The Heavy Equipment Podcast
Whether we're exploring the latest in equipment technology, talking about the trends that propel the industry forward, or uncovering stories about the dedicated individuals who keep the dirt moving, and wheels of America turning, this is where the roar of the engines and the pulse of progress come together. It is sublime. It is surreal. It's the Heavy Equipment Podcast ... with Mike and Jo!
The Heavy Equipment Podcast
HEP-isode 36 | Trains, Troubles, and Snap-on Tools
On the first thrilling HEP-isode of 2025, we explore one of the most pressing issues in the trucking industry: parking! We also cover the failures of policy and regulation in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, emphasizing the historical neglect of rail, and whether or not we actually need any of the stuff we need. All this and more – welcome to 2025!
I need McDonald's and we're going down with all kinds of Skittles here. I got all kinds of Mountain Dew coming out the back of the bunk. Let's hit the record button. Let's go.
Speaker 2:Oh shit, you already got it on. Just nothing but go-gurts and jawbreakers Everlasting gobstoppers.
Speaker 1:Almost got in a wreck last week. Hit the brakes and all them gobstoppers rolled up underneath the air ride seat and got stuck underneath the pedal. I couldn't push the clutch down that was a really weird phase.
Speaker 2:Why was that? All you would eat for like a month I'm back on it, bud. I've lost 20 pounds I think that's a good way to lose 20 pounds.
Speaker 1:Hey, it's better than losing it at the stall on the flying jay.
Speaker 2:It's oh yes, hey, speaking of which, did you see the the loves is selling off all of its hotel? They ought to burn them all. I think they're already burning them all, but no, I think that's a serious thing because, like, first of all, what a great idea to have hotels associated with your travel stops, because now you've got a place to park the truck and you can actually get into a hotel and get a shower and sleep in a normal bed so you know, great idea you can stop your truck, you get a place to park that and all that.
Speaker 2:But also I had no idea they had hotels. Did you know this?
Speaker 1:yes, we've never stayed at them, though, but let me tell you this they ought to be going in there with flamethrowers, like they're trying to decontaminate an old Congo village out in the Amazonian areas. You can just go in there and burn them down. That's it Calling the fast movers. With the heavy napalm eradicated, because you know why. We need more truck parking. We can't get off the road as it is.
Speaker 1:I got drivers calling and complaining all night long that they can't find a place to park. Trucks are all tangled up. Had a truck get clipped the other day. We talked about that on one of the other episodes. It's just, it's bedlam out there. It's chaos. If you want to leave anything, they charge you for stuff. It'll leave a wide load at a Tennessee truck stop.
Speaker 2:And they charged us every night while I was there waiting, while we were waiting on a permit from their great state. And look, it's really rough, right, Because you can't seem to get anything now and I'm not talking about right wing, left wing, none of that because you look at this last truck parking improvement act that they tried to push through in the last Congress. They had 52 sponsors, a pretty fair mix of Republicans and Democrats, and they couldn't get that through. Nobody is interested in solving this problem unless it puts money in their pocket.
Speaker 1:Dead straight. When you come in somewhere, if you're driving anything nice, you talk to any of the drivers on the road. What do they look for? They look for the freight liners and they look for the Volvos and they look for all that and they see where those are and they see where those are parked and then they start looking for the square hoods. Square hoods are usually owner operators. Guys got nicer stuff, know how to park, know how to leave in the morning, get yourself all nestled in, rode out real nice, got a little bit extra space out there checking stuff. And then you know oh, it's starting to get dark. Some guy pulls in and parks right in front of eight trucks sideways and shuts her down for the night.
Speaker 2:Oh no, it's brutal and it's brutal. There there doesn't seem to be a standard kind of education about how to compose yourself on the road anymore. It used to be. There was kind of an unspoken rules of the road, and especially with truck drivers. You know we used to get on the road and you know now I'm going to sound like an old man, but you know you go 30, 40 years back. If you were driving down the road next to a semi truck, you knew that the guy next to you was going to be the most attentive, sharpest, best driver you were going to encounter that day. Now I don't know, man. I figure half these guys don't have licenses of any kind, let alone CDL. They're swerving all over the place if they're not on their phone.
