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The Mission of Big Business
42 Plays4 months ago
Pointing out hypocrisy is no longer interestiing but "The Pieces" do it anyway. They discuss hypocrisy in big business and in themselves. Are the liberals actually on to something? Is the answer to all of our economic problems locally sourced products and services? Should you boycott Amazon, Wal-mart and other megacorps?
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Transcript
The Role and Authenticity of Corporate Mission Statements
00:00:00
Speaker
How many of you poor souls have applied to a corporate job and prior to the interview studied the company's mission statement just in case the HR person asks this question?
00:00:11
Speaker
Okay, how do you interpret our company's mission statement and what does it mean to you? So you're interviewing for a job at Pepsi and their mission statement is, create more smiles with every sip and every bite.
00:00:27
Speaker
Within a second, you're thinking, man, Pepsi products are pretty bad for people's teeth. You're thinking about your Aunt Becky and how messed up her teeth are. Aunt Becky stopped smiling a week after she started bringing home cases of Pepsi One.
00:00:42
Speaker
Your head is spinning, but you need the job. So you make up something about how you and your mom used to share a Pepsi on Thursday nights when you watched The Cosby Show.
00:00:53
Speaker
You value family and diversity. Listen to Walmart's mission statement, to help people save money so they can live better. Sounds pretty good.
00:01:05
Speaker
Simple, to the point. But Walmart, you didn't have to say the last part, so they can live better, because everything your company has done to the American economy has made life worse for us.
00:01:19
Speaker
And in return, what did we get? We got low wage jobs and viral videos of your down and out customer shopping.
Personal Experiences and Corporate Realities
00:01:29
Speaker
But let me tell you a little secret guys.
00:01:31
Speaker
I worked at Walmart. Lance worked at Walmart. For three weeks in college I worked the night shift with some ragged ass motherfuckers. And I owe a lot to that job.
00:01:44
Speaker
I walked out of there thinking I will never ever work nights. Damn I'm gonna go to grad school. There's a weird cognitive dissonance we all have to contend with in this economy.
00:01:56
Speaker
There's no escaping corporate hypocrisy. And there's no escaping our own consumer hypocrisy. But it sure would be nice if corporate America could give us some reprieve and do away with these embellished mission statements.
00:02:09
Speaker
Just focus on what you're selling. You don't need to decorate your company with fake meaning and purpose. People who need or want your products or services will buy them. and people who need your jobs will apply.
00:02:21
Speaker
You have won corporate America, so stop exaggerating about making the world a better place and just continue to crush your earnings goals.
00:02:34
Speaker
Welcome to the I'm a POS podcast.
00:02:41
Speaker
Our mission, every week without fail,
00:03:04
Speaker
Oh, Matt's got another distraction i gotta contend with. Trying to create a great podcast. there Oh, there he's back. He doesn't even know we're recording. Shit. But this one I got to contend with, folks. is This guy's trying to start a business, and he's back and forth between his chat and having a conversation with me.
00:03:22
Speaker
<unk> Singularly focused on our mission, dude. Right now. on the yeah What's the name of the business? Wildwood Edges. All right. We're live, bro.
00:03:33
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you should promote. We're live. We have a website, Wildwood Edges. You can follow us on Instagram. We'd love it if you would. And we'll be shipping a container of wood here shortly to St. Louis. All right. so And the mission statement?
The Purpose of Mission Statements: Values vs. Optics
00:03:51
Speaker
We don't have a mission. i'm looking at our About Us, so we've got a couple things in there. You tell me if this is mission statement. We have a who we are. which is kind of like merging style and art, we're saying. We have ah our goal, our commitment, and then we have um sustainability.
00:04:07
Speaker
We have some of that kind of stuff. Like our goal, our commitment. You can consider that a mission statement? Is that my identity? I guess it depends how it's written, right? I bet if I put all those things together and I shrunk it into a single sentence, you would have a mission statement there. But you know you're gonna have to craft that.
00:04:25
Speaker
And i'm I'm hoping you'll be honest I mean, I am 100% like the mission is to make some money. Like it that's the mission. But that i what we talked about in and pre-show is you like a mission statement should identify your identity and your value system statement, right?
00:04:50
Speaker
To an extent, yeah, exactly. Like every company, I think every company's goal, it's if you're for-profit company, is to make money either for your your owners or your shareholders.
00:05:02
Speaker
ah That's the goal.
00:05:06
Speaker
I mean, I think it's yeah the primary goal and and we've sprinkled and flowered and colored up what we're about, I think, because we have to say it over and over to our stakeholders. Like, this is what we're about.
00:05:18
Speaker
um Yeah. Try to make those statements good. At least any business person has or if you worked in a corporation. But yeah, it's exactly what you said. Well, do you as a, less like, you have the, but what like, it's interesting when you're in a business, like, is are you tuned in and focused on what your company's mission statement is? And then really, though, I want to hear as a consumer, does it affect you at all?
00:05:43
Speaker
All right. So first, when I was working in healthcare, the mission statement was talked about constantly. Essentially, like, our you know, we're here to deliver high quality, affordable healthcare, care essentially. Yeah.
00:05:56
Speaker
It was talked about like in company meetings or emails or like. It was an orienting message. Christmas party. Yeah, no, not necessarily. But orienting in terms of decision making and choices we might make.
00:06:08
Speaker
And did did it translate though into in detail how the company operated and whether certain projects were successful? Probably not, but like we all knew it. Did you have a, like, I wonder the only, the only thing, the only time it would seem like it almost serves its purpose is like if you're denying stuff because it doesn't fit your mission statement.
00:06:28
Speaker
If you go, oh, we have an opportunity to do this. It could be financially lucrative, but we're not going to do it because it doesn't fit our mission statement. Like, did that ever happen? I would say in this company, which I would say is a high ethics type of company.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yes. But I think a lot of other organizations, if ah ah compelling business opportunity presents itself, they can abandon that pretty quick and adjust. um Right.
