Josh Smith
Appearances
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Oh, yeah. Well, just going down to the beach, gorgeous beach, but walking down there, the garbage and the homeless and- In one of the most beautiful places in America. I mean that California is unbelievable, but. Yeah. And it's mostly not beach, but that's what makes the postcards. Exactly. No, it's, I mean, we live in Montana.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
It's a beautiful state, but there's no more beautiful state than California. I mean, the diversity between the mountains, the skiing, the vineyards.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yep. Desert. The whole wine country tours. Oh God. The, what is it? The 13 or 18 mile or whatever drive around like the pebble beach area. Uh,
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. I mean, you drive that, that stretch of that coast and whatnot. I toured that when I was down there one time, just killing some time is unbelievably beautiful. They have some problems in that state. They do. I'm from that state. Is that where you were born and raised?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
That's where you grew up. Since you grew up surfing and doing all that. I grew up. Were you a beach guy?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Did you grow up somewhere close to where those fires happened? The fires in San... Oh, yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Okay. When I flew in there for that podcast, as we're dropping in there... Oh, you're talking to LA. Yeah. Santa Cruz is 400 miles north.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I haven't heard like what was arson and. I believe there was a healthy mix of both. Cause I think maybe there was one or two of them started potentially from power lines as well.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Well, and when we were dropping in there to fly in, it boggles the mind when you look at those areas on the outskirts of LA, how... packed how close those homes are together. I mean, just for miles, it's just absolutely, you know, they're a foot apart for miles. I mean, once you get a fire going like that, I don't know how you stop it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And like you say, I don't know how it hasn't happened before and, or how they're going to keep it from happening again, because you know, the, the rebuilding part too, like what people don't understand. And I understand what Trump was saying. And I agree with some of how he, the, the idea that he was trying to push them to cut some red tape and help rebuild.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
But you also can't just go into those areas and start bulldozing stuff immediately because like when I, when I was a lineman, When you have a fire like that come through, there's a few things to think about. One, gas. Gas lines are coming out of the ground. You have regulators and they're shut off.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
But if people start just stripping across the ground with a blade or whatever and you break all that stuff off, now you have blowing gas.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Though they're not low pressure. I mean, they're medium pressure. They're low pressure after they go through a regulator, but when they come out of the ground, they're still at, you know, line pressure from the main that they're coming from. Yeah. But when you, you have a burned out home there and you just take a back or a bulldozer and you just scrape off that lot. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
You have gas lines coming out of the ground on every single one of those. So you have to go through and mitigate that danger and make sure that all those gas lines are taken care of. You then power wise, you have junction cans and transformers. And what you don't know is what's still hot and what's not hot as far as energized. So you can't just assume.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
you know, well, that transformer is dead over there. This one must be dead too. So there's a lot of mitigating risk and like threat to life that the power companies have to come through and just make sure everything's actually safe before you can even start. And then.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Well, and this goes back to something that we dealt with when... So when I was still a lineman, they had had... They have fires down there in California all the time, but they had had some major, major fires that burned up a ton of homes maybe seven, eight years ago.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Six or seven years ago. And it was found to have been started by a power line that touched a tree or whatever. And so... the citizens that were affected by that turn around and they sue like PG&E, right? They sue the power company. Well, the issue with that is guess who is going to pay for that? It's going to be the rate payers when they come out of that, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And then you start turning this thing into, and this is where the discussion came to Montana. It's like, okay, it's hot and dry in August, crazy hot and dry, drought, Does the power company make the decision, hey, we don't want to get sued if we happen to actually accidentally start a fire. So we're going to start shutting the power off every day at one o'clock until nine o'clock at night.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Or you could bury the power lines. Um, that's easier said than done. Like go try and bury that many power lines through a major city. You know, I mean, I feel like it's not that hard.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Even like on Maui burying power lines, it's made out of volcanic rock. I mean, uh, at times ditching power lines is easier said than done, you know, when it's volcanic freaking rock, you know, I'm just saying it lowers the fire danger.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
But the other thing with these power lines is like in Montana, when we trim trees and vegetation away from our power lines, we have the advantage that shit doesn't grow around here for like six, seven months. In California, your vegetation is growing 12 months out of the year. You know, again, who's going to pay for all that, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And even if you do that, like you were talking about the brush management and the trees and all that stuff in just subdivisions, like who's going to pay to keep the brush growing you know, to a non-dangerous fire level in an entire state that's already broke.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah, bank's not going to loan against it. No, and a lot of times insurance companies will loan, I know because I burned my house down, will insure you against like your own kind of accidents, right? If you're burning pine needles or you cigarette or a candle or something like that, but they won't on the act of God stuff. So floods.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Force fires. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. And even as far as rebuilding that, There again, with the infrastructure that all has to be put back in, all those gas rig stations that all got burned, like everything has to be inspected and brought back up to a safe standard. Power lines have to be rebuilt, all the junction cans, transformers, like substations.