Cyber Monday Smashes Records, Ryan Declares War on Elf on the Shelf, and Social Media Crackdown for Teens!

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 caching checks? Well, it starts right about now. Welcome to December. It is right about now. It is Friday, December 6, 2024. Ho, ho, ho. Brianna, what's up? Hey. No Chris today. Just us. Low under the weather. Hats off or shout out. Whatever you do to someone sick. Get well soon, bud. Yeah, pat him on the back with the broom. Yeah, food poisoning's no fun. So our thoughts with Chris. Just Brianna and I today here in G Vegas. That's Greenville, South Carolina to anyone who doesn't know. Great place to be. Just come visit. You have to stay though. We want you to visit. So Brianna, we like to, we want it heard to stay. Yeah. It's, uh, how's it been? Okay, you're, you're almost six months, right? Five, six months. You have amnesia of timelines as well. Almost around, uh, I mean, so five or six months. Okay. Yeah. What's up? What, you know, Brianna moved from California to South Carolina. So, you know, one of those migrators that, you know, can't blame her. You know, who? Just saying. There's so many things that, you know, are amazing here. Um, things that, you know, we didn't have in California. Um, kind people. Um, lack of homeless people. Um, clean streets, you can walk down in the city and feel safe. And that's great. Um, but yeah, I'm definitely getting used to it. Um, and ready to explore kind of more parts of the state. Do you think it's, if I can imagine the family side of it. You know, missing family, support and all that. If you could extract that, do you feel like it's better? I do. And I think if you ask my husband, my husband's much less emotional. And he like loves it. He thinks it's so much better. I'm definitely struggling with a family piece. I really miss my family. I really miss my mom. Um, and so I'm more emotional. You know that. Yeah. Exactly. Women are more emotional, typically. Yeah. I've met some that aren't. But, you know, my wife's not too emotional. I don't deal with emotion that well. Most men don't. Yeah. Unless I'm being emotional. You know, that's how it works like for men, right? Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So, you know, it is, it is better, I think, like in terms of certain things. Um, I really like my kids school. I like, you know, that they learn about, you know, Jesus and that they have a relationship. My son is, you know, praying at the dinner table every night. And I love that. Um, you know, we're just getting, we're still getting the swing of things though. Yeah. Trying to figure out where everything's at. I was angry last weekend when we went to get a Christmas tree because, um, there is just different here. Um, we had to go to tree farm, which we've never, you know, really done that before we usually go and cut one down in the forest. Um, people said you could. You can. You can. I can shot. You might get shot. Uh, you have no whose land you're on. Yeah. You know, we actually protect our land here in South Carolina. Yeah. So, well, we paid 10 times more for a Christmas tree here than we did last year. How much are Christmas? Yeah, that's a good economy question. Yeah. So, this is business. We're taking a BS out of business. How much are Christmas trees going for these days? You want to real? What did I get? A freezer for. A freezer for that's a real Christmas tree. Seven feet. Seven feet. Pretty tall. $120. Okay. That's about where they were. I feel like the last time I bought one, it's probably 10 years ago. I tell you what. I don't feel like they were much cheaper than that. When I paid for my Christmas tree last year, seven or eight feet tall. Beautiful. What? Ten bucks. What? Yes! Ten bucks. Yeah. But how much do you pay for gas? Well, okay. It was an hour drive to the National Forest. And you buy it every day. Every week. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Seven dollars a gallon. Yeah. Seven a gallon every other week or every week. I mean, geez. Yeah. You go to the gas. Think about this. Back. It's been a while. I'll admit. Like high school days where, you know, I might have five dollars to my name. And, you know, that'd get me five gallons a gallon. I mean, that's, that's a couple of weeks of gas. You're a California. You got five bucks in your pocket. That ain't getting you. Yeah. And you got to drive pretty far around there, especially when you live, right? Yeah. Pretty rural. It ain't getting you far. No. It used to cost. So in my SUV, it cost about $97, $100 to fill it up once a week. And here, it's like $35. Yeah. Oh. So that's real nice. Yes. Yeah. The gas is... Who's been going down though? Yeah. I will say overall, and I read this before I came in, and I've certainly felt it. And, just for the record, my crypto is doing really well. And so the sentiment of the economy seems to be much higher. And I guess we're all in our own little bubbles. And so it's not that it's necessarily that there's been an