America's best and worst states for quality of life

Chuck Zodda and Mike Armstrong discuss China's lopsided economy is losing steam. Trillions in hidden debt drove China's growth. Now it threatens its future. These are America's best and worst states for quality of life. Social Security fears spur these young workers to save more. With high prices and mortgage rates, aspiring and current homeowners feel stuck. Amazon sold a used diaper. It tanked a Mom-and-Pop business.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
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(01:02):
The DAV five K Boston is presentedby Veterans Development Corporation this is the financial
exchange with Chuck Zutta and Mike Armstronga little bit after eleven. Here it
is Chuck, Mike, k andTucker with it. And we've got another
broad based rally happening in the stockmarket. The Dow Jones Industrial average is

(01:23):
up two hundred and seventy two points, S and P five hundreds up forty
five, and the NASDAG up twohundred and five. Right now, Russ
two thousand leading the way, upabout one and a half percent of thirty
two points, continuing a trend thatstarted last week after the CPI report on
Thursday, where the Russell outperformed theS and P five hundred by about three
percent on that day. Tenure USTreasury up two point nine basis points to

(01:48):
four point two one five percent.Oil. We've got West Texas Intermediate down
thirty seven cents a barrel to eightyone point eighty four triple a national average
for gas prices is at three fiftytwo and one tenth of a cent.
That, by the way, Mikedown a whole tenth of ascent over the
last day. So fantastic news therefor people that buy thousands of gallons of

(02:09):
gases, of which you know,there's probably not many, but hey,
if you're a company that needs todo that, that'll help. Or a
billionaire with a yacht doesn't use gasolinediesel, Yeah, well there might be
some gas powered yachts out there,right, maybe nuclear powered. I don't
know what they're building these days.I'm not sure. Gold we have up

(02:30):
fourteen ten and ounced to twenty fourto thirty four and eighty cents, and
that is what is moving in marketstoday. Let's talk a little bit about
China. We have two pieces inthe Wall Street Journal, and neither of
them is particularly good for the Chineseeconomy. Well, rather, the pieces
are probably fine, they won't affectit, But the Chinese economy is not

(02:50):
being described well in as being wellin these pieces. First, Chinese lopsided
economy loses steam. Well, it'snot great because it didn't have a lot
of steam to begin with. Andso what we saw was that GDP expanded
by four point seven percent in thesecond quarter according to China's National Bureau of
Statistics. That's weaker than five pointthree percent for the first quarter. All

(03:15):
of this, of course, begsthe question of hey, should we even
pay attention to what you're telling usthe growth rate is of your country's economy
anyway, No, most certainly not. But the concern that the Chinese companies
party needs to have now is theonly leg of their stool that seems to
be working is manufacturing and exports.Right, there was a few decades here

(03:38):
where real estate was working. Youwere developing a middle class that was getting
interested in consumerism. Look at thegrowth of a number of domestically grown brands
in China that have been doing well, looking foreign brands that wanted to for
foreign brands that want to sell there, like, number of different things were
going well. Those two the growingmiddle class consumer who wants to spend money

(03:58):
and the real estate market. Thoseare dead stories. Now they might come
back, they might be resurrected,but they're dead at the moment. Relying
entirely on manufacturing is an interesting strategythat's worked for a really long time,
but is being met with massive resistancearound the world right now, especially here
in the United States, but acrossEurope too, And so the next few
years in terms of how that playsout, is going to be intriguing.

(04:23):
Like for all of the angst weput together about Oh look, how organized
and you know, great China isdoing it standing up to the United States,
like just mistake after mistake being madeover there, right, Like you
developed this amazing infrastructure across the country. You have amazing, you know,
incredible tourist sites that you might openup. That nobody wants to visit China

(04:46):
for tourism. It's like bottom ofeveryone's list for a number of obvious reasons.
I would say, the bottom ofeveryone's list. Yeah, they're worst
places. You know, North Koreais up there. For me, it
would be below China. Prefer notto visit it now, but massive missed
opportunity. The other one would bethis development to the middle class story,
which again this seems to be anintentional choice, but you've had this growing

