Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZY, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Thanks Nicole Yikes four to one. His team has been
Speaker 2: a role in the last couple of nights, and tonight
Speaker 2: they hit a stone wall. Well, we'll see how that transpires.
Speaker 2: If you're watching the game, you can turn the audio
Speaker 2: down of the television and you could listen to us
Speaker 2: here on Nightside. My name is Dan Ray. Rob Brooks,
Speaker 2: the producer of this program, is back in the broadcast
Speaker 2: central headquarters. He's gonna set us up with all your
Speaker 2: phone calls beginning after nine o'clock. We will, as the
Speaker 2: evening goes on, get onto some subjects where phone calls
Speaker 2: will be welcome. I'm going to talk about Boycott's are
Speaker 2: the effective, going to talk about this looming government shutdown,
Speaker 2: and maybe talk a little about what the peace prospects
Speaker 2: are in Ukraine. So we have some pretty heavy topics
Speaker 2: later on tonight, and we have some very interesting topics
Speaker 2: in this first hour. We're going to talk about the
Speaker 2: push for office returns, going to talk about that Twitter outage,
Speaker 2: on the Twitter outages of earlier this week. I'm going
Speaker 2: to talk about the impact that the Trump tariffs may
Speaker 2: have on farmers across the country and also a troubling
Speaker 2: report about children developing body image issues starting as young
Speaker 2: as seven. But first wanted to introduce Clark Lowe Clark as
Speaker 2: the president and CEO of O'Connor Company. Clark, first of all,
Speaker 2: what is O'Connor company? What do you folks do? Hey?
Speaker 1: Dan?
Speaker 3: How are you?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: We're a national life Thank you so much. We're a
Speaker 3: national commercial general contractor. We do work coast to coast,
Speaker 3: and we're most known for a remote first workforce.
Speaker 2: Remote first workforce. Okay, if you could explain that one
Speaker 2: to me, I think I know what it means, but
Speaker 2: I want to make sure I do before we start
Speaker 2: asking questions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so are a majority of our workforce it works remote,
Speaker 3: work from home, and we have a number of employees
Speaker 3: that also travel. So unlike most general most general contractors,
Speaker 3: we are a workforce that works mostly out of our
Speaker 3: houses or through traveling. Means.
Speaker 2: Yeah. When I when I think about general contractors are
Speaker 2: gcs as they're called, I assume that you're on site
Speaker 2: and you're watching whatever construction is underway. Explain to me
Speaker 2: how you can do that job remotely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we do have site supervision that is on
Speaker 3: site at all of our jobs, so that from that sense,
Speaker 3: we're traditional from the office sense where we don't have
Speaker 3: the traditional regional platform that most other general contractors have.
Speaker 3: So all of our support staff, all of our back
Speaker 3: end staff, all of our project managers, et cetera, are
Speaker 3: all remote remote workforce, and all of our site supervisors
Speaker 3: that those those folks all travel.
Speaker 2: Okay, So we're going to talk about the push for
Speaker 2: office returns and the question is, but is it the
Speaker 2: right move now? I have worked remotely since COVID hit
Speaker 2: about five years ago. I was told by my team,
Speaker 2: my superiors that they wanted me out of the office
Speaker 2: so that I could be somewhat more safe and do
Speaker 2: my job remotely, which I've done successfully for five years.
Speaker 2: But I guess a lot of companies are pushing people
Speaker 2: come on back into the office because I guess some
Speaker 2: people have maybe taken advantage and when they say they've
Speaker 2: worked remotely, they're in Pago pago or a bally bally
Speaker 2: or something like that. And what's going on? Is this
Speaker 2: a good trend or a bad trend in your opinion?
Speaker 3: Well, in my opinion, I think it's a little short sighted. Trend.
Speaker 3: If you look at the workforce. When the DoD called
Speaker 3: remote employees back recently, the funny thing is when the
Speaker 3: empolies went back to work, there wasn't even enough office
Speaker 3: space for them to go back because there'd been so
Speaker 3: much hiring done over the time that when they so,
Speaker 3: then they had to go to these weird swing shifts
Speaker 3: where employees were working four hours remote, four hours in
Speaker 3: the office, and they had some weird commute and schedules.
Speaker 3: I think just the world. One of the things that
Speaker 3: we talk about within our company is we feel like
Speaker 3: the gravity of the household is starting to take shape,
Speaker 3: meaning that the people's homes are starting to become the
Speaker 3: gravity of the world. And you know, a lot of
Speaker 3: this is like a generational trend as well. Gen Z
Speaker 3: our newest work generation in the workforce. That generation spent
Speaker 3: a lot of time with parents who were outside the
Speaker 3: household because many of the millennial and Gen X parents
Speaker 3: were two income households, and so many of these new
Speaker 3: generation generational parents. So at least what we see at
Speaker 3: O'Connor is there, you know, moms and dads looking for
Speaker 3: were one position to be remote so they can maintain
Speaker 3: that family element as well.
