Carl J. Cox 5:29

That’s Thank you. Thanks for providing those insights. And so we’re going to we’re going to do something and multimedia presentation here. We’ll see if I can pull this off properly here. Bill. I’m going to pull up one of your your charts. Yeah, we’ll see if this comes up properly. Hang on just a moment.

Bill Conerly 5:47

I do a monthly newsletter, which is what you’re talking about. That’s right. It’s a nomics newsletter, it goes out to my 4000 closest friends and anybody can subscribe to it.

Carl J. Cox 5:57

That’s right. Okay. So here we are. Can I think oh, yeah, you can see on the screen here. Okay. So here we are, here is one of your your forecast. And, and I think one of the most interests. So what we’re showing here, for those who are listening to the forecast, listening to this, there is a US economic forecast chart, which is showing growth, and then there’s corporate profit after tax, which is showing growth. One of my questions to you, Bill is, are things better today than they were right before COVID started.

Bill Conerly 6:26

In the aggregate, yes, that doesn’t mean that everybody’s better off. Obviously, we’ve had deaths, illness, job losses, but GDP is above the level that it was at before the pandemic. However, we’re still below trend. So GDP usually grows, employment usually grows. And even though we’ve regained the previous level of output, we would have been a good bit higher, had it not been for the pandemic.

Carl J. Cox 6:59

So I’m curious from your perspective, so including pandemic so you’re saying if it wasn’t for the pandemic, things would have rebounded faster, already,

Bill Conerly  7:09

whether there would not have been a rebound, we would have had continued growth. So we are here and without the pandemic, we would have been up there.

Carl J. Cox 7:19

Got it. Got it. Okay. Okay. So we are so good point. So for in terms of gross, if it wouldn’t happen at all, we would have been even higher economics would have been flying. But then we had, of course, these these businesses, and it’s been a bit arbitrary, right, of depending on which side of the ledger you were on. If you were a restaurant in downtown New York, not so good for you. Right. But if your resume recording on today, couldn’t have been better, you know, in terms of business. What, what surprised you in terms of some of the winners and losers that have happened as a result of COVID?

Bill Conerly  7:58

That’s a good question. And it’s one of those things where, in retrospect, everything seems logical, and reasonable. And but at the time, I was surprised. Oh, and do you want to continue with the screens? Yeah,

Carl J. Cox 8:15

I got caught. Thank you. I was just gonna pull it off. All right, guy, there we go. That was our multimedia presentation we had here today. But

Bill Conerly 8:23

so a big change is and I was speaking a couple of days ago to a group of people in the agricultural and Agricultural Marketing sector, and they were hit by consumers were eating in restaurants less often, and eating at home more often after the pandemic. And if you think about it, those are different delivery channels for the food. So we were still eating potatoes. But instead of going to the french fry manufacturers who mostly sell to restaurants, they were going to individuals who mostly bake them at home, and it’s slightly different product pack different packaging. So we have all of these supply disruptions, even though people were still eating as much as ever. We also saw that people could not travel and go out to eat, go to concerts, they had money left over. So what did they do? They tried to buy bicycles, and new blinds for the family room. And all of a sudden, bicycles and blinds are on backorder. And it’s one of the things I love about economics is if you get that sort of the causation, right, it’s a nice logical progression. But when you’re in the middle of it, it’s kind of hard to see what’s happening and what’s going to happen next

Carl J. Cox 9:49

tray. That’s right. So you just touched on something that is clearly top of mind for so many people whether back in the early days of COVID when you couldn’t find toilet paper. today. You have Trying to order a truck, it might be 18 months before you get it delivered. I was recently in Los Angeles, flew over Long Beach. And there was an I didn’t get the count. But I talked to somebody who worked for one of the major logistical, legit logistics company on that same trip. And she said she had counted 50 ships waiting it to come into port. Why is that happening? And, and and what type of impact is that happening, you know, on the rest of the supply chain just that alone.

