The 2024 Naughty and Nice Businesses List

0:00This 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 next and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. Ho, ho, ho! Merry almost Christmas! What's up? Welcome to Right About Now. It is Friday, December 20th, 2024. If you haven't started Christmas shopping, you're late, but we're here to help. Maybe. I don't know. Are we here to help, Brianna? Yes, always. Always. Five days to Christmas.

0:43Yes. Brianna Hall here in studio. What's up, Brianna? Hey. Chris? What's up? What's up? What's up, brother? Back from Houston. You good? Back from Houston. Yeah. Back in the game, baby. Back in the studio. I thought there should be a name for that. I wanted to say back from Cali, Cali, but is there a Houston one? Like, you know, all I think of is Houston. We have a problem. So I didn't want to go there. Or maybe you left the problems behind. I don't know. Yeah, I think so. I hope so. Hope everybody is good wherever, whenever, however you're listening here in the holidays. We know you have options.

1:21We appreciate you making us one of them. So, again, you need to be watching on YouTube, though. We're live. If you're watching this and catching it on YouTube, you'll be watching it live for the first time. We do this live at 10 a.m. On Fridays, it comes and releases. So check out, you know, we do create what I would think is a video product. You know, sometimes it's audio only. And my, you know, my best, you know, I look great for radio, they say. I got a face for radio. But nonetheless, Chris and Brianna bring the A game. I might take the average down, but I do think you need to go check it.

2:00we know the listeners maybe you'd like class it up a bit if you go finish that tattoo fine I know before we got started I've got you know a sleeve going here and I've got like one segment left so I gotta go see my boy and Ryan was stressing pre-show about well I don't it's in a spot now where I don't see it every time so it's like I lift my arm oh shit I got that one little block that's like two hours in the chair that's it and we'll get it done So my boy is in California most of the time, so he only comes back. So I have to always time it. So it's always a scheduling thing. So we'll see. You could always fly out.

2:40We have great tattoo artists in California. Yes. I'm going to California. And I don't know if I want to get a tat while I'm in California. I just want to do something more fun. You know, it's not. It's not. I like the end result. But let's be honest, sitting in a chair, getting your arm cut up is not really. True. Yeah. I got my California poppy. That was my last one. Yes. Jody, Mr. Inkwells. Go check him out on Instagram. Incredible artist who happens to be a tattoo guy. Anyway, how's everyone today? What's up, Chris? How's old Miami back in the saddle down there? We're good. We're a little wet.

3:19A little wet this week. It's not exactly winter weather. A little humid. It's all good, though. What's the climate? And I mean more, not temperature, but Miami, the week of Christmas. Like, what's the scene in Miami the week of Christmas?

3:40I mean, it's very festive. Yeah. I guess it's just I always, even in Greenville, we're cold here right now. You know, it's in the 30s at night. It's a little spicier, bro. You got Cubans and Colombians and, you know, you got a little Feliz Navidad. It's a good vibe. I love that. There's a lot going on. Very festive. What's the temp today? Today we're probably like 77 right now. It rained earlier. But a little humid. Not much of a breeze. It's a beautiful day here. I'll be on the beach in three weeks with the vacay. So, you know. I can't say too much in case my kids listen to this. Supposedly they don't.

4:18My wife doesn't really let them. Is that a secret? Because daddy has a potty mouth sometimes or a lot of times. But, yeah, it's a secret. They don't know when or where. Oh, cool. If one of you is listening, do not tell your other siblings. But, yeah, we give them a gift, trip every year. Oh, cool. It's all about experiences, right? Yeah. They got more shit than they know how to do it. So it's like, let's go somewhere. Yep. So we'll be beaching it. Can't say the destination. Let's just say it's tropical-ish. And I'll be having a Mai Tai and, you know, a beer. Maybe all at once. with Miss Alford.

4:59There you go. I'm ready for next year to go on vacation. We don't have any money this year because I bought a house. Yeah, that'll do it to you. That will do it to you. But hey, that's the American dream. You bought a house number two. Yep. There you go. There you go. Living it. What do we got going on today? So today we are going to talk about the naughty and nice businesses in the United States. We're going to mostly focus there. But who was naughty this year? who was nice, who thrived, who made money, who was successful, and who is on Santa's naughty list. Yeah. So prerequisite to this or, you know, just the cheat sheet, you know, we just kind of make it up as we go here, like the rules that we want.

