Business News of the Week: Policy Impacts to Business - DOGE Delivering Checks - Sports Card Market

0:28This is the story of the one. 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. Hey, what's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now. It's Friday, February 21st, 20. 25. Got my good friend Chris Hanson in the studio here, buddy. What's up? Good. Good to be here. Getting close here. I know. In the studio, live in G Vegas. We have, hey, welcome to the snow, brother.

1:13I definitely didn't plan for a snow day here in South Carolina, but. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, man. You never know. We get Greenville's, you know, right at the foothills, right below the base in the mountains. We get the four seasons in two weeks sometimes. It was 80 degrees two weeks ago. We've got snow coming down. We're at the beautiful social house, my co-work lounge here in Greenville on the Swan Private Trail. Come see us. Drop in any time. You never know. Mr. Hanson might be here, you know. It's a great spot. We appreciate everyone for listening. Wherever, whenever you're catching us, we're bringing you today's hottest business news, as always.

1:53And, you know, anything else we want to get into. We might even have a second angle here today. Some of the sports card business we've been talking about. So my kids and I have been watching. I mean, it's almost addictive of watching these YouTube videos, watching people open cards. It's like watching online gambling. Yeah. I'll admit I wasn't a huge believer until I was at the airport in Miami on the way here. And I see a vending machine with like six teenage boys buying these exact sports cards. And I was like, all right. Yeah, exactly. There's something to this. There's money in this. Yeah, there is money.

2:27I had not seen the vending machines, but nothing surprises me anymore. How's the week been, brother? It's great. I'm happy to be up here. We've been hanging out, knocking out some stuff. Hit the cold plunge last night. Yes. That was interesting. I hadn't done that in a while. It wasn't my first time, but 37 degrees. I was impressed with you. 37 degrees, two minutes for a beginner type. Yeah, man. It's got to, I'm mentally strong, you know, it's got to shut it down. Yeah. You just block out the noise. I don't know. Anybody listening out there that's been in the cold plunge, you know, sauna and cold plunge is all the rage.

3:05Yeah. It's good for you. Chris and I ventured in. We've got another show called Vibe Science. Go check that out. We talk about all the latest in health and wellness. Hey, we practice what we preach, brother. Yeah. No one can say we're posers. We're doing the deal for sure. That content alone might be worth the price of admission. I can't, you know, like I shut it down, but I don't know what facial features I had going on. In the zone. In the zone, man. Just got to shut it down. Yeah. But hey, they say it's great for you. I mean, I know we talk about it on the show. We have all these specialists on.

3:40Supposedly, mentally, physically, your body just goes into this complete, you know, you can either let it overtake you or you just got to lock in. And then the hour after it that you're rewarming, I think is the most interesting part. It's a buzz. Yeah. I was having, I'd had an energy drink right before that combined. I'm like, whoo. All right. Ryan's sitting in the corner, kind of just staring out in the abyss for a while. Yeah. But in a good way. He needs to party drugs. He needs to go get the cold plunge. Yeah, exactly. But I appreciate our friends at Soul Yoga, who's right here next to us on the Saunders rubber trail give them a shout out appreciate appreciate them yeah their owner chris has been on my our show actually here so you can go check out that episode he's a great entrepreneur he's doing some amazing things but we appreciate them and you know we're gonna jump right at it uh it's funny i feel like we read these headlines chris and it's like the same it's nuances to the same themes.

4:45Okay. It's interest rates. It's tariffs. It's doge. And not the crypto. Not the crypto. It could be. You have to get your insights on the crypto today. I am, the crypto has been sort of plateaued. I'm ready for it. It's time for a jump. It's time. You know, that's all there is. Yeah. We'll get into it. We'll get into it. So here's what, you know, companies are saying about the impact of these policies. So 2025 earnings session insight or season insights, companies are grappling with the impact of President Donald Trump's policies, particularly tariffs and immigrations as frequent topics on earnings calls.

