John Roy: Inflation, Automation, and Why American Manufacturing Must Adapt in 2026
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You know, a lot of people don't know how to stand on their principles and a lot of people don't know how to use AI for marketing anymore.
The game has changed.
It's changing so fast.
It literally used to be like five years and then you have to adapt.
We're talking about like three months and then you have to adapt.
Right.
I mean, you got to move fast.
You have to do what you need to do.
And number two is have principle.
Yes, business is business, but at the end of the day, what are you?
And like with our company, we're a ministry first and then we're a business.
Do you think America is ready to hear that message in 2026?
Well, we're going to see a lot of corporate failures.
Don't get me wrong.
And frankly, a lot of those corporations that are going to fail, they deserve to fail because they suck.
Welcome to today's interview here on Bration.com.
I'm Mike Adams, the founder of Bration, and we're looking forward to 2026.
And joining me today is a special guest who is a business owner and a manufacturer in America who's dealing with tariffs and dealing with supply chains, but also using a lot of innovation to create amazing products that you are familiar with.
Those are the Dawson knives.
And I'm joined by John Roy from the Dawson Knife Company.
Welcome, John Roy.
It's great to have you back on today.
Happy New Year.
Thank you.
Happy New Year, Mike.
Thank you very much for having me back on.
I'm excited to talk about later on about the new knives, but we do have a lot of challenges coming up this year.
Yeah.
And I actually brought you on not so much to talk about the knives.
We'll mention them later, but to get your expertise as a manufacturer, as a business owner, an entrepreneur, someone who continues to be highly, highly competitive in this industry of making knives and swords and kitchen knives and other, well, other tools, hatchets, machetes, things like that.
So, what would you say is your outlook as a business owner going into 2026?
You know, that's a very good question, Mike.
There's definitely a lot of challenges.
And we just had a meeting about it since the New Year's right around the corner.
One of the things that we were talking about is inflation and how much we've just seen.
A lot of our suppliers right now are reaching out to us and letting us know that there's going to be a lot of price increases.
So with those price increases, we can be looking at 10, 15%.
So where they're saying that the inflation numbers are like four, well, we're not really seeing it that on our end.
We're seeing 10 to 15% increases in a lot of our suppliers and our raw material.
Okay, but we're being told by official sources that there's no inflation.
Yeah, that's total garbage.
Yeah, you run a business.
You know, I don't know what to tell them, but that's absolutely not true.
And we're seeing it.
And that's why you're seeing prices going up or a lot of tricks in manufacturing is cutting corners.
I mean, you may buy the same packaging of food, but it's a lot of, well, reduced ounces.
So you're not getting the same amount for the amount of money that you're spending.
And we're seeing it too in our industry with our competitors.
They're offering like thinner steel.
So what used to be the standard was 316ths.
If you had a Bush crafting knife, if you had a hunter, it would eighth inch.
Now we're seeing hunters made out of kitchen knife steel.
What?
That are really, yes, I'm seeing it all over the place.
I'm seeing Bush crafting knives maybe reaching 530 seconds, but they're probably eighth inch and still charging the same amount of prices.
So this is one way that a lot of manufacturers are trying to deal with it in our industry.
What we try and do is make our processes better and going more automation.
And that's one thing that we were talking about is that we're not really looking to hire more people in 2026.
That's not really our goal.
We're probably not going to hire anyone unless business really takes off and we feel like we have a gap.
I think we're going to replace a lot of our expansion and growth when that comes with automation and with some AI technologies.
Okay.
So, wow, this is really interesting because this is what we're hearing from the vast majority of CEOs.
And the Wall Street Journal just covered this the other day in an article.
There was a survey.
I think it was at maybe a Harvard Business School or someplace like that.
66% of the CEOs cited in that story said that they plan no hiring of humans.
I mean, the humans is implied, I suppose, but no hiring in 2026.
They're just going to keep the number of human workers right where it is.
And of course, they're turning to automation.
So what you're saying is what most of corporate America is saying.
But I'm curious, in what ways can you automate?
Because the craft of knife making is, I would think, it's very human labor intensive.
It's an art, certain elements of it, like the grinding, et cetera.
But go ahead and explain to our audience what can be automated in your business.
Yeah, that's a very good point, Mike.
And the people that we are keeping on, we just decided just raise their wages.
So as they, you know, take on these new tasks and these new automations, just pay them more.
And that way we can have a higher standard of living.
And that's really what our goal is because we want them to have a higher standard of living.
Now, as far as automation, what can we do?
Well, there's a lot of innovation that is coming up.
And, you know, I work with a lot of Gen Zers here.
And when their focus is put on God and they're disciplined and they have gratitude and they have grace, and we talk about this in our business, then they can accomplish a lot of things.
And we're seeing some really cool automation and ideas coming in on our handles, how to manufacture our handles, sheaths, how to manufacture our sheaths in our heat treat, which is really cool.
The more efficient that we're getting there, especially with these upcoming ideas, going back to some old technology, but then bringing it into the 21st century, like the Hamon, and putting that heat treat into place, we can actually produce more knives and you get a way better heat treat.
But that's still in the process.
Well, let me, and I'm not asking you to reveal any trade secrets, obviously, because there are special processes that you use with certain metals like Magna Cut that nobody else has figured out.
