April 15, 2025 • 36 mins
Today on the Jimmy Barrett Show:
- Bret Boyd on American manufacturing
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, what we need is more common sense breaking down
the world's nonsense about pow. American common sense.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Will see us through with the common sense of Houston.
I'm just pro common sense for Houston. From Houston. This
is the Jimmy Barrett Show, brought to you by viewind
dot Com.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Now here's Jimmy Barrett.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
All right, welcome to our show today, Happy Wednesday. I'm
gonna start with this is kind of a strange story
to start with. I want to start because I'm gonna
I'm gonna make a point here ultimately, and the difference
between billionaires, and there's a big difference in billionaires when
you're talking about Elon Musk and and Jeff Bezos from
(00:53):
Amazon fame, and there's a couple of stories they kind
of relate to that very nicely. Let's start with this one.
Just back from space Katie Perry and who's Gail King
Lauren Sanchez talk about your nepotism Lauren Sanchez in addition
to being a quote unquote journalist who doesn't work anymore
because she's now the fiance of Jeff Bezos, that that's
(01:17):
the reason why she got a seat. And that's fine,
it's his it's his Blue Origin is his company, So
if he wants to send his fiance up into space,
he's welcome to do so. They had they're talking about this.
Tonny of this as an all female flight crew is
if somehow these women were doing anything having to do
(01:37):
with the flight. I mean, it was just they go up,
they come down. Now, Blue Origins sends you up for
what sixty two miles? I think it is into where
outer space is just beginning, and then they come right
straight back down again. Now I'm not saying it doesn't
take courage to do it. If you saw that capsule
coming back down, I don't know how fast that thing
was going, but good Lord Almighty. And and you're depending
(02:00):
upon three parachutes that opened up in order to be
able to, you know, to touch down safely, which which
you did that. It takes a certain level of bravery
in order to do that. I mean, how many of us,
if given the opportunity, would go on a Blue Origin flight.
I'd like to think that I would. But I kind
of asked that as a question today. Would you if
(02:20):
you had a chance to go on a Blue Origin flight,
you know where you're gonna go up and you're going
to kiss out her space to come back down again,
all in about eleven minutes. Would that be something you'd
want to do?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yeah, hey this David. Yeah, I'd go up.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
I'd go up just for Greens, but I don't think
my doctor would let me. Jimmy, Brian Martin, and Lake Conro.
I would do the Blue Origin flight, but only if
sky Mike went with me.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
To take anybody you'd like, you can take me if
you'd like. That is an interesting comment though, for the
guy with the doctor. Would you if your doctor said no,
I don't think, I don't think you should go. You know,
I don't think I don't think your heart can handle it,
or you know, it's done good for your blood pressure, whatever,
would you listen to your doctor at that point? I
guess it depends on how old I am and how
(03:10):
much more I value the experience of going down her
space versus you know, living. And I mean, if you go,
if you're going going out of space, you're that much
closer to Heaven if that's where you're going. Right anyway,
They interviewed Katy Perry a little bit and Lori Ingram
along with Raymond Arroyo. We're having some fun with this
(03:31):
whole story last night. So here they are talking about
you know these you know six women in space, the
six woman flight crew, if you will. Here they are
talking about that, and there's some audio in there from
Katy Perry when she got back on the ground.
Speaker 6 (03:44):
It's so insulting to real astronauts. I mean, watching Katy
Perry kiss the ground when she got out, you would
have sworn she'd been trapped.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
At the space station for three years.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
I mean, it was an eleven minute journey, okay, from
takeoff to touchdown.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
It's not like she to Mars and the minute the
cameras found.
Speaker 6 (04:02):
Oprah, I thought Gail King was bringing back some rare
interplanetary minerals or something.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Oprah's crying, what's you crying about?
Speaker 6 (04:11):
I mean, this is an eleven minutestrat If people look
at driving around your neighborhood, lare I mean.
Speaker 7 (04:16):
Oh, so, do you think you'd scream Raymond coming down?
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I would. I definitely would scream. I would be costers.
Speaker 7 (04:25):
I love roller coasters and I love I love like that,
but I would be screaming. But Katy Perry was like
ractically claiming what the Nobel Peace Pries when she.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Got out of the castle.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Space is incredible, and I wanted to model the courage
and worthiness and fearlessness you did, really finding the love
for yourself because you got to trust in yourself on
this journey. I feel really connected to that strong divine
feminine right now.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Strong divine feminine.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Okay, all right, she had a feminist moment up there.
Katie Ferry strikes me as somebody uniquely qualified to go
into space. She is a little bit of a space cadet,
you know, regards to what you think of her as
a singer or an entertainers. She is a little bit
of a space cadet. But here, here's here's what I find.
I just kind of thought after this is all over
in dubled, and I thought, well, that's a kind of
(05:23):
a great example of the difference between Jeff Bezos and
Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos is, you know, running a woke
company in Amazon that still woke. I may have more
in that little bit. You know, they've just rebranded Amazon.
You know, they don't use the word dei and talking
about some of the programs they do now they they
(05:44):
use belonging. That's the new buzzword for des If you
hear a company say, have a director of belonging, then
that means that they're just running DEI and calling it
something different. They do that at Amazon. Jeff Bezos has
not changed his tune. I mean, he he's working with
the current president. But you know, he is what he
always has been. And you know, he spends his money,
(06:07):
you know, shooting his girlfriend slash fiance up into space
along with Katy Perry and you know, four other women,
which is his prerogative to do, absolutely his prerogative to do.
But how does Elon must spend his time. He spends
his time helping the president, you know, find waste and fraud.
It's not something he has to do. And when he
(06:29):
does dabble in space, he has a company that is
so good that he literally set a group up to
rescue stranded astronauts at the space station. Now, one guy's
got a space program for his friends, you know, to
go kiss kiss the you know, space for about ten minutes.
And the other one is you know, rescuing astronauts is
(06:51):
the space station. Two very different billionaires with two very
very different things going on. Right. One a very serious
human being, I mean they're both sious about making money,
but one of very serious human being about doing some
public good in Elon Musk, and the other one, well,
you know, he's just having fun with his billions, which
he's allowed to do. But two very different people, one
(07:12):
very serious and one not so much. And yet who's
the left going to love? The left is going to
love Jeff Bezos for setting up you know, you know,
fellow fellow left leaning females into space, and they're not
going to appreciate Elon Musk for what he did to
rescue astronauts or to try to say billions upon billions,
maybe trillions of dollars in fraud and waste in the
(07:36):
US government.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Shame.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Anyway, we're gonna take a little break back with more
in a moment. Jimmy Verschow here an am nine fifty KPRC.
(08:02):
All right, we got a variety of topics that we
can kind of work into this next one, this next
segment here including a local topic we'll get into, but
first I want to do this here is at least Stephonic,
you know, the representative from New York, the one that
was going to be where was she going to be
the ambassador trying to remember where she was going to
(08:23):
be an ambassador.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Was an ambassador I think so? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
And anyway, they ended up having to keep her in
the in the House for fear that, you know, because
it's such a narrow lead in the House for a Republicans,
so they kind of had to pull the rug out
from underneath that. But at least Stephanic making the rounds
talking about the funding Harvard. The President is withholding two
(08:47):
billion dollars in federal grant money for Harvard because Harvard,
we were just talking about DEI programs. Harvard still has
a DEI program and they won't get rid of it.
Harvard is still just recriminating against Jewish students and white students,
and they won't stop it. And they basically said, we're
not gonna We're not gonna change. Nothing is going to change.