Speaker 2: So you talk about the various federal workers who have
Speaker 2: been called back to work and not enough office space.
Speaker 2: I suspect Dolge will have something to say about that.
Speaker 2: But I understood that there was so much office space
Speaker 2: available in Washington that a lot of buildings now are
Speaker 2: going to be sold. We have in Boston a lot
Speaker 2: of empty buildings downtown, and many people are saying, how
Speaker 2: can we repurpose those buildings? So I guess to repurpose
Speaker 2: those buildings to condominiums or rental properties. Maybe people would
Speaker 2: have to stay. Let me ask you this before before COVID,
Speaker 2: I would say that probably ninety five percent of people
Speaker 2: worked out of some sort of office location somewhere other
Speaker 2: than their home. Fair enough, if I said that, it
Speaker 2: was that to be a fair calculation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with that.
Speaker 2: So at the height of COVID, let's say, in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty and twenty twenty one, what was the at home
Speaker 2: or remote percentage of the workforce. I'm going to suggest
Speaker 2: seventy five percent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is hard to tell because you have so
Speaker 3: much you know, right, like the truckers couldn't be remote.
Speaker 3: But I would guess the percentage was precipitously higher, right,
Speaker 3: I would guess north of fifty sixty percent.
Speaker 2: And of course there are people who, you know, professional
Speaker 2: athletes can't work from home. People in hospitals, nurses and
Speaker 2: doctors and surgeons, they can't work from home. So what
Speaker 2: do you think the new balance will eventually settle at.
Speaker 2: It's not going to be ninety five percent from home
Speaker 2: if that's what it was at the height of COVID.
Speaker 2: Where do you see it settling at, you know, fifty
Speaker 2: to fifty What do you think?
Speaker 3: I believe what I see remote work as is almost
Speaker 3: an extension of technology. So what I believe is people
Speaker 3: will start to look for cultures within companies that accept
Speaker 3: some level of remote work, right because that will that
Speaker 3: will mean the company is a modernized, more forward thinking company.
Speaker 3: And then the real problem with remote work is as
Speaker 3: it gets as remote work catches on those companies that
Speaker 3: refuse to go remote work, they're they're they're hiring pool
Speaker 3: gets smaller and smaller and smaller because those folks say
Speaker 3: in the Boston area that they can find a job
Speaker 3: anywhere in the US, and then the companies looking for
Speaker 3: those employees to come in they have less and less
Speaker 3: the less to choose from and allows them. This gives
Speaker 3: companies larger recruiting pools as well.
Speaker 2: Interesting, very interesting, So give me your number. Let us
Speaker 2: assume that this settles down. I assume at some point,
Speaker 2: depending upon circumstances, these percentages just can all change a
Speaker 2: little bit. But where do you think it's going to settle.
Speaker 2: Do you think it's going to be forty percent remote
Speaker 2: or more? You know, five years out?
Speaker 3: I think I think in the next five to ten
Speaker 3: years you could see a workforce that's somewhere to be
Speaker 3: between fifty to sixty percent remote, especially if you remove
Speaker 3: all of the obvious jobs, right, you know, construction framers,
Speaker 3: those working on the highways. If you remove out all
Speaker 3: those jobs, I think you could see numbers and even
Speaker 3: higher upwards than to fifty sixty seventy percent with remote work.
Speaker 2: All right, well, interesting, very interesting analysis. I enjoyed this
Speaker 2: conversation because the best part about it, I say, it's
Speaker 2: made me think, and it probably has made most of
Speaker 2: our audience think. So Clark, thanks for your input. Your
Speaker 2: company is O'Connor company, where you're located everywhere?
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, we got work going on the coast, but
Speaker 3: we are headquartered in Pinehurst, North Carolina and the national
Speaker 3: General contractor.
Speaker 2: Nice part of the country. Clark, appreciate your time talking
Speaker 2: to everybody up here in New England. Thank you, and
Speaker 2: perhaps we'll check in with you a few months from
Speaker 2: now and see what the trend is. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Thanks Dan, have a good one.
Speaker 2: You're very welcome. When we get back, we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about those Twitter outages. I believe that there were
Speaker 2: three that attributed to a massive cyber attack. We're going
Speaker 2: to talk with the vice president of Global Cyber Advocacy,
Speaker 2: a worldwide technology and expert in information security risk. Her
Speaker 2: name is Kate Keen, and we will talk with her
Speaker 2: and maybe get some idea if we know where that
Speaker 2: cyber attack came from. My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside.
Speaker 2: You're listening to WBZ in Boston ten thirty or on
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Speaker 2: right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Well, for those of you who followed these sorts of things,
Speaker 2: Twitter had some bumps in the road earlier this week.
Speaker 2: Apparently they were subjected to a massive cyber attack, and
Speaker 2: I think they had outages three times. I know a
Speaker 2: little bit about it, but I'll tell you Kate Keen
Speaker 2: knows a lot about it. She's a vice president of
Speaker 2: Global cyber Advocacy in Worldwide Technology and expert and information
Speaker 2: security risk Kate Keen, Welcome to Nightside in Boston.