Speaker 1:No, it's bad, you know. I mean it's hard to drive when you get your legs up on the dash cruise control set. You're playing a video game and watching a movie all at the same time.
Speaker 2:I know it and you know I'm the first guy. Well, I usually the second guy, you're the first guy but you know I'm among the first people to respond in favor of labor and against automation. But when you have a nationwide driver shortage, you have an entire economy that's based on shipping and moving things by truck truck and you can't get enough people in there and you just get so desperate that you're putting you know, I I don't want to say human garbage behind the wheel, but you're putting people who have no business being behind the wheel of an 80 000 pound semi-tractor and you're putting all that on the road. You kind of start to wonder maybe we should start automating some of these things. We need more trains.
Speaker 2:We need to move more stuff for the rail.
Speaker 1:It's the Heavy Equipment Podcast. We've talked about locomotives, we've talked about engines before. Mass movement of freight in this country has always been done via rail. It was supplemented by on-road trucking, and when we made a shift away from that, we had a shift when we got away from warehousing materials.
Speaker 1:We got away from building railroad spur lines and being able to manage your inventory flow and cash flow to just-in-time. Just-in-time came around because it was cheaper, it was easier to just pick up the phone and now people that have Amazon Prime oh I need this, so I don't need to go anywhere. It'll show up at my doorstep tomorrow. You got to get back to rail. Rail fixes a lot of problems, keeps a lot of it off the street. If you're picking up something in Washington State and you're taking it to Miami Florida and it's not going on a train, we got a serious problem. Unless it's absolutely needed to forego an emergency or somebody's problem, put it on a rail and ship it yeah, I think the uh, the instant gratification culture, the just in time culture.
Speaker 2:I hesitate to speak ill of lord bezos, though, because, like I gotta tell you, if I can't have kitty litter delivered to my doorstep in two days, I'm gonna kill myself.
Speaker 1:Listen, the guy stopped, started in a little closet space selling books and selling stuff online, and it's grown to what it is. Obviously there's a need for it. Yes, there is a total purpose for it. However, what I'm getting at is you can't run a business off of it. You shouldn't be running a business off of it. You shouldn't be running stuff day to day, hoping, hoping and praying your Amazon deliveries drop off your goods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's a lot of shops out there, a lot of companies out there that are running that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, leave the Amazon stuff for absolute emergencies and all the absolute needs that have to happen. And you know, oh, we can't get it any other way or normal vendors can't get it, but I found it on amazon, so get it this one time. Leave it for that, but yeah, but it has a place, it has a purpose. He has created something that is. That is incredible, and you know he's got a hell of a workforce working for him.
Speaker 2:He does. But look at what happened during covid, right, and we're talking now four years back, or which is crazy to think that we're coming up on the five-year anniversary of COVID now. But think about what that was, where you had airports shutting down, you had shipping terminals shutting down and Amazon, because they had their own airplanes, their own truck fleet, their own terminals, when the rest of the world was shutting down, they were still operating, and not only operating. They were operating more efficiently because they weren't having to slot in between other flights or figure out their cargo manifests around other boats. I think that really created for them something insurmountable that I think, unless there's another, you know, some other kind of global reckoning here, I don't think there's going to be an opportunity for somebody else to catch them.
Speaker 1:Almost as if it was planned. Oh Christ.
Speaker 2:You've been talking to Neil again. I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Speaker 1:I'm kidding. And Mr Bezos, wherever you may be residing on top of your 24 karat gold, whatever it is, we don't mean any ill towards you, so please call off the drone strike.
Speaker 2:No, I'm worth more to Amazon, alive than dead. You and me both.
Speaker 2:So what are we going to talk about today? It's been a good couple of weeks. We had the last episode, we had the Fortescue mines, that giant, big old truck that they had there, I think you know. Interesting to kind of get back to this. We talk about highways and trucking and rails and things like that and we always talk about this kind of bygone era. And we always talk about this kind of bygone era and I think a lot of that came with this idea that as Americans we used to build stuff Damn it Right Like we used to build Hoover.
