THE HEALTHCARE WAR: Congress vs. Your Wallet | Betting on ACA Future (Kalshi LIVE)

All right, you guys, so we're back with Follow the Money, brought to you by Brand Maven. I'm your host, Jamal Ford, and I'm super excited to be able to actually go through these bids with y'all, talk about what's going on with the government shutdown, and try to see kind of where there is to actually make money, not only short-term but long-term. Term, if you own a business, or just trying to be productive overall. So Be sure that there's a lot of opportunity to make money. You don't really see them right now. First down, first topic up for the day. It's really, uh, the Grammys. Grammy nominations were announced last week, and there's a lot of interesting things that happen with the Grammy nominations. So let's actually look and explore these and kind of see if there's some opportunity out there, especially with Kalashi, and then also with— set this up real quick. Okay, y'all, so this is what we looking at. So obviously Grammy nominations were announced. Bad Bunny got a lot of nominations this particular year. I think it's definitely the year of Bad Bunny, like it's no question it's the year of Bad Bunny. Why is it the year Bad Bunny? Because pretty much he got announced as the Super Bowl headliner. And so you got to understand, that is 32 billionaires agreeing and that they are looking to have Bad Bunny perform at their biggest event. And so they're going to put all the money, all the expenses to make sure they have as many eyes as possible on Bad Bunny and on their actual event. This for me lets me know that the American Football League is trying to go international. There's no question if they were not trying to expand to other countries that they would have got somebody else. So they got Bad Bunny. It lets you know that they're highly invested in expanding the NFL to a global game. So right here we have the actual bid for Bad Bunny, the number of Grammys that Bad Bunny will actually win. Um, let's see. Oh, his nominations. So let's go, let's go to Bad Bunny's. Let's go to ask who his money is. So here's the first bet on Bad Bunny right here. Uh, will Trump publicly comment on Bad Bunny again this year? I don't think so. I mean, with the government shutdown happening, I don't think he's going to really put energy towards Bad Bunny from that particular standpoint. I think that obviously people are losing benefits, we have flights that's being canceled. I think that there's more important things. So let's see what the actual bids are on this right here. So if you think he will comment on it, if you bid $100, you'll get $169. If you say no, it's $152. Now people always ask, why do you win money on Kalashi whether it goes one way or another? Where there's interest associated with bad— with, um, Kalashi. Kalashi gives you 3.5% interest the longer you actually stay in the bed. Because today is the 10th of November, this probably is going to last until the 31st of December. So that's a lot of interest that you can get, be it no— that's why you get more money if he actually does say something about Bad Bunny. But outside of somebody asking them questions about Bad Bunny, I don't really see him talking about it. I don't see anybody asking questions about Bad Bunny with so many other things going wrong in the actual economy and everything that's going on in the United States. So I'll probably move towards him not saying anything about Bad Bunny. With that being said, I think that it's more pertinent to get to more of the political things that's going on and see where trends are going and where business is going, um, from that particular standpoint. Let's see what's trending right now. How long would the government shutdown last? More than 43 days, more than 44 days. That window is so tight. That alone lets you know that the government shutdown it's probably only going to last maybe 1 or 2 more days. This is really big news, really big news for people who are trying to catch flights. They know that a lot of airlines can lose a lot of money at this particular time. And with the United States being a place that has a lot of foreigners here that travel outside the United States for the holidays, and even people that come into the United States for the holidays, I definitely don't think we want that scar on us So I would probably lean towards— obviously everybody's leaning towards 43 days. I'll probably put my money on 44 days because there's a few other slight things that need to be hashed out, uh, on that. Um, so you can see 42 days, more than 44 days, 43 days. 42 days is, is trending up. People are thinking, hey, this is about to end real quick. Um, and that would be past 10 AM Eastern Standard Time. That's on the 12th. Um, more past the 44 days is on the 14th. The 14th is what day? The 14th is Friday. Yeah, it's going to be done before Friday, so I'm gonna take that back. I'm probably gonna lean more towards Wednesday, which is the 12th. So that's why, yeah, it's probably going to end on the 12th. I would probably lean towards the 12th. Um, so a lot of people, a lot The news is saying it's going to end on the 12th. What does this mean? This means that people are going to be traveling, people will be going out and about. And so if you have anything in a business associated with that, uh, with travel, or even anything associated with SNAP, anything with government funding, um, you can look towards Wednesday or possibly being the