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Right About Now with Ryan Alford

Crypto jumps back up, Americans are more illiterate and who is the world's richest man?

Fri, 13 Dec 2024

Description

In this episode of Weekly Business News," Ryan Alford and Brianna Hall tackle some of the hottest business topics. From the highs and risks of cryptocurrency investing to Ryan’s personal strategies, they explore how to navigate this volatile market. They also dive into the controversial Albertsons-Kroger merger, unpacking its legal roadblocks and what it means for consumers. To top it off, they discuss Elon Musk’s financial triumphs, including SpaceX’s soaring valuation and the future of space exploration. With sharp insights and relatable stories, Ryan and Brianna make complex topics accessible and fascinating.TAKEAWAYSPersonal experiences and insights on cryptocurrency investmentsDiscussion of recent political changes affecting the cryptocurrency marketStrategies for diversifying cryptocurrency portfoliosLegal issues surrounding grocery store mergers, specifically Albertsons and KrogerImplications of monopolization and competition in the grocery industryThe impact of rising grocery prices on consumersInsights into Elon Musk's net worth and the valuation of SpaceXExploration of the economics of the space industry and government contractsCurrent events related to drone sightings in New Jersey and their implicationsConcerns about literacy rates among U.S. adults and the influence of technology on reading habits If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

Audio
Transcription

0.876 - 22.716 Ryan Alford

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.

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23.536 - 47.061 Ryan Alford

What's up, guys? Welcome to Right About Now. It's Friday the 13th. Friday, December 13th, 2024. Jason may not be here, but Brianna is. What's up, Brianna? You're much lovelier than, and you look lovely there in your studio at home than Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th, by the way.

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47.801 - 53.323 Brianna Hall

Yeah, hopefully. I hope so. Although I am a little tired, so maybe I'm putting on the Jason look.

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54.383 - 72.671 Ryan Alford

That's what kids do to you, you know. They send you home. You got to pick them up early. Oh, God. I remember the days. It still happens. My eight-year-old has it every now and then. He's bad. He's the worst kind of sick. He's like me, like men. You know, like one little stuffy, oh, I'm not feeling good, Dad.

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74.921 - 75.622 Brianna Hall

He's a big baby.

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75.662 - 88.812 Ryan Alford

Suck it up. Suck it up. Then I'm the same way. I'm like, if I don't get, I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that out loud. But when I am sick, which is not that often, I'm definitely a big baby. I think men are worse.

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89.173 - 93.857 Brianna Hall

Yep. Yeah. I never have time to be sick. Yeah, exactly. I try not to be.

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95.231 - 113.082 Ryan Alford

So we hope everyone is doing well wherever, whenever, however you're listening here on Right About Now. We've got your weekly business news of the week and all kinds of good stuff. I'm going to start with the good news. So I've gotten into the crypto thing. And let me just say this. This is not financial advice.

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114.323 - 132.303 Ryan Alford

So please go to your financial advisor for risk counsel, risk tolerance, and how much you can afford to lose. So that's not for me to determine. I just want you to have a little fun with me testing the market. Brianna had something to say there. I'm not sure what.

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135.044 - 138.885 Brianna Hall

Just laughing. I thought it was funny that you said like how much you're willing to lose.

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139.205 - 167.179 Ryan Alford

Yeah. Well, you never know or when how it's all about. Hey, you cannot make any shots you don't take. So there you have it. I have been putting in. A couple thousand dollars every week or two, just taking from other investments, doing it, and like taking, you know, moving over to the crypto. Now that we have a crypto-friendly president coming into office. And I am not the expert.

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167.239 - 195.344 Ryan Alford

Chris, who is on Escapade in Houston, is more of the, quote, expert in-house. But, you know, you can learn a lot. So I'm on the Kraken app. The names of this stuff doesn't help with some of their legitimacy sometimes. Like, I'm on that Kraken. It starts with a K. So I'll give them some free support. Maybe they should be a sponsor. That would be a good one for Natalie to reach out to.

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195.784 - 219.219 Ryan Alford

Get the Kraken in here. Anyway, I'm on there. Very easy to buy and sell. They make it super easy to take your money. Let me tell you. So one click away, your bank account, you know, whatever. You got your wallet going on. And again, much better than college football lately. So I quit bidding on college football probably 10 years ago. So this is not a recent thing.

