Life Liberty and the Pursuit
Welcome to the Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit podcast. Come join Eric and Matt who are freedom-loving, meat-eating, gun-shooting American guys as they discuss a broad spectrum of topics ranging from States' rights, culture, and the 2nd Amendment to scotch, bourbon, and cigars. Eric & Matt are both former US Army combat veterans who served together while deployed to Iraq during OIF III. Eric is most notable for his YouTube channel Iraqveteran8888 which has over 2.75 million subscribers currently as well as his outspoken and no-compromise stance regarding the 2nd amendment. Matt, founded Ballistic Ink, a branding and merchandising company that serviced 2A content creators and the firearms industry. He also is a partner of Alliance jiujitsu Roswell located in Roswell GA and trains daily and competes regularly. He is very passionate about the 2nd amendment and freedom. Come along for the ride!
Life Liberty and the Pursuit
LLP #119: What Thomas Sowell Knew About Freedom and Prosperity
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What do empty shopping malls, crowded theme parks, and the rising cost of housing reveal about the true state of American capitalism? In this thought-provoking conversation, Eric and Matt bring their unique perspectives as small business owners to challenge popular narratives about economic doom and gloom.
The duo explores how consumer behavior has fundamentally shifted away from material accumulation toward experience-based spending. While traditional retail spaces like malls appear to be struggling, premium vacation destinations like Great Wolf Lodge and Disney World remain packed with families willing to spend hundreds per night. This contradiction reveals something profound about modern values, particularly among younger generations who prioritize memorable experiences over possessions.
They tackle the generational divide head-on, addressing how Boomers who purchased homes for $65,000 often fail to recognize why Millennials and Gen Z struggle with $400,000 starter homes. The fact that the average age of first-time homebuyers has risen to 54 speaks volumes about changed economic circumstances. Drawing inspiration from economists like Thomas Sowell, they discuss how currency debasement, inflation, and shifting cultural values have transformed the American Dream.
Most powerfully, Eric and Matt reflect on their personal journeys, acknowledging how they once chased material wealth before recognizing that time represents our ultimate currency. This realization—that experiences and relationships ultimately matter more than possessions—mirrors broader economic shifts happening nationwide. Whether examining the firearms industry's current downturn or discussing dating standards, they continually return to how smart adaptation rather than complaint defines successful entrepreneurs.
Ready for an honest, unfiltered conversation about money, markets, and what really matters? Subscribe now and join two veterans who've learned that observation, not ideology, reveals economic truth.
Welcome back everybody. This is Eric and Matt and this is Life, liberty and the Pursuit, your beacon of freedom and the American way of life. Tune in every Monday for a new episode as we dive into the world of liberty and what makes our country great.
Speaker 2:All right, everybody, welcome back. This is Eric and Matt here with Life, liberty and the Pursuit. Your beacon for all things freedom in a world gone absolutely bonkers.
Speaker 3:Absolutely bonkers.
Speaker 2:Well, today's show is bonkers because we're going to be talking about the economy and capitalism and, you know, all sorts of fun things like that Small business Today's show. You know, we're really going to talk about how things are going. It seems that you know, no matter what sort of economist you talk to on a regular basis, it seems that there's always some sky is falling scenario. And I will sort of preface today's show by mentioning look, matt and I are by no means financial experts. You know we're not. You know we're not claiming to be experts on the economy. We are simply small business owners who are going to put in our two cents and give our opinion on some of the things that are going on and share some observations that we have collectively made. And today's show will also be discussing the gun industry. So many people follow me here on Iraq Veteran on the main YouTube channel because I'm mainly into firearms Now that I do have a great deal of expertise on. So we will share some of the downturn in the gun community and kind of mention like, what's going on with the gun industry right now and we'll discuss that in more detail as we go and we also have a little Q&A session. We're going to be answering some questions today on the show and we are looking for guests for the show. So let me know we already have a few people in mind.
Speaker 2:We are still doing just a little bit of housekeeping. We are still doing some work on the studio, so bear with us, pardon the dust. We are going to be changing some things up and building some new sets, so I'm really excited about that. I've got a few things for sale on Gum Broker to help fund those changes. So if you want to put in some bids, go grab yourself something and help us out there. That would be great. Some war bucks for the war chest we're going to get cracking. How are things?
Speaker 3:It's been great. I think it's going to be a great show and, like you said, we're just two guys but we just happen to be small business owners and that you know it affects us differently. The way the economy moves and the way that we react to the economy is much different than how someone that's not a small business owner is going to feel it. We have to react a little bit differently. Obviously, tariffs are. They don't affect my business. I'm not.
Speaker 3:I own a jiu-jitsu academy, so we are all like we don't really have any assets, it's just teaching and mats and we have some gym equipment With Ballistic Inc. We no longer operate Ballistic Inc. However, with that said, the tariffs wouldn't have affected ballistic ink anyways. Uh, it was a hundred percent made in the U S products, so that wasn't an issue. But it probably does affect 90% of clothing businesses because a lot of those are coming in from overseas, so I can see how that can affect the bottom line for them. Um, your standard W2 employees are going to feel it and they're going to have their reservations about it. But, like I said, from a standpoint of being small business owners, we tackle these problems a little bit differently.
Speaker 2:We are going to break into it and, obviously, the consumer. We're going to discuss it from the consumer's perspective as well, because we are obviously all consumers here, no matter what. So we will discuss consumerism as well, which you know. I think you're going to like some of the things I have to say. I have some very interesting observations about it and my views have changed a little bit. But before we get started, we're going to thank our first sponsor for the show, and that is Chalk.
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Speaker 3:If you could tell me I could get 20% off of my needed supplements for life 25% off son. Shoot, sign me up, that's right.
Speaker 2:So we're going to look and dive into what's really going on. It's absolutely crazy. I know we've discussed, we did our episode on tribalism and globalism and just talking about the overall global movement of global trade which I'm not going to ever claim to be some master of, I know the chessboard. As I see it, from an overall view, you don't know the conversations that are occurring in back rooms. You don't know what all the leaders of the world ultimately know in terms of available information to you as well as potential threats. So, geopolitically, let's just say there is this huge empty space that we are not really going to be privy to some of the things that, let's just face it, the world leaders know that we don't know Things that are changing, moves that are being made, potential conflicts that are arising. I mean, there's going to be saber rattling that we can kind of look at and say, hey, these are things that are going on.
