Speaker 1: Up next The Truth with Lisa both part of the Game,
Speaker 1: which research government lockdowns decimated small businesses during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: destroying the livelihoods of millions of Americans. Many of these
Speaker 1: hard working men and women still have not recovered, and
Speaker 1: none of them are at fault. The blame lives with
Speaker 1: politicians and their bureaucratic goons who arbitrarily deemed some workers
Speaker 1: essential and others expendable. Today I expose the government's war
Speaker 1: in the backboat of America and how COVID escalated a
Speaker 1: problem that's been ongoing for years. This is The Truth
Speaker 1: with Lisa Booth. Ye, welcome back to The Truth with
Speaker 1: Lisa Booth. I'm Lisa Booths, and this week we're covering
Speaker 1: a topic that too many Americans are familiar with, how
Speaker 1: small businesses in the middle class have suffered under government lockdowns.
Speaker 1: Too often, leaders in government believe that they have a
Speaker 1: godlike capacity to make brilliant decisions for the stupid masses.
Speaker 1: They think they're superior to you, to me, both morally
Speaker 1: and intellectually, even though their job is to serve us
Speaker 1: the people. Remember we're their boss. Now. With the coronavirus,
Speaker 1: politicians and bureaucrats. We saw them grab power in shocking
Speaker 1: and unprecedented ways, and with that power, they picked winners
Speaker 1: and they picked losers, deciding which businesses they liked and
Speaker 1: which ones they disliked, which workers were essential, and which
Speaker 1: ones were expendable. And what came next was devastation. The
Speaker 1: government imposed lockdowns across the country in the name of
Speaker 1: fighting the pandemic. Small businesses struggled to survive, and tragically,
Speaker 1: many of those didn't. Many people lost the ability to
Speaker 1: put a roof over their kids heads or to feed
Speaker 1: their family. And those that did. Many of the businesses
Speaker 1: that stayed open or were able to stay open, a
Speaker 1: lot of them had to layoff employees. Millions of Americans
Speaker 1: have suffered, and many of them in their businesses still
Speaker 1: have not recovered. To really understand what happened and where
Speaker 1: we should go from here, I want to bring on
Speaker 1: Carol Roth to the show to discuss this assault on
Speaker 1: small businesses and the middle class. She's an entrepreneur and investor,
Speaker 1: a best selling author, and a TV personality. She's also
Speaker 1: a self described recovering investment banker, and she has a
Speaker 1: really important new book that is out titled The War
Speaker 1: on small business how the government used the pandemic to
Speaker 1: crush the backbone of America. I'm pleased to welcome Carol
Speaker 1: Roth to the show. Uh, this is a conversation that
Speaker 1: needs to happen. You know, Carol, what what really interested you?
Speaker 1: You know, why? Why did you want to write this book?
Speaker 1: So I've been a long time small business advocate. I
Speaker 1: wrote a book ten years ago about how hard it
Speaker 1: is to be a small business owner and all the risks,
Speaker 1: and I never really thought the number one risk was
Speaker 1: going to be the federal government coming in and shutting
Speaker 1: you down by mandate. Um. So I was actually approached
Speaker 1: very early in the pandemic by HarperCollins, who wanted a
Speaker 1: real kind of in depth economic take on what was
Speaker 1: clearly going to be historic. And as I watched this unfold,
Speaker 1: I kind of wrote three and a half different books
Speaker 1: to be perfectly honest, and it ended up at like
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty thousand words and they're like, no,
Speaker 1: you need to call that back. But the through line
Speaker 1: through all of it was really how small businesses who
Speaker 1: are the backbone of the economy, and that that's just
Speaker 1: not not just a moniker. They're nine point nine percent
Speaker 1: of all business entities, they're about half the GDP, they're
Speaker 1: about half the jobs. So so this foundation of the
Speaker 1: economy got completely screwed over, and winners and losers were picked,
Speaker 1: and they were picked not based on data and science,
Speaker 1: but the government picked those winners and losers, who was
Speaker 1: going to thrive, who was going to fight to survive,
Speaker 1: based on political clout and connections, and then use that
Speaker 1: to enable the most historic wealth transfer that we've seen
Speaker 1: in our lifetime. So that seemed like a pretty big
Speaker 1: story to me. Um And I'm actually flabbergasted that nobody
Speaker 1: else seems to be talking about it. Why don't people
Speaker 1: care more? You know? I think the people look at
Speaker 1: the macro headlines and it looks like the economy is recovering.
Speaker 1: It looks like things are doing great, But they don't
Speaker 1: realize if you kind of peeled back the onion, what
Speaker 1: that looks like. They don't realize that four hundred thousands
Speaker 1: small businesses had closed permanently by June of last year.
Speaker 1: We don't even have a good updated number. We know
Speaker 1: that millions more are struggling to survive. They don't realize
Speaker 1: that the people who patronize those businesses transferred those dollars
Speaker 1: to big companies like Amazon, like Walmart, like Target. They
Speaker 1: had record revenue. They don't understand the federal Reserve, which
Speaker 1: is opaque by design, and the fact that they put
Speaker 1: eight trillion dollars on their balance sheet and forced interest
Speaker 1: rates down back to zero, and how with all of
Speaker 1: these things that enabled sex seven technology companies to increase
Speaker 1: by three point for trillion dollars in value last year,
Speaker 1: and that it was a record year for initial public
Speaker 1: offerings and special purpose acquisition companies in terms of the
Speaker 1: amount of money that they raised. So I think that
Speaker 1: because the financial aspect of it is so opaque, and
Speaker 1: you have so many media cheerleaders who are running running
Speaker 1: interference for for politicians, and you look at the headlines
Speaker 1: and it's it's easy to say, oh, like oh, it
Speaker 1: sounds like things are are getting back in order, and
Speaker 1: they don't realize that this huge transfer of wealth from
Speaker 1: main street to wall streets happened and really this is
Speaker 1: clamping down on economic freedom and wealth creation opportunities. Well,
Speaker 1: and you had mentioned so pre pandemic small businesses accounted
Speaker 1: for you know, half of the GDP and half of
Speaker 1: the employment in the country. What does that look like
Speaker 1: now and what's the broader impact of that. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a really good question. Um, we know on
Speaker 1: the employment front that one of the things that happened
Speaker 1: in terms of the design of you know, how the
Speaker 1: government was going to quote unquote care for you from
Speaker 1: you know, the mandates that they created, is that they
Speaker 1: did a lot of things that made it very difficult
Speaker 1: for people to go want to go back into the workforce.
