Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Business News: The Real Opportunity w/ AI - Creating Leverage - Real Estate Market Softening

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

SUMMARYIn this episode of Weekly Business News, hosts Ryan Alford and Chris Hansen delve into current business and economic trends as of May 2025. They discuss the impact of tariffs, the cooling real estate market, and rising interest rates. The conversation highlights the migration patterns affecting community dynamics and the influence of multinational corporations on the middle class. They also explore the introduction of Meta's new AI assistant app and its potential applications. The episode blends analysis with personal reflections, encouraging listeners to stay informed and optimistic while navigating the evolving economic landscape.TAKEAWAYSCurrent economic climate and trends as of May 2025Discussion on tariffs and their impact on business conversationsAnalysis of the real estate market, including price reductions and migration patternsEffects of demographic changes on local communities and economiesThe role of multinational corporations in shaping the middle classThe influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on migration trendsConcerns about economic disparities and job outsourcingIntroduction and potential applications of a new AI assistant app by MetaImportance of focusing on local issues amidst global challengesEncouragement to maintain a positive outlook and prioritize community well-beingSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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It's our weekly business news, our first news of May. 2025 here on the second. It will be May the 4th on Sunday. May the 4th be with you, Chris. What's up? I'm sitting here just thinking April, flowers, May showers. I don't know why.

April showers, bring May flowers. It's been rainy here. So hopefully that's the case. It's been rainy and warm, which is nice. Not here. Sunny and breezy. It's been beautiful. Yes, it's been good.

Our weekly business news, we're going to hit all the headlines. try not to talk too much about tariffs. I never, Chris, I never imagined that I would have a moment in my life where I use the word tariff

like in a sentence as often as I have or ready. Definitely not weekly. I know if it's a sign of my age, a sign of the times, a sign of the way news is. Is it all the above? Maybe lack of all of the above. Yeah.

So I'd rather talk about a lot of other things, that's for sure. I know. So we're going to attempt to do that. Some of the market data is not wonderful, but I think, you know, it's early in the season. I think there's some cooling going on of all the banter a bit. I think the reality is we live in a world where you're never going to get the straight talk. It's always going to have the spin of one thing. side or another, you know, kind of compounding whatever that news might be, one way,

one direction or the other. You know what I mean, Chris? Yeah. I mean, everyone will never always think alike. Yes. And everyone has a voice now with social media and, hey, we got our own voice here on our platform. But it's like everything gets, I just got to tune it out. I do think, and we've talked about it we want to I think we got to tamper down the negativity and the all out war on you know some of our allies I think you're seeing softening of that language and you know it's brought some people to the table I think uh sometimes the we've talked about this the the means might be uh correct but the way that the things are happening might be the the way that you get them done.

But I think sometimes you can go a little further than intended with impacting overall sentiment. And I think you're feeling that a little bit with kind of like people feeling a little uneasy. And I think hopefully we can start to get on the other side of that and focus on the data. Because the numbers are still like, it's all relative, right? it's like it is not like we suddenly stopped commerce completely it's just we're in this really weird funk where this has caused just enough of a stir combined with the real estate market and interest rates yeah and battling inflation so it's like maybe we chose the wrong time to sort of stoke this yeah i don't i thought that was wonder if you'd ever hear that behind the scenes i don't know it's

interesting seeing the impact of it. I mean, I've seen some really creative advertising related to it. I've seen one company. They do jewelry and they're like, literally the ad was like tariff sucks, but our jewelry doesn't. And I'm like, all right, they're making the best of it. Obviously, their stuff is made overseas. Even me, myself, like, you know, I do the lab grown diamond jewelry. My supplier message me this week about tariff changes, you know? So. And then I've seen on some some clothing brands that I'm familiar with. Like they basically, they sell wholesale direct from China, right?

