Order of Man - February 12, 2021


Federally Mandated Minimum Wage is a Bad Idea ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES


Episode Stats

Length

38 minutes

Words per Minute

182.23645

Word Count

7,037

Sentence Count

513

Misogynist Sentences

5

Hate Speech Sentences

11


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
00:00:06.040 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.
00:00:10.500 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong.
00:00:15.540 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.
00:00:19.780 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:00:24.720 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast movement.
00:00:31.580 Welcome here and welcome back.
00:00:33.500 I've got a conversation I want to have with you today that is bound to ruffle some feathers,
00:00:38.900 but it's a conversation that needs to be brought up because it is important and it's going to impact Americans.
00:00:45.220 It's going to impact people. It's going to impact their lives and not for the better.
00:00:48.860 So I'm going to talk about the idea of a federally mandated minimum wage today.
00:00:54.460 Now, I know as we have this conversation, now there's going to be those of you who are going to be upset
00:01:00.400 that I'm talking about something that could potentially be viewed as political.
00:01:04.320 And although it might be viewed as political, I think there's some great points that I'm going to make here that should be bipartisan.
00:01:12.020 If you're a man, regardless of what side of the political aisle or spectrum you sit on,
00:01:17.880 this is something that should be very important to you.
00:01:20.140 So I'm going to get to that in a minute.
00:01:21.520 Before I do, I want to make a mention of my friends over at Origin, Maine.
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00:02:14.420 All right, guys, let's get into it today.
00:02:16.900 We're going to be dismantling and unraveling the concept of the federally mandated minimum wage.
00:02:23.440 Now, this has been something that has been on my mind for a very long time.
00:02:26.900 I remember my very first job was at Burger King.
00:02:30.320 And if I remember correctly, I want to say, I should have looked this up.
00:02:34.940 I want to say that I made roughly $5 an hour or so at Burger King.
00:02:41.600 I worked there for about four or five, maybe six months tops and then quit because they tried to rake me over the coal.
00:02:51.380 So my mother suggested that I quit, but that was my first job, real job.
00:02:58.060 You know, I had some odds and ends.
00:02:59.180 I was doing some landscaping and helped some people out here and there.
00:03:01.640 And they paid me under the table as a high school kid, but that was my first real job.
00:03:06.280 And ever since then, I've really wondered about this idea and this concept of minimum wage.
00:03:11.920 Is it helpful?
00:03:12.620 Is it, is it not helpful?
00:03:14.240 And as we have a new presidency in the Oval Office now, which by the way, this is not meant to be political.
00:03:22.320 It's just some thoughts that I think we need to address as men.
00:03:25.000 But there's been a lot of talk about the federally mandated minimum wage of $15 an hour.
00:03:30.700 Now what's funny is that it's not even funny.
00:03:34.660 It's just not going to serve us.
00:03:36.120 It's not going to help anybody.
00:03:37.920 It's going to hurt us.
00:03:39.320 And so I want to talk with you about five different points that I had been thinking about, that I had been pondering and wondering about and discussing over the past several weeks now, as we hear about this federally mandated minimum wage.
00:03:51.140 And I thought it was very important that we talk about this today and maybe you agree with some of what I've had to share.
00:03:56.120 Maybe you agree with all of it.
00:03:57.120 Maybe you don't agree with any of it.
00:03:58.440 And if you do, let's have a continued conversation.
00:04:01.100 That is the point of this podcast is to have these conversations.
00:04:03.880 So if you are interested, make sure you connect with me on Instagram at Ryan Mickler.
00:04:09.200 I'm also fairly active on Twitter at Ryan Mickler.
00:04:11.860 If you want to watch this video, as opposed to just me listening or listening to me, then do so at youtube.com slash order of man.
00:04:20.360 But Instagram is where I'm most active.
00:04:22.120 So we can have this conversation over there.
00:04:24.240 All right, guys, let's talk about these five points.
00:04:26.220 Now these aren't in order necessarily, but all of them are very important.
00:04:30.680 So let's talk about number one.
00:04:32.160 Number one that I had written down here is that a federally mandated minimum wage does not account for the varying living expenses within the states.
00:04:40.660 And I believe, as our founding fathers believed, that the states ought to have sovereignty, that they ought to have control over the way that they manage their affairs and their taxes and their minimum wages in this case and all of these things.
00:04:55.020 So a federally mandated minimum wage does not account for the varying living expenses.
00:05:00.560 You know, you look at, and I had written down because I did some research, I wanted to be prepared as I talked with you.
00:05:05.840 You look at DC, New York, California, Hawaii.
00:05:09.160 These are some of the states with the highest cost of living.
00:05:13.780 And you contrast that with states like Arkansas and Mississippi, for example.
