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Why Hardworking Americans Always Get Screwed First · The Unsexy Businessmen

• Alex Skinner: Welcome to the Unsexy Podcast, where we talk about all things unsexy that lead to the finished product. As always, I'm joined by my brother Aaron Skinner. I am Alex Skinner. And today we're talking about something that I didn't even know what its initials stood for until 30 seconds ago. The TSA. So this is going to be great. And honestly, I already forget what it was. The Transportation Security Administration. There we go. Transportation Security Administration. Aaron Skinner: Yeah Security Administration? Alex Skinner: and the things that are going on there. And I'm sure you're all asking, why is this unsexy? How is this an unsexy topic? Going and doing digging and learning about this thing, which Erin and I have spent no time doing, we have not put in the unsexy effort to do this thing, but I think we can spread a little light on it. Aaron Skinner: Yeah Alex Skinner: There is a common trope that is more security, less freedom. More freedom, less security. So essentially, the TSA is born out of 9-11, where we are wanting to have more security, but we are now adding another government agency, federal government agency, that is in charge of making sure no bombs get on planes, no guns get on planes, that everybody is traveling relatively safely. I barely remember, barely remember pre-9-11 travel, and what I do remember is that I was walked to the gate by my parents, and I was walked to the gate by my aunt, and I don't even remember much of security except for maybe a wand, if that is something. So it has changed dramatically, and now we have so many people. Think about it, I'm 37 years old. and I barely remember what life was before. So now we have everyone 37 and under who all they know is life with TSA. And I would say that it probably has been a net positive, but the fact that this happened so goddamn always is a little bit frustrating. Thankfully it has. Aaron Skinner: What they like, the shutdown, is that what you're saying is frustrating? Yes. Alex Skinner: Yeah, when T, yeah, like government shutdowns happened like crazy and obviously they happen like crazy under Trump. And so this is becoming like an annoying thing. Thankfully it hasn't impacted me that much, which probably leads people to be like, so like, why are you guys talking about this? We're talking about it because like, once again, this is, this thing has become politicized like crazy. Aaron, TSA hasn't impacted you, right? It's been pretty nice. Aaron Skinner: No, actually, I just got back from a vacation where I was terrified that it was going to impact me, because I went to DC. So, you know, the heart of everything that's going on with with the shutdown. And I flew out of Salt Lake. Zero issues there. I flew back out of DC and we got through in like 30 seconds. I mean, I have TSA pre-check, so that probably helps. But ⁓ I did not for some reason. I my TSA pre-check didn't work in Salt Lake. Still not a problem, still got through super fast. And so it's a little side note. It's funny, you get so used to TSA PreCheck that you have no idea what to do when you go through regular PreCheck or regular check. Yeah, well, they got rid of the shoe thing, so you don't have to take your shoes off, but I've never taken my tablet out of my bag. And so I'm going through like, you need to take this out. was like, what? I don't know what I'm doing. It was just whatever. So yeah. Alex Skinner: What do I have to take out? Off. Aaron Skinner: As far as affecting me, it didn't affect me at all, but it obviously affects people that aren't getting paid to work. Like what industry would that ever happen, right? never, just if you're an entrepreneur, stop paying your employees, let me know how long they stick around for. It's not gonna be very long. But there's a law, I can't remember the name of the law. Alex Skinner: It's insanity. Aaron Skinner: that affects like firefighters, police, like where you can't do like a protest and just do like a walkout. And I think TSA is, you can't do a strike. I think like all first responders, there's some law, I don't know. Again, I'm not educated. I just vaguely know that there's a law that you can't do that. So TSA can't just go on strike. Alex Skinner: You can't strike. ⁓ Murphy's law. Aaron Skinner: I'm sure they would love to do that. But ⁓ I do have a little insight source. So I at my gym, there is a guy that is a TSA agent. I like he's a really nice guy. I like talk to him about kind of what's going on. And so they're they're kind of work around is you can take two sick days in a row without a doctor's note. But if it's three, you have to come back with the doctor's note. So a lot of people just taking two days off, coming to work. taking two days off, coming to work. And so they just, that's how they kind of do it. ⁓ Because