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219.299 - 245.11 Ryan Alford

But I will say it's riding the wave. And it's been an interesting week with crypto because I'm riding it. I probably have like 20 coins that I'm in now or different crypto, whatever. There's a lot of terminology again here. So I've been buying them. XRP, that's what you need to get on. Let me go ahead and tell you, that's the one. That one I bought for like 40 cents. It's up to like 250.

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245.75 - 267.663 Ryan Alford

So that's helping the old cause a lot. While some of these other coins are dragging a little bit, I'm smacking them across the room going, get your shit together. The old XRP, up. But here's the thing. Monday and Tuesday, this is what happens with crypto. For at least no reason that I understand, we took an old dip, like 20%, like off the top.

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270.576 - 291.175 Ryan Alford

And they say they do that because the big investors like start, they sell something, they kind of create this swirl and people like the, the smaller buyers, like the people that have, you know, 300, 400, 500, you cup a few hundred dollars, but there's a lot of them. So it's a lot of money. They get nervous. They sell out of everything. As soon as they see it start dropping.

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291.195 - 311.902 Ryan Alford

So they say they do that on purpose because then the big investors swoop in on the dip and Buy the dip. Chris has said that a lot. And so I just watched it. I didn't buy or sell. Just watched it because I know there's too many positives in this space happening that I knew the dip was temporary. Oh, we're back, baby. We're back hard here today on the record day.

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312.884 - 328.406 Brianna Hall

I just finished reading a book all about like financial investing. And yeah, it's very interesting, like how anything that can happen, like probably like when big stuff in the news happens, things dip down or they jump, they skyrocket.

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328.905 - 353.7 Ryan Alford

Yep. And so the entire market was down. I mean, a lot of the ones I had were down 10 to 20 percent Monday and Tuesday. I'm just going, all right, whatever. Again, I have in here what I can afford to lose. I don't want to lose it. I don't like to lose, but I'm not like I'm not. You know, jeopardizing my my my kids future here on on the old Kraken. But I will say this.

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353.781 - 380.489 Ryan Alford

So the entire market here today, we recorded on a Wednesday. So it is Friday the 13th for you when you're listening, hopefully, because you do this on record day. We know our release day. We know it. Our loyal ones do. The entire market is up six percent today. And let's just say I got 19% up, 20% up, 10%, 12%. I'm averaging like a 10.2% up on every one of the ones that I own just today alone.

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381.309 - 405.098 Ryan Alford

And I'm just going to tell you that XRP is the one you want to get on. It's $2.43. It's expected to... like double or triple here, like next year. So we're all in on that one. XRP, Ripple. And don't ask, don't be sitting there. Somebody's listening and judging already. They're going, this guy's not a crypto expert. I am not a crypto expert.

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405.198 - 424.985 Ryan Alford

I'm just telling you, if I was betting on certain coins, and I do like to read a lot. I research everything. My wife, whenever we're going on vacations, I do all the reviews. I read every one of them. There'll be 4,322 reviews on TripAdvisor. I read 4,100 of them. And so knowledge absorption, I am good at.

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425.666 - 445.097 Ryan Alford

So I've been reading a lot, absorbing a lot, trying to learn a lot because I like to make a lot. And so far, so good. We're up to about six grand. I put in about 3,500 and we're right about 5,800 today. That's over about a month. So I've almost doubled.

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445.117 - 445.518 Brianna Hall

That's pretty good.

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446.448 - 465.481 Ryan Alford

You know, that's not, hey, not typical. These results are not typical. But when you're the crypto-heavy guy like me, you know, you get lucky. I have no idea. I sometimes choose the names because I like the name of it. It's a brand marketing guy. I'm like, that's a pretty good branding decision.

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466.341 - 470.524 Brianna Hall

Oh, my gosh. You're just picking crypto because you're like, oh, that one sounds good.

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470.544 - 494.317 Ryan Alford

No, Chris will tell me if you, but then I pick the one of the three that he gives me based on if I like the name. Yeah. You know, they're all going to read some of the data. And hey, here's the trick. Don't go to the first page of the search results on something good like page five, because the first page I've here's my strategy is the first page has been let's just call it bought.

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495.629 - 512.576 Ryan Alford

Which means they might be giving you certain tips because they want you to take it as the sort of amateur hour investor. So I go to page five of the search results and see what they say about certain coins. Hey, just an odd tactic. Don't know. But so far, so good. Up like 80%. So suck it.

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516.758 - 524.641 Brianna Hall

Crypto is so interesting to me because there's a whole demographic of people that won't accept it as real currency.

