← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Ep. 2 - The Tariff Conversation No One Is Having feat. Bryce Gill
00:52:05
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- [00:00]
Ryan
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- [00:25]
David Rutherford
Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary VGW Group Void where prohibited by law 21 + terms and conditions apply. 1, 2, 3, 4. I want a tariff war. That's right. You heard me right. You know why I want to tear for? Because I'm sick and tired of industrialization being overseas and our middle class and our young people not being able to afford a damn house, build cars, have steel plants. It's time we bring all that back. And that's what these tariff wars are going to do. And guess what? We're going to tell you how. By inviting one of the top young economists out there, Mr. Bryce Gill, onto the show today. This is the David Rutherford show. A tariff is a tax or duty imposed by a government on goods and services that are imported into or exported out of a country. It's typically used to regulate international trade either by raising the price of imported goods to protect domestic industries or or by generating revenue for the government. There are two main types. A fixed tariff, a set amount per unit like $5 per barrel of oil. And an ad valorem tariff, a percentage of the value like 10% of a car's price. Guess what? It's time to get America back on top. And tariffs is going to be the way we do it. Now what you have to understand before everybody loses their mind on a regular basis. That seems to be happening all over the place, even to the point where the crazies are out there trying to burn vehicles of the most productive American car company that we've ever known. Let's just not even talk about that at all. What we do need to talk about are where are the middle class jobs? Seriously, I want you to tell us where the middle class jobs have gone. I want you to post it below on this segment of the show. I want you to post it anywhere you can. You tell me in detail when the the American might of industrialization and production, when that went away. Now I have a pretty good idea. I believe that the Post World War II generation, the greatest generation of all time. After they went over to Europe into the Pacific theater and kicked some ass, what happened? They came home, they went back to their factory jobs. And what they do, they built this damn country into being the most significantly productive country on the planet. How? We built cars, we manufactured steel, we mined, we developed oil, we developed all different types of small businesses, Right? That's what we did and that's what made America great. Well, fast forward seems somewhere around the late 1960s and early 1970s and old Tricky Dick decided to go over to China and open up China's economy. Probably in the midst of one of the greatest tyrannical rules of all. Town time in Mao Zedong. Some people say it's 40 million people, some people say it's 100 million people that were annihilated because of Communism. Well, that makes sense. Let's make them our future global industrialized country. Right again, once more in the American history we seem that have this bizarre relationship and desire to want to part with, partner with the complete and utter antithesis of capitalism and that is Communism. Many people don't even know that in the 1920s and 30s, American manufacturing giants went over to Russia and helped them reindustrialize. After the Bolshevik Revolution even, and then even leading up to World War II, all different types of relationships in America. In fact, there's a beautiful book out there called Stalin's War that describes in detail many hidden communists operating within the United States government. Right. So again, this bizarre relationship with communist countries. Well, obviously in the 1980s what we decided to do, we decided to begin to offshore our factory jobs which under the Clinton administration seemed to explode even more after the fall of Russia. There's a lot of brilliant guys out there who talk about this transition. One of them is Jeffrey Sachs. I think he's a brilliant guy. And because he was there, I mean he was on the ground in Russia when they approached him and said, hey, help us re industrialize this nation out of the USSR into the modern Russian economy and country wanting their desire to join in capitalism internationally. Well around those same times we became the world number one empire. And what we do, we accelerated the de evolution of American prowess and might at home. That's right. Think of all the people in your life in particular, if you were from the Midwest or from the southern region that was responsible or even from the Northeast where we were had these, you know, profound manufacturing capabilities. Well, guess what? All those places went away. Think of Flint, Michigan, right? Think of this beautiful little town that was so integrated into the car industry has been utterly devastated down to the point where they're poisoning their own people out of malfeasance and mismanagement. Right. That's what happens when you attack the middle class. That's what happens when you attack the very people that built this nation. And so what do we need to do? We need to re employ the next generation. Right. The greatest generation is, is pretty much passing away their children. The baby boomers are on average, what, in their late 60s and mid-70s. They are no longer working, although many of them because of inflation have had to go back to work because whatever their money they're making on a broken Social Security system is forcing them back into the workforce. It drives me absolutely nuts to think about grandma and grandpa having to be Walmart greeters because their pension funds aren't paying them enough. Now I know what you're going to say. You're going to be like Ruth and halt, buddy. These damn tariffs are whacking the hell out of the, the, the, the markets. They're destroying these pension funds. They're not these fixed income accounts. All this, it's destroying it. Listen, I'm going to tell you, guess what, we were almost 20 some percent higher than the lows that we were in. 21, 22 in the markets. Right. 22 is an absolute calamity in the markets. Right. But that came back. So are we off on the bottoms? Nowhere near. We're still way up. And, and also if you're not familiar with the markets over the history of highs and lows based on these different economic cycles, well then stand by to stand by because today's guest is going to be absolutely informative not only about the tariff situation but also with what's going on with the history of the markets. Right. My point, I want you to understand and what today's episode on the David Rutherford show is designed to do is to educate you in a more common sense approach. Right. That's what we're here to do on this show is my job is to be a flashbang of truth for you to help give you common sense approach to ignite critical thinking so you can better understand what's going on in the world's issues. My mission, I want to get the middle class back to work. I want to re industrialize American might and prowess and I believe President Trump is doing that. Now we live in this scroll through world and so everybody wants it to happen yesterday. We're not even at 100 damn days yet. So slow your roll, Stand by and get ready for who I believe is one of the best young economists that's out there in the world, Mr. Bryce Gill. So stand by to stand by because he's coming on the show. Booyah.
