August 12, 2024 • 33 mins
Join experts Eric Smith and Donnie Blanchard as they steer us through the latest in truck-making technology. They explore a potential shift from electric batteries to hydrogen fuel cells for long-haul freight, weighing in on the pros and cons. With insights from Rick Cucci, COO of Fundkite, Eric and Donnie provide a critical look at the feasibility of battery-powered vehicles hitting carbon neutrality targets. The conversation doesn’t stop at technology; we also speculate on the potential economic impacts of a Kamala Harris presidency on housing and construction, giving listeners a well-rounded perspective on future industry trends.
We wrap up the episode by examining how changes in interest rates could ripple through the economy, especially under different presidential outcomes. Affordable housing, tax incentives, and tenants' rights, particularly in the wake of COVID-19, are discussed with a sharp focus on political influence. We critique Kamala Harris's stance on energy, from fracking to renewable sources, and forecast what her administration might mean for energy independence. Listen in to catch our predictions for a Harris presidency and don’t forget to check out last week’s episode for our take on a Trump victory. Your feedback is invaluable, so hit the "ask the contractor" button on our website to share your thoughts or suggest topics for future shows.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with
your host, General ContractorDonnie Blanchard.
All right, it's Olympic time.
Donnie, Did you used to watchthe Olympics when you were a kid
?
I did, especially thebasketball part Summer or winter
?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
what was your favorite?
To be honest, just to havesports on TV this time of year,
I'd take just about anything, soprobably the summer.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, I never thought about it Fills up that doldrum
period of July.
You know you just got baseballand talking about football and
hockey and stuff coming in thefall.
I like the summer games forsports but they never showed
them on TV.
I'd love to watch like a fullcompetition of the hammer throw
and javelin and high jump, butthey'd always show just the
(00:46):
running and the gymnastics andthe swimming and I want to see
like spears thrown across thefield or a discus and they
really just showed thehighlights of those.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, I think they kind of blew it this year and,
to be honest, I haven't watchedmuch of it because we've just
been so busy.
But you know, there was a lotof controversy over the opening
ceremony and, um, you know, Isaw folks go back and forth on
social media whether or not theywere making a mockery of the
last supper or it was a tributeto Dionysus, and that.
You know, people wereuneducated and didn't realize
(01:15):
what they were seeing.
And you know, um, all that'sfine and good.
I don't I don't get upseteither way, but but I did wonder
why they incorporated thestoryline with all drag queens.
I didn't understand the needfor that and definitely, to say
the least, it did not make mewant to watch the Olympics more
than I did before I saw that.
(01:35):
So, if anything, I thoughtwhat's this world coming to?
And I know that's an old guystatement, but it seems to be
more and more every time youturn on the TV.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, and then did you see that?
Boxing match with the girlwhose name was Angela Carini is
the pronunciation, but she hadto fight a biological male.
I'm so horrible at the pronounthing so I'm just going to call
it what it is.
It's a guy boxing in thewomen's boxing division of the
Olympics and he clearly has astrength, a height and a reach
(02:09):
advantage and he fought thisgirl, angela Carini, and she
took two punches and then endedit.
She waved it off and burst intotears.
She said the first punch hurtreally bad.
The second one was the hardestshe'd ever been hurt and she
thought it had broken her noseand she knew it was useless.
What type of competition isthat?
That's not real competition tome.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
No, and I think it's a cry in shame that they spent
their whole life training to bethe best of the best.
They get an opportunity in theOlympics and whoever the powers
that be are allow a man to fighta woman.
That's it's.
It's just crazy, and I reallyhope somebody could put an end
to this at some point.
But this is worldwide now.
(02:50):
This isn't just here in theUnited States where you hear
about it.
I mean, they're in Paris, forheaven's sake, and if they don't
have the guts to stand up tothem, hopefully somebody at some
point will eliminate that frombeing a thing.
But I just I don't know.
I'm discouraged because thingsare trending in that direction
and to allow that to happen.
Imagine how much time she, herparents, her family has
(03:11):
sacrificed to get her to thatmoment and only to have to fight
a man.
It's just nuts.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
This is cheering a man beating a woman and there's
no way around this.
You can put it in a sport venue, you can make it look like, oh,
it's the Olympics, but this ischeering a man beating on a
woman.
And if this weren't a sport orhe didn't define himself as
something that he wasn't, thenhe would have been arrested.
(03:37):
But now we have part of theworld going.
Isn't this beautiful?
Isn't competition fantastic?
No, it's a guy punching a womanin the face, plain and simple.
And I don't care what you wantto identify or say you are.
It boils down to height, reach,strength against a weaker
opponent, intentionally.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, we were made different.
So didn't you say when we threwthat around earlier there was a
GoFundMe or something like thatfor the woman?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah.
So I'm not going to mention theCongresswoman because, even
though I might agree with hersome of her principles, I think
she's bombastic.
But I'm going to give kudos toa Congresswoman in the United
States who started a GoFundMeand I'm going to be off on the
numbers.
But she had a target goal oflike 129,000 or $179,000.
(04:28):
And as I read the article, uh,it said because that's the
amount of money a gold medalwinner would get.
So she's like this woman had tofight a man.
She had no chance.
Let's at least get her themoney for it.
So I'm pretty sure if you goonline and search like GoFundMe,
angela Carini, you can find itif you want to see what the
amount is up to or contribute orwhatever.
(04:50):
But I thought that was prettyclassy, cool thing for that
representative to do.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Hey, to put a humorous spin on this thing, I
think that it would be hilariousif that dude I don't know the
name of the man in the boxingpart of the Olympics, but if he
gets beat by a biological woman,that's going to be hilarious.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I agree with you.
I think it would be hilariousIf he wins the whole thing.
Let's be honest, he should winthe whole thing.
Probably he should win it.
But if he doesn't, you're right, that'll be even more hilarious
.
So hopefully she'll get themoney, he'll finish out of the
metal round and we can go on tobeing adults again after the
Olympics.
All right, this is the Carolinacontractor show.
(05:31):
We just kind of start what'stop of mind or in the news and
that was it, and we don't wantto be too long on one subject
that's not directly related tothe show, but that's water
cooler talk Websitethecarolinacontractorcom.
Go to the site and find moreinformation on the show.
You can go to our YouTube page.
Follow us there.
(05:51):
You can start downloadingvideos or watch them at your own
convenience.
The ask the contractor buttonis something you click on If you
have a question for us shouldintroduce ourselves.
My name's Eric Smith.
I do inside sales for HomeBuilders, supply Donnie's, on
the other side of theconstruction world.
He owns Blanchard BuildingCompany, also SureTop Roofing.
He's also a general contractor.
(06:12):
So we'd like to pretend we havesome inside information and
knowledge about building andconstruction and houses and
things like that, and that'swhat we usually talk about on
the show and things like that,and that's what we usually talk
about on the show.
Before we get into today's show, I do want to talk about
something I found interesting.
Donnie, the global truck makingindustry is trying to reach
(06:34):
these zero emissions goals andwe did a show on that not long
ago.
Electric batteries are way tooheavy for long haul freight
companies and they take too longto charge, so the trucking
companies don't want anything todo with them.
But hydrogen fuel cells nowthey generate electricity and
they generate the power theyneed, but they do it at a lower
(06:55):
weight and they can go farther.
But to switch the trucktechnology to this hydrogen fuel
cell is very expensive and timeconsuming.