So, and I saw they posted just, the tariff tax was the same price as the order of the clothing. So it's giving people the ability to learn how to pivot, I think. It's going to teach a lot of lessons right now. But as far as real estate goes, I have noticed a lot of price reductions in the real estate market down here. Yeah.

I'm getting a lot of Zillow alerts of, a lot of price price on on on family real estate like single family homes it's going to be interesting in a market like greenville that where we're at we're here the lovely greenville south carolina where we've seemed to have been teflon to almost everything because this it's a attractive market to move to for families leaving you know larger states with higher costs and just more stuff so you've got a lot going for the city It's going to be interesting where all this nits out for a city like ours, if we just stay Teflon through it all, like, you know, like it not have declines. Because the biggest thing here has just been inventory availability, which still hasn't improved, even with the interest rates.

And so it has changed. And you see what I worry about like being here. And, you know, we talk about a lot more national topics. but like as it relates to small town America a little bit, the changing dynamic when housing brings in people from other markets because it's more affordable, but not necessarily affordable. More affordable to them because they were used to paying $800 to $1.5 million

for a three-bedroom house. We're in South Carolina. That's been a, you know, $200 to $400,000 cost. you know, for now I'm not talking about like high end, but it's about like middle of the road. And people come here and they're like, hey, we're used to paying this rate. We'll take that and they get a little more square footage.

So what happens, though, is what happens to market like hours when you get an influx of different personalities, beliefs, etc? And I'm not saying we're all so different, but it can change the makeup. Yeah. I mean, the makeup and the fabric of the city. And not because, you know, everything was right about old school Greenville. You know, like, no, we needed some growing up.

But what is the true impact of that, both socially, economically, et cetera, right? I think we're in a time I would almost call it like a financial migration. Yeah. You know, it's crossing cultural boundaries. And like you said, people aren't necessarily living where they want to live anymore. People are living where they can afford to live. Yep. And I think you're right.

Even with COVID, for example, you know, that was a mass migration or maybe that was the beginning of a lot of financial difficulties. I know it was for many small businesses, of course, like if you couldn't operate in certain states. Because even down here in Florida, you know, all the town. towns I've lived in, you know, growing up here, they've all had a large change because there's way more out-of-state people migrating in. Yeah, exactly. And so we'll see how that goes.

I just could be interesting if Greenville as sort of a proxy for other cities this size, you know, I'd throw in like little towns in Arkansas that are kind of, you know, seeing their heyday from some social media and some of the shows that have been on. Bittenville and like places like that and even I mean Austin's a different place altogether and larger tech scene. But how all this the interest rates in the real estate market. And I continue to beat this drum just it drives money in the market when you've got a good amount of real estate turning and refinancing and all that stuff. And so that's what we need these inflation numbers to go down. And that's where I choose to believe.

And I've been, Chris and I both been pretty transparent, you know, like where I'm out, I claim myself to be an independent. I think you do as well, Chris, for the most part. We don't necessarily wear a color on our sleeves. But we voted a certain direction. And I choose to believe that there's a game of. chess being played and a game of checkers being played. And I think there's some chess going on overall that I think is going to net out where we like it.

But it's going to continue to be a little rocky. And I said this on a post that you'll see later today where it's uncomfortable to get the change that you need. It's not always comfortable. and we've been conditioned to be very comfortable. And, you know, COVID in a strange way and, you know, putting aside the major impact medically. I'm not saying like, but it made us comfortable those of us that were not impacted by it directly with the money in the market. Everything's good. And then we had an administration where it was just kind of like they loyal you to sleep with everything's fine.

but we've got to suffer a little discomfort to get to the change that's needed. And I can't stress that enough. And I don't say that lightly because I feel some of the discomfort, you know, but I think it's necessary, Chris, what do you think? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think this is a ship that's been going the wrong way for a long time. I'm talking like 40 years. Like these multinational corporations outsource all of our middle class.

