VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION
Hey, what’s up, everybody! It’s Justin Live from B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast with your host, Allen Kopelman! And we’ll be providing you with educational information about business, payments, FinTech, decentralized finance, and the technology businesses use in today’s world. And in today’s podcast, we’re going to be talking about the payment trends for July 2022. There’s been a lot. Stuff going on in the news. It’s, there’s just constantly payment technology news, FinTech news, all of the above every day, my email’s going ding notifications about some weird new thing that’s going on. So yeah, man pop right into it, Allen! All right, so there are a lot of things happening.
Probably, there’s like the biggest story going on is with Apple. So, there’s a lot of stuff going on with Apple. They’ve been on in the news a lot, and then. What about Apple? Oh, so Apple, big talk with them. They’re being sued for creating a non-competitive environment. And what does that mean for those that don’t know? So what that means is the big complaint is that you can only put the Apple wallet in your phone and Apple only loads, the credit cards in there who pay them money. So, if the credit card company you use doesn’t pay Apple money, to use the Apple wallet, then they don’t let you load into their wallet.
So does that mean, if I say, if you bank with Chase? If they don’t partner with Apple, then you can’t use Apple pay! Obviously, Chase does or whatever. I’m pretty sure Chase is partnered with. I have one business card, I don’t want to say who it’s from, but it can’t don’t work with Apple pay. And then they’re not letting anybody else put wallets on their phone, so you can’t let it to Google wallet or like Samsung has a wallet, you can’t load any other or there are other third-party wallets. You can’t put Google pay on your iPhone? I don’t think so. Are you sure? I haven’t tried, but apparently, that’s why they’re being sued really. And then there’s big talk about Apple, “Shame on you Apple!” with Buy Now Pay Later and they’re trying to get more and more people to use the Apple credit card.
And then incorporate features in there, so they’re saying it’s a non-competitive environment! The Buy Now Pay Later is continuing to trend. There’s another big company synchronicity, I think it’s pronounced. And that’s like the company, when you go to the furniture store and you buy furniture, they’re the ones doing, like all the financing for that. Yeah! Like alarm company, financings. All different types of finance, they’re jumping into the Buy Now Pay Later space! I know there’s really difficult to get signed up for them. Yeah. They’re for, it depends like for bigger stuff. Yeah, because I was trying to set up a furniture store website so they could sell furniture from their site.
They wanted half a million dollars in their checking account. Oh yeah, they want to make sure that “it was crazy”! the company’s not a scam! No, I’m just talking about more, we were talking about how Square. Right! Hides that little, not little amount hides that amount from people in case of chargebacks. That’s as a reserve. Yeah, that’s what it is. So, they wanted a half, a million-dollar reserve to even, start processing things. Wow, that’s crazy! So, the other stuff that’s going on in the news is like I started F I follow all these committees in the House and the Senate, so I try to follow the financial committees.
And then in the Senate, you got to of follow also. The Judiciary Committee, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me only because the guy Senator Durbin is on there. And he seems to, even though he’s on the Judiciary Committee, seems to dip his toe into the payment’s world all the time. I try to follow all that. So, then I started following one of the stories and I was like, there were all these agencies that I never heard of before. That was coming up. And one that I didn’t even know about is this consume C F P B Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I just don’t know why they need to have all these different types of agencies! Right!
Involved in the federal government, every time you turn around, there’s like another agency and then there’s, so this agency is supposed to be making sure that we’re not getting screwed? Consumers yeah, are protected! Okay. But there’s another thing. “I don’t think you guys are doing a good job!” Yeah. There are other agencies involved too, like who, the Federal Reserve, like I said, the House and Senate committees. And they’re talking about these like central digital banks. And then there was a discussion about Neo bank! Then they have this other committee, this other task force or agency, the task force on Financial Technology, we’re going to get into that. They have another task force on mobile and security. And then that is new newer one called the office of, “this one
I don’t understand”, of competition and innovation to promote competitive competition in the area of payments. This seems like they’re like really into anti-Visa and MasterCard. Doesn’t make sense if businesses don’t want to take Visa and MasterCard, and American Express or Discover, they can stop! But then how are you going to get paid? They built a system, a private company, built a system it’s successful and the government’s just putting it under attack. And the other thing, is it the government? Yeah, the government is! Or is it like they’re all attacking each other? No, the government is attacking private companies in this way.
If the government would just stop getting involved in the payments business, maybe costs would be reduced! But they keep creating more regulatory issues. And then obviously if you create a regulatory issue I’ll go back to when somebody else was president, they said, oh, companies who have more than 50 or more employees have to provide health insurance. So, what happened? Every company that had 50 or more employees got under 50 because they didn’t want to be forced into providing health insurance. And companies started and we had this, it was a massive headache for us. Let’s say you had somebody that owned like 20 restaurants. And there was under one corporation, they went and reincorporated and they made every restaurant, its own corporation just to keep under the 50 rules.
