The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 113 - Carol Roth on the Government’s Decision to Murder Small Business

Episode Date: August 26, 2021

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comIn this episode of The Ryan Hanley Show, Ryan Hanley interviews the veracious Carol Roth, entrepreneur, business television personality, and best-selling author of The War on Small Business. Carol joins the podcast for a tremendous conversation on small business in America.Episode Highlights: Carol explains why small businesses are being undervalued, especially during the pandemic. (7:58) Carol mentions how social media has exacerbated talking about intentions. (11:41) Carol shares her opinion as to why small businesses were murdered. (15:18) Carol explains the things that small business owners can do to be more active. (17:43) Carol mentions her book, called, The War on Small Business. (18:19) Carol shares why she’s fascinated by cryptocurrency. (25:19) Carol gives her opinion on cryptocurrency. (33:04) Carol explains why inflation is the worst-case scenario, in terms of wages and prices. (39:39) Carol shares her background as a free speech advocate. (48:02) What made Carol decide to write a book? (57:24) Key Quotes: “When intentions don't really matter, outcomes matter. So, there are a lot of people with a lot of really great intentions. They have no economic experience, and you end up putting ridiculous things in place to create barriers to economic benefits and wealth creation.” - Carol Roth “Have that patience and that breathing room to say...You know, I understand what this small business owner is going through and I'm gonna support. So, I feel like that's the kind of capitalist side.” - Carol Roth “I'm a free speech advocate, and so, I feel like, as long as you're not saying something that's directly calling for violence or harm against somebody, or doing something illegal, you should be able to say whatever you want.” - Carol Roth Resources Mentioned: Carol Roth LinkedIn Carol Roth Twitter Website- Carol Roth The War on Small Business Reach out to Ryan Hanley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Absolutely tremendous, double tremendous episode for you today. And it is with Carol Roth. Carol Roth is a recovering iBanker. She's an advocate for big hair and small business. And it's that second part is the reason that I invited her on the show because she is the author of a book. A couple of books, but the book that caught my attention was The War on Small Business. And I heard Carol

on Michael Malice's show, You're Welcome, which is a tremendous show. And it's a podcast. And just her take on small business, what was going on, you know, post COVID, how our, you know, politicians and lawmakers had really let the small business community down with many decisions they made and many of the promises they didn't follow through on, and ultimately explaining what was happening to small business in this moment, that feeling that we have in our gut, that we're not crazy, that it is actually happening, and then providing some potential solutions and things. And we talk about all that. We talk about a whole bunch of stuff on this episode. I think you're going to absolutely love it. I highly recommend that if you're on Twitter,

you follow Carol. It's Carol J. S. Roth. Carol J. S. Roth on Twitter. And her book, The War on Small Business. I'm going to have a special link, not a link that I get paid on or anything, but go to bookshop.org. That is, they source all the books from local bookshops. So if you want to get her book, go to bookshop.org and search The War on Small Business. I'll also have it linked up in the show notes. But I want to make sure I get that out early because I think it's tremendous that she's pushing a resource that actually sources all the books when you purchase them from local bookshops. So today, it's all about small business. You're going to love this episode. You're going to love Carol. I highly recommend

that you connect with her and you'll see her. If you watch CNBC, Fox, you watch any of these business shows, you're going to see Carol on TV. Just grateful to have her on and absolutely tremendous episode. It's double tremendous. All right, before we get there, quick shout out to our sponsors, Podium. If you want to add three to five new leads through your website a week, Podium is a tremendous tool to do that. They give you this kind of chat bot, which does automatic text message replies. So now these potential customers, these prospects, they're typing in maybe on your web form, but then they're getting text back. So you're super high contact rate. They also have automated campaigns that can go around that for text messaging and a whole bunch of other features that allow you to connect with

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And the whole team, Anurag and the crew, just Donna is going to be a player in our space for a long time. Called it with Tarmica. I'm calling it with Donna. Get on Donna today if analytics are important to your agency. All right. With that, let's get on to Carol Roth. Hi, Carol. How are you? Hey, Ryan. How are you? I'm very well. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, my pleasure. It's been a little bit of an insane day. I think I've

got five different media hits. Well, I'll give you just a 10 bit of an insane day. I think I've got five different media hits. Well, I'll give you just a 10 cent tour of the audience. We, my show hits the independent insurance industry as a whole. So everything from carriers, think the big guys, Hartford, Travelers, Liberty, executives in that space, all the way down to single person shops that just started a week ago, you know, in West Des Moines. So, you know, we hit across the spectrum, I'd say 80 to 90% of the people that listening are actual small business owners serving small business owners. And when I heard your interview, Michael Malice's show, you know, I had to reach out because it's just, it's the battle that so many of the listeners to my show, and I'm, I own an insurance agency as well. So many of them are both fighting this battle and have share a lot of your viewpoints. And they're dealing with their

clients who have these same situations. So it seemed like a really good fit and a story I wanted them to hear. And I'm just glad you did. Great. Well, I'm glad that that we have the opportunity to connect and appreciate the opportunity to talk to as many small business owners as possible. Awesome. So I want to start with one. I just need to get this part The, the ego stroking part. I really appreciate your candidness, humor, and like the sarcasm that you use in general. Cause I think in what is a completely bananas time to be alive. And it almost feels like we're living through some sort of like the gods, like put some sort of idiot test in place. And we're kind of living through it right now. I appreciate that very much. It's needed. My question there is why, it feels like a lot of the things, especially the things that you talk about in the show, I'll have it linked up. I know you've done a ton of interviews.

I thought that one was particularly awesome. But why is this topic of, of kind of how beaten down small businesses have been, not just in this last iteration of it during the COVID time, which I do want to focus on, um, as I saw Pfizer stock now up 20 points since, uh, the COVID vaccine released. Um, but you, why is this a topic that we all kind of like whisper to each other, but no one, you know, there's so few people actually advocating a lot of these viewpoints. It's like this thing that we all kind of wink, wink, nod, nod. Like, I wish this wasn't the case, but no one really wants to stand up.

