Right About Now with Ryan Alford - What Second-Order Effects From the Iran War and AI Mean for Your Business | Ben Johnston with Kaptus

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

In this episode of Right About Now, Ryan Alford sits down with Ben Johnston to explore the current state of the economy and what it means for small business owners. The conversation covers inflation, interest rates, global conflict, and supply chain disruption, offering a grounded perspective on how these forces are shaping business conditions today. Ryan and Ben also discuss the growing role of AI, including how it’s improving efficiency, reducing labor needs, and enabling more individuals to launch businesses independently. Whether you're running a business or tracking economic trends, this episode provides practical insight into navigating uncertainty and staying competitive. 🔑 Topics Covered Economic conditions affecting small businesses Inflation, interest rates, and consumer spending Global supply chain challenges and disruptions AI’s role in business operations and workforce changes Solopreneur growth and lean business models Strategic advice for business owners

Right now, I don't see AI making huge changes in the construction industry just yet. Where I see it taking effect first will be maybe in the automation of billing and the automation of accounting services, maybe the ability to target market more effectively to prospective customers or manage accounts, taking away some of the office busy work. In the not too distant future, you could really see robotics. start to come into the picture. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a radcast network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month.

Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cash in checks? Well, it starts right about now. There's a lot of noise right now around that you, U.S. conflict with Iran. But the real question is what it actually means for businesses here in the U.S. We're seeing rising energy costs, supply chain pressure, AI, and a lot of uncertainty around things and where they go next. Ben Johnston is the chief operating officer at Capitas, and he has a front row seat. Now businesses are reacting in real time. Ben, welcome. It's right about now. When we look at

what's happening with the U.S. and Iran, what actually matters economically? What's overblown, what's real, what's happening here that we need to be informing our listeners about? Even before the war, it was already sort of a challenging time for the economy, for small businesses in particular, which is what capitalist is focusing on every single day. We had a pretty volatile tariff strategy going on for the last year. Those changes were happening throughout the year, and then big changes this spring as well. It's still a lot of uncertainty around that, then you're operating in an environment with somewhat elevated inflation rates, but certainly elevated interest rates relative to where we had been a few years ago. You're in a

slowly rising unemployment area where unemployment has risen about 100 basis points from its lows of a couple of years ago. That's all leading up to the Warren Rand, which now is really causing disruption and spikes in obviously in energy prices. Gasoline prices are up 30 plus percent. Natural gas prices are up 10 percent. And if you're a farmer, your fertilizer prices are up 30 to 50 percent, maybe more for certain types of fertilizers. There's a lot of additional stress that's now being dumped onto the American consumer and the American small business owner that they have to grapple with both leading up to this conflict and now that the conflict has taken place. When you guys analyze this, is it strictly from the small business perspective? What has happened

thus far? The impact is X. Do you guys do any kind of prognostication of the future effects or where it looks like it's headed? Gas is up. All those things you said are true. What gives you hope and what gives you not hope about where this is headed? Oh, it always gives me hope when there's so much uncertainty. Let's be honest, ever since COVID, the last five years, we've been living through a tremendous amount of economic uncertainty. Small businesses have had to react to that. I have found small business owners to be some of the most creative and resilient people that you could imagine. They're constantly changing their business models to take advantage of a need in the market, changing their pricing strategies, to adjust to changes in demand. They have proven to be

incredibly resilient, incredibly creative. People think that oil prices are going to be high for a long period of time. That's going to change consumer behavior. Our small businesses can react to that. Start putting lower cost products into the market, thinking about where the customer is headed, finding more energy efficient solutions, things like that. That makes me very optimistic. On the pessimistic side, I am worried that there's another shoe to drop in the Saran conflict, in that we have been living in a world where the supply chain has remained largely intact ever since the start of the war. A lot of the goods that were shipped out of the Strait of Harmuz are still en route. This week and next week, most of those ships are landing in their ports

where they were expected to land. After they land, there really aren't going to be more ships coming in large numbers out of the Strait of Hormuz until we find. some solution to this problem. What that potentially means is that a lot of the countries that depend more heavily on petroleum products, but other products manufactured there to keep their economies afloat and produce goods that we need here in the United States six months from now when they are manufactured and exported to us, some of those goods may not be able to be manufactured, some of those people may not be able to live the lives that they have been set up to live. And that potential disruption, I don't think we understand the second order effects of what

may come as a result of that. That's something we need to be prepared for. This has been going on for multiple weeks now. It trickle down. You don't feel the water leaking in your roof until it gets through four layers of wood. But then it drops the bomb on you. Are we at a stage if this thing gets wrapped up over the next few weeks to a month where that GD could go back in the bottle a bit where you'll have effects, but if things could get rolling, we'll have a short-term impact, but potentially still a great year. Yeah, the stock market certainly thinks so. You took your words out of my mouth, I was kind of headed there. I've been absolutely amazed at how the markets seem to view this as a secondary effect, maybe not a primary effect on the U.S. economy.

that may have something to do with the fact that the United States is probably in a better position to weather this crisis than almost anyone else out there because we are net energy exporters and we are able to produce not only oil and gas, but we're able to secure a decent amount of fertilizer and other important raw materials. When there's a limited amount of goods in the market, we are able to pay top dollar to secure our access to those goods. The rest of the world doesn't necessarily have those luxuries. I'm specifically worried about a lot of countries in Africa and Asia who need to import most

of their fossil fuels in order to operate their economies and are heavily dependent on some of the raw materials that come out of the Gulf in order to manufacture their products. It feels to me like the U.S. economy is continuing to charge along under the expectation that we will be able to meet our needs, even if they cost more, and that maybe some other impacts from advances in AI and other technology innovations are actually driving the stock market more than the underlying economic conditions that the average American is living through is driving the stock market. I do have a lot of concern about what will happen to the rest of the world. if there's dislocation and chaos in the rest of the world, how that will come back to roost here in the United States over time.