5:30Terms like tariff immigration and newer concepts like Doge. I don't know that's newer anymore. Department of Government Efficiency and Gulf of America are surfacing more often in corporate discussions. So all the talk. And I think I think the jury's still out about what the impact is going to be. And I think that's why you're seeing people talk about it. It's raising eyebrows. They're like, OK. How much of this is dialogue? Yeah, that's not necessarily going to the policy is not going to change. it's not going to affect every business. You know, back to, like we said, that negotiating tactics versus how many things are actually going to be, you know, put in place.

6:11I think that's where sort of the trepidation, depending on where you fall. I think we're in this weird in-between kind of where, you know, the plays have been made, the decisions have been made, and now we're kind of in that waiting period to see the impact. And I think, obviously, the press needs something to write about. it's almost like let's just write and talk theories what could what couldn't and you know i think that relates to everything i think we're at kind of a observation point right now of this administration where all right decisions have been made moves have been made now let's kind of just sit and see what happens yeah it says uncertainty remains across many of our core markets in the global economy we've game planned out several scenarios and steps we could take depending on what actually goes into effect.

7:01That's from Scott Heron, CFO of Cisco. So there's a bunch of things we could do, but we won't know until we know. Great. Thanks for the update, Scott. Yep. And this was a quote from one of the CEOs. I think Doge is going to bring meritocracy and transparency to government. I think that's exactly what our commercial business is. So since the government continues to drive to be more efficient. We see this as a continued opportunity for the company. That was Bill Maney, CEO of Iron Mountain. I'm not familiar with Iron Mountain, but clearly he made the article. I think it's a hedge fund or something.

7:46I think we're in this wait and see period. And all I can say is for people, most people listen to the show, keep your head down, man. Keep your head down and keep moving forward. Yeah. The headlines are so, I found this a bit for myself. We have this show. We want to talk about news and bring value and make it actionable. But some of this stuff is like, we got to like remove ourselves from a bit. It's not because we're interested, but like the daily impact is just, it can be distraction versus knowledge. Yes. That's what it feels like right now. Right. I think there's other information you could be absorbing on a daily basis that would serve you better than kind of it's filler news right like i don't there's no big movement happening no they're just reporting on previous stuff that's happened and kind of speculating on the future you know so like you said keep your head down keep moving forward whatever it is you're doing and just there's a light coming yeah exactly i did i did like this jumping straight to some of our uh you know, lighter news, Coke launching Simply Pop.

8:55You know, this plays across both of our shows. I thought it was interesting. It's a prebiotic soda. I want to taste this just because it looks tasty. It looks good. Strawberry pop. I mean, who doesn't want like a strawberry soda? I'm thinking like, you know, a cross between what? Like Crush? Not Orange Crush, but like Strawberry Crush. Yeah. If it tastes anything like that, I'm in. I mean, I'm a fan of these. I like to, I've had some of the other brands of the prebiotic sodas and they're definitely, I can't speak on the actual nutrition and health. I feel like I'm being healthier when I drink them and they taste good enough to where I'm like, oh, this is a healthy soda.

9:33But honestly, I think it's about time Coke got there. Like they're losing revenue on traditional soda. So this is a marketing little, we're looking at our screen here of marketing. Yeah. This is the new term. Juice squeezed. It's like the benefits. It's not fresh squeezed. It's juice squeezed. That's good marketing if I've ever heard it. Where else would it have come? Of course, hey, how can we say it's sort of like fresh squeezed, but not fresh squeezed? It's juice squeezed. What the hell does juice squeezed mean? You don't squeeze the juice. You squeeze the fruit. Sorry, Coke. You got a marketer here reading business news.