Speaker 2:Well, we already cut an episode where we kind of dove into that subject a bit. What I really want this to be about is how is all this really affecting small business owners? How is it affecting the end consumer and is capitalism sort of in the strange death throes? I want to start out with a little story, and it's not really much of a story really, more of just an experience and exposure. And so you know, we recently my girlfriend and I recently got a new puppy and of course we like to take the puppy on walks and get her acquainted with people, because we don't want her to grow up and be an a**hole dog.
Speaker 2:We want her to be a sweet girl, so we want to get her around people. So we'll go to malls and all sorts of public places like that and let her walk around and just get used to being around people and of course, folks are naturally going to come up and want to see the dog and pet the dog and all this sort of stuff. I don't think I have to explain the minutia of going to the mall. However, when you look at malls, all right, that's a really good way to get an idea of what is going on with the consumers in your, in your given, culture. Ok, look at mall culture. Back in the 1990s, for instance, the mall was the place to be. Oh goodness. They were open late.
Speaker 2:They all had really nice fancy arcades. Moms would drop the kids off at the arcade with 20 bucks and the kid could play on arcade machine for hours on $20. I'm not sitting here trying to. You know, paint it as some Beaver Cleaverville picturesque landscape, but it was relatively picturesque. I mean, the malls were really cool place to hang out Lots of really good stores.
Speaker 2:Now I understand that the nature of consumerism has changed vastly over the last 30 years with, you know, internet shopping and you know we are going to discuss places like Amazon here in a moment. We're not going to, we haven't gotten there yet but we will. But you notice it almost has this feeling like capitalism is in its death throes. If you simply look at something like a mall and you go well, for one, the place is kind of dead. There's not a lot of people walking around, Unless it's a real busy weekend. It's just not very busy. Two, you look at people walking around. Do they have shopping bags in their hands? I remember in the 90s when you go in a shopping mall and some soccer mom be walking around with bags full of shit, I mean walk around with a starbucks in her hand or whatever it may be. You know, maybe not then I don't think starbucks is around there, but you know, walk around with their drink and their little dog and tons of bags and and you just had this overall feeling and view that like, wow, the economy's strong, like you see soccer moms walk around with bags full of crap, Toy stores large toy stores like Babbage's were open and you know that store's been out of business for a long time, but like it just was crazy. It's like people had a lot more disposable income.
Speaker 2:And I guess that's really what this comes down to is debasement of currency. And again, I'm no financial expert, Matt, I'm no economist, but it doesn't take a degree in economics for someone to see that when you print yourself out of oblivion with a currency, you're debasing the value of that currency. You're taking away from the value of people who hold that currency. If you simply print it out of nowhere, you devalue the currency and you end up having less purchasing power, dollar for dollar, than you had previously and you continue to eat and pay a hidden tax. That is part of the currency debasement right. It's fractional banking. The way that that system works is they loan out more money than they have. They do not have the money they loan out. They loan out way more than what they actually have.
Speaker 2:Now you look at this thing under a giant let's just say microcosm an overhead view, a very broad overhead view. Again, I'm not claiming to be some master economist, but I don't think it takes a master economist to see what is really going on here and the play that is in place when a certain group of people is allowed to game the system in a way that benefits them in perpetuity and that they do not actually have to suffer the consequences of bad decisions, be it a bad policy decision, a bad economic decision, a bad purchase decision. If you paid twice as much for your car than what it was worth, that'd be a bad economic decision for you to make. That'd be a bad financial decision, correct. But what if you could make those decisions in perpetuity without consequence?
Speaker 2:That's what we're seeing. We have an entire subset of our society that do not have to be beholden to their shitty decisions. We carry the consequences of those decisions, not them, and I forget who said it, but the way any empire ends up falling is they wind up spending someone else's money. Any empire is going to fail if all they do is spend someone else's money, and they never have to actually suffer the consequences of bad decisions. Are we at?
Speaker 3:a point.
Speaker 2:Matt, where it's like the death throes emptying the coffers of the Roman Empire, or is that where we are?
Speaker 3:No, I think there's a lot of fear mongering. There's a lot of people saying that capitalism is on its way out. But I'll tell you that couldn't be farther from the case and I'll tell you that from experience I was at and this is just one small part. Everybody says, oh, the economy's in shambles. I was at Great Wolf Lodge over the weekend with my. We had a wrestling tournament with my daughter. Great Wolf Lodge is not inexpensive by any means. It's like 350, 400 a night. It's a giant water park, if you guys know. It's a giant water park indoors, like hotel, it's like a theme park that you stay at, absolutely packed. I mean, every single room in that place was sold out. Park was filled up. So if the economy is doing so bad, how is this place full? Like? I'm not seeing what they're reporting and they're saying, oh, gas prices are high. It's $1.79 a gallon here in Georgia. It's pretty inexpensive.
Speaker 3:When you look at capitalism as a whole, there's going to be that subset of people that take advantage of those I should say public services. But there's also the people that want to use capitalism to get out and get up and be successful, and that is what capitalism is about. It's about being able to risk it all and be successful. It's about being able to pull yourself up, quote by your bootstraps and make something of yourself. The harder you work, the more you get out of it. And I'll use China as an example. Right now they're having a. You might not see it on mainstream TV because they're not reporting it, but there are a ton of protests going on. It's like an uprising in China right now. You can go there's actually content creators that specialize in getting that information out of China and you can see it. They're having to quash all of these uprisings from the younger generation because they don't have capitalism. It's actually a huge problem. It's called the movement is like let it rot. That's what it translates to in English and the younger generation don't have any way to move up. It's a communist country, so you are what you are. It's not like you can get promoted in a company and do well for yourself. You're kind of already set. And these younger generation there's no benefit for them to wake up in the morning and go to work and, you know, really grind it out, because they're never going to get to where they need to be at to be successful. It's our. That story has already been written, so they just let it rot. And they're having a huge problem right now. They have to go through, and that you know. Xi jinping is begging that younger generation to like help and to get back to work and to make something of themselves. But what's the benefit? Why would they do that? You know there's nothing in it for them.