Speaker 4: How are you hey?
Speaker 5: Good, Thanks for having me, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: So what's going on here? Twitter? Worldwide phenomenon? It wasn't
Speaker 2: taken down, but it was inter up to what three
Speaker 2: times earlier this week?
Speaker 5: It's gone up and down a couple of times, three
Speaker 5: that were documented as larger outages. But they've been stating
Speaker 5: that they've been under attack for most of this week.
Speaker 5: What's going on is called a DDoS attack, which stands
Speaker 5: for distributed denial of service attack, And basically, it's a
Speaker 5: bad guy that overwhelms a website or a network, flooding
Speaker 5: a lot of Internet traffic at it, which prevents users,
Speaker 5: legitimate users like the people that want to use extra Twitter,
Speaker 5: from accessing the service. So that's what's going on.
Speaker 2: So how can anyone or any group so massively overwhelm
Speaker 2: something like Twitter, which Micheur has I assume has such
Speaker 2: bandwidth it would be virtually impossible to overwhelm it. I
Speaker 2: mean it's like, I don't know, you know, it's like
Speaker 2: the difference. You know, Twitter's a fire hose, and how
Speaker 2: do you stop a fire hose unless you always got it,
Speaker 2: you always have a fire hose. I mean, uh, you're.
Speaker 5: Kind of right here. Well I'll talk about who in
Speaker 5: a second, but you're right. It kind of is like
Speaker 5: thinking about a fire hose and a fire hose. And
Speaker 5: remember when you were a little kid, you switch your
Speaker 5: finger in the fire hose and you know, in the
Speaker 5: hose and then try and back it up exactly.
Speaker 3: So what we're.
Speaker 5: Dealing with here is what it kid. It was fun though,
Speaker 5: and then you were drinking from hoses too. I don't
Speaker 5: think that's allowed anymore these days. But what a d
Speaker 5: DOS attack is is basically, if you can imagine, it's
Speaker 5: it's it's caused by what are called botnets, and so
Speaker 5: basically it's a bunch of infected machines that are directing traffic.
Speaker 5: They're all infected by a single source, and then they're
Speaker 5: all all of those machines. Traffic is directed at the
Speaker 5: website or the organization, like we're seeing with Twitter. So
Speaker 5: if you can imagine, you hear about these things of
Speaker 5: your you know, machine gets infected and then it's being
Speaker 5: used by somebody else. Well congrats, that's the kind of
Speaker 5: attack we're dealing with. So what we're looking at is
Speaker 5: that some single source or some group basically infected you know,
Speaker 5: up to millions of different machines and they're directing parts
Speaker 5: of the traffic at Twitter. So it's like an army
Speaker 5: of corrupted machines attacking all at the same time.
Speaker 2: So how do they defend against that. I mean, even
Speaker 2: if they get Twitter back up running, I assume they
Speaker 2: could activate their army of infected machines and and get
Speaker 2: them going later in the day.
Speaker 5: Well, there's a lot of different ways to just to
Speaker 5: to basically protect against it. One is, as soon as
Speaker 5: you know the IP addressed or that you know area
Speaker 5: that the traffic is coming from, you can put up
Speaker 5: defenses to stop it or mitigate it or not allow
Speaker 5: it to get to your website. That's one thing. Two
Speaker 5: is to understand, you know, from organization standpoint, what type
Speaker 5: of actors, thread actors, whether they be activists, whether they
Speaker 5: which are you know, groups like we hear about like
Speaker 5: anonymous who are trying to make a social stance, you know,
Speaker 5: and that's why they're hacking criminal groups, nation states or
Speaker 5: just individuals. Individual thread actors that have something that they're
Speaker 5: upset about. Understand who is in you know, finding your
Speaker 5: company appealing from a cyber attack perspective, and then you
Speaker 5: need to consistently look at your cyber resilience. So what
Speaker 5: does your operational plans look like. We're all dependent on technology.
Speaker 5: We make plans for everything else in our life. So
Speaker 5: making sure that we understand what tech is really important
Speaker 5: in your business, What are your critical business functions and
Speaker 5: do you have the right safeguards to protect them against
Speaker 5: cyber attack. The issue with this attack is, you know
Speaker 5: there's been now three different attributions. I'm not sure we'll
Speaker 5: ever figure out exactly who. You know, there's been released
Speaker 5: out that it was Nation State and that some of
Speaker 5: the IP addresses are looking at Ukraine. That is is
Speaker 5: I think a bit questionable. We also have had anonymous
Speaker 5: take responsibility saying it's part of something called Operation Dreadnought.
Speaker 5: And then originally we actually had a different group come
Speaker 5: forward called dark Storm, and they are out of Palestine.
Speaker 5: They are actually a pro pal Stadian group that's claimed responsibility.
