Around the Horn in Wholesale Distribution w/ special guest Alex Chausovsky

Sorry, Alex. You have to put up with that.

Yeah. Every week we, I, I start the day with little, little dancing to that, that great tune. You know, it's early on the west coast here, so I like it. Got to get the blood flowing. And each week now, for 116 times now, I've irritated Tom by doing that. So it's the highlight of my day job.

There's some elevator music at the beginning, a little jazz thrown in on the back. Yeah, I like that.

Right? That's right. That's exact, that's exactly it. So. But it does, it does give Thomas first opportunity the day to mock me. So it's, it's good. And you know what's, what's funny is now we have folks that chime in on the comments. If I don't do a little dance there, then they'll comment about where did it go. And so anyways, it's a little bit of what we get. And my wife is not in the room to mock me as well with my dancing as Tom would. So off we go. Hey, Alex, great to have you with us. Tom, good to see you this morning. How are you guys both doing?

Doing good, doing good. And Bob wants to inform you that it is not elevator music.

You know, I stand corrected, Bob. My apologies.

Yeah, that's all right. Well, it starts a little slow and then it picks up. That's the key, right? And then that's the beauty of jazz. You don't know where it's going sometimes. So. All good. So let's dive in with our little bit of a housekeeping that we do each week because we have got so much to cover today. We're appreciative of everybody that's with us, so we'll do a little bit of housekeeping and get that behind us. But we've got Alex Czasofsky with us today from the Bundy Group. We're going to talk about him and the work that he does in just a moment. But I'm Kevin Brown and I'm here with Tom Burton. We're here every Friday. As we say, if no one's in a hospital, on an airplane, or on a pre approved vacation, which doesn't happen too often, but we get together every week. We talk about the news that's going on around the world. We look at things in the economy and supply chain. We talk about sales and marketing and M and A and AI and technology and all of the things that impact the work that we do in wholesale distribution and manufacturing. So if you enjoy what we do each week, we appreciate if you can share that with your friends. We come to you each Week Live on YouTube Live, LinkedIn Live and Facebook Live. And then later in the day, John, our producer and editor, puts all that data together and he gets that out on all the top popular podcast platforms. But what we do each week as we're together is we review the around the Horn and Wholesale Distribution and Manufacturing newsletter. That newsletter goes out to somewhere between 10 and 11,000 people every Friday morning. It's available by email. If you'd like to get that from us, you can just pop us a note at helloadsmartech.com or pop us a note on the the website for the podcast, which is www.aroundthehornpod.com and we'll get that at you on that website is also our past episodes, all of the different channels that you can subscribe on as well. And then now we have as well the newsletters available on LinkedIn. So if you popped your way over, you could either search around the Horn in wholesale distribution or jump over to Lead Smart technologies page on LinkedIn and you'll see the ability to subscribe to that and it'll come right into your LinkedIn feed that you get each day as well. So our hope is that if you enjoy what what you're hearing each day, that one you'll share things with the comments. I'm seeing a bunch of giggling, so I'm looking into the camera and there's folks having some fun on the side here. So what did Bob say there? Nothing important has happened the past couple of weeks. Very good. Well, we're going to dive right in.

There's not much for us to talk about, so this will be a short episode.

Yeah, that's exactly right. But we can't go into the podcast today without acknowledging the company that Tom and I worked for, Lead Smart Technologies. Lead Smart is the sponsor and the only sponsor of this this broadcast. So we, what we do at Lead Smart is we've developed a AI enabled, what we refer to as Smart CRM and customer intelligence platform. And what we do with that is we bring data from across an organization, whether you're a manufacturer, wholesale, distributor. We bring ERP data, marketing automation data, E commerce data, other data, business intelligence data that you might have. We bring that into one simple platform or single platform where we look at all of the things happening across a company versus siloed data that we have in any of those formats. We use some AI tools to help make intelligent decisions about how to spend our time where to focus our energies to accelerate growth within a business. So we do things in the term of what we call smart CRM, do things very differently than anybody else that's out there. We don't work with companies outside of wholesale distributors or manufacturers. So if you're looking for a solution to accelerate growth within your organization and understand your customers better, we would be grateful for the opportunity to talk with you. Last thing before we dive in for the day is if you enjoy and you like what you hear, participate in the comments with us as well as share what we do with your friends. Whether it's a leaving a subscribing on YouTube or subscribing on the podcast formats and leaving a review forwarding our newsletter to friends that gets this word out more we grow each week. We've got thousands of people now listening each week versus hundreds and things continue to grow. So we're trying to do good things for people. So if we can do something better, let us know. Share with your friends. Otherwise, that's it for me for the moment. Tom, why don't you introduce Alex and let's get started.

Hey, before we Alex, before I just wanted to do a quick shout out to Brian. I listened to their hundred DSG's 100 episode yesterday so and I think it's in our link in the newsletter as well. So.

It is.

Yep, shout out. Good episode there for sure. But yeah, Alex, tell us. First of all, welcome. I'm really glad to have you here. Yeah, I think it's very timely, as we said, because there's not much news that's happened in the last couple weeks.

Nothing going on.

Nothing really going on. So we're going to need some filler material. But yeah, welcome and tell us a little bit about yourself.

Thanks Tom. Thanks Kevin for having me on the show. Longtime listener, first time caller as they say. I appreciate it. So the way that I would describe what I do holistically is I help business leaders and the people that are responsible for decision making at organizations, whether that's manufacturing, distribution or any other industry, leverage data and analytics to make better quality data driven decisions. Now this comprises the economy. It comprises the labor market, geopolitics. Bundy Group, the company that I work for, is a boutique investment bank. So we do a lot of advisory in the M and A space, especially for business owners that are looking for an exit or to raise some capital to fund an acquisition or to grow. And so we track the things that are going on in the mergers and acquisitions space, constantly providing advice and recommendations about, you know, valuations, about strategies that businesses can leverage to build value in their organizations. Because at the end of the day, whether you want to sell your business or not, you want to run it like you're going to sell it at some point. Those are just good qualities and principles to run a company by. And so that's what I do that, that work is manifest itself. And I do about 100 keynotes a year at large conferences and trade shows. Yeah, it's, it keeps me on the road quite a bit, racking up those frequent flyer miles. The other half is working with individual companies one on one. I just had a call this morning with a company that is very active in the automotive and consumer appliances space. They provide magnet wire for a lot of different applications. And so we were talking about all of the things that they need to be aware of as part of their strategic planning operation. So supply chain people, capacity planning, inventory levels, all the things that business leaders need to understand. That's where I come in.

Do you get hired only when they're looking at a potential M and A opportunity, or are you being hired even to help optimize businesses even if they're not quite ready for that, that M and A road?

Yeah, so. So my work specifically is really outside of the transaction space. I get pulled in in advisory roles for strategic planning sessions, for company sales meetings. You know, if you're looking to encourage and uplift the sales team and tell them that, yes, those targets we set for you guys next year are feasible. Alex is going to come in and tell you why that happens all the time. So, yeah, I, I don't get involved in the transactional side of the business. It's very much the operations and strategic planning side.

Interesting.

Okay, so I'm guessing the, the deal guys say when they're out talking to people and looking for new customers, hey, we have Alex and he's going to come in here and help you understand things better. That's what I would do at least. Yeah.

Actually, it's interesting you mentioned that, Kevin, because I think one of the best ways companies use my insights is to arm their sales team with the charts and figures and data points that I communicate and take that as a value add to their customers. So it really elevates the level of conversation becomes much less. I'm here to sell you something more. I'm here to provide valuable insights and advice. And then if our solutions happen to fit a problem area or an issue that you're having, then we're happy to help with that. As well, but it really is much more value add on the relationship side.

