You know when people start to feel like they're getting inside information from you because you're an expert in your field You've built yourself up, then that's when they really start following you hard one thing that I'm telling agents to do is Closings happen every single day regardless of market conditions. If you go back to the dot-com boom 9-11 2008 the pandemic look at the pandemic and go back and look at the amount of closings that are happening every single day and The amount of people that were putting properties under contract It was just monstrous, right and that goes to tell you right there how powerful the real estate market is that you couldn't even meet People face-to-face and that did not stop closings people found a way the real estate market finds a way to make deals happen It's very resilient. It's kind of like when the market crashes the prices go down. It's very similar situation because Prices of judge why do they judge they just took place that people will continue to buy What does that tell you that transactions will continue to happen no matter what? Prices may go up and down change the number of transactions may go up or down But they're still happening and they're still more than you can handle at all times So I realize that closings happen every day business is unlimited forever Competition doesn't exist You know all those things and if you value relationships over transactions And you really build your brand around being a hard worker people are just drawn to you know What I mean is so then you have to build a personal brand around that I did that through a weekly email Right, that's kind of my bread and butter as far as marketing goes and at this point. That's all I do I still continue to sell a hundred properties a year just doing the weekly email I have time because of that. I have time to go build other businesses What people want is your two cents they want to hear breaking news here's something that's sold Here's what I think about it, right or here's an event going on in the area. Here's what I think about it You know, here's a new restaurant in the area. Here's what I think about it When you start giving your opinion on the market and different things and they feel like they're getting an insight connection Of the market through you, you know, here's here's the stats of this month compared to that same month last year Here's where we are, right? And here's what I'm hearing from buyers that I'm showing property to here's the overall Temperature of people in the marketplace are thinking about buying and selling You know when people start to feel like they're getting inside information from you because you're an expert in your field You've built yourself up then that's when they really start following you hard One thing that I'm telling agents to do is to do three videos One all that are like two to four minutes long very professionally done one that's like a bio of yourself Right really professionally done, you know drone shots or it's a voiceover make it really good You know you walking on the beach or through your town or whatever Do one video that you buy or do one video that's of a local business do one video that's of a listing So you got three different, you know angles of yourself presenting different things You got three really nice videos run all three of those videos as an app for like three or four months in your area Everybody sees all three of those videos Everybody is gonna know who you are and then on the backside of that you create an audience around people that watch the video For three seconds ten seconds twenty five percent fifty percent whatever and then Retarget ads to those people to continue building your brand with them through that You know through that medium if that's what you want to do I think it all of that then in the day the ultimate brand builder to me is a weekly email for real estate agents Right, I think for all businesses the frequency might change depending on the industry But across the board I think email should be the foundation of your personal brand because the organic reach is so high compared to social media social Media you're looking at two to twenty five percent organic reach versus 90 percent for email organic meaning free impressions. So 90 percent versus two to twenty five, you know, it's kind of a no-brainer Foundation email and then stack your social media personal branding on top of them. So what exactly are you putting in your email? They're more informational or they're more opinionated or they're driving traffic somewhere. So yeah, they're all the above They're informational opinionated or everything see the thing is you're sending one every week So you can do informational this week opinionated the next week, you know, you're hitting them every week So you got plenty you don't have to do everything in one email Just give them a little bit every week and I'm driving them to my website where I have, you know Real estate information and stuff like that. I'm not really driving social media too much We're just keeping them within my ecosystem of my website and you know the information on the email Unless there's some major story and I send them a link to that article on a different website or whatever So yeah, it's just