BUSINESS NEWS & TRENDS: The Rise of Trading Cards - Trump's address to Congress - Skype's Discontinuation

Hey guys, on today's episode of Right About Now, we've got your weekly business news highlights. We've got six big takeaways from Trump's speech to Congress.
We'll call it a speech address, whatever you want. We've also talked about, hey, you guys heard of Skype? What's going away in May? Don't Skype no more.
Again, we're going to talk about tariffs, the impact to the U.S., the stock market, and all the latest hits here on Right About Now. 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 six 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 here on March 7th, 2025. Joined, as always, by my good friend, Chris Hansen.
What's up, Chris? What's up, brother? How are you today? I am fantastico here on a Friday.

It is. We're grinding through March already.
February was a flash. March is here.
Spring has sprung, and hey, the news must be told. Spring has sprung.
The spring sling. yes all the

spring get

togethers

the outings

the 60 to

70 degrees the uh the spring sling yes uh all the uh spring get togethers the outings the 60 to 70 degree

weather that's wonderful all you know the everything turning green we get rid of some of this gray around here i need some trees to have some green back on them you know i don't know how do it

everything's

24-7

like Miami

no

actually

we

we had

we did have some overcast yesterday we had one of those days yesterday was like couldn't decide if it wanted to rain or not and i'll tell you it's a dull vibe in the city when it's gray in miami people don't know what to do with themselves. Yeah, I'm sure.

It's supposed to always be sunny and hot and awesome in Miami.

Sunshine State.

Yeah.

Well, you got all the people that move there for that,

and then the tourists, and it's constantly coming through there.

Like at any given time, I know you're kind of in a quasi-neighborhood-y.

Not tourist area.

Not tourist area. But you're around it enough.
Like, does it always feel like 50-50? 50, or does it feel more tourists? Oh, no. I think where I'm at, it feels like 90-10.
People that live there? There's a few Airbnbs and, like, some hotels, but, yeah, I feel local midtown right yeah if you go across the beach i mean if you're by the hotels yeah it's gonna be all like it's gonna be probably more like 60 40 tourists if we're on the beach side yeah sunny miami a. A lot of pale British brits in Germany.
I've heard of my tail. Pale or extremely sunburned.
Yeah, exactly. One or the other.
Yeah. That's how you can tell.
Yeah. That's some poor schlep that is a tourist, falls asleep.
He's got the red, you know, the skin ton. I always see that guy at the pool or whatever.
It's one of those Mai Tais at Fountain Blue.

Yeah.

How do you do, Vinny?

Kicking him back.

You know how it is.

Oh, I know.

I know how it is.

We appreciate everyone for listening or watching.

Go check us out on YouTube or you can always watch us on Spotify.

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So thanks for choosing us with your time and attention. We've got our weekly news here, Chris.
We had Trump's address to Congress, which a lot of business impact from that. I think two things are always interesting to me about that, about those, no matter what it is.
Like, okay, when it was Biden, the political theater that remains, even after the public has sort of told people that we're kind of over this shit and the politics of it all. but the whole theater, and I call it theater, and I call it entertainment to a degree because it's all very serious topics.
We'll start there. But then the whole polarization of the room, clapping or not clapping based on party divide is so high school.
It's so high school. It's so juvenile.

It's like grow up. And look, it goes both sides.
This is not a, when Biden was in office, the Republicans did it. Now that Trump's in office.
I feel it's generational almost at this point. All of us are just like, come on.
Everyone in the room is over 60 years old. We can't clap for a disabled child.
You know what I mean? Everyone can't clap for that. We can't all support that.
You're right. The boomers, man.
There's a lot of data coming out. They're not very happy people.
Yeah. I wonder why.
Say why? There actually was reasons. It was part of the way they grew up, but also the economy they grew up in.
But there was a study on basically how willing you to leave money for your family. And it asked boomers, millennials, and Gen Zers.
And millennials and Gen Z were like 50% plus. Like, yes, I want to leave money.
I want to help my kids. Boomers were more like, I want to spend it before I die.
Like heavily in like 70%. Oh man, my parents are boomers.
You know, I guess they're not going to leave me anything. I don't want to be mean.
I see it in my folks. I see it in my folks.
I'm trying to, I'm not really counting on your own way. It was a different time.
Things have changed. But the theater of the whole thing is sad.
Are we going to repeat history? Are the 30 and 40 year olds going to do the same shit 20 years from now? Can we just get to a better system and a less, I get that the two parties balance each other out. You've got the yin and the yang and I get why we developed the system, but that's just broken when you can't clap for the kid with cancer, like you mentioned, and just some very obvious things that should not be politicized, you know, and it's just ugly.
It's just it's not even, I don't know, humane. I don't even.
It's barbaric. Yeah.
It's not diplomatic. It's not.
It's not. Cuth.
It's barbaric. It's not diplomatic.