Bill Conerly 10:33

Right? Our sort of global shipping commercial system handles small variations fairly well. It’s used to small variations. It is not used to giant ups and downs. And in the first few months of the pandemic, global shipping, just cratered. And a lot of people focus on, you know, imports versus exports, which are better. But if you just look at the total volume of international trade, it plummeted. It bounced back. And then starting like January of this year, it took another big surge forward. People have income, especially in the wealthier developed countries, there’s a greater sense of optimism that we’re getting through this. And so they started ordering stuff. Also manufacturing companies in the early days of the lockdown, they said, ooh, the economy is going into recession. And, Carly, you know this as well as I do. What you do in the early stages of the recession is you pull out your recession playbook. And the recession playbook says cut cash outlays. So let’s cut back on purchasing materials. Let’s cut back hours to our employees. And we’ll have a hiring freeze. So we don’t replace the those who retire and travel the Right, right. But the important thing is your cut back on your production because it’s a recession. And then people want to buy stuff. So we lost a couple of months of production in many different sectors. And then the demand was unusually strong. And people were substituting durable goods for services. And, you know, the services were never delivered on container ships. So all of a sudden, we just had a change in the mix. And if those cruise liners could have been repurposed as container ships, we solve the problem, we’d have the capacity, but it just doesn’t mean I’ve been on a cruise ship and you just can’t get a 40 foot shipping container in the average cabin on a cruise ship.

Carl J. Cox 12:59

It was you can actually see one of those containers though in the pool.

Bill Conerly  13:04

Exactly they could. So we just had a bigger volume of change than the system was constructed to handle.

Carl J. Cox 13:15

So what what are you reading and hearing and seeing in terms of how long just that shipping aspect alone is going to take to normalize again?

Bill Conerly  13:25

Well, the shipping aspect will improve gradually by itself. Plus, I believe, after we get through this delta wave of COVID, that people will cut back on their purchases of the goods that have to be shipped. And they’ll shift more into the services, they’ll start going out to eat, going to concerts, going, traveling. And that reversal of the change in patterns will help. But I think it’s going to be tight in the shipping industry for at least a year. But what we are experiencing in our everyday life, like you go down to Walmart to do a little bit of shopping for the kids. Christmas presents. A lot of what we are seeing is a labor shortage in looks like a shipping industry problem. But well one of my clients is a manufacturing company. And they were running short on their brass that they use as a raw material. And they called up their supplier and he says I’ve got all your brass on a truck. I just don’t have a truck driver, and I’m 1000 miles away from you. So that is kind of a transportation problem, but it’s really a labor problem. Yeah, and other companies are seeing they’re they’re quoting longer delivery times, and they’d like to increase their production but they cannot find the workers so a lot of our supply chain problems or worker problems.

Carl J. Cox 14:55

So going back to the ships that are sitting out of Long Beach is that some of the same problem is is like the literal inability to process the cargo ships coming in because of lack of labor. Yeah. And

Bill Conerly  15:07

that that’s you read the comments from the people in LA and Long Beach, that they’re having trouble with truck drivers to move the containers off the dock there, the railroads are backed up. There COVID restrictions that make the labor less productive. And it all comes back to labor.

Carl J. Cox 15:29

I was talking with a client and they were trying to ship something from Portland to Eugene, sorry, Eugene to Portland, and ended up going to like Cleveland. And then the best part is they said, Well, good news, we’re not going to charge you for the difference between the Cleveland, but it’s still going to be a week later. And so not only are we having these shortages, but you have literal, real logistic competency problems, right, that are taking place because of new people coming in less experience. And just it’s it’s more than just one thing. And it’s so So are you saying or this is my silly question, but should we put a little extra water under the Christmas tree this year? expecting maybe some of those presents, we thought were gonna come in around Christmas time come around January, is that possible? Things like that might happen this Christmas season?

