This American Ride
This American Ride Podcast... Two Everyday Red-Blooded American men talking about everything and anything that pertains to you and our Country
Whether you're a die-hard conservative, a curious independent, or even a skeptical liberal looking for alternative viewpoints, our podcast offers something for everyone. So tune in, subscribe, and join the conversation as we navigate the complexities of American politics and culture, one episode at a time.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-american-ride/id1703307399
This American Ride
Government Influence on the Auto Industry
Ever wondered if your dream car is more of a financial nightmare? This episode of "This American Ride" takes you on a journey through the labyrinth of the American automotive industry, where inflation has driven car prices sky-high, and monthly payments are creeping towards $1,000. We share our own experiences, from driving high-mileage clunkers with endless maintenance woes to reminiscing about unreliable classics like a 1971 Volkswagen bus with a personality bigger than its engine's horsepower.
Join us as we navigate the tangled web of government subsidies and tariffs, revealing how global policies and local economics shape the cars we drive. Listen to our critical take on the 2008 auto industry bailout and its lasting impacts, drawing intriguing parallels to the early 20th-century railroad industry. Hear personal stories of car ownership and leasing that highlight the evolving landscape of electric cars and the various economic and environmental challenges they pose.
Finally, we tackle hot-button issues like gas prices and political influence, recounting personal tales of social media spats and the polarizing nature of these debates. From dealership nightmares during the pandemic to the contentious debate over electric vehicle tax credits, this episode offers a comprehensive look at the automotive industry's present and future. Buckle up for an insightful and entertaining ride through personal experiences, industry trends, and broader economic and environmental questions.
Check out our line of patriotic goods
LEGENDARY USA
American made products and apparel.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Donate to The Tunnel to Towers Foundation
https://dogood.t2t.org/campaign/baggers-and-brews-poker-run-and-veterans-support-rally-2024/c545044
Welcome back to this American ride podcast where we talk about issues that affect you, the average American. So Justin works for one of the big three. We're not. We're not going to go on to kind of where or what, but, um, you know, I I think the automotive industry was actually a hot topic in the media about a year ago, but it's a hot topic, I think, with inflation, because I bought a truck last year and let me tell you, holy shit, the amount of people that are car payments, that are pushing $1,000 right now, is more than people think.
Speaker 3:Well, I even look at it and think you know, I'm not immune to it. I may work for somebody in the big three but I'm not immune. I still buy a car like everybody else. I get a little bit of a discount because I work for a certain company, but if I buy any other vehicle I still got to pay full price. But I mean, when I look at my own company stuff, when the base vehicle most of them average or start at like 38 grand and go up.
Speaker 1:I'm like how are some of?
Speaker 3:these people affording this stuff. It's crazy and you see people, a lot of people, that you don't know how they're making these payments. Yeah, yeah, it's, you know I look at it and go like I don't know if I can make these payments and these guys are driving around nicer vehicles than I am.
Speaker 1:I mean I rolled around and you know, I mean you guys know me. I mean I rolled around and you know, I mean you guys know me. I would call these guys. I'd be like yo, I need a number and you know, for a lifetime worth of cars. And every couple of years I'm like, let's go, let's go. And I drove my 150, man, I drove my 150 to 225 plus thousand miles because you know, I needed one. I needed to get rid of it before I started having problems. And I knew I was going to start having problems with it because it was starting to shift. Funny, the tailgate wouldn't open or close anymore, like it looked good on the outside, but like I had stuff that was like starting to go south on it what, eventually, you do need to do maintenance.
Speaker 1:It looked good on the outside, you don't think so? I mean it looked decent decent.
Speaker 3:He had like 42 deer I did?
Speaker 1:you had no like mirror side mirror. I think it was a deer killer, yeah I will.
Speaker 3:I had a tree at my side view. Yeah, I will do say something about the auto industry in general, as in general, the automotive industry has done a good job of making a car into an appliance yo every time you go out in your driveway, your car starts. You don't have to generally worry is it going to start today or not?
Speaker 3:true most of the time you can go out there and count on your car working. It's going to get you to where you go. It may throw a code and say you've got this error or this problem. You know right, tell it a converter or tire pressure sensor or this or that. Yeah, in general you don't have to worry if that thing's going to start. You don't have to worry if you're getting to work that morning. Think about our parents, the cars they grew up with.
Speaker 3:They would go out there and go. Is this thing going to start? Oh, it flooded. Now I've got to wait a half hour before I can start the thing because the carburetor's flooded. Now you can go out and pretty much hit that key. It's a different animal man.
Speaker 1:My father had an old-ass Mazda pickup. He had a 1970s CJ, he had a Pacer.
Speaker 2:My parents had a Pacer who was picking vehicles for your dad. What was his?
Speaker 1:problem. Yeah, we had a Yugo.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you. Let me tell you about a little Gen X story. I sat in the back of a Yugo with a chain, smoker and windows that didn't roll down.
Speaker 3:Jack Trevor's story was a British novelist publishing prolifically from the 1940s to the 1970s. Do you want me to keep reading?
Speaker 2:Sure Keep reading.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what happened there. His best known works of the 1949 comic mystery Is that your phone or is that the computer? No, I said, are you serious and serious started he also wrote under the names Alex Atwell Brett. Harkins and.
Speaker 2:Rex Riotti, you're not going to get this kind of excitement anywhere else.
Speaker 1:That's a bit of payment right there, man so yeah, we had some cars, man, and you guys were car guys. I mean, I was never. Yeah, I grew up in a family.
Speaker 3:You guys were car guys. My dad could work on cars and we on cars and we were working on fixing stuff. You know that making cars live and whatnot that we had. We weren't rich by any means and we weren't buying new cars. We were making our current ones live and break jobs or whatever else needed to be done. We learned how to do. But nowadays cars are such an appliance you get a hundred thousand miles I mean, you don't even change spark plugs till a hundred thousand miles these days. Yeah, which?
Speaker 3:is that used to be a normal, like hey, every five thousand miles you're gonna put spark plugs, you're gonna throw some spark plugs in this thing.
Speaker 1:You know, I remember my father changed. I'm gonna do a tune-up.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna put a spark plug distributor. Did they even do?
Speaker 1:tune-ups anymore. At 100, at 100k, they do yeah. At 100k, they do yeah I passed 100k.
Speaker 2:I didn't have a tune-up, well that's you don't do that stuff. Well, I take it to a guy who's pretty, yeah, yeah you go to where I go.
Speaker 3:If I needed one, he'd tell me but again they become an appliance right, there's no maintenance you're right, and the stuff that we we pick on on cars these days, your parents would love to have that problem yeah, you know what you know you really, if I step back and think about it, I'm like, wow, you know the things that people complain about, like, oh, you know what?
Speaker 3:my, my entertainment system doesn't work the way I like it to. You know it doesn't work like my phone. It's like damn thing starts every day and get you to work. You know your parents would be ecstatic about that. Yeah, not having to worry about that type of stuff.
Speaker 2:And now we're getting to the point where all this technology is causing problems.
Speaker 3:They didn't pay what we pay, though they don't, they didn't pay 70 000, so there's a higher expectation don't get me wrong you know things wrong in the auto industry. You know like why doesn't your, your infotainment system work like your phone? Right, the phone is the ubiquitous. If I don't, have a. I don't have a ton of complaints so so what do you guys think some of the biggest complaints we?
Speaker 2:get the infotainment like that yeah how that doesn't work the way you you expect it to not just so used to a phone and what it does for you and how it does it you feel like you're gonna pop in your car and that little screen on the car is gonna do the same stuff and it does it the same way your phone does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we upgrade our phone every few years and we upgrade our cars a lot less yeah, so that's been some of the stuff that people okay, that makes sense, some of the oems got dinged hard on like reliability because of that.
Speaker 3:Okay, and to me I look at it differently that's not reliability. Reliability if your car starts, you know it drives yeah, do you have a mechanic?
Speaker 2:whether or not you got serious radio on the way to work.
Speaker 3:It's totally different than if you're getting to work right, yeah, you know, do you have ball joint issues or steering issues or stuff like that? That's what concerns remember heat, heat. Yeah, I've lost a few legs nowadays ac like you know, oh, that's it.
Speaker 1:I want you to check this picture out, for for people who uh, is that the one that caught on fire?
Speaker 3:oh man, this one like spit spark plugs caught your legs on fire so for the people I know.
Speaker 1:justin's looking at a picture right now of my 1971 Volkswagen bus and uh yeah, that's.
Speaker 2:That's you in the picture. That's me. That's. How old are you there?
Speaker 3:Early twenties.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Still rocking the porno stash 18.
Speaker 3:Okay, 18.
Speaker 1:Probably 18 there yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, doing a run up there. Yeah, jersey, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, running up to? Uh, I was running up to saint elizabeth's there and, um, it used to throw spark plugs at the side. It had no heater. Yeah, so what I have? And the heater stole my parents garage. So real quick, when we talk, about cars. I had a propane camping heater that was a coleman camping heater, that I had zip tied to the emergency brake tower because the emergency brake kind of came directly up from the bottom of the floor and out in between the two driver, the driver and passenger.
Speaker 1:So there was like a shaft that kind of came up there that housed the cable and I would zip tie my heater to that and by heater he means a propane tank with a radiant thing on the top screwed to the top of it oh, it's okay. So like bomb right there.
