The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Matter of Facts: News, No News, and a Big Problem

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

http://www.mofpodcast.com/www.pbnfamily.comhttps://www.facebook.com/matteroffactspodcast/https://www.facebook.com/groups/mofpodcastgroup/https://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/philrabhttps://www.instagram.com/mofpodcasthttps://twitter.com/themofpodcastSupport the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastPurchase American Insurgent by Phil Rabalais: https://amzn.to/2FvSLMLShop at MantisX: http://www.mantisx.com/ref?id=173*The views and opinions of guests do not reflect the opinions of Phil Rabalais, Andrew Bobo, or the Matter of Facts Podcast*The boys talk about the news the Holosun supports the CCP (and why Phil yawned when it hit social media), Andrew breaks cover on his new Youtube channel, and the boys talk about the financial cliff two generations of Americans are heading towards at full speed.https://www.vermilionchina.com/p/holosun-chinese-or-americanMatter of Facts is now live-streaming our podcast on YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Rumble. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices. Intro and Outro Music by Phil Rabalais All rights reserved, no commercial or non-commercial use without permission of creator prepper, prep, preparedness, prepared, emergency, survival, survive, self defense, 2nd amendment, 2a, gun rights, constitution, individual rights, train like you fight, firearms training, medical training, matter of facts podcast, mof podcast, reloading, handloading, ammo, ammunition, bullets, magazines, ar-15, ak-47, cz 75, cz, cz scorpion, bugout, bugout bag, get home bag, military, tactical 

Welcome back to the Matter Facts Podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. We talk prepping guns and politics every week on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify. Go check out our content at mwfpodcast.com on Facebook or Instagram. You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners. I'm your host, Phil Rabelais, and my co-host Andrew Bobo is on the other side of the mic, and here's your show. Welcome back to the Matter Facts Podcast. The hooligans in the comment section are already trying to get my blood pressure riled up, but I'm going to resist the urge to have a full-blown screaming, memeing,

yelling rant today. We'll see how that works. But Andrew. Hi. Andrew's distracted, so I'm going to talk for a minute. No, I'm reading on the topic that we're talking about. I'm doing research. More research, anyway. Everybody knows we don't research anything. We just talk out of our heads. I mean, that's like...

And that's the problem. I feel like that's the issue. I think that's a downfall. It's a flaw, not a feature? Yes. So what's in your cup? Is that coffee or booze tonight? Well, I just came from the bar, so not booze.

No, coffee. I ordered, because I literally just ran out of coffee because one of my best Irish friends, she knows who she is. When she came to visit one time, she brought me, Jesus, like 15 bags of Black Rifle coffee, which I stopped buying Black Rifle because of the bullcrap that they've been pulling and them donating to uh was it act blue and some other stuff which i don't know call it what you i mean i know some of it's been resurfacing um as far as like their tendency like the the past stuff from like 2021 2022 i believe um i don't know the whole story behind it. Whatever. Either way, I drank through all that. I'm like, oh, she gave me a bunch of coffee.

I'm not going to throw it away. I mean, that's coffee. And this stuff isn't terrible. So I drank it all and I ran out. And so, yeah, now I ordered six bags of Black Rifle. Black Rifle, or Black Rifle, Jesus. I ordered six bags of Disaster Coffee, which is our, basically,

James, our madman at the helm of PBN. It's another, you know, it's something that he's running, Disaster Coffee. I like the message that he's pushing out a lot better than Black Rifle.

I mean, I'm all for helping veterans and stuff, but when a company is that big and it gets kind of shady, I don't really know what to expect with it. So I am drinking Disaster Coffee. I'm actually drinking our blend that we collaborated with him with, the MOF Dark Humor, is what I'm drinking right now. But no, I'm going to start drinking just strictly Disaster Coffee is what i'm is what i'm uh is what i'm drinking right now uh but uh but no i i just i'm i'm gonna start i'm gonna start drinking just strictly like disaster coffee if i'm not gonna start

doing my own like roasting my own kind of stuff um just because like i really respect what james is putting forth and the fact that proceeds from disaster coffee go to disaster relief within the united states i think that's important especially with the uptick in tornadoes that like Ohio just saw. But, I mean, screw Ohio, but I'm not going to say that, you know. Ohio State, I should just say Ohio State, the college, Ohio State, whatever. Maybe screw their politicians. Yeah, right.

But no, no. So, yeah, I'm drinking disaster coffee, the MOF Dark Humor. In my MOF cup that my mom made. And me, on the other hand, I'm drinking Disaster Coffee's Bunker Beans. As a matter of fact, there's three bags of it sitting there on the shelf behind me, and I'm about halfway into the one in front. So I started roasting my own coffee beans years ago, So I start roasting my own coffee beans years ago, and I started specifically because, you know, it was a – I had bags of bunker beans that I bought from Disaster Coffee from James specifically for long-term storage in my preps.

