Navigating the Economic Storm: How Political Leadership Shapes Our Financial Reality

Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack. Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along. Which is why you should try Zippercrooter for free. At zippercrooter.com slash zip. Zippercrooter doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job. You get qualified candidates fast. So while other companies might deliver a lot of, hey, Zippercrooter finds you what you're looking for. The needle in the haystack. See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zippercrooter get a quality candidate within the first day. Zippercrooter, the smartest way to hire. And right now, you can try Zippercrooter for free. That's right. Free. This is right about now with Ryan Alfred, 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 necks and caching checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to right about now Friday, August 16th, 2024. It's our weekly business news of the week. Get the lovely, lovely, looking lovely as always. Chris Hansen and the beautiful Brianna Hall, a little, a little pot twist there. Major grunt twist. What's up, Brian? Hey, Brianna. Hey guys. What's happening? People are all you party people. All the things lots and lots of things in the news, lots of news. There's lots of news happening. Chris, how storm? Storm is phenomenal as always, listening to the guest bathroom. I wonder how for his breakfast? Yes. In a bit. He's great though. Yeah, chocolate lab. Chris has down in Miami and the vacay lounge. He's the vacay dog, you know, he's always on vacay 100 pound big boy. He loves his CBD treats. He's got a wee vibe. Yes. All the vibes all the time. It's been a busy week in the news. Lots of stuff happening. Some things, you know, we're always doing, you know, full transparency. We're moving to, I think, probably more of a multi-day news segments here soon. Been saying that for a few months, but if I say it, it will manifest. But some of these things happen earlier in the week, you know, you're listening to this hopefully on a Friday. So it's topical on some level, but it's, it's with the election with business news, with inflation, with rate drops, with all the stuff, it's, it's sort of jam packed. And so we're always trying to condense it down to what we feel like are the hot topics. And so it's sort of hard to get away from the politics as it relates to business now. That's for sure. And today's news sort of starts that whole train off with what was Donald Trump and Elon Musk's interview earlier in the week on X. And I must say, I just got to come out and just jump right back into the pulpit. It's like, you know, Donald Trump, with a, no matter what you think, okay, what side drawn? What you think? Donald Trump's doing one hour X sessions with Elon Musk. And the other side, Kamala Harris has not been in front of a camera and a microphone at 24 days. And how is this even happening? Like what, if Donald Trump hid from the news, what would everyone be saying? Like if he was just somewhere to be, nobody found it. He's not really in his blood. He's kind of a media tycoon anyway. But what are we hiding from, Chris? Why are, why 24 days not in front of the camera, not saying anything? And I've got, I've got a good analogy I'm going to tell, but I first want to know why we think Kamala Harris is avoiding the news. It's a great question. I would like to know myself because I mean, you even have what I would consider the more mainstream Kamala friendly news outlets asking this question, where is she? And I find it hard to believe that you're taking this time to come up with your policies when you've been Vice President for the last four years. I think you probably know your policies already. Yeah, I hope so. I mean, you're second to command to the, you know, in the of the free world of the free world. And so if you didn't align with your president's policies, you know, you wouldn't be as Vice President and you counseled him for the last three to half years. So if you want more of what you got, then you know who to vote for. You can say new energy all you want. But if you're happy with where we're at, vote for what we have, because that's what you have today, whether he's old or not, you know, Biden's age and Kamala's, their age difference is minuscule. They have the same beliefs, the same policies. And hers are probably even further, you know, liberal, if anything. But at the same time, I think she's trying to come up with what she's trying to say. And I think I'll use this analogy and, you know, I have four boys, all different personalities. And my youngest is it, like, at least right now, you have four older brothers, he's kind of a follower. I'll just call that. I think you'll turn out to be more of a leader if he kind of gets his confidence and he's not around as old as brothers as much, but he's sort of a follower. And if I was watching them, you know, like we were there, they were voting on the name of one