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524.821 - 552.344 Ryan Alford

I don't know if I accept it or not. I just accept that people smarter than me are standing behind it and holding it up to be a good investment. And there's so much money now in it by the bigger institutions that I'm like, okay, if these guys could be in it, I can, you know, I need to be in this. It's not going to go to zero. Yeah.

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552.364 - 564.308 Ryan Alford

And again, you got to only bet or invest, whatever you want to call it, gamble, invest, whatever makes you feel warm and fuzzy, what you can afford to lose.

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565.308 - 566.068 Brianna Hall

Yep, 100%.

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566.988 - 568.849 Ryan Alford

When are you getting in, Brianna? You got to get in on this game.

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569.864 - 588.529 Brianna Hall

Guys, I have gotten my account on Coinbase, which was one that Chris recommended, all the way to the point where you have to log into your bank account. But I don't know if I should say this on the podcast. I just don't know my passwords to anything. So I'm like, well, I can't log in because I don't know my password. It's just auto-saved.

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588.869 - 609.744 Ryan Alford

Mason on our team and I had this discussion yesterday. We were doing something. The amount of time that I spend looking up passwords and dealing with password management. And yeah, I know there's apps for that now, but they don't all solve all the issues. It's a pain in the ass. There's two-factor stuff. I get it. It's security. It's protecting us. I don't want all my shit taken, but damn.

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611.855 - 634.222 Ryan Alford

In 2024, can we solve the password stuff? Can we use retina? Like something that's only identified by us. You know, I'd probably give a blood sample to like, like in the morning, like a finger prick. Most people are babies about that. I don't care about that. Give me that finger prick. If I could, if that would give me clear unlimited passwords for the week, I'll prick the finger.

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635.191 - 644.198 Brianna Hall

Oh, my gosh. I would not. I would not. And also, I need all of your passwords, too. So I can't be pricking your finger every time I need you to sign into something.

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644.399 - 646.34 Ryan Alford

Oh, damn it. All right.

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646.38 - 657.789 Brianna Hall

Let's figure that out. But yeah, no, I mean, that's honestly my only hang up. And it's just like I just need to sit down for 10 minutes and do it. But, you know, I have other things going on.

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658.09 - 663.974 Ryan Alford

You got to do it. Like when you wake up in the night, you need to like, you know, and you can't go back to sleep. At least you do something productive.

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664.975 - 681.048 Brianna Hall

Yeah, exactly. Get in on that money. Well, what I've been working on every time I wake up and pick up my phone is I have a client right now that I'm really honed in on growing their social media. So every time I log in anything, I'm just like trying to grow.

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681.068 - 689.254 Ryan Alford

We'll allow that. We'll allow that. It keeps the bills paid. This will be allowed. What's happening in the news?

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690.711 - 715.613 Brianna Hall

So a few different things. Looks like the big grocery store companies are suing each other. Albertsons and Kroger, they were going to do a merger. And it sounds like, according to this article from NPR, on Tuesday, a federal district court judge in Oregon blocked the $24.6 billion deal. Just basically saying it would monopolize everything. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah.

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733.26 - 757.899 Ryan Alford

You know, we don't even really have Kroger's or Albertson's around here. Like, Kroger's in other parts of South Carolina. Albertson's might be, but I don't think so. So this, like, I'm speaking, like, from pure, like, local, like, impact, very little. I do understand these are two of the largest chains. I, you know, who knows? What's your reaction to this? Like, do you think they should block it?

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757.919 - 757.959 Ryan Alford

No.

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758.877 - 779.91 Brianna Hall

I mean, we had an Albertsons where I lived in California, and it was fine. It says Albertsons owns Safeway and Vons. Kroger owns Ralph's, Harris Teeter, Fred Meyer, and King Shoppers. So you might recognize some of those names. So I think that's where it's more impactful. That's right.

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779.93 - 782.571 Ryan Alford

Kroger does own a bunch of the other names. That's right.

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782.611 - 784.533 Brianna Hall

I forgot about that.

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784.553 - 792.715 Ryan Alford

I don't want Albertsons messing up my Harris Teeter now. That's not jammed. So, all right. This does impact me, damn it.

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793.637 - 794.198 Unknown Speaker

It does.

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794.339 - 823.873 Ryan Alford

Well, I don't know. The... The whole competition argument is a hard one to wrap your head around. And I do think choice is a good thing. I would need to see the list of, like, all grocery stores across the country, all the brand names that fall under each one of these. Obviously, Kroger has multiple. And think about what that would mean. Yeah. Yeah.