Bill Conerly 16:29

Yeah. And let me answer a broader question. When I talk to business leaders, about inventories, you know, these people have had it pounded in their head for two or three decades, reduce your inventory, right? And bring down yeah, just in time, all of that stuff. And I’m saying, hey, let’s, why don’t you build inventories. And you know, you’re tying up your working capital. And it could be at a bank earning approximately diddly squat interest. And why not use that working capital to build up your inventory? It’s a reversal and, and but but today, we know that our whole supply chain system has gotten more fragile. And it’s going to be a few years before it gets better. And even then, you look at normal times, we had the typhoon and earthquake in Japan, disrupted supply chains, floods in Thailand, there’s always something going on, right? And I think companies are going to come out of this saying, Let’s, let’s have a little bit more cushion, a little bit more inventory, and plan on there being occasional disruptions.

Carl J. Cox 17:45

I think that’s really interesting. And you’re right, a bit contrary to what has been been told to all of us, right? Especially myself, you know, in the CFO operations hat, I’ve worked for many years. It’s like, inventory Lower, lower, lower, lower, I always view inventory is like oil in an engine, right? You have too much oil, it’s a mess. You have no oil, it’s your engines broken, it’s like you need to have just enough right to make sure that it’s going properly. And that’s not no oil, right. And I think there’s that fine balance and knowing what that should be, because I know multiple companies have lost out on millions and millions of dollars, because they couldn’t ship, they have the orders in hand. And then they end up losing it to a competitor or they just no longer had the money. And you know, because your opportunity to ship it was gone. And it’s I always really challenging time. I think for those who are caught in the once again, the durable goods. I appreciate your insight, because I was not familiar with that of people are buying more durable goods because they’re not going out and doing services. Yeah. And that was interesting to me to hear that. So appreciate that.

Bill Conerly 18:53

And if I can just jump on a little bit further. I’m also cautioning those people who are benefiting selling boats and bicycles and blinds that some of those purchases would have happened anyway in the year 2022, or 2023, or 2024. And they happened in 20 and 21. So I think sales may be soft in some sectors that have been the beneficiary.

Carl J. Cox 19:19

I think that’s very wise advice. No, it’s it’s amazing, you know, it just except we have concluded

Bill Conerly  19:24

the good news portion of this interview.

Carl J. Cox 19:29

So, okay, so um, did you ever in your life anticipate that you’d be putting on your graphs COVID infections and deaths?

Bill Conerly 19:41

No, but I actually wrote an article, boy some years back, looking at the Spanish flu. This was when we had one of those avian flu worries. And I pulled that out and I said, Well, what would it mean? And it turns out that the Spanish Flu misnamed was much less serious economically than this one is, but it’s been on my radar screen for some years.

Carl J. Cox 20:14

And so I’m curious, just and I mean, I have what I think but why do you post those? And why is it so important to track the trends of COVID? from an economic standpoint,

Bill Conerly 20:26

right? Because people are, are changing their behavior based on that. And the people include everyday people like you and me, and also our political leaders. But both of those are important. For instance, the the Saturday night before, Oregon’s governor announced lockdowns, this would be march of 2020, my wife and I went out to dinner, nice restaurant downtown, a place that would normally be full on a Saturday night, and half the tables were empty. So it was legal for the restaurant to be open and people to go there. But they were at 50% of capacity, just because people were saying, I’m going to be cautious. And then the governor took out the other 50%. So I think as a rough rule of thumb, the actual government rules are, you know, something like half of the effect. But personal rules are the other half. And so if you’re running a business, I think you need to know, are people going to be spending their money on those services that are in person to person kinds of services? Or they’re going to be spending on on goods?

Carl J. Cox 21:40

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. of, of it, seeing the trends, right? Because I think right now, the fourth, the, if we call it the fourth wave, or the Delta variant, whatever we want to call it, it My understanding is really is the clients on we’re on the crests. Right, you know, we’re coming off of that right now. But that’s not what you experience in day to day life. It Yeah, you know, it’s interesting, like, it’s like, oh, now we need to do some things like once it’s technically already passing. Right, experientially, but it’s not necessarily what we’re doing every day, you know, I, I, like you, Bill, I travel a fair amount. And my experience in being in Nashville versus Portland couldn’t be more different. Now, you know, in terms of what we have to wear, what we’re doing, what restaurants where you go, what bars would go to very, very different experience. And have you seen as a result of that, and I’m just curious about this, a state like Oregon, which has been, I would, I would say, maybe one of the more controlled states in terms of what you can and can’t do in terms of COVID wearing mask not being able to go out, etc. Have those states been more hit economically and a negative basis as a result of those policies versus other states like Texas, which has been much more open? Have you been able to see some state to state data versus COVID? I’m just curious. I’m

Bill Conerly 23:03

sure you want to jump into political trouble here?