of their sports teams, and there's like 10 kids. And you know, they do this in the class too, where, you know, someone asks, hey, raise your hand if you want this, you know, if you're making a choice. And you, it's called bias, right? You look around and you, you see your friends, which friends raised their hand the fastest the most, Nash kind of waits. And then he raises his hand to the most popular thing. I think that this is Kamala Harris. She has been known for indecisive positions, taking late positions at the last moment. And I think it's because she doesn't really, she wants to be popular, she wants to say the right things, she wants to do the right things, but doesn't have an opinion and doesn't want to get criticized for it. And so she's kind of waiting to play it and to announce whatever she's going to believe in at the last possible second, trying to take in as much information to get the best possible answer out. And like what people want her to say, combine with, you know, because she's flip-flopping on every policy. And then she's waiting to the last second to even make these announcements because she doesn't want to take a stand to go ask people in California, like the things that she did. She always sort of threw in her votes at the last second, because she was, she was always kind of like in this flip floppy kind of, you know, because you don't want the accountability of it. And I think that's what it is. To be fair also, because your example is perfect about, you know, the voting on the name. And the image that came to my mind, I think, was at, um, run of the Republican debates actually. And that's where, you know, I want to be fair. I think it was one of the questions about, you know, do support, you know, war, foreign wars. And it's almost like you could see everyone on this stage kind of look around. You get one or two, yes or no immediately. And the rest of the crowd kind of, the candidates were just looking kind of like, are they going to raise it? Should I raise it? Trying to read the crowd where it's like, even that, if you're that easily swayed, it tells me you don't even know what you believe in. That's right. And that's not, doesn't give me confidence as a voter of, I want to know who I'm picking is standing on what they say they're going to do and can't, they're not easily swayed one side or the other. If you can switch teams that easy or switch beliefs, how do I know what I'm voting for? It's going to be the same a year, two years from now. Let's say you used Brianna. Well, I think that Elon Musk had a really good point. He brought up all of the other leaders in the world, you know, Kim Jong-Un and Putin. And how are they going to feel sitting across, you know, the desk from Kamala? Are they going to take her seriously? Are they going to believe in her policies and what she says? Are they going to be intimidated by her as the leader of the United States? And what security are we risking by having a non-intimidating leader, a leader that sits on top of coconuts and laughs like a hyena? You know, are we going to be taken seriously as a nation and what is our nuclear security going to look like? I thought that was a very valuable part of that conversation and something that everybody should be asking themselves as you vote in November. The strength of the wolf is the pack. The strength of the pack is supposed to be the wolf. In this case, Kamala's strength is she would be president of the free world in the United States backing her up, but the U.S. is not stronger because of her. Yes. That's the point. It's like she would only be in a position of strength because she has the best country on the planet, the strongest country on the planet backing her up. It wouldn't be because of her own backbone. Yeah. I think it would be, it should be in the forefront of everyone's mind, their own security and the security of America who our leader is, who leaves us in the example that they set on the world stage. Well, you're getting an example right now, 24 days, no leadership. Probably opportunity because no one's at home at the White House, president Biden, nowhere to be seen clearly, nobody's at home. She could be showing her leadership right now and she's not. She's doing nothing. She's campaigning and doing weird hands up in the air with Joe Balls or walls or whatever that guy's name is who looks like creepy Tom from like the guy that you don't want to meet. You're, you walk in a Walmart and there's kind of that old man over in the corner like you kind of, you kind of shuttle your kids away from him. It's like he's trying to be nice like that's him. That's that guy. I mean, it's like, okay, just, hey, he's trying to be nice like he's kind of doing like a weird joke with a finger out and it's like, it's settling the kids wrong. I'm like, okay. Don't touch my kids. I don't even look at him. I'll hit you in the face. Like any very descriptive example, you guys know who that guy is, you know who he is. You know who that guy at Walmart