Thomas Day

Thomas Day is executive director and co-founder of Frontier Mission Network, a nonprofit that works with the region’s national security sector, including research laboratories, startups, investors, and federal acquisition offices. He is also active in veteran startup work, speaking, and lecturing.

His LinkedIn is thomas-day-5b70019. More on Bunker Labs is at bunkerincubator.com. He has also appeared on WGN Radio.

This is episode 9 of Flipside Frolic. It was recorded February 1, 2025, published June 16, 2025, and runs about 1 hour and 6 minutes.

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Transcript

This is the conversation, proofread from the auto captions. Clear errors in names and places were corrected. The conversation itself was not rewritten.

Hey there. Thanks for joining us at Flipside Frolic, where we learn to understand each other's perspectives by flipping the script and having some fun. Here we go. All right, we're live. Welcome. Thanks for having me here, Carl. Oh, anytime, Tom. So, um, yeah, um, thanks for joining us, uh, here at Flipside Frolic. I'm Carl Kmiec. I got Tom Day here with us and uh I brought him in because uh I really appreciate the actions that he's taken and his serviceoriented life and giving back to the community and all these sorts of wonderful things since uh being a fellow veteran. We've worked together a lot with the VFW, the American Legion, different veteran organizations out there. He's been instrumental in a lot of different veteran organizations.

So, we're going to just let Tom just tell you tell us a little bit about your um maybe quick growing up, high school degrees, getting into the military, just a little life story, and we'll start there. Sure. Yeah. No. Well, I uh I was born and raised uh in State College, Pennsylvania, uh Penn State's college town, where I I went to undergrad. Um a working-class family. Um, I, you know, did my undergrad at Penn State and, uh, after I was done, uh, I been in the military, served five years in the Army Center, First Airborne Division. Uh, I was a military journalist and, uh, somewhere had to have been that I interacted with, uh, our now vice president, uh, JD Vance. He too was a military journalist. Um, and you know, I know I looked up his bio.

He uh he went through training at Fort Meade a month or two after I left and there aren't more than a few hundred military journalists. Uh, so at some point, I'm sure I had to have interacted with him. Uh, some I don't recall. I'm sure he doesn't remember me. Uh, you know, just a a cute little nugget, I guess. Um after uh I was in the military, moved here to Chicago and uh did the Medill School under the GI Bill uh Medill School journalism at Northwestern and uh you know I was a reporter for a little while. I covered um Robins Air Force Base, Georgia for the Macon Telegraph. Uh I did Afghanistan for a few months as a correspondent for McClatchy newspapers which owned my newspaper uh in 2009 2010. uh came back here uh again under the GI Bill to do a public policy program at U Chicago.

Uh I uh a little after that was uh on a team that got the bunker now Bunker Labs uh business incubator for military veteranowned businesses and startups going uh that under the leadership of Todd Connor uh Brand Boer two very close buddies uh we uh we built that into a national organization really within a year uh and uh actually not a year ago now it was uh acquired by Syracuse University and it's now a nonprofit under their institute for veterans and military families. Um tell us a little bit more just about that because that what when was the founding of that? What year? That was 2014. So Brandon and Todd have been getting it going and um you know I was the kind of third wheel um and you know applying for grants and getting the word out.

Um, and the main the main premise of the organization is getting veterans coming back from service and assisting them in making their ideas happen as far as if they have a vision for a a plan or a nonprofit or a business to give them some of the key startup steps to to carry them along that journey. Yeah, that's right. it was uh largely in the tech sector but uh Todd rightly u kind of opened up the area focus to include a bunch of other you know sectors that aren't necessarily tech um it just we had gotten it going in a techoriented workspace 1871 at the 12th floor for merchandise mark that's uh kind of Chicago was at least time flagship entrepreneurial support organization u and yeah no I mean Todd really pushed out at the time uh the bunker network into as many other regions as we could uh so as it not to be just a Chicago thing.

We uh we we you know got a foothold um in you know Los Angeles with the contact there with uh uh you know in in um Colorado Springs. I remember that. Um, we got a partner uh working the bunker network and and a host of other cities um and including Wisconsin. I mentioned Wisconsin because uh my good friend Mike uh we lost recently. Um was uh a founder of the bunker u organization in Wisconsin and uh I just found out uh he passed away a few weeks ago. Mike was a great guy and and certainly somebody we um we benefited a great deal from at the very early stages of uh getting the bunker going.

And uh you know uh it it after I left uh the organization after a few years uh on serving on the board and um you know very capable leaders really expanded that uh that organization um to a point where uh you know to really is my understanding frankly from the outside looking in you know it it needed somebody to um you know really provide that backend support uh that only an organization the size of Syracuse University uh could do for them and and you I'm glad to see that uh uh Syracuse acquired that organization because you know that that there's a there is a need um I think you know for a bunch of different pathways after folks serve in the military to you know integrate themselves into civilian um employment in part of that story is entrepreneurship and and I think the bunker nationally could provide a really great uh partner uh for you know the VA for the department of defense for just the broader veteran community nationally uh to make sure we have avenues of support for uh folks leaving the military to enter entrepreneurial careers as with every other career field as well.

And that, you know, that's pretty much how our paths crossed from just working with veterans. And shout out to Paul Knudtson and the VFW, the American Legion, and and and a lot of these other um really motivated young younger veterans that were out there trying to assist the transition to civilian life through I know like Paul was actually my first podcast host actually on the here. So, he's episode one. He's got a challenge coin, too. So, um, and we'll be hanging out with him for the Super Bowl more than likely with at the, uh, 883 post, uh, VFW Hall in Montclare on Diversey in Chicago.