(09:08):
So the President says, Okay, well, I guess that's the
end of your federal subsidy of two billion dollars. Now,
Harvard's got more money than dirt. I mean, it's ridiculous
how much money they've got. So maybe they maybe they
won't miss it, uh, or maybe this will send a
message that will finally cut through but either way, Uh,
that's the right thing to do with holding that federal money.
You know, let them go it alone if this is
(09:30):
what they want to do.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
At least Stefanic is a Harvard graduate. Here's what she
had to say about the whole thing.
Speaker 8 (09:36):
President Trump correctly made the correct decision to defund these institutions.
If you look at what they required for Harvard, it
was protection of Jewish students. It is making sure that
we are getting rid of Dei, which by definition is
anti Semitic, and instead Harvard is acting more entitled than ever.
President Trump made the direct and correct decision to defund
(09:58):
to the tune of over t two billion dollars, these
higher ed institutions that have fundamentally lost their way. US
tax payer dollars should never be propping up anti Semitism.
And the vast majority of the American people support President
Trump and support that the work that we are doing
in Congress to hold these higher art institutions accountable. The
vast majority of the American people do not want to
(10:19):
prop up these institutions. I myself and a first generation
college graduate, I graduated from Harvard. That's clearly not the
achievement the achievement is maintaining my common sense and my conservatism,
and my strong values with which I was raised in
and strong moral leadership. There is so much opportunity across
this country for the next generation, whether it's in the workforce,
whether it's in this manufacturing renaissance that is going to
(10:42):
happen under President Donald J. Trump, whether it's community colleges
or trade school's vocational programs, that is a pathway to success.
Higher education has fundamentally lost its way, and it's increasingly
out of touch, and the tuition rates go higher and higher.
So we need to defund across the board. And President
Trump is rightly holding these schools accountable.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
You hear hear the music in the background. That's that's
Fox trying to play around, like, hey, at least words,
we're going into a heartbreak here, could you shut it
down please?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Sometimes you have to do that, you know, for the guests.
So the guest understands that you're getting ready to take
a commercial break. And even then that doesn't mean, especially
if they're a politician, even then it doesn't mean that
they're necessarily going to be quiet for you. All right,
here's another one. Let's do let's do a little tarif
update here. President Trump got asked about semiconductors. Right now,
(11:34):
there's no tariff on semiconductors, so he got asked about
that yesterday. Here is President Trump.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Can you talk a little bit about the semiconductor tariffy
outsidantre social today? What is the timeline for that?
Speaker 9 (11:47):
The facts right, But the tariffs will be in place,
uh in the non distant future, because as you know,
like we did with steel, like we did with automobiles,
like we did with aluminum, which are now fully on,
we'll be doing that with semiconductors, with chips and numerous
other things.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
And that'll take question in the very near future. Faith.
Speaker 9 (12:07):
All right, the semiconductor tear I'm going to be announcing
it over the next week.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
But we'll also talk to companies.
Speaker 9 (12:13):
You know, you have to show a certain flexibility.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Nobody should be so rigid. We will. You have to
have a certain flexibility.
Speaker 10 (12:22):
So the first thing is that we've got this baseline
tariff that right now is ten percent, but could negotiated
up from there if people don't make big concessions. But
let's just say right now we've got a ten percent
reciprocal tariff, which is the baseline for the whole world.
In addition, we have these things which are called two
thirty two items, which are things that are really really
important for national security. And so the example I like
(12:44):
to give when I'm explaining trade policy to graduate students
is the way to think about two thirty two is
that if you've got a cannon but you've got cannon
balls that you have to buy from the enemy, then
if there ends up being, you know, some kind of
action with the enemy, then you might run out of
cannonballs really fast. So it's okay to put a tariff
on a cannonball. Now, for semi conductors, there are a
(13:04):
lot of semi conductors in your car, in my car,
there are semiconductors in military things.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
And so for a two thirty two.
Speaker 10 (13:12):
Semic conductor action, it's extremely important that we look at
and the President said he announced one this week, we
look at the things that influence national security and make
sure that we're on shoring that production so that if
there ever were a problem in the future, that the
US would be one hundred percent ready. And so if
you put a semiconductor in I don't know, a toaster,
then that's probably not a national security matter. But in
(13:34):
the end what will happen will be the legal process.
We'll decide what is a national security matter with guidance
from the President's team and the President. And I got
to say that this plan has been basically the plan
from the beginning. From the beginning, we've been talking about
which things are two thirty twos, which things are covered
by the Reciprocal Trade Act, and so nobody should think
that there was a surprise or anything at the last minute.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Last week.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Okay, see, I learned something though that's kind of interesting.
That is National Economic Council Advisor Kevin Hassett, and he's
talking about the difference between what gets a ten percent
reciprocal tariff and what gets a special tariff. And the
special tariff goes on things that are industries that are
(14:16):
part of national security or could have a national security impact, semiconductors,
what else would qualify, And there's a whole slew of
things that they may have more than one application. They
may have a military application and a non military application,
but they're things that we're dependent on other countries in
order to get. These are the things he's trying to
(14:39):
encourage us to build here in the United States, semiconductors
being among one of those things that so we don't
find ourselves in a situation where we don't have a
supply semiconductors when we need them in order to be
able to operate our military, for example. So I never
heard that term before. I guess two thirty two. So
(14:59):
keep that in mind if your hear the term, well,
that's a two thirty two item. Okay, that means that
it's it's got something that has national security implications, and
that's a special tariff that goes on that. Okay, Okay,
there we go. In the meantime, as long as we're
talking about tariffs, how about Kevin o' larry. Let's bring
on Kevin o' larry here for just a moment. Kevin o'larry,
(15:19):
mister wonderful, used to be on Shark Tank. Of course,
he really thinks that the United States has an edge
over China as it relates to this whole trade war
thing that we're going to undergo for probably a while.
And right now I think it's safe to call this
stalemate here is Kevin o'lary.
Speaker 11 (15:41):
Is a big behemoth story we've been talking about, so
much is China. We've got to figure out where they
sit in trying to come into the narrative. I mean,
right now, even over I want four percent, but that's
just mombastic. One hundred plus percent wipes that all trade.
And so there's on the water waiting to bring in products.
(16:01):
There's debate about technology like Apple phones, all this stuff.
She at some point has to take the olive branch
that's been offered twice over the weekend by Trump and say, okay,
let's start talking. I don't think it's helping him because
he doesn't have the option to sell tea bills. People
keep saying, oh, he's going to be disruptive by selling
T bills. That will enhance the price of his currency
(16:24):
and make his products even less competitive worldwide. That will
devastate his economy, which is already on the break. So
everybody thinks, oh, he's got the leverage of selling T bills.
No he doesn't. He doesn't have that leverage. That's just
pure economics. If you study FX, you know, if he
starts stumping T bills, dollar goes down, his currency goes up,
and he's virtually screwed. So where at a real stalemate
(16:47):
right here.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
We really are. We got some problems.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
But does America hold real heavy duty CODs in a
negotiation with China?
Speaker 11 (16:55):
It does, sort because all that stuff that's made in
the fact trees almost thirty nine percent of us consumed
by Americans. If he can't sell the stuff, those people
don't have jobs, and that's going to be a bad
outcome for him, really bad outcome.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
And he knows it. That is the one.
