Business News: DOGE Finding Billions in Government Inefficiency - Progress in Reverse for Haters - Crypto Stalling - Ryan Kaboom!

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0:42Taking 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. I'm Ryan Alford, your host. We're always talking about, hey, we always write, you know that. But we're always talking about what's now, not about the future, not about the past, but about today. This is about getting you ahead in business and in life and ultimately making it all happen. And, hey, I got the king of making it happen. I got two of the kings. Chris, what's happening, brother, down in Miami?

1:19What's good, bro? How are you today? I'm good, man. Hey, I'm pumped. Got my brother from another. He is David Caldwell. What's up, David? Man, life is good, bro. Appreciate y 'all having me on. Yeah, man. ex-NFL, business mentor, consultant, professional badass, and just all around good guy. I appreciate that. He'll run you over and then pick you up and tell you something good. Appreciate you, bro. Yeah, man. Y 'all both in the Miami. It's like the land of opportunity, right? It really is, bro. Like everything when you're down here, I don't know about you, Chris, but when I'm down here, everything is just a different form of inspiration.

2:03You know what I mean? You got to make sure you're not getting caught up in, you know, comparing yourself too much, but it is good in some ways, give you that added inspiration. Yeah. Well, I'm inspired just the fact that you're here. I don't know if it's that or if it's just exponent. You know, you got to get to some of this, man. Maybe both. You know, exponent, plant-powered. Hey, power's the podcast. Hey, that's what makes this work, people. You get the content, we give you the sponsors, and look, I don't work with anybody I don't like. That's why I drink Fusing Energy, Exponent, X-Mark Spot, Drink Exponent, DrinkExponent.com, and Drink Exponent on Instagram.

2:43Official energy drink of the show. So, guys, talking a little news today. We talked pre-episode, and Chris and I have been talking like last year. We'd have these news episodes that even just once a week we'd go. Hmm. Interest rates. What are we talking about? Biden's naps. What are we talking about? Now it's like, damn, it's been like we got to do it. That's what we're doing to this week. Chris and I are doing another show like we got got to two in one. There's so much news happening. Trump's making moves like I'm love or hate him. It's not about politics, but it is impacting news. and I like what I see overall.

3:25David, I don't know your perspective, but a lot of the things that are happening, they're getting attention, but we don't know the impact yet, right? So I get excited that it feels like there's progress, but we don't have necessarily results, but we'll see. What do you make of the business climate overall with everything that's going down? Well, I had Tesla before, I guess, Trump won. And I remember the day of the election, it was probably around like nine o 'clock, 10 o 'clock, when it was looking like Trump was going to win. And I just happened to get an alert from Robin Hood and I just saw my Tesla, you know, jumping out.

4:09And I've eased up a little bit. But that, to me, shows a lot more about how we're not truly appreciating what Elon Musk is bringing to the table. And there's a lot of people just hating on it for the wrong reasons. What I like to call just hustling backwards. But overall, you know, since Trump's, you know, one, I did a list like I had to write down a list because I was so confused. I'm like, why do people hate him so much? I understand the emotional aspect, especially with everything being so divisive. And, you know, the other side or all different sides trying to make race such a big issue or LGBTQ, all the woke ideology.

4:45But when you actually put pen to paper and write down the stuff that he's been able to put in play, we'll see what the results are as we move forward. But just the stuff that he's been able to put in play, compare that list to four years of Biden and Harris. And I mean, it's hard to dispute the fact that he's making some real difference in a positive way from my standpoint. Yeah. And I mean, that's interesting from your perspective and knowing, you know, that that feels a little bit of a universal sentiment, I think, with people that, like you said, are hustling forward, you know. But we'll see.

5:22I just think. Government has been so stuck in its ways. It's like it's been accepted. We've accepted how slow they've enacted things. Well, we'll get to that tomorrow. We might have a shutdown in three weeks. Well, you got fucking three weeks to figure that shit out. Like, what are we doing? Like, none of this stuff happens in real life and real business. You know, my mortgage don't wait three weeks. You know, like I got to make money today. I got to get stuff done today. And the government, with all this inefficiency, is allowed to operate at these levels because we tolerate it. And that's not even talking about necessarily whether I agree with every policy or not.

