Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Are We Doomed?

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

What does it mean to be an American in today's world? Are the greatest dangers we face external, or do they stem from internal division? What are the core values that define the nation? Are they freedom, integrity, and unity? while also addressing the real threats that challenge these principles. What role should we seek to play as neighbors, community members, and citizens?

What's up, everybody? And good morning. It's Friday, but I'm going to deviate a little bit from the full auto Friday traditional programming, I guess it would be. I got two emails, literally, and I'm not bullshading when I say that, back to back. They came in stacked right on top of each other. And, man, what a polar opposite experience and view from inside of our country and who we want to be. And I'm going to read both of those emails. And I think at the end, hopefully, it just gets people to think about who they want to be, what it means to be an American, and where the actual real threats to this country are coming from. Let's go. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now.

All right, here we go. Both emails are relatively long, so I'm going to read one, a few thoughts, read the other a few thoughts and then leave you to launch into your weekend here we go i was watching on youtube as you were speaking about the keeping of 20 to 30 employees paid on a weekly or biweekly basis i had run into this moral dilemma and stress myself i've been in the landscape and construction industry for 23 years now and i just turned 44 years old on memorial day that's how i remember my birthday the same way you said yours was 10-10 back to my work dilemma that occurred around the COVID era and starting previously before. I kept an average of 18 to 25 employees paid weekly with wages between $18 to $27 per hour and cash flow is always king. I actually almost

bankrupt myself making sure payroll was always met and the stress of it has now given me a 12-year prescription to Xanax, an addiction that was supposedly the best psychiatrist in town that would only accept you. Man, the words are tough today. They would only accept you with a referral. Kindly left out the part about the addiction. And now I'm looking at an eight to 14 month taper program to try to get my body not dependent on the 160 Xanax prescription that I've been on. The industry I work in, you're always working on net 30, 60, and 120-day payments. Now, I don't want to insult anybody's intelligence, but if you're not familiar with net terms, net 30 being you get a bill, you have 30 days to pay it or it's a due at the end of that,

it being net 30, 60 and 120. You can imagine if you're invoicing people or people are invoicing you, how that can get upside down if you don't manage it. You could have on the books an immense amount of cash flow that could be coming in, but it might be in 30 and 60 and 120 days down the road, and that's only if they pay on time, because sometimes 30 drifts into 60. 60 drifts into 120 and 120 drifts into what we're going to talk about here in this email. So that's net terms, again, not to insult anybody's intelligence.

But your materials and fuel and payroll fall in the net seven to 14 days. So he's being required to upfront with cash, given the perspective of, you know, seven to 14 days, you have money going out, 30, 60, 120, if ever, money coming back in. Yes, that is anxiety and stress-ridden for sure. I have felt that. plus the maintenance cost of 10 F350 or Ran Cummings trucks, 20 commercial mowers, excavators, skid steers, enclosed trailers, equipment, dump trailers, etc. Every Monday, I was already making sure 25K had been deposited by Thursday at 5 p.m. for Friday payroll in materials for the week. It slowly wore me down over the years. I completed my work on time or per contracts, but we would have to wait two weeks or two months for payments, so I had to keep tremendous cash flow, which really really,

started to change with a new generation of customers around 2014. I started seeing people file bankruptcy to get out of paying their landscaping bill, which included new home builders in commercial construction companies, which you can't get any money down to start a job, unlike a residential customer. You can only ask for a 30% down, which is the maximum per Tennessee state law. I really didn't have much trouble collecting money from 2000 to 2014, just a few incidents. I saw an increase in homeowners filing bankruptcy or just not paying their final draws or change orders. I saw more people using the internet to learn state laws and even saw websites on how not to pay your contractors and new home builders and commercial construction would just file

bankruptcy under an LLC and restart under a new LLC a month later. I would be considered an unsecured debtor and you would never see your money again. I also learned contracts would never hold up in court and you would need a minimum of $20,000 to try to go to court. Someone I trusted for 20 years got me into a $2 to $4 million landscape contract for around 1,400 homes in a new construction neighborhood. With only about 200 homes completed, M.E. left being owed $394,000 since they decided to file bankruptcy to discharge from paying all their subcontractors, only to have around 10 registered LLCs under a corporation and just hired new subcontractors and repeated the cycle until the subdivision was completed. I really started seeing an uptick in high-end and residential individuals,

doctors and owners of big businesses and lawyers and CEOs, where landscape, entertainment, and pool jobs that range from 100,000 to 375,000 filing for bankruptcy when the job was completed and the final payment was due. By this time, I've seen three of my good friends have to file for bankruptcy due to their customers putting them out of business due to non-payment and bankruptcy by customers and companies. They lost their homes, their vehicles and livelihoods, plus quality of life for their families and their health. Every one of them had to be on anxiety medicine and blood pressure medicine in their early 40s and they didn't have a cushion to fall back on. Since we all made sure our employees were paid even to our detriment. By COVID time,