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I mean, there's a massive amount of work that has to happen before you can even hook a house up to that system, to that grid. So they have a long road ahead of them.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. I don't know. It's a challenge. I mean, we raised $325,000 through that Heller high water deal that we just did half of that. We're going to, we're actually going to build a family, a home in North Carolina with half of that. We're, uh, I guess kind of announcing it here, but we're working with Tulsi Gabbard's sister.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Tulsi started a foundation when the Maui fires happened to help rebuild houses in Maui. None of this was real public. They just did it out of the goodness of their heart. They haven't actually done anything to talk about in public. Um, then when North Carolina happened, they just took their organization and went to North Carolina to help people.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And they've been going just house by house, building some houses here recently. So we're going to build one of those houses. And then we're also going to go down to California.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And we're trying to work out the logistics of this, but we're going to go try and find just individual families that have been affected and write checks or basically like visa cash cards to those people, because it's going to be months, if not years before they're building homes. So what we're going to try and do is go help some of those people to address that question.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
You just asked like, what are they going to do in the meantime? Yeah. I mean, you know, when my house burned down, I had to live in a hotel, but then I went and bought a camper. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And even the businesses that burn down, like how do they rebuild? Even if you rebuilt a business, like how long is it going to be until you have enough people around that are living there and functional to help support your business? I mean, I don't know. It's a, it's a nightmare. And who's to say that's not going to happen again in two years?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And if the government's going to pay to do that, then what about Northern California? Are they going to go log... around all these small little towns that are, you know, you look at like a Sealy Lake in Montana. Like, is the government pay to gonna thin the forest around you because you happen to live in a forest?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Like, you could spin this out to all over the country, people choose to live in areas that are subject to hurricanes, floods, Mississippi River, you know, Delta, all that, Montana, forest fires. And obviously there's forest fires in every Western state. At the end of the day, mother nature, she's a bitch. And if she wants to bitch slap you, she just will.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And I'm not sure you can weed eat enough bushes out of the way to keep her from doing her thing.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I mean, if it's for sale and someone wants to write the check for the amount it's for sale, I'm not sure how you can stop them.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I mean, you can waste time stressing and thinking about it, or you can go do something productive.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I choose to worry about things I can actually affect or control. I mean, because there's, I mean, we live in this era right now where you can get on Instagram and get mad about anything all the time. I mean, politics, whatever. I tend to be decent at like, read it, say, well, fuck, that sucks. I hate that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
But then also instantly forget about it and go do something that I can actually, like, how can I affect my employees' lives and make them better? How can I build my company? Something with my kids and my family, my wife, whatever, right? Go mow my lawn.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
No doubt. Yeah. Well, you're not the first person to say that. So get in line.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. Well, it's interesting because people ask me if I'm from Montana and Uh, I am fifth generation Montanan, but I'm not really, cause I was born in Colorado Springs. You're not a Montana at all. Right. My parents immigrated to Canada two days after I was born. And then they, they, it was 81 when the interest rates were insane. They, they couldn't afford to make it up there.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
My grandpa lived up there running a ranch. Uh, and so they moved back down to Montana cause my mom was born in Bozeman. Um, so I've lived here since I was six months old, but doesn't cut it. I'm an out of stater. Yeah. I'm a piece of shit too. To some people. Yeah. You are the enemy. And the thing is with, with Montana, like, sure.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
If I could have waved a magic wand in 1985 and just said, no, well, no one else coming in and we all get to split up the ground that's left. Like, Okay. I guess if you're King, you wanted to just keep Montana to yourself like that, I guess would have been fun, but it's not the reality of life.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And, you know, we we've actually been dealing with this, even with our new building that we're building, um, We're helping finance a water line that's actually going to eventually serve... We're basically helping bring city water to this section of Missoula where they want more development. The county does. The county's been working with us.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
So we're building this water line that's going to serve a commercial subdivision and then eventually a subdivision for homes. That makes sense. We're helping build that. And then the county's going to buy it from us when we're done. And it's just a public... private partnership deal. And we're essentially helping push along what we need quicker, but it's going to be a benefit to that area.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
But people are complaining about these subdivisions. But then in the very next breath, people complain about the housing prices, right? So my daughters, two of them have just graduated in the last three years from Frenchtown. And I look at them, one wants to be a school teacher, the other one's trying to become a veterinarian. How are they ever going to afford to buy a house here?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Well, if you don't build any homes... It's a supply and demand thing. If we don't build anything around here, it's going to become Big Sky and Whitefish. Like, go try to buy a house in Whitefish. Good luck.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Right, exactly. Now, if you want your children to be able to stay here and afford to buy a house, you're going to have to build some homes. I mean, it's a pure and simple math problem with supply and demand. And so...