6:02It's more with which the speed with the action taking place, because if there's no action, it's just a lot of hot air. And that's what I think is refreshing, if nothing else, is we seem to be bringing people to the table around the whole block here. It doesn't seem as doesn't seem as politicized as it was kind of heated coming through. I think a lot of that is it feels like it's dissipating a little bit. Now, I know the other side's complaining about shit, but like it's I don't know, Chris, what do you think? um i agree i mean i think there's a lot being done i think we've yet to see the ripples from what's being done you know i think you can't turn around a ship on a dime right so i'm extremely happy with the speed of how things are going and i'm just happy that people are working because it felt like for four years there was just kind of not much going on and if there was anything it was extremely negative right yeah like our withdrawal from afghanistan for example like that was the beginning of that presidency from what i remember early into it um but i mean i'm stoked man like i can tell the sentiment amongst business owners is better and as a business owner i just feel like i'm seeing someone who knows how to run a business doing their job right like i'm like, oh, this looks like what people should be doing.

7:29Yeah, exactly. So, you know, more will be revealed and there's a lot of upset people. But I think we've got a lot of talented people from a lot of different aspects and areas all coming together, trying to overall, I think, trying to help the country out of genuine love for the country. Yeah. And I'm okay if there's even a little bit of selfishness in it, if it's moving things forward. You know, like and I think you've got a little bit of that going on. I'm not stupid. You get all these business guys. They know pandering to the president isn't a bad idea, but it does seem to be. I don't know, like we're rowing, at least for the people that matters in the right direction or the same direction with some of the business units, because if everybody's fighting, you don't get anywhere.

8:16I'm talking about like the business people, not necessarily. You know, the left's going to do what they're going to do. But I think it's really fascinating to see how people are defending. I'm going to go down like the Doge route, the Department of Government Efficiency. Go figure. Did we ever think we'd see the day that that would even try to exist? Government and efficiency in the same word. The worst run business on the planet is the post office, and that's run by the government. And so some we're actually going to get efficient in this place and we're hiring business people that have built some of the most successful companies.

8:54And the only people getting their ruffles feathered are the people that aren't doing anything, sitting at home, collecting a paycheck. It's crazy, David. Yes. To your point. I mean, it's that's like what stands out to me the most about Elon. The fact that people are getting upset at Elon saying he's not qualified. We didn't vote for him. And it's all people that didn't vote for Trump saying that. Like as somebody who did vote for Trump, that's exactly what I voted for. That was one of the things that I voted for that I thought, who better to examine a business than Elon Musk? And what we're seeing is a lot the difference between politicians and business people.

9:28Politicians just leverage U.S. money. They want to take time to do certain things because their goals are totally different than an actual business that needs to stay in the black, that needs to be profitable, that has other employees that are relying on the success of that business. we're seeing the difference. And it's almost like one of those things where you come in and you have an audit. The people that are getting upset or let's say let's say the gym teacher comes in. The gym teacher comes in a class and says, hey, everybody who's out of shape, who can't pass these certain tests, we're highlighting you and we're going to put you out there on front street.

10:03The people that can pass the test are not tripping. It's the ones that can't pass the test that are sitting there nervous, trying to say this is wrong. We shouldn't have these testing. And the whole time, the test is just to make sure that we'll become healthier. And that's what Elon's doing. He's trying to create a healthier business as America. And people are getting upset and allowing politicians to finesse them into thinking that, well, Elon Musk is going to steal your social security number. Elon Musk is probably the last person that needs to steal your social security check. He's good. Like, you know what I'm saying?

10:34It's just, it's just so like, you're more upset about the person exposing how our money is being spent than the actual people that are spending it in all these crazy ways. It's wild to me. They got to make up shit that doesn't make sense because there's no other thing to do. Right. Right. Like that's the only thing we got to get on this soapbox. I call it the Department of Government outcomes. We need outcomes from the government. You know, like that's the problem. You have all these politics going on. There's no outcomes it's like oh we debated this and we debated that and all that oh we won uh okay well what's the fucking outcome like what is what is actually happening from this policy and how is it impacting the bottom line everyday american outcomes matter politics don't and so i i'm excited there's gonna be some outcomes i can tell you that we're involved you know i feel like all the evidence they're they're you know these videos every day of hey this is more waste we found right like i saw a video of it was metal bushings right for screwing in you know appliances it was for airplanes and what usually would cost like three dollars at home depot was eighty thousand dollars for a bag of bushings and then there was another example of like styrofoam cups at the pentagon the contracted rate they were paying it equated to a thousand dollars per styrofoam cup is what they were paying i don't i'm hearing real time tons of abuse right as a business guy you're like that makes no sense keep running it keep going and they're attacking these little like 22 year old hacker guys that are in there you know doing all this you want a 22 year old and it's like all right well you're cool the 22 year old going and picking up a gun and fighting for our country one to what you said you think this kid can't get your social security number already like if the if he's if he's basically hacking for the white house right give me a break like you're gonna steal your credit come on yeah we have a bunch of lawyers that are really politicians we need more business people in politics and less attorneys yeah exactly i mean what do you make all these cuts they're finding, David.