00:05:18.640 I believe New Mexico was on that list as well.
00:05:20.960 These are the states with the lowest cost of living.
00:05:23.360 So based on the states that you live in, higher minimum wage or a higher wage, I shouldn't say minimum wage because I'm going to explain why that idea is faulty.
00:05:35.540 It's flawed.
00:05:36.080 But a higher wage in New York will make more sense relative to a higher wage in Arkansas or Mississippi or New Mexico, for example.
00:05:45.460 So that's a very, very, I don't want to say trivial, but that's a, that's a very simple reason why a federally mandated minimum wage doesn't work.
00:05:56.060 I don't want an expanded federal government.
00:05:58.240 I want states to be able to take care of and control their own way because what happens here in Maine, for example, is going to be different than what happens in Utah, which is where I used to live.
00:06:10.100 So I'm not interested in the federal government with their overreach coming in and telling states how they need to behave and how they need to act and how they need to dictate their minimum wages and other, other things as well, which I'm sure we'll get into over the next year.
00:06:24.980 So the problem with a lot of this is that we don't see any nuance.
00:06:30.420 There's no nuance.
00:06:32.040 We know nuance is important, right?
00:06:34.340 I have a lot of people, for example, on social media will say, you know, Ryan, you're wrong because you said this one thing.
00:06:39.000 Well, yeah, I had, you know, 40 characters to make a point.
00:06:42.360 There's a lot of nuance in there.
00:06:44.180 There's a lot of nuance in the way that states and individuals live their lives.
00:06:48.900 So a federally mandated minimum wage doesn't take that into consideration.
00:06:52.440 Number two, and this is very important.
00:06:54.360 All of these are important, but this one is very important.
00:06:56.520 It disincentivizes voluntary agreement between employee and employer.
00:07:03.340 And I wrote another note here along the same lines is that it sets the precedent that government can meddle.
00:07:13.760 And that's the right word can meddle in the individual affairs.
00:07:17.840 Look, if I decide to work with an organization or a company and they say, Ryan, I'm going to pay you $10 an hour to do this.
00:07:25.940 I can decide as a sovereign individual, someone with freedom and liberties and a bill of rights to protect those freedoms and liberties.
00:07:34.060 I can decide whether or not I want to engage in that agreement.
00:07:38.060 If somebody says, I want to pay you $10 an hour, I can either a say, well, I want $12 an hour and they can come back and they can say, well, we'll pay you 11.
00:07:48.900 Well, that's a negotiation between two adults, two voluntary transactions.
00:07:54.280 I will do X.
00:07:55.640 If you pay me X, that's it.
00:08:00.060 The government does not need to be involved in every facet of our lives.
00:08:05.040 And some of you will be saying, well, you know, uh, organizations and companies will be manipulating and taking advantage.
00:08:11.140 We'll talk more about that.
00:08:12.720 But at the end of the day, and what I've been talking about for the past six years is this idea, this concept of individual and personal responsibility.
00:08:22.460 And if you don't like what you're getting paid to become more valuable or, and, or go work with another organization or company.
00:08:28.900 That values you more than the organization you were working with before, but the government doesn't need to meddle in that.
00:08:36.000 The government doesn't need to rescue you from your own problems.
00:08:42.640 It doesn't need to be the superhero that swoops in and saves you.
00:08:47.960 You don't need saving.
00:08:49.460 I think we're going to talk more about how to solve these problems here in a minute, but at the end of the day, I don't want the government meddling in my affairs because it's been proven time and time again, that when the government gets involved, it's inferior to what an individual or two consenting individuals can do on their own.
00:09:06.260 So, uh, it, as I said, number two is it disincentivizes voluntary agreement between employee and employer, right?
00:09:17.020 If there's going to be a third party, the government in this case, that's going to come in and mediate all of this.
00:09:21.580 Well, it disincentivizes the employee to work hard, the employer to protect his interest, which by the way, reduce the cost of goods and services for individuals.
00:09:33.140 We're going to get into that here in a second.
00:09:34.600 The government ruins everything it touches, including a voluntary agreement between two consenting adults who can make decisions on their own.
00:09:48.080 We don't need the government getting involved.
00:09:50.700 All right.
00:09:51.000 Number three, when you set a federally mandated minimum wage, what it does is it disincentivizes growth and progress and expansion and, and career progression and scale.
00:10:04.600 Skill development in individuals, right?
00:10:06.600 Right. Because think about this, if I'm worth $10 an hour without the government getting involved and the government gets involved and says, no, no, no, no, Ryan, you're not worth $10.
00:10:18.080 No, you're worth $15 an hour.
00:10:21.080 Well, guess what I get to do.
00:10:23.920 I get to rest on my laurels.
00:10:25.560 I don't have to improve.
00:10:26.720 I don't have to get better.