Speaker 1: One of the things is this enhanced unemployment benefits, So
Speaker 1: not the money that your employer or in some states,
Speaker 1: you pay in out of each check for unemployment, but
Speaker 1: on top of that, they gave you a bonus for
Speaker 1: being unemployed, obviously decreasing the incentives they want to go
Speaker 1: back to work. They sent out stimulus checks, not necessarily
Speaker 1: based on your current need, but based on some arbitrary
Speaker 1: number from a previous year. They shuttered school, so if
Speaker 1: if you were a parent that had kids, you know,
Speaker 1: you couldn't get your kids back in school, you might
Speaker 1: not have been able to go back to work. So
Speaker 1: they the government basically is now competing with small businesses
Speaker 1: for employees. And we have nine point three million jobs
Speaker 1: in this country. That businesses can't fill. And that's very
Speaker 1: much being shouldered um by the small business community who
Speaker 1: are raising wages, offering signing bonuses, doing whatever they can,
Speaker 1: and they still can't get people to come back, um
Speaker 1: into employment. As far as you know what they're going
Speaker 1: to make up of the g DP, we don't have
Speaker 1: those numbers yet, but um there is a project called
Speaker 1: Opportunity Insights that's run in conjunction with Harvard that said
Speaker 1: something like almost of the small businesses had been closed. Now,
Speaker 1: knowing the numbers like I do, I don't think that's
Speaker 1: of the thirty point two million small businesses, but it
Speaker 1: could be of the six million employer businesses. So even
Speaker 1: if it's you know, two million businesses that are permanently
Speaker 1: closed and not contributing to the GDP and that money
Speaker 1: is going to the big businesses, that's a huge shift
Speaker 1: from main street to all streets well and ufortunately you know,
Speaker 1: we live in a society where sometimes people can be
Speaker 1: you know, sort of inherently selfish. If it doesn't impact them,
Speaker 1: they don't really care. So for the folks, you know,
Speaker 1: let's say someone doesn't know a small business owner, they
Speaker 1: don't have a family member that's a small business owner.
Speaker 1: They don't feel like they should care about this issue.
Speaker 1: Why should they care? Why does this impact their life?
Speaker 1: Why does this impact the economy, Why does this impact
Speaker 1: the country. Yeah, it goes back to this bigger battle
Speaker 1: that we're seeing play out between the centralization and central power.
Speaker 1: And you know, it used to be we were much
Speaker 1: closer to a free market system and free market capitalism,
Speaker 1: despite what some people think, just basically means freedom and
Speaker 1: choice and transparency and a level playing field where the
Speaker 1: government is just protecting your individual rights and your property rights.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, central planning is a couple of people making
Speaker 1: the decisions on behalf of everyone and using force and
Speaker 1: coercion and control. And we've been moving along that spectrum.
Speaker 1: If you think about the economy and those two half,
Speaker 1: you have half the economy that is the small businesses.
Speaker 1: As I said pre COVID thirty point two million. They're decentralized,
Speaker 1: they're independent, there is no concentration of power. Uh, they're
Speaker 1: very difficult to control, which is very good um and
Speaker 1: that creates economic freedom and wealth creation opportunities for a
Speaker 1: broad set of people. The other half the economy is
Speaker 1: like ten to fifteen thousand big companies. And as you
Speaker 1: can imagine, if you're a politician and you're trying to
Speaker 1: consolidate power, who is it easier to align with and
Speaker 1: and get and you know, get in your pockets and
Speaker 1: have them make contributions and and you know, kind of
Speaker 1: being a coalition with the handful of big businesses or
Speaker 1: the thirty point two million small businesses. So if you
Speaker 1: don't want there to be more centralized power, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I imagine in terms of all the things
Speaker 1: that you discussed about the size of the government, the
Speaker 1: amount that they spend, the laws, you know, all those
Speaker 1: kinds of things, you should not want the government to
Speaker 1: be doing more things than have more power. If you
Speaker 1: start getting rid of this the centralized portion of the economy,
Speaker 1: it just makes that central portion larger and bigger and
Speaker 1: harder to combat. And it's it's basically slides us across
Speaker 1: that scale closer to socialism. And that's something that should
Speaker 1: scare everybody. Well, I think that's a great point, you know,
Speaker 1: and you talked about the enhanced unemployment benefits and you
Speaker 1: had mentioned socialism just now. I mean, we've essentially created
Speaker 1: a you know, a country that is dependent on the
Speaker 1: federal government on a scale that you know, maybe we
Speaker 1: we we never have before in history, and so you're right,
Speaker 1: that does move us closer to a socialist type country
Speaker 1: where we're we're consolidating power at the top with the
Speaker 1: big corporations and you know, big government as well. And
Speaker 1: do you think that is why? I mean, lately we've
Speaker 1: seen corporations insert themselves in more and more things, more
Speaker 1: and more issues, for instance, going after Georgia over their
Speaker 1: voting law. Do you think that correlates to what we've
Speaker 1: seen over the past year as big businesses has been
Speaker 1: allowed to grow at the expense of small business. The
Speaker 1: fact that they're involved in everything, whether it is, like
Speaker 1: you said, voting laws, whether it's Mark Zuckerberg standing up
Speaker 1: and saying I think you need to regulate the tech
Speaker 1: companies Jeff Bezos and Amazon coming out and pushing for
Speaker 1: a higher minimum wage. They're doing all of these things
Speaker 1: because they know that it helps with that consolidation of power,
Speaker 1: and in some cases it's anti competitive to small business
Speaker 1: because we all think raining in the big guys is
Speaker 1: going to be a good thing and it's going to
Speaker 1: help the little guys. That's the excuse they use every
Speaker 1: single time, and it's just not true. I mean, if
Speaker 1: we go back to the Great Recession financial crisis, the
Speaker 1: banks did some things that were very, very risky. They
Speaker 1: didn't work out. It ended up taking down the entire
Speaker 1: economy and affecting all of our lives. And they were
Speaker 1: told they were too big to fail. They got taxpair
Speaker 1: my me. But you know, we're going to slap them
Speaker 1: on the wrist and we're gonna regulate them, and that's
Speaker 1: going to raid them in. And so we came up
Speaker 1: with this owner usk set of laws called Dodd Frank. Well,
Speaker 1: what was the outcome of DoD Frank As I lay
Speaker 1: out in the book, it ended up being so expensive
Speaker 1: and so difficult to comply with that it decreased the
Speaker 1: number of starts of small community banks from like a
Speaker 1: hundred a year to three to put a bunch of
Speaker 1: small business banks out of business. And as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: the smaller banks that have less assets under management are
Speaker 1: the ones who are lending too small businesses. So small
Speaker 1: business lendings fell off a cliff. At the same time,
Speaker 1: because there was less competition from small companies, you had
Speaker 1: these big banks that grew even more and they increased
Speaker 1: the lending to big companies. So we have this legislation
Speaker 1: that was supposed to reign in these big banks that
Speaker 1: did bad things, and all it did was give them
Speaker 1: free reign and end up hurting some all business more.
Speaker 1: And so you know, it's very tempting to say, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna use the government to to go
Speaker 1: after these big guys. They're all in it together, they're
Speaker 1: all on the same side. So how do we rain
Speaker 1: them in? Yeah, I mean this is the like multi
Speaker 1: trillion dollar question. I mean, we need to move back
Speaker 1: along the spectrum closer to a free market, and we
Speaker 1: need to tear down the purview of the government, um,
Speaker 1: which is obviously not an easy thing to do. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting a lot of um you know, the folks
Speaker 1: who back different ideas, they tend to back a candidate
Speaker 1: and think that like getting their guy or their gal
Speaker 1: in the system is all of a sudden going to
Speaker 1: shift everything. But this is so systemically broken. Um, I
Speaker 1: think we need to do more suing. Frankly of the government.
Speaker 1: I mean, they have put so many laws in place,
Speaker 1: they've done so many things that have overstepped their constitutional boundaries.
