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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

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Speaker 2: my name is Noel.

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Speaker 3: They call me Ben.

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Speaker 4: We're joined as always with our super producer Paul, Mission

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Speaker 4: Control Decant. Most importantly, you are here. That makes this

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Speaker 4: the stuff they don't want you to know. Big, big thanks.

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Speaker 4: That's how we begin tonight's episode to all our fellow

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Speaker 4: conspiracy realist in the trucking and shipping industry. We get

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Speaker 4: a lot of amazing correspondence from people on the road.

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Speaker 4: We hear a lot of crazy stories, and we want

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Speaker 4: to begin by expressing our gratitude. We are mensely fortunate

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Speaker 4: that you all have joined us this evening and now there.

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Speaker 2: Are a lot of you out there right and it's

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Speaker 2: a lonely road, and it's a long road, and we

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Speaker 2: just we appreciate that you let us hang with you.

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Speaker 4: So thank you, And Matt Nole, maybe we get into

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Speaker 4: it this way with our with our thank yous put

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Speaker 4: out there on the record. What's the last thing you guys,

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Speaker 4: bought that got shipped to.

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Speaker 2: You filters for my air unit that were the wrong

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Speaker 2: size that I then ordered some more that were the

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Speaker 2: right size. Just happened.

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Speaker 5: Modular synthesizer piece component. It's a module. Yeah, that's That's

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Speaker 5: mainly what I've been ordering these days. I don't know, guys,

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Speaker 5: have you ever ran into a situation? I know, Amazon

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Speaker 5: is it's a whole other thing, and like it's a

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Speaker 5: whole other like questionable, potential ball of evil.

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Speaker 6: I use it.

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Speaker 5: I'm gonna gohead and cop to it now. And sometimes

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Speaker 5: you'll order a thing and then it'll come the same day,

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Speaker 5: and I'm like, why and how and.

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Speaker 6: Who is being put out?

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Speaker 5: And whose life is being made miserable so I can

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Speaker 5: get my whatever the heck, you know, phone charger on

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Speaker 5: the same day I place the order.

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Speaker 2: Well, well, let's imagine though, so at least in my situation,

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Speaker 2: the products that I ordered came from some distribution center somewhere,

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Speaker 2: and then it was whatever that company's like standard shipping

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Speaker 2: route would be or shipping company would be. So in

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Speaker 2: this case, it was a FedEx package. So FedEx as

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Speaker 2: a company shipped it to me. And there I think

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Speaker 2: we have to just maybe as we're getting into this

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Speaker 2: set up that FedEx and ups and the postal service

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Speaker 2: are kind of one thing over here to the.

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Speaker 4: Side asset based carriers or parcel carriers often.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, but that's not really what we're talking about today, right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, And to answer that question, I was making

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Speaker 4: this face because guys, I've been drinking from these plastic straws.

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Speaker 4: You know, our other co host is coffee, and they're

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Speaker 4: just not as good. I gotta say it, but those

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Speaker 4: get shipped. So many things get shipped. These real life

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Speaker 4: road warriors play this often unacknowledged role in without hyperbole,

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Speaker 4: in keeping civilization going. Virtually every single industry that you

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Speaker 4: will ever interact with relies in some way on trucking

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Speaker 4: and shipping in one method or another. It's a hard life.

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Speaker 4: A lot of truckers, a lot of people in the industry,

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Speaker 4: as we know well, are increasingly squeezed by any number

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Speaker 4: of factors. But our question is how deep does this

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Speaker 4: squeeze go? Is there something they don't want you to know?

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Speaker 4: This evening, fellow conspiracy realist, we ask what are freight brokers?

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Speaker 4: Here are the facts, I guess guys to understand freight brokers,

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Speaker 4: freight forwarders, and the related roles in this industry and

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Speaker 4: the controversy surrounding them. We first have to talk about shipping,

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Speaker 4: which is amazing, like that did. That was not a

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Speaker 4: thing for a long time.

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Speaker 5: So if you live anywhere near a you know, more

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Speaker 5: of a metropolitan area, or even you know, a smaller city,

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Speaker 5: you're gott to see tractor trailers and semi trucks every

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Speaker 5: day on your roads or interstates or you know, highways

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Speaker 5: and byways. Some of these are what are known as

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Speaker 5: general carriers, and some of them are company.

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Speaker 6: Or industry specific.

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Speaker 5: These semi trucks you're talking about come in lots of

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Speaker 5: different varieties, types and sizes. Shipments over one hundred and

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Speaker 5: fifty pounds that's considered freight, which differentiates that shipment from

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Speaker 5: the parcel services that we were talking about.

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Speaker 6: Freight is ball goods.

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Speaker 5: Freight is the stuff that's going to end up at

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Speaker 5: that warehouse that Matt's talking about, which then gets filtered

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Speaker 5: down into more regional, you know, localized carriers. And actually

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Speaker 5: I answered my own question in my head, I think

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Speaker 5: this is right when I said, how is it the

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Speaker 5: thing that I ordered today gets delivered today is somehow

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Speaker 5: through the infinite wisdom that is the logistics I guess

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Speaker 5: department or whatever of Amazon, they figured out that the

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Speaker 5: thing that I want, that toothbrush, already exists in a

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Speaker 5: local shipping warehouse, a local one of these depots, and

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Speaker 5: they then hire out more like the equivalent of an

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Speaker 5: uber driver to go pick it up and bring it

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Speaker 5: to me. Because I've noticed every time I get some

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Speaker 5: in the day of it comes in a civilian vehicle.

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Speaker 2: So there you go.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's even.

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Speaker 4: We can take it a step further and say that

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Speaker 4: the logistics industry aims for a bit of prognostication, a

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Speaker 4: bit of prescience. They're not specifically thinking about one person

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Speaker 4: ordering a thing. They're saying data shows us the X

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Speaker 4: amount of people will reliably order why product right or

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Speaker 4: category thereof, And so with a little bit of planning,

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Speaker 4: and this happens in every industry, grocery stores as well.

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Speaker 4: With a little bit of planning. The idea is we

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Speaker 4: can buy something in bulk or manufactured ourselves, we can

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Speaker 4: sell it to someone at a markup, and we can

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Speaker 4: pay the people who bring the physical object to the

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Speaker 4: customer a little bit less than our entire profit margins,

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Speaker 4: such that when it works, everybody wins. And this applies

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Speaker 4: to cargo ships, it applies to aircraft, it applies to

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Speaker 4: little like crazy story I was when I was living

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Speaker 4: in a different part of the world, the most reliable

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Speaker 4: way to ship stuff was just a bunch of crazy

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Speaker 4: ass dudes on tiny motorbikes, like on tiny like dirt bikes,

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Speaker 4: and they where they had made their peace with God

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Speaker 4: the way they drove.

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Speaker 2: I thought you were gonna say, buy tuck Tuck, But no, dude,

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Speaker 2: that's even drones now are in that category, by the way,

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Speaker 2: and on a lot of these websites we were looking

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Speaker 2: at that just kind of teach you about what freight is,

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Speaker 2: what logistics are, what brokers do. It's they're talking about

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Speaker 2: drones more and more, which I honestly thought was an

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Speaker 2: Amazon only thing, but it appears that that's becoming a

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Speaker 2: part of logistics.

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Speaker 4: You save so much money not needing to worry about

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Speaker 4: the state of the pavement or the roads.

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Speaker 6: Not to go too.

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Speaker 5: Far a feel, I think this is appropriate if you're

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Speaker 5: talking about buying in bulk, in terms of what consumers

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Speaker 5: are able to do. You go to a place like

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Speaker 5: Costco or you pay a membership for the privilege of

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Speaker 5: shopping there and being able to buy things in bulk.

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Speaker 5: But they don't have all the things. They just have

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Speaker 5: some of the things, and they do a lot of

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Speaker 5: research and logistics numbers running to figure out what those

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Speaker 5: things are and how much much of them they're going

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Speaker 5: to be able to successfully move.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean things can be transported domestically or international

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Speaker 4: by internationally, i should say, by land, air, or sea.

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Speaker 4: The best way to put it is that human civilization

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Speaker 4: makes so much stuff every day, every hour, constantly you

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Speaker 4: want a thing, can you imagine a thing, someone will

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Speaker 4: sell it to you by legal or illegal means. And

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Speaker 4: for those folks making that stuff, whatever that stuff may be,

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Speaker 4: it is a waste of time for them if they

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Speaker 4: can't get those products to the consumers. You know, you

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Speaker 4: have a shoe factory, and of course you would save

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Speaker 4: a lot of money if everybody in the world who

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Speaker 4: wanted those shoes traveled to you and just bought your

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Speaker 4: stuff where you made it. But that's not feasible. So

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Speaker 4: we see a kind of meta industry, an uber industry,

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Speaker 4: not related to the company Uber, but they're into freight

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Speaker 4: as well, it's like a thing that is entirely designed

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Speaker 4: to get all the stuff across the world from point

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Speaker 4: A to point Z in theoretically the fastest, safest, most

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Speaker 4: efficient manner. And it's huge. We all kind of know

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Speaker 4: it's huge. Like we were saying earlier, if you are

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Speaker 4: in an urban area, if you're in a metro area,

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Speaker 4: you will always see some sort of freight truck on

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Speaker 4: the road. They're going somewhere, they're doing something. But I

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Speaker 4: think once we look at some of the statistics, we

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Speaker 4: get an experiential sense of how massive this industry is,

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Speaker 4: Like it is a sleeping giant. And without this industry,

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Speaker 4: the world as we know it simply does not exist.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so let's say you're driving on a highway in

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Speaker 2: these good old United States. You're going to see a

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Speaker 2: lot of trucks on the road. They're pretty popular, and

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Speaker 2: we're talking everything from like a Tacoma to what an

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Speaker 2: F three fifth or you know, a giant consumer truck.

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Speaker 3: But there are Yeah, man, I hate the environment. Let's

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Speaker 3: get the trucks.

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Speaker 2: Some of them are electric, sir. The rivian trucks an

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Speaker 2: electric vehicle. Yeah, what about the cyber truck? Truck?

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Speaker 6: Let's be honest. Well, that's something called a fronk. I mean,

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Speaker 6: give me a break, that's right.

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Speaker 2: But there are thirteen estimated thirteen million trucks of all

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Speaker 2: shapes and sizes out on the road and in garages,

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Speaker 2: and out of those, there are two point nine million

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Speaker 2: of those semi trailer trucks, the huge ones. They can

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Speaker 2: put an entire load of freight on them and ship

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Speaker 2: it across the United States. And again, many of you

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Speaker 2: listening right now are in one of those and just

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Speaker 2: rolling down the road.

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Speaker 5: I'll tell you what occurred to me when when we're

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Speaker 5: looking at these numbers is just how powerful the Teamsters

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Speaker 5: union is and always has been, and perhaps why it

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Speaker 5: was such an interesting target for corruption and for infiltration

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Speaker 5: by you know, criminal elements, because a strike from Teamsters,

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Speaker 5: as you pointed out, Ben, would literally bring civilization grinding

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Speaker 5: to a halt.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a.

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Speaker 4: Rough one, and I'm glad you're making that point. Also

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Speaker 4: a powerful union also, folks, Teamsters just for the etymology

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Speaker 4: nerds in the crowd, Teamsters were named after like the

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Speaker 4: idea of running a team of horses, right, Yeah, And

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Speaker 4: you know, transit has always been oriented toward the idea

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Speaker 4: of the best way to move stuff?

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Speaker 3: I mean it is.

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Speaker 4: Is it not kind of silly that the measure for

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Speaker 4: the power of an engine is called horsepower?