Um so um but yeah that was I remember we did some work even with um with getting with board of directors and different various organizations to try to help veterans write resumes and and and try to translate the skills that they got in the military into something that would seem beneficial to a corporation which is sometimes tactical language is necessary in order to really help people understand the skills that they learn that they don't even know they have that are such a great benefit to organizations and and companies where like you know the one thing I remember from doing at the prescore military library we did an uh Paul was influ uh instrumental in organizing an event that brought in CEOs and veterans and then there were then and then they had a panel discussion of and and then they had some veterans come up that were successful and then they there was a social afterwards tour where it was almost like anybody that's showing up there should probably leave this with a job just because it was such a cool little networking um event.

But one of the things that really stepped out was like for CEOs or business managers or or or owners out there, it's like if you get a problem that you just don't know who to dump it on, it's like dump it on a veteran and watch what happens, you know? And and that was really, you know, it really kind of hit home that, you know, they might be quiet or they might be this, they might just kind of be a little shy or whatever, but we we somehow just get this idea of just tackling problems with solutions and and and that's one of the things that it just seems to be ingrained in most veterans that most most don't even really realize they have. Well, look, you know, we uh as a society are rightly in in an overdue fashion reassessing how much uh value we put in college degrees.

speaking as somebody with one few um you know if if somebody comes to you with a college degree particularly one from an institution that's perceived to be elite uh there are employers that um tend to put folks on a pedestal for this reason look that's their choice um but what I think we also need to reflect on is that there are other uh indicators of virtue uh certainly in employment fields that u may not come in the form of a college degree but u but are nonetheless very valuable and and military service I think should be uh certainly a signal that a candidate is is qualified uh for certain endeavors in the same way a college degree might as well. And and veteran preference towards the application process is something that we don't want to discriminate against others that didn't have that.

But some people might just not realize what an asset they have there. Um even though maybe on paper some of those some of those extracurricular activities don't seem to line up with your organization, but give it a shot and watch what happens kind of thing. Um for sure. I know, you know, in my experience, it's it's the same thing. My degree, I I went to the Navy. I was short-term because military uh uh Clinton was making his military cutbacks back then. So, I only I did a short stent. I had a two-year degree with 10 years in active reserves and got out early at a year and three months. So, but I still got an honorable discharge. So, tuition at State College was paid for by the Illinois Veteran Scholarship Fund.

I commuted to Northeastern Illinois University and got a degree in geography and environmental studies with a concentration in resource conservation and management and then a minor in music with a concentration in jazz performance. But interesting the that was somewhat stimulated from my experience in the military with some people don't realize that once you're 20 miles off the coast and and with all these cruise lines and military vessels and everything else the folks open for the dumping of trash and it was sickening to see how much stuff we just dumped in the ocean like that that kind of stimulated some of my green initiative and environmentalists uh activism kind of side um during my stint in 20 and in in in my med cruise to to the Mediterranean in Italy and Greece and all these other things which was awesome.

I did a six-month med cruise and and um and at that point in ' 9192 they really started preventing the dumping of plastics in abstract bands and different things like that. So they were there was an effort there to try to limit the amount of stuff that we put into the ocean. Right. Um, but anyway, so like you said with the the importance of a college degree as a preerequisite to even apply for certain jobs is is a bit sickening, but I got that degree mostly because I was I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up. So I was taking classes that interest me and then, you know, I go to a guidance counselor and say, "Hey, where do you think what do you think I should do?" And it's like, "Well, that's not really how it works, right?" It's like, "You're the guidance counselor.

Guide me." Like I'm like, "Okay, let's look at this from another angle. Here are the classes I took. here are the ones I did very well in that I really enjoyed. What field is in the world that is somewhat based on those classes. And so I was three years in just about without a declared major. So every every semester because I couldn't make a decision. So every semester I'd get like new requirements thrown on. So I'm like you got to lock your major in so you don't keep have you're going to be here for the rest of your life filling requirements. And so I basically went in and said here's my classes. Here's what I done. What's the fastest way out here then? and and that kind of is what ended up with that degree. I only had to take like three more classes and I graduated.

But with that, I never once in my life filled out an application even within that field in any way, shape or form, right? Because I just kind of was in the transportation industry at the time and was making kind of decent money and there wasn't that much money in environmental activism at the time, you know? So, I just kind of fell into the career that I fell into which had nothing to do with the college degree. Now, that being said, I talked in the last episode actually a little bit like with Michelle Pfeiffer and Dangerous Minds. You know, your your mind is a muscle. You have to work it out. So, is somebody with a college degree better than somebody that doesn't have a college degree?

Well, the act that they were able to use their mind, they were able to study for information for an exam, that they were able to retain long enough to pass the exam and then maybe forgot shortly thereafter. So we might sometimes think that it's pointless, but it's really not because you did use your brain more than somebody that didn't go to college. So that the ability of picking up new skills or learning new things might be a benefit to somebody that did go to college as opposed to somebody that did not.

But how much weight is put on those degrees and this power of authority because you have a degree where you look at somebody for instance like Charlie Kirk that dropped out of college but has read thousands of books you know so how many books did you actually read in college you know I have a few books that I read so if we continue to learn for 10 years after college by reading and and v and and and diving into various topics and and things um it doesn't make somebody with a degree that did as little as possible to get by 15 years ago is better than me with life experience of 15 years in the real world or something. Yeah. Look, I mean, are there some things that uh I might be more in inclined to hire somebody who graduated with honors from Harvard than somebody who uh didn't go to school? I suppose probably.