Speaker 3:Um, you have other countries that are, uh, capitalistic in nature, based off of the US style. So you have South Korea, you have Japan. Both of those countries do very well, but they also have the same issue. You know the older generation are in place. The younger generation aren't having kids. They have very, very low population rates and there is no desire for that generation to go up. They don't care. There's no financial benefit to them. The cost of living is extremely high, so they could try to make more money. It's going to be the same Versus in the US. We have every incentive to do better because there is no top. The cream rises to the top, brother, like you're going to make it. It just depends on how hard you work, and to me, that's what capitalism is all about. It's not about you know what everybody wants. Like oh, we get like yes, it's great that we have. You know, everything is based off of democracy and we get to vote and everybody has a voice, but that also means that everybody has the ability to be successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I totally agree and you know, I think that that's a very astute observation. You know talking about birth rates, because I know that's something that Elon discusses a lot, and a lot of other economists discuss the declining birth rates and that is a problem, and I think that society begins to get this form of apathy. So we will discuss that a little bit Before we go too much further. I do want to give a shout-out to the next sponsor in the show. That's our friends at my Patriot Supply. Let me ask you something If the grocery store shelves went empty tomorrow, would your family be ready?
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Speaker 2:What a great group of people. I mean. Their food is fantastic and, you know, it does kind of coincide with today's show a bit. You know, that sponsor fits perfect because people are a lot more worried about the future than they have been, you know, in the past. Now I know that might be a cliche thing for me to say Maybe you go.
Speaker 2:Well, every generation thinks that the generation before them or that comes after them has it easier than they did. There's some kind of odd universal paradigm where you know well, you kids don't understand what it was like when I was a kid, and then those people were going to tell their kids oh, you don't understand what it was like when I was a kid. And then those people were going to tell their kids oh, you don't understand what it was like when we were a kid. Every generation always thinks that they're superior to the generation under them because they feel like what is theirs, because they built it and put it there.
Speaker 2:But there might have also been opportunities available to them that weren't available to the younger generation. So when you see, for instance, a young Japanese person who is living in a cubicle and working their butt off 10 hours a day and they can't even afford a cubicle, much less a house to raise a family in what motivation do they have to find a girl and settle down and have a family when they're living in a cubicle and it's taking everything that they can produce to simply live in a cubicle? The suicide rates, as hard as that is to talk about are quite high in a place like Japan.
Speaker 2:And again, we don't ever want to call the Japanese out in any way, that's not the intention here but that's a good example how their society is suffering from a really big issue with motivation and with wages being decent enough. I mean, there are a lot of abandoned houses in Japan, but they cost so much money to renovate and they're so difficult to get to and a lot of them are in very remote places and it's very difficult for people to get cars there. You know you have to prove that you have a place to park a car. To even buy a car, fuel's expensive. So by the time you take all those factors, yeah, the young folks are suffering a lot and I know that people make this comparison quite a bit, but I'm going to make the comparison again.
Speaker 2:Let's go back across the ocean to here All right, back to America, america, back to America. Back there with them screaming eagles. Good, so, all right, you look at the boomer generation here. You know a, a guy was born in 1949. Okay, right, you know he works his summer job and buys a car. You know, pays cash for a car, just doing his summer job or something, saving up some money, you know. He works for two or three years and saves up enough money to buy 10 acres and builds a house on it, you know, meets a young hippie girl and settles down, has a family, you know, and one day his homestead is worth, you know, a half a million dollars and it cost him $100,000.
Speaker 2:You know, when you look at the boomer generation, they always want to point their finger at us and say, well, you just aren't working hard enough, you aren't doing this, you aren't doing that Right. But who bought a house for $65,000? You're going to buy a house for $65,000 now. Do you know what the average cost to buy a house is right now? For the new homebuyer, for the first time homebuyer, it's either right at or over $400,000 is the minimum to get into. Let's just say a small single family dwelling wife and kids. Let's say two kids and a wife, four people dwelling right. Let's just say a three bedroom, two bath, maybe a garage and an acre of land.
Speaker 2:I believe, it Right, You're talking 400 grand and I've seen some houses around here that are rather unflattering for half a million or 400,000. So the prices have gotten crazy. So for a boomer to look a younger person in the face and say, well, you're just not working hard enough. Well, how can that objectively be true when the average age of a new home buyer do you know what that age is?
Speaker 3:If I had to take a wild guess and I'm just taking a step in the dark here 31. No 54.
Speaker 2:What? Most of the transactions that are being carried out with real estate involve people in their 50s. Okay, so what does that tell you?
Speaker 2:It tells you young people definitely cannot afford on their income to buy a home, right? Yep, it means that investors are buying these homes, people like BlackRock and all that. I mean, come on, look again, I'm not an economist, okay, I'm not an expert here. I'm just a person that just sees what's happening. I mean it doesn't take a lot to just look at the equation and plug in some some figures and go wait a minute, something is not adding up. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm proud of the boomer generation. They built a lot. Sure, they were very successful and, look, they were very lucky.
Speaker 2:Imagine being lucky enough to be born in 1949, right after World War II. Too young to fight in the Korean War? Too old to fight in Vietnam Holy crap. Way too old to fight in anyietnam holy crap. Way too old to fight in any wars after that. You're definitely not going to desert storm any of those other places. I mean the boomer generation. You want to talk about privilege. You want to talk about someone who's lucky. Someone who was born after world war ii is extremely freaking lucky.
Speaker 2:they've had a lot of opportunity, didn't have to fight in any wars yep I mean, come on, got to be an adult during the hippie era, free love and all that crap and lsd. I mean, like you want to talk about someone who's privileged the world war ii generation was privileged after you know the people that were children, yeah post-world war ii.
Speaker 2:And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I mean, hey, all this death and chaos, what does the world want to do? They want to go home and make babies. I mean, think about it. I get it. It's the American dream.
Speaker 2:What occurred was a very beautiful thing, but when we look at that nuclear household family unit, that is not achievable for a lot of young people. Now, you know, look, my girlfriend and I just had this. We were having this discussion a few days ago. It might have even been last night. I remember we were talking about how a lot of couples now are 50-50. Where they go, all right. Well, the rent is X amount. Well, the woman's going to pay 50% and the guy's going to pay 50%. What, wait a minute? No, no, no.
Speaker 2:On my grandpa's day he could work one job and pay all the bills and they could have a car to drive and then new appliances and a house and take a vacation or two every year and have everything. A nice Christmas, all right. What's missing here? So now it requires two incomes to do what one income used to do. If we look at it simply from that perspective, there's something really wrong there. So now people are getting married or engaged or getting together simply for survival. Never mind, hey, do we have kids or not. If people are living on the cuff of the edge of being able to afford a home and, let's just say, afford the American dream, you know, they're almost together for survival as much as they are. Well, forget having a family. We need to be together just so we can collectively afford to live.