kind of a mixture, but it's more so I mean they could just read the email get a lot And then if they want to hear more about a certain point on the email They can go to a certain place the thing about personal branding man because I view my email as a social media platform Right because it's somewhere where I'm posting original consistent content. That's what wins, right? Personal branding original meaning you it came out of your mind Right consistent. So that's every week or you know, social media is once a day or once a week for pot I do a podcast every single day seven days a week But you know, it just kind of depends on the platform and how what the frequency is that's consistent But it's got to be original consistent content, you know what I mean? So every Wednesday I do my email and I just kind of come up with what I think my audience wants to You know wants to know about today. So I've got 19,000 people on this weekly email about 6,000 of those emails bounce So you get about 1213 that actually receive it 5,000 open it up every week. So I have 5,000 people engaging with my weekly email every week That's something I built up over the years took me 15 years to get to that point Once you get to that point, you don't have to really worry about where your business is coming from These people know who you are and they know you're here to help You know you've built your brand around being that guy or girl that just wants to help them when the time comes and business just flows


What is your advice there specifically on conferences because I know we got a lot of questions from our audience. All of these tools that we talked about online, of course they've helped networking, they've helped us stay in touch with each other. But of course when it comes to meeting in person, especially going to these conferences, going to these events where you're a little introverted, you know you're going to be forced to meet a lot of people and you may not also feel like you're that far along in your career yet and you want to talk to the speakers, you want to make an impact. What is your advice there specifically on conferences because I know we got a lot of questions from our audience. Right. And so I think a couple of things, one is remember you really don't want to meet everybody and you're not going to meet everybody. So let's just not have that super high bar there if it's a smaller workshop, you know, you may have a more comfort level with a little bit of small talk with people. But I would say a couple things, one is you're not going to do your whole networking transaction at the conference, right? You're going to make some additional contact that's kind of friendly and kind of interesting for five, 10 minutes and then you follow up after. So you might be waiting in line together for coffee, you might be waiting for a speaker and just sitting next to each other. The small talk there should be a little bit related, should be related to the conference, the event and try not to ask yes no questions to basically, you know, how did you, how did you find yourself wanting to come to this conference, what are you hoping to get out of it? Is there a speaker you're looking forward to today? Is this a field you're in? You know, if you can read a badge easily, not awkwardly, that's great because that gives you a little more intel to go on. But it's basically, you want to draw them out a little bit and oh, you know, I'm interested in, oh, I know about your company because they've been doing, you know, something I'm interested in. Could we follow up, could I follow up with you after? Could we exchange contact info or may I, you know, link to you or whatever is appropriate in that setting? And then do follow up, you know, wait a day or two and then say, I'm just glad we met. Here's something I've been reading or here's a thing I wrote or, you know, whatever it is, I'd like to talk to you more about it or just stay in touch about it. You've made that contact.


Welcome to theCUBE's coverage here in Boston, Massachusetts for Red Hat Summit 2023. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We'll be here for two days for wall-to-wall coverage, kicking off the event. Dimitri Carabina, senior directors here from DXC, CEO of Global Offerings Cloud and Infrastructure.  Thanks for having me. So DXC is one of the largest global integrators. You guys have a lot of employees, a lot of customers. What do you guys do? Explain to the folks out there, what's the current, I won't say strategy, obviously digital transformation is going on for a while, but what's kind of the state of the market for you guys? Think a minute to explain what you guys do. Absolutely. So DXC is one of the largest global systems integrators in the world, 130,000 people. It's a result of a merger seven years ago between HP Enterprise Services and CSC. And that's really enabled us to take that talent, take that base, and really expand into all facets of IT. So we deliver application services, enterprise applications, infrastructure services, mainframe network. Basically we can do anything you need from your data center management services, all the way into NextGen, container solutions, serverless technologies, industry based solutions. I was listening to Matt Hicks