Does that, does that make sense what I'm asking you? Yeah. So I think there are a number of dynamics in play and I've been an advocate for small business for a very long time. And I think the complexity of the small business landscape, the fact that it is so big, so it is about half the economy, at least it was before COVID, GDP-wise and jobs-wise, and that's in the hands of a very decentralized group, 30.2 million small businesses before COVID, different geographies, different size, different focuses, anything that you can think of different industries. And so they're all kind of lumped together in this category. But

as you know, as a small business owner, you don't necessarily think of yourself even as a small business owner. First, you think of yourself, you know, as, you know, owning an insurance agency or as an entrepreneur, it's kind of like, not kind of the first place to go. So even though from an economic standpoint, policy wise, everyone kind of gets lumped in together, it is decentralized, which is the great thing about it. It makes it very difficult for people to become experts on it. And that's one of the things that, you know, as I talk to people who maybe understand like parts of the industry, it's like, okay, that may work for the ones that have employees, but what about the ones that don't have employees or the people who use contractors? And so there's just so much nuance and differential around what small business is that it becomes problematic to even become an

expert in. And then, so on top of that, it goes back to kind of the bigger thesis of the book, which is this battle of decentralization versus central power. So I just told you about the half of the economy in the hands of 30.2 million small businesses. Well, the other half is in the hands of 10 to 15,000 big businesses. And they have a lot of power and they have a lot of money and they have a lot of clout. And so if you're trying to get anything done, whether it's a sponsor or a lobbyist or a campaign contribution or someone to advertise on your website, it's so much easier to go to one big company or a handful of big companies than it is to try to navigate the small business space. So whether it is that they are too small to matter, whether it is that they are too difficult to control, what makes small businesses great and the symbol of economic freedom and an opportunity for wealth creation for any American and people who flock here from all over the globe is exactly what makes it so difficult and why not enough people take the opportunity, I think, to speak about that.

Yeah, that was one of the really interesting points that you made that I had never actually considered. And I think the way Michael had posed the question to you was, is there some sort of nefarious backing to the concept of skewing towards larger businesses? And maybe there is, maybe there isn't. But one of the points that you made that I had just never wrapped my head around was that what kind of what you just said, which is just, it's just easier to talk to three companies

than 30,000, you know what I mean? If you think about the insurance industry, there's a handful of mega agencies, the top 100. And then from there, there's this enormous gap to the 36,000 independent agencies that kind of rogue risk my agency would be part of. And it's just easier to talk to and govern the 100 than it is the 36,000. And it's not even, you know, what taking the nefarious aspect out of it,

just that simple math. I had never really considered that idea before. Yeah. And I think also a lot of times we spend so much time in this country and social media has exacerbated this talking about intentions when intentions don't really matter. Outcomes matter. So there are a lot of people with a lot of really great intentions that have no economic experience and end up putting ridiculous things in place that create barriers to economic benefits and wealth creation. And so even though they had a good intention, if the outcome is horrible, I don't really care. I care about the outcome. And so I would say sort of on the other side, that whether it is that you think there is this nefarious intention, whether you think it's

incompetence, whether it's just easier. Again, it doesn't matter. The outcome is still going to be the same when you have that imbalance of power. So I would love for people to spend more times. I like to call it like separating the art from the artist, so to speak. Like, let's not focus so much on the people and the intentions and the parties, but let's focus on the principles and then the outcomes that those principles produce. If we did that, it would be a lot more productive. However, the people who have bad ideas or that

generate bad outcomes know that. And so they always try to take it towards the former, which unfortunately sometimes is easier to get people to buy into. Yeah. Everyone's read the copywriting books, you know, that just pull on the heartstrings and you get things done. It doesn't matter if the, if the 10 step course actually works or not. Right. You know, that's, that's, I unfortunately saw an Elizabeth Warren tweet packaged right next to one of yours one day. And I was like, Oh my God, my nemesis talk about someone who, I mean, I don't know her personally. So I'd have to assume that I think it's probably more just, she doesn't know what she's talking about, but outcomes not matching any kind of

intention. It's like, Oh my God. I just, you know, I look at, I look at that. And I think the hard part, the hard part for so, so many people that, that I run with in our industry tend to be their independent businesses, independent insurance professionals give more back to their local communities than any other professional class in the country. Yet, you know, we're so often packaged in with these, you know, mega and, and, and super national carriers that, you know, whether you believe in insurance as a concept or not you know, you read the reviews and it's very negative. So I think a lot of times the people in our space are, are,

are stuck with, you know, they almost are apologetic for being like a small local business. And, and I hate that. And I, and I, you know, one of the missions of this show has been to like, get people to feel better about what like you represent a community, own that, be part of it, drive it, support it because otherwise, you know, we're going to be driving down more streets with boarded up buildings and, you know, for sale signs out in front of all these businesses that have been there for 20 years. And I know New York, DC, LA and Chicago want to pretend like that's not happening. But I live in upstate New York, Albany area is where I'm from.

You drive, you drive through any community in this town, and there are less bit less small businesses in every one of our little local communities than there was a year ago or a year and a half ago. And it's very sad and it's a shame, yet we can still walk into Target or Walmart or Home Depot and those have never shut down for a day. And it drives me effing crazy. Well, and let's just call it what it is. I mean, they were murdered. Yeah. People like to sugarcoat it. Oh, you know, the casualty of COVID or COVID didn't do this. This was purely government mandate. Government reaction is what killed them.