Speaker 5: So because it's so high profile, we've got a lot
Speaker 5: of people either pointing fingers or raising hands and it's
Speaker 5: going to take a while for us to sort this
Speaker 5: one out.
Speaker 2: Will we eventually be able to figure it out? Or
Speaker 2: will this sort of drift into our memory and a
Speaker 2: month from now we'll just kind of throw up our
Speaker 2: hands and say we have no idea where it came from.
Speaker 5: Now we will? I mean, So the good news is
Speaker 5: is that, you know the world of cyber from a
Speaker 5: forensics standpoint is incredibly sophisticated. But it's hard those first
Speaker 5: couple of days, and especially you know, as we're still
Speaker 5: trying to clean up and you know, filter traffic and
Speaker 5: have Twitter get on the other side, before you know,
Speaker 5: we can actually take a look at the forensics, understand
Speaker 5: the IP addresses and trace back. It can sometimes takes
Speaker 5: months or even years to do proper attribution, but we'll
Speaker 5: get it done and then we'll figure out exactly where
Speaker 5: it came from.
Speaker 2: Now, as a as someone who follows this and certainly
Speaker 2: is on Twitter and relies a little bit on Twitter,
Speaker 2: would make the assumption, with all of the controversies swirling
Speaker 2: around Elon Musk, that that would be my first set
Speaker 2: of suspects that I would be looking at. I don't
Speaker 2: think it would be the you know, sisters of Maria
Speaker 2: and Joseph who are sitting in a convent somewhere, you know,
Speaker 2: doing this. I'm thinking it's someone who really wants to
Speaker 2: go after Elon Musk. Is that a false suspicion or
Speaker 2: do you think there might be some legitimacy to that thought.
Speaker 1: I think there is some legitimacy.
Speaker 5: Like I said, you know, we deal with really four
Speaker 5: types of threat actors and the activists, which are the
Speaker 5: groups that are looking to make some type of statement,
Speaker 5: whether it's politically motivated or socially motivated. You know, this
Speaker 5: attack as it's because, as I said, it was what's
Speaker 5: called a deed OUs or denial of service attack. They
Speaker 5: weren't asking for money, it wasn't ransomware, they weren't going
Speaker 5: after bitcoin. It was to make a statement that, you know,
Speaker 5: they were able to disrupt something as large and as
Speaker 5: important from a social media perspective as Twitter. So whenever
Speaker 5: you've got an organization that's dealing with high profile, high
Speaker 5: asset individuals, you know, you have to kind of think
Speaker 5: about the reputational attacks as well as the ones that
Speaker 5: are going to try and hurt your organization from an
Speaker 5: operational or financial perspective.
Speaker 2: Last question, do we have the federal government, our federal
Speaker 2: government looking at this, because obviously what could be done
Speaker 2: to Twitter could also be done to our more important,
Speaker 2: arguably defense systems.
Speaker 5: We absolutely do. I mean, so the good news is
Speaker 5: that I don't know a government agency at this point
Speaker 5: that doesn't have, you know, some type of a cyber
Speaker 5: command or cyber defense. We have SISA, we have the NSA, FBI,
Speaker 5: the Office of National Cyber the own CD, the organization
Speaker 5: that I work with as well, which is National Technology
Speaker 5: Security Coalition, which is kind of the body of sisas
Speaker 5: into Washington. Everybody has a part to play, and you
Speaker 5: know everyone is seeing right now that public private information
Speaker 5: sharing helping under what are the threats out there? What
Speaker 5: are considered the critical vulnerabilities, How do we collaborate to
Speaker 5: understand what's coming, and how we defend? Should we get
Speaker 5: more proactive and offensive in our defenses. These are all
Speaker 5: things that we focus and work on. But the good
Speaker 5: news is there's a lot of really amazing people in
Speaker 5: Washington working through this.
Speaker 2: Well. Thank you very much, Kate. Fascinating information. You obviously
Speaker 2: know a thousand times more about this than I do,
Speaker 2: but I have learned a little bit in this interview,
Speaker 2: and I hope my audience says as well. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Love to have you back at some point anytime. Would
Speaker 5: love to be back. Thanks very much for the time.
Speaker 2: You're very welcome, Kate Keen every vice president of Global
Speaker 2: Cyber Advocacy. Man, I'll tell you it's a brave new
Speaker 2: world out there, folks. Elders Huxley had it right. We'll
Speaker 2: be back on night's side right after the news at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the hour. We're going to talk with
Speaker 2: Arthur Erickson. He's a CEO of a company called Hilo
Speaker 2: h yo. We're going to talk about how much of
Speaker 2: an impact President Trump's tariffs and his proposed tariffs might
Speaker 2: have on American farmers, a very important sector of our economy.
Speaker 2: Back on Nightside right.
Speaker 1: After this, you're on Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZ,
Speaker 1: Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: All right, I want to welcome to the show Arthur Erickson.
