Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Weekly Business News for Aug 30 | Censorship Conspiracy Proven True: Zuckerberg felt pressured by the White House
Episode Date: August 30, 2024In this episode of "Right About Now," host Ryan Alford welcomes guests Brianna Hall and Chris Hansen for a lively discussion on the cultural significance of college football and the growing impact of ...media censorship. Ryan kicks off by sharing his excitement for the upcoming college football season, especially Clemson University's games. Brianna and Chris delve into the sport's deep-rooted passion in the South, exploring how it shapes regional identity. The conversation then shifts to Mark Zuckerberg's recent revelations about government pressure on content moderation, sparking a broader discussion on the implications of media censorship for both the public and businesses. The episode wraps up with a call for listeners to critically engage with the media they consume.TAKEAWAYSCultural significance of college football, particularly in the Southern United States.Personal anecdotes related to college football and its impact on social events.The business aspects of college football, including financial implications for players and institutions.Discussion on media censorship and its effects on information dissemination.Mark Zuckerberg's admissions regarding content moderation on social media platforms.The consequences of suppressed information during the COVID-19 pandemic.The relationship between media censorship and business operations, especially in advertising.Trends in the real estate market, including rising home prices and market cancellations.The impact of housing affordability on employee satisfaction and work ethic.Changing attitudes toward work and employee expectations across different generations.TIMESTAMPSIntroduction to the Episode (00:00:00)Ryan Alford introduces the podcast and sets the tone for the episode.Welcome and Guest Introductions (00:00:23)Ryan welcomes Brianna Hall and Christopher Hansen, discussing the excitement of the upcoming college football season.College Football Excitement (00:01:00)Ryan shares his enthusiasm for college football, reflecting on personal fandom and expectations for Clemson.Cultural Significance of College Football (00:03:55)The guests discuss the serious nature of college football in the South and its impact on social events.Business of College Football (00:04:02)Ryan highlights the financial aspects of college football and how players are now compensated differently.Censorship in Sports and Media (00:04:31)Discussion on the implications of paying college athletes and the need for regulation in the evolving landscape.Mark Zuckerberg's Admission (00:08:00)Ryan talks about Zuckerberg's recent letter acknowledging censorship pressures during the COVID-19 pandemic and the election.Impact of Censorship on Information (00:10:09)Christopher expresses frustration over censorship during COVID and its potential consequences on public knowledge.Political Implications of Censorship (00:11:08)Ryan discusses how censorship could have influenced the 2020 election and the importance of transparency.Media's Role in Censorship (00:12:31)The hosts question the motives behind media censorship and the implications for public trust.Change in Media Landscape (00:14:09)Ryan and Christopher discuss the shift in media narratives and the challenges in discerning truth from conspiracy.Responsibility of Media Platforms (00:15:54)The conversation addresses the responsibilities of media platforms in reporting factual information without bias.Division in Media Narratives (00:17:12)Discussion on how media narratives often create division and the necessity for a more balanced perspective.Censorship Experiences (00:19:01)Ryan shares personal experiences with censorship on social media platforms regarding the Second Amendment.Business Implications of Censorship (00:20:01)Ryan explains how media censorship can affect businesses, emphasizing the importance of independent platforms.Real Estate Market Overview (00:22:20)Discussion on the collapse of home deals due to high prices and election uncertainty.Personal Real Estate Experience (00:23:38)Ryan shares his experience selling a house with significant price appreciation over ten years.Concerns About Housing Prices (00:24:47)Discussion on whether skyrocketing housing prices are beneficial for the community.Impact of Censorship on Business (00:25:07)Concerns about employees' ability to afford homes affecting business stability.Miami Real Estate Insights (00:25:51)Christopher discusses Miami's real estate market and new developments in foreclosure.Kamala Harris's Housing Plan (00:26:51)Mention of Kamala Harris's proposal to build 3 million new housing units.Affordable Housing Crisis (00:27:21)Discussion on the shortage of affordable housing and its implications for buyers.Homeownership Challenges (00:27:34)Challenges faced by individuals looking to buy homes in today's market.Income vs. Housing Prices (00:28:18)Debate on whether incomes have kept pace with rising housing prices.Chinese Investment in Real Estate (00:29:19)Concerns about Chinese companies purchasing land and housing in the U.S.Land Purchases Near Military Bases (00:30:50)Discussion on the implications of foreign ownership of land near military installations.Generational Work Attitudes (00:31:10)Comparison of sick leave usage between Gen Z and Baby Boomers.Post-COVID Work Culture Shift (00:32:36)Discussion on changes in workplace attitudes towards health and attendance post-COVID.Flexibility in Work Environments (00:33:09)The importance of flexibility in work to reduce unnecessary sick days.Work Identity and Culture Shift (00:34:55)Exploration of how employee loyalty and work identity have evolved over time.Company Culture and Worker Loyalty (00:36:16)Discussion on the changing dynamics of employee loyalty and company culture.Inflation's Effect on Business (00:39:00)Impact of inflation on business operations and employee incentives.Disillusionment with Employment (00:40:26)Concerns about employee disillusionment regarding long-term care and retirement benefits.Final Thoughts and Sponsorship (00:41:03)Closing remarks and promotion of the show’s sponsor. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE. Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding. Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford.