Speaker 11 (17:15):
Massive leverage that we have at the table. If this
goes on too long, there'll be unemployment or there's going
to be massive inflation as he prints money to pay
these people in his country. It's one hundred percent salemate.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
He's got to come to the table.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Well, he should come to the table. But if that's
perceived as a sign of weakness, then that causes problems
in his own country. There's a lot of you know,
when we're talking about Asian culture here, especially the Chinese,
there's a lot of honor involved and all that kind
of stuff. Yeah, they just think differently about those things.
You know, they're not to them. Compromises is a weakness
(17:57):
and they don't want to be perceived this week, all right,
it's about manufacturing. I got a guest coming up. His
name is Brett Boyd. He's the CEO of Sustainment. They're
a tech company that promotes American manufacturing. So we're going
to talk to him about bringing back American manufacturing, what
was behind why we lost it to begin with, And
I think he thinks it's a little bit deeper and
(18:17):
more dark than just it's cheaper to produce things in
other countries. Back with MORTI moment Jimmy Partt show here
on EM nine to fifty KPRC. All right, I have
(18:41):
a guest today. He's into manufacturing, he's into American manufacturing.
And I think, based on what I've read here Brett Boyd,
that you think that maybe the demise of American manufacturing
to begin with was a little bit darker and more
sinister than a lot of people think. I think a
lot of people just think, well, we stopped making stuff
here because it got too expensive to make it here,
(19:02):
so we went somewhere where we get it cheaper, like China.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
But it's a little deeper than that, don't you think.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Look at you and it's good to be with you today.
And I think it's important for everybody to understand the
actual state of play in which we're operating. So I
think all of these terrorists and all these different policy
levels are not happening in a vacuum. They're happening against
the backdrop of a very deliberate industrial policy, specifically by
China that really is worth people knowing.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
All right, well, let's talk about that policy. But it
always was, I believe it's your opinion, it always was
China's intention to tru the best of its ability, destroy
American manufacturing so that we would be dependent upon China.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
Yeah, I mean, look, at the end of the day,
here's kind of how this is played out. So in
all of the industries that China has determined are strategically
important to themselves, and think of things like automotive and
shipbuilding and drones and so on.
Speaker 11 (19:58):
Like.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
They have pursued a very deliberate policy over decades and
have had a lot of patients to do this and
have been very successful in doing this. But essentially, the
Chinese model is to pick a national champion, so pick
you know, so pick let's say, an automotive company, and
to heavily invest in that company so that they actually
(20:19):
pour state capital into it, so that that company is
able to compete on international markets basically at lower prices
than other companies that don't have the benefit of state funding.
And so that what happens at that point is that
other companies, you know, think the European auto manufacturers of
the American drone companies actually aren't able to compete. So
(20:40):
commercial business goes to the Chinese company and they get
bigger and bigger, in effect de industrializing these key sectors
in other parts of the world.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Okay, and that's kind of where the whole tariff program
comes in, because I think the President understands that that's
what's going on. That's why we're talking about one hundred
and forty five percent tariffs on some items. I learned
a term that I didn't know before, I think yesterday
two thirty two. I no idea, what do you mean
at two thirty two. Evidently those are the industries and
(21:09):
those are the parts and the little subtleties of things
that are being manufactured that are important to the national security.
And if it's a two thirty two item that's ultimately
important to the American national security, that's where the big
terifts come in.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Well, this is and again I don't care where you
sit on the political spectrum or how you think about
the world, but we simply cannot exist in a world
where these key items that we require for both our safety,
our health, and our national security are only being built
in China, are only being manufactured in China. And this
ranges from pharmaceuticals to drones to all of these different
(21:49):
types of essentially dual use technologies. Like it is absolutely
critical that we be able to rebuild the industrial base
for those items in the country, and I think the
administration is rightly focused on those key items.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
So is the idea here because there's a lot of
confusion I think amongst your average everyday American about what
the purpose of these tairs are. Are the terraffs here
to encourage more American manufacturing, to bring more jobs into America,
to have a more secure environment as you're talking about
for manufacturing these items. Are the tariffs? Are the teriffs
there with the idea that they eventually they're all going
(22:23):
to go away? Because while we really want in the
world is free trade, What do you think the ultimate
gold these taffs are.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
So I guess as I look forward here, one of
the lessons that we need to be very clear on
from history is that industrial strength is national strength, and
nations that do not have the ability to manufacture, to
actually build the items that they require are at a
significant strategic disadvantage, and we can trace this all the
(22:51):
way through history. I think there is a movement after
the end of the Cold War to essentially say, you know, hey, look,
the world is fundamentally changed. We're going to be free trade,
liberal societies everywhere. And I think we enacted some policies
that might have made sense then, but the world in
which we live now does not look like the world
of nineteen ninety or nineteen ninety five. Like we're in
(23:13):
an increasingly competitive world, and I think that this has
implications for jobs and incomes and quality of life in
American citizens, but it also has national security applications. So
I would say it's all of the above, you know. Essentially,
I think that there's a jobs and economic aspect to this.
There is also a national security aspect to this, and
(23:34):
there is additionally an international competitiveness aspect as well, all
of which I think are playing out right now in
real time.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Yeah, it's funny you brought up a history list. I'm
a little bit of a history buff especially about World
War Two. And even though I wasn't born anywhere near
the end of World War Two, but I've studied up
on enough to know that American manufacturing is what saved
our Bacon and all the Allies is a related World
War Two. Our ability to manufacture things, our ability to
(24:04):
supply oil to ourselves and Germans, the Germans inability to
do the same for themselves.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
This is absolutely right.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
And we study one of the books that I give
to everybody who joins our company as a book called
Freedom Sport that talks about the reindustrialization of the country
in the late nineteen thirties and early nineteen forties. But
it's really important to say that how that got done
is actually not the DoD building a whole bunch of
new factories back in the day. It was really the
(24:36):
Department of Defense being able to reach in to all
of the excellent commercial manufacturers spread throughout the United States
so that we could take essentially the best of American
industry and use those production lines to be able to
build defense equipment, you know, everything ranging from jeeps to
artillery shelves. And this is what it looks like to
(24:57):
bring American manufacturing back. It gives us optionality and capacity
to be able to do something like that if God.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Forbid we have to. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
I kind of grew up in the in the Iraq War.
I have a lot of experience with these things, and
I think that having a strong industrial base is actually
one of the most significant deterrence to conflict that we
could be investing in this country right now.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Do you think you know, we've gotten so used to
cheap goods as a society, you know, from getting so
many things from Vietnam and China and those Asian countries
that produce things with a much lower cost labor rate.
Are Americans prepared to pay more for things made in
the USA?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Again?
Speaker 5 (25:38):
Oh? I think that is the I think that is
the critical question here, because this is not going to
be without difficulty and without friction. And if we are
fundamentally transitioning from you know, a peak globalization environment into
an environment where we're a little bit more proactive and
defensive of our national industries and and of our supply chains,
(26:00):
like this period in between I think is going to
be difficult, and candidly, I don't know. I hope so,
but I think We're starting to see what that's going
to look like. And I have a lot of confidence
in American manufacturers to step up. We work with thousands
of them through our company at Sustainment. But this is
going to be a difficult period of transition for many
(26:22):
consumers and small businesses.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Yeah, I would think too, even for some of the
big businesses. I'm sure that it's going to be easier
for some industries other than others. For example, on the automakers,
it should be fairly easy for them to shift production
back into the United States because they have so many
automotive factories that are not being used right now, some
of them completely devoid of any activity. It may take
(26:47):
a little while to gear them back up again and
to retool them to a certain extent, but the infrastructure
is still there. And then there's other industries semiconductors come
to mind, that we're just now getting into manufacturing those things,
and that's going to take a while to build that up.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
The hope here is that all of these terrorists and
all of these policy focus areas encourage a whole generation
to jump into manufacturing. I mean, really, what we would
like to see is we would like to see a
whole generation of capital allocators, of workers entering the manufacturing workforce,
(27:23):
of small businesses being able to grow and hire and
invest and so on. And this is going to take time,
and you're absolutely right. I mean, textiles is another example
of an industry that has been almost entirely moved offshore.