But when you say automating heat treat, is it robotic arms that are moving knives in and out of a treatment?
Or, I mean, how do you automate that?
So, really, it's going into CNC machining, which we do have quite a bit here, and using Haas machines.
And it's really coming to a pallet system.
So, sometimes it's not necessarily robotic arms, but having a pallet system where you can have six pallets loaded, have your machine ready to go, and then you can run that machine overnight.
So, you're actually stretching your hours of automation for CNC.
So, that way, those pellets, yeah, through CNC, and those pallets are just changing without you having to be there.
Oh, wow.
And so, yeah, so it just works overnight.
And by doing that, there's a couple of things because, like in our company, we work four nines, but our machines are running almost 24 hours a day.
I hear you.
While I'm interviewing you, I've got all kinds of machines that are cleaning up book text using AI right now, like 1500 books at a time, technically, right this moment.
Yeah.
And you're talking to me and you've got CNC, which is really a CNC machine is a special robot for grinding and cutting steel, right?
The CNC machines are doing the primary first cutouts, correct?
Or you tell me, what are they doing?
Yeah, so we actually have multiple machines.
So like number one, we have a water jet.
So how do you do that?
Well, our plates are smaller.
So you build jigs and then the program will actually touch off on each plate, cut it as long as it goes down the bed and just keep cutting around.
And that way you can get a bunch of blades done while you don't have to babysit the thing.
And then we have cameras that watch it.
We have remote access to those computers so we can actually stop the program through the computers.
And I can do all that from my house.
Cool.
I mean, we have Haas machines that are mills.
So they're vertical mills.
They'll do a lot of the milling of the handles, milling of blade profiles.
We're working on milling of the blades, getting that grind on the blades, milling of the sheaths.
We have surface grinders, CNC surface grinders that we can load up that get us to the right thickness.
And a lot of this stuff can be automated through a pallet system, through fixturing.
And that way, once you get these machines going, then you can just step away.
Now, you always have to monitor it.
And that's something that we do.
We do a lot of remote monitoring just to make sure.
But this is a way that we can get quality of life and still meet the demands that we have for our product and having really efficient production.
Okay, so two questions.
Well, actually, and let me mention Dawson Knives, everybody, if you're watching, you know, we've been a longtime partner of Dawson Knives.
And John Roy and I met years ago when I was a customer purchasing the Windstorm sword, I think is what it was.
And I mean, it's a fun story, but we do carry Dawson knives.
So you go to healthrangerstore.com slash 2026 right here, and you click on this link, third-party vendor offers.
And then right there, you're going to see all the knives from Dawson Knives that are on sale, I think, an extra 5% off in the cart, which is very unusual.
And this is the new, you see all these, this is the Hearthfire Stonewash blade.
And then we've got the, wow, the Santoku knife and some others here.
This is a steak knife.
Anyway, I just want to tell people how they can get these knives.
But John, my question to you is, number one, where do these CNC machines come from?
Like what country?
Or are they made in America?
And if you had to get more machines, you know, are you able to get that?
Or do you have to pay tariffs now for the machines?
Really good question, Mike.
So the Haas machines actually come out of Ontario, California.
So they're actually manufactured here.
It's one reason why I like using them because really Ontario, California from Prescott, Arizona is not very far.
In fact, we just bought some more Haas machines.
They delivered them.
They're going to be coming out to finish the install.
Okay, wait a minute.
When you're saying Haas, how do you spell that?
I'm not familiar with that maker.
So, yeah, so that's H A A S.
So they make great machines.
And are they CNC machines?
Yeah, all kinds.
So they have a ton of different types of CNC machines.
Yeah.
All right.
I just want to bring that up so people, oh, here we go.
Let me show my screen, if you would, please.
Here's some of the Haas machines.
Do these look right, John?
Yep.
Yep.
Those are the kind of machines that we use.
Okay, cool.
All right.
So those come out of California.
Yeah.
But I would imagine these machines rely on parts that come from other countries.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know their processes too much, but I do know that when they manufacture, you can get them pretty quick and you're not having to pay any tariffs.
That's why it's so important to keep your business here in this country as much as you can.
I mean, like we were talking about steel, that's been very difficult.
But the good news is ProCut is coming back to America.
That's one reason why we're using that steel.
That was from Larry Thomas, who invented MagnaCut, invented ProCut, and that's going to be one of the few or only American-made tool steels that we can use here for our knives.
And it's great steel.
That's why he invented it.
Another one that we're using temporarily is ADCR V2.
We used them in our past.
In fact, one of your first pieces, the Windstorm, was probably made out of ABCR V2.
It's an extremely strong, tough steel before we started getting into MagnaCut and those steels.
But those steels have been taken overseas.
So it's very difficult to get.
We'll probably get some more MagnaCut as it goes through, but the pricing is going up on that.
Already, we were just looking.
It's about over $3,000 a sheet, and the sheets are not very big.
They're about two foot by three foot.
So back then we were paying $1,200.
And that comes out of which country now in Europe?
It comes out of France.
Oh, it comes out of France.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, and that's because of the closure of the metal smelting operation in Syracuse, New York.
Is that right?
That is correct.
Yes.
Okay.
So, yeah, we want to bring back that industry.
We want to reopen metal alloy producers in America as we can.
But get back to the machines.