I don't know, I wouldn't want to go to work. I'm not getting paid, like F this. And the other thing too is they're like, hey, ⁓ and when I was talking to my buddy, my buddy, the guy, my gym buddy, ⁓ he was just saying what they were telling. So his like higher ups were telling him, hey, Alex Skinner: and not get paid. Aaron Skinner: you know, we know you have mortgage payments, we know you have this and this and this. If you just let them know that you're a TSA agent, they will defer your payments. He's like, oh, okay, guess what didn't happen? So he went into his bank, he's like, I'm a TSA agent, this is what you guys all know what's going on. I'd like to defer my mortgage payment. They're like, yeah, I don't think so. And so it's like, I just can't imagine being in that situation where your main source of income is just gone, but you still are required to go to work is absolutely insane to me. And yeah, like you said, Alex, it's all politicized and everyone blames everyone else's fault, everyone's stupid except for me kind of mentality. And the people that get hurt are your common people. like the hardworking Americans are the ones that are getting hurt or the people that, you know, that did get affected by long TSA lines and missing flights and stuff like that. Like, yeah, dude, it's a real shit show when it comes to all this. And the thing that sucks, man, is like, you can't do anything about it. What are you gonna do? Like, well, I'm gonna vote and that's gonna, when the next election comes, that's gonna change. You're like, well, great. When is the next election? And you're gonna wait a couple of years to be able to make that, but like, it's just, that's 20. ⁓ Alex Skinner: Aaron serious. When is the next election? So leave it in the comments. No, think it's I honestly I think it's this year. I think the midterms were this year. I have no idea. Oh presidential yeah. 2028 2028. It's every four years. Aaron Skinner: Is the Black President, it 2028? ⁓ midterms, I was thinking presidential. think, no, I think there are, think the midterms, I don't know, I don't know any, I don't know political things, ⁓ but yeah. Alex Skinner: Well, it's interesting because I know that we do say like we go ahead and politicize this. I think it is partially fair that this is political. But I think what I'm getting frustrated by on the political politicalization of things is that like it goes back to like it's always better to be in the middle. Like people like, ⁓ it's the Republicans fault. ⁓ it's the Democrats fault. Like it's both of their faults. Like essentially. And it's Trump's fault, too. Like it like I saw this thing that like the White House put out where it's just like, Yeah, sorry about the the Democratic shutdown of the government. I was just like, no, the Republicans have the majority like that, like and the Democrats, obviously some of them could have switched sides to make the funding bill go through. But we keep having tons and tons of shutdowns under this administration. And that's not just this. This four years that we're going through right now, this was 2017 to 2021 as well. But like the most government shutdowns that have ever happened. and the longest ones that have ever happened are under Trump's administrations. And I think a lot of people will look at that and like, he's cleaning out the swamp, cleaning out the swamp. No, it's making it way more swampy, because it goes back to what Aaron said. None of those people are affected. Delta put out this thing where they say like, hey, during this government shutdown, we're no longer going to let politicians fly or be able to get their special treatment that they normally get of not having to go through Aaron Skinner: Special treatment. Yeah. Alex Skinner: security check and. There's like a part like everyone like yeah, yeah, yeah, that's awesome like and there's a part of me like why don't we do this every single time we should do like one they shouldn't have the special treatment. They shouldn't have the special treatment at all. I do. I do not care like you are public servants. You are going to act just the same way as well. What about the president? Shouldn't he have a security detail like blah blah blah blah like normal normal like there's part of me that kind of wishes it was normal normal the amount of tax dollars that go into protecting people who don't care. about any of you. They're using you as pawns like look at these TSA agents not getting paid stupid Democrats, stupid Democrats. Do they care that your buddy's mortgage ⁓ didn't get deferred? No, they don't. They don't at all. You want to know how I know? Has your friend heard from President Trump called them up? Has his Republican ⁓ Senator and or representative called them up? No, because they don't care. They don't care about us. Aaron Skinner: Well, the funny thing about that is like the big win that Trump did was like, I'm gonna fund the TSA