(05:12):
middle class that has now lost utterconfidence in your system and you haven't really
done anything to inspire a turnaround there. So again I lay all of that
at the feet of the Chinese CommunistParty. The I don't think this is
a separate issue, but really justan underlying other piece that is going to

(05:33):
prevent it from recovering would be thatwhile the Chinese Communist Party, that the
federal government of China itself does nothave a tremendous amount of sovereign debt outstanding.
Their local governments seem to have aI think metricrap ton is the is
the defining term there. And wehave talked about this before, where you

(05:57):
know, the debt just kind ofgets shoveled around in China, where you
know, you don't develop cities thatnobody lives in overnight without borrowing a whole
bunch of money from city. Theydon't just happen, you know. It's
it's not like you plant a cityseed and it just grows up if you
water it enough. You actually haveto spend the money on all that stuff,
and it just is it's unclear whereall of the debt actually is.

(06:24):
It's unclear who loaned it to thosemunicipalities. Although it doesn't I guess my
conclusion, it doesn't appear that abunch of US lenders are on the hook
for this money. It seems tolargely have come from the Chinese banking sector,
and you don't even know quite howmuch of it is. The estimate
that's out there according to bankers,is between seven and eleven trillion dollars,

(06:46):
but look, four trillion dollars isnot something that you just write off,
is you know, a small difference. I mean, even in today's world,
with a little bit of inflation andeverything, you still look at four
trillion dollars and you're like, that'sa lot of money. Hey, if
it just goes missing, that's kindof a problem. And that's the difference
between you know, what it couldpossibly be it they still can't account for,
which is seven seven to eleven trilliondollars, and economists are saying that

(07:10):
as much as eight hundred billion ofthat is at high risk of default,
and so would they default to isowns it. If you're a US investor
that has dumped a bunch of moneyinto sovereign municipal debts, you're not exactly
going to have a lot of luckcollecting there. But I don't get the
sense that that's what it is.It seems like there's just this shadowy network

(07:33):
of domestic Chinese banks that are lendingdifferent municipal municipalities money at the direction of
the Chinese Communist Party. And thisis why I think it's important when whateveryone
gets all hyped up about all likeChina's as well, and I think strategically
long term, it is China issusceptible to making the same mistakes that everyone

(07:56):
else makes, and because of theirsystem of governance, where there's no real
accountability, you won't know until it'stoo late, they actually can make worse
mistakes because there's no there's no stabilizerwhere it's like, oh, we've gone
too far, We've done this thewrong way. No just gets swept under
the rug and no one asked questionsabout it, And so again, China

(08:20):
China could be two things. Youcan refer to the Chinese government in a
couple of different ways. You cansay, hey, they are good long
term strategic thinkers about how to positionthemselves globally and trying to you know,
build influence to accomplish their goals.Reasonable, But you can also say that
they've done it in a way that'skind of been a house of cards that

(08:41):
is not the most stable. Andjust because things have worked out well to
this point for them, doesn't meanthat they're gonna have, you know,
a next thirty years that looks anythinglike the last thirty did. Yeah,
and I know there remains a tremendousamount of investor interest in China for obvious
reasons. The second largest population inthe world. World, it's still a
massive economy that still may eclipse theUnited States in terms of total GDP.

(09:05):
But I genuinely don't know how youlook at something like this and get any
assurance that you have any real ideaof what you are owning when investing in
a place like this, And theother thing that you always have to be
aware of the rules can change withthe snap of a finger and one specific
finger. Yes, well it's actuallytwo. Actually it's three fingers when you

(09:30):
snap. There's three fingers involved inthe snapping proce specific hand. But I
think you know people will get andsay, oh, it's great. They
could clear the regulations out and makethings easier for me as an investor.
Yeah, and then they could putthem back in the exact same way.
It's it's dangerous. Tune in fortrivia brought to you by Applebee's every day

(09:52):
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(10:13):
know what you think about the storieswe are covering. FACE is the Financial
Exchange Radio Network CNBC. Every yearthey put together their top States for Business,
and is part of that. Oneof the things that they consider there
is their quality of life rankings.And so before I guess they get to
the top states for business, theydo their quality of life ranking, and

