Around the Horn in Wholesale Distribution - Episode #156

You're just dancing all over the room. All over the room. Okay.

Sliding around on the chair.

All right. It was a nice little moonwalk type of thing.

That's right. Yeah. I've got wheels.

Yeah.

Never before have I been accused of having wheels as slow as I am. So what's happening with you this morning?

Boy, there's a lot to. A lot to unpack today, man.

Yeah, a few things happening out there, huh?

Yeah, yeah, Very interesting last. I guess a lot of things have happened since the last week that we were. That we were here.

Yeah, exactly.

So I see Bob here. Yeah. Bob, this is going to be an all AI episode. 90 minutes, everything AI. He's going to be a low later. I'm just kidding.

Not.

Not true.

I hate to bring this up because I didn't read it fully, but I. If I'm not mistaken, our friend Bob Britton here, who joins us regularly and is the first of our commenters today, Bob posted something on LinkedIn earlier this week that was all about AI.

Oh, I didn't see that. So.

So I. I don't know. Maybe he's coming to the dark side.

Yeah.

Very good.

Hey, good morning, Brian. Yes. See you later, Bob. Thanks for coming in.

Yeah, exactly. Very, very good. Well, let us dive into. Great to see Brian Conley there. Appreciate you being with us today.

And yeah, we had like a week of summer here and now we're back to normal overcast. And it's.

You know what's. What's funny is yesterday. Yesterday morning I got to my desk, I don't know, it was about 7. Good morning, Mr. Judge. Good to see Dan joining us today. It's been a. Been a bit for Dan, so. We always love it when Dan's with us. Yeah. I got up yesterday morning, got to my desk about seven or so, and it was foggy and down here by the beach, and then by noon it was high 80s and it's a little overcast today. So I think it's trying to do its little shift towards, enjoy the next couple weeks of beach time and then by October it's. Which is fine by me because I've got two trips this month and four weeks in a row in October. So we're gonna get two or three more beach days in, and that's going to be about it, I think so.

All right, well, let's rock and roll. We got a lot to do today.

Yeah, you got a lot of. You got a lot on your mind, don't you?

I do.

I'm gonna just put hit Mute and let you go today. Anyways, good morning to everybody that's with us. We appreciate you being with us. I'm Kevin Brown. This is Tom Burton, my lifelong friend and business partner and co founder of Lead Smart Technologies. We get together every Friday, come rain or shine, typically, unless, as we say, someone's in the hospital, on an airplane or on a planned vacation. And even sometimes we do it from planned vacations. And we review a newsletter that we publish each week. It's called around the Horn in Wholesale Distribution and Manufacturing. Goes out to about 10,000 plus people each week. And in that newsletter we talk about things like the economy and supply chain mergers and acquisitions and AI and robotics and technology and sales and marketing and people and leadership and all different types of things. We have about, I don't know, six or seven segments in the newsletter. And what we do is we review on our show here on Fridays, we review that newsletter and how it applies to wholesale distribution and to manufacturing. We love having comments as they come in. So if you're with us live today, please feel free to jump in and join the conversation. We're live on LinkedIn Live, YouTube Live and Facebook Live this morning. Then later today, John Taylor, our editor and producer, will edit this up a little bit and put it out there into Spotify and Apple and all of the podcast platforms. Where it'll be available today is number 157. So that's not Heinz 157. It's Tom and Kevin 157. Can't believe how long we've been doing this. It's just still staggering to me that this has continued for three plus years. So I guess we should start planning something for our 200th episode and see where we're at in the scope of time. I'll have to map that out and look what we're in that's coming. But we do this, as we mentioned each week. We're happy to have you with us. There's a couple of things that we ask for you as guests if you're able. One is, if you like what we do here each week, we would love it if you would either follow the Lead Smart Technologies page and the podcast page on LinkedIn if you're listening on Apple or Spotify or even if you go back to those later on and listen, not only give us a. Excuse me, a follow there, but leave a review. And if you're on YouTube live, which is a significantly growing audience, please subscribe to us as well. All of those help the show go up a little bit in the algorithms and gets us in front of more people in wholesale distribution. I think today that I saw from LinkedIn there was four or five countries represented. Usually when we look at the podcast statistics on the podcast, there's six to eight countries each week that people are listening in on. So we appreciate that. Secondly is we couldn't do this without the sponsorship of the company that Tom and I work for, Lead Smart Technologies. At Lead Smart, we've developed what we call the Lead Smart Channel Cloud solution. And Channel Cloud is an AI enabled, what we call smart CRM and customer intelligence platform solely for wholesale distributors and manufacturers. We don't work with people outside of those arenas because we stay extremely focused on the background and understanding that we have of distribution and manufacturing. I've spent 30 plus years of my career in distribution and manufacturing, Tom, approaching 10 years of that on the technology side, but in 30 plus years on the technology and software side of the world. So we came together a number of years ago to develop a tool that, excuse me, helps our customers get deep insights into both their customers, their teams and their entire business by bringing what we call silo data, and we use the term corralling that silo data from across an organization to a single platform. By getting all that data into a single platform, we're able to use AI tools and other tools that we've developed to analyze what's happening both at the customer, with the teams and in the business and giving great insights into things that people haven't seen before. So we do that by uncovering growth opportunities and even risks that could be impacting the business. So if your company is stuck either with your, your uncle or your, the old Buick commercial, Tom, that your dad's Buick CRM, which is just a load some call notes and hope somebody reads them. If you're stuck using that or even haven't really started a digital journey, we would love to partner with you on that, give you some guidance and direction on what we see of our great customers that are having great results, growing top line sales, reducing risks in their business and understanding their business. So let us know if we can be of help to you. And on that note, Tom, why don't you take us away and get us started?

Yeah. Hey, speaking of CRM, one of the things that kind of like as we go, as you go through that every week I think about kind of what's happened or what have we learned in the last week, lessons learned last week. And I think we've kind of cracked the code on adoption and I know, we're going to do a webinar on that once your travel schedule dies down a little bit. But adoption always seems to be a big, big question mark and issue with companies, especially with, you know, asking salespeople to do something that's new. And I think we've kind of cracked the code on that and have kind of a system and a process for, for adopt, not just for CRM, but I think what we've come up with would make sense for really any technology adoption. So anyway, we're going to do a webinar on that later this year as we go forward.

You want to give any teasers on that?

Well, other than. It's just, it's a system, right. I think what we've worked out is a system for adoption that, you know, starts early on in the process of implementing the technology. But how do you incorporate kind of, you know, not just training, but accountability and how do you. Where is the PR part of things? And there's just a lot of different elements that I think we've been able to work out to see. Kind of how do the puzzle pieces come together to get the results, the results that we're, that we're looking for. And clearly it's a big issue. Right? I mean, our customers and prospects are concerned about adoption, and rightly so. And it's a big issue with any technology. And so I think it's, it's something that it's, we put a lot of energy into and I think it's going to pay off a lot down the road.

Yeah, I think it's great. I mean, I'll just give an example. We talked to a customer earlier in the week and it was the end of last, late last week, I guess it was. But they're talking about, They've got over 150 people using our software. So it's a large sample size. Over 80% of their people are using the technology every day, both on their desktop, on their mobile devices and getting, getting good, good results. Huge sales increases as well. But you said about 80% every day, multiple times a day, and another 10% that are a few times a week and then another 10% that's kind of digging their heels in and, and doing things when they have to, but that's to be expected. And usually when we see those people that are, after they've gone through some good training and the rest of the organization is seeing good results, the people that are still digging their heels in are probably people that are challenging, having some challenges and in other parts of their job too.

And oh, hey, good morning, Paul. I just saw Paul jumped in as well. But Bob's question here, this is a great one, right? Is it coerced adoption or willing one? And what we've really been working on is how do we make it willing? Right. It won't work if it's coerced. Right. Or it will work temporarily if it's coerced or forced. It's, that's, that's not a long term scalable strategy for adoption. So it has to be based on willingness and not just of the individuals, but of the organization to do that. So yeah, great question.

And well, I think it's an interesting thing, right. We oftentimes wish our customers would push their people a little bit harder to get started because most of our customers are, they'll, you know, and it's interesting to watch this because it's not, it's not, it's not necessarily in this day and age a recipe for success is they'll oftentimes buy technology and then see what happens without having a plan or a methodology to go about it. So I think to Bob's point is the biggest component of that comes from how well you do training.