So that just shows you that when the government makes rules, private businesses make adjustments. Is that because I always wondered about that. Is that a better way of going about business? No! What they should do. Or I’m saying that when you say you, you have the government needs to but out! No Allen, not yet. Okay! So, you got 10 restaurants? Yeah! Is it better to have 10 separate LLCs set up or is it better just to have one? No, it’s better for them to have 10 and they don’t have to comply with the! I’m not just talking about that; I’m just talking about in general. In general, it’s probably better to have 10 separate LLCs.
God forbid there’s a lawsuit. Right! There’s better protection under that. So yeah. There are benefits to doing that, but also there I was right then. Yeah. Someone I never mind. Yeah. But under government regulation, there are too many government regulations, right? So you have all these go crazy government, regulations on all sorts of things, insurance, this, that, whatever they are, it’s much better too, businesses are gonna. Quickly to government regulation. So the government, if they would stay outta business, the businesses would run business would run smoother without a massive amount of regulation. And one of the things that they’re talking about, which I wrote lower down on the note which I’m gonna come back to is that payment innovation right now is outpacing regulation.
And there’s basically like in Congress like I would call Dick Durban, Senator Dick Durban. He can come on the podcast, tag him on Twitter, and come on podcast. Let’s talk payments. I’ll call him up. Okay. I’ll call it a payment activist in Congress. So, he’s one of those I call them a payment activist. I thought you called. I thought you said, never mind. Okay! So that’s like what’s going on because, payment innovation while they’re trying to say that they need this office of competition, then they’re saying, oh, they need that because innovation is outpacing regulation! Another area where. Then you shouldn’t be promoting innovation if you can’t keep up with it pal!
I don’t understand why they’re trying, it’s more like they’re trying to hold back innovation! Of course, they are always trying to hold it back! And, Neo banks, which are the banks that don’t have like a building have been in the news. So, one of the surveys I was reading said that, and I was surprised to read this 20% of the Neo banks that are out there right now were established in 2021, 20% of them. There’s not a lot, but there’s, that’s a lot! And there’s a big concern for fraud, not only with Neo banks with regular banks because everybody’s moving to where you can open up a bank account online and they’re trying to come up with how they are going to do the KYC otherwise known as Know Your Customer, right!
How are they going to accomplish that? And they’re talking about biometrics and other little things on how to do that, but it seems to be a big problem with fraud. Now, so we’ll go back to this office, the one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, they’re like going crazy with Congress. And that right now there’s a big thing going on, where they, that agency is ordered Google, Apple, Meta, AKA Facebook, Instagram, Amazon block, also known as Square PayPal and others to hand over information about how they use the data that they collect. Now I’ve long argued that those companies. In existence more for the data, they collect of course, than for the payments that they run.
They’re more focused on data than payments! When you think about it, it’s like, how do you think they’re able to target all these ads to everyone? Exactly. It’s because of the stuff that you purchased. So, when you purchase these things with one of these cards that you use. They sell that information, to the marketing companies who are doing yeah. Retargeting ads, they’re doing. They’re analyzing the data for, specific age groups, and race demographic. All demographic, yeah! So, zip code targeting your geo every time you do something on Facebook, it’s being tracked. People with the whole data thing.
You just don’t, people don’t understand it and they’re afraid of what they don’t see. And so they look at it like, oh, they’re collecting my DATA! A lot of people, like your phone. My wife is nuts with that. Yeah! Like your phone, a lot of people try to use incognito mode on their computers and browsers. They try to shut it off. Yeah! They shut off the tracking in the apps. And in the phone, but then when you shut that off, it messes up everything in your phone, because then you can’t do a bunch of stuff! Can I tell you something about all that? Unless you’re walking around with literally your face covered, or you don’t have any social media accounts like you’re just, you’re doing it for nothing, man. That’s what. Oh!
It’s crazy! So now they’re ordering them the handover, what are their data, and privacy policies? What do they do with the data? What products do they have that, and that they’re selling that with this, with all this knowledge that they’re all the information they’re collecting. What are their pricing plans, and what are their business practices? That’s a pretty deep dive! Yeah, so basically, they’re asking how much do you get paid for say 10,000 contacts, involved in that, which is name address, phone. Yeah, they’re not going to even understand it. My point is Congress, there’s way more important stuff for them to be dealing with!