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
We just had everybody up at our property for our Tuesday morning meeting. Had the whole team up there. Yeah, he came ripping by.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
It's a, and then when you look at, when you look at industry, it's funny, I was at a public meeting where some old, they're always white haired and like 75 and they're worried about their pension and their taxes going up. And they were complaining about this water system going in.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And they were like, well, we need some industry, you know, that come in here and provide jobs before we build this water system. And it's like, Yeah, we actually, you can't build a building over 14,000 square feet without a water line to provide fire suppression. So it's a chicken or egg thing. By us building the water system, we've now allowed that opportunity to build big buildings.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Our building's 50,000 square feet. Because of what we're doing now, companies like ours might move into that area and then they're going to hire people, right? And the wages, I don't know what the average wage of our company is, but it's up close to a hundred grand, you know, 85 to a hundred grand for an average wage. And
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Those are good jobs as compared to the other thing that could have gone on that property would have been a hotel. And you're going to hire some people to clean some rooms and maybe one or two managers.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Service level jobs, right? Hotels, some restaurants, some gas stations. We need some actual manufacturing companies that need professionals to come and work. We hire professional videographers, engineers, machinists, right? And then those people are going to make a good wage. They're going to turn right back around and spend that money in our community.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Our enrollment in our school here is actually dropping in Frenchtown, if you can believe it. And I think it's based on price. The only people that can afford to buy homes around here don't have young kids, right? You generally see people moving here who are retired or sold their companies. They've raised their kids.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Our enrollment three years in a row now in Frenchtown has dropped, even though you can't afford to, or you can't find a house here to buy.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I definitely think, I mean, there's no doubt, the numbers show that people are having less kids than they were before. I mean, every generation from- It's because they're terrible and exhausting, as you know. It's true. Yeah, they try to open boxes with chef's knives and pry staples out and shit like that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Well, it was, it was a tool and he needed a tool at that moment to do a job. So he used it. God. No, it's it's it happens with kids, but I do think the. The other thing is, is you see kids, I think they're very smart and practical.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
A lot of kids are these days and they're looking at like, where, how are they going to raise a family when they can barely afford to pay rent in the tiny little place they're in?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. No. And I, I, I, the, I also think you have a lot of young kids. I've heard kids say like, I'm just, I just don't want to bring kids into this world. Like it seems like this world's messed up and whatnot. My answer always is, is that's rough. I don't think there's been any time in history that people haven't looked at something going on at the time.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Like, I don't think anyone looked at, uh, times during the great depression and thought this is a perfect time to have kids.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Right, or Vietnam. I mean, there's always been something, right? And that's what I always say about just life in general. Like when people talk about how, you know, like, well, it's impossible to start a business today and it's impossible to succeed and whatever. And I'm like, I'm not sure it was any easier for my grandparents in the Great Depression. You know, I think it's always hard.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I always walk up to helicopters with Hank, and that way if he gets clipped in the head first, I know I need to... It's like, don't touch the skinny shit or anything that's loud.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I definitely do think though, there is a bigger disparity now between wages and what homes cost, especially in our area. Now that becomes the question like, Do you stay here, right? Because you can buy a beautiful colonial home in Georgia for 250 grand. Jess Byers, she was telling me they've been looking to buy a home here and she's one of my employees here.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
She's been looking at houses and she was showing me the exact comparison to a place in Texas. And a kind of average starter home here is like 500, 600 grand. It didn't used to be. And in Texas she can buy, you know, like five acres in a 5,000 square foot house. I mean, it was crazy what you could buy down there.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Correct. That's the thing, right? Like, yeah, you can also buy a house in Johnstown, Pennsylvania for not very much money, but like, Also, you might not have a job.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And that's what I do think is sad. And that comes back to the question about like, well, are you going to support the local subdivision that's happening down there in that field? Like, yeah, we all love to look at baby calves when we drive by in a green field, but is your kid going to be able to stay here, right? And I don't know... that there's a right or wrong answer.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
It's everyone's got their own opinion on that, but you're right. I don't see how kids are going to stick around. I also see our culture maybe eventually, and it's probably already happening, but shifting to more like other cultures where you see multiple generations living in one home.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
You know, where it might turn into a situation where, yeah, where, you know, the grandparents aren't necessarily in an old folks home somewhere. They're in the spare bedroom and the parents are in the other bedroom and the kids are in the basement. I mean, I do see it being a case where... like the 25 year old newlywed couple is living with the parents.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And eventually when the grandparents are gone and you know, maybe their parents are gone, they have that house to themselves. And by that point, their kids are probably living with them. Like I do see that being probably one of the things that you see, which honestly might not even be a bad thing. If, if it means family and family nucleus becomes a little bit more important to people.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
You know, there's advantages and disadvantages to that. It's not real handy living with grandma and grandpa or mom and dad, but.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I do. I do think though, you're, you are going to see similar to down there, how people commute into those cities, you know, hour to hour commute, you know, the other options that people like kids, your kids is age up and Calispell are going to have is like, Well, I want to buy a house, but I might have to buy it out in Eureka and drive into Kalispell every day.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Like here, I think you're going to see people buying houses in Superior. It's already happening out in Superior, St. Regis. And it's like, you know what? It's a 45 minute drive, but it's beautiful. I'm not stuck in traffic. I'm driving along the river bottom looking at elk and bears and mountains.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yep. And I, so I definitely think that's going to be the other option that people like the trade-off is either leave the state entirely or spend an hour each way in the car. You know, you're going to see kids doing that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's an interesting world. I mean, I don't, I thought actually a couple of years ago that year and a half ago, as we saw inflation going up, rates going up, that we might actually see like a correction up here, like the 2008, nine. I was sitting there back then with zero money, looking at all these homes around Flathead Lake going, oh my God, I wish I could buy them all.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I don't just choose to remember the things that are important to me. You have a podcast. Anything Aiden says isn't important to me. You have a podcast, though. You should understand how this works. I know.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Cause I knew, it would rebound like a slingshot out of that around Flathead Lake and all that, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah, big time. I mean, you could buy a house up there for 300 grand around the lake and now it's $2 million, you know? I mean, it was crazy. But I thought that might happen this time, but it didn't. Like these interest rates went up. It hasn't happened yet. The other thing that's happening around here though with interest rates being up is no one wants to sell their house. Right.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
