June 28, 2024 • 37 mins
It's been almost a full year since we launched the Heavy Equipment Podcast, so we're kicking off our return from a long break with the first HEP-isode of a brand-new season! We're diving right back into the socioeconomics of GM's $6 billion stock buybacks and giving Manitou's new forestry-focused telehandler a look, too. All this and more on this week's HEP!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well, we at work we'll cut all this out, but at
work we invoked a cone policywith the vehicle.
So the driver said to put conesout in a direction in which the
vehicle could travel uponparked.
And when they exit the vehicle,guess what's going to happen?
Put the cones out or gettickets.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Ooh, that'll be good.
100% chance that those conesare going to get left behind at
least half the time.
We ordered twice what we neededand with that we're back after
a long, long hiatus here.
We'll call this season two.
This will be season twoepisodes this amazing season two
(00:40):
season two, the first eversecond season of the heavy
equipment podcast.
I'm your host, joe boris, herewith hot mike switzer, the
reason.
I know it'd be one season two.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
There can only be one season two you know I've been
on the first one you need topeel.
You had to get away from theball field.
I've been announcing over there.
They're not sure what's comingdown trucks, cars, balls, what
we're here in the seven inningstretch.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's like I thought this was an ambulance yard.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
What the hell's happening okay, we're back and
this is my freight liner.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Freight liner the one that moves the balls this is
jesus christ, I got that big cupthat just scoops the balls
right into the back anyway.
Anyway, I know that it's seasontwo because when we did season
one we did the very firstepisode.
There is an event out here inOak Park called Porch Fest.
Porch Fest is actually reallycool.
(01:35):
It's there's, you know, theseolder 1890s, early 1900s homes.
They have these big porchesbecause you didn't have air
conditioning back then.
1900s homes.
They have these big porchesbecause you didn't have air
conditioning back then.
So you volunteer your house anda local band typically a
well-known local band shows upat your house and plays on your
porch and the neighbors come outand they've got food trucks and
stuff like that.
It's like a little, a littlemusic festival right there on
(01:57):
someone's porch.
Well, after we recorded thefirst ever episode, we were
sitting in front of porch festand my wife says to me why are
you and mike doing this?
This is a total waste of time.
And I looked at her and I saidthe episodes are going to take
off, woman, and they are goingto provide for this family.
And a year later I think we're,uh, slightly closer to making
(02:21):
that happen.
We like to think so.
We like to think so any day.
Now that sixty thousand dollarcontract for mac md is going to
close, we're going to be allseriousness.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Let me tell you in all seriousness.
That is the cool thing aboutthe heavy equipment podcast.
We're not bought, owned orsubsidiated by anyone that's
true we talk as if no one islistening, and those that want
to partake may well.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
it's a good thing we talk like no one is listening,
and those that want to partakemay Well.
It's a good thing we talk likeno one is listening, because if
you've been paying attention tosome of these dump trucks
happening in central Florida,nobody's driving those things.
John Deere has been workingwith a couple of companies out
there and they have a singleoperator operating three remote
controlled dump trucks on thisjob site and I don't know how I
(03:08):
want to feel about that, michael.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, it raises a bunch of concerns about safety.
And then you know whether ornot you can have the attention
span to operate three things atonce.
Clearly they are, and which ishard because most people don't
have the attention span to walktheir dog.
But we have to have a solutionNow.
I don't want to pronounce thiswrong, but I may.
Is it?
Teleo, teleo, teleo soundsright.
(03:32):
Okay, they're the ones that arethe engineering behind all this
and they have that universalsystem that they're working on,
which obviously takes effort andtime to integrate that into
whatever OEM that you have.
But they have it and they havethe ability to do that.
And the cool part about that isthere's now a sustainable
system that somebody could goand say listen, I got John Deere
(03:54):
, I got CAD, I got Volvo.
I can put this stuff on herebecause I need to run it time
and time again and I don't know.
I was reading this articles andI'm reading about the company
and I'm doing all this stuffbecause I vowed that I would not
just get on here and wing itand they not for season two baby
.
No, no.
(04:14):
So my thing is is that I wonderwhat the unions think about
this.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, they've got to be just livid about this.
They also recognize they have ashortage.
Yeah, it goes both ways right,but I I think it's one of these
things where, like, there is ashortage.
But I think that what this doesis it uses the shortage and it
gives the corporations kind ofleverage to say, like you know,
(04:40):
hey, you're, you're bringing meunion labor and I get that, but
you're not bringing me thebodies that I need to fill my
equipment, so I'm going to gosource it from somewhere else,
because you got to imagine thatthis is not a union operator
sitting up there yeah for statesthat you don't have to be union
.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
It doesn't matter, it doesn't care what you are.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
well, that's it.
It doesn't care if you're union, not union, man, man, woman,
black, white, green, purple, itdoesn't care, it's
non-denominational, and youbelieve in the strength of
(05:22):
organized labor and you careabout your fellow workers.
Somebody offers you hey, youknow, you've got a skill set
that we need.
We need three machines operated, five machines operated, 10
machines operated.
We're going to pay you to do it, you know, but you might get
paid more to do it.
But that means that your unionbrothers and sisters are not
(05:44):
going to be able to get thosejobs because you're going to be
doing it.
So where do you land on?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
that that's a good point Because, let's say, you
call the hall, wherever hallyou're at, and the hall goes.
I got five guys and you're like, but I really need nine.
And you're like, I got fiveguys, I'm like, all right, send
them down.
And.
And you're like, I got fiveguys, I'm like, all right, send
them down.
And we're going to crash course.
We're going to train them onhow to operate a haul truck and
(06:10):
like a roller, and while theyget the haul truck running and
doing its thing, they're rollingout some BS on the side and
sealing up some stuff at the endof the day.
Meanwhile, they're only runningone thing at any given time.
They're only running one thingat any given time.
My point is is that it wouldallow somebody the opportunity
to make a weird different typeof rate and at the same time,
(06:30):
you're getting work done withless people, because that's all
there is.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Right, so that is a?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
that is kind of an interesting thing.
I don't know.
It leaves a lot of things towonder.
I mean, kat's been working onthe remote control skid steer.
John Deere has remote controlskid steer.
They've been working on a bunchof remote control integrated
technology.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yep, husqvarna has got a couple of remote operated
machines now, but it's still oneoperator, one machine they're
taking the operator out ofharm's way.
But it's one operator, onemachine.
Now some of these electricforklifts and we covered this a
couple of months ago some ofthese electric forklifts are
trainable.
So what that means is that theyfollow a certain path.
(07:12):
They raise and lower the forksat the same point on that path
and they kind of just follow apre-prescribed or a
pre-programmed route within awarehouse.
So the idea is that with oneguy who's forklift certified, he
can reach up, scoop the thingout, pick it out of the rack,
bring it down, and then he turnsaround and there's an empty,
(07:35):
driverless forklift waiting forhim, puts it down in front of it
.
The other forklift picks it upand takes it outside and puts it
down where it's supposed to godown.
And I think on certain types ofjob sites, especially with dump
trucks, where they basicallyjust kind of go and stop, they
wait to get filled up and thenthey go and finish it out,
finish out their route.
I think that lends itself tothis kind of multiple unit
(08:01):
control, because you couldtheoretically have two units
parked, one being loaded, oneunloading, and then the other
one be driving it through thefield.
And to your point earlier aboutsafety there is a safety
concern, but whose safety are weworried about?
Because there's no operators inthere to be unsafe, and the
more we get to automate, thefewer and fewer operators we're
(08:24):
actually going to have in themud and the sluice and in the
rocks.
I mean, how many gory, horrificaccidents happen every week on
job sites across the countrybecause somebody is in the wrong
place at the wrong time.
Somebody didn't see them.
