Pod Insights The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe 435: Josh Smith & Bayard Winthrop—Shut Up and Make It! About this episode Amid the tariff wars, Mike sits down with two men whose businesses are NOT affected by foreign supply chains. Josh is a master bladesmith and founder of the Montana Knife Company https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/, and Bayard is founder and CEO of American Giant https://www.american-giant.com/. Both men are uniquely positioned to discuss the benefits and pitfalls of making products entirely in the United States.
Transcript 16,737 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:03 Mike Rowe? Hey guys, it's me Mike Rowe, it's The Way I Heard It. This one's called "Shut Up and Make It." You know why Chuck?
0:08 Speaker 01 Why?
0:09 Mike Rowe? Because I think sometimes what our country needs to do is just shut up and start making things.
0:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, well certainly this administration would like us to do that, wouldn't he?
0:17 Mike Rowe? Yeah, you know what? I don't know what this administration would like. They're certainly not shutting up, I can tell you that.
0:25 Speaker 01 No, no. But they're discouraging the importing of goods from elsewhere and they want us to make stuff in America, which is something that you've been touting for many, many years now.
0:37 Mike Rowe? I have, I have indeed, but of course it's complicated. Everything is complicated.
0:42 Speaker 01 It's super.
0:43 Mike Rowe? There's no such thing as a playbook or a panacea. You can't pick up the headlines, it seems, without seeing the word tariff emblazoned upon there. In fact, what did you want to call this episode?
0:54 Speaker 01 I wanted to call this episode "America is Terrific."
0:59 Mike Rowe? Right, but that's not gonna happen, because it's called "Shut Up and Make It." It's part of my New Year's resolution to a...
1:06 Speaker 01 Not listen to anything I say?
1:07 Mike Rowe? Well, no, that's an old resolution.
1:10 Speaker 01 Ongoing, yeah.
1:11 Mike Rowe? I'm just simply trying to avoid more puns, but it's not bad. I think that if you were to poll the common man, or woman, you would find a level of frustration around this whole topic that could redound to a simple proclamation along the lines of "Just shut up and make it already." Why can't we make it? Whatever "it" is, why can't we do it?
1:35 Speaker 01 Jeans, bobble head, whatever. It's tougher to make it in America than it is to have it made overseas.
1:42 Mike Rowe? Which is precisely why the people who have chosen to try and make stuff here are of unending interest to me. I've been very lucky to meet a lot of those people and have a couple of them as sponsors on this podcast, and I just thought... I thought it would be interesting, maybe even useful, dare I say instructive, to hear from some people who are not impacted by the current supply chain drama, who are not impacted by any of the things that seem to be in the headlines, whose businesses are in fact thriving in this day and age. One might say terrific. One might, but one won't.
2:24 Mike Rowe? What I will do is let you know that I reached out to Josh Smith, who runs the Montana Knife Company, who has helped us raise over $100,000 for MicroWorks so far with his amazing knives, and our old friend Bayard Winthrop, who is now coming up on year 16 in American Giant, and doing what they said could not be done, which is making quality goods here in the United States, with every step of the supply chain being checked here. So I thought they would be interesting to talk to, and of course, they were. And so we've got two guests for you in the next hour and 20 minutes or so. The first is Josh, the second is Bayard.
3:08 Mike Rowe? Do things get a tad political here and there? I guess maybe. I mean, I'm not really sure how to talk about this issue. They certainly get terrific. Oh, dear me. All right, you know what? Having said all that, what you want to do is listen to Josh and Bayard, which you'll have an opportunity to do right after this.
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4:56 Mike Rowe? Hi, Josh Smith.
4:58 Speaker 02 How you doing, Mike?
4:59 Mike Rowe? I'm great, man. So I talked to you an hour and a half ago, or maybe two, and you were in the Denver airport. And now you're back at MKC World Headquarters, I assume?
5:10 Speaker 02 Yep, back in the office, in my backyard.
5:13 Mike Rowe? I really appreciate you hopping on last minute. I can't pick up the newspaper without seeing the word tariff. It's been in the headlines for the last month. I don't think it's going to go away. But I've been really curious, because I don't hear from many people out there in the mass media who have been making things in this country for as long as you have. I just was curious on your take. What does it feel like to wake up and know that your supply chain is not being impacted, and that your prices are not being impacted, and that your employment? It's like, I know you don't want to take a victory lap, but it kind of feels like this is a pretty cool time for people who
5:55 Mike Rowe? have been betting on this country through their own businesses for a long time to be alive.
6:01 Speaker 02 When you say, talk about, about taking a victory lap, it's interesting because it's actually a real mixed emotion kind of time right now because I have a lot of friends throughout the various businesses in the outdoor industry that are actually in a full panic mode frankly right now and for good reason and they've built their businesses in the way that I think most people have built their businesses the last fifty years and uh you know, they're struggling and so for those people, my heart really goes out to them because they've just been doing kind of life the way that it's been done. But then I walk in our building, I talk to our supply chain manager, our CFO, our director of operations and
6:42 Speaker 02 be like, alright, well, what, what are you hearing? Like, is, is there anything that's affecting us? And it's like, not really, no. And it's such a relief. And frankly, it's a little bit of vindication when I had people telling me back in twenty nineteen with, when I had this idea of this company that it wasn't possible to manufacture in America and do what you're gonna do. You know, I said, hey, I'm gonna build a knife that the untrained eye can look at and probably buy at Walmart for nineteen ninety-nine. Now, we're gonna provide quality and we're gonna provide a level of knife that you're not getting for nineteen ninety-nine, but a lot of the consumers don't know that. They just see a knife, a four-inch hunting blade
7:26 Speaker 02 on a knife in a plastic package at Walmart and they just think a knife is a knife. But it's not. And I think it's that way for a lot of products that you see made in America. When you're willing to pay just a little bit more, you're getting so much more and you're getting that quality. You know, American workers are, are putting their blood and sweat and tears into those knives. We're standing behind that product. Um, we actually have our, our first quarter board meeting tomorrow. One of our board of directors is flying in. Our other board members will be joining remotely. And we only really have future planning to talk about. There's nothing to talk about with the tariffs and it's
8:06 Speaker 02 it's so much different than all the emergency board meetings that I heard that have been being called. To talk about like, what are we gonna do? Like, we have these crates and crates of product ordered for next year. And we're gonna be tariffed a hundred, hundred and fifty percent on it and we're talking, how do we hire more people and how do we get this new manufacturing facility built that we're building? Get it done? Let's get in it and keep going.
8:32 Mike Rowe? I don't think we can gloss over that, Josh. I mean, you're talking about people who are like, it's one thing to pass a couple dollars on to the customer or eat it yourself if you want to, if you have a hiccup here or a hiccup there. But you're talking about people whose actual cost of goods is literally going to increase by a hundred and fifty percent. How do they even think about keeping the lights on? And how do you pass that kind of jump onto the consumer? It's just, it's not tenable.
9:03 Speaker 02 I won't name brands here, obviously, to save them, but I had two conversations this week. I was in Texas. We did a an archery shoot for adaptive athletes, which means veterans who have had injuries in war. Uh, we did it with Black Rifle Coffee and Black Rifle set them up with bows and we adapted those bows to help uh, say a veteran who's missing an arm be able to uh, or maybe has damage in their arm, draw back a bow with like a mouth tab. And so we, we did a, uh, this veteran deal last week in Texas and then I went on to the NASCAR race. Two different people I talked to said they halted all ordering and they have no idea what they're gonna do. And then they called manufacturing facilities in Vietnam
9:48 Speaker 02 to try to figure out how they could maybe shift manufacturing from China to Vietnam. And they said, well, you're in line of about three thousand people that have called us like we don't even know like when we could take you guys on and they have product for a, there's like a two to maybe three month window. And then they said they will be completely out of product, but they, their product is unsustainable. They can't sell it. They can't raise the price a hundred and fifty percent. And they're already playing this margin game. You know, when you sell product in Walmart and Home Depot, places like that. They beat you down so hard on your margins.
10:28 Speaker 02 You don't eat ten, fifteen percent, twenty percent. Hell, a lot of those people can't eat two percent.
10:36 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
10:36 Speaker 02 And, and so even if, even if we end up in the position where a few of the ancillary little supplies here or there make our margin bump up one or two percent, we would just eat it. We wouldn't even have to change our prices. So we're just sitting in such a great place and it's, it's evidence like about where we need to get our supply chain and our products for all of America. Cause what are we gonna do if there's a war? You know, how are we gonna make cars or, you know, tanks and all these other things, you know, the steel industry? So I, I think this is actually probably a blessing for our country that shows us how delicate our supply chain is.
11:16 Mike Rowe? You make a really great point because one of the great success stories, one of the great pivots of the 20th century was the speed with which we could convert automotive manufacturing and so many other types of manufacturing into the war machine. I mean, just the business of building those B29s, man, my God. Like in nine months, there were hundreds of them and we were training kids to fly them who had never been in a plane before. When you think about what we were able to do once upon a time and you just have to start from the fact that, that we were beginning from where we were, which was a fully industrialized country.