10:13I know all the tricks. That's one of them right there. They went to legal and said, how can we say this? Made with real fruit juice. So it's juice squeezed. That looks like a little bit of a misleading marketing label, if you ask me. It's from concentrate. Yeah. Then concentrated. So it's juice squeezed, not fruit squeezed. And then concentrated. Hmm. Hmm. We'll hear about it in six months on another show. Someone will tell us. Lots of prebiotics. I've always thought prebiotics sounded bad. Like I had, I don't know why, but like when I first heard it and I was very ill informed, like five or six years ago, like when it was starting to like bubble up, I was like, and it wasn't necessarily in the context that it is now.

11:07Oh, that doesn't sound good. I think I was like antibiotics. It's like, like it's the opposite of an antibiotic. Yeah, a prebiotic. Oh no, don't put that in my drink. Do not put that in my drink. I want no prebiotics. I need antibiotics. Yeah, and now it's in everything. Anyway, it has nothing to do with that. And I was an idiot. It's something to do with your gut health. It helps your gut health. It's good for your digestive health. Yes. But I'm liking these flavors. I like the cans. I got the Simply. I just hope it tastes good, man. I got to have, I got to have good taste. That's, that's what it comes down to.

11:39Can you make it, healthy and tastes good. A lot of times there's things fight with one another. Send us a few boxes. Let us taste it. Yeah, but I will say this as it relates to the business market. All these alternative drinks are the rage. Yeah. So you have declining alcohol drinkers. You have people really watching the sugar content. Yeah. You have people wanting alternative ways to get energy or different buzzes. Electrolytes. that aren't as seemingly unhealthy as alcohol and other things. So there's a lot of damn money in this. It's just, it seems like it's hard to get traction. Like we've seen a lot of companies, you know, direct to retail, all that stuff.

12:23It's just, you know, one thing when Coke launches it, they've already got a billion places of distribution. Yeah. But it's big business in the, in the liquid. Cause look, people always want something fresh to drink. you know water's great but i think there's always room for this stuff but i think there's like this new i don't know the health drink business is supposed to just like 10x the next few years what's your favorite drink chris that's in this space of kind of wellness i mean outside of like a natural cold press juice yeah like anything that's like i mean you've had you've had like cbd drinks or neither have you had any of those or like the mushroom ones have you had any of the ones yeah like that not you're not tripping or anything yeah there's one i think it's called odyssey yeah it's a because i see those hit my facebook feed like yeah stop they're like a mushroom elixir it's like lion's mane it's an energy drink with mushrooms with mushrooms are really good for you know a lot of a lot of things but for your brain and your physical health but But I really did like those.

13:30I tried those. Those I thought were pretty awesome. And then non-energy, there's one called Mellow. That's just watermelon juice. But they have some with like watermelon juice and ginger or watermelon passion fruit. Because watermelon juice has a lot of natural electrolytes. So it's very hydrating. So also good for your blood pressure. Good for your libido too. FYI. So that's another one that if you ask me like what I've... love soda, like one, two sodas a day. That's been my now substitute at night is a sparkling watermelon drinker. And we've talked about some of the CBD drinks. There's a lot of these new THC CBD sparkling beverages that are getting a lot of popularity.

14:17I've seen a lot of my friends that are moving away from alcohol, like you mentioned, right? These kind of low dose THC cbd drinks that are more social and chill so yeah and that's don't get the hangover start seeing more of that the bars is yeah it becomes more mainstream and obviously legal i'm not suggesting like you know and bars are tried right but yeah i mean i know in new york we had there was bars trying to do cbd elixirs and whatnot and then just regulation kind of got in the way of it so i think that will start to get out of the way as you see the growth and then it's just but i do think sometimes there's like contrary it's like if you're getting buzzed up drunk versus the mellow well those are opposing parties it is i mean i got friends they like beer and you're one of those guys yeah i like beer you're a beer guy i'm not like a raging like i don't know i can drink 10 beers and be kind of the same guy yeah you know some people's personalities change yeah people picked their poison but i think having an alternative like like say the cbd drinks where before we had nothing right it was alcohol or nothing and even now you have some of these drinks um i forget the name of the company katy perry is a partner in it but they make these like champagne drinks that have mushrooms and l-theanine and i it was a friend of mine was pregnant and she introduced me to it actually so there's you're right it's gonna 10x all these alternatives all these alcohol alternatives and some of them give you a buzz and they're good for you so i think you're going to see a lot in that i would just caution people listening it's ddc is tough yeah you got to get the distribution oh i i we got approached some guys wanted to launch a drink last year and it was a great idea great yeah great branding great formula but it's a lot of time and energy yeah pun intended you have to drink a lot of those drinks to make it happen the uh i saw this So Elon Musk related to Doge is weighing a Doge dividend to send Americans checks using saved funds.