(10:35):
so they have their ten best andten worst states for quality of life.
Do you want to start with thebest of the worst, Michael, let's
I guess let's start with the worst. We can end on a high notes.
Yeah. So again, these metricsthat they are including, By the
way, I have rarely seen oneof these rankings that is less statistical measurement

(10:56):
based than this one. But youhave crime, childcare, healthcare, and
vironmental quality and quote inclusiveness. Thatlast one seems like it's gonna be tough
to measure. But anyway, let'slet's go on. UH. That's how
they ranked these states, and howdo you want to do this? We're
just gonna list off the ten worststates according to UH. According to say,
some notable things about each one.Sure, Arizona's number ten, So

(11:18):
I guess that's the tenth worst.Uh huh state, not the worst.
And they apparently scored one hundred andnineteen out of three hundred and five points.
They got a D minus. Apparentlydid not take into any sort of
account affordability, wages, or purelyjust hey, is it nice environment there?

(11:39):
Because then again, if you're gonnaa quality of life, shouldn't you
be talking about weather and environment?No, that's value of life, you
know. That's if I thought youwere gonna say something about money. No,
yeah, like value of quality oflife, value of quality. Yeah,
okay, okay, I don't know, but I would think weather should
take part in this. If you'regonna talk about quality of life in Arizona,
attracts a lot of peop because,right, the weather should. It's

(12:03):
sunny three hundred days a year inArizona and they are getting one of the
worst drankings in the country. Well, I guess here's the thing is weather
can be subjective. There's some peoplewho love winter because they love skiing.
There are other people can't stand it. But you know, it's not objective
inclusive inclusiveness. It's true, theykind of lose me on that. Okay.

(12:24):
Kansas number nine, apparently the childcareis sparse, is what they say.
They only have eight hundred and twentyfive licensed childcare centers in a state
of two point nine million people,which again okay. But Massachusetts, as
we will cover, made it intosome of the top rankings, has a

(12:45):
lot of fildcare centers, but they'rejust really expensive childcare in the country.
So again, if you're if you'remeasuring the availability of childcare, well,
I'm not sure that helps me.Let's see, we've got Louisiana in Missouri
are next. Then you've got Louisianaand Missouri. Louisiana particular is consistently one

(13:05):
of the highest crime states in thecountry, So I'll kind of give them
that. That's that's oftentimes a problemfor them. There's there's a lot that
makes Louisiana kind of tough to livein, including it's really hot most of
the year. You got hurricanes thatcome through there on a fairly decent clip.
At this point, the insurance marketis falling apart. As you noted,

(13:26):
the crime situation is bad, wagesare low, the educational system set
up at the state level is fairlybad. Again, very few, if
any of those are mentioned in thispiece, So like, right, so
like what did they rank the thingon? Arkansas, Oklahoma? Those are
next on the list Alabama, Indiana, and then finally it finishes up with

(13:50):
Texas as the worst state in thecountry to live in for quality of life.
Just again, seems to be attractinga whole lot of businesses and people
at the moment. Right, itseems to me that you would see more
of a net migration out if thequality of life were so bad there that
bad. So now let's do thebest states for quality of life in twenty

(14:13):
twenty four. First, we havea four way tie for ninth, which
is also confusing because there are twelve'stwelve states listed in the top ten,
so it really shouldn't be a fourway tie for ninth. Actually again,
and how do you how are youunable to give one of these the win
over the other when you are makingup these metrics with like no actual measurements,

(14:35):
which made up scores. You've gotNew York, that's right, the
state that is seeing the second largestexodus out of any state in the country
is the second best for quality oflife. New Hampshire's tied up there.
New Hampshire, Okay, Massachusetts andConnecticut. Connecticut I believe is now basically

(14:56):
neutral in terms of exodus. Massachusettshas been struggling. Massachusetts, I think
we can say. I say thisas someone who lives in Massachusetts, quality
of life is pretty darn good.It's just really expensive to get said quality.
Sure, you've got good healthcare,relatively low crime. Education is good,
yep, you know, but it'sjust outrageously we can't talk about the

(15:18):
weather because the weather it doesn't matterhere California. So okay, Like again,
if we're throwing money out the window, then I guess you gotta put
California on the list. But itshould be the value of the quality of
life. I'm with you, I'mone hundred percent with you, But like,
name somebody who's like, oh,yeah, I would hate to live

(15:39):
in California if I had fifty milliondollars. But that would be like if
JD. Power and Associates were like, yes, we rank Rolls Royce number
one in initial Like, okay,no one can buy those yeah, And
I don't even know if the qualityon Rolls Royces is good or if it's
just good craftsmanship, kind of likeCalifornia. Is the quality actually good?