It's not couth.

I don't even know if that's the right word.

You know what I mean?

It's just so...

We need to clean it up and get it

more professional again with respect

and dignity, really.

Imagine if our kids did that.

The whole classroom

was divided in two and only supported

presentation yeah and half the class is like yeah exactly and would we support that would that would that be acceptable behavior no it wouldn't be acceptable for children and these are elected politicians.

Term limits.

Term limits.

We need them.

Term limits and new ideas. And so a lot of that was shared.
I mean, the biggest part, I think, to me is like the taxes. Trump talking about tax cuts.
And, you know, I'll say this. We talked about a lot with the dosing and Musk.
If you're going to give tax cuts, it's got to come from somewhere. At least we're starting with the cuts, you know, with finding waste.
And then, you know, like we can actually do some tax cuts if we can cut $2 trillion in waste, right? Well, it's like I think about it on a micro level, right? In my own life, I had a conversation with a buddy about just credit card subscriptions, right? All these things we sign up for every month and we forget about. And there was one of these apps, I forget the name, but it'll tell you which ones you're paying for every month and you can cancel it.
They'll do it for you. That's essentially what we're doing.
But if you want to budget, you're going to go for that first. Let's go for the waste.
Where is the spending that I might not be completely aware of that's happening that isn't part of my daily life? It makes sense, right? We do it in our own life. Why is it so freaking crazy that we're doing it on the government level? yep so we we're cutting lots of DEI.
I mean, that's a hot topic. Like, I just...
I didn't realize how much money we spent on it. Did you? Like, I would have never guessed.
Yeah. Like, I...
They sneak it in those bills. Are we not further along than this, that we, that we need to pay homage to certain groups versus hiring who's best at the job? Like, and I know that it can be polarizing for, you know, white male to say something like that in potentially, but I'm just like, I don't look through that lens.

I just look at my friends, my workers, whatever. You're either worthy of my friendship or you're worthy of a job because of your merits.
I don't care what diversity or ethnicity. And I think most Americans, there's still pockets, but I think most people know how to judge like characteristics of people that are not their heritage or their skin color and to set policies and continue to like go down these roads.
I know it can be perceived as like, oh, it's easy for you to say that, but no, it's just, I just feel like that's the sentiment that I get being like attached to like small business, whatever. Like I was going to say that's your lived experience.
And that's mine as well. That's what I was going to say is no part of me has ever cared what color, what country, what your first language is of anybody in any employment situation.
I've worked with people in all types of jobs from all over the world. I don't give a shit.
I've met awesome people from everywhere. I like the people that do the work and do a good job.
If you're worthy of my friendship or I am worthy of yours, it's a two-way street. And same thing with work.
If you can provide value to me and vice versa, that's what matters. I have a great example of sipping.
We're in social media, right? You have a digital marketing agency, tons of people we know in this game. How many people have part of their team in the Philippines? Vietnam, right? They've adapted.
They learned a skill. And they can do it at a competitive rate.
It's as simple as that. Yeah.
It's like you get good at something, people will come to you. Exactly.
No part of me cares, oh, I want to go work with someone in the Philippines. I don't think you or I give a shit what country it is.
It's like they do a good job and they do it for a good price. Yep.
I don't care what color they are, what language they speak. Where's the DEI in that situation? No one twisted our hand to start working with companies in the Philippines at times, you know? No, exactly.