Speaker 2: He's the CEO of a company called Heilio. I hope
Speaker 2: I pronounced that right, h y l Io? Is that
Speaker 2: close to the correct pronunciation, Arthur Erickson? I got fined.
Speaker 2: But is it heili?
Speaker 4: Oh, it's it's Helio, but close enough. I don't blame you.
Speaker 4: It looks like it's spelled Hilio. So that's perfectly normal
Speaker 4: way to pronounce it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I totally get that. So what is Helio?
Speaker 2: But what's the company all about?
Speaker 4: In a nutshell, we design, build, and then sell drones
Speaker 4: or on man aerial systems us that automate precision crop inputs. Know,
Speaker 4: anything you could imagine a tractor or a helicopter or
Speaker 4: an air airplane doing our zones could typically do better, faster, safer,
Speaker 4: and cheaper.
Speaker 2: Well that's that's quite an idea. So we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about the Trump tariffs and how it's going to
Speaker 2: hurt American farmers. I think all of us understand farming,
Speaker 2: and none of us we're from New England, I mean,
Speaker 2: very few of us are involved in it. But we
Speaker 2: understand that you have to plan and play in and
Speaker 2: then harvest, and then you've got to get product to market,
Speaker 2: which is difficult to do, particularly with the variables of weather.
Speaker 2: Now we add another layer of variability, and that is
Speaker 2: the tariffs. And just described here as a gut punch
Speaker 2: to potential gut punch to farmers, Explain to us, you know,
Speaker 2: in terms that all of my audience will understand how
Speaker 2: that might adversely affect the farming community, which, of course is,
Speaker 2: in my opinion onion, the backbone of America.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, and that's a very good way to put it.
Speaker 4: It's another variable, right, And I'm not an economist, nor
Speaker 4: do I have a crystal ball, and farmers don't have
Speaker 4: crystal balls either, So it is a big unknown as
Speaker 4: to just how much it's going to affect them. But
Speaker 4: I think generally, as we've seen in the past, we
Speaker 4: can reasonably expect them to have some cost increases on
Speaker 4: both things like fertilizers and other chemicals that use to
Speaker 4: treat their crops. And then also they're going to have
Speaker 4: cost increases on their farm equipment, so that's buying new
Speaker 4: equipment and also just spare and repair parts for their
Speaker 4: existing equipment, because there are steel and aluminum and other
Speaker 4: material tariffs that would affect the physical machines that they utilize.
Speaker 4: So I think it's pretty safe to say directionally, they're
Speaker 4: going to see increased operational costs and capital costs, which
Speaker 4: are of course going to tighten their margins and it's
Speaker 4: going to be tougher to profit frankly, and so that's
Speaker 4: never something that a farmer wants to hear. But of
Speaker 4: course most farmers, especially those that are a bit older,
Speaker 4: are used to cycles like this, the ebbs and flows
Speaker 4: and the ups and downs of the economy, but also
Speaker 4: things like trade wars like we're in right now. I
Speaker 4: guess I could call it trade war tariff war it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So let's talk about that. Okay, what percentage of
Speaker 2: farm equipment I would assume with a company like John
Speaker 2: Deere Tractor that a big percentage of American farmers get
Speaker 2: their farm equipment from American companies off how far off
Speaker 2: am I on that observation.
Speaker 4: You're right, You're absolutely right. John Deere is the largest
Speaker 4: brand for sure in farm equipment as a single chunk.
Speaker 4: Of course, there's other providers like C and H and
Speaker 4: Cabota and whatnot. But the point is basically, all these companies,
Speaker 4: even American based ones, have such globalized supply chains that
Speaker 4: these turffs are probably going to hit a lot of
Speaker 4: these traditional manufacturers significantly hard now Helio for example.
Speaker 2: So therefore the mean it's wrong for a second, So
Speaker 2: what you're saying is, even though they're buying the tractor,
Speaker 2: let's say in Evanston, Illinois, Uh, that tractor has to
Speaker 2: be purchased by John Deere or put together by John Deere.
Speaker 2: Even if it's manufacturing in the US, it has to
Speaker 2: import steel to to create the product.
Speaker 1: So that's going to hug Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: The price of practice is going to go up the exactly.
Speaker 2: The other flip side of the equation is if the
Speaker 2: and obviously fertilizers and all of that, potentially if they're
Speaker 2: coming in from across the border, they're going to be
Speaker 2: more expensive. So then the farming in August or September
Speaker 2: or October harvests and puts the goods in the market.
Speaker 2: I know that America, American farmers feed the world. Is
Speaker 2: I understand it? How much more difficult? I mean, people
Speaker 2: are still going to need food in other countries around
Speaker 2: the world. Obviously, everything they sell with in America, tariffs
Speaker 2: don't apply. But if they're exporting around the world, the
Speaker 2: potential if they're exporting to Canada or Mexico, for example,
Speaker 2: our two neighbors, there's going to be some increased costs there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a fair point. It's kind of hard to
Speaker 4: track because every day you wake up it seems like
Speaker 4: there's a new piece of news in this tariff war.
