Entrepreneurial Environmentalist Wayne Elliott and CPA Super Corp. Chase Insogna

From the AMFM 24×7 radio network, broadcasting from AM and FM stations around the country, welcome to the Small Business Administration award-winning School for Startups radio, where we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now, here is your host, the guy that believes anyone can be a successful entrepreneur, because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk, or passion, Jim Beach. Hello everyone, welcome to another exciting edition of School for Startups radio.

It is Thursday, February 6th. I hope you’re having a great day, a great week, and making a little money, getting a little smarter. I hope I can help keep you motivated and do that other thing, keep you a little smarter and more educated.

So, excited for a great show today. And as always, we appreciate you being with us. First up today, we have Chase Insogna.

He has built a very successful CPA practice, but has added other things to it. For example, payroll, and has a really unique model, I think. I see CPAs all the time, and his model and Chase’s success really impressed me.

Quite a few employees, they’re just killing it. Plus, we have a really interesting discussion of S-Corp versus LLC. I’ve always been a big proponent of just starting off as an LLC, that’s fine for you.

And we asked Chase, when does that end? And he gives me a different answer than what we usually hear. And so, it’s really worth listening to, to get that insight as well. We also talk about that new Fed thing, the beneficial ownership information that the Fed is collecting.

And so, that is Chase, great information. After that, we have my favorite environmental entrepreneur, Wayne Elliott is back. Today, we’re going to talk about Canada, tariffs, Trump, international trade, all the like.

He has been doing international trade for decades. Small things like buying United States submarines and recycling them. He also had a deal for a couple aircraft carriers, and talks about that today.

Al Gore killing that deal, and the environmental impact of that. You know, if a ship doesn’t get recycled, it rots, sinks. Isn’t that worse? I mean, don’t you want it to be professionally removed and taken care of? And so, Wayne and I continue to discuss and learn about tariffs.

He has been doing international business just a long time, as I said. I want to make sure you know the background. Wayne is also the owner of Strauss Naturals, who is helping the show here.

They are a great friend of the show. And Wayne is using this part of his career, and the later part of his career, to work only with Strauss Naturals. And so, they are very important to the show.

And Wayne and I are working on a book together about his career as what I am calling the real environmentalist. The for-profit entrepreneurs, the capitalist entrepreneurs that are out there making money, making the world cleaner and healthier for the rest of us to live in. They are the heroes in the story, the environmental story.

So, we’ll learn more about that as well. Thanks for being with us. We’ll be right back.

We hope you enjoy the show. We are back in again. Still so very appreciative that you are with us.

Very excited to introduce our next guest. Please welcome Chase Insagna to the show. He is a CPA out of the Austin, Texas area, and for the last 14 years has been president of Insagna CPA.

It is a full-service, small business, CPA, tax, consulting, financial accounting, bookkeeping, the entire basket firm. Chase, welcome to the show. How are you doing? Great.

Thanks for having me. It is our pleasure. So, small business right now, I guess the biggest concern is, where do you stand on the, oh, I forgot to look up the name, the new federal law where we have to report our LLC ownerships to the federal government.

Yeah. The BOI beneficial ownership information report. Yes.

Are you recommending that your clients do that or not do that? We’re recommending they go ahead and take care of it. I mean, if you want to do it yourself, it takes like five minutes, but I mean, they already have the information, so it’s not like a big deal to me. Okay.

That’s true. Do you know if it’s the update on the legal situation? I know some courts have put a injunction on it and then the injunction got lifted. Is anything happened there that you know of? I can’t, I haven’t heard about it in the last two or three weeks.

You? The last, the last I saw from the CPA society was that the injunction got lifted. So it was still January 1st. Okay.

Now, I mean, it’s highly unlikely they’ll charge penalties for anything. So that’s why we’re suggesting to just go ahead and get it filed because I, I foresee it getting still being necessary at some point. But I mean, all you’re really reporting is your, your own personal information that they already have.

And then as a, as a one partner and and then really they’re just looking for foreign ownership. You know, where is the money flowing to, which they can grab from K ones already, but they’re just wanting you to verify if there’s any foreign activity. Well, I’ve filled it out for my businesses and as you said, it took about five minutes each.

