BUSINESS NEWS & TRENDS: The Rise of Trading Cards - Trump's address to Congress - Skype's Discontinuation

0:00Life is unpredictable, but preparing for the unexpected shouldn't be. Take ownership of your life planning with PolicyGenius to help your loved ones have a financial safety net in case something happens to you. They offer life insurance policies starting at just$276 a year for$1 million in coverage. Don't wait for life to make other plans. Protect your family today. Head to PolicyGenius.com. That's PolicyGenius.com. Hey, guys, on today's episode of Right About Now, we've got your weekly business news highlights. We've got six big takeaways from Trump's speech to Congress. We'll call it a speech address, whatever you want.

0:42We've also talked about, hey, you guys heard of Skype? What's going away in May? Don't Skype no more. Again, we're going to talk about tariffs, the impact to the U.S., the stock market, and all the latest hits here on Right About Now. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over 6 years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now. Now, it's our weekly business news here on March 7th, 2025.

1:27Joined, as always, by my good friend, Chris Hansen. What's up, Chris? What's up, brother? How are you today? I am fantastico here on a Friday. It is. We're grinding through March already. February was a flash. March is here. Spring has sprung, and hey, the news must be told. Spring has sprung. the uh the spring sling yes uh all the uh spring get togethers the outings the 60 to 70 degree weather that's wonderful all you know the everything turning green we get rid of some of this gray around here i need some trees to have some green back on them you know i don't know how you do it i was there everything's lush 24 7 like miami no actually we we had uh we did have some overcast yesterday we had one of those days yesterday was like couldn't decide if it wanted to rain or not and i'll tell you it's a dull vibe in the city when it's gray in miami people don't know what to do with themselves yeah i'm sure it's supposed to always be sunny and hot and awesome in Miami.

2:39It's like sunshine state. Yeah. Well, you got all the people that move there for that. And then the, you know, the tourists and it's constantly coming through there. Like at any given time, I know you're kind of in a quasi neighborhood, you know, not tourist area, not tourist area, but you're around it enough. Like, is it always feel like 50 50 50 or is it where like fill more tourists oh no i think where i'm at it feels like 90 10 people that live there there's a few airbnbs and like some hotels but yeah i feel like 90 is like more local midtown right yeah if you go across the beach i mean if you're by the hotels yeah it's gonna be all like it's gonna be probably more like 60-40 tourists in front of the beach side.

3:34Sunny Miami. A lot of pale British in Germany. Pale or extremely sunburnt. One or the other. That's how you can tell. Some poor schlep that is a tourist, falls asleep, he's got the red skin ton. I always see that guy at the pool or whatever. It's one of those Mai Tais at Fountain Blue. kicking them back you know how it is oh I know I know how it is we appreciate everyone for listening or watching go check us out on YouTube or you can always watch us on Spotify we got the full video versions you can see Chris and his cool glasses he's always got you never know Chris is rocking that vibe and yeah give us a little subscribe we'd appreciate it and if you enjoy the show tell your friends leave us a review shoot us some dms on social media that's what we do this we appreciate you for listening we know you got an option so thanks for choosing us with your time and attention we've got uh our weekly news here chris we had trump's address to congress which a lot of business impact from that um yeah i think it's it two things are you know always interest to me interesting to me about that about those no matter what it is like okay when it was Biden the the political theater that remains even after you know the public has sort of told people that we're kind of over this shit and you know the politics of it all but the whole theater and I call it theater and I call it entertainment to a degree because it's all very serious topics we'll start there but then the whole polarization of the room clapping or not clapping based on party divide is so high school it's so high school it's so juvenile it's like grow up and look it goes both sides this is not a it when biden was in office the republicans did it now that trump's I feel it's generational almost at this point.

5:51All of us are just like, come on. Everyone in the room is over 60 years old. Right. We can't clap for a disabled child. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like everyone can't clap for that. We can't all support that. You're right. Everyone, the boomers, man, there's a lot of data coming out and they're not very happy people. Yeah. I wonder why. Say why? There actually was reasons. It was part of like the way they grew up, but also the economy they grew up in. But there was a study on basically how willing you to leave money for your family. And it asked boomers, millennials and Gen Zers. And millennials and Gen Z were like 50 % plus.