Speaker 4: But I have seen that China and Canada, for example,
Speaker 4: are putting retaliatory tariffs on our crop exports, and like
Speaker 4: you said, American piece of the world, it's going to
Speaker 4: be a significant blow because what it's going to do,
Speaker 4: what I think is going to do. The common logic
Speaker 4: is that it's going to lower demand for our product overseas,
Speaker 4: which means we're going to sell more of it domestically.
Speaker 4: Not a problem self, except what that causes is an
Speaker 4: oversupplied domestically, right, and then the price of the commodity drops,
Speaker 4: So you're gonna see the price of beans and corn
Speaker 4: and stuff dropped just because we're oversupplied here. If these
Speaker 4: other countries are gonna be buying it now, they still
Speaker 4: might buy it despite the care because, as you pointed out,
Speaker 4: people still need to eat. But it just depends. I
Speaker 4: think there's going to be lower demand though directionally.
Speaker 2: So this I think you have sketched out the problem
Speaker 2: that the farmers are going to face. And the farmers
Speaker 2: I assume have planned, if not planted their crops already
Speaker 2: in many parts of the country.
Speaker 4: Absolutely correct. Yes, they're already starting in generally in the Midwest.
Speaker 4: Actually they might be still not in the ground in
Speaker 4: a lot of states that they're but in the South
Speaker 4: they've definitely started. I'm down here in Texas, I know
Speaker 4: we've already started planting down.
Speaker 2: Here, right. But even let's say states like you know,
Speaker 2: Kancers to Nebraska, where maybe they haven't planted, they had
Speaker 2: to purchase in advance. Oh for sure, yeah, those those products.
Speaker 2: So so so let's take worst case scenario, and let's
Speaker 2: say that this trade war continues and that the politicians
Speaker 2: on both sides of the border don't come to their
Speaker 2: senses and say, wait a second, Hold, let's let's chick,
Speaker 2: let's cool this down. Is that going to put some
Speaker 2: farms out of business as a consequence? I mean that
Speaker 2: that's that's what I am most concerned about.
Speaker 4: Well, the US farm infrastructure is heavily subsidized, and so
Speaker 4: I think generally speaking, the answer would be no. There
Speaker 4: would be programs to offer these farmers, you know, crop
Speaker 4: insurance or something of that nature. Not not not that directly,
Speaker 4: but some sort of safety safety net right for things
Speaker 4: like this, subsid these grants, loans, etc. So I think
Speaker 4: the idea is not for them to have a hard
Speaker 4: landing like that. But you never know, and it's hard
Speaker 4: to say that there wouldn't be at least, you know,
Speaker 4: a handful of farms that might go under, But how
Speaker 4: many more than normal in a given year. I couldn't
Speaker 4: speak to that.
Speaker 2: So then my question is how critical does your company
Speaker 2: and the products and the services that you provide at Helio.
Speaker 2: I assume that makes your company a little bit more
Speaker 2: important to farmers in some times that one can describe
Speaker 2: as being pretty critical.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's without just shamelessly plugging Helio too much. If
Speaker 4: we just speak generally about the concept of precision agriculture.
Speaker 4: That's the name of the game. That's the playbook that
Speaker 4: farmers need to roll out. Now, it's pretty straightforward. If
Speaker 4: your margins are tighter, if inputs are more expensive, you
Speaker 4: need to stretch a buck further. And how do you
Speaker 4: do that. That's by using acronomic insights, so satellite imagery
Speaker 4: or drone imagery to identify problem areas and then using
Speaker 4: precision tools like helios, spray drones or another companies or
Speaker 4: like a John Deere seems very tractor for example, to
Speaker 4: significantly reduce your input cost by only targeting the specific
Speaker 4: problem areas. So that's something our technology and precision ad
Speaker 4: technology in general can help the farmer with and help
Speaker 4: them whether the storm and transition to whatever whatever comes
Speaker 4: after this, which I think is going to be hopefully
Speaker 4: a much smarter strategic approach to farming in general. I
Speaker 4: think this or deal, if you want to call it,
Speaker 4: that is going to force that innovation.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, they say that necessity is the mother of invention,
Speaker 2: so I think.
Speaker 4: That's absolutely right, absolutely.
Speaker 2: What you just said. I really enjoyed the conversation. I'm
Speaker 2: not a farmer, never spent much time on farms, but
Speaker 2: I admire the men and women who farm in this
Speaker 2: country and put the food in our family's tables. They
Speaker 2: get up really early in the morning, they work hard
Speaker 2: during the some of the toughest months of the year,
Speaker 2: and none of them are turning out as individual families
Speaker 2: to be millionaires. We all should be greatly indebted to them,
Speaker 2: as well as the work they do that feeds up
Speaker 2: people in other parts of the world where farming is
Speaker 2: not as efficient as it is in America. So, Arthur Ericson,
Speaker 2: I appreciate you're giving us an insight into the plate
Speaker 2: that American farmers and the uncertainty American farmers are dealing
Speaker 2: with at this particular month, and hopefully that could get
Speaker 2: squirt away real soon. I appreciate your time. You're a
Speaker 2: great guest.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Yes, sir, likewise, appreciate your time. Have a
Speaker 4: great evening, Locoal okay you too.