I'm sorry to keep interrupting, but in addition to the Haas machines, where else do you buy your machines from that do this automation?
So we have an OMAX, so that comes out of Oregon.
So that's the Waterjet.
Besides that, we try and stay within those companies.
Now, one thing is, if we ever get to a point where we think that it's necessary, they have now an automated grinding machine that you can hollow grind all your blades with.
Very expensive machine.
But that machine is only made in Germany.
And so for a $300,000 to $500,000 machine, imagine 50% tariff on that.
Oh, yeah.
It gets expensive quickly.
I've been down that road also.
Yeah.
Right.
Okay.
So you wouldn't even consider that machine unless the tariffs were substantially lowered.
And then I would imagine there's still, there's still a human component of fine-tuning and everything after the machine.
The machine just does the rough part, right?
Yeah, exactly.
So you would still have to go over and clean up the blade.
You still have to put that secondary grind, which is your sharpening edge, and that we're still doing by hand.
Right now, we're still grinding all the blades by hand, but we're coming up with processes to alleviate that through our mill work and then finishing them up by hand and then sharpening them by hand.
So there's a lot of hand work that goes into the quality and fit and finish.
So do you feel like if you fell behind on automation as we're all moving into 2026, would your business be in trouble?
I mean, yeah, I guess the answer is yes.
No doubt.
I mean, if in fact, we were talking in our meeting just yesterday that we need more automation.
You can't keep up as a business without raising your prices sky high without having automation.
You're going to have to have it because inflation is killing you.
You still have taxes.
Everything is going up.
And in order to maintain your standard of living, you're going to have to automate.
And to be a business, to even have profit, I mean, most businesses shoot for 25% profit.
If we're really lucky, that's really good.
But I mean, just to maintain that, just to be competitive in this market, just to be able to survive, you're going to have to automate.
And you just have to think outside the box because you can't pass all that cost to your customers because it's weird.
We're in this inflationary, deflationary period.
So people aren't making more money, but everything is costing more.
So there comes a point where they're just not going to buy your product.
Well, right.
And stagflation, I think, is one of the terms that may describe this.
And you're right that incomes are not keeping up with increasing prices of goods that people need to purchase.
But the other thing that's really interesting about this is that your knives are considered the premium grade best knives that I've ever seen.
That's why we work with you.
And that's why you and I have collaborated on some designs that are still very popular, like Escape from LA knife, which turned out to be a great theme.
But your knives are only purchased by the higher income portion of the market, I would say.
Is that true?
Yeah, what we're seeing is that a lot of middle to higher income purchase our knives.
But because our name is getting out there a lot more and people want that American quality, we're seeing people saving up and buying one of our knives, which we really appreciate.
And we're seeing a larger customer base coming into Dawson Knives and really wanting that American quality.
And that's why we're just so adamant about keeping our dollars here because, you know, we all live in this country and the best way that we can support it is by supporting the suppliers and manufacturers that help us get the raw material that we need so we can produce an amazing product.
If we have to go overseas, there's a lot of issues, not just including tariffs, but you also have shipping and you're just dealing with a lot of weird stuff in business where you have weird delays and they're just not meeting or delivering what they promise.
And so it makes it very difficult for you to recoup any losses that you're dealing with overseas.
So it's 2026 is going to be a very interesting year.
I can see a lot of people in the same boat that I am, where we want to keep who we have and we want to grow.
But at the same time, we have to watch inflation and that bottom line so we can survive as a company.
And so we're really looking at, you know, AI and automation in helping our team to have better quality of life and to be able to navigate into the future.
It's going to take a lot of innovation.
I mean, that's one thing about us.
We innovate all the time.
Yes, you do.
Just to keep up.
So importantly, you're not firing anyone.
You're not laying people off and replacing them with automation.
You're keeping the people, but you're augmenting their capabilities with automation or AI.
And that's what we do, by the way, in my company, too.
We don't fire people to replace them.
We even do internal training on AI tools.
Like, here's how to use AI to do your job better, or here's how to write apps using AI apps to do your job better.
I mean, actually, I'm the AI advocate in our company.
I'm constantly telling people, use this.
It's faster.
You do it this way.
So, but I got to ask you, John Roy, what types of tasks are you using AI for in your business?
Very good question.
And so I talked to our office staff and just like you were saying, I just wanted to touch on it is that we are not firing or laying off anyone.
In fact, we are looking at increasing their wages, but keeping those that we have.
And it's hard to find loyalty nowadays.
And so we're very happy with the people that we have.
Now, the thing is, is shifting them to this new technology and getting them used to AI.
So we talk to our office staff, a lot of things that we do, like production schedules, automations, getting our using AI to get our production numbers up there to anticipate what we're going to sell to ordering.
Yes, AI can do a great job with trends projections.
Yes, which helps us on the manufacturing.
So a lot of those redundant tasks that we're seeing there is being taken up by AI and helping our production manager because it's so difficult to manually input all of those tasks, checking on inventories.
And AI just comes in and it's checking.
It's doing all those tedious tasks.
So that way we can really focus on what do we need to do?
What kind of new products can we bring to the forefront?
And really working on RD to really leap ahead of our competition.
If we're still stuck on the mundane tasks, then that's where our brainpower is going.
That's where AI can take over that.
And now we are brainpowering in creating and making a better product.
If we focus on that, then everybody wins.