That's great. That's great. I'm sure the customer facing team at your organization probably is very happy to have you and the insights that you bring and we want to bring some of what you're out talking to folks. It just astounds me the idea of a hundred keynotes a year. You know, that's almost, you know, I think if you mix a little vacation into that, that's, you know, two a week, that just is astounding to me. So congratulations that you're able to keep that pace. So that's great. But I think that the big value, and I'm very appreciative of, of you being with us today is there's just, what would I say, uncertainty, there's concerns, there's excitement, there's all kinds of different emotions globally. Yesterday I spent a little bit of time in the car and I was listening to both BBC Satellite Radio and CNN International. So I was listening to the international piece of it. I was watched a little bit of the news earlier in the week from a, a German news channel that broadcasts here in the US and then listening to the uncertainty and the concerns about what's coming out of last week's election. And, and even as we're going to start our discussion with today in our economy and supply chain section talking about the rate cuts going on, there's just a lot of caution and exuberance in some places concern. There's people who think that the world has just ended as well. So we're going to kind of talk about how all of these factors today impact wholesale distribution, manufacturing. I think a big chunk of what we'll be talking today as well will be supply chain related as well. And that's why having you today as a guest is fantastic from that standpoint as we dive in with things. You know, Tom, wouldn't it have been great if Powell would have had this meeting that he did yesterday, two weeks ago?

Yeah, it's. Man, timing is everything. Right.

So.

So the meeting you had yesterday. So I, I think I read that the odds now for a rate cut in December dropped from like 80% to 50 some percent. So it was, it's now like a 50, 50 shot whether we get another rate cut and, and you know, but yeah, they should have done that a month or so ago and then, you know, I could be enjoying that outback steak, so.

Yeah, exactly.

Right.

No, I, I've never, never for one second even remotely insinuated that I was Going to try a few. One that I was going to try and cheap out of the deal. So, you know, that's.

We all have our strategies, right? We all have.

Yeah, I'm, I'm altruistic and you're a penny pincher. So. Alex, we shared with you the bet that we had, right? I did, yeah. So. So Tom, Tom owes me a steak. Last week and last week's show, he. First thing he did was he brought up a screen that showed the menu items at Outback Steakhouse. So. And it was pretty amusing. He got the best of me on that. So. First article today though, from Reuters, Pal says no need for Fed to rush rate cuts given strong economy. You guys wanna. Alex, what are your thoughts on kind of what Powell had to say yesterday and where we sit after the second, second rate cut of the year that we got last week as well?

Yeah, lots of thoughts. But I'll start with, you know, the headline itself. Right. I think that there's a lot of misleading ways that media, whether it's online, in print, in person, on television, position certain things and it doesn't always reflect the nuance of what's going on in the economy. Right. So the headline was, you know, do we need to cut rates, basically, given that the economy is holding up quite well. Well, it depends on what aspect of the economy you're tracking. Right. If you're looking at GDP and consumer spending, sure, that has held up quite well, even factoring the impact of inflation out of that. But you look at the industrial sector, at automation, at manufacturing, at distribution, there hasn't been any growth in that space for almost two years now. Right. Since early 2023. So, you know, you try telling somebody the economy is strong when their business is down 20 or 30%, it certainly doesn't feel like the economy is strong. And that dichotomy, that difference of perspective I think is oftentimes lost in the noise. But it needs to be addressed. So, you know, if you look at the folks in industrial distribution in particular, especially those that are involved on the side of where it's much more project driven rather than transaction driven. Those guys are very eager for rates to come down. They need the borrowing costs to be more manageable for companies. Right. We can't justify the ROI for projects when you have to borrow money at 10%, it's much difficult, much more difficult to do so. So they're looking for the Fed to come from what is currently a restrictive policy. Right. When we have rates that are a point and a half to two points above kind of the 3% mark to one that is neutral or even accommodative. Right. I don't think we're going to go below 3% of the federal funds rate, but certainly there's eagerness to see the Fed lower rates by another percent percent and a half between now and kind of mid-2025, which they've so far signaled that they were willing to consider doing. So, you know, I still fall on the side of, you know, planning for another 25 basis point cut in December, even though, as you said, Tom, the probability of that has decreased substantially. It's very sentiment driven. Just the words that Mr. Powell chooses to use have a great swing there. What we do see is CPI as of yesterday's reading, 2.6% actually ticked up. That's the overall consumer price index. So, you know, inflation, while on a general pathway towards their 2% target, is not accommodative in terms of smoothly going down to 2% and likely staying there. Right. We're going to have upside inflationary pressure from many things. And I'm not even talking about tariffs or any of the stuff that is potentially on the table. I'm talking about things like average annual wage growth over the last 12 months right now is 4% year over year across the country. You can't have a consistent 2% inflation rate when you're paying people on average 4% wage increases. Right.

On that for just a second, Alex.

Yeah.

On the wage thing just. And I want. Man, this is awesome what you're describing here. In fact, Tom, I feel like we should just log off and listen from the background because I'm loving the stuff that I'm hearing because this is a deeper dive into stuff that we've talked about. But do you see the wage side of things flattening or dropping even a little bit because of the big push when it was impossible to get people to come to work? When we had the post pandemic, people were still living off of the money that they got from the stimulus, things that were going on and so forth. You see that flattening out a little bit. And I want to pick right back up where you were prior, but I wanted to ask you that question related to wages because it's important when we're trying to make sure we've got whether it's an accounts payable clerk and a distribution company or a machine operator and a manufacturer. It's important to understand that.

So I think talking about wages as a general theme is less valuable as talking about more nuanced and specific examples. Let me start at the big picture and then I'll kind of give you examples. So back in early 2022 and I'm referencing ADP payroll data right now. This is, you know, one of the top tier payroll processors in the country. They have millions of data points every single month. So at the peak of the frenzy, the froth of the labor market post pandemic, we had job stayers on average getting about 8% increases to keep up with inflation, which was running at 9% at the time. So even though the wage growth was substantial, it was still not enough for most people to feel like they're keeping up with it. That's why we had so many people changing jobs, because job changers on average were getting 16% increases. And so that was their way to stay ahead of the inflationary curve. Now both numbers have come down substantially. The latest data we've got from ADP is October, 4.6% on average pay increases for people that are staying in their jobs, 6.2% for people that are changing jobs. So still a slight premium, but not enough of an incentive to say to someone, give up the stability and consistency of paycheck that you currently have for the prospect of something different, maybe a slightly higher pay, but also a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty. You know, if things head south, you'll be the first one on the chopping block. Right. So generally speaking, yes, there has been a slowing of wage growth pressures, but we're not going back to 2% COLAs anytime soon. Right. The cost of adjustments, that's not going to happen as long as inflation. You know, you look, I look at inflation on both the overall and the core basis. Core is still over 3%, you know, 3 1/2 percent. So that 4% wage growth is about right. Just to help people feel like they're keeping up with inflationary pressure. So I don't think, I don't see we're going to keep going down, certainly not back towards the 2%.

Okay, so somewhere in between.

So I mean I think between 3 and 5% is kind of my long term view on the wage growth perspective. But it really depends on positions. Right, so you mentioned a couple of examples. I use the unemployment rate to talk about this. So the overall US unemployment rate currently 4.1%, but the unemployment rate for mid management is 2%. The unemployment rate for engineering talent is 1.7%. Field service technicians, people that are out there installing equipment, you know, less than 2%. So those guys, the competition for that type of Talent is much more severe and therefore the pay increases are likely to be higher in those areas. You look at technology on the other hand, where there's been some layoffs and people spending longer time looking for work, less impetus to increase wages as robustly because there is more availability of talent. And every position needs to be scrutinized in its own right to understand the supply demand fundamentals for that particular role and more importantly to figure out what is the competitive market rate that I'm paying that will allow me to not only beat out my my peers in the field, but also from the other sectors where they're looking for similar skill sets as well.