Speaker 1: And think about you know what happened with COVID. You
Speaker 1: you subjugated property rights of small business owners for the
Speaker 1: good of society, and you didn't give them appropriate compensation.
Speaker 1: Eminent Domain says, if you're going to take their property,
Speaker 1: you owe them to do compensation. So I think we
Speaker 1: need to start challenging these things and courts because a
Speaker 1: tiny fraction of a fraction of a percent of all
Speaker 1: the laws see challenges. And I think if we start
Speaker 1: to strip away those rights, obviously that in and of
Speaker 1: itself will help to reduce the size of the government,
Speaker 1: but will also perhaps keep some future politicians from going
Speaker 1: down that road, knowing that you know that's going to
Speaker 1: ultimately be challenged and be a no go. But we
Speaker 1: have been too complacent as individuals. I mean the fact
Speaker 1: that small business owners even agreed to these lockdowns effect
Speaker 1: that so many Americans agreed to these mandates. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: these weren't laws, they were mandates, and they agreed and
Speaker 1: just said, Okay, well we're going to do this. Um.
Speaker 1: You know that's not us. We have to actively preserve
Speaker 1: our freedom. So on the small business side, you educate yourself,
Speaker 1: you understand these things, um, and then that helps to
Speaker 1: take action. And I think you know another thing that
Speaker 1: I lay out in the book that's really important that
Speaker 1: needs to be reined in, which could probably be done
Speaker 1: through Congress, is reigning in the federal reserve. How how
Speaker 1: can a small business compete against the Amazons of the world.
Speaker 1: So it depends if you're talking about in a free
Speaker 1: market or with the help of the government, to the
Speaker 1: government giving Amazon special favors. Because if you remember when
Speaker 1: Amazon was going to move their headquarters a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, they ran around and they did this beauty pageant, right,
Speaker 1: So they're showing up in all these different locations and
Speaker 1: they're saying, okay, well, if we moved to your city,
Speaker 1: like what will you give us, Well, give us your
Speaker 1: firstborn child, will you give us, you know, naming rights.
Speaker 1: It's like The Bachelor or something exactly exactly. So they're
Speaker 1: doing all these things, and of course they ended up
Speaker 1: going with the places that they were planning to go anyway,
Speaker 1: but they use that to extract editional benefits, like if
Speaker 1: I'm going to go open up a pizza parlor somewhere,
Speaker 1: or at least so you're gonna go open up a
Speaker 1: cup kick shop, like nobody's getting us naming rights, like
Speaker 1: we probably can't even get somebody to return our call.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get all, you know, these these licenses that
Speaker 1: we have to get an insurance, that have to jump
Speaker 1: through a bunch of hoops, and nobody's going to be
Speaker 1: there to help us. So it's that kind of stuff
Speaker 1: that tilts the field and it makes it almost impossible
Speaker 1: for a small business to compete in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: if you took those away, and it's just free market competition.
Speaker 1: As a small business, one of the biggest things that
Speaker 1: you have is the personal relationship with the customer, and
Speaker 1: building loyalty isn't transactional, right, It's based on relationships, and
Speaker 1: so small businesses do have certain areas where they can
Speaker 1: really outshine the big companies because they have the upper
Speaker 1: ttunity to generate those personal relationships with customers, which are
Speaker 1: incredibly meaningful. UM. But eventually, you know, if you have
Speaker 1: to contend with all of these other governmental issues, that
Speaker 1: affects your pricing, UM, that affects your cost of employees,
Speaker 1: that affects your ability to even open a business, that
Speaker 1: affects your building, your ability to be deemed essential. Um.
Speaker 1: That's that's a no win situation. And so that's why
Speaker 1: we have to get the government out of the interference
Speaker 1: in the market, Carol, we have to take a quick
Speaker 1: break back on the other side. One thing a lot
Speaker 1: of conservatives are sort of grappling with right now is
Speaker 1: you know, you look at Google, you look at Amazon,
Speaker 1: you look at big Tech. I mean, they're just so big.
Speaker 1: They have grown in size and scope. They've grown over
Speaker 1: the past year as we're discussing right now at the
Speaker 1: expensive small business. So I mean it's almost you know,
Speaker 1: the question is, really, are are they too big for
Speaker 1: the free market to you know, work itself out like
Speaker 1: they've they've has gotten too too big for that. You know.
Speaker 1: So if you go back in history and you look
Speaker 1: at any point in time, there's always some companies that
Speaker 1: were deemed too big, and most of them have gone
Speaker 1: out of business or been replaced. Um. If you look
Speaker 1: at the Dow Jones companies, I think there's just a
Speaker 1: handful maybe like three of them that were there, you know,
Speaker 1: fifty plus years ago. So you know, there is this
Speaker 1: natural change over in business that's allowed to happen. But
Speaker 1: since we've had so much um enhanced interference in the
Speaker 1: stock markets, and we've had so much enhanced interference in
Speaker 1: capitalism from the government. Um, there really has been these
Speaker 1: extra advantages that give them this unique scale that we
Speaker 1: haven't seen before. So I do feel like if we
Speaker 1: got out of the way, that would help to shrink
Speaker 1: our footprint. UM. So that's one thing to contend with.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing from an antitrust standpoint, just
Speaker 1: because there's so much money going around, is if you
Speaker 1: think that normally when they look at antitrust and they say, okay,
Speaker 1: well you can't buy up businesses you know, in the
Speaker 1: same industry, or you can't buy up um, you know,
Speaker 1: a supply chain so that there's no other competition. I
Speaker 1: do think we're at the point where it's least worth
Speaker 1: discussing if you're dominating in you know, like every single industry.
Speaker 1: You know, is that something that where there's a concern
Speaker 1: as well. But I also am blatantly untrust untrustful I
Speaker 1: guess of that scenario because we know the people who
Speaker 1: are going to write that legislation aren't doing it because
Speaker 1: they're worried about the big business and they care about
Speaker 1: you know, us as individuals or small businesses. So the
Speaker 1: question is what things are they doing in that legislation
Speaker 1: to have the unintended consequences, And so that's where I
Speaker 1: become very concerned, is you know, if they're going to
Speaker 1: quote unquote break them up or not allow you know,
Speaker 1: certain murders, or not allow them into certain business lines,
Speaker 1: you know, what does that mean for everybody else? And
Speaker 1: I think that's that's a question that we always need
Speaker 1: to be asking well, and not to be hyperbolic, but
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like we're heading into a scenario
Speaker 1: where Jeff Bezos has more power than Joe Biden might
Speaker 1: even I would imagine that, and I hate them both,
Speaker 1: so I'd rather them not in either them had power.
Speaker 1: Wealthy individuals um, definitely, I think are working in connection
Speaker 1: with the governmental officials. I think that the concern from
Speaker 1: that sort of power dynamic UM is that the business
Speaker 1: folks are probably a lot smarter the folks that are
Speaker 1: in Congress, So there is not really a stretch, right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I feel like that they're probably driving
Speaker 1: um the agendas to a large part behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: but we do need to be careful about this. And
Speaker 1: again this it goes to like strategic thinking and under
Speaker 1: unintended consequences. The country that printed the most billionaires over
Speaker 1: the last year was not the United States, it was China.