Agreed inflation, drill for oil, get some more gasoline, lower the price of gas, and food, forget all this mess that they’re, going after all these companies. Because they’re just going to go change, they’re just going to go high to what they’re doing. And they’re like, you think like they’re so smart. The government, I remember when they came out with that Obamacare, which, they went and they paid some company in Canada, like hundreds of millions of dollars hundred, I don’t even remember what it was! Double-digit millions, to build this website that was crashing and crashing. Oh, Obamacare! Okay, so why didn’t they just go to Google and say to Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg? Oh, build me this website, they could have probably built it for like, 500 grand. It’s a government agency, it’s all about bidding. Right!
I’m just they went to the highest bidder, not the lowest for sure. And the website kept crashing. And why would you, The highest? I don’t know about that! okay. But why would you have your website built in Canada and not in the United States? That I don’t know, who built it? Some company in Canada. Who is on the committee in charge of hiring? Who knows? Let’s find out. We should! So, before you get into the next subject. Hey man, really quick, we got our hundredth episode coming up with a really cool giveaway. We’re giving away the Meta ocular, Meta Quest 2 with a 128-gigabyte thing in a jigger. Yeah, Oculus. It’s not in Oculus anymore. It’s called a Meta Quest, now you can do cool stuff.
Work out with, go fishing, virtual reality, take naps, and augmented reality! You can go take a nap and you can go to Star Trek in the metaverse. You can go to concerts in the metaverse. Yeah, that’s pretty cool! That is the coolest part of it, I like the concerts. I don’t know if I’m going to like wearing the goggles that thing. I don’t know! I think I would, it’s not that bad, it’s a little weird at first, it’s it takes you a little bit. I would like to see a concert in the metaverse. I think that would be pretty, I like the way that they were showing like you could watch, like Plato give his lecture back in Roman times.
Pretty cool. Yeah. So, I thought that was interesting. So, if you follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, or LinkedIn, you’ll be seeing the link for the giveaway. Follow the instructions. Please make sure you confirm the email. If you do not confirm your email, you will not win the prize at all. Even if you’re selected, it automatically gets a checkmark! Watch out because we’re going to post the date of the hundredth episode, and you’ll be able to get whatever and invite so that you get invited. There’s also more than just the Meta Quest. You also there are other prizes for that’s the first. Gift cards! The second place is a hundred dollars gas card.
Third place is a $50 Amazon gift card for buying, whatever you may see, and then live giveaways during the live 100th episode, there’ll be some live giveaways. So please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram TikTok at B2B Vault. Check out B2Bvault.info. You can catch up on the last past episodes there. There’s also a form for you to contact Allen or myself to schedule an appointment to learn more about merchant services. There’s also another form if you’re interested or in sponsoring a podcast! Shout out to Nationwide Payment Systems, and NPS Printer, thank you!
There’s a form for you there to fill out if you’re looking for merchant services or you’re looking to learn more about the types of services that we offer. There is a nice little link up on the navigation for you to click that says Apply Now. Fill out your information, a very short questionnaire. We’ll be back in touch with you in 24 hours. Back to you buddy! All right, back to me! So, some other stuff that’s in the news, other things, there’s a lot going on in Congress. “Payment Activists.” Yep, that’s what I call it! And then the other thing that happened was Visa was blocked from buying this company Plaid. So, Plaid is this company that provides confirmation that your bank account belongs to you.
So, they blocked Visa because they said it was going to create too big of a monopoly. Why? I don’t know, they blocked it! They said it’s going to because then Visa would control checking and credit card and checking accounts. But that’s a security thing, you would think that they’d be. I don’t know, that’s blocked by the FCC. And then Plaid they had a partnership with Stripe! Who pissed off who? But Plaid is also in the news because they’re in a fight with Stripe. After all, Stripe got rid of that, came out with their own product to replace Plaid, and bounced them from off their platform. I don’t think Plaid’s got any, so what anyone can go and make. I know there are a few other smaller apps that do bank account verification.
And they don’t like that? I don’t know, bank account verification has become the big thing. It’s a big thing right now with NACHA, which regulates the ACH. And I think that they’ve got to come up with a better way to authenticate, so that people can’t do like chargebacks on the ACH and that the ACHs are verified. I don’t know why like I read all these articles about security, there’s like I said, there was the whole big thing going on with mobile and security. I just don’t know why they don’t go to this two-factor authentication. So, everybody’s got to get a text message. Your tech, your phone numbers.
Your bank has your phone number, your credit card has your phone number. And that way you can get verified on all two FA is great. Two-factor authentication is great if you’re organized. For people who are unorganized or lose their phones, a lot of misplaced passwords, I could see how it can be catastrophic. They’re talking about we need something else. What is that something else? And how long is it going to take? Everybody else scanned our faces, everyone scanned our faces with the Snapchat app. Everyone did that. So, I don’t, that’s what, that’s two-factor authentication.
