Business News -US -Tok - Tariff Talk - Luka to Lakers - Sports Cards Booming

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0:46You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up, guys? Welcome to Right About Now. It's a weekly business news recap of the week here on February 7th, 2025. There's so much stuff happening. It's hard to recap at all, but we're going to hit the highlights here. Myself and my hombre down in Miami. What's up, Chris? What's good, brother? How are you? Yeah, I'm good, man. You haven't been deported, have you? No, I'm still hanging down in Miami Beach, baby. You got your papers? No. My dad did immigrate legally to this country, so i'm i'm sick oh wow i didn't know you're like second generation hey yeah man yeah nice grateful proud to be an american we're all immigrants on some level but hey we gotta do it the right way that's the whole point right gotta have the land of law or you have a land of anarchy it's uh the news is becoming a land of seemingly anarchy not anarchy it's just it's just a volume of news.

1:57Typically, it goes to show you the difference in administrations, Chris. There'd be weeks where we do our little pre-call. We'd get on the phone and like, all right, what are we going to talk about? What's topical? And now it's like, how many things can we fit in? Yeah, it's almost like we're getting all these updates every day of what's going on, almost as if they know they work for us, telling us what they're doing. Right. It is amazing what happens. And look, no matter where you fall politically, you've got to acknowledge the fact that shit's happening. You may or may not like it, depending on where you fall.

2:37But that's not the point. The point is, we have policies being enacted. We have, I don't know, progress. One would say. It looks like progress to me. Especially, I mean, we'll start right with Doge. I did see, related to unrelated, that a singer wore a Doge dress to the Grammys the other night. It was interesting. It was a writer, actually. Singer, songwriter. Not well known. I'll leave out names for the sake of that. It's more to kind of tee off the reality of what Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, is up to with Elon. A lot of backlash. We'll get to that. We'll tell all sides of this coin.

3:33But I saw where the things they've enabled, saving the average American$490-something,$468, everything they've done so far. Quick. I'll take it. Yeah. Took two weeks. And a lot of there's a lot of layers going on with our government. A lot of people getting paychecks. A lot of people doing jobs. This is why you need to watch the YouTubes or the Spotify video to see the air quotes I just held up. Doing jobs that may or may not be jobs. I don't know Chris you and I do jobs I don't know if these guys are doing jobs Well I heard someone referenced Elon's interview when he bought Twitter right and how he cut 80 % or they left of Twitter's workforce and they were interviewing him and he's like it turns out you just don't need that many people when you're running a business you don't need that many people if you're trying to run a social justice organization on the other hand which he was saying basically Twitter was pre him acquiring it.

4:44So, and that's kind of the sentiment I felt towards our government. It's like, we haven't been operating as a business. We've been operating as, you know, a social justice center. Yes. Social justice, equity, and making sure all the stories match what we want them to be versus what they really are. it's called uh i don't know there's a word for that isn't there what wokeness yeah yeah that's over i don't know folks figure that i did break out my my woke t-shirt sometime you know i'd be perfect yeah well it was time that ship has sailed sorry y 'all sorry i know doesn't like this but you guys had your turn you fucked up luckily it was a really quick one you know it was a quick turn but doge is uncovering all kinds of costs cutting out jobs and people that uh and departments i mean we're essentially paying people to quit now because of how much inefficiency there is we're just we're not going hey if you'll go quietly right you know we'll give you a nice severance nice severance it's not like quietly like oh because nefarious necessarily but something tells me these people that don't take the check are going to end up out on the cold anyway when these departments fold well and also it's like don't take the check all right well then when they start exposing what it was you're actually doing which was probably not much at all it's really going to piss people off and you're going to become a target you're going to be a target of the pissed off american people if you had one of these useless jobs?

6:31Chris, let me say this. I've run companies, departments for other, you know, run business for other people and for myself. I've had a hundred people underneath me, direct reports and stuff like five or six with a hundred, almost a hundred people. I've had 30, 20, and now we run a really lean team, 20 or less. And there's waste in what we do. I know there is. So, uh, and not because my people aren't good or they're like lazy or not doing their job. There's just downtime and like, you know, inefficiencies. I know there are, we, we try, I think we're better than most and we try to get them out. So you're not, you're telling me, we know there's a lot of inefficiency going on and a lot of jobs that aren't really jobs.