60% of homeowners are quoting these state laws on why they didn't have to pay or wouldn't pay, but would have a new $165,000 wakeboard boat in their driveway a month after non-payment. As a contractor, you can't go on private property to take back any of your materials, and I even had a homeowner tried to extort me for $4,500 as we went to load up our equipment from a non-paying customer. If I didn't pay, he was going to call the police for felony trespassing. I tried one last time in 2023 for a 600 home new construction development. We did our first part of the contract for $89,000 for their model home, sales office, and other things done for the county to green light building, the new subdivision. I received $7,400, and I finally had

enough. The stress of making payroll was out of control, and I had gone $125,000 into savings to make sure my employees were taking care of. They all moved on to different trades and jobs and started small businesses, and they still mow and take care of my properties for free, since I always made sure they had money for their families. I did the right thing for my employees and I feel good about it, but the damage done to my health and stress definitely wasn't worth it. I learned putting liens on properties didn't count anymore. Banks just ignore them, and so do people.

I occasionally will get a call from a bank or a customer or attorney asking me to lift a lien or go to court. I luckily used money made to pay off equipment and vehicles and was able to sell them when used truck prices and equipment were at an all-time high to recoup money, and I'd always paid in cash for materials, so I didn't have any debt when I shut it down for good. I also didn't get married or start a family during my 23 years of business. I probably ended up with over $800,000 in loss starting around 2016 to 2023. The business landscape and customers just act entitled and didn't have to pay

or go in deep with these jobs. Now I work for a small landscape company, helping them navigate the new stuff. of business and helped them from a financial, or help them from financial mistakes in different business methods for $1,400 per week. And I had paid all of my debt when selling what was left to my company. I've been able to come off of eight different medications associated with stress for so many years, and the prescription Xanax has been able to be reduced to 45 a month now. I still have three good friends that had their own business forced into bankruptcy for more wealthy customers, and they might not financially recover for 10 years or more, probably in their

late 50s or early 60s. Now, the email continued. He was talking about his grandfather and his grandfather's experience in the military and his grandfather's influence on him being raised. What an unbelievable email. Now, I said at the beginning in the intro, you know, where the threats to our country are actually coming from. Yes, there are 100% external, existential threats. But I hear almost always people talking about Democrats and Republicans, which one of them is going to destroy our democracy, unchecked immigration policies, which is a real issue. And the Democrats and Republicans, everything I'm going to mention, they are real issues. So our political system, immigration, taxes, debt, foreign aid money, money going to Ukraine, the cost of, you know,

It's, you know, disaster relief, all of these things. And I hear so many people talking about the left or the right or is going to destroy the country, the cabal, a word that I didn't understand for a long time until recently, and I had to look it up. And I'm not even sure if that's the right usage of it, but it's a fantastic word. These cabal of elites that only care about themselves, which probably is true. And all of those threats are real. But when I read this email, the first thing that came to my mind was, this is the type of shit that is going to destroy our country from within. The willingness of Americans, I'm going to call the people in this email that he was talking about, a landscaping business, right? We're not talking about a multi-billion dollar tech organization that has a global reach.

We're talking about a small business servicing other Americans in the community that they, live being fucked over by those same individuals and other small business owners. The external threats are real, 100%. This shit right here, I think, will be the end of our country, though, potentially even faster than those external threats. When do we get to this place where you agree upon a price and then do everything you can to weasel out of it? Like, when did that start?

The way I was raised, if I borrowed money from somebody, if I entered into an agreement with somebody, if we shook hands over something physically or metaphorically, I guess, with a contract, there is no way that I'm going to default on that. You know, bankruptcy is a real thing. I've never had to go into bankruptcy. I've definitely been broke as fuck. But bankruptcy at that point isn't going to help the situation that I was in. So instead, I looked for every possible avenue and route and possibility to figure out my path forward,

to satisfy the arrangements and agreements that I had with other people. And it fucking sucked. You no longer get to do anything that you want to do. You only get to do the things that you need to do to maintain your integrity as, in my instance, as a man. In other instances, as a woman. that's how I was raised. This type of stuff where people, I believe, knowing enough small business owners at this point, that these people are entering into these agreements already understanding their endgame,

that they're not going to pay. They're fraudulent even in discussing and hiring these people. They have no intention to pay them. And I don't know where the fuck that comes from. And the people that they're not paying are their neighbors. They're the people in their community that have children that probably go to the same school. Obviously not in this situation because he said he doesn't have a family. But this type of thing I have heard more and more frequently.