12:00 Mike Rowe? All we had to do was use the gear and the equipment and the personnel we had differently. I'm with you. I shudder to think how we could do that today. I don't know how you can convert a factory that doesn't exist.
12:16 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:16 Mike Rowe? You have to build that thing from the ground up.
12:18 Speaker 02 American manufacturing is actually national security. And we don't think of it that way and you've never heard anyone really talk about it, but that CNC wine that you hear in the background right now is making a knife handle. But if that had to make, you know, a set of grips for a pistol, for one of our military guys, if it had to make a part for an airplane, a part for a tank, whatever, it doesn't matter. See, our CNC machines, they make parts. They don't care what those parts get, you know, used for. And with that 50,000 square foot manufacturing facility that we're building right now, in a worst case scenario, if a president came along and said, You're not making knives anymore. We need you guys to make this for the literal survival
13:02 Speaker 02 of our country. All we would have to do is load programs and material into those machines and we would be making something entirely other than knives. So, American manufacturing is also about national security in the worst of times. And in World War II, that happened in all kinds of factories across America.
13:21 Mike Rowe? Sure. Well, we got a taste of it, right? In the early panic of 2020, when all of a sudden, it was who can make hand sanitizer, who can make masks? We learned pretty quick that, yeah, we're gonna have to depend on other sources, other countries. That's the thing that I just feel like people miss. You know, like, you can have a conversation about the unintended consequences of tariffs on the supply chain from the point of view of most of the companies in this country who are dependent to some degree on that foreign supply chain. But if you're gonna talk about national security the way you are, or if we're gonna talk about, is there ever anything that's more important to our country at any
14:06 Mike Rowe? given moment than the economy?
14:08 Speaker 02 Right.
14:09 Mike Rowe? And the answer, of course, is not much and not often, but sometimes.
14:14 Speaker 02 Yeah, sometimes. And one of those things might be steel. And I have to bring this up, you know, Crucible Steel, here in the US, just in, up in upstate New York, just went bankrupt in January. And it was bought out of bankruptcy by Aerosteal out of Sweden. And to most people, that may not be a big deal, but to us in the knife industry, that's a huge deal because I would say they probably are largely responsible for about 90% of the knife steel that was being used in this country. There's a couple steels still available, but quite frankly, they're not steels of an alloy that we would really want to choose to make a knife out of. So now we're in this position, if we want to make a knife out of an American-made steel...
14:59 Speaker 02 Are we then willing to sacrifice quality of our blade?
15:03 Mike Rowe? Can you talk a little bit more Josh specifically? I'm gonna unwrap the rocker. I've got a couple here and I'm gonna talk about that later in detail. But what makes knife steel? Knife steel? What specifically is the alloy that you need that you can't get?
15:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, so that alloy right there is MagnaCut steel. And Crucible steel, it's a stainless steel right there. And it was actually specifically developed for the knife industry to resist wear, to hold a good edge, to be tough, to heat treat with all the qualities that we want in a steel. And it wasn't just MagnaCut, but there was a few other steels that Crucible also made that were used in the knife industry. And you can choose different steels for different uses. But with losing that steel supply, it now went to Sweden. Now, I don't think most Americans probably, you know, really are too upset if they end up with a knife with Swedish steel. I mean, you know, Sweden, you know, Germany, you know, places like that are known for, you know,
16:05 Speaker 02 German engineering, known for really good products, good steel, Austria. I don't think anyone's too upset about that necessarily. And so we may be in a position here later this year where we have to order steel from Sweden and we might pay a tariff on that steel, which in the end won't affect really the price of our knife. But when you think of it from a national security standpoint, we've really lost the entire steel industry. Frankly, from the 70s on, we have lost our whole entire steel industry. You know, Pennsylvania has been devastated by, and upstate New York, by losing the steel industry. And here again, from a national security standpoint, maybe one day they're making knife steel, but another day they're making steel for tanks
16:50 Speaker 02 or ships or, you know, submarines or whatever. Are we okay with our steel industry being?
16:59 Speaker 02 You know, located across the pond and other countries in case of, uh, you know, of really rough times. Today's issues with tariffs are actually a bit self-imposed like Trump did this, he self-imposed this, he could take it off tomorrow. But what if it's war? What if it's being opposed upon us and we can't just take it off when times get tough? You know, and this is where I actually have a little bit of an issue with how the government is doing this. I actually support and believe in the, the big picture idea of what's trying to be done here. But we need to pair this with really smart targeted legislation and say, okay, for example, we just lost crucible.
17:40 Speaker 02 This really great steel manufacturer, maybe we should help subsidize getting that steel mill back up and running. It's only been down for a few short months. Let's get that thing back up and running. Maybe the government, instead of sending money to Ukraine or some of these other various things. Maybe we should spend some money here at home to help get a, a steel mill back up and running. Or another manufacturing plant of another product back up and running. And maybe into, enter into a bit of a public, private partnership or provide some tax breaks or whatever. To not only ensure that we manufacture knives in America, but that we also have that national security piece taken care of. If we really need it down the road.
18:22 Mike Rowe? I mean, there's just such a long list of practical considerations, but there's something else too. There's something that goes to who we are. And I think people who know nothing about steel and really are far removed from the manufacturing sector in general. I think those people started to pay attention when US steel, didn't they just get bought by Japan, basically? Or that's the kind of headline that just, it just makes you, you can taste the bile in the back of your throat. You know, it's just like, wait a minute, we can't lose US steel.
18:58 Speaker 02 But of course, and we may choose, we may choose some industries where we're like, hey. Do we want to sew a hundred thousand of these T-shirts a day here in America? I don't know, like are we going to be able to hire enough people to do that? Is that an industry that we want in America or not? I'm not sure. I think there's companies like American Giant that are doing an amazing job with that. Origins doing an amazing job. You know, are we going to bring it all to America? I'm not sure that that's feasible, but there's other industries like, do we need to mold kids' plastic toys here? Probably not, like we probably don't. That's probably not a national security issue. But when it comes to making steel in America,
19:39 Speaker 02 well, I think that's a pretty obvious one for even the least informed consumer. That, that, yeah, that's something that we feel like we should have the capabilities to do here in America. And, you know, we've hired 80 people here in the last year or two years as a company, you know, in growing this business. All those dollars that come into the state of the Montana now they get, you know, they provide a huge influx to our local economy. We personally see what American manufacturing does. You know, you look at our knife sheaths, this leather sheath on this rocker right here. This leather sheath, this, this gal was making, uh, Teton leather in Idaho. She was making these sheaths in her basement when I met her.
20:24 Speaker 02 And because of Montana knife companies' growth, she has eight employees or almost, I think, nine employees now and has a commercial space. And she's manufacturing the sheaths on scale. Same with like our cutting boards, you know, over in Billings, Montana with Montana Block. He has six or eight employees now. He was doing that in his garage when we met him. So, American manufacturing isn't just about that one building, that one manufacturer. It's about all the industries around it that grow.
20:50 Mike Rowe? Yeah. Well, look, you and I talked offline a month or two ago. I don't want to name names either, but I'm friendly with some people pretty far up the food chain with some of the biggest retailers in the country. And one of them really saw this coming and realized, look, they're going to be vulnerable in a lot of different ways. And they, they always wanted to make a big push for American-made, but there's this problem of scale. Like, how would you guys deliver 20,000 of these? Like, you're going to do a drop in a couple of weeks on this knife. And you're very good at that. You're very good at managing scarcity and creating demand inside of your own ecosystem.
21:33 Mike Rowe? But I gave the CEO of a big company, one of your chef's knives. And this person looked at this and said, my God, it's a work of art. This is beautiful. How could we get this into our store? And it's out of my pay grade, but I know that part of the challenge is simply scale. What's the point of putting two or three of these things in 300 different locations? They're never going to be able to make it work. And so, you know, I just say all that because when you talk about cheap, plastic toys extruded, yeah, yeah, I can look at that and go, okay, well, who cares? But if there's a market for it, then I think, well, maybe there's some other, you know,
22:18 Mike Rowe? not to moralize, but maybe there's some other moral consideration. Like, I love the idea of global trade, but I hate the idea of trading with people because we need to.
22:29 Speaker 02 Right.
22:29 Mike Rowe? I don't care what the product is, the best possible deal we can make is going to be made from a position of, look, we could make this ourself, but we've chosen not to for these reasons. Fine. But when I look, to your point, at steel, when I look at medicine, when I look at stuff that we really rely on.
22:49 Speaker 02 Computer chips that, yeah, runner, yeah.
