297: US–Canada Tariffs: The Hidden Cost to Your Wealth

If Parliament Hill or Capitol Hill can move your wealth, you never really owned it. That single idea frames today’s conversation with Jayson Lowe, Richard Canfield, and returning guest Henry Wong. We tackle tariffs, inflation, business valuation, and why control, not prediction, is the real edge for Main Street entrepreneurs. The Short Version Tariffs are taxes on imports. They don’t just raise prices; they quietly dent cash flow, compress margins, and reduce business valuations. Inflation is a pickpocket. It steals purchasing power from savers and rewards owners of capital. Structure beats storms. A business with liquidity, reserves, and a financing system absorbs shocks far better than one that “rents” capital from banks. Infinite Banking = control. Owning the banking function (via dividend-paying whole life) moves you off the treadmill of prediction and into a position of strength. Why Every Tariff Headline Is Really a Valuation Headline Tariffs land in the news as political theatre. On Main Street, they land as math. What actually happens: Costs rise. Suppliers pass along tariff costs. Margins get squeezed. You either raise prices and risk demand, or you hold prices and accept thinner profits. Cash flow tightens. Inventory sits longer. Bids are harder to price. Collections slow. Credit gets cautious. Lenders see the stress in your statements and move the goalposts. Valuation declines. Lower EBITDA + lower confidence = lower multiple. In the episode, Henry walks through a simple illustration: a 25% tariff can trigger a drop in revenue, a deeper drop in EBITDA, and a steep fall in sale value even if you run your company well. It’s not about effort. It’s about exposure. Inflation: The Pickpocket You Don’t See Inflation doesn’t kick down the door. It quietly lifts the wallet from your back pocket. We measure life in dollars, but dollars measure less each year. People say “prices went up.” Often, the currency went down. Gold didn’t get stronger; the ruler got shorter. If you plan to save “just a little more” each year, you’re trying to outrun a moving walkway that’s speeding up under your feet. That’s exhausting and unnecessary. The Structured Ladder vs. the Wobbly Ladder Henry shared a useful picture: imagine two ladders, Unstructured and Structured. Unstructured ladderSales → Margin → Liquidity → Credit → EBITDA → MultipleA tariff or rate hike snaps a rung. Then another. You keep climbing, but the ladder shakes. Structured ladderSales → Margin → Liquidity (reserves) → Internal Financing → Stable EBITDA → Defensible MultipleHere, you’ve installed “shock absorbers”: capitalization, systems, and a private source of financing. Policy still moves, but you don’t fall. Where Control Actually Comes From Most owners are elite at creati...