
They're benchmarked against acertain price.
If they exceed, if they benchthem at X and they exceed Y,
they pass it on to the customer.

(39:15):
I haven't done that yet.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
I don't think that there's how do you know your
customer's going to?

Speaker 2 (39:19):
afford it.
Well, that's the problem.
If you have a customer, that'ssigning.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Okay, I'll pay it but they can't.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
They're putting the minimum amount down and all of a
sudden you come to them and youhand them a bill for $10,000 at
the end and they don't have the$10,000.
The bank's not giving it to them.
So what happens?
Right, you've got a problem.
So there's some complicationswith that kind of rationale, you
know.
But my cycle time is very long,yours is short, right?

(39:46):
So you pretty much know, weekto week, what your input costs
are, based on the prices thatthey're charging, and you put
those meals on the table andpeople pay you, right?
I'd love to hear from you,buddy, like, if you had a steak
on your menu that you charged$40 for a year ago, what do you

(40:06):
have to charge for that steaktoday?
$65.
Right?

Speaker 1 (40:11):
And yet it cost me $32 today.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
It cost me $11 two years ago, and I think that this
is one of the things.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Bob, I shut down my online ordering, shut my meals.
There's a specific amount ofcustomers that were loyal.
Those are the only ones we'regoing to ship to and, by the way
, what happened here is FedEx isunderstaffed.
So now, have you ever tried aFedEx package recently?

Speaker 2 (40:37):
They go listen, we can't guarantee it tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
What do you mean?
You can't guarantee it tomorrowI'm paying you, yeah, but the
guarantee's gone.
So now I've got food beingshipped in Florida.
One day spoils the food.
Shipped in Florida, they can'tget it.
One day spoils the food.
So it's just right.
Right, and that's all becauseof the labor shortage, that is
because of the mandates, becauseof the shutdown of the economy,
because of the kickers to theconsumer or the labor people

(40:59):
that are collecting unemploymentyeah.
So my whole business model here.
Yeah, we get a look into itweek to week.
The challenge is, when youbuild a menu, you're usually
doing it for a month, okay, andyou put on an autopilot.
Now my staff, my chef and I gettogether once a week and we go
through the invoices.
The challenge is he'sunderstaffed, so does he have

(41:20):
time to go through the invoices?
We don't.
We're, we're cooking, we'reprepping, we're bsing tables.
It's a very difficultenvironment to manage.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
And the point I'm trying to make here is this I'm
sure you, like a lot of otherrestaurateurs, have kind of
delayed that move, that jump inprices, by doing other things to
compensate the offset.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
As long as we could.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
Because you're probably afraid that if that $40
steak goes to $65, you're goingto scare a lot of people away.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
I call it the price tolerance yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
And so I think what's happening right now is we're
reaching critical mass in thatpoint where the person does come
to the restaurant and they dosee that $40 steak at $65.
And they're saying what theheck is going on here, right,
why am I seeing such an increase?
But a lot of people don'tunderstand what, the forces

(42:15):
behind your business that causedthat, or the forces behind my
business.
They don't get it because theydon't deal with it every single
day on the front lines, and Ithink what you're starting to
see now more and more is thisstuff is churning up in news, in
the media, right, and we'regetting back to those days where
we used to have this miseryindex.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
Right, remember from the Carter years.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Well, I think you're going to start to hear that term
more and more over the nextthree or four years.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
We see the misery index in our reviews.
People do give reviews in apandemic, but they're not a two
and one star.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Well, I remember one time I went to your restaurant
at 240 pounds and I walked outat 220 because it took me so
long to get my meal it takes bobfor it's marini's table whole
weight.
Don't worry, I'm like, what areyou talking about?
Get the guy his damn dinner.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
That's, mark, mark, I'm gonna get you for this one,
right?
So, um, so, all right, back towhat you for this one.
So, all right, back to what youjust said.
With the timing we increasedour prices before the grocery
stores did, and I had a falloutof a couple customers you know a
handful and they startedtalking at the country clubs and
in town and they got back to me.
My mother came to me.
I said, mom, I'm not gettingrich off this stuff.

(43:26):
I made zero money last yearbecause labor was up in the high
40s, food was in the high 30s,and that's your margin in the
restaurant industry.
Right, your food should be at25 to 30.
Your labor should be at 25 to30.
And then you run your fixedcosts and hopefully, you come
out of this thing with 10 to 15points and everything else is
based on volume.
Right, that's right.
So the reality is with us.