They slip fall.
Maybe they're doing somethingstupid, maybe somebody in the
machine is doing somethingstupid.
(08:44):
You know, you could just aseasily say that this is a
pro-safety thing.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Well, yeah, I mean it absolutely could be.
When you remove the amount ofpeople from the work site, the
work area that's actually beingworked on, and then you have the
ability to run three, twomachines all at the same time or
as they alternate.
That that's a whole differentdynamic than the industry is
used to.
Yeah, because, like you saidearlier, with the autonomy and
(09:14):
with the remote control thatthey're working on, like at the
various oem levels, it's aone-for-one basis, right?
Or it's a removed operatorbasis, meaning that there's no
one involved?
It's a removed operator basismeaning that there's no one
involved, it's just going right.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Well, you're seeing that in the in the big class,
eight heavy trucks especiallylike in uh, you know, I wouldn't
say over the road, but I wouldsay when you're looking at from
port to warehouse, like ifyou're looking for, you know,
like the kind of thing thatAmazon does where a container
comes off a ship, it's loadedonto a trailer.
That trailer gets connected tothe back of a semi.
The semi goes, you know five,10 miles down the road to a
(09:50):
warehouse, backs it up,decouples and goes and gets
another container.
That of thing I think you'regoing to start to see automated
very soon.
They're already talking aboutthe next two, three years.
We need, we do need thatespecially, especially at
container ports and and it,container shipping is a rough is
a rough business and it'sreally rough on drivers because
(10:12):
if you could be sitting there ina line waiting to pick up a
container, waiting to pick up aload and, depending on your
contract and depending on howyou're paid, you might be
sitting there for hours and notmake a penny running on your
(10:39):
logbook.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
You can't drive, but only 11 hours a day.
So you know, unless you havesome extreme circumstance.
But the point is is that you'veburnt your available hours
waiting in line.
At some point you just say Idon't know how far I'm going to
get, but I'm going to get thatfar, and then I'm a day off, a
whole week shot.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Exactly Right, and that's why I think that if you
could automate the just thoselines, if you could automate
that idle time when you're inthat stop and go traffic, if you
can say okay, I'm connectingthe autopilot, and the autopilot
is going to handle this, theself drive is going to handle
this, that becomes some placeswould be better off for that.
Some places would be better offfor that a hundred percent.
(11:16):
Some places would be better offfor that.
Some places would be better offfor that a hundred percent.
But think of the driver.
If I say, okay, I only have 11hours that I could be driving in
a given day, but this thing isgoing to take over for two of
those hours.
I've now added range that Icould do, and especially if
you're in a place like you know,like I said, stop and go
traffic, or you're at a portwhere you're going to be, where
you know you're going to besitting for a while, you can get
(11:38):
up, you can walk to the back,make yourself a cup of coffee,
stretch your legs.
You know you could.
Oh my gosh, this could besomething that would not.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Everyone has.
Not everyone has the bun coffeemaker in their in their sleeper
, joe not everyone is privilegedwith the power of 100 inches of
Volvo Mac.
Just absolute, taking care ofyou the entire way.
You're there for your entireexistence on the road.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
My Twitter handles Volvo.
Joe, for a reason, baby.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, we came from the two by five coffin sleepers.
Let me tell you, cab overs werepopular because you could
actually stretch your legs outwhen you laid sideways across
the cab.
That's right, you know.
When you have somebody runningmultiple pieces of equipment or
multiple trucks or whatever, youwant to try and multiply with
the single human's ability.
(12:29):
Think about the power you'veharnessed and what they're in
charge of.
At that point it's a lot.
Yeah, it's a.
It's a lot.
Not since the days of thefreightliner powerliner have we
entrusted somebody with thatmuch under their ass at any
given time.
Kta 613 speed moved it down theroad like it was nothing back
(12:55):
then.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Oh, yeah, now we're back.
We've gone full circle well,kind of I may have hallucinated
this, but I swear I saw one ofthose old.
It must have been early 80s.
I was a young kid and I swearthis thing had four axles.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
It had like two axles underneath the cab there's a
lot of that stuff out there, alot of heavy haul stuff that was
built Late 70s, early 80s.
They did a bunch of stuff andthen through the 70s they built
all kinds of wild stuff.
I mean, they still do theystill make multiple steer axle
trucks and different things?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
But you don't see them on the road like that.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
No, not anymore.
They kind of standardized a lotof that stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, like that.
No, not anymore.
They kind of standardized a lotof that stuff.
Yeah, boo, you still see thatin australia, though you get
like the scania guys that arerunning these long trains, the
trains are crazy.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
The road trains are crazy.
They had scania power overthere.
They got mac over there.
Kenworth's running all theirstuff with the cummins platform
over there.
They're.
That's a whole different world.
We got to get somebody on therefrom there.
They like their Chrysler stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Like their Chrysler.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
They do Chrysler Utes .
Speaker 2 (14:01):
They do, why would they not?
All right, I think we've talkedto that one to death.
Actually, you know what wehaven't talked to death.
While we're on the subject ofunion labor and union brothers
and sisters and all the issuesthat come up with that, when you
start considering automation, Ihave to say I don't know if you
remember this last year,september through november,
(14:22):
there was a six-week strike.
Uaw strike affected the entireindustry, and especially gm we
talked about it several times.
They were saying there's notenough money for a pension fund.
We're never going to renew thepension fund.
We're're not going to continuewith those obligations.
They pushed back againstincreasing wages.
Well, within weeks of the strikeending, gm announced that they
(14:46):
wanted to do a $10 billion stockbuyback.
The stock buyback is a roughdeal because it doesn't serve
anybody.
It doesn't put food onanybody's table.
It doesn't enable you to go outinto your community and spend
money and buy things for thekids and put taxes into the
system that funds the schoolsand the roads and everything.
It's just strictly taking moneyout of circulation and raising
(15:11):
the value the stock value forthe shareholders in the
boardroom.
So I don't care for that tobegin with.
But back in November the GMboard said no, no, no.
We are doing this to save moneybecause we have a stock
dividend that we pay out everyquarter and if we buy back this
(15:32):
$10, or rather $6 billion, itends up being $6 billion worth
of stock.
We're going to save over thelong run paying out those
dividends to those $6 billionworth of shares.
So in the long run it'sactually going to save the
company money.
All right, maybe it will, maybeit won't.
We'll leave it at that.
Yesterday the news broke onAutomotive News that GM had done
(15:55):
the buy.
They've started that purchaseof that $6 billion.
But oh, by the way, they alsovoted to raise their stock
dividend 30%.
So the company saves nothingand their stock value goes up.
And I am just absolutely,completely and utterly disgusted
and I can't believe the unionshaven't flipped out about it.
(16:19):
I think behind closed doorsthey got to just be fuming.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Well first of all, I'm going to start off my next
few moments by saying thisdespite my love for gmc branded
vehicles not chevy but gmc Ilike gmc trucks way back in the
day when they claimed they werehand-built but weren't manner.
But the point is, is that Ilike GMC vehicles, I like what
(16:44):
they do, I like all of that.
What I hate is this kind ofcrazy that companies do and it
doesn't have to, it doesn't.
It's not just GM.
This is a whole other problemof other companies to do the
same thing.
So, yeah, we're going to go outthere and we're going to swallow
up using our cash which, if wego back even further, the
(17:07):
American public lent them.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I was going to say it's actually our cash as
taxpayers.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And we're going to buy back our shares and then
we're going to put them backinto the share pool and by
buying them back at the rate ofwhatever they announced that
they've determined to be, do youknow what they were?
Buying them back at Market?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
day pricing.