It has gotten to a place where between our neighbors and the people that we live with, your word means nothing. And you would rather fuck them over for your own benefit than do the right thing and potentially have to make those choices. Do I want this or do I need this? Yeah, that's a harder path for sure. But if that's not even in your mental gymnastics in your equation anymore,

we're fucked, writ large. And I don't hear anybody talking about this type of stuff. And this is not the only industry that I hear this in. It is a shift in mindset. It is a shift in culture where we no longer care about the people in our own community. And if that continues, I personally believe we're proper fucked. So my question to the people listening to this, what type of neighbor do you want to be?

What type of community member do you want to be? Does integrity mean anything? Because it should. It's actually, as far as I consider people in my life, it's the foundational thing that I care about, their integrity. I don't care if you're right or wrong all the time. But I don't care. do care that when you're wrong, you acknowledge it, you address it, and you try to do better. And that's the approach of methodology I take, because I fuck up all the time. But I never try to blame it on other people. Okay, that one was tough. Let's flip to the other side of this coin and just think about it again, what type of a person do we want to be?

What type of an American do we want to be? What does it even mean to be an American? The second email. First thing I want to say is I'm not even sure why I'm entirely writing you. I find it unlikely that you will see this email. Ha ha ha, fooled you. Even less that you will find time to read it. You're wrong twice now in the first sentence.

Actually, it's the second sentence. And no expectation to get a replay or an answer for you. But I think this is something I wanted to say or get off my chest. And I wanted to say to someone that has no perspective into my life or who I am, a stranger who is unbiased. Also, I am safe. This isn't to cry for help. I just want to say these words. I'm seeing the devastation and pain.

in North Carolina and Florida to a lesser extent. I'm seeing what they are going through, and even after both monetary and goods and donations, it still feels like nothing is enough for me, like I haven't done enough to help. I see relief operations happening, volunteers being mobilized to help, and I hate myself for not being in a better position to do more.

From my perspective, doing more means being on the ground they're helping, helping people, individuals, and organizations they're on the ground. Now, I'm not just saying that. I am a prior Marines and currently Air National Guard. I'm a flight medic in the Air Guard where we conducted aeromedical evacuation, so I'm a trained medical professional who could aid with the disaster in that capacity. On my civilian side, I am a welder, have been for many years and I'm certainly useful at it. I've been in blue-collar work my whole life, and I'm handy with a wrench too. I could be useful in that capacity as well. Why am I not doing it then? Well, quite literally, I can't afford to take the time off of work. I know I said I'm 26, but I have a family of my own, which I am the sole provider for. I wouldn't have that any other way. My wife, having the ability to stay home and care for our daughter, and the dogs too, is a blessing and a privilege. There is also our current mortgage and the fact we're trying to sell this one to find house number two.

I feel like even with all this, I shouldn't be in this situation where I can't take off work even if I wanted to. Like if I did go down to volunteer and help, I would be doing so at the cost or risk of my own family's security. I can't point to one specific thing that got us here financially. I've always made the best decision I could at the time with the information I had. I never went crazy buying things or living outside of my means as best we can. I do a lot of tools for work, and that has definitely taken a lot of capital to accumulate, and yet I still need more tools if I ever want to become autonomous. But I don't think I go overboard with it.

Also, we may not be living paycheck to paycheck, but it's certainly every other check to check. I feel like I need to be in those environments to actually see and speak to the people I'm helping. I like welding and I have a good job in my life, but I need the chaos a little bit to make me feel worthy. I need to feel worthy of my sufferings. I feel best in a hectic environment, but where I'm making impact on someone else's life. I would easily join a fire company and ride an ambulance if I had any time left over to do so. Unfortunately, the time isn't there and even if I got a paid position, it wouldn't cover the pay cut. would have to take. I need to help people. That I'm certain is my purpose. To try and pursue that I even started an organization called the middleman initiative. I accumulated so many resources that were

outside the DOD that dealt with mental health, suicide, depression, transitioning out of the military, post-military life, and much more that I needed to do something with it. My goal was and is to be a hub of resources for people who need help. Meeting people where they are, and walk the road with them to getting the help that they need. I just didn't want to attend any more funerals for my friends. So I created this to try and get guys and girls the help they need, mental health or otherwise. I don't take any money or anything either. There's no need for me.

I'm just trying to help people. I know I'm rambling at this point. I don't expect to reply and I'm not looking for an answer. As I mentioned, I just wanted to get these thoughts out. I will carry on. I've never quit before and I'm not starting now. Just needed to say that. holy shit what a different email somebody who is consumed with the thought of doing more and giving back

and helping even though they have a family that they are the sole provider are a wife a child hopefully some many dachshunds as my german friend would say and this is the polar opposite of the people that the previous email described. And that is why I couldn't believe that these hit my inbox nearly simultaneously. It's two sides of the same coin. And again, I view this through the lens of what does it mean to be an American?