12:51Yo, it's wild. I saw that one on the, whatever it was, what is it called, bushings? I don't even know what it was. Bushings, yeah, it's like metal washers, I think, essentially. I saw that one, and what's so funny is now you'll see guys like Bill Gates and a lot of these other people saying, well, it's only 1 % of the spending. And it's so funny because, I don't know y 'all, I'm sure you guys have dealt with people that have successful businesses. 1 % to a business person is totally different than 1 % to a politician. 1 % to a business person can be the difference in like make or break the outcome of their, the success of their business.

13:271 % to a politician is like, oh, it's not, it's nothing to even worry about. And it's, to me, it's even bigger than the, with the actual money. If you want to fund condoms for whatever group overseas, it's actually, I just asked myself, like, why are intelligent people doing things that don't make sense? And to me, that's when there's something else there. There's, okay, I'm trying to funnel this money to, you know, it's really not going to condoms. It's just something that will write off. And then obviously that's getting collected, whether it's underbited. Just make something up for the expense sheet, guys.

14:00And, you know, write a check to myself. Right. And then, but, but what's so crazy about it is, and then even to the point where you said about the age, the age thing is so weird to me, because I think we forget how young a lot of leaders and revolutionaries were, even in the history of America. You look at like MLK wasn't that old. Fred Hampton was like 22, 23, leading a whole group. So all of these people, they're just making excuses and they're getting finessed by politicians that are just leading them in whatever direction. The politicians are probably sitting back like, yo, we can't believe these people are actually following it.

14:33But the people just get so emotionally attached to these agendas and become fanatics that they'll just go with whatever. I think Andrew Hamilton was like 23, like one of the founding fathers. Like they were We're in their early 20s when they basically wrote the Constitution. You know what I mean? And then we got, I mean. Yeah, like Jefferson and all of them. Yeah, they were young people. We got an 81-year-old president, or did. Pelosi's complaining about the hackers. Like, Pelosi, do you even know how to do an Excel spreadsheet? Well, maybe because maybe to track her stocks that she's insider trading, but outside of that.

15:05Her assistant's mother's assistant knows how to track her Excel sheet. You know? Yeah. I mean, exactly. So I saw this. Get this. Here's the impact of Doge so far. They wrote in a post on Sunday, it's canceled 22 leases that were not being used at all in the past six days, saving this year alone$44.6 million. Imagine us as a business trying to – I have seven offices and I use one of them. On January 29th, it said that it eliminated 85 contracts related to DEI at more than a dozen federal agencies worth roughly$1 billion to the American economy. It said muscados have also focused on the U.S. Agency for International Development as a target for potential savings.

16:01USAID was created in the early 60s to deliver aid around the world. The agency controls and operates out of six nations and employs 10 ,000 people. Its website went dark and its employees were barred entry into headquarters on Monday. Others had their work put on hold. They weren't doing anything. The 2 % of the workforce that was actually working in the office couldn't get in. It was mainly the janitors that were cleaning unnecessarily. It's wild, man. The volume of inefficiency that is – and look, it's something this large. You know there's an inefficiency going on. I got a small team, and there's a little bit of inefficiency.

16:45It's just sort of the nature of the beast. But some of this stuff is just – it's mind-numbingly stupid what we were spending money on. And the amount of people that have jobs that aren't really jobs, that are being paid to quit that job. And it's like – and here's what's going to happen. These people are going to say, oh, no, I'm not going to take that bailout or whatever to quit. Well, then you're going to be fucking fired in about six months. So I'd take the money. And it's perspective. It's the difference between looking at something from a business owner's perspective and somebody that only feels that they can be a worker.

17:20A business owner perspective is looking like, nah, we can't be paying these people if they're not doing the job. That money can be going towards something else, going towards building the business. workers are like, well, I'm okay with staying at home, knowing that you're not going to be as efficient getting your work done. Like nobody at home, you know, I'm sure everybody listening, if you disagree, you could just say you're the special person that will get more work done without having anybody on top of you or without having that work environment. But let's just be real. Like that's why we have coaches from a young age in sports.