But uh you know the first of all establishing firm requirements that uh so and so may not even be considered for a certain position frankly including being an officer in the United States military until you have a college degree is just silly. I mean, there are college degrees that have nothing to do with employment as an officer in the US military and a host of other things that uh establishing that firm requirement that you must be accredited by a university is uh is is silly. Yeah. It's and and it is it is it is opening up a social chasm between people who have a college degree and people who don't. Um that resembles what we have been told rightly uh about race in America. you know, uh, like we like folks of color have certain life experiences that, you know, open up social chasms from folks from white folks like us.

And and I I have I I that is no doubt accurate. But, you know, are we also opening up these social chasms between people with college degrees and without where, you know, we are not even able to relate with one another? Um that's deeply unfortunate and something that needs to be corrected. Yeah. And that that again is part of this divisional tactic of keeping the masses separated and tribalism and understanding the sociological and psychological aspects of human nature that we want to be a part of a click. That's just naturally part of our evolutionary process which is obvious. I don't have to be a a PhD in psychology to understand that you see that in the real world on a daily basis.

And so us versus them, the college versus the tradesmen, you know, which is just a ridiculous thing to even say in that even maybe it should be that you know is to try to stay solutionoriented is that you companies with a requirement for college degree that five years of life experience in that field should absolutely count as that prerequisite to that college degree. Perfect example is my friend Matt Peterson. Shout out to Matt. Probably he probably wouldn't agree, of course, but probably the the the best expert in flash coding of anybody that I personally know and and probably most in the marketplace. Now, it's old and outdated and does isn't used nearly as often, but without a college degree, 20 years experience in that type of coding, you can't tell me that. And and plus his work ethic and abilities are just off the charts.

So, you know, for somebody to think that he's not even qualified to apply for this position somewhere as a result of that, it's just it's asinine for sure. No, it is. Look, I, you know, Penn State where I did my undergrad, incredible university, very intelligent people I went to school with, very intelligent people I learned from. But, you know, when I left, I I graduated with a degree basically in drinking lots of alcohol and chasing around girls with fake tans and lip gloss. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but part of the right of passage and the college experience. Right. Right. Right. like yeah but that like there were plenty of folks when I graduated at the age of 21 who also were 21 years old who were in plenty more better a spot to contribute to a firm uh than I was who didn't have a college degree at that point.

Um and you know luckily for me I had the sense to go into the military at that point. Um But you know, I just reemphasized that, you know, u there are folks who are leaving our universities uh that are getting a leg up because of these uh formal requirements to have a college degree or or just social requirements that uh I'm afraid their uh college experiences uh have not equipped them with the training that I think maybe some folks think that these college degrees did in fact equip them. Well, that's funny because the military service was the same thing. I was starting to get a little off the rails prior to going to the military in high school in a sense and and the family and the world around just assumed that the Navy was going to straighten me out, get me disciplined and all this other stuff.

So fortunately for me, I believe uh and and again some people know I'm 20 years sober and you know my life has changed dramatically from cleaning out and you know doing good work and helping others and all the and being becoming a grateful and happy useful member of society as opposed to the path that I was on let's say and and uh that's been a wonderful experience and and and I think I I would bet money that the captain of the the ship that I was on the boat was uh was probably programmed and and and because when we went overseas, he was adamant that no drinking age is their culture, not ours.

So the ability to just send some cat out at 19 years old to go crazy is not the same thing as someone that was raised with the ability to have a glass of wine with their family or some of these things and not put the stigma on this idea that when you're 21 you could drink. You know, it's like there could be a lot of conversations, hours just on that in itself. But the reality was that I came back and I kind of as a as almost a con man in a sense was I'd used that military service as an excuse to let everybody pretend that they thought I was that super disciplined and straight and narrow. And I rode that out for a while just to like, hey, yeah, man, they really changed Carl, you know? I was like, uh, I don't know how much they did, but obviously we still got some work ethic and some skills.

and I worked in a 20°ree below zero freezer on a supply ship and and worked long hours which obviously most 17-year-old or 18year-olds never did. So it kind of motivated me a little to say you know what I don't know if I want to do stuff like this for the rest of my life so maybe I should go back to school and and that's what I did you know but and was able to graduate with over a 3.0 average whereas in high school I was you know just enough to get by. I to this day I do firmly believe that for the kids out there it's like it's hard to tell you anything. I understand that. But I get I I know in my heart that it was harder for me to do as little as possible than it was to just do the work and get straight A's.

I believe it's harder to get straight D's than it is to get straight A's because how much work I did to figure out how little I had to do or I'm failing this class. I got to I got to work a deal with the professor or the the the teacher so I could do an extra credit assignment and just get me that D. Ridiculous. Just re do the work and get the A. It's it's not that hard. But yeah, so so that that's that's great and and and that's a a good start, you know, to the story cuz and and then from there um you have these these views on education and these different things. So So what came next then? I know there was a a few different key No. Yeah. I uh so I ran in a primary against Danny Davis and got crushed as I should have. U it was my introduction to Chicago politics as I uh as I explained to folks.

Um yeah, look uh the campaign was ultimately kind of a an amateurish endeavor on my part. Uh but you know, I I had some ideas I wanted to get out there, including uh a subject I know you know well, uh the need to get manufacturing back to Chicago uh and push some of those ideas. Um and lost uh but you know, um got my name out there, I tell you. Well, again, and and anybody that takes an action, that's another thing. The thing that I really, you know, appreciate about Tom for is is that that you have this ability to take action when you see something and regardless of the outcome, the experiences that you've learned, the the the lessons you learned, the ability to maybe do something later and learn from just the process of getting on the ballot, I know, is is kind of a tricky thing which kind of keeps the riff raff out.