with whatever he did. Again, I don't know a lot of political things or whatever. I try to keep out of the news as much as I can, just like, or not deep dive into things, because I have better things to do. But there was the thing that Trump passed that forced ⁓ payment for the TSA agent. So I talked to him about actually this morning, I was like, oh, well, Trump did that, that thing started getting paid. And I was like, well, we got paid like for, I think it was like two pay periods, but that still doesn't cover all the other things. And he made a really good point. like, and of course they took all the taxes out and they like retroactively took out taxes that are going to be paid for, for like the next payments. Alex Skinner: God. Aaron Skinner: And so I was like, yeah, that was like one of my buddies, he got like, I think he said 50 % of his check was taxes. And it's just like, try and do that with the government, try and be like, you know what government, I'm not gonna pay my taxes. Ask Wesley Snipes how that worked out. And not only that, but like, then if you do pay them back, you gotta pay interest. Do you think these TSA agents that have been working for free this entire time are gonna get interest put on their checks? Alex Skinner: You Aaron Skinner: Absolutely not. And it just goes back to what you said, Alex. And what we say all the time, they don't care about you. You're just, we're just pawns, man. We really are. And they use the news cycles to get you all riled up. And it's Fox, it's CNN, it's MSNBC, it's all of those. You go to those to get mad at the opposition. That's where you go. Cause that's all they're gonna talk about is. everything bad that happens is because of Democrats or everything that bad that happens is Republicans. And so whichever way you lean, that's what you watch and it just gets reinforced. And that's why there's such divisiveness in our nation today. mean, there's, you know, people think like, well, there's always been divisive. It's really, really bad. And so, I don't know, that's, just, when it really comes out, they don't care about you, stop thinking they do. And... There's nothing you can do about it. That's the part that sucks. Alex Skinner: Right. like Karen said, like, yes, it has always been divisive, but this goes back to our conversation from last week about social media, where you're getting the big difference between the division now versus then is nobody is hearing dissenting opinions. Essentially, all anybody is hearing is the echo chamber that they create for themselves on social media. And for most people, it's one of two echo chambers where they create the I will listen to the Democratic side, but it's the things that like I'm always going to disagree with and like pisses me off. Like it's never going to be the reasonable Democrat that comes through and that it's going to be only the good Republican things and vice versa. Like, so you're going to get the stuff that will always piss you off. And then the stuff that like you're always going be like, ⁓ yeah, right, true. And just all of this information that's coming through. And I think I've said this before, like, I don't think everyone should be able to vote. Obviously that would obviously that would be like a huge power vacuum where like the, and I'm not saying like rich, like I don't think Elon. Aaron Skinner: Yeah Women, women should be allowed. Is that what you said Alex? Alex Skinner: and most should be allowed to vote. ⁓ gosh, some of them, just like some men shouldn't be able to vote. Like there's a lot of people who are, like if this is the education that we are receiving is from talking head and pundits, like even people like us, if people are receiving their information, like ⁓ so people only got paid half of what they thought they were gonna get paid from TSA. I didn't know that. Like whatever educational thing we say here. We shouldn't be the educators for you to go out and vote either. Like essentially nobody nobody knows. But at the same time, I'm scared of that because then it's like alright cool. So let's just give all of the power to a small ruling class that then controls everything like that's also not great. But what we're doing right now. I would say it's not working. But it's not going great and what I mean by that is. I don't feel like, at least I see it, like the middle class is like dying. Everything is way more expensive for them. Like I think normally I would have been like where I am at like as like upper, upper middle class, maybe even like lower upper class with like where I am currently, but it's definitely more middle class or like just right below like the middle class line because we have childcare, you have all of the anyways. And so I think about ⁓ as we're seeing that disappear, who has that been happening under? And I feel like I'm incredibly biased in this, so I just wanna apologize to everybody, but like. He isn't making