on this keynote, it's still finishing up now, they'll be coming on here. He had an interesting kind of observation. He's like, you know, in his career, he's had these moments in time where they were profound for him, open source exposure for the first time he compiled his own code to the internet, to writing an iPhone app, and then AI is kind of right here now. So he kind of sets these marks in time and he really was doubling down on the AI message. Seems to be the hottest topic of the show here. Obviously clients are thinking about it as an opportunity, either to refactor or accelerate their digital transformation or business transformation. How do you guys see that playing out? Obviously there's a lot of hype. What's the current view right now on the AI? Is it a catalyst? Are people cautious? What do you guys see? Well, everybody's excited about it. I'm excited about it too. I play with it myself at home, just hobby style. But the fact of the matter is, AI needs to be adopted correctly because you look at these generalized AI models that exist in the cloud, GB, chat, GBT. Most companies don't want their data exposed to everybody, so they need privatized models. And when you train on targeted sets, it really lets you get better data out of it. So where DXC is positioned is with our analytics group to help our clients really develop AI models that allow them to use their data in an effective way that's secure and really benefits them without opening them up to competition from the other industries. You know, we've been covering DXC for a long time, going back to the merger and before that with the separate companies. You guys really do have that kind of skill set that I think adds a lot of value. And I think you mentioned the data piece. I mean, AI is basically a data play. And having the right data is key whether you're training data, how you handle interacting with other data sets, and obviously the large language models just amplify that whole notion of going faster. It's almost like it finally arrived. The real AI. So I can imagine this could be a big boom for developers. So I have to ask, what's the relationship with Red Hat that you guys have? Cause developer productivity is a big hot topic for them. They say doing more with less is the theme here. But I just think there's going to be a massive, more onboarding of more developers and more code with AI. So I can imagine you guys are going to be in a good spot. What's the relationship with Red Hat? What's the combo look like? I mean, we have a very good relationship with Red Hat. Extends more than 22 years. We're a Red Hat Premier partner. They're one of our strategic partners. Hundreds of certified engineers. We use the full suite of products as you would expect with a company our size. OpenShift, Red Hat Enterprise and Linux. We're developing new technologies on the connected car using the Red Hat in-vehicle operating system, open source capabilities. So very strong relationship. Lots of capabilities, good, strong partnership. Talk about the legacy environment. And I say legacy guy knows, and my notes here, you got a lot of mainframe in there too. You see containers and the role of containers in Kubernetes with cloud native being in that next layer where VMs were kind of like the first wave, virtual machines came in, awesome innovation. Now you got the cloud native. How is all that playing out from an integration standpoint as customers still have the legacy hardware and software? Obviously, Rails is a big part of that. What services do you guys do to bring that together to make it modern? So we offer a lot of services in that space. One of the big things going on right now, and I don't know, my personal opinion is the modern technology is creating a gulf where you have new application development. You have AI, analytics, containers, serverless technologies, and then you have mainframe network data center services. What DXC really lets you do is modernize the legacy in a way that makes sense, but optimized for the future on all those applications that can run in the cloud, can leverage AI models, can leverage containers more effectively. You don't leave anything stranded behind. There's no car parked in your garage getting old. Yeah, it's like what's with your other machine? Well, I put a wrapper around it, containerize it. So what makes you guys different? I mean, there's a lot of other partners out there, digital transformation, I don't want to say it's become cliche, everyone talks about digital transformation. But the focus has been business transformation, trusted advisor, now with AI hype, sorting that out is going to be a big thing. What makes you guys different compared to the competition? I mean, the one bullet point we always talk about is we do the difficult stuff. Because of our size, our scale, the number of partnerships we have, we can solve challenges that many other companies can't do. And that's because we can talk to you about AI, but we can also talk to you about what you're playing with your mainframe, how are you treating your edge networking, how are you managing your legacy operating systems, is your environment secure, full security practice? So the fact that we can have all those conversations along with developed industry