Speaker 2:Joel would always say you know, there was a lot of other pieces of shit cars you could have bought that had heat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there were very few with a fold-down bed. He was in his dead With a what With a fold-down bed in the back man. Why'd you?
Speaker 2:need a fold-down bed, bro. You weren't getting any action. I know that.
Speaker 1:So did your parents just make like that's what, that's what it was, oh my goodness. So I had um, so I had this bus and it had all kinds of problems, but the heat was one of them. And then the big thing was, you know, we, we would like, I don't know, we would go to the mall on this bus and at top speed 50 to the mall. Listen, top speed, top speed 50, right it?
Speaker 3:wasn't even a cool. Are you serious?
Speaker 1:it was it was a four-speed vol dude If it went downhill.
Speaker 3:Air-cooled Volkswagen. It had no heat.
Speaker 2:And this was in the 90s. Oh yeah, it was in the 90s, so there was a lot of other cars you could have there was a lot of other cars you could have If it went downhill Wait.
Speaker 3:You went from a Ford Festiva to this.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I did no, no.
Speaker 3:Or no. What's up monday? No, I went from a a um. I was. Yeah, I went from no I went from a ford fairmont to this monday at a fairmont.
Speaker 2:I think my patcher got a ford fairmont I had a.
Speaker 1:I had a powder blue ford fairmont with a uh, a powder blue ford fairmont with a uh 351 cleveland four barrel and a police interceptor package. It was an animal but it had a 10 gallon gas tank and it got like seven miles of horsepower.
Speaker 2:Probably do you remember pat yark had a powder blue fort fairmont.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah so but uh, don't worry we went to high school with george and in his festiva.
Speaker 1:So it's me, my brother and george in a festiva like half the morning and my sister and my girlfriend and my girlfriend's sister and we would all pile that was like commercial for grinder add 15 inch piles on the back seat. Yeah, so it was um yeah, we had some if you were going downhill on route 287 and you hit 60 miles an hour, the windshield wipers would start to peel off the windows because the windshield was vertical, so you'd see the windshield wipers start to like separate on the bus from the windshield, but I paid 400 bucks for it.
Speaker 1:The front floor fell out you got your money's worth.
Speaker 3:I'll give you that I um, I uh the front.
Speaker 1:What fell out? The front floor fell out of it floor. Yeah, yeah so when a front floor fell out of it.
Speaker 1:I put a new front floor in it. Um, I cut some sheet metal just like with a pair of shears and riveted a new front floor in there. And then, um, and then I noticed when that happened that the previous owner had bondoed the front axle and I thought a front axle was a little bit beyond my ability to replace, and where the um axle met the frame was all kind of like tack welded together. It was a real, it was a real hot mess, man I'm glad it was a school so I bought it for 400 bucks.
Speaker 1:I took it down to miller ford route 38. I traded it in for 700 bucks and bought a ford contour because when I walked in there I was like they were like what do you want? I was like anything with heat that's cheap. So I bought a new car for $9,000 and I had a pain. New, it was brand new. Ford contour is brand new at a payment $128 a month.
Speaker 3:That was Ford's global car.
Speaker 1:Yep, mm. Hmm, had heat, oh my god. And he. It was a terrible fucking vehicle, but it had heat, went through three transmissions in that vehicle, so goes to show you we are paying more and we're paying a lot more, but and I have this. So what do you think? Um, what do you think? You probably know the answer to this in 2016, what do you think? The average cost of a vehicle was?
Speaker 2:2000, when 16 16, the average cost of a vehicle was 2000, when 16.
Speaker 1:The average cost I'm going to say $26,000. You're off at 19, though 19 was the average Average cost. I don't think 26 is a terrible thing.
Speaker 2:I was thinking low, but then I was like it can't be that low because there's only a few cars that are average. There's some high-end stuff.
Speaker 1:And there's some low-end stuff too.
Speaker 2:What's the lowest end?
Speaker 1:I don't know, I don't even know.
Speaker 2:In 2016.
Speaker 3:$10,000 Kia Probably Kia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fiat's I think were pretty cheap when they came out.
Speaker 3:I mean you think about some of the cars when we were younger. You know some of like the Kias or Subarus Was. Kia around when we were in high school. They were Definitely when I was in college.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were coming out when we were in college.
Speaker 3:Which was essentially.
Speaker 1:But the Hyundais were super cheap. Hyundais were super cheap.
Speaker 2:I remember they were still super cheap, they were cheap.
Speaker 1:They were terrible, but they were like $11,000, I remember and my Ford Contour that I bought in 1990, whatever was not even $10,000. So we went from 2016, $19,800 for a car, average, average. We wrapped up 2020 with $21,000 average cost per car, not a big jump there Not a huge jump, and I pull all my.
Speaker 1:For people who don't know, I go to Statista, barista yeah, barista, statista, for a lot of stuff that I pull for the show and it gave me up to 2022. So we went from 21,000 in 2020, end of the Trump era right To 2022 to 30.7,000 for an average car cost.
Speaker 3:Doesn't surprise me. It's probably higher now.
Speaker 1:It is. It's got to be higher now, although I think it's come down a little bit this year. I feel like maybe where it's leveled off I don't know if it's come down it's probably leveled off. I don't know if it's come down, it's probably leveled. This is definitely not.
Speaker 3:Biden's fault. Personally, I've seen it's not his fault, stop it. Working in the industry. From what I've seen, everything got expensive, right, I mean inflation is real.
Speaker 1:It is real. It's not as real as we're experiencing, not, it's not as real as we're experiencing, but it's not as real as shrink flation and car companies are.
Speaker 3:Like any other capitalist company, they want everything as cheap as they can get it. So I know for a fact that, like stuff coming from overseas, the overseas shipping containers, since COVID, have like tripled the cost of a container itself. Just the container, not what's in it, has tripled just to ship it and that gets directly sent over to you. Right, we're a capitalist company, we're not going to eat that. Right, no OEMs going to, because our shareholders want. But when the Chinese started coming into the market, we were told that we could get the OEs. So, whether it's GM, chrysler, ford, whoever could get product delivered to their plant from china cheaper than I could make it in arkansas and ship it up china, or sometimes even mexico and ship it, which then was fine. But you think about that travel distance, right, right, travel is much, much smaller. You're putting on a truck, maybe a rail.
Speaker 3:They could get it across the ocean and put on a rail and rail it up and deliver, to say chicago or detroit to a plant in that area or kansas cheaper than I could physically make it in arkansas or kansas or tennessee and ship it to the same location. But that was and that's. You know. You're talking 17, 18 inch wheels which are good size, commodity right, so they're not small.
Speaker 3:You don't get a lot per container, it's not like a little tiny thing that you get no, it's a bunch of containers, it's a big box it's a fairly big box and it's a fairly heavy load, but they can get that landed to their their plant in detroit so they live only cheaper than I could make it in North America and deliver it, but that's before.
Speaker 1:shipping was crazy.
Speaker 3:That's even before. Shipping was crazy.
Speaker 1:So at what point, with shipping, at what point do you think and this is not something that you may have the answer to, because I feel like this is not necessarily an industry question but at what point do you think the shipping gets to be so much like will it be the shipping that brings jobs back to America, like that's a?
Speaker 3:tough question. I don't know if I know that yeah, the hard part with. Chinese stuff is. There's also government subsidies it's a communist country. So they want that business to be open. So they're subsidizing this, say the raw material they're subsidizing the business so the company subsidized.
Speaker 3:that's always something I heard when I was in the wheel side that the raw material they're subsidizing the business. So the company subsidized. That's always something I heard when I was in the wheel side that the raw material side of it's subsidized. So somebody here in the States they got to go to an Alcoa or an Alcan if they want aluminum right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Aluminum Company of Canada, aluminum Company of America those are your big aluminum companies that you're going to go buy aluminum from. But in china, the chinese government owns the aluminum. So so if they want the business, there you go, I'll give it to you cheap you know, they're all communists.
Speaker 1:They're trying to keep people employed and working. So this is the shady, the shady government thing that I think is. I, I don't think especially, you know, and we always, obviously, we always lean heavy on the liberals here. But I, I feel like you know as as much as, like, when election comes, oh, we're going to bring jobs back, we're going to bring jobs back, you want to bring jobs back, but then you're going to lose these tariffs and now you're going to walk away for you, basically, by bringing jobs back, you're going to, you know, you're going to get federal tax dollars because the FICA yeah, hopefully, because, like the FICA, stuff is crazy, right. So you're going to get those federal tax dollars, but you're probably going to be cutting a big company tax break somewhere, even if it's on a local level, to have a factory, because that's how that works. People don't realize that, and you're going to be giving up the those tariff dollars, which has got to be a hefty chunk of change.
Speaker 3:You know that's in the hopes of you get the FICA dollars right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:You keep, you keep from importing it, cause you really don't make money on that.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Right, but the the local stuff where you were employing and you know, if you go back to even like oh eight, the big auto crisis where they bailed out GM and all, it wasn't about bailing out gm, it was bailing out everybody else related to gm. Yeah, the supply base between, say, a gm, a chrysler and a ford, it's all a lot of the same people, yeah. So if you cut out, like say, it's even even right, it's one third of their business. So you take a supplier and you cut out one third of their business, there's a chance they may not even be able to survive. So that supplier who's in, say, texas? Now they go under because gm went under the ripple effect and a whole town goes under the whole support system for that.