It’s interesting. Half my guests say do it. It’s not required right now.

And the other say you do it. Um, I should run a tally the entire time. It’d be interesting because I’ve asked 30 or 40 people and gotten 40 different opinions with almost no consensus.

But anyway, Chase, let’s move on. Congratulations on the success of your firm. Why’d you decide to go out and open your own shop? Uh, tell me about your entrepreneurial journey.

Yeah, great question. Um I was in corporate accounting for a while. Um, I’ve always been entrepreneurial I always wanted to start a business when I was younger and didn’t know the CPA firm back then.

Um, and then at the opportunity in 2011 I ended up buying a bookkeeping firm to get started, but don’t recommend doing that. Um, and you know, I, I didn’t want to run it like a typical lifestyle business, like a lot of the older CPAs did in the past. Uh, I didn’t want to die at my desk.

Um, and so I, I, I built it with the ground up with technology back in 2011 that nobody was really doing at the time. Nobody was paperless back then. Nobody had boy out phones.

Uh nobody was, um, just utilizing the best technology out there. And so that was the original, uh, kind of plan is to make it tech efficient. Um, so at some point it could run itself, which effectively today it’s doing with a great team of 20 people we have.

Um, but, but from a client perspective I’d done taxes and done bookkeeping on the side for people throughout the years in college and after. And, and what I always noticed was I was doing the bookkeeping, but somebody else was doing the taxes or vice versa and nobody ever talked to each other. Um, and so back then it wasn’t really a thing where you’re bridging these three things together, bookkeeping, payroll tax, uh, under one umbrella.

Um, and so from 2011, that’s kind of what I, my business model was to bridge those things together. And then, uh, that’s kind of how we started. Um, and then bookkeeping tax and what was the third payroll? Oh, okay.

I’m sorry. Um, yeah, because, and then a lot of people back then, I mean, even attorneys I talked to, they didn’t even know about escorts back then. Now it’s real popular, but you go back 14, 15 years, like it wasn’t a real thing.

And, uh, in the Austin area, at least, and I educated all these attorneys on the benefits of S Corp and why it was different and how you save on taxes. And so that was a big part of our journey initially was taking these small business owners, educating them on S Corp benefits and helping them save money by being an escort. Um, because the payroll, the reasonable salary plays into your net profit of your bookkeeping P and L that then all flows into your business and personal taxes.

So that’s kind of the, the journey of why all three of those flowed together for me. Um, so that it could be efficient for the business owner together. I have not heard of payroll mixed in as well.

And I got to say, as a small business owner, I would love that. That would be so much easier for us. So I love that trio and 20 employees.

I mean, payroll is a big go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah.

I was just going to say, I mean, payroll is a big piece especially when you’re an escort, um, because we have a third party software that runs a S Corp test to determine what your salary needs to be. Um, so it’s kind of a first line of defense with the IRS. We’re not just guessing a salary number, but you know, as an S Corp, you don’t, the goal of an S Corp is to not overpay roll yourself W2 money, because otherwise you’re just wasting FICA payroll taxes.

If you overpay yourself that money, you never get back from the government. Um, so that’s why we feel like payroll needs to be included in there. It’s just an ancillary transactional piece of our advisory that we help with, but it’s a necessary piece to make sure our business owners are saving as much money as possible.

Now Chase, why are you going for S Corps? You know, everyone and me included has always said LLCs until you get really big and then they’ll tell you when to go S Corp your good CPA will tell you, do you disagree with that? Does a $800,000 business need to be S Corp? Uh, well, a couple of factors. It depends on where you’re at in the country. Uh if you’re in a high state tax rate, then it may not make sense.

Uh, we’re here in Texas, so that doesn’t apply to us. Those same taxes there, right? Yeah. Just, just all property tax, but, uh, how much is your property tax then? Uh, sorry to interrupt chase, but my mind is right there.

So if you own a nice million dollar four bedroom, three bath house in a nice neighborhood 15 minutes, 20 minutes from downtown Austin, what’s your property tax a year going to be? I mean, off the top of my head, I want to say around 20 ish thousand, 20,000. Yeah. Wow.

Okay. I mean, that’s just my guess, but I paid three. Um, yeah, yeah.