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Speaker 3: YEAHTI horses know about that.

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Speaker 5: It's borderline one of those skewmorphs you were talking about.

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Speaker 6: Ben.

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Speaker 5: I'm sorry I've been hung up on that, but it's

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Speaker 5: this idea of like keeping a little remnant of the

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Speaker 5: past alive, either in a design feature or terminology I

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Speaker 5: think applies here.

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Speaker 2: Let's let's change it up, Ben, what I'm gonna pitch

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Speaker 2: this to you? Ready? What if it's how many Porsche

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Speaker 2: nine elevens? It is? So like? He would be like

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Speaker 2: point one four port nine elevens.

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Speaker 3: Rate America will love that.

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Speaker 5: Explosions explosive this card.

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Speaker 3: You can fit so many nine eleven.

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Speaker 2: No, no, I was just trying to think of Okay,

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Speaker 2: how about mustangs. How about instead of horse powers, it's

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Speaker 2: a specifically Mustang, but it's a but it's enough Broncos Mustangs.

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Speaker 2: It's like a standard Mustang. It's not a g T.

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Speaker 2: It's just a Mustang. And that's your your rate of Like,

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Speaker 2: I don't think so is Porsche a horse that's a

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Speaker 2: new search term for me in our.

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Speaker 5: Search history again, I think no, But there are a

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Speaker 5: lot of car brands named after named after Hosses.

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Speaker 2: The animal on the logo was a horse.

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Speaker 4: Well sure, yeah, because you wanted to popularize and normalize

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Speaker 4: the idea of an internal combustion engine.

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Speaker 3: Right there you go, you know, and.

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Speaker 4: Hit the market of people who could maybe afford a car,

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Speaker 4: but probably couldn't afford a horse ranch. Anyway, that's a

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Speaker 4: little ridiculous history. In twenty twenty two, just two years ago, now,

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Speaker 4: the trucking industry in the United States did how was

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Speaker 4: this even a real number? They did nine hundred and

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Speaker 4: forty point eight billion US dollars in gross freight revenue.

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Speaker 4: Not the same thing as profit, but that is so

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Speaker 4: much money.

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Speaker 2: That's all the money that went through the system to

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Speaker 2: get stuff to other places.

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Speaker 4: And as for where that money ended up, you know,

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Speaker 4: that's part of tonight's question.

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Speaker 5: We ended up Vegas, baby, where it goes?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, I doesn't mean it built Vegas, you know, sure again,

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Speaker 6: there's no question.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and there are you know, there are three point

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Speaker 4: five million truck drivers in the United States alone. That's

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Speaker 4: that counts employees of larger interest and it counts a

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Speaker 4: lot of self employed drivers, you know, owner operators, and

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Speaker 4: the numbers get even weirder when we look at the

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Speaker 4: global scale. I think, okay, I think we're all surprised

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Speaker 4: to find that this industry, despite the pandemic, has still

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Speaker 4: been growing. Overall. It's growing at a rate of three

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Speaker 4: point four percent per year until twenty fifty or so.

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Speaker 4: And this means is where we have to introduce one

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Speaker 4: metric not to get two into the weeds. But the

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Speaker 4: boffins generally measure this stuff and what they call ton kilometers,

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Speaker 4: which is how much money does it take to move

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Speaker 4: a thing one kilometer to move a ton of a thing,

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Speaker 4: whatever that thing will be, how much does that cost?

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Speaker 4: And right now we're seeing that trend grow through. In

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Speaker 4: twenty fifteen, one hundred and eight trillion ton kilometers moved

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Speaker 4: through the world, and it just keeps growing. Most of

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Speaker 4: it still happens by sea. And yes, folks, for the

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Speaker 4: twelve people in the crowd wondering, you can travel as

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Speaker 4: a civilian on a cargo ship, which'd be a very

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Speaker 4: cool thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, congratulations to you for choosing to do that.

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Speaker 3: Congratulations to your schedule.

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Speaker 2: It's nuts.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they're like we.

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Speaker 4: Can get you to where you want to be within

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Speaker 4: about three months, so when you want to be there.

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Speaker 2: Yes, But as we talked about, part of this whole

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Speaker 2: logistics thing and being what we're going to talk about here,

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Speaker 2: this broker thing that's mythical, a morphous thing that we're

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Speaker 2: talking about. It is about getting that freight usually across

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Speaker 2: the sea or the ocean, as you're talking about ben

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Speaker 2: to a hub, a port somewhere. Then it's got to

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Speaker 2: go from there, and how does it get from there

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Speaker 2: to the next place, and then how does it get

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Speaker 2: from the distribution center to the end user. It's all

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Speaker 2: of that stuff. And as you said before too, I

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Speaker 2: never thought of about this until a friend of mine

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Speaker 2: who was one of these people that we're talking about,

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Speaker 2: freight broker was almost said froat breaker, but he kind

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Speaker 2: of gave me some insight on this thing. And I

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Speaker 2: didn't think about the raw materials that you'll see on

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Speaker 2: like a train, like the coal train cars that we'll

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Speaker 2: see right and by in Atlanta at least we'll see

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Speaker 2: that a lot and other just raw materials that end

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Speaker 2: up getting moved like this through a broker system.

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Speaker 4: Oh yeah, dangerous chemicals, yes, Matt being a whole other

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Speaker 4: bag of badgers exactly. We know that the global freight

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Speaker 4: demand will apparently triple by twenty fifty. As you might

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Speaker 4: imagine to Noel and Matt's earlier points, this becomes cartoonishly complicated.

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Speaker 4: How do you like, Okay, there are billions of things moving?

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Speaker 4: How do you figure out the best way to get

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Speaker 4: your one thing from its origin point to another point

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Speaker 4: without getting damaged while avoiding danger and delays and mistakes.

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Speaker 4: That is where freight brokers come in. They are the

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Speaker 4: fixers of the international it's redundant to say international global,

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Speaker 4: but they're the fixers of the human trade system exactly.

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Speaker 2: And it's really important to think that they are working

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Speaker 2: on behalf of the person attempting to sell the thing, right,

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Speaker 2: whatever the product is, they're working on that person or

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Speaker 2: company's behalf. And that's where it gets really tricky and

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Speaker 2: in the weeds, because they're trying to get a good

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Speaker 2: deal for that person, but they're also trying to make

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Speaker 2: money for themselves because they're in a middle position there

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Speaker 2: between a buyer and a seller, right, so they they're

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Speaker 2: money is going to come somewhere off the top from

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Speaker 2: that transaction. Uh, and that's where that's why it's I

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Speaker 2: think that's why it's such an interesting thing to discuss

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Speaker 2: on this show because the motivation to make that, to

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Speaker 2: skim that part off the top, and how much you

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Speaker 2: get to skim per transaction it can it can be

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Speaker 2: a real uh what what we say, attempting thing to

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Speaker 2: maybe goose a little.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, the vigorous right, they exist in that liminal space.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and Yetta, you know, you always hear about it

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Speaker 5: in the modern day of like apps for everything and

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Speaker 5: trying to sell things directly the consumer more frequently, you're

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Speaker 5: always hearing lines about removing the middle man. Let's get

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Speaker 5: rid of the middle man, sell directly to you. It

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Speaker 5: does feel like this idea of these go betweens, whether

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Speaker 5: it be you know, even like in criminal activities you

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Speaker 5: got the fence, right, the fence is the guy who

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Speaker 5: sells the goods for you that are stolen. In regular

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Speaker 5: legitimate business, you've got these brokers in these middle member.

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Speaker 5: Is it kind of an anti equated formula? Is it

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Speaker 5: still around because there are too many people that have

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Speaker 5: things to gain to see the system maybe change to

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Speaker 5: something more efficient.

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Speaker 4: That's a great question, and it is the free brokerage

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Speaker 4: industry is the result of technological innovation. It's also the

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Speaker 4: result of increasing complication in a system. It is the

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Speaker 4: result of people wanting to genuinely avoid organizational headaches. Let's

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Speaker 4: find some folks to specialize in the best possible route,

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Speaker 4: the best possible deal, and if they make it convenient enough,

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Speaker 4: then we will pay them to do so. And then

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Speaker 4: on the flip side of that, if we transport stuff

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Speaker 4: for these freight brokers, right, if we're on the other

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Speaker 4: side of the equation and we're moving product for them,

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Speaker 4: they get their vigoroush they get their skim, and then

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Speaker 4: event theoretically we the carriers get paid. However, that's where

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Speaker 4: some problems arise. Before we continue, Uh, let's just say

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Speaker 4: the following. Let's explain what a freight broker does and

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Speaker 4: who oversees freight brokers in the United States.

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Speaker 5: So, in general, brokers and forwarders both gather all of

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Speaker 5: the pertinent information that they need about of given shipment.

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Speaker 5: Then they go into their systems to figure out the

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Speaker 5: best scheduling, confirming exact pickup and delivery times. And as

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Speaker 5: long as everything goes according to the plan, this, you know,

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Speaker 5: really does help I mean the word logistics kind of

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Speaker 5: says it all right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And the big part of that is that when

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Speaker 2: when a broker receives a request right to to apply

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Speaker 2: their logistics knowledge and find somebody who is going to

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Speaker 2: ship their stuff, they put out almost like I'm trying

359
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Speaker 2: I was trying to think of one to one guys.

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Speaker 2: But it's a bit system. So the individual companies that

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Speaker 2: have a fleet of trucks that can actually ship stuff

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Speaker 2: like that or have you know, ships, boats, rail whatever

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Speaker 2: it is, they then bid on they bid for the

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Speaker 2: right to ship that thing, right because they're going to

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Speaker 2: make money doing it as part of their service. That's

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Speaker 2: what it is as a service industry. But it could

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Speaker 2: be too expensive, it could not match up with the

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Speaker 2: timing of their other shipments. You know, there's all these things.

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Speaker 2: That's why a broker is important because they're the go

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Speaker 2: between and the company that's selling in the company that's

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Speaker 2: running it. They don't have to do all of the

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Speaker 2: let's say logistics, they don't have to run through all

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Speaker 2: those things. They can just say here are our openings

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Speaker 2: as a shipper, here's the stuff coming in as this

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Speaker 2: company ship trying to ship things, and here here's what

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Speaker 2: we can provide to you as what a freight shipping company.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, as a subcontractor, Yes, exactly this Matroshkadal of Services

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Speaker 4: and Industry loves a subcontractor a specialization. So just quick

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Speaker 4: made up mocktail math here. Let's say you are a broker.

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Speaker 4: You are going to get a lump sum price fifteen

381
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Speaker 4: hundred bucks to move a thing, right, the numbers are

382
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Speaker 4: usually much higher, but you're game fifteen hundred bucks. So

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Speaker 4: what you want to do is maximize your slice of

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Speaker 4: that pie such that maybe you find somebody who will

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Speaker 4: take stuff from Poughkeepsie to Albuquerque and they'll just do

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Speaker 4: it for a percentage of that. They'll do it for

387
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Speaker 4: a grand and then as long as you can keep

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Speaker 4: up with the paperwork and make sure everything's above board,

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Speaker 4: you walk away with five hundred bucks. This is generally

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Speaker 4: the ideal way that it works.

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Speaker 7: Well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a lot of undercutting that can occur, right,

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Speaker 2: and then we're going to get in that when we

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Speaker 2: get into some of the potentials for bad actors.