it better for you people. Like Trump doesn't care about you. Neither did Biden, like don't get me wrong, but like. It has not gotten better for the middle class. And I just want all of those people and especially the lower class, all of those lower class people who are voting like, cause they think the American dream is coming back. It's not coming back anytime soon for you. And so I go back to the thing that we say quite a bit on this podcast too, where it's just like, you need to figure out the game and play the game as best you can with whoever like the, the new managers, puppeteers of the game are, which is incredibly frustrating for me. Gonna go on a huge tangent here really fast. ⁓ The one thing I agree with the Unabomber on. So. He has this thing in his manifesto. Is Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber? He has this thing in his manifesto where it says, every time you stop at a red light, you are giving up freedom. And in, I believe it was the TV show on Netflix that they made about him. ⁓ They have a guy who stopped, it's the middle of the night, there are no cars around and he stops at the red light. And that's like always stuck with me where the more Aaron Skinner: Yes. Alex Skinner: power that we continue to give to the government, is like an absurd amount of power like just think about this. President Trump just say what I don't care what your opinions are. It's not about like the opinions of if this is wrong or right in the in the in within three months went in and abducted a leader of a country and then assassinated for lack of a better a lack of a better term a leader of another country one, which is leading to great financial turmoil for a lot of the nations in the world and the people who end up suffering the pain of that aren't people like me. It's like it's the lower class where it's just like, holy crap, $4 and 20 cents a gallon for gas is incredibly expensive for me. And that I feel like is problematic. amount of over the amount of power the federal government is creating, cause just imagine that amount of power and like People will be like, well, you know, Biden did this Obama did. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't like that very much either. Like this is more of like the federal government is doing so much more than it was ever prescribed to be able to do. And the only people it makes us less safe and it makes us less money. It takes money about our out of our pockets and it makes people putting targets on our back. Because if there's one thing I know from all of the TV shows I will watch, essentially whenever you, regardless of people being happy or sad, When you kill a leader, you make a bunch of radical zealots. You make a martyr out of that person. And then things get crazier and crazier and crazier. End of rant. And it just pisses me off the amount of power the federal government has. And like there is zero accountability. There's no accountability for anybody. Aaron Skinner: And there's, I go back to, and there's nothing you can do about it. I mean, I was in DC, there was a giant protest. mean, not the no Kings protest, which is also like, great. Okay. Like, and I'm not like, don't protest. You shouldn't be able to protest. Like, good. I'm glad people can do that. And I mean, that's one of the great things about the United States is you can do one of these giant protests and not have to worry about getting run over by a tank. ⁓ Alex Skinner: We can do about it. Dude. arrested or killed. Aaron Skinner: But it just goes back to it and what did that solve? Nothing, nothing. And then there was a No Kings one, but the one that we saw was the, it was the big one in DC for like, I think it was the Iran war. And I'll tell you what, I should maybe know what the Iran flag looks like, especially since it was in our thumbnail. I didn't. I was like, which one is this? So I took a picture. Alex Skinner: you Aaron Skinner: Send it to chat GBT is like, that's the Mexican flag. It's not Mexican. I was like explaining to it. was like, it's not a Mexican flag. has this is like, you know, it's because the picture you sent me, it's bent a little. you're getting these telling me I'm confused. I'm like, shut up chat GBT. Fine. It was the Iran flag. I should have probably been able to figure that out way faster than it, than I did anyways. like, it's like I was with my daughter. Alex Skinner: It does look like it. You Aaron Skinner: She's 10 and she's just like, why are they doing this? Like, oh, it's the, I think I'm the worst person to ask about this. Like, they're, I have assuming they're protesting the strikes and things that we've been doing in Iran and getting involved with that. It's like, why would we do strikes there? Like, why are we, like, well, we killed their leader. She's like, why? I was like, he's a bad guy. I don't fucking know. I was like. Alex Skinner: What's with the questions? Aaron Skinner: It's a quiet you. ⁓ And she's just like, is it? And then a 10 year old, like, why are we getting involved in somebody else's business? like, I don't know. And I get it. Someone could go through the history and there's probably some validity of what we did there. I'm not educated enough to have an opinion on if it's right or wrong of what we did. ⁓ But it was just an interesting thing. But my whole point being like, so you had that. No Kings, you had that Iran, giant pro, he, tons of people there. And what is it gonna do? Nothing. I mean, it's gonna make you feel good that you get to protest. And again, I'm glad we live in a country where you could do that safely. And that's great. I'm not anti-protesting. I just more of the, it just doesn't do anything. I mean, that's, I, were you and I, Alex, talking about this? Like, what would it take for me to go to a protest? Like, I just know the end result is nothing. Like it just. They did protests forever for the Vietnam War. What did that result in? Nothing. Like that's not why we left. It wasn't like the president was like, you know what? Those protesters are right. We're going to get, we're going to get out of the Vietnam War. It's just, it kind of, just, it just sucks when you really think about it. The no power you have like, well, you, you, your power's in your vote. Like it doesn't matter who it's going to be. No one cares about you. That's how it really is. Like they'll, They'll have all their great speeches and stuff to get elected and then nothing changes. It's all the same. Alex Skinner: Yeah, I love that it came from the mouths of babes too, where it's just like, it shouldn't be confusing to a child. And so like the way that people simplify is like, ⁓ he's a bad guy. Or you could be like, ⁓ they were enriching uranium to create nuclear devices. then even like, think a child would be like, well, why is that bad? Like, well, we don't want them to have them. Do we have them? Yes, we have them, but the other people can't have them. We're the only people who can. Yeah, we're the good guys. So like, we're the only people that can have them. Does Russia have them? Aaron Skinner: Yeah But we're the good guys. Alex Skinner: Yeah, they were the bad guys in like the, you know, in Rocky four and then like we liked them again. And then essentially, ⁓ let's just say Top Gun Maverick came out and they weren't our best friends again. I liked it. I liked, I know I like to pretend it was Russia because I know it couldn't be China because then China wouldn't show the movie. Is it Iran? I believe you. Aaron Skinner: You That was a very ambiguous who the bad guy was in that. I it was you, I thought it was. I thought that's, they never say, but that's who I assumed it was. Alex Skinner: Now that's who I assume it was. And it just gets, it just makes me sad. Like maybe we're like going to like the human, just like the human element of, you know, taking this from like the TSA, like to where we at, like, it makes me sad that we just don't care about people that much. And sorry, let me take that. I think as individuals we do, but like as a whole, we don't really. ⁓ And that goes back to the, favorite men in black quote. is when Kay says a person is smart, but people are dumb, flighty, something, creatures or whatever. Like a singular person is incredibly intelligent. But then like when you like gather that entire, an entire group of persons together, they start to become radical, crazy. Yeah, that too, like a lot of like the negative connotations because you start getting this us versus them mentality. And I've said this quite a bit. Aaron Skinner: cheap or radical, okay. Alex Skinner: where I think it's nice, but even that like for a little while it was good. Like I think it was because Trump was the one who started the lockdowns, like 2020 sucked. But like there was a little bit of like, Hey, we're in this together for about two months. And then, you know, then it become Dr. Fauci versus Trump, like blah, blah. And then it became heavily politicized. And I've always felt like we need that big bad. So there's sometimes where I wish not necessarily like the COVID thing, but like we would have aliens. who came and threatened us and that would be like really the only thing that would ever unify us ever like as a as a Aaron Skinner: Well, what was the last thing that actually completely unified us? Exactly. like, and I do not, I do not want that to happen again. That's not what I'm saying. But like, it's, it's, it's, yeah, exactly. That's exactly what you're saying. Like, but it's so sad that that's what it is. It has to be some catastrophe that happens that brings us all together. And instead of just be like, can't we just be good people just in general and be nice to each other? Nope. There always has to be, you know. Alex Skinner: 9-11. You need the big bad. Aaron Skinner: I like your rocky thing that was funny. There has to be like