Uh, but so back to it was S Corp obviously a high tax day or eight might not make sense to be a flow through S Corp. Um in New York or California or somewhere, but for the most part, like if you’re in Texas, for example, it does or non-tax States or low income tax States. Um, and so the real benefit, uh, for us, a breakeven is like 50, 60 K net profit after expenses to be an S Corp.

Um, and LLC is just, uh, a formation. And then you would make a tax election with the IRS to be taxed as an S Corp. So we always recommend if you started out as an LLC in a small business, you don’t make that election until it justifies paying additional tax prep for business taxes, uh, with the S Corp return.

Right. So that’s why that 50, 60 K is our breakeven number. Cause below that it doesn’t cost benefit to make the election.

Um, but if you’re making a hundred K plus as an S Corp owner, um, you def if you’re making a hundred K plus and not an S Corp and you’re a hundred percent owner, you get two or three owners. Um, and that’s all of your business activity probably want to look at making an S Corp election, uh, and seeing where that, that tax savings comes into play. Cause most of the time if you’re a partnership, you’re flowing that into your 10 40, the majority of the time that box one income is subject to bike attacks.

And that’s where you can see a significant savings of five, 10, $15,000 a year. Okay. That’s getting up there.

So that’s a successful run. All right. Back to follow up on some of the things you said in your introduction, you’ve said you didn’t want to build yourself a lifestyle business.

And 20 employees would certainly be a practice big enough to sell. And so it seems like it would be a very valuable asset. I remember the first time I went on vacation, I, I gave myself an F I did.

I spent the entire time on the phone with the office. Did you go away for a month now and come back chase or are you still needed there every day? Could you truly step away? Uh, I would, I, I can, I can go away. I couldn’t, I couldn’t just step away fully for a full month yet.

Uh, kind of my day-to-day activity is more like biz dev. Yes. Uh, but today it’s more like biz dev and sales that I’m still kind of building that team out.

Um, but I don’t, I don’t do bookkeeping. I don’t do taxes on my own. I mean, my team runs it.

Uh, my tax manager and accounting manager are amazing. They’ve been with me a long time. Um, I mean, my accounting manager has been here since 2013.

Uh, so we have a lot of longevity here and, and we have a very seasoned experience team, take care of everything for our clients. Um, most of the time I’m involved just managing the business day-to-day kind of stuff, uh, with the team and then, um, having higher level conversations with the client, depending on the conversation they want to have. Do you have a strong number two that, uh, runs things when you’re gone? What does the upper management structure look like now? Yeah, I mean, my management team, so I’ve got, uh, accounting manager, um, and then tax manager.

Um, they effectively run their teams day-to-day. I’ve got a kind of a in-house controller. Um she also runs, uh, her team.

I’m doing the controller advisory side of the business. Um, so those three effectively when I’m out are the number two place to take care of things. All right.

And what is your firm’s strategy? Vis-a-vis the IRS? How combative do you think you should be? Are you on a scale of one to 10? What are your thoughts on the way you should treat, uh, the IRS? What are your thoughts on just how aggressive are you? Uh, that’s a good question. I mean, every CPA, every firm’s different. Um, I mean, I have multiple businesses myself, so I understand where people are trying to come from.

Uh, I like to describe, we’re not ultra conservative, but we’re not ultra aggressive either. We play in the gray area, um, and maximize deductions, but we’re not going to admit anything that’s going to raise a red flag or, um, potentially raise an audit. It’s just not worth a professional liability for us.

Right. Well, I like that strategy. That seems very sane.

What are the other businesses that you’re in and how does it fit into your 40 hour a week lifestyle? I’m joking about 40 hours a week. Tell us about the other businesses and how you manage them and how do they fit in? Yeah. Yeah.

When I started my business, I was like, yeah, I’m going to have so much personal time. I’ll work out every day and there’ll be so much extra time and that’s never the case. Um, but I mean, I love what I do and I love being an entrepreneur.

Um, I mean, I got software that I’m into I’m into rental property. Um, got some other business activities that I always do. Uh, so it’s just kind of a hodgepodge of things that I’ve acquired over time, but it doesn’t take a lot of my time.