Technology to this hydrogenfuel cell is very expensive and
time consuming.
So they're kind of remachiningthe shops that build trucks so
they can have the ability to usehydrogen fuel.
Now this all sounds great, butthe problem is green hydrogen,
(07:16):
which is what they call itthat's produced as fuel.
It's not wildly wildly, it'snot widely available right now.
It's not wildly available rightnow and because of that they're
thinking well, if we build thetrucks, then the fuel will come
along and we'll have a betteroption than battery.
My whole take on all of thiswas not that they're making
(07:37):
these hydrogen fuel vehicles.
It's they're saying straight upbattery powered trucks are not
going to work.
They're too heavy, too long tocharge and they don't go far
enough.
We're already going in adifferent direction.
What does that say about maybehydrogen fuel cars and other
things?
Is battery-powered vehicleswe've kind of hinted at it,
(07:59):
donnie not the best way to gotowards this carbon neutral or
net neutral environment?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, agreed, and we're not secretive about how we
feel about electric cars andhow realistic those might be.
So you know, I think thehydrogen sounds good.
It sounds like they're at leastexploring another option, but
we're a long way off man.
We're not going to be able toabandon fossil fuels, like
everybody wants to be warm andfuzzy about.
(08:28):
So I think we got a long way togo.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And we have politics involved in all of that, and
that's today's topic.
On the Carolina Contractor Show.
Last week we did a show wherewe made predictions on what if
Trump won the election and theeffects on housing and
construction, and so we want totake a look at what if Kamala
Harris wins.
What effects would she have onthe economy and how would it
(08:53):
affect building and constructionand other things.
Now I want to say first of all,I got to give credit where it's
due.
Some of the categories thatwe're talking about were from an
article I read by the COO ofFundkite.
His name I hope I get thisright is Rick Cucci.
He had a few takes on theHarris administration and what
it would do to lending andhousing and things like that.
(09:16):
And the first topic if Harriswon the election we talked about
this if Trump won is interestrates.
Of course she wants them to godown.
As we said last week, donnie,dropping interest rates mean
inflation is dropping, becausethat's why they've raised them.
It helps borrowers, saves moneyfor people who are in debt,
like credit cards, because ifyour interest rate goes down,
(09:37):
you're paying less interest onit, so you're saving a little
bit of money.
That in turn increasespurchasing power.
But presidents don't reallyhave any control over the Fed
interest rate, but they get theblame or the credit.
So when they go up and itaffects your buying power, your
purchasing power, yourinvestments, people hate you.
(09:59):
When it goes down, peoplebenefit more in most cases.
So you're going to get thecredit.
So of course, trump and Harriswould want the rates to go down,
especially as they get closerto the election, and they just
said we're not dropping it inAugust, but we probably will in
September.
And you said they would do thatbefore the election.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
That's always a political ploy.
They always have something uptheir sleeve there and either
way that shakes out, I don'tcare.
I just want them to drop,because I'm seeing consumer
confidence a lot lower than it'sbeen in years, in the past
years, and we're blessed to bebusy.
But at the same time, you know,we also live in a really
flourishing area, and I alwayscomment on the between
(10:40):
Greensboro and Hillsboro, themerged corridor 40 and 85 brings
a lot of business, so a lot ofjobs, a lot of growth, and those
people have to have somewhereto live.
Unfortunately, a lot of thoseplaces to live are in apartments
, so you're seeing apartments gogoing up left and right and
they're at full capacity beforethe construction's even finished
.
But anyway, I think that oursubject matter is what everybody
(11:01):
wants to hear.
I wanted to mention thisearlier but I kind of forgot.
Our downloads were almost timesnine last week and so probably
one of the most downloaded showswe've had in terms of the
podcast, and it seems like thisis what everybody wants to know
about, because it's aninteresting time in our life.
I want to say that there maynot be, unless it gets crazier,
(11:21):
and I can't imagine that thismay be one of the most
interesting times to be alive,and I don't want to sound like a
preacher, but you know thatthere's a lot going on that
we've never seen in our lifetime, so I think that everybody's
interested in knowing what'sgoing to happen either way, Dude
.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Our kids and grandkids will be talking about
the 2020s and when a presidentdecided not to run and
everything that's going on.
We're living in something ourkids will be talking about.
Historically, I've recognizedthat.
I agree a hundred percent.
It's weird.
Who would have thought that theleader of Hamas would have been
taken out in his individualhotel room by a missile in
(11:59):
Tehran like he was?
And the world is still spinning.
That's crazy to think about.
It really is yes.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
So this is why we're talking about it Take them out
on enemy territory.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah, I know, dude, that is crazy to think about.
They have no fear, ain't scared.
Is on the back of the IDF's car, on their bumper.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I hadn't seen a no fear sticker or ain't scared in
a decade or so.
That's funny, but no, to getback on the construction thing,
I want to chime in on one thingthat I see, kamala Harris, if
she wins the presidency, one ofher pitches whether she executes
or not is going to beaffordable housing, and that
sounds really good to everybody.
And affordable housing is areal thing, I mean right now.
(12:48):
We commented last week that itreally stinks for a young person
to try to start a family rightnow, because who can afford a
$2,000 a month mortgage?
And I think that she would needCongress to approve all the
funding to build these newaffordable units.
And so there's a lot of redtape there, especially where
housing is super pricey.
So you get in the bigger areaslike Raleigh and Charlotte.
(13:10):
That's gonna cost a lot morethan areas like where we live,
but in theory that could meanmore options for renters and
buyers.
If she could make this happen,and hopefully that translates to
lower costs for everybody, itcould lead to a lot of new
construction jobs in my worldand that's one of those things
where I don't do a lot ofmultifamily.
So, like I mentioned before, ifthat's apartments, then that's
(13:33):
not going to trickle down to me.
I have a license to do themultifamily.
It's just not my niche.
But if we do see these benefitsfrom any kind of affordable
housing push, it's going to takea while.
And anything governmentmandated, you know, I don't know
if you've ever seen therequirements, but they basically
make you sign your firstbornchild over to do a government
(13:53):
job.
And the way that everybody hasto be documented background
checks just to qualify everyworker in a company to be
legitimately on the job site andhave all the documentation that
they require.
It's just nuts and they're mostalways over budget.
They're late on the deliverydate, the results usually aren't
(14:13):
what you expect in thebeginning, and you know.
Secondly, you're not going tosee or I've mentioned this
before, but you're not going tosee the results for years.
These big jobs for affordablehousing are going to take easily
, especially if it's amultifamily project.
You know two or three years.
And lastly, even with the moneysupply, you know we're still
having issues with labor andwhere are they going to find the
(14:34):
people to do these things?
So I don't think it's realistic.
I think that tackling theaffordable housing problem
rather is more about the tariffs.
We mentioned, you know, thebuilding materials that are
coming in, making those moreaffordable.
It's not just how much thehouse costs after it's built, it
really translates to making thematerials more affordable.
So the initial cost of theconstruction is lower and that
(14:57):
translates to a lower paymentand really young family $1,000,
$1,500 payment may be doablewith two incomes.
But I really think that thefocus for affordable housing
needs to be aimed at what'staxed.
What building materials havewhat tax, and that would lower
the cost for some of the thingsor all the things we have to put
(15:18):
in the house.
And then the tariffs on thethings that we have to import.
You made a good point last weekthat you got lumber coming from
all over the world.