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24:19 Speaker 02 Yeah. And my answer to the scale thing is, yeah, maybe we can't match a gigantic retailer's scale today, but we will in just a couple of years. But people have to continue buying those products and supporting. The only way we can get to that scale is if people keep spreading the word and people like you, I mean, you have such a huge voice and a huge effect. You know, I heard you talking on Theo Von the other day. You just randomly brought us up as an example. And you have no idea, and people with a voice and with influence have no idea how much impact they can have. You know, Joe Rogan shouts out lots of small companies here and there, and I know he's intentional with that, you know.
25:03 Speaker 02 We can match that scale if people continue to support brands like ours that are American made. You know, we're going to make 160,000 or more knives this year. And I started off making 200 in my garage in 2020. Okay, so we have scaled, right? In four and a half years, I quit my day job, January 1st of 2021, and I had no employees, zero. It was just myself and my business partner.
25:35 Speaker 02 Nobody.
25:36 Mike Rowe? But dude, you're a freak. You know that, right?
25:39 Speaker 02 You're not. But I'm not. See, that's my point is I'm, I was a lineman. I was a journeyman lineman. I'm the same guy that you shot dirty job shows about for, you know, 20 years. I am not a freak. I am Josh Smith, an ex lineman, and so many of those guys you interviewed are just like me. They can build the same kind of, you know, American dream from their garage. And that's my point with Montana Knife Company. It's possible. And now granted, I can't serve, uh, what Walmart needs today in their store, or maybe that big retailer you're talking about. But maybe that big retailer also needs to be okay with just putting knives in two of their stores, not 50 of them.
26:22 Speaker 02 Right? And maybe he needs to figure out a way to, to fill some of those other shelves, uh, but give a small retailer, or give a small manufacturer a small space and then allow them to grow with them. But I don't want anyone out there listening to this to think that I'm something special. I duck hunted my way out of college. I grew up the son of a backhoe operator. You know, we had an excavation business. I'm now a CEO, uh, because I started a company in my garage and I'm sitting right now, if I could pick my computer up and show you, right behind me is my horse pasture. We're still at my house. 80 employees report to work in my yard.
27:06 Speaker 02 Okay, this is not special. This is called being too dumb to quit or to not do it. And when I was being told it was impossible, I said, I, I actually think there's, out of 350 million Americans, I think there's enough that believe in American manufacturing that we can have a successful business and here we are.
27:26 Mike Rowe? Here's what worries me. You're very modest. You grew up as you grew up. I'm saying that whether it makes you special or not, it makes you different. There are 330 million people walking around and very, very few of them have the stones to quit a job, have no employees and start making these little works of art in their garage. I'm just telling you, it's a short list. And so, I'm all about, well, I'm all about the micro of this thing. I'm all about the fact that, you know, individuals can make these choices and they can grow things the way you've grown your company. But, look, I'm rooting for Trump.
28:07 Mike Rowe? I want him to reinvigorate manufacturing for all kinds of big reasons. Look, we've got, I just left an energy conference where the topic was data centers. The real race is AI. If we don't win that race, we lose. The only way to win that race is through more data centers. The only way to build those data centers is with tens of thousands of skilled workers who currently don't exist because our country's not filled with dudes like you who will answer that particular call. So having said that, yeah, if he does it, if these tariffs and this policy results in a massive reshoring, then you've got a couple million new jobs that are gonna open.
28:50 Mike Rowe? But Josh, in January, there were 482,000 open jobs in manufacturing that couldn't be filled now. Just three months ago. So-
29:02 Speaker 02 I have open jobs today. It's not easy, like you say, it's a... We're also gonna probably have to make a tough decision at a certain point with our society. Are we gonna continue providing handouts to people when there are open jobs out there? You know, and, and uh-
29:19 Mike Rowe? So we're going there, huh?
29:20 Speaker 02 Yeah. Well, it's gonna be a question we're gonna have to answer because there are open jobs. There is work out there for people to, to go get if you're without a job. Um-
29:32 Mike Rowe? How do you think, like, obviously, this finished product is the result of a lot of different, very skilled people doing their best work.
29:44 Mike Rowe? Are you more worried about a skill gap or a will gap?
29:51 Speaker 02 If I'm being honest with you and I don't wanna denigrate our own knife, but there's certain areas of that knife that require human skill. But to be honest, most of our workers that work on these knives came in with zero skill or or experience making a knife. And if you come up here sometime, you'll see, uh, it doesn't matter if you're a woman, a man, older, younger, uh, we hire people off the street at all the time, every week that come in and we will train them to put this beautiful knife together. Now granted, I have some open jobs on my website right now, like a manufacturing engineer,
30:35 Speaker 02 a design engineer, like, yes, there's some skilled jobs that we need. I need some machinists that have some serious skills. But I have a kid, uh, his name's Ray, that came in as just a, he's probably 20 years old when I hired him and he was in our shop, just hired to put knives together, just assemble, just take this handle, put it here, put these screws in it. He showed some aptitude, he worked hard, he had a great attitude and we've now moved him into our machine shop and he is running the CNC machines right now downstairs with one other guy. Our machinists have trained him to run our CNC machines. Now, he's not at a place where he can program them yet and build the programs, but probably
31:18 Speaker 02 in the next three years through basically an apprenticeship, he will be a full-fledged CNC machinist, probably making 80 to 95,000 dollars a year. That's before he's 25. And then from there, he'll probably be up in the level with the rest of our machinists after that. So to answer your question, a long, long way around it is a little bit of it is a wheel gap, but I want to say that without, I, I am not.
31:47 Speaker 02 Pardon my language, shitting on the youth of today. I actually find the youth that we hire, I would rather hire a twenty-one-year-old kid in my shop right now. Than a forty-five-year-old with a bad attitude and, you know, maybe a bunch of bad experiences in the workplace. I have found that the young kids that we've hired, if you ask the right culture fit questions and they come in. This young generation is super, super smart and AI. You nailed it on the head. We're actually going to discuss it in our board meeting tomorrow. I just listened to a Rogan episode about AI on the flight back from Denver. AI is going to change our world and we can either be mad about it, like some people were about the internet in nineteen ninety-five, or you can learn it and embrace it and use it.
32:32 Speaker 02 You know, and so I think these young people are going to help an old gray-haired like me. Succeed in this next AI generation, frankly.
32:42 Mike Rowe? Yeah, man. I've never seen a topic make so many otherwise intelligent people. With influence looks so foolish so quickly, just the speed with which it's evolving. I'm talking about tariffs as well as AI. Like the minute you're up to speed, you could have spent this whole week reading everything and looking at everything and bang, now you're informed. And then it's tomorrow and now you don't know shit because it's tomorrow. And that's, that's how fast all of it's happening. But look, that's the fast food of it. The slow food of it is that in two thousand nineteen. You bet on yourself, you bet on your family, you had a business partner, now you got eighty employees.
33:24 Mike Rowe? You're making a quality product in this country and you're not going to pat yourself on the back. But I will, Josh, because I just think the more people who see what you've done. It becomes real and people should know too. Look, this is the rocker that we were talking about and this knife. I swore I wasn't going to turn it into a commercial, but you're giving ten percent in perpetuity of these sales. Of maybe the greatest utility knife you've made back to MicroWorks. I don't know what that's going to mean long term. But this is a story too. We've already raised over a hundred thousand dollars.
34:04 Speaker 02 Right.
34:04 Mike Rowe? Thanks to the generosity of your customers who are crazy loyal and mine, who want to help. So as we land the plane here, I just want to make the point that scaling notwithstanding, that's out of our pay grade. But I've got a foundation that's trying to inspire the next generation of skilled workers. You're supporting it by making a product in this country and together in this weird little ecosystem that we find ourselves in. We keep talking about it. And whether it's Joe Rogan or Theo Von, or who knows, the word is getting out there. But it really starts with with men and women like you,
34:45 Mike Rowe? who are still betting not just on themselves, but on our country. I'm just here to say good on you, brother.
34:51 Speaker 02 Well, I know, I appreciate it. And it really actually starts with the people listening to this podcast. If those people, if the consumer's willing once in a while to dig a tiny bit deeper and buy something made in America, they might not be able to buy every single product that they buy throughout their daily life made in America. I get it. Like, they got to make their house payment, their car payments, and live life and buy diapers and do all the things. But where your consumer or where your listener, the American consumer, can, if they can make that choice to buy something made in America, you know, you guys have no idea how impactful that can be.
35:33 Speaker 02 You know, working with you on this and with this rocker and the MicroWorks Foundation, I raised my kids on dirty jobs, frankly. And the other show on television that they loved to make, uh, to watch was How It's Made. And along the same vein, here we were, we were watching manufacturing shows, show after show after show. And I always told my kids, because I wasn't a big fan of a lot of the culture stuff on television, you can watch sports. You can watch Dirty Jobs or How It's Made, back when they were young. And so we watched a ton of Dirty Jobs, a lot of Mike Rowe. And you know, the more you started talking about the apprenticeship programs and the the skill gap in our country.