Well, they were buying them atmarket pricing, but they did it
real quickly in a way thatpeople couldn't time the buy to
jack up the prices.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
So they do that which virtually sets their free
market share price Exactly, andthen by doing so they capitalize
on a good run that they've hadlately because they're actually
able to put out product.
And when you really look atthat, you go this is the
crookedest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
The unions should be freaking out because if anybody
and we've talked about thisbefore if anybody needed a stock
dividend and anybody needed abonus, it is all the workers on
the floor that if you walked upto them and you handed them a
$900 net paycheck and said thankyou for your hard work this is
why we're here and you know whatthis is for you.
(18:19):
Right?
$900 for lead people and everyplant, half of that for the guy
who's literally sweeping thefloor to promote workplace
environment.
Positivity would go so muchfurther than reading this kind
of crap on the news and readingabout how people are working the
(18:42):
system to freak everything out.
And then they have a wholeguaranteed stock pool and then,
oh, we're going to raise ourdividend bonuses by 30% or
whatever.
They ended up being no, raisedit by 33 percent.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
A full third.
So one third.
So what do you do?
It's gross.
What do you do?
Well, I've got worse news foryou, because you made the
comment if they just gave everyline worker nine hundred dollars
, make it a thousand, make itfive thousand.
Here's the reality.
If you take $6 billion and youdivide that over the 46,000
(19:20):
United Auto Workers that areworking at General Motors, it's
a one-time bonus of $130,434.78.
That's my point.
You could have changed thelives of 46,000 people.
You could have changed thelives of their family.
You could have given their kidsan education.
You could have given those kidsa future.
(19:41):
You could have invested inthose communities.
You could have gotten themschools and hospitals and
libraries and services that theyneed.
We're still talking aboutMichigan, where there's lead in
the water, there's roads thatare horrible, there's a lack of
community engagement to thepoint that some areas of Detroit
don't even have police andambulance coverage.
But $130,434.78 for everysingle GM United Auto Worker
(20:11):
member could have gone intotheir account, but instead it
went directly into the pocketsof the people sitting on that
board and it is offensive let's.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Let's break it down into something that's even more
plausible.
You could you could feasiblyhand everybody a ten thousand
dollar check out of that 133cash.
That's, after taxes, okay,$10,000 net.
You could take the remainingthird of the $133,000 and dump
(20:45):
it into their pension.
That's it.
You could take the other thirdand fund their health care for
the entire UAW period.
Yep, you could take the thirdafter that.
So $6 billion is third is $2billion.
Take the $2 billion and hand itto the state and say thank you
(21:07):
for nothing, because we haven'tbeen able to give you shit for
the a hundred years we've beenhere and we've raped and
pillaged your state, from yourroads to everything else, your
waterways and all the crap thatwe burnt for the last hundred
years since we've been makingclean it up.
Take $2 billion, balance yourbudget, fix your stuff up.
(21:27):
Let the casinos fund the rest.
Thank you, have a good day andyou know what?
We're the best company on thedamn planet because we're
General Motors and we did thisfor you.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
That is 100 percent the problem with it.
You're telling me that youcouldn't have funded the pension
.
You're telling me that youcouldn't have.
You know, know, let's not evenmake it about people.
Let's just say let's, let'spretend that we're like
corporate overlords, right?
And we just say look, we have afiduciary responsibility to our
shareholders and this is whatwe're going to do.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
That's six billion responsibility to their yacht.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
That's your problem exactly, and not only that, but
like that $6 billion puts you sofar behind.
We're trying to like launch awhole new generation of hybrid
vehicles right now.
You are behind Toyota, you'rebehind Nissan, you're behind
everybody.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
You were trying to launch a whole generation of
workers.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Fund some of that crap.
No, fund some of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
That's the problem.
Right now.
We're not funding anything.
We are literally handing it topeople who don't need it any
more than they already havegotten.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
That's right.
No, and it's not just UAW, it'snot just auto workers.
We talk a lot aboutsocioeconomics here and I want
to say that a couple of yearsago, george Lucas and Disney
were talking about putting aLucasArts Star Wars museum here
in Chicago, and they decided notto do it because they said the
(23:04):
only way they would do it is ifthe city of Chicago gave them a
billion dollars and the city of.
Chicago said exactly as theyshould.
First of all, star Wars sucksanyway.
As soon as they started kissingtheir sisters on that show, it
was the end for me oh, star wars.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Star wars itself makes money, no matter what
happens and and when georgelucas drug himself out of the
back office trailer that he wasin at that lot and then decided
somebody was going to buy hisstuff and they could build that
movie.
And that movie sold and sold,and sold, and sold and sold and
and then Disney bought it andit's continued to pay out.
Take the money and build thepark, build the center, build
(23:42):
whatever you want to do.
And you're exactly right, thathas nothing to do with heavy
equipment, trucking,construction or anything, but
it's the same basic principle.
Oh, city of Chicago, we want abillion dollars, that's it, no
negative I'll tell you, if youwanted if you needed that
billion dollars, that and youneeded anything trucked into the
(24:05):
city, the teamsters are goingto take a piece of that back for
the through, all the fees andand all that stuff that you're
going to pay.
I mean, like, here's theproblem these people don't
realize that when you screw thesystem, the system will screw
you, the system, the system willscrew you.
The system screws back, baby,when you screw anybody that's
listening to this that works fora living.
I don't care if you're anengineer, I don't care if you're
(24:28):
a sales manager, if you'reactually driving a truck or
you're operating a piece ofequipment or you're dispatching
somewhere and you just have uson because you don't want to
stab yourself.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Well, if you listen to this, you have to be enraged
by this you have to be, unlessyou have enough stock options,
that you're better off this way.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
No, we know you're still enraged.
No, we don't have enough stockoptions.
The stock options were takenwhen they bought the back, so
then they gave it to the peoplethat didn't need it.
There's no stock options.
Do you think that they carethat in some town, somewhere a
guy couldn't get enough peopleso they had to get this company
to come in and automate theirequipment so one guy could run
(25:10):
three.
No, they're trying to figureout where they can park their
yacht.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
It's bad, it's bad, it's upsetting.
Well, one thing that's notupsetting I love this.
So there's a story that comeout a couple of days ago Manitou
.
Manitou equips theirtelehandler.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Equips Manitou, it's Manitou, it says Manitou.
If you go up to Manitowoc,wisconsin, it's Manitowoc, not
Manitowoc.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Well, it's manitowoc, not manitowoc.
Well, it's man anyway.
Well, wait, is that how you ask?
Speaker 2 (25:43):
google ai.
Yeah, I don't know how youpronounce it.
That's fine, listen.
It gets weird out in themidwest because, like anywhere
in the world, m-i-l-a-n is milan.
Somehow you cross into michigan, becomes milan.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
So no, that's true, that's true, and it medina.
Is medina anywhere else in theworld?
Anywhere else in the world butin the in in ohio, in central
ohio, it's medina right exactlyso you got.
What do you?
How did you pronounce it,manitou?
Manitou yeah, because there'smanitowoc wisconsin, because I
mean, if you had two of themthen it'd be manna too, manna
(26:20):
twosome.
Yeah, man, it's two of them.
Hey, did you see that?
Uh, tell him over there, man,that's two of them.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Oh there, but these things are awesome, man.
I love those youtube videoswhere these things yoink the
trees up and they saw it andjust rip all the branches off
and toss the log off to the side.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
I love watching those , so as soon as I saw this cross
my news feed, I got realexcited.
This that is fathering thedeforestation of the very
country which we live in stop.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
We can't sit here talking about the raping of the
earth with our strip mines andhow cool the dump trucks are and
not getting no, I know, I know,I'm just, I'm just being, I'm
just being kidding DeforestationI guess that's what we're on
about today.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
No, no, no.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I think these are cool, but I think what's really
neat about these is I have zeroexperience with one of these.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I can't imagine you've ever been near it.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Have you driven one?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Well, I have not ran one, but I have actually been to
paul bunyan show where theyactually show you this stuff and
they process trees and stuffand and it is cool and it is
neat to see the efficiency ofthe lumber equipment that is
being produced out there andjohn deere bought a bunch of
this stuff years ago.