So even if they have to move, Brandon, Brandon moved down here from Kalispell. Well, God, if he's got an interest rate at 2.8% or some shit, and why would you sell that in Kalispell? I mean, I would say rent it out and find a rental down here. That's what he's doing. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And so that's the other thing that's really froze up this market is, you know, people aren't selling, they're buying houses, but they're not selling houses. So Clark and Travis work on programming that equipment out there along with Dylan, these guys. So you see like that process on the screen right there, that's literally what they're building to run in those machines.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Like an hour and a half. Should we start with it? I have to go get my real ID. My birthday's coming up in a couple weeks. And apparently that is becoming into effect like in a month. You won't be able to get on a plane. You will if you have a passport. It's true. Who wants to haul a passport domestically?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Um, I, I think it's going to just be from Montana. I think it's going to be more of the same. I mean, people are going to keep coming and it actually, somebody put it to me a really good way during COVID. You know, we got this influx of people during COVID escape in California and Washington, all that. And I was like, man, this is pretty crazy. It'll be good when it slows down.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
He's like, it's never going to slow down. Why is that? And he goes, this guy, this is a guy in California. He goes, only a fraction of the people moved to Montana that want to move to Montana.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
He's like, the people that moved during COVID were the people who maybe they had sold their businesses or their kids had already graduated school or whatever their situation in life, they were free at that moment to just say, screw it, we're out. but there's way, way, way more people that are like, ah, my kid's got, you know, he's junior in high school, two years left.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I'm going to go, or my business is five more years and I'm going to sell it or retire. He's like, there's a decade worth of people that all have plans that the minute their plans fulfill themselves, they're out. And so he's like, that pipeline is never going to stop coming. And that's the thing around here.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
You can either get grumpy about, or you can just realize like the Montana in 20 years, isn't going to look like the Montana of today. And it's still going to be pretty bad-ass still going to be better than the alternative. Exactly.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
So I don't, I think coming up here and buying a house for $700,000, though, it seems insane to those of us that saw prices 10 years ago, probably still a smart move, you know, in 10 years, I don't think you're going to gotten hurt by it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I mean, it's going to be interesting with Trump, with everything that he's doing. If we do see, you know, serious inflation again. I mean, I think he is trying to somewhat kind of break things so he can rebuild it the right way. At least that's the theory.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
They are, and he's only really got 18 months to do it because when those midterms hit, things better be headed back the way that people want and think they should be or else, you know, Republicans will lose the midterms and then at that point, nothing gets done.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I was actually surprised how easy it was to get one here because I thought it might be tough, but apparently that goes quick.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
What, eight weeks? I mean, how the hell can you expect? And our system is great, but also in another way, how do you get anything significant really done and then get to see the results of that in two years before the midterms hit? I mean, forget four years. In two years, if things aren't,
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
If everyone doesn't agree that it's going well, they're not going to get the opportunity for the next two years because two or three seats flip and it's over.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And then we went, we actually had our company meeting this morning up at our new building. Just, I wanted the employees to be able to walk through it. And I wanted to explain to them what's going to be what before it's all done. That way they can feel like they kind of get to watch the process. And as I saw everyone in there, I was like, I'm not sure if we made this big enough.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
It's true. But you don't have to pay for air conditioning that way.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Well, I'm generally in it. So that's a horrible idea. Probably the reason why.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
In regards to the economy and all that other stuff, again, it's kind of like everything else I have the theory on, I control what I can control. So I don't worry about, within reason, I don't. How far out do you guys think?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
We've got steel purchased for a solid 12 right now. Okay, so into 2026. Yep. Okay. Yep. Yep. And so we are- Where does it come from? Well, that's actually a really great question.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
No, so our steel- Is it coming from Canada? Our steel's American made. or has been, and this is what's interesting. A couple months ago, our steel supplier, the entire knife industry, frankly, steel supplier filed for bankruptcy. It got sold out of bankruptcy to a steel company in Europe. Aeristeel. So the Aeristeel bought Crucible.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Crucible was the only steel that could atomize steel into a powder form and make the steel that we all make or we all use for making knives as a powder technology steel. We have been dealing with this for the last few weeks. So at least for the next probably eight to 12 months, all the steel that we bought is American made. We have more steel actually still coming in that's still American made.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
But the entire industry is trying to figure out a couple of things. One, the first question is like, well, is there another source in America? The answer to that's no.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. I have to bring like two things that prove my address. Right. So something that's been like an electric bill or something that's been mailed to my home address, you have to bring birth certificate and like a passport. Okay. I mean, it was fair amount, but, and then you get a little gold star in your license and I don't know why gold star, the driver's license.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yep. Oh. I mean, I actually asked the questions and looked into trying to buy it. Why did they shutter it after buying it? So this is kind of the condition of the steel industry. Crucible Steel, Crucible Technologies has gone, I think that was their third bankruptcy as a company.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Well, when you are short on money and you run a giant steel mill and you're short on money, you probably don't do a lot of maintenance, right? So when I looked into buying it and I started to get serious about looking into that, I was told, you're basically buying such a dilapidated problem that you would be better starting a steel manufacturing business in your field.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. A giant, but potentially, I don't know this, but potentially environmental nightmare, you know, you, depending on their processes and what they do, safety nightmare compliance, right. Uh, You know, there was a lot of issues with that facility. So Aeristeel bought it. And really what they were buying was the technology and the customers, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