is. You know, you're like, oh, he's trying to be nice, but he looks a little creepy, little creepy. And I'm just saying, look, she has every opportunity to be showing that leadership right now because nobody's there. Biden's not going to have to compete with the president. Biden's not going in front of the camera. He's done one interview that was done by one of his advisors on CBS. What do you want of the CBS interviewers? There's one of his advisors that did a bunch of layup questions for him. He talked about this loud. You know, it's like nobody's home. She could be, look, if the, if what they're saying in the energy that is put behind her is true. I have my doubts with mainstream media, but let's just say it is she could run away with this race. If she would be out front and sitting or taking all these things, like making her position known and just running away with it because nobody's at home at the White House, she doesn't have to compete with Biden. He's out of the way. She could be enacting everything right now if she had the answers, but we know the answer to that. She doesn't. That's the point. It's never been more clear. And that's the problem. That's why, you know, like Love and Raid him, Donald Trump's own ex for an hour, talking about the real issues and how to solve them, you know, with someone that actually runs businesses. So I do not love everything Donald Trump says at every single moment, but I respect that hell out of him for having an opinion and having the hootspa to put it out there and actually having solutions, these will understand behind. Look, no president's going to be perfect and right all the time. That's the problem. She's going to be worried about whether, okay, she's making some counsel. You know how many staff members she would have if she ended up in president? She's going to have more councilmen than, you know, the Knights of the Roundtable. It's going to be 57 Knights of the Roundtable in her council because she's going to go, all right, what should we do? All right. She's got a 92% turnover rate in her office, like Chris, you said it before the episode. Would say it's a litmus test already for like how smart or dumb we are as a nation. Yeah, it's like a national IQ test. I feel like, yeah, almost like kind of COVID, I feel like wasn't away. This is like round two of another. Let's let's test them again, see what they're, they'll, they'll bite on. How close are we talking about the policies that she's putting out there? I guess fine, especially in relation to business as a business show. But, you know, inflation and it's just so funny, the media, God. I mean, it's, they don't even hide it anymore, right? It's like, I mean, prime example is like the border, right? It's been her job from day one. She's been there like one time. It's still not a great situation at the border. So it's like, all right, if you were any normal business and you were my manager and charge of managing the border and you failed at that, I would fire you. You would not, I wouldn't give you a promotion to a job with more responsibility and charge of more things. When you didn't even handle one of the main things, I was your job to handle when you came in. That's one example. There's probably hundreds of others. I mean, that already with Musk and Trump is, I mean, clearly they don't line on everything. I mean, electric cars and they, we know the differences they have there and, you know, climate change and all that. And so they can put to side those disagreements and the law of these policies are crazy. Nothing about Trump's pro gas policy is good for Tesla. So it's like, when you have a guy whose business is predominantly ran from electricity and anti gasoline who's pushing for Trump, it's like there's something deeper to it. Why, you know, if you're going to jeopardize the profitability of your own business, I mean, so President Biden's in a bunker somewhere at home. It, I don't know, can't keep up the way. I don't know where, wherever he's at, doing whatever he's doing, retired. So am I retired? And she's out on the campaign trail. So our taxpayers just paying for her to get elected because of how that works. Like, what's her job as vice president while she's campaigning for herself? Now, I recognize there have been other vice presidents that have campaigned before. So like, it's less like necessarily, but in this case, it's her. So with a president that's not sort of capable, it's back to her. She could be, she's presumed she's the candidate. Like, she could sort of be running the, I mean, my saying, I want that kind of glad she's not. I really keep keep campaigning. We don't need you running the country, but, you know, who is running it? And what, who's paying for that? I guess we are. This tax, tax dollars. Right? Like, what she campaigns for five days and getting tax, she gets paid by us, our tax dollars to be the VP. Are we paying, are we, are we indirectly funding her campaign? Hey, these are deep thoughts here by Jack