00:10:27.920 I don't have to develop new skills and new trades and new information, improve myself and add an enhanced value to the organization I'm working with because you have to pay me $15 an hour.
00:10:40.200 You have to, when I was flipping burgers at Burger King for $5 or $5 and 25 cents or whatever it was, that's what I was worth because that's the value I placed on myself.
00:10:52.160 And that's the value that an organization was going to place on my time.
00:10:55.420 If I didn't like that, guess what I had to do improve.
00:10:58.880 I had to get better.
00:11:00.220 I had to grow and flipping burgers is easy work.
00:11:03.660 All right.
00:11:05.820 It's easy work.
00:11:06.920 I mean, you smell like grease and it was gross and it was disgusting.
00:11:09.300 And I remember coming back from Burger King at the end of the night and just smelling like dog shit and just being gross and like this film of grease all over my body.
00:11:18.540 But it was easy work.
00:11:19.980 And I decided I didn't want to do that anymore.
00:11:22.520 I remember I used to work at Journey shoe store.
00:11:24.840 A lot of you guys are familiar with Journey shoe store.
00:11:27.520 And I worked for, again, if I remember correctly, it was $5 and 25 cents.
00:11:32.460 This was right out of high school.
00:11:34.780 And I went to my employer one day and he was my district manager.
00:11:40.180 And I said, Tim, what was his name?
00:11:41.640 I said, Tim, I need to raise.
00:11:45.600 I need to raise.
00:11:46.300 I'm making $5.25.
00:11:47.240 I need to raise or I'm going to have to quit.
00:11:49.560 I'm going to leave.
00:11:50.660 And he said, well, bye.
00:11:53.580 And he called my bluff and it was a bluff.
00:11:57.020 And he called my bluff.
00:11:59.040 Six months later, I was running that store.
00:12:00.960 I was managing that store.
00:12:02.160 And then I went on to manage other stores and organizations that saw the value in what
00:12:05.620 I did because he wasn't obligated or forced to pay me a certain amount.
00:12:09.820 It was a voluntary agreement.
00:12:11.860 And as I continued to talk with him, he said, look, if you want to be better, if you want
00:12:15.500 to make more, if you want to do more for the organization, then here's what you're going
00:12:19.100 to need to do.
00:12:19.660 And so I went to classes and courses and through the experience that I had, I developed a new
00:12:25.680 skillset and I became more valuable.
00:12:28.500 And that's what we've been talking about for six years.
00:12:32.040 We've been talking about personal responsibility.
00:12:34.940 But if you think the government or any other entity needs to come down and swoop in and
00:12:38.780 save you and rescue you and tell other individuals you're worth more than you actually are, that's
00:12:44.000 a problem.
00:12:44.660 That isn't going to foster growth in you.
00:12:48.360 It's going to foster complacency and not just you and other individuals.
00:12:52.380 And I don't want people to be complacent.
00:12:54.660 I want them to be proud of their development and their progression and their expansion and
00:12:59.000 the development of new skills.
00:13:00.420 And setting, setting a federally mandated minimum wage undermines your desire to grow and expand
00:13:09.040 and get better.
00:13:11.260 All right.
00:13:11.800 That's number three.
00:13:13.840 Here's where we get, here's where we get into the meat guys.
00:13:16.560 So we talked about number one is it does not account for varying States cost of living.
00:13:21.340 You know, you look at DC, New York, California, Hawaii, highest cost of living in the States.
00:13:26.040 You look at Arkansas, Mississippi, New Mexico.
00:13:28.640 I think Maine's probably pretty close in the list for the lowest cost of living.
00:13:33.300 So it doesn't take into account the variance in cost of living for different States.
00:13:38.000 And I believe that as the founders intended that we ought to have some States top into
00:13:41.580 here.
00:13:42.160 Number two, it disincentivizes voluntary agreement between employee and employer to consenting
00:13:48.100 adults deciding that they will enter into a contract.
00:13:51.800 I will do X, Y, and Z.
00:13:53.400 And as I do X, Y, and Z, you will pay me this amount of money.
00:13:56.720 And if you don't pay me, I quit.
00:14:00.040 If I don't provide the services, I'm fired.
00:14:03.580 And also sets the precedents that the government can get in and meddle with two consenting individuals.
00:14:09.700 And they should not be able to do that.
00:14:12.900 Number three, which I just talked about is that it disincentivizes growth and progression
00:14:17.160 and skill development and career progression in the individuals.
00:14:19.780 If I'm making $5 or $7 or $10 and I want to make 15, well, then get your ass off the sidelines
00:14:26.240 and get your ass into the game and start improving your skillset.
00:14:32.140 Become more valuable.
00:14:33.460 Seth, go ahead and wrote a good book called make yourself indispensable.
00:14:36.560 At this stage of my life, I'm not worth $5 and 25 cents, or at least I shouldn't say I'm not.
00:14:43.960 My time is not worth $5 and 25 cents.
00:14:46.780 It's not worth $10, not worth $20, not worth $50.
00:14:50.420 It's worth significantly more than that.
00:14:52.560 But it wasn't when I started at 16 at Burger King, but I've grown and I've gotten better
00:14:56.740 and I've improved and I'm adding more value.
00:14:58.740 And therefore I am more valuable to other individuals.