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Speaker 4: And in these United States, the authority in charge of

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Speaker 4: supervising this strange relationship is the super sexually named Federal

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Speaker 4: Motor Carrier Safety Administration or folks. We'll see that brokers

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Speaker 4: and another related field, freight forwarders. They play a crucial

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Speaker 4: role in this unending game of logistics. But depending upon

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Speaker 4: whom you ask, some of these folks may be up

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Speaker 4: to no good. A lot of them seem to have

402
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Speaker 4: gone bust in recent years as well. So our question

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Speaker 4: what on earth is going on? Pause for a word

404
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Speaker 4: from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy. So why

405
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Speaker 4: did all these freight brokers get into such financial hot

406
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Speaker 4: water in recent years? It looks like there were a

407
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Speaker 4: number of interrelated factors, obviously the elephant in the room

408
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Speaker 4: being a global pandemic that continues today. But also they

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Speaker 4: had a crazy amount of growth, like a cartoonish amount

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Speaker 4: of growth. I don't know about you, guys, but I

411
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Speaker 4: was surprised to learn how recent freight brokerage was and

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Speaker 4: how quickly it has grown.

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Speaker 5: I guess maybe that's where my confusion was coming in,

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Speaker 5: because it felt to me like a lot of this stuff.

415
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Speaker 5: In the past, there would have been a department, you know,

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Speaker 5: for various companies that would have handled this level of logistics.

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Speaker 2: Well, think about the major huge manufacturers and sellers of

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Speaker 2: goods that have grown since the year two thousand. So

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Speaker 2: over the course of twenty four years, some of the

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Speaker 2: biggest companies you can think of were not nearly as

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Speaker 2: big as they were in the year two thousand. Sure, right,

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Speaker 2: And as these huge companies build and build and build,

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Speaker 2: and as more and more manufacturers exist, I think having

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Speaker 2: that middle person, that middleman thing, so you don't have

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Speaker 2: to have an internal department that does all of that stuff.

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Speaker 2: You're just kind of getting it done, which is a

427
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Speaker 2: bit weird to me because it feels like the bottom

428
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Speaker 2: you would save a lot on the bottom line if

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Speaker 2: you were doing direct shipping with some partner or something.

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Speaker 6: That's what I was wondering about.

431
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Speaker 4: A lot of the big dogs created their in house

432
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Speaker 4: stuff and then they spun it out as a logistics

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Speaker 4: service to other people because it was such a profit center.

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Speaker 4: It kind of reminds me of since we've got our

435
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Speaker 4: car stuff hats on this evening, it kind of reminds

436
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:37,480
Speaker 4: me of how Michelin, the tire manufacturer, became in charge

437
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Speaker 4: of what constitutes a good restaurant.

438
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 5: Yeah, just just from being first to market once again,

439
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:47,320
Speaker 5: they just figured it was a good promotion and they started,

440
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:50,159
Speaker 5: you know, doing these kind of little guides that they

441
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 5: would pass out for travelers to sell tires.

442
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:54,240
Speaker 6: And the next thing, you know.

443
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:57,360
Speaker 5: They've been the oldest running game in town as far

444
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 5: as like, you know, pointing out points of interest in

445
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 5: good restaurants and stuff. I know this is sort of

446
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 5: outside the scope of this episode, but I did just

447
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 5: want to bring up or ask, we're not really talking

448
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 5: about Amazon today because it is kind of its own

449
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:13,960
Speaker 5: universe in many ways. I was even just looking up

450
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 5: freight you know, brokers, and one of the first links

451
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 5: that came up was Amazon has their own kind of

452
00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:26,200
Speaker 5: freight brokerage like Wing. And I was going to ask, maybe,

453
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 5: at least for the purposes of this conversation, do they

454
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:34,399
Speaker 5: still use the same kind of like freight means of

455
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 5: freight that other companies use or are they so big

456
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 5: that they almost like have their own special fleets even

457
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 5: in the larger, you know, bulk kind of area of shipping.

458
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 4: It's a great question. I want to be careful how

459
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 4: we answer this.

460
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 3: One of the.

461
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:55,160
Speaker 4: Probably the most accurate way to put it is that

462
00:26:55,920 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 4: an entity of Amazon's size will always attempt vertical and

463
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 4: horizontal integration. To and beyond the letter of the law. Right,

464
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:09,200
Speaker 4: So they were.

465
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 2: Talking yet circular integration, right exactly.

466
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 6: Three DH y'all. No, I mean, I mean it's true.

467
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 5: You know, I'm sure there are certain industries and types

468
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 5: of products that they do business with or you know,

469
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 5: large suppliers where they do have to go through those

470
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,639
Speaker 5: more traditional channels. But any chance they get, they're gonna

471
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:32,880
Speaker 5: circumvent that as well in favor of their own owned

472
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:33,879
Speaker 5: and operated stuff.

473
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:39,239
Speaker 4: Henry Ford was so pissed about having about having to

474
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:42,960
Speaker 4: buy rubber from other companies that he started an ill

475
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:47,199
Speaker 4: fated outpost in Brazil, which kind of continues today just

476
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 4: to make rubber. So like, corporate greed is anything but original.

477
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 4: I think it's also this was hand over fist money.

478
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 4: This was I think the technical economist term would be

479
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 4: stupid money. This is like, of course, like Uber has

480
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 4: a freight arm still Amazon of course once won because

481
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 4: they're saving money every time they take stuff in house

482
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 4: and freight brokerage industries. At first, like they were six

483
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 4: percent of trucking, as we said in two thousand, you

484
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 4: could call him a cottage industry. Just a year ago

485
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 4: they were twenty percent of all trucking freight. This is

486
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 4: bonker's money.

487
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's just it's going to people that are

488
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 2: that have really good software and connections, right.

489
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 3: Deep bilodexes, that's what it is.

490
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 2: Gosh, it's so interesting. Again. We have a few friends

491
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 2: of the show and of our lives that have done

492
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 2: this before. And I would say one of my friends

493
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 2: in particular, made the most money he's ever made. And

494
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 2: he has degrees and he's extremely intelligent, and he just

495
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:05,080
Speaker 2: went and made bank for several years and then just

496
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:07,480
Speaker 2: kind of stopped working for a while after being a

497
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:08,240
Speaker 2: freight broker.

498
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 6: Yeah.

499
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, it happens.

500
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 4: And that is not this enterprise like finding the opportunity

501
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 4: in the complex logistics involved. This is not inherently a

502
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 4: bad thing. We can argue it is a necessary thing.

503
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it could be great. I'd love to retire

504
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 2: after work in like four years.

505
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 3: We have to keep doing our show, though, I do

506
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 3: just say it. Wow, yeah, yeah, I think.

507
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 6: Man.

508
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 4: Well, we know also that a great like if we

509
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 4: were to trace the origin point of the freight broker

510
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 4: industry in the US, it would go all the way

511
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 4: back to deregulation in nineteen eighty and a lot of times.

512
00:29:56,360 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 4: When people hear the phrase deregulation, because it's been weaponized,

513
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 4: we associate it with corrupt politicians. Right, it may surprise

514
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 4: some of us to learn that this deregulation was championed

515
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 4: by more of the political left wing, and this idea

516
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 4: removing it, removing the industry from the supervision of the

517
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 4: Interstate Commerce Commission, which had run things since nineteen thirty five.

518
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 4: Removing it made things much more competitive. It led to

519
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 4: more reliable shipping, It led to lower prices for consumers.

520
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:39,440
Speaker 4: And yeah, some businesses went under, good businesses, but other

521
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 4: businesses sprang up in their wake, just like trying to

522
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 4: kill a hydra, you know what I mean, the money moves.

523
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:47,479
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Well, it's theoretically a way to break up

524
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 2: some organized crime, right that become these monolithic things that

525
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 2: were in place for a long time, that could just

526
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 2: control it and that's it, And doesn't matter how many

527
00:30:56,800 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 2: other trucking businesses there are out there. You're never going

528
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 2: to get a piece of pie because it's already baked in.

529
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 2: So I mean, I could see why there was motivation

530
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 2: to break out from that older system.

531
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, because otherwise you're going up against totally

532
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 4: legitimate truck is out of Jersey. You know, no questions asked,

533
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 4: no questions answered. That's I guarantee, that's funny.

534
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:24,200
Speaker 6: There's a sketch on old school sidel called.

535
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 5: Jay Z Guy, and I can't remember what it was.

536
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 5: I think it was, you know, it was on a

537
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 5: Curb your Enthusiasm. Larry was talking about jay Z Guide

538
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 5: to this dude from Jersey and he goes, yeah, we

539
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 5: over in Jersey didn't really care for that sketch very much.

540
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 3: Right.

541
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 4: This also shows us there were levels of growth. So

542
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 4: the growth of the industry in terms of number of

543
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 4: companies or individuals working as freight brokers, that growth exploded,

544
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 4: but also the nature of what a freight broker does exploded.

545
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 4: It grew in step because back in the day, freight

546
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 4: brokers were kind of like the last resort for shipping.

547
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 4: There was someone who couldn't make money through their usual routes,

548
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 4: and they literally called some guy or some group who

549
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 4: was like, I will find I know a dude named Darren.

550
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 4: He's probably already driving out to Seattle. So we're gonna

551
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 4: get Darren to take this load of stuff, and you

552
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:26,520
Speaker 4: owe me money.

553
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because think about it. You're losing money. If

554
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 2: you're the person make manufacturing or shipping the stuff initially

555
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 2: and you go to a broker, they are definitely taking

556
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 2: stuff off the top. That's the nature of the business, right, Well,

557
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 2: not definitely, okay, not definitely, but probably most likely you

558
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 2: are going to be paying more to go that route.

559
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 2: So it doesn't maybe objectively it doesn't seem to make

560
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 2: that much sense until you think about time as a

561
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 2: as an expense, right, or as something you have to

562
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 2: factor into the price. And especially, as you said, Ben,

563
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 2: if you don't have that internal system already in place,

564
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 2: or those relationships in place, then why not just okay,

565
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 2: this is part of our business plan. We use brokers.

566
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 4: It's kind of the thing where you start the day

567
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 4: wanting to make ten dollars and then you know you

568
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 4: need to make six dollars. So if you can get

569
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 4: a deal that nets use seven bucks, then you have

570
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 4: to do it.

571
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 3: Yep, which might sound boring.

572
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 4: I know we're being very loose with the math, but

573
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:36,080
Speaker 4: in essence, that is the calculus.

574
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 6: I mean.

575
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:40,840
Speaker 4: Also, when these things started to go belly up, it

576
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 4: affected the world in a butterfly, what's the name of

577
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 4: that butterfly effect.

578
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 6: You kind of got it in the resort A butterfly.

579
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 2: What's that thing?

580
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 3: So it's amazing.

581
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 6: I love it. You got there, buddy.

582
00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 3: Thanks man. Still learning this language.

583
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 4: But we know that there were widespread consequences for all

584
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:08,640
Speaker 4: of the world's global trade when freight brokers, when these

585
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:13,719
Speaker 4: great sort of fixers of money and relationship, when they

586
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 4: ran into problems. It affected everything beyond the semi trucks,

587
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 4: beyond the tractor trailers. It affected the cargo ships, It

588
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 4: affected the air freight, It affected you know, even even

589
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:29,040
Speaker 4: those weird dudes on those motorbikes. To be honest with you, well.

590
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 5: I guess that's one of my questions too, Ben. Is

591
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 5: all of this stuff in the same logistical network, Like

592
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 5: do they take into account ships and air freight or

593
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:42,239
Speaker 5: are there like webs within webs of all of this

594
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 5: kind of stuff. Are there freight brokers per medium of transport?

595
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:52,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, there are specializations. Just like some freight companies

596
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:57,760
Speaker 4: or freight carriers will say we primarily have flatbed trucks.