Like, I love, we work with lots of people in the Philippines.

Joel and his team help our team for years.

Most trustworthy, greatest.

But honestly, I don't care about, like, the first, the first, the Philippine.

Like, all I care about, trustworthy, reliable.

And does a good job.

And does a good job.

And I will say the only thing that I will say as a small business owner in the industries that we're in,

I don't get a lot of diverse candidate pools. Like I don't have a lot of people apply, like as many.
Now, maybe it's – so that I would – if we could do things to encourage that, maybe getting more diversity within certain industries, like I can support that, but I'm not going to hire them for the sake of diversity. Well, and you need to keep in mind percent of population, right? Yeah.
And being a small business that has 10 or fewer employees, it sort of falls with the reality of I don't hire that many people that often. It's just statistics.
Yeah, it's just statistics models, unfortunately. So I'd get behind getting more candidates sometimes.
I'd love that. But I just want the best candidates, you know, for what I have.
You certainly do. I know you don't give a care.
You want the job done. Yeah, man.
I'm very practical in this. It's black and white and not color.
As business should be. It's just yes, no, good, bad.
Are you adding value or not? Money, dreams. Yeah.
I don't know, man. I choose to believe that we reflect the majority in that opinion.
And so gutting some of these DEI programs that just feel like the premise was wrong, maybe to begin with, it's like maybe intentions were right. But like anything, once you start to sort of divide the line, you have to protect the line.
And so once you make the stand of the DEI thing, you go to the ends of the earth to protect it, to do these programs, to do all that. And then it's just all about protecting what's there, not necessarily if the premise was right to begin with.
I also think it was set up, it's corporate stuff. like you go to any small, medium-sized business center and have these conversations, it would be like you and I.
It would just be like, I don't even think about this. Just I look at applications and whoever's a candidate I'll talk to.
And if they're good, they get the job, right? This is like government people making laws related to their government jobs that then then impact everyone else that it really, this isn't even a topic for, in my experience. Yeah.
And I mean, the big thing with tariffs, you know, I think this is still negotiation. We're still pushing like to the brink here, I know, with Canada and Mexico.
I have a feeling that that will probably work itself out yeah let's like two months from now if these are in place and we're truly feeling it on every level okay we'll have that conversation and what it means or doesn't mean I still feel like we're playing a game of chicken here uh and negotiation China's a whole different thing with a whole lot of different impacts because they are an adversary versus, you know, Canada and Mexico are allies for the most part, you know. They don't have much of a military.
Yeah. We are their military.
We are their military and we would protect them. And so, but there's still the realities of the economics of all this stuff.
And it needs to be in line with the baseline reality of how much importing export. Like, it's just like, it's equity here.
Like we've been paying some of these fees and different things in Europe and all these other countries for so long. I think it's hard to, it's interesting.
I saw Warren Buffett, you know, had a comment and this is where I think, you know, it's a calculated comment. It's like he was asked about, you know, the terror of some of the things Trump's doing.
He's like, my only question is, is what I ask myself when I make decisions to what end like what's the end game so he said I don't I don't pretend to he was implying that he didn't know necessarily every move that Donald was making and to what end was it leading which I think is a fair thing to say. I think...

Yeah.

I mean, he's not a member of the government.

He doesn't know what the military is doing, right?

Yeah.

And I think we can all agree a stronger America is a better America.

So if we can do that with as little pain as possible,

but even if there's a little bit of pain,

I think we can all support that that's necessary. I mean, instead of tariffs in the old days, they had war, right? So this is a better alternative.
The whole, I mean, it's not business related. I thought about not even bringing it up.
It happened in between last week and this week, but the whole Zelensky debacle on television.

I mean, I didn't really like that being,

I don't think it was good for really anyone personally.

I thought that we, Trump is playing a bigger role here.

And again, I think maybe the ends are the right way. I just didn't like that being aired.

That was just my personal, at all. Even if it sort of reflected the position, the strength, the position of strength that we should have, and that we shouldn't just keep sending suitcases of cash over to Ukraine with no end in sight.