But there are opportunities for this and it will be
interesting to see how it goes.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
I think the other component here, and this is going
to be interesting to watch as well. I mean, we
are starting, I think, to see a movement for some
high school graduates away from the idea that I have
to go to a four year college and get a
degree in accounting or whatever that degree computers or whatever
that degree may be in. Some of them still pretty useless,
(28:02):
quite frankly. And if we have really good paying manufacturing
jobs in America, maybe American teenagers will get more interested
in participating in those kinds of jobs. Because if they're
not interested in participating those kinds of jobs, we're eventually
going to have a labor shortage, are we.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
Oh, you're absolutely right, and this is what this looks like.
This is again the flywheel that we need to kickstart here.
I mean at the end of the day, it's very
easy to get tied up in all of our equipment
and all of our technology and all of these different
things that we like to get excited about, but we
cannot forget that companies are people, and companies succeed on
(28:41):
the basis of the talented men and women that they
can recruit, train and encourage to stay in those companies.
And changing this dynamic where it was better to go
be some consultant or an investment banker than it is
to actually be somebody who builds and who is part
of the process of creation. I think that is a
(29:02):
fundamental philosophical shift that we need to make, and that
is going to take a generation to undo or to transform.
But that's probably the single most important thing.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
I think.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
If we drive opportunity into US manufacturers, they're able to
invest in equipment, they're able to invest in people, they're
able to grow to hire. Those market signals flow through
to young men and women who are looking at the
job force and placing their career bets in manufacturing, which
leads us to be more capable as a country with
more entrepreneurs and more great small business owners and so
(29:37):
on and so. I think that's what we hope to
see as a result of this understanding that it will
take some time.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Okay, excellent talking to you, sir. I appreciate your insight.
Thank you for being on the show. Okay, thank you
very much. You've got Brett Boyd, the CEO of Sustainment,
back with more in a moment, Jimmy Bart Show. Here
a name nine fifty KPRC. All right, before we wrap
(30:16):
up today's show, I got a little local story I
would like to do, and we're gonna be doing more
on this tomorrow on the Morning show and probably here
on our afternoon show as well. It is there's some
evidently some legislation being proposed to examine where state agencies
(30:39):
operate from you know, this, this doge world that we
live in has a lot of state governments. Unfortunately it
doesn't have Harris County government or local governments doing much
of it, but at least at the state level. They're
talking about finding ways to be more efficient, and one
of the ways that they think might be more efficient
would be to move state agency. Is there a reason,
(31:01):
for example, why the Texas what's the official name of
Texas Windstorm Insurance Association that's it, TWEETA, the Texas Windstorm
Insurance Association. Is there a reason why they should be
in high priced offices in Austin, the most expensive city
to live in in the entire state of Texas, when
the reality is is that most of the windstorm damage,
(31:25):
most of that stuff comes along the coastal areas. Why
aren't they located somewhere along the Texas coast. Why not
have offices in Galveston, for example, which is one of
the higher populations area, or Corpus Christie, you know, somewhere
else closer to the action of what they are needed for.
Here's a report on that from KPRC too and Mario Diaz.
Speaker 12 (31:47):
Jim Wade is fighting to get the condo building where
he owns three units back to where it once was.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Nine months after Hurricane Barrel.
Speaker 9 (31:55):
We had to go borrow money to conclude the work
that's being done.
Speaker 12 (31:59):
Weeds fight is against the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, better
known as TWEA, and it is a surreal one for him.
You see, he was a member of twea's board over
twenty years ago. The association is based in the shadows
of the Texas Capital.
Speaker 9 (32:16):
There's no reason why you couldn't relocate multiple functions, decentralize
everything out of Austin.
Speaker 12 (32:23):
The potential for relocation of government offices from Austin is
part of a legislative push to save taxpayer dollars. Small
business owners along with elected officials I spoke with, we're
on the same page.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I think it's a great idea. I think it's overdue.
It makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 12 (32:40):
Ray Hunt is the executive director of the Houston Police
Officers Union and a former member of the Texas Commission
on Law Enforcement.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Tea Cole right now is renting office space and non
state building.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
It's very, very expensive.
Speaker 12 (32:53):
In fact, we found a previous for lease advertisement for
the building that t Cole lists as its office address
on their website. It's miles away from the capital, but
smacking the heart of the most expensive city in Texas.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Most of the people who work at Tea Cole don't
live in Alstin because they can't afford to live in Austin.
Speaker 12 (33:13):
Aside from saving taxpayers dollars, a potential relocation for saying
the likes of a twea means having workers with a
personal connection in an area devastated by the winds of
a named storm.
Speaker 9 (33:27):
They'd have a better understanding of what we have to
go through when a storm impacts the area.
Speaker 12 (33:33):
But while a potential relocation is being pushed, one pivotal
question remains about this concept. Do you think it will
make business more efficient?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I would think so. It'd be more responsive.
Speaker 10 (33:49):
Than not having to wait on getting someone out of
Austin to come down and see what the problem was.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Interesting. It's an interesting concept. I mean, they were talking
about that feral level with the FBI cash Mattel. I
don't know if they're actually going to do something with that.
I think they should. There's no reason why twenty thousand
FBI employees should be in Washington, d C. Those employees
should be spread around the country. You know, crime happens
(34:16):
all across the country. There should be there should be
FBI affiliates, at least on a regional basis. Why do
you need to have twenty thousand in Washington, d C?
At FBI headquarters? Is there is there a reason for that?
Only only if you have way too much hierarchy and
not enough agents. It seems to me the FBI should
(34:37):
have less hierarchy and more agents. And I'm sure, the
same thing could be said for local government. If we
were to take a look at the Harris County books
or Fort ben County or even Montgomery County, how much
are they spending on office space? You know, how much?
How efficient are they being with our tax dollars as
far as you know who they employ, what those employees do,
(34:58):
and where those employees were port to work. We have
to rethink all this stuff. I think if we're ever
going to hope to save money. Now there are some
and this is where we get to the next step
in the story that we'll be working on for tomorrow.
Harris County is trying to find all kinds of ways
to raise money and and and discourt state law, including
(35:21):
by the way, coming up with a with a with
a whole list of excuses to why they need to
raise more money. And one of the things they're talking about,
one of the potential schemes they're talking about, is taking
your property taxes and in tying it to your income,
(35:43):
taking your income and tying it to how much you
pay in rent, so you'd have rent control and you'd
have people with higher incomes paying more in property tax
for the same home that you'd be paying less for
if you've made less money. So I mean they're coming
with all kinds of schemes to how to work their
way around you know, state laws relates to these things.
(36:04):
We'll have moren it coming up tomorrow. All right, listen,
that's it for today, y'all, have a great evening. I
will see you, I hope tomorrow morning bright in early
five am over on news Radio seven forty k t
r H. We are back here at four on the
AM nine fifty k pr C
Well, what we need is more common sense breaking down
the world's nonsense about pow. American common sense.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Will see us through with the common sense of Houston.