Speaker 3:And even in detroit, you know, if a gm goes under the number of people that gm employs I'm not even sure of the number, it's probably 30 000 plus people, people that GM employees globally, as as their people, as they're in manufacturing stuff, those guys go out of business, yeah, right, and all the little towns that rely on them to buy you know restaurants or you know target or whatever those guys go can't buy anything. So those businesses now struggle and it's a huge ripple effect that the the medical side of it, right, that supports all those people. Yeah, they can't do it anymore because they don't have benefits. So nobody's going to the hospital anymore. So now the hospitals can't afford to be open anymore.
Speaker 1:And then the government's hospitals are for profit now too, Right? So?
Speaker 3:so it's just this huge, huge ripple effect. Everybody's like, well, we should let GM go out of business. But when you step back and if you look at the actual, all the little tentacles that are interrelated, what that means to the country, there's no way in hell they could.
Speaker 3:So so there, there, there is a two, because once somebody goes out that works for GM if I have if Ford can't get the parts from that guy now because their GM business has gone and now they're closing that plant, then ford can't get parts, then chrysler can't get parts, then they fold and it's just huge, huge domino effect.
Speaker 1:Let it fold so so people may not realize. You know we've been here before in history, um, turn of the century, going from the 19th century to the 20th century, the railroads, and I mean whatever, I'm a train buff, but you know he says buff, I say nerd, you say nerd but but but part of that is part of that is studying the history of all that. And you know the government, united States Railroad Association, they took over a lot of railroads. And they took over a lot of railroads before World War I because we needed to move stuff around.
Speaker 3:Move stuff around. That's the only way you can move heavy objects.
Speaker 1:Right, unlike any way that we needed to move stuff around in the past and I mean it's been said that you know, the new york central is the new york central won the war. I mean that's, that's that's kind of the railroad that carried on its back, because that was the railroad that connected chicago to new york and picked up everything in between, and that was the railroad that carried the country on its back during world war one, not the pennsylvania, mind you, but the, the new, the the New York New.
Speaker 1:York central. Yeah so, but you know, the railroads came into a tough spot and the government bailed them out because if these railroads would have failed, you'd have been sitting in the same situation where not just towns but like whole regions of the country you know, you're talking about regions like Rochester and Erie, you know and all of these towns that are between, like Chicago and Detroit, to to New York and the East coast would have Pittsburgh was another one that they, these, these cities would have collapsed at a staggering rate at a time when, you know, the country was fragile. So the government stepped in and took over, took over, which is very different than what the government did with the bailout. They didn't take anything over. I don't think that would have been acceptable in today's terms, the way they did it with the railroad. I don't think people would have accepted that and nor do I think the government necessarily should be doing that. But it's the government doing something, just differently. You know the bailout was.
Speaker 3:There's a huge ramification besides just gm going under or chrysler going under. Yeah, people just don't realize, right? Because in the media it was portrayed as gm's in trouble, chrysler's in trouble, but when you look at the overall, how that plays out to the rest of the country, yeah it's huge.
Speaker 3:You know the, the plants all over the place. You know GM in Arlington, texas, in Fort Wayne, indiana, ford in Kansas City or Chicago, or Chrysler in Belleville, illinois, or you know even Chrysler's got some in Canada. You know the ripple effect across North America would have been huge. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Those plants closed Entire communities would been huge, yeah. And those plans closed, entire communities would have collapsed, yeah.
Speaker 3:We just went through a round of UAW contract negotiations and when you look at the United Auto Workers and the hourly workers, Ford's got like 50,000 workers in the world and GM's like 35,000 or something.
Speaker 1:The UAW that they employ that you don't directly see.
Speaker 1:The UAW thing, kind of I don't know. I want to say on one end it kind of strikes a nerve with me because, as somebody who's not part of that circle, I bought a Toyota 4Runner because at the time I bought my 4Runner, like the UAW was jacking up prices and American cars were crazy expensive. It was like I'd love when I bought my forerunner. I would have loved to bought, I would have loved to bought a tahoe, but I just could not afford one and toyota was selling cars at a frat. I mean you got, you got to eat, you got to pay rent and at that time I was young, it was what was. But then I learned my lesson because at 120,000 miles that freaking Toyota 4Runner fell apart on me and I went from that to a Silverado.
Speaker 3:And that's living in this right now. But, coming from the East coast, it's always interesting when I come back to see the foreign cars driving.
Speaker 1:So do you see more American cars now, you think, than when you started?
Speaker 3:Not necessarily that, but you, you know, in detroit everybody's related to somebody in the auto industry right so they've got some tie-in to maybe get a discount everybody's got at least x plan.
Speaker 1:Everybody's got like a new car.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, seeing a 10 year old car in detroit is like oh my god, you know unless, that's unless it's a classic yeah, he, he must be from out of town. Yeah, you know, because everybody gets some sort of discount and it's not huge. You know, it might be $1,500. Makes a big difference. But it makes a difference on your payment, right, yeah, so but they're $1,500 is $10. It's still a lot of, it's still money right. But when I come back here and I see bmws or mercedes or toyotas or kias, yeah a lot more than because nobody out here gets kia's a garbage.
Speaker 3:They've done a lot for their name bullshit we had one.
Speaker 1:It was garbage.
Speaker 3:It's not a good experience, not that long ago the door handle fell off in the last few years, if you believe all the publications, their, their quality has gone up quite a bit Kia Hyundai, Um, and you know they got the whole Genesis line now and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Some of that looks pretty dope. I mean they've got some really good. They kind of look like Bentley's. I got to tell you they've got some good styling going on and they're getting good reviews. Yeah. Um so they're not the elantras that the wheels fell off yeah, I mean it was, it was.
Speaker 3:It was like basic yugo type car type car yeah now they're. They're, they're real cars, you know, by what we would just describe as as real standard competitive in the marketplace. Yes, um, and they're cheap, yeah, so I see a lot more of those around um cheaply made. But you know, when you come back here, you see what people are actually spending their actual dollars on. They don't have a reason to go buy something from the big three.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:They have to do what? Like you said, george, like they have to buy something that is in their means.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Not something, because hey, you know what Burt works for them, so Burt can get me a deal. No, it doesn't work that way anymore, it's a lot I need to buy something. I can afford and I can put my kids in school or I can do whatever you know, and um, it's always nice. It's always interesting for me to come back here and see that.
Speaker 2:It's interesting, though, that you say it like that, because I feel like the people. People say it like that because I feel like the people that I've known or interacted with. I feel like people are willing to pay ridiculous car payments.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a whole other argument.
Speaker 1:I pay what I think is a ridiculous car payment right now for this truck.
Speaker 2:I've known people to pay $900,000 for a car payment. Yeah, that's a mortgage.
Speaker 3:It's going only $750,000 a month, like 10 years ago, and I'm like who the hell affords $750 a month? That was more than my mortgage at the time. That's crazy, really Only $750 or only $800 a month.
Speaker 1:$750 a month probably isn't paying your taxes in the state of New Jersey. Right now.
Speaker 3:I'm sitting there and this is on a billboard. They're proud of it. I'm like the average person isn't spending that a month.
Speaker 2:I think it must be all the military people. Well, it's crazy. They. It must be all the military people.
Speaker 1:It's crazy.
Speaker 2:They don't have a mortgage or a rent to pay.
Speaker 3:Some of that is real. They get overseas.
Speaker 2:No, that's 100% real. Young military men spend ridiculous amounts of money on car payments because they don't have anything else. Everything else is covered.
Speaker 3:In some of my stuff I've seen military men and people like roughnecks, like oil rig guys or oil guys, they go go off, and they're off for like six months in the oil rig and all they do is work yeah, they're not. They're not paying for a rent or mortgage for anything they have no real bills and they come back with all this money yeah that's saved up and whether you know they're overseas and getting hazard pay or whatever, or in the field.
Speaker 1:They buy that hellcat, and they buy that hellcat. Or they buy that ninety thousand dollar car that you sit there, they buy that how the? Hell is that guy?
Speaker 3:exactly that raptor you look at that guy go how the hell they afford in this car, and then you kind of understand a little bit more that yeah they're, they're, don't get me wrong, they're living a shit life they're not afraid to spend that money when they get it yeah, listen, work, listen, work hard, play hard.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm all about it.
Speaker 3:Buy the Harley, buy the, whatever the toy when you get back, because you earned it. And don't get me wrong, they probably earned it. Because if you're living in an oil rig for six months in the middle of the freaking Gulf of Mexico, you probably are like, yeah, I need to blow off some steam. No doubt.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I need to blow off some steam, no doubt you know. So I can't blame those guys for doing it, but that's some of the people I see that are doing this. And how long can that live going forward until they move on to their next phase in life? Or I mean, it's obviously not going to support they meet a woman they'd be able to, but they're screwed right yeah, I mean for an industry.
Speaker 1:It's obviously not an entire support system. But you know, I owned. I own two subarus back-to-back. I own an Impreza. Were you a lesbian? So, it's funny.
Speaker 2:I'll get there. It's funny.