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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.
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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 of the week here on August 30th, 2024.
We have the lovely Brianna Hall here in studio.
What's up, Brianna?
Hey.
Of course.
Oh, Christopher Hansen down in Miami.
What's up, Chris?
What's up, y'all? How you doing?
Hey, it's Friday. That's what we say.
Me and the boys, it's always the first one. It's like an internal game, the first one to say
Friday. I've told the boys, like, hey, we need to be in a good mood. It's Friday. You should be in
a good mood. So the first person to say Fridayri-yay kind of gets dibs, like, you know, cred for the weekend.
So, it's Fri-yay.
There we go.
There you have it.
Who got it today?
Who won it today?
Absolutely me.
I win it about eight out of ten times.
You're like, good morning, boys.
It's Fri-yay.
And they go, oh, man.
Like, dang.
Dang.
And occasionally I'll walk in the room and clayton or hudson would go friday like they got me but uh they keep me on my toes
so we'll we'll see how it goes for next week i'm just excited my distractions are back from all of
the uh political bullshit
and everything else going on.
College football officially starts this weekend.
I'm not counting that Georgia Tech-Florida State game last week,
which went down about like I expected as Florida State got beat.
But I might be eating humble pie, though, quickly.
Clemson, where I went to school and it's I've
been a lifelong fan gets to play Georgia uh who's been the number one team for like the last three
or four years and not even been close so I will either be really excited next week or I'll still
be excited because I don't really expect I've I'm a reasonable fan that we're a 13-point underdog.
And Clemson hasn't been
a double-digit underdog in a long
time. So, I'm
like, okay, I've got to take the orange-colored
glasses off and
go, reality says
that we could win, but we probably
won't. But,
nonetheless, I'm just excited to have
some football. And, you know, maybe it just excited to have some football and, and, you know,
maybe it's an escapism and I can admit it, you know, we're all human beings,
but watching football is about the only sport that I can watch. I can watch Miami of Ohio and
Connecticut on Tuesday night. And I'd rather watch that than probably about any other thing. And so I'm happy.
Football season's back.
My sole escapism is content goes, I think.
Clemson fans are crazy.
Yeah.
I don't know if I'm – I know those people.
I don't know if I'm know them but I'm not one of them
I don't know if I'm one of them
but who knows
I got told so my son is having a birthday
party this weekend and I got told
by people that I was inviting
they're like oh well you should probably
plan around the Clemson game
like you
people are not going to come to his birthday party
because they'll be watching the game.
That's funny.
Welcome to South Carolina,
Brianna.
South Carolina.
SEC,
baby.
You take college football serious down in the South.
So college football's here.
NFL starts the following week.
And so.
Go Niners.
You will hear us talk about it a little bit.
Hey, it's big business. I mean, us talk about it a little bit. Hey, it's big business.
I mean, we talk about business on the show.
I mean, it's a billion dollar business.
The players get paid now.
I mean, college football is the wild, wild west.
Like, Clemson's getting beat out for some recruits from, like,
Nowheresville teams that are outbidding them, essentially.
It is kind of crazy.
Like, what do you think about the business of being able to pay college football players
when that wasn't the case in the past?
Oh, I personally believe you should be able to make money on your name, image, and likeness.
Two things can be true at the same time.
I can believe that, and I can also believe that it's changing the game in not the
most positive way. So two things can be true at the same time. They need some regulation because
even coaches are coming out saying like, tell your agents to stop calling me. We're the season
starting, you know, because the NFL is at least somewhat organized around it. They have like these
times for negotiations and all that.
You can always have a player or two holding out
if the contract, but it's not the whole team
or it's not, yeah.