Speaker 3:That I have seen.
Speaker 3:I'm not saying it's everybody Right, but it's a few, but to your point it's true. You used to be able to get by on a single income and you had the one family car and you had the wife and the two kids and you were still able to make it through life and you were still able to do most of the things you wanted to. And obviously, the value of the dollar went down. We got off the gold standard. They started printing more money, um, and now we're we're at, now we're not quite to the point of Venezuela where we're burning bricks of money to cook food and stay warm. Um, and I'm not going to say that we're, you know we're going that way, cause obviously we're not. We're America. We're the strongest country in the world, we have the strongest economy and we have the strongest people. We're going to continue to do what we need to do to survive.
Speaker 3:And let's not get this twisted. All right, people say, oh, america's in, like, the economy's in shambles, like, we have homeless people that have cell phones for free, they get wireless internet for free. Our economy, our homeless live better than most third world countries. All right, it's relative when you say our economy is in shambles and where we're gonna go into a recession, the day that our homeless people live worse than a third world country. You can come and say something, but they don't. And that's not a litmus test for how well the economy is doing, but it just gives you an idea of how the idea of what is in shambles, quote and what is normal. You can get a litmus test based off of that.
Speaker 3:What I will say is that when you, when you got to the point where you had to have dual income so you had your single income, you have your dual income with kids you really saw that when the American people started wanting more, it used to be like, hey, we were happy with the three-bedroom mid-modern century Brady Bunch home and it wasn't this huge house and you didn't have a three-car garage and you didn't have a huge yard. It was like, hey, this is what the family dwelling was. Everybody had their assigned roles in their rooms. Now it became keeping up with the Joneses. You had to say, hey, well, so-and-so's family has a five-bedroom McMansion with a horse stable up in Milton Georgia. They have a farm and they have a helicopter pad with little statues that spit water. Um, I gotta have that too. So what do you need? You need more money.
Speaker 3:You know, I think it was, uh, george Carlin that had that bit about buying a bigger house to put more stuff. And then you get so much more stuff you got to buy a bigger house so you can put even more stuff in the house it was. It's a great bit. I recommend you guys look it up. But um, that's essentially where we're going.
Speaker 3:People like you're like, oh, I need more stuff, I need more house, I need and you hear it all the time people, oh, I need more car, our family's getting too big. We get, I need more car, so I gotta go get a bigger car. Like Like, okay, I get it. Well, how about you just wait? Or how about? You know, no one is saying that you can't have a big family, but maybe you should time that a little bit better. You know, maybe you should say, hey, why don't we get to a better place, to where we can?
Speaker 3:Um, just my thoughts. You know I'm not a subject matter expert by any means, but a lot of this is just bad decision-making. You know people say, hey, I want it now, versus I'm going to delayed gratification, I can wait a couple of years and I can be in a better position. I can be a better place than I am right now, and maybe it won't impact me waiting two or three years before I do something. Maybe I won't suffer for waiting two or three years before I do something. Maybe I won't suffer for those two or three years. Maybe I don't have to eat, you know, ramen noodles for a year because I made a decision today.
Speaker 2:You know that's a very astute observation, matt. We are an instant gratification society and that has played hard into the way consumers consume, the way that they actually engage in the idea of objectifying stuff over experiences. And it goes back to what you said about that $400 a night place being occupied by so many people, folks, especially the younger generation, the millennials and Gen X and those sorts of people. They seem to be really dialing in on experiences over things, and it actually gives me a lot of hope for the future because I myself I fell victim to the idea of just buying and buying, and buying and buying, and you know you know, you know the amount of things I have and it's's like I think I was trying to fill a void in my life that you know.
Speaker 2:I didn't really know what I was missing, and I was trying to fill that void and and achieve happiness through things which can be a very self-destructive thing to do. You think, well, wait a minute.
Speaker 2:I've got the rock star life. I've got, you know, a huge gun collection. I've got a you know a collection of music gear that would make most studios jealous. I've got the bad-ass truck and the bad-ass boat. And you had some cool motorcycles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you have motorcycles and you know you're living like a rock star and you know you're you're doing well, you know, and you're successful and you think well, oh man, despite all this, why am I not happy?
Speaker 2:Why is my life feel like it's just an empty void, even though you have all these things to fill it with?
Speaker 2:And you know, again you begin to realize and this may be even a deeper conversation than just simply the economy, but on my perspective, I'm telling you about my perspective as a consumer and buying so much crap over the years that eventually you go. You know, I really wish I would have taken some of that money that I bought those guns with, maybe, and went and you know, took a cool trip to Rome or, you know, went to go visit Australia, or or maybe went on a I don't know a sightseeing trip in a helicopter or did a helicopter hog hunt or whatever. It might be that maybe you would have done more experiences with that money, because experiences you can't take away. Once they're there, it's like wow, you've, you've, you've provided something wholesome to your life. You've used your money for something that enhances the life experience, not just fills what, what that experience should fill the void of, with things that you know maybe provide you with some brief satisfaction, but not a long, lasting, meaningful satisfaction.
Speaker 3:I can agree with you 110%. And I didn't realize that till I got older because I, like you, were very, very similar. I was like, hey, I want this, I, I want this. You get to a point you know where your income can support that because as you're growing up, like I grew up, you know poor, like I didn't have a lot of. I wanted a lot of stuff but I couldn't afford it. I couldn't go out and get it. But then you get to a point where you are successful and you can go out and say, point at something and say, hey, that's cool, I want that. And just, hey, that's cool, I want that. And just buy it. Maybe it's a little irresponsible, but you know, if the income can support it, why not? But like like you, eric, I got into a trend of just, you know, buying and buying and buying and it wasn't really fulfilling anything. Then I had my daughter and then it became hey, what can we do together for experiences? What can we experience together that's going to give me more than just a trinket or a gun or a car or some doodad that I want? And it became traveling with her to sports events, wrestling or jujitsu. And that is ultimately why.
Speaker 3:You know not a lot of people know this, but that's why we closed Ballistic Inc. You know Ballistic Inc was. It was an amazing experience, was an amazing company that you know I ran, that you know Eric was a partner with and we supported all of the you know YouTube, gun tube content creators and we did that for about five or six years. We did all American products, um, and we did the merch amazing experience. We had tens of thousands of customers that we that we supported by sitting on product that you guys were gracious enough to support those content creators and and it was awesome. Ultimately it took up a lot of time. Like it's a lot of work supporting like that many content creators with that volume of of shirts.