6:33Like, yes, I want to leave money. I want to help my kids. Boomers were more like, I want to spend it before I die. Like heavily in like 70%. Oh, man. My parents are boomers. I guess they're not going to leave me anything. I don't want to be mean. I see it in my folks. I see it in my folks. I'm not really counting on it. Whatever. Make your own way. It was a different time. Things have changed. The theater of the whole thing is sad. Are we going to repeat history. Like are the 30 and 40 year olds going to do the same shit 20 years from now? Can we just get to a better system and a less, I get that you, the two parties balance each other out.

7:26You've got the yin and the yang and I get why we developed the system, but that's just broken when you can't clap for the kid with cancer, like you mentioned, and just some very obvious things that should not be politicized you know and it's just ugly it's just it's not even i don't know humane i don't even it's barbaric yeah it's not diplomatic it's not it's not coos it's you know i don't even know if that's the right word you know i mean it's just so we need to clean it up and get it more professional again with respect and dignity really imagine if our kids did that like if they the whole classroom oh my god divided in two and only supported presentation yeah and half the class is like yeah exactly and would we support that would that would that be acceptable behavior no it wouldn't be acceptable for children and these are elected politicians so term limits, term limits.

8:36We need them. Term limits and new ideas. And so a lot of that was shared. I mean, the biggest part I think to me is like the taxes, Trump talking about tax cuts. And, you know, I'll say this, we've talked about a lot with the dosing and Musk. If you're going to give tax cuts, it's got to come from somewhere. At least we're starting with the cuts, you know, with finding waste and then talk, you know, like, then do it. Like we can actually do some tax cuts if we can cut 2 trillion in, in waste. Right. Well, it's like, I think about it on a micro level, right. In my own life, I had a conversation with a buddy about just credit card subscriptions, right.

9:22All these things we sign up for every month and we forget about, and there was one of these apps, I forget the name, but it'll tell you which ones you're paying for every month and you can cancel it. They'll do it for you. That's essentially what we're doing. But if you want to budget, you're going to go for that first. Let's go for the waste. Where is the spending that I might not be completely aware of that's happening that isn't part of my daily life? It makes sense, right? We do it in our own life. Why is it so freaking crazy that we're doing it on the government level? yep so we're cutting lots of uh dei i mean that's a hot topic like i just i don't realize how much money you spent on it did you like i would have never guessed yeah like i they sneak it in those we are we not further along than this that we that we need to pay homage to certain groups versus hiring who's best at the job.

10:23Like, and I know that it can be polarizing for, you know, white male to say something like that in potentially, but I'm just like, I don't look through that lens. Like I just look at like my friends, my workers, whatever, You're either worthy of my friendship or you're worthy of a job because of your merits. Like, I don't care what diversity or ethnicity. And I think most America, there's still pockets, but I think most people know how to judge like characteristics of people that are not their heritage or their skin color. and to set policies and continue to like go down these roads i i know it could be perceived as like oh it's easy for you to say that but no it's just i just feel like that's the sentiment that i get being like attached to like small business whatever like i was gonna say that's your lived experience and that's mine as well that's what i was gonna say is no part of me has ever cared what color what country what your first language is of anybody in any employment situation.

11:38I've worked with people in all types of jobs from all over the world. I don't give a shit. I've met awesome people from everywhere. I like the people that do the work and do a good job. If you're worthy of my friendship or I am worthy of yours, it's a two-way street, and same thing with work. If you can provide value to me and vice versa, that's what matters. I have a great example of sipping. We're in social media, right? You have a digital marketing agency, tons of people we know in this game. How many people have part of their team in the Philippines, Vietnam, right? They've adapted, they learned a skill, and they can do it at a competitive rate.