But the college coaches have to hire specialists now.
GMs pretty much, general managers
that are managing all this.
Yeah, that's crazy.
And it's fine.
It's just an evolution,
but I think they got to get their hands around it.
They kind of unleashed this
without really thinking through all the implications.
And, you know, I have a lot of connections at Clemson.
I had a lot of the football players on my boat weekend before last.
Like half the starting line, offensive line, start two of the all-American defensive ends,
like big players.
And they even talk about how the game is just different.
And not a negative way, but just navigating it all and managing it.
Because they're wanting to look out for their own best interests.
They all have agents.
But they recognize that it's not as organized as it should be either.
So it's fascinating.
Yep.
Change is the only constant we have.
Yes.
So set your TVs accordingly, all you football fans out there.
We know there's some football fans out there.
You went to Central Florida, right, Chris?
Yeah, baby.
Go Knights.
Go Knights.
I think y'all just changed conferences.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm talking about that.
It was not a big football school.
Yeah.
No.
We had a better basketball team, honestly.
They've been okay in football here recently.
Yeah, they're doing all right.
They're doing all right.
We just need to be in a better conference.
Yeah.
I think that you just change conferences, but I can't keep up.
There's so many changes.
Like, frigging Stanford.
So, you know, Clemson's in the ACC.
Stanford on the West Coast is now in the ACC.
Like, and California.
Cal and Stanford's in the ACC.
The Atlantic Coast Conference.
Go figure that one out.
They got desperate.
Clemson and Florida State are probably leaving the ACC anyway.
And there's lawsuits going on and everything else.
So we will see.
But shout out to my boys at Clemson.
Go get it done.
I think we're going to have a good year, but it may not just start exactly right.
So just because if you're not number one doesn't mean you're not going to have a good year.
It just means your only one team can be number one.
So we'll see how that goes.
But in other news, you know, right out of the here it's it's really getting hard we talked about this
pre-episode to separate conspiracy theory from reality and not get caught up in it you know it's
like the stories come out and you don't want to believe some of the sensationalism like oh i mean
like you you also don't want to be naive.
And so like, there's this fine line of cynicism with naivety with, you know, chasing conspiracy theories.
We can all admit that.
And if you're not, then you're drinking too much of whatever party Kool-Aid you're drinking on. But this week, Mark Zuckerberg came out and released a two-page letter essentially
confirming what a lot of conspiracy theorists at the time, that's what they were labeled,
not really conspiracy theory when they were claiming what they were claiming when it turns out to be true. And essentially, Zuckerberg said that he had been
pressured to censor both COVID-19 related content as well as the whole Biden son's laptop story.
Free speech or not? It raises a ton of questions. And a lot of people deny that it was happening,
just like they deny the laptop and all this. And I give Mark Zuckerberg credit. I don't love
everything about him personally or everything he's ever said and done. But putting that to the side
to come out and release this and be honest about it and say, you know, we won't do it again. Well,
maybe, I don't know if I, you know, maybe. I just, it just sort of, it's real easy in the news cycle.
And this is what I hate about it. That this stuff gets sort of, it's a headline one day,
and then three days later we act like, it happened, gone.
Do we really pause to reflect what he's saying happened
and what the hell that means?
It's huge. It's massive.
I remember being livid during COVID when all the censorship on Twitter, Facebook, everywhere, right? And you have the little fact checker stuff where it's like, and me being in the medical business, kind of with a different perspective than most of the population, questioning a lot. I remember this being, and stuff that I knew to be true being censored, right?
Stuff from my own experiences,
from scientific stuff we were doing.
But I think for, you're right.
People don't understand,
put yourself back in 2020, 2021,
when this information could have been extremely valuable
to millions and millions of people.
And now we have, you know,
and even people are like,
oh, it was Zuckerberg's conspiracy theorist.
How?
He was in charge of Meta and the entire company during this time.
So if he's admitting that this happened, clearly it happened.
And now we're living with the repercussions of that censorship.
Biden, the whole election was going on when this laptop thing came.
Because remember, it came out like two months.
And so for it to get if you remember
it was right at the election time it was like october it was like this time four years ago
and if you censored that and which all of it pretty much came to be true it was exactly what
was on the laptop it was was on the laptop you it very might have swayed the election the fact that it wasn't allowed to have
the impact that it probably should have had because it's just fact i mean i'm not saying
look i have four boys i'm raising them as good as i can but a certain point they become men
do i want their every move to be a reflection of me not necessarily but they are my kids and
it's reality
and it has an impact, especially when you're in the power position that Joe Biden's been in,
in politics as a VP and previously, it matters. And so for Mark to come out and say pressured
and then it didn't, then you're pretty much acknowledging that it could have swayed the whole fucking election.