solutions that really help accelerate those business drivers you're talking about really helps us stand out in the marketplace. Give some examples of some implementations you guys have done that encapsulate that. So example would be for a German bank, we leveraged the OpenShift Container Platform along with Portworx, Pure Storage's Portworx solution to really help them solve their DR strategy. So RPO is zero, RTO less than 15 minutes. Our connected car solution, really enabling the auto manufacturers to treat the car as a smart platform, push updates, develop new features rapidly, quickly. You can really leverage the car in a way you use your smartphone today. You know, cloud operations have become the hybrid mostly standard now, you see that now. I mean, they mentioned that on stage too. All the hybrids for a decade, I'm like, maybe not a decade, but maybe eight, not a decade, probably a decade. 2013 I'd say would be when that kind of introduced. Hybrid on-premise is basically cloud operations. Now you got Edge. When you look at those three things, how do you view the operations on the infrastructure side as you look at that from your standpoint with the customers? Are they thinking more of, okay, networking's the big challenge now? What's the state of cloud operations in a distributed environment? Different, yeah. The challenge you have is many clients that are still suffering from towers. They have a network tower. They have a storage tower. They treat security as an isolated incident. When we come in and we help, we bring a true DevSecOps model that manages the entire hybrid ecosystem effectively and efficiently. So you're bringing the right tools to the right place and you're managing it as one team. And that one team mindset really drives the application value into the business. You know, one of the things Dave Vellante and I've been always saying on theCUBE is IT operations is, you know, IT's going to transform the business. If you look at IT and the developer DevOps movement, you kind of see IT, traditional IT, move it to the developer's hands. And then the ops side becomes a security data conversation. So you're seeing like the operational knobs changing a little bit. What do you guys see there? Because IT, I mean, thinking about IT, it was an area to serve the business, but now technology is everywhere. So IT is embedded in all aspects of the organization. So the new IT emerges. What do you see that emerging into? Is it the security teams? Is it the data teams? What becomes that new operational point for a company when technology is ubiquitous? So the pandemic really actually helped move this forward in a way that makes more sense because the fact that IT is now part of the business, it's integrated into the business, it's the IT budget's increase during the pandemic. And what happens now is IT is an enabler for the business. Instead of doing all the work, they enable the developers to do the work. They set the guardrails, they set the security standards, but they don't slow down the business. So it really helps accelerate everything. So IT is just as critical before, but they're more the caretakers of what's going on. I got to ask you about the Ansible situation because you have their own event now as part of Red Hat Summit. And talk about a perfect storm of innovation that Red Hat gets a good break. They bought Ansible and everything that was about automation, playbooks. So interesting how that's spinning back in, now you've seen that become standard with AI. Automation's only going to get better. How do you see the future playing out for your customer base? And for you guys, as you look at these new technologies coming in, more automation, more intelligence, and you got to put guardrails down, you got to watch out for the AI getting out of control, going off the rails as they say. So what's your view of the future? So my view of the future on this is Ansible has been a very critical catalyst for automation, but automation extends beyond tooling. It's a mindset, it's a development way of thinking. In the industry, when you look at IT, you look at network engineers, storage engineers, mainframe engineers, five years, you're going to have developers. Everything is going to be development-based. You're not going to have tower-based engineers. And all that automation is just going to be code first from the start, and it'll be the way of the future. Demetri, thanks for coming in. I really appreciate you coming on theCUBE and sharing the DC perspective. Final question for you. What are some of the conversations you're going to have here this week in Boston in the hallways, meetings, dinners? You got a lot going on. What are some of the conversations going to be like? My favorite conversations with our clients and with other vendors is really about what are you doing to help move the business forward? What business metrics are you helping drive to success? Because the business is the buyer, the business is the future, and we need to see how do we help accelerate that forward? Demetri, thanks for coming on. Demetri Carabina, Senior Director of Global Offers Cloud and Infrastructure here on theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, with us for more live coverage after this short break.