7:24And we knew that AI was going to come also and take a lot of jobs. And no one's really talking about that part of this. Not only are they not efficient, but are these jobs even needed anymore? Yeah. What jobs have been replaced by in government from AI? I don't see that article. Right. You know? I'm sure we'll hear about it soon. And look, I understand the human impact of this. I am not vouching for, oh, let's fire everyone and hire robots or train robots. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying you either adapt to the market and you tune your skills and what you do to today's market to meet the demands of companies, people, things.

8:12to warrant the money you're paid, or you don't. You have that choice. And if you don't, and you're given ample time to prepare and make those choices, you don't just keep getting the check. Sorry. And that's just reality. There's things that my marketing agency used to do that AI has replaced. do you think we've just sat around and not picked up new skill sets new things and filled the gap no we've had to adjust because daddy needs to eat so that he can feed his kids you know like you gotta you want you gotta take care of the rest of the ship yeah you gotta take care of it when i say all go down i'm not saying take care of me i'm saying Like I got, we got the company being daddy has to make money to pay and to support everything else.

9:12And I also have some kids to feed. So, you know, like you got to adjust. You have to adapt. That's the real, the real market. The government's tried to become, okay, act like the real market and do all these things and hire all these people and do all these things. but they've never had to really do it because they can hide behind all this bureaucracy and have all these jobs that don't really do much of anything. When, if you're going to be and collect all this money and do all these things and act like a company, then you get to act and get the pressures that all of us feel every day, right?

9:51Hello, welcome to 2025. So again, We can argue or we can agree or we can talk about the way it happens. I think right now I think the sentiment is, okay, it's the way it's happening. We're choosing to point to that, the way that it's going down. But look, radical change, which is needed. We have deficits. We have a lot of people with money. We're printing money. There's issues. radical change takes radical decisions right and so it's not gonna be it's gonna be messy a little bit i can't make everybody happy can't make everybody happy you know so right now i think everybody's battling over the way it's going down for the most part they don't like it's happening too but they're they know that they can't go oh i'm actually they're not going to argue that they're actually doing something worth value.

10:52They're just going to argue about the way that it's going down. Exactly. Right? So. It's just foolishness. It's a fight to fight, you know. Well, fight and, hey, who wouldn't want to hold on to their job and their titles and everything they do that serves no purpose but keeps a paycheck in their pocket, right? I guess a lot of people would. I thought this was on the hit list. Next on the hit list. This is too interesting not to bring up next, Chris. Trump says American Sovereign Wealth Fund could acquire TikTok. I was an American. I was not aware of the American Sovereign Wealth Fund personally.

11:44I don't know if that's new. It's new. They announced it this week of creating one. And is that wild if they do and TikTok is our first American sovereign fund investment? It's pretty good first investment. Hey, we all use it. We all like it. We might as well be shareholders of it, you know. And look, if the Chinese government, which controls all of their companies, we know this happens, has essentially had control of TikTok, one of the most powerful social media platforms on the planet, why shouldn't the U.S. government? Why wouldn't we want, you know, why would you rather the Chinese national government or communist government have power versus the U.S.?

12:35That needs to be exaggerated here. TikTok is the Chinese Communist Party, right? Yeah. Would you rather them own it and you're chilling on their all day? I'd love to fight over that. Come on the show and let's have that argument. Who would you rather? Because you ain't going to win the argument over if the Chinese communist government controls their business. They do. So we'll start there. So the premise can't be, well, they don't really own it. It's owned by bike dance. No, no. We'll start this battle royale with the acceptance that the Chinese communist government owns and controls, owns the businesses that are running their company, in their country.

13:24And so we'll start there. So if you want to have the argument that this is a crazy idea. You're probably 16 and live at home if that's your argument. And you love TikTok. Yeah. I'm going to give you the L, depending on which way I need to turn that, depending on the camera. We'll say it's that one. That's a loss for you, bud. So, President Donald Trump suggested that a newly created U.S. sovereign wealth fund could acquire TikTok to prevent it from being banned in the U.S. TikTok has until April to find a new non-Chinese owner or face a U.S. ban. Trump floated the idea of the U.S. taking a 50 % ownership position, possibly with private investors.