00:15:01.260 This is the whole concept of free markets.
00:15:02.900 All right, number four, this is where, again, I'm going to say this again.
00:15:07.080 This is where the meat is in the conversation I want to have with you.
00:15:10.360 So number four is that it prices young people out of work.
00:15:14.100 It prices young people out of work.
00:15:16.840 And what we want as a society is we want individuals to get to work.
00:15:23.080 We want young men and women to get to work.
00:15:26.900 We want them to add value and services and ideas and concepts and innovation to the
00:15:32.880 market so that we can expand and we can grow.
00:15:37.880 We want to develop that tax base as young individuals get to work.
00:15:42.320 We want to get them in the market.
00:15:43.760 We want to have them develop and learn new skills and become valuable.
00:15:47.480 These are all things that we want.
00:15:48.860 But as we set federally mandated minimum wages, we price those young individuals out of work.
00:15:54.480 And so 15, 16-year-old kids can't get jobs because the 30-year-old losers who are still flipping burgers at Burger King like they were 10 or 15 years ago are gridlocking those entry-level positions.
00:16:09.360 And flipping burgers is an entry-level position.
00:16:12.640 You know, there's probably some of you who are flipping burgers right now.
00:16:15.540 You're in an entry-level position.
00:16:17.420 I don't care if you've been there for six months or you've been there for six years.
00:16:21.500 If you're flipping burgers at Burger King, you're at an entry-level position.
00:16:26.320 And your job is to get better, is to improve, is to add more value so that in the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years, you aren't still flipping burgers at Burger King.
00:16:39.880 That's a young man and young woman's game.
00:16:44.020 That's their job.
00:16:46.000 That's not your job.
00:16:47.220 It's a great place to get into the market, into the job market, create a little income.
00:16:54.300 Because look, all I needed at 15, 16 years old was a little money for gas in my vehicle, a few dollars to take some young ladies out on dates as I wanted to do that or take them to the dance or whatever I wanted to do.
00:17:04.840 But I didn't need to make a mortgage payment.
00:17:09.320 I didn't have $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, $10,000 a month of overhead that I needed to take care of.
00:17:14.720 I didn't need to hire other employees.
00:17:16.200 Get out of the way, please.
00:17:18.720 All right?
00:17:19.200 Get your ass into the job market and then get better and improve so that you can free up the opportunities for our young men and women to get into the market and learn and grow and expand and get better and improve.
00:17:34.060 But look, here's the deal.
00:17:35.700 If I'm an employer and I've got one job, okay?
00:17:40.300 I've got one job and I've got somebody who's 30 years old or 35 or 40 years old and has a little life experience, has been experienced, is doing a good job and I can only pay $15 an hour.
00:17:53.720 I'm not going to hire the kid.
00:17:56.080 I'm not.
00:17:58.080 I'm not.
00:17:59.080 I'm not.
00:18:00.080 Why would I hire the new kid who doesn't know what he's doing, who's unproven, untested, you know, maybe a little flaky because they're 15, 16, 17 years old.
00:18:09.820 No, I'm going to keep the 30 year old around, especially if they're doing a decent job for me.
00:18:16.800 And so when we set these federally mandated minimum wages, what we're doing is we're saying, we're just going to keep the older people here and forget about the younger generation.
00:18:24.140 I want the younger generation to get to work.
00:18:26.240 That's the whole concept of a thriving society.
00:18:30.200 Whether we're talking about the year 2021 or the year 1621, having young people adding value to the community, to the tribe, to the society is a valuable thing.
00:18:44.720 And at some point, the old timers need to get out of the way.
00:18:49.740 You know, the old people need to retire.
00:18:52.940 The young people need to have new jobs.
00:18:55.440 The old people need to coach and mentor and instruct and guide and lead and educate the younger generation.
00:19:03.620 But I'm not going to hire some punk kid off the street.
00:19:06.080 If I can either pay that person $15 an hour or pay this other individual who's been around for in my organization for 10 years, $15 an hour, it prices young people out of the market.
00:19:17.360 The government doesn't take this stuff into consideration.
00:19:19.740 It sounds really good on paper, but in reality, I don't believe that the government really cares all that much about.
00:19:24.860 Our younger generation, I don't believe the government frankly cares about you all that much.
00:19:30.940 I think the government cares about the government and wants to ensure that the government maintains its power.
00:19:36.400 I don't want that. I want individuals to maintain their power.
00:19:40.800 All right. Number five. And then I'm going to get to some solutions because I don't want to just complain and yap at you about all the problems, but we need to paint the picture here.
00:19:48.020 Number five. This is very important. I saved the best for last year.
00:19:51.780 Is that when we create these federally mandated minimum wages, let's say it's $15 an hour.
00:19:56.340 What we're doing is we're putting millions and millions of people out of work, right?
00:20:01.140 Because let's go back to Burger King or McDonald's.