Carl J. Cox 23:05

Oh, no, I’m not I’m not trying to make this a political statement. I’m more curious from from an economic state basis has it impacted the economics of

Bill Conerly  23:14

the states respectively, in a couple of years, a whole generation of young economists will use this as the subject of their dissertations and their first published papers, and we’ll have really great information on that were a little bit soon, my gut feel says the lockdowns hurt the economy without doing much to help on COVID, maybe a little bit, but not a lot. But they were very negative to the lock downs were very negative to the economy, but take this as sort of a preliminary judgment. And let’s unless we unless you’re going to make a policy, withhold judgment, but I will. Let me tell you something I did learn one of my clients wants me, every quarter, I do a deep dive into the metropolitan areas where they’re most concentrated. And one of those areas has been growing well economically, but they are very have a very low vaccination rate. I looked at the COVID chart. And not only are there cases back up to that December peak, their deaths are back up to the December paetynn. Another metro area that this customer of mine works in has a very high vaccination rate like one dose 90% of the adult population, it’s really high. And there I did the chart on death and it hardly moved. It hardly moved. And so it’s like anybody who was unvaccinated saw seeing those two charts would have to Have to run out and get

Carl J. Cox 25:00

a shot, I think. Yeah, and it’s

Bill Conerly 25:03

important if I can just jump on, it’s important for, for people running businesses in different parts of the country to understand those different parts of the country. Because if you tell one of your, your, your regional manager in Texas, to you compare that person against the regional manager in California, you know, the numbers going to be very different.

Carl J. Cox 25:27

I think that’s well said is we’re one country, but the regional differences in how you sell and and relate to your your consumers, right? Or even your b2b business business, right? Is is different, and the expectations are different. And I think that’s always the hardest thing of some times when I’ve worked with international companies, and they come here, and they’re like, well just just do sell it all in the US. And it’s like, have you traveled Oklahoma? Have you traveled to Florida hang out in Portland, it couldn’t be more different? Right? You know, and yes, we carry the same flag so to speak. But but the cultural differences and how to sell what you can say is still different with them, respectively. And and, and, and I think it is important, what you’re also saying is you have to separate a bit of the economic impact, but also the COVID impact. Right, and then the respective fears are not around that, right. Yeah. You know, and, and I, I’ve noticed them very different, you know, depending on where the areas I’ve been in, respectively, you know, throughout this past two years, and it’s been very interesting. Up until recently Bill, I hadn’t even said I’ve been traveling because I didn’t want to talk about it, because I didn’t want people to shun me. And now, you know, this is vaccinated and been out and, you know, been, quote, unquote, safe. I feel a little more comfortable with it. But there was a period of time I was not posting on Facebook that I was in Florida, because people thought you’re going to be dead dead with the plague. And anyways, it’s just interesting these times that we’ve had and how we’ve had to deal with it and communicate. So this leads to another question and I gave you a little tip off ahead of time, but didn’t give you a chance to research this, of course. So I was what I just mentioned recently in Nashville, I was talking to an attorney who is from Bozeman, Montana. I’ve never been to Bozeman, I don’t think we’re I’ve been in Montana before, but I don’t think I’ve specifically been to Bozeman. And she was talking about how the homes there are going up dramatically. And so I just curious, I did a little research afterwards. And it was very timely because I knew I was going to be talking with you, Bill. So I you know, did it. But this was these are the facts. The Daily the Bozeman daily Chronicle, and they said the median home price This is in June of 2021 was $720,000. A 49% increase year over year, homes in the market how long only on market for 22 days, while the median income is only $55,000 is based on 2019 members, which I don’t think has changed too much, since that would mean effectively a 30 $400 per month mortgage payment or $40,000 800. And mortgage payments alone. If you are a median person to have a home, though I don’t get this. How can this be true? How can a place that is very remote in Bozeman, Montana, have homes that are worth $720,000, where there’s no way the median person can afford that home? Yeah, help. Give me some insights here.