14:15Establishing a sovereign wealth fund would take time and may not be viable before the deadline. The purchase costs could be in the tens of billions. The U.S. government owns TikTok. It could face First Amendment issues regarding free speech. I mean, again, it's comical. I'm reading this quote. You know, versus the Chinese communist government that now is, okay. Not beholden to any of these laws. They don't understand it. That's where you just have a general lack of education of these users complaining about it. They don't understand. The app you're currently using is government-owned, but not your government.

14:53Congrats. Here's some quotes from users expressing concern. I don't think too many people want to be on a platform that is owned and monitored by the government.

15:10But you're okay that it's the Chinese communist government. Like if you're on the Internet. Oh, my God. Depending on what country it's owned by the government. Someone else said it is absolutely effing dystopian. Why is the government owning social media? Are they aware that China's censored? What is the GPA? What is the IQ of the average TikTok user? Like, what is it? Because this is the stupidest fucking quotes I've ever heard. Like, are you kidding me? Are you that blind? Do you know who owns this? Like, this is how stupid the users are. Not all of them. I'm not bad-mouthing every single person.

15:51There's billions of people on the platform. But just, are you kidding? Really? This is what we're talking about? Like, do you understand ByteDance, a Chinese company, and Chinese companies are controlled by the Chinese communist government. And you're saying dystopian? And you're saying, I don't want a platform that's only monitored by the government. Like, people, we're at war with China. Yeah. It hasn't been made clear. We've been in a war. Like, we're just not in a war of bullets. Yeah. That shows how stupid our own citizens are that they would fight for something that essentially is against your own survival.

16:34Yeah, exactly. It blows my mind. It's just. You can't fix stupid. You can't fix stupid. And I don't know, like, I don't know, like, all the, there's not enough detail here on the ins and outs of the Sovereign Wealth Fund and who manages all that. There's questions to be answered 100%. I'm not saying there's not a lot of stuff that would need to happen with this to be done the right way. But to argue for one minute that it's better off in Chinese communist hands, government is asinine. So let's just end that there. This is the Royal Rumble. You just got thrown out into the 10th stand, like 10 rows deep.

17:19You're getting me fired up today. I wasn't even really prepared. I had, you know, look, busy team. We go through the articles. We know what we're going to talk about. But I hadn't read every quote. I didn't really get fired up until I read every quote from that. And I'm like, are you kidding me? What are we talking about here? But this is some of the arguments that you have. You know, like this is some of the stuff that you deal with, like in reading the news and seeing the interpretations. That's all we say. We take the bullshit out of the, this isn't, this is a partisan. I'm just saying it's, it's asinine to have this conversation about government control of the social media when we know what's going on here.

18:02So yeah, taking the bullshit out of business, no BS, just straight facts here. I mean, there's some, we get paid for our opinions. However, some of this is just factual. Let's do our homework, people. Yeah, there's no opinion here. This is straight facts. Now talk to me about tariffs. Yeah. Tariff talk. Tariff talk. So as the way the world turns here, as the world turns, you know, the tariffs come, tariffs go. Like we started, we were talking yesterday, news articles, tariffs in place and everything with USPS, no packages, no more packages, you know, from China. with the$200 limit, whatever. But as of this releasing, tariffs, suddenly, Canada and Mexico come into the table, which is what this is meant to do.

19:03It's called a tactic, people. It's called negotiating. Negotiation. Little thing done in business daily, if you're not familiar. I don't think our last administration wasn't too familiar with how business functioned. Yeah, so they both come to the table. We paused the tariffs to get to the negotiation table. We've got a 10 % tariff on Chinese imports is still moving forward, prompting retaliation from China. I mean, yeah. And look, I'll say this. And Donald Trump said this, and I don't say this from a position of, like, arrogance or anything. It's just, like, reality. There probably will be some pain from this for some people.

19:48but i'll tell you where the pain is it's the metals it's the key metals it's they control a lot of resources that are used in our our defense and our weapons and i had a conversation yesterday and i can't say a lot about it but essentially our natural resources we what's going to happen these terrorists will impose until we can deregulate and start mining again We need to be mining our own metals because right now China owns us when it comes to defense metals. And we gave a lot of our supply to Ukraine. So we're not sitting on a whole natural pile of these natural resources that that's where China is going to hit us.