Speaker 1:I never knew it. It's funny you bring that up. So my Impreza, probably one of my favorite cars I ever owned. I mean that car was fun to drive, it was awesome, it was dependable Traded that in because I put too much work into that engine. Wait, traded that in um because I put too much work into that engine.
Speaker 2:Wait, hold on, what was it? It was, it was an impresa. It was a what impresa? Super? Impresa, impresa sounds like the wr I've never even heard of that base car so that's a car, not a, not an suv. It's a car, it's a car yeah, it's like the hatchback version. Yeah, so it was awesome super expert because I like awesome car man it was.
Speaker 1:It was a stick shift for for kids that are listening. That's why we had to manually change gears. And then I went from that to Legacy. We put a ton of miles on Legacy. Legacy was a great car. And that was a Subaru too. That was a Subaru too.
Speaker 3:That's a big wagon.
Speaker 1:I think no, we had the sedan, though it was a sharp-legged car, it was sporty, it was great and bad weather. We put probably almost $260,000, $270,000.
Speaker 2:Were you single then, or were you with somebody I was with?
Speaker 1:Stacy, okay, and the only reason now this is crazy. The only reason that we didn't go down and buy a third Subaru is because we wanted to lease a car. And all of a sudden, after Legacy, the Subaru craze was starting to catch. Like when I owned a Subaru, the Subaru was like the counterculture and catch okay, like when I owned the subarus, the subarus was like the counterculture, you know. And and all of a sudden these subarus started to like catch on and they got expensive. Not because they got better, you know, it's not popular because they got popular. So we went down there and we looked at like subaru. We were gonna. We were like, all right, well, we can lease a car, you know we'll have a little bit less payment. Like the driving style, the way things are right now.
Speaker 1:Like we can, you know, lease smart about it and and and obviously your money right. Expend less money. We don't have to, but we don't have to buy a car. And uh, we went down and super leases were like 425 a month, which right now, if you're listening, it's like this is like oh, that's a deal you would jump on that but you understand, like my, my payment on my subaru.
Speaker 1:I think that that super legacy was like the first payment that I ever had that was over 200 a month. I think it was like 225 a month and that was a big deal, man, to have a payment that was over 200 a month then. So because my impressive was less than 200, that was like 178 a month payment. That's what car payments were back then, right, and I just I got to the super deal. I was like I'm not paying four dollars a month for Subaru, like you're out of your mind, right. I went home, I went online, we got to the pull up BMW three series two, 99 a month, traded in my box, did as Subaru that needed brakes, tires, had cracked windshield, had a quarter million miles on it and we rolled out of there with a three series bmw for less than a subaru lease would have been right, and that's where people have to remember it's a competitive market, yeah right no matter how good you think your car is.
Speaker 1:It's a competitive market and it's the craziest thing and you know bmw did after the second lease well, they jacked you up because no? No, no, no, they rolled us in that's right they yeah, they rolled us.
Speaker 3:We got a crazy deal on remember that you were looking at something else. Yeah, you're like I can't pass up the deal, I can't pass up the deal.
Speaker 1:it's like I had. I had a chance to put stacy in the car that she always wanted and it was a um, a 525, a 5 series bmw, which is very possibly the nicest car that I'll ever have owned in my lifetime. It was an amazing car to drive. It was an amazing car to ride. It was just like BMW. About their marketing, I will say they get at one thing when they say we are the ultimate driving machine. They are. It's fun every time you get in the car. It's hard to describe and I miss it terribly. I do. I really wish I could have a BMW sitting in the driveway, but they got us into the second BMW.
Speaker 3:It's definitely cheaper than a big three car, by the way, because you got bait and switched on that one.
Speaker 1:Significantly. Well, we did get bait and switched on it. So when we went to buy the second so, justin, remember the story when we so, when we went into the, when we went to buy the second so just remember the story we went to buy the second BMW, we were looking at Lincolns, because there were a couple of Lincolns that Cause you all of a sudden were 60.
Speaker 3:They caught a ride. They were they were nice looking cars. They were Stop it, Dude that.
Speaker 1:MK. They did that, that MK. When they redid that MK, it was a nice car. And then the Mark VIII. I wanted a Mark VIII man. A Mark VIII was dope it's still dope, by the way, that goes back to your high school years. You say that because you just haven't. I mean, if you were to see those cars, they were cool cars.
Speaker 3:Bert's right, because the average Lincoln buyers were like 65. The stereotype, but they had made a move to more young people. Just like Buick had. Buick was another one that was like 65 and older. Was Buick guys?
Speaker 1:Now there's a lot of younger people buying the Buicks. The RS is Stacy's nephew as a Buick. It's a cool car.
Speaker 3:Ironically, a lot of them are designed out of China now.
Speaker 1:China, but still so, we get into this BMW and we were going to get a Lincoln and they gave us a Lincoln to test drive for the weekend and I was honest. I was like this is where I want to be with a payment. This is what I want to put down. I want to lease. This is how many miles I need. They're like it was with you in the leases. This is. We didn't drive that many miles. It was a north jersey. You didn't drive anywhere. I mean, every place you went was like six miles away. Six miles, six hours an hour.
Speaker 1:Right, it took you an hour to get there, but it was like six miles mileage wasn't a problem so it was a very right his mileage wasn't an issue, it's a very different lifestyle and I feel like if you live someplace like north jersey you can lease, whereas here you're in the car the same amount of time but you're traveling three times the distance or four times the distance. So we took the car for the weekend. It's probably probably still a facebook picture of this car. It was dude. It was an awesome car. His first car ever drove with like rate adaptive cruise control. It had a heads-up display and this is, this is like this is awesome right.
Speaker 1:And we went back there and they were like yeah, well, your payment's gonna be this. I'm like well, that's not the.
Speaker 3:That's not the payment that you want.
Speaker 1:This is this car that you want.
Speaker 3:It's like wait a minute.
Speaker 1:We told you what we wanted two hundred dollars more than we talked about. Well, yeah, but to get that payment you need to be in this car. What did you give me? This car to drive for the weekend.
Speaker 1:That's what I always got yeah, that's a cop, yeah, yeah, I'm like we're done, we're talking I'm like we're done and I'll hang on to that crappy dealer thing because I want to talk about that too, because that's something I know you can definitely talk about. Um, so we went back to bmw. We wound up in our five series for probably the biggest car payment I ever had at that time which was, I think, like 5 30 a month, which I was like freaking out about, but it was an amazing car for that at the time I think it was like. But again, it was a $75,000 car at 530 a month with like $2,000. Now do that math. Today You'll be a lot higher than that.
Speaker 1:And you know, to get that lease and people don't know, like, if you don't know the car industry, when you look at BMW, mercedesw, mercedes, about 85 to 90 of the cars, the new cars that you see on the road, you're going to see used ones. Obviously you're going to see old people, older cars that are, you know, young people driving around in. But of the new cars that are sold bmw, mercedes about 85 to 90 of those cars are leased. They are not bought, they are, they are leased. Everybody leases those cars. Um a lot of different reasons. I never paid for an oil change. I never paid for tires. I never paid for anything. There was nothing I paid for except for my car payment. I never paid for roadside assistance.
Speaker 2:I never paid for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, gas insurance and the payment, and you paid for absolutely nothing. They took care of the entire experience for you. And when you rolled in, you rolled your car in for service, the service was not at the dealership, the service was at a service center. You rolled in, they had an office, people could work, there were cubicles. It was like it was an entire experience that they had. That, you know, appealed to the people who was buying their cars and right at that time it was like holy crap, now flip side, I was like all right, well, we'll just roll into another bmw. And then they went through a whole thing where they switched, where all of a sudden you were going from $500 a month to $800 a month and I was like, yeah, we're done. Guys, can't we talk? I was like you got like $300 worth of talking to do. Like that's a lot of talking at a car dealership Like that's a lot of talking.
Speaker 3:He's like I don't have enough of that talking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we that, so we bought then. That was to the car that we have now. We bought a a um, an audi and a used audi um, which has been a great car. It's a a5 with that car. It's an s package.
Speaker 2:I don't hate that car actually you well, you are so full of crap.
Speaker 1:You complain about that car all the time there are things about the car like you hate driving that car. There's 500 reasons I like that car that's only payment no, no, they're under the hood. All that horsepower, it's a five horsepower car you said you were cramped in that car. You are cramped in that car and I do not like driving a car for a long distance, but it is.
Speaker 3:It does feel like a go-kart don't get me wrong, but there are things about right. Right. All of us have trucks.
Speaker 1:We all have trucks so when you go from a truck to driving that car, it feels small and cramped but a full-size truck as a as an over-the-road, go somewhere, car you can't yeah, but I want to take this, this corner down the end to fork and neck at like 50 miles an hour and the thing just kind of sticks there.
Speaker 1:It's kind of nice people, people understand. I had a three series and you can take an off-ramp at 90 miles an hour and a three series just never moved like it, never, it's just, it's just lost, bro, don't care yeah, I mean listen, everybody's different.
Speaker 3:But you know, I take my truck at that speed, so yeah, well my full-size truck I love that thing for for for highway driving, for traveling back here from japan, from michigan. It's like 10, 10 hour trip. For me that truck is the ultimate truck for that ultimate vehicle, for that trip yeah, then why'd you show up in that little fluorescent thing that's out there?
Speaker 2:I have a small problem with my truck.