Bill Conerly  28:27

One of my favorite books is can you see this? Yes.

Carl J. Cox 28:31

How to lie with statistics

Bill Conerly  28:33

Yeah, exactly. And one has to be I keep it at my fingertips. One has to be cautious about medians. So imagine you’ve got a semi rural community, and a bunch of rich people move in. The median income doesn’t move very much. But they want big fancy houses. So the median home price ends up going up. And we’ve seen that remote work is one issue people you know, in when I first heard about people setting up businesses in Los Angeles or Chicago and then moving to Montana, buying a little mini ranch in the Rockies, the locals were calling them modem cowboys. And the current generation does not know what a modem is

Carl J. Cox 29:28

modem cowboys.

Bill Conerly  29:32

So, other people are doing more remote work without a doubt. And also the pandemic led many people to rethink what’s important to them. Family work connections lifestyle, and that led a number of people to say you know, I don’t need to be in the city and I’m out of here and that has helped a quarter Lane, Idaho Bend Oregon and some of the East Coast coastal cities or Asheville, North Carolina, I think is doing pretty well. So in those places, it’s kind of tough because all of a sudden, you’ve got an influx of people trying to spend a lot of money, but you still need those lower paid service jobs. across the whole country, we’re seeing real strong, that not quite as strong as Bozeman, but strong home price appreciation. And I think that’s being driven by the low mortgage rates.

Carl J. Cox 30:34

So, of course, this leads the question is why I think this would be a great conversation for the audience because he, half of people have homes and the other half one homes. Right. So and then the other and then the people who have homes are wondering whether they should buy or sell. Right? And, of course, we know we can never fully predict the future. But the Fed I believe, has already given us some information in 2022, they plan to start the quantitative, quantitative easing is going to start decreasing. Right, right. I believe that was correct. That was said just recently. So. And I have heard some information. Boy, if there’s a 50 basis jump in mortgage payments, the affordability is going to go down substantially in some of these homes. So is there a Oh, are we at risk of getting? And I’ll just call it out? Are we at risk of being back at that 2007 2008 event? Where all of a sudden there’s this massive overhang right of homes that are just completely overvalued? And and then even worse, there’s people who are going to be you know, the we’re gonna have a recession that was his ultimate, right, as a result of that you see a weed in that same thing? Or is it different this time?

Bill Conerly  31:51

No, it’s different this time. Okay. And why would you want to explain? Yeah,

Carl J. Cox 31:55

of course, yeah. Why is it different, because I’m trying to help the audience, you’ll go back and get comfortable with it Sure.

Bill Conerly  32:00

Go back to 2003 2004 2005. And we count the number of housing units being built either an apartment unit, or a single family home, or we can add in mobile homes, manufactured housing. And we also know what the population growth is, on average, we live about two and a half people per household. So you can figure out sort of roughly what the demand underlying demographic demand is, and it changes sometimes people are more likely to have a roommate or get divorce. So you know that the 2.5 isn’t rock solid. But it was clear, in 2005, we had been over building building more houses than we needed. And that was fueled by speculators wanting to buy to flip. We have not been over building that some of the people in the industry say we’ve been under building, I think they have not caught on that our population growth is much slower now. But we certainly have not been over building. And today, what’s amazing is we’ve had, you know, a strong pressure, upward pressure on home prices. And the home builders are not able to deliver more new houses to the market, if they could, that would ease the price pressure. But why can’t they deliver more new houses to the market, supplies of building materials, skilled labor, as well as buildable lots in particularly in on the coasts where the land development restrictions are fairly tight.