And it was always on my mind of I know you have to do stuff to these green beans to make them drinkable, but I don't know how. So that of course, it prompted me to learn how to roast coffee beans just to utilize the prep. And then somewhere along the way, I just fell headfirst into the nerdy hobby of roasting my own coffee beans and espresso and everything else. So like, like I told you, like, I, I don't know how long it's been since I've bought a bag of roasted coffee. I just, I buy, I buy mostly bunker beans. I buy, I've bought green beans from a few other sources just to like, try them out, see what the differences are. But like, that's, that's my thing is just buy the green beans, roast myself grind them myself pour over in the morning espresso in the afternoon lattes whenever we want but that's what this is this is

bunker beans in my cup that i roasted i think last weekend yeah i mean but like what we talked about before was i mean i i've been looking at roasters uh uh here and there i'll price them out or look at one or something like that and i haven't made the leap into buying a roaster yet and i i really want to just because i feel like i'm going to screw up a uh doing it by pan and just roasting and the tumble roasters and all the stuff that you can find it just seemed those seem just like a lot more fun in a way um where um i don't know what it is but i just like the tech behind it uh but uh i mean to me like what we talked about before the show this is it's kind of like reloading your own ammo versus buying in bulk uh i don't mind reloading um i have done it

uh but the fact that i can just buy the the roasted bean and it's already done and it's great, then okay, cool. But yeah, no, I see the pros and cons in both. Yeah, the one thing to think about is if you're thinking about roasting to be able to use bunker beans in a grid down situation, like if that is your use case, just plan for not having power available. So that's why like my roaster is up there. It's literally a Jiffy Pop. It's a popcorn popper, but you can set it on some hot coals. I usually run it over a gas stove, you know, like it's something, it's something I could, and I very well might haul to prepper camp this year It's something I could, and I very well might, haul to Prepper Camp this year to be able to demonstrate roasting coffee three-quarters of a pound at a time.

My usual go-to is about 13 ounces because that's just what that popper tends to tolerate. I think this year you should demo. We can have a stove down there at the booth and I think you should demonstrate roasting your own beans. I know that somebody, and it might have been you actually, that brought it up with James. If James wants to get together to do that and do a demo of how to roast bunker beans in the Disaster Coffee booth, I'm all on board to go and do it. The only thing of it is, is that once you roast the beans,

what do you do with the beans rather than just drink them or give them away? You know, like. Or both. Well, both. You could, you could give them away. You could, you could give them away or ask, you know, I mean, you could go online and buy a 12 ounce bag and, uh, give them away, uh, and everything. Or, uh,

I mean, we were there, we're going to be there for what? Four days. So we're going to, you could definitely grind it up and drink it or save it and take it home and drink it then. But I don't know,

you'll be, you'll be fine. So I, I'm making the executive decision that you're going to bring it. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not like it takes a ton of space.

I just need that, and I need a camp stove to set it on. I'll have a camp stove. It will be – I will happily admit that anytime you change anything in your roasting setup, you kind of throw the variables back out of the window, and you've got to relearn it. So doing this on a camp stove versus my usual burner in the backyard, just that one little change is going to force me to like, I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to roast a couple of batches on a camp stove in the backyard. Just to kind of like learn what gas setting I need to get, get the roast. Cause it's, we can talk about it another time, but it is, when it comes to roasting coffee, you need to come up to your roasting temperature as quickly as possible without burning the beans.

So it's kind of a, you kind of got a window there of if you go too slow, you skunk the batch. If you go too fast, you turn into charcoal. So it's kind of like, you know, I know exactly where that setting is on the dial on my gas burner out back. I don't know where that is. You have until September. Figure it out, Phil. Quick and plain. Start practicing. Yeah, figure it out.

You have until September, but you're bringing your crap. So stop talking. And the other thing is that I could always roast a very small amount like with my little hand pan that I keep in my camping gear. I mean that's not like – that's only going to roast basically, it's basically enough to load up my, it's basically enough to load like my French press, you know? If you want to do like, quote unquote, single serving, like make eight cups of coffee, I get a hand pan that's perfectly sized for that. You just wave it over a campfire until your beans are roasted.

It's- I feel like you're making excuses for not roasting coffee. No, just making conversation. So, Kyle, you're not in trouble if you don't like coffee, but I am going to judge you a little bit. I mean, sweet tea is life down here in the South, but it's coffee, man. It's coffee. Anybody who doesn't drink coffee just holds pockets. And Kyle might get that reference.

I don't actually hold pockets. Don't worry about it. But yeah, so anyway, what else is going on? Well, that's a question for you because, you know, you finally broke cover in the last couple of days on the the new adventure you're embarking on misadventure misadventure uh yeah so i mean i've talked about it the last couple episodes uh so i finally made a youtube channel uh it is called bobo fett's misadventures. Creative. Yeah.

Well, I don't know. The nickname Bobo Fett came from a past manager from a store when I used to work at Spencer Gifts back in college. And she... Reached way back into the wayback machine for that one. Yep. But, yeah, she called me when I first got hired on. She met me, and she was like bobo you mean like i'm gonna start calling you bobo fat she goes because i like star wars and that's really close to boba and i was like all right so she called me bobo fat and then uh yeah i don't

know and then we're just talking and yeah thinking about it and um yeah the name that kind of came up so yeah so that's uh that's the uh the youtube channel and it's gonna be based around i don't know exactly it's gonna be i don't want to like uh i yes kyle i sold actually i sold a lot of sex toys uh doing bets so um i eat crickets uh to sell some before, I was really good at it, but, uh, but yeah, so, um, no, the, this YouTube channel, uh, it's going to be, I'd like to try to tailor, it's going to be tailor out of my Tacoma about my truck. Um, but it's going to have, it's going to be like builds. So I'm going to, I'm a buddy of a really good friend of mine. Um, I've mentioned him on here before his YouTube channels, uh, Carswell's customs. Um, he, uh, he's helping me film a bunch of, he helped me film this, uh, the install for, I didn't do my deck system, uh, with him. Uh,