So, you kind of got to be in the click in order to get on the ballot. just to get on the ballot is a success in my view 100%. And another thing just we I mean okay folks we get it that two white guys sitting here on a podcast talking about racism is not we're not the authority on this subject but in my life experience when you want to talk about a racist society in Chicago particularly which is a very large city. Danny Davis is an institutional decades old politician that's been in the race. my my abil my um emphasis to even assist you is obviously to help a friend was one, but the the act of going out and signing petitions to get somebody on the ballot, hell, let's get as many people as we can on the ballot. Let's this is what this election process is supposed to be about.

And I was very surprised to hear from most people signing the ballot that they were kind of like, "No, I'm fine with anybody getting on the ballot, but Danny's always been good to me. He's never been a problem for me from all demographics." Yeah. So, if there was really core racism in this society for a predominantly area that was largely white, you would think they would have voted for the white guy over the black guy if they happened to know that was the existence if racism really did exist. And that's absolutely not what happened. Obviously, so you're not going to just win cuz you're white in in in in a demographic area that has a lot of white population. And and so I at the time I also supported the idea of just get out the incumbents, man. We just need some new blood, you know.

So that was kind of another motivation to just try to get some of these politicians that have been there for decades out and get some fresh blood in. But I also on the flip side of that, I do realize that the experience in the process of getting legislation through, you can't just have a bunch of new guys in Congress either because that ain't going to work as well. That's right. Um but what an experience. I mean just to be able to it's a success in many many many ways. Well look um you know I think particularly on my side of the aisle the Democratic side of the aisle uh we now appreciate the need to have a much higher velocity of folks coming in and out of the system. Um, I mean, you know, we, my party, uh, facilitated the Biden 2024 campaign and you see what that did for us.

Um, you know, there is a season for leadership and that season inevitably will end for the new generation to come in. And obviously we uh pushed um a uh flawed incumbent president that uh there was no uh you know appetite for a reelection campaign that nonetheless uh some senior folks in the Democratic party and President Bid himself insisted on pushing forward with anyway and uh you see the results. So, you know, I I I am aware of how um you know, how difficult it must be to walk away from power. Um not having achieved it myself, I I get it. Um but you know when when we don't you know set limits um the American people have a way of setting limits for you and and that is what we saw in the previous election.

Well, and and and sometimes there's some delusion with what reality because some of these powerful people are out of touch with the true talk on the ground and they can have all the camp the fin all the campaign advisors and and and you know, you know, door knockers tell them, hey, this is what we're hearing. and whether they choose to not accept that or something is obviously a problem in some ways. But the ability for anybody to call themselves a Democrat and understand that we have some issues and we could admit those issues and try to work with those and move on.

And so it's interesting because like for me, I don't know how much I'm going to do a live stream like once a week where I really just kind of rant on some of the current issues and stuff and and I've I I'm I'm not that refined when it comes to posting online in social media and stuff and and it's amazing how like somebody can label you for a single post, which was the pro a big part of the problem um to label people just because I might be you know one issue oriented about the ability ility of maybe the right to bear arms is something that's important to this constitution. It doesn't make you a right-wing extremist Nazi Christian nationalist or whatever. Um they want to take these parties to the extreme just to try to divide people. And I my father was a mechanic at a dealership. He did the door knocking. He worked with the alderman.

He was a precinct captain. He did the work. he volunteered his services and was referred to a city job as a mechanic. Absolutely nothing wrong with that process, right? if he was a qualified for person for that position that got a job as a mechanic for the police garage working on squad cars and he was he managed to raise a family give the opportunity for all those kids to go to college even though we only got a 50% turnout on the four kids that two made it and two two dropped out which is damn a pretty good statistic when you talk about generational increases in ability or education or whatever for somebody that maybe barely graduated high school. So that's a success and that's a man and that's a supporter of his family and all these other things.

And now if somebody that was back in groceries at Jewel got a job as a city electrical inspector, well obviously that's corruption and that's a problem and and and that's a whole another area. But for me, lifelong Democrat, dad always said just vote blue. Just vote blue. Just vote blue. And and for me when I was a punk teenager obviously it was like I'm going to exercise my right not to vote you know and and that's a right also but his power was that he had seven voting members in that household and that's how he can pressure the alderman to get the things his curb fixed or whatever the case may be and that's part of how the system works and that's a good thing. And so I was kind of like that's where my when I was off hurt from work that's when we really were knew each other more because I had time on my hands.

So I was doing more veteran veteran work and stuff. But the the the idea of of the middle party, I almost went out to start my own party because it's like everybody you talk to is pretty much in the middle here. And they use these issues to divide us. And and so my personal experience is I'm a union member. I'm I'm the delegate for the Chicago Federation of Labor for my local. I'm involved with my local. I'm involved with all sorts of things because when you know it's just from recovery or whatever when when when somebody needs help and they ask for volunteers, my hand just kind of always goes up. But I do have to be reserved enough to know that I'm not going to commit to something I don't really have the time to do uh fully.

So when you talk about getting involved in scouts and getting involved I'm the president I was the president of Chicago Marine Aquarium Society, local fish club, you know. So it was like I was always getting involved in things and with that it was like the the the process of the working people in this country needing help and manufact bringing manufacturing back and creating high paid jobs not just Walmart jobs is important and we all agreed with that and it was at one point where the DNC has to admit that they made some super errors over the last 15 years and and to to say to Hillary Clinton, for instance, that when you're fighting with Obama initially, if people can remember with with short-term memory loss, if they could remember back when prior to Obama getting elected, it was incredible that the Republicans at that time had nothing.

