Global Trade This Week – April 17th, 2023
What’s going on in Global Trade this Week? Today Doug Draper of Inland Star Distribution and Trade Geek Pete Mento of Mento LLC cover:
5:03 -WTO’s New Phrase: Long Term Decoupling
11:58 -Mergers & Acquisitions in the Logistics Industry
14:47 -Halftime
26:15 -When Did It Become So Cool to Own Truckstops?
31:53 -Apple Announces New Savings Account with 4.15% Interest
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Keenan Brugh 0:00
You're watching Global Trade This Week with Pete Mento and Doug Draper.
Pete Mento 0:10
Hello, everybody, and welcome to yet another glorious example of global trade this week. I am Pete mento. And with me is my good friend and co host Doug Draper. Doug, how's it going buddy?
Doug Draper 0:27
Or accused of using drones to deliver drugs illegally into California prisons?
Pete Mento 0:33
That's what you're going to start off with?
Doug Draper 0:36
I just had no, I'm not going to start off with that. But I saw it. And I'm like, I gotta get back into my drone thing. And then that's all I'm gonna say about it. That's it.
Pete Mento 0:46
Do we have to talk about how often drones were used to keep our good friends in Ukraine in the fight? We want to know, you know, don't find out. Oh, that's cool.
Doug Draper 0:56
Yeah. But But we could talk. So anyway, I had to throw that in there. But my weekend was killer because I want so my kids and my daughter was in a rowing competition. And her boat, one and they raced against Oklahoma, Iowa, and Minnesota. So a happy daughter equals a happy wife equals happy life, if you will. So all my kids are doing all of them. My two kids are doing phenomenal. It was a great weekend, my daughter had a very successful event and all as well. So I had to share that with with our audience.
Pete Mento 1:33
So you went down to Oklahoma for the race.
Doug Draper 1:37
Now it was in Kansas City, so we cruised along. The other thing. Pete is Kansas, you do not mess with Kansas weather. Right. So we left Denver on Friday, it was snowing. And then it got windy as hell. And then the sun came out. And then we were in a rainstorm and a lightning storm. And then we ended in a hailstorm all within like a six hour drive going across Colorado and in Kansas. It's rough. Do not messing around in. You're not messing around in western Kansas. It'll let you up my friend.
Pete Mento 2:11
So it's still the middle of April here. And I'm just assuming that people are still skiing and snowboarding in Colorado.
Doug Draper 2:20
Most of the resorts I mean, they're closed or they're closing this weekend.
Pete Mento 2:23
Well, it was in the 80s here late last week, like upper 80s. It was it was super warm in New Hampshire, which was nice. And I was speaking to a buddy of mine who's an avid skier here out east and he was saying that they're still skiing and Killington in Vermont, oh, cool. You didn't buy a season pass this year, because he did the math. And he's British. It was cheaper for him to fly back to Europe. He has the benefit of working remotely, it was cheaper for him to fly back to Europe to rent a ski house in France. And then to fly his kids every weekend on cheap flights, his daughter's for a number of different ones and get them passes than it was for him to rent season passes for just himself and his girlfriend and get a house in Vermont. Well, that's how cheap it was two, two, because between the Euro being as inexpensive as it was, and how cheap it was in France to to ski. He said it was just out of control this year. It's just gotten out of control the ski here, so I can't I don't know, man. You guys must be very fortunate in Colorado with whatever deal it is you get.
Doug Draper 3:36
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's not when you drop four passes for a family, or when you do a family of four. It can still get pretty expensive. But anyway, that was your weekend. My friend
Pete Mento 3:47
was great. You know, both the daughters were here. I was nice. So movie called Renfield if you are squeamish, it's a comedy, which you wouldn't know it given how much blood was spilled. Yeah, got to spend some quality time with me, which is fabulous. And, you know, youngest son had a rugby tournament to get to watch some of it remotely. They did very, very well. They didn't have anybody scoring was a sevens tournament, which is kind of like rugby light. They played four games, let anybody scoring on them and then had a pretty difficult decision. Very lucky decision against St. Bonaventure, where they lost in the finals. So they came in second for the tournament, but he scored in one of his games and that was great. And they have a couple of tournaments left and sevens before they get back to real rugby in the fall. So rugby is a tough sport. You got to play two seasons when you're on scholarship. But you love playing rugby, so just extra money. But with that dog, nobody cares. They watch the show. They watch the show for the trade stuff and you think they watch it for halftime. I So I think they do. But you elected to receive. So you're gonna let us know what the first topic is this week.