but I did do the, uh, the bed supports, uh, the bed stiffeners that you can buy. Uh, so I did, the bed stiffeners that you can buy. So I did, I installed those. I installed the bed rack, and then I also filmed installing the rooftop tent. Among everything, the bed stiffeners, I think, gave us the most content just because of the steps involved and what the bed stiffeners do. Just because of the steps involved and what the bed stiffeners do. And then also I already had the deck system in. So when I went to go put the deck system back in, or I went to go put the, basically like I had it in. I just took out both at like, so they have the center count, the center area of the deck system. Then you have the two, like basically wings that come out. I found out when I went to go put those, the wings back in uh they hit the stiffeners

so i had to i showed kind of like what we had to do to get around those basically i had to take a dremel and i dremeled out a a little notch so that uh they went around the bed stiffener but raggle fraggle get in touch with andrew he might be interested oh yeah yeah i uh we'll have to talk um because yeah it might be interesting because yeah uh and then it's that's the thing is um doing this uh by the time so the roof rack is about 100 i think 150 pounds give or take uh the the deck system is about 200 pounds the the website says that the rooftop 10 is 280 pounds however the shipping information said 380 pounds uh so i don't know um it was heavy it was uh my buddy and i we got it on there we wrestled it up

and got it on there uh but my truck like i noticed adding that much weight to the bed of the truck uh it's it leveled my truck out like trucks normally have like a little slant or like an angle kind of, uh, the way they drive naturally. Uh, this now it's, it's a hundred percent. It looks like I put a leveling kit on it. So, uh, I'm looking at, um, looking, I'm looking at possibly doing, uh, suspension or bags or something. I don't know yet.

So we'll see. But, uh, like I said, going back to the channel the channel um it's going to be revolved around some installation stuff uh if i want to like do it yourself kind of thing um if you have a buddy who has a welder or anything like that um i have a couple ideas for some brackets that i want to try to mock up to mock up and stuff like that and uh there's a website you can buy um if you have again if you have a buddy who can weld or anything like that or if you can weld uh i's a website you can buy um if you have again if you have a buddy who can weld or anything like that or if you can weld uh i found a website that can you can buy basically a do-it-yourself bumper uh and so i'm looking at that or maybe doing my own we'll see i've been spitting around

a lot of ideas to uh with one of my good buddies there and uh so yeah we'll see but uh and then also outdoor stuff um i need to get better at um recording so i i really yeah i just need to get better at recording stuff um like i'm going camping suppose i'm supposed to go camping tomorrow uh the rumor here in michigan is we're looking at getting about eight inches of snow so we'll see i might we'll see uh i might not go just because uh i guess it all depends on the weather when I wake up. If it's going to be sub-zero, then I probably will not go. Because my diesel heater that I'm planning on buying, I did not buy. That was going to be my next question.

Are you just doing installs and modification types of content, or are you also going to include camping and road trips? Road trips, I would like to do road trips and camping and stuff like that. I'm looking at buying. I think I'm going to buy, or I think I know somebody who has a GoPro who they've never used it. So I'm going to try to see if I get, like I want to get a GoPro mounted on the dash and do almost like a, my idea.

I've always wanted to do like a film. A dash cam? Well, a dash cam, but like a lapsed video, you know. Gotcha. Like, you know, of like driving down to South Carolina or North Carolina rather. Driving through the mountains, you know, driving around, doing that kind of stuff. And then kind of doing like a video for proper camp and stuff like that. So I know like for our, uh, pro, uh, for our, um, Patreon trip down to Tennessee, I was thinking about doing that. Uh, and you know, I don't know. I, I just

got to get better. I got to get more comfortable in front of doing stuff in front of a camera like that. Uh, my buddy who does, he's been doing some youtube videos he's like all right i'm gonna film i go well what do you how do you do it like i don't know what like do i just talk he's like yeah just talk he's like whatever i don't know what to do with my hands yeah right so when i get really nervous i put my arm my hands under my armpits and i sniff them like this oh we're going all the way back there yeah we are but uh no so i don't know it's gonna be fun. I'm hoping. We'll see. If it doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't.

But new project, I guess. But, yeah, so that's what's going on with that. Well, like I said, man, I mean, it's a hobby. As long as it entertains you, it's doing what it's supposed to do. Well, and then just really quick, though, like I kind of fuel for the fire a little bit. Well, and then just really quick though, like I kind of fuel for the fire a little bit. I, um, I dropped, I dropped my, uh, my truck off this morning at the dealership to get a, uh, a check, a bumper to bumper checkup on, uh, for it. And, um, like I had two or three guys come up and talk about like, oh man, like, you

know, checking out the bed rack, checking out the, the tent, uh, even though it was folded up, but checking out the tent, like, and they, and oh man i you know i love your truck it looks really cool like i really like the system oh is that the deck system can i see it stuff like that so that's kind of i mean that's really what i'm going for is like i just would like it's so that kind of gave me more incentive to try to do something like this so we'll see yeah i mean i've gotten some of the same reactions from like the soft topper and on my truck and especially once people realize like i have a 12 volt power panel into the back of the truck all the questions start about how in the world that did did you put that there because you know from the outside it literally just looks like a panel sitting on top of the bed

and you totally don't think about the fact that there's holes drilled through the bed strategically so that the backside of all those modules plug through and it fits flush. power cable underneath the truck following the factory wiring harness on the driver's side of a Toyota Tacoma. Just drink a beer to settle your nerves because it's not a fun job. It's a big pain in the butt, especially when you got to go over the gas tank. There's nothing fun about it. As a matter of fact, I've gotten my wife to do it twice because her hands and arms are smaller than mine, so she can fit up in there and, you know. Sounds like you need a snake. Well, she can fit her hands and arms are smaller than mine, so she can fit up in there and, you know. Sounds like you need a snake. Well, she can fit her hands in places to, like, feed the wire that these big old bear claws just, they will not, they won't fit. Like I said, it sounds like you need almost like a snake or something to push through and tape it and pull it through.