Speaker 2:Last week there was a four point two billion dollars released for what they call infrastructure projects. Like you know, bridge maintenance overpasses things like that, and even though that, a lot of that was based off of that tragedy of the bridge collapse that we were talking about, you know, when that, that tanker hit that bridge, the is $4 billion. That won't even buy you a stealth bomber anymore. That's not a lot of money. So how are we going to keep building stuff and keep the infrastructure going while the population is growing, while the demand for goods and things is going? How are we going to do that? Because you know, we've got a new guy, an old friend that we all deeply know and love, coming into power here again in January. And he's not talking about building bridges, he's not talking about putting in rail. What's going to happen here?
Speaker 1:No, it's, that's why I brought all that up. I mean we we need a serious infrastructure douche and right.
Speaker 1:And because we got to flush out all the old stuff that isn't working. We got to go through and re-implement. What do we need out of infrastructure for transportation and movement of freight? What do we need it to accomplish for us? And where you could poll the universe, aliens will tell you we suck at getting around. We need efficient highways to help with some of the massive truck traffic that we have. We need to add to our railroads because the railroads right now call anybody at the unions that support the railroad effort. All of those transportation unions will tell you there is not enough emphasis being put on rail traffic right now.
Speaker 1:We need passenger traffic by rail. We've talked about that multiple times. Everybody says it can't be done. No, we can be done. We have some of the most unused land in the world.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm not saying that. Some of the densely populated areas yes, it's going to be challenging. Some of the densely populated areas, yes, it's going to be challenging. But if you're trying to get from New York, pittsburgh, cleveland, chicago, we got to be able to do it better than we're doing. And anybody that's gotten on a train in Cleveland at 2.30 in the morning via Amtrak it's not the best experience out there. But they're trying. Give them some operating breaks, give them what they need to be able to go out there. And? But they're trying. Give them some operating breaks, give them what they need to be able to go out there. And add to that, make it where people want to go from. You know, in my home state of Ohio you want to be able to go from Cleveland to Columbus on a train and get there in an hour and a half and not have to drive it Well.
Speaker 1:Put it in Well, that's a decade of jobs.
Speaker 2:That's a decade of support. More than that, if you look at like, actually do this. If you're listening to this and you're listening to this, we talk about China all the time, and the reason we talk about China is because, like America, they have a huge workforce. Like America, they have natural resources like wood, steel, timber, and, like America, they have a huge open space in between, effectively, two coastal regions, in the South and in the East. For them, and for us, it's in the East and the West.
Speaker 2:Now, if you go back to the early 2000s, 2006, 2007, 2008,. We had a global real estate banking crisis, and the way that the two countries responded to that set the stage for the next 15 years that we're living in now, where they have surpassed us objectively, materially, indisputably surpassed us in manufacturing, and one of the reasons they did that was because they initiated a national rail program. Look at a map of China's rail projects in 2006 and look at it today. And now look at America's. And instead we have spent billions of dollars on underground hyperloops in Texas that don't work. We've spent billions of dollars subsidizing airlines and all they've done is done stock buybacks and screw over the labor unions, which is a whole different show. All that we have done is bail out automotive companies who have turned around and spent another $20 billion in stock buybacks to funnel that taxpayer money directly back into their own pockets.
Speaker 2:The amount of corruption and greed that has halted progress in this country is staggering. And when you look at other countries, you look at European rail, you look at Chinese rail, japanese rail. If you are any kind of person who has ever traveled this great green earth of ours, you come back here and you go. I don't know what people are talking about. The greatest country in the world. There's a lot of things that make America great, but the idea that it takes a thousand dollars and half your day to fly from New York to California when they have figured out how to get on a train in the UK and go at 300 miles an hour to Germany for 40 bucks is embarrassing. We are so far behind in so many ways.
Speaker 1:It's totally embarrassing. And if you look at any 1950s, 1960s film I'm not even talking the 80s Look at where they thought we would be in 2025. In the 1950s yeah, 70 years in the future We'd have floating shit that went down the highway and scratched her ass. We, we don't have that at all and I'm mad about it because I don't like my drive as it is and nothing's making it better.
Speaker 2:Oh, I thought you were mad about it because you didn't have a bidet and I was like I thought we got you one of those.