So as you've probably noticed lately Donald Trump has received a surprising amount of pushback from his own base And this is because he dared to endorse the COVID-19 vaccines So it all started at an event with Bill O'Reilly where he not only restated that he's vaccinated But that he took the booster as well and Maggots immediately melted down and they turned on him because what he did to them was a moral sin and after that He had some interviews with other individuals who tried to push back Candice Owens For example tried to get him to admit that the vaccines were bad But he didn't he doubled down even after she was trying to claim that the vaccines were killing people and he corrected her and said no actually, it's the unvaccinated currently who are dying due to COVID-19 and Now he was asked after seeing the damage that it's caused politically if he has any regrets in an interview with an OAN reporter and He says no and he triples down And I think that he's actually taking this personally because he once probably believed that he could say anything and His supporters would go along with it because this was a cult of personality and still is to a large extent He once said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it But that doesn't seem to be the case at least when it comes to vaccines so he was asked if he had any regrets and He tripled down and also took a shot at another politician who isn't saying what he's saying about vaccines. Take a look Do you reconsider your push for it or what's your view now on the vaccine in general? Well, I've taken it I've had the booster many politicians I watched a couple of politicians be interviewed and One of the questions was did you get the booster because they had the vaccine and they oh, they're answering it like in other words The answer is yes, but they don't want to say it Because they're gutless got to say it Whether you had it or not say it but the fact is that I think the vaccine has saved Tens of millions of people throughout the world. I have had absolutely no side effects I've had it like other people have had it nothing special. I've had hmm I wonder who he could possibly be talking about have you gotten the booster So I've done whatever I did the the normal shot And you know that at the end of the day is people's individual decisions about what they want to do So in other words, yes, you did take the booster and Donald Trump is absolutely correct about you You know the booster is important But you're not saying you got the booster for purposes of political expediency because you know That's a red line with the GOP base the GOP's fall right conspiratorial base is not going to accept anyone who is pro-vaccine So you're going to get vaccinated because you know that they will protect you And then you're going to lie to the base or at least evade questions about your vaccine status Just to make sure that they're happy. So Ron DeSantis here unlike Donald Trump is reading the room He knows what will play with the GOP's base in 2022 and more importantly 2024 and Trump sees this and he's not happy about it So now he's taking direct shots at Ron DeSantis to try to break him down a little bit And it's bizarre to me because Donald Trump 99% of the time his mouth is open He's lying, but when it comes to the vaccines He's telling the truth because he's right that the vaccines are an incredible Accomplishment and he wants to take credit for that going into 2024 And he's mad that his own base isn't allowing him to take credit for something that he believes he was a part of So not only is he angry and he's trying to triple down and quadruple down to make sure that he changes the narrative with Respect the vaccines, but he doesn't like that other politicians are one-upping him with the base and they're winning over Approval because they're saying the correct things about vaccines And this is only the beginning of a potential feud with Ron DeSantis because according to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman Her sources are saying that Trump is about to wage a full-fledged war on Ron DeSantis She writes Trump has been telling people that DeSantis won't say the magic words Meaning won't tell him he won't run against him in 2024 That's part of what's happening But a smart Republican makes the point that Trump is not only positioning himself to get credit for a vaccine He wants demanded it for but he is trying to make DeSantis look like a typical politician who won't be straightforward So this is actually surprisingly savvy of Donald Trump because he's trying to recapture the magic of 2015 Where he'd call out other Republicans for being rehearsed Using focus group driven talking points and just overall being fake and phony So if he can't beat DeSantis when it comes to vaccines What he can do is explain how DeSantis even if he agrees with the GOP base on vaccines is lying to them He's a phony politician just like all these other politicians So trump is gearing up to politically slaughter Ron DeSantis unless Ron DeSantis kisses his ring And says i'm not gonna run in 2024 But because Ron DeSantis hasn't said those magic words as trump has reportedly said at least according to Maggie Haberman source Trump sees that as a shot across the aisle Well, you haven't bowed down like every other republican and kissed my ring Therefore, I have to assume that you are a threat and I will now begin the work to dismantle your political career If you choose to run against me now currently