Carl J. Cox 33:41

So So if I’m understanding your recap, and what you’re saying there is because homes are not keeping up the building of new homes and capacity is not there for the population. It’s it’s creating effectively scarcity of supply. So therefore, the demand, if you may, is is causing the real increase combined with lower mortgage rates, cheaper, cheaper interest rates, so therefore we can buy that’s what’s increasing the value of homes. Is it that simple?

Bill Conerly 34:12

Well, some of it is, the homebuyer could get more home. Now the 2.8% mortgage than you know, a 3.8% mortgage, right? But also, there were families who had a vision of buying a house in like 2024. And they did the arithmetic with a 3% mortgage and they said, Oh, we can buy a house this year. We don’t have to wait until 2024. Then we were pulling some demand from the future. Plus, there were some people I don’t think a lot but some people who had been long term apartment dwellers, and then they said, well, we’re going to work remotely, we ought to have more space, and it’s easier to get more space. If you live in a house and on and on. apartment. And also, it was less fun living in a big city. I’ve got a son who lives in Manhattan and during the pandemic, it became a lot less fun living in Manhattan, right.

Carl J. Cox 35:13

And so there’s a bit of the universe, we were talking about some of these cities that have been capitalizing from this right from Nashville to Bozeman to coralayne. But then you have cities where there appears to be a little bit of an exodus right? You know, that’s taking place in new I think many people who probably listening are aware of how Texas in Austin in particular have been just growing like crazy, you know, people have been moving to certain areas. So talk about that inverse a little bit. So there’s some there are appears to be there are some losers in this and the inner city. So what’s happening there? And is this a long term? Do you think there’s gonna be a long term trend now of the city is no longer the cool place to live in anymore?

Bill Conerly 35:57

That’s a great question. And I’m going to speculate because I don’t have a firm answer. It’s still fun to be in a city if you’re young and the city is working.

Carl J. Cox 36:11

Okay, so there’s two things. Fun and working meeting. It’s, I’m saying working, you’re probably referring to a social, economic, political.

Bill Conerly 36:22

Exactly, you know, the trash is picked up, it’s safe to walk down the street, I moved to San San Francisco when I was 28 years old, and lived right in in North Beach. It was fun. It was really fun. And I understood when my younger son decided to move to new New York Manhattan and my other son had moved to Seattle with a criterion that he wanted to be able to walk to work. And I mean, I never expected to be able to walk to work. So what you know when you’re young, and especially single, it’s fun. Once you get a couple of kids you know, living in an apartment is less fun, you know, you want to open up the back door and say go outside. But if you’re on the 14th floor it’s kind of hard to kick the kids out of the

Carl J. Cox 37:14

house. Yep. Including the dog.

Bill Conerly  37:18

So I think that you know, the millennials are aging I think they’ll be more suburban. But the cities that that keep the quality of life good for urban residents I think will bounce back but not quite as strong because some people were living in the city just because they did not want to commute but if you’re only going into the office once or twice a week, a longer commute isn’t so bad. Yeah, but I worry about I worry about Portland where I am I worry about San Francisco and Seattle in terms of the crime the homelessness and whether their whole metropolitan area can survive if the central city doesn’t turn around

Carl J. Cox 37:59

yeah as we as we Bill I I feel a little bit bad about this but it’s true You know, I for years we’ve been able to brag about Portland right as as it was for 20 plus years it was just one of the gems of the of the nation and in people whenever I’d say I’m from Portland area, they’d be like Oh, I love Portland I love the restaurants and I can’t wait to go there and edit it up. Now I say something and they say Are you okay? Yeah, exactly. And and so I’ve literally have to change my language now Sam from Northwest Oregon an hour from the beach and all of a sudden they go okay because of course they don’t know where that is exactly. And and I am I’m not on the outskirts of this outside edge of the rural areas where I live but but it is interesting of these cities like Portland where boy I hope I hope for their sake right now that things could change otherwise I think the trends are going to be negative for them for the long run. Right? You know, people only have so much patience I think for things to turn around. So I’m curious. I want to I’m curious and then want to get down to the homes perspective. Homes are really expensive in the inner city. Let’s go back to in the early 80s nobody lived downtown right and then it became a hit place in the 2000s now less than 2021 you see something and decline again I’m just curious how long that trend is going to be before you know it gets back But anyways, we’ll find out I guess the crystal ball will tell us about how those things change in the future. Now this has been oh there it is.