day where the government shutdown ends. I believe— well, it's not that I believe, I know that 90% of businesses that last over 5 years in the United States typically have some funding, funding resource from the United States government. And this is really important if you're trying to scale your business, because a lot of times if you're not getting money from the government, it makes it really difficult for you to sustain business on just people agreeing to work with you, people agreeing to get services from you, people agreeing to buy products from you. It's very important to have a leg in government entity, in agriculture, in transportation, in healthcare, in SNAP, in agriculture. So a lot of those people have not been— have not getting paid for their services or their products. So it's probably looking more towards Wednesday when those things actually pick back up and people will start getting their actual disbursements, probably next week or something like that. So I I think just looking at the money, I think Wednesday is probably going to be the day, um, that the government shutdown is going to actually transition and, and, and actually stop. So that being said, let's look at airport delays. Will controller shortage shut down an air traffic facility in November? I would say no. Obviously you can see people are trending more towards no because that government shutdown is probably, um, coming to an end. So, um, that's why you can win some money if it actually does shut down an air traffic facility. But I don't think it's going to shut down a traffic facility. Um, but I do want to talk about something interesting that I've seen from the standpoint of why the actual government shutdown was important to Democrats. Because as you know, we have a 2026 midterms coming. A lot of negative polls have come out against the Republicans and against Trump in the party. And so if you notice, last week, um, Governor Mandani won, um, in New York, and Republicans were not happy about that. And it means that more than likely during midterms next year, Democrats are going to win a lot of the seats. Why is that important? Democrats winning a lot of seats allows you to get a little bit more balance in our political structure. As we know, this particular year there was not a lot of balance, um, with the Republicans having the majority of the seats and majority of the positions. So because of that, um, the holdoff on the government shutdown allowed a lot of decisions to be pushed back until next year when a lot more Democrats will be in seats. So let's look at what we have for the 2026 midterms. Which party will win the US House next year? I As you can see, people believe 100% that Democrats are going to get it. I believe so too, because there's just been so much negative press, um, with that particular— with the things that have going on in 2025. So I think this is big news when it comes to, once again, businesses who actually provide services for underserved communities. There was a lot of things that the Republicans was trying to get removed for underserved communities, and I think that people realized it. I think people voted Republican, they didn't realize they were underserved communities till you actually understood what the financial structure was. And maybe you thought you were over a certain line where these things couldn't affect you, even if you're making millions of dollars. If you are making million dollars, millions of dollars based on service, servicing the underpopulated communities, it would have had a huge effect on you. Um, if you're not in military if you're not in these structures that is very hard to get into, if you're not doing grants, if you're not winning, um, contracts for these particular things, then you could have definitely seen your business actually falter if the Republicans had maintained the House. So I don't think they're going to maintain the House. I think the Democrats are definitely going to maintain the House. Uh, with that being said, I want to go into the first actual thing where Governor Mandani won last, um, week the mayor election. And as you can see, the margins of that were actually pretty high. Like, people— it was— some people thought he would win at an 8% margin or 9% margin, and 9 to 11, he won in between a 9 to 7% margin. Uh, and that's really big because It lets you know the sentiment across the United States of how people are really feeling about, you know, just overall what's going on and how it's affecting them financially, affecting people's livelihoods. So I think that this trend is going to carry probably within the next year and a half. Um, I think people really didn't know what they were signing up for. Now they got a rude awakening of what they're signing up for, and they're like, okay, we definitely need to make some adjustments. So let's look at the tariffs. The tariffs have been a big thing, I know, this week, and we could look it up. Um, I'll go to, uh, Trump's tariffs real quick because I think they were announced that they were going to give people stipends, um, off of tariffs, which is kind of crazy because if you're trying to pay off a debt, why would you actually, um that he's trying to give people dividends off of tariffs, which is— I don't really know how you're going to pay off your, your debt if you're trying to give people money off of, of that. Is, is, is, is not the truth. I don't, you know, um, so let's, let's look at it. Let's read into