Speaker 2:You know, wow, I'll tell you. You know, it doesn't take an economist to figure out y'all that time is the ultimate currency. We can talk about money and we can talk about the stock market. We can talk about the war of ideas, we can talk about the war of spirituality, we can talk about this religion, that religion, this color, that color. At the end of the day, time is the ultimate currency. It is your trade, it is your currency. It is literally the only thing that you don't really know how much you have.
Speaker 2:You can look at a dollar figure in the bank account and you can assign some value to that. How much time it took you to earn that money, that number in the bank account. You can go all right, what can that money buy me? What can it do for me? What thing can it get me? But at the end of the day, you don't really know how much time you really have. So when you're grinding away at your nine to five, you're thinking you know, I got to get this money to consume, consume, consume.
Speaker 2:And don't get me wrong. You know America has been made a really unique and great place by consumerism. To your effect, matt, you were talking about that lodge being, you know, having all the people there. Same thing with Disney. All right, I know in the other podcast we talked about my trip to Disney my first time ever going to Disney World. All right, I'll put it on for you. My first time ever going to Disney World, let me put this hat on. Oh, I'll put it on for you. My first time ever going to Disney World, let me put this hat on for you.
Speaker 3:Oh, you got the Mickey.
Speaker 2:Mouse ears. So look, it was the first time ever going to Disney World and you go in the main gate and you're dropping 600 freaking bucks for three tickets just to get in the door. So if you're talking a family of three kids and wife and kids, you're talking $1,000 just to walk in the front door. Now tell me now, can you assign a price to that experience? Or can you go, wow, is a thousand bucks really worth it? See, at that point the park becomes. Whether or not you agree with the woke Disney crap, let's just put all that aside and just look at it for what it is. It is a park where kids can go and feel like they're in a magical place At the end of the day, get all the fluff away and just treat it for what it is.
Speaker 3:That's it.
Speaker 2:It is. A Las Vegas for kids is essentially what that place is.
Speaker 2:That's a great way to put it. It's Las Vegas for kids. All right. Can you put a price on the way you feel when you're with your kids in that place? No, you can say all the wokeness. Look all that aside. Can you literally put a price on the way how happy it made your daughter when you took her? Nope, you cannot. You would pay anything If that ticket was $500, let's say, the tickets for the adults were $40, but the tickets for the kids were $800. The tickets for the adults were $40, but the tickets for the kids were $800.
Speaker 3:Would you pay $800 to?
Speaker 2:get your daughter in that park. I would. You would Yep Right, because experiences are valuable, right. Knowledge is valuable right. When we look at um, you know, like your jujitsu academy, you're providing more than just simply some product that someone can buy a widget You're providing a service. You're providing knowledge and knowledge of power, and people will spend money on experiences. They will spend money on knowledge. I hope they would.
Speaker 2:For instance, you know, I do the power lifting right now. I've been a power lifter for two years. Yes, I have a trainer and, yeah, I pay James pretty well. Okay, like, he's not cheap, he charges, right. So, but I invest in myself. I invest in making a better version of myself.
Speaker 2:I don't know how much time I'm going to have left. Time is the currency. So, therefore, my investment is in hopefully providing more time for me to exist on this world, and if that means that I've got to spend some money to do that, well then, what is money worth if you're dead? Now I say all of this to get back to the baseline conversation, and that is that when we look at the way that the economy is going, I mean, how are consumers really feeling about what's going on? Well, just because they may not be buying widget A, b or C. Let's kind of talk about the firearms industry for a minute, because the firearms industry right now is in a huge downturn. Right, lots of people are spending way less money on firearms and ammo. I mean, we just had Trump elected, so, of course, anytime there's a Republican president incoming in the presidency, we always see a slump in sales in the gun industry, because the best gun salesmen are Democrats.
Speaker 2:So anytime a Democrat gets elected, everyone wants to go crazy because they're worried about the way things are going to go and they go buy a bunch of firearms. So right now there's a downturn in uh, in everything going on in the firearms industry and, um, you know, you're going to see that kind of ebb and flow of consumerism go from all right, well, they're not buying maybe a guns as much anymore, but maybe they're getting some training or maybe they're going to take on, like I don't know, go drive a tank or fly a helicopter or do some cool experience. That's still in the vein of that, but just not directly buying a firearm per se. Maybe they're going to pay for that hunt that they always wanted to go on with their family or something, or maybe they're going to pay for that fishing excursion that you know.
Speaker 2:maybe they couldn't justify the expense before, but maybe now they do, so you may see an increase in VRBOs, or what is it? What do they call?
Speaker 3:the Airbnbs.
Speaker 2:You may see an increase in people going and taking on experiences. So just because the economy pivots and again I'm no economist, y'all, I'm just saying the reality of what you see in front of you Just because something pivots from one area of the industry to another, doesn't mean there's still not money changing hands for goods and or services, or both, or either, or. So it's just an interesting paradigm to consider. You know, under that paradigm, again, let's go back really quick, because I wanted to mention something about the nuclear household, because we were talking about how the boomer generation which I hate to say boomer, but that's what they are.
Speaker 3:They're the boomer generation.
Speaker 2:The late 40s generation had an unprecedented amount of luxury and wealth and opportunity and just a lucky set of circumstances that really put them in a place to be the people they are today. They're very successful today, many of them, as long as they make decent decisions. They're in a really good place today. And when we look at the modern family unit, let's look at the millennials and the Gen X now and look at that as a family unit. Okay, guy meets girl and they want to have a family. All right Now. That idea is far less palatable and available to people now than it was in 1949. Back in the day it was much easier to start a family and have that sort of American dream than it is now.
Speaker 2:But let's also look at the type of standards that people have now. Ok, now, this is something crazy. In fact, my girlfriend and I were talking about this. In fact, last night, I believe, we had this discussion where we talked about how people's standards and what they have for a partner are far, far blown out of proportion.
Speaker 2:Right, you know some guy who is not really doing so well financially. You know, maybe he doesn't have his shit together, maybe he's not in shape, maybe he's a little fat. You know thinking that he's going to score an 11 and you know he's going to have the super hot girl and that's what he deserves. Well, is that the value you bring into the table? And vice versa. You know a guy who's got his shit together, he's in shape, he's making good money, he's well established. You know he's a person that is not a screw up. Okay, he's not in trouble not doing. You know a high value guy.