So you know, get lower in thattariff on that lumber, you know,
incentivize people to send usmore wood to tackle this, the
housing demand and I don't know.
I think they're barking up thewrong tree with just a campaign
promise.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Lumber and trees and bark.
I got it.
That was well played, I agree.
She's going to push for it.
Everybody does.
Affordable housing, I think, isa catchphrase that makes it
sound like you really care, butwhat that means in reality is
we're going to build 98 unitsthat only people with a lot of
money can afford and we're goingto throw two little ones that
will probably go to a friend ofthe assistant to the congressman
(16:02):
anyway.
So that's just going to be.
It's just it doesn't work.
Government housing projects,things like that, have a
horrible track record.
It just doesn't work.
Now she did talk about KamalaHarris Again.
What we're talking about if shewon the presidency she before
is tax incentives for first-timehome buyers.
(16:23):
Biden pitched $15,000 of a taxcredit for down payments and
closing costs.
That could make a huge impactfor people who are struggling to
save enough to buy a first home.
I think that's better than taxbreaks on EVs and green things
like that, but I'm not againstthat idea.
(16:45):
I don't know how well it wouldwork considering the pricing of
housing, but I'm hard pressed tobe against a tax break in most
cases.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
That, I think, is a good one like it's a write-off
and you only get a percentage ofwhat you spend.
But that straight tax creditcould translate to savings and I
mean, I think that $15,000,that's a chunk on a regular
house, but gosh, a regular housecosts 300 plus now.
(17:17):
So I don't know.
I think folks like me and youwe already had our homes bought
and paid down when all this messhappened and anybody who buys
after this, just I just don'tsee them being in a great
situation.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
One of the things I think that does hurt people who
try to borrow is the predatorylending, and I don't want to
confuse that with a bank thatgives a legit loan.
That might have a high interestrate because of the person's
credit history.
But some people are desperate,and Harris said she would like
to put in some rules, if shewere elected, that protect
buyers from unfair lendingpractices, which there already
(17:50):
are.
A bunch of laws.
This might make getting a loantougher for some people, though
she says we're going to tightenthe ability of people to get it
because predatory lending orhigh interest rate loans I don't
want to confuse with a paydayloans or something.
Unfortunately, sometimes yourloan is going to be 10, 12, 13%.
(18:12):
That's just life Moregovernment regulation.
The intentions may be good,road to hell, what's it paved
with?
I don't know how they wouldimplement anything effective on
predatory lending.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Okay, yeah, really Well, I don't think it's as bad
as it used to be.
And we talked about last weekthat the crash of 2008,.
That was all because of or notall because but a lot to do with
predatory lending between 04and 07.
And you know, I was kind of inthat category, to be honest,
because here I came back as aninsurance adjuster, made a ton
(18:49):
of money when I worked HurricaneKatrina and a few hurricanes
after that, a ton of money whenI worked, hurricane Katrina and
a few hurricanes after that.
And really, you know, I hadenough money for a down payment
but I had never really boughtanything substantial before.
And it put me in a positionwhere I bought a $300,000 house
and you know, I'm 20, mid-20sand it just wasn't the right
time to do it and they made itso easy that I just walked right
(19:09):
through it.
But you know, fast forwardanother year or so, that it was
really hard to pay for thathouse and it put my family in a
compromise when I tried to startone.
So, yeah, I felt thatpersonally and I think the
predatory lending thing or Ihope the predatory lending thing
doesn't come back or anybodymake that more accessible than
it is right now.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah, and the other thing, donnie, is how much are
they going to really targetbanks?
Banks are big movers andshakers in Congress and
lobbyists, so I think a lot ofthis, even on a conservative
side, is lip service, becausethey want that pack money and
that donation money.
One other thing she mentionedand we'll get into some other
(19:48):
predictions this is the CarolinaCongress show.
We should be.
This is the Carolina Congress.
The Carolina Congress show weshould be.
This is the Carolina contractorshow, and what we're talking
about is a follow-up from lastweek's episode.
Today we're saying what aresome things that could happen if
Kamala Harris became presidentlast week.
You can go upload or listen tothe show on the website and the
(20:09):
podcast or on the YouTube sitewas what if Donald Trump won the
presidency?
One last thing she's talkedabout was from that article I
mentioned is tenants' rights andrent stabilization.
I think this is a hangover ofCOVID, because I do believe
tenants have certain rights theyshould have.
But when COVID hit, they saidokay, we're going to put a
(20:31):
moratorium on evictions.
Covid was weird and odd andthere's a lot going on.
We didn't know for sure.
I understood it, but now that'skind of morphed into hey,
you're not going to pay yourrent.
They shouldn't make it easy tokick you out.
It's not easy to evict somebody.
We've had many people on theshow that have landlords that
(20:54):
rent and you have to givenotices.
You've got to do legal steps toget it done.
It can take 90 days If you'relucky.
Most of the time it can take180 to six or more months.
I don't think we need to expandthe ability for people to say
I'm not going to pay and Ishouldn't be kicked out of my
(21:15):
house.
There's a difference betweenhaving a hard time and a crunch
and just going I ain't going topay.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah, I think that's insane.
I understand when COVID nobodyexpected that to happen.
They made exceptions and Ibelieve that was okay for a time
, but to make that some kind ofa policy that is longstanding is
crazy.
And we have people that's beenon the show and been really
successful in real estate butthey chose to rent their house
(21:41):
out rather than just buy andinvest and sit on the property
While it appreciates they haveto fight tenants and they're in
court several days.
I call them, can't get them onthe phone.
What happened?
And I had to be.
You've got these people who aresacrificing their life for work
and here they are in court allday long.
They basically miss days oftheir life because they're
(22:02):
fighting with these people whoare taking advantage of these
crazy rent bypass things.
I'm not in favor of this.
It doesn't sound like hard worklike we preach to our children
at all.
It doesn't.
It doesn't.
It doesn't sound like hard workLike we preach to our children
at all.
It's just an easy way out.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
All right, uh, as we wrap up the show, donnie, I want
to hit on some easy topics ofour predictions if Kamala Harris
wins.
So I'll give you a uh, acategory and you tell me what
you you think she's going to dotaxes.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I think that she's going to preach you rich and
she's going to promote themiddle class, but what they say
and what they do, I think, isdifferent.
I'm not rich, I'm definitely inthe middle class category, and
so I think that that's justgoing to be lip service.
I don't believe that they'regoing to really do anything
because the last administrationthat she's going to echo and I
(22:52):
think she's even way furtherleft than the last
administration it really hurt mybusiness and I've seen it
firsthand.
So I don't want more of thesame.
I need to change and I thinkwith the taxes she's definitely
not going to take less taxes ifI had to guess.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, I think you can sum it up with two words bend
over.
Any tax increase is going toaffect builders, supply cost
buyers, sellers, and that's whywe did the show today.
And people might say you'rejust talking politics to bad
mouth somebody and nothing aboutconstruction or building.
No, tax increases are not paidby businesses.
(23:30):
They're paid by the people whobuy the products and services.
Corporations don't pay taxes.
They run that down to you.
But here's the interesting partthe top 50% of taxpayers pay
97.7% of all income tax.
So you can tax top 1%.
You can tax them 100%.
You'll run the country for likea couple of weeks.
(23:50):
It's the middle class.
They have to tax to do this.
All right, Another category taxand spend.