(16:00):
Does it just look really nice?Maine took number two. Hawaii's on this
list. Yeah, again, wouldlove to live in Hawaii, But how
is there not a value rank?I actually don't think i'd love to live
there. I disagree, I'd loveto vacation there. I get nervous about
anywhere where there's tsunami warnings. Wecould go in here, you know,

(16:21):
I'm why not frequent here, butI watched all the asteroid stuff also,
and anywhere that can be overrun bythe tidal wave from the asteroid. Yeah,
that's what makes me nervous about livingon the East Coast even Yeah,
I mean, come on, chuck, But of all the things to be
worried, here's the thing. ThePacific's bigger, the asteroid's more likely to
hit. There seems a little WashingtonState, Minnesota, New Jersey, Maine

(16:45):
you mentioned was number two. Didyou mention the number one yet? No?
The number one state for quality oflife Vermont. You have it basically
every single state. No. RhodeIsland made no presence on this list top
or bottom. Here's what I don'tquite understand New England stay without a They
got this whole thing about how theNew England states don't have great air quality
but Vermont somehow does. How doeshow do we not get the Vermont air

(17:08):
in the rest of New England's theway the wind blows? Chuck? Can
we change the way the wind blows? What if we just got some big
fan like, can you repurpose awind turbine to blow? Instead of accepting
whatever way the wind was blowing?Science would support that, Chuck. I'm
I'm just spitballing here. I'm notso yeah. I think this might be
ranking for a dumbest story of theyear. And I know, Tucky you

(17:30):
picked up for that exact reason,so I applaud you for it and it
will definitely get on our list thisyear for Festivus. I don't know.
I don't even think this is theworst one of today. No, it's
not. But the stock dudes thatdidn't talk about stock do. Yeah,
But think about how much effort wentinto putting together this really dumbly It's true.

(17:53):
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(18:17):
Like there's a piece in the WallStreet Journal. It's titled social Security
fears spur these young workers to savemore? And this gets it something we've
talked about quite often, which is, if you were to ask people under
the age of forty what they expectto receive from Social Security, the general
answer would be a nothing. Now, they very likely will receive more than

(18:38):
that, because it's hard to receiveless. Yeah, but it raises the
question, Okay, are they doinganything about it or are they just kind
of accepting their fate. So theWall Street Journal spoke to some people who
seem to be saying that they aresaving a lot more because they assume they
won't get Social Security. I wouldchallenge that premise a little bit based on
the fact that every single piece thatwe read about the general public and investing

(19:03):
would indicate that they are far farbehind in terms of retirement savings. But
nonetheless, they did find a fewpeople who are you know, taking like
this would be the best possible outcomeby the way of people being worried about
Social Security not existing in the future. The worst possible outcomes are a whole
bunch of people that and they dothis all the time, you know,
pull so Security at sixty two,for example, because they're worried about the

(19:26):
program depleting its funds by the timethey get to seventy, for example.
But this would be the best possibleoutcome if if people were worried about social
Security being there and SO said,we are going to save a whole bunch
more. I guess my view onsocial security, and I'm not saying I
am not a proponent of this beingthe fix. But can you name a

(19:47):
single government run program that provided longterm benefits of once they could be financial
benefits or like non financial benefits,but benefits of some sort of or another
to a large population of Americans thatwas subsequently taken away? Like the only
thing I can think of would besome stimulus measures that were passed during COVID,

(20:10):
and those were not long term.Those were intentionally short term by design.
And so I fully recognize and everybodyelse should too, that this should
be a massive issue for voters socialsecurities funding and whether or not it's still
well funded for generations to come.I still think that no one's gonna want
to win the twenty thirty two electionbecause they're going to have to figure this
out. But I mean, genuinely, I don't think it's going anywhere.