12:24It's as simple as that. Yeah. It's like you get good at something, people will come to you. Exactly. No part of me cares, oh, I want to go work with someone in the Philippines. I don't think you or I give a shit what country it is, right? It's like they do a good job and they do it for a good price. Yep. I don't care what color they are, what language they speak. Like where's the DEI in that situation? No one twisted our hand to start working with companies in the Philippines at times, you know? No, exactly. Like I love, we work with lots of people in the Philippines. Joel and his team helped our team for years.

13:02Most trustworthy, greatest. But honestly, I don't care about the Philippine. All I care about, trustworthy, reliable. And does a good job. And does a good job. And I will say the only thing that I will say as a small business owner in the industries that we're in, I don't get a lot of diverse candidate pools. I don't have a lot of people apply. Like as many now, maybe it's so that that if we can do things to encourage that, maybe getting more diversity within certain industries, like I can support that, but not but I'm not going to hire them for the sake of diversity. And you keep in mind percent of population, right?

13:49Yeah. And being a small business that has 10 or fewer employees, it sort of falls with the reality of I don't hire that many people that often. It's just statistics. Yeah, it's just statistics models, unfortunately. So I'd get behind getting more candidates sometimes. I'd love that. But I just want the best candidates, you know, for what I have. You certainly do. I know you don't give a care. You want the job done. Yeah, man. I'm very practical in this. You know, it's black and white. Like, and not color. As business should be, right? It's just yes, no, good, bad. Like, are you adding value or not?

14:26Money is dream. Yeah, I don't know, man. And I choose to believe that we reflect the majority in that opinion. And so gutting some of these DEI programs that just feel like the premise was wrong, maybe to begin with, it's like maybe intentions were right. but like anything once you start to sort of divide the line you have to you have to protect the line and so once you make the stand of the dei thing you go to the ends of the earth to protect it to do these programs to do all that and then it's just all about protecting what's there not necessarily if the premise was right to begin with i also think it was set up it's corporate stuff.

15:15Like you go to any small, medium-sized business center and have these conversations, it would be like you and I, it would just be like, I don't even think about this. Just, I look at applications and whoever's a candidate I'll talk to. And if they're good, they get to job, right? This is like government people making laws related to like their government jobs that then impact everyone else that it really, this isn't even a topic for in my experience. Yeah. And I mean, the big thing with tariffs, you know, I think this is still negotiation. We're still pushing like to the brink here. I know of you with Canada and Mexico.

15:53I have a feeling that that will probably work itself out. Yeah. Let's like two months from now, if these are in place and we're truly feeling it on every level. OK, we'll have that conversation and what it means or doesn't mean. I still feel like we're playing a game of chicken here and negotiation. China is a whole different thing with a whole lot of different impacts because they are an adversary versus, you know, Canada and Mexico are allies for the most part. You know, I don't have much of a military. Yeah. We are their military. We are their military and we would protect them. And so but there's still the realities of the economics of all this stuff.

16:35and it needs to be in line with the baseline reality of how much importing export. It's just like there's equity here. We've been paying some of these fees and different things in Europe and all these other countries for so long. I think it's hard to – it's interesting. I saw Warren Buffett had a comment, and this is where I think it's a calculated comment. It's like he was asked about, you know, the terror of some of the things Trump's doing. He's like, my only question is, is what I ask myself when I make decisions to what end? Like, what's the end game? So he said, I don't I don't pretend to he was implying that he didn't know necessarily every move that Donald was making.

17:28and to what end was it leading, which I think is a fair thing to say. I think – Yeah. I mean, he's not a member of the government. He doesn't know what the military is doing, right? Yeah. And I think we can all agree a stronger America is a better America. So if we can do that with as little pain as possible, but even if there's a little bit of pain, I think we can all support that that's necessary. I mean, instead of tariffs in the old days, they had war, right? So this is a better alternative. The whole, I mean, it's not business related. I thought about not even bringing it up. It happened in between last week and this week, but the whole Zelensky debacle on television.