- [09:14]
Ryan
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- [09:40]
David Rutherford
VGW Group void. We're prohibited by law 21 + terms and conditions apply. Welcome to the David Rutherford show. Man, have I got a big one for you today, man. You want to talk about tariff wars, you want to talk about the war and the economy. You want to talk about war and elites. Well, guess what? Today I am bringing on one of the best dudes I've ever met in my life, Bryce Gill, who's, who's one of the top economists for one of the biggest asset manager management firms in the country. In the world. But my favorite part about Bryce is, is the fact that he's a guerrilla gun maker. And he's the man that I go to when I'm looking at what next gun build I need to have, what sub guns, the coolest, what suppressor I have. And Jordan, man, if before we get him on, can she just play that that video force real quick, brother. Ladies and gentlemen, the handlebar economist himself, Bryce Gill. What's up brother?
- [10:54]
Bryce Gill
What's up Dave? This is so fun, man. I'm so glad to be be with you here today. And we couldn't have picked a better time to do it. I mean the world is going crazy and people I think need a little perspective on what's going on.
- [11:06]
David Rutherford
That's why you're here. So let's not dilly dally, man. Let's jump right in. So let me ask you this, is this Trump waging war against our adversaries from a national security perspective of a global economy reset, or is this really what I believe it is, which is Trump waging war for the average dude, the person that works hard, the guy that doesn't have a huge market portfolio or giant, you know, real estate portfolio, and he's waging for war for that dude against the elites in the world. What do you think, man?
- [11:49]
Bryce Gill
I think it's kind of both, to be honest with you. So when you think about tariffs and trade barriers and globalization and everything else, a lot of this starts in World War I and World War II, especially post World War II. When you think about it, we're the only ones that didn't get bombed, right, Dave? So we're basically the monopoly producers and exporters of everything after World War II. And we had a huge incentive to push an idea of free trade, right? We wanted everybody to lower their tariff barriers. We wanted to integrate the global community in trade because, hey, when goods don't cross borders, soldiers will, as Friedrich Bastiat, one of my favorite economists, always said. And so, hey, we pushed free trade. We integrated the world in commerce. The United States was the monopoly producer and exporter of everything. And, you know, giving basically access to our consumer market in the United States. It was a way to get countries on our side in the Cold War as well, right? Choose the United States. You get to sell the richest people in the world. Choose the Soviets. We're locking you out. And so over time, hey, trade barriers fall. We, you know, integrate the global community. But where things really started to get crazy, I think, and start affecting basically the middle class or normal people in the United States was after the fall of the Soviet Union. You know, then 10 years after that, China joins the WTO. When you think about it, big picture, like, America got access to all this cheap labor and materials in a really short period of time. We had the Internet, we had container shipping to arbitrage it all. And so this is the period like 1990 to, let's say, 2020, where globalization goes into overdrive. We're basically outsourcing all our industrial capacity to the rest of the world. The idea in, like, maybe elite circles was, hey, let's take advantage of all this cheap labor. We'll build up, like the middle classes abroad at the expense of our own middle class. And it's great for us, it's great for our profits, and it will give people cheap consumer goods kind of on the other end. That was sort of the deal. And at the time, remember, it's like the unipolar moment, right? There's no other major superpower to confront the United States. So this felt like kind of a safe thing to do. So not only do we outsource a lot of our manufacturing and things like electronics or automobiles or whatever, we also outsource manufacture of, like, the entire defense industrial base. Right.
- [14:16]
David Rutherford
Wow.
- [14:17]
Bryce Gill
And so I think now it's a reverse of this, right? Like 30 years, the middle class has had to compete with somebody in China making 10% as much an hour. Their wages really haven't grown because of this. And on top of that, Covid exposed huge geopolitical risks in our supply chains. And so now I think basically both of these are playing in here. On one hand, you've got a lot of people that are worried about national security, that want to bring certain critical industries back to the United States. And certainly a huge part of Donald Trump's base was people voting for him as like a backlash against globalization or elites essentially shipping our industrial base overseas, profiting from it at the expense of domestic labor. So it all sort of ties together, to be honest. And it's a, it's a really interesting and basically long running story for the United States as a superpower.