(20:34):
I think it's going to get toget reformed. But I'll honestly say,
like, I'm not relying it formy own personal finances because who knows,
but I'll be surprised if my generationof people get to retirement and there is
no form of Social Security. Iwould agree, like I joke about it
a lot, Yeah, but becauseit's such a just dumb problem for us

(20:56):
to not solve. And what Iwill say, Look, it might not
look the way that it does today. Sure, the benefits could be lower,
the taxes most likely will be higher. But ultimately, if there's one
way to get voters really upset atyou, it's to take away something that
they've been paying into for like fortyyears, where you said, oh,
this is what you're gonna get whenyou retire, and then by the way,

(21:18):
oh no you're not. Wh's whyI say, Look, whoever win,
Like, no one's gonna want towin the twenty thirty two election because
that's when you got to deal withit. So I think there's some clear
dangers to like building your financial planaround the safety and security of social security
existing in the future, especially ifyou're far out from that. Like I
think everybody recognizes that. Assume somehaircuts. That's what I was gonna say,
is can you can you think ofthe real downside or risks to assuming

(21:41):
socialecurity is going to fail in thefuture when building out a personal financial plan.
The worst case you went up withtoo much money, Yeah, like
you save too much. Yeah,I mean there are some downsides, right,
Like if you assume that it's goingto go belly up and take your
benefits early, well, that's youknow, that's and it doesn't get cut,
then that that was a bad decisionin hindsight. But yeah, generally

(22:03):
speaking, I mean, planning forthe worst and hoping for the best is
a pretty good financial strategy when allis said and done. Ye, I
recognize that social Security for the majorityof Americans makes up the majority of their
retirement income. It is a trickyprogram with a lot of decisions to make.

(22:23):
We always talk about the stresses whileworking and you know, putting kids
through college and funding your mortgage andall these things. But honestly, the
decisions that you need to make afterretiring, in many ways, are a
lot more complicated than the ones thatyou are making while working. They're not
necessarily harder, they're not necessarily asstressful, but they are sometimes more complicated.

(22:47):
And when to file SoC security isjust one of them. But you
know when to pull from different investmentaccounts if you have them, Whether to
you know, live off of yoursavings that you've built up versus your four
oh one K. These are allreally complex questions that you know, unlike
some of the other ones about youknow, how much to put down in
a mortgage or whether not to makean extra payment. There's just not a

(23:07):
lot written about what the best practiceis because it is highly dependent on your
personal individual scenario. And so ifyou are facing these types of retirement questions,
whether you're there or not, whetheryou're right around the corner or fifteen
years out, you probably have askedyourself these questions, and if you haven't
got gotten a satisfying answer about them, please call your Armstrong advisory group and

(23:33):
let us help you assess the question, develop a financial plan that works for
you and try to answer some ofthese, again admittedly complex questions. The
phone number four Armstrong Advisory Group eighthundred three nine three four zero zero one.
We've got a website where you canbook a call back as well at
Armstrong Advisory dot com. But onceagain that phone number to speak with a

(23:55):
real life human being at the ArmstrongAdvisory Group is eight hundred nine three four
zero zero one. The proceeding waspaid for by Armstrong Advisory Group, a
registered investment advisor. Nothing in thead or in any Armstrong guide a specific
financial, legal, or tax advice. Consult your own financial, tax,
and estate planning advisors before making anyinvestment decisions. Armstrong make contact you to
offer investment advisory services PCE and CNBC. High prices and mortgage rates, aspiring

(24:19):
and current homeowners feel stuck. Tofeel more stuck as an aspiring homeowner than
that would a current one, Yes, the current ones. The biggest thing
is, Hey, we might wantto move, but we've got a mortgage
rate of three and a half percent, and to move would require us to
take one out at six point eightpercent, and so it's cost prohibitive for

(24:40):
us to do so. All Right, I guess we'll stick it out here,
but at least we already own ourhome. The prospective homeowner is,
hey, I did a bunch ofwork, saving up a bunch of money.
Mortgage rates went way up the lastcouple of years. They haven't come
back down yet. My down paymentisn't enough to get me over the hump
to actually afford the place because pricesare still high and rates are high.
Now what do I do? Andthat's the situation that we're in, and