I can agree with the policy and the end goal without necessarily liking the way it's all been, I don't know, spewed over television. I think he looks like an idiot.
Who? Zielinski. Yeah.
It just, you got a lot of pissed off American taxpayers already, especially as more of this, the Doge stuff is coming undone and more of those inefficiencies are coming out. And then, you know, it kind of just, it's like, give a mouse a cookie.
He doesn't want a glass of milk. He just came out very like, well, we need more and you don't care.
Kind of threatening in a way too. So I agree.
I don't think it was probably conducive for everyone, but it probably also made public opinion about that war and not in a positive light. I don't think that helped Ukraine.
Yeah. No.
But I mean, did you like, even if Zelensky was like an idiot and looked like overplaying his hand, but did you love that all being aired, that discussion? No, I think that should have just been a private conversation. Yeah, that's right.
That's where I even think there's theatrics and all that, you know i think it's purposeful obviously i mean look they don't let anything out they don't want to get out so cameras are rolling things are shared i get why they aired it right yeah but i don't know it didn't make me feel good inside you know no i don't think so you know it's like when you're at the grocery store and all of a sudden you hear people arguing you're like uh not here not now come on guys you know you're just like I don't yeah it's just a vibe kill it's not good it's not it's not conducive right it just was very argumentative and tit for tat. It's like ego

clashing. Great.
Let's find seats.

That's kind of what it felt like more than anything.

It was all bravado. A lot of bravado.

On both sides.

Inflation and energy policy.

Trump blamed Biden for

high egg prices and pledged to tackle

inflation through oil and gas

drilling.

Drill, baby, drill.

There's still no eggs at the Trader Joe's near my house for months now.

Really?

No.

You cannot get eggs.

There's no...

What about other grocery stores?

Yeah, if you go to other grocery stores for whatever reason,

like Publix, but even Publix, they have a limited supply,

not much organic at all.

And then Trader Joe's, literally there's zero cartons of eggs for, I want to say at least the last two months. And there's only like those microwave, like egg, egg bites.
Yeah. Well, so all those Trader Joe's, I can't get that organic or whatever.
Make that on. Is Trader Joe's all organic no okay not all uh skype no more skype i mean this i saw this and i was like i was not surprised i used to but i haven't used it the whole time when was the last time you used skype we use it every friday you know when we catch up on the phone right other than those sky those Skype video calls we do.
I haven't used Skype probably since I was like 2005. Yeah.
I had to sort of like go look when I saw this article and go, when's the last time I even... Now, your phone offboards apps you don't use.
And Skype was definitely in the land uh the land of misfit apps undownloaded yeah the big question mark on where the app spot is on your phone you're like oh let's not use that in a while you know i mean facetime and google meets zoom yeah so if you're listening and you're using Skype, it's time to move, baby.

Move.

And if you are listening and you're still using Skype,

I have some other concerns for you as well.

Yes.

You should definitely listen to our show more often.

Yeah.

We use Zoom and Slack.

Google Meets.

Slack, Google Meets.

We use Teams occasionally on calls calls depending on the client uh or i would i would actually argue that the dms of all the social media apps that probably killed skype as much as anything right yeah skype was was more consumer based and i think most of the DMing stuff like the business stuff like Zoom and other ones.

It was international community. more consumer-based than I think most of the DMing stuff, like the business stuff, like Zoom and other ones.

It was international communication.

It's how he's talking to my family in Europe.

Yep.

And now WhatsApp.

I mean, WhatsApp pretty much killed it.

Oh, they own the international market.

Yeah.

I mean, anyone ever sees their own WhatsApp for the most part.

All my friends outside the US are disgusted that we use iMessage. WhatsApp is like number one, always.
Start market is actually up, at least here on recording day, after the news, some of the jobs market stuff. Small business, super small business is down.
Medium-solid business kind of up.