Speaker 2:Now, is that to say that you know some girl who is a three at best? That three girl has it in her mind that she's going to get the 11 guy, no matter what, and all she wants is the 11 guy, but she doesn't want to make herself at least an eight or nine. You know it doesn't want to improve herself. We were talking about that paradigm. How you know, women get their views blown way out of proportion on what they'll accept in a male partner and vice versa, men to women. And again, I'm not claiming to be some life coach or dating coach. I'll give a quick shout out to my good friend, coach Corey Wayne. Now, if you do want to talk to a good dating coach, he's your man. Talk to Corey Wayne. However, corey Wayne will tell you I think I can say this with his approval that you have to be the best version of yourself that you can possibly be. You attract what you are and you are what you attract.
Speaker 2:So it's like if someone wants the picturesque view of success and power and strength and love and a good romantic relationship and a good life, you've got to work hard to achieve it. And you're not going to be on a lower tier rung of society as a person and expect to have the world handed to you. That's not what capitalism is. That's not how capitalism works. Capitalism is the opportunity for you to create the circumstances that give you the things that you want. And, yeah, you're going to have to work your butt off for it. I worked my butt off for 16 years producing YouTube content day in and day out, and working my butt off so that I could be where I am today. Yep, so those those laurels that you don't necessarily rest on your laurels, you always stay hungry. You never say, well, I achieved something. Therefore, I'm just going to lay back and just be a slob.
Speaker 2:No you're always going to look for the next step, and then those laurels are on laurels are on laurels, and that's how it works. You create these layers of financial security that insulate you from failure. I mean, that's how it works, and the older you get, the more insulated you are. Then you can kind of sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor a little bit. But you should never be sedentary. You should still kind of always set that next chess piece in motion. You have to think that way. You cannot think of success as simply trading time for money. If you do that, you're going to wind up in a position you're not going to be happy in.
Speaker 3:Well, that's kind of what happened with Ballistic Inc. When I was talking about, say hey, we worked for five or six years and it went great, spending too much time, I need my currency back. We let that one go and we went with the Jiu-Jitsu Academy. It gives me way more time to spend with my family and to have those experiences and you're happier for it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, You're way happier for it. And you're happier for it oh yeah absolutely. You're way happier for it. You know, and again I will mention, because Matt and I both receive disability compensation from military service and there's a lot of people out there that may draw some negative view of well, you collect money from the government and you're a dependa.
Speaker 3:You hear that word going around.
Speaker 2:You're a dependa and you're a dependa. You hear that word going around. You're a dependa, but look, you know, if you get hurt in combat, you're a combat MOS, or really an MOS, but let's just say, under the guise of being an infantry soldier, your body gets royally f***ed up. If I'm just being honest here, I mean, look, you get messed up and you know, yeah, there's a cost to that, there's a literal cost to what it takes for you to have gotten hurt or messed up in combat and now you have to live a debilitated life. So, yes, we have mechanisms in place to insulate those veterans from failure. Ok, and it's only fair. I feel like I worked for that, I suffered for that, you suffered for that, we suffered together, brother.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you know, and that's not always the easy thing for society to cope with that. Yes, there was some work put in. There was some blood equity and sweat equity that was put in for that. That was not just someone being given something. No, you earned that. You gave the price of blood to earn that. You gave the price of blood to earn that.
Speaker 2:Before we go much further in the conversation, I do want to give a quick shout out to our friends at ModernWarriorscom. When it comes to protecting yourself and your family, having the right gear matters. That's why I trust Modern Warriors, your go-to source for all things tactical. They've got a massive selection of firearms, suppressors and accessories, everything from high-end builds to everyday carry essentials. Whether you're a collector, competitor or just looking for reliable self-defense options, they've got you covered With over 800 five-star Google reviews. Their customer service speaks for itself and right now you can save 10% on your first order when you use a promo code LIBERTY at checkout. Visit ModernWarriorscom today, browser selection and see why they're not just another gun shop. They're your tactical specialists. Remember to use the code liberty at checkout. That's modernwarriorscom code liberty. Good stuff, really great group of folks there. So you know the multiple layers that insulate you from failure are really what you're looking for and again, this kind of goes back to us talking about this from a perspective of small business owner is to have multiple revenue streams, right, that ultimately work for you when you're not working.
Speaker 2:Yep, okay, I'm giving you a little tip here, y'all. Okay, I'm trying to drop some wisdom as best I can. I mean, look, I will be completely and frankly honest with you, brothers and sisters here. I have do not have a freaking college education. I've never set foot in a freaking college. I have no idea what I'm doing. I have my whole life, I have winged my entire existence and just took the risk. That is the, that is the axiom of capitalism.
Speaker 2:Yep, you can be an ignorant person. I mean, let's talk about Jeff Bezos. I'm not saying that. Wow, ignorant person, jeff Bezos. No, he wasn't ignorant, but he was a person who started from extremely humble means. You know, maybe had some slip-ups in the beginning, right. But now look at him, he's getting his TRT on, he's got his hot girl, he's got his big bow. You know, he said screw the haters, I'm gonna live, I'm gonna be me, I'm gonna be the best version of myself. What did Jeff Bezos do. He created the best version of himself. He surrounded himself with himself with the hottest and greatest and best and most talented people and right, the cream flows to the top and iron sharpens iron, and I don't hate the man for that.
Speaker 2:Anyone who would say, well, jeff Bezos is filthy rich, so screw him. No, screw you. Bezos is filthy rich, so screw him. No, screw you because you failed. You failed to see the bigger picture, not him. You cannot say, well, screw Jeff Bezos because he's simply wealthy. What a smooth brain, low tier statement for a person to just say, well, I just hate him because I'm not him.
Speaker 3:Right, that's exactly it. No way, and you and you know I'm proud of him.
Speaker 2:I don't know him from anybody, but I'm proud of that because that's the american dream that is the american dream.
Speaker 3:It's the epitome of the american dream. You know it goes back to people looking for a crutch on why they're not successful. Like, oh, he like, why do you hate him? Because he's so rich? That's, that's not a very good reason to hate somebody because they have money, like you couldn't come up with something better than that. Um, and you know they're always looking down on themselves. They have that victim mentality like oh, it's because of this, it's because of that, just get out there and get it done, man. Like, keep your nose to the grindstone, as they say there's.