And so I think if we're more explicit about that, maybe people will understand how dire and important this conversation is. And I don't say this lightly or, you know, with any sort of humor, it should be hysterical. That is specifically what happened. We know as of June, 2020, that it was 400,000 plus businesses deliberately murdered and millions more struggling to survive. You know, I don't know what the outcome is going to be. I don't know that we'll actually ever get a good number because of all the stimulus. So many people started little side businesses and they're being counted as, oh, look at all these business starts, but to kill a family owned business or an insurance agency or a local bank or whatever it is, and then have that replaced with somebody's side hustle. That's not even Steven in my account.

So what do we do? That was one of the things that I really wanted to ask about because I thought, again, I'm pulling, I listened to your episode with Michael twice, one, because I like his show and I thought you did a great job. But one of the things that taking out of that episode that I really didn't think you had enough time to describe was like, what do we actually do about this?

Like, so I think 95% of the people listening would say we a hundred percent agree. We see it. We see it both just driving down our streets and our friends. And I know for a fact, there are agencies that literally went out of business because they served small business customers. That was the whole focus of their business. And all those businesses went out of business because they served small business customers. That was the whole focus of their business. And all those businesses went out, just were toast. And I look at the restaurant industry. I look at manufacturing spaces. I mean, there are $60,000 a year manufacturing jobs in Troy, New York, the town right across from where my agency sits,

and they can't get people to come work. I mean, that's a $60,000 a year job in a town where cost of living is lower and you can't get anyone to go to work. Like I look at this and I'm like, what can we possibly do? Like what is the actual, and I want to talk a little bit more about some of the things that actually happen, but I just, what do we do? How do we attack this? So this is a challenge for me because I consider myself a problem solver and that's like where I come from. And I have like some kind of macro answers and some small things and big things,

but I don't have all the answers. I would like other people to weigh in because this is a challenging time and this is a big, big task. So I would say there are to buy it from their local bookstore, or if you want to buy it online, to buy it from bookshop.org, which fulfills from a local bookstore instead of one of the big names. Because that's the way that you make sure that the side of the economy that is decentralized continues to exist, is by supporting them with dollars. And I think it's just become too easy for us to just go to the default. Oh, you know, I'll go to, you know, this big guy or

that big guy. And not that there's anything wrong with those companies. I'm a capitalist. But when you look at the imbalance that's been created, you do have a role to play with in that. And it's a very powerful one. And so, you know, if you're going to send something out for the holidays, let's say as a gift to all of your clients, like think about having that fulfilled from a local small business or another small business that you know, that you want to support, or, or just, you know, small things, you eat at a local restaurant instead of a chain restaurant. Now I I will say, also be very patient right now, because as you said, they're understaffed, they're dealing with incredible price hikes,

and they're just struggling to survive. So it's very possible you go to that local restaurant, your salad now costs $23, and you're going to wait three hours for it because the owner is now busboy, cook, and waitstaff. So, you know, have that patience and that breathing room to say, you know, I understand what this small business owner is going through and I'm going to support. So I feel like that's the, you know, kind of capitalism side. From a policy side, you know, this is very hard because I am, I consider myself an independent. I always say my political party is small business, small government and big hair. So if you'd like to join, I'd be happy to have you.

Yeah, I can't get my hair much longer than this, but I mean, as long as you're supportive, you don't actually have to even have any hair. It's like, you know, we're open. But, you know, it's most of us, and this is the spirit of the independent small business owners. You just want to be left alone, right? That's the whole point is just don't bother me and don't get in my way. And like, we'll be good, but we can't take that stance anymore. And unfortunately for us to have the freedoms and the economic freedoms, we're going to have to be more active. We're going to have to call on our representatives.

And for those people who say it doesn't work, the more people who do it and the more people who do it in tandem, it does make them nervous, particularly at the state and local level. So we have to be more loud about the policies that are impacting and can impact small businesses, even if it doesn't impact our own. We have to stand shoulder to shoulder with other small business owners. Maybe a minimum wage hike doesn't affect you, but it's certainly going to affect a lot of small business owners. The PRO Act may not affect you. It's going to affect a lot of small business owners. You may not understand the Federal Reserve. Read my book, read chapter five. We should all be calling to have the Federal Reserve reined in because that impacts your small business clients, whatnot. So we need to be

more active about the things that are being proposed. And frankly, we need to do a better job of getting some people in there to start tearing down this monster of government that we've created in a peaceful way, in an appropriate way. But if we keep letting the government expand at the level and the rate that it's going, it's just going to kill all economic opportunities. And you won't have that. There will be those three insurance agencies, and that'll be it. And there'll be Amazon, there'll be Walmart, and there'll be Target. And that's what this country is going to be. it's going to be a basically fully central planned economy. And we don't want any part of that. So I do think we need to get more active in terms of that. I mean,

there's probably a convention of the state's solution in there, I'm not well versed enough to know, you know, how that all comes to be and pulling more power to the state level. But I think those are some small things that, you know, we should all be more active in and really thinking about. And again, I'm very focused on trying to keep the conversation as we're talking to people, like just try to keep it about principles. People, um people politics parties like none of that matters we need to focus on the principles if we care about the outcomes because the reality is the situation we're in is at the fault of both parties if you don't believe in monopolies or

duopolies the government's the biggest monopoly in the world the democratic and republican party uh unholy duopoly is the biggest duopoly in the world. And there are a bunch of special interests that, you know, kind of round that out. So, you know, if you really don't think that there should be that kind of concentration of power and believe in the ills of central planning and power consolidation are bad and that free choice and transparency is good, then you want to be focused on ways that we can ensure that that happens. Yeah. One, you said, where does this take us?