597
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 4: We carry stuff that would go on a flatbed. There'll

598
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 4: be freight brokers who say, well, we make deals for

599
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 4: the cargo chips.

600
00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.

601
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 2: My friend I keep talking about was primarily reil. So

602
00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:11,440
Speaker 2: like trains, rail rail is huge.

603
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:17,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, And because of these consequences, these knock on, these

604
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 4: ripple effects, a lot of people who maybe didn't expect

605
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:25,880
Speaker 4: to get hit got smacked pretty hard. These broker companies,

606
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 4: we'll talk about this in just a second, they became insolvent,

607
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 4: which meant that they The way their billing cycle works

608
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:37,839
Speaker 4: is that the carrier will send an invoice after doing

609
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 4: the work, right after delivering the thing and driving it

610
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 4: or transporting it all the way over, and then the

611
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 4: carrier will have a window of time in which they

612
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 4: will pay their invoice. They will make good on the

613
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 4: work and the compensation. But when the brokers go belly up,

614
00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 4: who gets left holding the bag? You know, how do

615
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 4: these peopleeople get paid? If you are if like if

616
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 4: we went into stuff, they don't want you to freight

617
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:11,800
Speaker 4: or whatever, and we all had a you know, trucks

618
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 4: that we're moving stuff.

619
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 3: On and stuff.

620
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:15,760
Speaker 2: They don't want you to ship stuff.

621
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 4: They want you to ship there is thank you, yes

622
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 4: that one. If we did that and a broker that

623
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 4: we had worked with went bankrupt, then they would do

624
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:28,400
Speaker 4: so before we got paid, and if we were to

625
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 4: achieve the compensation to be as the teamsters would say,

626
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 4: made whole, then we would have to go through this

627
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 4: byzantine level of bureaucracy. It's stupid, especially considering that every

628
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:46,280
Speaker 4: moment we're doing that paperwork instead of moving other stuff,

629
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 4: we're losing money.

630
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:50,840
Speaker 3: We're paying to get paid at that point, weird.

631
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:55,560
Speaker 2: I just imagined taxes as like paying to get paid.

632
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:57,640
Speaker 2: I don't know why that's shot in my.

633
00:36:57,600 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 3: Mind, because that's absolutely correct.

634
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 5: It's also kind of like what, yeah, that's part of it.

635
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,680
Speaker 5: Or also not to mention like bank fees or if

636
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 5: you ever like, oh, let me transfer my Venmo balance

637
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:10,839
Speaker 5: to my bank account, well you can do it.

638
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:15,280
Speaker 3: Today for a dollar ninety nine a wait four.

639
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:17,480
Speaker 6: To six businesses. Hey guys, here's the trick, though.

640
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 5: It always happens instantly whether you pay or not. Just

641
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 5: like wait and save on Uber, it's all a trick.

642
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 5: If you do wait and save nine times out of ten,

643
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:27,960
Speaker 5: it comes just as quick as as the regular one

644
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 5: that's twice as expensive.

645
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 2: Can we do a whole episode on those specific fees

646
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:35,560
Speaker 2: like transaction fees or something, Yeah.

647
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 3: Let's do it.

648
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's do that, because that is rent seeking, right. Also,

649
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 4: I love that you're giving these tips, these life tips

650
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:46,760
Speaker 4: to sorry life hack tips.

651
00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:47,840
Speaker 3: No, they're true.

652
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 6: I agree with you.

653
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:52,880
Speaker 4: Also, Also, folks, if you are a fellow cheapskate, the

654
00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:56,399
Speaker 4: secret with ride share apps is to open it, put

655
00:37:56,440 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 4: in the address, and then close the app for five

656
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 4: minutes and then open it back up. Well, I'm thinking

657
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:04,759
Speaker 4: about it.

658
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, even if that's an illusion or a placebo effect,

659
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 5: it certainly will make you less on edge. But I

660
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:12,879
Speaker 5: think to your point, Ben, if it knows you're looking

661
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:14,759
Speaker 5: at it, doesn't they game you a little bit and

662
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:17,480
Speaker 5: show you some stuff and kind of string you along

663
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:18,399
Speaker 5: in a certain way.

664
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:25,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is all part of again, this crazy system

665
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 4: of logistics that humans have built. The shipping industry overall

666
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 4: is in a crisis point. You know, if you are

667
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:37,799
Speaker 4: an owner operator in the freight industry right now, you

668
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:41,360
Speaker 4: know full well that costs have gone up, margins of

669
00:38:41,480 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 4: profit have gone down. Automation is becoming increasingly expected and normalized.

670
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:51,919
Speaker 4: So a lot of people in the industry are going

671
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 4: to lose their jobs to so called artificial intelligence.

672
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:59,520
Speaker 5: Isn't this a system though, that is sort of built

673
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:03,760
Speaker 5: on antiquated infrastructure, Like a lot of these like legacy

674
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,839
Speaker 5: shipping and receiving kind of companies, freight companies whatever, they've

675
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:10,759
Speaker 5: got these fleets that are kind of aging, so they're

676
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 5: not buying brand new whatever vehicles that are outfitted with

677
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 5: the latest technology or the latest like tracking or what.

678
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 5: I'm sure you can install things, but I would imagine

679
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:24,319
Speaker 5: in the same way that certain airlines you know, are

680
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:26,880
Speaker 5: dealing with kind of aged fleets, that a lot of

681
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:29,880
Speaker 5: this stuff is limited by those factors.

682
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, how do you get all of those

683
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 2: disparate Boeing parts from all those different factories to that

684
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 2: one place to put them all together and slam all

685
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:42,879
Speaker 2: the pieces in there that don't fit just.

686
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 5: Jam in there like an ill fitting puzzle piece.

687
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:50,239
Speaker 4: Yeah, but we are not spending money on parachutes.

688
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:54,080
Speaker 2: No, we will not never have Well I get I

689
00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:55,880
Speaker 2: have thirty thousand feet or whatever.

690
00:39:57,880 --> 00:39:59,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got with that attitude.

691
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 5: Remember if it was a land Tunes gag, but it

692
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 5: was this idea of the parachute and it's actually just

693
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 5: filled with like cutlery and like picknick stuff. You know,

694
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,800
Speaker 5: that's it there too. Just throw all the leftover forks

695
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 5: in there will be fine.

696
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:15,280
Speaker 2: I would love it if every passenger on an American

697
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:19,760
Speaker 2: Airlines flight gets their own rocket suit capable of taking

698
00:40:19,800 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 2: you all the way to the ground from forty thousand four.

699
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:23,480
Speaker 5: Wait a minute, the one we need the plane for

700
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:24,760
Speaker 5: if we got the rocket suits.

701
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:28,960
Speaker 2: Matt, Well, I guess that's true. I think it's more

702
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 2: of the I'm imagining the suit that you could do.

703
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 2: What's the high jump that has been achieved, I don't know,

704
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:39,800
Speaker 2: make a decade ago or somebody. Yeah, and they just dropped,

705
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 2: but they had to have a specialized suit with oxygen

706
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 2: and everything to do. Yes, it's one of those.

707
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 4: Well, also, the real answer put plane. We can't have

708
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:56,319
Speaker 4: parachutes on commercial aircraft because it is statistically inevitable that

709
00:40:56,640 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 4: some dumbass will try to open the parachute course in

710
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 4: the place.

711
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:02,839
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's bad luck.

712
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:05,960
Speaker 3: It might be us. You might be the one two years.

713
00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:09,920
Speaker 6: It's way worse than opening an umbrella indoors. Yeah.

714
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 2: I just got an image of you know those planes

715
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:15,440
Speaker 2: that do the paro or parabola, what is it parabolic

716
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 2: flight that caused you to have the almost.

717
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:20,720
Speaker 3: Or near zero G Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

718
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 2: I'm imagining a bunch of airbags on one of those

719
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 2: that get deployed at once while they're like mid.

720
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 5: Just well, you guys, all this talk of like, you know,

721
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 5: contingency rocket suits really reminds me of this kind of

722
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:36,320
Speaker 5: easter eggy thing. And I want to say it's fallout

723
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:39,240
Speaker 5: New Vegas where you come to a point. I believe

724
00:41:39,239 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 5: it's in one of the DLCs where there are just

725
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:45,879
Speaker 5: these like weird super soldiers that are clearly skeletons and

726
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,280
Speaker 5: like they just have like exposed skulls under these helmets.

727
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 5: And what it is was a technology that if a

728
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:54,880
Speaker 5: soldier was injured, the suit came to life and just

729
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 5: walked them home. But then the suit's malfunctioned, and then

730
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:01,439
Speaker 5: eventually the soldiers just died of natural causes from being

731
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 5: walked around. And then now they're just being their corpses

732
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 5: being walked around inside these suits.

733
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:07,400
Speaker 6: So I'm picturing a.

734
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:11,280
Speaker 5: Potential problem with a bunch of like you know, emaciated

735
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 5: skeleton flying around space in these rocket suits.

736
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 3: Love it.

737
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:17,520
Speaker 2: I'm sorry we went this far, guys, as much.

738
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:21,719
Speaker 4: It close to mine the earlier thought experiment of the

739
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 4: dead Internet theory. Oh yeah, a haunted house automation continues, robots,

740
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 4: and so there are still brokers that remain. If you

741
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:34,480
Speaker 4: are listening to this and you work in a freight brokerage,

742
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:37,800
Speaker 4: we have your back. We understand that there's a lot

743
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:41,800
Speaker 4: of difficulty. There's a lot of sensitivity, as Corporate America

744
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:44,719
Speaker 4: would say, in the industry right now. And of the

745
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:49,840
Speaker 4: brokerages that remain, several have been allegedly involved in crime,

746
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:53,880
Speaker 4: both as victims and perhaps as perpetrators. We're going to

747
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:56,359
Speaker 4: take a break for word from our sponsors and we'll

748
00:42:56,360 --> 00:43:07,919
Speaker 4: get into some examples. All right, There are too many

749
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:10,680
Speaker 4: examples to name, but maybe it'll be helpful to walk

750
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:12,879
Speaker 4: through a few of them so people can get the

751
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 4: non truckers in the crowd can get the sense of

752
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:16,280
Speaker 4: the gravity.

753
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:16,520
Speaker 6: Here.

754
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:19,360
Speaker 2: Oh, here's one from that same website we mentioned before,

755
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:24,440
Speaker 2: Freight Waves Wave s. This is a company out of

756
00:43:24,600 --> 00:43:30,280
Speaker 2: Texas that had some bad luck with gambling machines.

757
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:31,320
Speaker 6: Yeah.

758
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:34,240
Speaker 4: I also like that you say bad luck with gambling

759
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:36,320
Speaker 4: machines is nice.

760
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 5: Even if your luck out once, it's it's not gonna

761
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 5: last forever. Speaking from experience, No, it's true. It was

762
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:48,600
Speaker 5: video poker machines, specifically in twenty twenty three, a guy

763
00:43:48,680 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 5: by the name of Dennis Martin's, the CEO of sel

764
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:58,960
Speaker 5: Supply Chain Solutions also Selsks, Yeah sc sounds Selks of

765
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 5: Fort Worth, Texas, announced a bit of a going out

766
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:04,840
Speaker 5: of business sale.

767
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 6: He had a terrible year, really bad.

768
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:11,360
Speaker 5: Started off with a seven hundred K purchase of a

769
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 5: load of video poker machines that.

770
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:15,000
Speaker 6: Were stolen in Vegas.

771
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 5: That is a layer of irony that I find delightful

772
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 5: and maybe ironic isn't the right word, but I don't know.