17:51Like if the coach says, hey, you guys do your conditioning on your own. Do you think everybody's going to do the conditioning at the same level if the coach was there. So, and I feel like they're being gracious with that. They're telling people like, yo, if you want to come back, you can come back. If not, we'll even give you, what is it like eight months severance? So it's like the fact that people are still complaining about that just shows entitlement on a whole nother level. Um, and it just shows exactly why Elon has to be exactly how Elon is. So, and, and I think it's, um, a testament to his leadership as far as like a business owner, even being willing to hire young folk.

18:27Young folk, they have more understanding around social media and a lot of these things than us. And I feel like the best leaders, they're going to hire different people from different ages, different, right? Diversity, right? Diversity is what we're looking for. So diversity of age, because people are able to solve different solutions just based on their different experience growing up. So I see that as a plus. I see people just rooting against winners, man. A lot of this is just people's insecurities coming to light. Yeah, exactly. They're up to$2 billion a day is what they're cutting. $2 billion a day?

19:02$2 billion a day. And Elon said today, by this weekend, they're going to hit$4 billion in cuts a day. And that's the only way that they will get to a trillion this year. And he says they're on pace to do it. That's how much inefficiency. If you could find a way in your business, right, in any of our businesses, and let's just use a small number,$200 a day would make a huge impact in 90 % of businesses in America, right? I don't know what the math is, but what is that? 200 times 365? A lot of money. I don't know. 800 ,000 or 80 ,000? I don't know which one it is. I'll take that. Say it's$80 ,000, right?

19:45Yeah. That's a shitload. I mean, dude, that's two more employees for you. Yeah, exactly. And what do you guys make of what's happening with crypto? Let's go down that road for a minute. Like, I got to admit, I'm not a crypto expert. Chris is our crypto expert. And mind you, this segment of the podcast, this is not investment advice. We are not professional financial advisors. I am not an expert. But I was like pumped and excited. And I'm not losing any money. man, I've just got it riding, but it's like, I can't make out what's happening, Chris. What's happening, Chris? That's some billion dollar question, brother.

20:25I mean, I've been, I've talked to a lot of people over the weekend, a lot of my buddies that are pretty heavy in it. It's definitely not following the usual trend as close as it typically does. Yep. But, you know, the assumption is you have a lot more institutional money moving into cryptocurrency now, banks, countries, right? I think our whole currency is going to change, whether that's our banks are just going to be on blockchain, which they probably already are. I think there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. And I know there is from a more corporate integration standpoint, credit card companies starting to integrate blockchain processing, stuff like that.

21:08So you also had a lot of liquidity sucked out of the market from big events like ftx that whole crash that sucked a ton of money out of daily day traders hands so got a lot of money that would usually be trading that's just not moving right now and i think a lot of that money is supposed to get dispersed out from that settlement um sometimes the next few months however i'm still uh very confident in crypto i mean i think historically march is a really big month in the cycle so you know like ryan said everybody's down a little bit right now but if you zoom out of the picture it's like the stock market right it's still it's still looking good and in my opinion in the short term it's looking like you're going to make some great gains so i would not sell i would buy more and i got three letters three letters xrp i need it to go up baby that's all i need you know that's like i bought it 70 cents we're sitting at like 280 i need that i need 10x we need like 10 dollars you know word is it's going to do pretty well and i had a buddy yesterday even said he goes you know i've never been an xrp fan but he's like i'm a believer now you know and i think there's a lot of because of that xrp has a lot of contracts with the government and there's a lot of stuff with the banks going on and allegedly what xrp is really doing is trying to replace the swift system in the banking system when you send international wire transfers and stuff like that yeah so if that is you in on this crypto shit?

22:34I was in a little... On Bitcoin. On Bitcoin. I have no issue with it. To me, I look at it as if... And I don't have the best understanding for it. You guys can probably explain it better to me. I'm a gambler, baby. I like to ride the winners. I don't have to understand it. I just fall in the trance. That's how I am, man. The more people are involved in it, the more people that are investing in it, It's going to drive the value up. And if they're not making more of them, it just seems like, you know, a very limited resource. And the price is just going to keep going up eventually. It seems like people are definitely I feel like it's gained the respect of a lot of people and institutions that tried to just kind of act like it wasn't going to be a thing, an overnight type of thing.

23:23But I mean, when you look at it now, it definitely seems like it's going to be here for the long run. Yeah, and I've been moving what I was going to spend on crypto into sports cards. My four boys have gotten into the sports card bug, so we've been opening rad rips, wrapping packs, getting in some NFL football cards. That's at least fun. And nothing like getting my son on Sunday watching the Super Bowl. and you know it became a snore fest pretty quickly unfortunately uh go eagles i was pulling for the eagles not because i'm a i love greatness i just i like the eagles and i like i have a lot of respect for hertz one of my favorite players out of alabama um i don't count whatever that stop at oklahoma was he's an alabama player uh anyway back to the back to the sports cards uh clayton's my oldest and he's like kind of the least engaged in it and he's open it's like a 25 box of cards and And the packs are like six packs.