5:42So we're, we're classifying naughty and nice as sort of either they just did something really obviously stupid or maybe a bad year economically. and the nice list is more okay on the up and up things have gone well and uh it's less i don't know judgment like i mean we could look this is an opinion show you know yeah take it take it or leave it uh but i think it's more like okay who's been successful you don't have to like them but has it been a good year for them i have somebody on the naughty list and i might have to they've been they've had a successful year okay well we could still we hey we can we i like to smack people down and then prop them up yeah you know it's like yeah give it to you those people say hey be nice give them the good news first and i like to you gotta push them down to bring them up i don't tracks

6:38uh you know you got to that's how it goes all right ryan you want to start off us off with nice business or entrepreneur number one? Sure. I mean, here's a, I'm going to go out with the most obvious first. So nice being in this, in this sort of position would be, it's been a good year for them. And I'm just going to start with Trump. So Trump Inc. as, as a whole, in every business Union, I can't speak to the financials. But let's just say if you are in the halo of the Trump circle, it's been a nice year for you. You've won the presidency. We're about to get the economy back in order. You're seeing signs of that already.

7:27But all the sort of atmosphere of Trump Incorporated, I would say it's been a nice year for them. And, you know, I happen to support most of that side. So I'm okay with my opinion being both nice and good for business overall. So I think it's hard to deny, again, I'm a big sentiment guy, like the sentiment, the aura, all the sort of chi around an entity. And right now it's at a very high level with all things sort of in Trump's camp. And that doesn't mean everyone likes the guy. Obviously, the guy would have won like 80 to 20 percent if if that were true. He you know, the numbers were closer than they should have been purely because people voted for I hate Trump versus, you know, I want what's good for the economy.

8:27So I think that would be first and most obvious for me on sort of the it's a nice year for them. It is interesting. Despite some legal setbacks this year, Trump's overall net worth increased substantially. So it looks like his golf courses and resorts did about 400 million in annual sales this year. And his technology company, Truth Social, went public. That increased his net worth. It says that it contributed to an estimated net worth of 6.5 billion, placing him among the world's 500 richest individuals. Thoughts, Chris? Sorry, I was mic'd. I'm fighting a cold over here, everybody. I don't want to cough into the speakers.

9:17Yeah, this makes sense. Like you said, the aura, the vibe, there's momentum. There's momentum behind it. And I think in business, specifically when you have momentum, that snowball starts rolling. It's almost like it's compounding. But yeah, I would agree. I think anything Trump related right now and will continue to probably. He won person of the year with time, which I think was a pretty interesting thing. And let me give you some action items from this. Okay. So what does this mean? Okay. What are things in the aura around Trump? Trump. Trump. Word salad. Around Trump that you should take advantage of.

10:01What should you, how should you take action on this knowledge? Well, let me start with one, crypto. Crypto, I don't know if the whole year would go into the nice camp, but the signals and signs heading into 2025, you have regulation sort of softening, for lack of a better word, and acceptance. you have all the major players the you know the the mass adoption yeah mass adoption and trump supporting it and all his people that he's going to be putting in the higher positions around finance and all the stuff supporting it so go hard on crypto uh it's not going to go to zero and you're going to have ups and downs but this is a legitimate and i think this is a time period where I think, and I think there was the gold rush of four years ago where you could make some money myself.

10:56I made some money, you know, but I knew I kind of got in, got out. New is temporary, especially once the travesty that happened, happened. And, but now I think you're going to look back at like this, this is the beginning of the, the big rush of the next, like what, 10, 20 years, you know, like forever. I don't know. One of the newest wealth generational wealth building tools. Yeah. And so I don't think you're going to, in what I've seen, I've been in, I've been very vocal about this, been in a few grand here and there and up about, I don't know, 25, 30 % in the last like six weeks. I don't think you're going to see the 4 ,000 % overnight stuff that you saw four or five years ago.

11:44I mean, you might, I'm not saying you won't ever. You got to find that stuff. It's more that I think you're going to see this 20 to 30 different coins that are a dollar, 50 cents,$2, whatever, but have a real stable that 20 years from now are $200 or what. And the compounding effect of reinvestment and all of that can make, is, I think, going to outpace typical stocks. All the signs point that to me. And so that's something if I would be thinking about within this halo of sort of Trump Incorporated and the things around it that will go up, there's your nice tip and whatever. I know that was a long one, but I think that was needed more explanation.

12:35Very good one. I think it's great because we have several other things on the nice list, including crypto, NVIDIA, and our favorite entrepreneur, Elon Musk. Yeah, I mean. A big crypto guy. Big E. Let me say this. We all know he's a smart guy. I think he's smarter than we even know he is. The way he put his eggs in the Trump basket was brilliant. Now, I think he believed. I really do. I really do believe he believes in the policies and approach. And like a lot of CEOs, the day that Trump took that bullet and he stood up, I think it changed a lot of people's minds, including Elon's. Said this guy's not just for show.