Doug Draper 5:07
All right, yeah. So I came across a term that I had not heard before that the World Trade Organization, the WTO, coined in an article that they had written called long term decoupling. And essentially, it's talking about is the global economy shifting into two separate blocks of economic power, it would be the China and Russian side and the US, in the EU side, and you got to kind of pick your side, pick your team and, and move forward and the easiest. And then we're talking about how, what's the implications and the geopolitical nature of things. I started thinking that we've not talked about it, Pete, but there's been a whole lot of activity around tankers, and the logistics of moving oil around primarily out of, of Russia, and how the taking industry has definitely changed. And so, you know, the whole sanctions that have come up at the start of the Ukrainian war about nobody's buying anything from Russia, specifically with oil and all the workarounds, right, that have been developed with moving product and moving a petrol out of, of Russia, and they've determined, or they have coined that term, friend shoring, right. You got nearshoring, and all that kind of stuff, this is French showing, well, that would basically mean that the Russians are selling their crude oil in their, in their, in their products, to their couple inside, you know, countries that are like minded, politically, with with China and Russia. And the funny thing is, is and I was just learning about this a little bit, that Russia developed a shadow fleet, where they bought all these old, crappy tankers, and they said, We're not going to throw our products on other other boats, were going to do it ourselves. And then there's kind of this gray market where investors are investing in these, these fleets. And you kind of don't know who really owns them. And the one thing that I that I, that I read about was that these vessels would leave the port of, you know, Russian ports, and they would wouldn't really have a destination, they would just float out into the Atlantic, then they'd go dark, they kind of turn off their signals, and then come back to the port, and they would be much lighter. And so they're translating oil out into other vessels out in in the ocean. And so anyway, I bring all that up, because I think the tanker model whenever the WTO refers to long term decoupling, and French shoring, is to say, well, who wants oil? People need oil? Who's gonna buy it? Right? Well, our friends will buy it. And that would be the team, Europe and or Team Russia and China. And that is a tangible example of that decoupling. So the question I have to you and our audience, if they care to make comments is, is that some foreshadowing, right, is that bipolar trade, starting to manifest is the whole tanker trade, a foreshadowing of what could come with long term decoupling in global trade? So I thought that was an interesting topic, and I want to get your read on
Pete Mento 8:32
it. First and foremost, it's always important to remember Doug that China will do what's best for China, China is, is the China is the five year old throwing a tantrum of mega powers. There is rarely anything that is done, altruistic. You know, there's that there's that great Zen, Buddhist Zen story of the there's a prince hanging out a window, and you see it falling, someone throws it out the window. And you rush to say that, is that truly a moment of charity? Have you done it out of the kindness of your heart? And then the the alkali says, Well, of course I've done it. I don't want that baby to fall. Did you do it because you're trying to save the prince though. You do it because you're trying to gain favor from the King. Was it really something you've done out of kindness and charity, you can only do that if you do it thoughtlessly. If you do it from a place of of non contemplation. So you just spend your entire life trying to be thoughtless in that moment, you know, and that's just the Yoda eyes concept. China never thinks that way. Trying to 100% of the time all the time is thinking how do I make this moment work for me? You know, I work for this guy, timsy rat when I was at crane, and he had this great this great saying he's like, my favorite radio station is W I fm what's in it for me? You know, that's my favorite radio station. And China's very much always listening to that stuff. Asian. And they're they're doing right now what appears to be this this coupling, you know this, this creation of these coal eyes blocks with that in Russia, what's because there's something in it for them and they could care less what's in it for Russia they could care less what's in it for the greater global community, there is no charity here, there is what serves China, the Chinese Communist Party and the people of China. And some could even argue it's really what serves the Chinese party, which ultimately is what serves the great longevity of the Chinese regime. So we have to start from that particular instance. And what really serves China is their their protracted relationship with American consumption and Western consumption. There's really nothing to be gained by propping up Russia, there's really nothing to be gained by propping up Iran, other than energy, and that's energy that can be found from other sources, most particularly from an America that exports energy to China. And that could come in many different sources, if we would just decide to send them coal again, as a crazy example, where if we started to frack again and send them natural gas, oh, gee, that I say that again. And we never talk about politics here. But it's politics that stopping both of those things from happening. So see. So I honestly believe, Doug, that this is this has more to do with angling them for a what if situation than it does about long term political goals? That has nothing to do with trying to set up a multipolar environment for the better good of all mankind? That has to do with what China wants?