impact to my wallet or the company's wallet yet. But it does seem like the sentiment about overall economy stuff next year seems a lot more positive. I think so. And I think that in one of our articles that we're going to discuss today, that's reflected with the biggest US online shopping day for Cyber Monday. A record-breaking $13 billion spent from US consumers. I think people are optimistic about what's coming next year because they're willing to spend. And it's different for everybody for sure. But... I mean, 7% is a significant year over year. So that's definitely a sign of people taking money off the shelf, so to speak, and feeling confident that they are going to make it again. Yep, exactly. That's kind of what happens. I mean, definitely there's all levels to this. But sometimes people... I don't know that you can over-save. So I don't want to say that they're over-saving. But they're not as... They're much more judicial in what they purchase, you know? I would say from July to November, people were really holding. Yeah, same that way. And I think all the retail numbers sort of supported that. So now everybody just let it go. Yeah. They really did. They really did. They're like Christmas shopping. Yeah. Let's go. I think my wife did. Yeah. The package is hidden in the closet under the bed. I mean, I'm open and drawers. I went literally last night. Nicole was at her holiday party. And I go into the laundry room and getting ahead a little laundry. Oh, there you go. And that kind of husband, you know? I was selfishly just washing the thing I needed. But I opened the thing. I opened the cabinet, which is kind of high. So it is a place where the kids wouldn't get. And I was just, you know, doing those, you know, kind of turned aside to open. And I crunch into like boxes. We've got boxes wrapped gifts already jammed up into... I'm like, what in the world is this? So the offer to economy is definitely open back up. I love having little kids because my son doesn't... Like, he really thinks that, you know, everything's... And it is, right? It is. Coming from the North Pole. What do you mean? What are you implying? I'm not implying anything. I'm saying it's going to be more fun. I thought you were implying that Santa Claus isn't real. I'm saying... I'm saying... Clearly you haven't been to South Carolina long enough. All I'm saying is that moms across America are same class. But... What? I have a whole table in the garage. Right? No, nothing's wrapped yet because I haven't had an intake this week. So I'm going to get some tape. But nothing's wrapped. But my kids are still young enough that I just have a blanket over all the boxes. And they're... They don't know to look. Yeah, I do remember those days. It was a lot easier to hide them. Now it's like a little harder. At least my wife says it is. You know... The cool thing about when your kids get older though is I feel like the presents get smaller. Like... Well, let me tell you, it's not smaller. For instance, this morning I went out because I had a package delivery. That wasn't a gift for me. One said for me. And... I about... It was kind of still dark out in the morning, you know. It was pretty early. But I guess it... I kind of don't know if it was really early this morning or last night or whatever. I go out and about tripped. Because, like, you used to your point. There was a box about four feet high and three feet wide right all the front porch. And it was the... I... A certain gift. I don't think my kids listened to show. I don't know. But we... Just in case. It was a large gift for them right on the front porch that Daddy about fell over. I did not expect right at the... Again, just sort of walking. And... Yeah. So about fell over on that one. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well, I feel like when they're little, right, they've got like these trucks and these train tables and all this stuff. And like, as they turn into teenagers and they want like little games and... I don't know. They get more expensive but smaller. Yes. So... Potentially. Until they want a car. That's pretty big. Did you do any Black Friday shopping? I didn't. My husband did. I didn't... I did all my shopping in November. Well, in early November. Yeah. My wife took the boys out to into the mall. Oh. So they all out. Did nothing. But I was like, you're crazy. And they went to the mall at like, man, and came back like two hours later and looked exhausted. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm telling you. I want to. But I just, you know, this year was a big year for us. We did a very expensive move, purchased a house, all sorts of stuff. So we're on a... The whole household is on a waiting till January kind of budget. Understood. And I see something, you know, this article will stay on the Cyber Monday, the Black Friday theme here. I see an item on here that I would like to stranglehold the creator of that is exists in our house. And that would be the creator of Elf on the shelf. What? I freaking hate that creator. I would like to... If I could go back in time and allow them not to think of that invention, I would do it. I love Elf on the shelf. I'd like to choke that Elf. Like... Because here's what it does. All it does is add stress to families. Yeah. The kids might like it. But parents, you know how many times in the middle of the night, I get broken up. I didn't have the Elf. You know, like worried because, you know, we still have an eight year old who, you know, loves that Elf and is looked for him every morning. I was going to pull up. I have. I mean, I get waking up at least five times. You know, am I always bought by these kids? The economy that's driven by Elf on the shelf, she buys the kids now with all the stuff every day. I talk about it. I need to... I'm going to create the right about now. Elf on the shelf package. Little sweater. Little stuff. No, it's going to be more like a noose. You know, one of those things you get in that's the... The old guillotine. No. I think it'd be like Elf on the shelf. I have a better idea. Yeah. It's a branded bill's hat. It's a branded bill sweater. It's Elf size and it's a holding a plate of steak. Yes. And it's the Ryan Alfred. Elf on the shelf special. That Fodger, I'm telling you, I don't like him. I have... I punch him like secretly and like when I'm sort of joking, but I flick him in the face when I don't walk by. If you know you're not supposed to touch him or whatever. And when my kids don't look and I dump him right in the head. This is my calendar that I have every day on my husband and I's shared calendar, move the Elf. See? That's what I'm saying. Stress. Added stuff to do. This is not helpful people. This is not the way it's supposed to be. One more thing to worry about. It's fun for one person only or one... Do you know how many kids you have? I mean, yeah. It's just stress. Added stress. That's all Elf on the shelf creator did. You should be ashamed. Shame to yourself. I kind of like it. No. I like it if I didn't get woken up or I'm worried... Look, I got a flashlight about more guns than... So you don't want to come in my house. And let me say, my wife makes noise in the middle of the night that I didn't help. Then I have to open out of that bed and ready to shoot somebody. And it's just... Oh, forgot the Elf. Oh, Jesus. Let me go back to sleep. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I hate that guy. Anyway. I'm glad he was one of the top selling units. You know, that was Toys, Elf on the shelf dolls, Legosets and Harry Potter figurines. Two of those three can go straight to you nowhere. I don't have to say I love Harry Potter either. Probably get some hate mail for that and a lot of people do. Come on. Got nothing for Harry Potter. Yeah. It's an American classic. He's a funky wizard. You know. They're going to come for you. That's alright. It's okay. I don't hate Harry Potter. It's just not my thing. I hate Elf, Elf. And hate the strong word. I don't like to hate things. I don't hate many things. I'm pretty. But this I'm passionate about because I really do think it has caused more issues than solve. Joy should not come in the expense of others. My four year old is already asking way too many logistics questions with Elf. See? There you go. You got a lie. Yeah. It creates lies. No. This is not good for anything. You know what I do have to say, though, is I love Christmas for the reason of it. It does feel like as Americans and I think in the world, but definitely in America. We're so divided on so many things. But one thing that I absolutely love is how for the most part, and I know there's outliers to this. But it does seem like for Christmas and the lie of Santa Claus and the Elf on the shelf, we come together. We like unify to really self. You had me a Santa until you brought Elf and nobody wants to lie about that, fucker. They do. They don't. Everybody acts like they like it. But they don't. There's some people listening right now that they're shaking their head. They know. They know I'm right. And I'm not a humbuck. I love Christmas. I love all the decoration. I love all the pageantry. I'm not a humbuck, but that little Elf. He's going to come in your house. He's not lying with a little tiny pillow. Well, the first thing that goes as soon as like Nash is too smart is that guy. Like when Nash figures it out, done. We have a little exercise called a bonfire in the backyard. Oh my God. What age? What age is like the age where like the magic dies a little bit. Ten. I think it's getting pretty close there. I don't know the child. I have four boys and it's been a little different with each one. Clayton's my oldest. He's 15 going on 71. Very stoic, very smart. He's intelligent and no nonsense. And you know, he played along because he's always had the younger brother, you know. But the gig was up around 9 or 10 for him. He played along. I knew when he knew, but he didn't tell me he knew because he's very thoughtful. And he didn't want, he knew that it mattered to the parents to us that he still believed. But I could tell he knew. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But that's how he is. He wanted us to still enjoy it because he knew he had younger brothers. Yeah. But like Hogan, who's 13, turning 13, he's, I mean, certainly in the know now. Yeah. But he was late. I think, I just don't think, I think he wanted, even when maybe it was possible. He was like, he didn't want to believe that it wasn't real. Yeah. Clayton and Hudson, pragmatic. Nash is probably me like Hogan a little bit wanting to hang on with these the baby. Yeah. So you never know. Yeah. I know. I'm like, four is too young. He's got to still like believe in the full, the full picture of all of that. We're at a good time though. Like, it's flea, it's going fast. You know, we're in a good spot where we don't have all the bullshit you deal with with three-year-old, four-year-olds that you're going through. That's wonderful, but terrible. You know, you know I'm talking about. Like, just, they're just young and you have to do a lot for them. So they're minor, very self-sufficient, but they have fun. They're still joy because of Nash and the others playing along. But like, it's, it's getting to different phases. Yeah. They're all fun, but I am having more nostalgia over it because I, you know, I know these moments, you know, much said I don't like the elf. I like everything else. And I'll look back and go, man, because it flies. Yeah. Like, I just remember the kids being, you know, two and four before Nash and then Nash comes along. They're six, four, one. Yeah. It was, it goes fast. Yeah. And then it's going to, you know, it'll be a whole new season of college, bunch of kids in college. That's right. And if you're watching college football, the playoffs are coming. We won't talk about the game this past weekend. You know, the bad guys beat the good guys. It's had to happen sometimes. So I'll come out and beat Clemson. I give him credit. Yeah. The old robbery. They played better. They were the better team for at least a moment. They're the better, they're the one better player. I think that's what it came down to. That's what I heard. Yeah. On Saturday. So, you know, Sawyer and Brianna Sars are a producer at our holiday party on Saturday night. That was, you know, going to be one thing. Now it's a football party. Now it's a football watching party. We'll still have all the other holiday stuff, but it will be on and I will be paying attention at least partially. That's good. Yeah. My husband will be there. He'll like that. He'll see what happens. Clemson plays SMU for right to go to the college. I don't like we've really earned it, but who's to say what earns? It's a weird year. A lot of strange things happening. A lot of money being handed around. I know that with the players and others. But speaking of a lot of money, what's up with Tesla? Elon. Let's see. I got to get down to it. Elon loses a bid to get $56 billion pay back. Who is making $56 billion? I do like double read that. And I see $56 billion pay back. What? What kind of pay package is that? $56 billion. Like is that like over time or is that annual? Like what? It says must, despite the legal setback, must net worth is surged by $43 billion since Donald Trump's election victory. Did you even notice if you had an additional $56 billion? It's it. It's getting to be a lot of zeros for me. What could you even buy with that? It's not really the point at that point. It's sort of a, I don't know, what can't you buy? He bought Twitter for damn sake, you know? It's true. So it sounds like there was one thing that I wanted to say on this. And that was that as a visionary, right? Because the person who acquired Tesla, built SpaceX has done all these different things. It's interesting to think that you can be an entrepreneur and do all these amazing things. But what is the line between your social responsibility and leveraging this money for yourself? I think it's a personal decision. If you make that money, you earn it, you innovate. I would have me personally doing a lot of good with that money. I would feel not even like it's my responsibility. I think I'd just be compelled personally. And look, there's no telling how much Elon Musk gets away or does the charities. You know he does. All those guys do. He may not just because he doesn't run headlines about it. And I know Bill Gates and all of them, you know, all you see is the headlines for how much charity they do. I don't know that Elon Musk puts the PR releases out the way other food for every donation he gives. But I've seen certain remnants of that occasionally. And I think I'd be compelled to want to do it. So I know that I would give a lot of way if you have once you get to that level. But at the same time, it's a personal decision by your free country. You know, if you want to put all that in a bank account and go living a cave by yourself, you're right to do so. Yeah, it sounds like he gives away about 5.7 billion to charity