36:17 Speaker 02 The only reason that I'm doing what I'm doing today is because I got my good footing financially and kind of my my life under my feet through an apprenticeship to become a journeyman lineman for the power company. You know, I started as a grunt, I got a lineman apprenticeship. I had been making knives for about 10 years and I was really struggling financially. And that apprenticeship and that work as a as a lineman for the power company got me in a position where it's like, okay, I've got a little bit of savings. Now I'm gonna go chase my dream of Montana Knife Company. And so what you preach and what you talk about, I couldn't believe in more.
36:57 Speaker 02 And and it only makes sense for us to give back a bit to this community, meaning the entire US, who have supported my dream and and made this possible. And whether that's what we do through conservation with Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and places like that, or with you on Micro Works. And I feel like this is just scratching the surface of what we can do together. And I hope it inspires other celebrities, frankly, people with a voice to do something similar in a similar vein, or other companies to reach out to you and and either write checks or set something up similar to what we're doing and help help you get your voice out.
37:36 Mike Rowe? Well, look, we'll see. I don't think there's a playbook. I don't think there's a one size fits all. But you hit the nail on the head with, you never know who's listening. And after that conversation I had with Theo, and I've heard, I can't even tell you how many people I've I've heard from since then. He said to me on the way out, you know, because we talked about QVC, we talked about my past, we talked about your company, we talked about a few others that we know. And I jokingly said, you know what we ought to do, man? We ought to just set up like a poor man's Wayne's World Home Shopping Network that features nothing but companies like yours and products like this. And we ought to put them out there in a fun Theo Von Mike Rowe kind of way
38:21 Mike Rowe? and just kick the tires and see what happens. And Theo goes, okay.
38:28 Mike Rowe? Yeah, let's do that. And I think he's serious now. But look, you just never ever know. You just, you could be having a beer one night and you talk to a buddy and the next thing you know, you've hung out a shingle and now you're making knives. Crazier things have happened.
38:42 Speaker 02 They have happened. Crazier things have happened. I'm sure fortunate and I sure appreciate your support and your voice is having a major impact in our nation.
38:52 Mike Rowe? Well, your example, right now, as you can hear the sphincters slamming shut from people with supply chains that they rely upon. Yours isn't. You bet on what you bet on. I'm so glad to see you guys prospering, Josh. Thank you for your wisdom. It's great catching up. And the next knife drop is gonna be, are we allowed to say it?
39:13 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, we got the rocker coming up.
39:16 Mike Rowe? And that's gonna be what, May 8?
39:18 Speaker 02 May 8, I think is the date. Yep. Should have had my phone right in front of me here, but.
39:23 Mike Rowe? Guys, if you want one, go to Montana Knife Company now. Register for their knife drops. They do these things every so often, but this has turned into a great fundraiser.
39:32 Speaker 02 And people.
39:33 Mike Rowe? Micro works.
39:34 Speaker 02 People might wanna be there right at 7:00 PM on Mountain Standard Time. A fair warning here.
39:39 Mike Rowe? Everybody says that, Josh, and everybody now thinks, oh, yeah, right, whatever. But folks, I'm telling you, these things, they go fast.
39:47 Speaker 02 They go fast, yeah. And you know what, though? That's not just about us or about you. That is, the story of American made is resonating. And people are coming out in droves to support that, you know, and that's the one thing I do wanna get across. It's not, you know, Josh Smith, Master Blade Smith thing, or, you know, Mike Rowe, he was on TV thing. This is what people want. They are seeing a story and someone that they can support. And our number one, it doesn't matter if Joe Rogan talks about us, if you talk about us, anything, we see our, every month, I get a report on my desk from my team about what our number one needle mover is.
40:29 Speaker 02 Friend or family referral? It doesn't matter who talks about us, friends or family always wins. And I think it's because they love the fact that they are supporting American made and they're telling their friends about it.
40:44 Mike Rowe? I think it's because we're talking about connections on a macro level. And they all start on a micro level. It's your warm market. Who do you trust at a time when everybody seems to be so completely full of crap? You trust the people you know.
40:59 Speaker 02 Exactly.
41:00 Mike Rowe? Josh, you're awesome, buddy. Thank you again for coming on. Like you say, it's only a matter of national defense. By American folks, it won't hurt. Ladies and gentlemen, that was my good friend Josh Smith. I thought he was terrific. I think you're also going to enjoy a few words from my good friend, Byrd Winthrop. Spoiler alert, he's terrific too.
41:23 Speaker 02 I think you mean terrific.
41:27 Mike Rowe? Oh. Right after this.
41:35 Mike Rowe? What if, say, five years ago, some big oil company offered a promotion that gave you a chance to lock in the price of gasoline at $2.50 a gallon for the rest of your life? Would you have taken that deal? Or what if a nationwide grocery store had given you an opportunity to lock in the price of ground beef at, say, $2 a pound for as long as you live? Would you have taken that deal? Yeah, me too. Unfortunately, those deals were never on the table, but this one is. Today, as in right now, for a very, very limited time, Pure Talk is offering every American the opportunity to purchase unlimited talk, text, and data
42:17 Mike Rowe? along with a 30 gig hotspot for just $29.95 a month for life. Not your phone's life, your life. No contracts, no commitments, just a very rare opportunity to lock into a ridiculously low rate for unlimited talk, text, and data for the rest of your life. It's the unlimited data plan from Pure Talk, and it will not be around for long. $29.95 a month for as long as you live. Taxes and fees not included. Some restrictions do apply. See puretalk.com for details. Offer ends 11/15/26. So chop, chop.
42:58 Speaker 03 Pure Talk.
43:02 Mike Rowe? fired Winthrop, quick question right out of the gate. Uh, what the hell's going on, man?
43:09 Mike Rowe? What in the actual hell is happening?
43:14 Speaker 04 That is exactly how I've been thinking about it. It's like, what in the world? What's going on?
43:19 Mike Rowe? And before you answer, let me just sort of predicate it by saying I not since the early days of the lockdowns and all of the confusion that surrounded all of the guidance that came out of all of those institutions have I seen more public figures, more respected journalists, more otherwise reasonably intelligent pundits rendered completely, I'll just say foolish, but if I were to be more charitable, I would just say irrelevant because we're talking in real time on a Thursday afternoon. And by the time this goes up in a day or two,
43:58 Mike Rowe? who the hell knows what will have happened in the wide world of the global economy?
44:06 Speaker 04 It's really true.
44:09 Speaker 04 And trying to navigate it as a business that is buying overseas, it's like riding a Bronco, I think.
44:17 Mike Rowe? Well, look, that's why you're on. I could have got Howard Letnick, you know, but everybody is so wrapped up in the politics of this thing. So just talk to me about a guy who's been making stuff in this country for the last 15 years. How hard is the Bronco bucking? And has any of this like vindicated what you've been screaming for the last decade and a half?
44:42 Speaker 04 Well, so let me step back. I mean, Mike, you and I connected a long time ago over, I think, a shared vision around the importance of service jobs and manufacturing jobs. And American Giant's mission from the very beginning is to make stuff here. So we give good jobs to people that want them and need them. And so when I think about, you know, big picture, are we long past time when we need to, you know, rethink our trading relationships, particularly with China? Yeah, I do. I think we have to figure out a way to let our domestic factories compete on a more level playing field. But you know, you mentioned the pandemic, you know, you look at the pandemic as maybe an example of a real shock to the system and exposing how fragile these supply chains
45:25 Speaker 04 are and how vulnerable they are to disruption. And for those supply chains to navigate shock like we're seeing right now, to try to respond and react takes time, it takes clarity. We're not seeing that right now, we're seeing a lot of whipsawing. And so, you know, in the textile industry, I'm probably in most touch with people that are leading businesses that are reliant on overseas stuff. It's a really discombobulating time because they're making decisions right now about what they're doing in the fall, what they're doing in the winter. And so, I've said pretty loudly, I'm in favor of a reset with our relationship, particularly with China, but it has to be done methodically with a lot of clarity, ratcheted in over time.
46:08 Speaker 04 I'm grateful that this 90-day pause has just come in because without it, it would have been even worse, but it's pretty rocky right now and I think people in the industry are kind of frozen trying to figure out what to do.
46:20 Mike Rowe? Oh, there's no doubt. I mean, all you have to do is cock your head and you can hear the sphincter slamming shut from sea to shining sea, but what about you? I definitely want to talk about companies who are reliant on the complexities of the supply chain because I think a lot of people don't quite understand how deep that rabbit runs. But you grow your own cotton, you spin your own yarn, you're in your own towns. What's the direct impact on American Giant?