Well, that's great.
And so let me ask you also about customer service.
And let me provide this context.
So we're also going to use AI to help automate some of our customer service, but we always want to give our customers the option where you can choose AI.
You can chat with an AI agent.
There's no wait time.
And if you just have a basic question like, what's the status of my order?
Then that's easy for AI to answer.
Or what ingredients are in this cherry product, you know, right?
AI can answer that.
But you can also reach a human person if you want to, if you have a more complex question.
And as a business owner myself, I believe that both of these options should coexist so that the customer can choose.
So are you thinking about any automation of customer service?
Absolutely.
And here's the thing.
A human can be on there during work hours.
And so they can answer it.
But after work hours, or even when there is a large flood of customer service calls or whatever, people asking questions, that's where AI really helps because now you can get your answer off hours and maybe you don't have to wait until the next morning or wait in line.
You can actually get what you needed to make that purchase or to answer that question or how do I sharpen this knife as far as in our case.
And then AI is complementary to the human side of the customer service.
So you always have to have both.
But I mean, we're not up 24-7.
I've got customers in Germany.
I'm not on the same timeframe.
So AI works really well to give them the correct information and to help answer their question when they need it.
That's where they don't have to wait days.
Yeah, I see that makes a lot of sense.
And I'm glad you mentioned that you have customers in Germany.
I know you have customers all over the world.
Let me give you a chance actually to just talk about the four new knives.
Can we show the side shot on my desk here?
I've actually put your knives here on my desk.
There it is.
Aren't they beautiful?
Look at that.
That's the new stonewash.
But yeah, go ahead, plug your product here for a little bit.
Talk about these four knives.
So these four knives, we're making them out of ProCut and ADCR V2, just whichever steel is available on that.
And they are coming up really well.
The differential heat treat and the rockwell that we're getting on them is amazing.
So we're actually getting a Rockwell C, so that's how hard it is on the edge at about 62 to 64.
So that means that edge is going to last longer.
And no matter what chores you have in the kitchen, they are going to just keep going, keep going, keep going.
And it's easy to resharpen.
So that's one thing that we love about this new steel.
The stonewash finish wears really well.
I mean, we started doing a lot of testing with that a while back.
And now we finally started releasing it.
And we can see that even after like three years, it's still going to look brand new.
And so that's the one thing is minimal maintenance.
With the new G10 handles, this is the first time that we're releasing it.
So it really creates a nice finish with that stone wash.
And these knives are high performance.
You're not going to see these, you know, with Cutco or anything like that.
I mean, these knives are heirloom pieces that you can pass down and then we take care of them.
So if you ever have an issue, that's the one thing about working with a company that's been, I don't know, over 50 years.
We started in 1973.
So these things are the latest in technology.
They also have some of those machining aspects that we're seeing.
So there's a lot of precision in them, which really helps in your angle.
So now you're getting these really fine cuts, especially if you're chopping very fine things with the new chef's knives.
And then the steak knives are just amazing.
It makes every steak, I mean, if it's cooked properly, you should cut it easily, but it cuts like butter.
So it works out really well.
That's what's what I'm hearing from my own family members who have your knives and they're just raving about them.
And also the ergonomics are really extraordinary with the angles and the offset of the handle from the blade on the chef's knife and so on.
I mean, there's so many details.
We could do a whole hour just about the handles and the ergonomics.
But my point is, because this show is about economics and 2026, that even people, you said even a lot of middle income people are buying your knives.
And that's because it's actually cheaper in the long run to buy one good knife than 10 crappy knives that you keep throwing away.
Like that mindset is coming back finally.
I think I have to agree with you 100%, Mike.
And I think that's what we're seeing.
And in fact, I see to myself, I'm shifting into, I want things to last.
I think we're just sick and tired of being screwed over and buying cheap products that are made overseas with people who really have no interest in our well-being.
And finally going with, if I only have X amount of dollars, then I want the best value and deal that I can get with that, even if I have to pay more, because then I'm owning it.
And I think that's a big thing.
We want to own something.
We don't want to own nothing and be happy.
That is not what we want.
Yeah, and I don't want to replace a refrigerator every three years or a clothes washing machine every three years.
I mean, these, these things, like my grandma had a fridge that was 30 years old and it was still humming away.
And I'm like, that's the fridge I want.
It doesn't need to be digital.
This needs to be done.
It's freaking cold.
Exactly.
I mean, that's the point.
We just want things to work and last.
We're sick of just having our money being wasted.
And I think that's where everyone's coming back.
We're looking at value in our money.
That's why people are going to gold and silver.
Value in your money.
We don't want to be taken advantage of anymore.
And we did for a long time.
But now that things are getting tighter and we're waking up to a lot of the fraud and everything that's going out there, we want to have products that represent who we are.
And we want to support companies that represent who we are.
And we want products that last for a long time.
We want to actually be able to hand something down.
We want to own something.
We don't want in three years, we had a lease and then we had to buy the same product, but now it's $500 more.
That doesn't fly anymore.
And it's just filling up landfill, you know.
And companies are feeling that.
And same thing with like car manufacturers, you know, you know, they have to their prices have skyrocketed and dealerships are just way overcharging.
The moment that we stop buying their products, they're going to have to lower them.
They're going to have to find better ways.