But, yeah. I mean, that's the whole part of modding stuff, I guess. You know, I got some ideas and stuff that I want to do with mine, but yeah, so we'll see where it goes. And the thing you mentioned about having to modify the bed stiffeners to work with the deck system, that is like, that is aftermarket modification 101. When you put two things together that weren't built to go together, be prepared to start doing cutting and grinding. You just gotta, it's part of the job but so this this story popped up what was it yesterday day before hollow sun supplies the ccp so this uh so this article officially came out there it's titled march 19th 2024 uh i, I first saw it on Instagram, uh, T-Rex arms, uh, put it out there

and then it's been gaining traction that I've seen ever since. Uh, I mean, we all know how all of a sudden it's a Chinese company, but this, uh, Vermillion, I think it's vermillionchina.com. I think it is. Um, basically they have a hollow sun chinese or american they kind of dove into how chinese is hollow sun and it come to find out hollow sun is very chinese like like supplying ccp like supply like going it's like directly tied to the to the chinese government kind of China. So, yeah, so they dove into it. I mean, they did a good job.

Phil, you should link. I can send you the link if you need it, but I think you should link the story in the notes because, I mean. Drop it in the private chat, and I'll include it in the show notes. Okay. I think I can drop it in the, uh, our chat too. Can't we? Yeah.

The private chat or the, the main comments. Yeah. So I'll drop it in there as well. Um, let me put all. Yeah. So,

uh, yeah. So, I mean, if you can, if you can take a read on this, I mean, it's interesting.

It, uh, just how deep they go. I mean, they really tie the, they tie a hollow on this, I mean, it's interesting how deep they go. I mean, they tie a hollow sum basically to the main founder, who is also tied to a couple other companies, who's tied back to the Chinese government. And then who is basically all of the stuff that they produce for the U.S. for civilians, they're also producing for the Chinese military and everything. And basically, so, I mean, whether, I guess it's one of those things where basically they draw the conclusion that the American people who are buying a lot of this stuff up, when they're giving input, they have people that are giving input. They're testing.

They're product testing. They're saying, what's wrong? What's good? You are not only when you buy one of these, you're actually, I guess, it's basically you're funneling arms to the Chinese military, but you're giving input

on how to basically improve Chinese military arms and technology. And that's the thing that sucks is, I mean, do I have some, I have some hollow, some products I do. I have two, uh, I have a red dot and then I have a, uh, a pistol enclosed, uh, emitter on my 2245. I got a lamb. Yeah. You know? And so that's the thing. So it's one of those things where it's like, man, do I want like, the thing that sucks is like the stuff that they put they have been putting out i mean it's good quality like it's good stuff it's holding up it holds up to a lot

of bang but that being said it kind of goes back to me hey i kind of maybe i'll start really neat i need to start looking at okay i want to i really want to support american you know trigicon uh eotech aimpoint uh just looking just doing a quick google here like trigicon um like trigicon comes out and they say so the vast majority of their trigicon products including acog vcog rmr rmr hd rmr cc rcr sro mro iron sights mgrsoptics, and mounts are designed, engineered, and machined, and assembled at our facility in Wixom, Michigan, or Auburn, California.

100% made in the United States. And then they even go as far as, I found a link that says we do not source anything from China. It's right from Trijicon. Aimpoint, it says all Aimpoint sites are manufactured in Sweden. So, you know, and then EOTech, it says, I found a thing from EOTech,

that EOTech holographic weapon sites are made in the U.S. So, you know, I don't know. And that's the thing. I've seen a couple things that are saying saying like EOTech might be some of the stuff is made in China and stuff like that. But going off of their website and stuff, they say they're made in the United States or, you know, so I don't know. So here's the reason why I wrote this banner the way I did. Social media reps fill yawns. Because there is a tremendous – see, there's three buckets of people on social media right now in the gun tuber space or in the gun influencer space.

Absolutely horrified to find out that Holosun supplies equipment to the CCP and therefore every dollar we send them and every comment they get – I mean, hell, even if you just get something warrantied or chose a DOA, that goes to their product improvement, which goes to arming arguably one of our greatest international security concerns right now, being the Chinese Communist Party and the PLA. So there's people that are horrified at that. There are people in the middle who are kind of like, yes, but, you know, if they're making a good product, it's pushing the market and it forces everybody else to like – competition is never a bad thing to the consumer. And then the reason I'm over here on the right saying Phil's yawning is how is this a shock to anybody that a large Chinese conglomerate was not doing business with their own freaking military? Like how is this a shock that's the part that i i'm i'm that has me goofed up right now is like like y'all do understand the way that a communist state works right like there are no quote-unquote private businesses in china they are all state-owned or they are state-invested in, which means they're state-owned de facto. So like, Holocene was always basically an arm of the Chinese government. And Holocene was always like expected to be supplying weapons, you know, or military equipment, because why on earth wouldn't they? Like, I guess, I guess what has me goofed up on this is,

when this story broke and people just lost their daggum minds, I was like, how is this news? Like, in order for it to be news, it has to be new. And this, this, this, anybody with common sense should have realized this already. So, like, to me, this is, like, this is the yawn. Like, yeah, welcome to the party, guys. Y'all just figured this out. I think, to me, the most reasonable position to take on this is, yes, if you buy a Holosun product, you are sending money to Holosun, which is de facto assisting them in producing military technology to arm the CCP. I get all that.