I mean-
And what kind of pressure are they putting on, right?
It's like, if you're going to decide to lie
to hundreds of millions of people,
what do they have on you?
How does the government have so much control over Meta
where they can pressure him, right?
Unless Zuckerberg in the last few years has had some
turnabout of his beliefs and what he thinks is morally right i don't know right yeah exactly
right and i saw you know there's a clip where elon musk was talking about you know x and censorship
and he was talking with don lemon and you know he was getting the best of them. Don Lemon's like, he's like, so essentially,
Musk said, you really like censorship.
You really love it, don't you?
You want to make sweet love with censorship.
He was like kind of fucking with him.
And he goes, no, I don't love censorship.
I just think you have a responsibility.
That's how it gets.
You have a responsibility for what, you know,
whether, because it was about hate
speech. And Musk said, look,
if it breaks
a law, a clear
law in whatever country it's in,
we will remove it.
But if you don't like it, that
doesn't make it, whether you like
it or not, and whether you think it's responsible
or not, that's censorship. no matter what it is and this is i mean this isn't even hate speech we can all
agree we don't agree with that for the most part most human beings the three of us included but
talking about news that's just factual about a candidate's son and censoring it when it all turned out to be true.
And having 40 intelligence officials sign off
saying the laptop was fake news.
What about those upstanding 40 intelligence officials
of the US government?
Like if it's that easy to get our top people to lie
to cover Hunter's ass, really,
like what else are they lying about?
And all that COVID stuff that, again,
80 or 90% of that ended up being true as well,
that the COVID, the shot was at best partially effective.
Right. The shot was, at best, partially effective. And that herd immunity was always probably going to be the only and best way for this to get, you know.
And no one's denying it's a shitty disease.
I've had it.
Sometimes it sucks.
It killed a lot of people.
Even if you spoke on natural immunity, it was censored.
Where it's like natural immunity is what we've known for all of history of how viruses work and replicate.
Like, science is science. And I just don't know how these continual releases of this stuff,
and again, it's only one side that paints the other so extreme, right? It's the left that
paints the right extreme. You know, Trump's extreme, his people are extreme, MA other so extreme, right? It's the left that paints the right extreme.
You know, Trump's extreme,
his people are extreme,
MAGA's extreme, everything.
But yet all this stuff comes out
that sort of,
it validates most of what is being said.
So it's like how you can't at least acknowledge
that this makes it real fucking difficult
to believe everything that you're told from the news.
Wake up.
It's insane because even think about COVID.
Like when COVID first came out,
Trump was calling it the China virus.
And he was saying like,
this came from China.
This came from a Chinese lab.
It came from Wuhan.
And everybody was like,
oh, Trump's a racist.
Trump this, Trump that.
And then it came out as true.
And then they're like,
oh, don't worry about that.
Well, you're right. They shoved it down
in the news cycle. When it did come out that it was
true and they investigated, there's still
people that don't even know that.
I mean, you have people still lining up for booster shots.
Do you ever have Kamala come out
and say, the news is censoring me?
No. Never.
Not once.
She doesn't come out and say anything. Not once.
You know why? Because it doesn't get censored on that
side nothing they can say russian collusion everything say whatever they want nothing gets
like that same level of scrutiny they own her yeah and so again put all of my own personal
politics out of this.
You just look at the facts of this stuff happening and you don't see it on the other side.
You don't see Kamala Harris and screams
about being censored about this.
Nothing, you know, Kamala is upset,
or Biden, it never goes the other way, right?
That I'm aware, I'd like to know if it does.
It doesn't.
Believe me, man.
It used to fire me up in 2020.
It never goes the other way.
Never.
And if it did, we could at least go.
It kind of works out both directions.
You know, like when you think about like luck
and people talking about this, that, look,
that all shakes.
Like when everything's really even
i believe that the forces of yin and yang tend to like balance things out like the earth
but like but in this stuff it's so stacked one direction
it doesn't even make sense either like that's what's so confusing and like where it's hard to find like a good middle ground because it doesn't make sense like why it's happening you know and they always say
oh it's our responsibility to only you know put factual information out there but then they'll
put something crazy about like you know um i don't even want to you you know, I don't want to offend anybody, but you know,
a different side of you or abortion rights or access to women's healthcare or LGBTQ.