00:06:54
Speaker
Hence all the manufacturing in China. Yeah, exactly. Especially consumer products where branding is like so key to sales. But as a customer, I'll tell you this. No, I don't look at mission statements. I think they're kind of silly. I know the companies are after
Corporate Practices and Market Impact: Critiques and Challenges
00:07:12
Speaker
profit. I know there's hypocrisy.
00:07:14
Speaker
I don't look at it, but I'll tell you what. Recently, I'm more interested in boycotting companies that I find to have delved too deeply into cultural issues or politics.
00:07:26
Speaker
And I'd just rather you shut the fuck up and sell your shit. Or they're known to have extreme detrimental impacts to the environment. And at at this point, I'll just tell i mean i'm tell folks, I'm like, Amazon's starting to look like a piece of shit company to me.
00:07:45
Speaker
And I'll give you a couple of reasons, just my own preference. Number one, flooding me with ads. on the Prime video thing. It's just, just that annoys me because you've you've made enough revenue.
00:07:57
Speaker
um But the other piece is like the destruction of business and how much they take from partner retailers terms of share. They're just, if the attempt here is to take over the entire world, like I'm just not interested in that in that and supporting that.
00:08:15
Speaker
I wanna make sure that we've got ah healthy small businesses and other competitors. So Amazon's a place where i'm um we're very close. We haven't ordered from them from like for several months.
00:08:28
Speaker
That's funny, dude. like It's a challenge now if you get Amazon out of your life. Yeah. Yeah. But they also did a bunch of DEI stuff. First off, you put all that shit into place, which why, and then you unwind it and it's all this huge story and stop doing shit like that. Just sell your shit, go about your business and we'll, uh, we'll make a decision about whether we want to be customers or not. You've, you've done well, let's put it that way.
00:08:54
Speaker
But so I'm not looking at the mission statement to decide that necessarily. Although, uh, I think for the companies, a lot of companies, it is orienting in terms of their North Star and the direction they take.
00:09:04
Speaker
like Like Amazon probably is their mission statement. i don't know what it is. we can probably look it up. It's probably has something to do with like making a shopping experience more fluid and easier, giving like giving people better quality life or some shit like that. Right. Because.
00:09:19
Speaker
Go look it up. But while you're doing that, like Target, people are boycotting Target. And I actually said, fuck Target, because they took away their diversity, equity, inclusion, or they diminished it. I'm not sure. But then you looked at Target all the years, right?
00:09:32
Speaker
Every commercial, right? Perfectly diverse. We have to have a gay person in there, here and there. and And so they do all this shit and they take it away. They just, they're pussies. And I don't like businesses that want a virtue signal and then feel pressured to be...
00:09:49
Speaker
whatever is in the zeitgeist of the day. I took that the wrong way. Like I thought be it was almost like they didn't, oh, we don't have to do that now. So let's not waste money on it. this doesn't matter, but you did all the virtue signaling before.
00:10:02
Speaker
you know I looked at your commercial where it's like one black person, one Asian, one gay woman. one I mean, you did all this shit to like fit into the culture, and I get it.
00:10:13
Speaker
like You want to brand, and you want to sell, and you don't make anybody mad, but like who are you? Just like straight up, who are you? Like, that's where I think a company like Costco does a great job, right? we We know the type of people that like that.
00:10:27
Speaker
They're not going to budge on some of their principles and their values. But anyway. i'm just I'm just so, like, I would never even consider it in a purchasing thing because i because nobody, like a mission, like if Exxon Oil's, with like their mission statement.
00:10:43
Speaker
It's going to be ah the rosier side of the whatever, sunnier side of the street, right? Like, So i don't know what value it is. I mean, I'm interested in like, like my company, for example, you know, they when you hear about it, you're selling wood, you're just
Sustainability and Consumer Responsibility: Who Drives Change?
00:10:58
Speaker
like, oh, chopping down trees in the rainforest, right?
00:11:01
Speaker
So maybe, i don't know if it's part of the mission statement, but we're actually, we've partnered up what we've done Lance is we, so we part, we've partnered up with like some, some sort of tree planting foundations and a rainforest, uh, save the rainforest and Costa Rica people, which I think is great.
00:11:19
Speaker
And the question is like, did we do it to sell more wood or we do it because we believe that we should. And, uh, but the reality is like, um I think, We should like I'm I was a little worried about getting in a business like this. But then once I saw how the business works, I'm a little less worried about I think we're doing a good thing. But it's like, why not? Why not do this anyways?
00:11:41
Speaker
Like it's easy to get like a net zero. Like we take a tree, plant a tree or something like that. But just sustainability of value of yours and your business partners. Is it a big part of your life? That's like, so that's the question, right?
00:11:53
Speaker
These mission statements and these values is like, are you doing it to make more money? are you doing it because you you care? And that and in the in the example, you said like Target, they were just doing it to check a box probably. So that so when you don't have to do it, it's like, i don't have to do it anymore, right?
00:12:08
Speaker
I think so. It's like, they weren't doing it for the right reasons, where maybe Costco is, as you said. But yeah, I think this is, like I don't know if this is gonna make us more money. It might, someone is like, I'm a little worried about buying a ah wood product, but since I see that you guys are having to adopt the rainforest partnership, then then I might buy your stuff. Maybe maybe it leads to more business.
00:12:29
Speaker
But yeah yeah I don't know, like, I just thought we should do this. And I talked to the guy and got had a good vibe. But I just like mission statement. No one's going to put the worst out there. It's like a, like a, you know, it's like, you know, when you, when you set up your grinder account, Lance, did you put like, I have, i i have a, when I eat broccoli, I get upset stomach and no, of course not. dude You put your best bleached asshole.