chasing profit over ultimately patriotism. Our own people sold us out to make cheaper goods with cheap labor outside of America. And before our eyes, all of us have been lulled for longer than I would say COVID. I mean, essentially it's been slipped out the last 20, 30 years. We've outsourced everything. Yep. So we have now an entire population of the middle class with no jobs and no money. And that's why ultimately, unless you open your eyes,

we are completely screwed unless we turn this around. There is, unless we get all agreed that we're going to give universal basic income because AI is going to be doing so many jobs and everyone's just going to get paid to live. Exactly. You know, like, and unfortunately that, that has never worked. That does not. And I mean, you can say this as a business owner, Ryan, just who we are as people. No one is living a good life, not chasing anything, right?

No, like you're not happy. It's like, you know, and not to get into the health impact, but you not talk about it on vibe science. Like, and talk about mental decline. That would be, yeah. I think that's where you're going, right? Yeah, I mean, we've been in decline for a long time. And I'll say we've been very comfortable and complacent.

And this is the result of that, unfortunately, you know? And I hate it because if you look at historical timelines, like, we're over the hump of the greatness of this empire. And that's just history. And I think we're trying to save it, but it's not going to be an easy turn around. And the wealth may be too consolidated at this point. But the reality is, is these fuckers that have been buying yachts and mansions for the last 30 years, it's because they started producing these goods elsewhere to get higher profit margins.

I mean, that's it. Biggo. And so you're going to have a little pain to get the other side of it to bring some of those jobs back. I just saw where $4 trillion in investments come back in the last 100 days. It should motivate you. Yeah. You know, figure some shit out. Use the internet.

YouTube. Yeah. Man, that's what I talked about last week or the week before. Yeah. All these things are there. Like, you could run leaner than you ever had to. Like, your barrier to entry as a solopreneur has never been lower. And I say that not because everybody's meant to be a solopreneur,

but if you can't find work or can't find something else or you're struggling with, you know, where you're going to find the job and do all that, then you've got an option to turn to. Tools are there. But you got to, you got to have that want to, Chris. You know, it's in short supply these days that want to. Yeah.

You know, I used to think everybody had the same amount. I don't think that anymore. Yeah. And I mean every sort of like reasonably driven human being, I thought kind of had average. Everybody has erupts and downs. You have people on substance and, like throw out the kind of health and anomalies. I thought everybody kind of in the middle had sort of all the same. Nope, nope.

That was my biggest learning lesson in the last 10 years. Some people are hanging out. Yeah, they're just hanging out. It's okay. But you always just going to be hanging out. You know, it's like, I'm okay if you're okay with that. I really am. What I have a problem with, Chris, is the ones that want what comes with the want to and the not hanging out.

And you just want to hang out. That just don't fly. It doesn't work. Doesn't work. So it's an interesting time, but there's never, there's not a better place on the face of the earth than to be within the walls of this country. And don't ever forget it. Don't let the news or the negativity or your neighbor or your mom or your sister convince you otherwise. Because when you start drinking that rat poison, you're going down a real slippery slope.

And they've been dishing that. It's been a lot of, like, people haven't been proud to be an American, it feels, right? There's been a degradation of our morals and values as a country and what we stand for. And it feels very victimy nowadays instead of, like you said, this is the greatest country on the planet to come and make something to yourself. You have more opportunity here than anywhere else. Yep. And that hadn't changed. Yeah.

The amplification of political warfare in news and headlines doesn't change that fact. And, you know, economic data, everybody's in the short term, man. Every person is in the short term. I got a fun fact, too. What's that? I got a fun fact also. Yeah, but it's like everybody's in the short term. Is everybody like, okay, the news today.

the impact of that today. No, this is a long game, man. It's like stock market in a way with your life, with your financial goals and all these things. They're all the way, you know, it's not, and it's not because you don't have to make bills today or this week. I get it. I wrote those checks all morning. I know the pain of that. But we can't like continue to x-ray everything down to the micro moment. Yes, and I'm going to jump on that with something I read yesterday. We weren't programmed as humans to care about everything going on in the world. We don't have that capacity.