Handy. Anyway, I will say this, the one thing that will pay the bills, if you really want it, is our good partners brand of bills. Because look, you want an inflation buster? It's called new business. We'll sit around waiting for checks. We get new business. You know, you get new business. You brand yourself. You get top of mind awareness. You know, you get top of mind awareness. It's called branding. You got to feed the top of the funnel to get to the bottom. You feed the top of the funnel by more people knowing who you are, knowing your name, brand recognition, and at a high level. And that's exactly what brand of bills does. I am, it's 90 degrees here in South Carolina, but I almost put this hoodie on. Because it's like a warm blanket, around my heart and around my neck. And look, when I'm telling you, these are our vibe science, Chris and I do another show. It's all about health and wellness. It's all about good vibes. Be the spark. We need a spark, maybe. That's what I'm saying. I'm going to, I'm going to run for president, maybe. President of the branded bills club. That's what I'm talking about. Yes. So look, this is like, I'm telling you, I don't even want to take this off now. I'm going to leave it on my shoulder the whole episode now. Because it's so soft and makes me go, going to wander. I start thinking about common. I get all upset and I just need more blanket. I got my brand of bills. It is the best. I'm telling you, you want new business. You got to get your logo on nice quality merch. They're known for their hats. Stay for the hoodies. Run for the t-shirts. Telling you, they're awesome. We love them. They're the official sponsor of Ryan offered and right about now. Go to brandobills.com. Click that custom button up in the top right button. You're going to thank me for it. You're going to love me for it. Because all your customers and everyone that's wearing that stuff, they're actually going to do it. Here's the thing. A lot of people you get merged. And nobody wears it. It goes over in the corner. You know what this is? This is not thrown in. This is the not throwing the corner merch. This is the, I get worn all the time merch. Because their design team makes it look right. And they'll set you up because they take care of all of our customers. They'll take care of you. brandobills.com. Official merchandise sponsor of right about now. You know you love them, Chris. I know you got the VK hat on. They'll let me be the only one loving on them. Oh, amazing hats. Washable, great athletic hats. Great if you're out in the sun. I mean, we've got them. We've used brandobills for all of our businesses. I'm wearing a brandobills hat every day. It might be a different name on it. But it's always brandobills. Exactly. That's the older brand that matters when you're getting custom merch. So, telling you everybody who sent them to, it goes, Hey, man, where did you get that stuff? Well, hey, you know where I did. You've been listening to this show. Brandobills, baby. That's where it's at. That's the inflation buster right there. The inflation buster is getting new business. Hey, we didn't wait in round for no handouts. We don't need prices to go down. We need new business and it starts with brandobills. All right. What's next here? Coma Harris's campaign website has the economic plans. I mean, I think my team is setting me up for this. You know, I've already been on the set box here. There's one more gasoline on the fire, you know. Yeah, it's business economic plans. Nice president Harris on Tuesday. This is what she selected Tim Walls, but her campaign website lacks information about her economic plans for the country. Hey, it's energy, baby. It's excitement, vote, Kamala. It's just all about the energy. It's all about the, you know what? Has there ever been a bigger campaign that was all sizzle and no steak? I talk about marketing. Yeah, marketing. Like it is. Yes, they'd congratulate you. They know what they're doing. Yeah. When in reality, there's articles like this, US credit card holders in crisis as they have faced an addiction to spending financial experts warn. 50% of US credit card holders carrying higher debt balance today on month to month basis can serve as a powerful tool, but they also represent risk to achieving financial freedom. Says, uh, that's what a new bank rate survey unpacks as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a Q2 report on household debt and credit. Showing that credit card debt is going prices are higher, making less money, less money to take home, gas cost more, bread cost more and credit card debts up. Oh, oh, Chris, can you believe it? I can't believe it. Unbelievable. It sounds like something Kamala would say. Yeah, I'm going to fix inflation. Well, you know, credit card debts up. I'm like, yeah, how are you going to fix inflation? You know, you know, Chris, inflation is bad and we got to fix it. We're going to fix it better. Okay. Yeah, yeah, to fix it back better. Yeah, it's important. It's important to