Speaker 1: And so you have to remember, you know, when you
Speaker 1: get concerned, oh should we be, you know, concerned about
Speaker 1: the wealth of you know, Jeff Bezos or about Bill
Speaker 1: Gates or Warren Buffett, that this isn't just a national issue.
Speaker 1: And if we start to meddle in that, then you
Speaker 1: have the Chinese people who have all the power. And
Speaker 1: again I mean this in terms of communist Chinese people,
Speaker 1: not Americans who are Chinese origin or whatnot, but you know,
Speaker 1: the actual communist party members who have all of the
Speaker 1: capital and then can come in and buy up America
Speaker 1: and be sort of, you know, kind of trojan horse
Speaker 1: their way through the power structure here. So you know
Speaker 1: that we have to remember, like I know, as Americans
Speaker 1: sometimes we think we're like the only game in town,
Speaker 1: that we're the entire world, but we're not. And so
Speaker 1: things that you know affect us right now that we're
Speaker 1: looking at, don't forget about you know, all of these
Speaker 1: other powers out there, um that have gotten really wealthy
Speaker 1: by the way, since we exported capitalism to them. So
Speaker 1: thank thank the the United States were basically making sure
Speaker 1: that the Chinese people benefited to your detriment um. But
Speaker 1: you know, we have we have to be really careful
Speaker 1: about that because you know, you can thumb your nose
Speaker 1: at US company doing x y z. Uh, it's doubly
Speaker 1: worth of if communist company x y Z comes here
Speaker 1: to do that. That's a good point, uh, and something
Speaker 1: to think about. You know. I think one thing that
Speaker 1: really frustrates me in the conversation surrounding small businesses and
Speaker 1: COVID over the past year, and I'm sure you feel
Speaker 1: the same, is that this conversation of oh, was COVID
Speaker 1: that shut down these businesses? It was COVID that shut
Speaker 1: down you know, our economy. No, it was the government.
Speaker 1: It was government officials making poor decisions largely based off
Speaker 1: of bad data, and then when they got better data,
Speaker 1: they didn't change their policy, didn't change their strategy. So
Speaker 1: it was the government that screwed over small businesses, not COVID.
Speaker 1: Ding ding, ding, ding ding. We have a winner? What
Speaker 1: what what did she win today? Yes? That's I mean,
Speaker 1: that's exactly and I've been trying to use very specific
Speaker 1: language that it was the government's reaction to the pandemic.
Speaker 1: That was the problem. That's in fact, that was what
Speaker 1: the black Swan was. They had run in a series
Speaker 1: of test runs UM, something called an exercise called Crimson
Speaker 1: Contagion that was run at the federal level and conjunction
Speaker 1: was like fourteen states, and they had a scenario that
Speaker 1: they mocked up, which by the way, was strangely close
Speaker 1: to what happened that you know, something escaped from China
Speaker 1: and it was a bad virus and it came to
Speaker 1: the US and there was a pandemic. Scary scary up
Speaker 1: parallels there, and so they ran a series of drills yeah,
Speaker 1: called Crimson should contage and you can go look it
Speaker 1: up and UM. So they you know, they knew what
Speaker 1: those issues were, where the potential bottle next war. So
Speaker 1: they should have been very prepared for the situation because
Speaker 1: they had run through it like literally months before UM
Speaker 1: and then you know, when it came time and by
Speaker 1: the way, you know, COVID was here for months before
Speaker 1: they freaked out. I had COVID in February. Didn't know
Speaker 1: it at the time because there was no testing of course,
Speaker 1: because of the government UM and and their rules and
Speaker 1: regulations around that. But you know I found out afterwards
Speaker 1: because I had my antibodies tested and it was like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, that that actually was covid um. So you know,
Speaker 1: people had had it. It was it was around, but
Speaker 1: it was the specific set of decisions. It was those
Speaker 1: picking of winners and losers, and you know, making the
Speaker 1: economic decisions that we're not going to compensate the people,
Speaker 1: you know, who were deeming non essential and asking them
Speaker 1: to subjugate their rights. And none of that was based
Speaker 1: on any data or science. I mean, we knew in
Speaker 1: the beginning of March that the most vulnerable group was
Speaker 1: the elderly UM and some groups with comorbidity, So there
Speaker 1: could have been a focus around what do we do
Speaker 1: to support the specific group UM. They could have, you know,
Speaker 1: out of the care's package, given all small businesses that
Speaker 1: were affected a trillion to a trillion and a half
Speaker 1: dollars bought themselves two to three months to figure out
Speaker 1: a mitigation strategy. They didn't do that either. They spent
Speaker 1: trillions of dollars on their cronies and the Kennedy Center
Speaker 1: for Deep Cleaning and all kinds of insanity. Harvard, who
Speaker 1: was shamed by the people of Twitter into giving the
Speaker 1: money back. But you know, those were the kinds of
Speaker 1: decisions that were made both at the state and the
Speaker 1: federal level. That was specifically there was their reaction and
Speaker 1: even later in the year. I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: craziest stories is out of New York, Surprise, surprise, when
Speaker 1: they decided a Cuoma decided that he was going to
Speaker 1: shut down restaurants again. And when he looked, he looked
Speaker 1: at the contract of the contact tracing data that they
Speaker 1: had done. It was their own data. Only one point
Speaker 1: four percent of the cases were traced back to restaurants.
Speaker 1: So why would you say that that's going to be
Speaker 1: the area of focus when that's like a tiny fraction
Speaker 1: of the overall issue. I mean, the same thing when
Speaker 1: he had these restaurants um that were allowed to open
Speaker 1: in part but only if they served you know, dip
Speaker 1: with chips. Like if you would serve chips, it wasn't enough.
Speaker 1: But if you serve dips with chips, you know, that
Speaker 1: was enough. Like how how are dips scientific used to
Speaker 1: drive it? It's not And that's the part that everybody
Speaker 1: should be so frustrated about. Well, and also not to
Speaker 1: mention the fact, you know, all these restaurants just trying
Speaker 1: to keep up and comply with executive orders and regulation,
Speaker 1: you know, probably put a lot of restaurants under as well,
Speaker 1: like having to get the plastic barriers and all this
Speaker 1: extra crap to try to salvage and to try to
Speaker 1: stay open, and then in some instances they were shut
Speaker 1: down again. I mean that that kills a business to
Speaker 1: have to spend that kind of money that they don't
Speaker 1: have on those sorts of things, just the compliance aspects, right,
Speaker 1: So you're you're limited and what you can do, so
Speaker 1: you don't have a full deck. Your customers are told
Speaker 1: to be frightened and not go to your restaurant because
Speaker 1: you have cooties. Um. And then if you want to comply,
Speaker 1: you have to put out all of this extra money
Speaker 1: which you're not getting reimbursed for. And you're a small
Speaker 1: business that you don't have that same access to capital
Speaker 1: that the big companies are basically getting for free based
Speaker 1: on what the FED is doing in the suck market.