They have the steel mills in Europe, in various places in Europe. They can make all that steel over there. And they basically just took a competitor off the board.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
So that's the question. I mean, that's literally what we are trying to figure out today right now is like, are tariffs going to apply? I'm talking to some people in the Trump administration about like, could we even potentially, if tariffs will apply, can we get a carve out? You know, like with, when you look at tariffs and
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Okay, tariffs, whether you agree with them or not, let's just assume that they're a good move, that that's a smart move by Trump. Let's just go with that one for a second. The problem is- Many people are not going to go along with you on that assumption, just so you know. I understand, yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
But assuming that we should tariff steel or any other good coming into America, the question- for us for manufacturing is, well, what are our other options? If there are no other options, if Trump is trying to force you to buy American versus buy cheaper Chinese or whatever, right? Cheaper European or whatever it might be.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
What if the answer is, hey, this product is not made in America, period, end of story. And it isn't going to be, I mean, you would have to, it'd be years if you wanted to start a steel mill today to try to get to the place and good luck getting the permitting and whatnot to build that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
If you have no other choice, should there potentially be carve-outs where it's like, hey, this steel is tariffed because, hey, bridge builder guy, you can buy that same steel over here in Pennsylvania. But hey, knife industry, we understand you have no other option for steel. So we understand you need that for your industry to survive and your customers and whatnot.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
We don't want to jack up your prices 25%. So we're going to carve that out and make that un-tariffed. You know, I think that's the nuances of what Trump's doing right now. And I think they're well aware of it and they've said it, Musk has said it like, we're gonna break some shit and then we're gonna figure out what we broke and then try to fix it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
So that I'm trying to figure out how we might be involved in the try to fix it part where it's like, hey, here's what's happening. Can we fix this part of that policy?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I don't know why my regular driver's license still just can't work. I think it's all ridiculous. You might be a Solomon Ben Josh. It's I might be.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. Yeah. It just, what I'm glad is that they are doing something. It's the first time in my adult life I've seen our government at least appear to be trying to fix something. you know, our deficit issue, frankly, our national debt, like what are we passing on to our children?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And I think we've all known, or we should know that if we're going to fix that deficit issue, then probably everybody will suffer in some way. Maybe it's tariffs on MKC steel, or maybe it's tariffs on coffee coming in for black rifle coffee. Maybe it's your trail crew, your kid that's on trail crew loses his job. Like, I'm not sure that anyone's going to come out of this unaffected.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah, and I got a bunch of hate from the right the other day because I posted something basically kind of, quote unquote, against Trump over the Epstein thing. I said, I basically was critical of the Trump administration that, hey, this is bullshit. Like, you guys said you were going to release it. Then you threw up this... stupid optics thing you did with some influencers.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And then in the end, you actually gave them nothing anyway. And now you're saying, well, we're still going to come out with more, but it's going to be heavily redacted. And my point is when it comes to pedophiles or any people of any, whether they're
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
of power or not power, anybody fucking with kids in any way, right or left, or if it's Israel or it's whoever, I don't care, Trump himself, like whatever, it should be exposed. And, you know, I got a bunch of hate of basically like, you know, I thought you were a big Trump supporter and how dare you go against Trump or- Does that mean you can't be objective?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. And also robbing the carts in the hotels of all the soaps.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah, I like most of what Trump's doing right now, but right there, I think they're bumbling that horribly. Like, come out with the information. I don't care what it is or who it affects, you know?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
When it comes to Epstein stuff, there's nothing that I think needs protected. If it's something else in regards to national security stuff around a alien program or whatever, like, well, actually it's not aliens.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. I'm not sure where we got those. Again, I don't buy the waters around here. Have you seen the size of Hannah? She probably thinks that's a full size when she holds it. I mean, she's a little, she's a little, I get it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
You know, fine, go ahead and redact things and whatnot if you really think it's for national security. But when it comes to children, I don't care if it means that the leader of Israel is under the bus and our relationship with Israel goes to shit. Like, don't care if it means...
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
that other people see that, Hey, when it comes to protecting our children of our country, it doesn't matter who it is or what we're going to, we're going to expose it, you know? And the fact that they maybe ran potentially a, you know, government, Israel might've run a government operation against our own government officials. Like that's a problem, you know? It would be.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Break the government on that. Because if our morals have gotten that low that we're using children to... you know, run a PSYOP against whoever for whatever, break it. Like that's not the government I want.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Exactly. Yeah. And if and if and if the program has to be torn down and rebuilt with ethical people, then I guess that's what we have to do. But I agree. Go find those people. But the problem is for both sides of the government, it's going to be people from both sides for sure. That's a left and right issue. It's definitely not.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
If it was just a left issue, the Republicans would already come out with it. And that's the hypocritical part I don't like. Like, yeah, what's right is right. Wrong is wrong there. I know there's a lot of gray area in government and in military and a bunch of the things that we do around the world, but it's like your blades in front of us.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. You know, no, it, the thing with our country that what I, what's unfortunate, we don't have a, a, a glass ball to kind of look into the future, but what we might find is some of the small pain points here and there are stock market being down or a little bit of inflation or whatever might FARC, uh, pale in comparison to the pain we might feel if we don't address these issues at all.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