Speaker 3:I decided to act up on Thursday night and I'm Saturday morning, so it threw it through a code that I need to look into and there's no time to check it, so yeah, and it's tough when you got to take like a 10 hour road trip and you got to kind of road trip and a hundred pound dog dog, yeah, it was interesting you don't want to be doing that, so you drove the Jeep out.
Speaker 3:That's awesome and when we we took my wife out of a Jeep Wrangler into a Jeep Renegade because she wanted the smallest car possible yeah, well, so she got that she got that and now we're trying to travel back here with a hundred pound dog was a whole nother issue. We didn't have the dog when we got the Renegade yeah, you guys need a bigger car.
Speaker 1:Which?
Speaker 3:is basically an overgrown fiat 500. You need a bigger car. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's not a hundred pound dog car. No, it is not, but we're we'll be keeping that one for a little while longer. The way the economy is, it's relatively cheap. Yeah, I got my truck, you know, for I'll put a little money in the truck and we'll be fine.
Speaker 1:So but but going to prices and used cars and that's how we got down at segway. You know it used to like drive me nuts that these people you know working for the uaw. You know you'd go out to detroit and you see how they're living and I'm like this is some bullshit.
Speaker 3:Like there's a bunch of ways to look at it as an outsider, though.
Speaker 1:As an outsider, I'm like this is some bullshit. I'm like you work on an assembly line. I save lives and I'm making a fraction. At that time, when I got out of nursing school, those guys were killing me.
Speaker 3:Oh, when I, when I first moved out there I was like there's way too much money in metro Detroit.
Speaker 2:That was my opinion.
Speaker 3:Cause I come from, you know, maybe middle-class central New Jersey.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:We weren't, we were broke. You know, there's no such we never we never wanted but at the same point.
Speaker 3:You know, I didn't consider us poor.
Speaker 1:We never, I don't know. We were pretty fucking broke as kids dude, never, I don't know.
Speaker 3:We were pretty fucking broke as kids, dude. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, looking back, yeah, looking back, at the time I didn't care, no, I wasn't saying, well, but george has this or bert has that, or I didn't care.
Speaker 1:None of us had shit. I did what I wanted to do.
Speaker 3:You know I had a good time. We went down to the shore, we did the beach thing, we, we played football, we. You know I didn't have any other wants that were unfulfilled. You know, necessarily, as a kid, um, going to school, I went to college, you know do you have a triple fat goose I did not have a triple. I didn't see that you lost that I was never that starter jacket.
Speaker 2:I was never that I didn't have a triple fat goose I started, I had a starter jacket.
Speaker 1:We bought a columbus, so I don't even know if that thing was shit that was used as a.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was some bear and I never had I never had some air jordans no, I never wanted, but I was never I never wanted that guy. Yeah, I mean I never, need that crap, yeah, air jordans.
Speaker 3:You know, I got a guy I know now in michigan. He's got an original set of air jordans which are probably worth like they money Cause they're worth money, you know it's a wear them. Would I ever think that you know, a set of shoes I own were worth, you know.
Speaker 1:No, I mean, I guess we didn't money now we didn't want, but I mean I guess that was, that was the life we didn't know any better. That was the life. That was just how we grew up and what was we?
Speaker 3:knew, I think, but I moved out to michigan. I'm like there's way too much money, yeah my first time the amount of money people are. People are bitching because they finally didn't get overtime so they couldn't afford their house in northern michigan, like here, jersey, you have a beach house, right, you have a house in the shore. Oh, if you're a teacher, well, there's north jersey people. They have their beach house, the house, the shore house or whatever we were.
Speaker 1:We were commuter partiers but in michigan it's.
Speaker 3:It's a house up north. You know a cabin. There's cabins up north, cabins that are like 3 000 plus square feet I'm like that's bigger than my damn house that's not a cabin, that's a damn house. All right, if you're right, it's a cabin you know there were, there were line guys that when, when the you know for that, when I first got there, the world, their auto world, was fat, dumb and happy. You know people are making cars out the wazoo. Money's coming crazy.
Speaker 3:You and line guys are making overtime left and right yeah they can work an 80 hour week and the second 40 is time and a half minimum, if not double time. Um, so they're just, they're buying all these toys, they have the boat, they have the harley, they have the house up north, and then, all of a sudden, overtime dried up like that too like that, yep. And then people are like how am I going to afford it? I can't afford not to work 80 hours. They were overliving their means.
Speaker 1:It was like 2007,.
Speaker 3:I feel like, yeah, early 2000s when things started to crack and in 2008, it finally died when everybody started filing bankruptcy and whatnot. It wasn't that they weren't making good money, they were just living way above their means because they got 80 hour weeks at time and a half for the second, any hour over eight. Yeah, I mean they had double time on weekends or holidays.
Speaker 1:They had means, but it wasn't means that they were hired for. I mean, they were just getting paid overtime and they were.
Speaker 3:they got used to that overtime tea right and just getting all that overtime.
Speaker 1:Who teat right and just getting all that overtime? Who the heck is happy about eight hours a week? Well, they were making a lot of money and I feel like, I feel like when you were paid.
Speaker 3:The auto companies paid for that. Um, that happiness of the employee of the uaw. Right, they were just like here, take money, because I'm making money hand over fist. I'll just keep giving you money so that we all make money hand over fist. But when everything started to dry up, they're like oh shit, I can't pay that guy that anymore. I paid him way too. I'm paying him way too much. And then, when 2008 and that correction came around, they're like whoa it's fine, it was business, they were paying for labor harmony yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm it's funny, it was business genius they were paying for labor harmony and not having to fight the uaw.
Speaker 1:And then when they had to go fight the uaw, everybody's like yeah, it got ugly yeah it got ugly quick, but it was business genius by you know the big auto manufacturers, because they were in a situation where they easily had the revenue and the workload to hire a bunch of people. And they didn't. They were like we've got people who are here, we've got people who are willing to work as many hours as they can work. It is cheaper for us and it's so true it's. If these people that's risky.
Speaker 1:If these people are happy, it is cheaper for us to pay them overtime and pay them time and a half than it is for us to pay another employee benefits, another employee's family benefits, another employee retirement and everything else. It was, it was business, it was business genius, it really it really was, and there's like I feel like, not a lot of businesses that can run the way those guys ran, because then, when it dried up, a lot of people's lifestyles got screwed but not a lot of people got laid off but the businesses weren't.
Speaker 3:So we're smart yeah but the hourly guys were. They're so used to that 80 hour week they weren't?
Speaker 1:they lived off of it. They weren't smart with their money?
Speaker 3:they didn't say I need to live off of 40 hours.
Speaker 2:They got anything above what they had they thought it was going to be forever, yeah, yeah. And then, when they all of a sudden couldn't, get, couldn't get.
Speaker 3:80 hours they couldn't support.
Speaker 2:They just were living beyond their means. Like you said, they had the camper, the house up north.
Speaker 3:They had the RV, they had the toys and I can't blame them.
Speaker 1:We all want toys, right, I mean?
Speaker 3:all three of us have toys.
Speaker 1:I went to Michigan I was like everybody's got new cars. I remember my first time going to Michigan.
Speaker 3:I was like everybody got a new car, like what the heck is this? But that's the a-plan thing, that's the x-plan thing. You know, an a-plan is blood. So, like my brother, my parents, yeah, my brother-in-law, they can get the big discount. Yeah, friends, like you guys can get lower discounts but still discounts. So everybody knows somebody who can get some sort of discount and the discount and they do a lot of leasing they do a lot of leasing.
Speaker 1:But the discount. What people don't understand about discount is the discount depends on the model, the car that you're buying. You know the sometimes the make, but but a lot of times, like, discounts can be bigger on things that aren't selling hot right, like if you're going to buy.
Speaker 2:If you're going to buy so can they tell you that? Like like. So I spelled out.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you give me your ex-plan number or whatever. Right, I go here locally I'm looking for this car, but are they able to tell me that, well, you could pay a lot less for this particular car because of?
Speaker 1:They will not do that.
Speaker 2:They probably won't do that, so you have to know that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can look that up.
Speaker 3:But when I give you access to a like an you mentioned x plan, which is a friends and family deal, if I give you an x, you can go on the on the system and find out what we're giving discounts on okay, on what models? Okay yeah so you can say well, you know, I really, really want this truck, but you know what it'd?
Speaker 2:be a lot better off over here at this one. It's like twice the discount, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I can live with that.
Speaker 1:Platinums were more discounts than than trim levels, yeah, trim levels. So my platinum discount was deeper than my Larry discount, which is why I was looking at platinum, as originally I was like if I was going to go premium level down to something yeah, to a level you were looking at it's.
Speaker 3:it's intricate how it works. I mean, there's a lot, there's so much. What's inventory when they're trying to move?
Speaker 1:so much that goes into it. Um, but if you're going to buy something like um, like gail, we gave gail an employee discount like for lincoln, and like the discount for lincoln wasn't a lot because they sell what they.
Speaker 3:They sell all they, they sell.
Speaker 1:they don't they make lincoln's and they sell. And during sell, they sell. They don't they make Lincolns and they sell.
Speaker 3:And during the time frame of, like COVID, they don't have to honor that discount.
Speaker 1:So let's talk.
Speaker 3:My boss's mother couldn't get a discount.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to talk about that for a minute.