00:20:04.100 If they've been paying you seven or eight or $9 an hour, and they're obligated to pay you $15 an hour, but they don't have $15 an hour to pay you.
00:20:12.420 What are they going to do?
00:20:14.100 They're going to get rid of your job.
00:20:15.840 We've already seen, we've already seen this in McDonald's.
00:20:19.160 You know, every, every one of you has walked into a McDonald's and looked at the computer screen and it's, you know, you can just order right on the computer.
00:20:27.300 Every one of you has been into Walmart and there's, what is there? There's less cashiers, right?
00:20:32.860 And what do you do? Self-checkout.
00:20:35.240 Self-checkout, which I actually use. I like self-checkout better. And so do a lot of people.
00:20:39.500 And Walmart likes that actually too, because they don't need to pay an employee.
00:20:44.520 And it's not only their wages, it's their benefit package. It's their insurance. It's the liability costs.
00:20:48.960 It's all of the things that they need to pay in order to hire one individual when they can just have a robot to do this thing.
00:20:56.060 It's way better for an organization to get rid of employees.
00:21:01.800 Way more cost effective.
00:21:03.400 So what we're doing is we're actually putting millions of people out of work.
00:21:05.820 Like by, so let me back up here a second.
00:21:09.620 The congressional budget office has gone through in February this month, I believe.
00:21:13.560 They put together a report on this, this, this proposal of a $15 federal mandated minimum wage.
00:21:20.000 And here's what they said. They said a lot of things. You can go in and read it.
00:21:22.660 And I read the entire thing because I wanted to be prepared and I'm going to highlight a few things here.
00:21:26.020 But what they said, and here's one of the benefits that they indicated is that they said that 900,000 people would be lifted out of poverty.
00:21:35.180 900,000 people in America through a $15 minimum wage would be lifted out of poverty.
00:21:41.700 Now that sounds pretty good.
00:21:42.720 I'm thinking to myself, okay, well, almost a million people will be lifted out of poverty because we decide to pay them more $15 hour as opposed to 12 or 10 or nine or seven or whatever they were getting paid.
00:21:55.660 It sounds pretty good.
00:21:56.620 But as we dig into this further, what we see is that in spite of quote unquote, $900,000 being, or excuse me, 900,000 people being lifted out of poverty, we see that by 2025, so over the next four to five years, we see that by the congressional budget office report that 1.4 million people will lose their jobs.
00:22:22.040 Now, I don't know how this math works.
00:22:27.660 I would actually like to see this math because this sounds very fascinating.
00:22:32.300 900,000 people will be lifted out of poverty, but 1.4 million by the report through the congressional budget office, 1.4 million people over the next four to five years will lose their jobs.
00:22:46.300 How does that work?
00:22:48.400 How does that math work?
00:22:49.640 That sounds strange to me.
00:22:53.640 Does that mean 900,000 net?
00:22:55.480 Does that mean 900,000 gross will be lifted out?
00:22:58.080 What the hell does that even mean?
00:23:00.480 You know, and all the politicians and all the people and, and, and, and everybody that believes in these fantasy lands will point this picture of like a million people almost will be lifted out of poverty.
00:23:09.720 We should do this.
00:23:10.740 And we see politicians playing this game, but if you actually go in and they're hoping you don't go in and look at the report, by the way, which is why I'm sharing this information with you.
00:23:19.320 I've gone through the report line by line.
00:23:21.880 I read the entire thing.
00:23:23.540 900,000 people, it says we'll be lifted out of poverty, but 1.4 million people will lose their jobs.
00:23:31.060 And by the way, 1.4 million people losing their jobs doesn't just affect 1.4 million people.
00:23:37.280 It probably affects three to four to 5 million people, because here's the deal.
00:23:42.120 If I lost my job, my wife would be affected.
00:23:44.780 My four children would be affected.
00:23:48.180 So I call bullshit.
00:23:51.040 I'm throwing the flag right now.
00:23:52.660 I don't believe the 900,000 people will be lifted out of poverty.
00:23:56.580 If 1.4 million people over the course of four to five years will lose their jobs.
00:24:03.400 It's asinine.
00:24:04.480 That's insane.
00:24:05.200 Only an insane person would look at that and say, this is a good thing.
00:24:09.460 Either an insane person or an ignorant person.
00:24:12.260 Somebody who hasn't actually gone through the report.
00:24:14.820 You know, they get on Twitter and they see these 140 characters.
00:24:17.800 Oh, 900,000 people.
00:24:19.680 That's great.
00:24:20.120 That's amazing.
00:24:20.640 We should definitely do this.
00:24:22.080 Go through it for yourself.
00:24:24.560 Guys, our job as men is to be educated and to be informed so that we can make good decisions for the people under our care and for ourselves.
00:24:32.100 All right, let's go through this and break this down even further.
00:24:34.000 It says here, I've got some notes.
00:24:36.700 I wrote these down verbatim.
00:24:38.180 I wanted to be prepared for this podcast.
00:24:39.660 It says here, $54 billion deficit from 2021 through 2031.
00:24:45.560 So over the next 10 years, we'll actually incur by increasing our federally mandated minimum wage, we'll incur another $54 billion of debt.