Speaker 1: I have a story in the book where I talk
Speaker 1: about l A. The Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill, which
Speaker 1: you may remember in l A County, you know, had
Speaker 1: been around for a long time. They spent eighty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars reportedly to basically configure outdoor seating so that they
Speaker 1: could be in compliance with these mandates. And then Eric
Speaker 1: Garcetti says, sorry, you know, we're gonna we're gonna just
Speaker 1: shut shut that down. You're not gonna be able to
Speaker 1: do outdoor seating. But a movie company was able to
Speaker 1: get a permit to shoot a movie and open up
Speaker 1: a catering tent to feed the cast and the crew
Speaker 1: of the movie literally hundreds of feet away in the
Speaker 1: same parking lot from this restaurant that spent all this
Speaker 1: money that wasn't allowed to operate. Oh and by the way,
Speaker 1: I know you'll find the shocking the movie industry lobbyists
Speaker 1: who apparently work with this production company. I believe um
Speaker 1: had had din or with Gavin Newsom at the French
Speaker 1: Laundry r like just a short time prior to that happening.
Speaker 1: So you tell me that this isn't based on politics
Speaker 1: and it was based on data ensigns. Well, that's like
Speaker 1: I like this line that you wrote. You wrote if
Speaker 1: Amazon's warehouse, every Walmart in big box liquor stores have
Speaker 1: been forced to close, just like small businesses uh that
Speaker 1: you know, if these powerful I'm skipping a little bit,
Speaker 1: but if these powerful connected entities would have created they
Speaker 1: would have created such a stink that the lockdowns would
Speaker 1: have been lifted in two to three weeks. So essentially,
Speaker 1: if Amazon and Walmart had a face the same consequences
Speaker 1: that small business has had, this would have been lockdowns
Speaker 1: would have been lifted in two to three weeks. Do
Speaker 1: you think is that why big businesses were allowed to
Speaker 1: stay open? Yeah, I mean I think this is this
Speaker 1: goes back to the picking of winners and losers. You know,
Speaker 1: this narratives we're all in this together, and we completely
Speaker 1: were not all in this together anyway. As you said Amazon,
Speaker 1: I hated that line. That drove me nuts because exactly
Speaker 1: we weren't all in this together. But sorry, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm and I'm glad that it did. It should
Speaker 1: irritate and make everybody furious. Amazon's warehouse was able to
Speaker 1: stay open. Walmart could stay open. By the way, in
Speaker 1: some places, some states, we dispensaries that weren't even legal
Speaker 1: a few years prior were now essential and able to
Speaker 1: stay open, but your small business wasn't. And the money
Speaker 1: that went to prop up the stock market after that
Speaker 1: crater created this like incredible growth in the stock market.
Speaker 1: The stock market had been truly crater and we didn't
Speaker 1: have that support. If Amazon was shut down and you
Speaker 1: couldn't order things, if your grocery store shut down, you
Speaker 1: couldn't go there, everyone would have said, wait a second,
Speaker 1: this isn't okay. The government can't do this. So they
Speaker 1: knew if you know, you keep the big guys open,
Speaker 1: the big guys are happy. They're the ones that make
Speaker 1: the contributions, will pretend like we're doing something. The small
Speaker 1: businesses will be cannon fodder, and you can decide like
Speaker 1: either they were too small to matter, or they're too
Speaker 1: hard to control. The intentions don't matter, the outcomes due.
Speaker 1: But those were the ones who got hurts, and so
Speaker 1: you had completely different experiences, and everybody running around telling
Speaker 1: how we were all in this together and we all
Speaker 1: had this horrendous experience when it's like a tale of
Speaker 1: two cities. I think it also showed how dumb some
Speaker 1: of our government officials are, whether mayors or governors, who
Speaker 1: have never had to run anything, They've never actually had
Speaker 1: to be you know, I mean, they're not really executives
Speaker 1: or not, you know. I mean, look at de Bosio
Speaker 1: is basically run New York City into the ground. But
Speaker 1: it was such a misunderstanding of how businesses operate. Just
Speaker 1: this idea that they just can close, they can reopen,
Speaker 1: they can close, they can reopen. It's just such a
Speaker 1: misunderstanding of how businesses, you know, need or operate and
Speaker 1: what they need to function. Yeah, I mean, and we're
Speaker 1: really paying the price for that now. So if if
Speaker 1: you've managed to survive as a business to this point,
Speaker 1: which many as we know have not, you know, by
Speaker 1: taking a large swath of the economy, turning it off
Speaker 1: and then trying to turn it back on again, like
Speaker 1: your power cycling a computer, you've disrupted all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about the unemployment benefit issue and
Speaker 1: how that's affecting getting laborers back into the workforce, but
Speaker 1: that's also then disrupted the supply chain, so businesses can't
Speaker 1: get everything from raw materials to manufacturing access to in
Speaker 1: some cases shipping containers or transportation, and then for the
Speaker 1: products that you are getting, we're seeing massive inflation both
Speaker 1: based on supply chain interruption as well as all of
Speaker 1: the money that has been pumped into the economy. So
Speaker 1: now if you're a small business, you're you're open, maybe,
Speaker 1: but you don't have any employees, and everything costs you
Speaker 1: more and you can't get some of the things that
Speaker 1: you need to run your business. And we don't know
Speaker 1: how long those long tail effects are going to happen.
Speaker 1: And again, if you're a bigger company, you're going to
Speaker 1: have the access to capital and the scale to be
Speaker 1: able to weather that. But if you're a smaller company
Speaker 1: or not. I mean, there was an article on Seeking Alpha,
Speaker 1: which is a financial um kind of chat board, if
Speaker 1: you will, for people are really interested in stocks, and
Speaker 1: somebody put this article, how the chain restaurants are just
Speaker 1: crushing independent restaurants because of all of these issues that
Speaker 1: we're talking about. And yeah, I mean, they have the capital,
Speaker 1: so of course they're they're going to be the ones
Speaker 1: that survived, and you know they're gonna have they're gonna
Speaker 1: face less competition, so you know, they're probably not crying
Speaker 1: about that, And like what's the broader impact on the economy,
Speaker 1: you know, looking ahead, Like we've talked about sort of
Speaker 1: the market manipulation, the you know, just printing money, throwing
Speaker 1: money at the problem, just you know, just all this
Speaker 1: government interference. I mean, what's the long term impact of
Speaker 1: sort of the the economy and the economic repercus we're
Speaker 1: going to face as result of the past year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's the past year, but it's also ongoing policies
Speaker 1: and some of the ones that are being proposed. Um.
Speaker 1: So there are a whole slew of things. And by
Speaker 1: the way, this is a super optimistic conversation, so really
Speaker 1: apologize for being the bearer of bad news. Um. One
Speaker 1: thing that that potentially is that people should keep an
Speaker 1: eye on that they're probably not as as concerned about
Speaker 1: they may they may know about the overall debt that
Speaker 1: we have as a nation. Um. And obviously that's of
Speaker 1: concern to many people, but the servicing of the interest
Speaker 1: on that debt is a big issue. I contend that
Speaker 1: part of the reason why the Federal Reserve is is
Speaker 1: pushing these interest rates down as low as they are
Speaker 1: is so that it keeps down the interest payments on
Speaker 1: the debt when that starts to rise. And they're going
Speaker 1: to have to do that as inflation continues to rise
Speaker 1: based on all of the money that they've printed, all
Speaker 1: the intervention they've had in the market. Um, that's going
Speaker 1: to mean that we're spending more money as a country
Speaker 1: servicing the interest on that debt, which means paying for
Speaker 1: things that we've already bought. Not new things, not new investments,
Speaker 1: but stuff that's already been spent. We're going to have
Speaker 1: a larger part of our tax revenue going there, which
Speaker 1: is going to crowd out other spending. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've seen this movie before. If we're spending more on interest,
Speaker 1: is not like the government's gonna be like, well, we
Speaker 1: need to cut back on these other places. So that
Speaker 1: means more of a tax burden on us as Americans. UM.