Right.

And how well you show the value and the return on investment. I'll call it return on time investment for it.

All right, all right, we're going to talk about that on the webinar. So let's.

Oh yeah, sorry about that. Gotcha. You out a little bit on that. So more and more training.

So good.

All right, want to dive in. What happened this morning? Jobs report.

Jobs report. So came in week as probably most of, you know, I think the. Let me get the exact data here. So 22,000 net jobs, which was smaller than usual. I think there was expecting around 70 or 75,000. There was an upgrade or not an upgrade. I guess a change to the July. July was actually a bit higher, but June was a bit lower. But bottom line, two months in a row now, right. Job growth is pretty sad. I guess on the plus side there's not a lot of layoffs taking place. So there's, you know, this is just job growth. This isn't net jobs in general. So people are still keeping their jobs, but companies are not hiring. And the sectors with the largest losses were manufacturing, federal government, wholesale trade and mining and energy. And there were new jobs created in healthcare and social assistance. So those were the two areas that came from there. So I was actually expecting a bit more stronger job report that.

What, why were you thinking that because.

We'Ve seen that roller coaster this year, like month in, you know, month in, month out, one month low, one month high, a bunch of revisions, a bunch of revisions higher. I expected to see more revisions higher. Didn't happen. So I think as they said, it's what's close to like 100 now that we're going to see a 25 point rate cut this month. At least that's what all the things are saying. So, yeah, I agree they should delay it because it's whatever you see now will be changed and in a couple years. But anyway, it's looks like a slam dunk for the rate cut.

Think it might be more?

No, not this month. I think what's going to happen is we'll get 25 basis points this month and then if we have another crappy job report next month in October, think you could see 50 points or 50 basis points in October?

If you do you think we could get 3/4 of a point before 750 basis points before the end of the year?

I do, but I think right now they'll be spread out, given what the.

25, 25.

25, 25. Unless we have another October.

So September, November, December.

That's right. I think that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yep.

That's good.

Well, I think the other side of it is will the jobs report be revised?

I do, but I mean, it doesn't seem like it's going to be revised meaningfully enough unless like, and I can't imagine they're going to come back with a major, major revision next month, but God, you never know. So.

Yeah, I think so. I think the September, you know, I think you're alluding to this as well, is that the September cut of quarter points probably baked in already. The market is certainly saying that. You know, I tend to, unless I get out in the sun for a little bit my lunch breaks, I tend to turn CNBC on and kind of listen to what's going on in the markets and certainly seems that the, the stock market is looking at it from that standpoint already. The, I heard a couple people talking this week though, about even maybe, you know, half a point. So we'll see. But I wouldn't argue with what you're saying about, you know, 1, 1 and 1 to close out the year and then see what we, what kind of boost we get out of this.

So, I mean, so the, the poly market data here, you can see. I know it's a little small maybe to see, but right now the 50 or 50 basis point probability went up 4 points. So from 6% to 10%, 25%, 80, you know, roughly 90% and 2% or less percent of, of no change. So this was down, I'm sorry, up a point. This was up a point. So I think the no change was around 6 or 7 before the report came out this morning that was here. So it's certainly not impossible, but I think it just, this doesn't seem likely. I don't know what would be the catalyst for them to do the 50. 50 basis points?

Well, the. From a data standpoint. Yes. You know, it's interesting just thinking about polymarket before you jump ahead here is I was just, John put some, I think on YouTube, they call them shorts, just snippets from the video on the, the around the whole horn, excuse me, LinkedIn page. And it was a clip about a poly market discussion and I, I shared it to my network and Jay Grayson, who's a private equity investor and M and A guy, he said prediction market. He just commented on my post and he said prediction markets like Poly Market highlight how decentralized data can sometimes surface sentiment and probabilities faster than traditional models. And he was kind of. And then he said, thanks for this post. It's, it's really, it kind of ties into, you know, with as fast as we have data available to us and even with some of the AI tools and so forth. It just goes back to what Mohamed Al Arian was saying in the video clip we played last week. He's a Ph.D. economist and head of economics at Allianz Insurance and had been with Pimco and Pacific Life and other bond groups and so forth as well. But, you know, he was talking back to what just to me just, I'm not doing it saying these things because I'm so smart in economics. It just seems like we're just still using antiquated data that is slow and needs to be revised to come up with solution. I just, I thought what John or what Jay said in this commentary on my post was about, you know, decentralized data sometimes surface sentiment and probabilities faster than traditional models. So I think in a lot of.

Parts there is some data now. They're starting to be published on the blockchain. I think we touched on this a week or two ago.

Okay.

If we can see more of that happening, right, where data and more in real time is being published to the blockchain and then you can take that data and analyze it much more in real time. Because yes, I Agree with you. I'm not sure I agree that we have the wrong data. I think that the, it's so out of date in a lot of cases or so and things change so quickly that, and it change and then the data changes so radically is we're, we're making data, we're making decisions like these rate cuts using maybe data that's even a week or two old is not, is not. It's. In this day and age, everything's real time, right? We have real time everything. Why are we not doing things to allow us to have real time data that we are making decisions around? And in theory, a theory, the Fed, the fact that the Fed process, right, you kind of got me thinking about this. The Fed process of meeting once a month or two months or whatever to adjust interest rates. I mean, in theory that could have all be done in real time and adjusted using market data so that it's much more relevant versus a group of people coming together and making a decision.

Or add or just even, you know, I think it would be hard to change all of that quickly. Right. And to get around all, all that. Look, Tommy came back. Go back to that polymarkers for a second. I was just trying to look at one thing there. For those of you that are listening later in the day or not able to see our screen, we have up throughout our recording. You don't get to see, you don't get to see Tom or I or the, the charts that we put up. And oftentimes we have times we'll have the newsletter up as well. So if you'd like that newsletter, just reach out to us and we'll get you a copy of it. But in looking at this poly market, it just, you know, this is moving real time. Stock market is moving real time. I think there's a correlation here to be had and it's probably a lot deeper than we'll mention now, but there's got to be a correlation to how the stock market is viewing the economy. And it's baking in whatever changes it expects. But it's, it's, it's its own animal as we've seen throughout this, specifically through this cycle of, of the interest rate challenges. Right. Even going back into the pandemic as we go through that. Right. So I think there's this correlation to this real time data that says Fed is going on, let's just say antiquated data that sometimes needs adjustment hasn't been revised in forever. The, you know, 3 PER. The 2% inflation number is questionable at best and, and we're using Sonia just comments about you know, old playbook, new playbooks. Right. Great comment. I appreciate that Sonya, for sure.

And I do agree, I do think we are starting to see, I don't think it'll happen quickly to your point but I think we are seeing at least some attention being put on to the fact that hey, the old playbook, we need a new playbook and we need to merge some of these things together.

And it's and I think that's where you were maybe I don't think you're necessarily disagreeing is with my thinking is I'm not saying I, I don't think, I don't think that the 2% inflation number is the right number but the how we get to that needs other supporting data and there is supporting data that you can get real time.

Right.

That is talking about what the real health of the economy is. And, and I think when you look at that it's, it's tied to you know that we have an article later on in fact that one of our final articles is about we have an early article about sentiment and we have a late article in the newsletter about sentiment and they're different.

Right.

One of them is a survey from I think Constant Contact, that email marketing tool did of I think 1300 businesses talking about how some of the sentiment from them is hey, we've had an impact of we'll just skip that article when we get to it later. But the crux of it was saying from 1300 small and mid sized businesses was that our customer, we're feeling an impact from tariffs, our customers are feeling an impact from tariffs but our customers are still buying and they're even buying new and different things. So we've got this offshoot right. Of what's really happening in the market and I think we, I think it's time for some adjustments but I think I talk about that every week so I'll shut up.

Well, I think there's going to be adjustments. I don't know that they're going to be, I think there's going to be adjustments in the speed and the, and how we, and the relevance of the data and how we're making decisions with.

That data and, and the sources, I think we need additional sources.

Right.

Right.

I don't know that there's going to be a big change in the mindset of what is acceptable inflation and all of that kind of stuff. I don't know.

Well, you know, you made an interesting.

I just don't so I Don't know. But I do think that the ability to have data, be able to analyze broader data sets, use data in more real time, I think is definitely coming because I think if nothing else, we've all seen how antiquated and unreliable this process is. Right.