Hey Alex, I have a I now understand why your title is called Director of Analytics, by the way, but you're kind of the Billy Bean of business and wholesale distribution here. But I wanted to rewind a little bit here because you said something and I think it's important to I want to get your take on it because I have a take on it that I've talked about. Do you think that the economy, the strength of the economy or the perceived strength of the economy is camouflaged and that if you really pull that kind of pull and peel the onion a little bit, the economy is not as strong as everybody seems to think that it is in general and in particular for the business world?

Well, I would say that this dichotomy that exists between the industrial part of the US Economy and the consumer part of the US Economy is very evident to me. I don't want to mislead and say that the overall macro environment in the US Is not favorable because it is right. Gdp, real GDP I'm talking about, adjusted for inflation, is at a record high through the third quarter. We've got quarter over quarter growth, which is the way that I track economic performance, which is different than what you read online, by the way. They tend to talk about quarter to quarter performance for some reason. So they compare Q3 to Q2, but that's not the way that businesses think about their own performance. They think about Q3 versus Q3. That's the way that I look at it right Now. So quarter three this year compared to quarter three of 2023 up 2.7%. So we're above the average 2% growth rate, outperforming in that sense. And keep in mind, again, this is the important part that's not accounting for inflation. We've already pulled the effect of price increases out of that. So large scale retail sales, the last data point just came out yesterday or early this morning, once again exceeded to the upside. So people are out there spending money. When we look at their propensity to continue to do so, likely very high as long as we have jobs. And people talk about debt and delinquency rates of credit cards and auto loans being problematic. I agree they are rising over time. The latest data set that we have on that shows that they're starting to flatten out. And in auto loans case, for example, it actually pulled back in Q3 relative to Q2. So, yeah, there's some strain. But the consumer side of the economy, which, by the way, personal consumption accounts for two thirds of overall gdp, that part is strong and it should not be diluted. We're also much better off than many other places around the world. Right. So from a benchmarking perspective, we're better off than Europe. Although the Chinese numbers numerically are higher than ours, we know that there's some structural problems there, that our economy is underperforming relative to expectations. So if I were to say, where would I want to be as a business leader, as a decision maker? It's right here in the United States and with the changes proposed by the administration, you know, the deregulation potential for lower tax cuts, I mean, that only strengthens the argument that the US Is the place to be.

Yeah. I don't want to go down a rabbit hole, but you're opening up some really good points here when you talk about gdp. Right. And the government spending and even the debt, the government federal debt makes up a substantial part of the gdp. And if Elon comes in and starts cutting trillions of dollars and all of that, what is that going to do to that, you know, GDP and government spending? And I mean, that seems to me like a whole nother trail that you can go down to look at and see where things are going to end up in the next period of time.

Yeah. So government spending relative to the two thirds that I mentioned, for personal consumption, government spending is about 17% of GDP overall. What we have never seen is government spending going down. Right. So efficiency on Elon and Vivek's part, I wish them the best there, but I think that even with an optimal outcome, what they're doing is mitigating the damage to further deficit spending. Right. We're not going to have a surplus all of a sudden as a result, we're just going to have to borrow less money, cut it.

Cut enough to be able to make the debt payment.

That's right.

Well, depends on interest rate policy. Right?

Yeah, that's it, so before we, and I want to dive ahead to some of the further articles because it ties right into what we're talking about. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna just, I'll ask you, Alex, to throw your feedback, maybe a statement on what I'm going to ask and then we'll weave it in maybe to some further discussion here. Sure. I've said this probably for a year now that I think it's time to question what are the metrics that we're using to look at economic growth and, and where we're at with things.

Right.

Is you know, when we, we've talked about the history of where did the 2% inflation number come from?

Right.

Some random politician in a lobby or in a hallway in New Zealand said that that's a pretty good number. Right. Okay. Well now the world uses that number. But the, the world is changing in just so many ways. My kind of question is, is, and I, my gut tells me that we're already kind of seeing some of this with what Wall street is saying, or I should say the markets are saying, how we've got some of these cuts already baked into the markets and so forth, that maybe that 2% and maybe some of our overall monetary policy needs to be maybe revamped. Now I know when you look at the governors of the Fed locations or offices around, they're probably pretty staunch because it's what they know, it's what their job is based on. What are your just general thoughts and then maybe weave that concept into our further discussions today.

Yeah. So the statement would be, I agree holistically that the measures that have historically predicted economic performance need to be reassessed. But I also think that the Fed and specifically the fomc, the Federal Open Market Committee that sets interest rate policy, the board of governors that you mentioned is begrudgingly but openly admitting as much in their dot plot chart. So the dot plot chart is the famous chart that shows, you know, where interest rate policy will finish each calendar year for the next three years plus a long term view. So what they're currently messaging to the marketplace is about a percent more of cuts over the next 12 months, another half to three quarters of a percent in the year after that, and then the longer term run rate, if you look at it pre surge in inflation, pre interest rate spikes, they had it pegged at 2%. Now the body of evidence is much more spread out, but the average is now talking about kind of the three, 3.5% mark long term. And that is their way of acknowledging that they're not going to be able to keep interest rates at 2%. We're certainly not going back to zero the way that we enjoyed for the 10 year period after the Great Recession. And so it's basically messaging subtly but firmly to the marketplace that you need to prepare yourself and your organization to operate in a higher inflation, higher interest rate environment moving forward. We're not going back to what it was. You've got to figure out how to drive revenue growth, how to make a profit. Because a lot of times businesses forget they focus so much on revenue growth that it's the profitability that tends to suffer. So doing that in an environment where cost of business is going to be more, you're not always going to be able to pass those rising costs onto your end customers. And you've got to figure out how to make it happen with all of that having been said. But the silver lining is you've been there before pre Great Recession, higher interest rates, higher levels of inflation, companies were successful. So it's not an undoable task. It's just a reframing in our mind of what we need to expect.

Well, we need to, need to get figured out pretty quickly.

Right.

If we're thinking about near shoring and on shoring and growing manufacturing in the US and so forth. Because your comment earlier in our show today was about the challenges that manufacturing and distributors are having. If cost of money is through the roof and compared to what it was, you've got to adjust and use a different model within your business, how you're going to get to that growth and profitability.

Absolutely, absolutely.

You know, good couple of good comments in here. This Bob shared this quite a bit earlier this morning in our discussion, but said if the economy was as strong as some people might say, all boats would be rising with the tide. Kind of an interesting thought. So I think we've got a. And I'm wondering if maybe down the road what we end up with is that we truly instead of a blended, I'll even call it, you know, a blended discussion of B2B. B2C right now.

Right.

Is really we've got this blended of consumer and business. If we really started maybe in the future looking at this is what's going on in the B2B segment of the world or manufacturing distribution which is such a big part of this. And then here's what's going on with government and here's what's going on with consumer and then let's build a blended policy based upon that.

Yeah. I think that that's the prudent way to be. And most organizations, if they're doing any kind of strategic assessment and planning, they should be benchmarking themselves to the proper, you know, indicators. The.

Yeah.

Whether that's on the industrial side or on the consumer side, and more importantly, even within industrial. Right. I mean, there are categories. Right now I was speaking to a trade association that is for the forging industry. Many of those companies are currently down as bad as they were in 2008, 2009, like, -40, -50%. You look at others that are exposed to countercyclical sectors. You know, you look at medical, you look at military and defense, those guys are up double digits in some cases. So Even within the B2B environment, there's a whole lot of variety. And you've got to make sure you're looking at the right data sets that will tell the story about your operating conditions and the environment in which you're supposed to be successful.