Do you think spending would godown on a national or federal
level under a Harrisadministration, or would it go
up?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I know mystery here Everything costs more every year
and it seems like our deficitjust keeps getting bigger and
bigger, so it almost always goesup, regardless of who the
president is.
And you know, I just think thatit affects inflation and you
know, I think that spending isgoing to go up, no matter what
we want or hope for.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, I think that's a no brainer.
It doesn't go down really underany administration, no matter
how far left or how far rightthey're going to spend, and it's
a shell game.
They move numbers from onecategory to another to make it
look like they can say, oh, thedebt's down or I spent less than
I planned to, which is pleaseeverybody.
If you haven't figured this out, if I tell you I'm going to
(24:51):
spend $10,000 on a Les Paulguitar and I come home and say
to my wife great news, I onlyspent $8,500.
She's not going to say yousaved $1,500.
She's going to go you idiot,you spent $8,500 on a guitar.
Government's the same way.
If they tell you we spent lessthan we planned, they didn't
(25:15):
save any money, they still spentmoney, so the spending's gonna
go up.
I get riled up on this stuffI'm sorry, I can see that.
Yeah, all right.
Last thing, uh, energy, umconsumption, especially fracking
.
Harris's on record video quotes, interviews, and she's denying
(25:36):
it and the press is telling youshe never said these things.
But she is on record beingagainst fracking, she's against
coal, gas, oil.
She's all green.
She's one of the signees of thegreen new deal.
So this is a no-brainer too,donnie.
What would a Harrisadministration do when it comes
(25:57):
to gas and oil?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Well, currently they don't have a debate set up, but
I do feel like they will debateand I want to see her face when
he says drill, baby drill, andI'm all about it.
We were energy independent fouryears ago and right now we're
buying oil from countries thathate us and and we're we're
basically padding their pocketsinstead of being energy
(26:21):
independent, with low gas pricesand people say, well, it's only
a hundred dollars a week, youknow.
But when you multiply thattimes eight work trucks that I
have, you know that that's a lotmore for me and that that
money's got to come fromsomewhere.
It affects my bottom linebecause I have.
When you pass that onto yourcustomers, you know your price
goes up and up and you know if,if anybody's smart, they'll go
(26:41):
ahead and pass that onto thecustomer.
But it just makes that.
It makes everything harder tosell and it's just one little
piece of the pie that that uhcontributes to where we are
right now.
So I'm not about the greenenergy push.
I mean there's some thingscoming in the energy code right
now that will have to beimplemented in housing.
That's going to push the costof a house up another 10 grand,
(27:04):
30 grand on a really big houseand so it's like they just won't
stop and they're killing theAmerican dream in the name of
saving the planet.
And I just think that all theway around, energy Star made a
big push back in the day.
That was almost like theirintro, that was their test
market and of course Energy Starkind of went away because the
energy codes got so strict thatthe minimum energy code was
(27:26):
basically what Energy Star was25 years ago.
So LEED certification you don'thear about that as much because
they're doing you know so manythings with code requirement
minimums that LEED is just kindof a few extra things at this
point in time.
But all about making a houseenergy efficient.
(27:51):
You know we're big proponentsof insulation and really
efficient heating and air unitsbecause that makes your
utilities go down.
But when we preach about thatand how to accomplish that,
we're doing that in the name ofhey, this is how you lower your
utilities.
So that's more in the camp ofaffordable housing than some of
the things they're doing.
But some of these climate folksare just making things really
ridiculous and I think it's apolitical ploy, all in the name
of getting elected.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Donnie has a soapbox too, and I like it.
Donnie has a soapbox too, and Ilike it.
I agree with everything yousaid of important phrase killing
the American dream to save theplanet.
I got a big secret.
I'm going to move in close andwhisper it.
It won't do anything for theplanet, it won't save it, it
won't do jack.
It's just a scheme.
Go ahead and realize that.
(28:31):
All right, Tell it.
Last question, and I want todirect this at you, Donnie,
because you work in an industrythat's affected by this, and
it's not a touchy subject, it'sa legit question.
She is very Harris.
This is open borders.
Was going to clamp down on it.
Denies she was ever given thattitle.
(28:52):
It's in writing and audio.
Biden himself called her notthe czar but said she is going
to head up the border and she'sgoing to close it.
She's not visited the border.
With immigration coming over.
We know one of the commonfields they work in is
construction.
Do you have some feelings aboutimmigration and open borders
(29:14):
and how it affects your world?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
You just wound me up and turned me loose.
I see what you did there.
Yes, I do, and the open bordersituation is just out of hand.
And it's no secret.
We have Hispanic workers thatwork for us.
They've been with us for 20years and they're like family.
I preach to my children that,hey, I have the utmost respect
for these people because theyput food on my table, they put
(29:38):
food on your table and you knowthat we are equal and they have
done things the right way.
They went through a process andbasically they showed up or
they got here legally and they,you know, adapted to society,
learned to speak English.
My crew leader, for instanceyou know this is 15 years ago he
(30:00):
could read engineeredblueprints better than I could
and I had a degree to do it andI thought, if I'm self-employed,
you know we're going to ridetogether Like I.
Really, this guy's amazing andhe's a wonderful family man.
A lot of respect for him.
But what's happening now is whenthey let these folks cross the
border and they're letting themcome in droves, you know.
Side note that I want tocomment on is that, you know,
(30:23):
not everybody's coming over herefor a better life.
They're letting a lot ofmilitary age men just pass
through the border and God knowswhat's happening behind the
scenes that we don't know about.
But a lot of these folks arecoming over here in the name of
a better life and it's notnecessarily going to be so
because they find themselves inentry level construction jobs,
you know, with a languagebarrier.
It's not like they're sending amixture of engineers,
(30:45):
architects, you know, skilledtrades, people who know how to
do this, and that these peopleare coming in and they're
they're all basically in thesame labor category, so they all
can all basically in the samelabor category.
So, uh, they they all can dojust about the same amount of
things.
And, um, you know, when youincorporate women and children
into that, I think it's just asad situation.
And you know I'm not I'm notknocking the people who are
(31:06):
coming over here, uh, and justjust trying for a better life,
but at the same time, you know,there's a mixed bag and I think
that the folks who come overhere without any kind of a game
plan and just seeing whathappens, I don't see that being
a great turnout and it's just,it's a sad situation.
To be honest.
They've let it get out ofcontrol and I think that and we
(31:27):
always say not trying to bepolitical here but I really
think that they're loading downsome of these bigger cities to
try to get more electoral votesbecause of the population.
But when you see where thesepeople have to live somewhere,
they got to go to school.
And I'm hearing this firsthand.
I've got a great friend who'san athletic director at a big
high school in Charlotte and hesays calls me, he says dude, I
just got 16 kids dropped on me.
They don't speak any Englishand you know, we don't know what
(31:50):
to do.
They just sit here, take them.
And he said that happens aboutonce every two months and it's
hitting home right now and NorthCarolina is a long way from
Texas, so if it's happening here, imagine what it looks like
around the rest of the country.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Well said and I think the big thing you pointed out
there is communication isimportant when you're doing
something.
That can be very dangerous Ifyou have bad communication.
Mishearing, not communicatingclearly about something can
equate a fall, can equate to aninjury or, worse, a death, and
that's why it's so important.
(32:25):
Yeah, agreed All the way around.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
That was a good point .
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Well, we thank you for tuning in to the Carolina
Contractor Show Again, thisepisode just focusing on what we
predict will happen if KamalaHarris wins presidency.