16:28It sounds like IRS repayments to me. Yeah. In a roundabout way. He later said that Doge's party should be on closing the federal budget deficit. So I guess he's like, I guess before we should, you know, send checks, we need to close the deficit. But nonetheless, you know, everybody not like that, like the way he's getting there, but I like what he's trying to do. I mean, I'm enjoying watching the process, just seeing all the fraud and abuse get exposed because we've all known it's there. But seeing it, you know, in these updates with the receipts they're showing of what was spent on what is really just like enraging to a degree, right?

17:09as a taxpayer. I like this quote right here. This is very important for people to understand. A country is no different from an individual. And then if an individual overspends, an individual can go bankrupt. And so can a country. And the massive waste, fraud, and abuse that has been going on and leading to $2 trillion a year in a deficit. That's it, right? At the end of the day. that's what i mean when i talk about having business guys back in the building yeah exactly like just looking at basic costs we need to balance the budget as the first priority agreed i mean it's the we've talked about this a lot if we ran our companies the way the government runs you know they would and the only way they get away with it is because then they can just say well they're protecting the people it's different you know but it's not different so So we'll see how it gets there.

18:12Nonetheless, it's fun. I thought this was fun. So the Golden State Warriors have launched a record label. The Golden State Warriors are making ways beyond the court by launching their own record label. This move reflects the growing synergy between sports and the music industry, allowing athletes and franchises to tap into the cultural influence of hip-hop and other genres. Kind of cool. I, you know, I see the crossover, right? Especially forward thinking. If you got guys with NIL licensing and stuff, it's like, Hey, we have a studio now as part of your package. So we need 20 % of whatever revenue.

18:54Exactly right. Expect to see exclusive tracks, collaboration with big name artists and crossover content that deepens fan engagement. It's interesting. So. and the nba and also nba and hip-hop has always been very intertwined very it it strikes me as the right marriage yeah for sure um especially if you think about like you know warming up i play basketball life you're warming up you got you got pumping up pumping up you got music playing it's part of the experience of the games yeah it's interesting though how the golden state you know not that they can't get over this, but it's one team. So you got those players.

19:34I'm sure they'll integrate, but like if LeBron James plays for the Lakers and he wants to, you know, if they've got a record label that they start and they've got a rapper working with LeBron James, do you get in those conflicts? Are they going to separate? You would think they're going to separate church and state between the team and individual players and stuff. Otherwise, it becomes limited because what? Is it just going to be Steph Curry? yeah because golden staff this is gonna become a bunch of players like having beef with other players with their own like teams rap label another uh tupac and biggie incident with nba team the record labels clashing on the court off the court in the bars this is good marketing behind the scenes yeah it makes sense though it's on par too like mellow didn't he just release that song it went viral he did you got a lot of athletes that try to be artists You know, Antonio Brown, for example, is one, but.