That's great.

So I think, you know, one thing just to kind of summarize all this before we move on, because I think there's a lot that we talked about here is, I think, you know, Alex, and I think what we're all saying is, hey, the United States, given everything else in the world, is a great place to be. It's a great place to be doing business. I think with the elections behind us, we have at least eliminated a good chunk of uncertainty, I think, to the point that you brought up about the. The dot. What do they call it? The plot or whatever. The fo dot plot or whatever. Right. I agree with you that that is showing higher inflation. You look at the bond markets, that's showing higher inflation. I think that we have some more stability in terms or maybe more certainty right now to look ahead for the next year or two anyway than we've had for a while. Especially when you incorporate some of the things that were wild cards related to the administration as we go forward.

Yeah.

I use the analogy of before the election, we were looking through the keyhole and we could see, you know, a wide world out there, but we really weren't sure where we're going to go. We've now expanded that view. It's now kind of a little window in the door that we can see more clearly, but not the full spectrum. Right. Because even of the policies that President Trump is proposing, there is a wide array of things that could actually end up becoming law and affecting businesses. But what I will say is, near term, it's actually Creating some real interesting opportunities. So in anticipation of tariffs, for example, the day after the election, a lot of the shippers globally saw a huge increase in inquiries because people are trying to pull forward inventory to try to get ahead of the tariff regime. So, you know, election happened. We now know that it's President Trump's policies that are going to be put forward moving into the future. We now have the trifecta of, you know, the Senate and the House and the White House, and so they can implement the full range if they wanted to. So now we have a little bit more clarity. But to what extent that law gets implemented. Right. That's still very much a tbd, but. But people are trying to hedge and get ahead of it a little bit and say, I'm gonna bring forward some of that inventory now so that I know for a fact what price I'm paying and I can lock that in rather than wait and see. You know, maybe we have 10% tariffs, maybe we have 20 or 60%, depending on where it's coming from. Nobody really knows that for sure yet, so really interesting to see how that all plays out.

Well, I think that's a good lead in to some of our next articles.

Yeah. So then the next article we were talking about is from Manufacturing Dive that, you know, the, the big discussion kind of all week is the tariff piece, right. And you can look at this from a few different ways, but there's four pieces, and I think we'll take these one at a time. But this, the title of the article is Four Manufacturing Issues, and I would basically say four manufacturing distribution issues to watch under a new Trump administration. And we start with tariffs, then taxes, then regulation, and then energy. And I think we look at these and we can talk about each one of these as well, which I think would be beneficial. I just. We were talking about this earlier, Alex, that I think is kind of interesting is this is just, you know, an opinion on things. But we, we look at the news media here in the U.S. right? And we've got. The vast majority of the news media is a strong bend to one side of the aisle, so to speak. And then we have a news source that is even a further stretch to the other side. Right. We probably have to look at news from outside of this country to get something maybe that's a little more biased when we look at the news. But what we're, what we've been seeing here on, on both parties pre election was what the sound bites were, that the bend of who was publishing it wanted us to see and hear and.

Think, you know, go ahead. Well, the comment that I would make is I, I think that what we call news is oftentimes not news but interpretation of the news, especially if you go propaganda correct left or right or center. So my, my two default sources for true news is Associated Press and the Reuters. Those are the two places where I go and they say here's what happened. Pretty much everybody else says here's what happened and here's what it means to you. But that's their interpretation of what it means to you, not necessarily the real interpretation of what it means to you. So yeah, I mean challenging people to kind of look through and outside their own bubble of operation, we all recognize that we operate in a little bit of a bubble is important as business leaders to say, look, I'm going to be open to the idea that my notions and my assumptions are incorrect. I'm going to listen and I'm going to apply logic and reason. And if I am convinced through evidence and data that I am incorrect, I actually willing to move and change my opinion about something. I think that's the way that a good business leader will run their organization regardless of whether you fall on conservative or liberal or anywhere on that spectrum.

So I want to share. Tom, we don't need to necessarily go to these but one of my favorite things that happens on this, on this show that we do each week is we've got right now. And again as a reminder to people, if you're listening on the podcast, you're not seeing these three handsome faces that are here today nor are you seeing the newsletter that we have with all the articles. So if you're you're listening versus watching, you'd like to get that newsletter, just let us know@helloadsmartech.com you can also go to the website for the show, which is www.aroundthehornpod.com or just go to Elite Smart Technologies page on LinkedIn and you can sign up to get the newsletter there. What I love that's going on now is in our comments here on the live broadcast today. There's a side conversation between some people going on about their thoughts and feelings and their experiences, which is just awesome to see which is, which is frankly why we do this each week, right Is is to bring benefit to folks. So back to kind of this article. I think one of the things and Alex, we were on the phone yesterday, talked a little bit about this as well. Is it, you know, I think with the incoming president, if you look at him historically and his background He's a businessman, he's a negotiator, he's a deal guy, right. So we have all of these, you know, if you were to listen to the mainstream news, right, these 60% tariffs on incoming goods from China and it's going to ruin our economy and it's going to just imagine the cost increases that this is going to have across the board and all of these different things. And I think in my mind is if we just take a step back and look at this, there's probably two things that are going to come out of this. One from a tariff standpoint, one is, yeah, you know what, when I negotiate anything, if there's a starting point, we start high and we work to something that's balanced in the middle ground. Right. The other thing I think is that there are some pretty strong issues going on right now. We can talk about China in a moment in general, but there are countries out there that have very strong unbalanced tariffs on incoming goods from the US So my guess is probably where we're going to start with these things is getting, yeah, tariffs are going to go up because if you have a 25% tariff on U.S. items coming into your country and we have a 12%, well, guess what, we're probably going to match you at 25% and look to work with you on what can we do better if it's a value to this country. When we look at the Chinese side of things, we've got an unbalanced, maybe even unfair, I guess you would say, government slash economic piece where we're, you know, things are struggling in China, but the government's pumping dollars into things and so forth. And so we've got an imbalance of what's happening there. Something needs to get a little more balanced in that setting. We've got all the other geopolitical issues. So my take on this has been that watch what happens versus what was said. And what you're probably going to find is some balancing acts of low hanging fruit that's going to be beneficial to tariffs, balance. Kevin's take on all of that. I'll throw it back to you guys for your thoughts.

I'll say one thing and then Alex, I want to get your, your take for sure on this. I heard a great quote from, I think it was Peter Thiel, the, the vis venture capitalist saying he said you need to take Trump seriously, but not literally. I think that a lot of people take Trump. Every word that he says or tries to run literally with sound bites or.

Sound bite, right yeah.

So I think that you have to take what he says seriously in a sense that I don't think he's just saying it for the sake of saying it, but not literally. And knowing, to your point. Right. Is that how things settle out may be very different than what's actually said. So I think to me, that's a good rule of thumb all the way around. But Alex, definitely interested in your take on all this.