- [15:10]
David Rutherford
I love how you frame the context that this is. You know, this has been manufactured as a result of our own policy. Right. I mean, I think, you know, really giving people, especially younger people, young, young men out there that are trying to find, you know, where am I going to find my next job? Because for the last 15 years everybody's been like, oh, learn to code. Well, guess what? AI is going to destroy. They're out, they're gone. And so it's like, all right, well what do I do? And if you pay attention to one of my favorite people on the planet, dirty jobs, Mike Rowe, with close to 750,000 available jobs with H Vacs, plumbers, the whole thing, it's like, yeah, but we also need that ability for these people to compete in all those different places. Right? To be able to begin their own businesses so that they can increase some wealth and get in the markets potentially. But I also know that, and based on just listening to you for the last three years, is Covid really reset this in a way I think people don't quite understand and the necessity of it. Right. With the exposure of the supply chain issues. But more importantly, from what I understand, is that one point, what, $7 trillion infusion of, of money flooding into our system, how does that radical shift in the M2 number, how does that get us to a place where maybe the markets were gonna reset anyways and that this whole focus on tariffs might not be as well founded as a lot of the pundits are making it believe? Making us bleed.
- [17:05]
Bryce Gill
Yeah, so I. We just went through the worst inflation in 40 years in the United States. And I just think it's as an issue been massively over complicated since the COVID pandemic. Inflation is really pretty simple. At the end of the day, it's just too much money chasing too few goods. And so during COVID we printed $5 trillion, and then we shut down the global production system, right? There's just fewer goods and more dollars. So it's the most textbook example of what would cause a surge in inflation in the United States. Since then, inflation's improved a lot. It's because we stopped printing money and we reopened the economy, right? So it's pretty simple stuff. But with regards to, like, the market correction we're having headed into this year, I work at a company called First Trust. We're, like, the only ones calling for a market correction on anyone on Wall Street. I'm sure a lot of people have changed their forecasts now, but, you know, profits and interest rates are what drive the market and market valuations over time. And so we went from being bullish on the market since, like, 0809 to changing our tune. And it's really just because interest rates rose so much, and interest rates rose a lot because we had the highest inflation in 40 years. And the Fed had to respond, right? And so, yeah, Covid certainly reset a lot of things. It reset not only the economy, right, with all the reshoring. It changed the status quo around globalization. It also changed, I guess, a lot of preconceived notions about the stock market. And there was this idea Dave called the Fed put that has existed for the past 30 years when we had a bond bull market, which means interest rates were falling since the early 1980s, that anytime there was a problem in the economy or in the stock market, the Federal Reserve would come in and cut interest rates and save the day, right? And now the problem is, hey, they caused the worst inflation in 40 years. They basically have to sit on the sidelines now. They're not going to be able to come to the rescue anymore. And I think still a lot of investors and I travel around the country talking to investors every day. A lot of investors had not been able to, you know, essentially integrate this into their mindset that the Fed's not coming to rescue you. It's just kind of, hey, that's why we're in the wild West. That's why we have all this volatility happening. We gotta figure out our issues with the government budget. We gotta figure out inflation. We gotta figure out supply chains, and, you know, we can't just print money to solve our issues anymore.
- [19:28]
David Rutherford
That's fascinating. Okay, so there's a market correction that y'all been Predicting for a while. Right. And because what tech. Those seven tech companies, they can't carry. Continue carrying us.
- [19:40]
Bryce Gill
Right.
- [19:40]
David Rutherford
But. But is. Is it the idea. Do you believe that the idea with Trump and the administration is that if we. If we put these tariffs out there on the global economy, we give our producers of goods a much greater opportunity to get back in the game, to get back in the fight. And then also what he's. I just read yesterday that he's brought in $7 trillion of investment. I mean, I think somebody in the Middle east brought. Has committed a trillion dollars. Now, that's all commitments. That's all. Like, a lot of, like, hey, look at me on tv. We're behind Trump. Cause we either don't want to get bombed or we want to work with them. You know, and it's like, all right, is this the push that you believe is feasible, that this will take place eventually, or could it cause some more catastrophic outcomes?
- [20:35]
Bryce Gill
Yeah. So I'll touch on the tariffs in a second. But I'll just say, like, reshoring to the United States, I think, is happening regardless of if we have tariffs or not. Okay. I think tariffs obviously incentivize it to happen faster. But the reality is, you know, Covid hits, okay. It makes everybody question the status quo around globalization. It was sort of a Republican issue or like a MAGA issue until Covid hit, and then nobody could buy, you know, toilet paper and baby formula. And now everybody agrees, hey, this is a problem. It's very bipartisan issue. We passed the CHIPS act, the Inflation Reduction act, to incentivize reshoring under Joe Biden. Okay. Factory construction has tripled in two years in the United States. So this is concretely happening in a very fast way. And so some people, I think, still look at this like, hey, it's government policy, or it's just like a response to Covid. And what I really like, try to emphasize to people and why I've been talking about this since 2016, is just we went abroad and globalization, part of it, right. Is, you know, world peace or the American empire or fighting the Soviets or whatever. But a huge part of this, Dave.
- [21:39]
David Rutherford
I love how you just. I love how you just brush over.
- [21:43]
Bryce Gill
We can touch on all that if.
- [21:44]
David Rutherford
You want, but not this one. I get you on in a week or two and we'll dig into that, right?