Speaker 3:Because they're like you know, I can sell everyone I can make.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Everyone that's on the floor here I can sell for at cost or more because supply is so low. Yeah, so it doesn't mandate that they have to sell it for that reduced price.
Speaker 1:They're like sorry, she's paying full retail yeah, I walked out of our local ford dealership, you know, because they didn't want to, they didn't want to deal with me.
Speaker 3:You know, I've walked out of um george had the benefit of having multiple people, knowing multiple, multiple people in the industry.
Speaker 1:I've walked out of dodge. Um, you know I've walked out of dodge dealerships because dodge dealerships are like we're not gonna honor that. What do you mean? And to me it was like a shock. I'm like.
Speaker 1:You know the dodge dealership was the guaranteed sale essentially the dodge dealership was the first dealership that I was like are you actually kidding me right now? And um, on north jersey, on route four? The dodge dealership was like we are not. We're not honoring those plans. Like what do you mean? They're your company's plans. I had a co-workers we're not doing it.
Speaker 3:I had a co-worker sister, so she gets a plan. He called me up asking for my brother's discount plan number because our company wouldn't give her the plan. Yeah, the dealer for our company wouldn't give her the plan. Next deal she's jumped. Gotta be honest guys. An alternative deal, an alternative brand, even though she's family Doesn't sound like supposed to get the best plan ever. It doesn't sound like a great deal.
Speaker 1:It is If you can get it, it's good.
Speaker 3:If you can get it, it's good.
Speaker 1:If you can get it, it's good. I had to go to Maryland.
Speaker 2:Everything's up in the air, based on current situations and whatnot?
Speaker 1:It's timing, a lot of it's timing, it's all timing.
Speaker 3:Cars were hard to come by. Anybody was paying at cost.
Speaker 2:Why? Why were cars hard to come by during COVID Supplies chips cost? Why? Why were cars hard to come by during COVID Supplies chips?
Speaker 3:Is that what it was?
Speaker 1:Spraying bed Spraying bed liners.
Speaker 3:Where did a lot of parts come from?
Speaker 1:China China Spraying bed liners.
Speaker 3:So you couldn't even get parts here Spraying bed liners yeah, you couldn't get spraying bed liners.
Speaker 1:You couldn't get running boards.
Speaker 2:I can give you a whole list of things you don't need to have a car no, but you.
Speaker 3:But you can't get the materials to spray in the bed liner so whatever that's one of the things, a lot of things. And during the coveted years you would. They would say you know what? Get rid of the trailer hitch, I could sell you the car. Get rid of the sunroof? I can sell you a car, but because you ordered the trailer hitch in the sun roof, I can't get those parts, so I can't build your car there were no blackout accessories.
Speaker 1:There were no black, there were no black bumpers the racial stuff all right, it's a family-friendly show.
Speaker 3:It's all came down to what parts you could and could not get, and the microchips at that time were hugely hard to get, so they were like turning off things, like start, stop. Like a lot of car cars these days, when you come to a stop, the engine will shut off yeah, it's crazy like the, the chips that control that you couldn't get yep. So, gm, I know for sure. I'm pretty sure ford went that way eventually who likes that I didn't say anybody likes it, but it helps.
Speaker 3:The fuel economy label, which is a whole nother conversation my in-laws have a car.
Speaker 2:That was like that. I was like it was blew my mind.
Speaker 3:Yeah my, my mom's, yeah my mom's childhood friend has a car like that, but she can't turn it off.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? You can't turn it off?
Speaker 3:No, what car is that? I believe that was a Chevy Trax. Oh hell, no, it could not be turned off. So every time she came to a stop it shut off and it bothered her. She's afraid it wasn't going to start Now. It never didn't, but she didn't like the fact. But she could never hit a button.
Speaker 3:So a lot of cars will give you a button to turn that feature off, so that you can, yeah, not have that problem, because if you're in stop and go traffic and you're going five feet and then the car shuts off again and then it starts back up you're just wearing that.
Speaker 1:You know you're wearing stuff out, so when you stop in new york city traffic, when you stop the new york city traffic. Though it is, it is not the worst thing in the world. What I hated about?
Speaker 3:that feature, you lose air conditioning at 95 degrees. That's just what.
Speaker 1:I was going to say the air conditioner isn't as cold because the compressor's not spinning.
Speaker 3:Because the engine's not spinning, so the compressor's not spinning.
Speaker 1:So you basically lose your air conditioner.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you. Yeah, I know. You know the same other thing goes with you had a coworker at a Tesla.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Right, right, going up in this connecticut. That was an early run out of battery power and tesla will automatically start turning stuff off to get you the range so that you can get to the next charge station I love it when our guests segue, so they start, they start turning off, like air conditioning, because that takes electric power. So they're turning that thing off so that everything's more efficient to get you to where you can charge it, but meanwhile you're sweating your balls off trying to get there.
Speaker 1:What's funny is old Teslas. If you had the air conditioner on and you reached the 20% battery or whatever, that was because there was a percentage that the air conditioner turned off. It would turn off the air conditioner and automatically roll down your windows.
Speaker 3:Well, at least it's nice enough to do that. It lets you know like hey idiot, we should have stopped for for gas.
Speaker 1:Well the thing is like when tesla's got popular, the guy that I know, um grant, who owned a tesla, he was like you know. He was, you know early, what I would call an early adopter. Right, he waited for three years, you know, for his tesla. He already had his, he had tesla stock before he had tesla. You know, he waited.
Speaker 3:A smart move, probably because it's split like yeah, a bunch of times like 800 bucks a share.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but it's crazy, but it's it's. They didn't have a lot of charging stations, right. So he, his kid, was going somewhere in new england, like everybody in north jersey, so he had to somewhere in boston. He had to go to, like pick his kid up and he's like I'm so, I like I'm so pissed, I'm like I thought the car was the greatest thing. He's like I have to take 95 all the way. I'm like why it's the only place where there's charging stations. It's like he's like I can't get off and take back roads, right, for fear that if I miss a charging station I'm gonna be on a flatbed now on the good point.
Speaker 3:It will tell you that the nearest charging station is here. Do you want me? To yeah, yeah, I would tell you that it is smart enough to say but you're getting low on battery. Um, the nearest charging station's over here. Do you want to route to it and it'll get you there?
Speaker 1:and we know now, like we know now, there's charging stations all over the place. So I think the experience for those people now, like I know, I know people sit there and charge oh yeah, you do but you're here where there's a high population density.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I know people like that in like northern michigan, where there's no population I know people who like the grid.
Speaker 1:The charging network is good enough that I. I know people like well, you know sarah, sarah's, she's, she's, tesla crazy right now and she, she drives from charlotte to jersey okay, to see her in-laws and they do that in the tesla and, um, they have to stop the charge once between charlotte jersey but it is like 30 minutes. It's like a 45 minute stop if there's a charger open that's the catch, right this is the other thing, because she was telling me the popular routes have right, so many chargers if you stop at a tesla station.
Speaker 3:They probably have six or eight chargers. Yep, but if it's a popular stopping point, you're gonna be waiting, yeah in the new jersey turnpike.
Speaker 1:I've seen them all full on the turnpike, you know, and they've got like 16.
Speaker 3:You know chargers on the turnpike, I've seen them all full as somebody who works in the industry I can't deny what tesla's done for electric automobiles they've made the electric automobile a reality listen, tesla's done.
Speaker 1:Whether you like it or not, they have made the reality sucks.
Speaker 3:They have made it a viable choice for a lot of people they have, and I don't like it.
Speaker 1:But I'll tell you something else. Tesla did that people don't realize. Two years ago tesla is a company Made more money trading Bitcoin than they did. You laugh because you know this is true. Right, you know it's true. They made more money trading Bitcoin under the Tesla umbrella than they did actually in car sales profits.
Speaker 3:Well, it took Tesla 16 years, I think it was to make a profit making a car period.
Speaker 1:So everybody who sits there, and looks at GM or Ford or that, looks at gm or chrysler and say why can't they make these cars?
Speaker 3:it's like they could yeah I gotta say, if it took ford or chrysler or gm 16 years to make a profit, their shareholders would kill them it blows my mind, man, but you see teslas everywhere.
Speaker 1:Oh man, we call them tesla tool bags, but it blows my mind.
Speaker 3:I look at Tesla more like an iPhone. It's somebody who is a techie or somebody who has to have that new technology, trendy, that type of market yeah, but there's not a real detriment to a person using an iPhone.
Speaker 2:There's nothing about your iPhone that really jacks up your day. An iPhone there's nothing about your iPhone that really jacks up your day. But stop in 45 minutes to go somewhere?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think most people probably aren't doing that, though I mean they're going from here to work.
Speaker 3:The average commute's like 30 miles. Do you think it's most people, as many as I?
Speaker 2:see, I don't believe it's most people. There's no way. They're everywhere they are, but there's no way all those people are going five miles to work. But if you look at the average, round trip.
Speaker 3:For a commuter it's only 30 miles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think most people go to work or 30 miles one way it's not bad. I think most people go to work and back.
Speaker 3:When your car's got 250 mile range.
Speaker 2:That's great if your whole life is going to work and back.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You're, but is that? Is that? That's not what I, that's not what most people, that's not the primary like you could do all the running around.