00:12:56
Speaker
Everything. You're like, so the mission statement is like, is your grinder, you your, air bras right your grinder photo. All right. That's getting cut. okay ah Tinder, dude. Look, dude, the conversation here for me is not like corporations. I know that i know those mission statements are bullshit. It's just the start starting place for hypocrisy. We know that throughout large organizations, there's plenty of hypocrisy. We know they're after profit.
00:13:22
Speaker
In fact, the incentives are such that there's no denying that that's what they're after. Who I'm most disappointed in, and if you've listened to my rants before, is the consumer. And the consumers have yet to decide what they value.
00:13:36
Speaker
Let's talk about Amazon in that one. So why why am i why do I use Amazon? Well, you use it for convenience. It's so fucking easy, right? that That's a statement that bothers you a little bit, right?
00:13:47
Speaker
It's like a lazy, lazy purchasing. It's just, why would i why would I do anything else? It's so easy. Right, but like if you're sitting here, and I'm not going to say I'm perfect or anyone. i found their mission statement, and by the way. Has it figured out. But like if you're sitting here and you're ranting about climate change and the environment, and you're ranting about big business and income inequality and so forth, so on, and then you're supporting Amazon day in and day out, and there's some ah something to consider there.
00:14:17
Speaker
There's something to maybe rethink in your life. And I'm getting tired of this whole... People don't have time. People don't have time to like understand what's happening in politics. you've got to keep the message simple. They don't understand what's happening with these companies.
00:14:32
Speaker
They just want their lives to be easy. They just want things to be convenient. They're shuttling two kids around. but And is this is what we expect of our citizens. like i'm just If you don't know that ExxonMobil is trying to drill as much fucking oil as they possibly can and sell it all over the world...
00:14:49
Speaker
And to the detriment of our environment, then I'm sorry, you're a dipshit and maybe we should put you under the firing squad. Like, dude, like I just want more people to be more active in whatever their values are and like fighting for those from a consumer's perspective.
00:15:06
Speaker
So that's where my energy comes from. It's like, dude, we know Pepsi is selling bullshit sugar products. We know it. We know it. Yeah. Stop fucking buying them.
00:15:17
Speaker
Stop spreading diabetes across the land. I'm just I'm more mad at our citizenry. And I can I can take that towards politics as well. This sounds obviously what do you call dismissive and potentially even cruel in characterizing people like this. But we all need to step up a little bit more.
00:15:34
Speaker
Anywho. who's responsible? like Do you care if your neighbor is drinking Pepsi? You probably care if your kid is or your wife or yourself. Do you care if a dude in Alabama is drinking Pepsi?
00:15:46
Speaker
It's like freedom of choice, right? Okay, but you've been to one of these stores, and if you see somebody's shopping cart full of three two-liter things at Orange Crush and four two-liter things of Pepsi, do you not think, hmm...
00:16:04
Speaker
I mean, there is some judgment in that, some paternalism, but it's like, hmm, gosh, that that doesn't seem good. You know don't think that when you see a cart full of fucking cupcakes and two liter bottles of soda?
00:16:16
Speaker
i've had have had thoughts of that, dude. I've seen, like, it's pretty sad. We lived in the kind of a ghetto in St. Louis, and you'd see, like, we lived near this Walgreens where I'd go in once while and buy something, and like, four-year-olds walking out of there, like, on a Tuesday morning pounding a Mountain Dew,
00:16:34
Speaker
Or a year like, ah, that kid's fucked. Yeah, right. But I don't know. But I mean, i I have had a Mountain Dew. I like Mountain Dew. And maybe I have two a year. I probably haven't had one in a decade because they don't have it down here. or Maybe they do. i don't know.
00:16:49
Speaker
But I'm like, all right. I don't know if Pepsi's pepsi's making it trying to kill people. Like if my kid was for it, like our kid didn't drink soda until they were, I don't know, until now, basically. But I mean, we made that decision. They came on board.
00:17:04
Speaker
So I just don't know where the, know, this is off off topic a little bit. It's not really a mission statement. But i get but if pe what Pepsi's mission statement is like, make the world happy or something like that. Make smiles with every sip or bite.
00:17:16
Speaker
That's fine. It's like cute branding. But you don't get it. Maybe that mission statement wasn't to get the guy to buy 15 cases of it and not drink anything else ever.
00:17:28
Speaker
It's just like, right? But they're happy with that. They're fine with that. But like, dude, do you not you're not mad at the citizen the citizenry. You're not mad at the behavior. We know the corporations are extracting as much value as possible from every human being on in the United States.
00:17:45
Speaker
i'm mad at the I'm mad at them. I'm mad at the corporations. But like at this point, it's getting like to be a trite argument. Like corporations are, there's so much hypocrisy. Oh my God, dude. Corporations are crazy.
00:17:56
Speaker
They're taking everything from us. But like, no, you step up and do something fucking different. That's where i'm I'm motivating myself in this diatribe. But like at the same time, like we have to do something different. Well, I think you can't. Yeah, I mean, I think you're I like what you're saying, because the idea just pointing the blame at corporations and then and it's their fault. Like we're we're just guinea pigs and we can't make our own choices. Ridiculous.
00:18:19
Speaker
Right. Like, you know, that's kind of what I'm saying. I think we're almost saying the same thing. You don't have to drink 15 liters of fucking Pepsi a week. ah So like don't don't buy it and then maybe they'll have maybe have to make a decision to sell to get something that's like Better right like to create something that's better, but like you're trying to do that in your own life I am but like there's the corporations are so much better at manipulation than we are at resisting and you look at what's happening nationally with some states trying to ban ah sugar sodas from food stamps or or people's benefits, their food benefits. RFK's initiative?