Same thing. Yeah. Scan. That’s what I am saying. Just do that. Every, most of the iPhones, they need to come up with a, they need to just come up with a standard and just go with it more, two or three different standards and just go with it. Yeah. You just got to. Just not force them, but I’m saying you got to, I’m kidding.
They need to make a decision and move on it instead of vacillating, I think, I think what it really boils down to is like stop giving so many options. Say, you, look either you’re going to put your thumbprint in here or you’re going to put your scan your face. Yeah. It’s either or otherwise, you’re not going to be able to download your banking app. You won’t be able to pay for things online with your credit card. And in my opinion, as opposed I am of that type of thing. “Big brother!” Yes, big bro is constantly watching. Fraud needs to stop. But fraud does need to stop, right? So there, if there’s only if that’s like literally legitimately one of the only ways that I’m going to be able to ever log into my banking account through my phone, then so be it, man.
What? It’s not the, I’ve got my laptop, but that’s biometric. You can put your finger on there to authenticate yourself. On the laptops, that’s one of the ways to log in. I was young once. Have you ever got arrested? Who? You? Me? I was picked up by the cops. Yeah. Did they get your fingerprints? I don’t think they fingerprinted me. I’ve had my fingerprints taken before. Okay. I had my fingerprints taken for a few things. Like you have to have your fingerprint at the DMV and stuff like that. Yeah. The DMV for the like, it’s crazy, like in Texas and Georgia, when I was in the food business. You were paid for something, you mean your thumb on the, for your check?
No. No, but they made you in Texas and Georgia. You had to go get fingerprinted if you worked in a bar. Oh, yeah! You had to be fingerprinted and I’ve been bonded before, and you had to get fingerprinted for that. So, your fingerprints are all over the place. Everyone has yours, yeah, it’s not a big deal. And it was weird. Like we had, I worked for this one company. I lived in Atlanta, and they had a restaurant in this weird county, and we had to get a TVB test and they took your thumbprint and your index fingerprint. I thought it was weird. It’s a little weird, but like when you do, when you apply for a liquor license, they fingerprint you for that.
I had to get a fingerprinted cause they’re putting you through the database. Yeah. I had to get fingerprinted. Yeah, man. All over the everywhere state. So, I don’t know. For everyone who was like, I’m never going to do that. I’m sorry for you. I think the technology’s going to, yeah, they got to do something. It’s got to go. You’re not going to have a choice. So, the other stuff going on in Congress, which I just don’t understand, there are 50 plus bills floating around in Congress about cannabis. Okay. The one that’s been around that needs to get taken care of is this safe banking act. So instead of addressing safe banking, they have a whole bunch of cannabis bills or laws.
A bill basically, they introduce a bill, then the committees vote on it. And if the committee says they like it, then they send it to the floor. Yeah. So, it has to go under the floor of the House or the Senate, depending on where the bill starts. Then let’s say the house votes on it. They go, okay, we want to, they pass the bill. Then it has to go to the Senate or vice versa. They pass it in the Senate. Then it goes to the ask. Then if both houses of Congress pass the bill, it goes to the President, and the President signs it, then you have a law! So, I don’t understand, they’ve got all these bills floating around. Maxine Waters had a whole bunch of them.
We talked about it on the podcast before, and now Schumer and a bunch of other people, Corey Booker, and a few others right! Now, they come up with this new thing called the cannabis administration and opportunity. And they’re saying, oh, this is historic, but they’re not legalizing banking for the marijuana industry, which I just don’t understand. This is just about the same thing that Maxine Waters thinks about was to decriminalize marijuana. So, the right, the one takes it off your record and all that, from my understanding, the reason that they’re having such a really big farce right now of why they can’t move forward. Yeah. Is because they literally don’t know what to do with all of the people who are on parole and probation for non-violent marijuana charges.
I’m just saying. But that’s why they can’t get it, dude, it’s so simple! Drop the charges and start releasing the people who are in prison in phases. If they’ve, if do smaller time to the guys. If the guy’s been in jail for 50 years for an ounce of weed, man. Let it’s time for him to go home and see his family. Yeah! So, let’s get those guys out first. There are a lot of people in jail for down, right? It’s minor for minor stuff. I just don’t know why it’s such a deal. But some God traffic, like 500 pounds of marijuana. No, it’s still legal, weed just legal. It’s a wrap, bro. If he traffics a hundred tons of it, it’s over. There’s the trafficking of a hundred tons of cannabis right now. Okay, what about cocaine?