- [21:49]
Bryce Gill
No, but, like, really, like, the huge thing that. And, like, here's the thing. Like, there's always rhetoric. There's always like a, you know, like a nice story. We paint as a veneer on top of, like, our economic interest a lot of times. Right. So I think the reality is the economic interest behind globalization for the United States was an abundance of cheap labor. Right. All over the world. And the reality is, if you look at demographics, globally, demographics are peaking basically everywhere, right. China's population is going to fall by 40% through the end of the century.
- [22:22]
David Rutherford
Wow.
- [22:22]
Bryce Gill
South Korea is going to be like 90% of the South Koreans are going to be gone by, you know, 2100 or something.
- [22:28]
David Rutherford
That's crazy.
- [22:29]
Bryce Gill
Same thing in Eastern Europe, same thing in Vietnam. Same thing in all these places. And so what I would just emphasize to people, and we'll talk about tariffs in a second, is just the cheap labor is going away no matter what, okay? And so if the supply goes down, the price goes up. And so it doesn't make sense to make things in China anymore. That's. That's the real issue. And in a lot of other places. And so the United States, we consume everything for the whole world. And we're looking at this and saying, if we don't get the cheap labor out of it, like, what's even the point of this deal? We can just make it ourselves, right? So reshoring is going to continue to happen no matter what, in my opinion, because the cheap labor is going away. Now.
- [23:07]
David Rutherford
That's cool.
- [23:08]
Bryce Gill
The, the tariffs, okay. Or like, the government policy around this is an effort to basically get out front of this trend and kind of control it from the front instead of kind of getting pulled along from behind by like, the broader macroeconomic trend of peaking demographics. Okay? So tariffs, what they do, you just tax stuff at the border as it gets imported. And by doing that, you make it artificially more expensive. And so say, like, you know, the U.S. defense Department wants to put semiconductors in its, like, drones or Hellfire missiles or whatever. And they're looking at who is an option. Maybe intel will sell you that chip for 50 bucks, and maybe TSMC will sell it to you for 40 bucks if you tear up the semiconductor at the border at 25% now, they're the exact same price domestically for the Defense Department to buy. They're probably going to go with the American maker Intel instead. Or TSMC could say, hey, the Defense Department's a pretty important client for us. Maybe we should just build a factory in the United States. And that way you don't have to worry about the tariffs anyway. And so the reality is, your guy is like, we have the huge domestic market. We buy everything for the, from the Entire world, basically. And so we can throw our weight around a little bit here and say, hey, we want more stuff made in the United States. I don't think it's the end of the world. It's interesting you mentioned all these, like, investment commitments, Dave, because I was just on my Bloomberg terminal this morning and there's a bunch of economists talking about, hey, this tariff war is going to cause like a global recession. And I don't, I wouldn't be surprised if it hurts China, right? Or it hurts like Malaysia or something. It probably will, frankly. But the reality is, you know, they're saying, hey, companies are going to pull back investment because of uncertainty in the United States. And I would just really question that assumption because the reality is, again, factory construction has tripled in two years in the United States. You have now $6 trillion or whatever of committed investment from different people. It hasn't been spent. I get it. It's. You're right, a lot of it is pr. But like, it looks to me like the tariffs are causing a huge wave of investment by basically every observable metric. So I would be very skeptical of claims that, hey, we're about to go into recession because of tariffs in the United States.
- [25:23]
David Rutherford
I love that. Thank you for saying that. Now, the one thing that obviously not obviously, but the thing that kind of like the fact that we're, we're, we're, we, we've been at the precipice of our bear market for a while. It's like, okay, who's going to get hurt by that? Right. And, and the people that I think for me that I worry most about are the people that are in all those state pension funds, those federal pension funds. What do you say to them with these market fluctuations? What do you say to them in terms of whether they're freaking out? Because a lot of these people are obviously on fixed income. They're not sure. These investments are the way with which they live. What are you gonna say to reassure these people that, hey, this is a relatively short term thing in terms of the, the, the over that I, I love. The one chart that you guys always show is about, you know, how long recessions actually last, the impact they have. What do you, what, what advice do you give to those people that, you know, have their entire net worth in these pension funds?
- [26:36]
Bryce Gill
Yeah. And we can touch on recession if you want to in a second because personally I don't think we're going to have a recession, but certainly the market has had a correction here. Okay. I think we're down like on the s and P500, we're down 12 or 13% from the peak. Okay. And so guys, honestly, I mean, if you just look at some of the math on corrections in the stock market, this doesn't look that scary, just to be honest. Okay. We get a 10% correction in the United States like every eight months. We get like a 15% correction in the stock market every, I think, 16 months. We got a 20% correction basically every three years. If you just look at like the last hundred years of the stock market. Right. So I don't look at what's happening right now as really anything outside the ordinary. Again, I think we came into this year overvalued on the stock market just based on profits and interest rates. And so I was sort of expecting a correction. Now tariffs have added uncertainty and they've kind of been a catalyst, 100%. But when I look at like the fundamentals of the US economy, I don't see like any of the 500 wealthiest, you know, companies in the country going out of business because of tariffs. Right. So, and like the earnings picture, I think the stock market's earnings are going to go up this year still. So there might be some margin pressure from labor or tariffs or whatever. But big picture here, I think this is a stock market correction. I don't think this is the end of the world. I think the problem, Dave, is we all have smartphones in our pockets and the media ecosystem. And by the way, we're on a podcast. It's long form. This is an effort to combat like the disease of short form information. Okay. But to get eyeballs, you basically present negative information because it's 10 times as effective at getting eyeballs as positive information. You make things as dramatic as possible. And so, hey, stock market correction, Trump, tariffs, end of the world. Like, I don't know. I personally think we're not going to be talking about the stock market in like six months. I just, I think Donald Trump's back in office. A corrections happened. This is not outside, like empirically normal behavior in the stock market at all.