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826.656 - 832.188 Ryan Alford

I just don't like the government getting involved in business for the most part. And here's what they're

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833.772 - 850.579 Brianna Hall

their argument for the merger was that they could only together, only as a merged conglomerate, Kroger and Albertsons, only then would they be able to survive competing against Walmart, Costco, Amazon, and all of those.

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851.099 - 877.327 Ryan Alford

Yeah, and that's a good point. I mean, Amazon and Walmart, between .com and brick and mortar for Walmart, They have such scale. So to say that this, you know, puts them at some competitive advantage over them is hard to believe. I mean, who has more scale than Amazon or Walmart? So I don't think it – this is where I'd have to get into the data a little bit more.

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878.428 - 890.583 Ryan Alford

And – but now that they're, like, throwing mud at each other so fast, it's like that – I don't know that most people have a lot of tolerance for it. And it's like, it just seems so fucking petty.

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891.043 - 909.474 Brianna Hall

Like, well, it is interesting here at the end of this article, it says the FTC is case prevailed in us district court, delivering a big wind, uh, to the outgoing Biden administration who made tougher scrutiny of mergers, a central plank of their administration. Uh,

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912.173 - 938.255 Ryan Alford

Yeah. Let's see. I would be curious what Trump's position on this is. Something tells me he wouldn't have fought it, being more pro-business and probably more thoughtful of that Walmart, Amazon, everything else, reality. So we'll see where it goes. I think we can all agree that groceries cost too much for the most part. So anything that can get it cheaper if –

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939.336 - 965.237 Ryan Alford

So here's how I would pragmatically, I am for this or against this if it will lower grocery costs. You tell me which side it is, I'll support that. Because, hey, we can't do what the Independence Center is trying to do, and that's further the American dream if our grocery costs keep going up. We talk about the American dream a lot, and all I know is

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966.811 - 990.885 Ryan Alford

And I consider we're more well-off than most Americans, but we feel it. I mean, it's expensive. I go to the grocery store. I feel like I walk in, and it's like I got a $75 bill just to grab the shopping cart. Oh, yeah. I can't get out of there. I have four things in the cart, and it's like – Uh, $43.79. What?

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992.166 - 1017.775 Brianna Hall

Yeah. Four items. I went into the grocery store last week and the brain of mayonnaise that I like to buy is almost $9 for a container. And so I sat there and I was like, Hey, I have a coupon for this. Let me find it. And I was like, Oh my gosh, like, this is crazy. Like I'm having to like coupon, but get my groceries cheaper. And I feel like we are definitely living the American dream.

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1018.055 - 1020.156 Brianna Hall

And even then, it's like it's still tight.

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1020.636 - 1044.351 Ryan Alford

I ain't too proud to use a coupon. I'm not pulling out a 50 cent coupon. This was $4 off. But $4, $3, $4 off? I'll put that in my pocket. Yeah. You know, here's what will happen. I'm not too proud to use it. fucking forget it every time. I go, oh, dang it. I walk out of the store or get home, like, and I dig in my pocket or whatever I did with it. That's how they get you.

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1044.911 - 1052.775 Ryan Alford

You know, if not in the habit of like, I don't have the, man, remember that woman that'd be in line at the shopping store that'd bring out the wallet? You know, like that thick.

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1052.795 - 1054.576 Brianna Hall

Full of coupons. Full of coupons.

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1054.796 - 1072.129 Ryan Alford

And you know, I was probably, I haven't seen that in a long time, but I would probably, I didn't make fun of that. I was more annoyed because like, I was like, oh God, we got to wait on her to use her coupons. Well, I didn't, it was not judging. It was more just like, we all want to get through the line as fast as possible. Yeah, that's going to be me.

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1072.189 - 1074.67 Unknown Speaker

If groceries go up anymore. I think that's up there.

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1075.15 - 1083.273 Ryan Alford

It adds up. So whatever brings grocery store costs down lower, I will vote for that side of it. We'll just keep it that simple.

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1084.834 - 1089.755 Brianna Hall

Yep. The American dream feels increasingly more complex in 2024. Yeah.

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1089.815 - 1112.97 Ryan Alford

Hopefully it gets easier in 2025. We'll see. If it will, if the Independence Center has anything to do with it, go check out our partner, independencecenter.org. Again, it's not about the right. It's not about the left. It's not like blue. It's not about red, all that shit. None of that matters. Here's what matters. All that matters is that policy impacts your pocketbook in a positive way.