It takes us to that movie Idiocracy. I don't know if you've ever seen this. That's where we're headed. So funny. I love Mike Judge. And I actually never seen idiocracy and I kind of, I know it gets referenced on my Twitter feed, like 20 times a day. So I feel like I've got to put it in. It will not make you smarter, but it will give you a couple of

cultural references that I've shown you because it very much feels like that's where we're going. Um, but so this is maybe a slightly off tangent in general but you know you were talking a little bit about the decentralization and um like what role do you think that like cryptocurrency plays do you think it gives small businesses a chance i'm not i'm a huge fan of it i believe in the concept obviously i have no idea who the winners and losers will be, but the idea of what is trying to happen, whether, you know, remove the symbol or the particular token, but the concept feels like I can do business with the businesses that I want to do business with on our terms. And I don't have to worry about things like, you know, you hear about, you know, everyone,

everyone with an agenda seems to talk about transitory inflation, that my my Dunkin Donuts in the last two months that caught or last two years, that coffee has gone from $1.99 to 375. But the same large Dunkin Donuts coffee, and it's hard for me to believe that inflation doesn't exist. So do you think that, that that that could play a role for small businesses, some sort of decentralized currency? Do you think that that's why so many people have bought into it initially standpoint, obviously people are concerned about what the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government are doing in terms of monetary policy, in terms of the devaluing of the U.S. dollar. And I think there are very good reasons, as I lay out in the book, to be concerned about that and certainly don't like the central plan around that. Now, if you think about cryptocurrency as a currency, there are usually three components that determine a currency. One is a unit of account.

We know that these currencies are not units of account. Everything is still going back to dollars, right? It's all about how much does this end up in dollars. A medium of exchange, still kind of clunky. There are some more people who are doing it, but I wouldn't say they've kind of figured that piece of it out. So it's not a great medium of exchange today, but we could see a path to maybe where it could be. And then a store of value. And the people who are big advocates of it will say, look, the value has gone through the roof. It's a great store of value, but that's actually not a good store of value. A good store of value is stable like gold. Right. We've got a long trajectory where we know that, you know, we know that it retains a certain value. A good store of value is stable like gold, right? We've got a long trajectory where we know that it retains a certain value. And yes, it goes up and it goes down, but it's not

all over the place. And perhaps again, it's nascent. So perhaps it levels off at some point in time and becomes a store of value. My concerns on that also, as we're talking about things that are, you know, centralized is that based on my research, it does seem like there are a handful of people who have a large stake and that really move kind of the markets and have a centralized position in terms of the crypto. So I think for it to work via its intended plan, the decentralized piece of it needs to also be decentralized and not be so concentrated and have so many people move it. So I think it's got some ways to go in terms of currency. The other way to look at it is, is it sort of a alternative asset class? Is it almost like a collectible or art or wine? Everything that we have is just a social contract that has value, right? So whether it's gold, there is some usages for gold, but it's maybe a tenth of its overall market cap. There's no reason why Jackson Pollock's splatter paint on a piece of paper is any different in price than me spilling coffee on a piece of paper, other than a bunch of people have all decided and agreed that that's how much one thing is worth versus the other. So there's no reason to think that there couldn't be a social contract long term around a cryptocurrency,

whether it's the ones that exist today or whether it's a new one that comes up that maybe deals with some of the centralization issues or has other aspects to it. It's possible. As somebody who is in the collectibles market and spent a lot of time thinking about that and markets in general, the one thing I would say that's odd about it is that usually when you have a collectible like wine or like art or whatnot, is the differentiating factor is the scarcity and the exclusivity of it, where crypto's whole proposition is the abundance and the inclusivity of it. So I haven't quite rectified all of this in my brain. So this is all to say, it's very interesting. The reasons behind it make a lot of sense. We still have the contention that you have a stock market, an IRS and a U.S. government with a military that all wants to control a dollar, not cryptocurrency. I think it's worth everybody keeping an open mind to because it is nascent and we don't know how it's going to evolve. And there are these other things out there that, you know, where it could become this store, this kind of collectible alternative asset class, or it could be, you know, evolved into a currency.

But we just kind of have to keep those parameters in mind. Yeah. To me, I, I, I swing between the, the, the believer and trying to be like realistic about understanding, you know, I've read the creature from Jekyll Island. I, you know what I mean? I understand, you know, who, where all this is coming from. It, it, to me, it seems like there's still that little, you know, brother, sister pat on the head, hey, isn't this kind of cool, this little thing? Oh, hey, look, you've created something, you know. And I don't know that the federal government, mostly because I think most of the people there

are dummies, and care more about woke social issues than they do about what's actually happening in the world. But, you know, I don't think they've quite woken up to what it is. And to me, it very much feels like, like I look at, you know, I look at something like the, like Flexa, right? With, so they have a token that allows you to easily transmit like real-time crypto transmissions with a touch, just like you could like Apple Pay, right? So boop, like your Bitcoin is immediately transferred into relevant dollars that pays them and you can pay it out of there

okay so it's still using us dollars like at that point but if the if the um retailer wanted to take bitcoin they could do the same thing or ethereum and there's like a couple different so you can literally do pay and again not widespread still very new technology but like i look at that transaction and i i say to myself like if if the dollars keep getting having less value and i do believe that the everyday consumer as much as they may have absolutely no idea how the federal reserve works or monetary policy it feels to me they're like the kind of use, I kind of use like my mom is like an example of this. Like she, she just kind of operates and she's the best. I don't mean this is a negative to her. She just kind of operates and these kinds of issues she doesn't read into,

but she's been starting to say to me, like, geez, it seems like things are getting more expensive. And I'm like, well, you know, my mind, I'm like, no, dumb. I just pulled 1.9 trillion in the market. I mean, of course it's going to happen, but, but you know, it feels like the general population is at least kind of starting to wake up to, they may not understand why or what's happening, but that things are just getting more expensive and their dollars aren't going as far. And $45,000 a year used to be fine. It's not fine anymore. I need a second job. I need to go do something else. And I mean, that's why a lot of the people that I know that are in crypto are in crypto is because they're like, I have no idea what's going on in the stock market. Like I, it just feels like a game and this feels like there might be something here. And it's, that's a weird thing to me that people would be willing to put so much money, smart, regular