- [28:50]
David Rutherford
Awesome. Well, I mean, that answers a lot of the other questions that I was having. Obviously your beliefs, it's not gonna have a dramatic effect on the US Economy, but you did mention the effect on China, some other Southeast Asian countries. Could this affect European Union? Could it affect the BRICS countries? I mean, how is it going to impact them?
- [29:13]
Bryce Gill
Yeah. So I guess first I'll start out by just saying, like, let me contrast the United States with some of These other places, quick. Okay. Because the reality is we have a very self sufficient economy already in terms of like overall economic activity back in like the 1800s or in World War I or whatever, where an agricultural economy and an industrial economy, we basically depend on exports for a lot of our gdp. Right. We make stuff and ship it around the world. Today, like 70% of the US economy is services. It's me getting on a podcast with you, somebody giving me accounting advice, me buying software, you know, those types of getting a haircut. That's 70% of consumer spending. So only 30% of consumer spending is goods at all. And only a third of those goods are actually imported goods. And so we're talking about 10% of consumer spending that's actually directly affected by tariffs. And by the way, like, I don't think Most people know 30% of our imports are from Canada and Mexico, even though we've talked about 25% tariffs on all of them. And there's been all this debate around Canada and Mexico. Like the vast majority of what they import to the United States comes in duty free because of usmca. We're not actually tariffing very much from Canada and Mexico right now, which I don't think is renegotiated. Nafta, we did it in Donald Trump's first term in office.
- [30:31]
David Rutherford
Got it, got it. Okay.
- [30:32]
Bryce Gill
So you know, if you look at it like literally 7% of like consumer spending is actually affected by tariffs right now. So it's pretty small. The best estimates I like to look at, the Tax foundation, they're very anti tax, anti tariff think tank, by the way. I'm not cherry picking things. They say the tariffs that have been instituted will have a negative 0.8% impact on GDP.
- [30:55]
David Rutherford
Wow.
- [30:55]
Bryce Gill
Not even a 1% decline.
- [30:57]
David Rutherford
That's crazy.
- [30:58]
Bryce Gill
Covid was minus 10%. The 0809 financial crisis was minus 5% to GDP. So we're talking a fraction of those things. And again, I think they're modeling a worst case scenario that does not include a huge boom in investment because of the tariffs. Okay, so I'll start out there and say the American, we're just not really that dependent on foreign trade for the overall economy. Okay. When you contrast that with like China for example, or Germany, for example, or say like Vietnam or Malaysia, those economies or Japan, those economies are very export dependent. They produce a lot and export it and then they have a very high savings rate. They don't actually consume all that they produce. Right. Whereas we're the opposite. We have a high consumption rate And a low savings rate and we buy from the rest of the world. So if we just start making more for ourselves.
- [31:49]
David Rutherford
That's all those late night Amazon purchases, right?
- [31:52]
Bryce Gill
Yeah. Which are about to get a lot more expensive, by the way. Like you look at the total tariff on China is like 60% right now.
- [31:58]
David Rutherford
Which is, my God, insane.
- [31:59]
Bryce Gill
But you know, the big picture is, yeah, they need to export to us because we're the ones that buy everything. And so what is Germany going to do? What are, what's China going to do? What's Japan going to do if they lose their biggest export market? Basically they got to start making more stuff for their own people. And people actually have to go out and spend money. There's, that's the, you get a little like more balanced economy. So I think that's what China has to do here. They just got to like actually make things for their own people and boost their own people's like, standard of living. And that's been talked about for years and they just haven't been able to do it.
- [32:32]
David Rutherford
So what I mean, this sounds like, actually, I mean, obviously the way I kind of view the world is through a geostrategic mindset, Right. Just from my background, this actually sounds like it could be a very positive impact on gaining a greater leverage against China as it relates to all the little chirping we hear out there about war in Taiwan and semiconductors and all this stuff. I mean, this sounds like we can gain a pretty significant amount of leverage against China, especially with the fact that their economy, if I'm not mistaken, is not great anyways. Correct?