Doug Draper 11:36
Yeah, we'll see how that plays out. It could just be good fodder, and good reading. So you and I talked about it on our podcast?
Pete Mento 11:44
Again, I'm sure China cares about China, but they sure don't care about Pete and Doug. Actually, no, we think Doug and Pete, right, because it goes in alphabetical order.
Doug Draper 11:53
There you go. There you go. All right, man. Back to you. What's your
Pete Mento 11:57
first topic for the first time I for the day was since the pandemic started, all the way through the better part of I suppose me the first few months of this year, lots and lots and lots of continued mergers, acquisitions. I guess what you call, sort of buying distressed assets. And we talked a lot about this, at the end of last year, how it was going to continue with the continued elevation of interest rates. And with banks being a little more stingy about who they're loaning to, it's harder and harder for people to go out and obtain the money that they need borrowed if they need to, in order to do these big blockbuster acquisitions, doesn't mean they're gonna stop altogether. But are we gonna see them slow down. And one of the areas I think people are forgetting about is private equity, there's a lot of private equity out there, lots of individuals and organizations that have cash, that aren't banks, that are probably going to be looking to put that money to good work. So I think that that's still a place where it's going to come from, but should we expect to see, maybe these mega acquisitions, slow down, when you have some very large freight forwarders that are still sitting on piles of cash, and we're gonna be looking to do something with it. You're still gonna see, you're still gonna see some mergers and acquisitions. But are we going to see the feeding frenzy that we saw over these last couple of years? I don't, I don't know. But I think that the slowdown of liquidity and the slowdown of lending probably will have an impact on sort of those mid tier mid market ones that we had seen for probably the last five years.
Doug Draper 13:36
Yeah, I'd agree a lot of that tech, or, excuse me, a lot of those acquisitions was kind of emerging tech around our industry. So log tech, as we referred to it, you and I in the past. So cheap money, let's throw some some cash at at this new What's the new shiny thing out there. And I think that's what we saw a lot of it during, you know, the golden, the roaring 20s. And then when push comes to shove, you saw a lot of companies just getting narrowly focused on their core competency. You know, XPO, started shutting all their businesses and spinning them off, which is completely the opposite of what they did for many, many, many years. But let's get laser focused when when push comes to shove, and things are rough. But I love the point that you mentioned that there's still a lot of big companies out there with a lot of cash that do not need to go to a bank, though, to accomplish their objectives and their goals. And so I could see a couple of wow, I didn't see that coming type of acquisitions in the near term, but a little guy is the log tack the you know, the stuff that was kind of cool and fun. That's dried up, in my opinion for the foreseeable future. Yeah.
Pete Mento 14:46
All right. Well, that gets us to halftime Doug, brought to you by our good friends at CAP logistics. To learn more about CAP logistics. We urge all of you to check out their website at cap logistics.com. We thank them as we do every week for helping us to bring the As content to you for putting their faith in us to bring you now we know is happening, but we believe is going to happen in the markets. And what's going on with international logistics global trade and economics. Thank them, as we always do. So Doug, who's going first this week?