Bill Conerly  39:35

crystal ball. You asked for it. I’ve got it.

Carl J. Cox 39:38

Is that can you shake it has to have a number.

Bill Conerly  39:42

It’s not a magic eight ball.

Carl J. Cox 39:46

So what what is something I didn’t ask that I should have asked that you want to share with our audience today?

Bill Conerly 39:53

Something you didn’t ask. Okay, how about this A person running a business going about it trying to keep keep his or her head down focused on that. How does the person both focus on the business? But also, there’s so much going on in the world? You know, we’ve talked about COVID. We’ve talked about the problem of cities, social attitudes, we haven’t touched political change in China. The real challenge is, how do you keep up with it all? Huh?

Carl J. Cox 40:31

Where do you recommend once you read Sure,

Bill Conerly  40:32

I will. I was asking you.

Carl J. Cox 40:35

He Well, you know, this is the funny irony. I you know, honestly, what I have done is I’ve, I’ve really carved out and done less. Yeah. I honestly though, I’ve actually really narrowed the amount of input I’m getting from, quote, unquote, the news media. Yeah. And the reason is, because I can go, I can go crazy and go nuts and go, but not, you know, and all of a sudden, I can’t focus on what’s most important for my business and my clients businesses. Yeah. And, and I found that, you know, if you just talk long enough, you’re gonna end up hearing all the major headlines anyways. And you get to ask questions, because they’re aware. Yeah, and, and so I found not, once again, it’s not that I’m not aware. And not that I don’t care. But it, I honestly can’t control a lot of this, you know, right. You know, in my day to day, I cannot have an impact. And so therefore, that’s how I’ve built the little it was actually Matt, like Darren Hardy. Give a shameless plug for him, and who to read the compound effect. It was a course I took from him and he said, Shut down, thanks. You know, turn off, turn off your social media stuff, turn off a lot of the news that you’re getting, and focus on where you add the most value in the world. And I found as a result of that, actually, this happened a year ago, Bill I, I had my appendix had burst. And I was in the hospital weakened Centralia, Washington of all places, because I was halfway between Portland and Seattle. And I had an opportunity to kind of stop after I recovered from this and go, what do I want to do next. And that was one of the first things I did is I shut off a lot of the social media shut off a lot of the news inputs that I was getting, and I sure enough, I felt happier afterwards. And so it was it was a combination of learning about it. And the fact that that’s, that’s what I’ve done, it’s helped out a lot. And honestly, I like officially did the shameless plug for you, Bill. I like periodic thoughtful messages, like what you do where you take some data, you have some opportunity to look and so I could really feel like I grab something like that. It’d be it’d be informational, rather than just a headline, right? Yeah. You know, cuz it can be really dangerous. You just like the statistics, I think it’d be really dangerous when we talk about all these statistics that are out there. And of course, we’ve never talked about statistics more or life right with COVID. Right. Right. Yeah. And and so anyways, that’s what I’ve done. I think it’s been helpful. I don’t know, what have you done. And from that perspective,

Bill Conerly 43:03

from from the business leaders perspective, I’ve been surprised, I’ll go speak at a trade association. And at the cocktail reception, people are asking me about, what should the Federal Reserve do? And it’s like, Man, you’re running a business and you’re, you know, you cannot act, it’s not actionable for me to tell you what the Fed should do. So I would suggest that every business leader understand what are the big levers of profitability? Yep. What are the factors that will lead to it? You know, and it varies from company to company, often sales are are part of that. And, Carl, you’ve probably helped more people figure this out than than I have. But if you think, Jay, the big levers of my business are consumers in this category spending and maybe exchange rates and maybe the cost of plastic I don’t know. And then when you run into an economist at a trade show, you start asking about those big big levers and when news items come through, you know ignore all of the political stuff and just focus on anything that might impact one of your the big levers of your business.