Our brains were basically built to care and have an impact around the 150 people closest to us, our community. We're doing a disservice and it's good to care, right? But to turn on the news and you're getting all this influx, you've got war going all over the world, financial hardships, how much of worrying about that can you actually control? What is worrying, you worrying about what's going on the other other side of the world do? And that's part of our problem is it's great to care,

but we weren't built to fix everyone's problems everywhere. No. And I will even say that may be part of America's problem, right? We wanted to go fix everyone else and them to do it our way. And obviously a lot of it was financially motivated, right, for other resources or cheap labor. but we got to worry about ourselves you got to worry about what you can control your family your community and and tune it out because it's just stealing from you yeah stealing your joy your joy your energy your focus yeah your presence with the people you're actually around you know it's like life isn't

that bad when you turn off all the negativity coming through the media focus on the day and focus on you what can you control exactly That's it. And look, we're going to give some tips right here. Free AI tools. Facebook Parent Meta launches AI Assistant app further competing with OpenAI and Google, and it's free. I was just playing with it for 30 seconds before we got on here. I'm a chat GPT guy.

I've said that. I'll go ahead and just say that, but it's pretty slick. I like the calming voice that came on and told me things, Chris. she was very pleasant, very just calming is what I would say. But look, you got to use these tools, especially when they're free. It shortcuts research, shortcuts information. It can process things way faster than you can looking things up. And when you're working on any project of any type, you should be leveraging these tools.

It's going to be interesting how it also like being Facebook, it integrates with like your Facebook accounts. It's pulling in knowledge already about you. And before everybody gets like the conspiracy theory, you get scared, we already just told you what to worry about, what not worry about. Use this for your advantage. Don't worry about it. If you're worried about pulling something from your Facebook, you shouldn't have posted it to Facebook to begin with.

You're in too deep already. Exactly. So I wanted to pull all my stuff. I don't have any. Has there been a post or two occasionally? I'm like, I didn't, you know, I should have got in that kind of. Sure.

But 99.9, I don't care. Like, use it. Help me. I mean, you learn more about me so you can help me do my job better, learn better, be a better parent, be a better husband. I mean, there's knowledge and calculating all that stuff. But it's got it. It's a dedicated app, Chris.

I went and found it meta AI. Go look it up. It's powered by Lama 4. These names. Lama just doesn't make me feel powerful. I know. The almighty Lama 4. I'm sure it stands for something.

Yeah, language learning. I wish you had a different name. Language integrated, you know, I don't know. Ask me. Ask me anything. Language learning. Ask me anything. There it is.

It's a large language model. That's probably with the large language. Ask Me Anything. We're going to start making up acronyms. It boasts enhanced reasoning, multilingual, capabilities, and better efficiency. And wife, pleasing recommendations. I made that one.

You can use it for that too. Exactly. If you were me, I look, I'm going to give you a prompt. free prompt, free prompts. People pay for prompts, Chris. I know. Pretend that I'm a husband. And this is, you're talking to your GPT here.

Pretend I'm a husband that's fucked up a few times with my wife. Nothing salacious, but just like, hey, it's been a bad month. I made some bad decisions. Wife's not happy at me. And you were trying to find innovative ways to make her feel better about you. And you have kids, so you have to keep that in mind. You have a busy schedule.

How would you handle this situation? Could you give me five suggestions for a man in that situation? Just ask it. And the answers will be yours. Yep. There you go. There's your husband. Luckily, it's a perfect husband.

I've never had to ask that. But you can. You've thought about it, though. Yeah. Tongue for my husband. in cheek, as said. But you can add, but that's the crazy thing.