Doug Draper 15:16
All right. I'll jump in here. So I saw this thing this morning. Amazing, right? This is the beauty of halftime. It has nothing to do with with with global trade. But there is this Spanish extreme athletes that emerged from a cave in Granada, Spain, after she had spent 500 days with no human interaction. She went in on November 21 2021. So Oh, November 21, at 21. And she just came out Friday, she was in a cave. 230 feet down, apparently was light, because some of what she did was, was read, she did her did her time. She spent her time down there exercising, drawing, knitting, she read 60 books. And she said after two months, she lost the concept of of time. And when they pulled her out and said it was time to hop out. She thought she'd been down there for about 170 days, when in actuality it was it was 500. So no sound. No people. She lost her balance at times. She had auditory hallucinations. And she was being monitored this whole time is there's lots of studies going on. But holy crap, are you kidding me? Spending 500 days in a hole in a cave? With zero contact? I can't even I can't even fathom that. And the Guinness Book of World Record records has no record. No, if there, this is the longest voluntary cave hibernation of a human. So they're still trying to figure out how do they how do they add this to their books or not? But anyway, I'm like, holy crap, when I read that it had to be brought on halftime with our show. So my question is, How long could you handle hanging out in a cave? 230 feet below the surface of the Earth?
Pete Mento 17:10
It sounds awesome. It sounds it sounds fantastic, Doug. So I wouldn't have to deal with anybody. But that's what you're telling.
Doug Draper 17:25
So what? Yeah, yeah. So how many days?
Pete Mento 17:30
Yes, like, if I could take any, and not have to deal with it, anybody. And all of my needs are taken care of like you're telling me that I can read books, and they're gonna bring me food and I don't have to work. I don't have to go anywhere. I don't have to deal with anyone. I can just be entertained and we can just like hang out. Oh, where do I sign up? So that's
Doug Draper 17:59
why you don't if you want a world record, Pete, you just have to hang out there for 501 days. So
Pete Mento 18:04
that you know for 5000 I don't think you seem to understand where I'm going with this. I've dealt I've had been in sales for 30 years though if I like I'm okay. at the thought of just being left alone for the rest I you know, I will I will reread. I will reread The Brothers Karamazov five times in a row just to see the different nuances in it. I will. I will get back to painting. I will write poetry. I will listen to music. I would have the Oh, are you kidding me? I will get fatter. I will put all my weight back on. I won't exercise. I won't have to go weigh in every week. This would be the greatest thing, Doug. Is there booze? Is there booze. Oh, no auditory auditory hallucinations. I'll be taking fistfuls of mushrooms every day. This would be the this would be the best thing that's ever happened to me.
Doug Draper 18:58
I don't think this is defined as a vacation.
Pete Mento 19:01
I'm not going to live. Like I said, I'm bringing me like I've got to have that's not the point. No, no, right. Okay. Yeah. But the other thing is did why did she do it? That she did was Was there any money involved? Did she make a bet with some shifty, weird shadowy millionaire? Like why?
