Right About Now with Ryan Alford - 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.

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. What's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now. It's our weekly business news, our first news of May 2025 here on the second.

It will be May the fourth on Sunday. May the fourth 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. 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. I don't know if it's a sign of my age, a sign of the times, a sign of the way news is, which one, is it all of the above? Maybe lack of all of the times, a sign of the way news is, which is it all the above?

Maybe lack of all of the above. Yeah. So, uh, I'd rather talk about a lot of other things. That's for sure. I know. So we're going to, we're going to attempt to do that. Some of the market data is not wonderful, but I think, you know, we're, it's early in the season. I think, uh, 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, uh, the, the straight talk, it's always going to have the spin of one side or another. Uh, 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've got our own voice here on our platform, but it's like everything gets cut.

I just got to tune it out. I do think 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, has brought some people to the table. I think sometimes the we've talked about this, the, the means might be correct, but the way that things are happening might be 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, I think you're, 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. Cause 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 were in this really weird funk where this has caused just enough of a stir combined with the real estate market and interest rates

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, tariffs suck, 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 messaged me this week about tariff changes, you know, so and then'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. I'm getting a lot of Zillow alerts of a lot of price on family real estate, like single family homes. It's going to be interesting in a market like Greenville, where we're at. We're here at the lovely Greenville, South Carolina, where we've seemed to have been Teflon to almost everything because it's an attractive market to move to for families leaving 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 knits out for a city like ours, if we 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 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, I'm not talking about like high end, but I'm just 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, et cetera. 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. I mean, you know, like, no, we needed some growing up. But what is the true impact of that, both socially, economically, etc. Right. I think we're in a time, I would almost call it a financial migration. Yeah. 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. And I think you're right, even with COVID, for example, 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, all if you couldn't operate in certain states, um, cause even down here in Florida, you know, all the 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. It's going to be interesting if Greenville as an, as sort of a proxy for other cities, this size, you know, 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, is 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, a game of checkers being played. And I think there's some chess going on, uh, 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. get the change that you need. It's not always comfortable. And we've been conditioned to be very comfortable. And COVID in a strange way, and 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, they lull 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'm, 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 outsourced 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 had 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 gonna give universal basic income because AI is gonna be doing so many jobs and everyone's just gonna 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 it. I think that's where you're going, right?

Yeah, I mean, we've been in decline for a long time. And I'll tell you, 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 turnaround. 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. Bingo. And so you're gonna 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 in the last hundred days. So it should motivate you. Yeah. Like, you know, figure some shit out. Use the internet, YouTube. Yeah, man. That's what I talked about last week or the week before. Like, yeah, all these things are there. Like you could run leaner than you ever had to. Like you're in your barrier to entry as a solopreneur has never been lower. And I say that not because everybody's meant to be 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 gotta, you gotta, you gotta have that want to Chris, you know, it's in short supply these days that want to, you know, I used to think everybody had the same amount. I don't think that anymore. Yeah.

No. to think everybody had the same amount. I don't think that anymore. Yeah, no. And I mean, every sort of like reasonably driven human being, I thought kind of had average. I'm not talking about everybody has their ups and downs. You have people on substance and you like throw out the kind of health and anomalies. I thought everybody kind of in the middle

had the sort of all the same, nope, nope. I was a biggest, like 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 gonna be hanging out. You know, it's like, I'm okay. If you're okay with that. I really am. What I don't have, 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, that just don't fly.

This 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 victim-y nowadays. Instead of, like you said, this is the greatest country on the planet to come and make something with yourself. You have more opportunity here than anywhere else. Yep. And that hadn't changed. Yeah. The, the amplification of political warfare in news and headlines doesn't change that fact. 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 and the impact of that today? No, it's, this is a long game, man.

It's like the stock market in a way with your life, with your financial goals and all these things. They're all, 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 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 in the other side of the world too? 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. I will even say that may be part of America's problem, right? We wanted to go fix everyone else and then 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 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 gonna give you some tips right here. Free AI tools. Facebook parent Metta launches AI assistant app, further competing with open

AI 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. Shortcuts research, search cuts 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 that integrates with like your Facebook accounts with is pulling in knowledge already about you and before everybody gets like the conspiracy theory, get scared. We already just told you what to worry about, what not worry about. Use this for your advantage. Don't worry. Don't worry about it. If you're worried about a 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, I, has there been a post or two occasionally where I'm like, I didn't, you know, I should have got it in that comp. 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 that Meta AI go, go look it up. It's powered by llama for, uh, these names llama just doesn't make me feel powerful or the almighty llama for sure. It stands for something. Yeah. Language learning. Uh, I wish you had a different name. Uh, language integrated, you know, I don't know.