20:31Nostalgia is proving to be a major driver in fashion trends as retro football jerseys take over fashion. Hey, let's all this new again. And this is not a, this is a new trend, but an old trend. Right. This is coming out. This is a trend that's went on since the beginning of time. Yeah. Like every 20 years, this becomes a thing. You're rocking it. Because there's new vintage every 20 years. I got to find my old Larry Bird jersey. I don't know where that thing is. I think it got sold and brought itself, but that thing would be right. I like the old vintage, like, Buccaneers and Dolphins stuff. Once confined to game days, these vintage pieces are now becoming staple streetwear.

21:10Worn by celebrities, influencers, and everyday fashion forward consumers. High-end brands and sportswear giants alike are capitalizing on the trend by reissuing classic jerseys. Going to start seeing these around a lot of it. Yeah. I just, does that devalue? Do you feel like you can rock it like an NBA jersey though? And not go into a game, but like, no, and I will say this. I will never wear, I don't wear jerseys. I just am like a big weird thing of like, why am I rocking another dude's last name on my body? Now I'll wear a team shirt or something like that, but let's be real. I've never been a big enough fan to like follow players and even like go purchase a jersey.

21:52Like that's part of it. I get right. but no, I'll get one of those vintage with no name. Get my own name on the back maybe. Yeah, I can't pull that off. And I didn't really care about it. Would you rock it with the T under or just tank style? I just wouldn't rock it. You're like, this is dope, but I just can't pull it off. Hey, I respect. Even like NFL jersey, maybe, maybe, but not the NFL. NFL. Yeah. I could get away with that. But going to a game or going to a party, I just don't know about rocking it. Like, like right now, it'd be a little fun. It was a sports show maybe, but I don't know. I don't know if I want to pull that off, but I like them.

22:36I see other people and I'm like, maybe for Halloween. Yeah. Like you could be like, I'm actually Larry Bird. Yeah, exactly. Tall white guy. Yeah. I love it. The XRP news. Bitwise XRP ETF clears first hurdle towards$8 billion jackpot. Bitwise has cleared a huge hurdle towards launching a spot XRP exchange traded fund. Part of a bigger big$8 billion inflows, the Security Exchange Commission has acknowledged the asset manager's application to launch, making it the third applicant to pass this important milestone. The likelihood of an XRP ETF approval is high. would that send xrp itself up yeah absolutely of course because now you have a i mean it's a true security like that's that's where your parents are going to their stockbroker down the road and they're saying okay mr mrs alford we're going to put 10 in this xrp etf and they'll say okay that sounds safe and good that's what i see happening right what's going on with the market in general.

23:45It got slammed this week. And I, from what I'm reading again, I'm no freaking crypto expert or no financial advice, but. Crypto Chris. Yeah. I'm getting educated on crypto Twitter, which you've been on that. It's like the trenches. If you don't even open it, it's like Reddit. But the big news this past week was involving Argentina in a project called Libra. And essentially this project was, you know, the president of Argentina tweeted out about it And kind of under the assumption people thought this was like Argentina's new currency, their cryptocurrency, their stable coin. So obviously valuation shot up, a ton of people invested.

24:25And then guys basically just drained it, sucked out. I think it was close to a billion maybe. I can't remember the exact number. But it did not look good for Argentina. It was a big, bad thing reputation-wise for the industry. It makes it because you have genuine people really trying to change their currencies, right? You have countries like El Salvador where they have a Bitcoin reserve. In Argentina, I think for the first time in many years had just gotten out of a deficit, I believe, too. This new president was doing a good job economically. But this now drained a ton of liquidity. A lot of normal retail investors, normal Argentinian people lost a lot of money.

25:04and uh but it does look like the guys behind it are addressing it or you know there'll be some consequences but as a whole that shook everything up scared a lot of people that was the biggest thing that I was kind of aware of going on that shook a lot of people um because really when you have news like xrp possibly getting an etf approval like that should you know, signal the market to move up. And that's kind of what everyone anticipated with this administration, with all these pro crypto policies like this happening. But that doesn't mean it's still kind of the wild west and, and you got bad players and anywhere there's big money, you're going to have bad people try to get their hand in, unfortunately.