And we're seeing this all across the board as a manufacturer.
We are being pressed to find better ways of manufacturing.
And this is where AI and automation comes in so we can keep the price down, be competitive in America and produce something that lasts as long as that refrigerator that ran for 30 years.
And you just said something really key to produce something that lasts.
Now, John Roy, I got to ask you, why?
Why do you think it's important to produce something when you could, you could have made hundreds of millions of dollars running fake daycare centers in Minneapolis?
I mean, you don't need to produce anything.
You don't even need children in the daycare.
You just need the front and then the government will give you grant money.
Apparently, I mean, that's insane.
Yeah.
But that's the way that so many people look at our economy.
They're not like, what can I create and contribute that is of value?
They're more like, how can I extract money from the government?
How can I get a grant and then not do anything?
Like, how can I get a climate grant and then just buy a luxury house with it?
Like, that's the revenue model.
Here's the thing.
And this is why it's dangerous to have a bunch of illegal immigrants coming into this nation without assimilating.
Because there's two thoughts, schools of thought.
See, in a Christian culture, there's something that we feel and it's called guilt.
We don't want to do what's wrong.
We feel guilt over it because there is a moral attachment to our God spiritually that works on us.
And that's the thing about in Christianity, we feel guilt.
We'll help someone on that.
Now, in other cultures, it's shame.
So that's a totally different thing than guilt.
Shame is I feel shame because I got caught.
So I feel bad that I got caught.
I don't even feel bad.
I just, that I got caught and now I'm shamed into it.
Because in their cultures, it is what you can do to get away with it.
If you can get away with it and not get caught, then you have done well.
So in their mind, they're coming over here and they're getting millions and billions of dollars.
And they only feel shame because they got caught.
That's it.
But they feel no guilt.
There's no guilt whatsoever about what they did or even the perpetrators who did it.
And that's dangerous because when you have that, then you lose empathy in this nation and you lose this moral obligation to love your neighbor as you love yourself.
And once we start losing that, then everybody's just going to screw you over.
And you see that with manufacturers and soulless corporations in the product that they produce to you where you're buying a refrigerator every three years.
And that's the difference.
And that's why being a Christian country and being a Christian company in this country, we try and go back to those values, really pushing the ideas of America that made us so great.
And that is we build things to last and we want you to trust our product that you get your kids involved and everybody is knowing that, hey, these guys make a great product.
It's something that will last.
And that's how we develop more sales.
And that's how we make America strong.
You know, that kind of mindset.
So instead of this idea of how much can we extract from the government on food stamps or USAID grant money or even Lee Zelda at the EPA, he said they found $20 billion in fake grants from the EPA, all climate-related garbage.
I'm telling you, even Elon Musk said he thinks 20% of the federal budget is nothing but fraud.
And I think that's a low number.
I think it's much more.
But if we're going to make America great again, as we say, it's got to come down to people like you, families like yours, John Roy, and your business operations.
We have to produce stuff.
We have to make things.
We can't.
Let me ask you this also about financialization.
There's so much that's happening in our economy that's just people pushing paper and there's numbers and spreadsheets and Wall Street and you're selling off this tranche of the CDOs of this risk category of these subprime mortgage collapse, subprime auto loans.
It's nothing's real.
None of those people make anything.
No, it's Enron 2.0.
Yeah.
And that and that's what you're seeing.
You know, you're seeing a lot of this Enron 2.0.
And that's one thing that you want to be careful of because you know what?
You're putting and investing in smokes and smoke and mirrors.
And in the end of the day, somebody's going to be left holding the bag.
And I'm going to tell you one thing.
It's not going to be them.
It's going to be you.
Nope.
And that's the thing.
That is their bet.
And so you have to put it into solid investments.
And that's one thing I always hear on your show.
You talk about gold and silver, very solid.
You have to have tangible things.
And at the end of the day, tangible things are always going to be worth something.
They're always going to increase in value.
I mean, even housing, even though they've been skyrocketing them and cheating the system, it's still going to be worth something.
A lot of these houses, yes, they go down, but they're all higher and worth more than they were 100 years ago.
And land is, you know, commodities.
Evidence of that.
Go ahead and show my screen.
This is the two-year silver price.
Look at that.
I mean, from $20 roughly to now almost $80.
And I've been advocating silver and gold the entire time.
But look, here's silver performance.
In five years, it's up 170%.
Right.
But what does that mean?
Why is it up 170%?
Well, because the dollar is collapsing in terms of its purchasing power, like you said, with inflation.
Gold and silver have value.
Your knives hold value because they maintain their utility year after year, even generation after generation.
Yes.
And that's the point.
We're waking up to it.
A lot of us Americans have fallen, especially in my generation, for been duped into believing how they wanted us to believe how the system works and how to gather wealth.
And we lived through the Great Recession and now we're living through this, you know, the Biden era where they're just, you know, masking all their fraud and just seeing massive inflation to the highest inflation.
At one point, it was what they reported.
Now we know it's higher, but, you know, 9%, but in reality, like 30 to 50%.
And so we want real.
I mean, I'm investing in gold and silver.
And that's the thing.
When you have wealth, any kind of wealth, you're going to make smart decisions.
And especially when you want to pass it on to the next generation.
And even God in the Bible tells us to do that, to be prudent, especially with our finances, and to have an inheritance for your son.