- [33:19]
Bryce Gill
Well, yeah, so China, their economy grew 10% a year for decades because one, their demographics were booming, there's a lot more people every year. And two, they just imported technology from the rest of the world. Maybe that's the polite way to say it. They stole a lot of technology too, right? So the combination of that makes GDP boom. You go from like an ox drawn carriage to like a John Deere tractor in your field. You have to invent that. You just import it from the rest of the world. Right? And so the problem China has now is, okay, all of a sudden other demographics have peaked and started to decline because of the one child policy and a bunch of other stuff that goes into like the nitty gritty of demographics. But on top of that, they're in a trade war with like basically the whole world. Okay, so U.S. tariffs, I know this is like in the news right now, okay, but China's just been in a giant Trade war with Europe. In the past year, Europe put 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars. Wow. So, you know, they're losing export markets everywhere. Basically, everyone's saying, hey, we don't want to export, like, our high technology stuff to China anymore because we don't trust them. And so China's getting whack not only on demographics, but they're getting whacked on technology access, too. And so, yeah, their economy is in huge trouble, in my opinion. People might have heard of, like, the Evergrande real estate collapse. Basically, normal Chinese people don't get access to the stock market. Okay, you got like a bank account or you can buy real estate. That's how you invest. Okay. So everybody went out and bought, like, these condos or they'd, like, take out a mortgage for, like, a building that wasn't even built yet.
- [34:52]
David Rutherford
The ghost cities, right?
- [34:53]
Bryce Gill
Yeah, the ghost cities. And now everybody over there is looking around and saying there's going to be 40% less people in like, 60 years. Who am I supposed to sell this condo to? Right. So what's happening is all the real estate values are crashing. It's like 2008, 2009, and steroids over there. So China's in huge trouble. They've got a lot of problems.
- [35:13]
David Rutherford
Wow. That, that's. Now, I think, you know, that's the context that, that, that most people are, as you said, you know, whether it's your, you know, how fast you're screaming through X right now, to be able to stop and give this some, some context is significant. And that's why I love listening to you as much as I do. Dude, you just are. You have that breadth, knowledge. So. All right, the last question for this segment, you know, and obviously we're going to have additional segments if, for those who want to, you know, follow us on Patreon and some other places, you know, but for this segment right now, what I, what I really want to do is kind of end with, you know, taking the opposing side for you for a second and really say, all right, all right, Bryce, you're advising European Union leaders right now. You're advising the imf, you're advising the BRICS nations, right? What do you tell them on how to evaluate this or how to combat this or what are you saying to those groups of people right now?
- [36:22]
Bryce Gill
Yeah, I'd say, hey, listen, the Americans have had unilaterally low tariff barriers for a long time. They've really benefited from globalization. We all have. And the reality is, when we look out there, a lot of the economic underpinnings of globalization are starting to fall apart. Some of our biggest export markets in the European Union are like Russia and China. And we've become reliant on potentially some like, geopolitically unstable, you know, sources of income. And so I think we're basically at a point where, hey, it's like America's telling you to choose. It's either you choose China or you choose the West.
- [37:01]
David Rutherford
Wow.
- [37:02]
Bryce Gill
And so I don't envy Europe for this decision. I mean, they're in a tough place by the way. They're the middle continent.
- [37:08]
David Rutherford
Right.
- [37:08]
Bryce Gill
They're between east and West. That's what they've always been. But I think we need to come to some type of agreement with Europe. Maybe it's that they take care of more of their own defense and we make some deals on like, you know, the auto industry tariffs or other kind of non tariff barriers. But I would advise Europe to probably make a deal with the United States. I think the United States has a lot of natural advantages. I think we have a lot more values in common than Europe does. And given the way like the real world's reshaping, there's like a rising Eastern bloc again, which side does Europe want to be on? Do they want to be on the side of the United States in the west or on the East? And they'll probably kind of play both sides to some extent. I don't again begrudge them for that given their geographical location. But this is what this tariff announcement by Donald Trump is. It's basically saying, hey, we have our core of North America, usmca. And now we're going after everybody else and saying, make a choice. It's the United States or it's China and you know, Peru. If you want to export all your fruit from the Sacred Valley up to Texas in the grocery stores, then you can't hire China to build all your infrastructure. It's not going to work like that anymore. You can't have your cake and eat it to pick a side. So I think people are going to have to pick a side. Basically.
- [38:25]
David Rutherford
This is like, this is the greatest news that I think people could hear, right, is this is finally giving us a little bit more leverage by our using our economy, the economic engine of America, which is by far the greatest on the planet. And don't let any of these little squawk boxers over here and over here detract you from that. The reality is, is we have the greatest economic machine that has ever been created in human history. And this is Part of that plan to regain that, that whole thing. All right, Bryce, man, I. You know, before I let you go for this, this part right now is I just want. I got to have you give your advice. All right? What's the best sub gun that's out there? And, and, and, and it just describe what, what, what makes you happy when you're on the range and you're going big with a sub gun, man.
- [39:22]
Bryce Gill
The best sub gun out there right now. That's such a good question. I, I mean, honestly, I just am a sucker for the classics, man. I think I like the MP5K, the best of anything. I wish they would, like, remake it with maybe a bigger Magwell funnel and maybe a little bit better ergonomics on the grip and stuff. But anybody that needs, like, a bolt release on their gun, like, everything doesn't have to be an AR15. That's kind of how I feel about it. The, you know, the aesthetics of the MP5, the ergonomics of the MP5, pulling back the charging handle, locking it in, charging a new mag, and doing the slap, like, it's so enjoyable. So I would vote the MP5k, honestly, I think it's still the best sub gun there is.