a, yeah, a big bad, a common enemy. There has to be a common enemy. But even that fell apart. Even then at 9-11, we're all like, yeah, we're gonna go get them. And then how long did that last before everyone was mad at each other again? It's just, yes, it's so, I don't know. This is gonna turn, I don't know what the thumbnail is gonna look like for this. But it's like. Alex Skinner: 2003 when we invaded Iraq. Aaron Skinner: I know we're gonna, the main point was about TSA that we got into our, is why, this is why there's nothing we can do, sorry. Alex Skinner: But the TSA is just another, if we want to pull it back to like the unsexy like side of things is like, is just another unsexy example that people are going to forget about because now like lines are fine again until the next time the TSA gets shut down. Where it's just like, you need to remember all of these moments and you need to remember who is like accountable for them. And yes, I agree. Like there is very little that we can do, but the only thing that we can really do is Aaron Skinner: Example. Alex Skinner: that aspect of voting and like I love there's like this literal literally literally parks and rec guy literally he was in Wayne's world. I'm just going to start naming all this Rob Lowe Rob Lowe Rob Lowe Rob Lowe. He's like yeah you want to know what every single election that I've ever been a part of has been the most important election and sometimes I laugh at like I laugh at that because was like yep every single but like the reason that every election is the most important election ever is just because all the other ones have already happened. Aaron Skinner: ⁓ my God. Rob Lowe. Yes. Yeah, right, right. Alex Skinner: Like there's like we can't go, we can't go back in time and change any of those. And going to your like protest thing of things, like a lot of times people want to use the, ⁓ the marches of the civil rights, like, ⁓ look at all those marches that happened when it was the boycotts and people losing money because people weren't riding buses. And like, I'm sure people would be like, that's not the only reason. Like hitting people's, hitting people's pocketbook is where things always make the difference. when gas prices started going up under Joe Biden, you start seeing the, I did that, little stickers on stuff. Like when things start impacting people financially, that is when they finally start to care. They don't really care about safety. We saw that with ICE. They don't really care about safety. We saw that with all the black, like when black people were getting killed, like what we really care about. And when change will happen, if you could tie, and maybe this is my crazy thought of this podcast. If you could somehow tie how George Floyd getting murdered or killed, however you want to talk about it. Aaron Skinner: Yes, yes. Alex Skinner: to like, now you're losing money because we now have to train our police officers more so that they, doesn't, body cams now cost money and we always have to have body cams on. People are more likely to be like, stop doing that because it's costing me $150 a year that I wasn't having to pay previously. With Iran, so simple because it's the gas. Like the gas has to go up because like, and then I hear Trump bragging, I love when like I start at one point and then like. Aaron Skinner: And don't get me started about the post office. Alex Skinner: It just leads me like, pissed off about this, like freaking, and it pisses me off when like Trump literally, it was two days ago, ⁓ so March 31st, talking about our allies, he's like, hey, if our allies are being impacted by oil, the United States has a ton, they have a ton, they can just like start buying from us. just like, so I'm a little confused why our gas prices would, and then people comment and the things, I honestly have no idea why this would be the case. Why do American gas prices go up when there is a conflict in the Middle East and we have so much oil that can be refined into gasoline? That confuses me. I literally don't have the answer as to that would be the case. Aaron Skinner: You have to watch Landman. Alex Skinner: Does he say how? Is it because of solar? Aaron Skinner: because of the retirement homes. No. Alex Skinner: ⁓ my god. I do love that like little like it costs it costs fossil fuels to be able to make those things and that the trucks that have to go pick up the stuff. Aaron Skinner: Did you, have you watched the debunking of that? Have you ever seen that? That that whole spiel is a bunch of bullshit. It's all bullshit, But you wanna know what? I read about it online. That could have been bullshit too. I don't know, but it was just interesting. There was a guy that like broke everything down and how it's actually, that's not true at all. But I believed it for a long time. And then I switched and believed what I read from another guy. So I don't know, I could be wrong, who