(43:48):
We were the restaurant industrythat didn't have buying power.
I'm not talking about thechains, the restaurant industry
that didn't have buying power.
One, two, three unit operators.
We were ahead of the inflationin regards to it hit us quicker
when you were in the grocerystores, and I come from a retail
background, calvin Klein.
In the fashion industry, when aretailer had a problem, they

(44:11):
made the problem the supplier'sproblem for a period of time.
Bob right.
So look, we got an issue.
There's a high theft issue inour store.
At five locations we have 15%of the merchandise being stolen
and you, the provider of myinventory, you're going to take
a hit on your margin for 60 dayswhile I figure out how to fix
it.
If you don't take a hit andgive me a discount on your goods

(44:34):
, this is the retailer.
If you don't take a hit, I'mnot going to buy your
merchandise, I'll go to someoneelse.
So, essentially, you're goingto pay me.
You're going to lose money todo business with me for the next
60 days while I figure out myproblem.
It is my, not yours, mr CalvinKlein, but nevertheless I write
the check to buy your jeans.
So you're going to take the hit.
And I do believe, at the grocerystore level, with consumer
goods meat and proteins, etcetera I do believe for a good

(44:57):
90 days, the big power retailersturn to the vendors and say
look, I have people waiting inline to do business with me.
Increase my prices 10% orincrease them at all, nothing at
all for 30 days I'll increasethem by 10% or 12% at the store
level.
Let me build a purse up andhopefully it'll go down and this
conversation will be over.
But if it increases after 30days, we'll start increasing my

(45:19):
prices at the consumer and a newvendor will start increasing
them to me.
So 90 days after we startedgetting hammered for our price
increases, the local grocerystores' stakes were going from
$9 to $22, like giant jumpsright, so it catches up
eventually to everybody.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
That's what we're seeing now in the home building
business and I, as well as a lotof other home builders, had
that same power with a lot ofour suppliers, we would be able
to get them to forestall a priceincrease.
No, I can't afford it right now, or you've got to lock in the
next six months of my productionand then make the increase take
place after that.
I can't get that anymore.

(45:58):
Right, because they'll be out ofbusiness.
The other thing is you knowcompetitive forces.
You take a plumbing company,for example.
You've got ABC Plumbing doingyour plumbing, Yep, and XYZ
comes in and says, well, you geta lower price.
So ABC just raised their price.
And XYZ comes in and says, well, I could do that house for
$1,000 less To get your business, To get my business.

(46:20):
I can't hire him because he'sgoing to be out of business
within a year.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
He can't make money Bingo, so you know he's going to
lose money and you're going toend up with half your house is
not plumbed.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
That plus the other thing is I'm going to end up
with maybe 20 houses that arecompleted and now I have no
plumber to go back and servicethose customers that are already
living in their houses.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
For the young entrepreneurs listening to this,
that's a huge lesson.
Right there, People walking inyour door promising you cheaper
prices.
They're just going to be out ofbusiness.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
I've seen it a thousand times.
It's happened to me.
That's a great point.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
I'm so glad you brought that up.
That's huge and I say it to mycustomers.
I'm like, listen, if I don't upmy prices, you're not going to
have a restaurant to go to.
That would be irresponsible,and then there's not going to be
jobs and I'm going to get ridof 50 people.
Then you figure out how to dealwith it from there.
Now, bob, back to the talkingabout all these challenges our

(47:11):
country politically.
This could be going on for 20years as political warfare,
right?
What do you?
You're a fourth-generationbusiness.
I have young kids For peopleout there that have younger
generation coming up and out ofcollege.
Are you worried about your kidstaking over your business?
Like, where does the futurehold for us?

Speaker 2 (47:30):
entrepreneurs.
Yeah, I'm worried about it.
Um, I'm probably worried aboutit the same way that my
grandfather is worried about myfather taking over.
You think, right, um, and ifyou go back through history and
you look at all the things thatI saw my grandfather and my
father go through, some of thesethings kind of pale in
comparison because there was alot of unknowns throughout

(47:51):
history.
You had the Vietnam War, youhad the oil embargo, the oil
crisis, right, we had the S&Lcrisis in the 1980s.
You know, we had the financialcrisis.
We had a lot of those crises.
But one of the things that'sdifferent today than what was
different back then is thedivisiveness in this country,

(48:16):
the divisiveness in politics.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
The wanting to flip our nation.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
There doesn't seem to be any unity or any common
ground in all of that.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
Capitalism or communism.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
And I believe that divided, we fall, we implode.
And I believe that divided, wefall, we implode.
And if there's some kind ofcommon ground.
But the problem is is that theliberal media is one sided, it's
all fake news.
I mean, if it wasn't for DonaldTrump, we would have never been
exposed to the term fake news.
And they have a platform andthey give the progressives and

(48:48):
the radicals the entire stage topromote their agenda and
everybody else is anti-climate,racist and divisive.
That's their agenda and we'retalking maybe 20% of the
population here, but they'recontrolling 90% of the
microphone Right.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
So what do our kids do for business?