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1113.966 - 1136.264 Ryan Alford

And they're helping bring studies, surveys, voter data that kind of remove all the party bullshit and bring it to the people, which is what we need. Go to IndependentCenter.org, sign up for that newsletter. You'll be thankful that you did. And let's get the politics out of the way. Let's get the policies at the forefront. What's next?

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1137.754 - 1153.726 Brianna Hall

Elon Musk, who we talked about, I think, last week on Weekly Business News that we were talking about him not getting this paycheck. And then now we're talking about this week, he has surpassed the $400 billion net worth mark.

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1155.928 - 1156.088 Ryan Alford

Wow.

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1157.521 - 1182.98 Brianna Hall

Yeah, so this is mostly due to SpaceX. You know, it says, well, this is an article from NBC News, and the value in Tesla has gone up. It's Musk's privately held stake in SpaceX that has catapulted his wealth beyond this threshold of $400 billion. It says that SpaceX is the most valuable private startup in the world.

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1184.212 - 1208.565 Ryan Alford

Jeez. I mean, in one way, I'm like, why is it worth so much? And then another way I get it, because space is sort of the next frontier and where a lot of money is spent and a lot of security with US. I don't get it. I mean, I think it's back to a lot of the technology, the propulsion, rocket propulsion, all that stuff.

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1208.585 - 1231.881 Ryan Alford

I think the, I don't know, patents and everything that goes into whatever it takes. And the fact that I don't know. Maybe we are going to colonize somewhere one day. And it's hard to know the economics, though, of why it's so valuable. Like, where is their revenue made? That's past my pay grade. I think it's contracts with the government.

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1233.002 - 1258.94 Ryan Alford

And the fact that the government and NASA are pretty much relying on SpaceX now in a lot of ways. And you got to also remember being one trip up, baby's like 10 million, you know, it costs a lot of money to bring all that together. And all the fuel and everything else that gets – I mean, you talk about up in smoke, like, jokingly.

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1259.68 - 1279.349 Ryan Alford

But, like, is there anything more up in smoke than a rocket ship taking off? It's just like – and it's all the money that's spent making that happen. But what we don't realize is all the satellites, all the stuff that keeps us secure. There's a lot of stuff that happens in space that we're probably a little –

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1280.143 - 1297.827 Ryan Alford

myself certainly included ignorant to keep us protected and control some of our military stuff. So I can't totally get my head around what makes it worth 300 billion or whatever, but it's crazy.

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1298.047 - 1308.15 Brianna Hall

It's hard for me to even like, imagine what like people way smarter than me have figured out, like how to put satellites up there and like control all sorts of things.

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1309.468 - 1337.515 Ryan Alford

Yeah, they might be the ones hitting all these crazy drones everywhere. That stuff's crazy. Understanding how the most developed country in the world has things flying around that we don't know who and what it is. I, yeah, come on now. Like we got all this technology. You can't, and we can't shoot those. I mean, I know it's illegal, like shoot a drone down.

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1337.555 - 1352.258 Ryan Alford

I think obviously, I think it is airspace. You can't, you're not like for a, for me or you to shoot a drone down. I think it's illegal. But the government can shoot one of those things, like get out there and shoot it down and take it apart and figure out where it came from.

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1353.419 - 1360.486 Brianna Hall

So the drones, so numerous sightings of drones have been reported hovering all over New Jersey. Is that what you're referencing?

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1360.626 - 1360.867 Unknown Speaker

Yeah.

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1361.007 - 1370.436 Brianna Hall

Okay. So local and federal law enforcement have worked together to find some answers, but it's still kind of a mystery. I hadn't heard of this.

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1371.451 - 1390.224 Ryan Alford

Yeah, it's crazy. And they're all over it. And I read an article like right before we came in. I debated bringing it up, but we kind of were talking about spaceships and satellites and all that stuff. So it read, they assume now that it's adversarial. I'm like, great.

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1390.264 - 1392.946 Brianna Hall

This is the same thing that happened with that balloon. Remember that?

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1393.362 - 1393.662 Ryan Alford

Yeah.

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1394.202 - 1394.663 Brianna Hall

Around.

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1394.703 - 1402.786 Ryan Alford

I feel like we never got all the answers on that balloon either, other than it was China and got shot down. And somehow it was drifting over here. A weather balloon.