Service business is up. We talked about the impact of AI and jobs last week.
I think the jobs, jobs is a metric of overall economic, you know, standing of the whole country is going to be an interesting one to monitor because of the impact that we know and have said that AI will have. The net is probably going to be fewer.
It just depends on where these kind of jobs migrate to, like we talked to. It's not good.
It's not the AI is not taking your job. It's people that use AI is going to, are going to take your jobs.
So it will be interesting. This, the segments, the switches of, you know, someone that used to do this, that gets in, that gets on the bus, the AI bus, understanding, leveraging it, learning it, where that job exists, you know, in the future may not be in the exact same category.
So, and we'll, it's also never been seemingly more, I don't know, easy to be an entrepreneur and to be your own boss. There's just so many damn ways that you can leverage the economy of, I don't know, the gig economy.
And so many different ways, like with the internet and social media and all this stuff. I don't know that it has to be your day job, but to not be dabbling in it just in case.
I just can't imagine with all the tools there are, right?

Yeah.

I mean, I tell people this all the time.

I mean, we say this all the time.

Like if you're a business owner, you should be building a brand on social media.

Whatever that is, whatever business, pick a platform.

I would say even if you're cleaning pools,

shoot TikToks of you cleaning pools

and educate people on pool cleaning.

Yeah.

There's guys I follow for content like that.

You know what I mean?

It's like, I would never think I want to follow someone like that

until it comes across the feed and you're like,

oh, that's interesting.

You know?

Yep. The world's a big place.
Just put yourself out there. Anything else big hitting your radar this week, Chris? I mean, crypto's obviously still not moving much.
We can do a little quick analysis on that. Yeah.
It was like, okay, it's been down, down, down. We had a little shoot up i was like okay we're back baby and then boom you know yeah all off so it's sitting around 93 900 you know it's better than it was but yeah the big thing was a bitcoin federal reserve right that we would essentially now have a new reserve of cryptocurrencies.
And he named a list. It was XRP, Solana, I think Ethereum, Bitcoin.
So the market did pump, went up a little bit kind of on that news and stabilize. And it's kind of still teetering a little bit down right now.
So not much price action, but I mean, short term, it's a roller coaster but long term I would I'd still get in line and get on the ride. Yeah, my XRP, like playing with my emotion, it's like literally- It was a tease.
It looks like this. And then the net net is like 3% difference week over week.
From Friday to Sunday, it basically went up like 20%.

And then now it's probably back down like 10, 15%.

Yeah, it's up like 3 or 4% overall.

Anyone that follows my Instagram, I posted a chart yesterday.

It shows from 2020 and compared to 2025.

And history repeats itself.

It's looking good.

So, bye.

Bye now.

Bye low.

Bye the wave.

I just need that XRP to jump, baby.

Got a lot of eggs in that basket.

You know, I can't keep it.

There's no clear unicorn right now.

It's not Doge or whatever. All these things seem to be riding the same curves.
I'll go look at the biggest gainers of the day trying to find the winner and then watch it for a couple days and then it's the biggest loser two days later. It's like the NBC special.
Biggest winner, biggest loser. Biggest winner, biggest loser.
Come on. Win, baby, win.
I got to get something

on this horse.

Spread the love. Be diversified.

I know.

What's the Miami vibe

these days? Miami business vibe?

There's a lot going on. You know, springtime

is here. As Ryan

mentioned, AI's freaking blown up.

I mean, even I've been going

pretty deep down the rabbit hole the last couple of weeks with Grok and ChatGPT. It's pretty wild how much time you can spend, but down here in Miami at District 5, they're having a free accelerator course on AI.
If you're a business owner, entrepreneur, you want to learn some more of the platforms, apps, ways you can use this in your business. I think it's up until May 25.
So Google that District 5 AI accelerator. If you're a business owner, like we said, learn this or you're going to be hiring someone that does know it.
So it's an every minute easier time. Even I can tell the last three days, four days.
Once you learn how to like, say, ChatGPT or Grok, the prompts, you can use it for anything, any question you have, anything. I don't even use Google anymore.
I go straight to this. It's way more informative.
But I totally agree on the AI, Chris. Like, it's sort of like muscle memory.
You got to keep doing it, remembering, and, like, the applications are greater than you might think you can generate content you got to sit down like you're learning a new video game you know exactly everything's pretty user-friendly that i've experienced and it becomes quite intriguing because you start to realize wow this is extremely efficient i do a lot with this. And you kind of go like down the rabbit hole of exploration, which is fun.
Yeah, exactly. So if you've been following along, we're about to start a series, actually.
I'm getting all the players in the sports card game trading cards. Sorry, Pokemon.
When I say sports card, that doesn't include you. but I do mean to include you.
Those Pokemon people, man, are crazy.