They had nothing. the Tea Party kind of came along as a grass party movement of some basic truths and and common sense thinking about America first and they kind of took that over even though the founder of the Tea Party is like I'm not a Republican that he was more of a libertarian right and so they just stole that energy and kind of started and but they had nothing and for the DNC to talk to Hillary and we all know said hey Hillary move aside let Obama go and after 8 years you're our horse. You'll he'll be the first black president. You'll be the first woman president. Life will be wonderful. And that happened. And then Sanders kind of came along with a grassroot movement that took that grabbed a lot more steam than maybe the DNC appreciated.

And it seems somewhat obvious that some of the polling and some of the slander and some of the things because that promise to Hillary had to be fulfilled because you didn't want to cross Clinton, of course. And and so when they chose Hillary when it I was kind of more of a Bernie bro at that point, you know, and and and and I was just like, what is going on here? You know what I mean? And and so I was pushed away from the Democrat party is is as a lifelong Democrat. And then they'll say, you you know, you moved right. It's like I didn't move right. I'm still right where I am and I have my morals and my ethical code and nothing much has changed in me. But the left went further left and the right came closer to where I am. Like you know what I'm saying? So look um what is right, what is left, what is liberal, what is conservative.

I find these things um you know the it's not altogether clear what is what exists on a certain spectrum one year to the next. Um I I will say this that u we the Democratic party gained a lot of energy in the Roosevelt or or rather Franklin Roosevelt's time, Harry Truman's time. There's a biography of Truman right behind you uh from organized labor, right? Uh the Democratic Party in that generation was the party of the working class, right? In the 60s, the energy suddenly was being gathered on college campuses and and the Democratic party has to a very unhealthy extent uh certainly in the present day continued to gain energy from college campuses. Um and I think that's the wrong approach. I think the Democratic Party needs to uh you know refocus itself on uh working-class people.

Uh stop drawing a line between folks back to our previous conversation between folks with a college degree and folks without one and saying we're going to represent the folks with a college degree. That's clearly not going to work. had, you know, stop with this culture war stuff, okay? Trump's going to try to pick culture wars for the next four years. I don't care. Okay? You know, uh, he's ordering folks to remove the pronouns from their email signatures. What's my view on it? My view is I got other things to worry about, right?

uh you know my view is let's focus on getting manufacturing back and and how how the loss of in the context of Chicago we're talking hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs you know what has that done to our communities what has that done to our social fabric and and the neat thing about the current time is you know the previous administst administration, Biden administration, even some of, you know, the the Trump one administration, you know, there was a refocus on industrial policy, right? To get manufacturing back, not just accept that we're going to be the world's accountants and consultants and everything else in under the umbrella of professional services and they'll do the manufacturing in China. No. Um, no, not at all.

No, we need to we, you know, particularly with the national security sector, if we're going to be equipping our service members with weapons and systems to go, you know, assert American strength, leadership, those systems can't be manufactured in China. Duh. I cannot understand how that isn't the most common sense statement made by an individual in in the world. Right. Right. Right. So, so you know, I would encourage my fellow Democrats to, you know, if if they're going to go get upset about culture war stuff on Fox News, let them. What our focus needs to be on is is reforming our own views, frankly, uh, and and getting back to building things.

uh getting back to you know asserting the United States as as the manufacturing superpower where you know I I read a report uh by the UN that projected that China is going to manufacture 45% of the world's industrial output by 2030. We're going to be at 12%. Not a great thing. Never like nothing against the Chinese. We're not xenophobic and all this other stuff. But look, I don't want Zingpin Ping, you know, overseeing production of half the world's industrial output. Period. End of discussion. Right. Right. We need to be, you know, manufacturing everything we can here in the United States.

and and and and okay, we can talk economics and we could talk the cost of products and we could talk I talked a lot about super capitalism is a great book and and and where it's just like the race to the the latest greatest thing and we have all these different hats now. I was mentioning on the last podcast that we have a a labor hat and we have a worker hat and we have a investor hat and we have a civil a patriot civilian um citizen of this country hat and and those hats are changing from time to time now which it wasn't the case before. So when you just worked for a company and you got a pension you didn't have to worry about investing you you concerned yourself with the union to secure your job and all these sorts of things but you didn't have all these other hats.

Now you do because it's more diversified with all this s sort of stuff and to diversify your income and your investments and all this other stuff is just smart and we're learning more about that. we don't have to rely on a pension that might get taken from us which has happened and it's horrible and yet um you know so so we have to be smart and and I when I got my job I I almost assumed that my pension would not be there when I retired so I had to plan and and and so I I told the story yesterday that I contributed to my 401k the same amount that I put in with my pension because I put a lot into the pension and and the old school guys are like this is the best thing since sliced bread cuz It's guaranteed. It's like maybe. But guess what? If you put that same amount of money in a 401k over 40 years, guess what?

You're going to retire with $1.5 million in the bank and when you die, guess what? Your wife gets not just half, you know. So, there's certain things that aren't great about pensions also, but although the guarantee is nice. Um, so, so there was all those sorts of issues that like I like you were saying that we have to bring manufacturing back. We have to be self-supporting. We have to be, you know, much more um understanding that it's a dangerous world, you know, and and and but this idea, same kind of thing, like just because it's cheap, the high cost of discount culture is a book that it doesn't make it great. And and so we're not going to pay triple like like like it's it's almost like the problem with online and competitiveness, you know, is is so much harder to compete in the marketplace. So price points do come down. True.