knows? Alex Skinner: That whole spiel that he does is a lie. It's not as much fun without it though. Well, and I think that's a great example of you should never just blindly, blindly might be the wrong word, but like blindly just support somebody for forever. Like, and I don't associate with very many people like this. think I associate with a lot of people who like view things from like different lenses, depending on like what the scenario is. But the people who just like love Donald Trump, will never understand. I will never understand what's like. I am going to support him on everything. ⁓ like the Apache helicopters went over and visited Kid Rock and no, there are no consequences of that. OK, good. They like they finally did. OK, OK, good. Aaron Skinner: They, there was, they got suspended. The pilots got suspended. Yeah. But no, you're right. But you're right. Like, it's like, like how many people were like, hell yeah, that's awesome. My first, I was like, how much did this cost us in tax dollars to go fly and like say hi to Kid Rock? Go buy a, you want to go see him, go buy a ticket. Go see Kid Rock. Like I have no problem with Kid Rock, whatever. But like, yeah, stupid shit like that. like, yeah, America. Alex Skinner: You Aaron Skinner: I don't like that they do the flyovers during the Super Bowl. How much money is that costing us? And now that they don't, dude, like the NFL gets paid by the government for all the ads, all the ads for everything that has to do with the military, everything is paid for by the government. There's no, like, look into this. Like, it's not one of those. Alex Skinner: Yeah, seriously. the NFL pays for it. My guess would be the NFL pays for it, right? That's crazy. That's crazy. Aaron Skinner: You're like, ⁓ I love the NFL cause they're so patriotic and look how they support the military. They support them because they get paid to support them. That's why the same thing we were talking about the other day about there. There's a reason they use the Microsoft tablets on the sideline instead of like a superior product and the iPads is because Microsoft pays them a lot of money. no, everything, everything you see that has to do with the military in any, in any aspect is paid for by the military, which is paid for by us. So yeah, just going back to like, I don't need flyovers. How many flyovers can we stop doing to save money? Also, I'm going to do it Alex. And where do I get that money from the tariffs that was promised? What is going on? Like, that's another thing. Like, ⁓ I got all these tariffs made us $8 trillion and every American's going to get whatever. Like I'm waiting for that check. When's that check coming? ⁓ not happening. All it's done is made everything more expensive and, and put a lot of companies, lot of small businesses out of business because they couldn't compete with larger companies that could handle the tariffs. And so, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Blindly liking anyone is stupid. I, I, I, there's no one, there's not one person on this earth that I would blindly be loyal to no matter what. Like, like, what about your kids? Well, guess what? If my kids murdered my wife, I wouldn't like my kids anymore. Like, it's just like, okay, like I don't, there's no, there's just no one. Like there has to be some things, there has to be something in anybody that would get you to not like that person anymore. And it's just, it's on both sides. I know we've been kind of shitting on Trump and stuff, but like it's both sides. It's like, you know, we can, each side could do no wrong if it's their person. Alex Skinner: You There are conditions. Yeah. He's a pretty easy target these last two weeks, like in terms of like costs. Aaron Skinner: ⁓ he's an easy target. My thing with Trump was like, dude, because I know he does good things. My thing was like, get off of Twitter, get off of whatever truth social or whatever stupid new thing you have. You wanna know how many more people would like you if you just shut the fuck up? Like just shut up. Like just be like presidential, do what you're supposed to do. And be like, well, this is why we like Trump because he's not presidential. Like, okay, great. Alex Skinner: Shut up. Right. Aaron Skinner: You know what, I'd like a very stoic president. Exactly. I want a stoic president. That's what I want. Let's bring back, I just got back from DC. We can reincarnate. We've got scientists. Can we get George Washington? Could we get him back? Or Abraham Lincoln? They'd probably all be terrified of what has happened to America. But yeah, it's just, I don't know. Alex Skinner: People shouldn't be allowed to vote. What's going on? Especially George Washington. Can't go to Atlanta. ⁓ my gosh. Lincoln would be OK, right? He might be fine. Aaron Skinner: Yeah Yeah, but I mean, I think Washington, mean, obviously who knows how whitewashed the information you get, but was very kind