Was there 12 fed governors?

12, I believe, yeah. Although I think there's one seat open at the moment.

So you get them sitting in a room and they pontificate on data that they've been looking at for many years. So I think there is room for adjustment there. The other piece of it is, it's interesting, I think you mentioned that the, this jobs report was not talking about, didn't have anything significant relating to layoffs. But I read an article, I think we shared it a few weeks back or around the last jobs report. In fact, it was, I think we had the discussion about it when the jobs report was updated. Was that talking about layoffs is, layoffs is also oftentimes a, I don't want to say false statistic, but it's not optimized because of the number of companies who will use that as a crutch to say they're right, sizing their organization. So maybe they've been dragging their feet on some layoffs or getting rid of some, some dead weight or whatever it might be and now they have an excuse because it's happening other places or they're trying it to the economy. So then now all of a sudden you have a statistic that's like, is that really the right narrative to be using to try and make these major decisions, these decisions? There is, you know, I think we're going to go in and talk about tariffs here in a few minutes. I think we're, there's an inflection point coming very, very quickly for this, this administration.

Right.

We've talked about all of the things that they wanted to put in place from fentanyl and borders and the things that go with all of that to balancing trade to lowering taxes on shoring manufacturing. You know, there's a handful of things that are coming up here fairly quickly. They're going to say can that happen? And there could be a couple of wrenches thrown into some of this that could keep many of those things from happening.

So, yeah, one thing I found interesting that we can move on from this about the labor just in doing a little more homework before the, before the show. One of the reasons that it appears that companies say they're not laying off or reducing jobs is because they've gone through this process over the last few years where it's been hard to hire, they've hired people. They feel like they've got some decent people in the, in the job. They don't want to just get rid of them because it's like, it's like hoarding. Right. I want to.

Where do I find them? Yeah.

Right.

Well, it ties to Bob's comment here, right. He says, why did I call him.

Back and do that again? Right. So I think there's, I think what you're seeing is hesitancy in hiring. We're seeing this, right. We're out there hiring right now and the candidates that we're getting are remarkable actually. So it's definitely an employer's market right now. So I think hiring is slow, but also firing or layoffs is not necessarily rapid. So you've kind of got this, this equilibrium. But you're definitely seeing some really good candidates. And we're seeing candidates that are already have jobs, but they're still out there, you know, testing the market. Right. They're not, they're not just, you know, relying on the fact that they have a job right now. So anyway, I think it's just an interesting mark job market all the way around.

Want to jump ahead and talk about. I think we've talked a little bit about this already, but we could talk a little bit further about consumer confidence being, you know, at such a low rate right now. This was confidence, not consumer, I'm sorry, business confidence. Thank you.

Yeah.

Why did consumer pop into my head? I don't deal with consumers.

I was. That was a week ago. We talked about consumer confidence.

That's right. Good. So nice article from our friends at Distribution Strategy Group, Jonathan and Ian and their great team over there. Just looking at, looking at kind of pulling a bunch of data together. It's funny because, you know, this is the article that I said was the opposite of the, the prior one, but this was. They talked about principal financial well being index. I hadn't heard of this index before, have you?

I have not, no.

Yeah. So the index climbed to 6.8 out of 10 in August. So financial well being up from 6.02 in April. But last year it was far, far worse than this. So it seems like there's a little bit of adjustment there for a little bit of optimism. But it just, I think right now that the biggest challenge that everybody's seeing is the. What is going to happen with tariffs? What is going to happen with interest rates? Right. I would say right now, and this is just my opinion as a Business person if tariffs are upheld at some level. Right. And, and my, my guess is do you want to talk anything else about confidence? We can kind of take that back.

To that because I think. Let's jump to tariffs. Yeah. There's a couple things I'd like to talk about. Okay. We'll come back full circle to the confidence piece. Yep.

That's what I was kind of leaning towards. That's good. I, I kind of look at it as well. Go ahead. You, you, you would want to start on tariffs. So go ahead.

Well, I mean, you're, you're bringing up. Right. So what happened this week is that the appeals court ruled that the way that Trump has gone about tariffs and the administration has gone using the emergency. I don't remember the name of it, opan, but the Emergency act. We can look it up here just so we have it. Correct.

I have it. Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Right. Was illegal. It was illegal for him to do that.

And let's put timeout for a minute. Right. We had a court.

That's right.

Right. A judge basically say that. Right.

Well, they voted 7 to 4 against. So there was.

Yep.

The appeals court voted that these, this was illegal. Okay. They gave them to October 14th. So it said basically the tariffs can continue until October 14th. Otherwise, unless you file an appeal and win. Right. With the Supreme Court, then the tariffs will all be illegal as of the 14th of October. So that authorized unauthorized. Right. Right. So Trump as. Or in the administration is trying to. Is that's what the next article is. Right. Is asking for an expedited ruling from.

The Supreme Court which all, which everything points to getting that.

I don't know about that.

I did a in depth search.

You mean it all points to an expedited ruling or a positive favorable ruling.

To a, to getting a ramped up quickly, quick review by the Supreme Court.

No, I do believe that to be true. But do you, are you saying that you believe that the Supreme Court will, will overturn the judgment from the appeals court or that they will uphold it?

I think there's a strong likelihood of that, but I don't think it matters. Let me rephrase that. Shouldn't say that. That's way too strong. Here's what I see. And, and this will be. I was commenting about, you know, inflection point or pivotal moment. I think for this administration in general. If you look at this. Right. So what they're, they're not saying that you can't have tariffs. There's. What they're saying is that this one particular piece that that Trump was looking to use this Emergency Powers Act. Right. Isn't acceptable or it's unlawful for you to impose that in this setting. Right. So I just did a pretty lengthy conversation this morning with perplexity. And so it just, it gives it I'm going to share with you the summary of a timetable and it says step and outcome likelihood based upon reports and information available timing and then tariff status said first appeals court appeal accepted by the Supreme Court says highly likely fall of 2025 tariff status tariff status remain in place until then. Supreme Court upholds current ruling moderate to high from analysts overall view the Supreme Court upholds current ruling. So that would mean straight tariffs are struck down. Supreme Court reverses ruling less likely tariff stay Congressional action to change the laws excuse me are low timing is indefinite and then immediate refunds for importers uncertain. Depends on scope and if struck refunds possible but process uncertainty.

Right.

Here's what I see out of this because what comes next is there are let's see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 alternative sections that the administration can turn to. One is Section 232 Trade Exemption act of 1962 allows tariffs to be imposed on imports that threaten US national security. Section 301 Trade act of 1974 permits tariffs against countries engaging in unfair trade practices or intellectual property violations upon investigation by the US Trade Representative. Remember that one section 201 Trade act of 1974 as well allows tariffs or quotas to protect against domestic industries seriously injured by increased imports. Again requires International Trade Commission investigation findings. Then section 122 again from the 1974 Trade act enables tariffs of up to 15% for a maximum of 150 days for balance of payments reasoning, addressing deficits. And then the final One is section 338 that goes all the way back to 1930 that grants authority to impose tariffs of up to 50% or a ban on imports entirely as retaliation for discriminatory or reasonable trade practices by other nations. I think you have three at least of these that were be very reasonable to look to impose as as opposed to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

But let's take a step back. Right. Let's assume for a minute that the Supreme Court upholds the ruling and says that the current using the Emergency act is illegal. Let's just assume for a minute. Yep, I agree with you that there's now other avenues right of which to do tariffs. But Paul just brought this up.

Right?

Right. This is based on what the research I've done. This is true if that ruling is upheld, then all the tariffs that have been collected so far have been collected illegally and they would. And again, I don't know the practical application of this, but in theory those tariffs that have been collected up to this point would have to be or should be, maybe not have to be, but should be refunded back to the importer that's doing that or the people that are paying the tariffs that are there. So whatever it's been, I think what 528 billion or whatever it is that we've collected and continue to collect would be subject to refund.

Potentially.

Potentially, yes. Now again, I don't know the practicalities of that. It seems like a logistical nightmare. But practically that would be true.

Guaranteed back to the Supreme Court, right?

No, I don't think so. No, not the refund part of it.

I bet you it does.

No way, no way. There's no reason because the law already says what is supposed to happen. I just don't know the practicality of it.