Cocaine that’s a wrap. Okay! Cocaine that’s a different thing. You, but we’re talking about marijuana, right? Marijuana. There are a lot of people. There are a lot of people with small amounts of marijuana in jail. It doesn’t matter if it like small or large. The fact of the matter is at the end of the day, right now, present day, July 25th, 2022, Let them all outta jail. Dude, like right now, there’s a plane carrying a hundred tons of weed, from wherever it’s grown in different parts of the world. And guess where it’s landing all over the United States. And it’s legally getting. So, there is no reason for any more debate amongst you people. Like it’s time to let those guys go.
I think Congress needs to act on marijuana. Yeah. But they think they need to act on it in a way that’s responsible and take care of the people that have it on their record. Legalize it in. So that it can be sold in stores in all 50 states. Simple! At the same time and legalize it so these businesses can get banking and let ’em pay taxes. Why can’t you? It’s a multi-billion-dollar entity! Why can they treat it exactly the same way as alcohol? Uh, yes. Cigarettes and alcohol. Treat it in the exact same way. Yes, cigarettes and alcohol. If any, as you’ve never seen anybody drive, smoke a joint, and crash into a tree, bro. Come on, man. I don’t know about that!
They could have been something else on the marijuana. There you go. That forced them to do that. There you go. But what we’re saying real quick, man, we love you all. We hold your head to everybody that’s in prison for minor infractions of cannabis, pass the Dutchie to the left on site. Nope. Fire it up. Hey, like Cheech and Chong right, Up in Smoker! So that’s just crazy what’s going on with that. And I think Congress needs to figure it out. And not all these little solutions. I don’t know why like you need to, they got bills in the House bills in the Senate.
And the other thing that’s just a little squirrely with all that is there’s another thing going on in Congress were there, the news has been asking Nancy Pelosi, about buying stocks and all these companies, and this is going on with marijuana too! She has been she’s got a couple She has done some shady stuff! Yeah, Nancy had messed up. I, sorry, I think that Congress should, the people in Congress should not be allowed to buy stocks in companies. And even their relatives should not be allowed to buy stocks in companies where they ask information, about things that are being done. I remember. That stuff to go way up in value. She’s been busted for buying Visa stock during some other thing that she went on, she bought something else stupid too. She just got involved in something. That’s a chip company. That’s being awarded a massive contract. And China said if you bring your butt over here. I don’t know.
They’re upset because she’s talking about going to Taiwan and they don’t want her to go to Taiwan. That’s what I’m saying. Then China said, she is going to stir the pot. you go, you going to start a war. Let’s not talk about it! I don’t want in no war. I had a terrible dream last night. I don’t want to talk about this, I don’t want a war! I really don’t want that to happen. No. Like giant mutant fish, it was bad. Okay! What bad? So, the other thing going on in Congress now, like this stock thing, they need to pass a law. So, this is the thing that’s crazy. They can’t get anything done. They just get the gas price down already. Let them. But not 3.99. Yeah. But let him just drill for gas.
Why are we buying all this gas from everywhere? It’s ridiculous. And we just gave him Biden and just gave Millions of gallons of gas to China. What are we doing that for? We’re just rubbing the back. It’s like the little baby China. I don’t like it. He’s just rubbing the back. I don’t like it, man. It’s going to be okay. You got a little tummy ache, here’s 300 million dollars! Let’s not get, let’s not get too crazy with politics! Yeah no. The other thing’s going on in Congress, which also has to do with this Nancy Pelosi mess is that members of Congress before they passed this, build back, whatever blah, blah, blah, bill earlier in the year that created those crypto taxes.
Yeah. Comes out before that was before that went in, estimated approx. several people in Congress sold over 1.8 million dollars. That’s just what they know about in crypto-related investments to avoid paying those. So, they knew that it was hidden in the bill, it got slid in there. Can you imagine, in my honest opinion, that 1.8 mil is on the low side? Right, exactly! Probably more like 1.8 billion. Or trillion. So that’s just a whole big mess and the finding, and this is done by like a research company, and they’re saying that, and this is just the midpoint of dollar ranges that was reported in public disclosures. So then it says there’s a huge backlash against members of Congress being able to trade securities while in office. I agree!
And crypto is a huge debate and the securities. And exchange commission and the commodity futures creating commission are, talking about regulating, regulating what’s going on with that. The Senate Banking and agriculture, the SEC the CFTC. So right now, the way it is, let’s say you’re a, you’re the Senator of whatever? Omaha? Right! No, Florida! There you go, Florida. I was just, so you could, you’re sitting. So, you got, you got some money, you got, a couple hundred thousand save and you go and buy, I go buy the special chip stock. That’s about to get awarded a huge government contract and you can do that.