people into, you know, it's a freaking app on your phone for all intents and purposes. What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode. But as you know, we do not run ads on this show. And in exchange for that, I need your help. If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, I would love for you to subscribe, share, comment. If you're on YouTube,

leave a rating review. If you're on Spotify or Apple iTunes, et cetera, this helps the show grow. It helps me bring more guests in. We have a tremendous lineup of people coming in, men and women who've done incredible things, sharing their stories around peak performance, leadership, growth, sales, the things that are going to help you grow as a person and grow your business. But they all check out comments ratings reviews they check out all this information before they come on so as I reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you I need your help share the show subscribe if you're not subscribed and I love for you to

leave a comment about the show cuz I read all the comments or if you're on Apple or Spotify leave a rating review of this show I love you for listening to this show and I hope you enjoy it listening as much as I do creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode. I mean, it's human nature, right? FOMO, things go up, people want in. Again, not to say that it won't succeed. It very well may. It's highly speculative. It's this type of thing I tell people, my approach to it, it's kind of like entertainment and gambling money, or an alternative asset in your portfolio. So if you were going to invest in a startup and willing to lose it all, if you

were going to go blow some money on sneakers or a night out, if you're a gambler and you have a certain budget, like, yeah, throw that into crypto. And, you know, just as long as you have that philosophy, you know, this could be a huge home run or I could lose it. Is that kind of a speculative play? And we kind of talked about all the reasons why it potentially could become thing, but everything is a social contract. So it all just depends on does everybody stay in and does it become something or are these other forces there that tear it apart and something falls and it the whole thing comes apart and we just we don't know it's i mean we just don't know yeah it it and this is the last thing i'll say this and then i want to i want want to, uh, back into the, into the book more and into some of the COVID stuff. But, um, I, you know, to me, the, the great awakener to this particular topic,

to small business, uh, into, into how important it is to, to reinvest in our communities is inflation. Um, that, that to me, I just, you know, and again, maybe I'm sometimes I feel over, over-informed and I don't mean that in like a braggy kind of way. I just mean versus the average person. Like ignorance is bliss. Yes. Like you just kind of operate, right? You just kind of go through life and you're like, oh, this thing costs this much. Okay. That's what it is today. And in my mind, I'm like, he just put 1.9 trillion in, Trump did this, the guy before this, but this much, I'm like, oh my, you can't just keep doing this. Like people are like, yeah, just put 10 billion in there. You got AOC down there. It's like, oh my God. She's just keep doing this. Like people are like, yeah, just put 10 billion in there. You know, you got AOC down there.

It's like, oh my God. She's like, well, I think we need 10 billion. I'm like, do you have any idea how this works? Like have you taken a math class? Like I know they say you went to college. Like it just, I can't understand how, how these are the decisions were made. I mean, I can, cause I know what's backing it, but it does feel to me like the awakener is inflation because small businesses can fight that. They can, where the Dunkin' Donuts coffee is $3.75, the Stewart's, which coffee is actually better if you're ever up here in upstate New York, is actually better at Stewart's, is still $1.75, right? So that, they can fight some of that because it's local, it's here.

They can fight some of that inflation. And, you know, that's my my hope that's my hope is that some of that can happen i mean maybe i mean the reality is so we go back to um you know our your joke around transitory versus non-transitory inflation so you know obviously if you don't know the phrase transitory it means is that short-term duration and it passes versus something that lasts. The Fed, their target perfect interest rate environment and inflation rate is 2%. So they want inflation to be around 2% a year. And the reality of it is that we're nowhere near that. And they're like, oh, well, it's good. It's transitory.

It's going to come back down. I think even if you can get some of the other supply chain things settled down, I mean, I know if you're shipping from overseas, shipping containers are four times as expensive as they were at clients that are dealing with this. Product availability isn't there. Obviously, when you are getting it, it's higher. Maybe some of that settles down, although we're going in the wrong direction with stronger mask policies and all these kinds of things. It doesn't give me a lot of comfort. It's going to be solved soon. But even if that all comes back down, there's still the wage piece

to this. And we have 10 million job openings in this country. And we have that because the government decided they were going to compete with businesses for labor. And they made it so attractive to stay home that when you're making that trade-off decision, even if you're not getting every dollar back, the gap is so small that you're kind of like, why am I going to do that? And then last year, they also made that money tax deductible. So you pay taxes on it. So that, you know, change the playing field. So the reality is, if you are a business, any kind of business, small or large, you have to offer higher wages. Now, some people are offering signing bonuses, whatnot, by the way, still can't find people. But as people start coming back into the workforce, theoretically, eventually, that's not going to go back down.

It's not like you offer like the entry level person now, like 20 bucks an hour to come in, the people who are above them want that bump. You're not going to be able to offer the new guy like 12 bucks. That's not going to happen. It's not going to go away. And then as that happens, what you're producing is, you know, or services are more expensive and then that flows through other people's supply chains. So I feel like the wage piece is permanent. And so even if we do come back down, maybe it's three and a half percent or whatever it is, but we're certainly not going back. You're not putting that, you know, toothpaste back in the tube once it's out. I just, unless something again, like crazy happens and that shifts everything else, but just walking through like a logical scenario, there are very few scenarios in which that would be a likely outcome, not impossible, but not likely. That's a really good point. I feel like people need to plan that. Yeah, it's going to be more

expensive. There's just, there's, there are consequences to actions, even if they take a long time. And as you said that, you know, the Fed now has more than $8 trillion on its balance sheet. We've got all the stimulus money, they're trying to pass more spending in the government, they, you know, they just are, it looks like they'll pass that 1.2 trillion infrastructure, and then they've got a $3.5 trillion, you know, budget thing that their framework that they're putting out. So, you. So there's going to be a lot of spending that adds into this as well. So yeah, the outlook. And there could be, by the way, also a bad scenario because of these new mandates, because of some of the policy decisions that does stagnate, especially the

half of the economy, the small business, that we could end up with stagflation, which happened in the late 70s and the early 80s, which is basically just like it sounds. The economy stagnates, so you're not getting a lot of growth, but you still have inflation in terms of wages and prices, which is the worst case scenario because you don't even have that growth to supplement the inflation. So for the average American, the ability to live the way that you want is becoming more difficult. Your dollar power is eroded. And in terms of investing, because the Fed has disrupted risk in the market, you have

to take on more risk in order to earn a return on your investment. So it's not like you can put your money in a CD and get 2% anymore, like 0.01%, which means that if you're a saver or retiree, you're now out taking risk to even try to get a couple percentage points. So it's a bad situation if you're not inside the club, which is kind of the thesis that we're talking about.