00:18:55
Speaker
Yeah. it's Well, it's one of his... He's definitely anti-sugar soda. But you see the corporations coming, and now they're like these... pro-choice like no obvious type well they're coming in and they're lobbying for like how how can you how can you be paternalistic people should be able to make whatever choice they want even though a fucking monkey would argue that like dude don't use government dollars to promote things that make people worse off or to give them access to things that make people worse off why would you do that
00:19:29
Speaker
Not everybody can differ. Like it's too politicized. So even you, who who obviously our listeners would know you're leaning left, you're acknowledging the value and him fighting that as somebody appointed by Trump, right?
00:19:42
Speaker
Sure. i like but But people can't do that. People are just like, RFK is crazy. Trump. It's like, but that's not it who fucking cares was ah RFK or Trump. Just like, yeah, it seems like common sense that people shouldn't be using taxpayer money to buy something that's going to kill them and hurt our health system.
00:19:59
Speaker
Exactly. And the lower income you have, the less resources you have, who's more vulnerable to shit food, given what is available to them in their neighborhood, all sorts of reasons for for this. it's Are they bad people? No. But are they going to have a hard time resisting Pepsi or whoever's profit-making machine? Hell yes.
00:20:18
Speaker
So I'm mad that our society is structured in a way that these people can't resist these products, that corporations spend billions and billions of dollars to figure out how to manipulate us into consuming more than we should.
00:20:29
Speaker
Blah, blah, blah. No, that's good. I like that. Solutions always like, well, they're in these food deserts and it's like some two two or three hippies want to do like a neighborhood garden to save the... don't say that. No. you're fucking I need calories. Your four four broccoli sticks that come out once a year is not going to save...
00:20:47
Speaker
the ghetto, but ah that's pretty funny. But like, all right, if you craft the if you craft the mission statement correctly, you can kind of justify everything. So if you Amazon, it's actually pretty amazing when you when you look at it this way, it kind of relieves them of all other...
00:21:05
Speaker
liability what you're saying about destroying like mom and pop shops. So their mission statement to be Earth's most customer centric company. So that's all you're trying to do, then it doesn't matter who you're fucking annihilating, like from a vendor perspective, or or how you're just every vendor on Amazon, including us potentially, it's like a race to the bottom for price price pointing to get the point you make, because they take 15%.
00:21:30
Speaker
Like not not even including their fulfillment program. So they're getting 15% of basically every sale on the Internet because they have 85% of the Internet market share, like 85% of things online sell on Amazon.
00:21:42
Speaker
They get 15% of everything. And so you and then you get and then they also will be like, oh, that's a good product. We should just do it ourselves. So they just thought annihilate vendors. Yeah. And I don't think that's good for society. and that's the well they're But they're being lauded. This guy's being lauded as like ah you know like a Rockefeller or a Da Vinci. Like, Bezos is a historical figure now, right? as like He's being showered with affection, I would say. He's controversial because he's he's fucking up the Washington Post because he's bald. Yeah.
00:22:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, he got into, I mean, the amount of money that's created by this allows you to do shit like take over a media empire or whatever. And change the values of that company.
00:22:26
Speaker
I'm just saying no one's like, what a dick. Everyone's like, what an amazing thing he did by creating Amazon. Like no one's like, oh, you destroyed half the half the small business economy in the world. nobody Nobody talks about that except for you.
00:22:38
Speaker
And well, i yeah, I don't think that does anybody care anymore about that or does anybody paying attention to that or does it matter or is it just like. It's just a reality. and Yeah, an individual citizen level. We're all moving towards like what is absolutely best for me. It is the most individualistic society ever.
00:22:56
Speaker
On the planet and so you're going to see where I guess where all this anger comes from and fear is like as these mega corpse implement more artificial intelligence and more things that Improve their bottom line because let's face it. They just want to sell more shit It's to the detriment of people who could work there and who could have a livable wage Why did Walmart pay such terrible wages for so long?
00:23:20
Speaker
right they only changed that when the there was public outrage for like Jesus you have So many employees who you've um purposely made part time employees and don't pay a livable wage to.
00:23:31
Speaker
There was a joke that like ah Walmart employees, like they fill out their application for the job and then fill out their application for food stamps because they know they're not going to be making a livable wage.
00:23:43
Speaker
So we continue, though, as a collective to just accept that. And so I'm saying more of us maybe need to sacrifice and move away from some of these large corporations and see if we can prop up smaller businesses that actually have jobs that pay livable wages.
00:23:59
Speaker
That's where I'm at, dude. I mean, this is this is not new. This has been happening in the since the 60s. But like, shit. Yeah. Yeah. That convenience, we've talked about before, but convenience drives so much of people's decisions now. like all ah All else can go by... like i mean, almost everything we use right now is made by slave labor.
00:24:22
Speaker
and like You can call it slave labor, you can call it poor working conditions, but it's fucking slave labor. like so But this is what I'm finding out. is We try to get our company going. Like like i might I said earlier, like it's just the reality.
00:24:36
Speaker
You can't like our, this slabs business, we're trying to sell some smaller products that we could sell online. There's no, there's no like, oh, maybe we can, we can get around Amazon. We have to play ball there.
00:24:48
Speaker
So it means we have to go to like the brackets we're going to use for these floating shells. We have to get from China. Obviously I haven't been to that facility, but at the prices we're paying for them. I can't imagine they're paying their people a whole lot of money, right? like And so, but if I go anywhere else, if I buy them in the US, I'd lose a hundred bucks per her part.
00:25:08
Speaker
and And because of Amazon takes so much that we're not gonna make that much money, but we're just another another we'll be another person that's part of that system of like like fighting hard to figure out your your cost of goods.