Speaker 1:Oh, the guy cleaning my car don't like that I use it in it.
Speaker 2:But you don't like that you use it in the car.
Speaker 1:So no, but my whole point is that people back then we had so much momentum and so much progress and people thought for sure we were going to be floating cities in the sky and we thought we were going to have floating automobiles. It would be like the Jetsons over here. Yeah, and it's not. Yeah and it's not yeah. Closest thing, the closest thing that we have to anybody coming up with any kind of thing that relates to the Jetsons, is Musk and Elon's trying to figure that crap out and figure out how he can put people in space. That builds so much jobs, that has so much infrastructure to it. It is limited for right now.
Speaker 2:Going back to Lord Bezos, though he's trying to put some people in space. He's got Shatner, that's true. You know it's funny. We're getting to a point now we are way off topic. We're getting to a point now where it's not going to be, you know, black or white, or right or left or Republican, or Democrat or Christian or Muslim. It's going to be Elon or Bezos, and you're going to have to pick a side. The universe could not handle that kind of conflict. I don't see Elon's little RoboTax is delivering my groceries on a Tuesday morning, so I already know what side I'm on.
Speaker 1:All I know is if somebody pulls up and the door opens up and it says welcome to Johnny Cab, I sure as hell ain't getting in that thing we saw.
Speaker 2:Hang on, hang on would you okay, because this is a legitimate question now, because we just had this robo taxi unveiling about a month ago. Right, because, as we're recording this, that happened a month ago.
Speaker 2:So there is now a legitimate company out there, a trillion dollar valuation company out there, with a guy who is deeply entrenched in the upcoming administration. So all the legal barriers to uh, you know, to putting a vehicle like this on the road are going to be presumably overcome. So this is something that's happening, right. Do you think that people would be more or less accepting of a robot taxi if it had, like, a voice and a face like that that they could relate to and talk to? Or is it just like the fact that it's totally open and sterile? Does that make it more welcoming?
Speaker 1:well, all I know is if some automatronic thing turns around and looks at me and asks me something creepy, I'm getting out. I don't need some guy in the passenger seat because I'm on a group ride, lifting up his shirt and trying to, you know, hypnotize me into becoming part of their clan.
Speaker 2:That's not gonna happen you have a very interesting life.
Speaker 1:That stuff just don't happen to me let me tell you, when you're trying to get from chicago o'hare international airport, 2, 30 in the morning and you got to make your way to southern indiana oh, yeah, it happens between there and there oh well, remember my, uh, my purple lights in the field.
Speaker 2:That was a weird one that was gas.
Speaker 1:You have gas anyways. You know, that's the thing. Infrastructure is something that has always carried this country through. It is always something that we do. We constantly evolve each itself, we evolve everything around us, we evolve all of our being into something more efficient, more mobile, more free to move around as we need to. We've talked about this before. You know, the Eisenhower administration was one of the ones that. Go listen, these cow path roads you guys have are dangerous. We're going to build an interstate system. Interstate. It started in the 50s. It started actually before that. But when they started dismantling trolley cars and stuff like that out in California and they started actually putting the roadways in, some people say that that was kind of the end of that era. But we have to get back to that. We got to get more efficient modes of transportation for people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, as an American, there was something that was put.
Speaker 1:Hold on, look at this, hold on on, hold on. This is the other thing too. Let's talk about americans chevrolet, gmc. You can't have a chevy lot in every town full of cars that, no matter how you finance those, is going to cost you between 600 and 1200 a month. No, and not at the current rate of inflation that we're dealing with, with groceries and food and house payments and interest. You can't do that. Give people stuff that lets them get to work efficiently, safely, and then watch how they spend their money on the things that they need to buy and watch how they spend their money on. You want to talk about a housing boom, free a bunch of people of car payments that are one third of their house payment, yeah, or more or more. Get somebody who's like. All of a sudden they're like, yeah, we can buy that house that actually fits us, because I don't have a 1400 a month payment on a uconn. No, but I mean.