Like, it could be your assistant for all kinds of things. And it's fun. The app will offer personalized responses using context from a user's Facebook and Instagram accounts. We talked about that. That's good. Integrate with meta-a-I's glasses and merge with its existing companion app. Have you ever used, have you seen meta-glasses?

Like, no. I know. I'm a no idea to talk about these things. Yeah. It's like stop. No one other we had to come back to the Metaverse, right? It's like, no one cares, guys.

Let it go. A paid description for advanced chatbot features will begin testing in Q2. The revenue impact may not be seen until next year. LamaCon is the AI developer event. Of course it is.

Met is hosting lava. Lama con, its first AI developer event. Focus on showcasing. It's Lama AI models. It really could have gone. Strong Lama. It could at least been a donkey, you know? Donkey AI or something.

Yeah, Lion. Apple has like lion, Snow leopard. I mean, that's cool shit. You know, I want a snow leopard, you know, AI. Reasoning engine. I want a buying, you know, but I'm a llama.

Donkey AI. It's, it is what it is. We don't take ourselves too seriously around here. Anyway, but everything we're saying about AI you need to listen to. We're all paying it a little bit, though, because you do wonder what happens to how in these boardrooms. You can tell us tech people, name and shit. You know, you need to get some marketers in there. Like, need some like fierce AI, fierce.

The fierce model learning llama engine. Fierce Lama. At least put it like a, you know, something on top of it. Like, how about loyal Lama? Hey, the loyal Lama. Okay. All right. Makes it sound better.

It's all horrible. You can't make Lama sound cool. Yeah, it's true. It's true, Chris. Not even me. Not even with the. that voice tone. Yeah.

Oh, U.S. sports merchandising group Fanatics plots global trading card expansion. We've been telling you folks that we're, in that trading card series is starting in about two weeks. It's a fun series, but it's

some eye-opener on the data and the numbers around this shit. It's crazy. Fanatics Global Trading Card Ambitions, founder and CEO of Michael Rubin projects three billion dollars in trading card and collectibles revenue for the company by 2026. Expanding aggressively in international markets. Benax acquired tops trading cards for $500 million in 2022.

Collectibles revenue hit $1.6 billion in 2024, expected to top $2 billion this year and $3 billion the next year. That sounds like pretty damn good growth. Just adding bees right after another billion, billion, billion. He said, Ruben attributes the boom to increase disposable income and boredom. I'm like, really? That's through market analysis. Yeah, I was expecting something a little more interesting than that. FNAX opened the first Trading Corps store in London on Regent Street.

Purpose is marketing and a model for entrepreneurs. It's all about showing people what the store should look like and how it should work. So they're essentially showing Europe how trading card stores should operate. So then you get spin-offs from that. Fanatics overall revenue expected to hit $9 billion this year and $11 billion in 26. Fanax will gain exclusive rights to the English Premier League trading cards and stickers in June 2025. They get over from Panini. Panini and Tops are just like that.

They back and forth. They needed to figure out a merger. I don't know why they did. It's not good for the business. It's the stupidest shit. Now that I'm in it, I'm seeing all of it. And I see, you know, Chris, this is what happened. This year, like for NFL, Panini's had the exclusive rights to the NFL.

So what that means is tops cards this year, doesn't have any logos on it. So you'll get like, you know, Josh Allen, but there has no Buffalo Bills logo. It says Buffalo and it says bills, but there's no logos on their helmets or their jerseys. it's odd and it's like unnecessary i'm like well i can't you sell more than one license to both companies if they both want to make cards then you know double it up here but like starting next year tops is going to have a pinini want then their cards won't have logg it's just dumb it's dumb it's not good for the you know it's not good for the culture no it's like i don't know and it keeps me from buying a card like it looks stupid yeah well if you want it probably not worth as much too well

the tops is, see, that's the thing. They go to these other measures to make it. They do, they get the autographs agreements with some of the hottest players. So then if you want that player's card as a rookie with an autograph, you have to buy the tops first and he has no logo on his helmet. Because Panini doesn't have his autograph. It's like, huh? You can't get the best of all worlds.