(25:03):
it's kind of one leads to theother because you still don't have normal levels
of inventory because sellers are saying,no, I don't want to sell yet
because I can't afford the second halfof that transaction, buying a new place.
And so with depressed inventory levels,prices have remained high, and that's
kind of causing this whole bottleneck.It's not to blame homeowners for where they

(25:26):
are. They're behaving rationally, they'redoing what makes sense. But we're also
not building enough to overcome that,and so you end up with a bunch
of people who say, yeah,I can't do what I want to do
from a housing perspective, whether ornot you see it firsthand. I'm here
to tell you. The situation isvery slowly improving. It'll be back to

(25:47):
normal about two years at this rate, very very slowly. So June of
twenty twenty three, inventory levels acrossthe United States compared to June of twenty
nineteen, we're about half yep.Now we're about two thirds, right,
you got two more years, slowpace, two more years, and we're
back to pre pandemic levels of inventory, which arguably, and don't get me

(26:10):
wrong, arguably is a pretty tighthousing market back then too. Now this
tight, not this tight. Butmost people buying a home in twenty nineteen
didn't feel like, oh wow,what a buyer's market at the time.
Yeah, you have to go backa ways to feel like, oh wow,
this is a buyer's market. Andthis is another reason why people assess
the state of the current economy isnot great. Sure, it's not just
the small ticket items where we say, hey, you know a gallon of

(26:33):
gas went up by twenty cents,or you know the price of eggs went
up. I know the eggs havesubsequently come back down. It's not just
those. It's also, hey,I'm trying to make large, meaningful changes
in my life and I can't affordone of them, you know, buying
a home or you know, buyinga car. Now, I you know,
I'm trying to buy a used carand the raid on it is fourteen
percent? How am I ever goingto afford that? Sure, it's those

(26:55):
things too. So Yeah, fewitems occupy a more direct space in the
American dream than owning a home.Do you think the white picket fence is
still the dreamer? Is there anew type of fence that people for or
no fence? Yeah? I thinkmost people would just be, you know,
more than willing to settle for thechain link if they could just afford
the home. I don't think thewhite picket is gonna be top. I

(27:18):
think the American dream today is nofront yard fence, fence around the backyard,
one of the white full board fences, plastic vinyl that you don't have
to paint anymore. Exactly. That'sthe new American dream. The plastic vinyl
full board fence is where it's at, but backyard only because the front yard

(27:41):
is just there and you don't Again, I think for most people that don't
own a home right now, fencebe damned. I don't care, no,
but this is the American Dream.Michael, sure, yeah, the
dream is that kind of fence.I don't think picket fences are in anymore.
They're kind of out. Let's takea quick break. When we come

(28:02):
back, it's time for Stack Roulette. The latest news on inflation, the
FED, the economy, and howthe markets are reacting every morning right here
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(28:49):
to visit USBI dot com and bookyour trip today. Let's visit USBI dot
com. Mike, I want totalk a little bit about diapers. To
kick off Stack good because I didtoo. Have you ever used a diaper?
Yeah, sure, me too,And that's a significant amount of my
salary over the last seven years ondiapers. Actually, yeah. So in

(29:12):
any case, diapers generally we thinkof them kind of in two forms.
You got the disposable ones. Youuse them once they get a little pooper
pee on them, Boom, you'redone. Second kind is a reusable diaper,
and generally the most common historical onesbeen cloth, and you know,

(29:33):
you wash them and everything and thenyou can use them again. But they
make reusables out of just about anythingthese days. Not swim diapers in particular
are very commonly reusable. And Iguess I would ask both you and Chuck
Tucker and Chuck, what would bethe worst possible outcome you could get when
buying a diaper? It's used,Yeah, it's used. Yeah. And

(29:59):
apparently this this is what happened herewhere there was a company that sold its
products on Amazon, and somehow someonereturned a used swim diaper, used reusable
swim diaper to Amazon. Used,if you know what we're saying, yep,
very very clearly reused, and thenthe person who was buying you a

(30:22):
new person was buying these swim diapers, bought them and somehow ended up with
the used one in their package.Because Amazon, like any other business,
makes mistakes, and so what happenedis the person who bought them wrote a
negative review, and of course thecompany that actually makes the diapers is horrified

(30:45):
and has nothing. Let's be veryclear, the company that makes these diapers
and sells them on Amazon has nothingto do with the process of shipping or
processing returns because like many of theAmazon products that are sold, they use
what's called fulfilled by Amazon, whichmeans Amazon handles the wa warehousing, the
distribution that returns all of that stuffas part of a fee to the company.