Speaker 1: From a like a short term standpoint, you know, inflation
Speaker 1: obviously everybody's feeling that right now. How long that lasts
Speaker 1: and at what levels really depend on some of the
Speaker 1: policies coming down the road. One thing that could happen,
Speaker 1: which you know is very scared to think about, is
Speaker 1: something that doesn't happen very often, but we saw it,
Speaker 1: you know, decades ago, called stag inflation, where the economy
Speaker 1: stagnates but you still have the inflated prices and inflated wages,
Speaker 1: and so that's sort of an outcome that could happen
Speaker 1: because of this, this kind of historic experiment that we're
Speaker 1: in financially, and I think the biggest concern for people,
Speaker 1: UM is just this attack on economic freedom and wealth creation.
Speaker 1: That there are going to be fewer ways for people
Speaker 1: to create wealth and have that economic freedom as Americans,
Speaker 1: you know, through your homes, through the stock market, through
Speaker 1: building a business. They're trying to make that more difficult
Speaker 1: for you. And so again that that shifts us more
Speaker 1: towards that central planning mode, more towards socialism, more towards
Speaker 1: the power control, and more people on the government goal.
Speaker 1: And it just kills this unique example of economic prosperity
Speaker 1: that America has always been in the world and the
Speaker 1: potential civil unrest that could follow that, you know, and
Speaker 1: you can look throughout history when you see things like
Speaker 1: that happening and people don't have those same well creation opportunities,
Speaker 1: UM is really staggering. I mean, you can look at
Speaker 1: countries like Venezuela. Um. Yeah, but you know, so we
Speaker 1: look at states. So I'm in Florida right now. I
Speaker 1: live in Miami at the moment, uh, you know, to
Speaker 1: Santa's governor, to Santa's kept Florida open for you know,
Speaker 1: the better part of the year, open the economy much
Speaker 1: earlier than states like New York or California. Do you
Speaker 1: know how the free states, the open states, how small
Speaker 1: businesses in those states have done in comparison to lockdown states.
Speaker 1: I know you're going to find this to be an
Speaker 1: amazing statistic, but they've done better. You know, it's crazy,
Speaker 1: I thought, so, I know, it's like mind blowing, right.
Speaker 1: So if you look at like the deaths per million,
Speaker 1: obviously there are a number of factors that go in.
Speaker 1: Part of that population density, part of that, you know,
Speaker 1: how much of an older really population. But really across
Speaker 1: the board, you can see that those who had a
Speaker 1: heavy handed lockdown scenario didn't fare any better and in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases fared worse than those who had
Speaker 1: a lighter touch approach. And again there's there's different reasons geographically,
Speaker 1: but we know that, you know, opening up the economy
Speaker 1: didn't create you know, these these massive amounts of depth,
Speaker 1: so that that wasn't a big impact. But what we
Speaker 1: can see is from an economic standpoint, the places that
Speaker 1: took the lighter touch approach had a much better economic scenario,
Speaker 1: had a much faster recovery had a better UM scenario
Speaker 1: in terms of small businesses versus you know, state like
Speaker 1: New York UM where you know that the percentage of
Speaker 1: small businesses that are closed permanently versus you know what
Speaker 1: we're open in January. You are just completely staggering. And
Speaker 1: the likelihood that you're going to see this rebirth, you
Speaker 1: know in the areas it's probably not going to come
Speaker 1: back particularly quickly either, so you know, it didn't have
Speaker 1: a health shifts, but it's certainly had an economic shift. Well,
Speaker 1: what's interesting, you know, for me from a political lens,
Speaker 1: it really crystallizes what the two parties stand for. I mean,
Speaker 1: you look at the left, you look at these leftist states,
Speaker 1: big government, centralized power, power at the top. And then
Speaker 1: you look at the Republican states like Florida and just
Speaker 1: getting the government out of the way and allowing businesses
Speaker 1: to do their work and people to act like adults
Speaker 1: and make their own decisions for them. But you know
Speaker 1: that's sort of you know here nor there. Well, I
Speaker 1: would let me just add to that, you know, because
Speaker 1: we were talking about the extended unemployment benefits. You know,
Speaker 1: the first states obviously two opt out of that UM
Speaker 1: tended to be red states who said, yeah, this doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like a good idea. This is keeping people out
Speaker 1: of the workforce, so we're going to opt out of
Speaker 1: that program. And now you're seeing some blue states jumping
Speaker 1: in and going out. You're probably right too, but that
Speaker 1: the leadership on that was definitely more of a red
Speaker 1: state thing. Although I will have to say, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole small business issue is not only nonpartisan, but
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of some of the spending issues
Speaker 1: and the broader issues, both parties are also at fault,
Speaker 1: even though the left policies tend to be a little
Speaker 1: bit heavier heavier handed. And for the states that are
Speaker 1: you know, are no longer taking the enhanced unemployment aren't
Speaker 1: they doing better in terms of employment of having people
Speaker 1: go back to work in those states now that they've
Speaker 1: stopped taking those enhancement benefits. It seems like that we're
Speaker 1: gonna actually get some really good data. As of the
Speaker 1: date that we're taping, this was right before the job's
Speaker 1: report comes out for the last month, So I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna get some really interesting data out of that,
Speaker 1: and I expect that we're going to see a rebound
Speaker 1: and I imagine that we're going to see a rebound
Speaker 1: specifically tied to the states who have decided um that
Speaker 1: you know, we're no longer going to be a part
Speaker 1: of that. However, I do have, you know, my own theory,
Speaker 1: and this is just based on human nature more than
Speaker 1: economics per se, is that for people who have chosen
Speaker 1: to opt out and not go back to work right away,
Speaker 1: I do think we're not going to see a big
Speaker 1: recovery until after labor Day. Because if you've been out
Speaker 1: this whole time and it's now like July, it's the
Speaker 1: middle of the summer, and you know you've got all
Speaker 1: these things going on, is that where you're going to
Speaker 1: go to start back into the workforce. So you're just
Speaker 1: going to take the rest of the summer off and
Speaker 1: just wait till after labor Day. So my guess is
Speaker 1: we're probably not going to see a shift until that
Speaker 1: kind of post labor day situation, which you get a
Speaker 1: total and complete disaster for small business owners who don't
Speaker 1: have the capital, as I mentioned, in some cases to
Speaker 1: even pay their rent for the month, let alone be
Speaker 1: able to be without employees and to scale back up
Speaker 1: their businesses well. And to add to some of the
Speaker 1: additional challenges. And we have a president right now who's
Speaker 1: eyeing tax increases on you know, possibly sixty of the
Speaker 1: country and looking at spending trillions of dollars on an
Speaker 1: infrastructure bill that really isn't an infrastructure. Yeah. And let's
Speaker 1: add on to that, UM wanting to increase the federal
Speaker 1: minimum wage, which I mentioned. You know, Amazon and folks
Speaker 1: are now pushing for UM and which, by the way,
Speaker 1: they've admitted Joe Biden used his outside voice instead of
Speaker 1: the inside voice in his head to whisper and say, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're now competing with you for employees, so
Speaker 1: that that's sort of a de facto pushed too, to
Speaker 1: increase the minimum wage. And then there's something, UM, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've talked about it before, called the
Speaker 1: pro Act, which is basically taking the independent contractor language
Speaker 1: from a B five in California and trying to nationalize it,
Speaker 1: which could completely kill the ability for people to be
Speaker 1: independent contractors, which is like fifty nine million jobs and
Speaker 1: small businesses, a lot of them rely heavily on independent
Speaker 1: contractors because the government makes it so difficult to hire
Speaker 1: and maintain an employee. UM. So you know, all of
Speaker 1: those kinds of policies, and even something like the capital
Speaker 1: gains tax that they're talking about increasing, which by the way,
Speaker 1: Communist China's capital gains taxes only even even they know
Speaker 1: to keep that low. Um. That's something that it sounds
Speaker 1: again like it's an attack on the wealthy. But the
Speaker 1: wealthy is just going to move around their capital. But
Speaker 1: what they're not going to do is they're not going
Speaker 1: to take on extra risk. They're gonna be looking in
Speaker 1: different places, um to minimize the risk in order to
Speaker 1: make up the differential that they have to make up
Speaker 1: for the higher taxes. So the riskiest businesses out there
Speaker 1: are the ones that are smaller and startups and most innovative.