20:26And I could see there's going to be delay in the time of we can get our own infrastructure pumping again, get our own mining and stuff going on, get our own source going. But that's not a quick process. You know, I think that's something a lot of us don't think about as a normal American. right even these tariffs i have a friend he's uh he makes leather gloves some of them he makes in china and he goes well you know your friends in america are gonna have to pay 10 more now and i'm like i hate to break it to you bro but no one gives a shit like people are more concerned with paying 12 for eggs right yeah we need to get our fuel costs our energy costs down all of our natural resources the things that make us rich right so that's my opinion on the matter i think Like it is going to be kind of slow.

21:13It's going to be rocky. And look, but we got to get a talk. Look, the trade deficits with all these countries is ridiculous how much more we're bringing in than what we're sending out. So there's got to be some balance. We'll find it. We'll find it. It's going to be rocky getting there, but you got to find some balance. And status quo isn't good enough. It's not. If you're fooling yourself, if you think, well, I don't, you know, let's not rock the boat too much, you know? No. You got to start having some of these discussions because it gets real interesting. We can get comfortable in business with what's comfortable today with the assumption that it's going to stay that way.

22:03And that's a false belief. uh it everything changes and if you aren't preparing for that change if you aren't confronting it it then you're fooling yourself that's in business it's in politics and everything and so it doesn't mean that you can't enjoy the moment but like it this is these are just realities that need to be faced so we'll see what happens but tear us in tear us out started it. USPS delivering, not delivering, now delivering. Okay. But we're getting conversations started. I think Donald's... Look, like love, dislike, whatever with the administration, he's kind of getting... You know like if you shake someone's hand with one of those zappers?

22:56The jolt? We're getting a little jolt here. like it's we got to get some jolt happening like jolt cola remember that chris you ever had a little jolt cola that's before energy drinks that shit tasted terrible but i drank it man i'd get a little i was like 14 or something who knows what's going on that was before like we knew everything it's kind of like you know you smoke on planes too i guess you know jolt cola like you know 400 milligrams of caffeine for a teenager. Or like a good idea. Yeah, good idea. Not a good idea. But anyway, we need a jolt to some of these things to get the conversations happening.

23:34Because Sleepy Joe, it wasn't happening. And status quo wasn't good for anyone. So, we'll see. Big trade in the NBA. I thought this was interesting. I wouldn't normally talk about it. But with two of the best players in the league, there is a business impact. in. Hey, I'm into sports. My kids are into it. I've got my sports cards here. I'm going to talk to that. Brought another pack, folks. I sent out a couple packs this week. A couple more. Hey, DM me. Send your pack. Hey, but look. Luka Doncic. Always, always a hard time saying his last name. Doncic. Doncic. He's got that interesting accent, but I like Luka.

24:15My kids like him, too. Luka traded for Anthony Davis. Dallas to LA. This is shockwaves. I did not see this coming. Watch just enough basketball to keep up with it. AD's a lot older, like six years older. Luka's in his prime, and a lot of people are saying no one would ever trade a prime Jordan, prime bird, magic. None of those. They would have never been traded. So why is Luka getting traded? Well, I don't know. It seems bizarre at best. I don't think they got along. I saw a video, Chris. This is interesting. they showed a video. I'd never seen this video. It's funny where these videos pop up to sort of prove the point.

24:55Lucas is probably top five, top three players in the league. Some would say the best right now. Plays for Dallas. And last year they won like a playoff series, and he was having a beer in the hallway after the victory. They'd won the series. And I think they still had another series to go, but there was going to be like a two-week layoff or something. So, like, he was celebrating with a beer. And sometimes they pop champagne and stuff. And, like, the president of operations grabbed the beer, like, walked by him and, like, kind of put his arm around whatever there, took the beer out of his hand and walked away.

25:27It was just – it was non-confrontational. It was just like – and Luca just kind of looked at – and people were saying that there was a little bit of odds that Luca doesn't work hard enough or is not in shape enough or whatever. And Mike – I don't, you know, I don't see his personal workout regime, so I don't know. But interesting trade nonetheless and big shockwaves. I know you're not like a gigantic NBA fan. Did you know this had gone down? I did see this come across one of the social media things. I just saw like shocking trade, but I have no idea what the details or who it involved. Yeah. It's short term.