it really quickly. Gonna pop up really for a second. So as you can see, I'm gonna scroll down really quickly. So Trump's, uh, has said most Americans are expected to get a dividend from tariffs of $2,000 or more. We have over 350 million Americans in the United States, so let me put that in perspective. Could— so you could really understand this. 350 million people. And let's just say, let's just cut it down to 2— let's just say you want to give it to 150 million people, this money. Let's multiply that times 2,000. That's like, what, that's $300 billion or $300 trillion? There's $300 billion. So you want to give $300 billion in like— and it's probably going to be more than that, but I just don't think that's logical when you're trying to pay off a debt. So I think it's just something that's being said just to get people behind the idea of Taro. So you always got to look at the smoky mirrors and figure out what's really real and what's really not, um, when it comes to those particular things being said. So with that being said, with the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the tariffs, I don't think they will, um, and that's why people are leaning more towards no. Like, you can see there's a large margin, um, if they actually go yes, but you can see the trend here is like, while it looked like it was steady, um, in September, just with everything with the fallout, um, that's happened since the government shutdown, except since November 1st Um, you know, the, the polls— he's really plummeted in the polls, so he's leaning more towards no. So, um, I don't think the tariffs are going to go through. I don't think they're going to get approved. So with that being said, let's move on to the next thing. Let's see how many spots on the Billboard Top 100 will, um, top 10 will Taylor Swift hold for the next week. Um, she's probably going to hold a lot bit, which I wanted to talk about this because I'm really— I noticed I don't know if you guys watched the, the Grammy Awards or the Grammy nominations, but let's go through it. Um, let's go with 2026 Grammy. I noticed that Taylor Swift was not on the list. Now this is interesting because I noticed that because of this, um, people can actually submit their actual music at certain times, um, which was very interesting to me, um, because I knew she— which is very smart on her part because she knew she was going to be going against Bad Bunny. And if you know, if you read in the landscape, she was going to lose to Bad Bunny, um, it doesn't matter if she's Taylor Swift or not, it's gonna be, um, who people are trying trying to, um, get behind. So about, can you nominate yourself, you know how that goes. And a lot of people thought she was going to be up for Grammys. I've seen people who came out with albums last month that was up for Grammys this month. So for her to have an album come out and be so popular now and it not to be up Um, it had me looking more into it and seeing how it actually works. So she must have— is probably gonna wait for 2026 to put her stuff up for Grammys. Um, Sabrina Carpenter, amazing album. Leon Thomas, he's definitely gonna win in the R&B category for sure. Um, as you know, Kendrick Lamar— Kendrick Lamar songs, uh, really was a big hit in 2025. Now it's going to come more into fruition probably in 2026. He won already in 2025, but he won for the diss tracks that came out before the album. Now the actual album is up for Grammy nominations in the rap category, and I think he's definitely going to pick up a few of those as well. Um, so I'm— it's not going to be as competitive as I thought it was going to be with Taylor Swift not having, um, records in for the Grammys. But, um, it's a lot of people up and well deserving for the wins. Um, let's look at a few companies. Let's see what's going One company I definitely wanted to talk about was Walmart, because for me, with SNAP benefits being cut, people don't realize that Walmart makes up roughly about 30% of total SNAP benefits in the United States. Um, and so one bid that I did see come up was, uh, what would they say during their earnings call? And so one pay was one thing, prescription is one pay, um, but one was SNAP. Now this is interesting. You would say, why would, why would Walmart mention SNAP? Um, because the government gives out about $100 million in SNAP benefits a year. What's crazy about that, Walmart takes about $100 billion a year. The United States does. Walmart makes $600 billion a year, roughly about that amount. Um, $100 billion the United States government gives out in benefits, and about $30 billion of that actually goes to Walmart. Walmart is the biggest consumer of SNAP. So with the government shutdown happening, Walmart probably took up— probably a significant hit. It probably took the biggest hit out of everybody. Now they're making $600, uh, billion, so it's not as significant of a hit as you would think, but Walmart's actual salaries are about $40 billion. So imagine if you— your United States salaries is $40 billion and $30 billion you get from SNAP. That means you only have to come up with $10 billion to pay your actual workers. And so that means that the majority of what people's— like, your biggest cost in business is staffing and salaries. And SNAP actually pays over 80% of that for Walmart. So it could have had a major toll on their business as far as how money is getting paid out and things like that. But I don't think they're going to mention it