It's, um, we have a water shortage in parts of the world. So we're, you know, doing our part. Yeah. I don't know. The earth is 70% water. Nowhere that I go.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And we let this spin out another 20, 30, 40 years. And now our children and grandchildren are dealing with it because the national debt issues are issues with our dollar, with countries using potentially other currencies to trade on. There's some serious issues that we better address or we're going to find ourselves in a bigger bind than we are today. That's for sure.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. So I've had a couple people that we both know that have tried to like talk me into doing something like state politics and then eventually like national. You should at least be the mayor of Frenchtown. It's not incorporated. We don't even have a mayor, so. So start there. Yeah. The first one could be you. I'm the mayor of my building. All right. Do your employees know that?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
But they don't respect me. No, I will say, like, that's where I give, like, Tim Sheehy a ton of credit. That guy.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. He's just a piece of shit. That really bothered me because, okay.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I saw, it was a podcast with Tucker and he was interviewing, I don't know if it was some sheik from Jordan or Bahrain or somewhere over there. And they were talking about their water supply being out of the Gulf.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
But that guy, here's what's interesting about that guy. Gets out of the SEALs, gets out of the Navy and moves to Montana. So he's just, at that point, he's just a veteran who just decided like, okay, I'm going to land somewhere in the US. Where do we want to land? We're getting out of the military. Let's go to Montana. Goes to Montana, starts a business,
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
and grows that business to several hundred employees and worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It was aviation based, right? Yep. Yep. Working in the firefighting space with some of the technologies that they used in the military to keep firefighters safe. Starts that business, grows it up and sells it. Now, is that not the ultimate veteran success story? I mean, we have veterans.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
The big talk is like, you know, we have veterans killing themselves and depression and how do you transition? Now, here's a guy who transitioned to the ultimate success, not to a female, Andy. Careful with that word. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And hired hundreds of people and donated millions of dollars to Montana, like the Bozeman's Children Hospital. I mean, he's very, has done a lot of philanthropy.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yep. Built all that. Then got approached by Steve Daines a couple of years ago, explaining, hey, it looks like this election is going to come down to one U.S. Senate seat and we really need to beat Tester. Will you run? And his answer was no. And then Dane started explaining it more like, look, we need a solid candidate to go against this guy. You're a SEAL.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
You've, you transitioned out of the military. You grew this business. You've done all this stuff. You're, you've got young kids, family, like you're a good dude. So basically agrees, agrees to do it, runs, ends up winning. And in my, in my mind,
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
he has really no reason to have wanted to do that other than service to his country, because he's got a business still worth millions of dollars that he's still trying to run to this day. Like he still has to run that business. He has a beautiful ranch in Eastern Montana where Greg Putnam is running it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And they're trying to basically set up supplying local beef to local restaurants and help bring that supply chain of our food to people more of a homegrown type situation versus like Cisco.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
He's pretty tiny. Yeah. But he puts that hat on, you know, he's getting, it gets a little bit bigger. He's coming up next week to do an episode with me. It seems like most seals, most special ops guys are pretty small. You're like, you're big for a special operations guy.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And that's a hundred percent their water supply. They, they were talking about if with the Iran, uh, nuclear stuff, if they had a, like, forget about the Iran, like Iran having a nuclear bomb, just power plants or whatever. If they had a nuclear accident and they had that shit get into the Gulf, into the water.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. But that guy, I, I, I was telling my wife, I said, imagine getting your life to that point where you have millions of dollars. You have this beautiful ranch. You also have little kids at home going to school in Montana. Yeah. what reason do you have to want to leave and go to that shit hole in DC and do that and sit in meetings all day with a suit and tie on? Like not me. I'm selfishly.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I'm sorry. Like that's if you win, I'm going to go to my ranch.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And it's not even people in Montana that it's all driven by DC. I mean, when I was talking to Tulsi, we went to her swearing in. I was talking to Tulsi's husband, Abe, when we were at dinner after her swearing in. And he was talking about how horrible- it got during that confirmation process. He's like, dude, I thought politics were bad. I thought running for office was bad.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
They found multiple more levels of like dirtiness that they tried to pull and do and the things they make up. And it's all coming from big money in DC. And then they bring that into a state like Montana and they go door to door trying to feed that shit to people who are just trying to live their lives.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
But no, I run in for office after seeing what Tulsi's gone through, seeing what Sheehy's went through and getting to talk to Sheehy a little bit. He has an office in the podcast studio building.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
He's never been in there either. Yeah. No, not yet. I'm sure he'll come do your podcast.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. So speaking of that, people might not know this. Montanans. Montana. Zinky. Yep. Has a little link on his website, on his homepage. So if you are trying to get a permit or you're trying to get a suppressor, you're trying to get whatever, and you're a Montana resident,
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
you go to his homepage and you click on that and you just fill out a little form and say, hey, I'm trying to do this or that or whatever. I'm having an issue with the government in whatever way that that is. They will call you back at times less than 24 hours later. And I have personal experience with this. They are very helpful, which is very impressive that your US representative
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
for Montana is there to actually help Americans. And they do coffee with Montanans every week.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And poison that water that every single one of those countries around there all use desalination and they would all be out of water in three days. Have you traveled much over there? Only to UAE.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I hope so. I mean, I'm dealing with the department of transportation right now, just trying to get a right away permit right where we're building our building to remove a little bit of dirt in a, I mean, I grew up in excavation. This is a small, like one day project. Have you considered just doing it? Oh, yeah. I got, I got shut down. Have you considered doing it at night?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
That would be the next move. I actually, I did get in a little bit of trouble because I started last March trying to get them to accept a meeting to come out and talk to them about what I wanted to do. We communicated and I provided all this communication. I'm actually filing a complaint in DC on this because...