If you want to catch lastweek's show, that's what our
predictions were If Trump winsthe presidency, you can find
details at the website,thecarolinacontractorcom.
Also at the YouTube site,follow us there and you can
(32:48):
watch the videos or justdownload the podcast.
And if there's a subject youwant us to talk about or you got
a comment, please hit us up atthe website and click on that
ask the contractor button andthank you for tuning in and we
will see you and talk to younext week.
Have a great day everybody.
Thanks for listening to theCarolina contractor show.
(33:08):
Visit the carolinacontractorcom.
Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with
your host, General ContractorDonnie Blanchard.
All right, it's Olympic time.
Donnie, Did you used to watchthe Olympics when you were a kid
?
I did, especially thebasketball part Summer or winter
?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
what was your favorite?
To be honest, just to havesports on TV this time of year,
I'd take just about anything, soprobably the summer.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, I never thought about it Fills up that doldrum
period of July.
You know you just got baseballand talking about football and
hockey and stuff coming in thefall.
I like the summer games forsports but they never showed
them on TV.
I'd love to watch like a fullcompetition of the hammer throw
and javelin and high jump, butthey'd always show just the
(00:46):
running and the gymnastics andthe swimming and I want to see
like spears thrown across thefield or a discus and they
really just showed thehighlights of those.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, I think they kind of blew it this year and,
to be honest, I haven't watchedmuch of it because we've just
been so busy.
But you know, there was a lotof controversy over the opening
ceremony and, um, you know, Isaw folks go back and forth on
social media whether or not theywere making a mockery of the
last supper or it was a tributeto Dionysus, and that.
You know, people wereuneducated and didn't realize
(01:15):
what they were seeing.
And you know, um, all that'sfine and good.
I don't I don't get upseteither way, but but I did wonder
why they incorporated thestoryline with all drag queens.
I didn't understand the needfor that and definitely, to say
the least, it did not make mewant to watch the Olympics more
than I did before I saw that.
(01:35):
So, if anything, I thoughtwhat's this world coming to?
And I know that's an old guystatement, but it seems to be
more and more every time youturn on the TV.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, and then did you see that?
Boxing match with the girlwhose name was Angela Carini is
the pronunciation, but she hadto fight a biological male.
I'm so horrible at the pronounthing so I'm just going to call
it what it is.
It's a guy boxing in thewomen's boxing division of the
Olympics and he clearly has astrength, a height and a reach
(02:09):
advantage and he fought thisgirl, angela Carini, and she
took two punches and then endedit.
She waved it off and burst intotears.
She said the first punch hurtreally bad.
The second one was the hardestshe'd ever been hurt and she
thought it had broken her noseand she knew it was useless.
What type of competition isthat?
That's not real competition tome.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
No, and I think it's a cry in shame that they spent
their whole life training to bethe best of the best.
They get an opportunity in theOlympics and whoever the powers
that be are allow a man to fighta woman.
That's it's.
It's just crazy, and I reallyhope somebody could put an end
to this at some point.
But this is worldwide now.
(02:50):
This isn't just here in theUnited States where you hear
about it.
I mean, they're in Paris, forheaven's sake, and if they don't
have the guts to stand up tothem, hopefully somebody at some
point will eliminate that frombeing a thing.
But I just I don't know.
I'm discouraged because thingsare trending in that direction
and to allow that to happen.
Imagine how much time she, herparents, her family has
(03:11):
sacrificed to get her to thatmoment and only to have to fight
a man.
It's just nuts.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
This is cheering a man beating a woman and there's
no way around this.
You can put it in a sport venue, you can make it look like, oh,
it's the Olympics, but this ischeering a man beating on a
woman.
And if this weren't a sport orhe didn't define himself as
something that he wasn't, thenhe would have been arrested.
(03:37):
But now we have part of theworld going.
Isn't this beautiful?
Isn't competition fantastic?
No, it's a guy punching a womanin the face, plain and simple.
And I don't care what you wantto identify or say you are.
It boils down to height, reach,strength against a weaker
opponent, intentionally.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, we were made different.
So didn't you say when we threwthat around earlier there was a
GoFundMe or something like thatfor the woman?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah.
So I'm not going to mention theCongresswoman because, even
though I might agree with hersome of her principles, I think
she's bombastic.
But I'm going to give kudos toa Congresswoman in the United
States who started a GoFundMeand I'm going to be off on the
numbers.
But she had a target goal oflike 129,000 or $179,000.
(04:28):
And as I read the article, uh,it said because that's the
amount of money a gold medalwinner would get.
So she's like this woman had tofight a man.
She had no chance.
Let's at least get her themoney for it.
So I'm pretty sure if you goonline and search like GoFundMe,
angela Carini, you can find itif you want to see what the
amount is up to or contribute orwhatever.
(04:50):
But I thought that was prettyclassy, cool thing for that
representative to do.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Hey, to put a humorous spin on this thing, I
think that it would be hilariousif that dude I don't know the
name of the man in the boxingpart of the Olympics, but if he
gets beat by a biological woman,that's going to be hilarious.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I agree with you.
I think it would be hilariousIf he wins the whole thing.
Let's be honest, he should winthe whole thing.
Probably he should win it.
But if he doesn't, you're right, that'll be even more hilarious
.
So hopefully she'll get themoney, he'll finish out of the
metal round and we can go on tobeing adults again after the
Olympics.
All right, this is the Carolinacontractor show.
(05:31):
We just kind of start what'stop of mind or in the news and
that was it, and we don't wantto be too long on one subject
that's not directly related tothe show, but that's water
cooler talk Websitethecarolinacontractorcom.
Go to the site and find moreinformation on the show.
You can go to our YouTube page.
Follow us there.
(05:51):
You can start downloadingvideos or watch them at your own
convenience.
The ask the contractor buttonis something you click on If you
have a question for us shouldintroduce ourselves.
My name's Eric Smith.
I do inside sales for HomeBuilders, supply Donnie's, on
the other side of theconstruction world.
He owns Blanchard BuildingCompany, also SureTop Roofing.
He's also a general contractor.
(06:12):
So we'd like to pretend we havesome inside information and
knowledge about building andconstruction and houses and
things like that, and that'swhat we usually talk about on
the show and things like that,and that's what we usually talk
about on the show.
Before we get into today's show, I do want to talk about
something I found interesting.
Donnie, the global truck makingindustry is trying to reach
(06:34):
these zero emissions goals andwe did a show on that not long
ago.
Electric batteries are way tooheavy for long haul freight
companies and they take too longto charge, so the trucking
companies don't want anything todo with them.
But hydrogen fuel cells nowthey generate electricity and
they generate the power theyneed, but they do it at a lower
(06:55):
weight and they can go farther.
But to switch the trucktechnology to this hydrogen fuel
cell is very expensive and timeconsuming.
Technology to this hydrogenfuel cell is very expensive and
time consuming.
So they're kind of remachiningthe shops that build trucks so
they can have the ability to usehydrogen fuel.
Now this all sounds great, butthe problem is green hydrogen,
(07:16):
which is what they call itthat's produced as fuel.
It's not wildly wildly, it'snot widely available right now.
It's not wildly available rightnow and because of that they're
thinking well, if we build thetrucks, then the fuel will come
along and we'll have a betteroption than battery.
My whole take on all of thiswas not that they're making
(07:37):
these hydrogen fuel vehicles.