00:25:23
Speaker
and And almost like anything's on the table because of that. And it's not like, oh, oh these these assholes are trying to make a 400% margin. It's like, nope, after Amazon takes everything, we're going to make 20 bucks
Consumer Power and Local Business Support
00:25:36
Speaker
apart, maybe. That doesn't include like any, like you know what is it, SG&A overhead or anything like that. So it's like, yeah that's That's the problem.
00:25:45
Speaker
But this is an age-old sort of operations and but issue. They've just made it like that's the playing field, and there's no other way around it. and like Sad. It's sad.
00:25:56
Speaker
I mean, there's a way around it if you were to pick up some sort of viral steam or you were able to build contacts in the local community and sell direct through your website. Or just charge $1,000 floating shelves.
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah. And use like locally sourced parts and yeah don't put it Amazon. Yeah. But that doesn't serve a broader community. It's like a specifically rich. Yeah. Like how would you, ah you as a guy who' trying to get around to, how would you even find us?
00:26:22
Speaker
You know? like Right. So, yeah. so it's yeah well there are some websites out there now that like they specifically they're like little amazons but they focus on sustainable products right there's always that i mean there's like wayfair too i don't know what if they're better or not for furniture like i wonder but amazon's pretty amazing i mean i don't know it's like it's it's crazy even down here now they have free shipping it's like i order something all sudden it's just here my apartment like how's that even happen dude It's a feat of logistics. I give them that. Of course it is. it's
00:26:53
Speaker
They've done a great job of creating that infrastructure and and delivering goods like perfectly timed. But like do you think there's any stop or any slowdown to people prioritizing low prices and convenience over everything else?
00:27:09
Speaker
That's it for a lot of people, right? Yeah, that's great, Lance. My kid had six basketball games this weekend. So I fucking used Amazon to get something because I didn't have time to go to Bob and Jane's beef jerky shop.
00:27:22
Speaker
I think that's part of it. i got a My friend Hernando sent me something. Let me see it. Check this out real quick. Yesterday. who's He's like my... He's the political guy. He always sends me stuff.
00:27:33
Speaker
Shout out to Hernando if he's listening. got to be a big moment for him getting a mention. on the pod but so there's something called the uh it was all in spanish like there's some stuff had the smooth holly have you have ever heard of that it's like a there's a a economical gauge and a lot of the shit we're going through right now and the way the world's kind of like right what are we going to do with the united states is is about the same as it was in 1929.
00:28:00
Speaker
when the the world and the market crashed. It's a tariff, Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Yeah. yeah It didn't cause the depression, but it it definitely made it worse. Implemented protectionist trade policies in the United States. yeah So, I mean, that's a little outside the scope of what we're talking about, but all these pressures are what caused this crap that like these things to, right? Like,
00:28:24
Speaker
the that you start getting into trade wars and all this all this kind of stuff so but do so you think when i rant like i'm doing that it's relatable or that anybody quote unquote who's normal would like that or would be open to hearing that um no no no nobody wants to hear this uh what do you mean like i it's like anything else there's probably a bunch of people are like that's right fuck those people and there's other people like have this idea that's like, oh fuck, whatever dude.
00:28:57
Speaker
We're all gonna make money. That's the way it is. Of course, where that's the way capitalism works and deal with it. Yeah. so yeah But it's not it wasn't that hard for us to have a capitalistic mindset and go out and find somebody that that we can it has a sustainability project.
00:29:14
Speaker
like Some of this shit's not that hard to do. I'm not saying we're so great. I mean, like how would you fix it? like like let's let's Let's walk through this. Amazon. Yeah, you you you're not you're not like what what's something that you are not going to buy on Amazon and and how did you solve the problem?
00:29:31
Speaker
It's like people might maybe I don't know if people relate to it. They might be interested to hear that it's even possible for you to do this. Give me an example. Underwear. Is it underwear Lance? No, no. I mean, we might buy like lotion, sunscreen, different things like that. And yeah that's like so what did you go like you're like ah where'd you go another corporate corporate conglomerate yeah one maybe one whose values we think are a little bit better or it's a tough deal because the large organizations have usurped a lot of what you can buy but you know we are
00:30:08
Speaker
We're getting to the point where now it's like we'll look other places. And it just feels it feels like extreme behavior in our society. I think the thing that's frustrating- How deep you guys go? That's what I'm asking. like Give us example.
00:30:19
Speaker
If you go, okay, sunscreen. like Since some I watch lot surf events, they're always they're always pushing a Japanese brand that's like reef friendly and all this kind of stuff and sustainable bottling and shit like that, which is cool.
00:30:33
Speaker
It's also $90 a drop, which is- Which is tough, but no, like, so you go, I'm going to out and buy it. Cause this is where, again, people are going be don't have time for that. But the reality is youever whoever's listening, you're probably sitting at your job, not doing shit. You probably do have time for it. Like you're Googling yeah Instagram, watching people get nut shots or whatever.
00:30:53
Speaker
But there's not, but there's not a single thing you can't order online. It may take longer. It's going to cost more, but like, if you really wanted to live with your values, you will pay. I don't know. You're not, it's not like you're going to pay 50% more.
00:31:06
Speaker
No, but like, is there a way to find a track record? Like if is there a way that when you go through this process, what are you looking for? Like, how do you do it? so's Is there like a watchdog or someone's like Costco is, is, has held their diversity values and like, how do you know who's, who's, and who's playing fairly?
00:31:24
Speaker
It's a good question. Like, how do you challenge like a normal citizen to even understand the landscape? I think there are a lot of different sites that, you know, aggregate this information and present it in simplified way. I think we can access that information when we want. I haven't gotten there yet. I'm just saying, I'm just like getting to the point where the only power we seem to have left is through our consumer behavior.
00:31:49
Speaker
It's the only power that seems to speak to this country in the way that this country structured. The vote is, it's gamed. Like the corporations have gamed the politicians. So you're, so like, where's the power? For me, it's like how we spend our money.