I'm just pro common sense for Houston. From Houston. This
is the Jimmy Barrett Show, brought to you by viewind
dot Com.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Now here's Jimmy Barrett.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
All right, welcome to our show today, Happy Wednesday. I'm
gonna start with this is kind of a strange story
to start with. I want to start because I'm gonna
I'm gonna make a point here ultimately, and the difference
between billionaires, and there's a big difference in billionaires when
you're talking about Elon Musk and and Jeff Bezos from
(00:53):
Amazon fame, and there's a couple of stories they kind
of relate to that very nicely. Let's start with this one.
Just back from space Katie Perry and who's Gail King
Lauren Sanchez talk about your nepotism Lauren Sanchez in addition
to being a quote unquote journalist who doesn't work anymore
because she's now the fiance of Jeff Bezos, that that's
(01:17):
the reason why she got a seat. And that's fine,
it's his it's his Blue Origin is his company, So
if he wants to send his fiance up into space,
he's welcome to do so. They had they're talking about this.
Tonny of this as an all female flight crew is
if somehow these women were doing anything having to do
(01:37):
with the flight. I mean, it was just they go up,
they come down. Now, Blue Origins sends you up for
what sixty two miles? I think it is into where
outer space is just beginning, and then they come right
straight back down again. Now I'm not saying it doesn't
take courage to do it. If you saw that capsule
coming back down, I don't know how fast that thing
was going, but good Lord Almighty. And and you're depending
(02:00):
upon three parachutes that opened up in order to be
able to, you know, to touch down safely, which which
you did that. It takes a certain level of bravery
in order to do that. I mean, how many of us,
if given the opportunity, would go on a Blue Origin flight.
I'd like to think that I would. But I kind
of asked that as a question today. Would you if
(02:20):
you had a chance to go on a Blue Origin flight,
you know where you're gonna go up and you're going
to kiss out her space to come back down again,
all in about eleven minutes. Would that be something you'd
want to do?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yeah, hey this David. Yeah, I'd go up.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
I'd go up just for Greens, but I don't think
my doctor would let me. Jimmy, Brian Martin, and Lake Conro.
I would do the Blue Origin flight, but only if
sky Mike went with me.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
To take anybody you'd like, you can take me if
you'd like. That is an interesting comment though, for the
guy with the doctor. Would you if your doctor said no,
I don't think, I don't think you should go. You know,
I don't think I don't think your heart can handle it,
or you know, it's done good for your blood pressure, whatever,
would you listen to your doctor at that point? I
guess it depends on how old I am and how
(03:10):
much more I value the experience of going down her
space versus you know, living. And I mean, if you go,
if you're going going out of space, you're that much
closer to Heaven if that's where you're going. Right anyway,
They interviewed Katy Perry a little bit and Lori Ingram
along with Raymond Arroyo. We're having some fun with this
(03:31):
whole story last night. So here they are talking about
you know these you know six women in space, the
six woman flight crew, if you will. Here they are
talking about that, and there's some audio in there from
Katy Perry when she got back on the ground.
Speaker 6 (03:44):
It's so insulting to real astronauts. I mean, watching Katy
Perry kiss the ground when she got out, you would
have sworn she'd been trapped.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
At the space station for three years.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
I mean, it was an eleven minute journey, okay, from
takeoff to touchdown.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
It's not like she to Mars and the minute the
cameras found.
Speaker 6 (04:02):
Oprah, I thought Gail King was bringing back some rare
interplanetary minerals or something.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Oprah's crying, what's you crying about?
Speaker 6 (04:11):
I mean, this is an eleven minutestrat If people look
at driving around your neighborhood, lare I mean.
Speaker 7 (04:16):
Oh, so, do you think you'd scream Raymond coming down?
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I would. I definitely would scream. I would be costers.
Speaker 7 (04:25):
I love roller coasters and I love I love like that,
but I would be screaming. But Katy Perry was like
ractically claiming what the Nobel Peace Pries when she.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Got out of the castle.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Space is incredible, and I wanted to model the courage
and worthiness and fearlessness you did, really finding the love
for yourself because you got to trust in yourself on
this journey. I feel really connected to that strong divine
feminine right now.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Strong divine feminine.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Okay, all right, she had a feminist moment up there.
Katie Ferry strikes me as somebody uniquely qualified to go
into space. She is a little bit of a space cadet,
you know, regards to what you think of her as
a singer or an entertainers. She is a little bit
of a space cadet. But here, here's here's what I find.
I just kind of thought after this is all over
in dubled, and I thought, well, that's a kind of
(05:23):
a great example of the difference between Jeff Bezos and
Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos is, you know, running a woke
company in Amazon that still woke. I may have more
in that little bit. You know, they've just rebranded Amazon.
You know, they don't use the word dei and talking
about some of the programs they do now they they
(05:44):
use belonging. That's the new buzzword for des If you
hear a company say, have a director of belonging, then
that means that they're just running DEI and calling it
something different. They do that at Amazon. Jeff Bezos has
not changed his tune. I mean, he he's working with
the current president. But you know, he is what he
always has been. And you know, he spends his money,
(06:07):
you know, shooting his girlfriend slash fiance up into space
along with Katy Perry and you know, four other women,
which is his prerogative to do, absolutely his prerogative to do.
But how does Elon must spend his time. He spends
his time helping the president, you know, find waste and fraud.
It's not something he has to do. And when he
(06:29):
does dabble in space, he has a company that is
so good that he literally set a group up to
rescue stranded astronauts at the space station. Now, one guy's
got a space program for his friends, you know, to
go kiss kiss the you know, space for about ten minutes.
And the other one is you know, rescuing astronauts is
(06:51):
the space station. Two very different billionaires with two very
very different things going on. Right. One a very serious
human being, I mean they're both sious about making money,
but one of very serious human being about doing some
public good in Elon Musk, and the other one, well,
you know, he's just having fun with his billions, which
he's allowed to do. But two very different people, one
(07:12):
very serious and one not so much. And yet who's
the left going to love? The left is going to
love Jeff Bezos for setting up you know, you know,
fellow fellow left leaning females into space, and they're not
going to appreciate Elon Musk for what he did to
rescue astronauts or to try to say billions upon billions,
maybe trillions of dollars in fraud and waste in the
(07:36):
US government.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Shame.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Anyway, we're gonna take a little break back with more
in a moment. Jimmy Verschow here an am nine fifty KPRC.
(08:02):
All right, we got a variety of topics that we
can kind of work into this next one, this next
segment here including a local topic we'll get into, but
first I want to do this here is at least Stephonic,
you know, the representative from New York, the one that
was going to be where was she going to be
the ambassador trying to remember where she was going to
(08:23):
be an ambassador.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Was an ambassador I think so? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
And anyway, they ended up having to keep her in
the in the House for fear that, you know, because
it's such a narrow lead in the House for a Republicans,
so they kind of had to pull the rug out
from underneath that. But at least Stephanic making the rounds
talking about the funding Harvard. The President is withholding two
(08:47):
billion dollars in federal grant money for Harvard because Harvard,
we were just talking about DEI programs. Harvard still has
a DEI program and they won't get rid of it.
Harvard is still just recriminating against Jewish students and white students,
and they won't stop it. And they basically said, we're
not gonna We're not gonna change. Nothing is going to change.