773
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:26,760
Speaker 5: Doing a heist of machines that are intended to hoist

774
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 5: the money from, you know, kind of rubes. I think

775
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:34,360
Speaker 5: it's pretty funny, poetic justice perhaps. Then Martin said, everything

776
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:37,920
Speaker 5: just went downhill from there, and I do want to

777
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:40,319
Speaker 5: take this as an opportunity to make sure everyone is clear.

778
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:43,239
Speaker 5: I'm clearing this up for myself. Going downhill from here

779
00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:43,840
Speaker 5: is bad.

780
00:44:44,600 --> 00:44:45,080
Speaker 6: It's bad.

781
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:47,800
Speaker 5: Oh. I sometimes get it confused. Well, if it's downhill,

782
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 5: doesn't that mean it's easy, breezy, you know, uphill? It

783
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 5: seems like it would be bad. That would be hard

784
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 5: if it's all uphill. But no, maybe I don't know.

785
00:44:56,160 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 5: Maybe it's up to the interpreter. But yeah, bad times

786
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:02,440
Speaker 5: ahead on. This is him speaking, by the way, I

787
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 5: would describe this year as being the year of fraud, theft,

788
00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 5: and abuse, starting out with that seven hundred thousand dollars

789
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 5: load stolen. Then insurance goes up and costs go up.

790
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:15,960
Speaker 5: After a solid year in twenty twenty two where we

791
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 5: generated sixty four million dollars in gross revenue, we lost

792
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 5: forty percent of our business this year for whatever reason.

793
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 6: I like that, he said, for whatever reason. We got

794
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:27,719
Speaker 6: to know the reasons, at least some of them.

795
00:45:27,719 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 2: But well, yeah, if you're if you're okay, just imagine

796
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 2: that scenario, right. The seller trusts you to make this

797
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:37,279
Speaker 2: deal work, and it's going to be a good deal.

798
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 2: So your goods actually get shipped to the endpoint right,

799
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:44,560
Speaker 2: and then everybody gets to make money. But if somebody

800
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:48,920
Speaker 2: steals all the stuff that you were kind of tasked

801
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 2: with getting from point A to point B, nobody gets paid.

802
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:58,000
Speaker 5: Uh, And I guess there's shipment of that scale that

803
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:01,320
Speaker 5: could cause a ripple effect, right, I mean.

804
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:02,680
Speaker 6: Yes, it is ensured.

805
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 3: We all know that.

806
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:06,320
Speaker 5: We always hear the justification of oh, bank robbery is

807
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:07,800
Speaker 5: no big deal, or these kind of highest to No

808
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,800
Speaker 5: big deal because everyone's got good insurance. But what happens

809
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:12,799
Speaker 5: when you actually have to make a claim like that

810
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 5: of that amount the rates code through the roof, and

811
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:19,879
Speaker 5: that can affect people downstream as well.

812
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:23,360
Speaker 2: What about when word gets out, oh, don't use selks.

813
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:26,440
Speaker 2: You heard about them gambling machines.

814
00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 4: Right exactly, Someone's like, yeah, that's not a gamble I

815
00:46:30,200 --> 00:46:33,440
Speaker 4: want to take. But also if the insurance works, you know,

816
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 4: privatized insurance is an amazing grift ethics aside. It's one

817
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:41,279
Speaker 4: of the few products that becomes more expensive when you

818
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:44,240
Speaker 4: use it, and so like that's.

819
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a way to put it.

820
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:48,400
Speaker 5: And so the insurance I'm just going through a bit

821
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 5: of an insurance like irritation right now, and I'm absolutely

822
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:54,279
Speaker 5: met up with the industry as a whole.

823
00:46:55,400 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 4: Oh don't worry, it'll get worse. So the the the idea,

824
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:03,320
Speaker 4: you know, we see another comparison in home insurance or

825
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:07,240
Speaker 4: flood insurance in Florida. You don't have to pass a law.

826
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 4: You simply increase the amount that it costs to play

827
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 4: the game, and then you price people out sort of

828
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 4: like yahowe in Gattica, they never made a law that

829
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:19,759
Speaker 4: said you have to be genetically modified. They just made

830
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:23,160
Speaker 4: it very expensive to not be genetically modified.

831
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:23,759
Speaker 6: Exactly.

832
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 5: While we're on the subject of insurance, just really quickly,

833
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 5: please allow me to take a micro diversion. What my

834
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:32,920
Speaker 5: situation is is, like my homeowner's insurance policy got canceled

835
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:35,440
Speaker 5: without me knowing it, because I guess I did it,

836
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:38,120
Speaker 5: like I don't know, check up on them and make

837
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:41,280
Speaker 5: sure that it like continued. And now all of a sudden,

838
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:44,440
Speaker 5: I get my mortgage and it's like way more than

839
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:47,080
Speaker 5: it was. And it's because my mortgage company signed up

840
00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:50,480
Speaker 5: for an insurance policy that they chose and it's a

841
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:53,440
Speaker 5: lot more expensive than the previous one. So the moment

842
00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 5: I started looking into a new insurance policy, I literally

843
00:47:56,400 --> 00:47:58,840
Speaker 5: make one phone call and fill out one form on

844
00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:02,840
Speaker 5: the internet. I am flooded with fifty different calls within

845
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 5: an hour and a half of people trying to sell

846
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 5: me an insurance policy. And yet the company that I'd

847
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:10,799
Speaker 5: been using for a year didn't call me once to

848
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 5: tell me they were going to cancel it. I just

849
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:16,399
Speaker 5: think the insurance industry is very confusing, perplexing, and it's

850
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:17,440
Speaker 5: a bit of a black box.

851
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:19,239
Speaker 6: And I just don't trust it.

852
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:23,719
Speaker 5: I just think it's absolutely inherently obfuscating and kind of

853
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 5: meant to be mystifying.

854
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:29,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, by design, it's on purpose, right, because consider the

855
00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:33,880
Speaker 4: way it works in so many other countries. Kid, you

856
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 4: not folks. And this is not obviously just speaking for myself.

857
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 4: I am a patriot of the United States. I believe

858
00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:45,560
Speaker 4: in the experiment. Even though it gets a lot of

859
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:49,560
Speaker 4: things wrong. It is not unpatriotic to point out that

860
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:54,919
Speaker 4: pretty much every other developed country as we call them,

861
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 4: is doing a better job with insurance. They're making the

862
00:48:59,719 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 4: prime industries active. There are making less money, but the

863
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 4: average quality of life is much higher as a result.

864
00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 4: So it goes down to what you as a government

865
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:16,960
Speaker 4: want to prioritize. Off my soapbox here, Martin, this guy,

866
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:20,640
Speaker 4: the CEO, we noted that he had to he had

867
00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 4: to fold the business, and he said he could have

868
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:27,359
Speaker 4: kept continuing if he were able to reach a financial

869
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 4: agreement with his bank. And what we have to consider

870
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 4: is that if you are a if you're a freight broker,

871
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 4: in many ways, your financial cycle is like that of

872
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:44,839
Speaker 4: a farmer. You are gambling on the idea that you

873
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:49,239
Speaker 4: can accurately predict future profits and you need that liquidity,

874
00:49:49,600 --> 00:49:53,440
Speaker 4: You need that money to play the game, and you

875
00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:56,239
Speaker 4: start off owing money and if you don't, if you

876
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:59,440
Speaker 4: don't make your if you don't make your threshold, then

877
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:00,680
Speaker 4: you're asked out.

878
00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 5: Well, Ben, do you think that they've cracked that code

879
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:07,279
Speaker 5: or is there still a bit of throwing spaghetti at

880
00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:09,600
Speaker 5: the wall? Like I just I get the sense. You know,

881
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 5: it is all about predicting stuff. We know, there's a

882
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:16,320
Speaker 5: whole market of investment called futures, and so you're rewarded

883
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:18,399
Speaker 5: if you get it right, you know, But is there

884
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:20,759
Speaker 5: really I mean, I know the algorithms have gotten better

885
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:22,120
Speaker 5: and better and to your point of a lot of

886
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:26,920
Speaker 5: these processes being I guess enhanced or replaced by you know,

887
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:31,359
Speaker 5: machine learning. Where do we stand, Like, is are these

888
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:34,040
Speaker 5: systems pretty good or not?

889
00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:35,440
Speaker 3: Stuff?

890
00:50:35,840 --> 00:50:40,840
Speaker 4: Honestly, it's tough because it's not one predictive system that's evolving.

891
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:45,560
Speaker 4: There are multiple predictive systems, sometimes betting against one another,

892
00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 4: and each one is becoming more sophisticated in response to

893
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:52,880
Speaker 4: the patterns of its rivals.

894
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:54,239
Speaker 3: Right, So, like just the.

895
00:50:54,239 --> 00:50:58,239
Speaker 4: Systems theory of it alone dictates that the problems we're

896
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:01,920
Speaker 4: outelining will continue you as long as there's more than

897
00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:05,600
Speaker 4: one fish in the poland, which sounds a little academic.

898
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:07,920
Speaker 4: I don't know if that makes sense, but it's like

899
00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 4: everybody is becoming more sophisticated.

900
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do not understand anybody out there who

901
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:19,120
Speaker 2: is a free broker. The difference between application programming interfaces

902
00:51:19,200 --> 00:51:22,960
Speaker 2: and electronic data interchanges, I don't know what that is.

903
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:27,759
Speaker 2: I don't understand. I've read articles about this. An application

904
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:32,440
Speaker 2: seems the same as an electronic data exchange. I just

905
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:36,200
Speaker 2: don't get it. But innovations like that are changing how

906
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:39,960
Speaker 2: much human intervention you need, because it really does seem

907
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 2: as though the functionality of a broker is connect A

908
00:51:43,840 --> 00:51:47,440
Speaker 2: to B successfully, right, make sure all of those humans

909
00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:49,759
Speaker 2: on either side of that equation are good to go

910
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:52,680
Speaker 2: with the transaction, and then that's it. And you don't

911
00:51:52,680 --> 00:51:54,440
Speaker 2: have to pay an algorithm.

912
00:51:54,880 --> 00:51:56,799
Speaker 4: No, I mean you have to pay the people who

913
00:51:57,040 --> 00:51:58,399
Speaker 4: make it or license it.

914
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:01,880
Speaker 2: Oh my god, can you imagine? And like the big

915
00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:06,640
Speaker 2: what they would call an AI broker like this is

916
00:52:06,800 --> 00:52:10,279
Speaker 2: like what that's going to do, because you they would

917
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:13,200
Speaker 2: take a much smaller amount of money, probably than any

918
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:17,359
Speaker 2: human brokerage and they would just do it in bulk, right,

919
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 2: they would make their money the way McDonald's does on

920
00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 2: their fries.

921
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 4: M hm, we see it this way, or their real

922
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:26,360
Speaker 4: estate right. Oh, is McDonald's is a real estate company.

923
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:29,879
Speaker 2: I just mean like selling you. Yeah, maybe it's not fries.

924
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:32,000
Speaker 2: Was on the burgers. You make a tiny, tiny bit

925
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:34,680
Speaker 2: of profit on the burger. You make it somewhere else.

926
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:37,279
Speaker 2: But in this case, you've got so many burgers being

927
00:52:37,320 --> 00:52:41,080
Speaker 2: sold that you're the most profitable broker ever.

928
00:52:41,640 --> 00:52:46,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, like a lost leader philosophy, the strategy. Right, you

929
00:52:46,080 --> 00:52:48,359
Speaker 4: sell the console for less than it takes to make

930
00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:52,000
Speaker 4: the console, and you know that you will sell fifty games.

931
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:55,680
Speaker 5: Right, It's like Red Lobster and all those endless shrimp.