Speaker 2: We go back our final guest this hour tonight. In
Speaker 2: this edition of the Nice Side News Update, we're going
Speaker 2: to look at a study which shows that children, young children,
Speaker 2: I mean as young as seven are developing body image
Speaker 2: issues and what is the best way for parents to
Speaker 2: help these children have a healthy relationship with food and
Speaker 2: with who they are. We're going to talk with Kelly Shoop,
Speaker 2: she's a licensed to PAM occupational therapist. Be back on Nightside.
Speaker 2: This is an important topics. Stay with us. We'll get
Speaker 2: to some topics later on tonight. This evening where you
Speaker 2: can participate as a caller. We're going to start off
Speaker 2: talking about boycotts. I think we've got an interesting hour
Speaker 2: at nine o'clock and we will be able to get
Speaker 2: a bunch of perspectives. We'll be right back on night
Speaker 2: Side now.
Speaker 1: Bent to Dan Way live from the Window World to
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: I'd like to welcome Kelly shoe She's a licensed pediatric
Speaker 2: occupational therapist. Kelly Shoope, Welcome to Nightside. How are you?
Speaker 6: Thank you? I'm doing well.
Speaker 2: We are going to talk about kids developing body image issues.
Speaker 2: I'm stunned kids the age of seven. We always thought
Speaker 2: this was something that you know, teenage girls were dealing
Speaker 2: with when they were thirteen or fourteen. What's going on
Speaker 2: that now we have kids at the age of seven
Speaker 2: second grade deal with body image issues.
Speaker 6: This, yes, it's it's well, it's really frightening. I think
Speaker 6: it's a combination of a couple things. I think it's
Speaker 6: that that younger kids have access to the Internet, they
Speaker 6: have access to some even TikTok, or they are spending
Speaker 6: I mean, as a society, we are spending more time
Speaker 6: on screens, and so that also means more TV billboards, movies, ads,
Speaker 6: and those all show an idealized body, right, the ideal body,
Speaker 6: what would that look like? And the programming in the
Speaker 6: country is that this is what the ideal body looks like.
Speaker 6: So younger kids are understanding, oh, mind, doesn't look like that.
Speaker 6: And we also have, you know, a nation that's over
Speaker 6: overweight and obese, and so kids are figuring out why
Speaker 6: my body doesn't look anything like what's on this commercial.
Speaker 6: And friends, classmates, people, they're cyberbullying over iPads with young
Speaker 6: young kids. In fact, I was with a school last
Speaker 6: week talking to a group of teachers and they're third graders.
Speaker 6: The third grade girls are so mean to each other.
Speaker 6: You're fat, you're skinny, your legs are fat. And the
Speaker 6: teachers were like, they hadn't telling me, they hadn't seen
Speaker 6: anything like it before.
Speaker 2: Okay, So my question is if this is a national trend,
Speaker 2: which apparently it is. We can blame the Internet, we
Speaker 2: can blame TikTok, we can blame all of these sites.
Speaker 2: The question is what is there within our lives as
Speaker 2: a country or as a nation which may offset that.
Speaker 2: It seems to me that in a prior time, when
Speaker 2: I was growing up and I'm a baby boomer, we
Speaker 2: didn't have the Internet or anything like that. You still
Speaker 2: had people, you know, in advertisements in magazines and in
Speaker 2: newspapers who looked, you know, otherworldly, and they but they
Speaker 2: were things that offset So, for example, and I don't
Speaker 2: want to sound old fashioned here, but one of the
Speaker 2: things that we have given up on in America is religion.
Speaker 2: And I just have to wonder, and I don't want
Speaker 2: to sound like because I'm not a religious freak here, okay,
Speaker 2: but is the absence of some form of organized religion,
Speaker 2: or the diminution of organized religion, and in some cases
Speaker 2: rightfully so, we're the epicenter of the pedophile priest pandemic.
Speaker 2: Is that something that should be there to help us
Speaker 2: think more broadly about helping other people and they were
Speaker 2: all different, we're all God's children, or or is that
Speaker 2: just so past eight it's it's time has has gone.
Speaker 6: No, it should absolutely be a part of it, you know.