each year, including 160 million in nonprofits, 55 million to St. Jude's Children's Hospital, and various charities. Yeah, exactly. Do you ever see that in the headlines? No, I had to dig. 0.6 billion a year. But he doesn't run PR releases on every one of them. So who's the better servant? The Bible will tell me one. You know, that's so if you believe in that book. Yeah, it's definitely very interesting. Like why depending on where you look and what you type in the Google that answers that you'll get on Elon Musk. You're not saying it's slanted or you're not saying it's biased. I'm saying it definitely does not paint him in a positive light. Yeah, of course it doesn't. But you know, I saw one positive light that was a non-positive light that surprised me on this next article, which is dollar store struggling. What? What? I didn't make sense to me at first. Okay, but then I read further and it kind of does. The people most impacted. Yeah. Well, and it is crazy. This is one thing that I kind of wanted to touch on with like the American Dream segment is the vast differences. Right? Like we just talked about Elon Musk and a $56 billion pay package. He's able to give away, you know, $5 billion a year at a charity. And then versus like certain, you know, people in a completely different living situation right now. You know, there's a lot of lower income shoppers that are about 60% of the dollar general sales coming from households that earn less than $30,000 a year. Yeah. And I don't know. I've gone in those stores that I feel like a couple of things have happened. What I don't like that because I like to put in those places. But I feel like the packaging's gotten smaller. Like me personally. I don't go to many markets. I feel like the selection's gotten a little worse and the package has gotten smaller. I used to go in there and hey, oh, I get the shampoo of this deodorant. They've gotten wise. They've shrunk it down to like the miniature size. I'm like, okay, well, I mean, I could buy that size at the drugstore for $1.50 and not have to drive over here to Millenoware to get to it. Yeah. And in last year, I think it was 2023, the dollar tree, they raised their prices by 25%. Yeah, $1.25. You can't say, I mean, you got to have a whole name change. You can't be the dollar tree if you're $1.25. Yeah. Exactly. $1.25 just doesn't ring as well. I know. I know it doesn't. And it's like, you don't think about it being like a lot. But I used to go to the dollar store and I would buy a whole basket full of stuff for the kids and toys and different things. Just to like make up an Easter basket or something like that and be like 20 bucks for a whole shopping cart full. And then they raise their prices by 25% and you're like, oh, no, it's 40 bucks. Yeah. Why does it seem like it went up half of 50%. Yeah, that's five quarter tree. I mean, like none of these things, I'm trying to come up with a name form and none of them ring. It's like 25% too much. And look, and go go and behold, their sales are off 30% or whatever it is. Yeah. Well, poorly maintained stores, overworked employees. Yeah. I mean, you're not going to be successful. You're going to get shattered if you don't serve your demographic correctly. Yeah. And I think it'll be interesting like next year. Like, hey, if the economy doesn't prove if these numbers go up, but I think they need to relook at the size of this packages for me. Because that box of cereal, you aren't full of me. You reduced the size of it. I know you did. I go to pour that cereal or whatever it is. And it doesn't even fills up like one bowl. I'm like, wait a second. This is, hold it up to one of the cabinet. They're tricky packaging. Those markers. They call it shrink flation. Yeah, shrink flation. I'm telling you, go into one of those stores and go like take the normal size item with you or something. Like a bar of soap or something. Everything's a little smaller now. Plus just 25% more. You need full enough straw or tree. You need full enough. All right, enough of that. I know we didn't even start there. What was our first article today? Oh, yeah. You got to talk about this. Oh, yeah. This one is good. Australia is banning social media for people under 16 years of age. The question is, could this work elsewhere or will it even work there? This is a new social media ban passed by the Australian Parliament. And it targets platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. And it goes into effect next year. So the purpose of the ban is to protect children from online harm, including inappropriate content, social pressure, bullying, and mental health issues. I mean, I'm all for it. Keep those kids off social media. But what do you think? This is a tricky one. Like with as a father of four boys, I like the thought of this. But then I think a few things. How are they going to force it? Is it just going to create FOMO thus they're going to seek it out and try to do it more, try to do it different, like in worse ways, like some of