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1403.666 - 1405.447 Brianna Hall

Shooting down a drone is illegal.

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1405.707 - 1406.968 Ryan Alford

See? I told you.

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1406.988 - 1407.548 Brianna Hall

Yeah.

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1407.628 - 1426.862 Ryan Alford

Because you know why I know? I got my shotgun out to shoot one out that was over our house a couple weeks ago. It was because we had a huge parade here in Greenville. And there was one that was just hovering over our house because we're right downtown. Yeah. And it was bothering me being in my sort of airspace over my house.

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1427.522 - 1428.142 Brianna Hall

And I went out there.

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1428.162 - 1434.024 Ryan Alford

I was going to shoot it. And my wife quickly corrected me and said, you know, it's illegal to shoot a drone now. I'm like, you're kidding, right?

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1434.124 - 1442.546 Brianna Hall

It's kind of crazy that that's illegal, especially on your own property, because they have cameras on them. So they should be taking pictures.

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1442.566 - 1452.529 Ryan Alford

But I guess, I mean, I don't own the air. So that would be the argument. But I'm like, well, shit. What keeps some weirdos from just flying your drones right up in your shit? You know, like.

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1454.43 - 1457.312 Brianna Hall

Or what if you have like a property out somewhere?

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1457.552 - 1483.198 Ryan Alford

If I had a property out somewhere, let's just say my wife wouldn't stop me. If I didn't live in downtown Greenville, let's just say that drone would have seen about a thousand pieces. I would have been like, kids, you got a gift for Christmas. It's called a jigsaw puzzle. It's 1,500 pieces. Oh, look, it's a DJI drone. You just got to put it back together.

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1483.759 - 1494.996 Ryan Alford

Yeah, that's like flying out of the top of my house, like sitting like 30 feet up, and I'm like – I knew he wasn't, like, could care less about anything we were doing. And we were doing nothing but sitting inside watching TV. But I heard it. And then.

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1495.016 - 1498.159 Brianna Hall

But still. What if you were, like, walking around your house naked?

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1498.179 - 1507.129 Ryan Alford

I might have been. But, you know, I gave him a little show. I was naked when I had the shotgun out.

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1508.695 - 1509.135 Brianna Hall

Oh, God.

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1509.396 - 1512.138 Ryan Alford

I'm kidding. Sort of. But no.

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1512.179 - 1513.18 Brianna Hall

No one needs that visual.

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💬 0

1513.22 - 1522.048 Ryan Alford

Yeah, I know. Shotgun. Are you kidding? Hey, I'm like 25 pounds around here. I got a one pack. Come on now.

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💬 0

1523.17 - 1524.071 Ryan Alford

Oh, gosh.

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1526.22 - 1536.242 Ryan Alford

But yeah, that drone stuff in New Jersey, does it not blow your mind that we don't know what that is or who's causing it?

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1536.262 - 1542.164 Brianna Hall

It's a little weird. Yeah. And that the FBI is saying like, hey, if you have any information, please report it to us.

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1542.224 - 1564.717 Ryan Alford

You're the FBI. You're supposed to know. Like, come on, man. It's going to sit flying around. Oh, me. But luckily, Elon, back to the whole article, is worth $400 billion. Congratulations. I was worrying about where his next billion was going to come from. And good for him, man. It's a lot of fucking money.

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1564.757 - 1570.419 Brianna Hall

I mean, what do you think you can do with $400? I was telling Sawyer before we launched, I would take one of those.

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1570.759 - 1578.79 Ryan Alford

Yeah, one bill. One bill, you'd be all right. Yeah, right? Yeah. A hundred million. A thousand million is what a billion is.

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💬 0

1578.85 - 1579.911 Brianna Hall

He wouldn't even notice.

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1580.131 - 1596.677 Ryan Alford

Yeah, he wouldn't even notice. A million here, a million there. A lot of money. This shows you that's how much money there is to be made. That's why this Kraken app is going to do it. We're going to a billion, baby.

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1597.737 - 1612.569 Brianna Hall

It's that or, I mean, for all of our listeners out there, there's so many different ways to make a million dollars and to launch, you know, businesses or drive your business forward or 4X your business in 2025. Yes. And we know a marketing agency that can help with that.

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1612.91 - 1638.293 Ryan Alford

Oh, yes, we do. Radical.com. But you know what? Do you know how we're able to do it? Because we stay energized. You know how we stay energized? Yes. X marks the spot. Yes, exponent. Hey, this isn't energy. This is fusion energy. You notice we're talking rocket ships, we're talking nuclear power, and we're talking fusion energy.