24:27And he's sitting there next to me. And then this one particular box, there's one type of card that's like super rare. They're kind of cheap cards, but they have these cards called Kabooms. And they're worth like$500 to$5 ,000 a card. And my son's sitting next to me opening a pack. And I thought he was totally like, like some of my sons will go, oh, man, look what I got. And it'll hold up and it's the shittiest guy ever, like shittiest card. And Clayton goes, he's looking through it and he's naming names. And he goes, okay, my home, oh, that's a pretty cool card. And like just base cards, you know, worth a couple of dollars, whatever.

25:09And he goes, kaboom. And then he goes to the next one. And I heard him say it and I'm like, he's trolling me. He's trolling me. But it's like Clayton also doesn't know cards as well as my other younger sons. And I said, wait, what did you just say, Clayton? He said, I got some card with Kaboom on it. I said, give me those cards. He had a$700 Kaboom in his pocket, in his hand, from a$25 box and a$4 pack. And right in the middle of the Super Bowl. And if I hadn't heard him say it, he would have thrown them on the table like every other card. It was awesome. The kids, my three other boys were like jumping up and down.

25:49They couldn't believe it. But it was fun. It was just funny. because I thought he was trolling me. But sports cards are more fun. You know, like, hey, you get to get them. I need a – David Caldwell, you got a sports card out there, right? I don't know. If so, I never got one. I need to look into that. I need to look into that. What was that? What year was that? Give me one for college. Give me one for my college. I'll enjoy that one better. You needed that name, image, likeness to come around when you were in college, right? Yeah. I'll tell you what. But it probably wouldn't have been anywhere close to a lot of these big-name schools.

26:23But there is something to say about being one of the larger fish in that smaller pond. You can still get appreciated. You feel me? So, yeah, we definitely would have had at least some meals covered, maybe a little piece of that ranch. Yeah, exactly. But anyway, sports cards. By a scooter. You know what? I've learned sports cards are popular, man. The number of people – like I post on social all the time. I'll post about business. I get, you know, 100 of this, 100 of that. I've had no fewer than I don't know how many people when I post about those sports cards that are coming out of the woodworks going, oh, man, that's a good guy.

27:01I'm like, damn, these things are more popular than I realized. Anyway, there's a lot of money in that shit. I can't believe it. Anyway. Were you guys big on – like I feel like I used to collect the sports cards. And then once it turned into like all the other cards, I couldn't keep up like the Pokemon. You know what I mean? I was into the sports cards. But I just couldn't keep up with all the other stuff. They got 27 variations of every card now. That's what's hard to keep up with. Oh, my gosh. So like you'll have Patrick Mahomes in a pack or like a set like Prism is like a name of one of them.

27:31and that same picture of Patrick on the same brand of card will have like 27 variations of the color or a hologram nothing changes but like the overlay of the colors on top they have a green diamond a black diamond a red diamond and like one of them is super rare and all of the others are worth like five or ten percent more than the base card it's hard to keep you gotta like scan the card know You could be sitting there holding a$700 card or holding a$0.07 card, and they look this much different. But that's what makes it fun, though. That's what makes it fun. It is fun. The boys love it, and there is a lot of money in it.

28:11But, you know, ripping packs is fun. It is kind of like gaming. You're sitting there going, oh, oh. You never know what you're going to get, man. Yeah, exactly. And ironically, it was worthy. the wide receiver the kaboom card was worthy from uh kansas city's team the wide receiver so that was pretty cool and he was like on the screen right when all that transpired i was like this is fun anyway get into those sports cards it's more fun than crypto but crypto's probably got the longer turn upside i see that xrp to ride baby chris can tell your xr people to pump that stuff man i'll let them know should we text when we get off i know turn it on boys david i know you talk news every week.

28:56I mean, what's catching, what else is catching your eye this week? I mean, what else has you got coming up? I'm a lot on the, it's funny, you know what, so a lot with politics, and it almost goes back to a point, which you guys said earlier, like, and relating it to sports, like, outcomes, you know, and I feel like that's what I'm pretty much paying attention to. I mean, sports is cool, but my new sport is politics. That's what I like to learn about. Just seeing how people leverage power, like, it's just actually exciting for me. But but you're right. You know, just this being able to look at the outcome of things and the results rather than the intent.