And it doesn't matter whether that's factual or not. They'll just put it out there and it's
not censored in any way. No, it's rage baiting. It's all emotional terrorism.
Just keep people as divided as possible. Keep the infighting. Because realistically, we're all more alike than we think.
Oh, yeah. 100%. this is literally us versus them. This is the government and these people censoring and controlling for whatever reason it is and lying facts from you, truth from you, and it's not in
your best interest. And that's as simple as this is you have one group that controls all the media,
all the pharmaceutical companies, all the food companies versus us. Right. And I think you'd
be fair to say most podcasts, independent journalism, are probably more right-leaning, right?
And then you've got the media now where it's kind of us little guys versus the media.
The problem is, is even we could get censored at any time.
Oh, yeah.
I feel like coming around the corner.
Hey, I've already been censored on Instagram for posting about the Second Amendment.
And even the rep at Meta, she even said to me, she goes, I don't disagree with you, but this is out of my control.
Because I said, there's nothing in your guys' policies about the U.S. Constitution or the Bill of Rights or our amendments.
Why is this being censored?
I'm not selling items, right?
Talking about firearms and our freedoms.
But it just shows you, like, these tech companies have a lot of power.
Even I had to remove the post.
Like I had to delete it.
And I held my ground for a long time.
And I'm like, oh, fuck, what are you going to do?
You know, the algorithm's fighting against you now.
It's a very weird position to be in.
When every major mass media TV station is liberal.
Today.
Today.
A magazine cover said,
why processed foods aren't as bad as you think.
Oh, God.
Really?
Talk about gaslighting.
Yeah.
So how can you determine what,
like back to Don Lemon's statement,
because I think this is such the characteristic
and, you know,
some messages I had back and forth
with a friend this weekend.
Their side is the responsible side
because it's what they believe
and what they think to be true.
So that's the responsible blanket
that we all need to wrap ourselves in
of what's responsible and what's not
well was it responsible that biden's son had a laptop with all this stuff on it that all
was that responsible were we being irresponsible like to to claim that when it was a hundred
percent true or was it irresponsible to claim that trump was colluding with Russia when it wasn't?
When you have video of Biden colluding with Ukraine, literally.
And you have emails of Hunter colluding with Ukraine and many other foreign countries,
China, where there was obviously a lot of money getting moved to the Biden family.
And it doesn't take a genius to figure that out. This is all public court records now,
but the media doesn't cover it. And OK, we're a business show. So like,
what does that do with business? Well, you know, when news is censored and when Facebook,
a social channel where a lot of business gets transacted, a lot of ads are run by clients
and they don't think something you're doing is responsible.
Air quotes, if you're watching on YouTube, which you should be, you'd see them.
It will have an impact on your business and them choosing, picking and choosing and censoring at will.
And so just know that and be aware of it
and proceed accordingly.
Social media is rented land.
It means you don't own it.
So you need to have them on your newsletter
that you control and your own website.
And that's your business advice of the day
because this is all rented land that can be pulled out from under you at any time.
So just be aware.
Much less that it can be censored or changed or altered at the whim of the government or anyone else.
So just be aware.
All right.
Record number of home deals collapsed in July amid high prices and election uncertainty.
There were 60,000 Americans canceled home deals in July due to high prices and election uncertainties.
There was a slight increase of 0.6 month to month, but down 2% year over year for existing home sales.
Pending sales fell to the lowest level since April of 2020. Average 30-year mortgage rates decreased to 6.5%, but buyers are hesitant waiting for further drops. Median sale prices rose 4% year over year to $439,000, the median average sales
price. Some buyers are delaying purchases due to uncertainty about the upcoming U.S. presidential
election. Home supply increased by 14% in July, offering more options to negotiating power for buyers. I put this up
over the weekend. I think I've talked about it on this show before, but I'll mention again,
since it's related to this article, I literally put it up. I sold a house in Greenville, South
Carolina. Love it. Yeah, that Greenville, come see us. We love you. We promote, wonderful place to live. Sold it for $495,000 in January of 2014.
$495,000, 500 grand.
That house sold last week for 1.3 with no upgrades, no additions, nothing new.
264% increase in 10 years.
Hello.
And I wrote, progress or problem? Question mark.
Look, hey, I mean, I wish I just kept it. I like to sold it for 1.3 today.