(31:06):
Amazon is refusing for several years nowto take down the negative review of
the poop filled diaper. My questionis should they? Well, I mean
yes, I disagree. If you'regoing to take your business and say I'm
never going to fulfill on Amazon again, then sure that that review should not

(31:27):
be associated with your business. Butafter this event, if your business is
still choosing to be fulfilled by Amazon, and you have no way of assuring
me that Amazon's not gonna ship anotherpoopy diaper, then I think that review's
got to stay legitimately happened. Youcan't just you can't just erase history.

(31:48):
But it shows up on the reviewof the business, not on either review
of like no one reviews Amazon.I get that, But you have chosen
to tie your business to this companythat's screwed up. If our business,
Chuck deals with a cybersecurity impact becauseof the tech firm that we hired,

(32:08):
Sure, who's responsible for that?We are? Yeah, maybe we go
and you know, have issues withthat business and don't do business with them
anymore. But ultimately you are responsiblefor the quality and sourcing and you know
vendors that you choose to use.Yeah, I guess so. I mean
I feel terrible for this couple.Like they were running the small business,

(32:31):
they were making good money, theymortgaged their home to do all this,
and now the reputation's ruined through nofault of their own other than choosing to
do business with Amazon. Beyond that, who returns a poop filled diaper?
Yeah, I mean screw that persontoo, whoever that person is. Yeah,

(32:51):
that Pemazon should not allow to buyor sell anything on Amazon going forward
either. But again this is thenow let's also be clear about something.
This small business never would have beenas successful without the relationship with Amazon.
The only reason they were able tosell their stuff so widely was, you
know, the algorithms and the systemthat Amazon has in place to help out

(33:15):
and service small businesses like the onethat they created. But I mean,
this is a good lesson in becareful who you choose to do business with
it. I mean, it's notas though you can look at Amazon of
the last decade and just not bewareof the fact that they have had similar

(33:36):
problems, not directly related to this, but I mean, how many stories
have there been about, you know, allowing ripoff products onto the platform,
about allowing knockoffs and stuff that asa small business owner you should be terrified
about in partnering with this firm.It it just seems to me that,
you know, on the return checklist, I fear an Amazon employee skid mark

(33:59):
should be on there. First onthe list should be does it smell like
poop? Yeah? Yeah, ifso, don't put it back in the
box right again. Yeah, thisis ultimately a failure on Amazon's part,
But business, beware, if you'repartnering with this company. This is kind
of park for the course and whatyou should effectively expect at this point.

(34:19):
Mike, you've been to Chipotle recently? No heard the portion size is getting
smaller though, talk what about youand Chipotle? Guys? Have prices got
too high? Yep, the burritosare too damn high Chipotle and Panero pener
excuse me, it's just price istoo high now. So apparently this is
something that people have been talking aboutwith Chipotle portion sizes being skimpy. I

(34:42):
guess which here's the thing. Theymight have been too big before, because
all I know is every time thatI had Chippotle, which was a decent
number of times, ill asleep inmy chair immediately. I got really nappy
pretty quickly afterwards. But if you'regoing to raise your prices and be as
expensive as you are, you can'tgo skimp on the porch. But so
this has been going on for thelast few weeks now, they've been facing

(35:02):
some pushbacks. So to Potle stockhas gone from sixty eight dollars a share
down to fifty six. It's abouta twenty percent dip that is wild because
of portion size complaints. It's unclearif it's actually impacting sales in a meaningful
way. That's wild, so kindof wild to see that scale of move

(35:23):
and look, I have no ideawhere to potet stock is gonna go next,
but they have been on an absolutetear over the last almost like eight
years now, since like twenty eighteen. I guess that's six years. Quick
break here for the rest of theday. We'll see you tomorrow on the
Financial Exchange.