So the local fish store, I want to support him as a as an entrepreneur because I want him there in case I need something for my fish tank, I could just go and get it. Now with Amazon, you could get it next day, all the sort of stuff. But you don't want those brick-and-mortar stores to go. You have to support them or somebody will go in there and pick his brain with his 40 years of experience in the industry and then go home and order stuff online just to save 20 bucks on $150 order. like pay the guy for his time, you know, and 20% higher cost at brick and mortar when you when you gathered all this information and you got support and a place to ask ask questions and all this other stuff, pay that cost because it's important.

Now, if he wants to charge triple for a pump that I could get on Amazon, it's like, come on, for the same exact pump, well, we can't have this either, you know? So, there's a fine line. And I do believe that uh an ethical consumer that is aware and educated on the topics will be willing to pay a little bit more for the for a shirt that you're wearing if you know that it wasn't made in a sweat sweat shop in China. And and this idea that you know reparations or slavery and all this different stuff in this country that we should be concerned about. Well, let's concern ourselves with the fact that slavery is happening right now all over this world and nobody seems to care about it. They just want to be a social media warrior on their smartphone that's got cobalt in it that was mined in Africa from slaves.

Like we have to understand that maybe the best answer for is not just to get the cheapest product. So, um, in the 1960s, uh, an economist in the Nixon administration, uh, Robert Bork, uh, who trained at the University of Chicago argued that, uh, federal policy should permit, and this is reductive, don't get me wrong here, but, you know, do the research on his arguments if you'd like to get more in depth, but at a high level argued that you that the federal government should approve mergers if it produced lower prices. Okay. Um never mind competition. Federal law in my in my judgment dictates that u federal antitrust policy preserve competition.

This argument which carried uh uh the day as far as public opinion goes across administrations argued that instead mergers should be approved if even if it did eliminate some competition if it resulted in lower prices. We prioritized consumers over the worker. uh that in my judgment is the product of Bork's uh of Bork's theory, right? Uh you may remember Bourke, he was nominated for the Supreme Court by President Reagan and then Senator Biden defeated his nomination or led the defeated his nomination on the Senate floor.

So uh as we rethink uh so much regarding manufacturing in the US uh yes antitrust policy is a part of that um and vice president Vance to his credit has u argued you know for a much stronger antitrust policy u than typically you see from Republicans uh in and said nice things about a former um FTC chair Lena Khan uh who was appointed by President Biden and and then Senator Vance u said you know approved or made some public statements that suggested he approved of Lena Khan's more muscular uh posture toward antitrust. Uh we can get into all the fine details of what that might look like, but at but what I I think we need to reflect upon is we need a much much better balance between prioritizing the consumer and also prioritizing the worker. My spending is your income, your spending is my income.

If you are spending less, my income is going to be less. Right? That's a kind of a a foundational economic concept. Uh you know if if you know there is a price we pay for low low prices, right? And and you know it's a price we pay by shipping manufacturing jobs overseas. It's the price we pay by allowing global behemoths to uh grow to multi-trillion dollar uh valuations as we have a number of companies now in big tech. Um we live in a far too consolidated corporate environment my judgment and and that has been given to us by you know nearly a half a century of antitrust policy that prioritized low prices over um what I I would view as fair wages. Well and and shout out to Bob Reiter, the president of the Chicago Federation of Labor.

um being a delegate to that, I much appreciate that position so much for the sole reason of you could show up at your union meetings and you you could be supportive and you could get some information. But the idea of the Chicago Federation of Labor is the 30, 40, whatever the amount of unions that are a coalition in Chicago that all work together to have a stronger voice, but also that that the numbers that come out of that organization that can directly show and explain to somebody the cost that you're talking about in dollars and cents of how much that money going out of the community is affecting the local community, you know, and and how important that is.

But on the flip side of that, I also was like I I had a conversation with a few leaders in in in the labor movement that you know the president the presidential administration yes is important and the the director of labor and the secretary of labor and some of these positions. Yes, you want pro- union people in those or you want proworker pe people in those positions. But the more that we lobby and pass legislation to protect workers at the federal level really undermines the local unions in a lot of ways because it gives the impression that the unions are unnecessary. I have all these federal laws to protect me. What do I got to pay union dues for? This is a waste of money.

And it makes it hard to organize and help other locals when regardless of what the federal government does in any way, shape, or form when it comes to the union movement and the working people, you want to organize your local unions because you feel your your corporate employer is taking advantage of you, then do so. And just let's not restrict that through the federal government saying that here I am as a union worker in Chicago with an anti-strike law.

like I can't legally strike like okay how's that work you know so so some of that is takes away some of the power but in the same token the workers always have the power as long as they're have the ability to organize and we need yeah like I I hear your your your point um let me add to where I think organized labor as we begin to think about reshoring and and it's remarkable to say but yes I mean we in many ways are just now beginning to rethink about restoring some of the manufacturing we've lost. You know, we are not the only country confronted with automation. We are not the only country confronted with robots and AI and so forth. Germany has been confronting these uh these technological advances just the same as we are.

And yet uh nearly a quarter of their workforce is manufacturing whereas what I mean we're down to like 5% something like that around here for union membership as well which is coal you know coalates. So so like let's get organized labor to the table in in figuring out how we're going to push more folks not into college degree programs that frankly aren't going to amount to much. But think about, you know, careers in manufacturing and and uh apprenticeship programs and and getting trained in uh some of the advanced manufacturing technologies that we we need to build into our production facilities here in Chicago and and in the United States. organized labor has to be at the table in thinking through how to get young people into those programs and we need to dramatically expand and fund apprenticeship programs.