Speaker 2:A lot of this goes back to this whole idea of like do you need a uconn? And this is look two, two things. First one about infrastructure. There was an idea and it was planted by all those madmen advertising guys in the 60s and 70s that said automotive ownership, the ownership of a private car, is a sign of success and public transportation is for poor people who can't afford cars. And that idea was marketed so successfully that we still inherently think about that today. And if you talk to people like and again, I'm not trying to make this sound like Germany or South America or Asia is better than the States, because I genuinely don't believe that, but there are some things that they got right and some things that we got wrong and the idea that you have a successful economy when rich people take public transit is something that here in America we could really adopt and it would make it better for all of us.
Speaker 1:I agree. I mean, we talk about construction equipment. We talk about Volvo and Liebherr and those guys that make great quality equipment and we talk about all of these things that Hitachi builds and mining and all that. A friend of mine is a vice president of equipment over one of the largest paving companies in the area, and I don't mean like they pave a section of road for the city of whatever in Ohio. They pave interstate miles and miles of it in a crack. They do their own mining. They bring all their own materials. They make all their own stuff. If you want to talk about exploding people's net worth, their paychecks, their jobs, get some of this stuff on the table and then, you know, you get all these other people like, wow, how are we going to pay for that? You know, taxpayer dollars are tapped as it is Now I don't know. Stop giving the money to GM to pay back all their stock, to turn around and screw you out of all this money by a $1,400 a month. Uconn.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent, man. Look, let's talk about what happened. We talked about 08 and 09 and that decision that some countries made to invest in infrastructure and the decision that America made to bail out the banks. You had people who had a $400,000 loan on their house and then the next day their house was worth two hundred thousand and they were two hundred grand upside down. So what happened? When the taxpayer dollars that came from that poor bastard who was upside down in his house were used to bail out the bank so that they were no longer two hundred grand underwater on that home, that poor schmuck who still owns that house is still $200,000 under. They never got that bailed out. The banks were bailed out, but then they still collected $400,000 on that $200,000 home.
Speaker 2:It was disgusting and offensive what happened, and that continued with the automotive bailout and everybody likes to say, oh well, ford didn't get a bailout, ford got the biggest bailout of them all. But Ford was smart enough to say, look, ford Motor Company doesn't need a bailout. Why don't you go bail out Ford Motor Credit, which is technically a separate company? Listening to this and you're not aware of that? Ford took the biggest government bailout of them all and they had a massive propaganda campaign saying that they were the only ones who didn't do it. And it was again I keep using the words embarrassing and offensive because the trillions of dollars that went into the stock market when COVID hit to keep that afloat, that went into the banking industry to keep that afloat. I hate to tell you this, man, but if you were 200 grand upside down in your home and the bank got bailed out, if that bank had gone under, you wouldn't have anybody to pay 400 grand to. You would have had your home. That would have been great. Those bailouts were completely at the service of the very, very wealthy investor class and to the detriment and denial of the hardworking people in this country.
Speaker 2:And, frankly, if you want to get really crazy, that's why Trump won, because we were told over and over again, not only by Harris and not only by Biden and you know I. You know I vote blue most of the time. I'm not a Trump fan. I didn't vote for the guy. You know they kept telling everybody the economy is great. Look at Wall Street, look at the Dow, look at the S&P, look how great that's doing. And I'm sorry, dude, but when I'm sitting there trying to decide whether I'm going to have milk and eggs or pay my power bill. I don't care what the Dow Jones looks like. And they didn't get it. And that's why these guys won the election the way they did, because they got it and they spoke to those people and they didn't try to gaslight them into saying, hey, look, you know, as long as the Wall Street bankers are making their money, into saying, hey, look, you know, as long as the Wall Street bankers are making their money you should be happy, which, no, we're not happy.
Speaker 1:Burn it down, let's go. Yeah, because since the 80s, everybody has been gaslighted into saying, as long as Wall Street's doing good, we're all doing good. No, we're not. Only a group of people are doing well and the rest of everybody is working for it. You know, we talk about drivers and drivers on the road. A lot of these drivers on the road that are being thrown into a subpar truck and traveling down the highway and being forced to do reckless, reckless operations, driving beyond their limits, driving beyond their schedules.