It's they're saying straight upbattery powered trucks are not
going to work.
They're too heavy, too long tocharge and they don't go far
enough.
We're already going in adifferent direction.
What does that say about maybehydrogen fuel cars and other
things?
Is battery-powered vehicleswe've kind of hinted at it,
(07:59):
donnie not the best way to gotowards this carbon neutral or
net neutral environment?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, agreed, and we're not secretive about how we
feel about electric cars andhow realistic those might be.
So you know, I think thehydrogen sounds good.
It sounds like they're at leastexploring another option, but
we're a long way off man.
We're not going to be able toabandon fossil fuels, like
everybody wants to be warm andfuzzy about.
(08:28):
So I think we got a long way togo.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And we have politics involved in all of that, and
that's today's topic.
On the Carolina Contractor Show.
Last week we did a show wherewe made predictions on what if
Trump won the election and theeffects on housing and
construction, and so we want totake a look at what if Kamala
Harris wins.
What effects would she have onthe economy and how would it
(08:53):
affect building and constructionand other things.
Now I want to say first of all,I got to give credit where it's
due.
Some of the categories thatwe're talking about were from an
article I read by the COO ofFundkite.
His name I hope I get thisright is Rick Cucci.
He had a few takes on theHarris administration and what
it would do to lending andhousing and things like that.
(09:16):
And the first topic if Harriswon the election we talked about
this if Trump won is interestrates.
Of course she wants them to godown.
As we said last week, donnie,dropping interest rates mean
inflation is dropping, becausethat's why they've raised them.
It helps borrowers, saves moneyfor people who are in debt,
like credit cards, because ifyour interest rate goes down,
(09:37):
you're paying less interest onit, so you're saving a little
bit of money.
That in turn increasespurchasing power.
But presidents don't reallyhave any control over the Fed
interest rate, but they get theblame or the credit.
So when they go up and itaffects your buying power, your
purchasing power, yourinvestments, people hate you.
(09:59):
When it goes down, peoplebenefit more in most cases.
So you're going to get thecredit.
So of course, trump and Harriswould want the rates to go down,
especially as they get closerto the election, and they just
said we're not dropping it inAugust, but we probably will in
September.
And you said they would do thatbefore the election.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
That's always a political ploy.
They always have something uptheir sleeve there and either
way that shakes out, I don'tcare.
I just want them to drop,because I'm seeing consumer
confidence a lot lower than it'sbeen in years, in the past
years, and we're blessed to bebusy.
But at the same time, you know,we also live in a really
flourishing area, and I alwayscomment on the between
(10:40):
Greensboro and Hillsboro, themerged corridor 40 and 85 brings
a lot of business, so a lot ofjobs, a lot of growth, and those
people have to have somewhereto live.
Unfortunately, a lot of thoseplaces to live are in apartments
, so you're seeing apartments gogoing up left and right and
they're at full capacity beforethe construction's even finished
.
But anyway, I think that oursubject matter is what everybody
(11:01):
wants to hear.
I wanted to mention thisearlier but I kind of forgot.
Our downloads were almost timesnine last week and so probably
one of the most downloaded showswe've had in terms of the
podcast, and it seems like thisis what everybody wants to know
about, because it's aninteresting time in our life.
I want to say that there maynot be, unless it gets crazier,
(11:21):
and I can't imagine that thismay be one of the most
interesting times to be alive,and I don't want to sound like a
preacher, but you know thatthere's a lot going on that
we've never seen in our lifetime, so I think that everybody's
interested in knowing what'sgoing to happen either way, Dude
.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Our kids and grandkids will be talking about
the 2020s and when a presidentdecided not to run and
everything that's going on.
We're living in something ourkids will be talking about.
Historically, I've recognizedthat.
I agree a hundred percent.
It's weird.
Who would have thought that theleader of Hamas would have been
taken out in his individualhotel room by a missile in
(11:59):
Tehran like he was?
And the world is still spinning.
That's crazy to think about.
It really is yes.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
So this is why we're talking about it Take them out
on enemy territory.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah, I know, dude, that is crazy to think about.
They have no fear, ain't scared.
Is on the back of the IDF's car, on their bumper.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I hadn't seen a no fear sticker or ain't scared in
a decade or so.
That's funny, but no, to getback on the construction thing,
I want to chime in on one thingthat I see, kamala Harris, if
she wins the presidency, one ofher pitches whether she executes
or not is going to beaffordable housing, and that
sounds really good to everybody.
And affordable housing is areal thing, I mean right now.
(12:48):
We commented last week that itreally stinks for a young person
to try to start a family rightnow, because who can afford a
$2,000 a month mortgage?
And I think that she would needCongress to approve all the
funding to build these newaffordable units.
And so there's a lot of redtape there, especially where
housing is super pricey.
So you get in the bigger areaslike Raleigh and Charlotte.
(13:10):
That's gonna cost a lot morethan areas like where we live,
but in theory that could meanmore options for renters and
buyers.
If she could make this happen,and hopefully that translates to
lower costs for everybody, itcould lead to a lot of new
construction jobs in my worldand that's one of those things
where I don't do a lot ofmultifamily.
So, like I mentioned before, ifthat's apartments, then that's
(13:33):
not going to trickle down to me.
I have a license to do themultifamily.
It's just not my niche.
But if we do see these benefitsfrom any kind of affordable
housing push, it's going to takea while.
And anything governmentmandated, you know, I don't know
if you've ever seen therequirements, but they basically
make you sign your firstbornchild over to do a government
(13:53):
job.
And the way that everybody hasto be documented background
checks just to qualify everyworker in a company to be
legitimately on the job site andhave all the documentation that
they require.
It's just nuts and they're mostalways over budget.
They're late on the deliverydate, the results usually aren't
(14:13):
what you expect in thebeginning, and you know.
Secondly, you're not going tosee or I've mentioned this
before, but you're not going tosee the results for years.
These big jobs for affordablehousing are going to take easily
, especially if it's amultifamily project.
You know two or three years.
And lastly, even with the moneysupply, you know we're still
having issues with labor andwhere are they going to find the
(14:34):
people to do these things?
So I don't think it's realistic.
I think that tackling theaffordable housing problem
rather is more about the tariffs.
We mentioned, you know, thebuilding materials that are
coming in, making those moreaffordable.
It's not just how much thehouse costs after it's built, it
really translates to making thematerials more affordable.
So the initial cost of theconstruction is lower and that
(14:57):
translates to a lower paymentand really young family $1,000,
$1,500 payment may be doablewith two incomes.
But I really think that thefocus for affordable housing
needs to be aimed at what'staxed.
What building materials havewhat tax, and that would lower
the cost for some of the thingsor all the things we have to put
(15:18):
in the house.
And then the tariffs on thethings that we have to import.
You made a good point last weekthat you got lumber coming from
all over the world.
So you know, get lower in thattariff on that lumber, you know,
incentivize people to send usmore wood to tackle this, the
housing demand and I don't know.
I think they're barking up thewrong tree with just a campaign
promise.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Lumber and trees and bark.
I got it.
That was well played, I agree.
She's going to push for it.
Everybody does.
Affordable housing, I think, isa catchphrase that makes it
sound like you really care, butwhat that means in reality is
we're going to build 98 unitsthat only people with a lot of
money can afford and we're goingto throw two little ones that
will probably go to a friend ofthe assistant to the congressman
(16:02):
anyway.
So that's just going to be.