Speaker 1: So who do you think is going to be hurt
Speaker 1: the most when you have, you know, somebody at the
Speaker 1: government interfering in the market and changing and disrupting risk
Speaker 1: allocation via capital gains tax. Of course it's gonna end
Speaker 1: up being the small businesses. So all of these things
Speaker 1: they keep throwing out under the guys, we're gonna attack
Speaker 1: the world. They were going to attack the big guys,
Speaker 1: We're gonna, you know, do it for the little guys.
Speaker 1: It's to get them more revenue and power, and it's
Speaker 1: to crush the little guys, whether it's intentionally or just
Speaker 1: again because they're they're the easiest to kind of throw
Speaker 1: out his cannon fodder. Personally, I mean, I think it's intentional.
Speaker 1: I think it's their worldview of trying to crush I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the left purports to be about the people, but
Speaker 1: they're about power and about power at the top and
Speaker 1: power with government as opposed to you know, actually giving
Speaker 1: power to the people. But uh, you know, so one thing,
Speaker 1: I'm just curious about how helpful was p PP two
Speaker 1: small businesses those loans. So this is this is a
Speaker 1: mixed bag. Um. It's kind of like, you know, how
Speaker 1: helpful is a crumb keeping you from starving? Like, you know,
Speaker 1: it maybe sustains you for another few hours or a
Speaker 1: few days. Um. And certainly for some small businesses it
Speaker 1: was helpful. The problem is that it was a fraction
Speaker 1: of the overall dollars that were given out, and it
Speaker 1: was a fraction of the dollars that were needed to
Speaker 1: make up for the level of property rights interference that
Speaker 1: the government government made. Um, right up front, the first,
Speaker 1: you know, the first trunch of it, and the Cares
Speaker 1: Act was structured so poorly, and this is all over
Speaker 1: the media. It was before it's it's popping up again
Speaker 1: that the biggest quote unquote small companies out there were
Speaker 1: the ones who got most of the money, and it
Speaker 1: was exhausted in like thirteen to fourteen days, and so
Speaker 1: over three trunches, you know, about eight hundred billion has
Speaker 1: been taken down, which again is a fraction of the
Speaker 1: six plus trillion dollars we've spent at this point in time, um,
Speaker 1: But for the length of time that they've had these
Speaker 1: small business owners on the ropes, like that's just you know,
Speaker 1: it's not enough for half of the economy. And even
Speaker 1: if a third of that half is what was the
Speaker 1: fact did, it's still not enough to make to make
Speaker 1: up for that. Plus you had to jump through all
Speaker 1: these hoops. A lot of people didn't qualify because they
Speaker 1: had contractors in their business or because of their own
Speaker 1: debt backgrounds. Some people rightfully so, we're distrustful of the government,
Speaker 1: so they weren't sure that they were actually going to
Speaker 1: get it forgiven, so they decided not to go ahead
Speaker 1: with it. So like at every turn, um, you know,
Speaker 1: it was pretty clear that that program was not the
Speaker 1: savior that they touted to be, and we're continuing to
Speaker 1: see those issues. I had a small business owner just
Speaker 1: email me today. I put it out on Twitter that
Speaker 1: they had applied for relief from this restaurant relief program
Speaker 1: that the Biden administration had in conjunction with the SBA,
Speaker 1: again picking winners and losers. If you're a restaurant, we're
Speaker 1: going to give you relief. You know, if you're a
Speaker 1: dry cleaner or something else like too bad for you,
Speaker 1: you can't apply. UM. But what they did is that
Speaker 1: they discriminated. They said, if you were a woman or
Speaker 1: a minority, we were going to prioritize you. So they
Speaker 1: told three thousand women and minority businesses that they were
Speaker 1: going to get money. And you know, my particular small
Speaker 1: business owner who contacted me was had had said you
Speaker 1: were approved. They said the amount it was like fifty
Speaker 1: seven thousand dollars and you know whatever the it ended
Speaker 1: in into O eight, I don't remember. The middle number
Speaker 1: was UM and they showed the bank account it was
Speaker 1: going to and said it will be there in three
Speaker 1: to seven days from now. You've been fully approved. And
Speaker 1: then they were sued. The SBA was sued and said,
Speaker 1: you know, you've discriminated and prioritize certain people based on
Speaker 1: race um And so then the SBA went back to
Speaker 1: three thousand women and minority owned businesses and stead, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: we're not giving you the money anymore. So instead of
Speaker 1: going and getting more money, which again we're talking like
Speaker 1: billions of dollars, which is a fraction of the trillions
Speaker 1: that they've wasted on other things in order to support
Speaker 1: these small businesses that they've already told they're giving a
Speaker 1: lifeline to, they've now rescinded that they've now taken that back,
Speaker 1: Like like, what what are we doing here? There's such
Speaker 1: a callousness with the lockdowns as well. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just such a disregard for lives and just you know people.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got people like this is how they
Speaker 1: put food on the table, this is how people put
Speaker 1: a roof over their children's head, how they're going to
Speaker 1: be able to send their kids to college in the future.
Speaker 1: You have generational restaurants passed down, you know, throughout generations gone.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is something that you know we're talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, restaurants businesses that people have worked their entire
Speaker 1: lives to build, just and then employ people that they
Speaker 1: employ as well. And it's like it's like there's just
Speaker 1: such a callousness and just such a disregard for the
Speaker 1: people at the heart of it. Yeah, and it's their identities.