All y'all out there in listener land, y'all are watching this right now on something that's stuff full of components from China. You're watching this on a cell phone, you're watching this on a tablet or on a computer or on a web-activated TV. Everything in your freaking house is made with stuff from China, even if it's assembled somewhere else. is made with stuff from China, even if it's assembled somewhere else. It's made with Chinese components because the U.S. doesn't make a single, we don't make integrated circuits here, we don't make diodes or resistors here, we don't make switches, we don't make wire, we don't do anything here. So everything you own has Chinese stuff in it. Right. So if the argument is we shouldn't be buying stuff from China, I accept that as your argument. But I don't think you can rationally, reasonably do it anymore. Not in a globalist economy, not in 2024, not in the world we live in trust me i wish we had a we as americans had a more

concerted effort to produce our own stuff and enrich our own industries if for no other reason than like pure red-blooded patriotism but if but for an even better reason because if there ever is another global war or hell another another global pandemic, which shuts down the supply lines, it'd be really nice to be able to make our own stuff. And we can't do that today. No. So if there was a World War Three tomorrow, I got news for you. Most of the guidance system is in all of our missiles. I give you one guess where all that crap came from.

Well, yeah, no, that's a given. But that's that's a thing is I mean,, just going off of this article and stuff like that, I mean, I understand 99.5% of everything in our house either says made in China or assembled in Mexico or really parts from China assembled in the U.S., whatever. The only thing in your house that wasn't assembled in another country, Andrew, is you. As far as I'm assuming. We'll see.

But no, I agree with you on that. But when it comes to when it comes to like the tech as far as weapon systems, I really think that stuff our missiles and stuff like that, any Chinese parts that are getting put into our weapon systems,

especially at our military stage and stuff like that, that should not happen. It does it probably, and it does. But no, I mean, that's the thing. When this article came out, I wasn't surprised. we all know i mean it's china we all know that uh but like i said reading this article and how much they uncover and how much they tie back to china uh it's very it's interesting and again like that's why i keep i push buying like try to buy american do your research buy american if you can that's why i push i push trigicon a lot uh and because they are american

uh they're right here in michigan so i can't like that and yeah they're you know twice as expensive probably than uh some uh the holosun red dot but uh not though i mean it depends on the red dot you want it depends on the red dot you want depends on the reflex site you want like their their rcr and their arm rhd i mean it like i i think their msrp is like 800 you can find it for like five and some change give or take like 550 ish or so um and a hol sun closed emitter is roughly around four you know maybe 350 400 or so yeah so it's not that much you know it's not that bad but but again i mean i guess it all depends it just all depends on what you want and stuff like that and that's the thing is is like i said hollow sun do they make stuff that it's it holds up i mean i've seen i've seen video after video from multiple people of stuff getting dropped uh it's being beaten the crap out of these products and they're holding up i've like i said i

have a red dot on my ar that i've put i don't even know how many rounds through and i've dropped it it's fallen it's it's hit like i i've beat the crap out of this dot and it's never lost zero ever. And so it's one of those things where it's like, man, I hate, I hate this. I hate the thought of supplying or hate the thought of like promoting a company or buying from a company that is really this hardcore China first America second. I mean, but really that's every company in the United States, I think almost pretty much. But, uh, but yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's just one of those things where it was an interesting read. I suggest reading it and just judge for yourself.

Yeah. I mean, I personally don't fault a person for buying foreign because, like, you know, this kind of echoes back to, like, the conversation that was had when we were kids about, well, if you're a patriot, you buy American when it was about vehicles, you know, and everybody kind of rolled their eyes at the people buying the foreign cars that were coming in from Japan. But, you know, that that constant influx of Japanese vehicles that were small, fuel efficient, reliable and and not I wouldn't say cheap, but certainly cheaper than some of the options that were made domestically. Like that forced the entire U.S. auto industry to get their crap together in one hand and innovate and get better. You know, like I can remember a time when I was young where if you wanted a reliable vehicle, you bought foreign. You didn't buy small American vehicles. Even nowadays, there's a reason why I have a Tacoma sitting out in the driveway.

There's a reason you have a Tacoma sitting in your driveway. Like Toyota has this reputation, which is company culture 101, of making super reliable, high-quality vehicles that last a very long time if you take care of them. And most Japanese manufacturers have a similar reputation to that. Now, because of that pressure, the U S auto industry has had to get a lot better. Like if you look at, so I looked at a report that JD power put out a long, like a couple of years back where they compared average faults per so many thousand miles for various autoakers and automodels. And the interesting thing was, if you looked at that report for the last 20 years, there are two trends that are very obvious.

First of all, no surprise, Toyota and Honda were trading one and two for the most reliable. But the interesting part is, you've heard the saying, the rising tide floats all boats. Every manufacturer in the last 20 years has gotten better. Every single manufacturer, Ford, GM, frigging Chrysler, all of them, they have all gotten better. I mean, I can remember when if you wanted a reliable vehicle for a college kid, you got a Honda Civic. Well, a 1996 Honda Civic has just as many faults per 100,000 miles as a current production Jeep or Chrysler product. So even though there's still a perception that, well, Jeep Chrysler is not quite as reliable as a Honda, no one would have turned their nose up at a mid-90s Honda for a reliable vehicle. That's where Jeep has gotten today, and itotech has had to innovate and Aimpoint has had to innovate and all these other companies are pushing on the big guys to keep advancing, keep getting better, it's not entirely a bad thing. But that being said, I wouldn't fall to person for saying spend a few more bucks and buy American.