00:24:55.940 And that does not include the cost of servicing that debt.
00:25:00.460 For those of you who may not know what I mean is that $54 billion is not $54 billion.
00:25:06.380 It's $54 billion plus the interest that we need to pay on that debt.
00:25:11.340 That's a lot of money.
00:25:15.020 900,000 people will be lifted out of poverty, but you got 1.4 million people out of work.
00:25:21.060 And you got another 54 billion people, or excuse me, $54 billion in trade deficit over the next 10 years.
00:25:29.620 It's not trade deficit.
00:25:30.560 It's just, this is deficit over the next 20 or excuse me, next 10 years.
00:25:34.620 Now I saw a report from, I believe it.
00:25:38.720 I don't want to, I don't, I don't want you to quote me on this.
00:25:40.640 I, it was either the Washington post or New York times or something.
00:25:44.660 Very credible organization, which that's another question.
00:25:48.420 So, uh, that said, well, even though it's $54 billion deficit, you know, that, that only represents, you know, one 16th of the national.
00:25:57.380 I don't care if it represents 0.00001% of the national deficit.
00:26:04.980 I'm not interested in adding more debt to ourselves.
00:26:10.200 I was going to say our country.
00:26:11.180 It's not our country.
00:26:11.680 Cause that makes it sound like government.
00:26:13.020 It's to us.
00:26:13.780 It's not even to ourselves.
00:26:14.760 It's to our children.
00:26:16.020 You know, my four kids are downstairs playing.
00:26:17.580 I can hear them in the background.
00:26:18.620 They're playing.
00:26:19.340 That's who needs to shoulder the debt.
00:26:20.940 Their, their children need to shoulder the debt.
00:26:22.960 I'm not interested in burying them before they have an opportunity to grow.
00:26:27.500 And I don't care if it's a 16th or 1600th of a percent of our debt.
00:26:35.700 We need to be fiscally responsible.
00:26:37.540 This is not fiscally responsible.
00:26:39.240 Number two, it said here in the look, these are not my words.
00:26:43.600 Go in and read the report.
00:26:45.120 In fact, I'll link the report in the podcast.
00:26:47.740 It says that we are going to experience higher prices for goods and services.
00:26:51.500 So we're going to see inflation and not a healthy dose of inflation, an unhealthy dose of inflation.
00:26:55.740 And you're going to have to pay more for your goods and services.
00:27:02.100 How many of you are already maxed?
00:27:07.020 How many of you are already paying enough?
00:27:11.400 How many of you don't have any money left over at the end of the month?
00:27:17.000 And you think, well, if I got paid more, I would.
00:27:19.420 Well, it's all going to rate grow relative to the cost of living.
00:27:24.480 Your milk's going to go up.
00:27:25.500 Your gas is going to go up.
00:27:26.700 Your goods and services, your products, the things that I offer are going to go up.
00:27:30.040 The shirt you wear, the books you read, everything, everything you buy is going to go up.
00:27:33.400 It's going to get more expensive.
00:27:34.500 So you think, well, if I get a raise, that'll be great.
00:27:37.460 Yeah.
00:27:37.620 What if everything raises in proportion to it?
00:27:39.880 Is it really that great?
00:27:40.680 No, of course not.
00:27:42.940 And so we're disincentivizing organizations to be thoughtful and creative.
00:27:47.220 Actually, we are incentivizing them to be creative.
00:27:49.980 Their creativity is going to be laying people off and employing robots and AI and technology.
00:27:54.300 Instead of you, we need to go to work.
00:27:57.080 All right, here's another point that the Congressional Budget Office report made is that we'll have
00:28:04.680 an increased spending for unemployment benefits, right?
00:28:10.540 Because if your income's higher, if your income's higher and you get laid off and you are out
00:28:16.220 of work, then proportionate to the amount that you made, that's what you're going to receive
00:28:20.380 in unemployment benefits.
00:28:22.080 So now we're going to have an increased spending by the federal government.
00:28:25.060 When has that ever been a good idea?
00:28:29.100 Let's just spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend.
00:28:31.540 It's never been a good idea.
00:28:34.040 Guys, what I encourage you to do is just go in and read this for yourself.
00:28:38.060 There's one version of it that's, I think, 57 or so pages.
00:28:41.640 There's another version of it directly from the Congressional Budget Office that highlights
00:28:45.020 what they're talking about.
00:28:45.880 I believe it's 17 pages.
00:28:47.240 It's bullet points.
00:28:48.420 Go in and read both of them.
00:28:51.240 Don't take my word for it.
00:28:53.380 Don't take your representative's word for it.
00:28:55.160 Don't take the politicians that you happen to be following on Twitter's word for it.
00:28:58.380 It's not going to work for you.
00:29:00.300 Go in, read it for yourself.
00:29:03.460 Read it for yourself.
00:29:04.720 Okay.
00:29:05.000 Now look, we've been talking for about 30 minutes.
00:29:08.840 This is not a good idea.
00:29:09.860 We know that.
00:29:10.620 Okay.
00:29:10.780 I know that personally.
00:29:11.900 I'm sharing this stuff with you.
00:29:12.980 I'm not telling you to take my word for it.
00:29:14.420 I'm telling you to go figure it out for yourself.
00:29:16.080 This is as important as men.
00:29:16.980 We do this.
00:29:17.640 We'd be informed.