They’re not supposed to be doing it, but there’s no specific law. How can you stop it? They need to have rules that prevent that! So, you’re the Senate, right? So, what if, I’m your nephew? Yeah, that should be forbidden because you have, first of all, insider trading is against the law. Of course! So that’s what they’re doing it’s insider trading. But how can they prove it? They know it, they prove it because those people have to give financial disclosures and then they see it on their tax returns when they have to file taxes, that they did it when they did it. And all that. When you own stocks, it shows when you bought it, and when you sold it.
True. So, it shouldn’t be allowed! I guess the proof is in the pudding, right? None of this should be allowed. You can’t be like, yeah, man. It was coincidental, I spent $50,000 on some, chip company and I knew tomorrow that they were going to sell for 500 trillion. Exactly, it’s just wrong what’s going on! These people in Congress are just making mega bucks like left and right. At least for the people who have money that has been in Congress for 20, 30, or 40 years, that term limit is the only answer. Yeah. Didn’t Florida just pass that? Term limits? There’s a term limit, I think. Yeah. In Florida for people in the state, but not for federal Congress.
Yeah. I know. But I’m saying like Florida did it’s 12 years or something like yeah. Believe they pass the law. I still think that’s a little long, I don’t know. People need to get things accomplished; 12 years is nothing compared to you getting lifelong stuff. Lifelong is crazy man! You’ve got Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi they have been in there 40-50 years. It’s enough for them! No, that’s not good. Okay. It’s not good. That’s just not okay. What are they accomplishing? They’re just lying in their pockets! Yeah. All that’s going on. You got somebody making a $200- $300,000 salary worth 10, 20, 30, $40 million. Where did they get the money from?
They don’t own a business. They didn’t make an invention. They didn’t invent that? They didn’t invent anything. They are doing something else to make that money. It’s just wrong. Listen, there’s a whole movie Eddie Murphy made called The Distinguished Gentleman. Oh, I love that movie! Where he likes pretends to be another guy and he gets in Congress and he is like, man if I did all this stuff on the outside, I’d be locked up in jail forever. In here it’s all legal. Yeah. It’s all legal, but it’s a great movie. Watch that movie. That’s exactly what’s going on in Congress. It’s been going on. It’s just getting worse and worse. And the money’s getting bigger and bigger. The longer these people are in office, they’re amassing huge amounts of money.
It’s wrong. The other thing going on in Congress, which is crazy is there’s like over 50 bills focused on crypto and also that agency, let me go back to my notes. Cause that’s a long name, the Consumer Financial Protection bureau. Right, they’re charging they’re dating the charge on the crypto. Them, the SEC, the task force on financial technology everybody is in on this crypto thing, what to do with it. They got the Marines in on it too, just in case. Yeah, they don’t know what they’re going to do with crypto. They don’t know what they’re going to do with it. How they’re going to classify it and they’re saying like, oh, Bitcoin and Ethereum might be controlled by this agency.
And the rest of the tokens are going to be controlled by somebody else and NFTs somebody else is going to be watching over that. This is just completely outta it’s. It’s very disorganized! Congress, they’re just going to mess up the whole Crypto thing. Then you know, they already have! They messed it up with the whole tax situation. Yeah. I should have just left it alone and it’s not totally, I’m not a crypto expert. We’re not financial advisors. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about most of the time when it comes to crypto coins. I do, but at the end of the day, man, I don’t think anyone really can understand what’s going on.
No, but the problem that they’re, what they’re talking about is separating Bitcoin and Ethereum from the other tokens and how they’re and how they’re going to be. Who’s going to be the watchdog. The problem with that is, is most of those tokens are based on. Ethereum? Ethereum and Bitcoin. So, I don’t understand how they can do that. Yeah. I don’t get it either. And then what are the coins used for and all this stuff? I mean, what’s the real problem. I think I just, I don’t get it. I just. People were trading it like the problem is the reason Bitcoin went down. I’ve mentioned it in other podcasts, they created these laws, they created these extra taxes.
So, the companies or the people or whatever, they were entities that were day trading coin and going up and going down and going up and going down and buying and selling all day long. All those people pulled their money out of that market. Because it said, oh, you got to pay tax. And then the other thing that we’re discussing, which I see that Elon Musk that is about to tax him $416 million, he doesn’t care. He pays taxes Musk. I was like 406. Yeah. He pays a lot of taxes, he’s one of the only guys you can go, look, you can Google this. He borrowed like, millions from the federal government to build the first Tesla factory. Yeah. I remember that he made so much. You know what he did. He called up the government.