if you look at public opinion polls Donald trump is still by far and away the favorite to win in 2024 But in the events trump continues to push vaccines and the base is still reluctant to change and adapt to his dance If Ron DeSantis comes out as de facto anti-vax He could begin to see his poll numbers rise because again If you want to win with the GOP you have to tell them what they want to hear And basically everything that Donald trump said is what they wanted to hear at least up until this point Vaccines was the red line and trump crossed that line and now seeing that he may pay a political price for it in 2024 He's trying to course correct now and get ahead of somebody who might be able to one up him Before it's too late So, uh, you love to see it you love to see republicans rip each other apart Especially two ghouls as evil as donald trump and ron de santis, but honestly when it comes to both of them I genuinely don't know who's more damaging for democracy because donald trump He is incompetent and he's not necessarily able to accomplish what he wants politically He's turned on mitch mcconnell. He called mitch mcconnell I believe a loser in an npr interview where he walked off that interview because he was challenged over the big lie But at the same time, you know, that big lie really is damaging It is leading to people losing faith and democracy and resorting to violence or wanting to resort to violence As a result, but when it comes to ron de santis, he might not necessarily be explicitly parroting the big lie But ron de santis is someone who actually is more politically astute and he can Pull off things that donald trump wasn't able to pull off He hasn't burned as many bridges as donald trump So it's it's tough to say. I think both would be really dangerous But who's more dangerous? I probably argue ron de santis currently. I mean, it's it's difficult to say But either way, you know, what we're seeing here is the start of a political feud that I really am Excited to see play out. I hope they both destroy each other But odds are who knows I think that donald trump ultimately He is able to read the room and if he sees that the vaccine thing isn't working for him I wouldn't be surprised if he just does 180 and lies because it's donald trump and he's not Against lying. He does it most of the time. So we'll see how this plays out But either way him calling ron de santis gutless. That's a pretty big shot Join today folks, you won't regret it


You know as you make your way in this world you're going about your day-to-day life trying to do the best you can Maybe you're working on your goals, or you're just trying to survive and trying to Make sense of these feelings that come up for you on a daily basis The quick message I'm going to give you in this video here today is I can promise you one thing And that is that you're not alone in this you are not alone in these difficult feelings and I know that's kind of like a Such a cliche really it was like people say it so often that it kind of loses all meaning But you can take it from me that I know for a fact that these difficult feelings that you're having right now You're not going through this by yourself in my view pretty much pretty much everybody's going through something and It's the same Attracted feelings maybe they're in your body. Maybe they're in your stomach. Maybe it's in your chest or your neck And you have all sorts of different emotions. I Do want to give you one maybe a tip that could be helpful if you're feeling something right now That's an intense negative emotion and it's something I might talk about in future videos because it's such a Such a key to understanding why these we get triggered and these feelings stay with us for so long Because getting triggered is not the problem. We all get triggered getting triggered is very very normal part of life All these feelings are normal But it's how long we stay triggered how long that negative emotion stays in our body that's really The yardstick for measurement in this, you know You want to be staying maybe in the past you were getting upset by things and it would stay with you for a week You know that negative emotion that intense negative feeling So we start to do work on ourselves and hopefully you begin to notice look yeah, I'm still getting triggered But it's staying with me for a few days now rather than a week or a day or maybe a matter of hours. Hopefully Or even less than that So what I would say is this No matter what the feeling you have in your body Cognitive therapies is useful for a lot of these things and you know process of inquiry Just questioning those thoughts and it's kind of a process of the intellect really but eventually you do all this work and The goal of it really is to take you out of this and down into this So it's you begin to realize you become skeptical of the egoic way of thinking or the the limited perception We have of things and you begin to just have it have a realization of there is a Part of me now that doesn't really fully believe the stories. I tell myself when I get triggered and We begin to be skeptical of those stories and begin to realize You know what? I'm going to skip the inquiry at this point I'm going to skip doing the the exercises and the things I've learned maybe not always but occasionally and I'm just going to go directly down into this or this the feeling that's with me right now And why is it so hard for us to do that? Well, here's the thing Next time