Uh and and you know look uh absolutely uh organized labor uh you know should be fighting for wage increases and and fighting for seats on corporate boards. Um, that's just common sense. And you know, I'm you and I are I'm sure lock step on on the need to you give our workers a voice in I in our economy moving forward.

I would just layer on this that you know there's also a function organized labor needs to be involved with that I don't know is necessarily appreciated in more contemporary conversations uh not just picket lines which hey you know um nine times out of 10 I you know I'm I'm all supportive of but also in in workforce training and and making sure that uh not just new folks coming into manufacturing are are ready to go but but also uh folks who have maintained careers in manufacturing are are kept up to date with new manufacturing technologies. I I can't disagree with that in any way, shape, or form, obviously. And and and I think that most Americans and most people would would 100 on the left and the right would this is common sense stuff, right? And and and and how you facilitate that obviously is sometimes the question, right?

So, in in one organization I'm involved in that believes heavily in the group conscience that the idea that a committee of six fair-minded people get together and you debate your ideas and then the group votes and if you lose, you trust that the group is making what's best for everybody as a decision, right? So, that's how elections are supposed to work, too. And that's why regardless of party affiliation or whatever, at the end of the day, whether it's Biden or Trump or whoever wins the election, we should be somewhat supportive of the outcome of that election and get behind America as an entity. Does it mean we have to roll over, lock, step, and form to every policy that they're pushing for? No.

It means that if we're a Democrat, we have to get to work and we have to work harder to make sure that there's no incentives that are really damaging the American people or the workers or whatever our supposed standards are, right? But at the end of the day, if you're going to be a politician and go up there and spew nonsense just to get elected and then keep the status quo going, which seems to be a common thing because people fear change, you know, we we understand that, too.

But if the status quo is what's reason you the reason for your profiting and all the all the lobbying and all the you know we all know that there's all this corruption that's out there some of it right some of it wrong some of it legal some of it not with inside trading and all these different conflicts of interest and revolving door policies and marrying the CEO's daughter and you know just all this kind of stuff that needs to be oversight on because there's conflict interest in I I I posted this before that campaign campaign finance reform, conflict of interest in government and inside trading. I am not for not allowing Congress people to trade. I say transparency. I I don't think it should take 3 months for me to see what Pelosi's trades are. All with with blockchain technology and different sorts of technologies out there.

I should know within 48 hours what her trades are. you want to trade, trade. But at least that transparency and openness will allow people to see it and then say, "Hey, wait, didn't she just make a decision on that and and so obviously when you're smart and you you're you're if you're trying to get around the laws that exist, it doesn't make you a good person that you're not breaking the law. So, if I have to notify the public of a of a of a thing that I learned in a closed door hearing and I go to Pioneer Press up in Glen View and post a public notice for a newspaper that nobody reads. No offense to Pioneer Press. God bless you. Do what you can do to keep keep the the, you know, the papers alive. But I'm legally done. I notified the public even though nobody really heard about it. So, I can go and do my trades and not be against the law.

but it doesn't make it right. So the whole idea between morality and and doing what's right and what's wrong, but campaign finance reform, conflict of interest in government, those were like we need to fix that before almost before we could talk about anything else because when there's not that outside pressure from entities that are affecting what's best for the American people, then how can we fix any of those issues, you know?

So, so it's such a serious problem and so many people were like, "Well, you're never going to fix that." Well, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try and and and and so with that, sometimes with the when it comes to, like I said, if you want to run on all these ideas and I vote you in as or or maybe not me, but the mass of people vote you in as a result of those ideas, then in some ways, maybe we should get behind and say, "Okay, let's see it. you do it and then when you fail, you'll lose the next election because your ideas are stupid or whatever the case may be, right? Or we don't agree with your ideas or you're not seeing the big picture on what that's going to do for inflation and all this other stuff. But in reality, everything's a theory. So sometimes you just got to give it a shot and see what happens.

And unfortunately, the ideas that were presented over the last four years through the last administration, some things were a little better, but the numbers don't really it, you know, if I get behind the next administration with different ideas. Well, in four years, we'll see. Are we better off or not? Or maybe there's stuff we could learn from that or whatever. But overall, we have to stop fighting each other and and and just and the idea of just being a straightup obstructionist isn't the right thing for the American people either. So, there's a fine line there between getting support and and changing the things that we feel are important, but how do we, you know, how do we do that in a civil way? Yeah, I certainly agree with that.

Look, uh there is a great deal of mistrust uh not just in government but all public institutions that's really festered for several decades now that um you know is is really a core foundational challenge that we have to address like why do we have so much mistrust not just of our government but you know um the civil service you know our police certainly we saw that you know after the George Floyd protests of the media, of big business, of the church. Uh, and how can we correct this? Because these these institutions are not going away, nor should they. Uh, what we need to do is is figure out why there is so much mistrust and uh and what we can do to to fix that. So, you mentioned, you know, um not allowing members of Congress to uh own privately held stock, right? Um, you know, I that is a very popular viewpoint.

Um, you know, when you you mentioned Pelosi and and there's no doubt countless of other um members of Congress and I remember the the two Georgia senators uh you know when they were getting briefings of COVID immediately trading against it. Uh you know, look um the that might capture your head. You know, one incident like that may uh capture your attention and you might get upset and then move on to whatever else you were uh doing with your day. Um meaning it it may it may be in isolation, you know, two Georgia senators trading against uh you know, what they know is coming after getting a a briefing uh on COVID. uh you know that may in and of itself not be that big of a deal, but but the constant drum beat of of news stories that uh undermine the public's trust in in public institutions is uh has led us to this point right now. Yeah.