And so you have to be wise.
You're going to have to be more on the ball.
And you're going to have to find people who know what they're talking about.
And when you're looking at AI, it's a tool.
A lot of people are afraid.
A lot of people are saying this and that.
And yes, there's bad AI out there, just like there's bad tools, bad stores, bad everything.
I mean, we live in a fallen world, but you have to be educated and know what you're doing because at the end of the day, you're responsible for it.
Yeah.
You know, exactly.
You got to figure it out.
So let me ask you about your industry then, getting back to the economics of 2026.
Are you seeing, are there other companies that are going out of business because they failed to automate or they failed to have quality?
I know that a lot of knife makers, they make everything in China and it's not that great.
I mean, China's good with tech.
Don't get me wrong.
They make the world's best robots, you know, and drones, but they also make really cheap ass knives that I don't want.
What are you seeing?
You know, that's funny you mentioned China because we have people from China that really want to buy our knives because they don't want the crap in China.
They want to find ways to smuggle them in.
No joke, because they have a huge market for our knives for people who want quality.
Even China sees it.
I mean, they're reaching out because it's difficult to get in and they want our knives any way they could get it.
But they don't want the crap that they make because they know it's crap.
You know, they want something to last.
Everybody's getting to that point where we want something to last.
I think that I have seen, we were talking about machines.
I've seen a lot of businesses go out of business and I've seen a lot of auctions coming up.
I do see even knife companies getting ready to go out of business or have gone out of business.
And I think a lot of it has to do with automation, number one.
But number two, I think it's the way we market and reach people.
You know, a lot of people don't know how to stand on their principles and a lot of people don't know how to use AI for marketing anymore.
The game has changed.
It's changing so fast.
It literally used to be like five years and then you have to adapt.
We're talking about like three months and then you have to adapt.
Right.
I mean, you got to move fast.
You have to do what you need to do.
And number two is have principle.
I think a lot of companies were just following trends and didn't have that moral principle.
Yes, business is business, but at the end of the day, what are you?
And like with our company, we're a ministry first and then we're a business.
And so that substance carries on in everything that we do.
And I think people just want genuine companies and not companies there just to make a buck.
And so those companies are having a very difficult time right now.
See, that makes sense.
You mentioned values and integrity along with that.
You said you're a ministry first and a business second.
Now, I would say that business, like MBA graduates out of the conventional university system would say, that's crazy.
You should be a business first and everything else is second.
But you flipped that upside down and demonstrated a lot of success with that.
You're like, no, we have integrity and we have faith first.
And we teach the next generation skills, how to make things, how to make things that are quality, that matter.
And it's those principles that drive the success of our company.
Do you think America is ready to hear that message in 2026 when we're going to see a lot of corporate failures?
Don't get me wrong.
And frankly, a lot of those corporations that are going to fail, they deserve to fail because they suck and they have no integrity.
But is it time for America to return to the faith roots of the founding fathers?
I think we're seeing it.
I think that it's happening now.
And I think people are waking up to it.
And I think companies, It's like the conservative movement.
You know, it went to Christianity and people waking up to that and following back to the roots.
And then you always have this once, once that becomes popular, then you have this fake conservatism where there is no Christianity, but we're just, you know, conservatives.
But that is just a Trojan horse.
So you're going to see companies as they wake up, you're going to have those that are going to be pretending to have those values, but they're not.
They're just a Trojan horse.
But then you're going to see these other ones that really do care about our country, that really do want to bring back the faith of our founding fathers.
You know, I had a guy that he's very successful.
He's a billionaire.
He's a good friend of mine.
And he said, number one, John, you need God.
You need him in your life.
You need a moral standard.
You need Jesus Christ.
He says, but when we take the word God and you look at it and you break it down and you got the G, and that stands for gratitude and grace.
And then you have the O, which is obedience.
And then you have the D, which is discipline.
And he says, to be a success, you need those elements.
You need to have God number one.
And then if you have those other elements, especially discipline, then you will succeed.
Every trial that you're going through your life, whether it's financial, relationship, or health, can be gone through quicker or can be finished in discipline.
So if, you know, the forks don't make you fat.
It's the guy behind the fork.
The money isn't evil.
It's the person using the money.
It's the guy behind the fork.
That's right.
That's hilarious.
And that's so.
No, that's so true.
And I love the fact that you're focused on this as real demonstration of integrity.
But I want to contrast that to so-called virtue signaling of the corporate America.
And especially over the last decade, we saw all kinds of virtue signaling where all the corporations, including Target, everything's LGBT.
Everything's transgender, rainbows.
Everything's, oh, we McDonald's and Nike, we donated money to Black Lives Matter.
And it turns out that was all a fraud too.
You know, some of those people are being arrested and prosecuted for what they did with all that money.
Everything's a fraud out there, right?
But it's virtue study.
So that's fake virtue.
And that's what we've seen from corporate America, all this fake bullshit virtue that's pushing.
Sorry, my, about my language, but that's what it is.
And that's why it's so refreshing what you're talking about, which is real integrity that is not popular.
It's not popular across the country to talk about faith in your company, is it?
No, it isn't.
In fact, we during the Biden era were really silenced a lot.
I mean, our social media was silenced.
There was a lot of things that we couldn't do.
And even today, we have some major challenges.