18:15I mean, I didn't really, I didn't like that being, I don't think it was good for really anyone personally. I thought that we, Trump is playing a bigger role here. And again, I think maybe the ends are the right way. I just didn't like that being aired. That was just my personal, at all. Even if it sort of reflected the position, the strength, the position of strength that we should have, and that we shouldn't just keep sending suitcases of cash over to Ukraine with no end in sight. I can agree with the policy and the end goal without necessarily liking the way it's all been, I don't know, spewed over television.

19:08I think he looks like an idiot. Who? Zelensky. Yeah. Yeah. It just, you got a lot of pissed off American taxpayers already, especially as more of this, the Doge stuff is coming undone and more of those inefficiencies are coming out. And then, you know, it kind of just, it's like, give a mouse a cookie and he doesn't want a glass of milk. Like he just came out very like, well, we need more and you don't care. Kind of threatening in a way too. So I agree. I don't think it was probably conducive for everyone, but it probably also made public opinion about that war and not in a positive light. I don't think that helped Ukraine.

19:55Yeah. No, no. But I mean, did you like, even if Zelensky like an idiot and looked like overplaying his hand, but did you love that all being aired that discussion? No, I think that should have just been a private conversation. Yeah. That's right. That's where I even think there's theatrics and all that, you know? Yeah. I think it's purposeful. Obviously. Look, they don't let anything out. They don't want to get out. So cameras are rolling. Things are shared. I get why they aired it, right? Yeah. But I don't know. It didn't make me feel good inside, you know? No, I don't think so. You know, it's like when you're at the grocery store and all of a sudden you hear people arguing and you're like uh not here not now come on guys you know you're just like i don't know yeah it's just a vibe kill it's not good it's not it's not conducive right it just was very argumentative and tit for tat it's like ego clashing great let's find yeah that's kind of what it felt like more than anything i mean it was all bravado a lot of bravado on both sides inflation and energy policy trump blamed biden for high egg prices and pledged to tackle inflation through oil and gas drilling.

21:14Drill, baby, drill. There's still no eggs at the Trader Joe's near my house for months now. Really? No. You cannot get eggs. There's no other grocery stores. Yeah, if you go to other grocery stores for whatever reason, like Publix, but even Publix, they have a limited supply, not much organic at all. And then Trader Joe's, literally there's zero cartons of eggs for, I want to say at least the last two months. and there's only those microwave egg bites. Yeah. Well, all those Trader Joe's, I can't get that organic or whatever. Is Trader Joe's all organic? No. Not all.

21:58Skype. No more Skype. I saw this and I was not surprised. Use it all the time. I used to, but I haven't used it all the time. When was the last time you used Skype? We use it every Friday. You know, when we catch up on the phone, right? Other than those Skype video calls we do. I haven't used Skype probably since I was like, you know, 2005. Yeah. Like, I had to sort of like go look when I saw this article and go, when's the last time I even, you know. Now, you know, your phone offboards apps you don't use. And Skype was definitely in the land of misfit apps. Cut list. Undownloaded. Yeah. The big question mark on where the app spot is on your phone.

22:43You're like, oh, let's not use that in a while. You know, I mean, FaceTime and Google meets Zoom. Yeah. So if you're listening and you're using Skype, it's time to move, baby. Move. And if you are listening and you're still using Skype, I have some other concerns for you as well. Yes. You should definitely listen to our show more often. Yeah. We use Zoom and Slack, Google Meets. We use Teams occasionally on calls, depending on the client.

23:20I would actually argue that the DMs of all the social media apps had probably killed Skype as much as anything, right? Yeah. Skype was more consumer-based than I think most of the DMing stuff, like the business stuff, like Zoom and other ones. It was international communication. It's how I used to talk to my family in Europe. Yep. And now WhatsApp. I mean, WhatsApp pretty much killed it. Oh, they own the international market. Yeah. I mean, anyone ever sees, they're on WhatsApp for the most part. All my friends outside the U.S. are disgusted that we use iMessage. WhatsApp is like number one, always.

24:00The start market is actually up, at least here on recording day, after the news, some of the jobs market stuff. Small business, super small business is down. Medium-solid business is kind of up. Service business is up. We talked about the impact of AI and jobs last week. I think the jobs, jobs is a metric of overall economic, you know, standing of the whole country is going to be an interesting one to monitor because of the impact that we know and have said that AI will have. The net is probably going to be fewer. It just depends on where these kind of jobs migrate to, like we talked to. It's not good.