I think most of mine is really a management portfolio these days and I just enjoy following the market in the news. So I keep up and treating probably almost every day, just nibbling here and there on things I’m buying, uh, and building up a dividend portfolio. But, um, other than that, I mean, that’s pretty much what I do day to day here.

And what kind of boss are you? How do you see yourself in terms of training? Is it your responsibility to train people? Do you talk about culture? Do you massage the culture? Um, what’s it like to work for Chase Insogna? Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean I feel like we have a great culture here. Um we’re, we’re, our goal is to level everyone up and, and keep, uh, educating them in their positions.

We don’t like to just pigeonhole people in a corner, um, and just stick them with doing something forever. Um, so for example, like on the tax side we’ve got a few people that just graduated college and they start out very green doing some basic 10 forties, maybe just tax admin type work. Um, but they’re learning year after year.

And eventually the goal is for them to learn complicated 10 forties to learn business returns and then eventually, um, start reviewing returns from other people doing basic 10 forties. Uh, most firms aren’t built like that. They suppress people down.

Usually, um, it’s usually partner driven wherever most of the communication has to run through the partner. So it’s highly inefficient, whereas here, if somebody works on the return, they’re communicating directly with the client. Um, so we’re all about leveling our team up, um, making them better, uh, owning their own role.

Um, they understand figure it out for yourself sometimes. Uh, but we work as a team environment. So everybody’s here to help each other and people that we’ve hired that don’t really fit in that culture, um, just tend to work themselves out.

And, um, and we are big on, I’m big on work-life balance cause I don’t want to burn people out. So for example, we, we have, uh, eight weeks in the summer, uh, where it’s slow season for us. So every other Thursday, Friday, uh, you get off.

Um, and, uh, it just allows you to kind of have a longer four day weekend to recharge, uh, from the busy tax season. And then before we get an extension season and, um, and that’s just a ancillary benefit that, that we have here that other firms, I know I don’t do. Um, a lot of them just give you extra PTO time, but then you can’t ever take it because you’re working 50 hour weeks all year long.

Um, that’s just not how we’re structured. We work, we’re busy in the spring. We’re busier in the fall.

And then we have these periods of off time where you can get recharged. Do you see any changes coming with the new Trump administration? Uh, I heard rumors that they’re not going to hire all of those 90,000 tax or new IRS employees, or there was even an article. I don’t know if it was in the onion or fake or what it’s so hard to know what’s true these days, but that they were going to send those people to the border.

Um, what do you think the overall IRS, uh, mentality is going to be in the next four years? Are they going to be friendly, combative, aggressive? What do you think the IRS is going to look like five years from now? Uh, well, my hope is they’re always going to be more tech savvy, but that’s never the case. Uh, um, uh, I think, I think the administration doesn’t like the IRS. So my guess is they’re going to defund, uh, and it’s already, I think I already read an article.

They already stripped some money from them from the last administration. Um, but I, I don’t foresee like it’s going to get bigger and more prominent on auditing. Like they talked about a few years ago.

Um, I think it’s good status quo and from an IRS perspective, now they’re just managing with what staff have. Uh, I don’t see them growing in this administration at all. I don’t think the new president likes, I mean, I know he certainly doesn’t like the IRS, so I don’t eat with the funded in my opinion.

And what are your thoughts on the market? And we’re recording this about a week before it will air. We just had the volatility of the market because of the Chinese AI shock, which some people are now calling the equivalent of a Sputnik moment, uh, the way it’s shocked the industry. Where do you think, uh, the market’s going to be a year from now? I think it’s going to be a good year for tech.

What do you think, what sectors are going to look good? Chase? Uh, I, I’m not a, I’m a more of a value investor. So I I’m not a more tech investor, but I think, I mean, I think it’s frothy. Um, however, I’ll caveat that with the new administration is, is very business friendly.

Uh, so I predict it’s going to be, um, if you have your money in the right places, I think it’s going to be a wealth grab, uh, over the next four years, uh, for whatever the administration’s favoring. Well, I certainly agree with that. Okay.

Chase, congratulations on building a very successful business. Uh, 20 employees is very impressive in this space, or is your goal to get it to 40 and to double, or are you happy where it is? Um, is it, are you afraid that if you double it, it’ll have twice as many managerial issues and stuff? What are your thoughts on the growth? Yeah, great question. I mean, definitely a 40 person’s different than a 20 person managing, but, uh our, my goal has always been just to grow organically.