13:25He really means and really cares for this country. He's not a perfect man. He's a very flawed man. but I think Elon is smarter than we realize because he's helped push that and he's riding that train and his companies are doing well and he's super brilliant and SpaceX can't be denied and but I think he's even smarter than you realize because the last thing if you told someone three years ago that that Elon was going to do what he ended up doing with Trump would anybody have believed that no but you know what it means it means Elon's smart enough to change your Your intelligence is only limited in the amount that you can or can't change.

14:08And even Elon Musk changed. One of the smartest men in the world. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. So he's a big winner. And now, I think the richest man in the world right now, 50 billion or something, 500 billion. 500 billion. It's like, can you comprehend that? Can we get that? I need that on a number board somewhere. I'll go all the zeros. It's a lot. So.

14:36454.5 billion U.S. dollars. Almost double what Jeff Bezos is worth and quadruple what Bill Gates is worth. This should have been the it must be nice list. You know. Yeah. You know, let's turn to one that is doing something nice for our American dream kind of segment of audience. So the American dream, we all believe in it. We all think that it's definitely something that's achievable going into 2025. But Walmart and what they are doing to bring healthy alternatives and breaking into the healthy food market and making groceries more affordable for Americans. They are on our nice list. Yeah. I, I'll tell you this.

15:24I went to a Walmart store a couple of weeks ago and other than hating the checkout process, the rest of the store, I was like, you know, surprised that even I look, you know, the last time I walked through like the clothes department at a Walmart and like it remotely was like, Hey, that's pretty, that's some nice shit. Walmart is doing it. I'm getting it together. You know, it's like, I felt like they took the best to Target, and now they're slapping them in the face with what they did good and what they've always done, which is low prices. Low prices combined with a little bit of style and some random shit that you didn't need but you end up buying.

16:06Whatever playbook that is. Discoverability on the aisles. I was like, all right. Now, if you could just get out this checkout line shit figured out, I might come here more often. But yeah, I have to take a little trip last. Only thing I've ever bought at Walmart clothing was like Realtree camo and like mossy oak. Well, let me tell you, let me give you another insight here of why they're where they're kicking everybody's ass. Amazon does not have same day delivery in Greenville, South Carolina. However, Walmart, I can get shit to my house if I'm doing a project or whatever. And I like to do random shit and I like it when I need it.

16:46like I've been doing like I'm turning in my dad I'm doing all these little projects and like I run out of spray paint or I run out of like some screws or something I get on walmart.com that shit is in my house in 45 minutes this man if you guys you don't want to take the e-bike down there and just pick that if you want to impress Ryan you have to have your delivery services figured out he is the only person that I know who gets to what did you have delivered one day a gas can he got a gas can delivered to the office I don't even remember why I mean it wasn't out again just cause you could yeah it was hurricane prep I am I am the the world's worst of I gotta have it when I gotta have it I mean this this isn't like 5 ,000 oh I gotta have a 5 ,000 dollar watch or something right now no this is like you know listen I'm on your family Instacart orders so I see those five below oh yes oh yeah decorating a room you never know what's going on.

17:44That's so funny. Yes. So home deep, but, but here's where I was going with that. Walmart is even kicking Amazon's ass in delivery because everyday items and some things that I would have normally ordered from Amazon for their supposed two day. That's not always two days anymore. We know I'm getting within an hour from Walmart and with my, you know, Walmart thing, express delivery discount not much difference in cost for same day same hour delivery well i will tell you that amazon is on our nice list and they are they just um got approval to break ground on a new distribution center coming to our area so i'm hoping it's going two exits down for my house so you know i'm gonna get that same day delivery well we'll see i'm gonna have to beat out they're both on the nice list this year yeah all right is that it on the nice list i did put taylor swift on the nice list and on the naughty list but she's on the nice list because we can't deny her eras tour she didn't make a lot of money made her a lot of money this year can't can't don't hate the player hate the game she also i will say she gave um significant bonuses i read online to the people that worked for her on her heirs tour.

19:03It's too bad that her endorsement didn't work out or help more. True. Sorry. Had to go there. That's why she's on the naughty list. Yeah, I know. To be such a winner, she was such a loser. I don't like Taylor Swift. I mean, look, she's fucking Taylor Swift. She can't give a shit what I say. She's raking in money. We're raking leaves here. She's raking money. she's royalty yeah she is so I'll probably I'll get some Swifty hate I know that but I'm just saying yeah like just at least get you know my lips are sealed get your policies right my husband loves Taylor Swift so it's a point of contention like he likes her music or he likes her personally well okay like in high school like a cute hot in high school he would like listen to her music in his truck and it was when you know her music I mean she's got catchy music I don't it's not my thing but I can respect the fact that it's catchy music.