Speaker 3:There's so many cliche, you know, sayings that you know you could say and I'm not going to say it because they're cliche, but one of them, when you were talking about, you know, the boomer generation. They were too young to be in Vietnam, they were too old to hit you know the Persian Gulf War, but they were born kind of in that Goldilocks era of like, not of of missing out on all of that, but reaping the rewards of, you know the economy at the time and that that saying like hey, strong times make weak men, weak men make hard times, hard times make strong men. It's, it's a cycle, and you know, unfortunately they had good times. We were the strong men that came out of those good times. That next generation is the boomers Like they're going to, like they got. They got the good times from our hard, from our hard strong men.
Speaker 2:So well and well and I and, to be fair, a lot of boomers did serve in vietnam you know, because you got to think. If you're born in the late 40s, I'd put you right at draft age 18 19 look there was a, there was a big upset over the draft.
Speaker 2:There was a lot of, you know, people opposing the draft and and and protesting the draft. And you know, look at their view for a good reason. Their fathers were probably in the war. They probably saw themselves as a group of people who wanted peace and they didn't want to be involved in a war. They saw what their fathers went through and their grandfathers maybe. Even so, to be fair, yeah, a lot of them did sacrifice a lot. A lot of them did die in Vietnam, a lot of them did have to walk into the meat grinder, and that's unfortunate, right. But for those who did come out of the other side unscathed, they had a great deal of economic, you know, boom, I mean. And they were very lucky.
Speaker 2:And I suppose one day someone would say the same thing about us. Again, as I said earlier in the podcast, in the show, it's very easy for a generation to say, well, you don't know what my generation went through. You know you kids have it so easy. You don't know what we went through because you've already went through it, the kids haven't. So it's really easy to say, well, you kids don't know what sacrifice is, you kids don't know what hard work is. Well, yeah, of course they don't, because they haven't been through it yet. And I realize that now, at being over 40, it's like you realize that you know they're right and you're right at the same time. You're both right, but it just depends on when you're right, like you know where you're at in that time frame.
Speaker 2:as to you know where your mind tends to go, I mean, my favorite economist, who's wrote tons of stuff on the economy, is dr thomas soul oh, the man I love thomas soul, and you know, in his youth he was a marxist he was and I'm talking leftist like full-blown.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of people are marxists in their youth and only as they get older do they realize, like, how the world really works and they have more information available to them and the ones that actually care to overcome their individual biases about the world before them. Dr Sowell realized, like, wait a minute. He started looking into the deep and dirty and dark and going whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on here, right, there are a lot of fallacies at play here that must be explained, and he seeked to make it his effort to explain those things in the most astute way possible.
Speaker 2:And all you have to know about Dr Sowell's work is to look at how academia treats Dr Sowell now. Now, granted, he has his cult following of people who absolutely adore him, and, of course, rightly so. Uh, but look how many of these so-called academics uh, you know, oh well, you don't need to listen to Dr Sowell he, he's, he's wrong about this, wrong about that, like so many people dismiss Dr Sowell. But that should tell you exactly what you need to know about the guy's views. He's damn right on a lot of things.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And whether you study Rothbard or any of those guys, mises. I mean there's so many views on economy and liberty and freedom and freedom of association and freedom of choice. I mean we could go into a whole nother spill about all of that in a whole nother podcast. But it's just so crazy to think that the way that our economy is viewed and looked at it comes from so many different directions and so many types of goods and services and usury and credit and debasement. It's mind-blowing when you look at it from a bird's eye view and its totality it's just absolutely mind-blowing, especially for the average person.
Speaker 3:So Thomas Sowell is an absolute gem and he is onwards of like 90 years. I think he's like 90 to 94 years old he's, and he still puts out content, like he still puts out content, um.
Speaker 3:So think about this he is a former marxist. He's african-american economists that really was more right-leaning, but at the same time, he lived through the entire you know uh, segregation and um racism and pretty much everything that you could have experienced at that age. And he came out and he is probably the most prolific uh writers of equity equity versus equality. So for someone to experience segregation, to experience racism and to still come out and explain about equality and equity and how race isn't really at play in that whole thing is absolutely stunning and it's amazing to hear him speak.
Speaker 3:If you really want to watch and understand how dialogue, how public discourse, should work, go and watch some of his debates. Where he sits with there'll be four, four people sitting on in a panel and they're very respectful and they really really get into the meat and potatoes of like, some guys are Marxist, he's giving the anti-Marxist position and they're all respectful. There's no shouting, there's no yelling, there's no trying to shut the other person down and it is probably the most beautiful thing that I've watched and they're able to all get out complete sentences, coherent thoughts, complete thoughts, before the next person just chimes in and it's all very, very good information and it's how I would imagine a proper debate and ethical public discourse to take place I tell you if, if every presidential debate oh my god, was conducted in such a manner.
Speaker 2:I don't know if the average person would be able to, even they wouldn't even watch it because they're looking for that mudslinging. They're looking for that, that sort of Jerry.
Speaker 2:Springer like soundbite kind of vibe, you know it's. It's more about being liked as a person than it is actually being, you know, honored and cherished for your economic policies, your political policies, your, your moral policy, even your morals. I mean, and that's what's so crazy is the political world has turned into such a, you know, popularity contest. More so, you know, it's just who can get the most money and who can raise the most money and beat out the other person and be more likable, which I guess politics is about being likable.
Speaker 2:But at the end of the day yeah, it's a popularity contest and it just seems to me that you see so many figures that really should be more like Dr Soule in terms of their overall views. We would be in a much better place if we had a hundred Thomas Soule's and a hundred Thomas Massey's I'm a fan of Massey. I mean we would be in a much better position if economists and scientists actually, you know, made decisions in regards to the economy and sciences than some people who aren't even qualified to freaking. Be a door greeter at Walmart, much less. I mean, just because they're a very popular door greeter at Walmart doesn't mean they're, you know, qualified to be making some of the decisions that they make. And I'm not going to sit here and speak of qualifications. I'm sitting here giving an entire lecture on the economy.