Speaker 1:In the old days it was working two and three log books to satisfy your dispatcher. All you guys that are driving out there that are doing this, you, you're working for the man, okay, and years ago and they used to call it the man there's the government, it was this, it was that it was anybody above you. In reality, what, what's going on, is middle class people have turned into slave supporters of what you just talked about. Yeah, we all work, we all pay taxes. We buy things and pay taxes on them. Again, pay taxes on our houses that we want to buy. We rent an apartment. We pay taxes on everything else but the apartment's rent, depending on where you're at, and in some places you pay taxes and HOAs on top of that, and you pay taxes on the stuff that the HOA does. You pay taxes and HOAs on top of that, and you pay taxes on the stuff that the HOA does. By the time we turn around, all of our money is swallowed up by what is supposed to be helping us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I want to take issue with that because we don't have a middle class anymore, the way that our parents experienced it. Dude, think about this Again. You're listening to this. You're a young cat. You're 30 years old. You're not familiar with how it was. You have no idea. You have no idea what has been taken from you. The jobs in the fifties and sixties go watch an episode of unsolved mysteries. The jobs in the fifties and sixties were so good that people working men, middle-class working, traveling salesmen could have multiple families, that the wife didn't work and they didn't know about each other and he could support them all on his one job. You can't do that anymore. You got to have one family.
Speaker 1:That's horrible no, exactly, exactly now you got two, two parents working to support the one. Yeah, back in the 50s and 60s, like you said, you've got a guy who's got a wife in two cities. He's got this suburb where he built his new house in. He's got a wife downtown. Yeah, you've got your.
Speaker 2:Cincinnati wife and kids, and you love them. And then you've got your Florida wife and kids. Or husband, depending on where you were at in that era. Listen, there's nothing wrong with that, anybody that hasn't watched.
Speaker 1:Fellow Travelers watch it, because that's the whole real thing going on what's Fellow Travelers?
Speaker 2:I don't know about this.
Speaker 1:Oh Jesus, mother Mary.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:Jesus, it's like.
Speaker 2:Brokeback Mountain without the beans and cowboys.
Speaker 1:It really is a series about businessmen and stuff like that that had boyfriends and secret relationships way back in the day and it's really crazy to think how all that was going on while they all were married, while they all had legitimate lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's wild, but they could afford it. You know we talk about that's what I'm getting at.
Speaker 1:We're going to dive into this, all right.
Speaker 2:We're doing it, guys that live on the road Socioeconomics.
Speaker 1:Yes, guys that live on the road understand this. It was a shift into what was important and what is deemed important. There's a big difference there. What you're led to believe is important is one thing and what's truly important is another. There were a lot of men and women that lived in what would be considered a studio apartment today that had a small little kitchenette area, that had an area for a bed, had an area big enough for a recliner. They threw the radio on when they wanted to listen and they were stuck at home. Otherwise, they were out. They were out socializing, they were out being with people or they were working. If you're riding in a truck and you live out of a truck five days a week or however many days it is between home and there, you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:You Googled this the average size of a new home in 1955, when you had one man working, the wife at home, three or four kids in the house, if not more right number was 2,400 square feet and you had fewer kids in the house, and this goes back to $1,200, $1,400 a month car payments. There is the idea and you said it exactly right of what is actually important and what you've been led to believe is important, and you have been led to believe that you need a thousand square foot for every person in the house. You've been led to believe that you need a nice new car every five years that costs a hundred thousand dollars. And think about what we've lost. Man, you used to be able to buy, you know, a Ford Escort or a Ford Tempo. My first vehicle, my first new vehicle that I bought on my own, was a Dodge Dakota pickup truck in the 90s and it was brand new and it was $188 a month and I was upset. I was worried about making that payment.
Speaker 1:I totally get it, and that's what I'm trying to say is we had shifted away from all that. It's because you know you catch people in their emotional state and you catch them in a way where buying those things makes them feel good, hmm, and anybody that's ever sold anything understands that moment of opportunity where the salesman smells it and goes this feels good to go drive a brand new truck, did you always?
Speaker 3:need it no.