20:01I've let it ride on the radio before. Yeah. I'm not seeking it out on my playlist, but... Yeah. What is it? Brush it off? I don't hate it. Shake it off. Shake it off? Yeah. Shake it off. I'm not immune to a catchy tune. I'm immune to that. I like good tunes, but I can separate. Some people get so on the thing. I might hate your politics and still like your music. Yeah. 100%. She still makes hits. Yeah, I respect that. All right, naughty list. Ryan, who's on your naughty list this year? Oh, hmm. Anyone that endorsed Kamala. Any business. Even Bezos was smart enough to not let the Washington Post get egg in their face.

20:48You know, it's like he didn't let them endorse him because he didn't want to be a loser. Yep. So, you know, I mean, insert lists here. And I think we forget quickly because the news cycle, I'm bad about this. I mean, our show's news and like one week we talk about one thing and the other. Very few things carry forward in the news cycle. But I'm not forgetting what Bud Light did. You know, come on, man. You know, with those cans. And it's less that I am getting on the stool of judging them for the actual action. As a marketer, as a brand guy, I'm getting on it from the, how the hell do you not know who your audience is?

21:37Like, what the hell are you doing? Like, to not know who your customers are and how many people you're pissing off to do something that you thought was making a stand on something. that most people don't even fucking agree with. It's like, come on. Send them all the way to the bottom of the naughty list. Cole. They're getting Cole. Yeah. You go to the land of misfit toys with no pass out. Speaking of toys, Mattel on the naughty list for that porn site on their packaging. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that one. Yeah. Definitely on there. You're down there. That's just stupid list, naughty list, whatever.

22:18Come on. Toyota on the naughty list. Yeah, this is sort of, they've done a good job of like trying to make this fly under the radar. Chris, you want to talk about this one? Apparently they lied and faked some safety tests that they claim they passed on seven of their vehicle models, which I think is rather important considering Toyota is driven by probably like one in four Americans. They did a test on Roblox and they thought that was good enough. they got it in the metaverse and did test it like hey yeah like my son who's seven at the time was participating and they were like that's good enough right if it works if it doesn't explode in the metaverse it'd be fine on the roads yeah I mean give me a break no just as bad as Boeing Boeing lost 350 million in quarter one of 2024 definitely on the naughty list 350 mil that's an IOU might want to hold them to that one I mean it's bad my parents flew in this last weekend from California and my stepdad was like oh we're taking one of those dangerous Boeing planes home and I was like oh god so I put it that's why I don't listen to anybody on there I put on my airpods I put that shit on noise can't say I don't like he my stepdad was like looking up what the plane was that they were riding on I'm like I don't want to know yeah I mainly I mean mainly just not hear my wife and kids but it works for the whole plane i'm kidding nicole mainly just the kids uh perrier sparkling water fancy sparkling water they are on the naughty list for some contamination concerns i mean if you've tasted that stuff it's contaminated all the time like come on i mean you know it's always and it reminds me of a song i listen to it i'm working out Banks Contaminated.

24:08That's like a jam. Let me just tell you. Go listen to that. Nice plug. Banks is underrated. Go listen to her. I like Banks. Yeah. Definitely underrated. Anything on your naughty list, Chris, that we haven't named? The one I mentioned that's on the list that just bright out to me is just Diddy. Diddy and his bad boy. Oh, yes. Bad boy entertainment. Oh, God. Yeah. Is it bad boy entertainment? Yeah. Bad boy records, bad boy entertainment. What was your favorite Diddy song of all time? Puff Daddy. I still call him Puff Daddy, you know? I mean, I feel like he just, like, featured a bunch of songs. There's, like, yelling in them.

24:56If he somehow gets out of this, I think he should go back to Puff Daddy. I think Diddy's done. You know? Like, I think he's probably going to sit in prison the rest of his life. But if somehow he gets out of it, I think he should go back to Puff Daddy. He definitely needs a PR team. I mean, how many jars of baby oil was it? Like 9 ,000 cases in his house? Hey, stock up baby oil. Stock down Puff Daddy. How much did Johnson & Johnson's make on all that? Who knows? what if it helped their their sales or hurt them that halo around him man i don't know how it gets any worse it's like every week you hear somebody like a jay-z something and i don't and i'm not following every detail of those stories it's just like it's like it's gossipy like i love some these some gossip that's in my realm is fine that's just sort of on the far edge of my attention span and but it does seem like every week there's like whoever such and such actor who was tied to diddy you know because who was who's the guy that uh one of the other actors that was majorly tied to him i can't remember what his name is that's popular as he used to be doesn't make for good uh audio to uh bring people up that we don't know the name of but insert old famous actor that uh used to be hanging around diddy parties because that's what it is Every week it's like, used to attend the Diddy parties.