He gave him back the money. That’s said, you want to give it back so soon. He is yeah, he. Whatever here. And it gave all the money back. I can’t say that for Ford, General Motors none of those people. They still owe. Who knows? They probably never pay it back. Who knows if they’re making, even making payments who knows highly doubt Ford is making payments on anything that no, but I’m just saying it’s crazy? Yeah. Like these companies, you look at somebody like. I look at Elon Musk, I see a guy. This is a successful business guy, right? With a successful business plan. This guy lives in his factory. I love him, man. I don’t know him as a person. I love what he stands for as an entrepreneur and a businessman.
He doesn’t, it, I and him have a lot of similarities when it comes to. I’m very blunt and I’m straightforward and I’m honest. So, there are a lot of things that I say that don’t go over very well, with certain people. But I don’t know how he is personally. I don’t know if he’s a total racist douchebag. I don’t know. He could be a lot of people’s super villains are anyway, but he’s calling out these other corporations as he does with Twitter. I liked how he did that. He wants to buy Twitter will show me that all these accounts are actually real people, and they couldn’t do that.
So, then he’s calling the bullshit! Go look at the government to have them meet that several meetings since Biden’s been in office about electric cars. Do you know that they never invited Elon Musk? I do know that. How do you not, how do you not invite Elon Musk? He’s built more electric cars than all the companies that make electric that make cars altogether. He’s made more cars than them. Yeah, I don’t know! And the thing is like I was watching this other thing, this other congressional thing, the other. Then we’ll end the podcast. Cause he’s not American. That’s what it all boils down to. I feel like no one likes him. He’s a citizen. That’s it though. But if he was born in America, there would be no other, they would like him better.
I think so mean. So, they were questioning. It’s stupid. They were questioning this to judge, whatever the transportation secretary about electric cars. And another guy and they start, and they started asking them like questions. They’re like, yeah. If gas prices keep going higher, people just can be forced to buy an electric car. And then he didn’t want to answer any of the questions. So, then there are these two other guys on there who started putting up some and started discussing facts and figures. So, at first, I was like, that can’t be true. So, I looked it up and it says, how many cars because they said it would take 50 to 70 years to replace every car on the road.
I was like, wow, there’s that many cars. So, I looked it up and there are over 700 million cars on the road. That’s personal transportation, right? Like light trucks for business, like pickup trucks, 700 million. So, then I said how many cars do they make in a year in the United States? Take a guess. 25,000. No, come on. It’s a bigger number than, oh no many cars, no. Any car, all cars I don’t know. Hundred, hundred million. No, they make about the best year ever. A million cars. Okay. Are you talking about building cars from scratch? Yep! Okay, 500,00. 8 to 10 million a year. Really? New cars get built in the United States.
10 million cars? Yeah. And out on yeah, 10 million. New cars, think about it. People get, I know when you just said 700 million though, that should blow my mind. Sorry. So, 10 million cars that’s on the best year. The average is somewhere around 8 million or less. And Elon Musk, I don’t know how many electric cars he made. But I think it was like close to a million in one year is he hasn’t even crossed a million for the year. So, when you look at that and you go, they would’ve to change every single factory, every car would’ve to how many. How many Teslas are produced in a year?
No, like less than a million. But listen to this. Oh, wow! So, you would’ve to replace every single factory, make all-electric cars, and then in the best year you can only make 10 million cars. That’s. If you could get all the chips and all the stuff for the battery, never going to happen. 10 million cars. If you can only make 10 million, it’s going to take you 50 to 70 years to replace everything out on the road. They’re talking about Pete Buttigieg, oh, by 2025, everybody will be driving an electric car. These people don’t even know how to do the math. And I thought that they were wrong. I was like, there can’t be that many cars. I Googled it. Yeah. There are that many cars. And then they were talking about. There are three cars in my driveway right now.
That’s what I’m talking about! People, you have a family. Like I have myself, my son, my daughter, everybody has a car. That’s what I mean, my mom has a car. Almost every person has a car because you could buy a car for less than 30 grand. You can buy some cars for less than 20 grand until this, all this upheaval. There were new cars you could buy that were probably 12 to 15 grand. Oh yeah. Those KIA’s. Yeah. Now they’re like 20 grand. Yeah, the, yeah, that sucked. Now they’re like 20 grand, but you could buy them like you could have a couple of years ago bought. So, the availability of cars to everybody at an everybody price was out there. So you. 700 over 700 million guards on the road.