24:49It's not. The AI is not taking your job. People that use AI are going to take your jobs. So it will be interesting, the segments, the switches of, you know, someone that used to do this, that gets on the bus, the AI bus, understanding, leveraging it, learning it, where that job exists, you know, in the future may not be in the exact same category. So, and we'll, it's also never been seemingly more, I don't know, easy to be an entrepreneur and to be your own boss. just so many damn ways that you can like leverage the economy of i don't know the gig economy just and so many different ways like with the internet and social media and all this stuff like i don't i don't know that it has to be your day job but to not be dabbling in it just in case i just can't imagine with all the tools there are right yeah i mean I tell people this all the time.

26:02I mean, we say this all the time. Like if you're a business owner, you should be building a brand on social media, whatever that is, whatever business, pick a platform. I would say even if you're cleaning pools, shoot TikToks of you cleaning pools and educate people on pool cleaning. Yeah. Like there's guys I follow for content like that. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, I would never think I want to follow someone like that until it comes across the feed. And you're like, oh, that's interesting. You know? Yep. The world's a big place. Just put yourself out there. Anything else big hitting your radar this week, Chris?

26:44I mean, crypto is obviously still not moving much. Like, we can do a little quick analysis on that. Yeah. It was like, okay, it's been down, down, down. We had a little shoot up. I was like, okay, we're back, baby. And then boom, you know, it's all off. So it's sitting around 93 ,900. You know, it's better than it was. But yeah, the big thing was a Bitcoin Federal Reserve, right? That we would essentially now have a new reserve of cryptocurrencies. And he named a list. It was XRP, Solana, I think Ethereum, Bitcoin. so the market did pump went up a little bit kind of on that news and stabilized and it's kind of still teetering a little bit down right now so not much price action but um i mean short term it's a roller coaster but long term it's still uh i'd still get in line and get on the ride yeah my xrp like playing with my emotion it's like like literally it was a t It looks like this.

27:50And then the net net is like 3 % difference week over week. From Friday to Sunday, it basically went up like 20%. And then now it's probably back down like 10, 15%. Yeah, it's up like 3 or 4 % overall. Anyone that follows my Instagram, I posted a chart yesterday of shows from 2020 and compared to 2025. And history repeats itself. It's looking good. So, buy Buy now Buy low Buy the wave And I just need that XRP to jump, baby Got a lot of eggs in that basket You know, I can't I can't keep, like There's no, like, clear Unicorn Right now Like, it's not Doge or whatever All these things seem to be riding the same curves There's no like I'll go look at like the biggest gainers of the day, trying to find like the winner and then watch it for a couple of days.

28:47And then it's the biggest loser two days later. You know, it's like the NBC special biggest winner, biggest loser, biggest winner, bigger loser. Come on, win, baby, win. I got to get something on this horse. Spread the love, be diversified. I know. What's the Miami vibe these days, Miami business vibe. There's a lot going on. You know, springtime is here. as Ryan mentioned AI is freaking blown up I mean even I've been going pretty deep down the rabbit hole the last couple weeks with Grok and ChatGPT it's pretty wild how much time you can spend but down here in Miami at District 5 they're having a free accelerator course on AI if you're a business owner entrepreneur you want to learn some more of the platforms apps ways you can use this in your business.

29:33I think it's up until May 25. So Google that district five AI accelerator. If you're a business owner, like we said, learn this or you're going to be hiring someone that does know it. So it's an every minute easier time. Even I can tell the last three days, four days, once you kind of learn how to use like say chat GPT or grok, the prompts, you can use it for anything any question you have anything i don't even use google anymore i go straight to this it's way more informative but i i totally agree on the ai chris like it's sort of like muscle memory you got to keep doing it remembering and like the applications are greater than you might think you can generate content you got to sit down like you're learning a new video game you know exactly everything's pretty user-friendly that i've experienced and it becomes quite intriguing because you start to realize wow this is extremely efficient i can do a lot with this and you kind of go like down the rabbit hole of exploration which is fun yeah exactly so if you've been following along we're about to start a series actually i'm getting all the players in the sports card game trading cards sorry pokemon when i say sports card that doesn't include you but i do mean to include you those play those pokemon people man are crazy i you know it's one thing sports cards chris but pokemon whoo those guys it's a different run you over i've been at the walmart about got ran over by a kid like hey he wanted that pokemon pack dude dude.