Speaker 2:I'm not an economist, I'm just a person who just sees it for what it is and I hope that people maybe agree with me and see things the way that I do, and I guess there's a sort of a confirmation bias that's there for me as a person to go. Well, I'll put my views out there and if people agree with me then I must be right. That may not even always necessarily be the case. I'm willing to accept new information and try to see the truth as it unfolds and as the information unfolds. Just because a very popular person has an opinion on something that a whole bunch of people agree with doesn't mean they're right. It just means that other people might be as misinformed as that person. Right, and I'm willing to accept that I could be that person. I'm not ever going to sit there and say that that I'm the end, all do all on everything I discuss.
Speaker 3:Well, in in in Massey's defense he is. He is the shining example of what the original Congress was. They were average, normal people that didn't have any like political aspirations. He ran out as a as really as a joke. Like he, not like he was joking, but he was like, hey, I'm just gonna throw my name in the hat because I'm unhappy with the person that's there.
Speaker 2:He didn't care if he got elected.
Speaker 3:He was just like, hey, man, I'm here, this is what I stand for, this is my goals. And I was like, holy crap, I won and they love that guy. And he had. I mean, he is what you would imagine like just a person with common sense. That's in office. He, he says what the normal person thinks. Like you're like hold on, wait a second, let's, let's review that, let's look at that again versus just like, uh, being a yes man, right, you know? Um, he's caught a lot of flack. That you know, and that's really your job. Like to catch flack. Like you're there representing your constituents and you have to be true to that. And if you, you can't just nod your head and yes, and say yes to everything. So he's got, he's got my respect, yeah that's for sure.
Speaker 2:I agree. I may not always agree with everything, uh, congressman massey has to say, but I will say I agree most of it and even the things that I may not see eye to eye with him on, I respect his candor and his approach to being methodical and scientific about his views and, more importantly, constitutional. Um, that's a big one I.
Speaker 2:I really respect Thomas Massey a lot. I think he's a really great guy. Before we wrap up the show, I want to give a shout out to one more sponsor for the show, and that is Allegiance Gold. One of the things I've always admired about President Trump is that he believes in letting Americans be Americans strong, self-reliant and free. He cut taxes, fought for our energy independence and told the global elites to get lost, because he trusts the American people to take care of their families and their future. And that's exactly what you need to do right now with your wealth. Let me tell you, while the media spends distractions and the markets bounce all over the place, gold and silver have been quietly climbing, recently surpassing $3,300. They're doing what they've always done protecting value, preserving freedom and giving Americans a hedge against uncertainty. You can sit and wait or take the kind of action President Trump would respect smart, calculated and prepared. That's why I always trust Allegiance Gold. They make it easy to roll over your IRA, your 401k or your TSP, or make a direct purchase of physical gold or silver. Call 844-790-9-1 or visit allegiancegoldcom. Forward slash LLP. That's Lima, lima, papa. Right now, you can get up to $5,000 in free gold or silver coins with a qualified investment. Freedom means protecting what's yours. Don't leave it to chance. Check out allegiancegoldcom forward slash LLP. That's Lima Lima Papa. For more information You'll see a link down to all of our sponsors in the description box below.
Speaker 2:If you're watching here in video form, so we do post the video every Monday over on IRAC Veteran 8888. We also have this podcast in audio form, so I know some of you are listening in audio form. If you do want to watch us on video form, we do post the video of this podcast every week. So tune in 9 am every Monday. Sometimes I'm late uploading the show. I apologize, okay, but generally the show launches around 9 am every Monday, eastern Standard Time. So we appreciate everyone's support and for checking out the show and we hope you enjoyed our opinions here today. Anything else, matt, before we head on.
Speaker 3:Nope, Great show had a great conversation.
Speaker 2:Dude you know, I think we really got in some good territory on this one. Oh yeah, we did, I really do, because I feel like you know this subject is you know I'll end by saying I'll give a little afterthought as we end the show here today is that I think that this subject tends to be something that is picked apart in this academic way. So much, you know, people are so quick to go. Well, what are your qualifications to discuss the economy? What are your qualifications to do this? Do that, but I think sometimes that's the wrong approach. What are your qualifications to do this? Do that, but I think sometimes that's the wrong approach.
Speaker 2:What are your observations?
Speaker 2:What have you observed? What have you actually seen? Don't worry about what some person on the news tells you is happening. What have you witnessed? What have you seen that would lead you to believe that things are good and or bad, or both, or anywhere in between? That would lead you to believe that things are good and or bad, or both, or anywhere in between.
Speaker 2:If you can't physically observe what's going on with the markets or how it's affecting your bottom line as a consumer, or how it's affecting your bottom line as a business owner, I would say, to take what you're hearing, maybe with some degree of scrutiny, yep, Okay, is that to say that maybe your investments are going to change in the stock market or your uh, your overall profile financially is going to make some shifts and changes as you see the need to pivot? Perhaps, if the market changes, sure, change up your investments a bit. Um, you know, that's just be my advice. Again, I'm not an expert, but I would say, just rely on your observations. What can you witness, what can you pay tribute to as something to hang your hat on, that you've seen as verifiable evidence to back up what your heart's telling you? That's the most important thing.
Speaker 2:Yes, this subject matter can get torn apart down to the line item. Sure, it. Subject matter can get torn apart down to the line item. Sure, it most certainly can, and there's people way more qualified than me to have that discussion with. But I think it's important for the end, especially the end consumer, the average everyday person on the street. It's important to you know, verify what can you observe and take that to the bank. Take what you can observe and turn that into. You know what your overall answer is going to be for that.
Speaker 3:Then what you're going to find in the guy living in the DMV area eating $500 A5 Wagyu and drinking champagne on a daily basis, all on the government's dime. We're just eating USDA Prime ribeye and Costco champagne, so we're much more in line with what you're experiencing.
Speaker 2:And I'll just end by saying I ain't a damn hater.
Speaker 2:more in line with what you're experiencing and uh, and I'll just end by saying I ain't a damn hater, okay, like, hey, if, if you're eating wagyu and drinking champagne, I don't hate you by any stretch of imagination. I, I myself, enjoy some wagyu from time to time. Yes, uh, I'm not gonna, you're not gonna say I don't. So, uh, hey, look, if that's your flavor, by all means enjoy it. Uh, have yourselves a great day. Thanks so much for in, and we will see you guys on the flip side. Bye.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Life, liberty and Pursuit. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, spotify and anywhere else podcasts are found. Be sure to leave us a five-star review. We'd really appreciate that you can support us over on Ballistic Inc by picking yourself up some merch and remember guys, dangerous freedom, have a.