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
We tried all summer to get them to come out and meet us on site and talk about this project. We couldn't get that. So I told the excavation guy, like, fuck it, start digging. He started digging. Two hours later, they showed up on site and shut us down. And I'm like, well, at least I got a meeting. How'd they know you were digging? It's right by the interstate, you can see.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah, but who drove by and who tattled on you? Good question. Snitches get stitches, bitches. Exactly. So we then went through the process of permit and whatnot, and I hired an engineer firm. They came back with a bunch of questions. We got all the engineering, hydrology, geotech reports, all the shit, grading, site drainage, all that. Got all the way to the end, and they denied it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And literally, we've gone through this three times now in a row, the only real reason that they can come up with is they're busy. They just don't have time. And honestly, they don't have to do anything other than stamp a permit, literally. And again, it's that case. When I had my first meeting with those guys, I have a photo of it from November, 15 of their officials on a meeting with me,
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
talking about a right away permit. And I'm like, this is like me and you could solve this in a half hour. Yeah. It's like provide, make sure it's all engineered, make sure the drainage is right. Tell me what kind of grass seed you want back down on it. I'll spray the weeds on it for the next 18 months to make sure it's back to how it should be fixed the fence, which was already rotten.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
So I'm going to pay to build MDT a new fence and, And efficiencies can be had. Yeah. Well, they are not. So they're being a pain in the ass.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah, yeah. This knife I'm holding is actually pretty cool. We took the famous V42 knife, dagger, and there's a lot of history behind that. A lot of veterans will understand what that is about. It was made for the Devil's Brigade, which was actually kind of the start of special operations in Montana with a group from Fort Harrison and a group of soldiers from Canada.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
But that knife was pretty long, not necessarily the most practical knife to carry.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
A little bit. We reduced that down to a blade that you actually really could carry, made some changes to it, but also it's not an exact replica, obviously, but made this to where I feel like this, if you want to carry a dagger, you want something for self-defense, this dagger is pretty cool. And we called it the V24. Inspired by? V42 was victory for 1942.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Uh, so V 24 was, uh, we started this last year in 2024. So that's what it is. Uh, victory for 2024. You've got the battle goat here. This is, uh, kind of the sister. I don't know. I do have the war goat here. So we've got, from being honest, I get confused with the goats cause there, there's lots of goats. Yeah. There's lots of goats.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
It basically is the same blade as a Speedgoat because we had a ton of guys actually carrying the Speedgoat as just their everyday carry in the military. We thickened that blade up a little bit, made it a little more robust, made the Wargoat, which is more of a ring-carried dagger or a knife for extracting that blade out quickly, maybe not losing control of it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I will say Dubai and Abu Dhabi, like we spent all our time in Abu Dhabi. Yeah. And this is 2005.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
But also a lot of people don't like a ring, so we did one – Here with more of kind of a bird beak design on the end of this. It's also really nice and it gives you a positive kind of place to pull that knife out if you are in a self-defense situation. We see a lot of military or law enforcement officers carrying these.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yep, exactly. Then we have our task force knife here. This is just kind of that more robust, thicker, heavier blade that if you want to price staples out of boxes like your son or- Pick a pair of scissors, not a multi-hundred dollar knife, please, as a suggestion. Exactly. No, this is just a really robust kind of do everything knife.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
So that's our tactical, that drops coming up like March 27th, I think. Right.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Okay, perfect. Yeah, release it. What I want people to know with our tactical knives is, you know, I'm a hunter. That's why I started a hunting knife company. But I wanted to bring the same kind of quality and the same feel that we're doing in the hunting space into the military world. So whether it's veterans, active duty guys, we want to provide 100% American made, high quality blade.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And then if you are carrying that and you're on the other side of the world or whatever, at least you know when you pull this thing out that a company that actually cares about what you guys are doing, you know, built this blade, we'll stand behind them, guarantee them for life. We'll resharpen them for free. And, you know, there's a lot of great knives out there.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I just, I hope people understand how much we appreciate our servicemen and women, our law enforcement officers. I mean, frankly, the story of Montana Knife Company, or frankly, like a Black Rifle Coffee, that doesn't happen in any other country in the world. Like our country.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah, well, I honestly believe the freedoms that we have in our country to start a company in your basement, whether you're Evan making coffee in your basement or me in my garage making knives and scale it to 90 employees and be doing what we're doing and be able to do it in, I mean, mailing knives to other countries is damn near freaking impossible. So- Really? Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Because of their requirements? Yes. A lot of these, I mean, we have to fake it for mailing knives to Canada. We have to call it culinary. We can't, if you put knife on there, it gets shipped back.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I'm a little upset at Trump that he stole my idea because I've been saying for years.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. Alberta, Saskatchewan. I would like to have most of British Columbia. They can keep Vancouver if they want. I'll even trade them maybe some land down here. Maybe we'll just trade them California.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I've never been there, so I can't say. Okay. But my guess is most of the crazy politics is coming out of that part of the world. I'm not so sure we want it. I'm not so sure either. But Saskatchewan, pretty cool. Alberta.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I don't know what happens to the mail system the minute it crosses the imaginary line just north of you.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. It's a little jarring. It's unbelievable. And we flew into Dubai and then drove to Abu Dhabi. And I mean, it was... you know, that road for 80 miles or whatever it is was lit the whole way. It'd be like driving from here to Kalispell and having a street light every, you know, 500 feet. And then honestly, like being in the city, of course that's back in 05 or six. So height of the Iraq war.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. It's crazy. But yeah. I would agree there. Canada is freaking awesome. I love Canada. I love it up there.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Well, I'm just interested in all this stuff. Cause I'm thinking about getting my pilot's license, which I told you you shouldn't do. Cause you'll die. You didn't die. Yeah. You and I are not the same thing. I mean, you're as retarded as I am. How's your jujitsu journey going?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Jujitsu, you might be a little sore. Well, I don't know. If I mouth off to the wrong person at jujitsu, it might cost me my life too. No, you won't. You'll be fine. No, so what made you decide to buy a helicopter?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