00:32:05
Speaker
Right. The soda thing is probably kind of easy. You know, I don't know, like ah ah a commodity or like a product where you just like, i don't like you go buy dishwasher detergent.
00:32:17
Speaker
you you're just as likely to be kind of feeding the beast buying something like that, but you're not really making a decision like, oh, I need that. I need another corporate mission statement before I buy it. Like, how do you weed out that process? Like, cause you, it's almost like you need a process so you can quickly make decisions and and show your buying power and, you know,
00:32:36
Speaker
But we're just so finicky. Remember, like the only way people stop buying SUVs is like for like three months, gas gets over four bucks a gallon in some market. Then all of a sudden, like they sell us. And then all of a sudden gas gets under two bucks.
00:32:48
Speaker
Escalade time. That's like, yeah, we're so finicky is is the problem. It's a good question, right? Because like we're talking about corporate hypocrisy and then as a consumer, how do you prevent that? But like it's a daunting task to sit there and and type up every product that you purchase and come to some determination about whether or not it fits your values. Dude, there's so much false marketing too. And there's a lot of that. so like if you But if you have some core...
00:33:15
Speaker
core things that you care about, like, for example, I want to see more small business thriving. You might say Amazon's not a company I have a lot of support for. You might say even Costco, Sam's Club, Walmart, all of them are a struggle. And so maybe I'm going to hit a place like Trader Joe's or Sprouts or hit local farmers markets. You might say that. But yes, to your point, to do that all across the board,
00:33:42
Speaker
I see why people might give up. Yeah. You can find stuff like local beef opera, grass fed beef operations something. You can find a lot of stuff. And honestly, you're not going to spend much more and you might actually protect yourself from some of the manipulation that happens within the stores to get you to buy little Debbie's and fucking Oreos and sugar soda and all this other stuff. You might, you might protect yourself from that too. That that could be a ah positive consequence.
00:34:10
Speaker
ah do Don't you feel like if we had we had a representative represented from those three or four companies, i think Walmart, Amazon, Costco, they would be adamant that they are helping small businesses a billion times over and not not a barrier to to their success. They they probably, i don't know if they believe it, but they probably do believe it though.
00:34:33
Speaker
But have you you ever talked to anybody who works as like a vendor for Walmart? They're just like, yeah, they suck. I mean, but they're like, we got, it's always, well, we got to do it because they sell by per volume more than anything, but they, they're very demanding. And, but and they probably think they're helping the small business in a way.
00:34:51
Speaker
Yeah, they're giving them an ah the eyeballs. Yeah, they're giving them volume. Yeah, I don't know. i think, though, a lot of companies think that they're providing a lot of value to customers and they think that they're doing good in society. that's the That's very important what you just said. So so if you're looking at Pepsi, I would say Pepsi would probably come back to you and say, hey, look, 50% of our products are...
00:35:17
Speaker
what would be categorized as sort of low sugar, healthy options. And they have a ton of products. And that's probably true.
00:35:28
Speaker
um But you're also selling ah shitload of sugar people who don't need it. But then they'll come back and say, like, like people people want a sweet treat here and there. And how am I supposed to argue with that?
00:35:40
Speaker
For a kid's birthday party? Come on. It's... um It's a tricky thing to to figure out how to put i constraints on or how to say what's reasonable or not. But do you think it's reasonable for scientists to continue to source and experiment with the chemistry that makes food as addictive as possible? I mean, that's exactly what they're doing.
00:36:04
Speaker
Is that reasonable? I mean, maybe because they're just trying to sell products, right? Yeah. So where's the power? To me, it's back to the consumer having some knowledge about what's good for them and what isn't.
Marketing, Rebranding, and Public Perception
00:36:16
Speaker
This is the one ah one thing I was happy about Trump getting elected was because RFK seems to be kind of pushing that message. I hope it's real. And if if nothing else, it'll start it'll get the conversation going because I i think...
00:36:31
Speaker
I mean, you if you go in a store and you see the branding and marketing on on a whatever, like a bag of rice or so would be like fortified with vitamins and all this crap that it's being pushed as a good thing. Right. That's some fucked up shit that your body doesn't. doesn't Just doesn't need it. Yeah. Yeah. And like if that the conversation is that, that' that's a good thing.
00:36:51
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know what's happening. I mean, there's bad stuff. This is all new, too, to man to humans. Like, most of this stuff is new within the last 60 or 70 years. And, of course, we have where tons of disease and all that kind of stuff because because of it but Well, yeah, I guess. I think, too, like the the the fact that these companies won't stop ever.
00:37:12
Speaker
That's what I wanted to say. They'll never stop. So like do you have a problem with ah an oil company using sustainability as a part of their mission? ah Dude, you you fucking hawk fossil fuels, which is the like the root of our climate change issues. It's like the root cause, bro.
00:37:30
Speaker
Your opinion. yeah it's an opinion. That's just what I think that's the argument. That's like the counter argument. Yeah, sure. and i But oh what I was wanting to say to your point, like if if the if this happened, what's interesting a lot of times you find that like McDonald's or something that people go, i actually have a problem with people putting all the blame on fast food. It's like, well, don't go, but yeah maybe...
00:37:56
Speaker
Maybe yeah that's maybe they're so good at making it addictive, it just doesn't work. And now it's like it's convenience. Again, that's what's fucking us. Like I've seen it even here a lot. Like moms that can afford it It's like, oh I'm running all over the place. Just going to go through the drive through McDonald's.
00:38:12
Speaker
You'll see some moms will do it like five times a week and their kids just then they're just getting more addicted. They don't want to eat anything else because they have that so fucked up. But again, is that McDonald's fault? I don't know. Maybe that what their intention wasn't to get you to eat there every day.