932
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:58,239
Speaker 5: Oh wait, no, it didn't actually work out for them

933
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:03,799
Speaker 5: here that there are a billion dollars in debt earlier.

934
00:53:04,680 --> 00:53:07,319
Speaker 4: Uh, it's too close to home for a code named

935
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 4: Doc Holliday and myself. Because I love the absurdity of

936
00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:14,120
Speaker 4: I love the absurdity of Red Lobbs.

937
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:16,720
Speaker 3: No, one just always Lobster the shrimp.

938
00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 5: We gotta stop this, We gotta turn the strip.

939
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:22,279
Speaker 4: Just just have a regular day. It doesn't always have

940
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:25,560
Speaker 4: to be a festival. Sometimes it can just be Wednesday.

941
00:53:26,400 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, if you're listening, big Lobster out there

942
00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:32,400
Speaker 2: wherever you are, big big Red, Big.

943
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:36,000
Speaker 5: Red, you're picturing the CEO Red Lobster as a giant

944
00:53:36,239 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 5: anthropomorphic lobster in a suit.

945
00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:43,480
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, just listen here, listen. This is this is

946
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 2: your idea. You can you can get out of debt tomorrow.

947
00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:50,319
Speaker 2: You scrap all of the brick and mortars that you

948
00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:54,359
Speaker 2: own right now, start buying up tiny, tiny little brick

949
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:57,680
Speaker 2: and mortars in you know those uh live, laugh, love

950
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:01,920
Speaker 2: places where you like eat, work and where the apartments

951
00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:04,439
Speaker 2: are and all the restaurants and all that stuff by

952
00:54:04,520 --> 00:54:09,319
Speaker 2: tiny little boutique spaces. Just sell the biscuits. That's it.

953
00:54:09,640 --> 00:54:12,400
Speaker 2: Nothing else, No other products. The biscuits.

954
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:12,640
Speaker 6: Baby.

955
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:14,279
Speaker 5: Well you know they sell it as a mix that

956
00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:15,680
Speaker 5: you can buy at the grocery store.

957
00:54:16,120 --> 00:54:18,080
Speaker 2: That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying. They got to

958
00:54:18,120 --> 00:54:18,640
Speaker 2: come to you.

959
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:19,600
Speaker 6: Still, fig.

960
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:23,560
Speaker 5: There was an amazing story on the Onion many years

961
00:54:23,560 --> 00:54:26,760
Speaker 5: ago where it was like cheddar Bay and desperate trouble

962
00:54:26,840 --> 00:54:31,200
Speaker 5: over overfishing of biscuits or something like that. Oh no,

963
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:36,839
Speaker 5: the ecosystem of Cheddar Bay at risk overfishing of biscuits, and.

964
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 4: Biscuit biodiversity is of course one of the key interests

965
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:43,040
Speaker 4: of stuff they'll want you, so that's why we got

966
00:54:43,080 --> 00:54:43,680
Speaker 4: into this.

967
00:54:43,880 --> 00:54:44,960
Speaker 2: And extra terrestrials.

968
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:50,520
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, and supply chain story is sadly far from unique.

969
00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:55,160
Speaker 4: There are multiple other cases of supply chain or freight

970
00:54:55,239 --> 00:54:59,840
Speaker 4: brokerage outfits closing down or laying off tons of people,

971
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:03,840
Speaker 4: especially last year, and part of it is because a

972
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:05,799
Speaker 4: lot of other people got in the game. There was

973
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:09,520
Speaker 4: new capacity flooding the trucking industry. You could be a

974
00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:12,960
Speaker 4: quote unquote freight broker and you would just be running

975
00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:16,400
Speaker 4: an algorithm, right. You never leave your desk, you know,

976
00:55:17,040 --> 00:55:22,239
Speaker 4: you might not even need to call the actual driver. Historically,

977
00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:26,880
Speaker 4: freight brokers kept a line open from pickup to drop

978
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:30,799
Speaker 4: off or delivery. In twenty twenty three alone, we saw

979
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:35,359
Speaker 4: so many companies either closed down entirely or lay off

980
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:38,680
Speaker 4: a ton of people. There was a freight forwarder called

981
00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:42,320
Speaker 4: flex Port which laid off twenty percent of its staff.

982
00:55:42,719 --> 00:55:47,520
Speaker 4: Uber Freight cut three percent of their workforce. Outfit called

983
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:51,279
Speaker 4: Convoy had their ass hit the f they closed their

984
00:55:51,320 --> 00:55:54,400
Speaker 4: Atlanta office. We still don't know how many people they

985
00:55:54,480 --> 00:55:56,600
Speaker 4: fired in October twenty twenty three.

986
00:55:56,640 --> 00:55:59,440
Speaker 2: And Convoy was huge, convoys huge. I think we had

987
00:55:59,440 --> 00:56:01,200
Speaker 2: a few, I don't know, you guys. I had a few

988
00:56:01,200 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 2: friends that ended up working at Convoy, and it was

989
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:08,200
Speaker 2: because of the boom, the all everybody shipping everything everywhere

990
00:56:08,560 --> 00:56:11,920
Speaker 2: as the pandemic was occurring. They hired up like crazy.

991
00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:14,320
Speaker 2: They were doing business like gangbusters, and then all of

992
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,200
Speaker 2: a sudden it started to slope down and they're like,

993
00:56:17,280 --> 00:56:19,400
Speaker 2: oh, oh uh oh, this is It's the same thing that

994
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:23,319
Speaker 2: was happening with silks, right, same exact thing. We're making

995
00:56:23,400 --> 00:56:26,759
Speaker 2: a crapload of money, but it's not enough to cash

996
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:29,239
Speaker 2: back up to that initial investment.

997
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:33,360
Speaker 4: Especially when the demand changes again. The comparison to farming

998
00:56:33,640 --> 00:56:37,960
Speaker 4: is surprisingly apt because there are variables that the farmer

999
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:42,040
Speaker 4: and the freight broker simply cannot control. And it also

1000
00:56:42,800 --> 00:56:46,400
Speaker 4: it also makes me remember something we're far overdue for.

1001
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:51,040
Speaker 4: In this episode, Paul, as you know well, one of

1002
00:56:51,120 --> 00:56:52,640
Speaker 4: my favorite songs is JW.

1003
00:56:52,719 --> 00:56:55,680
Speaker 3: McCall's Convoy. Could we play a clip.

1004
00:56:57,520 --> 00:57:00,200
Speaker 2: Franker on nine this year is a rubber duck? You've

1005
00:57:00,239 --> 00:57:01,120
Speaker 2: got a copy on me?

1006
00:57:01,880 --> 00:57:03,399
Speaker 6: Come on there, it is?

1007
00:57:03,880 --> 00:57:07,200
Speaker 3: Do you guys, remember Convoy, Yeah, Darko.

1008
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:09,320
Speaker 6: There's a movie right with the kid.

1009
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:12,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a movie based on the all that's right.

1010
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:14,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, okay, so that's what I was. I'm sorry

1011
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:17,520
Speaker 5: I was getting confused there. Yeah, that's too meta. And guys,

1012
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:21,360
Speaker 5: Uber frate is definitely not associated with Uber the ride

1013
00:57:21,360 --> 00:57:25,439
Speaker 5: share definitely is. It is, yes, but it's confusing because

1014
00:57:25,440 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 5: it says nowhere on their logistics portion anything about the

1015
00:57:29,080 --> 00:57:29,840
Speaker 5: ride share thing.

1016
00:57:30,200 --> 00:57:31,720
Speaker 6: But I swear the logo is the same.

1017
00:57:31,760 --> 00:57:33,479
Speaker 5: And for some reason, I thought earlier you had said

1018
00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:35,360
Speaker 5: not to be confused with, so I just wanted to

1019
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:36,200
Speaker 5: make sure that's clear.

1020
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:40,720
Speaker 4: But it is a total Yeah, they're definitely the sad

1021
00:57:40,760 --> 00:57:41,440
Speaker 4: as wild.

1022
00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:44,160
Speaker 5: And again you type in freight broker, the top two

1023
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:47,960
Speaker 5: that come up or Uber Freight and Amazon and then

1024
00:57:48,000 --> 00:57:50,560
Speaker 5: and then you go and look into their details and

1025
00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:53,520
Speaker 5: they talk about all of their end to end logistical

1026
00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:57,640
Speaker 5: you know, proprietary algorithmic software that nobody else has.

1027
00:57:58,720 --> 00:58:00,920
Speaker 2: Because why why didn't we make this connection yet? And

1028
00:58:01,040 --> 00:58:05,080
Speaker 2: I'm sorry that I'm just doing right now. Stockbrokers the

1029
00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:07,960
Speaker 2: go between when somebody wants to sell a stock and

1030
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:11,439
Speaker 2: somebody wants to buy a stock. It's the exact same thing.

1031
00:58:11,480 --> 00:58:13,600
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about Wolf of Wall Street. I'm thinking about

1032
00:58:13,600 --> 00:58:17,120
Speaker 2: the collapse. I think this is I'm scared, now.

1033
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:20,760
Speaker 3: Get them out of here. But people, you're absolutely correct.

1034
00:58:21,080 --> 00:58:24,320
Speaker 5: Use stockbrokers anymore. Isn't like the idea of a stockbroker

1035
00:58:24,360 --> 00:58:27,439
Speaker 5: almost anachronistic, Like everyone's using.

1036
00:58:27,240 --> 00:58:29,560
Speaker 6: You know, h E trade or what have you. And

1037
00:58:29,600 --> 00:58:31,280
Speaker 6: maybe you might have a money manager.

1038
00:58:31,360 --> 00:58:34,480
Speaker 5: But I don't even think people call themselves stockbrokers anymore,

1039
00:58:34,520 --> 00:58:34,880
Speaker 5: do they?

1040
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:39,240
Speaker 4: I mean, if they're on enough cocaine, all sorts of

1041
00:58:39,200 --> 00:58:43,360
Speaker 4: that part little Little Tootski that scene of.

1042
00:58:43,400 --> 00:58:47,040
Speaker 5: Wall Street when he's like he does oozy woozy whatever.

1043
00:58:47,120 --> 00:58:51,520
Speaker 4: Anyway, automation came for the financial markets, you know, very

1044
00:58:51,560 --> 00:58:56,240
Speaker 4: early on, right, So the function of a stockbroker still exists,

1045
00:58:56,280 --> 00:59:02,720
Speaker 4: it's simply increasingly automated, right, movie in microseconds because again,

1046
00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:08,160
Speaker 4: speed is very very much a priority, right when you're

1047
00:59:08,160 --> 00:59:10,680
Speaker 4: trying to get in front of someone in the market.

1048
00:59:10,760 --> 00:59:16,640
Speaker 4: And you're absolutely right, the broker thing, the weird middleman industry. Again,

1049
00:59:16,720 --> 00:59:20,680
Speaker 4: it's not inherently bad at all, but it is becoming

1050
00:59:20,720 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 4: increasingly complicated because of the technology that is entering the theater,

1051
00:59:26,360 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 4: you know, and there's so much money to be made.

1052
00:59:29,200 --> 00:59:34,120
Speaker 4: Just like with stockbrokers, freight brokers have the ability to

1053
00:59:34,280 --> 00:59:38,760
Speaker 4: dip into a great deal of cash, so of course

1054
00:59:38,800 --> 00:59:42,480
Speaker 4: there are going to be bad faith actors in this industry.

1055
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:45,560
Speaker 4: It leads us to the ideas of things like freight fraud,

1056
00:59:45,960 --> 00:59:48,440
Speaker 4: which is I'll say there was a thing, and then

1057
00:59:48,480 --> 00:59:52,120
Speaker 4: I'll say it's lost, aka, stuff falls off the truck.