00:29:18.540 We'd figure out what's going on so we can say things that need to be said.
00:29:22.080 We can talk about things that need to be said and we can make better decisions.
00:29:24.680 So what do we do about this?
00:29:26.320 Guys, there's one word that's the answer.
00:29:29.140 There's one word.
00:29:31.660 And that word is education.
00:29:36.400 I've been talking about it for six years.
00:29:38.180 You have a moral obligation and responsibility to look after those under your care.
00:29:45.760 That's your wife, your children, young boys and young girls in your community.
00:29:52.220 Maybe you serve in some sort of ecclesiastical calling.
00:29:56.300 Maybe you're a mentor.
00:29:57.940 Maybe you're a school teacher or a coach.
00:30:00.260 It's your job to educate people.
00:30:03.580 This is actually one of the reasons, contrary to the conservative talking points in most of
00:30:07.860 you know, I'm conservative, whether you agree with everything I share or not, you know,
00:30:12.240 I'm conservative.
00:30:13.460 Contrary to the conservative talking points.
00:30:15.260 One of the things that I believe in is even for our criminals, those locked up in the state
00:30:19.160 penitentiaries and the, in the, uh, the penal system throughout the United States, they should
00:30:24.340 be educated.
00:30:25.020 We should offer those individuals education, high school diploma equivalents, uh, post-secondary
00:30:31.260 education.
00:30:32.200 This is not a conservative talking point, by the way, but I think this is important because
00:30:36.280 I believe that the more we educate individuals, the better off they will be.
00:30:39.400 So we need to go in and we need to educate these individuals who believe that the only
00:30:43.980 route or have taught that have been taught that the only route is crime and stealing
00:30:48.480 criminality and behavior.
00:30:51.420 That it's not a virtuous behavior.
00:30:53.500 That's not good for us either.
00:30:54.840 And so we need to educate, but outside of the penal system, we also need to make sure that
00:30:59.540 if you're a father, that you're educating your children, that you're teaching them skills
00:31:04.480 and, and, and resources and tools so that minimum wage is not an issue.
00:31:10.660 My sons and daughters, barring their own decisions are never going to have to worry about minimum
00:31:14.480 wage because I am creating opportunities where minimum wage is not going to be a question.
00:31:19.140 $5 and 25 cents an hour.
00:31:21.260 Are you kidding me?
00:31:22.220 $15 an hour.
00:31:23.400 They're never even going to know and experience what that's like because I'm creating opportunities.
00:31:29.140 Now, not so much so that they can't experience hardship or that we aren't being true about
00:31:34.840 what their situation is, but I want them to know what it's like to add real value into
00:31:40.320 people's lives.
00:31:41.080 If they're going to pay more than what the federal government might come in and say,
00:31:44.220 this is your living wage.
00:31:47.700 If you're a father, you have a responsibility to do that.
00:31:50.520 And one thing that we're noticing, and this is actually a benefit of this whole COVID
00:31:54.180 thing that we're dealing with.
00:31:55.820 I say thing deliberately because it's not actually what it's being painted as, but one
00:32:02.400 of the things that's so beneficial about this COVID thing is that millions and millions of
00:32:09.120 people are waking up to the dangers of the public schooling system and how we're just
00:32:13.160 indoctrinating children to get into these jobs where they're paying $5 or $7, in this
00:32:18.980 case, $15 an hour and to be good little workers and to do what they're told and toe the line
00:32:23.540 and be the cogs in the wheel.
00:32:25.380 I don't want my children to be that.
00:32:28.220 I want them to be creative.
00:32:30.060 I want them to take initiative.
00:32:31.940 I want them to look for problems and solve problems, come up with new ideas and new solutions
00:32:36.920 and new ways of looking at things and innovating, grow and expand and add real value.
00:32:41.440 And that's worth more than $15 an hour.
00:32:44.000 You can bet also step up into your community, serve on school boards, serving in political
00:32:51.700 organizations and political offices, get elected, coach sports teams.
00:32:58.280 And if you're an employer, here's one, you have a moral obligation and responsibility to
00:33:02.560 ensure that your employees are developing new skills and they're growing and they're getting
00:33:06.060 better and they're outpacing their pay.
00:33:08.740 What I mean by that is that they, as they develop new skill sets and they get promotions and
00:33:15.200 opportunities that you continue to present opportunities for them to get better, to improve,
00:33:20.660 to grow, to expand.
00:33:22.180 And, you know, in some situations and circumstances that might mean they graduate out of your organization.
00:33:28.180 A lot of us are very selfish.
00:33:29.760 We want to keep people around forever.
00:33:31.200 And there's a cap.
00:33:32.100 Look, there's a potential cap with where your organization is.
00:33:36.220 We got to stop caring, you know, so much about ourselves and, and, and care more about the
00:33:42.220 people that we're trying to serve by presenting them with opportunities for growth and expansion
00:33:46.040 and improvement.
00:33:46.780 And that might mean that your employees leave you and that you were just a chapter in their