Yeah, I'll see your quote with one of my own. Walk softly but carry a big stick. Yeah, that's. You've got the carrot and the stick. And I think President Trump is definitely adept at using the carrot and the stick in order to get the kind of outcomes that he's looking for. So I would say I agree with you gentlemen on, at the surface level, below the surface. You know, I've been to China many times. I've done business in China. And what I, what, what strikes me as a difference between now and the first round of tariffs on China that President Trump passed in his first term is a very clear and unequivocal pivot by the Chinese government away from driving domestic consumption and consumerism the way that they were trying for a while and now going full in on. We want to capitalize and really maximize being the low cost production and exporter of the world. So you see this really since the onset of the pandemic. It's very evident. You can see it in the loans that the People's bank of China has given. Prior to the pandemic, the focus was on the housing and real estate sectors, so they were drying domestic consumption of property and things like that. Since the pandemic, it's been on industry loans to particularly state owned enterprises to increase production capacity. As a result of this, Chinese exports to the rest of the world are up over 10% just in the last two years, whereas everybody else's exports are relatively flat, comparatively speaking. And in particular categories, you look at steel, it's up by 100% in just the last 18 to 24 months. EVs, solar panels, all of these things where the Chinese enjoy a real monopoly in terms of the scale of production and the expertise, they've really pivoted in that direction. And so I think that the likelihood of us having some sort of more punitive measure in response to that behavior is higher this time around than it was before. But I agree. To say that he's going to start with a 60% tariff threat and end up at 60% is not realistic. So what we've seen Already is some of our trading partners, like the Europeans are not really liking all of this potential for tariffs. And they're already talking about, oh well, you know, we could really shift for buying to buying more American oil than we have in the past to balance out our trade deficit with the U.S. you know, to a large extent. And so it's already bringing about the kind of behavioral change from our trading partners that I think President Trump wants to see. And so that's very encouraging as we look out towards the future.

So going full circle with this, and Greg made that comment about, you know, the starting of onshoring and near shoring and at least moving things out of China. We're already seeing that in a lot of commodities that have moved to other countries in Southeast Asia and so forth. Now we're kind of looping back to where we started today, right in that conversation was monetary policy. And we have to be able to have that support to be able to get things done, to start increasing and managing the growth of onshoring and, and growing manufacturing in the US So that takes us to the second topic comes out of this article, which was taxes. And then the third one is regulation. And all of those will tie nicely into the thoughts of how do we prop up this economy and bring more manufacturing and production here? And I think we're going to have anyway. So let's just get started on taxes. Right. It said the new administration is likely to extend tax cuts and Jobs act benefits from Trump's first term. And this said this could include continuing to allow manufacturer expense, R and D cost as well as 100% bonus depreciation and lowering capital gains. So kind of. Tom, some thoughts from you maybe to start with on as you're going to your beverage there on, on the tax side of things.

Well, I think that in general and again looking for Alex's details behind this, I think taxes will be more favorable around some of those things. I think anything, again, going back to taking Trump seriously, I think what he's seriously saying is, hey, let's get government out of the way, let's reduce the, the tax burden and let's get, let business get on with it. Right. And, and really, you know, thrive and flourish. So I think that's what he's saying. How that actually ends up playing out in the actual percentages and dollars and cents.

Right.

I don't know. But I think you're going to see that that coming.

So my, my angle on this is worse tariffs are something that President Trump can decide to move on unilaterally through executive order, any tax code changes have to require congressional approval. Right. He, he does have the trifecta. He's got alignment of the GOP in the House and in the Senate, but there are also some fiscal hawks and some fiscal doves in that group. Right. And so I would say getting some of his more aggressive tax policy proposals across the board is going to be an uphill battle. So an extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts act probably very likely on the table and broad support, things like, you know, cutting taxes on Social Security, on overtime, on tips, that's a little bit more of a stretch. And then he's got, of course, the kind of the highball proposal of if you're a domestic manufacturing company, we cut your corporate tax rate to 15% from the 21% that it is right now. You know, there's all sorts of muddled water in that because what percentage of your capacity needs to be manufactured in the United States? How do you enforce that? I mean, there's, it becomes more and more increasingly difficult to implement some of these kind of wish list proposals. So I'm a lot more status quo when it comes to taxes with maybe some mild upside in terms of we can see the corporate tax rate lowered from 21 to 20%, which is kind of the first step of what he's proposing. That's not going to make a huge difference, but it will help, certainly. And so I take that with a bit of a grain of salt because of his need to get consensus and a big body of Senate and in the House to vote alongside him on those.

Well, I think this could go kind of full circle as well. Back to what we were talking earlier about interest rates is, you know, where if interest rates are holding at a higher level, that makes it challenging to invest in new manufacturing plants and new distribution warehouses in the growth overall of that segment. The other place that you could get the support to prop that up with a need, especially as geopolitical issues increase and we've got pressure in Taiwan and all of these other things. Right. As those things start happening is where's the balancing act if we don't have it from a monetary policy standpoint, from an interest rate standpoint, can we give some ease, some tax burdens and increase some tax benefits specifically for manufacturing on that side to. Yeah, let's get this here to, to onshore things. And it, it's not something that you could be talking about or thinking about for, you know, the length of an administration. It's things that need to be Moved on quickly.

Yeah. And I agree. I think it's going to be very challenging to find the right balance between fiscal and monetary policy. Right. Yeah. You know, we've got a situation where a business would clearly benefit from lower interest rates, but we don't want to lower interest rates in the face of rising inflation. Because I can tell you one thing, Americans hate inflation way more than they hate high interest rates. Right. Because inflation is something that we face every single day in our lives. Interesting.

Is their purchasing power being eroded constantly.

Right.

When Costco is no longer the inexpensive answer.

Right, exactly. Exactly. So I would say, you know, striking that balance. And, and, you know, President Trump has already showed that he is not beyond putting some pressure on Mr. Powell and the rest of the Fed to continue to lower those rates. Mr. Powell has clearly made his position clear that his mandate is such that he is not going to be pressured, whether it's to lower interest rates themselves or to step down from the job. Now, that's not to say that we could not see some new laws passed that will allow President Trump to fire Mr. Powell and put someone in that's more accommodative, but we do have to find this balance because inflation is a real risk as we look out towards 25 and 26. One element that I wanted to bring into the conversation that I think is vitally important, but it's not. One of those top four things that you mentioned that I think is actually above things like deregulation or, or the other elements is immigration. We've got to be able to fix the immigration system in this country. Now, we had bipartisan support for major immigration reform in the run up to the election. That was obviously scuffled at President Trump's insistence because he didn't want to see, you know, Mr. Biden or President Biden get a win under his belt during a very important political process. But it's encouraging to me that we will see some movement on that, you know, now that President Trump is taking power, because in the absence of a healthy, vibrant and legal immigration process, inflationary pressure has nowhere else to go but up. You know, especially as we're talking about deporting people from this country. You know, people that are taking relatively low paying but absolutely necessary jobs in construction, in agriculture, in low end manufacturing, in health and human services, in terms of, like, nurses and people that are doing home care for the elderly. You know, in terms of retail environment. Like, it's just the list goes on and on and on. There's a great report that I'LL recommend because I don't want to go down the rabbit hole here, but a company called Lightcast, which I'm not affiliated with, but they recently released the report called the Rising Storm, like it's just a couple of months old. Fantastic piece of research, easy to read. And the main message of the report is without legal immigration supplementing our low birth rates, we're going to be in big trouble because the workers that we do have are largely misaligned with the workers that we need. So nine out of the 10 positions that have the greatest need right now do not require a college degree. Yet every young person and every retiring person that wants to come back into the job market is focused on white collar, college educated type of work.

And so wasn't there that comment that Trump made a while back about stapling a green card to a, to a diploma or something like something along that line.

Right.

So we think about, and you think about that the particular, was it A1B or whatever visas in the technology world that are so strong, I think is if your point, if I understand it correctly, is we need to get past that and have some legal immigration opportunities for frontline workers, machine operators, whatever it might be.

Yeah. I mean, and we're talking about, I think, the right tendencies. We want to get more resources into the system to process people's, you know, applications and things like that. So I'm optimistic. I certainly don't buy into the fact that we're going to deport 20 million people. The focus already has been on people with criminal records. And you know, the real capacity of the, of ICE and the Department of Immigration to deport people is probably closer to maybe a million people a year. So we're, we're. But even then that will be a big hit and we got to figure out how to get past it.