It's just it doesn't work.
Government housing projects,things like that, have a
horrible track record.
It just doesn't work.
Now she did talk about KamalaHarris Again.
What we're talking about if shewon the presidency she before
is tax incentives for first-timehome buyers.
(16:23):
Biden pitched $15,000 of a taxcredit for down payments and
closing costs.
That could make a huge impactfor people who are struggling to
save enough to buy a first home.
I think that's better than taxbreaks on EVs and green things
like that, but I'm not againstthat idea.
(16:45):
I don't know how well it wouldwork considering the pricing of
housing, but I'm hard pressed tobe against a tax break in most
cases.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
That, I think, is a good one like it's a write-off
and you only get a percentage ofwhat you spend.
But that straight tax creditcould translate to savings and I
mean, I think that $15,000,that's a chunk on a regular
house, but gosh, a regular housecosts 300 plus now.
(17:17):
So I don't know.
I think folks like me and youwe already had our homes bought
and paid down when all this messhappened and anybody who buys
after this, just I just don'tsee them being in a great
situation.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
One of the things I think that does hurt people who
try to borrow is the predatorylending, and I don't want to
confuse that with a bank thatgives a legit loan.
That might have a high interestrate because of the person's
credit history.
But some people are desperate,and Harris said she would like
to put in some rules, if shewere elected, that protect
buyers from unfair lendingpractices, which there already
(17:50):
are.
A bunch of laws.
This might make getting a loantougher for some people, though
she says we're going to tightenthe ability of people to get it
because predatory lending orhigh interest rate loans I don't
want to confuse with a paydayloans or something.
Unfortunately, sometimes yourloan is going to be 10, 12, 13%.
(18:12):
That's just life Moregovernment regulation.
The intentions may be good,road to hell, what's it paved
with?
I don't know how they wouldimplement anything effective on
predatory lending.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Okay, yeah, really Well, I don't think it's as bad
as it used to be.
And we talked about last weekthat the crash of 2008,.
That was all because of or notall because but a lot to do with
predatory lending between 04and 07.
And you know, I was kind of inthat category, to be honest,
because here I came back as aninsurance adjuster, made a ton
(18:49):
of money when I worked HurricaneKatrina and a few hurricanes
after that, a ton of money whenI worked, hurricane Katrina and
a few hurricanes after that.
And really, you know, I hadenough money for a down payment
but I had never really boughtanything substantial before.
And it put me in a positionwhere I bought a $300,000 house
and you know, I'm 20, mid-20sand it just wasn't the right
time to do it and they made itso easy that I just walked right
(19:09):
through it.
But you know, fast forwardanother year or so, that it was
really hard to pay for thathouse and it put my family in a
compromise when I tried to startone.
So, yeah, I felt thatpersonally and I think the
predatory lending thing or Ihope the predatory lending thing
doesn't come back or anybodymake that more accessible than
it is right now.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah, and the other thing, donnie, is how much are
they going to really targetbanks?
Banks are big movers andshakers in Congress and
lobbyists, so I think a lot ofthis, even on a conservative
side, is lip service, becausethey want that pack money and
that donation money.
One other thing she mentionedand we'll get into some other
(19:48):
predictions this is the CarolinaCongress show.
We should be.
This is the Carolina Congress.
The Carolina Congress show weshould be.
This is the Carolina contractorshow, and what we're talking
about is a follow-up from lastweek's episode.
Today we're saying what aresome things that could happen if
Kamala Harris became presidentlast week.
You can go upload or listen tothe show on the website and the
(20:09):
podcast or on the YouTube sitewas what if Donald Trump won the
presidency?
One last thing she's talkedabout was from that article I
mentioned is tenants' rights andrent stabilization.
I think this is a hangover ofCOVID, because I do believe
tenants have certain rights theyshould have.
But when COVID hit, they saidokay, we're going to put a
(20:31):
moratorium on evictions.
Covid was weird and odd andthere's a lot going on.
We didn't know for sure.
I understood it, but now that'skind of morphed into hey,
you're not going to pay yourrent.
They shouldn't make it easy tokick you out.
It's not easy to evict somebody.
We've had many people on theshow that have landlords that
(20:54):
rent and you have to givenotices.
You've got to do legal steps toget it done.
It can take 90 days If you'relucky.
Most of the time it can take180 to six or more months.
I don't think we need to expandthe ability for people to say
I'm not going to pay and Ishouldn't be kicked out of my
(21:15):
house.
There's a difference betweenhaving a hard time and a crunch
and just going I ain't going topay.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah, I think that's insane.
I understand when COVID nobodyexpected that to happen.
They made exceptions and Ibelieve that was okay for a time
, but to make that some kind ofa policy that is longstanding is
crazy.
And we have people that's beenon the show and been really
successful in real estate butthey chose to rent their house
(21:41):
out rather than just buy andinvest and sit on the property
While it appreciates they haveto fight tenants and they're in
court several days.
I call them, can't get them onthe phone.
What happened?
And I had to be.
You've got these people who aresacrificing their life for work
and here they are in court allday long.
They basically miss days oftheir life because they're
(22:02):
fighting with these people whoare taking advantage of these
crazy rent bypass things.
I'm not in favor of this.
It doesn't sound like hard worklike we preach to our children
at all.
It doesn't.
It doesn't.
It doesn't sound like hard workLike we preach to our children
at all.
It's just an easy way out.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
All right, uh, as we wrap up the show, donnie, I want
to hit on some easy topics ofour predictions if Kamala Harris
wins.
So I'll give you a uh, acategory and you tell me what
you you think she's going to dotaxes.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I think that she's going to preach you rich and
she's going to promote themiddle class, but what they say
and what they do, I think, isdifferent.
I'm not rich, I'm definitely inthe middle class category, and
so I think that that's justgoing to be lip service.
I don't believe that they'regoing to really do anything
because the last administrationthat she's going to echo and I
(22:52):
think she's even way furtherleft than the last
administration it really hurt mybusiness and I've seen it
firsthand.
So I don't want more of thesame.
I need to change and I thinkwith the taxes she's definitely
not going to take less taxes ifI had to guess.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, I think you can sum it up with two words bend
over.
Any tax increase is going toaffect builders, supply cost
buyers, sellers, and that's whywe did the show today.
And people might say you'rejust talking politics to bad
mouth somebody and nothing aboutconstruction or building.
No, tax increases are not paidby businesses.
(23:30):
They're paid by the people whobuy the products and services.
Corporations don't pay taxes.
They run that down to you.
But here's the interesting partthe top 50% of taxpayers pay
97.7% of all income tax.
So you can tax top 1%.
You can tax them 100%.
You'll run the country for likea couple of weeks.
(23:50):
It's the middle class.
They have to tax to do this.
All right, Another category taxand spend.
Do you think spending would godown on a national or federal
level under a Harrisadministration, or would it go
up?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I know mystery here Everything costs more every year
and it seems like our deficitjust keeps getting bigger and
bigger, so it almost always goesup, regardless of who the
president is.
And you know, I just think thatit affects inflation and you
know, I think that spending isgoing to go up, no matter what
we want or hope for.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, I think that's a no brainer.
It doesn't go down really underany administration, no matter
how far left or how far rightthey're going to spend, and it's
a shell game.
They move numbers from onecategory to another to make it
look like they can say, oh, thedebt's down or I spent less than
I planned to, which is pleaseeverybody.