What do I strive for when I think of being an American and what that stands for? And this is the email that I align with so much more. I want to be a value ad. I want to be an asset. But as this person identified, you have to provide for the people that are the closest to you first. You can't light your ship on fire to be a lighthouse for somebody else. Well, you're still out at sea, right? That's not going to

help anybody. And then the next thing you know, you're going to be the one who's on the needing or on the receiving end of needing help. So for this person, and let me just say this, and for anybody who feels like this, because I feel the same way when it comes to areas like North Carolina and for Florida. I desperately want to go and be able to help. And North Carolina was interesting because not that I know shit about helicopters, I barely know how to fly one, but that was in an environment where helicopters and helicopter pilots were getting some serious work in. And I actually heard that it got incredibly Western. By that meaning people were just dropping helicopters off and letting random people fly them, which is fucking insane to me. And it's actually

really easy to turn a rescue into another rescue if you're not cautious. in those environments, but that's a much upstream problem for people to solve. Point in all that is, in some of these situations, there are organizations that are better suited than individuals. And individuals, as much as they want to help in those areas, my suggestion to you, unless you have a specific skill set and the ability to lift and shift and go help is I would focus that desire to help locally. Now, there are places that aren't going to be. affected by catastrophes similar to the weather events in North Carolina and Florida. Like where I live in Montana, it's not a possibility, I think, for us to get hurricanes and

tornadoes. That would be wild. However, in the winter months, holy shit, it's very possible for us to get cold snaps, for us to get an amazing amount of snow, for people to be trapped, for power to go out, and all of those cascading issues. if you want to be somebody who is capable of helping in those environments, start with where you are and make sure the people that are closest to you are taken care of. So take that desire to help, and it's an amazing thing.

Like I said, if you have the ability or skill set to go help externally, go do so. Plug in with an NGO, a non-government organization and do as much help as you can. If you don't have that ability to lift and shift, focus that desire inward and do everything you can to create an infrastructure and a structure where you live. Again, I'll use just where I live and I'm going to use the winter months as just an example, even though the fire season could be another one in the winter months. Do you have the ability to create your own power if need be? Do you have the ability to warm yourself if need be?

Do you have the ability to feed yourself if need be? Do you have the ability to take all of those things and extrapolate that out? Just left and right, one house. Tie into your community in one house. Talk to your neighbors. Do they have the ability to extrapolate that out one house to the left and one house to the right, which obviously it's a bad metaphor because you'd be, you know, if you have that ability in the person to your right and they have left and right, right, there's overlap there.

I think you get the point. It's a ripple effect that is cascading outward. You have a communication infrastructure already in place if you're talking to those people. You have a plan. You have a foundation. You've met your neighbor. You've expressed your desire to care for your neighbor, to help your neighbor if they may need it, and you're structuring and securing where you live, which, again, if say that happens in Montana,

I don't know what the federal response would be. I feel like it would be a state issue to dig people out, say we were to get, you know, whatever, two weeks straight of 40 inches of snow a day. I don't even know if there's a federal response that could handle that, but I can tell you right now, the state response would be much slower than the individuals working together and helping their neighbors survive. So for this person, that's what I would recommend. It is an amazing thing that you want to do that. But don't sacrifice the security and stability of your family. Take that desire and slowly start to build that spider web where you live and strengthen

the community that you actually navigate your daily life through, which is the exact fucking opposite of the first email where the people making those financial decisions. and they're not accidental, in my opinion. They are calculated and they know what they're getting into. That is shattering the fabric of those communities. So one is destructive from the inside house. Literally the nucleus is being poisoned. It's a fucking cancer that is eating it apart.

And the other one is the exact opposite of that. I don't know what the opposite of cancer would be. It would stem cells that is slowly, you know, wrapping armor around what makes that nucleus strong. strong, the protons, the electrons, and I don't remember what the fuck else is in there from high school science that I barely paid attention to and almost never went into class, but I think you get the point. One destroys, one builds. One reinforces, the other one degrades. And that's the question we have to ask ourselves, as Americans. Like November 5th is a few weeks

away. It sounds like half the people are going to be fucking pissed, regardless which way it goes. Are you really going to try to destroy your neighborhood? Are you really really? going to become enemies with the people who are one house to your left and one house to your right that you may need for your literal fucking survival? Or are you going to accept the fact that we can have differences of opinion and do everything you can to strengthen that nucleus? What does it mean to you to be an American? For me, it's about strengthening, regardless if there may be disagreement on some issues. And for others, it seems like it's about destruction. And I think that's how we lose our fucking country. And that's all I have for this Friday.

Whew, quite a rant.