Well, the, all the research. So I did a pretty in depth search on that this morning and everything that I said read that it was may be refunded, not required to be nothing, nothing statutory. So guarantee my, my view would be guaranteed back to the courts. Paul's point sounds like a cluster because one of the other things I read is that yes, even, even if, even if it was a place where it said they had to be refunded, the government doesn't know how to do that.

Understood, I understand.

Then it's a whole bureaucratic process of an application and so forth. I guess the downside is for the people that would want to apply is that it's bureaucracy. The upside is we have that money in the treasury for a period of time.

But again, I agree with you. I, I'm. This is more hypothetical. Like I agree where it would be a cluster, it would be a mess and probably not very practical. Let's just assume that happened. Now also think about what does that do to the current agreements. Remember that are handshake agreements that we.

Have, not all of them.

Yes, the most of them are like Japan and Europe and all of those our handshake agreements. Right. Does Japan now say, no, I'm not investing whatever they said $500 billion on the not, I'm not agreeing. What does it do to the China agreement? Right, that's there because yes, I agree there's other routes that are here, but those routes are other avenues. Those avenues definitely have more barriers and challenges to them than using the emergency.

The only ones that have the real barriers and challenges that you described are if you go through Congress.

All of them have limitations that are different limitations than what you have with the Emergency Act.

But let's, let's, before you go on from that, let's look at this. Right. So the first one was about threats to national security, probably less likely from that one. But the other ones are again, permits, tariffs against countries engaging in unfair trade practices or intellectual property violations upon investigation. So the question is, what is that upon investigation by the US Trade Representative. Mean that could probably go pretty quickly because there's so much data. If you look at that, just think about insert. I'm going to reread this. Permits, tariffs against China engaging in unfair trade practices or intellectual property violations. I'm going to insert the company's country's name in.

Okay.

Section 301 right there would be the quick move with China. The belief is that all of these and the whole point behind this from this administration was about balancing trade because of unfair practices of trade with other countries. So how hard is it? I don't know. I don't know anything about this. But I think, you know, the US Trade Representative is appointed by the administration, if I'm not mistaken, and you probably can get that ruling pretty quickly. I, I just, my view is, I don't think we can, we don't have to agree. I, I believe here's, here's what you. Can I boil this down, What I think is going to happen.

Sure, sure.

I think this is going to end up very quickly in the Supreme Court. I think there will be something that comes out of the Supreme Court that some verbiage that's used that is going to say, yep, you can't do that, but you could probably do this. And it's business as usual where these are going to continue to move forward, but they're going to have to be a little bit more managed and controlled versus a strike of a pin without necessarily having to go to Congress.

So I, I agree with you. It'll be expedited through the Supreme Court. I think we agree there. I think the Supreme Court decision will be very black and white. It's not going to have gray in it. So it's not going to be, well, you can kind of do this and you can sort of do that and.

Not agree with that at all.

That's fine. We'll see what happens. Right. We're not here to agree with each other.

No, no, absolutely.

The issues. So I think it's going to be Very black and white. I think it's about 50, 50 if I were, I looked on polymarket to see if there was any, there's nothing there on that. So my opinion, it's about, it's a, it's a coin toss on which way it goes from those perspectives. Bob seems, and I think Bob's bringing up a point, right. There's other, other extenuating circumstances, including refunding these, that could influence the Supreme Court. But we'll see if they, if the Supreme Court upholds it, meaning that they're illegal. I understand that there are other avenues, but I think the leverage that administration has and has had is way less. Right. This might even be like a, I don't know, this could be like a, I mean a steak and a taco. I don't know where that ranges, but spaghetti, I don't know.

Ribs. Ribs.

Yeah.

I want, I, I want Paul in on the bet. I want to know what he thinks.

Yeah, yeah. I'd love to hear what anybody thinks on this.

Right. You know, what comes out as here, here's the, here's one of the challenges. And I think this is, this is the big challenge. And I bet that's why we have a Supreme Court. Right. There is a huge potential domino impact to the US Economy. If all of this were struck down and everybody could go back out right.

Of these agreements.

There's a, there's a domino trickle down the factor. It could have major impacts to the economy. That's why I just, I, I, I don't, I don't know exactly what they're going to say. But I, I, my view of it is when you have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 other remedies that do not require going to Congress. I don't think these tariffs are going to go away.

Well, I don't know that they're going to go away quietly. But let's assume that it gets, let's just again, hypothetically assume it gets.

Tom, can I interrupt you for one second? Let's get some, just some clarity to the discussion. What is the Supreme Court looking at? Not tariffs, one aspect of how they were done. No, I'm just, this is not for you. It's for everybody. Right. They're looking at was the act that was used, the ieepa, was that acceptable to use that in this case? That's all it's going to say.

Was it a legitimate use of that act to, to put these, or was it a legal use, not even legitimate legal use of the act to then implement all these Tariffs that was there.

The authority to do that.

Right, right.

The alternatives to that are these additional cases which when I read those and I would encourage people to, you know, go, go look up. Good. These look up as well. I just. You could search statutory alternatives to IPA tariffs. There's two or three of them. That to me it's slam dunk. Now, there's probably more to it than slam dunk.

I. I don't think they're slam dunk. And I think if you unpeel them a little bit, you're going to find. Otherwise they would have used them before.

No, I don't think so. Because they what. And this is the differentiating point. I think as I read this, you can read it different. Others could see it differently too. Paul, we can't be friends anymore. He just said he's aligned with you. The.

Paul and I are in for tacos together.

Okay. I'd be. If Paul comes, I'd gladly buy a nice taco dinner. Very good.

The.

I think this is the differentiator though Tom is. And this is what potentially could be the factor. Right. The Emergency Power Authority piece that was done with this was swipe of a pen. I decided all of these others have the. What do they refer to it? U.S. trade Representative. There has to be some data and some specifics and some determination by the US Trade Representative. And based upon that, if you look at what these talk about quotas, domestic industries being impacted seriously is one of the other ones. Specific amounts of tariffs are some of the other ones. If there had been retaliatory or discriminatory tariffs is another one. But back to that. Unfair trade practices, intellectual property violations, if you got. This is the one to me that makes the most sense. This 301 is you could apply that to everybody that there's tariffs against that matter. Maybe not on Greenland. Right.

But if you go back, if you.

Look at the eu, if you look at Canada, you look at Mexico, you look at Southeast Asia, you know, you look across the board, you have that right now. And this is what the administration has been saying that in that setting is that there's. They took this stroke of a pen, right. And they're saying all of these things are happening. But I want to go do it as an individual with a strike of a pen. Where if they would have originally gone to this section 301 and done at that standpoint from unfair trade practices and intellectual property violations. The unfair trade practices is broad enough that if they have the research and a report from the trade representative, we probably wouldn't be here. That's where I think this is probably going to.

But. And this is what Paul just said. Right. It does require more diligence.

Yes.

On the administration's part. More work and more time. So let me go back full circle to the confidence question that we were just at. Yeah, yeah. Let's.

Just pointing your finger at us. Yeah, I see a little of this.

Yeah. Okay, that's. Sorry. That's a good discussion. So what I. Let's assume that the Supreme Court upholds the appeals court ruling and says that it's illegal. Okay. Let's assume that, yes, there are other avenues, but they do require, as Paul just said, starting from zero again and going through the diligence and getting those. Is that good for our whole. For the wholesale distribution and manufacturing industry. All this uncertainty, again, keeps the uncertainty there. But what I'll.

This is a great. That's a. I'm really glad you brought that up. All right.

And that's going back to the confidence question. Right.

That we were. This is where I think the Supreme Court could really. And it does that earlier article. I'm glad you brought that full circle. But this is. It kind of ties to what a little bit about what Paul was saying about, you know, other tariff structures. This is what I think could really come out of this, is that this. And you were saying black or white. And I would just argue. I think there could be some gray to this that says use these other sources. Right. And if. Because the Supreme Court has an opportunity here and again, I don't know enough about what they can do or can't do, but I think that they could come back and say, hey, you know what? These things have to come into place. Now the question is, do they just say yes or no that was legal or illegal.

That's what I believe they will do. Yes, I think.

I know you believe that. But the question is, will they come back with something further that says. Because if. All they say is that's not their job. Well, that's the point. Right. But if. But they constantly come back with. I mean, you can look over and over and over again about what the stock market does with things. Right. Of reading between the lines of what they're saying, what, what the reality of it is, and I think what the marketplace needs is fair trade. So would we be in agreement that fair trade is important?