Speaker 1: I don't don't think people realize if you've never into
Speaker 1: small business before, how difficult it is. I mean, most
Speaker 1: small business owners have invested their own money to get
Speaker 1: it going, so they've taken on risk. They've worked definitely
Speaker 1: more than forty hours a week. You know, it's it's blood,
Speaker 1: sweat and tears. They've probably had more aggravation than they
Speaker 1: would if they had just had a regular job. And
Speaker 1: it becomes like their child and their identity, and they're
Speaker 1: really wrapped up in that business as a part of them.
Speaker 1: And as you said, sometimes it's multigenerational, and to take
Speaker 1: that away from people, um can alter their lives. You know.
Speaker 1: I had a story. I put out a call to
Speaker 1: hear about some of these stories, and there's this horrendous
Speaker 1: story that that sticks with me. UM Here in the
Speaker 1: suburbs of Chicago, a guy who owned a carpet cleaning
Speaker 1: business and that was shut down very early on. He
Speaker 1: could not qualify for p p P because he had
Speaker 1: had some past bad debts, so they disqualified him, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he really started bleeding cash and he turned
Speaker 1: to alcohol and he in short order took his own life.
Speaker 1: And this is the kind of thing we're talking about.
Speaker 1: I mean that that's a death from the government's decision
Speaker 1: to do these mandates and to tell this person that
Speaker 1: he wasn't essential. So when people say, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's only money and it can be replaced, like, that's
Speaker 1: not it. That's not the story. That's not what happened. Um,
Speaker 1: So it's really really devastating to hear these stories. There's
Speaker 1: another one in Chicago, Southport Lanes, which is sort of
Speaker 1: like an eating, drinking and gathering establishment. It was about
Speaker 1: to celebrate one hundred years in business. It survived Prohibition
Speaker 1: as a bar, yet could not survive what the government
Speaker 1: did during COVID. I mean, it's just absolutely staggering. And again,
Speaker 1: these are just a handful of millions of stories where
Speaker 1: people have either completely gone out of business or are
Speaker 1: you fighting to hang on. Well, that's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I refused to ever say we're all in this
Speaker 1: together because we're not right, I was still getting a paycheck,
Speaker 1: So that's completely unfair to say what other people were
Speaker 1: truly suffering. And every person out there that said we
Speaker 1: were all in this together was still getting a paycheck.
Speaker 1: I mean, I literally cannot think of one person who
Speaker 1: was out there saying we're all in this together that
Speaker 1: wasn't still employed and receiving a paycheck. So that, of
Speaker 1: course is at the height of the or think about
Speaker 1: the government. The government didn't take they didn't take a
Speaker 1: cut exactly. It's like that that. Yeah, and you've got
Speaker 1: these people making these policies just devastating the lives of
Speaker 1: so many people who are still getting paid. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's sick. It really, it's twisted, and it's disgusting, and
Speaker 1: and of course there's not gonna ever be any consequences
Speaker 1: outside of, you know, trying to throw some of these
Speaker 1: bums out of political office, which is you know, nearly
Speaker 1: impossible in some of these liberal cities and states. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's just it's twisted. I mean, it really
Speaker 1: is sick what's happened over the past year. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got Cuomo who got to write a book about
Speaker 1: his leadership and get an Emmy about what a great
Speaker 1: job he did and pat himself on the back and
Speaker 1: ended up murdering literally, you know, people as well as
Speaker 1: murdering small businesses. And and like you said, it's not
Speaker 1: going to face um nearly the consequences. You know, one
Speaker 1: thing I've been advising small business owners to do is
Speaker 1: to sue because I really feel like, you know this,
Speaker 1: this is an eminent domain situation and they were not
Speaker 1: appropriately compensated. So I would imagine we would see some
Speaker 1: class action lawsuits pop up, you know, in in months, um,
Speaker 1: in years to follow, and uh, you know it's it's
Speaker 1: a double edged sword because you know, they deserve their compensation. Um.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, you know who's
Speaker 1: paying for that. That's me and you, because it's not
Speaker 1: these government officials who have absolutely no risk uh for
Speaker 1: these ridiculous actions that they continue to take. And and
Speaker 1: that's a that's a darn shame. Quick commercial breaks, stay
Speaker 1: with us, well in real quick before we go. What
Speaker 1: needs to be done the most to help small businesses
Speaker 1: right now? If you could pick one thing, So the
Speaker 1: thing that's easiest for all of us to do is
Speaker 1: to vote with your dollars and your wallets. I know
Speaker 1: it's super easy to go online and you know, go
Speaker 1: to a certain big online retailer, go to a big
Speaker 1: box retailer when you're out running errands. But really think about,
Speaker 1: you know, what that does to decentralization, economic freedom and
Speaker 1: the consolidation of power in the economy, and is it
Speaker 1: worth it? Is that like extra click of convenience worth
Speaker 1: you know, taking away potential economic freedom and moving us
Speaker 1: into a place where there's this consolidated power. So I
Speaker 1: think if we are all more conscious about how we
Speaker 1: vote with our dollars um, that's an easy thing for
Speaker 1: us to attack as we continue to find ways to
Speaker 1: bring in the fed right in government and do all
Speaker 1: those other things that need to be done that are
Speaker 1: a lot more challenging to do. Carol, this has been
Speaker 1: a fascinating discussion. I've really enjoyed it was super interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you wrote this book. And for the
Speaker 1: folks at home again, the book is called The War
Speaker 1: on Small Business, How the Government used the pandemic to
Speaker 1: crush the backbone of America. Carol, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining this week's episode. I really appreciate the discussion. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for giving it a platform. As we
Speaker 1: we kind of started out, not enough people care about this,
Speaker 1: So for you advocating for a small business and advocating
Speaker 1: for people to pick up the book so they can
Speaker 1: educate themselves and show the media and publishers and whatnot
Speaker 1: that people do care about this and they want to
Speaker 1: hear more people talking about this. Um, it's so important
Speaker 1: and to walk the talk that I was just talking about. UM,
Speaker 1: if you don't want to go to the big company
Speaker 1: to buy the war on small business, there's a great
Speaker 1: online company called bookshop dot org and they will fulfill
Speaker 1: your order from a local small business bookseller. So anytime
Speaker 1: you want to buy a book, including this one, you
Speaker 1: can just go to bookshop dot org and then you'll
Speaker 1: be supporting a small business owner. So you've got to
Speaker 1: support a small business and small business advocacy at the
Speaker 1: same time. I love that, So everyone go by the
Speaker 1: book there as opposed to you know, Amazon, So again,
Speaker 1: appreciate what you're doing. My heart goes out to everyone
Speaker 1: who's been suffering over the past year as a result
Speaker 1: of our horrible and tyrannical government. So Carol, appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much appreciate you. Thank you. I want
Speaker 1: to dake Carol Roth again for a really important interview
Speaker 1: in writing a book that everyone needs to read. And
Speaker 1: I want to thank you guys at home for listening.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy today's show, please leave us a review
Speaker 1: and rate us five stars on the Apple Podcast. I
Speaker 1: love hearing your feedback. Please leave a review, Please leave reading,
Speaker 1: but only if it's five stars, just kidding. You can
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Speaker 1: rebooth and I want to bank or team who makes
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