It's one thing sports cards, Chris, but Pokemon,

those guys doesn't run you over.

I've been at the Walmart, got ran over by a kid.

Like, hey, he wanted that Pokemon pack, dude.

Like, hey, look out.

I'll smack you right in the...

I wouldn't smack a kid. I'd shake one, but I wouldn't smack him.
Hit the Walmart. Like, dude, it's like running in here like hordes.
Gotta get those Pokemon, bro. Yes, I know.
Just trying to make that money like you. Yeah, no.
We have got to go to BreakingRad.com. You'll see the boys and I have set up the site.
Go check out that. Sign up for our email list.
We're going to be putting all of our best cards up there for sale. It's part of the Rad Collective, Chris.
You see these hologram stickers you already got here. You know, this is legit.

The Rad Collective.

I'm not playing around.

Hey, I can't wait around for this crypto market.

I got to go where the money is.

The sports cards.

I'm going to be gambling.

I'm going to at least get to open something.

But crypto, you know, they may say that digital stuff is as good as physical.

I don't know.

I need some like real action in my life. This is like legal gambling for children and adults.
That's why we've got our good friends at Donruss. Good friends at Donruss and Panini.
One of one million different types of packs. Let's see what we get today, Chris.
Are you feeling lucky? Yeah, lucky. You got to watch this on YouTube.
If you're listening, I'll give you a little ASMR. I think today will be a good day for ripping packs.
It was good last time, man. I got like $200 on there, so maybe this will be a good plug.
I'm going to plug in today. Yeah, exactly.
Let's get in here. Get our Burberry glasses in on the picture.
So you always start with these base cards that aren't really worth much. They're kind of fun.
You got a 2A. That's fun.
But you're really trying to get to the good stuff like this sweater that's Kate Stover's. Like these are called patches essentially he's got material from either like game worn uniforms or other things related to the team so Cade Stover rookie for the Houston Texans I almost called them the Houston Olders I'm showing my age a little bit.
So these are fun cards. Maybe a $5 card.

Xavier Leggett played at South Carolina.

Jordan Morgan, Courtland Sutton.

So your hit of that pack is the sweaters, Chris.

Wouldn't you want your own trading card where, you know,

a Houston Texans sweater that you had, like, gets to be featured in?

It's kind of thick.

Kind of cool. nice feature my kids would be excited about that pick about that pack because you get the whole sweater in and all that so we'll do one more bonus pack just for everyone here you know you gotta watch this on youtube get the full effect go.com.
You can see all of our cards for sale. And links to our WhatNot channel where we're going to be doing live breaks.
Do that ASMR for you one more time. See, I mean, don't you want to hear that pack opening, Chris? I do if there's money in it.
Oh, there's money, baby. There's money.
Hey, old Barry Sanders. It's not old, though.
Just a base card. These are base cards.
And Julius Pepper's old school. Oh, look at there.
That looks like Baker Mayfield. Old card.
That would be one. You've got Javon Baker, Edron Cooper.
This would be called the SoSoPak, Chris. That's a SoSoPak.
It's a good friend for two. Anyway, check it out, BreakingRad.com.
Chris, any final words today? Everyone enjoy the start of spring. Get out there, get some sunlight, Get some sunshine.
Get your feet in the grass. Exactly.
Get out there. Hey, let's not make it left and right.
Let's make it, you know, about humans. Yeah.
Humanity, not politics. Policies, not politics.
We appreciate you. We appreciate our sponsors, Independent Center, center and of course exponent go to independent center.org plug in your email that's where you get the true policies and not the partisan politics and of course exponent powers me and powers the show we appreciate them and we most certainly appreciate you for ch Chris Hansen in Miami.
I'm Ryan Alford from here at our studios at Social House in Greenville, South Carolina.

We'll see you next time on Right About Now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford,

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Thanks for listening.