Even today, I get hate mail just for, you know, putting out a baby Jesus.
You know the companies that are legit.
Hate mail for baby Jesus?
Yes.
It's ridiculous.
That's crazy.
It is crazy.
And you're seeing that.
There's a huge push against Christianity, but that's fine because you know what?
They know they can't win.
And you know that a lot of those people, A, need to be ministered to and B, they need to be shown the truth.
But, you know, I pray for those people when they send it.
I pray for them.
But you're going to see this contrast.
And you're going to know really quick.
I was pretty disgusted like on Christmas Day, just being bombarded by these so-called, some of them so-called conservative companies that were going along with these other soulless corporations bombarding you with Christmas sales, Christmas this, Christmas that.
And I'm like, this is Christmas, but nothing about Jesus.
Nothing about God.
Yeah.
Won't even talk about that.
And you're just like, you know, come on.
This is Christmas Day.
A lot of us are with our family.
When we put out our email, we put it out just about Jesus Christ and wishing all of our customers and everyone else who's a part of our mailing list a very Merry Christmas.
And that's the way America used to be.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And you're actually, you know, staking your claim of your position as a ministry and a company.
And if people don't like it, they can go buy $20 cheap knives made in China that will last six months, maybe.
And, right?
So it's kind of like, you know, take it or leave it, the market gets to choose.
But I think what you're demonstrating is what more companies will demonstrate.
I mean, my company is an example.
People choose to support us because of our mission of what I do with putting out free tools like our book, our new book engine and our AI engines and all these things, keeping them free.
Did you know we've had over 11,000 books published at brightlearn.ai?
Yeah.
It's 11, that's unfathomable.
It's becoming like a massive, I mean, it's the number one biggest book engine on the internet by far.
And of course, it costs money to run, but we keep it free for people because those people choose to support us.
They understand our mission and what we're doing, just like your customers understand your mission.
You're not just buying a knife.
You're investing in a sustainable model of keeping America great and supporting businesses that will reinvest back into America.
I mean, that's why what you do, like this interview is so it's so important to your business.
You're explaining the whole, the full cycle, what people get, much more than a blade.
Yeah, and that's another thing.
And that's why we ally ourselves with like-minded businesses that love this nation and love God.
And that's why we have worked with you for all those years, Mike.
And back then, it was really hard to find.
Today, we're seeing some of these businesses coming out into the open and declaring their faith and really working hard to bring back America to its core roots, which is so important.
That's where freedom really comes from.
And so businesses like ours and we're working with other companies out there, like even with my boxes.
My boxes are literally made here in America with American material.
Like people wouldn't even think about that, but I, even the box company, I get to walk down there and I know every person in that factory because I have that kind of relationship with them, which is funny because they're all people.
And you actually make really, your boxes are very high quality boxes, by the way.
They're not garbage boxes.
Like serious.
They're only going to get better.
But see, that's even made in America and being intentional.
And that's why we have to, as we move forward, especially in 2026 and we go into 2027, is companies like ours are alike-minded working together in a way to move this country forward back to the way it was.
And then you're going to see an amazing prosperity because people are going to realize, hey, the money that I have that I worked so hard to earn, I'm putting it back in this country with people who care about my values.
And I'm getting something that I can pass on to my kids with pride and a lot of respect for this nation and saying, hey, this is going to last you 30 years and knowing that these kind of people are going to fight for the kind of jobs that I want.
Isn't that true?
You're going to have so many people that would just love to work with your company to learn a skill.
I mean, apprenticeships is another huge thing here.
We should talk about that because the university system is collapsing.
And let me just bring in the context of our book engine here.
It's at brightlearn.ai.
Here's the screen.
11,400 plus books published right now, over 113,000 downloads.
And these are just some of the books that were just published in the last few minutes, by the way.
And what's amazing, what we're doing, John, not only are we keeping this free, everything's free.
People can download these books and they have permission through our Creative Commons licensing.
They can sell these books on Amazon and they can create an income for themselves on Amazon.
And people are doing that now.
And we're about to do auto-translation into Spanish for the books that hit 1,000 reads.
Yeah, if your book hits 1,000 reads on our website, it will be auto-translated into Español.
The cover will be in Spanish.
Everything, everything in the book, Español.
And that happens automatically behind the scenes.
And then French is the second language that we're going to do.
But imagine, see, this means that anybody can learn almost anything at zero cost now and in multiple languages.
You know, that's a game changer for.
That's a huge game changer.
And you know, that's why it's so important to be a ministry first.
See, that's a ministry because you're offering it for free.
You're helping people out.
And that's what's so powerful of this American model.
And it's very unique to America, really, is this ability to give away for free.
Most businesses would say that's bad business.
I mean, think of all the dollars that you can make.
And look at, yes, but when you look at this country and how we have helped our neighbor in so many different things and helped us move forward, and that's what made us the best.
And our education system has completely failed us.
I mean, my kids don't even go through the public education system anymore.
It's a joke.
The university system has become a joke.
Well, and you look at people who are wildly successful, they're not sending their kids through that education system.
They're sending it through an education system that they know will teach them the fundamentals of how to manage a business, how to work with people, how to be responsible and disciplined, and those things that I talked about.
They know that that produces success.
But when you look at what we're being taught in our schools and on our kids and in the society, it teaches you to be rebellious.