to his enslaved people. You're not allowed to say slaves anymore. I learned that on the thing. Like you have to call them enslaved. And so I'm trying to be as kind as possible. But yeah, so I don't know. just, podcast turned into giant bummers. Alex Skinner: Yeah Interesting. Yeah, well, I go back to there are things that you can do to get you out of that, though. we just recently had, and we probably shouldn't talk about this. I don't care. We just had someone who filed for unemployment from a business that is run. And I don't know why it bothered me. Where I was just like. Aaron Skinner: And life sucks, there's nothing you can do about it. Alex Skinner: Go do something of your own. Go get it, not even, you can start building something of your own. The easiest way to get out from under the grip of tyranny is to be as self-sufficient as possible and dependent on the least number of people as possible as well. Not to say I'm perfect at this, as a teacher, I was literally a government employee making taxpayer dollars. Aaron Skinner: Go get a job, yeah. Or start a business, yeah. Alex Skinner: And that's like part of the reason where I'm just like, man, there should be no government funding at all because the amount of waste, amount of like, if you had any idea, this is, and this is just one school out of tens of thousands across the United States, like public schools. And that's just education. That's not all of the other government jobs that we have going on. Like, and that's all funded by taxpayer money. Aaron Skinner: ⁓ dude. Alex Skinner: I want all of those people to get jobs as well. ⁓ But we do this thing where we pretend like education is what gets people out of poverty. And I just don't believe that. Education does get people out of poverty, but not necessarily a public education, not necessarily like going to college, not necessarily whatever. So if I was going to be like, have a positive spin on this thing, it's like, this is part of the unsexy businessman side of things where if you start building something of your own, You get to be the person who's in control of a number of your employees' destinies and livelihoods. That can just be way better than what all of these other horrible agencies, I'm just using agencies as like, ⁓ whatever, like federal government ⁓ or really crappy companies that exist out there. They can have a much better experience if you go and build something that you can control. That's one way of taking control back. Did I land the plane on that? I don't know. Aaron Skinner: Right. Yes. Well, yes, exactly. Yeah, you did. You did. But I'm going to go right back to what we were talking about. Life sucks. No. No, like the ⁓ if I was president, if I was president, I believe I could fix the majority of our problems. Number one, the day after the Super Bowl is a national holiday. Number two. Alex Skinner: You can't get on the plane if there's no TSA agents. It's always a Southern accent. Aaron Skinner: The 4th of July is celebrated like Thanksgiving. It's every first Friday of every July. ⁓ Number three is we pay police officers quadruple what they make now and teachers. The reason being we would get the, this goes way back to what you're talking about. We would get such higher caliber people if we were paying them way more. So instead of spending money bombing Iran, let's pay our teachers more. Let's pay our policemen and firemen more. Like let's get like the best of the best. So we don't have to worry about having all these crazy, you know, we don't have to worry about the body cams and we don't have to worry about all the extra training and all the other stuff. I don't know. That's if you're, if you're watching or you're listening and you're a, if you agree with supporting the police. and teachers, give us a like. Alex Skinner: And we should say if you agree with ⁓ supporting the police and or teachers so it gives those who don't want to support the police the opportunity to like. Aaron Skinner: Oh, oh wait, wait, know. I was talking about, it's funny, I was talking to my daughter about this too. If you support firefighters or you support teachers, make sure that you give a like. The reason that I did that is because my daughter asked me, she's like, would you rather be a policeman or a firefighter? was like, a firefighter. She's like, why is that? Cause everyone loves firefighters. Isn't it dangerous? Like, yeah, but everyone loves, there's no one like, you know what? Fuck the fire department. No one says that. Alex Skinner: Hahaha firefighter. Aaron Skinner: Like that's what I'd want to be a firefighter. But yeah, it's what. Alex Skinner: That's funny. Maybe that could be a podcast, the most universally loved jobs or occupations. ⁓ gosh. ⁓ sweet, well awesome. Hey everyone, thanks for listening. Go have a great rest of the week and we'll chat with you next week. Aaron Skinner: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.