Of course.

Okay. So the methodology is, right now is this administration is saying, hey, prior administrations want to sit around gold leaf tables in Dubai, you know, every, you know, and meet every six months to discuss some of these. We can't wait because the US Economy needs to change, is what this administration is saying. Okay, so if that is the case, then what is the methodology to move faster to get to fair trade likelihood, that is including tariffs. So what is the roadmap to get to tariffs that would one keep things out of the court? Because part of what the Supreme Court wants to do is keep people from coming back there. Right. And so if they came back with something that said, and this was my kind of what I was alluding to, maybe some gray that said here would be the route based upon some wording in their, in their opinion that they come back with or their ruling is, or some of the opinions that are written to go with the ruling, say here would be the route. Whether it's section 301 or whatever it is, something's going to come out of that. And the reason I say that, Tom, is because one of the other search does that I did this morning, that says why are countries negotiating tariffs if they think they're going to be struck down? Right. And it, there's, it gives, you know, all kinds of different reasons, but the biggest one was risk management because of basically the idea that there are other methodologies to get there.

Right.

So which is why I don't think we're going to. I'm going to add one other thing to my prognostication. I can very much see them coming back and saying, yep, this was unlawful. Yep, you can't do that. However, there's this area what this would be acceptable. And by the way, or maybe even they just stall their opinion for 150 days with an opinion coming out or something that goes with that, that just basically says if you don't go solve these things, you're going to lose.

Yeah.

Because there's a bigger issue at play here.

Of course, there's a, there's a gigantic issue at play here. Right. I'm not arguing, I'm not disagreeing with that at all. But if they do strike it down as illegal or still say it's illegal, uphold the ruling to Paul's point, we will be starting over again, quote, unquote, with whatever route. Even if they recommend a route and say, hey, you can't do this, but you could do that, you're still starting over. Right. And there's a lot of uncertainty and a lot of, a lot of things to be unpacked there.

So the question is, is, I guess, how firm does that do those things come together to provide Some clarity.

How firm does what come together?

I mean, if is, if you look at this, if what comes out of these decisions and then what the administration says they're going to do next. Right. Does that could, in theory, I don't want to say bring certainty, but. But maybe if you look at this, that says, because part of it'll be, how quickly does somebody take this back to court? Right. I think it would be. Again, here we are, you know, two knuckleheads pontificating that neither one of us have, you know, I took a semester of business law. I don't know about you, but if you even did that studying computer science. But I think if you look at some of these other options that they could have, routes that they could have gone are much less likely to be tried to have somebody strike them down and, or. Or take them back to court. There, there's just. There's some of them that are just very straightforward. So if you're using those and there's other people involved.

Yes.

I would agree with you that we're probably starting over. And maybe not it's not starting over, but nearly over. Because there's a reboot.

It's a reboot. It's a reboot. It is. Because you're now going down a completely different path with a completely different set of rules and things like that. That's the point of the refund. So it's a reboot. It creates more uncertainty in the market. So we're either going to have. And we can move on from here. Right.

Because I think this is healthy.

Right. Because we have, in my engineering mind, we have a matrix. Right? We have interest rate cuts. No interest rate cuts. I think we know we're getting interest rate cuts. Right. And we're going to have more going into next year. So we're going to have lower interest rates going into 2026. That's a given. The question is, are we going to have tariffs as they exist now and then what is being proposed? Sounds like it's about 50, 50, right. Whether that could happen, if we do, in some ways, I think that might be the best outcome for, for the economy and for the certainty of business people. Right. Because we already kind of know what we've been doing. We know how the agreements are shaping up. Right. So probably the best thing for the economy would be for the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling and just let everything continue. Right. So those are the things. And then we know we're going to have interest rate cuts, but we also kind of know where the tariffs are at least going to continue down a road if they get, if it gets overturned. Right. Or the, or gets upheld rather. And the.

You should be saying when because that's your belief, not if, No.

I don't, I think it's 50, 50 that the, that the Supreme Court.

Okay.

Yeah, I, I, I'm not betting on that. I'm not betting on that. I think it's 50, 50. I just think that it's not going to be a lot of gray area. It's going to be yes, one way or the other. So let me, but let me, sorry. So then on the other side of it. Right. Is if they, if they, again, they uphold the ruling and we have to reboot. As I was just talking about, as Brian just says, seems like we're heading towards a reboot and Sonia as well. See, I'm getting a lot of agreement. I have a lot of team members with me today. Yeah. So if they do that, Paul, just.

Anyways, go ahead, continue.

We have uncertainty. Right. But we have lower interest rates. So I think, but the uncertainty, I think for another year or God knows how long that all of the reboot would take and all those types of things would, would create less confidence going back full circle. I think we'd have more business confidence if it was upheld and it would go and go forward from there. That's what I, I believe from a confidence perspective and just a, overall, so I, my personal, personal opinion is I would like, I believe, I would like for the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling and uphold the ability to move forward the tariffs because I do think a lot of the things we're doing there make a lot of sense, but that doesn't mean that's what will actually happen. As Paul just said, the standard tarot structures are more predictable and less uncertain. The new ones we don't know.

Well, I think that's right. And you know, Paul made a comment earlier and said that the ones we read. It looks like he probably went and did a little research. Section 232 and 301. Right. Are the two that I read. And this is the, this is the case. Right. And this is why I'm, let me tell you why I'm pushing back on the word reboot because I don't, to me, reboot says starting from ground zero. But you don't need to. Right? Why? Because all you're doing is saying we have and this is, and again, it's my belief, but I feel very strongly about this. There is a reason that all of These nations continue to negotiate while this had the risk of being struck down. Right. The structure is in place. If they, if the administration just goes back and says, you know what? And, and I would assume, right, because there's people that are thinking about this every day, all day, not on Fridays with us, that the U. S. Trade Representative already has the case in place for all of the most important countries or nations that are going to be impacted by this for section 232 or section 301. And yeah, Paul makes a good. So starting from $0, right. But I think if you get. So my, my belief I'm just going to go from this standpoint is I don't believe it's a reboot from the ground zero because we already have things in place. There's a lot of work that's already been done. There's trade agreements, some in place written, some in place that are handshakes. These nations negotiated for a reason because. And there's tons of them. If you do some more research of why. But is all you've got to do is just go back to it and say, hey, you know what, now we're using Section 301. Right. The U.S. trade Representative said this and which is why my belief is that coming back from the Supreme Court, hopefully, if they strike this down or uphold the lower court's ruling, if they do, if they uphold the lower court's ruling, is there is some understanding of where this could move ahead. That clarity would add some. I don't want to say certainty, but less uncertainty to the market. Because now we could look at this and say, you know what. And even components of this, if you look at section 122 talks about, you know, 15%, section 338 talks about impose tariffs up to 50% on specific things. If we had discriminatory or unreasonable trade practices by other nations, I think we could get some clarity coming out of this, which would be the hopeful thing, maybe to Paul's point, is we're starting with dollars of ground zero. But if they go move to those very quickly, the question would be, do they still need to worry about refunding?

Absolutely, I think they would because again, the tariffs that were collected were collected to this point, quote, unquote, illegally. So they would then say, okay, I have to give back the money that I collected illegally, but now I'm going to start here on whatever day, November 1, with a legal way of doing it. And, you know, who knows, right.

Would you agree that that's not an absolute, though? Which part that they would have to give the money back.

I think it's an absolute that they legally should. That would have to give the money back. I think practically and logistically it's very difficult. So I don't know how it would work practically and logistically, but legally, I do believe they would have to absolutely refund the money, no questions asked if it was ruled illegal.

So of our active. Of our active commenters today on our live show, and again, we're live.

This is great. We need to have more discussions like this. This is great. And I love the comments. I love.

That somebody said they're on Team Tom.

No, but you got some Team Kevin's in there as well. You're doing fine.