So, right. Um, well, sharing, sharing in buying of planes, helicopters, a lot of times with the right people can be a really good way to go.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
So what did you have to do to, you were a licensed pilot, airplane pilot, right? What did you have to do to get licensed to fly helicopters?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
That's why I was told to go through and get pretty much all your ground school stuff done. So when you go learn to fly- It's easier that way. You're not- also trying to learn how to talk on the radio, or at least you have a decent basis of knowledge to then kind of apply it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. What brought you over there? I made a sword for one of their shakes. I remember this. You told us on one of the episodes. Yeah. Yeah. And so he flew us over there and we, we actually were a guest at a hunting show there. So it's, it was like a shot show. but in the Middle East, it was all hunting. And most of it was based around falconry.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
There are a lot of days you can't fly down here too. I mean, in Montana with, and I'm not sure about what the icing is like with a helicopter, but like with a small, like a Cessna helicopter,
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. So, I mean, between the amount of fog we get and just days where it's kind of misty out, maybe it's raining at the house, but it's fricking snowing up high.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
It does seem like you're the kind of person that always, and I feel like I'm a little bit this way, like you're always trying to learn or grow or- I think it keeps you young. Once you master, like let's say a couple of years from now, you've mastered the helicopter.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Right. Yeah. Makes sense. Cool. Yeah. No, it's super cool. I mean, you landed the damn thing in my yard when you came over the, you were hauling some ass when you came over the, uh, the building here. That's pretty cool. It didn't seem that fast to me. It's very cool.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. Well, I don't often have helicopters go over a hundred feet up, but I'll come back anytime. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Cool, man. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming down and doing this.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Go ahead and type that in. Thanks. Is this your pre-trip? Yeah. I'm just walking around real quick. Do you want me to tighten some bolts on it for you?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
supposed to be a little bit loose so can you long line out of here do you have a do you have a an attachment under there you can get one could or are going to by hunting season to haul my elk out we would just put it in the back in the luggage compartment is that what does this open up is that what this is yeah this whole thing is luggage this is where you need the bear paws you see how heavy the back end is the bear paws just flatten it out oh really yep it's just plastic i'm putting them on next week when you take off can i hang from the if you want to
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
So when you, when you practice and you test in this, do they have you get like, do you have to auto, do you auto rotate it all the way to the ground?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
No, I ruined a blade though. I've ruined many projects that I've worked on.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And you did that? How scary is that to auto-rotate yourself to the ground?
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
How many gallons an hour does it burn? about 43 43 it's about like a ford here we go that's noise and aviation right here
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I nuked my entire gold supply on a knife for just a stateside customer. Yeah. Yeah. About a 12, $13,000 mistake or maybe more. Current prices. Today's prices would have been probably 25 grand. Yeah. But no, I went over there and, you know, was uncertain about security and whatever else. And we were there and I never felt so secure in a large city in my life.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
I mean, walked around, went to restaurants and did whatever. And it was freaking amazing.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
It's kind of funny if you actually uphold your laws and are serious about it, how people will actually obey them. What do you mean? Well, like in our country where we tend to let people just walk in and steal something, unless it's less than a thousand bucks, it's not a big deal.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah. When I was down there, uh, last year, I just walked down on the pier. I was waiting, went down to do Mike Rose podcast and I was just kind of killing some time.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Uh, Okay. I now remember. I was trying to remember exactly which way. There was a customer of ours down in Nashville that loves our stuff and he works for Dave Ramsey. Okay. The get out of debt guy. Yep. And Mike was doing some event there. And this guy coordinates a lot of Dave Ramsey's events. And he was telling Mike about us and gave Mike one of our chef's knives.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And was telling Mike all about MKC. And Mike was like, that sounds awesome. Connect me. So he connected us. And then Mike had me come down and do his podcast. And then him and I just hit it off. Mike is exactly the guy you would hope and think that he is. Yeah. It's such a good dude.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Exactly. No. And he, he did such an amazing job with that. And he, uh, that's actually what I really raised my kids on because we didn't watch lots of TV with the kids when they were young, but that was one of the shows on television. Like you guys want to watch dirty jobs or watch it all you want. Like, and at that point there was reruns and it was on all the time.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
It was interesting because Mike kind of like fell into that because his mother called him one day. He had been like doing voiceover stuff and television stuff and whatnot. And just kind of your typical LA, you know, celebrity type television personality.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Um, he, I think he, he had, he told me all of it. Like he was in acting classes when he was young. He was in, uh, he's a hell of a, like a singer. He did singing stuff, player. Yeah. Uh, plays and, you know, worked his way, just the various paths that take you to where you got. And his mom called him one day. She's very blunt.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And his mom said, you know, your grandfather, whose grandfather was like a blue collar worker guy, your grandfather isn't doing so well. And you should consider doing something before your grandfather dies that he would be proud of.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
Yeah, she really sugarcoated it. And so he was thinking about it and he's like, I don't know. So he went down and he just took a film crew the next day. And he went down to downtown and found us a crew working on the sewers and just said, can I just film? I mean, he didn't have the idea of dirty jobs yet, but can I just film what you guys do? And he got down in there with him and was in the sewer.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And he said, it was like exactly what you would think it was awful. And filmed it and then ultimately ended up creating Dirty Jobs. And one of the best shows that's ever been on television. It's great. Excuse me. Bless you. Would you mind opening a couple windows in here? It's bright in here. Hot in here. You have a sweatshirt on. I do. Yeah. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
That guy also just like, he just has the ability to just talk. Like when he, I saw an interview that was just done. Some guy walked up to him at a, I think it was SEMA or some kind of a show that he was just at and asked him about the, skills gap in our country and all the things that he talks about with college.
Cleared Hot
Episode 379 - Josh Smith
And he just went off talking about and stating and rattling off all of the numbers and the percentage of people on welfare and the amount of people who are in debt, college debt, and like all the various things. And he just has a way of talking where he's just easy to listen to. And he's so good at telling a story. And by the end of it, you're just like, yeah, whatever you said, I agree with that.