There's all kinds of companiesthat make the stuff, from
chippers to harvesters tode-limbing tools, selective
(27:42):
cutting tools.
So if you have a forest youwant to go in and selectively
cut, you can do that.
Imagine when you had to do thisstuff by hand.
When two guys go out with a saw, they drop the trees, then the
crew goes out and pulls themwith the steam donkey back and
then limbs them and then stacksthem.
It was dangerous work, it'shorrific work.
(28:03):
And they I mean they made itsimpler and easier with all
these new pieces that keepcoming out that are improvised.
And then really it comes fromthe workplace.
The logging industry is one ofthe most innovative workspace
providers of tools because allthey do is refine it based off
(28:23):
of the users that use them.
And if you ever talk to anybodythat actually sells any kind of
forestry items, we'll call it,we'll just lump it into that
umbrella.
I mean, they just geek outabout this stuff and some of
these guys that get involvedwith this stuff they are so far
into it.
It's incredible If you're adirt guy that doesn't really get
(28:46):
into that stuff or you're adriver or anybody like that,
that's not around that stuff.
Look up tub grinders.
Tub grinders are anotherexample of how they minimize
waste and then they actuallyprocess tree waste and it is
literally a tub with rollingknives in the bottom of it and
(29:07):
whatever you put in there willcome out a certain size off the
belt.
That's cool and it is cool andyou know Moore Bark and those
guys.
I mean there are so manycompanies that have all this
equipment.
But what's cool is is there'sonly so many people in each
space.
It's like the industry hasworked itself out and there's a
(29:29):
balance there.
These guys build some stuff.
These guys build some stuff.
These guys build likesemi-commercial rental equipment
because you're going to rent itand you're going to run like a
12-inch tree through it butyou're not professionals at it.
There's so much of that stuffthat goes on.
The telehandler with thewoodcracker tree saw on it is
neat, because that to me screamsselective cutting.
(29:52):
I don't care if you'reharvesting special wood or
you're just trying toselectively go and harvest a
tree off of a golf coursebecause it's in the way.
This allows you to go in there,reach out, take it, move it
away and do something with it,and that's what's cool about it?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
you know I was checking out this tub grinder
thing.
I don't know if I ever told youthe story now we've gone down
the rabbit hole.
We're down the rabbit hole.
I don't know if I ever told youthe story.
When I was like 13, 14, and Iwas in costa rica with my family
, they took me to a rock quarryto like just kind of show it to
me and show it to the kids andthis is what a rock quarry does,
and look how cool this is.
And it was close enough to thehouse that I ran away and I went
(30:33):
to like try to work on thequarry because I just thought it
was so freaking cool and we hadsomething that looked a lot
like one of these tub grinders,but it was basically for turning
soft rock into sand and smallerrock and asphalt and stuff and
you know, basically churning itinto this like little aggregate
stuff.
And I just remember thisconveyor belt and dudes would
(30:57):
hop onto the conveyor belt, pushstuff that wasn't supposed to
be on there off of it and hopoff before they dumped
themselves into the grinder.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
And like I never had the vocabulary.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I didn't know what any of that stuff was, but I
just loved it.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
No, that's a whole other industry.
The, the crushing and recyclingindustry is massive.
Yeah, you know, some of theleaders in that industry were
Terex and have been Terex, powerscreen, um, as people have
bought up other companies anddone stuff like that.
I mean that that is like thesame as the forestry stuff.
Out of necessity and need, thatindustry is developed and built
(31:34):
crushing, sorting equipment.
It's not simple, but it is Likeyou have an impact crusher
where you have a flying rotorand then there's sacrificial
wear items on there that beatthe rock.
You can have a cone crusherwhere you have a center mantle
that moves around and it breaksit down until it gets to the
size that it needs to on afunnel type basis.
(31:55):
It's just like the forestryindustry, but for rock, right?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Diamond blades or something.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
That is another group of people that are just so
passionate about that stuff,because that's another industry,
that where when you're in theheavy equipment industry and
you're like working forCaterpillar and you are a
hydraulic excavator guy midsize,that's what you know, right
when you are in the rockcrushing field or you're in the
forestry field, you somehow getswallowed up into all these
things under the umbrella ofitems that your company offers.
(32:31):
And if you're a user of thestuff, then you're quickly all
into all of it, from everythingfrom tire chains to walking
forestry equipment that actuallyhas legs instead of tires, like
it's a whole thing.
And and we need to, you know,honestly, we should get some
people on here from more barkand and guys like this, where
(32:52):
because those guys they loveworking on this stuff and they
love talking about it A lot ofpeople have no idea what it does
.
They just know that, uh, theyjust know their stuff from Ikea
is in a box and they boldedtogether and they're trying to
figure out how it works, but howthat goes from a tree or
recycled wood to sawdust, tothat, that first part where you
(33:16):
grind all that stuff up to makewhat that's made out of, is
incredible.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
We should get some of those guys on here, but I think
the next guest we have, oh, wegotta have.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
We're gonna get biff on here.
We gotta get biff on here totalk telematics.
He hides in the background hehides.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
We gotta get him on the show.
I think he's embarrassed abouthis accent he's got.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
He's got a super strong midwestern accent.
So when you, when you run ataxi, you when you run a taxi in
east cleveland, you're gonnapick up some weird stuff and you
shuttle people from thecleveland clinic and uh, and all
that stuff over there, whichare great hospital systems, and
you're running them downtown andover to the west side where
they go.
Maybe you're taking them to theflats, or you're picking
(33:58):
doctors up from the flatsbecause they've been on a bender
all day and they gotta gochange a heart.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
You can speak however you want to in the cab of that
cab yeah you can do what youwant, but then, when you get
interjected into an officeenvironment, you have a weird
blend now, my friend, now it'sgotten weird, right, you're
sitting there trying to tellbecky and receiving as per my
last email, and it's gottenweird, right, you're sitting
there trying to tell Becky andreceiving, as per my last email,
and it's coming out all kindsof wrong.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
That's right.
You're better off using a speakand spell.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
We should have a speak and spell on the show we
tell you anytime.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
You know, I remember back in the dealership days
there would be guys that wouldcome over from Japan or South
Korea and stuff like that, andthey would have the mobile
translator, oh yeah, and youwould talk to them and they
would spin it around.
They would read it, they wouldtype in it and spin it around
and it would tell you what theyjust said.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
He's learning spelling with Texas Instruments
Speak and Spell, spell rain,r-a-i-n.
That is correct.
She's teaching her brother withSpeak and Spell H-E-R.
That is right.
They're learning new words withSpeak and Spell.
But don't tell them they'relearning, they just think
(35:13):
they're having fun.
Speak and Spell for words.
Speak and Read for stories.
Speak and Math for numbers FromTexas.
For stories.
Speak in math for numbers fromtexas instruments.
They make learning fun yeah,yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
It was funny when they when they had it kind of
off because they thought they'resaying the right thing and
they're smiling and nodding atyou, but what they basically
told you was all your filters inthe parts department were
organized wrong right, which Ithink is probably what they
meant to say no, they were right.
I took offense to that everytime that it happened.
Let me tell you they haven'tmore than once.
(35:46):
I don't know what that means.
Yeah it seemed prettyfrustrating all these spark
plugs are in the wrong order oh,yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Well, we are perilously close to, uh, the
summer solstice, so we'll makethis pagan and druid close out.