Yeah, it's it is. Well, it's scary on so many levels. Yeah, I have like 15 comments. It's such a rosy conversation. No, no. You know, I always I think it's OK. I think that's part of why I wanted to have this conversation is I think that, so one of the beauties of the insurance industry is that we're kind of an inflation adjusted business, right? Like inflation goes up, premiums go up. Our commission percentage is a portion of premium now, granted at the retail level, you know, everyone listening to this show knows, but

you know, there's, that's not, we're not the side of the business that makes all the money that everyone talks about, but, but you know, it is adjusted. So if last year, your car insurance was $1,200 and overall inflation goes up, carriers just adjust the premium up to $1,400 and we're making more money. So this is a good business to be in, but what's happening. And I think this is an important part from, from the, from the employment piece is, you know, there's a lot of talk in our space about how like the automation conversation went snapped forward 20 years, right? Where, so now instead of hiring an additional person, you're going to pay 30% of what you paid that person for an automation tool that allows you to not hire them. So you're paying

less for a tool that, that now you don't have to add that extra body because where you may have brought someone in to answer the phones for 10 bucks an hour. Now I got to pay 17 bucks an hour in New York or, you know, whatever it is, 1575. But I mean, when you, when you add in benefits and all that, um, you're just not going to do it. You're going to go, eh, I'll just bring in, I'll hire a VA in the Philippines or I'll hire, you know, I'll just put a phone tree in or a call routing system. That's completely automated at this point. Like, you know, and, and those are things where in our space, at least people would always hire people.

It's a very, the independent insurance space has always been a very people-driven business. And to your point, you know, I think maybe a consequence that was unintended though, should have been foreseen is that people just don't hire it's you know it's not like everyone just makes more money you just those jobs just never get brought in they just you can't a 12 an hour job is a 12 an hour job just because you say it should be 15 it just means i don't hire the person i can't you can't afford it where does the money come from right and it's not just like we said it's not not just the 12 to 15, but it's all of the benefits that go along with that, that increases the cost. And then it's whoever's above

them on the food chain. Well, if the entry level person is getting the 15, I need to get X so that we have that different buffer. And it just, you know, this basic economics here, folks. But unfortunately, the people who make these policies either don't think through them or frankly don't care and that was one of the things that like really made me angry when jerome powell i think it was back in june at a press conference and they said oh you know we didn't realize turning off like a third of the economy and turning it back on would you know disrupt the supply chain and do this. We didn't put that in our model. So then like, you're running monetary policy, you put $8 trillion on your balance sheet, and you didn't think maybe there might be a disruption

from turning off a third of the economy. Like we all thought of that. Like everyone in my Twitter feed was discussing that. I was discussing that on Fox Business and other media outlets, like you didn't think of that. And you can see it. You can see it in the Fed's own projections. PCE projections last year for the end of 21 were 1.6%. They moved that up to 1.8% at the end of last year. Middle of this year, 3.4%. And then the numbers came out for July and it was like five point four percent with a run rate over six. So it's kind of like, OK, like, well, why are you in charge of anything? Like, why are we like putting trillions of dollars at risk if this is the way that you're projecting?

And this is why I think what you're advocating, the work that you do when you're on, you're talking about small business is so important. When do you think the last time is that Jerome Powell has breathed the same air as the lay who operate the small businesses every day? Like to me, the comments that I hear out of the people who make the policy, and I don't mean this to be a political statement, I just mean, like, I literally don't think they interact with the world in the same way that you and I interact with the world. Like they're not bumping into these small communities or walking down the street or taking their kids to the schools in the communities who then are driving by seven closed businesses or this or everyone having a help wanted sign that that's been up for two years. Like, I just honestly think they don't interact

with with the rest of our world. They don't. And because the stock market has become a proxy for everything, but it's been so disrupted, the stock market doesn't represent the overall economy. And even the overall economic numbers doesn't represent the overall economy, because there's always such a shift between the two. And as we've seen a huge transfer of wealth this last 18 months from Main Street to Wall Street. So they can look on a macro basis and say, well, overall, we're fine. But that's because, you know, you've got five companies now worth $9 trillion based on your monetary policy.

That doesn't help the 30.2 million small businesses that are out there. And that was one of the things that was very eye-opening, although not surprising to me. The very first action that was taken in the pandemic really was to support Wall Street. And so before they did anything else, they came in, and even though it was disruptive at the time, it ended up being a big boon to the stock market. But that was the first thought, like, if we're going to do something, we have to make sure Wall Street's okay. And then it was never, okay, then let's look at the rest of this. I mean, the reality is that monetary policy overall

hurts rather than help small businesses, because it really does give this unfair advantage, especially in a situation like this, where you're allowing these companies to get basically free money to go out and compete with small businesses with no consequences and inflating their stock prices and their opportunities and access to capital. If you're a big guy, it just makes them more powerful. So really the whole concept that this does anything for the average business is silly. Yeah. One of the other things that I wanted to talk to you about that you actually brought up on Michael Malice's show, but I believe is the, call it a straightforward ban or a shadow ban just on your work on your, you're being picked up. I know you even mentioned that you felt the impact even

in your Twitter feed sometimes. I'd love for you to talk about that a little bit, because that's something that I think to certainly a lot of the people who listen to this show being in general, small business owners, they probably have never, none of them have probably been shadow banned on Twitter before, but you know, it talks to the dissemination of information in general, which is such a huge topic today. Can you just talk about one, that experience, your thoughts on it? And I, you know, I have some follow-up questions there.