Well, I think that's great.

Right.

That goes back to Tom. What was, what was the quote from Peter Thiel again?

I'll take him seriously and not literally. Yeah, for sure.

So there is going to be movement on deporting people. Right. That's specifically, Alex, to your point, the criminals and so forth, we're going to work hard on that. But you know, at the end of the day, you just brought up that topic about immigration and what we have seen in the last, you know, where are we at 10 days roughly, is what we saw is the country said not an individual, the country said the economy in immigration are far more important than abortion and some other things that other people were promoting on that. Right. And it was, it wasn't a, a close decision on that. It was, those were the two of the top key issues. And I'm glad you brought up the immigration piece piece, Tom, what were you going to say?

Well, I just, I, I actually had a conversation with a, a retired but a very senior border officer about this topic a couple of weeks ago and what I found interesting, what he said, the biggest challenge that at least from a border control perspective is right now is with an open border, there's literally hundreds of people coming across at one time. All of the resources are going to process and figure out what to do with hundreds of people coming over or thousands potentially at one time. He said if you have a more orderly approach of how people are coming over, then you can weed out the criminals, you can have do more due diligence, all of that stuff. And then the border control process can be much more effective. And so what's happened with the open border is made the border control process very ineffective. And I think that would tie into what you're saying, Alex, is.

Yeah.

Being able to have more effective immigration rather than anything and everything.

That's right, Tom.

Before we jump ahead, let's hit a couple of these comments. Let's go to Greg's last comment there. I think it shows that it's a 9:45 comment about manufacturing Mexico. So Greg just, I know Greg. He's, he came from the consumer electronics space and accessory space. So he's talking about a lot of things that are being, you know, components being done in China and assembly, so forth being done in Mexico that just kind of triggers. And Alex, we're, we're, this is, I feel like we could be talking till, you know, three hours on all of this stuff today. But Tom, I think this will be the first time ever that we've had an episode. So we got through two or three of our articles, which is just fine. If you want to hear this stuff on marketing and, and human resources and stuff, go to the newsletter on that. But that does bring, what we haven't talked about here is, and I want to get to Scott's comments in a moment as well about doing business with the Trump Organization. But the Mexico. So I've been saying, Alex, I just want your thoughts. You can support it and throw rocks at it if you disagree. In fact, I even made a LinkedIn post about it the other day. I feel like Mexico right now has never, ever been nearly as important to keep an eye on and have clarity on what's going on in Mexico than it is right now because whether it's, it's goods from Russia or Chinese steel coming in or whatever it is, we have a balancing act right now with Mexico. It's, there's an immigration component that's obviously huge. There is that manufacturing piece right now and goods being dumped into Mexico. And if you look at, you know, the EVs that are showing up in Mexico, those are going to start finding their way here. But the steel is probably one. And we have an article in this week's newsletter about a large U.S. steel manufacturer that has filed lawsuits against the Mexican government about dumping steel into the US and guess what? Not much of that's being manufactured in Mexico. So quick, take Alex, your thoughts on Mexico and as it relates to the US Economy.

Yeah, I agree that the focus on Mexico is more important than ever before because we're doing more business with Mexico than we ever were before as a result of the renegotiated NAFTA agreement. Right. But this is not a new development by any means, Kevin. I mean, this, this is true for Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia. Right. I mean, I was just at a building materials manufacturing company. They're importing hardwood and softwood lumber from Vietnam. And, and the factory there, they said we were just dealing with Chinese partners that opened up a facility in Vietnam. Their shipping product there, it gets stamped there and then makes it to the US market. So this is not a new trend. Business will find a way. But monitoring and enforcement is absolutely key.

To mitigate the impact, I think, you know, as you talk about that in Southeast Asia, I would agree completely. Been going on for years. I mean, even my background comes from the industrial safety market is where I started originally. Right. And the vast majority of personal protective equipment and so forth has been made forever, you know, in China outside of some, you know, key European companies with some higher tech stuff, some higher tech US things. And you've watched that migrate throughout Southeast Asia. We've had the Maquiliadores region within the border, across the border. I live in Southern California. I live 60, 70 miles north of the Mexican border. So earlier stage of my career, I was crossing the border all the time working with maquiladors in the both when I was in the manufacturing side and as a manufacturer's rep. But I think right now with what we're seeing is Mexico's also in a place where whoever's likely right now, whoever supports them better is. And China is warming up to them more every day. Every day, every day. And I believe that that's where China's thinking Mexico can be our partner to bypass a lot of these other issues that are going on from the tariffs, taxes and so forth.

This idea that you talk about is essentially reflective of the concept of multipolarity. So what is that? If you think about World War II, there was the Soviet Union and the United States. We were the two superpowers in the world head to head. Increasingly, as the US has pulled back in recent decades, not only did we have the emergence of the second bloc of Russia plus China, plus North Korea, plus Vietnam, those autocratic regimes, we had the Global South. And I would classify Mexico right now as much more aligned with the Global south than with the US in terms of they have their own set of interests and they're going to pursue those interests to their best outcome for themselves rather than for North America. And you see countries like Brazil, India, many are acting in a very, very similar capacity.

Well, you have that whole network. What do they call that? Brics?

Well, so the BRICS element I think is a little bit different because that's an official system that they're trying to use to bypass particularly the, the Western powers structure of US + Europe + Japan + Korea and Australia. But the Global south is basically unaligned. They are not looking towards either the BRICs, which is obviously kind of the antithesis to the Western system. They're looking for their own best interest in mind. And that's what I'm seeing. And I agree Mexico is at the top of the chain for Mexico. They do depend on the United States much more right now than they do.

On the Chinese Historically have. But that pendulum could be shifting. The reason I brought it up.

Yes. Especially in light of the fact that the Chinese think in longer term stretches than four years. Right. For us, one of the big limiting factors is our political cycle. You know, being the democratic and free market that it is, we are very much political cycle driven. The Chinese don't have that issue to contend with. So they can strategize 20, 30, 40 years into the future.

Very good, that's helpful on that. And I think that is an important piece, right, to think about. What is it a short game or long game?

Right.

That's being played. And I think if you were to look at that right now we're probably playing a short mid game. I think Mexico is probably in a place right now where they have to play a very short game because they're going to have to be making some big decisions about alliances because if they start aligning more with, with the Chinese on this, I can guarantee you that this administration is going to push back very hard on that in this setting. So this is good. Let's go. Tom, you mentioned earlier, just in a side note to me there, you know, Scott's comment. Scott's has run for many years a company that does. I don't even know how to best describe what Scott's company does, but they're very closely aligned with every major golf course in probably in the world. Now, as they've grown, they support them with technology that enhances the game. Right. So from. They originally started using aerial technology and satellite technology to map golf courses better, and now they're just doing some cool stuff. So obviously, with the Trump Organization owning a lot of golf courses around the country, Scott has worked and Scott's the CEO and is one of the owners of that company. And so he talked about this, right? As what we talked about every earlier is that there is always negotiating, right? And as he said, I can't emphasize enough always. They set flags and anchors and they have all of the tricks. And. And it just. That just kind of reinforces what we talked about earlier.

The.

The focus there is. We know now that this incoming, the. The new president of the company, of the country is. That's his way of doing things. Right. It's bold, it's strong, it's powerful, it's obnoxious at some points. But the goal is, is he's not. His intention is not allowing this country to get bullied. And there is a whole line of thinking that we've been bullied. We're going to talk before we leave today. We're going to talk a little bit about the Ukraine and the Russia conflict as well. We want to get your take on that because you have a great take on that as well. But I think that's interesting and Scott kind of reinforces that. So.

I have my same question as Will is how is it going to help my golf game? Can Scott, you and I need to talk offline.