We'll have them chanting in thebackground, like they do at
Stonehenge in Sacrifice ofVirgin, and that'll kick off
season two, right?
Thanks for listening, like andsubscribe All that stuff.
Well, we at work we'll cut all this out, but at
work we invoked a cone policywith the vehicle.
So the driver said to put conesout in a direction in which the
vehicle could travel uponparked.
And when they exit the vehicle,guess what's going to happen?
Put the cones out or gettickets.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Ooh, that'll be good.
100% chance that those conesare going to get left behind at
least half the time.
We ordered twice what we neededand with that we're back after
a long, long hiatus here.
We'll call this season two.
This will be season twoepisodes this amazing season two
(00:40):
season two, the first eversecond season of the heavy
equipment podcast.
I'm your host, joe boris, herewith hot mike switzer, the
reason.
I know it'd be one season two.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
There can only be one season two you know I've been
on the first one you need topeel.
You had to get away from theball field.
I've been announcing over there.
They're not sure what's comingdown trucks, cars, balls, what
we're here in the seven inningstretch.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's like I thought this was an ambulance yard.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
What the hell's happening okay, we're back and
this is my freight liner.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Freight liner the one that moves the balls this is
jesus christ, I got that big cupthat just scoops the balls
right into the back anyway.
Anyway, I know that it's seasontwo because when we did season
one we did the very firstepisode.
There is an event out here inOak Park called Porch Fest.
Porch Fest is actually reallycool.
(01:35):
It's there's, you know, theseolder 1890s, early 1900s homes.
They have these big porchesbecause you didn't have air
conditioning back then.
1900s homes.
They have these big porchesbecause you didn't have air
conditioning back then.
So you volunteer your house anda local band typically a
well-known local band shows upat your house and plays on your
porch and the neighbors come outand they've got food trucks and
stuff like that.
It's like a little, a littlemusic festival right there on
(01:57):
someone's porch.
Well, after we recorded thefirst ever episode, we were
sitting in front of porch festand my wife says to me why are
you and mike doing this?
This is a total waste of time.
And I looked at her and I saidthe episodes are going to take
off, woman, and they are goingto provide for this family.
And a year later I think we're,uh, slightly closer to making
(02:21):
that happen.
We like to think so.
We like to think so any day.
Now that sixty thousand dollarcontract for mac md is going to
close, we're going to be allseriousness.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Let me tell you in all seriousness.
That is the cool thing aboutthe heavy equipment podcast.
We're not bought, owned orsubsidiated by anyone that's
true we talk as if no one islistening, and those that want
to partake may well.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
it's a good thing we talk like no one is listening,
and those that want to partakemay Well.
It's a good thing we talk likeno one is listening, because if
you've been paying attention tosome of these dump trucks
happening in central Florida,nobody's driving those things.
John Deere has been workingwith a couple of companies out
there and they have a singleoperator operating three remote
controlled dump trucks on thisjob site and I don't know how I
(03:08):
want to feel about that, michael.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, it raises a bunch of concerns about safety.
And then you know whether ornot you can have the attention
span to operate three things atonce.
Clearly they are, and which ishard because most people don't
have the attention span to walktheir dog.
But we have to have a solutionNow.
I don't want to pronounce thiswrong, but I may.
Is it?
Teleo, teleo, teleo soundsright.
(03:32):
Okay, they're the ones that arethe engineering behind all this
and they have that universalsystem that they're working on,
which obviously takes effort andtime to integrate that into
whatever OEM that you have.
But they have it and they havethe ability to do that.
And the cool part about that isthere's now a sustainable
system that somebody could goand say listen, I got John Deere
(03:54):
, I got CAD, I got Volvo.
I can put this stuff on herebecause I need to run it time
and time again and I don't know.
I was reading this articles andI'm reading about the company
and I'm doing all this stuffbecause I vowed that I would not
just get on here and wing itand they not for season two baby
.
No, no.
(04:14):
So my thing is is that I wonderwhat the unions think about
this.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, they've got to be just livid about this.
They also recognize they have ashortage.
Yeah, it goes both ways right,but I I think it's one of these
things where, like, there is ashortage.
But I think that what this doesis it uses the shortage and it
gives the corporations kind ofleverage to say, like you know,
(04:40):
hey, you're, you're bringing meunion labor and I get that, but
you're not bringing me thebodies that I need to fill my
equipment, so I'm going to gosource it from somewhere else,
because you got to imagine thatthis is not a union operator
sitting up there yeah for statesthat you don't have to be union
.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
It doesn't matter, it doesn't care what you are.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
well, that's it.
It doesn't care if you're union, not union, man, man, woman,
black, white, green, purple, itdoesn't care, it's
non-denominational, and youbelieve in the strength of
(05:22):
organized labor and you careabout your fellow workers.
Somebody offers you hey, youknow, you've got a skill set
that we need.
We need three machines operated, five machines operated, 10
machines operated.
We're going to pay you to do it, you know, but you might get
paid more to do it.
But that means that your unionbrothers and sisters are not
(05:44):
going to be able to get thosejobs because you're going to be
doing it.
So where do you land on?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
that that's a good point Because, let's say, you
call the hall, wherever hallyou're at, and the hall goes.
I got five guys and you're like, but I really need nine.
And you're like, I got fiveguys, I'm like, all right, send
them down.
And.
And you're like, I got fiveguys, I'm like, all right, send
them down.
And we're going to crash course.
We're going to train them onhow to operate a haul truck and
(06:10):
like a roller, and while theyget the haul truck running and
doing its thing, they're rollingout some BS on the side and
sealing up some stuff at the endof the day.
Meanwhile, they're only runningone thing at any given time.
They're only running one thingat any given time.
My point is is that it wouldallow somebody the opportunity
to make a weird different typeof rate and at the same time,
(06:30):
you're getting work done withless people, because that's all
there is.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Right, so that is a?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
that is kind of an interesting thing.
I don't know.
It leaves a lot of things towonder.
I mean, kat's been working onthe remote control skid steer.
John Deere has remote controlskid steer.
They've been working on a bunchof remote control integrated
technology.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yep, husqvarna has got a couple of remote operated
machines now, but it's still oneoperator, one machine they're
taking the operator out ofharm's way.
But it's one operator, onemachine.
Now some of these electricforklifts and we covered this a
couple of months ago some ofthese electric forklifts are
trainable.
So what that means is that theyfollow a certain path.
(07:12):
They raise and lower the forksat the same point on that path
and they kind of just follow apre-prescribed or a
pre-programmed route within awarehouse.
So the idea is that with oneguy who's forklift certified, he
can reach up, scoop the thingout, pick it out of the rack,
bring it down, and then he turnsaround and there's an empty,
(07:35):
driverless forklift waiting forhim, puts it down in front of it
.
The other forklift picks it upand takes it outside and puts it
down where it's supposed to godown.
And I think on certain types ofjob sites, especially with dump
trucks, where they basicallyjust kind of go and stop, they
wait to get filled up and thenthey go and finish it out,
finish out their route.
I think that lends itself tothis kind of multiple unit
(08:01):
control, because you couldtheoretically have two units
parked, one being loaded, oneunloading, and then the other
one be driving it through thefield.
And to your point earlier aboutsafety there is a safety
concern, but whose safety are weworried about?
Because there's no operators inthere to be unsafe, and the
more we get to automate, thefewer and fewer operators we're
(08:24):
actually going to have in themud and the sluice and in the
rocks.
I mean, how many gory, horrificaccidents happen every week on
job sites across the countrybecause somebody is in the wrong
place at the wrong time.
Somebody didn't see them.
They slip fall.
Maybe they're doing somethingstupid, maybe somebody in the
machine is doing somethingstupid.