Just so you understand, there's no – I don't think you can find a single product that 100% of it is truly from America. Something is coming from overseas because that's just the world we live in. So I'm throwing this banner up, and I'm going to start this off by saying I try really hard not to participate in like the doom and gloom in the skies following Chicken Little that some preparedness podcasts get into. I try really, really hard not to do that because I don't think it's completely I think it's counterproductive. I think that fear porn is a thing and it's just not something I try to participate in. The only times I like to indulge in cautionary notes is when I see a threat that's coming, like coming at us and there's no debating it. And when I feel like there's things we can do to not fall victim to it.

So how bad is the economy and how screwed are we? And Andrew, this is something that like you and me and the Matter of Facts patrons have been talking about pretty regularly lately. Like we're all feeling the pinch right now from cost of groceries and utilities and car insurance going up every freaking year. And it's just like the cost of living across the board is ratcheting up far quicker than wages are. And I know that we've talked, I know that we've talked recently about a couple of news stories and everything. Cause like, again, my background is in finance and economics. It's just the type of stuff that I tend to follow. So like I've been sharing stories that like the one that came out several months ago where credit card debt in the U S had reached an

all time high. And it's since reached another all time high since then. I think it was 1.33 trillion last I checked, which is just nauseating and terrifying. High interest rates on credit cards right now are 29.99% interest, which is nightmare fuel. The average American, last I checked, and I kicked myself for not checking just today, Last I checked, and I kicked myself for not checking just today, but the last time I saw, the average American has $13,000 in credit card debt apiece. So if you're married, that's $26,000 and some change. And again, that high interest rate is almost 30% interest. So that's one bomb.

The student loan bubble is a well-known problem. It's not getting any smaller. I don't know how on earth colleges are staying afloat with tuition prices as high as they are. And I don't know how people with student loans are staying afloat either because, I mean, Andrew, you fall into that boat. it nauseates me to think about a person having that much debt stacked on the back, stacked on their back. They're trying to keep from, you know, putting them in the hole. Um, more recently I saw a story came out that, um, there was an uptick in cash out equity robbing refinances on homes. Now this worried me because in our current housing market and anyone that's in real estate, anyone that's in the financial sector is well aware of the fact that interest rates are very high right now. Mortgage requirements have tightened up substantially. The cost to purchase a home right now is astronomical because of the interest rate and because of the fact that home prices are

so inflated. And the fact is, this is a moment in time where with all these variables being what they are, absolutely no sane person should be refinancing their home. If they are locked into a sub 4% rate, you should ride that SOB until the wheels come off. You should not be refinancing into current rates, but people are. And they're doing it and they're taking equity out of their home because they're so desperate for cash. They're robbing the equity out of the home that they've already paid off. And again, They're robbing the equity out of the home that they've already paid off. And again, home values have increased. So a lot of people's equity is spread out. But they're like one of the primary ways we Americans amass wealth over our lifetimes by paying off our home and end up praising it, appreci in value. So they are literally selling off pieces of the paid-off home to deal

with current costs and current rising cost of living. And then just two or three days ago, I saw the thing that prompted this that scared me the worst. Within the last two months, there's been a spike in 401k withdrawals. So understand that credit card debt is maxed out. People have refinanced homes into higher interest rates so that they could get the equity out of their homes. People have burnt through all their savings and now they're taking out 401k loans or they're just taking cash out of their 401ks. That is where we are in America right now. We have, you know, with inflation, with the economy, with everything that's going on, cost of living has gone up and we have burnt every dollar we have trying to keep warm in the winter. Now we're at the point where we're selling off pieces of a paid off house and pieces

of our retirement to try to keep up with things. And it is in this climate, in this moment, that I pose that question of how bad is the economy? Well, it's bad enough that two generations of Americans may never retire, may never be able to, may not be able to afford to. Like if you're Gen X and a millennial right now, y'all are in a boat of people that are doing really, really like short-term gain, long-term loss activities. And it is going to come back on us in a way that I don't know how to fully quantify yet. And how screwed are we? I say that if you're the person who is keeping your finger on the pulse of things, if you're putting away for retirement,

if you're putting away in savings, if you live within your means, you're probably okay. You're going to have to tighten up that belt a little bit. You're going to have to stretch some things out and you're going to have to work at it. But if you're the person who is eyeball deep in credit card debt and getting deeper every moment because you're trying to buy cool stuff and vacations and you're not willing to adjust your spending for the reality of the situation in front of you then um i mean get ready to work till noon on the day you die because that's where we're headed that's where this is heading it's now that i've completely like doom and gloom andrew like talk me out of that you we're all screwed no I mean I don't know the fact that

I don't know the fact that people are opening up one credit card to try to pay off another just so they don't get that late fee it's just getting worse so I don't know the thing that's going to happen is it's going to implode and we're going to have to learn. So I don't know. I mean, the thing that's going to happen is it's going to implode,

and we're going to have to learn from it. I don't know what to say. Thankfully, I have gotten all my credit cards. All my credit cards are paid off, and I do not charge to a credit card. If I want it, I donate plasma, and I buy it with that, or I save up, and I buy it with that or I save up and I buy it that way. I really try hard and I've been successful at it for not charging stuff on my credit card in quite a long time. All the stuff that I bought for the deck system, the bed rack, all that stuff that I bought, I saved up for. And I bought it with money out of my savings.