the behavior and getting it. And then I think like, okay, what's their right, you know, with free expression, all these things? And I was a teenager. I struggle with, you know, someone that believes heavily in free speech and doing all that and having a show like this. But at the same time, you know, it's our job to protect our children. And 13, 14, 15-year-olds are not adults yet. Yeah. And the behaviors that social media can lead to for that demographic have been proven to be negative in a lot of ways. I think that if you look at some of the science, it's just as dangerous as smoking. It's just as dangerous as drinking alcohol. It's just as dangerous, right? So in terms of like the habits, the habitual nature of social media, how addicting it is, how it changes your brain. So in that aspect, I would agree with this ban. But on the aspect of, like them being able to have free speech, I mean, they're not adults. So do they have the right to the free speech? Yeah, I mean, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I think you, maybe, but not without oversight. Yeah, the thing is, I mean, I think like looking into what access to the internet looked like in the early 2000s, you know, there were things that, you know, we did, there was this one, was it like, I don't know, some kind of like chat roulette or something and you would like put in like, age, sex location or something. ASL. Remember that? Yeah. And then they would type in like, chatting with strangers on the internet. Yeah, unsafe. Unsafed. My space, you know, a little bit different, you're just like, you know, putting a song to your profile to tell people how you really feel and rating your friends and order of importance. Yes, I did think it will be interesting the how this plays out. Yeah. And how much backlash versus enforcement and everything. Like, how are you going to keep them from bypassing it? Is it just create? Does do children trying to bypass it create more dangers than just allowing them to do it? Well, you know. Yeah, it's such an interesting question because yeah, to your point, like, making it, making something off limits the desire to want to do it. Two points that I have top of mind are, do you remember Finstagram? It came out like a couple years ago, was it called like a, do you have a Finstagram? So kids, all these kids, 13, 14, 15, they would have their real Instagram that their parents followed and then they'd have a Finstagram, which was their fake Instagram, which was like what their friends followed. And then the other thing that's top of mind for me is Instagram recently released their updated terms and conditions for 2025. And in that terms and conditions, you cannot have an Instagram account if you are a registered sex offender. Well, I support that. Yeah, me too. Yeah, it's common sense. I mean, I don't know how it's regulated. Yeah, I don't either. We live in a global environment though in a global world. And America, you know, sort of has influence on a lot of the rest of the world. So again, in trying to shut this off, you know, 13, 14, 50 year olds in Australia, I would imagine look to the US and sort of the trends there. And so if it's not turned off everywhere, again, I don't know how you're going to sort of dial this back, especially the demand and desire for it. And I think all you're doing likely is pushing more traffic to YouTube. Yeah. Cause that's where they're going to go probably. It's not, you know, it's not viewed as social media. It's just ton of content. Yeah. So I think that attention will go somewhere and probably inattempts to get at it nefariously or whatever you want to call it, combined with other platforms. So I don't know. It's complex. I'll just say that. Social media really is. And while it does connect to the world and on a global scale, you know, it gives us access to each other, I don't know that that access is healthy. Yeah. I don't think so. You're not supposed to know what everyone is doing. I think 16 and up at a controlled level is where it can and it really depends on the child. It's like, it's not the size fits all. Cause every, every child, I mean, I have four, I see the differences in them. And whether they're, you know, it's not like, oh, God, given right, if it's not right for where you are, developmentally. Here's an idea, developers. Put a little like, 100 question quiz in the front of signing up. They can pass that. Emotional intelligence test. Yeah, intelligence in general. There you go. That's an idea. Hey, that's all we got today. We got to jump out. We got things to go. We got checks to cash. Next to snap. Where are, where are our intros? We're hoping you guys are doing that. So we're welcome to December. Welcome to the holidays. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time. Right about now. This has been right about now with Ryan Alford, a radcast network production. Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or the one choir about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.