We’ve never never been on this fast track to, to meet something, but we, we grow as we, um, build our clientele. And that’s, I think that’s the track we’ll continue being on and just see where it ends up. And 10 years from now, um, uh whether it’s employee owned, whether it acquired or well, or whatever that looks like, or running itself.

Um, I mean, I want them to all those different options, but for now everybody enjoys what they do. And, and we love working with the clients we have and helping them grow and build their wealth. And, uh we just, we’ll just keep growing organically.

Do you, what about marketing? I mean, obviously you’re doing shows like this to get your name out, but do you advertise in the business Chronicle papers in Texas or anything like that? Yeah, we don’t, we don’t really do print. I mean, mostly we do everything’s online. Everything’s pretty much through Google.

Uh, so we’ll do some Google ads. Uh, we work on SEO mainly to make sure we’re at the top of the page. Um, and, and just make sure we get our message out there at the end of the day.

I mean, it’s a relationship business, so maybe we’re not the right fit. Maybe we are, but we just at least love to have a conversation and see if if we are the right fit, see how we can help you. And, um, and then we would go from there.

Um we’re not, we’re not desperate for business anymore. We’re established and, uh we have a great book of clients. Um, so for us, it’s, it’s finding the right client, um, that, um wants to, wants to grow and wants to save money and, and appreciate our advice, uh, as much as we enjoy working with them.

And that’s what we’re looking for here. Fantastic. Thanks for being with us.

Congratulations on a great run. And I wish you continued success. Yeah.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. And we’ll be right back.

Well, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a wonderful question actually. Oh my gosh. I love the opportunity to do this.

Thank you, Jim. Wow. That’s, that’s a, that’s a great one.

You know, that is a phenomenal question. That’s a great question. And, and I don’t have a great answer.

That’s a great question. Oh, that is such a loaded question. And that’s actually a really good question for startups radio.

We are back in again. Thank you so very much for being with us. I’m excited to welcome back to the show.

Wayne Elliott, our favorite Canadian environmental entrepreneur. He’s had extensive background in ship recycling and battery recycling, but is now devoted his life to helping others get healthier with his Strauss naturals company. An incredible company that has all sorts of formulas that will make you and all your body parts feel better.

I’m on the kidney product right now, and I have not had a kidney stone since I started it. So that’s my measure. Wayne, good morning.

How are you doing? I’m good. Always. Well, thanks, Jim.

How are you doing? I am well, thank you. So all sorts of stuff in the news about Canada and Trump. And I saw that there’s a hat in Canada that’s selling well.

Now that says we are not for sale. Yes. Canadians in general, it seems are quite offended that the whole notion of becoming that 51st state and the tariffs.

I’ve been concerned myself about the tariffs. Twenty five percent tariff would certainly make selling our natural health products just that much more expensive in the United States. I’m committed to not letting that happen.

But 25 percent is a lot. And. Yeah, so as a matter of fact, I called our member of the House today, a friend of mine, and he’s working on this file with several people in Congress.

And I think you said one or two of your senators. And it appears as though.

You may not have the correct figures with respect to the trade imbalance, but I’m just concerned Mr. Trump’s, President Trump’s a very serious man, usually does what he says. And now, in his defense, Canada has not met its NATO obligations for decades. It’s supposed to be such a wealthy country.

I believe our debt is at least as much as America’s per capita. And our we do have a defense department, but for example, our Navy is, has been mostly scrapped. We don’t have a ship larger than a frigate in the fleet now.

So I’m still kind of surprised that the United States hasn’t raised more of a fuss with Canada before now. And I think between that and the border, that’s what President Trump, most of the angst is about. Our border, I mean, you cross into the United States, the border officers are very experienced, very professional.

You will not see students in the summertime. I’ve never seen any way on the border positions like we’ve had in Canada sometimes. So Canada has beefed up apparently $1,300,000,000 we’ll be spending more on our border security.