26:30Oh, like Leo DiCaprio. Yeah, he was one of them, but it's like another one too. Yeah. I don't know. But bring back Puff Daddy. Bring back Puff Daddy if you make it through this. But if everything's true, then he needs to go away. He's cooked. It seems. Doesn't it just seem like it's past the point of return? You can only keep stuff in the dark for so long. And it sounds like now you have more and more victims coming out, more people kind of, you know, sharing their experiences. So it's going to be interesting. I wonder what, like, an autographed poster of Diddy was worth, like, two years ago versus now.

27:13Is it going up or going down? You know, sometimes it's weird shit, like, when bad stuff happens, stuff goes up. It's like. I think his is going to go down. Yeah, I think so. Do you, as we close out today, Chris, is, what do you think of this drone shit going on, man? You're the conspiracy theory guy. Kinda. So, but I don't know. So putting the conspiracy theories to the side, what's, what does Chris's gut tell them? I mean, I would want to assume it's like our government, you know, doing some military testing. Everyone's saying aliens and all this stuff. I don't know, man. I assume it's military.

27:58I assume it's government. Yeah. You know, there's a theory that it's, you know, they're protecting us from. Or looking for radiation or radiation or whatever. Right. Yeah. Which. Sawyer usually gets in the sit like this. Sawyer, do you have an opinion on this? I don't know. Yeah. All right. He's going to pass on this. I just. I just. It's getting too much to ignore as a story. You know, even as a business show, like it's just it's kind of owning the headlines the last week. And so it's too big to sort of ignore. It's just bothersome that normally the government would at least acknowledge something.

28:41And like Trump came out and said, oh, the government knows what it is. They know, you know, they seem to tell us at least high level what it is and this would go away. but they're denying that they know what it is at all. And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, I don't think that necessarily makes trust and safety with the American people. I mean, yeah. And look, let's be honest. I mean, the outgoing administration, how much trust? If there's a trust meter. It's right on par with that. We're at zero or negative already. You know, we pardoned our son that we said we never would.

29:17And look, I'm okay with pardoning his son, but just admit it. Why didn't you just admit that you were going to four months ago or just say no comment? But to fall on your cross to say, or your sword, whatever, like that you were going to not do it. And so then all this to say the credibility and trust factor on drones or anything else is just like, what are you talking about?

29:43And in today's technology with satellites and reconnaissance and all the stuff and technology that we do have, it gets me a little worried if we really don't know what this is. That shit can fly in our airspace at the volume that this seems to be happening. And if I'm a criminal or something, I'd be emboldened by this. Right? Like, I mean, if you can get away with it, if it's true, I think it's just somebody needs to put it to bed, like, with what it is or isn't. Shoot one of these fucking things down and, like, let's find out. Chris, let's go tackle that thing, man. My ARs need some action. I saw videos of people shooting at him.

30:33I'm surprised no one's taken one down yet. Yeah, you would think so. And, I mean, they say it's illegal. I'm sort of kidding a little bit. It's illegal to shoot a drone, supposedly. But if there's ever been a case, I mean, wouldn't you be a hero for all time if you got one of those things down? Like, and figured out the mystery, and there was like a USSR, like, on the side of it or something, like a Russian logo on the side, and you're like, you took it down? Or whatever. You go scary as shit, and you're a folk hero. Took the drone down. this is like i mean this is like freaking space invaders like pew pew pew just shooting up in the sky hoping you hit a fucking rocket ship like what the hell anyway that was our naughty and nice list and hey if you got something interesting to say about the drones if you got good insight send us a message you're to find us ryanisright.com all the highlight clips you can drop us you can You can drop us a voicemail there at RyanIsRight.com.

31:36Leave us a voice message. I don't ever promote that enough. We've got that functionality on our site. I do get the DMs on Insta. Appreciate that. Hit me up anytime. Hit Chris up at Chris Broby Hanson. Any final words, Chris? Everybody have a Merry Christmas. Yes. And a happy holiday. That's right. Our last episode before Christmas for the news. We'll have a release right before next week. A lot of light content next week. We're going to do our all. Essentially what it is, is, you know, everybody's got resolutions and stuff like that. We're doing the, you know, all business, no BS. And these aren't resolutions.