Speaker 1:You know, if you work on things and you like tools and you understand craftsmanship, it feels great to get on a snap-on truck and sell your soul to the devil for $25 every waking minute of your life from here on until the 4th. Teddy's not the devil, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2:Anyways, yeah, yeah, because you got a nice new wrench and it's shiny to boot and it's got a nice colored handle on it and that's great. Have you felt the one now that I that I just got where it's? It's a ratchet, but you like turn the handle like a screwdriver and it's like a little tiny, like a like a hundred. Oh, it's so good.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you something when val gets on facebook and she's preying on all these men and she's doing all her snap-on little gadget get-do videos and all that stuff and the skimpy shirts and the tight shorts, that's sales. And all across America snap-on guys and I've asked a bunch of them that stopped by. How many people get on here and reference Val? The one goes Jesus, I sell more tools because of her and she's not even anywhere close to me. That's sales that is sales.
Speaker 1:Do you need the shit? No, go buy a craftsman from lowes. Go call your milwaukee guy whoever sells milwaukee and buy a wrench. Those wrenches aren't bad icon. If you're only working on stuff on the weekends. Usually you can get by with icon tools from harbor freight. But we spend the money with snap on because we like it.
Speaker 2:I know, and I think I I'm the most guilty one of all, because I think I have a bunch of that stuff that I don't think I've ever used, just because it's cool. I work at a desk, why do I have?
Speaker 3:any of this exactly my point.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, a bunch of mini tire spoons to put o-rings on stuff. Oh oh, I could use that $400 later. That's great. It's only $4 a week. What are you talking about? $25 every working minute of your day for life.
Speaker 2:There you have it. Well, joke's on him. If I drop dead he isn't getting paid In the old days.
Speaker 1:In the old days, you cashed your check and the snap-on guy gave you back what he could. Yeah, think about that. You brought your paycheck to the snap-on truck. He pulled the cash drawer over and said $400 paycheck. Here's $300, kid, thanks for playing. I got a $400. Now, think about this, because this is an honest-to-God true story. My dad worked at a shop. He had had a newborn and he had all these things, and my older brother was just was just young, and the shop goes hey, you got to provide your own. Uh, floor jack just got out. I just got out of this trucking business, just sold my truck, got out of there with my shirt. Now, now I got, I'm already buying tools and you gotta tell me I go buy a floor jack I got. I gotta go buy food yeah up on.
Speaker 1:Guy pulls up later that day. He goes hey, do you need anything? Is you got a floor jack on the truck? He goes I do, it's not cheap, he goes. Well, they're telling me I gotta have one. It's a 300 floor jack. In 1977, yeah, he had to give the guy 20 bucks a week for a while.
Speaker 2:I don't look. You know, your dad was a huge part of my life too, and when he passed it broke my heart and I'm sure it broke yours.
Speaker 1:But in a moment of levity I think he just paid that guy off, that's right Cause that guy's grandson was trying to strong army for the last $50 that account.
Speaker 2:I told him it's in the gas he's at the funeral, get it. Oh nice, that's a good one. Well, you know one. I'll tell you what, though, man? We're talking about. A lot of companies that took advantage of this through corruption and greed, and you know, shiny marketing and bare naked ladies have taken advantage of the American working man, but one company that's never done that and one company that's always been there for the American working man Chase and Sanborn.
Speaker 3:You know, everybody's working at top speed these days. The times demand the best we've got, and the best, when it comes to coffee, is measured in terms of flavor. The demands we place upon coffee today are greater than ever before. Every cup must measure up, every sip must hit the spot Now, not only to fill its all-important place as part of a good meal, but for the boost fine coffee gives, the lift to help you get things done. Besides that, since the shortage makes rationing necessary, each cup should make up in excellence for the cups we don't get in between.
Speaker 3:Now to fill the bill, and more than fill it, get Chase and Sanborn coffee. You'll marvel that a single cup can hold so much delicious flavor. The secret is that Chase and Sanborn is more than one coffee. It's the finer ones blended, and today our experts are turning out the richest, most satisfying, most flavorful blend of our entire history. You want all the flavor you can get, so get all the flavor you can. Every time you part with a precious ration coupon, ask for chase and sanborn. Naturally, nowadays, with so many others buying chase and sanborn too, your grocer may sometimes run out. If he should please understand and cooperate, and the next time be sure to ask again for chase and sanborn coffee speechless you.