I like a nice little gain, but I'll put that to the side.
And even being, look, let's just say this.
I talk about these things. Ryan Alford's economics are fine,
but I know that this isn't good for us as a community as a whole, you know? And that's why
I raised the point. Like I've got rental properties. I got stuff like, you know, not immune,
but, but it doesn't change the fact that I scratched my head and just go, is,
but it doesn't change the fact that I scratch my head and just go, is that a good thing?
That house, it's exactly the same. The landscaping, no additions, nothing. It's just the exact same house from 10 years ago. And look, real estate's a great investment. I'm happy that investors can
make some money, but 300% in 10 years in Greenville, South Carolina, sorry, something
smells wrong. It's not a good thing, especially in business. And especially like all of us know,
like having employees and wanting your employees to be able to be happy and fruitful and be able
to buy a home and stay for longevity because they're comfortable and they have a home to live
in. That's a big problem. Like we need to be able to have, you know,
people that work for us who make, you know, decent money,
be able to buy a home.
Because right now to buy a home anywhere in the United States,
you're put, if you have like to save up a down payment
and it's not handed to you
and you don't have equity in a current home,
you have to be pushing $200,000
a year as a combined household to afford to buy a home anywhere. Yeah. It's crazy.
I talked to a buddy. I've got a lot of friends in the mortgage business.
It's all cash refinancing. No one's buying. People are pulling cash out. And I know even
down here in Miami, you know, I was doing some research this weekend. There's so many new developments going up that are in foreclosure. I'm talking huge, you know, high rises, apartments,
condos, even the single family homes. You've got people, okay, put it this way for your,
your more financially like 400,000 markets still okay. Cause people are still coming to Florida.
Yeah. But some of these higher price, the million and up, they're not okay. Cause people are still coming to Florida. Yeah.
But some of these higher price, the million and up, they're not moving.
And some of these houses, I'm not kidding.
Horrible part of town bars on the windows, a million dollars.
Like it's completely out of control. And that's where they're saying,
there's a collapse is coming. There's too much money in the market.
You have too much new housing going up and who's going to fill the demand.
I think it's more going to be the condo and apartment markets than the single
family that's going to get hit the most.
Kamala came out and said today,
she's going to put up 3 million and she's going to do like 3 million new
housing units.
If she gets elected,
build 3 million new houses.
Yeah.
Cool. Kamala. If she gets elected, build 3 million new houses. Yeah.
Cool, Kamala.
Sounds like something that a district attorney would be really good at,
constructing houses.
Why?
I don't think we have a shortage of housing.
Yeah.
Paris campaign releases ad with plans to build 3 million homes.
We have a shortage of affordable housing.
Affordable housing. Like what you just said,
how many of our friends can even afford to go buy a house now?
You know? Yeah, I don't know.
Half of them. Like, even
in my circle, probably.
Yeah. So,
most of them are locked already in,
but if, luckily
they bought houses, you know, seven,
eight years ago, ten years ago.
But if they had to go buy today, they couldn't afford it.
If they didn't already have equity in one or something.
So like, it's, yeah.
Like if, like, let's say the same, I think that house I sold has been sold three or four times now.
But say one person bought it for $495,000 and now we're sitting in it.
They go, oh, look at all this equity we got.
and bought it for $495,000.
And now we're sitting in it.
They're sitting there,
oh, look at all this equity we got.
But if they wanted to live in the same zip code or two in Greenville,
they're not getting more house.
They're going to go get less or the same house
because everything else costs more.
Well, and interest rates are so high,
so they'll be paying more.
And so I was trying to think,
I was thinking about this
and again, taking myself out of it,
like because I'm an entrepreneur,
I own multiple companies and I'm not sort of like in a salary position, but that house has gone up
262%. Has everyone that lives on that streets, has their income gone up 262%?
No. And our dollar value has gone down, right? Yeah. So that has to give somewhere at
some point, right? Okay. Well, you can say, well, new people moving in, old people moving out.
That's just, it's progress. That's just the way it works. And there's some, there's some truth to
that. I believe in capitalism. I'm not hating on anybody that's making the money on it. I'm just
sitting here though. Again, we take the BS out of business.
Just try to like talk about what these things mean.
Well,
I just paused to go.
It just doesn't seem like that's a good thing.
If it was 30 years,
fine,
but 300% two is our 10 is a lot.