you feel like that or if you're feeling like that right now I want you to check with yourself and see Is there a subtle feeling? It's very subtle usually So you need to be present with the feeling that's there and just check Do you have underneath that emotion that disturbance that contraction that's there? any subtle feeling of guilt a Lot of people I'll ask that to and they'll say no initially And when we stay with it a little bit longer It it comes out it shows itself and it's something like it can often be things like I Want this feeling to go away something's wrong The feeling I have now is wrong Go a little bit deeper with it. It we usually discover something like yes this feeling is wronged or something wrong with this and I need to do something to fix this feeling in other words I am responsible for this feeling or it's my fault. I feel like this That's what I mean by guilt So that guilt story can make it So much more difficult for the feeling to just come into the body or rise up and to eventually be felt and just pass Over pass through Here's another cliche that a lot of people use and it's something like you know it's it's okay not to feel okay and I Guess that's what I'm saying here, but I don't want it to come across like the same little cliche you've heard probably a thousand times before it's It's a process. It's not it's not just some statement you hear or something or a cliche It's you go in and you check with the feeling and you you become mindful or aware of any feeling of judgment towards the emotion That's there. It's so pervasive and it makes the releasing process of these feelings a lot more difficult as soon as you become aware of yeah, I am actually resisting this emotion I am Judging it or trying to get rid of it or blaming myself for having it or there's a story that there's something wrong with me for feeling like this Become aware of that Just start to notice it And even that Will will just you'll notice straight away The feeling will just ease up. It'll relax a little bit and it'll start to move a little And it's that story that makes it hard to to to to process the emotion So you become aware of it and you can you can just See it as a perspective. Thank you for for that perspective You can just thank that guilt story. It's no need to fight with it It's just an awareness of it and thank you for that perspective. It's more of a noticing of it. I Notice that there's some guilt there. That's interesting. You just become a noticeer of these things That guilt story Relaxes and the feeling whatever the upset is whether it's anxiety whether it's a feeling of sadness or betrayal or isolation or loneliness There's usually a subtle judgment towards that feeling So I want you to bear that in mind next time it comes up and I hope this video is helpful for you right now as you watch it Thanks so much and I'll talk to you again soon


So let's start with the assessment of damages because this trade war has been going on for some time now and it has caused a lot of difficulties. The head of the IMF was saying that gross is going to GDP gross is slowing down but commercial gross is slowing down. So, Mr. Rark, what do you see as the first damages of this trade war already? And we'll go back to the reasons afterwards. Yes, the damages are at the beginning, it looks like very insignificant. But as time goes by, especially by the view of economists, this negative effect of gross retaliation is spreading rapidly into the whole of the US economy. Of course, China also. So more direct damages between US and China. I think in the case of China, of course, the exporters, producers of export items which are heading to the United States are hurt, most hurt. According to my simple calculation, out of total China's export, 19% are going to United States. It's not a small number. So the exporters are hurt very much. These exporters include not only Chinese but also other foreign companies too. In the case of the United States, as Marcus pointed out, of course, the consumers and the users of goods imported from China and also US farmers who are exporting agricultural product to China. So in terms of some small numbers, out of total US imports, 22%, almost 22% are coming from China. It's a big number. So that's why I'm saying consumers and producers are hurting. And also the farmers, I think I heard also 17% of total agricultural export of US is going to China. So overall, these two countries are, we know that clearly they are hurting. And these days, many researchers are analyzing more specific results. And Korea, for example, Korea, Dr. Sago mentioned this morning, but China and United States is Korea's number one and number two training partner. So Korea is caught by these two big giants. And according to the WTO reports, for the first seven months, from January to July this year, Korea's export reduced by almost 9%, 8.6%, something like that. This is the worst record among top 10 world exporting countries. So we are really hurt. And what about our export to China? Similar period, we lost almost 17% reduction compared to the same period of previous year. So Korea is really hurt. And also, if you look at the details, mostly the parts and components and equipment producers who are exporting to China, they are really hurt because our exports, out of our export, almost 79% are those kind of items. So I can give you some example of damages. Yeah, that's pretty impressive figures. This morning, around the roundtable, you were