You know what I loved about that was Sonia made a comment earlier, and I think it was related to my comment about, you know, not being lawyers or economists. And she said, don't let imposter syndrome get in the way or something like that. It's pretty funny. So that was. That was good. That might be my favorite of the day, but now I kind of lost my train of thought. Oh. So anyways, Paul. Paul Kennedy's with us, and Paul's a personal friend and a friend of the show and great industry leader. So of the people that are commenting today, right. We've got technology folks here with Brian and, and consultants and sales experts and Bob and others that have been making good comments. And Sonia works with Focus, which is a great bi tool that a lot of wholesale distributors use and a lot of our customers use as well. But Paul's the guy, right? That's where the rubber meets the road. So let's look back to this. The Sonia's comment about reparations. There's a 9,000 things just hit my head about that one. But. So let's look at. Let's look at the. The refunds. So manufacturer a, that imports 70% of the components that he buys from China that have these big tariffs on them right now wants a refund. And you're adamant that those revenue refunds are coming. Paul Kennedy runs eligible.

How they actually get processed, I don't know.

But let's, let's unpack this a little further to what it really means, which is why I struggle with the whole concept. So manufacturer A, 70% of his products are coming from China, another 10% from Vietnam, and maybe on top of that, 20% of it are.

And they know how much they've paid in tariffs and to the, to the Commerce Department and so forth for the tariffs.

So they built that product they now sell that product to DSG Supply, Paul's company, who now sells that on. They sell that at the manufacturer, sold it to Paul's company at an increased rate because of tariffs. Paul increased Paul's prices to his contractor in North Dakota for that hot water heater or whatever it is. Right. And that contractor paid those dollars.

Yep. Per the law, the only people that would be subject to the refund would be that manufacturer who paid the original tariffs.

And how does that downstream, how is that equitable?

I'm not saying it's equitable. I'm just saying the way it is. Right. So, yes, the winner there will be the people who actually paid the tariff. Nobody downstream will win from that unless the manufacturer wanted to do a rebate or something like that, which I doubt very much would occur. But you're right. I'm not saying it's fair.

To me. Goes back to the idea of not this not playing out. This does not play out as a reboot. This plays out as a modification. And we're starting fresh with the legal ramifications behind it. Because what if, if any of these other sections are eligible and can be used in this setting? Because the big thing we haven't talked about a lot is going to Congress for all of this.

Yeah, yeah. Which is a, which is an option. Just it's not.

But you're never going to get anywhere in Congress right now with something like this. And it's not going to help the economy. Right. Because it would be tied up forever. So the question is, can one of these others. And you know, to our point earlier, you know, talking about 232 and 301, these to me seem very straightforward of, of being able to document. And as I, as I said, and I do believe they're probably have the documentation in place already for these things. Right. We just have a senior executive of this country or a president of this country who believes that it's easier to do it fast with sweeping, sweeping swipe of his own pen to make himself look good. But at the end of the day, finding balanced trade is where we want to get. And if the courts and the U.S. trade Representative can get behind using one of these other ones, I just don't see it as a reboot. We've got all these negotiated things in place. And I believe, I won't say you need to. I believe that's one of the big reasons behind why all of these countries are at the table and have put these deals together. Right. Knowing that one of these other sources is going to come into play. Because if you.

Would they be worse off with one of those other sources? Is that what you're. You're suggesting, is that they're.

No, no, no. I. So I don't think. And this is, you know, be great. We had Alex Josavsky or, or Taylor St. Germain or Sean Dubovac or some of the economists that we've had on with us that may know more about this. I guess maybe this boils down to something. The. The question is, do section 232, section 301, let's just only use those for the moment. If those can be instituted just as quickly as the IEEPA was. If those can be instituted just as quickly with then the provided documentation, I'm assuming these things could be done in weeks. Right. Maybe a month, month and a half, something like that, using one of these other sources. That's the likely. And this is more of my belief is why Japan struck the deal. They looked at. And believe me, Japan's willingness to invest 500 billion or whatever the number is, there's all kinds of other economic payoffs for them to go with that as well. Right. There's great benefits to that. SoftBank and some of the others are sure are very tied to that. But if these statutory alternatives to the IEEPA is the reference that I'm looking to my side, if you're watching me, is, is if one of these others can be very quickly implemented. That's why I don't believe it's a reboot. I believe it's just we're taking IEEPA and putting it now. It's called section 301. And I believe that is a big component of why people have been negotiating to the level. They've been negotiating because they believe these are coming regardless of the methodology that the U.S. government uses to extract the tariff. Sorry for being so long winded there.

No, and let's. I think we need to wrap up here. But you're saying the show is almost over.

We never got past the first section.

Right. Paul's gone.

Paul's had enough. See you, buddy.

Have a good weekend. So what you're basically saying, right, is philosophically, regardless of what happens, everything kind of just stays business as usual. Philosophically now, behind the scenes, logistically of all those things, yeah, there could be a lot of turmoil and stuff like that, but philosophically, everything stays the same. I actually wish that would be true. I just don't think so. I think that when you have change and confusion and cluster, as Paul said, And uncertainty and all that stuff. All that does is create opportunities for people to back out, change, do things differently, reevaluate all of those things. I think it's going to be way more of a cluster than you think. Okay. I don't. And so we'll see, right? We'll see. I don't.

And where I could be wrong on that, Tom, let me jump in there and then you can continue on with it. But where I could be wrong in this is. Did I say that out loud? I could be wrong. I hope my wife's not listening.

Yeah, she already knows where you're wrong, so you don't need to let her know.

Oh, boy, though. Boy. She. She threw one at you the other night. I. I got something when I. Not eating dinner, but cooking dinner. I got some food on my shirt. You know what she said?

She must have been having some wine or something. She must.

Yeah, yeah. She called me Tom the Spiller. But anyways, the. I. If. If there was the likelihood of this being struck down and all of this just going away, why not just drag out all of these negotiations as long as possible if you're another nation? Right. Everything that I researched and read this morning suggests that all of these people believe that something is coming and it's going to be in place and let's get ahead of the curve.

Yeah. I don't. I don't disagree that something's coming. I'm just saying that when you introduce change and you introduce confusion and you introduce change, if you just want to leave it at that. Right. People use that as an opportunity to potentially renegotiate, alter negotiations. There will be a lot of confusion. There will. Let's face it, the $528 billion, someone's going to want that money back. Right. There's going to be all of those things. So it's just, It's. We. I think, as a country, we would be much better served if the. If the Supreme Court overtook the ruling and just said, no, it was okay for what you did. Continue. Right. I think we'd be much better served.

But it's an interesting thought. Just not what you see happening.

But I just don't see that's what I see happening. So, unfortunately. Right. Fortunately, I think we are going to see. We are for sure going to see a reduction in interest rates. So I think that's going to help keep the economy moving and keeping spending going and things like that. Despite that, we may end up with another six to nine months of cluster.

Right.

That's the.

That's the so, so let's, I'm going to recap for me and be done.

We'll, we'll move on like three times now. That's okay.

You said it. I haven't.

Okay.

It's just funny. You know, it, this is, this is why it's good. We're not out looking for sponsors. Right. Because we just do whatever the heck we want and, and have the discussion. But the show keeps growing, listeners keep growing, reviews are good. So we'll keep doing it, I guess. But we need something and we need something. We need that. We need balanced trade.

Right.

However we get there through this court ruling and my, my, it's interesting to your comment about what might be best. I would just tweak that a little bit and I think maybe what would be best is so Sonia says calm heads must prevail and certain is never calm. I think basically what she's, I'm going to read, we get there through this court ruling and my, my, it's interesting to your comment about what might be best. I would just tweak that a little bit. And I think maybe what would be best is so Sonia says calm heads must prevail and certainty is never calm. I think basically what she's, I'm going to read between the lines. What she's saying is they need Tom and Kevin to just go solve this for them and everything will be fine. Right. But I think if there could be a way, assuming that this is, was illegal or the authority wasn't there to use the act that was used is basically what comes out of it is we're not going to hear this again. Go use one of those other statutes and, and then put that in place. Trade representative has the data quickly these, maybe the China number becomes more reasonable. And what we haven't even discussed at all today was if this was com, if, if there was a way to not have any tariffs right now and all this is mud on the face of, of Trump. We didn't talk at all today about the fact that Putin and Xi Jinping were together for half of this week consorting on things. So there's, there's a risk of, of where this country sits as well. But I think if we could come out of that with a something that says, hey, this one isn't reasonable, go use one of these other ones. Basically they do that. We could probably find some certain. Let me rephrase that. Less uncertainty much quicker than we are concerned about.

Okay. No, I, I think what I hear you saying is if the Supreme Court provides some guidance. Yeah, right. That, that might. They do sometimes, which they do sometimes, I think.