1058
00:59:52,360 --> 00:59:55,120
Speaker 4: And then there's the idea of double broker n which

1059
00:59:55,160 --> 01:00:00,800
Speaker 4: is like a complicated shell game of subcontracting stuff. It's like,

1060
01:00:01,760 --> 01:00:04,120
Speaker 4: how would we explain that and why is it bad?

1061
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:08,120
Speaker 5: Well, it typically involves a fraudulent broker posing as a

1062
01:00:08,240 --> 01:00:12,200
Speaker 5: legitimate operator or carrier and offering to arrange kind of

1063
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 5: lays this shipping service for a customer at a discounted rate.

1064
01:00:17,800 --> 01:00:22,400
Speaker 5: The fraudulent broker then, I guess hires out a subcontractor

1065
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:25,280
Speaker 5: for the job to another.

1066
01:00:24,960 --> 01:00:25,960
Speaker 6: Carrier or broker.

1067
01:00:27,040 --> 01:00:29,640
Speaker 5: But this is outside of the knowledge of the customer

1068
01:00:29,680 --> 01:00:31,680
Speaker 5: they're dealing with in the first place. So this is

1069
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:35,480
Speaker 5: classic double dealing. I would argue if that expression exists,

1070
01:00:35,480 --> 01:00:38,320
Speaker 5: it is to describe this where I'm not being straight

1071
01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:40,120
Speaker 5: with you, I'm going to use you're thinking I'm the

1072
01:00:40,120 --> 01:00:41,840
Speaker 5: one doing the deal, and I've got someone else on

1073
01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:44,760
Speaker 5: the side doing it, and that's benefiting me, not you.

1074
01:00:45,600 --> 01:00:48,320
Speaker 5: So in this situation, the fraudulent broker subcontract that job out,

1075
01:00:48,320 --> 01:00:51,320
Speaker 5: as we said, the double dealer to another carrier. So

1076
01:00:51,400 --> 01:00:56,240
Speaker 5: then once this has happened, the fraudulent broker pockets the difference.

1077
01:00:56,520 --> 01:01:00,240
Speaker 5: So basically he gives himself a deal while saying the

1078
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:03,760
Speaker 5: price as the X for the original customer, and then

1079
01:01:04,080 --> 01:01:05,919
Speaker 5: you know, pockets the difference in the in the price

1080
01:01:05,960 --> 01:01:09,600
Speaker 5: or the savings. It gets passed right on to him.

1081
01:01:09,600 --> 01:01:13,480
Speaker 4: So they don't actually do anything rather than take money

1082
01:01:13,760 --> 01:01:15,160
Speaker 4: and forward the email.

1083
01:01:15,720 --> 01:01:17,120
Speaker 3: Exactly way to think about.

1084
01:01:16,960 --> 01:01:18,920
Speaker 2: It, And I would speculate they do not make as

1085
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:22,720
Speaker 2: much money as any legitimate broker because they can't. Right,

1086
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:25,840
Speaker 2: they are paying somebody to do the actual work, but

1087
01:01:25,960 --> 01:01:26,560
Speaker 2: they don't.

1088
01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:29,479
Speaker 8: Do any of the actual work, so therefore it's all profit. Right,

1089
01:01:30,040 --> 01:01:33,480
Speaker 8: it's a numbers game, so it's a numbers grift. Yeah,

1090
01:01:33,600 --> 01:01:37,560
Speaker 8: it's a grift, and a broker. A broker is already

1091
01:01:37,640 --> 01:01:42,240
Speaker 8: a bit like a currency speculator. Right, we get a

1092
01:01:42,240 --> 01:01:45,920
Speaker 8: couple of friends of the show who have worked extensively

1093
01:01:46,240 --> 01:01:51,680
Speaker 8: in global currency speculation, which is again not an inherently

1094
01:01:51,840 --> 01:01:55,880
Speaker 8: sinister job. But you're saying, oh, the euro or the

1095
01:01:56,040 --> 01:02:00,360
Speaker 8: yen is at x amount versus the US dollar, So

1096
01:02:00,480 --> 01:02:04,160
Speaker 8: let me make a transfer switch that do a switch

1097
01:02:04,160 --> 01:02:07,160
Speaker 8: aoo on that stuff real quick, and then hope that

1098
01:02:07,240 --> 01:02:11,440
Speaker 8: circumstances change in an advantageous way. So all of a sudden,

1099
01:02:11,560 --> 01:02:15,160
Speaker 8: my fifteen hundred bucks that I turned into yen or whatever,

1100
01:02:15,440 --> 01:02:16,640
Speaker 8: now they are k tall.

1101
01:02:16,760 --> 01:02:20,240
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter. Now it's turned into twenty five hundred dollars. Right,

1102
01:02:20,280 --> 01:02:24,360
Speaker 4: It's it's interesting. People are finding the margins, they're finding

1103
01:02:24,440 --> 01:02:26,880
Speaker 4: that gray liminal space.

1104
01:02:26,640 --> 01:02:29,160
Speaker 2: And what's put it all in bitcoin?

1105
01:02:29,480 --> 01:02:30,760
Speaker 3: Put us all in bitcoin.

1106
01:02:30,920 --> 01:02:34,160
Speaker 5: Scenes Tom Brady said a lot of things.

1107
01:02:34,160 --> 01:02:38,840
Speaker 4: Man, Yeah, Tom Brady's got a great roast out recently,

1108
01:02:38,840 --> 01:02:39,080
Speaker 4: so what.

1109
01:02:39,080 --> 01:02:41,360
Speaker 6: I'm talking about. He regretted some of the things that

1110
01:02:41,400 --> 01:02:42,840
Speaker 6: he said at that.

1111
01:02:42,640 --> 01:02:46,520
Speaker 4: Rose And congratulations to Kevin Hart on the Mark Twain

1112
01:02:46,880 --> 01:02:50,320
Speaker 4: Prize for Humor. I'm just thinking of that because he

1113
01:02:50,440 --> 01:02:54,720
Speaker 4: I think e mc the Brady roast I'm remembering correctly anyway,

1114
01:02:54,840 --> 01:02:57,600
Speaker 4: So all right, it all goes back to the paperwork.

1115
01:02:57,720 --> 01:03:02,640
Speaker 4: If all the paperwork look legit and passes these governmental

1116
01:03:02,760 --> 01:03:07,680
Speaker 4: oversight systems and processes, then there's a very good chance

1117
01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:13,960
Speaker 4: that a nefarious or even nonexistent shipment can make it through.

1118
01:03:14,080 --> 01:03:17,640
Speaker 4: I'm doing air quotes so hard right now, you know,

1119
01:03:17,680 --> 01:03:21,080
Speaker 4: because you can just pay off the inspectors in some cases.

1120
01:03:21,120 --> 01:03:24,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, theoretically you could, right, It's it's kind of a

1121
01:03:24,400 --> 01:03:27,600
Speaker 2: long shot that you could get it to work. Right,

1122
01:03:27,640 --> 01:03:29,280
Speaker 2: But if you had all the paperwork, you looked like

1123
01:03:29,320 --> 01:03:32,560
Speaker 2: a legitimate broker and it was a bad actor on

1124
01:03:32,600 --> 01:03:36,800
Speaker 2: the seller's part, then the uh, you know, there's there's

1125
01:03:36,840 --> 01:03:38,440
Speaker 2: a huge process. By the way, if you want to

1126
01:03:38,480 --> 01:03:40,680
Speaker 2: look at some of this stuff, Ben, where would you

1127
01:03:40,680 --> 01:03:44,200
Speaker 2: say freight waves is pretty good? There are so many

1128
01:03:44,280 --> 01:03:48,000
Speaker 2: logistics websites that are like a part of a logistics

1129
01:03:48,040 --> 01:03:50,800
Speaker 2: company that are trying to be an explainer and under

1130
01:03:50,960 --> 01:03:53,640
Speaker 2: give you an understanding of what the company does and

1131
01:03:53,640 --> 01:03:59,520
Speaker 2: how it all functions. Some of it's a little self survey, yeah, yeah,

1132
01:03:59,560 --> 01:04:03,720
Speaker 2: a little bit. But again just this idea of it's

1133
01:04:03,760 --> 01:04:05,960
Speaker 2: a complicated system. You have to get through with some

1134
01:04:06,080 --> 01:04:09,919
Speaker 2: of the regulations with whenever you're shipping anything, right, there's

1135
01:04:09,920 --> 01:04:12,160
Speaker 2: supposed to be a record of exactly what is inside

1136
01:04:12,160 --> 01:04:15,480
Speaker 2: that truck or ship right, whatever it is inside that

1137
01:04:15,720 --> 01:04:19,200
Speaker 2: train car, and you're not even supposed to open that

1138
01:04:19,280 --> 01:04:22,720
Speaker 2: sucker until it gets to its end to location, so

1139
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:25,640
Speaker 2: that there's this security and chain of custody of what

1140
01:04:25,880 --> 01:04:29,720
Speaker 2: actually was shipped, and there are inspectors who go through

1141
01:04:29,800 --> 01:04:33,200
Speaker 2: at different points that could actually catch something like this

1142
01:04:33,320 --> 01:04:37,960
Speaker 2: if it's let's say, AAK forty seven's instead of refrigerators

1143
01:04:38,320 --> 01:04:43,720
Speaker 2: or refrigerators filled with AK forty sevens like that. But

1144
01:04:43,840 --> 01:04:48,120
Speaker 2: what I mean is, if you've got somebody who fills

1145
01:04:48,160 --> 01:04:51,000
Speaker 2: everything out and everything looks above board, you probably won't

1146
01:04:51,040 --> 01:04:55,200
Speaker 2: ever even have an inspector go into that shipping container

1147
01:04:55,240 --> 01:04:55,840
Speaker 2: to look at it.

1148
01:04:56,480 --> 01:05:03,880
Speaker 4: Quite often, yeah, because the private industry will. It is

1149
01:05:03,960 --> 01:05:08,120
Speaker 4: not unusual for private industry bad faith actors to have

1150
01:05:08,240 --> 01:05:13,120
Speaker 4: advantages over the public industry watchdogs that are meant to

1151
01:05:13,200 --> 01:05:16,040
Speaker 4: keep an eye on stuff. I mean, also, this industry

1152
01:05:16,160 --> 01:05:22,120
Speaker 4: does have to exist. It cannot collapse. Civilization will not

1153
01:05:22,360 --> 01:05:24,880
Speaker 4: work without it. So again, if you are in the

1154
01:05:24,880 --> 01:05:26,840
Speaker 4: shipping industry, if you are a trucker, if you are

1155
01:05:26,840 --> 01:05:30,360
Speaker 4: a freight broker, thank you for keeping the lights on

1156
01:05:30,760 --> 01:05:35,240
Speaker 4: and keeping stuff running. We know that the shipping industry

1157
01:05:36,120 --> 01:05:40,880
Speaker 4: and freight in general overall is increasingly vulnerable to compromise.

1158
01:05:41,560 --> 01:05:44,360
Speaker 4: What we could really say, without hyperbole, is that the

1159
01:05:44,440 --> 01:05:47,800
Speaker 4: humans have built a complex system that they do not

1160
01:05:47,960 --> 01:05:51,960
Speaker 4: fully understand, and that same system is growing ever more

1161
01:05:52,080 --> 01:05:57,360
Speaker 4: sophisticated year over year. Legislation is trying to address some

1162
01:05:57,480 --> 01:06:01,920
Speaker 4: of these issues. It's kind of at a crisis point.