I did not charge it to a credit card because I did not want to get back into that 22% or more, 25% interest rate. Unfortunately, yes, I do have student loans. Am I paying them off? Yes, I'm paying off. Every month, I pay extra. Do I have a house? Yes. Do I have a off? Yes, I'm paying off every month. I pay extra. Do I have a house? Yes. Do I have a truck? Yes. The truck house and student loan are my only debt that I have. Uh, and I mean, but that's good. That's, that's better than a lot of people, uh, today. A lot of people, yeah,

they are living way beyond their means. Um, so yeah, try it. I would say definitely buckle down. Uh, if you can afford it, start paying extra on stuff, start trying to get out of debt and, uh, do what you got to do is get a second job. I know somebody who had, they got a second job because they're trying to get out of credit card debt. Um, and so, yeah, they're the credit cards are, they're predatory. Um, it sucks that they even exist, but the people have really been hit hard by them, and I hope people get all that debt because I think besides the student loans, which student loans are, I think it's a predatory loan as well, credit cards are, I mean, I think they're the worst thing out there.

So I've been trying to stay away from it and I hope others do too. So save up and try to do it. Like I said, find other ways to buy stuff if you want to put that trip off for an extra six months to a year, if you can and save up cash for it. So, yeah. So yeah, I mean, it sucks because they have the doom and gloom thing. I mean, it's reality and that's where we're at is where we're coming up to a reality to where the government is there. They're calling. I mean, they're OK with giving you money, but they definitely are. They're a loan shark. They definitely they're calling for the money back.

And unfortunately, 401ks, I feel like I, I'm not looking forward to the day, but there's going to be coming, there's going to come a day where the government itself is, their loans are going to come due and they're going to take whatever money they want, uh, to pay, to try to pay for that and not default and all kinds of stuff. And that includes 401ks. So don't be surprised if you check a 401k one day and it's zeroed because the government took it. Don't be surprised if you check a 401k one day and it's zeroed because the government took it. So. I mean, quite frankly, if that day ever comes, then the country's gone. Yeah. Because, I mean, not only would the country erupt, but you got to think about like those 401ks in many, many cases. They're not, they're not, the government doesn't even have custody of them.

Financial institutions and banks have custody of them. Financial institutions and banks have custody of them. It's money you invest with a financial institution and they set up that 401k on your behalf. And if the government swipes that money out of the banks and out of these financial institutions, the country will implode. Like the country will implode, not to mention the only the only way that would be a politically palatable solution to this country, because you got to bear in mind, like I don't trust any politician, except I trust them to do what's in their own best interest, which means they're going – whoever – whatever gets them reelected is what they will do, which means they are not going to piss off millions upon millions upon millions of Americans by screwing with their retirement until the penalty for not doing that is worse than doing it. Raggle, fraggle. TSP is for federal, for government employees. It's basically government 401k. But in any case, so that's kind of the long and short of that, man.

Like I, again, I feel like these are, I feel like to a degree this is a self-inflicted wound because, like, about once a year, Andrew lets me off my leash to do, like, the full-blown nerdy-ass economics finance – you know, financial preparedness episode. And, like, yeah, it makes people cross-eyed to listen to me drone on for an hour about personal finances, but Jesus Christ is an important frigging thing. And most of our generation never learned it. So thank God I did. And I'm trying to share what I know, but like, I, I believe that what is necessary for a moment like this, where debt is just piling up and piling up and piling up is two things. First of all, everyone, every adult should have a home budget. And if you don't, I am absolutely judging you. I love you dearly, but I'm judging the hell out of you. Please pause this and go write down every bill you have to pay every month, every dollar you spend on

groceries. And then on the other side of that piece of paper, write down your paychecks and then start working those numbers back and forth until you get at least to zero, if not have a surplus of money. And if you don't write it down on that list, you don't get to spend it anymore. Like that sounds really harsh, but if you need to get your hair and nails done, you put it in the budget. If you'd like to eat out, you put it in the budget. If you like Starbucks, you put it in the budget. If it ain't in the budget, you don't freaking spend it. And once you learn to control your finances like that, just for a little while, you'd be shocked how much surplus money you have and how little you can actually live on.

But what happens is when you have a debit card and you just swipe it through the machine and the magic happens that gives you the stuff and you don't have to see the cash, you know, leaving your wallet. It gets really, really easy to ignore that $5 a day coffee or, you know, the tiny little expenses we spend all the time not even thinking about it that adds up to hundreds upon hundreds of dollars a month gone. So that's one thing. The other thing is we have to consider debt like taking medicine. When you're sick, medicine's supposed to make you feel better. When you're not sick, you don't need to take medicine. Taking medicine when you're not sick can cause other problems. Debt can be properly used to leverage you into a better position, but only if using the debt ends up in a better position, puts you in a better position than not using the debt. So when a person looks at student loans and they take out $20,000 in student loans to go get a $10 an hour job, I say you're an idiot. No offense,

you made a bad decision. On the other hand, if you go and take out $20,000 in student loans because you want to go be a doctor or engineer or something that makes money, that's a good investment. You have to look at it as an investment in your future earnings. So no one would buy stock that was guaranteed to lose money. Start looking at debt the same way. Credit cards, there is no justification to become reliant upon them. If you generate a home budget, if you can control your spending for a little bit, you can build up a $500 or $1,000 emergency fund in a very short amount of time. And now every time you have an emergency,

you tap the emergency fund. As soon as you get paid, you refill the emergency fund. You cut all the credit cards off and get rid of them. And now every time you need money, you go into your savings. Now you're paying yourself back instead of paying the credit card companies. And this isn't like me talking out of my behind. These are the same decisions my wife and I made years ago. I haven't had a credit card since college. I don't need it. I pay cash for stuff.