(08:44):
You know, you could just aseasily say that this is a
pro-safety thing.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Well, yeah, I mean it absolutely could be.
When you remove the amount ofpeople from the work site, the
work area that's actually beingworked on, and then you have the
ability to run three, twomachines all at the same time or
as they alternate.
That that's a whole differentdynamic than the industry is
used to.
Yeah, because, like you saidearlier, with the autonomy and
(09:14):
with the remote control thatthey're working on, like at the
various oem levels, it's aone-for-one basis, right?
Or it's a removed operatorbasis, meaning that there's no
one involved?
It's a removed operator basismeaning that there's no one
involved, it's just going right.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Well, you're seeing that in the in the big class,
eight heavy trucks especiallylike in uh, you know, I wouldn't
say over the road, but I wouldsay when you're looking at from
port to warehouse, like ifyou're looking for, you know,
like the kind of thing thatAmazon does where a container
comes off a ship, it's loadedonto a trailer.
That trailer gets connected tothe back of a semi.
The semi goes, you know five,10 miles down the road to a
(09:50):
warehouse, backs it up,decouples and goes and gets
another container.
That of thing I think you'regoing to start to see automated
very soon.
They're already talking aboutthe next two, three years.
We need, we do need thatespecially, especially at
container ports and and it,container shipping is a rough is
a rough business and it'sreally rough on drivers because
(10:12):
if you could be sitting there ina line waiting to pick up a
container, waiting to pick up aload and, depending on your
contract and depending on howyou're paid, you might be
sitting there for hours and notmake a penny running on your
(10:39):
logbook.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
You can't drive, but only 11 hours a day.
So you know, unless you havesome extreme circumstance.
But the point is is that you'veburnt your available hours
waiting in line.
At some point you just say Idon't know how far I'm going to
get, but I'm going to get thatfar, and then I'm a day off, a
whole week shot.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Exactly Right, and that's why I think that if you
could automate the just thoselines, if you could automate
that idle time when you're inthat stop and go traffic, if you
can say okay, I'm connectingthe autopilot, and the autopilot
is going to handle this, theself drive is going to handle
this, that becomes some placeswould be better off for that.
Some places would be better offfor that a hundred percent.
(11:16):
Some places would be better offfor that.
Some places would be better offfor that a hundred percent.
But think of the driver.
If I say, okay, I only have 11hours that I could be driving in
a given day, but this thing isgoing to take over for two of
those hours.
I've now added range that Icould do, and especially if
you're in a place like you know,like I said, stop and go
traffic, or you're at a portwhere you're going to be, where
you know you're going to besitting for a while, you can get
(11:38):
up, you can walk to the back,make yourself a cup of coffee,
stretch your legs.
You know you could.
Oh my gosh, this could besomething that would not.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Everyone has.
Not everyone has the bun coffeemaker in their in their sleeper
, joe not everyone is privilegedwith the power of 100 inches of
Volvo Mac.
Just absolute, taking care ofyou the entire way.
You're there for your entireexistence on the road.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
My Twitter handles Volvo.
Joe, for a reason, baby.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, we came from the two by five coffin sleepers.
Let me tell you, cab overs werepopular because you could
actually stretch your legs outwhen you laid sideways across
the cab.
That's right, you know.
When you have somebody runningmultiple pieces of equipment or
multiple trucks or whatever, youwant to try and multiply with
the single human's ability.
(12:29):
Think about the power you'veharnessed and what they're in
charge of.
At that point it's a lot.
Yeah, it's a.
It's a lot.
Not since the days of thefreightliner powerliner have we
entrusted somebody with thatmuch under their ass at any
given time.
Kta 613 speed moved it down theroad like it was nothing back
(12:55):
then.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Oh, yeah, now we're back.
We've gone full circle well,kind of I may have hallucinated
this, but I swear I saw one ofthose old.
It must have been early 80s.
I was a young kid and I swearthis thing had four axles.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
It had like two axles underneath the cab there's a
lot of that stuff out there, alot of heavy haul stuff that was
built Late 70s, early 80s.
They did a bunch of stuff andthen through the 70s they built
all kinds of wild stuff.
I mean, they still do theystill make multiple steer axle
trucks and different things?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
But you don't see them on the road like that.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
No, not anymore.
They kind of standardized a lotof that stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, like that.
No, not anymore.
They kind of standardized a lotof that stuff.
Yeah, boo, you still see thatin australia, though you get
like the scania guys that arerunning these long trains, the
trains are crazy.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
The road trains are crazy.
They had scania power overthere.
They got mac over there.
Kenworth's running all theirstuff with the cummins platform
over there.
They're.
That's a whole different world.
We got to get somebody on therefrom there.
They like their Chrysler stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Like their Chrysler.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
They do Chrysler Utes .
Speaker 2 (14:01):
They do, why would they not?
All right, I think we've talkedto that one to death.
Actually, you know what wehaven't talked to death.
While we're on the subject ofunion labor and union brothers
and sisters and all the issuesthat come up with that, when you
start considering automation, Ihave to say I don't know if you
remember this last year,september through november,
(14:22):
there was a six-week strike.
Uaw strike affected the entireindustry, and especially gm we
talked about it several times.
They were saying there's notenough money for a pension fund.
We're never going to renew thepension fund.
We're're not going to continuewith those obligations.
They pushed back againstincreasing wages.
Well, within weeks of the strikeending, gm announced that they
(14:46):
wanted to do a $10 billion stockbuyback.
The stock buyback is a roughdeal because it doesn't serve
anybody.
It doesn't put food onanybody's table.
It doesn't enable you to go outinto your community and spend
money and buy things for thekids and put taxes into the
system that funds the schoolsand the roads and everything.
It's just strictly taking moneyout of circulation and raising
(15:11):
the value the stock value forthe shareholders in the
boardroom.
So I don't care for that tobegin with.
But back in November the GMboard said no, no, no.
We are doing this to save moneybecause we have a stock
dividend that we pay out everyquarter and if we buy back this
(15:32):
$10, or rather $6 billion, itends up being $6 billion worth
of stock.
We're going to save over thelong run paying out those
dividends to those $6 billionworth of shares.
So in the long run it'sactually going to save the
company money.
All right, maybe it will, maybeit won't.
We'll leave it at that.
Yesterday the news broke onAutomotive News that GM had done
(15:55):
the buy.
They've started that purchaseof that $6 billion.
But oh, by the way, they alsovoted to raise their stock
dividend 30%.
So the company saves nothingand their stock value goes up.
And I am just absolutely,completely and utterly disgusted
and I can't believe the unionshaven't flipped out about it.
(16:19):
I think behind closed doorsthey got to just be fuming.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Well first of all, I'm going to start off my next
few moments by saying thisdespite my love for gmc branded
vehicles not chevy but gmc Ilike gmc trucks way back in the
day when they claimed they werehand-built but weren't manner.
But the point is, is that Ilike GMC vehicles, I like what
(16:44):
they do, I like all of that.
What I hate is this kind ofcrazy that companies do and it
doesn't have to, it doesn't.
It's not just GM.
This is a whole other problemof other companies to do the
same thing.
So, yeah, we're going to go outthere and we're going to swallow
up using our cash which, if wego back even further, the
(17:07):
American public lent them.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I was going to say it's actually our cash as
taxpayers.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And we're going to buy back our shares and then
we're going to put them backinto the share pool and by
buying them back at the rate ofwhatever they announced that
they've determined to be, do youknow what they were?
Buying them back at Market?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
day pricing.
Well, they were buying them atmarket pricing, but they did it
real quickly in a way thatpeople couldn't time the buy to
jack up the prices.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
So they do that which virtually sets their free
market share price Exactly, andthen by doing so they capitalize
on a good run that they've hadlately because they're actually
able to put out product.