Speaker 2 (49:10):
And in the universities because I I had.
This is a true story.
My son was going to a collegeof massachusetts and he was in a
philosophy class and the uh,which is a required mandatory
class to take right an elective,a liberal art elective.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
That's all by design.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
The first day of class he walks in and instructs
the classroom that he's not aTrump fan.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
He's a never the professor.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
The professor.
He's a never-Trumper and henever wants to hear any of those
views espoused in his classroom.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Now why say anything at?

Speaker 2 (49:45):
all as a professor espoused in his classroom Now
why say anything at all as aprofessor, because he felt that
that podium was his and it wasgoing to be his way, or the
highway, you know.
I said to my son.
I said, tyler, what did you sayto this professor?
He goes Dad now he's a freshman, right, he's first semester

(50:09):
freshman.
He's taken back by the comment,but too scared to say anything
about it.
And I said well, tyler, let metell you what I would have said,
given where I've beenthroughout the course of my life
.
Right, and we all are allowedto speak our point of view in
this country.
Amen, okay, and I'm the onethat's writing the check for
that college tuition.
I'm the one that's putting thecheck for that college tuition.

(50:30):
I'm the one that's putting thefood on his table, I would say
excuse me, mr Professor, Ihappen to like Donald Trump and
that's my political view.
Your political beliefs havenothing to do in a philosophy
classroom, Amen.
So here's what I'm doing I'mtaking my books back to the
bookstore, I'm going to turnthem in and I'm going to go to

(50:52):
the Bursar and I'm going to geta refund for this class.
Amen, and I'm walking out ofhere.
That's what you got to startdoing, and if this happens more
and more in this college, I'mjust going to withdraw from the
entire college.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
All right, donald Trump meeting event that we went
to in Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago.
Now, that's key, right there,right.
So people say what do we doCustomers last night, buddy,
what do I do Right there?
Walk out, demand a refund fromyour class, hold them
accountable.
Right, run for school boardelections, get involved.

(51:23):
But you did something else andwe don't have to say the name of
it or whatnot.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
But you were sponsoring you wanna.
No, we were sponsoringsomething.
I was just going to bring thatup, so I'm glad you did.
Yeah, so I was.
I was sponsoring a, auniversity sports venue.
Yep, and their beliefs in termsof what was going on a couple
of years ago with Black LivesMatter and a bunch of different

(51:52):
socialist kind of, and then itgot into.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
COVID Very very progressive.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Then it got into COVID and masks were a
requirement to actually go tothe venue right and the players
were taking a knee during thenational anthem and that really
drove me crazy, you know.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
So they have the right to take a knee, but you
have the right to do what I havea right to withdraw my money
from their program.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
So I said to the AD who I'm friends with, I said
look, I want to do this, but Iwant a clawback provision.
I want a clawback provision inmy agreement with you that says
the first time that I hear thatthe players are taking a knee
during the national anthem, yougive me my sponsor money back.
And he couldn't do it.
He says because we're astate-run institution, we have

(52:40):
no control over that.
I said well, I have controlover who gets my money.
Amen, and you can't have it ifyou can't promise me that.
What happened?
Not only did I do it that way,but there's other people that I
know in different colleges anduniversities.
As this story spread, they didthe same thing and it started to

(53:03):
affect a little bit of change.
One college in particular inour hometown I have another
friend that did the same thingand all that stuff went away.
See that, see that.
See, when more and more peopledo that and you band together,
it starts to hurt.
You're not canceling them,you're just not giving them your
money, it starts to hurt fromtheir perspective.

(53:24):
Right, their programs arefunded based on us donors that
we believe in the program, webelieve in the people that are
running the program.
But now, when that cuts againstour values and what we believe
in, we've got to stand up forthem.
We've got to stand up forourselves right, the wallet,
yeah Amen.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Now we talked about Trump and you talked about the
classroom.
Let's pivot to Mar-a-Lago.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
What a night that was .