Speaker 2:You got nothing for that, do you no?
Speaker 1:I just respect it. I respect the Chase and Sanborn way. It's a way untarnished by all the things we've talked about and the levity of how our history is unfolding before us. You can always count on Chase and Sanborn to be there and be constant quality.
Speaker 2:Did I tell you I was got a? Uh, I was able to source some authentic chasing sanborn coffee. You did I did, and now you got gray hair, I do it took me back to another time, a time where I am old I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1:When they bring back cab overs in this country and they get some k200s brought up here from Australia, we'd be in a better place so two things I want to talk about that are serious.
Speaker 2:So we talked about owner operators for a little bit here and I know we're coming up on our time commitment so I want to be quick. The first owner operator to go electric in this country just bought a Volvo VNR electric out in California. He's a Salvidar's Trucking you know again owner-operator. He works the night shift at the Dreyage Trucks. He was able to use that eight trip money from California, along with the federal incentive rebate and a little kickback rebate from Volvo there, to discount the vehicle. He was able to roll into that thing effectively for free and he's going to save a ton of money driving that instead of the diesel. So good for him. We want to obviously celebrate a win like that and if you're an owner operator, you're a driver, you're a fleet buyer.
Speaker 2:Looking at this, look into these incentives. I'm not here to sell you electric over diesel. Just look into the incentives. I'm not here to sell you electric over diesel. Just look into the incentives, see what your fuel costs are going to be. Because if you look at the last 20 years of fuel costs diesel costs in this country they go up, they go down, depending on who's in office, depending on what's going on on the other side of the world. They go up and they go down. But look at the price of a kilowatt of electricity since 1976. It hasn't moved more than a penny. So if you want to have that kind of ability to forecast out your fleet costs and your fuel costs two, three, five years down the road, you have to be looking at this. And if you're using someone else's money some of that government money get some of that back. Dude, that's your tax dollars. Get them back.
Speaker 1:Give it a look California, new york, massachusetts, illinois I'm giving away.
Speaker 2:Illinois, here, is giving away 92 million dollars for people to buy heavy equipment heavy trucks, medium duty trucks that are electrified and, like you know, you're sitting there having conversations with people and they're going. I don't know if I want electric or not. Dude, buy it, give it a try.
Speaker 1:If you don't like it, one just get one and get your credit, because they're going to start asking for those credits they're going to want to see that you have an electric vehicle which they're going to help subsidize you for, and and if you don't?
Speaker 2:know if they're not subsidizing it. It's your money.
Speaker 1:You paid those tax dollars, Get them back, and here's the thing. And if you don't live in one of those states, you don't have an office in one of those states and you're like man. I wish we did.
Speaker 2:I'm going to plug them.
Speaker 1:I'm going to plug them right now because they've got a solution, for a UPS is what they call a suite. Get yourself a suite. You build yourself an entity in that state. You got drivers driving through it. If you got places that you do commerce in that state, it's 100 legal well it's not even legal.
Speaker 2:It's encouraged. They want that revenue.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm saying. Set yourself up, get yourself an entity in that state, become a partner of that state. Get your free tax dollars this entire show. We've talked about how you're getting screwed out of tax dollars. Get some of it back. Find out what these programs are about. People will guide you right to the check, coming back through your refunds yeah, and you're right on people uh, people on this show.
Speaker 2:In fact, you may be listening to one right now. You don't even know it that's my point.
Speaker 1:That is not me. I am not going to work on people's w2s, 1044s, 10, 9s, izz, gws. God damn, whatever's not doing it. Don't send me your tax forms. I'm sorry there's gonna be some guy. There's some guy who's filling out manila envelope at the truck stop right now like man. They're sending my paperwork.
Speaker 2:I'm like five years behind, no no, I'm not doing it if you're looking at no, but the irony is we'll get that. Look at it going. Look at all this money he's giving to the snap-on guy. This guy should be on food stamps. We could really help this guy don't call us no, if you want to forfeit it all to the snap-on man, we'll help you val will be there to hand you a new wrench I think we've peaked. We'll sign off with that one.