46:49 Speaker 04 Well, not much. I mean, we're inoculated from all this stuff, you know, we, like you said, we source all of our cotton domestically, it's all spun here, it's all knitted and dyed and finished here, cut and sewn here, the whole thing. And that was a sort of a principled stand we took a long time ago and we've been committed to that for a long time for the reasons I spoke about. We're inoculated from this and I think the only impact that we're seeing, well, I think there's a couple maybe, I think one is that to the extent that consumers get freaked out and start to look at what's happening in the capital markets, worry about prices increasing and consumer confidence declines and pocketbooks and wallets closed, that's going to impact our business like everybody else's. I also think that we're starting to see brands and others start to think about what
47:33 Speaker 04 are the alternatives here and how do we, if we need to, how do we make things here? And so we are getting some inbound interest there about people that are reaching out, trying to figure out if some of these tariffs come in, if the tariffs in China come in, even a shadow of what's being discussed, we probably ought to be looking at some kind of alternative supply route domestically. And I think American Giant can be helpful in that regard. So we're getting a fair amount of inbounds on that front. I think those are the only two ways, really, that it's impacting us, Mike.
48:01 Mike Rowe? But I want to be elegant with the question, but I mean, does part of you kind of want to take some sort of victory lap here? I know how close you are with your competitors and I know how sympathetic you are to the industry with a capital I. And I know how much you would like to see more people adopt your model. And I promise to move on after this, but I'm just so curious to know this. If I were you, I would feel somewhere between validated and vindicated.
48:35 Speaker 04 Well, I'll tell you what I think. I have felt for, you know, we made this grand bargain 40 years ago to open up, globalize our trade routes, our supply approach. And the result of that has been basically 40 years of offshoring and a transition of our economy from one that made things a lot to an economy that was consumption driven. And that made sense. I think a lot of, it was a bipartisan effort. I think a lot of good came from that. But I think that one of the profound negatives that came along with that was just the destruction of manufacturing towns. And, you know, if you've been paying attention to it, the way that I have been for a long time, it's really hard to ignore that. I mean, you go through
49:16 Speaker 04 any New England, any southeastern, any upper Midwest town that used to make things, they're shadows of what they once were. And I think that really fueled a growing divide between people that were lucky enough to have gone to college and maybe worked for Google and the other half of the country that was making things and that in the last 40 years have been pretty terrible for. And I think that the vindication maybe is only in that regard that I think it shouldn't have taken us this long as a country to recognize that problem and to begin to recognize the need to do something about it. I think we cannot have a country that has half the country that is staring down the barrel of, you know, another decade of no wage gains, no real good prospects for passing out a better life to your kids. You and I have been telling versions of this story for a long time, and I started the company for that
50:01 Speaker 04 reason. I felt that it was really important. I wanted to try to do in some small way, do something about it. It's vindicated maybe in that way that finally, you know, there's enough noise being kicked up that people are really asking questions that I think are long overdue. But I'll just say, I think that no good will come of it if it is just kind of, you know, turning over the game board and knocking all the pieces on the ground and everybody gets hurt along the way. So I vacillate between feeling optimistic about where we are, like finally this stuff is coming into focus. And I think particularly in regards to China, I think there really is a rebalancing and a reshuffling that has to happen. But also being concerned that there is this, even in the administration, there seems to be discordant voices. It's very hard to know which way we're going day
50:42 Speaker 04 to day to day to day. You know, when I hear Secretary Besen speak, he feels like he's moderated and thoughtful and has a plan. And then, you know, the next day I'll turn on the news and we sort of look in another direction. Yeah, right. And to the extent that this is really, I think, waking up all of us to the idea that we have become a country that doesn't make stuff anymore and that that's a problem, I am hopeful that that will begin to cause change and awareness in a way that's going to help help the whole country and make the country stronger.
51:14 Mike Rowe? I think too, another parallel to the COVID thing is that, you know, we have a tendency to kind of fall into the to the binary with these conversations. And there's a lot of nuance to this. And I'm guessing, tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing you favor tariffs, but not universally. Maybe here, but not so much there. And, and I think a lot of people hear that kind of call it equivocation and start to think, well, wait a minute, your self-interest is gonna, your slip is gonna start to show real quick when you tell me which ones you favor and which ones you don't. So the way I've been thinking about it. It's kind of a tier one and a tier two argument.
51:57 Mike Rowe? The tier two argument is based on the economy. And I'm getting lit up on Facebook right now because I kind of stumbled into this thing through the manufacturing side of it, which I'll tell you about later. But the idea that economists are disagreeing. I don't know of any economist that doesn't think tariffs are ultimately not good for the economy. But I think that there are a lot of other people with skin in the game who might think that the economy, even the global economy, is not necessarily the most important thing. It's a biggie. But this tier two conversation takes place only among people who disagree about the consequences unintended and otherwise with tariffs.
52:42 Mike Rowe? Tier one is guys like you 15 years ago who said, wait, there's a moral component to what we're talking about here. If the economy is the most important thing in this conversation, then we're going to land in a fairly squishy place. I mean, 170 years ago, it was pretty clear that getting rid of slavery would be very bad for the economy. The triangle trade was real. The North and the South were wrapped up deeply into the impact that free labor had on our economy. And so those arguments were made, but somebody came along and said, no, wait, there's actually this other thing.
53:26 Mike Rowe? So for me, the tier one moral argument is, do you want to be reliant on a country to give you a thing to trade with you, not with things you want, but with things you need? Your medicines, your steel, your lumber, for God's sakes. We have more lumber than anybody, and yet we're the leading importer of lumber, our energy, our clothing. What better hope does the world have of improving if the United States of America, or then the United States of America, not being reliant upon them, but rather strong enough to say, look, we'll do business with you because we'd like to, but not because we have to.
54:10 Mike Rowe? And somewhere in there, if you can make sense of that, because I see people talking in circles because they simply don't understand if they're in a tier one or a tier two conversation.
54:22 Speaker 04 The way you're framing it, which I totally agree with, is you gotta begin with the end in mind. What do we want the outcome to be? You know, I understand the argument of free trade always and forever and wide open capitalism. But if the result of that is a middle class that has has not done well over the last forty years, that has poor prospects for their kids than, you know, they did forty years ago, where jobs are leaving and full-time forty to fifty hour jobs have been replaced by three separate part-time shift work at the local dollar store and the local Carl's Jr. And you got both parents that are having to take shift work and they can't be at home raising the kids.
55:04 Speaker 04 And I heard a statistic the other day that something like the top ten percent of America owns eighty percent of the Dow and the next forty percent, forty percent of Americans own the remainder. The bottom fifty percent of Americans don't own anything in the stock market, could care less what's happening to the Dow today, but cares a lot about the cost of fuel, cares a lot about what jobs are available in town, cares a lot about what their car insurance and mortgage payments are looking like. And I just think that you cannot make a purest, in my judgment anyway, Larry Summers-type argument that is purely about macroeconomic things. There's a point at which forty years in, you have to say, hang on a second, this is doing damage to communities and towns and the American dream and the disappearance of
55:49 Speaker 04 the American dream in a way that is fundamentally corrosive to the country and destabilizing to the country. And, you know, I get it, I'm biased, I make stuff here, I get all that stuff, but, and I know you've done this, Mike, you gotta walk through a town in South Carolina or West Virginia and look around. Look around when there used to be three hardware stores and five restaurants and a couple of gas stations and a thriving main street, and now there is nothing. There's no jobs, maybe there's a penitentiary in town, there's a couple of liquor stores, and there's no work. That is something that we, I think we have to, all Americans ought to align on the importance for that. And we ought to figure out a way to begin to address it. And the other thing I'll just say is, to your other point, which is, we don't, the pandemic really was a shock, I think, to all of us.
56:33 Speaker 04 And it really exposed the fact that we don't make things anymore. We don't make penicillin, we don't make textiles, we don't make medical masks, we don't make medical gowns. And I think, as you know, we got pulled into that. We got a panicked phone call from the CDC and FEMA a few days into the pandemic, when China was throttling down our supply of medical masks and asking us to convert our sweatshirt facility into a mask facility. But, you know, there's a national security element as well. And people say to me, well, it's T-shirts. It's actually not just T-shirts. The textile industry is a, like every manufacturing industry, is a participant in a network of industries. And textile supports the medical industries, the automotive industries, the defense industries.
57:15 Speaker 04 And if you start to erode even the T-shirt manufacturing and the fiber makers and the knitters and the weavers and the dyers and the spinners, you lose the ability in a networking way to support the medical, the technological, the defense industries. Sorry for the length on this thing, but I agree with you. I just, I think it is not as simple as just saying what's happening to the stock market or what's happening to the GDP. There's a, there's a more nuanced conversation about what do we need to be doing as a country? And how do we plot a course in that direction? So.
57:45 Mike Rowe? Okay.
57:47 Mike Rowe? There's a lot there. It's just so ironic how the stock market has become the fixation in the middle of it. I do understand what you've said. I, I also think a lot of people own more of the market than they think they do. Certainly anybody with a 401K has skin in that game. They might not trade, but, you know, they sat there yesterday and the day before and they looked at their balance and they either felt rich or poor. That's a flawed way to think, for sure. But do you really think the line is that stark between Main Street and Wall Street? Do you think that what this is, is basically kind of good?