Well,
one thing that I think we should really bring up,
sorry,
Chris,
I didn't mean to cut you off,
but is china buying
up land and buying up housing and housing units um i was talking to somebody in the construction
industry recently in greenville who said that um they sold a huge residential plot to a chinese
company so why are chinese companies coming to Greenville, South Carolina and buying up residential plots of land? Well, and also you could say BlackRock, right? Like the World Economic
Forum, Klaus Schwab, they've been saying, you'll own nothing, you'll be happy. This is the bigger
thing they're trying to do is you make owning anything, a house, a car so unaffordable that
everyone's a renter. And then you're easily controlled. You make buying a house so unaffordable
and that's what happened during the real estate boom,
2020, 2021.
Remember Zillow was going in and buying whole neighborhoods
to boost the valuations of the houses.
So you had private equity going in
and buying whole neighborhoods, inflating the costs.
And then now you have these neighborhoods with no tenants
and maybe three people that actually live there
who are, I guess, benefiting off the appreciation.
But I think you have all this empty inventory.
And to the Chinese point, I don't know.
It's concerning when you hear about the Chinese buying huge plots of land near our military bases.
Like, that's insane to me.
I know that was happening in Texas.
Why?
Why are we selling the Chinese government land right next to our military
bases? That seems utterly ridiculously stupid.
Yeah, I agree. I don't know. But-
And they need, you know what it is? They need food. China's running out of food.
They need our farmland to grow food for their own country too.
Yeah. Well-
What about our people, our food?
America first, baby. yeah well what about our people our food america first baby you know i just want to feed us that
process yeah i want to get my time's pushing it today so that mac and cheese i saw this
it's a good debate sorry sorry you have to weigh in on this. I think you're the only, are you a Gen Z-er, Sawyer?
I'm a cutoff.
Right on the cutoff.
Gen Z and, all right.
Gen Z workers are twice as likely to call in sick than boomers.
Interesting.
I know.
Gen Z workers average 14.3 sick days per year.
Baby boomers, 8.9.
Gen Z is perceived to feel more entitled to sick leave
compared to older generations
who may be less likely to take off.
It's, I don't know.
Maybe some of that's because of COVID too.
People got all weird about being sick.
I think it has a lot to do with COVID
because I'll tell you this,
being in the workforce prior to COVID,
I would go to work sick all the time,
like because I didn't have enough sick time or because I just didn't,
I had deadlines or whatever.
Like I would show up and I'd be like, yeah, I'm sick.
I don't feel good.
And people wouldn't bat an eye.
They'd be like, okay, whatever.
You're still at your desk.
They're not worried about it.
After COVID, it's like, God forbid,
you even come within 20 feet of somebody with a sniffle.
Yeah.
It's like, yo, are you sniffling?
Get away from me.
Yeah.
I think I'm more of like the,
that's where like we have just paid time off.
Like, well, it doesn't matter how you take it.
And then more of the type of,
if you give people flexibility they won't feel like they need to take fake sick days like hey if you don't feel bad because we work hybrid anyway and we're flexible if you don't have to
be somewhere then I choose I choose to believe that people will work even if they feel a little under the weather, if they've got flexibility when and how they do it.
So I think that might be.
And then I don't know.
Like, you know, this is speaking to, I think, more people that have to be in offices or at places, you know, physically, no matter what.
This is the averages and like some of the stuff. I think there's like a totally different,
you know,
thing between the type of work that we do and being able to work anywhere from
your computer and have that flexibility and like,
you know,
having to be in a business working,
whether,
you know,
you're the lunch lady at a school or your teacher or whatever it is,
you know,
there's going to be where you have to take more time off work than
somebody who has the flexibility of working remote. I was, I totally, and I do think there's
this in my generation and ones before it, I think there was sort of, it may have been imbalanced.
I'm not saying it was the exact way it should have been. This isn't me like
the way that we came up is better. The way it is now is not, it's more, but here's the thing.
There was a pride of hard work at the company and devotion to the company.
And that was part of your identity is.
And I think, hey, to say 25, not 20, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 17 years ago, to say I work at Google and, you know, pulled it all weekender was the source of pride.
Working at a cool company, you had a lot of pride in that company and you worked your ass off and it was cool.
And I take pride in my identity in that work.
It's not that way today. I don't think.
I feel the same way. And it's not just the work-life balance. I get that we've evolved as human beings and we put more.
I do too. I have more work, I believe in it.
But even putting the work-life balance over here,
the pride and sort of the identity being in your work
is definitely less than when I came up.
Yeah.