That makes sense. You are not going to get rid of 700 million cars in the next couple of years. That’s why we need to drill for gas. Pulled the gas out of the ocean, out of Texas. I was watching this guy. I was watching a video of this guy, who says that he has land in South Dakota in the middle of nowhere. It was he’s like I’m hiring people, come and I’ll teach you how. Whatever be a, whatever they call that roughneck. To drill for oil, he says that he has a giant oil reserve under his property, and he could fill the whole United States with oil, and he wants to build a refinery there. He’s like Biden, call me up!
Kristi Noem, I think she’s the governor of that state call me up. He goes, I’m ready to go! Says he has a. The only problem I have is as long as they’re doing it environmentally sound. That’s what he’s saying. He’s saying, instead of having all these pipelines. He’s saying that they should drill for the oil and refine it right where they’re doing it. Yeah. And stop with all this mess and stop selling all our refineries to the Chinese and the Saudis and all this stuff and keep it all in America, USA makes the USA number one! There’s only two years ago, we were completely energy independent. I do remember that. And gas was like less than two bucks.
Maybe it was a little over two bucks. I could fill up my whole car for 30 bucks. Yeah. I missed those $33 fills. Let me tell you, it’s hurting people badly. It’s hurting and it’s causing the prices of everything. Food. and anything you have to buy clothes is even getting expensive again. Yeah. Clothes are a big problem because I didn’t know. I, we were talking about this not too long ago on the podcast about clothes, was staying the same. Yeah! And I went to grab a few socks and boxers that stuff went up. And you wonder what’s weird, the materials change too. Yeah. I don’t like you got to, and I’m so picky with that.
You can just tell it’s very picky with its. Mine’s like everything is made out of superplastic, like weird material, like really weird material. Like I buy, I work out and I walk Rocky in the morning, and I work out on my Peloton go Peloton. And so, I brought those shirts, The wicking shirts. And I bought some and then the material was horrible. I went and returned them. It felt like I was wearing a plastic bag. Ugh. No, I didn’t like it. It was gross. No, but everybody, I hope everybody enjoyed the podcast payment trends is one of our podcasts. Everybody seems to like it, we got a lot of listens on that.
Yes. The monthly podcast where we just try. Just let you know what’s going on. What’s going on in the news. What’s going on in Congress. What’s affecting everybody. If you want to save money on credit card processing, we can help you either with better pricing or we can show you how you can do our zero pay and pay zero. I was reading a thing. That’s the other thing I wanted to talk about, they were trash in this restaurant. That’s near my house up in Coral Springs because they added an 8% inflation, thing to everybody’s bill. Wow! And the guy said he had to do it because he can’t afford to keep reprinting the menus.
And he’s got to take items off the menu because they can’t get them or the price is too high for him to serve them at an affordable price in the restaurant. This gas is causing a big upheaval. And I heard it’s not just a gas too, I also heard that they can’t get people to drive. People don’t want to drive. That’s why the price of gas has gone down a little bit in the last couple of weeks, as people can’t afford to drive. So, they just don’t go anywhere. And I was talking to a friend of mine who owns his, he owns his own semi. He said he had to park it. He said he couldn’t afford the gas. Yeah.
Paying enough. He said that one day, he was on his, and he realized like at the end of the. That he was almost going to be in the red, for the trip, meaning that he wouldn’t have made any money for the, driving back and forth. And by the time all the gas and everything, he was like, dude, I made a couple of hundred bucks. Yeah, it’s crazy. You can’t, he’s I can’t be gone for three weeks. He, like, so he parked it. He said he’s lucky because he actually paid his off. And the price of diesel is through the roof. Yeah. But he said, he knows a bunch of guys who had to will not one either got their trucks repo or two had to go give him back if the company where they got it from would take it back from.
Yeah. It’s a big problem. You got to., I say it. I say it all the time, Economics 101 gas runs the economy of the United States and the world period! Guns and butter baby. You have the price of gas goes up the price that everything goes up. I’ve seen it happen when I was a kid, I saw it happen in 2008 and 2009. And if this continues, this is going to work. We’re going to. We’re going to see some might not be the same things happen that happened in 2008, and 2009, but we’re going to see other things happen that it’s going to cause. It’s not going to be good, can’t have this happen!
So, check out the giveaway on social media, and watch out for the posts on the hundredth episode, so, you can get on Live, cause there’s going to be live prizes. Also, if you want to book an appointment, try our new text thing. Text, BOOK to 9 5 4 8 2 7 9 8 1 8. If you don’t remember the number, check the notes in the podcast on our listen notes, and you’ll catch the phone number and you can just text, BOOK, we already had a couple of people book appointments. That’s cool. So, everybody peace out! Carpe Diem, we’re out. Go Gators, go Yankees, go brewers as well. Go, Rocky!