You should see Scott's golf game.

Okay.

He would just pummel you. Scott. Scott played it. He's an old friend we met doing business years ago. He worked for a large national distributor, and we actually ended up aligning with a business that Scott and I were both involved with. And he's done a phenomenal job with this, but he actually played at ASU at Arizona State University. Scott played with right around the same time that Phil Mickelson was there, too. So Scott's a sharp, sharp individual. When I'm in a room with Scott, I feel like the dumb guy in a room just put it that way. So great comments coming in today. You know, so we, we kind of hit things on, on these four topics. The one thing we didn't talk about is energy on this. And I think there's going to be some interesting things that go on within the new administration related to energy and so forth. So we'll see what happens with that. Ev tax credits and obviously there's probably going to be. It's interesting, right, because previous administration basically put Elon Musk in a corner and didn't invite him to the party for any of these discussions. And not just the discussions, but, but the new administration's inviting him to the table. So it'll be interesting. I mean, there can be implications related to, you know, our space program and all kinds of stuff. With, with Elon Musk's input, Kevin, we.

Probably have time to maybe cover one more thing here. What do we want to so I.

Want to, I want to do let's just kind of talk about two things and because I think this will tie into what I wanted to ask Alex about. So we have a couple of articles here. In fact, we've got about four or five of them related today to labor. And we'll just start and look at it from the port issues. Right. We've got in one of the first issues that is going to face effect, there's an article from MSN that we have here about President Trump's first test might be on the docks, it called it.

Right.

The Canadian government just stepped in this week for the Canadian port strike. It's twice in two years we've got slowdowns or strikes there. Second time now this year that the Canadian government has had to dive in on on labor issues. They first started with a rail strike. We don't necessarily regularly think about what comes in from Canada between lumber and oil and the things that are coming into this country every day. But now we've got this issue. Now the good news is right as we talk about supply chain, I'll just say supply chain transportation. Right. The good news of things right now is also here we talk about in our second look segment of our newsletter as things we've talked about before had some rain in Panama. That lake surrounding the Panama Canal has risen there. It's wider now. They're able to get more ships and larger ships through there now, which they haven't been able to do before. But the Houthi rebel issue in the Suez Canal is getting worse. Right. So I think we should talk A little bit about what's going on with that. And I think that about talks ties nicely as well. Alex, I'm going to ask you to, to weave these points together as we get your thoughts on things. But let's talk a little bit about what that means to the Russia, Ukraine conflict because there are also geopolitical and supply chain issues tied to that as well. So I threw a lot out there, but maybe we look at it as supply chain geopolitical topics. What does that mean going into the new year in a new administration?

I need to run all that through AI so we can get a quick summary.

But yeah, I, we'll call Alex, our AI today.

All right.

Alex's intelligence. There you go. That's AI for you. Yeah.

Do you have that trademarked?

Not yet. Not yet.

Okay.

So a lot of thoughts on port strikes, on our competitiveness relative to other ports and this issue of pushback on automation by the dock workers, even though they got a lot of the ask that they put forward on the compensation side. I hope that there's going to be some realistic coming to the middle of both sides on the automation issue. And this unrealistic expectation that they have for zero automation implementation is I don't think it's going to fly in President Trump's eyes for sure. So you saw.

We saw that. I'm sorry to interrupt you, that there's Eric Coplin, who was with us, who's the CEO of the national association of Wholesalers. We're going to, I think we're going to get some feedback from them on next week's show on some of these same topics, but we're waiting to hear back. But Eric has been on multiple news networks talking about that in referencing Rotterdam and other countries ports and so forth. And, and to think that, and I just wanted to add to that that there's just no way that we're going to see this where there's going to be no automation. So continue on your thoughts. I just wanted to put a big exclamation point next to that.

I guess in light of supply chain vulnerability in general. It's one of the top issues I think the companies need to stay on top of when you plan for 2025, not only because of the widespread implications, you know, the Middle east conflict and to your point, the effect of having to go around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa and the additional cost and time that that takes shippers, you know, the propensity for, you know, the conflict in the Indo Pacific with China increasingly building, being bell posed and affecting shipping there. You know, it's going to be a major issue. There have to be mitigation strategies that companies think about now and start planning for that they can deploy if certain outcomes come to pass. This is one of the things that I do. My younger brother works for a geopolitical think tank in D.C. and he and I actually teamed up for a keynote called the Impact of Geopolitics on youn Business recently. And we talked about all of these things. Material availability and pricing, the time and cost of shipping implications, the need to diversify consistently your shipping sources, the countries that you're sourcing from, the partners that you are increasingly using, not just these big international trade lines, but local and domestic availability in terms of what else will I do if this is no longer available to me? But I think that there's a great deal of risk associated with this, and companies really need to be thinking about what will I be doing proactively coming up with those plans so that they can put those plans immediately into action. There's really no getting around it. Especially there's this great analysis that showed how trade flows are going to likely evolve between now and ten years from now. And the major changes were basically a significant decrease in trade between the EU and Russia, a minor decrease in trade between China and the United States. So they're basically saying there will be some mitigation, but not a lot. There's. We're still going to rely on each other as trade partners for the foreseeable future, and the big increase is going to be between the US And Europe. The Europeans are going to increasingly look to us as partners in trade as they kind of decouple from both Russia and China as a result of the. The uncompetitive trade practices. So, so much to process in that space. It's almost difficult to have a specific answer unless you know the unique situation that a company is in.

Very good, Tom, any thoughts to add to that?

No, I don't think I'm going to add any more value to that part. Yeah.

There we go. So before we kind of jump further, you know, Alex, we mentioned this earlier. You're originally from the Ukraine, so when we take a look at the incoming administration, we look at the geopolitical issues and then economic issues. What's your take? You probably have better insight than either Tom or I would. What's your take on what we're going to see in that conflict and maybe other conflicts as well?

Yeah, my expectations are that there's going to be a freezing of the conflict along the current lines of engagement. I don't think territory is going to be going back, you know, to the Ukrainians. And I think that President Trump will be an advocate of the cessation of hostility, so an eventual working out of a, some sort of ceasefire agreement. However, I think that when you look at the Russian situation, they are really dependent. I mean, it's almost to the point where Russia can't either win or lose the war because so much of their economy has now shifted towards military and defense production. You know, they've lost a lot of people of working age, so they kind of need that conflict to go on. And, you know, Mr. Putin, very, very unpredictable. And so he could choose not to listen to President Trump and continue to push the envelope further on. So I do not have an optimistic outlook towards that situation, certainly in the near term future. But I do see the Ukrainians, particularly the president and his circle, trying to position internally that we're not likely going to get that territory back. And so like trying to set those expectations to be realistic. So I hope that the killing will stop and that we can get back to some semblance of normalcy. But with President Putin on the other side of the negotiating table, you never know what you're going to get.

I think that's, that's good statement. I think the reality of it is this kind of, maybe the theme of today's broadcast is incoming administration or negotiators. Right. And at the end of the day that they look at it through a business lens. And I don't, I'm not even looking at it from the individual as the incoming president. I'm thinking about a view of a Congress and a Senate now is going to be. And what was said last week is that, you know, the, the vast majority of the US Population is supportive of that view. And I think, you know, we're probably, we've got a lot of pressures when we start thinking about the Middle east crisis, Right. The Iran backing of the Houthi rebels that are impacting our supply chain back to what we're, why we're here and what we talk about. Right.

Did you see that Elon was in Iran negotiating or, or had a meeting? Yeah, he was. He, he had a meeting with the Iranian foreign minister, I think negotiating a de. Escalation of hostilities. I mean, that's a crazy statement in and of itself. We sent Elon Musk to be the official representative of the United States in negotiation with Iran. Right? Yes. Who knows?