58:27 Mike Rowe? I've heard both arguments from people on the right, by the way, who disagree with each other on this point. And that's the thing I'd like you to think about as you formulate your answer. I'm way less interested in hearing. What my liberal friends think as opposed to my conservative friends. Right now, I'm more interested in my conservative friends who disagree. That's super interesting to me. Because I know they voted how they voted, but here they're looking at this thing. To your point, Navarro says one thing, Besett says something else. Musk says one thing, and this, and this, and, I mean, there's just no other way to think about that, other than somebody is dreadfully mistaken.
59:16 Mike Rowe? Here's a crazy idea. What if there was an academy out there that paid students to learn, instead of the other way around? Specifically, men and women who want to work in the skilled trades. And what if this academy not only paid for your training, but also covered all the expenses associated with your training? Like travel, and food, and lodging? And finally, what if this academy guaranteed you a job at the end of the training period? Well, that's exactly what's happening at America's Workforce Academy by Meta. This is a five-week, highly immersive, pre-apprenticeship program that gets you all the necessary certifications you'll need to start a career in the skilled trades immediately.
59:58 Mike Rowe? I'm talking about AI-proof, six-figure jobs, helping to build out the new infrastructure that our economy is depending on. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs, welders, fiber optic technicians, these jobs, they are all in demand like never before. And again, every graduate of America's Workforce Academy is guaranteed a job on a Meta website. I first announced this program a few months ago, and I have been watching the response ever since. It's extraordinary. This is a nationwide, unprecedented fast track to a long-term career in a skilled trade. If you, or your spouse, or your kid, or your grandkid are looking for a straight path
1:00:41 Mike Rowe? into a career with no cost at all, check out the opportunities for yourself at meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy. That's meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy.
1:00:55 Speaker 04 Earlier about tariffs, again, as a philosophical matter, I agree that in a perfect world, a world with open trade and no barriers, either way, is maybe an ideal state, as long as you've got a thriving industry domestically, one that continues to make things and can support kind of layers of the economy and the national objectives and defense and all that sort of stuff. I think within that, there are gradations of, you know, I think to me, one of the most destabilizing parts of the conversations over the last few weeks, again, as somebody that has no exposure to tariffs, so in some ways, I don't, I don't really have a skin in the game, other than maybe I'd like to see the domestic manufacturing base become
1:01:37 Speaker 04 more competitive relative to international competitors, but, but I do think that there's a very big difference between the good actors and the bad actors. There's lots of gray between there, obviously, but, you know, in the world of textiles, and I pay attention to trade deals as it relates to textiles, we make textiles all over the world, but China stands out as a really different level of a bad actor. I mean, the, the amount of work that China does to evade, avoid our laws, to exploit human rights issues and environmental issues, it's terrible, it's terrible.
1:02:13 Mike Rowe? It's beyond, look, no, people, we're in business, deeply, deeply in business, with a government who, through a series of machinations, makes it possible for officials in the NBA to walk into the crowd of a game that's being televised live and remove signs that people are holding that simply say, "Google, Huygers," right? That's the reality of our relationship. That's how bought and paid for those guys are. And so that's why I keep, not to be hyperbolic about it, and I'm not even sure
1:02:54 Mike Rowe? the administration is making this argument, the whole slavery argument, but are we really going to be that disconnected that we're just going to look away from that reality?
1:03:07 Speaker 04 But let me build on it a little bit. In addition to that, in Xinjiang province, there's massive human rights violations happening. There's zero respect for biological property law. It is just terrible. And at the same time, we hold our domestic factories to really, among the world's best standards, OSHA standards, environmental standards, human rights standards. You can't dump your dies into the local river. Our factories are, they're compliant with all those laws, as they should be. But we allow our largest corporations to avoid them and to make stuff in China. That is where I think I get fairly hard-lined around how I think about tariffs. I think it is a, Americans need to reconcile,
1:03:52 Speaker 04 which do we believe? Do we believe in those rules and those laws? Do we think they're good for humans, the planet in general? Or do they only apply to domestic factories, which results in declining work and declining opportunity in rural and urban centers? But it's fine for the big public companies that are making tons and tons of money to go make stuff over there, to get controlled by the CCP, to be told to take signs down in NBA games. I just can't deal with that. You know, from my standpoint, there's so much nuance in this conversation. But one point of clarity for me is the difference between what has to happen with this as it relates to China, and then other people on that list that are allies of ours and that are, you know, at least if you believe
1:04:35 Speaker 04 the rumors are trying to reach a reasonable solution with the US. And there's lots of people in that bucket, you know, Taiwan and India and Vietnam and Canada. You know, these countries are friends of ours. I think there's a genuine interest to find common ground. My hope is, is that as we navigate this in the coming weeks, that those groups begin to separate with more clarity. I think they already are, frankly, but.
1:04:55 Mike Rowe? You're old enough to remember the argument that said, look, China bad, but we open it up, we start to trade, and among the things that we will export to them will be our values. Among the things that we export to them will be our philosophy, our worldview, our take on human rights, our take on all these things. Well, guess what? It goes two ways, right? I wonder who's been influenced more? China by the US or the US by China? Because we are living in a world right now. It's kind of like the bi-American argument. I told you this story years ago where I worked for a big jean company
1:05:39 Mike Rowe? and they showed me what it took to get an American-made product on the shelf at a competitive price. People wouldn't pay a dollar more. They wouldn't pay 50 cents more. They wouldn't pay a penny more. It had to be dead even. Well, the same thing is true here. A lot of people get up on their high horse and they talk about human rights and they talk about the outrage of what's happened over there. But Jim Garrity wrote a great article in National Review and they dig pretty deep. And when you really get into the research, it's like 52% of Americans get real wobbly, real fast when the price for that position hits their 401K or the cost of cashmere or merino wool.
1:06:24 Mike Rowe? It's amazing how quickly people just start whistling through the graveyard, looking over here, nothing to see here. It's appalling. I hate to talk that strongly about it because I know nobody wants a lecture or a sermon, but I keep coming back to the moral issue of the thing. Would we be in business with China if we didn't have to be? I bet we wouldn't, certainly not to the extent that we are. But the fact that we don't feel like we have a choice leads back to people pulling signs out of people's hands during an NBA game. It's
1:07:04 Speaker 04 Yeah, it also, I mean, the other part of that, too, is that the way that that argument is set up is it resolves at the consumer to make that decision, at the checkout counter, to make a call, am I going to vote for the environment or for human rights or whatever it is. I think consumers have a say, of course, but this is where I think policymakers have just lost the plot. And you can go back and find politicians on the left and politicians on the right saying the exact opposite thing that they're saying today 10 years ago. It just strikes me as a completely unprincipled group that is not trying to run for a set of policies that reflect American values. I'll submit, the
1:07:47 Speaker 04 consumers find a hard time voting their conscience at the register or at the gas pump, I get it. But, boy, would I like to see Congress, the administration articulate why our business relationship with China is bad, why we don't stand for it as Americans with the value systems that we, I think, believe in and have fought for and have voted into law, and why it's important that we enact, and this comes back to tariffs, I think, some kind of mechanism that penalizes that kind of behavior so that the consumer doesn't have to make that choice and there's more parity at the register. That, to me, strikes me as how to maybe address the point that you're making.
1:08:29 Mike Rowe? Well, it's such a more complicated decision. Bud Light was simple, all right? If you didn't like what happened two years ago from a marketing standpoint, and if you felt betrayed by that decision, then you pick up a Natural Light, or a Bush Light, or a Coors Light, or a Miller Light. They're all within five feet of each other. It's simple. This, how do you buy a product that is completely pure of the supply chain's influence on it? It's like, how many Northerners 170 years ago argued against slavery as they were dressed in cotton picked by them?
1:09:13 Mike Rowe? It's so baked in. We are so beholden. We are so on the China tit. That this is really strong medicine and this is again, I've been really following this closely for the last few days and it's the uh, it's just the righteousness of it that fascinates me and the number of people who are so crystal clear in their minds saying, that's it. Just shut it down. No more China. It's like, okay, okay. But you gotta be good with a recession, maybe even a global recession, maybe even a depression. But, look, if you've really got a long view, then you can probably say, all right, you know what? It's a lot of medicine.
1:09:56 Mike Rowe? It's a lot of pain. It's not a hiccup, Mr. President, right? It is a big problem, but do you want to be an independent country? Truly? Do you want to be reliant on other nations who affirmatively don't like you? That is binary. It's yes or no. And if the answer is yes, I'm okay with it. Well, then I'll take that sign, sir, because we don't allow that here at a Lakers game.