I want to blow in the autograph. Exactly. That's what it does as a collector. They're making it harder for collectors. Yep. So there it is. More Americans are financing groceries with buy now, pay later loans. It's hard for me to know if there's a reflection definitively of the exact economics of terrorists right now,

or if this is just a proliferation of the buy now pay layer expanding into more things. Yeah. Like it's a little bit of both. I mean, I wanted that steak last night. I didn't quite have enough money, but I wanted it. So I'm going to finance this baby over 30 days. interest-free. What a world.

Coachella, you know more about this story than me. I mean, we're not, we're, we're, yeah, same concept. It was something like actually, even says in this article, a recent surge in buy now, pay later use even includes Coachella ticket purchases.

And that was something like 70% or 80% of the attendees of Coachella had all used buy now, pay later options. Oh my God. Which Coachella is a very bougie, you know, big music festival in the desert, very expensive. It's the place to be, right? So that kind of even shows you even in that world. People are stretching, stretching their cash. Yeah.

I just think back to kind of like the topic we talked about, you know, people kind of want the spoils without the work. It's like, oh, I'm going to keep this lifestyle up, but I don't want to go work for it. I mean, that's kind of where my head goes. The Coachella, not talking about the groceries. Yeah, and people are fed up, honestly. I've been seeing a lot of people, like, just talking about their credit scores in general. They're like, just, I don't care anymore.

Like, and I don't know if that's a good thing, right? It's almost like people are just getting pounded down so hard that they're becoming indifferent. Well, I think it's because back to their playing, everybody's playing the day game and not the long game. How great can I make today without working hard for it? And I think just we're under extremely shitty financial conditions. Yes.

The average 18 to 25 year old, you know? Yeah. It's harder to get like great jobs. But at the same time, it's still back to the internet and AI and all these things. There's lots of ways to kind of put it together if you want to piece it together. But what there's becoming fewer of is the handout of, of easy to get this job that it's pretty decent.

Those are becoming harder to get. It's easier for those that have the want to, you know, to get in on it and probably make more than they ever would have from the, you know, sort of the easy handout job. And now they're having to sort of, I don't know, work for it a little harder. Well, and I think we got people that aren't just, They don't bill for that, you know, like our engineers and these other types of people that AI is probably taking their jobs that, like, they're not entrepreneur type people, you know, like not everyone is going to be successful on internet money and YouTube, you know.

But I think people's expectations are definitely out of reach. And a lot of it's because the internet and a lot of it, we know it's bullshit, right? I made a million dollars last month. I can teach you all that bullshit. Exactly. Not a lot of major headlines this week, keeping it more about the sentiment overall. Any final thoughts, articles, etc., Chris, hot topics. Cryptos looking a little better than it was, you know.

Bitcoin's around 94,000 today. So it was, you know, touchdown to like 76,000 within the last month. So it's looking brighter than it was. How's that Trump coin doing? I have some. I don't know. I haven't looked at it.

Yeah. XRP's doing, is coming back around to where it was, you know, maybe 6090s go. Still way up for the last six or seven months. That's where, you know,

you got to play the longer, I'm not even looking at it. I used to look at it every day. I don't even look at it. I don't even look at it like once a week. Like, okay. Let's just see what's happen.

I'd probably get a notification if it either tanked or went up majorly. And I'm not getting any news. Exactly. It's doing this. Pretty much. So, you know, I'm waiting for that big pot, though. I think we're going to get it here in the next few months, maybe towards the end of the year. But, hey, a little discomfort to get to the better places.

Still, the best place on earth to live. don't forget that. And don't forget to leave us a review. If you like the show, we appreciate it. Leave a review that helps. All the feedback helps. Tell us you want to hear Chris Brobey Hansen on Instagram. I'm at Ryan Alford, too.

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