And when you really look atthat, you go this is the
crookedest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
The unions should be freaking out because if anybody
and we've talked about thisbefore if anybody needed a stock
dividend and anybody needed abonus, it is all the workers on
the floor that if you walked upto them and you handed them a
$900 net paycheck and said thankyou for your hard work this is
why we're here and you know whatthis is for you.
(18:19):
Right?
$900 for lead people and everyplant, half of that for the guy
who's literally sweeping thefloor to promote workplace
environment.
Positivity would go so muchfurther than reading this kind
of crap on the news and readingabout how people are working the
(18:42):
system to freak everything out.
And then they have a wholeguaranteed stock pool and then,
oh, we're going to raise ourdividend bonuses by 30% or
whatever.
They ended up being no, raisedit by 33 percent.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
A full third.
So one third.
So what do you do?
It's gross.
What do you do?
Well, I've got worse news foryou, because you made the
comment if they just gave everyline worker nine hundred dollars
, make it a thousand, make itfive thousand.
Here's the reality.
If you take $6 billion and youdivide that over the 46,000
(19:20):
United Auto Workers that areworking at General Motors, it's
a one-time bonus of $130,434.78.
That's my point.
You could have changed thelives of 46,000 people.
You could have changed thelives of their family.
You could have given their kidsan education.
You could have given those kidsa future.
(19:41):
You could have invested inthose communities.
You could have gotten themschools and hospitals and
libraries and services that theyneed.
We're still talking aboutMichigan, where there's lead in
the water, there's roads thatare horrible, there's a lack of
community engagement to thepoint that some areas of Detroit
don't even have police andambulance coverage.
But $130,434.78 for everysingle GM United Auto Worker
(20:11):
member could have gone intotheir account, but instead it
went directly into the pocketsof the people sitting on that
board and it is offensive let's.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Let's break it down into something that's even more
plausible.
You could you could feasiblyhand everybody a ten thousand
dollar check out of that 133cash.
That's, after taxes, okay,$10,000 net.
You could take the remainingthird of the $133,000 and dump
(20:45):
it into their pension.
That's it.
You could take the other thirdand fund their health care for
the entire UAW period.
Yep, you could take the thirdafter that.
So $6 billion is third is $2billion.
Take the $2 billion and hand itto the state and say thank you
(21:07):
for nothing, because we haven'tbeen able to give you shit for
the a hundred years we've beenhere and we've raped and
pillaged your state, from yourroads to everything else, your
waterways and all the crap thatwe burnt for the last hundred
years since we've been makingclean it up.
Take $2 billion, balance yourbudget, fix your stuff up.
(21:27):
Let the casinos fund the rest.
Thank you, have a good day andyou know what?
We're the best company on thedamn planet because we're
General Motors and we did thisfor you.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
That is 100 percent the problem with it.
You're telling me that youcouldn't have funded the pension
.
You're telling me that youcouldn't have.
You know, know, let's not evenmake it about people.
Let's just say let's, let'spretend that we're like
corporate overlords, right?
And we just say look, we have afiduciary responsibility to our
shareholders and this is whatwe're going to do.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
That's six billion responsibility to their yacht.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
That's your problem exactly, and not only that, but
like that $6 billion puts you sofar behind.
We're trying to like launch awhole new generation of hybrid
vehicles right now.
You are behind Toyota, you'rebehind Nissan, you're behind
everybody.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
You were trying to launch a whole generation of
workers.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Fund some of that crap.
No, fund some of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
That's the problem.
Right now.
We're not funding anything.
We are literally handing it topeople who don't need it any
more than they already havegotten.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
That's right.
No, and it's not just UAW, it'snot just auto workers.
We talk a lot aboutsocioeconomics here and I want
to say that a couple of yearsago, george Lucas and Disney
were talking about putting aLucasArts Star Wars museum here
in Chicago, and they decided notto do it because they said the
(23:04):
only way they would do it is ifthe city of Chicago gave them a
billion dollars and the city of.
Chicago said exactly as theyshould.
First of all, star Wars sucksanyway.
As soon as they started kissingtheir sisters on that show, it
was the end for me oh, star wars.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Star wars itself makes money, no matter what
happens and and when georgelucas drug himself out of the
back office trailer that he wasin at that lot and then decided
somebody was going to buy hisstuff and they could build that
movie.
And that movie sold and sold,and sold, and sold and sold and
and then Disney bought it andit's continued to pay out.
Take the money and build thepark, build the center, build
(23:42):
whatever you want to do.
And you're exactly right, thathas nothing to do with heavy
equipment, trucking,construction or anything, but
it's the same basic principle.
Oh, city of Chicago, we want abillion dollars, that's it, no
negative I'll tell you, if youwanted if you needed that
billion dollars, that and youneeded anything trucked into the
(24:05):
city, the teamsters are goingto take a piece of that back for
the through, all the fees andand all that stuff that you're
going to pay.
I mean, like, here's theproblem these people don't
realize that when you screw thesystem, the system will screw
you, the system, the system willscrew you.
The system screws back, baby,when you screw anybody that's
listening to this that works fora living.
I don't care if you're anengineer, I don't care if you're
(24:28):
a sales manager, if you'reactually driving a truck or
you're operating a piece ofequipment or you're dispatching
somewhere and you just have uson because you don't want to
stab yourself.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Well, if you listen to this, you have to be enraged
by this you have to be, unlessyou have enough stock options,
that you're better off this way.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
No, we know you're still enraged.
No, we don't have enough stockoptions.
The stock options were takenwhen they bought the back, so
then they gave it to the peoplethat didn't need it.
There's no stock options.
Do you think that they carethat in some town, somewhere a
guy couldn't get enough peopleso they had to get this company
to come in and automate theirequipment so one guy could run
(25:10):
three.
No, they're trying to figureout where they can park their
yacht.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
It's bad, it's bad, it's upsetting.
Well, one thing that's notupsetting I love this.
So there's a story that comeout a couple of days ago Manitou
.
Manitou equips theirtelehandler.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Equips Manitou, it's Manitou, it says Manitou.
If you go up to Manitowoc,wisconsin, it's Manitowoc, not
Manitowoc.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Well, it's manitowoc, not manitowoc.
Well, it's man anyway.
Well, wait, is that how you ask?
Speaker 2 (25:43):
google ai.
Yeah, I don't know how youpronounce it.
That's fine, listen.
It gets weird out in themidwest because, like anywhere
in the world, m-i-l-a-n is milan.
Somehow you cross into michigan, becomes milan.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
So no, that's true, that's true, and it medina.
Is medina anywhere else in theworld?
Anywhere else in the world butin the in in ohio, in central
ohio, it's medina right exactlyso you got.
What do you?
How did you pronounce it,manitou?
Manitou yeah, because there'smanitowoc wisconsin, because I
mean, if you had two of themthen it'd be manna too, manna
(26:20):
twosome.
Yeah, man, it's two of them.
Hey, did you see that?
Uh, tell him over there, man,that's two of them.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Oh there, but these things are awesome, man.
I love those youtube videoswhere these things yoink the
trees up and they saw it andjust rip all the branches off
and toss the log off to the side.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
I love watching those , so as soon as I saw this cross
my news feed, I got realexcited.
This that is fathering thedeforestation of the very
country which we live in stop.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
We can't sit here talking about the raping of the
earth with our strip mines andhow cool the dump trucks are and
not getting no, I know, I know,I'm just, I'm just being, I'm
just being kidding DeforestationI guess that's what we're on
about today.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
No, no, no.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I think these are cool, but I think what's really
neat about these is I have zeroexperience with one of these.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I can't imagine you've ever been near it.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Have you driven one?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Well, I have not ran one, but I have actually been to
paul bunyan show where theyactually show you this stuff and
they process trees and stuffand and it is cool and it is
neat to see the efficiency ofthe lumber equipment that is
being produced out there andjohn deere bought a bunch of
this stuff years ago.