Speaker 1:You do an electric car. I mean, just listen, I don't like them either, but the reality of it is you can do the running around that you do during the day to and from and back on a battery charge and you can do that cool. If my whole life was work, that'd be great yeah, but you're not driving more than 50 miles in a day but I I want to travel, save a trip I want to travel.
Speaker 2:Save a trip. I want to travel. I go on vacations.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but that's not what you normally do with your car. Trips are where they fall apart.
Speaker 2:No, but that's where you can't do it at all.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like my family, I could put my wife in an electric car in a heartbeat. Yeah, her commute's like five miles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I guess, if your focus, is work, then it's perfectly fine, Even average driving around town.
Speaker 3:But if I want to travel I need something that's got gas. Like come back here to Jersey 10 and a half hours. I'm not waiting for 40 minutes. You would have had to charge.
Speaker 2:What's it cost to have one of those things installed in your house?
Speaker 1:I don't know what any of that costs. Actually, I don't actually oh.
Speaker 3:Oh, we'll just poo-poo that to have it installed.
Speaker 2:B how much money it actually costs you, Like it's basically adding on another a bill at your house.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it is. It's making your meter spin, yeah. There's real costs to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's just things that we just act like oh no, no, they're not, it's an electric car, it's amazing.
Speaker 3:No, your hype is different than reality. That's not my hype.
Speaker 2:No, no, no my reality is that it's expensive. The car itself is expensive as shit. Right, the government's giving you $7,500 to buy it, and what's the average Tesla cost?
Speaker 3:Depends on the model.
Speaker 1:So, it's a funny thing.
Speaker 3:Which is where I have a problem, because they'll give you $7,500 to buy a $98,000 car.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I'm like why am I spending and I wouldn't in a million years buy a $98,000 gas car.
Speaker 3:That's one of my-.
Speaker 2:About a million years.
Speaker 3:Why am I subsidizing a guy who can afford a $98,000 car for?
Speaker 1:$7,500 in tax credit. That's the whole joke of it right.
Speaker 3:Why should he get anything from me?
Speaker 1:The people who can afford the gas.
Speaker 3:Right Are the ones getting the benefit.
Speaker 1:Are the ones getting the benefit, the people who can afford the gas, the people who would actually benefit from an electric car, the people who are paying gas to commute and trying to figure out their monthly budgets, where gas is a big part of your budget, especially in in, you know, biden's america today. Right, you know they can't afford that electric car and they're never going to be able to.
Speaker 3:I mean, let's be honest, they're never going to be able to like your three series is supposed to be like thirty thousand dollars yeah, but what's that?
Speaker 1:but here's the other thing your thirty thousand dollar, tesla three is supposed to be somewhere in the thirty your thirty thousand dollar. Tesla does not have a 250 mile mile range. It doesn't?
Speaker 3:that's the thing people understand that's the interesting thing that they've done, because they came out with the three and they came out with a three at like fifty six thousand dollars, but they advertised like a thirty thousand dollar entry fee, but they only made the fifty fifty six thousand dollar version. So you put your money in to buy the thirty thousand dollar version, but it was going to be two years before that was available. Because they're going to sell you the fifty six 000 first and then work their way down to the cheaper one, because and gm right, the same thing with the hummer. Yep, the hummer came out. It's 125 000 electric truck this thing's.
Speaker 3:They're like you know, in three to five years we'll be down to like a 80 000 or seven this thing's the biggest piece of shit I've ever seen.
Speaker 1:The fact that they put a hummer name on this truck is the most disappointing thing in american automotive history. They followed it right, it's just 25 000.
Speaker 3:If you want it now, I'll give it to you for 125 grand. In four or five years maybe I'll have one at 65 there's one sitting down here.
Speaker 1:There's one sitting down here to dealership on route 70 and it is just, I said to stacy, I'm like that's the new hummer because, um, when we first started talking to you about this coming out here, I was like I gotta do a little bit of research on electric cars and I and I saw them like the hummer's electric.
Speaker 3:Now one it's a gmc hummer, well one. It's not its own brand name. What's a gmc?
Speaker 1:well, yeah, I mean, gmc bought, bought the hummer when hummer came out.
Speaker 3:I mean it's all gm it's all gm right.
Speaker 1:So I mean it's when hummers first came out.
Speaker 3:I mean they were they were their own brand trying to compete with jeep, right, right and that was their thing.
Speaker 1:They wanted that off-road space we uh, justin and I, justin, used to crew for me racing hobie cats, and we uh had hummers. Tow us onto the beach one day. You know when the hummers first came out and they all got stuck. We had our buddy in the jeep got you know how much pulling out hummers because they were stuck, because they weighed a million pounds you know how much that new hummer weighs curb weight.
Speaker 3:So, without anybody in it as it sits on the curb, nine thousand pounds holy shit, dude.
Speaker 1:That's two thousand pounds more than my truck. Almost it's fifteen hundred pounds more than my truck.
Speaker 3:My truck weighs seven thousand six hundred and sixty pounds and that's the stuff you're not, you're not hearing about with electric car world is the the vast weight of the car. That battery weighs a ton holy cow that battery weighs so much like cost 30 grand when you got to replace it, the whole floor underneath that.
Speaker 3:That hummer is battery pack. Wow, yeah, in between the frame rails there's frame rails under there, because it's a truck. Yeah, that's all battery pack and I've looked at them. Um, in competitive benchmarking and stuff, nine thousand pounds, curb weight before you put anything into it. You know what cracks me up you into it and your dog and all your other crap that you keep in your car normally so you're not towing shit nine thousand pounds. What happens when you hit like your festiva when you were a kid?
Speaker 3:you're done what the hell's going to happen to people when they hit those things when they hit it.
Speaker 1:Well, the other thing is, when you see teslas and stuff, you know an accident. I mean you become crispy, you get crispy quick, like car fires are real car fires with lithium batteries car fires, with lithium batteries I mean, and that's not like a lithium, they don't go out, you don't just put them out with now with the regular water and all that and they're out, they will reflare.
Speaker 3:That's another whole thing that the whole first responder segment has had to come to terms with how do they deal with them? There's people who put them in like concrete cubbies, basically when they bring back an electric car from an accident, because it may flare up and have a fire two, three, five days later they've been towing these things.
Speaker 1:They have to put on a flatbed. There've been people who've towed them and because of the wheel spinning and the wheels being connected to the motor motor being connected, battery batteries have gone up and fell in flames.
Speaker 3:It's a well-documented thing there's a lot of tales to it and don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash electric cars they have I think it's bullshit. I don't care, I'll bash I think they have a place. I think the way the government is pushing them is totally wrong.
Speaker 1:Well right.
Speaker 3:I think they they can be viable transportation for some people. Yeah, the way the government wants you to adopt them immediately is bullshit.
Speaker 1:Well one, the government telling you what to do is bullshit, and they know that. So what the government's going to do is they're just going to make it difficult for you to do anything else, so you have to abide. I mean, that's, that's how the us government works. But the flip side that people aren't looking at is when you look at the countries that have lithium supplies. I mean people don't realize, like bolivia is like number one, you know, chile's down there, lots of south american stuff is down there, africa's down there. We're not necessarily we don't have the best relationships in africa right now, in case anybody's noticed, like the bricks, countries like they're, they're africans are all about the gold. Right now, we've been actually thrown out of niger, which is of no, no coincidence to this. Afghanistan has lithium supplies. China is lock stock and barrel into bakram. Right now, bakram, bakram is close to most of afghanistan's lithium supplies and we we have, believe it or not, we're like third highest in lithium we have quite a bit of lithium supplies, but we don't mine it if we can mine it
Speaker 3:and our epa says you don't want to mine it right, because strip mining bad because strip mining bad right, so it's bad in somebody else's country, not ours, right then this is the whole thing.
Speaker 1:Like we have a huge amount of lithium underneath the united states but?
Speaker 1:but mining it will be detrimental to the environment. Did we get that now, like, could somebody help me? So one of the things they measure that lithium in the estimated life cycle is tons t-o-n-n-e-s. Tons of co2 is how they. It's just the standard they use. I don't know how to explain tons and what it means to me, because I don't. I don't buy into the environmental bullshit. I really don't. Um, I think there's countries out there in the world that get it, like Iceland gets it. You know Iceland is doing everything with natural gas. They're like F this electric stuff. They run everything in natural gas.
Speaker 3:Well, natural gas, they got geothermal.
Speaker 1:And geothermal for their homes, like they've completely gone a direction that the rest of the world.
Speaker 3:It wasn't mandated.
Speaker 1:Well, it's stuff. They a direction that the rest of the world it wasn't mandated. Well, it's, it's stuff. I mean they're like wait, we got this heat in the ground, let's use it. I could set up a geothermal system here to heat and cool my house, but you know the government's not going to subsidize me for that because there's no money for them to make on the back end, right, but it's um. So the standard gasoline vehicle and this is all based upon mid-sized cars over its lifetime emits 24 tons of co2.