And, but this NATO not providing the ships personnel or money for so long, I really can’t blame President Trump or the United States for having a problem with Canada over that. You know, we’ve not met our obligations for a very long time and for a big country with big coastlines and we’re attached to you guys here and one of the biggest borders in the world. And it embarrasses me really, what Canada hasn’t done over these last years.

So I called, I talked to our member of parliament on Monday and had an idea I’ve been so involved with ship recycling all my life and tried very hard to get into the U.S. program with the mothball fleet and over quite a number of years, Jim. Then when I finally had success 30 odd years ago, whenever Vice President Al Gore was in office, we were best bid on two aircraft carriers out in Bremerton, Washington, the Hornet and the Arisconi. And then Vice President Gore put a moratorium on ship breaking that lasted four years, stopped ship breaking in the United States.

He’s a big environmentalist and he was, I never held it against him for doing that because it made messes it was a messy business. It’s not a white glove business, but some of the main players, a couple of the main players in the United States were, in my opinion, very irresponsible and polluting. So we’ve never, except for the USS Barracuda, the submarine, we recycled that almost now 50 years ago, in 1974 in Charleston, South Carolina.

Since then, I have not recycled any U.S. warships. And so I talked to our MP and said America builds, never stops building new ships. And what they do with the ships that they’re replacing, they put them into long-term layup.

I’ve been to the Chesapeake Bay many times, which is, and they have them anchored. They put bow to stern and they’ll put a dozen ships right alongside each other, live together, all the acres down, and that’s how they stored them. And when they were bidding, when they do bid ships out for recycling, you ride out in the launch and get put aboard the ships that are shipped, that is up for recycling.

And it costs America quite a bit of money to maintain that Marat mothball fleet. So I just thought that maybe the quickest way to the goal line here, trying to be solutions-based, would be that America, instead of laying some of these vessels up, let Canada use them. So we have this better defense around North America and might save the United States some money.

Canada could maintain the ships while they were running them. And it would certainly save Canada money to have use of those ships, because if we committed the funds tomorrow that we’re supposed to to NATO, Jim, and if we had magically had new ships built tomorrow, which we won’t have, and our Navy people told me a couple of years ago, if we had new ships at the dock today, we’d be three years before we could flash them up and sail away because of the training required on new systems and so forth. So I thought this might be an idea to get to the solution and not cost anybody too much money and give Canada a chance to get busy and start rebuilding a fleet.

And my friend, our MP, told me that he’s on this file among other things, and that that kind of thing has started. He didn’t mention ships, but apparently a couple of Blackhawk helicopters that America is loaning or leasing or selling, I don’t know which, he didn’t say, to Canada. And I just think the great friends that we’ve been, Canada and the United States it doesn’t matter how far back in history you go, this last 200 years, there’s been no better neighbor or friend than Canada and the USA.

So I’d like to think that we focus on solutions. Canada does need to pull up its socks and do a better job of meeting its obligations, but I hate to think about trade wars or anything like that. And of course, part of my thinking is salvage.

We sell our fabulous natural health products in the United States, and I want everybody to be able to afford them. So this would not be a good thing, well, for any retailer, I suppose, any manufacturer. And from the things I read, it’d be a bit of a mess, Jim.

We export, we do huge trade between the two countries, and apparently the imbalance is not what President Trump has suggested. It’s far less of an imbalance. And I just hope we stay best friends and allies and that people focus on solutions.

Right now, it seems to me most of the talk in Canada from politicians and certainly the public their backs are up, which at the same time, I think, I know that we import a lot of goods from the U.S., but for our two countries to start up some kind of fight just doesn’t seem to make any sense at all. And I’m just sure we’ve got to work this out. You know, it seems to me that when Trump says that he is trying to buy Greenland or something, that there’s usually an ulterior or a backup plan or that this is simply his first negotiation tactic.

I don’t think he really wants Greenland and Canada. I think he wants something else and is using this as a way of getting that. Maybe greater access to Greenland and the ability to station military there is what he really wants.

And with Canada, maybe he wants something else, better, I don’t know. Does it seem possible that this is simply a negotiation tactic and that he’s trying to get something else? Yeah, that’s been suggested, certainly, and talked about. And Jim, I understand, I think I understand President Trump’s position on Greenland and certainly the Panama Canal.