It teaches you to be undisciplined.
It teaches you that any problem that you have is someone else's problem.
And then everybody's feeling overwhelmed.
They're feeling anxiety.
They're feeling all these things that keep them down.
And then they wonder why, what is the solution?
And it's so hard to find that solution.
And that's why I love to see what you guys are doing because it's opening up.
It's like, here's the knowledge.
This is what we're doing.
This is what works.
This is what doesn't work.
And opening up these knowledges that we've known for a long time that used to make America wonderful.
A personal responsibility.
I mean, that's a big one that most people don't have.
And it's not easy, but that's what it's going to take.
And that's what we're seeing here with education.
Absolutely.
I know of many people who are just skipping the university system and being more successful by themselves using AI now, which amplifies everything.
Let me shift topics for just a second.
I want to surprise you with some fun news about 2026 and your knives.
I want to remind our audience, you can get the knives.
The entire Dawson line, well, at least these knives are available during this sale event, healthrangerstore.com slash 2026.
And then click on third-party vendors, scroll down to see the Dawson knives here.
There's five available.
They're 5% off during this sale, which ends, I think, January 12th, I believe.
Yeah, and there's one knife that on there that I just wanted to mention really quick.
We're only making 44 of the gathering steak knife at Magna Cut and Sand Finish because we released the kitchen knives before in MagnaCut.
So those that have MagnaCut looking to complete your sets is a limited number.
There's only 44 of them that are being made.
So once those are gone, they are gone.
Wow.
Okay.
All right.
Thanks for that update.
One of the things, speaking of automation and AI, one of the things that we're doing in this studio to my right is a kitchen studio.
And when you come visit, John, we'll give you a full tour, but there's a full kitchen over there.
And we set that up on purpose because eventually we're going to have, and there's actually a large area here for robot testing.
We want to acquire robots.
We're contacting all these robot companies.
We're willing to buy the robots and we want to test them doing things like, you know, picking up garbage or sweeping the floor.
And eventually, eventually, although this is going to, we're going to have to have some precautions.
We're going to have a robot chef.
This might be a few years away, but we're going to have a robot chef in the kitchen with your knives, John.
Oh, I love that.
With your knives chopping celery, you know, and we're all going to be standing back, you know, with shotguns in case it goes full terminator or something.
Like, you know, a robot with a knife, a robot with a good knife, you know, this.
I'm almost concerned because this sounds kind of like Jurassic Park here.
I know it's a Velociraptor, but we're going to stand around it.
Hopefully we could, you know, I don't know, man.
I like to see that, though.
I think that's really cool that you guys are going to be doing that.
You know, really, these robots, if they're going to be worth anything, they should be able to do basic kitchen chores.
I mean, if they're going to be a help, I mean, these are things that we can teach a seven-year-old.
Yeah, but they're still complicated.
They're very complicated, Pat.
You know, just to grab a knife and cut something, that takes a lot of training for a human brain, too.
Oh, yeah.
Exactly.
It's going to be interesting to see which robot learns the fastest, right?
Like, where is the AI in these robots and what do they do well?
Or how fast does that AI adapt?
You know, what people don't realize is that these robots are going to fail a lot.
I mean, we fail a lot.
That is true.
When we're learning a task.
So failure is part of the equation.
So get used to it.
But the idea is which one's going to succeed and overcome that failure.
Yeah, absolutely.
I was just giving you a preview of what's coming.
That might be 2027 or 2028.
Who knows?
I don't know how long.
I'm not going to hand a knife to a robot until I'm very certain that it's predictable.
First, I'm going to let it fold laundry.
Something it can't hurt me with if it goes crazy with socks, you know?
Terminator laundry robot.
Okay.
So, John, we're out of time.
We ended on Terminator sock wielding laundry robot.
But thank you so much for joining us today.
It's always a pleasure.
Any last words here today?
No, I just want to say thank you so much, Mike, for having me on here.
And I just want to wish you and all your listeners a very happy new year.
Okay.
Well, you too, John, to you and your family.
Give them all our blessing and our prayers and happiness for the new year.
You're going to be very successful.
And thank you for joining me today.
And folks, if you want to take advantage of our new year sale on these extraordinary knives, if you've never had one of these in your hands, you'll be astonished at the level of quality.
But you can find them at healthrangerstore.com slash 2026.
Click on third-party vendors and then scroll down to the Dawson knives here and take advantage of this extra 5% off, which is a very limited time.
And it's a very limited run of these knives.
And there's also, I think, there's a two-week shipping time because these are pre-orders, actually, I think, for many of these.
Some are already made.
Others, you got to give it two weeks.
So just have patience with the process.
But thank you for watching today.
And, you know, God bless America.
Let's ask God to bless America for 2026.
And it's going to come down to people like John Roy and his family and you, the viewers, all of us working together to make this country something really special again.
We need to create.
We need to innovate.
We need to produce things that matter.
And that's exactly what Dawson Knives is doing.
So thank you for watching today.
I'm Mike Adams here at brightion.com.
Take care.
Welcome to the Health Rangers Store 2026 New Year's Sale.
I'm Mike Adams, a Health Ranger, and we've got a great collection of solutions for you to help make 2026 the best year of your life in terms of your health, your opportunities, mobility, immune function, digestive support, cognition, and so much more.
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