(09:08):
So the President says, Okay, well, I guess that's the
end of your federal subsidy of two billion dollars. Now,
Harvard's got more money than dirt. I mean, it's ridiculous
how much money they've got. So maybe they maybe they
won't miss it, uh, or maybe this will send a
message that will finally cut through but either way, Uh,
that's the right thing to do with holding that federal money.
You know, let them go it alone if this is
(09:30):
what they want to do.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
At least Stefanic is a Harvard graduate. Here's what she
had to say about the whole thing.
Speaker 8 (09:36):
President Trump correctly made the correct decision to defund these institutions.
If you look at what they required for Harvard, it
was protection of Jewish students. It is making sure that
we are getting rid of Dei, which by definition is
anti Semitic, and instead Harvard is acting more entitled than ever.
President Trump made the direct and correct decision to defund
(09:58):
to the tune of over t two billion dollars, these
higher ed institutions that have fundamentally lost their way. US
tax payer dollars should never be propping up anti Semitism.
And the vast majority of the American people support President
Trump and support that the work that we are doing
in Congress to hold these higher art institutions accountable. The
vast majority of the American people do not want to
(10:19):
prop up these institutions. I myself and a first generation
college graduate, I graduated from Harvard. That's clearly not the
achievement the achievement is maintaining my common sense and my conservatism,
and my strong values with which I was raised in
and strong moral leadership. There is so much opportunity across
this country for the next generation, whether it's in the workforce,
whether it's in this manufacturing renaissance that is going to
(10:42):
happen under President Donald J. Trump, whether it's community colleges
or trade school's vocational programs, that is a pathway to success.
Higher education has fundamentally lost its way, and it's increasingly
out of touch, and the tuition rates go higher and higher.
So we need to defund across the board. And President
Trump is rightly holding these schools accountable.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
You hear hear the music in the background. That's that's
Fox trying to play around, like, hey, at least words,
we're going into a heartbreak here, could you shut it
down please?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Sometimes you have to do that, you know, for the guests.
So the guest understands that you're getting ready to take
a commercial break. And even then that doesn't mean, especially
if they're a politician, even then it doesn't mean that
they're necessarily going to be quiet for you. All right,
here's another one. Let's do let's do a little tarif
update here. President Trump got asked about semiconductors. Right now,
(11:34):
there's no tariff on semiconductors, so he got asked about
that yesterday. Here is President Trump.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Can you talk a little bit about the semiconductor tariffy
outsidantre social today? What is the timeline for that?
Speaker 9 (11:47):
The facts right, But the tariffs will be in place,
uh in the non distant future, because as you know,
like we did with steel, like we did with automobiles,
like we did with aluminum, which are now fully on,
we'll be doing that with semiconductors, with chips and numerous
other things.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
And that'll take question in the very near future. Faith.
Speaker 9 (12:07):
All right, the semiconductor tear I'm going to be announcing
it over the next week.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
But we'll also talk to companies.
Speaker 9 (12:13):
You know, you have to show a certain flexibility.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Nobody should be so rigid. We will. You have to
have a certain flexibility.
Speaker 10 (12:22):
So the first thing is that we've got this baseline
tariff that right now is ten percent, but could negotiated
up from there if people don't make big concessions. But
let's just say right now we've got a ten percent
reciprocal tariff, which is the baseline for the whole world.
In addition, we have these things which are called two
thirty two items, which are things that are really really
important for national security. And so the example I like
(12:44):
to give when I'm explaining trade policy to graduate students
is the way to think about two thirty two is
that if you've got a cannon but you've got cannon
balls that you have to buy from the enemy, then
if there ends up being, you know, some kind of
action with the enemy, then you might run out of
cannonballs really fast. So it's okay to put a tariff
on a cannonball. Now, for semi conductors, there are a
(13:04):
lot of semi conductors in your car, in my car,
there are semiconductors in military things.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
And so for a two thirty two.
Speaker 10 (13:12):
Semic conductor action, it's extremely important that we look at
and the President said he announced one this week, we
look at the things that influence national security and make
sure that we're on shoring that production so that if
there ever were a problem in the future, that the
US would be one hundred percent ready. And so if
you put a semiconductor in I don't know, a toaster,
then that's probably not a national security matter. But in
(13:34):
the end what will happen will be the legal process.
We'll decide what is a national security matter with guidance
from the President's team and the President. And I got
to say that this plan has been basically the plan
from the beginning. From the beginning, we've been talking about
which things are two thirty twos, which things are covered
by the Reciprocal Trade Act, and so nobody should think
that there was a surprise or anything at the last minute.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Last week.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Okay, see, I learned something though that's kind of interesting.
That is National Economic Council Advisor Kevin Hassett, and he's
talking about the difference between what gets a ten percent
reciprocal tariff and what gets a special tariff. And the
special tariff goes on things that are industries that are
(14:16):
part of national security or could have a national security impact, semiconductors,
what else would qualify, And there's a whole slew of
things that they may have more than one application. They
may have a military application and a non military application,
but they're things that we're dependent on other countries in
order to get. These are the things he's trying to
(14:39):
encourage us to build here in the United States, semiconductors
being among one of those things that so we don't
find ourselves in a situation where we don't have a
supply semiconductors when we need them in order to be
able to operate our military, for example. So I never
heard that term before. I guess two thirty two. So
(14:59):
keep that in mind if your hear the term, well,
that's a two thirty two item. Okay, that means that
it's it's got something that has national security implications, and
that's a special tariff that goes on that. Okay, Okay,
there we go. In the meantime, as long as we're
talking about tariffs, how about Kevin o' larry. Let's bring
on Kevin o' larry here for just a moment. Kevin o'larry,
(15:19):
mister wonderful, used to be on Shark Tank. Of course,
he really thinks that the United States has an edge
over China as it relates to this whole trade war
thing that we're going to undergo for probably a while.
And right now I think it's safe to call this
stalemate here is Kevin o'lary.
Speaker 11 (15:41):
Is a big behemoth story we've been talking about, so
much is China. We've got to figure out where they
sit in trying to come into the narrative. I mean,
right now, even over I want four percent, but that's
just mombastic. One hundred plus percent wipes that all trade.
And so there's on the water waiting to bring in products.
(16:01):
There's debate about technology like Apple phones, all this stuff.
She at some point has to take the olive branch
that's been offered twice over the weekend by Trump and say, okay,
let's start talking. I don't think it's helping him because
he doesn't have the option to sell tea bills. People
keep saying, oh, he's going to be disruptive by selling
T bills. That will enhance the price of his currency
(16:24):
and make his products even less competitive worldwide. That will
devastate his economy, which is already on the break. So
everybody thinks, oh, he's got the leverage of selling T bills.
No he doesn't. He doesn't have that leverage. That's just
pure economics. If you study FX, you know, if he
starts stumping T bills, dollar goes down, his currency goes up,
and he's virtually screwed. So where at a real stalemate
(16:47):
right here.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
We really are. We got some problems.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
But does America hold real heavy duty CODs in a
negotiation with China?
Speaker 11 (16:55):
It does, sort because all that stuff that's made in
the fact trees almost thirty nine percent of us consumed
by Americans. If he can't sell the stuff, those people
don't have jobs, and that's going to be a bad
outcome for him, really bad outcome.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
And he knows it. That is the one.