Speaker 1 (53:50):
How do you explain?
A lot of people ask me, buddy,how was it?
How was he, what would how?
What's your recap of theevening?
First of all, it's such asetting, right, you know,
mar-a-lago is gorgeous yes, uh,I've been there before, you know
I never.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
That was your first time there and it's overwhelming
, to say the least, beautiful,you know it's 11 aculate what's
the word?

Speaker 1 (54:10):
Meticulous?

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Well, trump is meticulous, yeah Right.
I've heard stories that when hewalks on to his 757 airplane if
the carpets aren't vacuumed,all the right way he makes him
get the vacuum out and changesthem.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
You know he gets angry and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Yeah, if you asked me , in a word or two, to describe
Donald Trump, I would say real,empathetic and emotional, like
very passionate, not just abouthe.
Was very passionate that nightabout the people sitting in that
room.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
My God.
He addressed us by name.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Right.
So when you think about thatnight, 31 of us, 31.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
Set in a very intimate setting, it felt like
10.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
He talked to us as if he had known us for a very long
time, right, and he brokethings down in a way to us that
you don't see him on TV.
Talk about how, about when hetalked about the first night in
the White House, which he saysis probably the most remarkable
property that he's ever been in,and he was definitely humbled

(55:23):
by that, right, and here's a guythat develops beautiful
properties all over the world.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
It's like gold toilets.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
And he's talking about how this is the most
beautiful property that he'sever been in and having the
ability to be able to live therefor four years and stare at
what Lincoln stared at.
And he says the first night Iget into the White House and I
just stand in awe in front ofthe Lincoln bedroom which is a
national monument and he talkedabout the emotions that came
over him right as he stood thereand he couldn't believe that he

(55:55):
was in that situation.
He was actually there in theWhite House.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
That's a great story.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
And so he gave people the floor.
They got to ask questions.
He was very humble, he was verygenuine.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
He wasn't in a hurry, no, the Secret very genuine.
He wasn't in a hurry, no, theSecret Service was.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah, we couldn't even get a glass of wine.
Yeah, we'll tell him about that.
That's a great story too.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
So one of the things that took me back and it
shouldn't have that, he said isa question was asked about
foreign leaders and who was themost?
I don't know it was, I don'tremember the exact question.
Do you?

Speaker 2 (56:30):
yeah, was it who?
Who was the?
Who was the toughest foreignleader that you ever had to
negotiate against right and hisanswer?

Speaker 1 (56:39):
nancy pelosi.
Yeah, nancy pelosi, chuckschumer in uh, who's the other
knucklehead?

Speaker 2 (56:45):
shifty shift, yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
And he said uh, they're demonic, he said.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
They're evil, evil people, he said I've dealt with
the toughest leaders and leadersin the world and they paled in
comparison to the people thatare running our country yep.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
The democratic party, the democratic leadership, is
the most evil power hungrypeople he's ever sat in a room
and he said it just like thattoo right, yeah, I mean he made
it sound as if they took overnorth korea tomorrow.
Now he didn't say this.
This is my interpretation.
If they took over, if thosethree took over north korea
tomorrow, they wouldn't change adamn thing that's right, they

(57:25):
just loved every minute of thepower yeah that really hit me
when?
Yeah, that really hit me, thatreally hit me.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
When he said being in a room with those people when
they left, you knew theywouldn't honor a damn word we
talked about.
And then there was a questionabout somebody asked if you
could go back and changeanything in the four years that
you were president.
What would be the one thingthat you would change?
And right away he didn't evenhave to think about it.
He said I would have changedsome of the people that I
appointed to certain cabinetpositions and if I get in office
again I'll know who to appoint.

(57:56):
That's right, and I think a lotof that.
If you read behind the sceneson that, because he never said
this some of those people areput there because they're owed
political favors, whether Trumpwants them there or not.
They say, sir, you got to do it,you got to do this.
So you know, we talked about amultitude of things and I think
it lasted about an hour and ahalf.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Yeah, at least.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
An hour and a half and Buddy and I are looking at
each other and we're saying youknow, there's no water.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
No water.
I was very disappointed in that.
We had no water for an hour anda half.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
I had no water.
I was very disappointed in that.
We had no water for an hour anda half and then we finally get
out of there and we get into thegeneral they had a cocktail
reception, so there was a couplelevels of donors, right, we got
to the top tier and so outthere they're having this
cocktail party.
And we finally get our way tothe bar and we hadn't had
anything to drink since we'dbeen there and all of a sudden

(58:49):
this Secret Service guy comesout.
I just get to the bar, just situp.
Literally they served in frontof us Two glasses of red wine,
please.
The guy says bar's closed.
This guy gets between.
He comes between me and thebartender, bar's closed.
I thought he was joking, right,you know he wasn't.
We're dying to thirst.
Yeah, he goes bar's closed.