I mean, you folks built it, Americans built it, paid for it. And President Carter, I guess, gave it to Panama. I see that and I think he is serious about that.

And I do understand it. Let’s face it, it’s a very important canal, the Panama Canal, for defense and for trade. And Greenland, I guess we tend to think of Greenland as, geez, it’s just a giant glacier.

Well, it’s pretty strategic since that northern passage has opened up over global warming now, ships can transit the north, way north. And the other thing is, if China, Russia, North Korea were to want to take action against North America, the shortest route is over the North Pole and over Canada. So I don’t think it’s all bluster negotiating position, really.

I think he has a point or some points. And as far as I hope, because the USA defends the free world I hope America gets what they need to continue to do that. Canada has a lot of catching up to do.

And I don’t I’m not here to be, I love the United States of America, Jim. I have so many good friends there, and I love the country. I’ve always loved Florida as a second home and done a lot of business in the USA most of my life.

So I am not terribly offended at the notion. And I mean, it’s even been talked about before, and I’m not terribly offended at the notion of becoming part of the United States, to be honest with you, especially if they would change our money at par. The Canadian dollar now is slumping horribly again, just evidence of what kind of shape this country’s really in financially.

And we need the United States. There’s no question about that. Any Canadian or my opinion, democratic country in the world that doesn’t believe how important the United States is, just doesn’t, isn’t with it.

You know, you guys, it’s unbelievable, your defense department, it’s unbelievable the armed forces that you have in other countries. One of my friends told me, well the United States already has enough military in Canada to take you over, we don’t need to send anymore. And I had to learn what annexing, annexation meant.

And boy, oh boy, I would just like to think we’re not going to fight. We’re the last two countries in the world that should fight. And they, our members of parliament and your Congress people, they are working on these things.

So I just hope they come up with good, sensible solutions together. And that we don’t have to suffer some of these things that’s been talked about, but I really don’t blame President Trump or America for basically saying, hey, Canada, come on, you gotta do your part here. Yes, Americans do get upset about that.

And we hear about that in the news from time to time, and it will tell us which countries have contributed what. And it does upset the average American, I think, that we hear that, and then the same country is mad at us and yelling about how horrible America is. Yeah, well there’s apparently 21 countries, including Canada, that are delinquent and have been delinquent on spending 2% of their GDP on defense.

And I know in Canada’s case, it’s been a long time. So to just expect America to pick up the tab and protect us all it’s not right. What I was distressed about, our prime minister who is resigning as soon as they pick a new leader, he says, of their party, the Liberal Party, when the 21 countries were brought to task by President Trump, they, I believe they collectively agreed that, okay, 2025, we’ll spend 2%.

Well, then our leader, Prime Minister Trudeau, a month or so later said, well Canada’s gonna be till 2032 doing that. I mean, that’s seven more years, Jim. Now, he’s on his way out.

So I guess we’ve changed our tune. According to the MP I spoke with yesterday, member of parliament I spoke with yesterday, we’re committed to spending that 2% within two years. In two years time, we’ll be doing it.

But I don’t know, when you look at some of the things that we do spend on and make them a priority over this, I disagree with that, but I have no say in it, certainly. But I really don’t blame America for making the NATO countries or pushing them to meet their obligations. I mean, that’s a deal’s a deal, right? Yes, but so few countries have actually lived up to it that we’ve just come to accept that that’s the way it’s going to be.

And Trump is the first one, I guess, strong enough to actually stand up and say, no, we’re gonna fight against that. So back to the tariffs. When I answer your question, he certainly has everyone’s attention, Jim, to to more directly answer your question, is this just a starting position and getting everybody’s attention? Well, he certainly has done that.

And I can’t blame him. I really can’t. I understand and I’m kind of surprised that America has led us away with not meeting our obligations for so long now.

Yes, well, American politicians have been that weak for so long. So blame the American politician. What about the tariffs, Wayne? If you didn’t all of a sudden have a 25% tariff, how would Strauss Naturals respond? Do you have any choice but to just add 25% to the cost? No, I don’t believe we could or would do that.

What we’ve tried to do, what we haven’t done in our, hopefully in our own best interest is to the American, the U.S. shipper packers that we do use, is the freight across the border for some reason is quite unreasonably high. So we use, I think, three different companies in America that we ship quantities of product to and they sell our U.S. orders. So what we have done is we have about a seven or eight month supply at current sales of products at our U.S. packer shippers.