00:33:51.620 life, but your job and your, your obligation as an employer is more than just a paycheck.
00:33:57.620 It's growth.
00:33:58.560 It's personal growth and progression and expansion.
00:34:02.200 You know, we've been so selfish for so long.
00:34:05.300 That we have things proposed like this and they actually sound like good ideas and they're
00:34:09.340 not.
00:34:10.580 And I think if we did a better job regulating ourselves, we stepped up as mentors in our
00:34:14.580 community.
00:34:15.080 We served on political boards.
00:34:16.920 We shouldered the entire burden and responsibility of raising our children, of educating our children,
00:34:22.060 of giving them opportunities, of taking our employees and treating them like people as
00:34:26.700 opposed to just numbers.
00:34:27.700 And we thought that, you know, maybe this person will at some point get better than I
00:34:32.940 can present and offer to them, but I can take pride and have value in bringing people into
00:34:38.280 the market and into work and then graduating them past my business so that they can go out
00:34:43.440 and do something bigger and better and grander for themselves.
00:34:45.920 We are so selfish.
00:34:50.460 And because we're so selfish, because we don't look for opportunities to educate and to serve
00:34:56.220 other individuals in a way that's going to be in their best interest, not necessarily
00:35:00.120 ours.
00:35:01.920 We get situations like this proposed and people begin to believe that this is a good idea,
00:35:06.860 that people need to be rescued from A, themselves or B, other individuals.
00:35:11.220 The government can do it.
00:35:12.200 The government can't, the government cannot do it the way that we as individuals should
00:35:17.080 be able to do it.
00:35:18.380 So guys, we've got a lot of work to do.
00:35:20.400 I know this one's going to ruffle a lot of feathers.
00:35:22.300 I know a lot of you guys are going to agree and disagree and we're going to have contention
00:35:25.640 and debates and arguments about this, which is fine.
00:35:28.060 I'm all on board for that, but I'm not going to shy away from these conversations, but we're
00:35:33.140 men.
00:35:33.900 This is a podcast for men.
00:35:36.180 And at the foundation of what it means to be a man is individual sovereignty.
00:35:39.860 It's the ability to decide for yourself.
00:35:42.420 It's to take responsibility for yourself.
00:35:44.440 Good and bad.
00:35:44.980 If you do something stupid, you've got to embrace the consequences that come from it.
00:35:48.940 If you do something great, well, you should reap the benefits and the rewards of that.
00:35:53.280 I'm not interested in somebody else coming in and telling me what I'm worth.
00:35:56.800 I'm not interested in other people and other organizations, in this case, the government,
00:36:01.180 telling other individuals what they have to do.
00:36:03.260 You have to pay that person a certain amount.
00:36:04.980 I'll decide and that other individual will decide.
00:36:07.940 And in the meantime, I'm going to work my ass off to ensure that I am educating people,
00:36:14.960 that I am uplifting people, that I am giving them skills and information and tools to grow
00:36:21.500 and to expand where this federally mandated minimum wage is not even a thing on their radar
00:36:28.780 because they're so far past it.
00:36:31.160 I've got a lot of work to do, guys.
00:36:32.560 I've got a lot of work to do.
00:36:35.760 And I fear that it's only going to get worse before it gets better.
00:36:39.700 We're in a very comfortable time, a very easy time.
00:36:41.780 We've all heard the adage, you know, it's overused at this point, but how does it go?
00:36:45.520 Hard times create good men.
00:36:48.160 Good men create good times.
00:36:49.480 Good times create weak men.
00:36:50.960 Weak men create hard times.
00:36:54.340 We're at good times.
00:36:56.740 There's a lot of bitterness and contention and animosity in life, for sure.
00:37:01.200 But life is pretty good.
00:37:03.500 Because it's pretty good, we get to argue and bicker and bitch and moan about stuff like this.
00:37:09.360 Because we're not worried about putting food on the table.
00:37:11.660 We're not worried about making ends meet.
00:37:14.200 We're not worried about getting eaten by a saber-toothed tiger.
00:37:18.420 But that's not to save them.
00:37:19.860 It's not coming.
00:37:21.260 It's not going to be the saber-toothed tiger, of course.
00:37:24.020 But there will be a threat unless we deal with it.
00:37:26.400 That's why I wanted to have this conversation.
00:37:28.400 So there's your five points.
00:37:29.580 There's what we do about it.
00:37:30.640 Educate, inspire, coach, mentor, lead, and get the people under your care in a better position.
00:37:36.640 That is your responsibility.
00:37:38.100 Whether they work for you, whether they're your children, whether they're strangers, it's your responsibility to inspire, believe, and to equip people with what they need.
00:37:46.340 That's the job, man.
00:37:47.780 All right, guys.
00:37:48.280 I'll be back next week for our interview or Ask Me Anything.
00:37:51.660 Of course, I'll have a Friday a few months.
00:37:53.000 But until then, go out there, take action, and become the man you are meant to be.
00:37:56.860 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
00:37:59.780 If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.
00:38:06.900 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man.