Veteran and entrepreneur Colin Wayne, founder of Redline Steel, said on Tue sday’s edition of the Breitbart News Daily podcast with host Alex Marlow that the Biben administration and Democrats are using Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “cover story” to excuse inflation wrought by their own politics.
Marlow said the Biden adminsitration is “just saying everything’s Putin’s fault,” drawing on the White House’s attempts to rebrand inflation driven by leftist policies as “Putin’s Price Hike.”
“I don’t think anything has to do [with Putin],” Wayne replied. “I think he’s the cover story, but I think that we’re doing this to ourselves.”
Wayne described the impact of ongoing inflation on his business, which manufactures home decor and art from domestically-sourced steel.
“The steel industry is hit extremely hard, especially 10-gauge steel,” he stated. “So we use 16-gauge through 20-gauge mild cold-rolled temper-passed steel, and it’s domestic. So it’s made at Nucor, one of the largest steel mills in America, and there’s a lot of companies that outsource — just because of the amount of cost savings that could take place — but we take pride of our products being sourced domestically and made right here.”
He remarked, “The CRU index is the highest that it’s ever been in the history of America from a percentage standpoint, year over year, which is over 400-plus percent,” referring to the U.S. Midwest Domestic Hot-Rolled Coil Steel (CRU) Index, which estimates future steel prices based on comparisons of the commodity’s current and past prices.
Wayne said the cost of a 5 x 10 steel sheet used by his company in the production of art and home decor has risen four-fold from a low-point during the Trump adminstration to today.
He stated, “So imagine a 5×10 sheet when President Trump was in office – I’m just going to say $50 a sheet – now it’s over $200 a sheet. All of that [inflation] took place within an 18-month time period. … The cost of inflation of the steel itself by 400% is unprecedented.”
“Now I’m having trouble finding domestic steel,” he added, “and we’re having to pay even more for the freight to bring it in from other states, all the way up in Michigan, just to find 10-gauge steel.”
Wayne said his company is looking into expanding its production of art and home decor to include other materials such as vinyl and aluminum in response to the rapid inflation of steel. Challenges can be viewed as opportunies, he considered.
“We’re kind of being forced into … being comfortable in an uncomfortable area,” he determined, “and that’s where growth comes from. But it’s between that and giving up, and I’m not going to give up. I’m a fighter.”
He remarked, “Manufacturing is the backbone of this nation, and we’re a country that is so dependent on other nations to find sourced goods, that if you were to walk into any large retailer, most of your home is made from products that are not here in the United States.”
“There should absolutely be more manufacturing incentives for domestic suppliers that are that are sourcing domestically,” he concluDed, “because it feeds the entire system.”