00:38:24
Speaker
But you'll what you'll see is like if they start getting bad press, a lot of times for these companies, therere the the the solution is not, oh, maybe we should make a better product. product The solution becomes the message and the marketing of it and how do we embra and sort of rebranding it.
00:38:42
Speaker
So it's almost like, shit, what you're saying is true, but a lot of a lot of people are not going to change. They're just going to repackage the message and and then people go, oh, it sounds like sounds like they've changed.
00:38:54
Speaker
you No, um yeah McDonald's isn't going to like change their whole business model. They're going to introduce a salad option or some sort of healthy option that will they'll they'll use that product until the till the fire dies down a little bit and then they'll go back to their core.
00:39:10
Speaker
Yeah, they might they might do that, but it's it's all about the branding. If this thing got, if it really got anti-Amazon, they would you would start seeing commercials all over the place them like shaking hands with a ah private vendor like the you know like the olive oil scene and godfather like ah and it's like oh look now we're helping the little guy and and they would start pushing that message that we help we help more small businesses than any any people in the history of the world or whatever like that right like So they would rebrand that.
00:39:39
Speaker
I would say like this is pretty communist. My feeling is like now looking at their there cost structure, like if they wanted to help, where i could I could use a welder in Ohio to build these brackets for me at $50 a pop, like I should look.
00:39:53
Speaker
I don't know if you look. you haven't you hold Are you an Amazon holder of their... Oh, who isn't? and You invest in any index fund and you're going to have a huge portion of Amazon. and i just Their quarterly revenue is...
00:40:05
Speaker
is like crazy, right? But anyways, it's just many billions and trillions. Their market cap, their value is $2 trillion dollars right now, only because it's tanking because because of Trump's tariff policies.
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah. But but there they don't need to make 15% on every sale. They'd be fine. It doesn't fit that. it like There's no way I could sell this to anyone, like a capitalist. But you can't just tell them to stop making less money. It makes no sense, which is true.
00:40:35
Speaker
And I don't know if I do that to myself, but it's like they would help a whole lot of fucking small businesses if their take, their referral fee, as they call it, was 5%. And they'd still make a crazy amount of money.
00:40:46
Speaker
Right. but And they make my business so much easier to keep the cost low, make a little bit of money, choose vendors that that don't aren't like using slave labor. So they could be part of it that way, you know?
00:40:59
Speaker
they They could, but it's not in the best interest of their investor stakeholders. And that's the the problem. And here's the ultimate hypocrisy. And just point the finger back at myself. Like, dude, I invest in basically every major company in the world.
00:41:14
Speaker
ah And I don't believe in a lot of them. But like, what else do you, you know, how else do you escape some of this? So you live in a capitalistic society. You have to participate.
00:41:26
Speaker
You want that piece of shit. for this Yeah, that's the piece of shit. I mean, you have dreams, you have goals. So you have to, to some extent, like I don't want to be spending $150 on a pack of three of sunscreen.
00:41:38
Speaker
I like the idea of 1999 at Costco. ah You know, there's there's a lot of things like that that we have to contend with. And like, I'm just, I just would hope that more people would move towards their values and like be able to resist some of that and just kind of help balance out society.
00:41:57
Speaker
Because I think three or four corporations are, ah they're they're truly going to run the world. That's the amazing thing now. Like if you figure it out, like Amazon, then you you pretty quickly become unstoppable.
00:42:11
Speaker
Apple, Amazon, they figured something out and like they have more money than most governments in the world. Yeah, and and maybe disruption happens and that's what people will point to. And I have a lot of faith in that. Hopefully some innovation happens or hopefully we, but are we moving towards the right things? Are we moving towards a way to like, the the I guess the biggest gripe is like we've gotten so individualistic. As long as I'm okay or my nuclear family's okay, the rest of society can be collapsing around me.
00:42:40
Speaker
is Hopefully I don't have to see it. I never have to witness it. But like it can be collapsing around me as long as my shit's together. And I think maybe we're going to move towards a little more collectivism, which doesn't mean Marxism, but more of like, man, I want to make sure my community, i want to make sure my city is better.
00:42:58
Speaker
And I might have to sacrifice some of this Amazon or some of some of this company or that company in order to make that happen. Yeah. yeah I guess that's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping we kind of come together and be less about propping up ourselves or or being so addicted to our own balance sheet.
00:43:17
Speaker
It's pretty crazy how quickly it happens. so I mean, do you remember these club places like like Costco and Sam's Club? they were That happened while we were probably maybe high school, maybe middle school.
00:43:28
Speaker
It was like, what? I just go to the store and I buy a bunch of shit? Like, yeah, you buy 30 gallons of it and it's cheaper. We made fun of them for years. That'll never work. Yeah. They used to what am I going to do with 40 gallons of, right?
00:43:41
Speaker
like And now you it's part of everyone's fucking shopping experience. Everyone's. Yeah. And I, I'm from a consumer perspective and the average person, I just don't see there's any way to avoid a certain amount of depression.
00:43:57
Speaker
When you look at what's happening, when I watch people go and and purchase things at the stores, when I see how they live, when I drive by a house, that's, really run down and yet I still see an infinity out there, some high end car. And I just like, what?
00:44:12
Speaker
How did this happen? And you see just a lack of stability at the consumer level. And these corporations, though, theyre their balance sheets, their market share, their market cap just keeps exploding and exploding, exploding.
00:44:26
Speaker
If the economy is predicated, successful economy is predicated on people making bad decisions for their lives or bad decisions for their community, that's fucked up. That's definitely not sustainable.
00:44:40
Speaker
Yeah, that actually, that's a good point right there.
Societal and Environmental Impact of Consumer Choices
00:44:44
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't really think of it that way, but almost everything is like being predicated on people making bad decisions for their lives.