- [40:03]
David Rutherford
There's just, There's a, There's a different level of attack tack. What, the tactileness of the MP5. Right. As well as the accuracy. That son of a bitch, man. It's like my favorite gun I've ever shot as well, too, man. And you just can't beat it in the house for sure.
- [40:20]
Bryce Gill
That's right.
- [40:21]
David Rutherford
All right, man. Where can people find you? Where they. Where you know, again, who do you work for? Where can people find you? And. And just, you know, what do you have coming up in your life right now?
- [40:34]
Bryce Gill
Yeah, so if you want to find my work, I'm an economist at a company called First Trust Portfolios. You can search the First Trust Economics blog. We post everything we write there, which is basically any economic data that comes out. We're writing updates on it. All that stuff is available for free. Everything's one page, easy to read, easy to share. So I think those are great resource. You can just search my name in Google. I do a lot of interviews like this. They're kind of all over the Internet. I've also got an X account as well. It's Daddy Fat Stats, which if anybody's an Outcast fan, it's a big boy, right? Daddy Fat Stacks. But because I look at data, it's Daddy Fat Stats.
- [41:16]
David Rutherford
Dude, I love you so much it's not even funny. I'm telling you what.
- [41:19]
Bryce Gill
I love you too, man.
- [41:20]
David Rutherford
It's so fun to do this with you. Oh, my God. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Bryce Gill. Thank you. Appreciate it.
- [41:26]
Bryce Gill
Thanks.
- [41:40]
David Rutherford
Welcome back. Now, if. If you were like me and you just listen to Bryce Gill, you're blown away because the. The data that he shared with us is undeniable. And what it proves is that America still is, and in my estimation will always be what the benchmark economy of the world is. Well, at least if we can maintain our prowess as what, as not only the most financially sound with our markets and our whatever, but because of the companies that keep America going, because of those companies that set the standard for production, and then also because of the initiative that Trump and his cabinet are gonna do with these tariffs, which is to bring back the industrialized might of America. And if we can do that, then guess what? Then you and your wife, you and your friends, you're gonna have a well paying job that delivers a powerful pension, that delivers you opportunity to have the American dream, which is to, you know, have a wife, have children, or have a job that pays you well, that enables you to have a house and a community that's supportive and really kind of to reshape what the American myth, what we should call now the American myth, back into the actualization of the American dream. And that's possible, and it's possible if you get committed. So I just, I'm blown away. Jordi, what do you think about Bryce, man? I mean, if did he impact you? I mean, you're a young man. Did that he gets you all fired up on how badass America is?
- [43:23]
Jordy
Yeah, absolutely. Also, I just never heard some of the. The facts that he was talking about. Like, I thought it was interesting him saying that the onshoring is. There's a wave of onshoring in America that's happening, you know, with the tariffs, without the tariffs. Like this is just in the country's blood right now, and there's a. There's a big movement behind that and just kind of shows how important that is, man. I learned a lot and I love.
- [43:50]
David Rutherford
That, that that's the positive outlook of, of what happened from COVID If, if, you know, other than, you know, millions of people out there getting red pilled, for sure. You know, the reality is, is that we've come to the realization that we cannot count on the supply chain from China. And what we are gonna do is we're gonna count on our own supply chain. We're Gonna start to build America, right? Build in a. Made in America is gonna be a real thing instead of assembled in America, which drives me nuts, but it is what it is, right? All right, so, you know, one of the cool aspects that we really wanna do at the end, the final kind of segment or closing segment, and thanks to Jordy being the musician that you are, buddy, uh, we're gonna call this Dakota section. Now describe this a little bit more. What is a coda for these folks? And. And for all you don't know, Jordy is. Is a musician at heart. He's a true artist, just like me. So, Jordy, what's a coda?
- [44:49]
Jordy
Well, if I can remember back to my music school education, Dakota is the ending section of a musical piece. And it's oftentimes a little bit different than anything else you heard in the. In that composition. And so there's the whole piece. It's going through its peaks and valleys, and then it's like a little bonus at the end that they hit you with right before you go. So that's what this section is. I thought it's a good name. Bring back some old school music terms, you know.
- [45:13]
David Rutherford
Let's go. Led Zeppelin. All right, that's just my Gen X right there. And maybe I'll review Led Zeppelin in the future in one of the coda sections. That would be apropos, but in this one, what we want to do is we're going to call it the vintage hard story, right? And what we want to. We want to highlight are the people who were those old school people who worked in the steel mills, who built the skyscrapers in New York and Chicago and all over the place that really exemplified the industrial might of the American worker, right? Those are the people, right? With their dirty hands and their bad backs and the covered in soot from the coal mines. Those are the men of this country that we owe a profound amount of debt and gratitude because we would not be here without them. Jordy, pull up. Pull up that one picture of the steel mill there.
- [46:10]
Jordy
Yeah, here you go.