Yeah. So I'm a free speech advocate. And so I feel like as long as you're not saying something that's directly calling for violence or harm against somebody or doing, saying something illegal, you should be able to say whatever you want. And I understand that platforms have, you know, certain arenas. Like I operate a platform for one of my clients. It's in a focused industry. You have to pay to be a part of it. Like there's stricter rules because that's a small environment, but this is free available to everyone. It's a news discourse kind of thing. And I tend to err on the side of free speech and let people talk that out. And, you know, they have algorithms that highlight certain people in certain types of work.

And they, based on the things that you're talking about and who you follow and what you like and whatnot, come up with assumptions about you. And unfortunately, and I don't have a smoking gun proof of this other than the fact that I'm a data person. I'm a recovering investment banker. I know numbers. I track statistics like a crazy

person because that's the information that I have available to me. And so I can tell there are times when my account gets sort of kind of tamped down and I've had people report to me. We're not seeing your tweets as often. I've had my stuff that I've liked, unliked. I've been unfollowed from you, even though I didn't unfollow you. And it's not a specific to me. There's a whole swaths of people that are experiencing the same thing. At the same time, when you have the algorithm of what trends on Twitter, and a lot of times, again, they have the data attached to that. So sometimes something's a trending topic and it's got a thousand or 1200 tweets. So we're not talking about like a huge, big conversation.

They tend to accelerate things that have a slightly negative bent or things that will create controversy, usually against people and usually against people with certain beliefs that, you know, may be in opposition to the people who work there or whatnot. And it's unfortunate, you know, it really does change the discourse around when people who I've been on Twitter, I think for 11 years or something like that. And, you know, I have a good following, I've got a six-figure following but like it's probably not as much as it would have been if I had maybe been talking about slightly different things or from a slightly different perspective and that's frustrating because it does impact the ability

to get your message out there and then the other you know issue is because we are so politicized and everybody wants things to be seen in black and white, which it's not, everything's heavily nuanced, is that a lot of the big media that I have relationships with, like places where I've appeared on regularly over the years and talked about all kinds of stupid stuff, did not pick up my book. And I believe it's because it doesn't didn't say Biden's war on small business or Trump's war on small business. It's not blaming one person or one party. You know, it's like common sense oriented and talking about systemic issues, but that's not the sensationalism and the politicization they want. And what does that say about our discourse when the, the ideas that are more measured and well-researched and, um, you know, more inclusive are being demoted versus the ideas that are inflammatory. And I just think it's something that people should be aware of yeah i i i try to let

so so i have a um i don't have nearly the file you have because i talk about insurance but um but i do have a blue check and that affords you certain interesting things um that happen and i uh saw this with jordan peterson when he had his initial rise because i'm a huge jordan peterson fan and um and found his first book uh to be amazing um but i would be supportive of it and i would have you know i have a certain number of likes and responses that i get because of the audience that that you know what i, what I talk about, whatever. And you can see that, right? You see, you see the pattern. And then all of a sudden zero, right? You're just zero. And you're like, that doesn't make sense because I know most of the people who follow me know that I'm

a libertist will say, cause libertarian means you part of some wackos sometimes, but that's what I call myself a libertist and And, uh, and you know, believe in let live and all that kind of stuff. And, um, and, uh, you know, but, but I'm also a big believer in personal responsibility. So I was like, man, I'm so happy. Jordan Peterson has brought this topic to nothing. Like you'd get, it was like, and then I look at the thing, like shown to like 17 people. I once had like a negative number on the people that had been shown to. And I'm like, this is wacky because I talk about insurance 90% of the time, right? I got 15,000 followers or whatever it was, it's 14,000 followers. And then this tweet, because it was about, you know, this was really during his height

when he was going forward. And because I got that stupid blue check, they're like, Nope, we're not showing this to anybody because he's some radical misogynistic, whatever they thought he was. And, um, I was like, this is amazing. You know, like who am I, you know what I mean? That they, that I would even show up on the shadow band thing, but it didn't matter. It was just this topic, this person, anyone associated with it. We're not spreading the message. And that scared the crap out of me. And I can tell you where I see it. So like, I can tell when my accounts in time that there are a couple of things that happen. First of all, I have a recurring issue where I can't like access some of my personal lists and people that I have muted then show up in my feed. And this is a

recurring thing that happens. So I can say, okay, oh, we're back in this issue. And then I have to call support and go, hey, could you just tell me why this keeps happening? They never do, but then they take it off, whatever. I can also tell because I do a lot of animal posts, like in addition to like, you know, some of the other stuff, like every, you know, a couple of times a week, I like to throw in cute animal videos.

And so that's where I can really tell, like, if I'm in good with the algorithm or not, because you know, there's like a certain amount of engagement that you get from like the average animal post. And while not everyone are based on the time there's a variance, but like when it goes down and I'm only getting like 100 or 200 hits on posts that we're getting like multiple thousands on a regular basis, you can go, okay, yeah, like I'm in no- You've been throttled.