1:10:23 Speaker 04 And I do think that, just to speak to that kind of point for a second, I do think if you're going to take the administration at its word. And Secretary Besen has come out and said this publicly. It has been a great run for Wall Street. If Wall Street has to take some hits, we're okay with that. It's time for Main Street to do better. That is different than what you're painting, which is recession, maybe worse, real, real disruption. And this goes back, I think, to the, how the conversation started about predictability, clarity, leadership, methodicalness. I get the narrative that, you know, Trump is a dealmaker. He stakes out very aggressive positions and does that intentionally so that we can land somewhere in the middle.
1:11:08 Speaker 04 I hope that's true. I hope he's the master negotiator that everyone describes. But in the meantime, the shock to the system that we're witnessing right now, the fear and concern among private sector businesses, public companies, Wall Street is real. And I think if the rollout of this looks anything like it's being communicated right now, it does raise the prospect of what you're saying, which is we have gotten so completely dependent on China specifically.
1:11:37 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:11:38 Speaker 04 Forget about all the other countries, Vietnam and so many others, that the unwinding of that will take time and capital and cost increases. And I too have been really paying a lot of attention to this because it's both fascinating to watch. You're seeing a, you know, sort of an economic geopolitical reordering, unlike anything in my lifetime, I don't think.
1:11:58 Mike Rowe? Byron.
1:11:58 Speaker 04 But it's.
1:12:00 Mike Rowe? It's not just, it's fascinating to watch because it was all presaged. I want people listening to Google two things that I just find so. I remember both when they happened. The first is Ross Perot thirty years ago.
1:12:16 Speaker 04 The great sucking sound.
1:12:17 Mike Rowe? That's it. Google that, guys, and watch it again. He sat there right between Clinton and Bush and completely changed the world order, at least the way we elect people, at least the way you get on a ballot. That speech probably got Clinton elected and probably doomed Bush because people who were going to vote for Clinton voted for Clinton. But that made a lot of sense. He laid it out in a way that's as relevant today that it's ever been. But on the other side is a, my favorite economist is Friedman. And when Milton Friedman talked about the pencil, that's another great video to watch and, and how it took, you know, a dozen countries to do it and why it makes sense to do that.
1:13:03 Mike Rowe? These things are so relevant now, but of course Milton wasn't talking about the fact that some of those countries might have a slave population. And that some of those countries over here, they might really hate the gays. I mean, a lot. And over here, you know, eh, we got a problem with the women. But you know what? Over here in the USA, we're going to look past all that. And the only way you can look past all those things, and this is the question I'll ask you, because I've had a lot of fun traveling, as I have the last few days, just asking people, look, before we get into it, yes or no, is there anything in your world more important than the economy?
1:13:44 Mike Rowe? And depending on their answer, I know exactly the conversation we're going to have. Tier one or tier two? Either one's fine, but boy, oh, boy. If you're looking at this thing as though the only thing that matters is macro and micro economics, then we're going to come to the same conclusion. Make a deal. Make a deal and look past all of that unfortunate, uh, human rights.
1:14:11 Speaker 04 Well, you know that game you play, like if you could have three people to dinner? Milton Friedman is on my list because I would love to hear his thoughts about, and I, in my simplistic, non-economist, non-trade negotiating mind, I think about it as, I too am a huge fan of his. I think about 40 years of what has essentially been kind of Chicago school libertarian approach to economics, wide open trade effectively, and we are where we are now. From where I sit, I, I do believe, as I articulated, bad for communities that are not going to become engineers and bad for people that are 18-year-old high school grads that aren't going to go to college and that need a good, stable job in the town they live in.
1:14:53 Speaker 04 And maybe a fear that we have given up the ability to make the things we need, medical things, defense things, ships. I would love to hear his perspective about that. I would love to hear his perspective about, and I, I've got in my family and my immediate friends, I live in San Francisco, I'm surrounded by tech people, I'm surrounded by finance and private equity and venture capital and all these different brains. And I understand the argument that we're going to innovate our way through and we're going to grow GDP through AI and tech and be the world leader and everyone else is going to buy our technology. But it doesn't answer the macro question that I think you keep poking at, which is okay. But what are we doing about the other half in the country? What's the answer there?
1:15:32 Speaker 04 And it's sort of like this, I'm gonna, you know, be a little pissed about this, but I like Andrew Yang a lot. But the idea of a universal basic income is the solve all here is just, it makes me wanna, you know, wring people's necks. It's appalling. I mean, I think, and I just think it misunderstands the human condition. And it's awfully easy to talk about that from my perch with my college degree in San Francisco. It is a different thing when you're living in a community that is just a shell of what it once was. And there are no jobs and you're not going to college. I mean, it just, it's a difficult thing, but boy, do I think we have to begin to wrestle with it.
1:16:09 Mike Rowe? Like, but when did it get difficult to espouse work ethic? When did it get difficult to make the sort of the virtuous argument? I know it's uncool, but when did it get difficult? There's a guy right now who's currently up on my little podcast platform called David Bonson, who wrote a book called Full Time Work and the Meaning of Life. And I don't know if you know who David is. He runs $7 billion through the Bonson Group. Never went to college and he's just wildly successful. And he makes people crazy because he says things like, your work, the most important element of your work is not your paycheck.
1:16:52 Mike Rowe? Yeah, you need one and yeah, you should get the best one you can. And there are ways we can talk about that, but it's this idea that you're going to live most of your life doing a thing for the express purpose. So you can stop doing it and then start to enjoy whatever your reward is in this mythical retirement thing. That's the root of all craziness. And that's also the reason UBI, it's such a tier two solution to a tier one species.
1:17:24 Speaker 04 Yep, totally, totally.
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1:19:12 Speaker 04 And I think, you know, I'm going to assume this chart is right. I'm sure somebody will reach out to me and inform me and correct that it's incorrect. But I go back and stare at this chart. And it'll be kind. It'll be really, it'll be nicely articulated. But, you know, the chart of looking at about 1985 to today, how the stock market's done and how middle-class wages have done. And it is shocking. I mean, it is really, I just, the stock market has become the measure of how our country is doing. And I just think that is just way too simplistic. And, you know, back to the Milton Friedman point. I mean, I honestly would love to hear his perspective about it. And the other thing, too, that drives me wild, is people also forget that...
1:19:55 Speaker 04 This whole idea of wide open globalization libertarian on the gas was a bipartisan affair. It was as much Clinton as it was Bush. Ross Perot was the standout. And in Trump won and the Biden administration, there was also a shared perspective that this is an issue that we need to begin to address. I mean, I'm not sure that we've talked about this on air or off air, Mike, but both Bob Lighthizer, who was Trump's USTR, his trade representative, and Ambassador Tai, who was Biden's, the two of them are, in my judgment, patriotic Americans that are trying to figure out with the working middle class problem. And they see the world pretty darn similarly. I'm sure each would quibble with the other administration. The fact that this has gotten so polarized and we've lost sight of what
1:20:40 Speaker 04 I think is is a fairly commonly held idea, like, we got to do better here. We got to do better with how we're doing as a country and how we're doing for the, you know, the working class communities all across the country that I think are the foundation of the country. We ought to be able to maybe disagree on the tactics, maybe disagree on how we get there. But let's at least align that we got to come to grips with this is something that we got to solve. And by the way, I'll give you a laundry list of all the things I don't like about what's going on right now with the administration. But I'm not hearing much alternatives, other than just be a little more methodical. And so if there are approaches that are going to address our over reliance and our national debt, I want to hear them because I think it is, you know, the hour is getting late and we're spending a lot of money on a lot of things that are not moving the country
1:21:24 Speaker 04 forward in my mind. I just think we're in a tough spot that needs to move. And I just hope that in a bipartisan way, cooler heads prevail here and we can, you can begin to get some things articulated more clearly than they are and begin to get some stability back into the conversation because it's a, it's been wild to be both on the phone with industry people and talking to people like you and, and also just trying to think about it from, from our business perspective. It's just crazy.
1:21:50 Mike Rowe? Well, look, man, I I knew you were gonna be slammed, and don't take this the wrong way. You look tired. You look like you've been at it. fired looks tired. You look like you've been answered a lot of phone calls. But I just took a quick look on the interwebs, and there you are on NPR, you know, talking all soft and thoughtful the way they do. That's good interview.
1:22:10 Speaker 04 NPR, Mike, it's not you, Mike. I gotta be, I gotta, I gotta get my radio voice that comes so naturally to you. I gotta channel my inner radio.
1:22:18 Mike Rowe? Well, I mean, look, you're in a unique spot, and and I wanted to pick your brain for that reason. But but since you're talking about, you know, causes and symptoms, and and how easily it is to confuse and conflate those things, there's another clip that I hope people will go look at. And this, this didn't happen super recently, but it's Tim Cook. Tim was asked about labor costs in China. And he's at some think tank, he's up on a stage, and I I was like, oh, boy, what what is he gonna say about this? And I was blown away. What he said was, it's actually not that big a deal for us. We've got issues with human rights. We got issues with China like everybody else does.