31:11Like, Hey, look out. I'll smack you right in the, I wouldn't smack a kid. I'd shake one, but I wouldn't smack him. Hit the Walmart. Like, dude, it's like running in here like hordes. Gotta get those Pokemon, bro. Yes, I know. So make that money like you. Yeah, no, we have, you gotta go to a breaking rad, BreakingRad.com You'll see the boys and I have set up the site. Go check out that. Sign up for our email list. We're going to be putting all of our best cards up there for sale as part of the Rad Collective, Chris. See these hologram stickers you already got here. Nina, this is legit. The Rad Collective.

31:59I'm not playing around. Hey, I can't wait around for this crypto market. I got to go where the money is. and sports cards. I'm going to be gambling. I'm going to at least get to open something. But crypto, you know, they may say that digital stuff is as good as physical. I don't know. I need some like real action in my life. This is like legal gambling for children and adults. But that's why we've got our good friends at Donruss. Good friends at Donruss and Panini. One of one million different types of packs. Let's see what we get today, Chris. Are you feeling lucky? yeah lucky you got to watch this on youtube you're listening i'll give you a little asmr i think today will be a good day for for ripping packs it was good last time man i got like two hundred dollars and on there so maybe this is going to plug in today yeah exactly let's get in here yeah burberry glasses in on the picture so you always start with these base cards that aren't really worth much.

33:04They're kind of fun. You got a 2A. That's fun. But you're really trying to get to the good stuff like this sweater that's Cade Stover's. These are called patches. Essentially, he's got material from either game-worn uniforms or other things related to the team. Cade Stover, rookie for the Houston Texans. I almost called them the Houston I'm showing my age a little bit. So these are fun cards. Maybe a$5 card. Xavier Leggett played at South Carolina. Jordan Morgan, Courtland Sutton. So your hit of that pack is the sweaters, Chris. Wouldn't you want your own trading card where, you know, a Houston Texans sweater that you had gets to be featured in?

33:53It's kind of thick. Kind of cool. Yeah. Nice feature. my kids would be excited about that pick about that pack because you get the whole sweater in and all that we'll do one more bonus pack just for everyone here you gotta watch this on YouTube to get the full effect go to breakingrad.com see all of our cards for sale and links to our Whatnot channel where we're going to be doing live breaks do that ASMR for you one more time see I mean Don't you want to hear that pack opening, Chris? I do if there's money in it. Oh, there's money, baby. There's money. Hey, old Barry Sanders. It's not old, though.

34:39Just a base card. These are base cards. And Julius Pepper's old school. Oh, look at there. That looks like Baker Mayfield. Old card. That would be one. You've got Javon Baker, Edren Cooper. this would be called the so-so pack chris that's a so-so pack so good for in for two anyway check it out breakingrad.com chris any final words today everyone enjoy the start of spring get out there get some sunlight get some sunshine get your feet in the grass Exactly. Get out there. Hey, let's not make it left and right. Let's make it, you know, about humans. Yeah. Humanity, not politics. Policies, not politics.

35:33We appreciate you. We appreciate our sponsors, Independent Center and of course, Exponent. Go to independentcenter.org, plug in your email. That's where you get the true policies and not the partisan politics. And, of course, Exponent powers me and powers the show. We appreciate them, and we most certainly appreciate you. For Chris Hansen in Miami, I'm Ryan Alford from here at our studios at Social House in Greenville, South Carolina. We'll see you next time on Right About Now. this has been right about now with ryan alford a radcast network production visit ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities thanks for listening