25:46So I just need my, Hey, you're looking good with your, your, I know you're an XRP guy. You're, that's good news for you. Yeah, I know it's up 5 % today or$2 and 67 cents. money rewards the patient yeah exactly so i mean i just keep eating refresh oh 4.4 this is what you can do to yourself yeah refresh refresh refresh what are we up to 268 went up a cent while we were talking so i don't know hey it's in the green it's in the green last six months it's up 372 that's what i'm saying you know if you zoom out be a little patient and and that can apply to even the general news, right? We're just, you don't need to necessarily be in it every day.

26:28There's not always stuff that you need to know. Go read a book, take a walk. Yep. See, I bought it about right here. I'm pretty sure 90 % of the general population is not going to have an influence on tariffs. So we might as well stop reading about it every six hours. Yeah, exactly. But you can go buy XRP and watch it. Yeah. Go up 300 % hopefully. Yeah, exactly. We've been talking about sports cards, sports cards trading. The sports card market size is worth$20.48 billion. It will be by 2030. It's only five years. Yeah, I know. Exactly. I mean, dude, there's some real damn money in this shit. Those vending machines, man.

27:16I know. That's why we're going to open some packs here. Open some packs. so we got any money to roll them in today yes what we got hey our good friends at panini donruss you never know what you're gonna get it's like lottery in a pack man it's no it is it's scratch-offs for children and you're getting the kid no i'm just saying they got you yeah they're getting the same dopamine hit yeah exactly we got our camera view even on this one so you get a little closer up oh yeah look at that yes and that tight look at that oh they're giving me nostalgia they obviously agreed to who would be on the cover of these way before they came out i mean aaron rogers kind of fizzled like the wind who's on the front of the cover but you never know if you're not watching the uh the youtube video you're not getting the full effect here you're on youtube spotify or at ryanisright.com you get links to this stuff so we'll get in it's kind of hard to do it in reverse but look all right who we got here who we got who we got who we got uh uh no these first four oh jimmy smith nobody i don't see any holographs uh tank dell tank dell no autographs and then this who's this tank dell two tank dells in one he's hey two dells in one roma dente gonna be pretty good as it comes up not bad this would be the three hits of the card.

28:43Oh, this is my boy, though, T. Higgins, Clemson guy. Gotta get that out. Check those out, man. Hey, look at the detail on these cards, though. I mean, they got the foil on that thing. I think we need, like, official cards of us with the foil on it. You know? Panini. You get it in there. Sports cards. Hopefully, Taint Dell's gonna be bigger. I feel like they're smaller than they used to be. It's because your hands are bigger. you're not 12 years old anymore you know you were a midget as a kid i was a big mlb card guy exactly you never know you never know tank dell hope you have a great season we got two of you so you never know what's going to happen shout out to our friends don russ and panini you never know what you're going to get it's a lotto in a pack hey should be a dm i might send you one of these aaron rogers lovely packs you never know you can pull a downtown i may have you numero uno i didn't tell you about this chris was in uh ashville last week they make these cards that are essentially you know like this but it's like a downtown logo and it shows the backdrop of like almost like a artwork it was i pulled a gold josh allen one of ten it's five thousand dollar card i hope you put it in plastic i put it in hard sleep dude 20 pack five grand crazy that's crazy i know it's crazy what some of these things were one of these packs right here you never know lotto in the pack oh that's all we got today that's major but giving you the latest the greatest the things to do any final words my friend hey everybody we're getting the in February.

30:31Lock it in if you haven't already. Hey, lock it in. Make the best. Follow the trends, but don't let them get in your way. RyanIsRight.com to find all the highlight clips. Hey, you got to look at these highlight clips. You got Chris in studio looking nice and dapper here at 4K. Doing my best. We appreciate wherever you're, whenever, however you're listening. Always love you for loving us. We'll see you next time. 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.

31:11Thanks for listening.

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