because, you know, obviously they make a lot of money. They don't want to highlight that that's actually where they get their money from. But tariffs is also a big thing for them as far as things— goods coming in and out, and inflation and the cost of things going up. So I can definitely see them talking about, um, tarots, um, AI. I, you know, with Amazon starting to implement some AI, I've seen something amazing the other day when I was watching the NBA games, because a lot of NBA games are on Amazon now. And if you're watching the games on Amazon, you'll actually notice that as you're watching the game, you're getting notifications on your phone to buy products that they're showing you commercials on. This is crazy how interactive sales are becoming with TV. Um, and I never considered that. Like, if you have an app on your phone, or you have an app for people who follow you, and you're doing a live stream, or you're doing live things, how you can use your app to interact with people who are watching you on YouTube, watching you on TV, just watching these different things. So I think that's a really huge thing that they have come up on Amazon, and I think a lot of people are going to start implementing that in the very near future. And I think it's a feature that a lot of TV, um, people who are not Amazon are going to start to incorporate to have people be able to buy products directly from the actual commercials instead of just doing QR codes, like sending notifications to phones. That's That's insane. And so, um, that's amazing, but also it's something to be aware of if you're trying to get into product sales and understanding how these particular things can work. And even being a live streamer, like I'm streaming live, if I had an app and people are interacting with me here and I can send them notifications to purchase things that I have or purchase particular softwares or particular services that they can buy them immediately without having to go through a checkout process. That, that's really big. Let's look at tech. Let's look at science. Let's see if there's anything that's trending. Uh, best AI at the end of the year. Yeah, Gemini. I don't know if people have been watching, but Gemini has far surpassed ChatGPT. I mean, if you have a business account, a Google business account, you already get the Gemini services for free. Their video production, their image production is better than ChatGPT. Their, um, copy as far as writing blogs, writing ad promotions is better than ChatGPT, I think. And then they even— the Gemini being incorporated in the Chrome has now even made ChatGPT come out with their own browser, Atlas. I don't know if anyone has downloaded Atlas, but Atlas is pretty much anytime you go to a blank screen on their browser, it immediately sends you to ChatGPT. Gemini is incorporated into Chrome now in every facet, so it actually is pretty much probably going to surpass ChatGPT. Even though ChatGPT is becoming more private in order to get them more access to do more things, Gemini is definitely going to win 2025. Um, as well as Google is also incorporating Gemini in the cars now from Google phones, which is huge. So now people are going to have AI in, in the actual cars, which is crazy, right? Um, just to think about that. Um, let's look at world news. Is there anything trending in world news that can be a good indicator of business? Not anything right now immediately that I could speak on, just from me looking at it just from a big perspective. Health, let's see if there's anything. Um, I definitely look at it for the next live stream and see if there's something that I could definitely comment on. Um, now let's look at sports. Today is Monday, obviously we have football coming up. Um, tonight, uh, we have Green Bay versus Philly, uh, tonight. Um, it's 50-50. Obviously both teams are, are really good. Let's see if there's anything in particular that we can look at that might be a good indicator of who might win. I mean, I would put my money on Philadelphia, um, just because they have a— well, they— the run game hasn't been great this year, but But I would say that their run game is better than Green Bay's. Green Bay has been faltering a little bit on defense. I think they were trying to up their defense, but I mean, I'll probably put my money on Green Bay if it was me. Um, yeah, definitely. Um, the spread, Green Bay 2.5, uh, for all 45 points scored. Um, no, I don't think over 45 points are going to be scored, but the 2.5, yeah, I can definitely see that. So that's about it. Like I said, I love going over Kalashi bids. I love showing y'all what I'm looking at. I love to take this information and show you how you can use it in business. If you have any things, any trends that you're looking at you want me to review on this live stream, once again, you can follow me at— go to jamalford.com. I have a newsletter to read the community. We serve software, we have free tips and tools that people can use for business. And once again, thank you guys for attending. And if there's anything you want, just leave it in the comments and I definitely look at those bids in the future. Hold on, is there one last thing? No, no, I think that's about it for today. So once again, you guys, thank you so much for joining the live stream. I'm super excited to be doing this, um, just something different from me, something different for the people who follow me in my community. And so we out. See you guys next time.