prioritize credit card debt payoff because this is probably your highest cost debt by a wide margin. At least 50% of Americans are creating a higher, are carrying a higher balance today on a month-to-month basis than they were in March of 2020. This is up from just the 44% recorded this past January. These are, it's a very big number. That's a big freaking jump. I'm telling you, like it's, all this runs together, Chris. We talk about some of these things, it's related to business, but all this stuff runs together. Credit card debts higher, costs are higher, employment's, employment's slowing, decreasing, interest rates are too high. If you want the same, you got it, baby. It's already in the office. Just to stick with what you got. Stick with what you got. I'm just telling you, it's so obvious. And we're going to keep talking about it because, hey, we're going to use our voice to share what, we're going to come to you with the facts of the truth. Do you speak no spin zone on Fox? I don't get it into the Fox scene, and I don't. I'm not just like a Fox junkie all my life. Like, call me, call me Captain Obvious. I'm going to start wearing a shirt that says Captain Obvious. Like, I'm spouting anything off from some radical point of view. It's just Captain Obvious, right? Isn't it? Is there some of this obvious? Yeah. And inflation itself is just another form of taxation. It's like, you know, we are taxed to the point where there is no return, and inflation is just another form of that. Yeah, there's a strong figure here. Americans of 45% more now than they did early 2021. And the delinquency rate is the highest since 2011. That's massive. Look, just this. Hey, this awkward kisses on stages and hugging babies, whatever you got to do. Energy. No specifics. No plan. Stay the same. I mean, what about the economy right this second? Do you like what's going good for you? That's my question. It's as simple as like, do you have more financial freedom now than you feel like you had the previous administration? And I think, I don't know about you, brother, but everyone I talk to, no matter what business they're in, it's definitely tighter. Every industry. Totally. Every cost is higher. And the in every going out is higher. Every coming in is at least a little lower if not a lot lower. That's the problem. And newsflash people. Most of our goods are moved with trucks fueled by gasoline and oil. So when gasoline and oil goes up because this administration is anti-gasling and oil, it costs more to get your goods to your grocery store to the stores near you. It's very simple. Like, you're paying more for goods now. It's so simple when you get to the root of these things. Yes, it is. And you know, that's how we're going to keep talking about it. And I think it's going to be interesting to see how the slowdown goes. And there's an article on your talk. The economic slowdown will kind of determine the election. It's like, you know, if it gets a little bit worse, Trump wins, stays the same, Commonwealth, I just, we talked about this pre-episode. It's like, everyone I ask to is like, not happy with where the economy is. And they sort of like, whether it's in the opener or behind closed doors, says they're going to vote for Trump. But yet, and look, we're all in our own bubbles. We all do this. I'm not stupid. If it's not a focused group of one, you know, the data says what the data says. But who are these people who are we for Conlow? And why? Why? Like, what, what about what's the direction that you, that you like? It lighten me. Come on the show. We'll have Conlow Harris talk right about now. Number one show at Marketing Business on Apple. We're nothing. Here's your invite. Come tell us what it is. You are going to do it because you won't go on anything else. You know, coming lightness, I'd love to. I mean, no one would roll out the red carpet more than the show would give you every opportunity. I won't even talk. I'll just listen. I talk enough. That's not an easy thing to do. But I will. Just solutions. That's all we want. Hey, it isn't about public popularity. It's about policy. So let's talk policy. But we can't talk it because we don't know what hers is. We have to just assume it's whatever's going on today with the White House. So I don't know. Chris, I mean, you know, you feel inflation? I feel it. Yeah, man. Of course. It's like every business, costs has went up in every single one of my businesses. And of course, it sucks when you have employees and their costs are going up. But revenues aren't going up enough to counter that, right? I mean, that's what I think a lot of businesses are in this smaller businesses right around this pinch of like people need, need, need the money more than ever. But we're getting clipped on our side too. So that's right. The only winners seem to be the major corporations that have the leverage in the buying. I feel like, like, going out to the grocery store. It's kind of like where I feel the most, you know, like, I'll go to the