Carl J. Cox 44:17

That’s right. Yeah, no, I think that’s great, great insight there for sure. BIll, this has been wonderful I’m going to be oh actually I will do I get to ask you one one quick personal question because you will be unfair for you not to get out of but of course I’m going to be asking you to come on again because you know economy changes as we know as we move along here. Maybe as kind of the fun one of I think you have one of those jobs that everybody would love to do I at least I personally would you go I love what I do, but you got like job one a in terms of being an economist. How did you get that opportunity just just share maybe briefly the kind of story of How you got the opportunity for this to be your profession because it’s not common right to truly get a profession and get paid to be an economist?

Bill Conerly  45:08

Well, I fell in love with economics. You know, I had a math aptitude but I thought math was boring. I was interested in current events, but I thought political debates lacked Foundation, studied economics, and said, Wow, this is great. Then I had an undergraduate professor who actually was a real leftist. But as I headed off to graduate school, he said, Bill, you want to give the corporate world to try rather than just going into academics. And man, that was great advice. So got my dissertation done, taught for three years. And then I went and got a corporate job, and I loved it. It was more fulfilling, and at twice the pay. And so I just really enjoy and now I’m in a situation where, as opposed to going deep into one particular sector, which I’ve done, I’m trying to scan a broad set of economic information so I can talk to potato marketing people one week and plumbing manufacturers another week, and the plywood folks another week and bankers in between and apply this body of knowledge. It’s just, it’s just fun.

Carl J. Cox 46:25

Bill this has been great. So what is one of my I always like to ask question all my guests, what is a book that you recommend to our audience?

Bill Conerly  46:32

The book I am most recommending these days is by Jonathan Hite. It’s called Can you see that? The Righteous Mind, and in a time when we’re so divided politically, but also, to some extent by religion and culture? Hite explains why we have different views. Why we don’t convince anybody. Have you ever convinced anybody on the subject of religion or politics or culture of a position that they didn’t already agree with? You’ve probably had plenty of disagreements, but not one that you won, and not one that the other person one explains why and I think it will make us all feel more comfortable with each other.

Carl J. Cox 47:13

Wow, that’s that’s a great book and very timely, for sure. Yeah. Especially considering and once again, the environment that we’re in on a regular basis. Bill, where can people find and learn more about you?

Bill Conerly 47:25

The name is Bill Conerly. And Google is really good even if it misspell Conerly spelled with one end. But Google knows I’ve got a website conerlyconsulting.com. I put out that newsletter, you can find it on my website, got a YouTube channel again, just start googling Bill Conerly and occasionally you’ll find the city planning director in Florida come up another Bill Conerly, but but almost always you find me if you just say Bill Conerly and Mr. Google knows where I am.

Carl J. Cox 47:57

Yeah, once again, I am a huge fan of you Bill and so of course asking that would you be open to be one of my first second repeat guests on the on the measure says podcast show in the future? Yeah, absolutely. That see that when you when you stuck around like that I got a guy to run a marathon with me with that. So that’s perfect. Bill, thank you for I’m

Bill Conerly 48:17

not gonna run a marathon. Talk on zoom. Not just

Carl J. Cox 48:21

being on the show just being on the show. But it’s great asking that open air question or being quite sincerely. I’ll be reaching out in the future and the next few months in when time changes a bit and we have some more data. love to see where there’s tracking. I love your insights in a regular basis. Bill, thank you so much for being on the Measure Success Podcast show. 

Bill Conerly 48:41

Great chatting with Carl.

Carl J. Cox 48:42

 Absolutely. And to everyone else. wishing you the very best at measuring your success. Wishing you a wonderful day.

Outro 48:53

Thanks for listening to the Measure Success Podcast. We’ll see you again next time to learn from the best. Remember to subscribe now to get future episodes.