Speaker 11 (17:15):
Massive leverage that we have at the table. If this
goes on too long, there'll be unemployment or there's going
to be massive inflation as he prints money to pay
these people in his country. It's one hundred percent salemate.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
He's got to come to the table.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Well, he should come to the table. But if that's
perceived as a sign of weakness, then that causes problems
in his own country. There's a lot of you know,
when we're talking about Asian culture here, especially the Chinese,
there's a lot of honor involved and all that kind
of stuff. Yeah, they just think differently about those things.
You know, they're not to them. Compromises is a weakness
(17:57):
and they don't want to be perceived this week, all right,
it's about manufacturing. I got a guest coming up. His
name is Brett Boyd. He's the CEO of Sustainment. They're
a tech company that promotes American manufacturing. So we're going
to talk to him about bringing back American manufacturing, what
was behind why we lost it to begin with, And
I think he thinks it's a little bit deeper and
(18:17):
more dark than just it's cheaper to produce things in
other countries. Back with MORTI moment Jimmy Partt show here
on EM nine to fifty KPRC. All right, I have
(18:41):
a guest today. He's into manufacturing, he's into American manufacturing.
And I think, based on what I've read here Brett Boyd,
that you think that maybe the demise of American manufacturing
to begin with was a little bit darker and more
sinister than a lot of people think. I think a
lot of people just think, well, we stopped making stuff
here because it got too expensive to make it here,
(19:02):
so we went somewhere where we get it cheaper, like China.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
But it's a little deeper than that, don't you think.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Look at you and it's good to be with you today.
And I think it's important for everybody to understand the
actual state of play in which we're operating. So I
think all of these terrorists and all these different policy
levels are not happening in a vacuum. They're happening against
the backdrop of a very deliberate industrial policy, specifically by
China that really is worth people knowing.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
All right, well, let's talk about that policy. But it
always was, I believe it's your opinion, it always was
China's intention to tru the best of its ability, destroy
American manufacturing so that we would be dependent upon China.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
Yeah, I mean, look, at the end of the day,
here's kind of how this is played out. So in
all of the industries that China has determined are strategically
important to themselves, and think of things like automotive and
shipbuilding and drones and so on.
Speaker 11 (19:58):
Like.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
They have pursued a very deliberate policy over decades and
have had a lot of patients to do this and
have been very successful in doing this. But essentially, the
Chinese model is to pick a national champion, so pick
you know, so pick let's say, an automotive company, and
to heavily invest in that company so that they actually
(20:19):
pour state capital into it, so that that company is
able to compete on international markets basically at lower prices
than other companies that don't have the benefit of state funding.
And so that what happens at that point is that
other companies, you know, think the European auto manufacturers of
the American drone companies actually aren't able to compete. So
(20:40):
commercial business goes to the Chinese company and they get
bigger and bigger, in effect de industrializing these key sectors
in other parts of the world.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Okay, and that's kind of where the whole tariff program
comes in, because I think the President understands that that's
what's going on. That's why we're talking about one hundred
and forty five percent tariffs on some items. I learned
a term that I didn't know before, I think yesterday
two thirty two. I no idea, what do you mean
at two thirty two. Evidently those are the industries and
(21:09):
those are the parts and the little subtleties of things
that are being manufactured that are important to the national security.
And if it's a two thirty two item that's ultimately
important to the American national security, that's where the big
terifts come in.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Well, this is and again I don't care where you
sit on the political spectrum or how you think about
the world, but we simply cannot exist in a world
where these key items that we require for both our safety,
our health, and our national security are only being built
in China, are only being manufactured in China. And this
ranges from pharmaceuticals to drones to all of these different
(21:49):
types of essentially dual use technologies. Like it is absolutely
critical that we be able to rebuild the industrial base
for those items in the country, and I think the
administration is rightly focused on those key items.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
So is the idea here because there's a lot of
confusion I think amongst your average everyday American about what
the purpose of these tairs are. Are the terraffs here
to encourage more American manufacturing, to bring more jobs into America,
to have a more secure environment as you're talking about
for manufacturing these items. Are the tariffs? Are the teriffs
there with the idea that they eventually they're all going
(22:23):
to go away? Because while we really want in the
world is free trade, What do you think the ultimate
gold these taffs are.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
So I guess as I look forward here, one of
the lessons that we need to be very clear on
from history is that industrial strength is national strength, and
nations that do not have the ability to manufacture, to
actually build the items that they require are at a
significant strategic disadvantage, and we can trace this all the
(22:51):
way through history. I think there is a movement after
the end of the Cold War to essentially say, you know, hey, look,
the world is fundamentally changed. We're going to be free trade,
liberal societies everywhere. And I think we enacted some policies
that might have made sense then, but the world in
which we live now does not look like the world
of nineteen ninety or nineteen ninety five. Like we're in
(23:13):
an increasingly competitive world, and I think that this has
implications for jobs and incomes and quality of life in
American citizens, but it also has national security applications. So
I would say it's all of the above, you know. Essentially,
I think that there's a jobs and economic aspect to this.
There is also a national security aspect to this, and
(23:34):
there is additionally an international competitiveness aspect as well, all
of which I think are playing out right now in
real time.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Yeah, it's funny you brought up a history list. I'm
a little bit of a history buff especially about World
War Two. And even though I wasn't born anywhere near
the end of World War Two, but I've studied up
on enough to know that American manufacturing is what saved
our Bacon and all the Allies is a related World
War Two. Our ability to manufacture things, our ability to
(24:04):
supply oil to ourselves and Germans, the Germans inability to
do the same for themselves.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
This is absolutely right.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
And we study one of the books that I give
to everybody who joins our company as a book called
Freedom Sport that talks about the reindustrialization of the country
in the late nineteen thirties and early nineteen forties. But
it's really important to say that how that got done
is actually not the DoD building a whole bunch of
new factories back in the day. It was really the
(24:36):
Department of Defense being able to reach in to all
of the excellent commercial manufacturers spread throughout the United States
so that we could take essentially the best of American
industry and use those production lines to be able to
build defense equipment, you know, everything ranging from jeeps to
artillery shelves. And this is what it looks like to
(24:57):
bring American manufacturing back. It gives us optionality and capacity
to be able to do something like that if God.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Forbid we have to. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
I kind of grew up in the in the Iraq War.
I have a lot of experience with these things, and
I think that having a strong industrial base is actually
one of the most significant deterrence to conflict that we
could be investing in this country right now.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Do you think you know, we've gotten so used to
cheap goods as a society, you know, from getting so
many things from Vietnam and China and those Asian countries
that produce things with a much lower cost labor rate.
Are Americans prepared to pay more for things made in
the USA?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Again?
Speaker 5 (25:38):
Oh? I think that is the I think that is
the critical question here, because this is not going to
be without difficulty and without friction. And if we are
fundamentally transitioning from you know, a peak globalization environment into
an environment where we're a little bit more proactive and
defensive of our national industries and and of our supply chains,
(26:00):
like this period in between I think is going to
be difficult, and candidly, I don't know. I hope so,
but I think We're starting to see what that's going
to look like. And I have a lot of confidence
in American manufacturers to step up. We work with thousands
of them through our company at Sustainment. But this is
going to be a difficult period of transition for many
(26:22):
consumers and small businesses.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Yeah, I would think too, even for some of the
big businesses. I'm sure that it's going to be easier
for some industries other than others. For example, on the automakers,
it should be fairly easy for them to shift production
back into the United States because they have so many
automotive factories that are not being used right now, some
of them completely devoid of any activity. It may take
(26:47):
a little while to gear them back up again and
to retool them to a certain extent, but the infrastructure
is still there. And then there's other industries semiconductors come
to mind, that we're just now getting into manufacturing those things,
and that's going to take a while to build that up.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
The hope here is that all of these terrorists and
all of these policy focus areas encourage a whole generation
to jump into manufacturing. I mean, really, what we would
like to see is we would like to see a
whole generation of capital allocators, of workers entering the manufacturing workforce,
(27:23):
of small businesses being able to grow and hire and
invest and so on. And this is going to take time,
and you're absolutely right. I mean, textiles is another example
of an industry that has been almost entirely moved offshore.