So, and I think that was the right thing to do because we certainly we certainly could have some interruptions or tariffs go on. And my belief is that in the end we’ll all get this right. And that if there are tariffs put on, that they’ll be either greatly reduced or eliminated.

I would just hate to see the fabulous relationship, notwithstanding Canada’s delinquency on these obligations, but I would sure hate to, it’d be like me getting mad at all my American friends. It just, it just doesn’t feel right. I’d be very uncomfortable with it, but so that’s what we’ve done to try and mitigate the situation if the tariffs are in fact put on but I don’t know, if it happened and they stuck I suggest we’d have to make some adjustment to our prices, but there’s just no way.

I would say the company, our company will work without any profit for a period of time before we would do that. I feel too strongly, Jim, about people everywhere being able to afford any of our products that they need. I want everybody to have what I have had, a good return to health and a healthy life.

So I’m personally offended at anything that’s gonna stand in the way. Big Pharma and the bureaucrats in the health department give us enough of a rough ride. You know, Big Pharma seems to get away with saying whatever they like and the natural health business has trouble just telling the truth.

Well, we tell the truth, but have trouble getting away with telling the truth. So I’m just so strongly passionate about people being able to access our products and help themselves and have the experience that I had. I’m here today because of these products.

I’m a lucky man. And yeah, so we’re just gonna do our best and I will never it’s like saying to me, geez, Wayne, what do you say? Will you just forget your American friends, your personal friends? No, no, I’m never doing that. They’re too good of friends.

We’re so close. You know, we’re very much alike, Jim, the Canadian and American people. It’s interesting in the US, you have different accents depending on where a person’s from, but you know, you’re all, American people are very patriotic.

I love it when I go to an American city and so many houses have an American flag at the front door. I love the American patriotism and yeah, I want us to stay best friends. I have so many good friends I love in the States and do business with and interact with like you.

And no, I never want to give that up. Well, we’ll be friends even if Trump gets something sillier, all right, Wayne? That’s right, that’s right, yeah. No, that’s for sure.

We have to go. Yeah, I just, I have my fingers crossed that, because I I’ll never believe President Trump’s a bad man. He’s a guy that gets things done and we just need to, Canada and these other countries need to, need to do what they promised to do.

And yeah, the border problem is serious. You know, this fentanyl, it’s killing people. There’s 25 people a day apparently die of overdoses from fentanyl in Canada.

25 people every day. I mean, it’s a crying shame. And so it’s very serious.

And Trump has talked about even the death penalty for the people that manufacture and peddle this stuff. And I get it, they’re killing off other people. So very serious crime this is.

And so he has some good points. He’s not a crazy man. He’s he’s very much against drugs and his family doesn’t use alcohol or smoke or anything like that.

So he’s very serious about it. We just shouldn’t be losing strictly young people to this horrible drug that they’re peddling. And I guess crossing the borders into the United States with, not just from Canada, but I guess Mexico apparently is the bigger, is the bigger problem and the bigger access way.

But these last four years, pardon me, there have been a lot of people pouring into the United States without permission. And if you remember the Cuban, I remember that in Miami when Castro emptied his jails and his insane asylums and of the quarter million people that landed in South Florida, at the end of the day, it turned out 10% of them were serious criminals or criminally insane. So, I mean, that was an injection of 25,000 people in the South Florida and in the United States that you’d rather not have, you know? So you gotta be serious about these things.

Immigration’s very important, every country really. Wayne, we need to wrap it up. We’re out of time.

Thank you so much for your time today. Look forward to speaking with you always. And I hope you have a good week.

Are you on the road this coming week, visiting stores? Yep, my son and I are in Southern Ontario visiting health stores. It’s always a great pleasure, great people in these stores. So we always enjoy this and we’re on the road today again, then we’ll be home for the evening.

But thanks for your time, Jim. It’s always nice being with you and we’ll see you next week. I will look forward to it, Wayne.

Be safe. We are out of time for today, but back tomorrow. You be safe, you great loyal listeners.

Have a great day. Bye now.