grocery store and it used to be like, you remember when you go to the grocery store and you roll the car around and you knew like, kind of, oh, this is a $100 car of whoever had one. You know, it thinks jammed up, man, you got, you got groceries falling over the side. You're like, you're trying to keep a box up. You're like, oh, spend $100 today. That's a $350 car now. I mean, if you got it filled that much, I could put 10 things in my buggy. And it's $104. You know, I got cheesets in there. It's $100. Every time you go to the grocery store, you run in for eggs, milk, bread, and cheese. That's $100. Oh, literally. I mean, I feel like, you know, that little guy in the, that's like, greeting you and you go into the store or certain handing you your card, some stores, you know, they can barely, some can't afford them anymore. But the guy that, what he's still there, not the creepy eye Walmart, the nice guy at the grocery store. And I feel like I just need to hand him a Honda because it's like, up, there you go. I've got to spend it. So just go ahead and hold it for me right here, you know, like, so I don't put it on my credit card and get that balance over 50%. Whatever it's like, come on. Every time you go to the store, if you can, there should be a game. Today's shoppers, I mean, if he could spend under $100, we're going to give you a bonus. French fries on Alfort, like, you know, like something, like, try to just try to spend under $100 of the grocery store. I dare you. Like, the only way, buy one, get one free, but they're $14. They used to be six. Like, is this a deal? It's like that family special, double half special. I used to give my family. I'll double the price and get it in half just for you. It's like, it's this shopper. No, it's just Harris nomics right here. Chris, I can't imagine Miami. I mean, like, everything's got to be like quadruple down there. It's crazy. I mean, I don't, I'm on a meal plan. I mean, even that saves me money. If I were to go to Trader Joe's and eat, you know, how I eat and cook it, it would definitely be really expensive. But even when I'm like, I try to chose them by like organic fruit. You know what I mean? Like organic blueberries and it's like $8. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The organic scam was like, I like the organic. I know it's supposed to be better, but it's like, I still question it. I feel like they're just changing the label. Like, this is the cynicism. I mean, like, I'm like, they just change the label with the thing. Like, is this really, just really organic? I mean, they're certified organic. But again, who's doing the certification and what metrics are they using? Right. Exactly. Exactly. I'm like, they're paying someone to tell, okay, yeah, you pass the test, you're certified organic. But I know people, I mean, I have friends that are literally farmers and they grow organic fruit. And even I'll ask them and they're kind of like, yeah, you know, pretty much. I mean, it's too bad. Not really. And like, yeah, here's the, here's the truth though. So if you get a forward to eat any fresh fruit and vegetables at all, much less if they're organic, you're probably doing better than most. Because it's because people are just packaged food. You know, the ramen noodles, the mac and cheese, all that stuff. Because it's expensive to eat fruit and vegetables. It's expensive to eat healthy. You got to talk about that $17 salad. You know, like, wait, what's on this? Is your gold flakes? I'm really good at Chipotle. You can walk out spending $15 on a bowl of rice and meat, you know? Oh, yeah. It's expensive. Vote with your pocketbook. Not your popularity party. Your pocketbook and the policies. So it's an impacted business. Any final words today, Chris? Everyone have a great weekend. Can't believe we're almost at the end of August while time's flying. Yes, it is. Kids are back in school already in South Carolina. They started early, probably just now starting to go back in other areas. So we appreciate you out there. We appreciate brand of bills, official sponsor. Of right about now, you can find us. Ryan is right.com. All the highlight clips, all the past episodes, all the value. Had some of the biggest names in business. Sports cover the gamut talking their business journeys, their success journeys, all of that. You find all that back episodes at Ryan is right.com. Along with all the other news articles and soapbox rants you could ever want. Chris is Chris Roby Hanson. On Instagram, go check out Chris. He's pretty or on Instagram that he is in person. Let me tell you. Uh, and I'm at Ryan offer. We appreciate saw your rights are produced or for bringing in a hall. Chris Hanson. I'm Ryan offered. We'll see you next time. We'll write about now. This has been right about now with Ryan Alfred, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryan is right.com for full audio and video versions of the show. Order one choir about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening. You