Ask me, ask, ask me anything. Language know. Ask me anything. Language learning, ask me anything. There it is. Made us latest. It's a large language model. That's probably what the large language ask me anything. We're going to start making up acronyms. It boasts enhanced reasoning, multilinguallingual capabilities, and better efficiency,

and wife-pleasing recommendations. I made that one. Really? You can use it for that too. Exactly. If you were me, look, I'm going to give you a prompt, free prompt, free prompts. People pay for prompts, Chris.

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. 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, is a perfect husband. I've never had to ask that, but you can. You've thought about it though.

Yeah. Tongue firmly in cheek, as said, but you can add that's, 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 AI's glasses and merge with its existing companion app. Have you ever used, have you seen Meta glasses? Like, no. Like, you know, is this virtual reality? Yeah. It's like, we had to come back to the Metaverse, right? It's like, no one cares guys. Let it go.

A paid description for advanced chat bot 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 LamaCon, its first AI developer event focused on showcasing its llama AI models. It really could have gone just a strong llama. It could at least been a donkey, you know, donkey, AI lion or something. Like the apple has like lion, the llama, no, no leopard. I mean, that's cool shit.

You know, I want a snow leopard, you know, AI reasoning engine. I want to buy in, 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, I do, but everything we're saying about AI, you need to listen to. We will pan it a little bit though, cause you do wonder what happens to how these boardrooms you can tell us tech people, Damon 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 llama. At least put it like a, you know, something on top of it. Like how about loyal llama? Hey, the loyal llama. Okay. All right. Makes it sound better. It's all horrible. Can't make llama sound cool. Yeah, it's true. It's true Chris. Not even me Not even with that voice tone. Yeah. Oh US sports merchandising group fanatics plots goble trading card expansion We've been telling you folks that were in that trading card series is starting in about two weeks It's it's a fun series, but it's, 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 $3 billion 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,

but just adding bees right after another billion, billion, billion. He said, Rubin attributes the boom to increased disposable income and boredom. I'm like, really? That's their market analysis. Yeah. I was expecting something a little more interesting than that.

Fanatics opened the first trading course store in London on Regent Street, purposes 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 nine billion this year and 11 billion in 26. Fanatics will gain exclusive rights to the English Premier League trading cards and stickers in June 2025. They can go over from Panini Panini and tops for just like that. We're 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 like, it's the stupidest shit.

But now that I'm in it and 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. No, it 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, why can't you sell more than one license to both companies? If they both want to make cards, then double it up here.

But like starting next year, Tops is going to have a Panini want, Why can't you sell more than one license to both companies? If they both want to make cards, then double it up here. But starting next year, Topps is going to have a Panini want and their cards won't have, 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 certain card. It looks stupid. Yeah, well, if you want it, probably not worth as much too. Well, the tops 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, they all, you have to buy the top search and he has no logo on his helmet. Cause Panini it's like, you can't get the best of all worlds. I want to in the autograph.

Exactly. That's what it does. The collectors and making it harder for collectors. Yep. So there, 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 tariffs right now, or if this is just the proliferation of the buy now pay later 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. Yeah.

I mean, what Coachella you, you know more about this story than me. I mean, we're not, we're not a big story. 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, the, 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 gonna 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 to my other 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 cause 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? Yeah. And I think just we're under extremely shitty financial

conditions for the average 18 to 25 year old, you know? Yeah, 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 easy to get this job that is 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 that aren't built for that, you know, like our engineers and these other types of people that AI has probably taken their jobs at, 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 uh not a lot of major headlines this week keeping it more about the sentiment overall any final thoughts thoughts, articles, etc. Chris, hot topics? Cryptos looking a little better than it was, you know. Yeah. Bitcoin's around 94,000 today. So it was, you know, touched down to like 76,000 within the last month. So it's looking brighter than it was. How's that Trump coin doing?

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. I know it's not. XRP is doing is coming back around to where it was, you know, maybe 60, 90s ago, still way up for the last six or seven months. That's where, you know, you gotta play the long.

I'm not even looking at it. I stopped looking. I used to look at it every day. I don't even look at it. I go like once a week. Like, okay, let's just see what's happening. I'd probably get a notification if it either tanked or went up majorly. And it's, and I'm not getting any news. So it's just, it's doing this.

Pretty much. So, you know, I'm waiting for that, that big pot though. I think, I think we're gonna get it Here in the next few months, maybe towards the end of the year But hey Lord 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 Burby Hanson on Instagram. I'm at Ryan Allford too. So you can hit us up there

Give us a shout out anytime Chris appreciate your brother Likewise my man. Hey Ryan is right calm find the highlight clips the full episode all our sponsors go support them as well They support us we and we support you. We'll see you next time or right about now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Ulford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities.

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