00:44:52
Speaker
Yeah. It's pretty, when you put it that way, everything is is that way. Like there's almost nothing. Like maybe the guy selling spinach. i don't know. It's like, what is not, what is not? you Because you could, you could really push the transportation that way.
00:45:08
Speaker
and And even when I buy spinach, bro, it's a big flimsy plastic box that I know that that plastic isn't easily recyclable. Well, sustainable farming, your own farm.
00:45:21
Speaker
Like really like produce your own shit. People, people, are that's the thing that's happening now. People are kind of like, but can society sustain, if everyone did that or a huge percentage of people did that, is that sustainable?
00:45:35
Speaker
I would say yes. but Well, it's sustainable, but like when you evaluate yourself only on ah growth numbers, like then you see a backtrack, you're going to think the country is failing.
00:45:48
Speaker
Yeah. See a backtrack in GDP, you think the country's failing. So like any of these changes that are suggested, hey, hey, you know, maybe not buy so much. Maybe do this. Make sure your household stable. What about the economy? What about the economy? 70% of our economy is built on consumer spending.
00:46:06
Speaker
I'll do it once I have some money. It's like... That's what I'm doing. It's because I took money from a corporation, saved it in a bunch of other corporations or invested in a bunch of other corporations via stocks. And now I have flexibility to fucking talk about my ideal purchasing habits.
00:46:24
Speaker
It's all so pathetic. i I feel like such more piece of shit in this context than any other thing in my life. Where it's like I'm looking at society and constantly criticizing and going, what the fuck? Fucking look at Lance. Fucking Lance knows.
00:46:39
Speaker
And then I'm like, oh, well, hey, I got to go to Costco. I'm at Costco today. And I bought a fucking $36 thing of salmon. Where is that salmon from? I have no fucking clue.
00:46:52
Speaker
could be a farm raised in a water tank in Indiana. Yeah. the Yeah, but, you know, your options up there, head up there with a fishing pole, start slaying, slaying salmon. Exactly. ah you jones Yeah, exactly. You live in the society. it's Back in two weeks, honey, going to get going to get dinner.
00:47:12
Speaker
Maybe it's a gift just to go back to work so you don't have time to think about shit like this. This like could open up a long conversation, but even the idea of salmon, it's all this is like kind of new. like Salmon is a fish that I don't think there's salmon in Colorado. Maybe there was like a long time ago, but maybe I don't know i don't know if there's enough.
00:47:31
Speaker
I don't think so because salmon need access to the sea, don't they? But it doesn't matter. i don't think it's a native fish to Colorado. But so the idea of like eating salmon is part of the system too.
00:47:42
Speaker
Like restaurants down here, you'll be you'll see a special and say salmon. It's like, what the fuck? We're in Costa Rica. we We have two oceans. Why would you serve salmon? But that idea like we can get anything anywhere now in this new world is like you we you probably should be eating trout that's sourced in Colorado.
00:47:58
Speaker
Like it's it's like that's probably I think there's a movement for that. This I mean, I hate the fucking word. I hate when people say but like locally sourced or farm to table, all these like woke ass pussy buzzwords that are happening. But like even the idea of eating salmon.
00:48:15
Speaker
makes it so you have you can't, you're not gonna go to like Bob the salmon fisherman. You have to get it somewhere. You know, somebody has to bring it down here. It's a very inefficient and probably it's not carbon neutral to get salmon from Alaska or Canada down to to your home in little Littleton, Colorado. No, it's terrible.
00:48:33
Speaker
yeah You're right. You're exactly right. Maybe that, I don't know if you could do that, but if you went, I mean, how much you wanna spend time at farmer's markets and like if you went, if you just Google search locally sourced trout,
00:48:44
Speaker
that does anything come up like those are things that people could probably do if they want i mean trout's got a lot of the health benefits of salmon yeah but that they stock rivers and lake and lakes now i mean well that's all right they they they stock it but that's fine but yeah you could in a natural way but essentially farm race trout and i'm sure they do but yeah you're exactly right that would be something to consider Because I was going to say, what all this, what really bothers me more than the other stuff is just how boring the world's become.
00:49:13
Speaker
Like, everything is, like, being cloned in the neighborhoods. i've taught I've talked about, like, a hundred times in this show. and was by yeah but It's just really boring, like, regionally boring. And what might give a little bit of spice back into the world, which is, like, what you find, what people love when they go to Europe. You're, like, in Madrid, and you're like, oh, this is great. I'm eating whatever.
00:49:32
Speaker
uh, pie or like, uh, like prawn shrimp prawns with lemon juice. And then you go to Italy, it's like a unique experience or you go to Germany and we're losing that. And so if, if you start to think about sourcing shit locally, you probably have less of an environmental impact. You have the little guy gets propped up a local producer.
00:49:52
Speaker
And then you also have some regional like, ah uniqueness, which makes life a little more interesting. So it's like sure solution for everything. For That's a fucking mic drop right there, dude. I got that's pretty close to a mic drop. No, it's pretty good.
00:50:05
Speaker
i I am. ah I think, too, when we've seen the pendulum swing so hard to anti-DEI, we forget that in the 60s, major corporations would only hire black people to be like
Consumer Rights and Regulatory Importance
00:50:19
Speaker
janitors.
00:50:19
Speaker
We forget things like that. And when we move towards this like world of deregulation, look at this. The crazy woke liberals have cut off businesses' abilities to expand. We forget what businesses were doing to the groundwater, rivers, to rivers.
00:50:38
Speaker
And we we forget that like Ralph Nader is actually an American hero. He's fucking boring as shit. But that guy did more for consumers than anyone. Right. Like, did you think um a guy in a wheelchair should have to like use his arms to climb up five stairs and then drag his wheelchair behind him to get into a restaurant, to a restaurant, to a restaurant, to a restaurant, to a restaurant? That's a mic drop using Echo.
00:51:01
Speaker
Echo. Echo.