There's all kinds of companiesthat make the stuff, from
chippers to harvesters tode-limbing tools, selective
(27:42):
cutting tools.
So if you have a forest youwant to go in and selectively
cut, you can do that.
Imagine when you had to do thisstuff by hand.
When two guys go out with a saw, they drop the trees, then the
crew goes out and pulls themwith the steam donkey back and
then limbs them and then stacksthem.
It was dangerous work, it'shorrific work.
(28:03):
And they I mean they made itsimpler and easier with all
these new pieces that keepcoming out that are improvised.
And then really it comes fromthe workplace.
The logging industry is one ofthe most innovative workspace
providers of tools because allthey do is refine it based off
(28:23):
of the users that use them.
And if you ever talk to anybodythat actually sells any kind of
forestry items, we'll call it,we'll just lump it into that
umbrella.
I mean, they just geek outabout this stuff and some of
these guys that get involvedwith this stuff they are so far
into it.
It's incredible If you're adirt guy that doesn't really get
(28:46):
into that stuff or you're adriver or anybody like that,
that's not around that stuff.
Look up tub grinders.
Tub grinders are anotherexample of how they minimize
waste and then they actuallyprocess tree waste and it is
literally a tub with rollingknives in the bottom of it and
(29:07):
whatever you put in there willcome out a certain size off the
belt.
That's cool and it is cool andyou know Moore Bark and those
guys.
I mean there are so manycompanies that have all this
equipment.
But what's cool is is there'sonly so many people in each
space.
It's like the industry hasworked itself out and there's a
(29:29):
balance there.
These guys build some stuff.
These guys build some stuff.
These guys build likesemi-commercial rental equipment
because you're going to rent itand you're going to run like a
12-inch tree through it butyou're not professionals at it.
There's so much of that stuffthat goes on.
The telehandler with thewoodcracker tree saw on it is
neat, because that to me screamsselective cutting.
(29:52):
I don't care if you'reharvesting special wood or
you're just trying toselectively go and harvest a
tree off of a golf coursebecause it's in the way.
This allows you to go in there,reach out, take it, move it
away and do something with it,and that's what's cool about it?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
you know I was checking out this tub grinder
thing.
I don't know if I ever told youthe story now we've gone down
the rabbit hole.
We're down the rabbit hole.
I don't know if I ever told youthe story.
When I was like 13, 14, and Iwas in costa rica with my family
, they took me to a rock quarryto like just kind of show it to
me and show it to the kids andthis is what a rock quarry does,
and look how cool this is.
And it was close enough to thehouse that I ran away and I went
(30:33):
to like try to work on thequarry because I just thought it
was so freaking cool and we hadsomething that looked a lot
like one of these tub grinders,but it was basically for turning
soft rock into sand and smallerrock and asphalt and stuff and
you know, basically churning itinto this like little aggregate
stuff.
And I just remember thisconveyor belt and dudes would
(30:57):
hop onto the conveyor belt, pushstuff that wasn't supposed to
be on there off of it and hopoff before they dumped
themselves into the grinder.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
And like I never had the vocabulary.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I didn't know what any of that stuff was, but I
just loved it.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
No, that's a whole other industry.
The, the crushing and recyclingindustry is massive.
Yeah, you know, some of theleaders in that industry were
Terex and have been Terex, powerscreen, um, as people have
bought up other companies anddone stuff like that.
I mean that that is like thesame as the forestry stuff.
Out of necessity and need, thatindustry is developed and built
(31:34):
crushing, sorting equipment.
It's not simple, but it is Likeyou have an impact crusher
where you have a flying rotorand then there's sacrificial
wear items on there that beatthe rock.
You can have a cone crusherwhere you have a center mantle
that moves around and it breaksit down until it gets to the
size that it needs to on afunnel type basis.
(31:55):
It's just like the forestryindustry, but for rock, right?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Diamond blades or something.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
That is another group of people that are just so
passionate about that stuff,because that's another industry,
that where when you're in theheavy equipment industry and
you're like working forCaterpillar and you are a
hydraulic excavator guy midsize,that's what you know, right
when you are in the rockcrushing field or you're in the
forestry field, you somehow getswallowed up into all these
things under the umbrella ofitems that your company offers.
(32:31):
And if you're a user of thestuff, then you're quickly all
into all of it, from everythingfrom tire chains to walking
forestry equipment that actuallyhas legs instead of tires, like
it's a whole thing.
And and we need to, you know,honestly, we should get some
people on here from more barkand and guys like this, where
(32:52):
because those guys they loveworking on this stuff and they
love talking about it A lot ofpeople have no idea what it does
.
They just know that, uh, theyjust know their stuff from Ikea
is in a box and they boldedtogether and they're trying to
figure out how it works, but howthat goes from a tree or
recycled wood to sawdust, tothat, that first part where you
(33:16):
grind all that stuff up to makewhat that's made out of, is
incredible.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
We should get some of those guys on here, but I think
the next guest we have, oh, wegotta have.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
We're gonna get biff on here.
We gotta get biff on here totalk telematics.
He hides in the background hehides.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
We gotta get him on the show.
I think he's embarrassed abouthis accent he's got.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
He's got a super strong midwestern accent.
So when you, when you run ataxi, you when you run a taxi in
east cleveland, you're gonnapick up some weird stuff and you
shuttle people from thecleveland clinic and uh, and all
that stuff over there, whichare great hospital systems, and
you're running them downtown andover to the west side where
they go.
Maybe you're taking them to theflats, or you're picking
(33:58):
doctors up from the flatsbecause they've been on a bender
all day and they gotta gochange a heart.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
You can speak however you want to in the cab of that
cab yeah you can do what youwant, but then, when you get
interjected into an officeenvironment, you have a weird
blend now, my friend, now it'sgotten weird, right, you're
sitting there trying to tellbecky and receiving as per my
last email, and it's gottenweird, right, you're sitting
there trying to tell Becky andreceiving, as per my last email,
and it's coming out all kindsof wrong.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
That's right.
You're better off using a speakand spell.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
We should have a speak and spell on the show we
tell you anytime.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
You know, I remember back in the dealership days
there would be guys that wouldcome over from Japan or South
Korea and stuff like that, andthey would have the mobile
translator, oh yeah, and youwould talk to them and they
would spin it around.
They would read it, they wouldtype in it and spin it around
and it would tell you what theyjust said.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
He's learning spelling with Texas Instruments
Speak and Spell, spell rain,r-a-i-n.
That is correct.
She's teaching her brother withSpeak and Spell H-E-R.
That is right.
They're learning new words withSpeak and Spell.
But don't tell them they'relearning, they just think
(35:13):
they're having fun.
Speak and Spell for words.
Speak and Read for stories.
Speak and Math for numbers FromTexas.
For stories.
Speak in math for numbers fromtexas instruments.
They make learning fun yeah,yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
It was funny when they when they had it kind of
off because they thought they'resaying the right thing and
they're smiling and nodding atyou, but what they basically
told you was all your filters inthe parts department were
organized wrong right, which Ithink is probably what they
meant to say no, they were right.
I took offense to that everytime that it happened.
Let me tell you they haven'tmore than once.
(35:46):
I don't know what that means.
Yeah it seemed prettyfrustrating all these spark
plugs are in the wrong order oh,yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Well, we are perilously close to, uh, the
summer solstice, so we'll makethis pagan and druid close out.
We'll have them chanting in thebackground, like they do at
Stonehenge in Sacrifice ofVirgin, and that'll kick off
season two, right?
Thanks for listening, like andsubscribe All that stuff.
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