- [46:11]
David Rutherford
And boom. Oh, man. So you look at that and you look at those dudes right there, man. Do you know how hot that furnace was? Do you know how heavy those. Those steel pokers were? Do you know. Do you realize that Those long shifts, 12 hours in a steel mill and what that does to your body, what it does to your focus, how dangerous all that was? But you know what? Those men woke up. It didn't bitch. They didn't complain. They didn't. And they Weren't angry because why? Because they were making a good living. They were able to support their families. They were able to send their kids to college, the first kids to ever go to college, ever. And those jobs were real jobs that made an impact, that changed America for what it is today. Well, not totally what is, but what built America, what it's become, is a whole nother thing that we'll get into in another coda section. All right, how about my other favorite? What, Jordy? What was the other one we talked about, that other great one?
- [47:07]
Jordy
This is the classic one right here, the having lunch. Dude, Is that what your lunch break looks like?
- [47:16]
David Rutherford
Not since military for sure. But now, I mean, you. You look at those guys and they're having lunch, what, couple, maybe 500ft up in the air? And probably a stage photograph, but the representation of what it is. And do you got another one for me of guys actually doing work up there?
- [47:37]
Jordy
Here's them just hanging out up there doing some work.
- [47:40]
David Rutherford
That's right. I don't see many safety lines. Right. I don't see a hard hat. I don't see anything. What I see is just sheer courage and determination to build something out of nothing. And that's what we need. We need people, especially you young folks out there. We need young men out there. We need you to stand up and say, you know what? You know, I need to. I need to get my hands dirty. I need to strengthen my back. I need to build something. And if you don't want to go work for anybody out there, big construction conglomerate managed by some private equity firm. That's whatever, then start your own construction company. I mean, I've got a guy lives across the street from me, my neighbor, who, you know, love dearly. Man, this young man is, you know, just 30 years old, and he works seven days a week, and he works for a local builder, and he's out there managing 14, 15 building projects at his age. And a guy works his butt off. And so that gives me hope. But that's available out there to young people. And you just have to feel the inspiration for taking hold of your future with your bare hands. And that's a powerful thing to do. So if I can just inspire you, Amanda, go back and sit with those stories of those men and women who built America, in particular those hard men that were on those skyscrapers, that were in those steel mills and in those coal mines and out on those oil platforms. And they're still out there, but their numbers are dwindling. And so, man, if you have any aspiration of being hard and really getting in and making America great again, we need you to roger up and step into the fight, if you will, to step out on that ledge with your toes dangling, with your safety strap and your hard hat on and to help us build America. All right, that's my thing. Now if you've enjoyed this show, you enjoyed what we're bringing to you, please don't forget to like the show. Right. Make a comment. Right. Subscribe to the podcast, share it with five of your friends or two of your friends. I don't wanna be like one of those lame like threads, man. If you share this thing with 10 of your friends, you're gonna make a million dollars in 30 days. I can't promise you that. But what I can promise you that if they're red blooded Americans, they're gonna listen to this, they're gonna get fired up and they're gonna feel good about what our future looks like. And that's what we wanna do here on this podcast. So like subscribe. We're available on the entire place, all social media, all the different places you can consume content. You can follow us @DavidRutherfordShow. And that's on YouTube, Instagram, Patreon, Rumble, Tic Tac, all the podcast apps, Apple, Spotify, all of them out there. And then if you want to follow the show on X, it's RutherfordShow. It seems some poor SAP out there stole the rest of it from me. But that's all right. We'll get it one of these days, hopefully. And if you want to follow me, I'm on all social media plat my personal stuff is eam Frog Logic. That's David Rutherford Team Frog Logic. All right. Also too, this is a big one. Listen, we're dependent in independent media. We are dependent on you for all of our success. But sometimes, and more importantly, we're also dependent upon you to reach out to us and share with us something that's got you fired up. If you've got a news story, you know somebody that's got a story they can't get it out on on regular news channels or on other larger platforms, we're not afraid to take a look at it. Please. If you want to send any news story idea or someone special and interview a hero, you know, someone who's vintage hard, your grandpa, your uncle, your aunt, something like that, or just some, you know, corruption that you've discovered in your school system or at your job or wherever it might be, please, I want you to email Jordyavidrutherford.com that's Jordyavidrutherford.com and if your story is epic and it's great, we're going to bring you on the show. We're going to interview you, you're going to let you tell your story to our audience and hope that we can help you and help your endeavors. Also, if there's anything that you'd like me to take a look at out there, do a deep dive in. If you've got recommendations for things you'd like to hear, please do the same. Go ahead and email Jordy. That's J o r d yavidrutherford.com all right, my man. What do you think, Jordy? Is that it for today?
- [52:39]
Jordy
Good show. Good show. I'm fired up.
- [52:43]
David Rutherford
Awesome.
- [52:44]
Jordy
Learned a lot. Let's do it again next time.
- [52:46]
David Rutherford
You got it. All right. Once again, if you want to clear up the tsunami of information out there, then you join me because I'm going to be your flashbang of truth. This is the David Rutherford show. Booyah.