I think it's a culture shift.
Because I think even when I was in college,
the hustle culture, right?
Gary Vee that that whole
yeah movement and even and I think some of its company culture the company I went to work for
had a great culture where I was like I was bought in right this is my first medical sales job I was
getting up at four in the morning driving three hours grinding and I remember being sick many
times popping mucinex in the car, walking in doctors,
whatever, which looking back, it's like post COVID, you would never do that. You never walk
sick into a doctor's office. But at the time I was like, I need to prove myself. The company
didn't give a shit. Like they don't give a shit if you're taking sick days at sales. And I was a
commission guy. But you're right. The younger generation seems a lot more about the balance and self-care and give myself grace.
But I think for me, looking from my own experience, it was the companies I was working for.
And I think you hear this a lot where people don't feel companies care as much for them now as maybe 30 years ago.
You could work 40 years at Ford and get stock options and retire.
The loyalty is in there
with the individual companies anymore.
People aren't staying as long.
Their identity, I think,
is not as revolved around the company
or their job as them as an individual.
I think it's a whole shift happening.
Yeah.
And I don't know if it's chicken or the egg
because I would,
I've been on all sides of that
because I worked for,
before I started my own companies,
I worked for 15 years for other people.
I'm not a lifelong entrepreneur. I worked 15 years for four different companies so I've been on both sides of the fence and I don't know if the employers shifted first
or the employees did I don't know the answer to that to your point Chris of saying well
employers don't care as much you you know, or if the employees
started becoming less loyal and the employers were like, well, fuck it. Then if that's the way
it's going to be, then we're going to shift our, I don't know which one of those came first or if
it was just a natural thing. I do think work-life balance is important. And let's be real.
You have all these influencers, right?
How many videos you've seen?
Oh, I work at Facebook.
This is a day in the life of my life.
And it's like vacation, right?
You have Google where you can go take a nap
in the nap pod for an hour
and you're getting catered every meal
where it's like, that's also not realistic.
And I think that's what people were seeing.
Well, no, like Eric Schmidt
or one of the other founders like came out and said, you know, he doesn't work there anymore.
And he's like, we stopped caring about winning and started caring about employee health and culture.
And we've suffered because of it.
Right.
Like the culture used to be about winning and being first and being best.
And then it became about, OK, nap pods and, and, you know, free lunch.
And he,
he wasn't suggesting that there shouldn't be a balance of those two things,
but that the pendulum had swung a little too far.
Yeah, definitely.
I think that the pendulum has swung too far and to the point of like, you know, there are sometimes situations where people, you know, they really want to be incentivized to do more.
And, you know, realizing that the incentive, like the incentive to do more should come when you do more.
Yeah. Well, and I think incentives have dropped too,
in general, right? Like I've asked you my experience with some companies,
say they cut the commissions
where you're, all right, well, I'm going to make less money.
That makes it a lot harder to be excited
in where I'm going to go to war for these people
when they're cutting your pay, you know?
I think the instincts are also different
because like my instincts for growth and sniffing out things, I didn't need validation.
I didn't need to know exactly what I was going to get for what I did.
I just had a nose to know that if I did positive things, I think this is going to work out, and it did.
And now that might have been blind on some level.
And you go, well, that's not smart. But I don't think that sort of, and I'm not blanketing everyone into the same cloth,
but I just don't think there's that instinctual drive like that as much.
Well, I think, too, the other thing I would say from an inflation standpoint
is businesses are
in such a bind with inflation being as high as it is, right? Like you're trying to make payroll,
you're trying to give people, you know, quarterly, not quarterly, yearly raises, and you're trying to
deal with supply issues and, you know, materials costing more and the rent on your building
costing more and inflation of goods and services.
So then of course your,
your incentives are going to be the first thing to go.
Yeah.
It's a complex thing.
Any thoughts you want to throw in on this sawyer as the lone Gen Z-er?
No,
I think all those things are,
are true, especially people being disillusioned with their companies and not feeling like they're going to be taken care of long term.
Like amongst, I don't know, like retirement and stuff isn't the same as it used to be.
Social security isn't what it used to be.
Good points.
Complex subjects. social security isn't what it used to be good points complex subjects
don't think we're falling on one side or the other
other than hey there's evolution
and change and you gotta gotta be aware
of the new mindsets and things with how you manage
people
I think that's all for today
any final words
Brianna, Chris
go Tigers
hey I like it already.
Hey, you're figuring things out quick.
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