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1638.333 - 1660.402 Ryan Alford

Zero sugar, plant-powered, adaptogens, nootropics, electrolytes, all the stuff you want, none of the stuff you don't. X marks the spot, exponent. This is the Sector C. They got all the coolest names. Sector C here. We got Eclipse. Everyone's favorite is the blue ones. At the office, it's like blue raspberry or something. This is lemon, lime, and orange. We try those new flavors on air.

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1660.822 - 1682.657 Ryan Alford

I'm ready for this. Sarge and I were talking the other day. We're ready for those new flavors to come out. Strawberry, lemon, stuff, whatever. All kinds of new stuff. It can't be giving away trade secrets. But all kinds of flavors coming out. And, again, the best part is – and I've been bad about this. I drink a lot of energy drinks. I just don't like coffee really.

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1683.097 - 1706.702 Ryan Alford

And so got to get that pep, but you need it to be healthy. Don't need all the bad stuff. Got to stop. I got to wake up and read the labels. My good friend, Jim Smiley tells me that, you know, you got to do that. So you read the labels and you go to exponent drink exponent.com as well as on Instagram. Go give them some love. And look, I only promote the products that I like and that I actually use.

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1707.522 - 1713.688 Ryan Alford

And there's no bigger user of energy drinks than this guy. So where do you think all this energy comes from?

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1714.429 - 1723.016 Brianna Hall

Oh, I want one of those right now. I had a ice cold orange one yesterday afternoon and it just really helped me get through the day.

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1723.036 - 1724.338 Ryan Alford

Was there some vodka in it?

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1725.639 - 1725.879 Brianna Hall

Okay.

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1726.789 - 1737.408 Ryan Alford

Was there some vodka in it? What's your point? Yes. Well, that's the final article today.

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1738.867 - 1767.571 Brianna Hall

A growing number of U.S. adults are lacking literacy skills. Kind of a scary one. Coming to us from NBC News says, According to a study of adults by the National Center for Education Statistics, 28% of U.S. adults now perform at the lowest measured literacy levels. Up 19% in 2017. Let's see. It means we're using our phones too much.

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1768.011 - 1774.695 Ryan Alford

Yeah, I think that's what it is, right? Or it's the YouTube nation, right? You're watching everything. You're not reading anything.

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💬 0

1776.736 - 1781.479 Brianna Hall

If you're watching YouTube, that's fine. Just make sure you're watching the Radcast Network YouTube channel.

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1781.619 - 1808.96 Ryan Alford

That's right. You've got to look that up. You've got to see all the shows on our network. But I will say... My wife would probably – her school, like, ranks, like, one of the top 10 or 20 in the whole state. So she would call that out while also going, this doesn't surprise her, I'm sure, with just – it's sad, though. Yeah.

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1809.28 - 1818.728 Ryan Alford

Like, what – why is it – it makes you want to know what are the underlying reasons for this. Is it because of some variable? Yeah.

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1820.95 - 1834.598 Brianna Hall

You know what I would consider, and I don't have all of the research on this, but how much of this is because of immigration? So maybe they are not illiterate. Maybe they just English is their second language.

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1834.778 - 1849.666 Brianna Hall

And so maybe they're scoring low on these tests because it says that those at the lowest levels struggle with tasks like reading instructions, filling out forms, or managing simple calculations. So I'd be curious to see if there's any data on that.

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1851.087 - 1885.758 Ryan Alford

Yeah, it said when asked about potential causes for the decline, Carr stated that it's difficult to say. Pun intended. He didn't have the answer. He couldn't read it out loud. Oh, sorry. That's the worst quote. I know. It's like I read that. I had to double take. Even when I said it out loud, I was like, is this a joke? Did he say pun intended after it? What's the reason for the decline?

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1887.219 - 1920.286 Ryan Alford

You'll read about it later. I couldn't read the report. Oh, geez. Who knows? I do think unrelated related. Reform in exactly how and what we learn that better match the world we live in today is something I could get behind. I have had this discussion with my wife, and it's not because I feel like what she does and what teachers and administrators are doing every day is not highly important.

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1921.249 - 1945.751 Ryan Alford

I just think there could be a better alignment to what are the skills and learning that you need in the classroom. I think it's somewhat related to this. I mean, literacy and understanding the language, though, is a little different than what I'm suggesting, but it might go hand in hand in some ways because – We evolve and maybe we need to teach it differently. I don't know.