1163
01:06:02,320 --> 01:06:05,000
Speaker 4: There's something in the wind. We have to ask what

1164
01:06:05,080 --> 01:06:08,880
Speaker 4: happens next. I was surprised to find that are super

1165
01:06:08,920 --> 01:06:15,360
Speaker 4: sexy bureaucracy, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. They just

1166
01:06:15,600 --> 01:06:18,720
Speaker 4: put out a rule earlier this year to try to

1167
01:06:18,800 --> 01:06:24,600
Speaker 4: crack down on unscrupulous or fraudulent freight brokers.

1168
01:06:24,640 --> 01:06:25,720
Speaker 3: Did you guys hear about this?

1169
01:06:26,360 --> 01:06:27,000
Speaker 6: Do tell.

1170
01:06:28,440 --> 01:06:30,720
Speaker 4: That's the log and short of it. And I know

1171
01:06:30,800 --> 01:06:32,240
Speaker 4: we're going over time. We don't have to go with

1172
01:06:32,280 --> 01:06:34,520
Speaker 4: the weeds. But you can you can see this. You

1173
01:06:34,520 --> 01:06:36,640
Speaker 4: can find it on their website. You can find public

1174
01:06:36,680 --> 01:06:37,560
Speaker 4: statements about.

1175
01:06:37,320 --> 01:06:39,880
Speaker 5: It as unscrupulous freight brokers. Though I'll tell you that

1176
01:06:39,960 --> 01:06:40,440
Speaker 5: right now.

1177
01:06:41,200 --> 01:06:44,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, they said you got to stop ripping off these

1178
01:06:44,120 --> 01:06:48,000
Speaker 4: folks who are actually driving the trucks, right They because

1179
01:06:48,000 --> 01:06:51,680
Speaker 4: they're at a disadvantage because often they've already done the work.

1180
01:06:51,960 --> 01:06:55,680
Speaker 4: They've transported the thing, you know, so they have to

1181
01:06:55,720 --> 01:06:58,680
Speaker 4: be able to be paid for their time.

1182
01:06:58,520 --> 01:07:01,800
Speaker 5: It says FMSCA, but les that most brokers operate with

1183
01:07:01,920 --> 01:07:06,520
Speaker 5: integrity and uphold the contracts made with motor carriers and shippers. However,

1184
01:07:06,840 --> 01:07:11,439
Speaker 5: a minority of brokers with unscrupulous business practices can create

1185
01:07:11,600 --> 01:07:19,560
Speaker 5: unnecessary financial hardship for unsuspecting motor carriers. Tight, that'll fix it, right, yeah, sure,

1186
01:07:19,760 --> 01:07:22,680
Speaker 5: no one will figure out another more elaborate grift.

1187
01:07:22,720 --> 01:07:23,920
Speaker 6: That's that's harder to track.

1188
01:07:24,760 --> 01:07:30,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, and nobody will ever automate the legislative process, right, Oh.

1189
01:07:30,160 --> 01:07:32,560
Speaker 6: Jeez, can you imagine? I mean, that's the thing, would you.

1190
01:07:32,840 --> 01:07:37,280
Speaker 5: Well, that's a whole other conversation. I guess right, I

1191
01:07:37,320 --> 01:07:40,200
Speaker 5: know what you're doing that. But whatever, there are tons.

1192
01:07:40,240 --> 01:07:42,360
Speaker 5: It's the same with like you know, nickel and diming

1193
01:07:42,920 --> 01:07:46,240
Speaker 5: bank customers with these fees. Whenever there are tons of

1194
01:07:46,240 --> 01:07:49,800
Speaker 5: transactions taking place and a ton of things moving, a

1195
01:07:49,800 --> 01:07:53,000
Speaker 5: ton of products moving whatever, it's really easy for these

1196
01:07:53,000 --> 01:07:54,120
Speaker 5: things to go unnoticed.

1197
01:07:54,680 --> 01:07:56,880
Speaker 6: That's it. It's it's just a breeding ground for.

1198
01:07:56,920 --> 01:07:59,880
Speaker 5: This type of like kind of what a single tre

1199
01:08:00,280 --> 01:08:03,640
Speaker 5: actions super small time, but you add them up, it

1200
01:08:03,720 --> 01:08:05,560
Speaker 5: makes a lot of money for these individuals that are

1201
01:08:05,560 --> 01:08:06,080
Speaker 5: trying to rip.

1202
01:08:06,000 --> 01:08:08,080
Speaker 6: People off, and it loses a lot of money.

1203
01:08:08,120 --> 01:08:09,760
Speaker 5: Death by a thousand cuts kind of stuff.

1204
01:08:09,800 --> 01:08:12,480
Speaker 2: You know, I would just say, there is that philosophy,

1205
01:08:12,520 --> 01:08:15,040
Speaker 2: and is there for a reason that, Hey, I don't

1206
01:08:15,080 --> 01:08:18,280
Speaker 2: ask any questions. We're all making money here, just getting

1207
01:08:18,360 --> 01:08:20,680
Speaker 2: whatever this is to where it's supposed to go. Does

1208
01:08:20,720 --> 01:08:23,439
Speaker 2: that make sense? And I'm not saying that's what's happening

1209
01:08:23,520 --> 01:08:26,519
Speaker 2: or that's the way everybody thinks. I'm not trying to generalize.

1210
01:08:26,560 --> 01:08:29,240
Speaker 2: I just mean there's a reason that exists because if

1211
01:08:29,240 --> 01:08:32,040
Speaker 2: you don't ask questions, if you kind of just let

1212
01:08:32,080 --> 01:08:35,880
Speaker 2: the system run, it's highly highly profitable.

1213
01:08:36,040 --> 01:08:39,320
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, as long as you're not the one left

1214
01:08:39,320 --> 01:08:42,599
Speaker 4: holding the bag of consequences, as long as you are

1215
01:08:42,880 --> 01:08:46,439
Speaker 4: at the very least the second last person. And that

1216
01:08:46,520 --> 01:08:50,840
Speaker 4: great game of hot potato, and we've got some We've

1217
01:08:50,880 --> 01:08:53,559
Speaker 4: got some cats coming in. This show is brought to

1218
01:08:53,560 --> 01:08:56,120
Speaker 4: you by a pnopoly of Pets. We hope your pets

1219
01:08:56,120 --> 01:08:58,759
Speaker 4: are well. If you are on the road right now,

1220
01:08:59,160 --> 01:09:01,200
Speaker 4: we want to get and thank you for your time,

1221
01:09:01,320 --> 01:09:04,120
Speaker 4: thank you for tuning into the show, and we want

1222
01:09:04,160 --> 01:09:06,839
Speaker 4: to hear your thoughts, folks, if you are a trucker,

1223
01:09:07,160 --> 01:09:10,840
Speaker 4: a long haul driver, a short haul driver, a hotshot driver,

1224
01:09:11,320 --> 01:09:13,200
Speaker 4: if you are in the shipping that's a true thing.

1225
01:09:13,320 --> 01:09:15,120
Speaker 4: If you are in the shipping industry at all, in

1226
01:09:15,240 --> 01:09:19,280
Speaker 4: any capacity, we would love to hear your strangest stories.

1227
01:09:19,360 --> 01:09:22,439
Speaker 4: Give us your tales of war. One thing that's always

1228
01:09:22,520 --> 01:09:26,240
Speaker 4: rewarding is I swear every time we ask our fellow

1229
01:09:26,280 --> 01:09:30,599
Speaker 4: conspiracy realist to send us tales of the strangest stuff

1230
01:09:30,600 --> 01:09:34,080
Speaker 4: they've seen driving in the middle of nowhere, we get

1231
01:09:34,080 --> 01:09:38,680
Speaker 4: these astonishing, astonishing narratives. So we'd love your take on

1232
01:09:38,720 --> 01:09:42,519
Speaker 4: free brokers other potential trucking conspiracies. We try to be

1233
01:09:42,640 --> 01:09:44,520
Speaker 4: easy to find online.

1234
01:09:44,080 --> 01:09:46,880
Speaker 5: Conspiracy Stuff as the handle under which we exist on

1235
01:09:46,920 --> 01:09:50,800
Speaker 5: all the social media platforms of note, including Facebook, where

1236
01:09:50,800 --> 01:09:52,960
Speaker 5: we have our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy,

1237
01:09:53,160 --> 01:09:55,519
Speaker 5: on YouTube, where we have video content rolling at you

1238
01:09:55,600 --> 01:09:59,760
Speaker 5: every single weekend. On XFKA, Twitter, on Instagram, and t

1239
01:10:00,360 --> 01:10:02,080
Speaker 5: we're conspiracy stuff show.

1240
01:10:02,439 --> 01:10:04,439
Speaker 2: Hey, we have a phone number. You can call it

1241
01:10:04,600 --> 01:10:07,599
Speaker 2: right now. We would say, if you are on one

1242
01:10:07,640 --> 01:10:10,960
Speaker 2: of those long haul road trips in your truck, do

1243
01:10:11,840 --> 01:10:14,160
Speaker 2: wait a little bit of time until you maybe hit

1244
01:10:14,160 --> 01:10:16,880
Speaker 2: a loves or another you know, a little stop there

1245
01:10:16,920 --> 01:10:19,920
Speaker 2: to give us a call. Yes, that's it, just.

1246
01:10:23,160 --> 01:10:28,000
Speaker 7: Bullin's just just wait till you hit one of those areas,

1247
01:10:28,080 --> 01:10:30,559
Speaker 7: just to give us a quick call, because sometimes the

1248
01:10:30,640 --> 01:10:34,040
Speaker 7: road noise really is overwhelming and we just physically cannot

1249
01:10:34,160 --> 01:10:36,920
Speaker 7: use your message, uh, because it's just too noisy.

1250
01:10:36,960 --> 01:10:41,000
Speaker 3: So pilot, there we go in all right, just naming them.

1251
01:10:42,320 --> 01:10:44,960
Speaker 2: I just I had when I think about a truck stop,

1252
01:10:45,000 --> 01:10:47,200
Speaker 2: I see loves. I don't know why, that's just what

1253
01:10:47,320 --> 01:10:49,559
Speaker 2: I see. But yeah, do give us a call. Our

1254
01:10:49,640 --> 01:10:53,200
Speaker 2: number is one eight three three st d w y

1255
01:10:53,360 --> 01:10:56,439
Speaker 2: t K. When you call in, give yourself a cool nickname.

1256
01:10:56,720 --> 01:10:58,000
Speaker 2: Let us know if we can use your name and

1257
01:10:58,040 --> 01:11:00,040
Speaker 2: message on the air, and if you got more to

1258
01:11:00,280 --> 01:11:02,759
Speaker 2: they can fit in that three minutes. Why not instead

1259
01:11:02,840 --> 01:11:04,479
Speaker 2: send us a good old fashioned email.

1260
01:11:04,680 --> 01:11:07,840
Speaker 4: We are the folks who read every single email we get.

1261
01:11:08,320 --> 01:11:11,679
Speaker 4: Be well aware of friends. Sometimes the void writes back.

1262
01:11:12,080 --> 01:11:15,200
Speaker 4: Give us your stories about the American underground. I know

1263
01:11:15,240 --> 01:11:18,560
Speaker 4: there's a lot of stuff going on conspiracy at iHeartRadio

1264
01:11:18,760 --> 01:11:37,760
Speaker 4: dot com.

1265
01:11:37,960 --> 01:11:40,000
Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production

1266
01:11:40,120 --> 01:11:44,679
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1267
01:11:44,760 --> 01:11:47,960
Speaker 2: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.