But there are opportunities for this and it will be
interesting to see how it goes.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
I think the other component here, and this is going
to be interesting to watch as well. I mean, we
are starting, I think, to see a movement for some
high school graduates away from the idea that I have
to go to a four year college and get a
degree in accounting or whatever that degree computers or whatever
that degree may be in. Some of them still pretty useless,
(28:02):
quite frankly. And if we have really good paying manufacturing
jobs in America, maybe American teenagers will get more interested
in participating in those kinds of jobs. Because if they're
not interested in participating those kinds of jobs, we're eventually
going to have a labor shortage, are we.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
Oh, you're absolutely right, and this is what this looks like.
This is again the flywheel that we need to kickstart here.
I mean at the end of the day, it's very
easy to get tied up in all of our equipment
and all of our technology and all of these different
things that we like to get excited about, but we
cannot forget that companies are people, and companies succeed on
(28:41):
the basis of the talented men and women that they
can recruit, train and encourage to stay in those companies.
And changing this dynamic where it was better to go
be some consultant or an investment banker than it is
to actually be somebody who builds and who is part
of the process of creation. I think that is a
(29:02):
fundamental philosophical shift that we need to make, and that
is going to take a generation to undo or to transform.
But that's probably the single most important thing.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
I think.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
If we drive opportunity into US manufacturers, they're able to
invest in equipment, they're able to invest in people, they're
able to grow to hire. Those market signals flow through
to young men and women who are looking at the
job force and placing their career bets in manufacturing, which
leads us to be more capable as a country with
more entrepreneurs and more great small business owners and so
(29:37):
on and so. I think that's what we hope to
see as a result of this understanding that it will
take some time.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Okay, excellent talking to you, sir. I appreciate your insight.
Thank you for being on the show. Okay, thank you
very much. You've got Brett Boyd, the CEO of Sustainment,
back with more in a moment, Jimmy Bart Show. Here
a name nine fifty KPRC. All right, before we wrap
(30:16):
up today's show, I got a little local story I
would like to do, and we're gonna be doing more
on this tomorrow on the Morning show and probably here
on our afternoon show as well. It is there's some
evidently some legislation being proposed to examine where state agencies
(30:39):
operate from you know, this, this doge world that we
live in has a lot of state governments. Unfortunately it
doesn't have Harris County government or local governments doing much
of it, but at least at the state level. They're
talking about finding ways to be more efficient, and one
of the ways that they think might be more efficient
would be to move state agency. Is there a reason,
(31:01):
for example, why the Texas what's the official name of
Texas Windstorm Insurance Association that's it, TWEETA, the Texas Windstorm
Insurance Association. Is there a reason why they should be
in high priced offices in Austin, the most expensive city
to live in in the entire state of Texas, when
the reality is is that most of the windstorm damage,
(31:25):
most of that stuff comes along the coastal areas. Why
aren't they located somewhere along the Texas coast. Why not
have offices in Galveston, for example, which is one of
the higher populations area, or Corpus Christie, you know, somewhere
else closer to the action of what they are needed for.
Here's a report on that from KPRC too and Mario Diaz.
Speaker 12 (31:47):
Jim Wade is fighting to get the condo building where
he owns three units back to where it once was.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Nine months after Hurricane Barrel.
Speaker 9 (31:55):
We had to go borrow money to conclude the work
that's being done.
Speaker 12 (31:59):
Weeds fight is against the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, better
known as TWEA, and it is a surreal one for him.
You see, he was a member of twea's board over
twenty years ago. The association is based in the shadows
of the Texas Capital.
Speaker 9 (32:16):
There's no reason why you couldn't relocate multiple functions, decentralize
everything out of Austin.
Speaker 12 (32:23):
The potential for relocation of government offices from Austin is
part of a legislative push to save taxpayer dollars. Small
business owners along with elected officials I spoke with, we're
on the same page.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I think it's a great idea. I think it's overdue.
It makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 12 (32:40):
Ray Hunt is the executive director of the Houston Police
Officers Union and a former member of the Texas Commission
on Law Enforcement.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Tea Cole right now is renting office space and non
state building.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
It's very, very expensive.
Speaker 12 (32:53):
In fact, we found a previous for lease advertisement for
the building that t Cole lists as its office address
on their website. It's miles away from the capital, but
smacking the heart of the most expensive city in Texas.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Most of the people who work at Tea Cole don't
live in Alstin because they can't afford to live in Austin.
Speaker 12 (33:13):
Aside from saving taxpayers dollars, a potential relocation for saying
the likes of a twea means having workers with a
personal connection in an area devastated by the winds of
a named storm.
Speaker 9 (33:27):
They'd have a better understanding of what we have to
go through when a storm impacts the area.
Speaker 12 (33:33):
But while a potential relocation is being pushed, one pivotal
question remains about this concept. Do you think it will
make business more efficient?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I would think so. It'd be more responsive.
Speaker 10 (33:49):
Than not having to wait on getting someone out of
Austin to come down and see what the problem was.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Interesting. It's an interesting concept. I mean, they were talking
about that feral level with the FBI cash Mattel. I
don't know if they're actually going to do something with that.
I think they should. There's no reason why twenty thousand
FBI employees should be in Washington, d C. Those employees
should be spread around the country. You know, crime happens
(34:16):
all across the country. There should be there should be
FBI affiliates, at least on a regional basis. Why do
you need to have twenty thousand in Washington, d C?
At FBI headquarters? Is there is there a reason for that?
Only only if you have way too much hierarchy and
not enough agents. It seems to me the FBI should
(34:37):
have less hierarchy and more agents. And I'm sure, the
same thing could be said for local government. If we
were to take a look at the Harris County books
or Fort ben County or even Montgomery County, how much
are they spending on office space? You know, how much?
How efficient are they being with our tax dollars as
far as you know who they employ, what those employees do,
(34:58):
and where those employees were port to work. We have
to rethink all this stuff. I think if we're ever
going to hope to save money. Now there are some
and this is where we get to the next step
in the story that we'll be working on for tomorrow.
Harris County is trying to find all kinds of ways
to raise money and and and discourt state law, including
(35:21):
by the way, coming up with a with a with
a whole list of excuses to why they need to
raise more money. And one of the things they're talking about,
one of the potential schemes they're talking about, is taking
your property taxes and in tying it to your income,
(35:43):
taking your income and tying it to how much you
pay in rent, so you'd have rent control and you'd
have people with higher incomes paying more in property tax
for the same home that you'd be paying less for
if you've made less money. So I mean they're coming
with all kinds of schemes to how to work their
way around you know, state laws relates to these things.
(36:04):
We'll have moren it coming up tomorrow. All right, listen,
that's it for today, y'all, have a great evening. I
will see you, I hope tomorrow morning bright in early
five am over on news Radio seven forty k t
r H. We are back here at four on the
AM nine fifty k pr C
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