End of the doghouse, yeah, for some reason. And it's frustrating. And then, you know, then you find out that the Taliban, you know, gets a Twitter account and it's okay for them to have one. And you're like, I don't know who's making the rules. Yeah. I, the thing that I can see, which is probably obvious, my political persuasion, but I can see why it is so intoxicating to be like a crazy leftist on Twitter, because I made this post. This is the minute in,

in jest, though I was being honest, I said, and it didn't end up coming true, but I just said like, if, if I were the Democrats, I think the only one, I think the best ticket to be Trump I don't actually wouldn't want them to win. And I was just like, this is what I thought would be a really interesting race. Like, how does he come after this guy? Right. And if he's got Tulsi Gabbard, who I do think is a badass, so I don't always agree with everything she says, but I do think I like her. I think she's honest, at least in the, for the, as much as the politician can be. And I was like, this would be a really tough ticket for him to beat. Now, obviously it didn't matter because whatever. But I, I mean, it was like, I mean, because people thought that I was like supporting them. Right. I don't know that I was.

It was unbelievable. I mean, the like button, I mean, I got like 50,000 likes. I mean, I can just, I was like, I started showing people like, this is why people go so crazy because this got set into some trigger. Right. You get rewarded for it. Yes. And now I'm going, man, all my freaking conservative friends are going to think that I'm an asshole.

Like, look, I'm going to get in trouble. That's a joke. But it just was it was I can see why people get so crazy. And I just don't I guess I really worry because, you know, we're talking about, we're talking about small business, right? You're talking about small business and how to help them. And you're getting throttled. Like think about what all the craziness with COVID, all the craziness that is right now happening with Afghanistan. Like you just, it really worries me going all the way back to the, how do we solve this problem that we just

can't have honest open discussions today, unless you and I are yelling at each other. And like, I'm wearing a blue shirt and you're wearing a red shirt or vice versa. If we're not yelling at each other, then no one cares. And they're just, it's not going to get any run. And that's, that's sad to me. And it makes me nervous. Yeah. It's a challenge. And it's also one of the reasons I was approached to write a book. I didn't know what it was going to be, but it was following the economy during COVID. And this is what came out of it. So this wasn't a thesis that I had going in. This was a redux afterwards. And by the way, I wrote three and a half different books. And this was what we landed on. And i'm really glad that i had that opportunity and i hope that your audience will take the time to read and educate themselves because the narrative's already

being rewritten and a lot of the sources some of the sources have already been pulled because they people want to cover their tracks i mean granted you can find them somewhere else right now but eventually the chain is they're going to make it harder, but the direct source, you know, perhaps is now pulled. And so it's important to document these things as they really were and to not let the narrative and the gaslighting happen because there is a giant bias in terms of the reporting. And I keep seeing people say, you know, there was no economic fallout from the shutdowns. And I'm like, tell that to hundreds of thousands of small businesses, you giant a-hole. Like it's just, it's because, and they'll use the, look at the stock market, look at the, this, look at, you know, people that say that they'll use enough thing without actually addressing the issue. And so it's important for everyone to educate themselves

about what happened, to educate themselves about, you know, kind of the broader spectrum of what's happening in terms of our economic freedom, and be able to use those tools and to have something they can hold on to, to say, no, this is the reality of the history that happened. And, you know, I think that for all of my faults, the one thing that I am well known for is like being very commonsensical and very accurate. Like, I think that people may not, you know, like some of my opinions. They don't like the fact that I have a big mouth. They don't like the fact that, you know, I have a really messed up sense of humor sometimes. How did you like that? Because I thought it was funny. Okay. Whatever. You don't like if the thing was

funny, go away. But, you know, but when I, when it comes to my work, like it's meticulous and it's sourced from Washington Post, NBC News, New York Times, CNBC. So like, it's not really particularly controversial. These are the things that happen. It's important to have that history and hold onto it. So I hope everyone will take the time to do that. And by the way, to pick it up from that small business that we were talking about. You guys, we'll have the link,

the bookshop.org link in the show notes. So either go to bookshop.org and just do the, do the search or just hit the show notes page for this podcast episode. I highly recommend this book. Um, I just, your work in general, the follow on Twitter, by the way, the flavor for Swedish fish is just Swedish fish. That is the flavor. Um, specifically red Swedish fish, which is by the way, like if you're going to eat Swedish fish, you just eat the red ones. But I, I don't know why, but in the middle of the night, last night I woke up like that

when I was like, kind of like, you know, my mind was going and I was like, what the heck is the flavor of red Swedish fish? And you're right. It's just red. It's the flavor is Swedish fish, green Swedish fish or any other Swedish fish is the color and Swedish fish, but red is just Swedish fish. Okay. And I only know this because that is my, uh, post little league game treat for my children.

So I'm a connoisseur of Swedish fish and the reds flavor is just Swedish fish. So I have to ask you as a connoisseur, do you eat the minis or the full size? No, the full size ones. The minis are for rookies, in my opinion. That's the rookie. That's the rookie move. Go with the big ones. The ones where you can't actually speak while you're eating,

which is a great trick with kids too, because then you shove the big one in their mouth. They can't talk to you while you're driving. So it's perfect. But I love my children. So thank you so much. This has been great. I highly recommend the book.

Go to bookshop.org. I also, guys, if you're on Twitter, follow Carol on Twitter. I highly recommend the book. Go to bookshop.org. I also, guys, if you're on Twitter, follow Carol on Twitter. Tremendous follow. I will also have the interview that you did with Michael Maus because that was the impetus for this. And he's a much better interview than me. And it's way more funny. But I just appreciate you. I appreciate your work. I wish you nothing but the best. And from our side here in the independent insurance space, I'm sure you just gathered a whole bunch of new fans if they weren't your fans already. Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate you being a small business owner,

a small business warrior speaking up. And I appreciate insurance. I mean, I'm a risk-adjusted return person. I talk about this. I think it's relevant to the COVID debate. And I keep telling people all the time, risk mitigation is a strategy. Risk elimination is a fantasy, which I feel like, you know, this is what you guys live and breathe every single day. So if I can be helpful or supportive in any way, I am your fans right back. Just remember, you can't triple mask a double mask, Carol. You can't triple mask a double mask. All right. Thank you so much. Fuck it. Bye. Yeah. Close twice as many deals by this time next week.

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