100%. And and that's the the interesting thing is so so so my position is you know it seems a little bit more on the libertarian side in a sense that you know less government obviously less spending and and make sure we're focusing on specs. I I don't mind paying property tax, especially when I see a new park go up in my community. Like, can I get some? But if you leave my house today, you'll see I have some new sidewalk out front with the shared sidewalk program. Like, I get to pay half of what I paid taxes for. This is a fair deal. Like, it's it's baffling, right? And then there's a 4ft section of curb that couldn't get done because it was on my neighbor's side. this is the street and and it's like how do you not fix four feet of curb when you already got the crew out here? It's just ridiculous.

So, there's common sense things like that that just seems silly. But overall, my position is I don't want to see anybody get their rights taken away. So, just because you're a member of Congress and you're serving you serving the the public, you shouldn't lose rights to be able to trade, but show us what you're doing because the transparency will show those situations. But in the same token, now we put that investor hat on and you can't tell me that at the start of COVID in March 2020, I called my financial advisor said, I'm fortunate enough to have $2,500 sitting on the side in a savings account and the market just crashed. Am I supposed to think about, okay, what's going to be important in in this aspect of this pandemic?

Clorox might be a good thing to invest in because we're going to need hand sanitizers and masks and so so being a smart investor and realizing that. But then what happens like the far left comes out and says that this guy that bought 10 cases of of masks because he knew M95s were going to run out. Now he's selling them on eBay for 100 times the cost of what he paid for it. He's he's a vulture. He's trying to kill children. You know, it's like well that somewhat is how the market works, right? And if he was smart enough to have some money on the side and invest in something that you knew there would be a low demand or a low supply of in the future, well obviously the price is going to go up.

Um, so that doesn't necessarily make you a bad guy, but in sometimes in emergency situations, we have to have some ethics also, you know, and morality or whatever the case may be, you know. But the at the end of the day, I think podcasting truly is part of the solution because again, I'm not thousands of episodes in on Flipside Frolic by any means, but there's not a person of any position, however strong they feel, that can come and sit down across from you and have a conversation where you're mostly on the same page. And that's where compensible discussion happens.

And and a lot of this does happen in the committee meetings in in Washington and and for people that haven't been to Washington and lobbyed for veteran rights like we have and I've been out there for the we are one rally and some different things and you see that they got five lobbyists out the door, the main congressman all day long and then you're bitching that they didn't read a 1500page bill that they got six hours ago. Like okay, some of this is a problem, right? But there there there's a lot of people doing yman's work and doing diligence to try to make change out there. And unfortunately, they do get drowned out by some of that some of that corruption because of those few which the bad apple spoils the batch. And we all know that to be absolutely true. And I know you're you're pressed for time.

I I we can do this for five hours as you can see and and easily because it's fun and it's it's I appreciate your your perspectives and your education on these topics and that's where I learn and that's where I get better and we all get better from having conversations and and and that's why I believe that that the podcast space is such an important place to have the longer form discussions because you can't get your point across in an 8minute clip on some with some so-c calledled journalist trying to set you up for just a viral clip of something saying something stupid or whatnot, you know. Well, look, you know, um I like the way I view the world right now is, you know, we got to get um meaningful work back that often means manufacturing for for workingclass people.

And if we don't, they're going to revolt and they're going to turn to folks like Donald Trump. Um, so if if you're of my political party, the Democratic political party, just use this moment in history to reorient thinking and getting back to building stuff. And and just for the record, as you know, for the Democratic party, which I have always been a member for, and I'm not even saying that I'm not a Democrat anymore. I won't say that. But I will say I'm getting real close to that undecided vote and I'm not the only one out there.

And so you're gonna have to figure out a way the DNC to take these undecided voters that are just looking for results and and bring them back into that party if the Democratic Party is truly otherwise if there if there if your issues changed as a Dem as the DNC or the Democratic Party and it needs to go down and another party started well maybe that's what's supposed to happen too. Who knows? because it doesn't necessarily have to be these two party institutions that run everything if they're not truly in what we feel is looking out in the best interest of the voter or the American people or the working people in this city.

And and well, look, I enjoy these conversations a lot more than folks at, you know, conversations at wine bars with um you know, uh and if you if if you enjoy these conversations, reach out to Carl and uh and and maybe be a guest on his podcast in the future. Nice. Appreciate it. So where if uh you got any social media, you got other projects? U all day on Twitter or X, whatever they're calling it these days. And uh um yeah, uh my organization, Frontier Mission Network, uh frontier mission network.com is my website. Uh that's an organization, a business consortium uh aiming to uh serve the Chicago region's presence in the defense industrial base and national security industry. Uh that's what I'm working on. check out my website and uh you know always reach out and love to chat if you want to. All right. Outstanding.

Thanks so much for your time, Tom. I know you've been busy and we'll have you out again and we'll you know we'll cover some of these. I had a few other areas that we wanted to talk about but it's all good. Uh I love it and we'll keep it there and we'll let you get out of here. I appreciate it. Thanks, Carl. Appreciate it, buddy. Cheers. Okay, that was fun. I like it. Heck yeah, man. It's it's it's always Thanks for joining us at Flipside Frolic. We hope you enjoyed the conversation and maybe learn a little something about other people's perspectives. Don't forget to subscribe, share, and throw us a like on the video. Comment if you have any questions and we'll see you on the next episode.