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1945.851 - 1958.5 Ryan Alford

That's past my pay grade on how to teach it. I just think what we learn, though, needs to evolve with where AI and all the other things that are happening are taking us so that we are productive.

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1959.691 - 1981.664 Brianna Hall

Oh, I totally agree. And I think that we have so much data and we have so much information and there's no excuse for us not to be reforming the way that we're teaching things and giving students the best access to information and access to help and mental health resources and resources.

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1981.864 - 1999.976 Brianna Hall

you know, all of these different like resources that we have full access to with, you know, chat GPT and AI and everything that exists now. And just making sure that, you know, young people also have that access and know where to find help and know, you know, how to, how to learn maybe for their own personality or their learning style.

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2000.437 - 2006.341 Brianna Hall

I think that there is so many ways that we can adapt to better serve our children. So I have big opinions on this.

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2006.601 - 2032.041 Ryan Alford

Yes. Agreed. Oh, lastly, I want to say today, you know, it's the biggest news story in the U.S. has been the shooting and killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. And that story is so, you know, we do one time a week. When we move to more, you know, multiple day news story, we'll probably cover more of that. There's definitely an impact business-wide, culturally.

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2032.061 - 2056.603 Ryan Alford

You know, everything becomes political today, including stuff like that. But the reality is that story is kind of unfolding so moment by moment. I don't want to come on here when we record this and it's not live and news already be out because it seems to be a very developing story. But my own thoughts are just –

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2058.132 - 2082.632 Ryan Alford

Some of the language and the reactions from certain news people and certain people about like in some way, like thinking this is OK because they, you know, the health care system is broken and like all these things that taking another person's life and not. Honoring that in some way is just despicable behavior and unacceptable.

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2083.192 - 2102.464 Ryan Alford

And I think this guy's – if this guy that's Luigi, whoever, that got apprehended ends up being the one, he's clearly lost his screw somewhere because nothing has made sense from what I've seen coming out on his background. But as a society, to in any way –

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2107.262 - 2121.896 Ryan Alford

not acknowledge the crime when someone gets gunned down on the street and the severe, like just the humanity, lack of humanity in that act is just unforgivable.

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2122.93 - 2145.809 Brianna Hall

Well, I totally agree. And, you know, Brian Thompson is the man who passed away, who was killed, you know, and condolences to his wife and his family. I know he was married with young children, I think, or youngish children. And I totally agree. And, you know, I saw articles on it and, you know, I would go through the comments section of those articles and the comments were very positive.

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2146.79 - 2162.783 Brianna Hall

inappropriate on people saying like okay what companies like ceo is next or you know just making comments on health care companies that they were saying that this should happen to them as well yeah i mean reprehensible and so

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2164.045 - 2177.792 Ryan Alford

Yes. Thoughts with his family and, you know, with the authorities that are trying to get this handled in the right way and to learn what we need to learn. But again, some things, there'll be things unfolded by the time this episode even goes live.

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2177.832 - 2208.014 Ryan Alford

So I don't want to pretend, you know, that we have the latest, the greatest, other than it's unacceptable and a true bad moment for us when people are getting gut. I mean, CEOs of companies are going down in the street. I mean, we're a civilized nation. And I know crimes happen every day. But this is unacceptable. It needs to be handled swiftly in the right way. So we'll see where it goes.

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💬 0

2208.114 - 2211.677 Ryan Alford

But that's all I got today. Anything else today, Brianna?

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2212.818 - 2213.479 Brianna Hall

Nothing from me.

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2214.249 - 2228.615 Ryan Alford

Right. Well, happy holidays. Keep saying it. Just say, hey, you're halfway through December almost already. You got 12 days. If you're watching this or listening on the 13th. And so, hey, better get that shopping done.

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2229.415 - 2233.417 Brianna Hall

I'm not ready when you say it like that. 12 days.

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💬 0

2233.437 - 2237.279 Ryan Alford

12 days of Christmas. Yes, left.

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💬 0

2237.379 - 2238.019 Brianna Hall

Aye, aye, aye.

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2238.519 - 2249.302 Ryan Alford

I know. Ryanisright.com. Find the highlight clips, all the articles, everything that we do on this show at the website. We appreciate you for making us number one. We'll see you next time on Right About Now.

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2251.103 - 2263.506 Ryan Alford

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 to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.

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