Doug Draper 19:18
You know, that's a great question. And in the articles I did a little research on that question was never posed. And if it was, I missed it. It was only talking about what she did down there and her emergence from the cave. No,
Pete Mento 19:33
she did make a lot of money off of it. Not only was she lonely for 500 days, she's an idiot. I'm just gonna go on with go on record. Right. So speaking of that, now that it's my turn this this will give you some insight. Today is a fabulous day to be in Boston under certain conditions. So today's evacuation day, which is a state holiday in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and But it's great for a couple of reasons. It's particularly great if you're a sports fan, Doug. So today's is marathon Monday, but the history, the history of the day goes back to the Battle of breeds Hill, which we also call the Battle of Bunker Hill, which effectively was the first victory, major victory and the American Revolutionary War. And it's when the city of Boston won its first major conflict in the Battle of American independence. And we were able to physically drive the British out of the city of Boston. And after that point, the British never occupied the city of Boston again, was a pretty big deal. And because of that, the city of Boston ever since then has made it a the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has made it a state holiday, there's no school, there's no, no public office or open, there's no mail delivery. It's, it's pretty fun day. And it's also the day of the Boston Marathon. Because of that. A lot of cool things happen in the city, mostly, mostly revolving around day drinking, to be honest. So people come out, they watch the marathon happen, they encourage the runners, it's kind of fun, you know, to go out there and see all that positivity. The Red Sox play a home game at 11 o'clock in the morning. So you go out, you watch the Red Sox play you drink beforehand, starting pretty early. And then when the Red Sox game is over with you try to watch the end of the Red Sox part of the end of the marathon. And then afterwards, depending on how our two winter teams the Celtics and the Bruins are doing, you may only have one playoff game, you could have two so there have been instances when both the Celtics and the Bruins are playing playoff games in the same day. So it's possible to see a Red Sox game a Celtics game and a Bruins game on the same day. And see the Boston Marathon which is pretty cool. The first time I ever brought me to Boston ever, ever was the the Boston bombings. And we had left the Fenway Park. And I was going to bring her my friend Paul Flynn that I played rugby with, and someone who was really as close to me as a brother, my friend, Sean toll, and we were walking from the Fenway area to the walking to the Prudential area to go to get as close to the the finish line as we possibly could. When a number of Boston police officers pulled us to turn around, and we can see the black clouds of smoke coming in all the helicopters. We watched to the Harvard Club where I'm a member and they let us in after I kind of lost my shit on the security guards. They were letting anybody in. And I said that's you reading a security protocol that I wrote. So my name is right there. And they they did they let me in. And we were the only people there that weren't they didn't work there. And we watched events unfold for a while. And then when it was clear, the city had the town of lockdown. We walked through. I mean, absolutely quiet, Dead City. We watched SWAT members and state state troopers fast roping onto the buildings, roofs with snipers. We walked through with the Boston Common back to at the time it was we're staying at a hotel. And I just told him to keep looking forward stand behind me. You know, it was it was it was creepy. But the next morning, I remember waking up and going to 711 to grab something outside my hotel room. They told us don't go on the street if you know, but that one convenience store is open. And there was a guy in front of me that had if he had on a Boston Marathon medal, he had run the race the day before, and he couldn't fly home because they closed the airports or trying to find a bomber. And the guy behind the counter said, so. Are you going to run again next year? And he said of course I am. And the guy said, Well, aren't you afraid? He goes, No. Why would I be and he goes well, they bombed it this year. And he goes yeah, I will fuck them. And I just remember saying that is like the most Boston thing I've ever heard anybody say. And it was it was a it was a strange time. But it made me very proud to be from New England. Just to see how everybody rallied around that moment, you know, and I've been back to, to Patriots Day since then. And I've gone to one baseball game. I've gone once I got one time since then. But I didn't get to spend the rest of you actually had an interview with with crane. So I ended up having to fly to Chicago to get to hang around. But it's a wonderful, wonderful day to be in the city. But now that I'm in my 50s You couldn't pay me to spend the day hanging around Boston drinking from nine o'clock in the morning until the end of the day. Like it exhausts me, Doug, it actually makes me tired to think about being downtown dirty with a bunch of 20 year olds I'm going to be I'm going to be euphoric tonight. sitting on the couch. You know watching the news at Five o'clock with me having dinner. Rather than fighting crowds of drunks at, you know, at the, wherever I would have been. Just I'm that old now. I can't even imagine doing it. But if you're young, and you want to be somewhere, that's where you'd want to be. And there isn't a safer city to be on the third, the third Monday in April than in Boston, Massachusetts on a day like today, so salute to all the heroes, first responders and all the people in Boston on that day. It's not a sad topic. It's sad that it happened, but it made me proud to be from here.
Doug Draper 25:36
Yeah, that's great. I didn't realize all the the backstory with all the activity on that day. And yeah, I think Big Papi had some things to say about that situation as well. Use any action, but it was a very short and
Pete Mento 25:50
what's crazy. Is it on live TV, they didn't hit the delay button. So went out to everybody. And it was like, everybody heard it, but they went they went in, they won the World Series that year. You know, the whole the whole, all of New England behind country behind him is it was great.
