LSUShock

Walked along side Dierks Bentley on Bourbon Street. Not sure anyone knew who he was but me.

Sat by Akon at JFK waiting for a flight out. He was bearing a teal blue suit and gloss white shoes.

Steve Aoki and I ran into one another walking into the AAdvantage lounge in DFW. I let him go first.

Tom Watson was eating dinner at a local restaurant after pheasant hunting in Kansas one table away from us.

Caddied in Barry Sanders' group once.

Drank vegas bombs with Rob Riggle and Paul Rudd at The Hawk in Lawrence, KS 2011.

Was on a flight during COVID with about 20 people on it. Chuck Liddell was one of them with his wife. He was wearing a shirt that said I'm carrying and had arrows pointing to his arms.

Molson is a customer and a bit of an extremist, but he’s not wrong.

Relatively speaking ~70% of the US imports come from China. Of that 70%, 60% or so if all bookings since April 9 have been cancelled or postponed. Most of those cancellations are on post-production products. Those goods are done and ready for shipment, just sitting there. In line with his timelines, it will be May 9-June 9 when you start to see the impact of those goods not being where they intended to be.

I have a customer who imports 100s of containers of holiday decorations. His factory rep went to the manufacturer last week. He called back and said there are 1000s of containers worth of Walmart/Hobby Lobby/Target goods just sitting.

Aside from the inventory shortage, the bigger problem here is that once/if this resolves, everyone turns the faucet on at once. And the capacity is fixed, which means the carriers are licking their chops to charge everyone 3-5x normal ocean rates just like we saw 2020-2022. Vessels outside of LAX/LGB waiting again, the whole deal.

International supply chains run on fluidity and predictability. You stop the flow of goods for 6 weeks. It takes 5x that amount of time for the system to right itself. Even if the tariffs get resolved, the supply chain challenges are far from over.

And to everyone who always says, well that doesn’t affect me or my community, we buy local, I say go ask your local suppliers where they buy from. Everyone’s in bed with China even if you have a few degrees of separation directly. .

Go to importinfo.com and type in your city. More importers than you ever realized are around you.

quote:

---

No businesses like that around me. Sounds like maybe something you'd find in larger metros.

---

Are you from KC, MO like your title says.

If so, you are surrounded by a lot more of this than you realize. Champion Teamwear, Gear for Sports, Branded Custom, S&S Sportswear, just to name a few.

2006 AU vs LSU. Most heartbreaking loss of my youth. That was a championship team that lost 2 games it should have won that year.

El Pato FTW

quote:

---

Your furniture?


North Carolina

---

:lol: :lol: High Point, North Carolina is likely the world's largest furniture market and manufacturing location. Furniture "makers" from all over the world there every year. 95% of them are importing fabric or furniture from Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, China, etc.

I know because we work with them. Don't let them fool you. Everyone's importing.

I think that's a very naive POV. I'm close to the sun as this is what I do for a living, but importing is everywhere around you, whether you realize it or not.

Here's the import data report for Houma.

Every half decent sized city in the country has data like this or more. Half the people that work at importers don't even know they do it.

100%, I've got customers all across the board. 10 import containers a year. 1000 containers a year.

Enterprise accounts. Mom and pops.

The carnage in the middle market for those importing from China specifically is unavoidable.

quote:

---

They were successful in the early 2010’s because of talent identification and luck. No one thought Ron Baker would turn into the player he did. Van Vleet was a 3 star guy when WSU offered who rose in recruiting rankings the summer before his senior year after he had already committed. Carl Hall had heart issues that kept other schools away. Early had some grade and attitude issues that kept bigger schools away. They hit on every single guy in a 3-4 year stretch.

---

Well and you know... coaching. If the players were diamonds in the rough, so was Gregg Marshall. He was the perfect fit for a place like WSU, the game at the time, and the mentality it took to be successful here. Plus, the city always supports a winner, even back to the Turgeon days.

I still think he's the kind of coach that would be successful in today's game as well, but who knows with NIL. He's obviously a hot head and we've seen how that plays in today's college sports.