And I think it's, it's through, it's through opinions versus rulings.

Understood.

Right.

But we'll call it guidance through opinions or whatever that, that might, well, that might create less uncertainty, less confusion, less whatever than if they just did a black and white answer.

Right. So, yeah, I'm not sure what Brandon means there by conspiring, but there's a lot of ways that could happen.

Yeah.

So, but I, so it's.

If it expedites, I think they would want by really probably by the end of October, if they expedite it, we could have a ruling because I think the, it's the October 14th, but maybe we could even have a ruling by then. That's what, five weeks, six weeks away. Yeah, it'll be, we'll have to get John to kind of take some snippets out of this show and replay them and see what happens on that whenever.

It'S, send them a note. I think what we need to, maybe we should do is try and get one of our, one of the economists that's been with us before come around schedule around that time. Just remind me to do that and I'll work on scheduling some of that. I think it's, it's, it's powerful, but I think there is the potential coming out of all of this that we could have less uncertainty. And my reasoning, part of my reasoning behind that, which is why I just can't get behind the whole concept of starting from scratch, is the base is in play. If all we're doing is changing section blah blah, blah IEPA to section 301, the Trade act of 1974, and there's some clarity that that can be enforced. You don't need to start over. You got an agreement with the EU already, move forward with it.

You have a handshake agreement with the eu. We don't have a written agreement, but it doesn't matter.

They've said, I mean, when you had, when you go on global television and you say, here is what the deal that we're looking to do, you're going to come to some agreement that's pretty close to that. When all is said and done. If you're just coming back with we have a new section of US Law that allows us to do this, why would I just, I don't, I don't think that there's an, the fact that all these companies, if there was so much of this that could just Say, screw it, we start over. Why would these people, these, these nations have gone to all of the lengths that they've gone through to negotiate and put things in place, regardless of if they're a handshake or not, when the EU sits down and says, we're willing to do these things and invest this amount of money, they are realizing that something is coming one way or another.

Yeah, boy, we could keep going another hour on this because I don't, I don't disagree with you, but I don't agree with you. I think you're looking at this a little bit, too. Once I, I don't think you're. And look, you're, you're, you're. You've done a lot of business in your life and a lot of negotiations. And you know how things change. And when things change, people make. I think a lot of these agreements that were made were made because there was political pressure in their countries to make an agreement to get some certainty in place. But now if I have a different playbook or even an altered playbook, let's just not call it different, but slightly adjusted, I'm going to use that to potentially renegotiate some points, maybe change a few things. I'm not saying I'm going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but I'm not necessarily going to just follow the same thing all the way through. I'm going to use it to my advantage. I'm going to use change. I'm going to use the fact that maybe it wasn't so again, I don't know the specifics of it, but I don't think it's just going to be a seamless.

Let me share. Let me clarify to you why I made the statement.

Right.

All. And this is, I feel strongly about this. Assuming is I'm going to make an assumption, assuming I'm correct on this. If all we're ending up doing coming out of this is saying we're using IEEPA Emergency Powers Act. Right. For this, and now we're using this. It doesn't change the impact of the tariffs.

It does. Because if you start to peel a.

Part, the US Is just saying we're just, we're imposing tariffs. Right. Because which statute they use does not impact the EU or Mexico.

But it does. If you go and look at some of these statutes and really unpack them, they're not the same. And there are some nuances and there are some contingencies that don't exist with the general one that's there.

I Didn't see. I read and read and read and did not see one thing that would suggest that if you're using the intellectual property or unfair trade practices and you have documentation of that, that has probably, in my view, probably more teeth than an emergency.

Now you're having to prove something, right?

You don't have to prove it to them, but you're not having to prove it to them. You're having. What this is saying is that the US Trade Representative and the United States government is saying this is an acceptable method. It is. Does not. We're not asking for anybody's opinion at that standpoint.

Right.

From other countries. It's all this is all of this boils down to in the US Is it acceptable to use this statute, this statute or this statute to impose tariffs? Right. Which one we use does not impact Canada. It doesn't impact Mexico. It's just is it legal or not to use it in the US that's, that's how I read all of this. And I read. I spent quite a bit of time on this this morning.

That's fine. I understand your point. I understand all the data that's there. Bottom line, right? I think here's the bottom line and we do need to move on, right. If the ruling is upheld and that it is ruled illegal, I believe that it is going to be a much, much, much larger cluster as the word people have been using. A lot of confusion, a lot of change, a lot of renegotiation compared to if it's upheld or it's overturned and it said no, you can continue as usual. You're saying that, hey, it doesn't matter. They can go down road A or road B, it's going to be more or less the same. I'm saying if you go down road A, yeah, it's the same. If you go down road B, it's going to be very tumultuous and a lot of cluster and a lot of, a lot of noise and a lot of uncertainty.

So there's an important question.

Okay.

To you on that thinking, not saying you're wrong.

I'm not saying I'm right either. We'll find out. I'm just, you know, you have, you.

Have an opinion and feeling, right? It's good, solid. What if it's IEEPA or it's Section 301 in the US Trade act to impose tariffs? What leverage does the EU gain of. Based upon which statute or which act we're using to impose tariffs, what leverage do they gain?

I don't know, I don't know enough.

I don't believe there's any.

And maybe there isn't, other than there's a change. Right, but why other than now the EU comes back and said you have forced or you've charged tariffs on all these imports for the last six or nine months, that, guess what, they're illegal. Right. You need to refund the manufacturers or the people who paid those tariffs. I mean, there's just a lot of things that now can be brought into the conversation.

But I. So let's differentiate. Then again, moving on, renegotiating what the agreements are is very different than saying, I want my money back for the tariffs that were deemed illegal.

Right. I'm just saying it's going to be both. I'm just going to say that if I, If I were in their shoes and something changed, I would go back and completely reevaluate what I agreed to, especially since it's not in writing.

Right.

Maybe I don't. Maybe I do, but I reevaluate it. I have other conversations. Maybe.

What leverage do you have to do that?

I don't know. Because. I don't know.

Renegotiating something. The only way you can renegotiate something is if you have increased leverage.

I think if nothing else, I have increased leverage in a sense that I paid you tariffs that are now showing illegal.

Here's your money back.

Okay.

Sticking with the agreement.

Okay, well, then that's the agreement we'd have to. We'd have to make.

I'm just saying it's not a renewed agreement. It's just we're going to give you some money back.

I'm just saying there's going to be conversation. I mean, you're a negotiator. Right?

And that's why. That's why change.

What would you do? You would find a way to go renegotiate or at least alter.

But the. But. But I have tried to renegotiate many deals in my life where people looked at me and said, tough.

Okay?

You don't have any leverage.

Okay.

Right.

But, but I'll look, these are. There's a lot of smart people. There's a lot of variables here. There's a lot of potential averages. So anyway, I think we're.

We're overrunning one more article from today. Let's talk about it.

Oh, brother.

Mom's gonna. Mom's gonna come in and scold us for arguing.

Yeah.

There's a couple you like.

Did you want to see one? Here. The AI regulation part. I Don't know.

Is Bob's still here?

I think he's still here. Yeah.

Okay.

But hey, you know, switching over to AI because.

Well, I'm glad. I just am reading Bob's comment about legality versus constitutionality now. We could have gone another 10 minutes on that. We've moved on though.

Yeah, we've. Yeah. No, and I think there's a lot to look. We'll see how it plays out. Right. For sure. But maybe we will have. Anyway, don't get me started. We don't need to go back. So we're not moving anyway. The AI regulations, state by state AI regulations may cause confusion. So this is actually a big deal. This is. The article is talking about Colorado delaying its implementation of. Of AI law or AI regulation the problem. And that's fine in and of itself, which is good. The problem with state level. And this is why I think it's so important for us to get somehow to get a federal AI set of regulations and that we really don't want state level regulatory issues. Because think about this. If you're a company, right. And you're a company and you're selling AI now I have to. It's like employment law. Right. Which is a pain in the. You know what right if I have to go and now. No. Okay. Well, if I have a customer in Colorado, I have different regulations and different things that I'm doing on the other thing versus if I'm selling in California versus New Hampshire versus Florida. Right. It's almost impossible and it's not really. It's not enforceable and it's not practical. So I think, you know, there's a lot of. I think there's literally thousands of AI regulations that have been introduced by different states up to.