Doug Draper 26:10
Yeah, very cool. All right. All right.
Pete Mento 26:12
So next topic that we got.
Doug Draper 26:15
All right. So my topic starts with a question, which is, when did it be so women? When did it start being cool? Own a truckstop. Alright. And what I mean by that is that, you know, truckstops are kind of the Oasis of the plains. I certainly saw a lot of them this weekend on my drive across western Kansas and eastern Colorado. But you know, the, the the truckstop things are going on. Number one, British Petroleum is looking to acquire TCA travel Centers of America. And just this weekend, the it was officially passed that, yes, they could continue on with the acquisition. And Berkshire Hathaway is looking to increase their ownership of pilot truckstops. Right, I think they owned a small percentage. And then, most recently, they took over, they own 80% of it now. But in classic Berkshire Hathaway form, they brought in some of their big boys. So they've asked a few of the leadership, the CEO, CFO of pilot, to hit the bricks, and they're bringing in some old school leadership to run the show. And everybody is looking for a taste of, of ownership and positioning themselves to basically we refer to this, you know, a little bit of owning the rails, right? If you think about it, most of it, in my opinion, is a real estate play, and how do you distribute energy to the changing economy and how things are moving towards electrification. And, and I think you're gonna see a revamp of truckstops, I think you're gonna see them nicer and nicer. It's not just going to be, you know, you know, a crappy shower in the corner and a bunch of semis lined up. But if you think about it, as you know, even with a family of four taking a road trip, they need to stop and, and reduce their, their cars, their electric cars, they're going to want to stop, they're going to want to get some food, the whole nine yards. So I think the truckstop as we know it is in an evolution. And Berkshire understands that British polo bread, repeat British Petroleum understands that as an opportunity to sell services and fuel to the folks across our highways in the evolving landscape of how trucks are operated. So I think it's awesome, I think you're gonna see a lot of changes not only in the trucking industry, but those stations, the oasis on the plains across America, are really going to take an evolution for a variety of reasons, in the upcoming years. And it's interesting to see that big time investors big time, fortune 500 companies are seeing that they're making the investment and it should be pretty cool as this thing continues to develop.
Pete Mento 29:07
I couldn't articulate this. But I was trying to come up with a way to articulate it before the show. So I'm gonna I'm gonna see if I can do it on the fly a little bit better. I wonder if companies like Berkshire and these other large conglomerates, these holding companies, I wonder if they're trying to find a way to consolidate their transportation spend through fuel where you're going to be able to save the large trucking fleets, you know, purchase your fuel through our our network of fuel suppliers. Because ultimately, you're purchasing and consuming fuel that we're selling to you. And they're going to be reaping and recovering profitability through it. I wonder if they were if they're able to say you know, when you when you or your trucking firms you purchase through us We can give you a discount by buying it through us, even if it's just, you know, pennies on the gallon, that that lowers their transportation costs and transportation costs being such a large part of their cost of goods sold. I wonder if there's some kind of play there. And I bet if I spend enough time looking at it, you look at the strategic locations of some of these places. There has to be a play there for them to reduce cost of goods sold in the long run. And I bet it's significant. But I didn't have the time to really dig deep enough into it once I saw the topics today, but I'm sure that some dweeb at McKenzie, some dateless, humorless Jackass at McKinsey probably did that math. And that had something to do with the decision. Then another piece of I wanted to bring up was via radio buches. Duck.
Doug Draper 30:56
I've been to a buches No, no, but I've heard about their what primarily Oklahoma, Texas,
Pete Mento 31:02
Louisiana, Arkansas, you know, they go sort of if God if God was going to go to a truckstop, God would go to a buck. He's my friend. They are awesome. truckstops should be like bikinis they are. They're just awesome.
Doug Draper 31:18
Well, they will be in my estimation, the you know, the buches may be the model, but they're more and more going to morph into something that you just described. So even gas stations now, Kwik Trip. They're in Kansas, and now they're popping over here in Colorado, you walk in and you know, Hi, how may I help you please come see us again, guys are out picking up trash in the parking lot. I mean, it is amazing. Love Kwik Trip. We
Pete Mento 31:44
had soda. They were fabulous. Yeah.