Well, it's, I think when you look at that. And I mean, I, you know, heard, heard Trump say this a while back. It's like, listen, he had, he had Iran in a corner. They didn't have the money.

Right, right.

To support a Houthi rebel or any other insurgency. Right. And I think. But that's, that's, that. And Alex, to your comment earlier about Chinese thinking is long game. Right. And I think now what we're looking at a little bit is in the incoming administration here is more of a long game in these things and how do we play the chessboard. Right. For the better outcome and a better global outcome is going to better the U.S. and the U.S. economy. And so I think that's kind of the view of things right now will be a little, a little bit more like that from that standpoint. So we'll see how that stuff plays out.

So going back to the Ukraine, Russia situation, Alex, do you think that Ukraine would be willing to take the NATO off the table as a way to potentially help, you know, settle things out?

Yeah, I think from the very beginning, Ukraine has wanted to integrate with Europe much more economically than defensively. I mean, this, this notion that they are enemies is shocking in and of itself. It's, you know, these are the folks that fought side by side against the Nazis. They liberated Berlin. Right. They, they, you know, Kiev. Most people don't realize this, but Kiev, which is currently the capital of Ukraine, used to be the capital of Kyivan Rus before Russia moved the capital first to St. Petersburg with Peter the Great and then to Moscow. So we've got a war among brothers, among cousins, you know. And so with that in mind, yeah, I think that Ukraine would very much leave NATO out of the conversation as long as they can integrate with the, with the economic system of the west, they don't need the military component of it. So I am optimistic, at least from that perspective.

That's a great point, because it would almost seem like. Tom, I'm glad you asked that question because I think what that really kind of says is you may not. And this, I can see this being negotiated with some of this. Right. Is you probably don't need to worry as much about NATO, because if we get the economic impact and growth within your country, and that is coming together from a standpoint of we're seeing the value of that, of the Ukraine's growth is the NATO issue probably becomes less important because you as a country, Ukraine has become so much more important to global trade.

Agreed, Agreed. You know, from foodstuffs to the fact that we just installed a military Defense facility, missile defense facility in Poland. You know, the US has assets in play in the field of countries of engagement. So I agree with you.

Good. All right, well listen, this, like I said, we could go on for days. This is the first, first time that we've ever only got through two or three of our articles. But we recapped and really the way.

We kind of turned into an all day telethon.

Yeah, well, it could be right.

It just.

We need a commercial break in a minute so we could run to the restroom. But I kind of wanted to recap and we're a little bit over time what we normally do. But you know, Alex, if you could take 60 seconds before we go today and recap your view from your experience, what you do in your career, the research that your organization does, maybe give us your 45 to 60 second recap on what you're anticipating going into the new year.

Yeah, so my outlook for 2025 is cautiously optimistic. The uncertainty around the election has started to fade already. We're seeing a lot of action spring forward from that. We do have obvious headwinds to the economy in the fact that we are likely to see higher inflation and higher interest rate environment persist. So companies need to be very vigilant in terms of not expecting the market to give them positive performance, but recognizing that they need to go out there and proactively win the business. So that includes, you know, selling the value proposition, but also in many cases going after some market share gains. And in light of that recognition, you got to say, what am I going to be able to bring to the table? What are my selling points? Where are my real differentiators relative to my competitors that will allow me to do that? If you're able to do that, as well as putting in place some contingency plans for dealing with the potential fallout of all of these to be d things that we talked about, whether it's tariffs, immigration, supply chain disruptions, then I think there is the, the, the potential for tremendous success in 2025. And I'm looking forward to it with a cautious optimism.

Great.

Tom, I wanted to add on to that. I, I think I agree with you, Alex. I, maybe my optimism is a bit more than cautious, but I think the opportunity for the business world, whether it's in distribution or even outside of it over the next couple years, not just in 225, but over the next couple years I think is the best I have seen in my working career in 30 some years. But I think you said the key point you've got to lean into it. If you think it's just going to come to you, it ain't going to happen that way.

Right.

So if you take advantage of this next couple years and lean into it and go for it and innovate and do some of the things, I think the opportunity for, for expansion has never been greater. But it's not going to come to you.

And I think that's the favors the bold, right? Fortune favors the bold.

Exactly. Well stated.

So that really well said, Tom. I think that we used the, it's like fourth compliment. Alex. I only give Tom one compliment a month and it's like it's a 15th today and I think I've given him four. So I think that was well said, Tom. And, and a good point. I think the opinion, the opportunity is great. Looking into the new new year and the new administration. So as we kind of wind down today, I have a favor to ask you, Alex. As I say, thank you. Would you be willing to join us again maybe late Q1 or into Q2 sometime and see how things are playing out?

It'd be my pleasure.

That'd be wonderful to have you. So before we wind down, we have a little bit of a little closing statement. So we always make first off great, great discussion amongst the folks commenting today and great sharing and some side dialogue from the folks over there. Alex, one last little discussion from you or comment on your work with your organization.

Right.

With the Bundy Group. What do you guys do? What's your role there again? And yeah, how you help and support our typical listeners.

I appreciate it, Kevin. So we're boutique investment bank out of Charlotte, North Carolina. If you need any advice or help selling your business, funding an acquisition through a capital raise or buying a business, reach out to us. We'd love to talk to you. I'll leave it at that.

That's great. I'd like to actually listen if they're available out there, some of your keynotes on YouTube or where's the best way to find some of your speaking that people could listen to more of your content?

Yeah, YouTube will mainly hear some clips, you know, more short form content. But you, you can find some presentations online. Just Google my name and keynote and you'll be able to find full hour, 90 minute content that you can follow.

I'll look, look forward to that. I'm going to listen to some of that content. Mr. Burton, before we go, any last final thoughts from you?

No. Some really good stuff. A lot of good stuff.

We really covered a lot of ground. So we're appreciative of everybody. Tom, I'll see you Monday. Alex, we're looking forward to having you with us again. In closing again, I'm Kevin Brown. We're here with Alex and Tom and what a great day that we've had. Tom and I are together with our guests like this. Each week we recap the news around the world and the economy, supply chain mergers and acquisitions, sales and marketing, artificial intelligence, cyber security, many things we never got to today, but we talk on a regular basis. Again, we publish a newsletter. It's called around the Horn in wholesale distribution. If you don't get that and you would like to, it's available through the lead smart technologies LinkedIn page. You can subscribe to the newsletter there can send us a note. I just saw we've had a handful of requests come in today from today's show. Hello@lead smarttech.com there's also a website for the podcast and live stream that we have. It's called www.aroundthehornpod.com. you can subscribe on your favorite podcast platform as well. If you like what you heard, share this with your friends. Click the subscribe button, click the follow button. And finally we couldn't do this without the support that we have of John and his team that gets this out in the podcast format each week. So thanks to John, Taylor and Lily and their work behind the scenes. And then I've course our sponsor Lead Smart Technologies that Tom and I work for. As again as we mentioned earlier in the show, we've developed an AI enabled what we call Smart CRM. Very different than traditional CRM where we bring data in from across your organization and we bring that historically siloed data that we can't analyze against each other and we bring that together to get a full view of your customer, your teams and your overall business to help make smart business decisions. We really turn the tables on what historically CRM has been looked at and we bring customer intelligence and analytics. I heard somebody say recently, I think the phrase was information applied correctly is power.

I wonder who said that.

So as we look at that as no better statement would really tie to what we do for wholesale distributors and manufacturers, right? We bring disparate data from across an organization together to help provide power to grow organizations. So we're looking forward to next time. Thanks again everybody for your for your comments. Alex. We wish you a wonderful weekend and we'll talk again soon.

Thanks everybody. Take care.