And then you've got all the international ones.

Well, then you have international ones right on top of that, which I'm not sure we're going to find our way around that. But at least in the U.S. let's not make it more. Even that much more difficult by have state level regulations on what you can. It's literally so what does it do? It stifles the innovations. It stifles the business piece of things. So I'm really hoping that in the US we can come up with some regulation that we feel is at a macro level, at a federal level, and maybe there's some little itty bitty things that are at the state level, but they're not meaningful at the state level.

Well, the good news is at least is that we have a AI and crypto czar right. In David Sacks working with. Working with the government on this stuff. So, I mean, I think there. There's something come out of it. It just. The, the piece that makes me think about is sales tax. Right. State and provincial sales tax. Right. Is just. What a mess that is. Right. We just had a consulting firm help us with some work on that recently at Lead Smart with. It's like, oh, my word. Yes, yes. Got to register here. Don't have to register there. And I think this is a mess. And. But I think the most important part, and I think you made a really good point on this, is stifling the creativity and the opportunity that can come from all of this. Right. It's like imagine somebody saying, well, you know what? I don't. I'm not offering my AI solution that can help change lives in healthcare in Colorado because Colorado has AI AI regulations.

Yeah. It's, It's. It makes. If you think about it, it makes no sense and it's completely impractical. So I'm glad to see that they're delaying and I'm hoping that we see some more federal guidance, which I do think we will get.

Yeah.

Because I think we have to. Because state level is just. It's. It's not practical at all.

Agreed. All right. What. What other ones did you want to hit there. There's. Man, you're going fast scrolling through that. There was an order, I think. Tom, scroll back up, if you would mind. To the. For those of you that are listening and not watching, we're looking at our newsletter around the Horn and Wholesale Dist. We publish each week.

They cover one article in it every. Every show. But that's okay.

Yeah.

Sometimes the.

Scroll just up to the manufacturing distribution segment. There's an article in there that. This was from Mike Marks. It's how to recover from business mistakes and bounce back stronger. Mike's been a guest with us a number of times. Just a good friend and just a bright. A bright light in wholesale distribution and manufacturing. So. Talked about turning business setbacks into lessons and improving skills out of that, especially in difficult times like we're facing right now. So I thought that was. That was a really nice article. I always like to shout out, but with Mike, it's, you know, and it's. It's lunchtime. It's lunchtime in. When we start our show in Florida, where Mike lives. I think he's like a block from the beach or not even that far. So I think at lunchtime on Fridays, he's having His Cubano sandwich and his. His Coors Light, probably. So I'm not always with us unless we have him on the show. So those were good. There was. We can kind of scroll down a little bit more. There was some. We had a handful of good articles in the. In our HR segment though, as well this week that also related to AI in talking about the how to write AI ethics policies for the workplace. And then what's going on related to AI in. They called it a doom AI doom loop within hiring. And it's interesting. We've got what, three roles open right now at Lead Smart and not seeing anything related to AI of what's coming in from that. And certainly we're not using any tools with that, or at least our HR manager's not doing any of that right now. But interesting thing about the impact of. Of. Of AI and hiring right now. So.

Well, what you end up happening is you end up with. I'll call it keyword stuffing right in your resume so that the AI tool, hopefully, or if it's your resume or your application is being evaluated by AI, you're at least kind of rising to the surface through the quote unquote keywords that you've added into the thing.

Yeah, if I see demonstrated evidence of da, da, da, da, da and another resume, I'm gonna barf.

But, man, I mean, I've looked at a lot of resumes over the last month or so. They're awful. I mean, you. There's really. It's very difficult to distinguish between. One can. So we need a better way. I just don't know what the right answer is. But it's like, it's so hard. And there's no. There's no standard. Right. So everybody's just got their own way of presenting things. And. And it's hard to really know. And you know, you get a lot of buzzwords and you can tell a lot of them have been written by AI.

And I think the Supreme Court should weigh in on this.

I think it's a good idea. I think it's illegal. Yeah, I should make it illegal. So. All right, why don't we wrap up for the day? Yeah.

I was just gonna say before we do. The other one, though, was. Was talking about writing an AI ethics policy for the workplace. So many different ways that companies and people are using. There was another article, I don't think we published it, about people bringing their own. You know, what is that? Byod. Bring your own device policies. You know, about people having their own computers and phones in the workplace. And I think now we're going to have to have some policies for how you're using AI in the business because if you start thinking about it, you know, there are going to be one. We talk all the time about the security issues and we had some articles in there about some cybersecurity issues and things as well in this week's newsletter. But if you look to that as well, Tom is we're going to need this article in HRDive.com talks about AI ethics policies, but there's AI use components of it as well and how you're using it. In this particular one, talking about the ethical use of it because people could use it very nefariously and, you know, sabotaging fellow employees, you know, doing some really bad stuff with it. So I think we're going to get around this. It kind of ties into the article about, you know, Colorado's AI laws and naming a national standard. But you tie some of that into what are we what are our policies and standards and requirements in our workplace.

So I mean, I'm surprised even in our industry how many companies allow all their salespeople just use their own cell phones.

Yeah.

And do text messaging and phone calls and everything like that all through their own. And then they have a contact list of 5,000 contacts that are company contacts on their cell phone. Does that seem to be a smart idea? I don't know.

Well, it's so prevalent. That's the beauty of companies and products like our friends at Mobilico that do their mobile messaging solution. So we get out of the text messaging on my personal phone to text messaging in the mobile app with our customers in that setting, which I think is a good deal. All right, enough of that. Bob. Sorry we didn't talk long enough about AI but next, next week we'll do more actually next week we're dark. So yep. You're I think going to be at a customer and I will be at a very, very large company in Texas that's looking at bring bringing their big team over to to our technology. So I'm going to be next week we had an article in here as well just in kind of closing is Hardi H Vac Distributors Group Heating Air Conditioning Refrigeration Distributors International. Hardee is great group of folks. They posted an article about they publish regularly about monthly about increases or decreases in sales amongst their members. Their members had 6.8% July sales increase. Reason I mentioned that is they're having their national marketing event but there's marketing c level executives and some sales executives at this, they call it their focus event. And I'm going to be presenting two different sessions there next week and going to be seeing a lot of current customers and friends and prospects that we're talking to and industry folks. So that's in New Orleans. I'll be there, my presentations on Wednesday and then traveling to Houston on Thursday and home, home Friday evening. So.

Okay. So yeah, we have two weeks to see what happens then, is what you're saying.

That's right. Yes. Yes, exactly right. So good. Well, we'll wish everybody a great weekend again. I'm Kevin Brown, this is Tom Burton. We do this every Friday. Sometimes it's a little more civil and sometimes we. Most times we cover a whole lot more information than we did today. But lively discussion amongst our friends. If you like what you hear, we would greatly appreciate the like the Follow the if you're listening on the recorded podcast on Apple, Spotify, Odyssey, wherever it might be, if you could not only subscribe but leave a review that gets us out in front of a lot more people. We put a lot of time and energy into putting this show together. And that would be the one little favor that we would ask you is if you could support us in that. Don't ask for money from anybody. Don't ask for you to buy a cup or a mug or a T shirt or any swag. Although we never even thought of that. It's pretty funny. Yeah, there you go. I see your. I see the wheel spinning in your head right now, but a hashtag ATH on Fridays. But. But it would be great. We'd be grateful of that. We're sponsored, as we said, by our company. Tom and I work for Elite Smart Technologies. We help wholesale distributors and manufacturers gain deeper insights by using modern technology and AI to gain great insights into both their customers, their teams and their overall business to help accelerate growth and provide far better experiences for both their sales teams and their customers. And if we can help you with that, we would love nothing more than to have a conversation with you about your digital transformation. So you can reach out to us@helloadsmartech.com if you're interested in learning more about Lead Smart the other way, you could get in touch with us if you want. The newsletter is that same email address. We have a website for the podcast. It's called aroundthehornpod.com or ath pot on Twitter. And all the social media platforms were there as well. So that's about it. Tom, anything exciting for you for the weekend? No, you're just hoping your neighbor throws another brisket on the. On his smoker and invites you over. Right.

So I think he's out of town.

So I'm sorry to hear that. Okay, well, we wish everybody a great, great day. Great weekend. Until we see you next. Be kind, be safe, do good things.

Thanks, everyone.