1:23:03 Mike Rowe? But fundamentally, my company isn't there because the labor is cheap. It's actually pretty close. The problem, and the reason I'm there, is that the labor is there. It is not here. This country does not have the number of people or anywhere near approaching the number of people that we need to assemble this iPhone. It is insanely complicated, and the people who are doing it are not, they're not making little rocks out of big rocks. It's a highly skilled thing that's happening. And the enthusiasm for that work in China is very high
1:23:47 Mike Rowe? because in relative terms, these people can make a living. And so, Tim's just making a simple business decision. But it's not based on the cost of labor. It's based on the abundance of it there and not here. So, having said that, please go look at that video, folks. But think too about what happens if the president gets what he wants. What happens if we successfully reshore and start opening up a lot of factories? We have At the end of January, 490,000 open jobs in the manufacturing sector right now.
1:24:28 Mike Rowe? He wants to create 2 million jobs in the manufacturing sector over the next few years. Where do those workers come from? And finally, I would just say too, that, you know, it's not a problem that's immune to either party. President Obama made the same, in my view, error when he talked about 3 million shovel-ready jobs as part of the highway infrastructure bill, right? Back in 2009. The creation of 3 million shovel-ready jobs was a centerpiece of that whole initiative. And that's when I got skin in this game, Byrd. That's when I was like, hey, not for nothing, sir, I'm rooting for you, but from what I've seen, you're selling shovel-ready jobs to a country who's not terribly enthused about
1:25:13 Mike Rowe? picking up a shovel.
1:25:14 Speaker 04 And Mike, what's your take on that? I mean, do you think that's a, is that a compensation issue? Is it a cultural issue? Like, do you have a point of view about why that is? I mean, I sort of...
1:25:24 Mike Rowe? Yeah, I mean, I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but I will, and just say that the broadest thing is this artifact, I think, from the Great Depression. This way of thinking that simply says, well, if you've got 12 million people unemployed, what you need to fix the problem is 12 million jobs. But that doesn't work. The number of people unemployed at any given time is not a reflection of the number of open jobs. That's what the skills gap tells us. My take is that it's a very inconvenient truth for politicians to talk about because it doesn't say anything terribly flattering about the country.
1:26:04 Mike Rowe? When you look at 6.8 million men who are affirmatively sitting out of the workforce, who are in the prime of their life, compared to 7.6 million open positions, most of which don't require a four-year degree, when you look at those two things happening at the same time... That's never happened in peacetime before. So my answer is, I'm freaked out because every week I hear from somebody like the Blue Forge Alliance, who's looking to hire 140,000 tradespeople to build the next tranche of nuclear-powered subs. They don't know where they are. I hear the same thing from the automotive industry. They have 70,000 open positions in collision repair and technicians. They don't know where to find these people.
1:26:47 Mike Rowe? Well, I do, they're in the eighth grade. They're not ready to work, but that's where they are right now. And so somehow or another, to answer your question, sorry for the filibuster, but that's what we gotta do. We have to stop talking about the idea that more opportunity is going to be sufficient to inspire the millions of people who have left the workforce to come back into it. Because the opportunities are already there.
1:27:14 Speaker 04 Is it a wage issue in your mind too? I'll tell you, just in our world, we do a lot of sewing in the Carolinas, and we do a lot of sewing in the LA basin. And when we are opening positions in Middlesex, North Carolina, are three or four bucks lower than at the HVAC place that's 15 minutes down the road, we're losing them to the HVAC place. And so, maybe this is overly simplistic. But one of the things that, and just as a sort of window into how simply my brain works, when I was a kid, growing up in the 80s, all the clothing bought by Americans was made here, all of it, basically, and was affordable for all Americans. So, there was a time when that was in place, not so long ago. And I think that was a time when manufacturing jobs provided good viable work.
1:27:59 Speaker 04 You could make enough money in a 40 or 50-hour-a-week job. Is it a comp issue? Is it a function of bringing the demand back, forcing manufacturers like me to compete for labor more, raise rates, raise working conditions, better-lit factories, better benefits? Or is it not that simple to solve, in your view?
1:28:19 Mike Rowe? I don't think there's a panacea. I think for a lot of people, they would say, I don't think there's a great enthusiasm for work in general. I don't mean that to sound like an indictment, but it's like that scene in Elf. When there's not enough Christmas spirit, the sleigh doesn't take off, right? If there's no enthusiasm for the work, well, the whole basic recruiting proposition gets a lot more difficult. I totally understand that people have an idea of what's aspirational and what's not, what looks like fun and what doesn't, what looks like drudgery and what looks like meaningful work. I can't speak
1:28:58 Mike Rowe? too broadly on how a construction site or a factory floor or a cubicle might all resonate differently with a different person. I don't know that. But I do know that if we're given the option of living on the same basic level as when we work versus when we don't work, I think it's in our nature to not work. I think most people will hit the easy button when they can. And that's the fault in our stars, and that's something real that lives in the species. But that was true in the 40s and 50s, too. Now, we've taken our incredibly
1:29:43 Mike Rowe? gifted kid, who should be in a gifted and talented program, and put him in a troubled public school. That's the global economy. And so everything has sort of level set. And now, all of a sudden, if I want a real great sweatshirt, I can get one for 40 bucks. If I want one of yours, it's over 100. Is it better? Yes, it is. Feature benefit wise, I can speak from experience. You guys make a much better product. Is it that much better? Well, again, that's another question that every consumer has to run through whatever calculus they're trying to deal with right now. So it's so interconnected and it's so difficult to know. And I just don't know.
1:30:29 Speaker 04 Yeah, well, I'll just say, I'm so struck by what you just said and what it's like to walk through a factory floor where we make some of our products. And I, last night was, I'm on the road right now, and I last night was falling asleep in my hotel room, and I turned on the TV and I saw your show, How America Works. The one I caught was about the George H. W. Bush aircraft carrier and the amazing men and women that make that thing run. Yeah, 20 years old, by the way, 22, maybe. It's remarkable. It's remarkable. And you probably don't remember this, but there's a scene there where they just docked the boat and they're dealing with this plex set of lines. They're having to manipulate to get the ship tied up and secure. And at the
1:31:09 Speaker 04 end of it, it's a complicated thing. At the end of it, there's about 15 young men and women high-fiving each other. And they're from every, every skin color, every gender, every walk of life, in common cause. I got emotional watching it last night because there is this, when you walk into a factory, and this is the part that gets hard for me, is there's the punditry on the sidelines, and then you walk into a factory in a little town in North Carolina that needs work, and you find 100 people who vote differently, who worship differently, who marry differently, getting along and building a sweatshirt together. And it's such a beautiful thing. And I think it's so closely held, but the people there,
1:31:52 Speaker 04 it's almost like if you know, you know. It is such a desperate idea to me that we may be leaving a generation of people on the sidelines, for whatever reason, that don't get to experience that. So I just find that both inspiring, when you go into our supply chains. Why, by the way, I started the company is because I'd spent my whole career prior to that, shipping jobs overseas, shipping to China, because it was cheaper. You spend enough time walking through factories, you start to realize, like, boy, I don't want to give this up. It's such a, it's such a restorative and inspiring thing.
1:32:20 Mike Rowe? fired it's why I wanted you on it's a beautiful thing
1:32:24 Speaker 04 beautiful thing
1:32:25 Mike Rowe? it's why Friday light nights is a big deal right it's not college it's certainly not professional but it's what the community has and it's a thing that they can gather around and it's a thing that they can jointly celebrate or grieve root for encourage I look I people poo poo this all the time but the stakes of navigating an aircraft carrier successfully and getting all those things right day after day after day a floating city 5000 people I mean machines of war you know breaking the sound barrier moments before they land I mean my god
1:33:10 Mike Rowe? the complexity is mind boggling so of course they high five when something sporty goes right but it's that feeling it's that tier one feeling of accomplishing a thing whether you're getting the ball over the goal line or getting a thermonuclear warhead properly seated in its birth or making a sweatshirt to a standard of excellence that the team can celebrate all that shit matters man it's all of a piece this is why I'm a fan of American Giant you knew that 15 years ago you knew it and when we
1:33:48 Mike Rowe? offshore all of that we arbitrage something so much bigger than a sweatshirt out of our country and that's the sucking chest wound that won't heal unless we do something radical to reset it in my view
1:34:08 Speaker 04 that's it I'm with you it starts with a little bit of resetting with China I think so that's where I'm at I think it requires some white knuckling here because it's a it's it begins there and I think it's overdue
1:34:22 Mike Rowe? So. I know you're overdue for a nap, too. So, look, let me just say that thank you for doing this. I think that this conversation will actually be evergreen. We didn't say anything that's going to be rendered irrelevant by anything that happens, good or bad, in any of the markets in the next week, because this, this stuff is eternal. And you're a little company, but you're doing giant work, and I, I appreciate it. Thanks, man. Talk to you soon.
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