I save my money. I live very, very tight and very much within my means. But, I mean, it sounds like I'm just beating people over the head about it. But, you know, there was a time when the way that I control my spending allowed me and my wife to like get ahead of things and build savings and take care of a lot of things. Now we're getting to a point with this economy where this is not about getting ahead. And this is not about, you know, putting away money for a rainy day economy where this is not about getting ahead and this is not about putting away money for a rainy day and this is not about padding the retirement account. This is about freaking survival. This is about being able to pay your bills and not go eyeball

deep in debt. This is about the financial fallout of living on debt, not killing your retirement and killing your future 10 years from now or 15 or 20 years from now. This is about the difference between being able to live the American dream and not being able to anymore. Because if you don't work to pay off your home, if you don't work to put away in savings and retirement, if you don't work to do those things today, then you're going to work till noon on the day you die. You're not going to get to retire. You're not going to get to have the golden years. It's not going to be there. So like that is as, as genuinely polite and caring as I can be to the audience, that is what is at stake right now. This is absolutely an existential danger. And if you are the person who is racking up credit card debt and racking up,

you know, all kinds of other debt, if you're the one that's refinancing your home, taking the equity out, if you're the one that's burning your 401k to stay warm, stop doing it right now. Go find a financial advisor, somebody who knows far more than I do, to help get you on track and get you out of this hole. Because if you continue on this path, it goes nowhere good. And the fact that it's mostly like the Gen Xers and the millennials that are engaging in this just scares the crap out of me, Andrew. Because, you know, call it what it is. Our generation graduated. scares the crap out of me, Andrew, because call it what it is. Our generation graduated.

Our generation was just getting our start in the 2008, the fallout of the 2008 housing collapse. So we kind of had a rough go right out of the gate. You know what I mean? A lot of our prime earning years were kind of hamstrung by all that. And now that generation that many have struggled, a lot of us have kind of gotten our stuff together and done great things with ourselves. Now I see that same generation, in my opinion, committing financial suicide, and it just frustrates me. Why did you let me rant and rave for 15 minutes about economics? Nobody wants to listen to me talk about this stuff. It's boring. It's nerd stuff. Sorry to stop you.

Well, it comes from a good place. I mean, I'm passionate about it. It's my background. It's my education. But it comes from a good place because I genuinely want to see people do great things and live a comfortable life. I want to see families be successful. And it just – it breaks my damn heart when people are as careless with finances as they are because finances is life. If you watch this channel because you're into preparedness and you've got beans and rice for when the world ends, you damn sure better have a 401k and a retirement plan in case the world doesn't. That's all I got to say. Yeah. Ah. What happened? I don't know. Some video just popped up on my computer.

I saw something flashing on your face. I just wasn't sure like. No, I don't want to leave a page. Because your face went from like your normal color to blue and then back to normal color. There was some weird stuff going on. No, I clicked a Photoshop to open it up and it was like, hey, noise. back to normal color there there was some weird stuff going on no i uh clicked i clicked uh a photoshop to open it up and it was like hey noise but uh right yeah that's what i get for playing on my computer for during the phil rant but uh no you're right so i don't know i mean yeah i don't

i mean not to beat a dead horse but yeah mean, try to get things under control because nothing's going, it's not going to end good for us. So. Yeah. You know, we, one of these days, dude, you, you gotta, you gotta help remind me to throw out this blood pressure warning right before I get on a good rant, but we might have to save that for, you know, when we talk about ATF or a three letter agency who apparently no knock rated somebody this morning at 6 o'clock in the morning and that poor SAB may not live. But there aren't enough details about that to talk about right now, so maybe next week we'll scream and yell about the ATF. Come on, Andrew. You know you live for the moments where this vein in my forehead stands out to here and starts pulsing. But, yeah, anyway.

Anyway. I have worn my co-host out. But, like I said, I mean, as Andrew starts this new endeavor, this new YouTube channel, I'm going to be reposting his content on this YouTube channel and we'll be letting everybody know when stuff drops. I mean, I'm excited for it, man. I think it's going to be fun. And I think there's probably a pretty enormous crossover between the preparedness community, the overlanding community,

the camping community. The Venn diagram has a lot of meat in the middle. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, it's just, yeah, YouTube is saturated with overlanding and stuff like that. So it's just a matter of trying to do something different, but we'll see how it goes. Uh, not really worried about it. Just trying to have fun. So that's always the key. Try to have fun. All right. Well, we'll go ahead and punt this one out the door. I appreciate everybody who held on for this long. We actually had like up to 10 people watching today, which is interesting. A whole bunch of them on X. That's a first. Chinese stuff, don't fret too much. If you're buying American stuff, it's probably got Chinese stuff inside of it. If you're looting your 401k to pay for vacation, stop doing that nonsense.

And if you want more content from a certain knucklehead about his truck and his misadventures, Boba Fett's misadventures. When he starts posting stuff, you'll find it on these feeds. It'll be on his feed, but I'll, you know, throw him a bone. Matter of fact, he's heading out the door. Bye, everybody.

Bye. We'll be right back. Thank you. I'll see you next time.