If you haven't figured this out, if I tell you I'm going to
(24:51):
spend $10,000 on a Les Paulguitar and I come home and say
to my wife great news, I onlyspent $8,500.
She's not going to say yousaved $1,500.
She's going to go you idiot,you spent $8,500 on a guitar.
Government's the same way.
If they tell you we spent lessthan we planned, they didn't
(25:15):
save any money, they still spentmoney, so the spending's gonna
go up.
I get riled up on this stuffI'm sorry, I can see that.
Yeah, all right.
Last thing, uh, energy, umconsumption, especially fracking
.
Harris's on record video quotes, interviews, and she's denying
(25:36):
it and the press is telling youshe never said these things.
But she is on record beingagainst fracking, she's against
coal, gas, oil.
She's all green.
She's one of the signees of thegreen new deal.
So this is a no-brainer too,donnie.
What would a Harrisadministration do when it comes
(25:57):
to gas and oil?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Well, currently they don't have a debate set up, but
I do feel like they will debateand I want to see her face when
he says drill, baby drill, andI'm all about it.
We were energy independent fouryears ago and right now we're
buying oil from countries thathate us and and we're we're
basically padding their pocketsinstead of being energy
(26:21):
independent, with low gas pricesand people say, well, it's only
a hundred dollars a week, youknow.
But when you multiply thattimes eight work trucks that I
have, you know that that's a lotmore for me and that that
money's got to come fromsomewhere.
It affects my bottom linebecause I have.
When you pass that onto yourcustomers, you know your price
goes up and up and you know if,if anybody's smart, they'll go
(26:41):
ahead and pass that onto thecustomer.
But it just makes that.
It makes everything harder tosell and it's just one little
piece of the pie that that uhcontributes to where we are
right now.
So I'm not about the greenenergy push.
I mean there's some thingscoming in the energy code right
now that will have to beimplemented in housing.
That's going to push the costof a house up another 10 grand,
(27:04):
30 grand on a really big houseand so it's like they just won't
stop and they're killing theAmerican dream in the name of
saving the planet.
And I just think that all theway around, energy Star made a
big push back in the day.
That was almost like theirintro, that was their test
market and of course Energy Starkind of went away because the
energy codes got so strict thatthe minimum energy code was
(27:26):
basically what Energy Star was25 years ago.
So LEED certification you don'thear about that as much because
they're doing you know so manythings with code requirement
minimums that LEED is just kindof a few extra things at this
point in time.
But all about making a houseenergy efficient.
(27:51):
You know we're big proponentsof insulation and really
efficient heating and air unitsbecause that makes your
utilities go down.
But when we preach about thatand how to accomplish that,
we're doing that in the name ofhey, this is how you lower your
utilities.
So that's more in the camp ofaffordable housing than some of
the things they're doing.
But some of these climate folksare just making things really
ridiculous and I think it's apolitical ploy, all in the name
of getting elected.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Donnie has a soapbox too, and I like it.
Donnie has a soapbox too, and Ilike it.
I agree with everything yousaid of important phrase killing
the American dream to save theplanet.
I got a big secret.
I'm going to move in close andwhisper it.
It won't do anything for theplanet, it won't save it, it
won't do jack.
It's just a scheme.
Go ahead and realize that.
(28:31):
All right, Tell it.
Last question, and I want todirect this at you, Donnie,
because you work in an industrythat's affected by this, and
it's not a touchy subject, it'sa legit question.
She is very Harris.
This is open borders.
Was going to clamp down on it.
Denies she was ever given thattitle.
(28:52):
It's in writing and audio.
Biden himself called her notthe czar but said she is going
to head up the border and she'sgoing to close it.
She's not visited the border.
With immigration coming over.
We know one of the commonfields they work in is
construction.
Do you have some feelings aboutimmigration and open borders
(29:14):
and how it affects your world?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
You just wound me up and turned me loose.
I see what you did there.
Yes, I do, and the open bordersituation is just out of hand.
And it's no secret.
We have Hispanic workers thatwork for us.
They've been with us for 20years and they're like family.
I preach to my children that,hey, I have the utmost respect
for these people because theyput food on my table, they put
(29:38):
food on your table and you knowthat we are equal and they have
done things the right way.
They went through a process andbasically they showed up or
they got here legally and they,you know, adapted to society,
learned to speak English.
My crew leader, for instanceyou know this is 15 years ago he
(30:00):
could read engineeredblueprints better than I could
and I had a degree to do it andI thought, if I'm self-employed,
you know we're going to ridetogether Like I.
Really, this guy's amazing andhe's a wonderful family man.
A lot of respect for him.
But what's happening now is whenthey let these folks cross the
border and they're letting themcome in droves, you know.
Side note that I want tocomment on is that, you know,
(30:23):
not everybody's coming over herefor a better life.
They're letting a lot ofmilitary age men just pass
through the border and God knowswhat's happening behind the
scenes that we don't know about.
But a lot of these folks arecoming over here in the name of
a better life and it's notnecessarily going to be so
because they find themselves inentry level construction jobs,
you know, with a languagebarrier.
It's not like they're sending amixture of engineers,
(30:45):
architects, you know, skilledtrades, people who know how to
do this, and that these peopleare coming in and they're
they're all basically in thesame labor category, so they all
can all basically in the samelabor category.
So, uh, they they all can dojust about the same amount of
things.
And, um, you know, when youincorporate women and children
into that, I think it's just asad situation.
And you know I'm not I'm notknocking the people who are
(31:06):
coming over here, uh, and justjust trying for a better life,
but at the same time, you know,there's a mixed bag and I think
that the folks who come overhere without any kind of a game
plan and just seeing whathappens, I don't see that being
a great turnout and it's just,it's a sad situation.
To be honest.
They've let it get out ofcontrol and I think that and we
(31:27):
always say not trying to bepolitical here but I really
think that they're loading downsome of these bigger cities to
try to get more electoral votesbecause of the population.
But when you see where thesepeople have to live somewhere,
they got to go to school.
And I'm hearing this firsthand.
I've got a great friend who'san athletic director at a big
high school in Charlotte and hesays calls me, he says dude, I
just got 16 kids dropped on me.
They don't speak any Englishand you know, we don't know what
(31:50):
to do.
They just sit here, take them.
And he said that happens aboutonce every two months and it's
hitting home right now and NorthCarolina is a long way from
Texas, so if it's happening here, imagine what it looks like
around the rest of the country.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Well said and I think the big thing you pointed out
there is communication isimportant when you're doing
something.
That can be very dangerous Ifyou have bad communication.
Mishearing, not communicatingclearly about something can
equate a fall, can equate to aninjury or, worse, a death, and
that's why it's so important.
(32:25):
Yeah, agreed All the way around.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
That was a good point .
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Well, we thank you for tuning in to the Carolina
Contractor Show Again, thisepisode just focusing on what we
predict will happen if KamalaHarris wins presidency.
If you want to catch lastweek's show, that's what our
predictions were If Trump winsthe presidency, you can find
details at the website,thecarolinacontractorcom.
Also at the YouTube site,follow us there and you can
(32:48):
watch the videos or justdownload the podcast.
And if there's a subject youwant us to talk about or you got
a comment, please hit us up atthe website and click on that
ask the contractor button andthank you for tuning in and we
will see you and talk to younext week.
Have a great day everybody.
Thanks for listening to theCarolina contractor show.
(33:08):
Visit the carolinacontractorcom.
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