Speaker 6: And in the in the piece of religion and spirituality,
Speaker 6: they're fasting, and so that's another thing that has kind
Speaker 6: of gone by the wayside.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 6: Everybody's like, I want what I want when I want it,
Speaker 6: and door Dash can bring it or Uber eats or
Speaker 6: I can have my music on Spotify. I only watch
Speaker 6: what I want on net. Yes, and so we need more, Yeah,
Speaker 6: we need more movement, more exercise, like take a walk
Speaker 6: down to the you know, the corner of the street
Speaker 6: instead of riding an electric scooter or the bikes. Now
Speaker 6: that our battery operated, just I cringe. I'm like, the
Speaker 6: bike is supposed to be for exercise, for getting your
Speaker 6: heart rate, at building your muscles, your strength, and when
Speaker 6: they put a battery on it, it does all the
Speaker 6: work for you. So there's no point. So we're so
Speaker 6: far off the mark in many ways that it's it's frightening,
Speaker 6: and it's really you know, I just feel sad for
Speaker 6: these kids who are bullied, Sad for these kids who
Speaker 6: at such young ages steel like they are flawed and
Speaker 6: imperfect and have these body problems when it should not
Speaker 6: be that way.
Speaker 2: And of course one of the things that this has
Speaker 2: led to, and it doesn't necessarily mean but there are
Speaker 2: more kids who are who are committing suicide. There's yes,
Speaker 2: it seems to me that there are more kids who
Speaker 2: are disappearing and some you have know. I mean, now,
Speaker 2: maybe the argument is, well, we cover it more because
Speaker 2: in the old days it happened, but we didn't know
Speaker 2: about it. And the media now is so pervasive. Uh
Speaker 2: there's you know, there's television everywhere, there's cameras everywhere, there's uh,
Speaker 2: you know, TMZ. Just we are we just kind of
Speaker 2: hit it in a bad direction, I think.
Speaker 6: And for sure, yes, and and those numbers, yes, depression
Speaker 6: and anxiety suicide again, those are happening younger and younger,
Speaker 6: and in astronomical numbers. And it's part of it's the comparison.
Speaker 6: But part of it is, you know, it's the ultra
Speaker 6: processed food that isn't giving our bodies nutrients. It's the
Speaker 6: lack of sleep, it's the frenzied pace that parents have.
Speaker 6: These kids. They just go NonStop school all day, soccer, piano, basketball,
Speaker 6: birthday parties all weekend. And the parents will say to me,
Speaker 6: I'm so tired from the weekend, and I'm like, yes,
Speaker 6: and you've got a fully formed brain and body. Imagine
Speaker 6: how your four year old feels. They're just white.
Speaker 2: So what So okay, it sounds to me like you
Speaker 2: have painted a portrait of a picture that is so complex.
Speaker 2: We are beyond recovery. It sounds what can we do
Speaker 2: to recover? I mean, we could preach, you know, slow
Speaker 2: it down here and spell the There has to be
Speaker 2: some way in which we can convince people to change
Speaker 2: change habits and have and change attitudes. What can be done?
Speaker 2: I have a talk here that I'm on five five
Speaker 2: nights a week, four hours a night. If there's something
Speaker 2: that I could do, please help me, help me strut Yeah.
Speaker 6: So I think actually the good news is is we
Speaker 6: can take actionable steps that will immediately have an impact.
Speaker 6: And so for all parents who are hearing this, you
Speaker 6: can make changes tomorrow. You can you know, get rid
Speaker 6: of the ultra processed food. You can model, you know,
Speaker 6: talking well about your own body. And so I'm encouraging parents.
Speaker 6: Don't you know, don't don't comment that you are fat
Speaker 6: or you feel terrible. In these genes we talk about
Speaker 6: no food is bad or good it's all neutral. Food
Speaker 6: is fuel for our body. And we talk about being
Speaker 6: fit and being healthy, so not skinny, not fat, not
Speaker 6: you know, pudgy, all of these words that, Kelly.
Speaker 2: How if we do this, Kelly, we're running out of
Speaker 2: time here as I head to us at nine o'clock hour.
Speaker 2: Let me have my producer get in touch with you.
Speaker 2: Come on back and let's do an hour some night
Speaker 2: on the air.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 6: I would love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you talk to them and let them explain
Speaker 2: what's going on. Okay. It's not easy. It's not easy.
Speaker 4: It's not easy.
Speaker 6: You can do it with hell.
Speaker 2: Okay, if folks want to get in touch with you
Speaker 2: in the meantime, is there somewhere you can direct us.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you can find me at my website www dot
Speaker 6: Kelly k Shoop s h o u p dot com
Speaker 6: or at Kelly k shoot for Instagram. I'm on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Okay, Will we will want to an hour in the
Speaker 2: next couple of weeks, depending up on your schedule, and
Speaker 2: I'll get a lot of folks listening to what you
Speaker 2: have to say because you make a lot of sense
Speaker 2: to me, and there are a lot of folks in
Speaker 2: the profession that that that, don't you. You you you
Speaker 2: have connected with me and we'll connect again. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much, Kelly, thank you.
Speaker 3: Bye.
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll talk soon back right after the nine o'clock
Speaker 2: news on Nightside, and we are going to talk in
Speaker 2: the nine o'clock hour about boycotts. I got a real
Speaker 2: couple of thoughts and I hope you do as well.
Speaker 2: We'll be back on night Side.