(59:10):
Then he kicked us out.
That was pretty wild Becausepeople were hanging around after
they were instructed to leave.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Well doing pictures with Elise Devonic yes, right.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
By the way, does.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
Trump love her, or what?

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Yeah, elise is remarkable, she really is.
She's also very humble, verysmart, um, and she's, she's got
a lot of power, you know, in, in, in the Republican party.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
Man, she, she apparently does.
I, trump, couldn't say enoughabout her Right.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
You know the what I, what I love about it?
She's from, she's from yourhome district up in Bolton,
right?
I mean she she's in ourdistrict that's the 21st
district, I think, in upstateNew York, right?
Yeah, so I'm happy.
I'm in Saratoga, I build inSaratoga County, so I'm happy to
be one of her constituents andhave her represent me in
Washington.
I certainly love that.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
Yeah, yeah, she'll come a long way in a short
period of time.
One thing that took me back I'ma tall guy, 6'1".
Trump's a monster, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
That guy's like a giant, I know he is yeah,
remember doing the pictures nextto him.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
I was actually.
I got caught off guard.
I was a little intimidatedstanding next to him doing a
picture.
I didn't shake his.
Did you shake his hand on thepicture?

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
I did.
Yeah, I didn't shake his hand,I don't know why.
Well, not during the picture,just as I walked out.
Yeah, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Well, I walked away and he looked at me and he gave
me the nod and said thank you,and I and I, for some reason,
you know I didn't shake his hand.
I'm like oh, covid, we can'tshake his hand, but meanwhile he
shook everyone's hand when hewalked in a room.
I just had a moment where I wasa little overwhelmed by him.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Um, the last time that I was at Mar-a-Lago was
probably they had a Ferrari carshow there, you know, and they
have served brunch on the patiooverlooking the intercoastal,
and Trump had made his way tothe event and I was amazed
because I was only—and this wasbefore he announced that he was

(01:01:01):
running for president.
I was maybe 8 to 10 feet awayfrom him and I was kind of
amazed at how he worked his wayaround the crowd and made it a
point to go and talk to peopleand shake their hands.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
At the tables.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
And politic with them .
Yeah, I heard that yeah, beforehe was president.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Yep, when I shared with someone, we were there or
someone saw that write-up andthey called me.
I didn't know, you were atMar-a-Lago.
And they tell me stories,because they're members there on
how, listen, before he was apresident or before he was a
candidate, he would literally gotable we call that table
touching.
And then it hit me he's in thehospitality business, that's

(01:01:38):
right.
I think what hit me more thananything is when you're, if all
he had was Mar-a-Lago, that washis only asset, what the hell is
he running for president for?
That's what hit me like.
Why does he want that grief?
And meanwhile he owns a hell ofa lot more than mar-a-lago.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Right, his assets are a lot bigger than that property
, although that's a hell of aproperty yeah, it's 11 acres
from intercoastal to the oceanin palm beach and I heard he
bought it in like the late 80s,early 90s, and I'm going off the
top of my head so taxed?
Yeah, this might bemisinformation a little bit, but
it goes something like thiseight million, nine million.

(01:02:15):
It was a disrepair, yeah Ithink it was even less.
He had to put a.
He had to put a lot of moneyinto it, yeah, okay, and then he
built the ballroom off the side.
I think the place is worth 450million dollars, right?

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
now yeah, beautiful beautiful spot, all right.
Well, this has been great, bob.
You want to hang out and do alittle bonus session, bob?

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Yeah, I'd love to.
I don't have anything to dothis afternoon.
Awesome yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
So stay tuned.
Bob and I are going to take alittle break here.
We're going to do a littlebonus episode and dive into some
business.
Deeper business conversation Begreat Love to.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
Can I work for you, yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
Awesome, excellent.
Well, you're listening to theBuddy Ford Jr show.
Appreciate you all for tuningin.
If you don't listen to thebonus, we'll see you next week,
and God bless, have a great week.