Speaker 3:Okay, right, a battery better every year huh, and getting better every year and getting better every mandate right, but not yet, not by choice right. So nobody would. Nobody would change things if they didn't have to right. So we do need some pushing, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1:A battery electric 19 tons over its lifetime. We're talking about five tons, which is nothing over the lifetime of vehicle, by the way. So, and before, like what me personally, like, before I get serious about this shit, somebody needs to get China serious about this shit, because we could do all the EU and London and Europe and everybody can do all that we want to do about not burning a hole in the ozone layer. So we all fry up and the glaciers melt and everything else when China is over there burning coal and just absolutely going to town with it. I flew into Tbilisi, georgia. I flew over five coal burning factories I counted them, you know, flying into Tbilisi with like rail cars of coal like lined up miles long that you could see when you were flying in over these things and it was just inside. Never seen that coming from the us now, as because we have nuclear, we've always had nuclear, which is now going to be, you know that's bad too.
Speaker 1:That's. That's a nuclear bad too. Right so, but the coal that, like countries like georgia, is burning, countries like uzbekistan's burning countries like india india is not smoking it up, you know. Countries like china, I mean.
Speaker 3:You see beijing during the olympics they were building so many new coal coal plants there they're just and they're still building new coal.
Speaker 1:That was.
Speaker 3:That was some of the stuff with with trump right with the um, the paris accords. Yeah, he's like why am I?
Speaker 3:voluntarily going to cut my own nuts off. That was some of the stuff with Trump, right With the Paris Accords. Yeah, he's like why am I voluntarily going to cut my own nuts off, when the Paris Accords say that if I go over this artificial number for my country, I got to pay you money? Yeah, for what? Because you think I shouldn't be doing this, even though it's less than the number from this country, that country, that country. Yeah, it was a smart move. If you sat back and looked at where it puts America as a competitive standpoint.
Speaker 1:But we can't look at stuff in dollars and cents. We don't look at it that way, Like oh, we're not going to play a game.
Speaker 3:We don't want to save the environment. No, we're fine with saving the environment or protecting our environment. Let's put everybody on the same playing field here. And that's where Paris Accords went wrong. It wasn't putting everybody on. And Paris Accords went wrong. It wasn't putting everybody on. And if you look at the overall pollution levels, I think the U? S is very high up there as a nation in general, the amount of CO2 that we put out because we are a major industrialized nation or one of the biggest economies and countries in the world.
Speaker 1:So we're.
Speaker 3:We do put out a lot of stuff, but, like you were saying, we've got to be smart about how we do this, and paris accords was was something that I yeah, it was right there with you know I'm going to voluntarily, you know, cut myself off and just give money away to people if I didn't need my money, and then who's going to handle that money? Who's going to distribute it? Who's going to make sure it goes to good causes versus just, you know, some dictator's pocket or some other bs or some other corrupt guy that's right, there were countries that want defense from nato but don't want to pay their their gdp percentage again to nato right?
Speaker 3:I mean, it's the same shit we have a higher gross domestic product and we have to pay more because of that, because that's the way it's structured. But you're not even meeting your, your estimate, right, right? So why is the U? S subsidizing Germany or England or whoever else that isn't paying their, their portion?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean well, and that's how the media spun the whole Paris accord thing. They just, they just spun it. As you know, this is Trump doing bad for the world and is everybody else signed up for it.
Speaker 3:It doesn't mean it's the right thing to sign up for, no, no, and you know you could say this through politics in general. Right, you've got to do what's right for you, your country or your constituents, whether it's, you know, soboczynski, who was here you know for your podcast a week or two ago. He's got to do what's right for Jersey and his district.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Not what the Republican Party wants to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:He's got to remember who is his, who he's. Reporting to Right and unfortunately our politics have gotten to the point where it's either Republican or Democrat. It's not. What does district three in New Jersey need?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's what's the Republican party one.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And and it sucks Um and same thing. You know, it just goes higher and higher globally, right.
Speaker 1:It's just, it's just, it's just crazy. And then they've, you know, used greta von turdberg, as I call her to, to, to polarize, to polarize the world, to, uh, you know, say that we should all be on this, this, this environmental train.
Speaker 3:I mean, I just, um, you know I don't think any of us want to like ruin the world, um, but we got to be smart about how we change course too.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, we can't cut our nose off to spite our face no, but the average person is saying this is like they have like zero. You know they have zero willing to do of sacrifice in their life. You know what I mean to to want to. You know it's fun to say and you know fund the protest against, I guess. But you know, when it actually comes to you making a sacrifice, like if you had to live in a one-bedroom apartment so you could afford your Tesla, is that something like? Is your passion for saving the environment like that much? And even then, what happens to your heavy-ass lithium battery that three nine-year-olds from China spent two years mining? What happens to that afterwards, after it was shipped on a coal-fired steamship, you know, to get through, you know two canals, to, uh, then be put on a diesel rail car to be shipped to a dealer, right, like what the f? And then where does the electricity come from that we're charging this right?
Speaker 1:you know it's coming from the nuclear plant that you hate, that you think is unsafe. They're actually talking about restarting a nuclear plant in michigan they should man it's safe, it's clean, it's cheap, it's um, it's a travis they're trying to get it back on the grid because they need the grid power, because that's the other side of electrical powered vehicles.
Speaker 3:Is we didn't get there? How are you going to charge the grid? We didn't even get there right, everybody's like california's, like hey, I can't keep the freaking air conditioners on. Turn your air conditioners off so because we have brownout they got rolling brownouts in california.
Speaker 1:They want to be. They want to be fully electric by what like 20 30 can't sell an internal combustion engine you know, by by 2030, they want to be fully electric and they can't even provide electricity for the people to run their damn air conditioners, right, I mean, this is not like yeah I'm no expert.
Speaker 3:I'm no expert on the climate industry, but I I mean this is there's other things to work out and, like I said, I I don't damn the technology. I think electric vehicles have their place and if people want them, great. You know, it's the beauty of our system you can choose what you want. Don't mandate it. And let's let's be smart about how we roll it out, because I think, like I said, my wife could be an electric car. She probably wouldn't even plug it in until the weekend, run it all week without charging it.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's one of those things. If you want it, buy it. It's a free market. This country is all about free markets. That being said, I don't think that the government should be subsidizing charging stations and everything else. And you're looking for somebody got government subsidized subsidization to put a. I got solar panels on the house, right, you know, and I mean it was well, you're dumb not to take advantage of it if they're offering it but whether or not they should be doing.
Speaker 3:It's a different story yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:I don't think the grid can support it and the people who really need it, the people who need the relief from these gas prices, aren't going to get it, and and the reality about it is not until three or four generations down the road, when yeah those ninety thousand dollar teslas become ten thousand dollar teslas yeah, you think, and by then the whole, you know, the whole shift has happened yeah, I don't think
Speaker 1:we're going to see that burt burt's favorite argument is um the people love. That he loves to have on facebook is presidents, don't affect the gas prices yeah, I love seeing those videos as well but. But the minute, the minute we start talking about our clean energy initiative, gas goes up 30 cents.
Speaker 3:When your president says that your, your, uh, your oil industry is your enemy and he's going to do everything to shut them down. Yeah, you don't think that changes it. They are a capitalist country. They are a capitalist industry. So they're going to try to make their money while they can, which any smart businessman would. So you just told him I'm putting you out of business, george. What are you going to do?
Speaker 1:The other funny argument is military vehicles. You're always going to have to have internal combustible stuff. You can't go electric for the military we think you're never good Dude.
Speaker 3:I'm not saying that, being outside Detroit. There are military departments in the area that feed off of the automotive talent. Oh, they do. They do and they are looking at electrification for military vehicles.
Speaker 1:You think anybody from Ukraine and Kharkiv is plugging in a car right now?
Speaker 3:They sure as hell aren't wanting to. I'm not saying that our military is wanting to either.
Speaker 2:So I had to go find this, because you just brought that up. So all my liberal friends love to tell me. They love to tell me about how presidents have no control over gas prices. And then one of the most recent headlines I saw on social media was Biden administration announces plan to lower gas prices for the summer. How convenient.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, but wait, this happens to be an election year too.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. What's his face? V Rotter, mr V Rotter, our favorite buddy, our favorite liberal, over on the Baggers and Brews. You told me that Trump has nothing to do with gas prices.
Speaker 1:Once a week. This guy tells me that Right.
Speaker 2:But all of a sudden you're president.
Speaker 3:We have a mutual friend who does that too, and you've been banned from who's that. Wes.
Speaker 1:Wesley oh Jesus Christmas, that guy blocked me.
Speaker 3:Quick you got blocked from him, but it's the same deal. It's like Bernie is God yeah yeah. Because Bernie wants to give everything for everybody for free. Yeah, yeah, and the president doesn't have any control. I'm blocked from him the president's policies definitely have.
Speaker 2:Well, apparently Biden has a plan to lower the gas prices for the summer, but when they were low for the whole entire four years that Trump was president, it had nothing to do with Trump.
Speaker 3:That was COVID.
Speaker 2:Nothing to do with him, because apparently there was seven years of COVID, while Trump's four years of presidency was going on.
Speaker 3:Nobody was going anywhere, so they need gas, yeah.
Speaker 2:I can't.
Speaker 1:I got a lot. I got a lot of people. I mean, I probably have as many people block me as you have blocked you.
Speaker 2:Who's blocked me? I don't know. You ain't got no BBs to block me.
Speaker 1:I got Wes, I got Teresa Ballard, I got Jeff Solano blocked now.
Speaker 2:I pulled the trigger on that block, teresa Ballard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she blocked me.