26:06It might be good for Dallas because they have Kyrie Irving. And so they've got offense. They've got some other players. It might make them better for about this long, but long-term, it's a better win for the Lakers. It'll be interesting how Luka and LeBron James play together. I haven't seen comments from LeBron. It actually goes to show you, in this world where you feel like the players kind of control everything now, I mean, the players had no idea. So maybe the owners do still control this, and when they want to make a move, they make a move. we'll see uh home affordability crisis taking a toll on america's young adults interesting we i've been doing some man on the street stuff for one of our official sponsors independent center go to independentcenter.org sign up for their newsletter non-partisan stories and advice and data straight to your inbox independentcenter.org been doing some stuff like man on the street, go and ask people, Hey, what do you think of the American dream?

27:13Still alive and well, yes or no, those kinds of things. And the sentiment, you know, we're trying to go around and get the first answers. You know, you got a few of the absolutelies, which I tend to agree with myself, but then there's a few that, you know, just point out the fact that what I've noticed, which is a lot of salaries haven't changed while all these prices have gone up, you know, like, and I'll even say like, and the services that I offer, like for the agency, I mean, I haven't been able to raise my prices 30%. Got to pay people a little bit more, but their salaries haven't doubled.

27:49But I'll be damned if you're, if the grocery bill isn't doubling for all of us. So much less home affordability prices, you know, Greenville, South Carolina, home of our studio and my home. And I love it. And it's nothing really reflective of Greenville. But I've talked about this before. houses that I owned 10 years ago that have doubled in pricing when salaries haven't doubled. You know, I mean, no other income streams doubled, but look, can't fight progress. Not fighting it, but it doesn't change reality. You know, whether we're fighting it or believe in it or not, doesn't change the reality.

28:30So it says, home ownership is increasingly difficult due to rising interest rates, inflated home prices and stagnant wages. There we go, what we just said. Many young adults are forced into lifelong renting, unable to build equity. Without strategic shifts, we're watching an entire generation get priced out of the American dream. That's from foxbusiness.com. All I can say is, amen. I'm glad Fox is talking about it because this means that the boomers will understand this because I mean, I've seen this with people I know, my family, friends of mine, you know, I hear it just here in Florida, especially growing up.

29:14I hear from whatever hometown people are from, all of them say, I couldn't go back and buy a house there. Everyone's priced out. Right. Yep. So, I mean, it's, I don't know how you fix this. Yeah. I don't, you know, I, it seems like a genie that's hard to put back in the bottle, right? I think it would help with interest rates. We're going to have to have a correction, right, with the real estate market. And I think it's unfortunate. Everyone feels like they're getting screwed, right? You got private equity coming in and buying whole neighborhoods. And we saw this during COVID, right, where BlackRock was buying full neighborhoods to raise the prices and price manipulate.

29:51And now I think you're going to essentially have a bunch of empty neighborhoods that, you know, full of, or you're going to have just neighborhoods full of renters. Yeah. And here's what it says. This is from Tom Spaeth, Easel Properties. Ten years ago, 50 % of homes were affordable for young families. Today, only 15%. Institutional investors are buying up homes, forcing young families into renting in lower quality neighborhoods, increasing financial stress, and housing instability. There's more to this article that I'm going to bring up, but it does bring up an interesting thing. if I was starting a neighborhood, like, you'd almost, if I'm going to, and I know there's both sides of the spectrum.

30:38Developers want to sell the houses. But just say, you have to live here, right? If you buy a home in this neighborhood, you have to live here. I could see that coming. I could see that coming.

30:51And that would change some of this, wouldn't it? Because if I'm a homeowner too in my neighborhood and some group buys 10 of the houses and then they're not occupied, my property value is getting fucked up yeah you know so something's got to change and this is where i think people have been saying this but i think when you have the data and the numbers to really support it where it shows hey we need a major shift in what we're doing in our economy because the numbers just don't add up right i mean you say on this train you're gonna have a full collapse of the real estate market. Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't think that this follows like what we want to see happening.