Doug Draper 31:48
Awesome. Awesome. So all right. All right. Bring us home, my friend. What do you got? Yeah.
Pete Mento 31:52
So today, big announcement in the world of finance. And people were talking about this coming. But the announcement of it and the size of it was shocking. Apple has a credit card, it's it's more of a rewards card associated with purchases. So people have always said is this more of a of a store card than a credit card? Well, it's turning out to be more of a banking facility. The Apple company today announced a a breakthrough in their credit card, where it's now backed by JP Morgan. And there's also Goldman Sachs, it might be Goldman Sachs, I have to double check this. But the card itself now has a savings account that can be associated with it. So if you use it with a savings account, there's no minimum to it, your interest rate is 4.25%. So your yield on that is 4.25%. Now my bank doesn't give me 4.25% On my deposits, and I wish they would. But what's basically being said to you by Apple is we'll give you access to all of our goods, we give you cashback on your purchases, pretty good amount to, I think there are 2% right now cash back on purchases through through the card that you can use immediately. They give you that cash back every week. And if you put your money into our bank accounts, we're going to give you 4.25% interest rate. So to put that in perspective, let's say that you're a relatively high wage earner in today's society, you make 225 to $50,000 a year. And you're having your, your your checks, put directly into a bank account through Apple, and you've got a debit card with this bank that they have and you're purchasing with this card, you're gonna get back somewhere in a neighborhood let $1,000 A year of interest. And that's more or less just paid for. If you're a family of four, all of your brand new phones, a couple of pairs of you know, new air pods, a few brand new MacBook Pros. It's basically every year that's enough to buy all of your peripherals. But more importantly, you've just given working capital to Apple, billions and billions. Much like how we all put give money to Starbucks in our Starbucks cards, billions of dollars of it that they've got to use for whatever they want, because we're giving them all of our money up front. There's like $2 billion of money on on Starbucks cards that we just give them ahead of time. And using dribs and drabs. Well imagine the kind of money we're about to give apple. That's a great story, but I thought to myself, What are other companies that could do something like this? Amazon nailed it. Imagine what happens when I mean Apple's all great and all. But imagine what happens when Amazon says you guys You really don't need that much from Apple, DIA. But every single one of you buy stuff from us. So what if we say we'll give you 4% to give us your money? We're about to start building warehouses on the moon with it. I think banks should be a little afraid of this. Seriously. They should. I mean, there should be another bank. That should be knocking on Bezos, his door saying, Listen, I know we talk a lot of smack about you guys. But I got my hat, my hand and you told me whose cars to start waxing the parking locks, we're ready to sign a deal. This changes everything.
Doug Draper 35:38
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see, you know, the apple is probably one of the most iconic brands, the loyalty that people have traveled, is going to just the trajectory of that is going to be phenomenal. Amazon, you buy a lot of stuff through him. So just the sheer buying power will have an impact. So, but brand loyalty at Apple is second to none. Right? So I think it'll be interesting. Maybe Amazon and others will sit on the wings. You know, I mean, Walmart could do some
Pete Mento 36:10
more Walmart could that's another one. But I thought to myself, you should always think like people say Amazon's gonna buy ups and like, come on. Well, thanks. And given that money, we're gonna give him that money. We're gonna give him that money by by opening up these these accounts with them. And then they're just going to have enough money to buy whoever the hell they want, or to fund their own. They'll just fund their own. I think this this could be really interesting to watch over the next couple of years.
Doug Draper 36:36
Yeah, yeah. That's a great, great topic. good one to end on. For this week's edition of G TTW. Global trade this week. It happens weekly. And we always appreciate our audience for listening. Whether it's halftime or the four topics we come up with, we hope you enjoy it. And we wouldn't be here or projecting our comments without cap logistics. So please visit cap logistics.com They can take care of you on your transportation and logistics needs. So Pete, it gets it man we can check this week off the box, and we'll see everybody next week. Thanks. Bye. Alright,