moderating, Gabriel. One of the consequences was all put so on FDI, direct investments. Can you tell us, or whoever wants to, about the effect that trade war has on that because of the uncertainty it creates? Exactly. So I mean, if you look at the big macroeconomic aggregates, investments is by far the most volatile. And it reacts most to news or to change the information and also to uncertainty. You can postpone investment, but you can't postpone consumption so much when people need to eat and so on. And so this procrastination is what matters so much now, as Olivier Blanchard explained this morning. If you look at Korea, another striking feature of the Korean economy right now is how much investment is suffering. So it's been negative for the last quarters, I think three or four quarters already. And that simply reflects the fact that if you don't know what the markets are in the future, whether there are tariffs or not tariffs, what can you do as an entrepreneur? You can only wait. What you can also do, and that's the counter argument, is, and that is valid, for example, for the United States. You say if there is a large net importing market like the United States, and you face as an exporter from Europe, you face uncertainty about the market access conditions, about the tariffs, then the only hands you have is actually to produce more in the United States. And if you talk to the German car manufacturers, what they do, what do they do is as well, we need to restructure operations in the United States. So it's relocation of factories? Yes, but they don't invest more, because traditionally also produce their SUVs in in Spartanburg, let's say, for the Chinese market. And that market is going down, so it's going close to up. So there is two things. So there's procrastination, and then there is investment redirection into large markets where you can hedge, where you can use investment as a hedge. And so in some, theoretically, the effect on investment is ambiguous.  So it's not good for investment. Marcus, you want to add something? Sure. So we know that since the United States initiated these tariff wars, the Treasury has collected about 35 or 36 billion dollars in tariff revenue from the special protection. So that's that's a fact. We have economic models that are now coming out where people are trying to model the effects of this. And the results are coming up with, while negative are not particularly large. And there's reasons to believe that those models are underestimating the effects for two reasons. The first one is the one Olivier spoke about this morning, which is we just have, we have a really hard time capturing in our model fundamental policy uncertainty and hence the impact on investment. So that we know. The second thing which Olivier didn't mention is supply chains. When Donald Trump was running for president in the summer of 2016, my institution did a project where we tried to model the trade policy proposals of the two major candidates. And in the case of Trump, we took his statements at face value and we were trying to figure out how to model them. We ended up talking to some of our corporate supporters and had some really interesting conversations with them. And I'm not going to name the firm, but we had a conversation with one that went something like this. Okay. If Donald Trump puts a 30% tariff on Mexico, which is what he was threatening to do, and we estimate or we assess that it's not going to last more than six months, we'll just wait it out and we'll lose X billion dollars a month. If it's going to last more than six months, then we have to, we have to get out of Mexico. Now, if we're going to shut down activities in Mexico, where are we going to start them again? And the corporate leadership found out they did not understand their own supply chains to actually make their contingency plans. They had the drill down to the level of individual product line managers. And in the case of this firm, they decided, well, a lot of that production in Mexico would be moved to Singapore. Well, to make room in Singapore, we're going to have to move things out of Singapore. And some of that's going to go to China. Some of it was going to go to Central Europe, I think the Czech Republic. So you had a situation in which a threatened action against Mexico could end up with increased production in Czech Republic. There is no way any economist using a model and publicly available data is going to come up with that result. And so just, we know this stuff is bad, but our models are not good at capturing some of the basic channels through which these types of policies operate. You're totally right, Marcus, but what this does is it gives huge incentives to us economists. And, you know, there's a lot of research now and how to incorporate supply chains into models. And that's the good thing about Donald Trump. It creates a lot of variance in the data and it creates a lot of things that we thought are not worth while investigating. And now we think we need really to understand those old-fashioned items like tariffs. That's the only positive that I have. We could give Donald Trump and Boris Johnson the Nobel Prize in Economics for the stimulation of new research. They're actually doing good for your profession. I only wanted to point out the 37 billion that the Treasury collected, they collected from the American consumer. They did not collect it from the Chinese or from anybody they collect. I mean, I see your hand movement. I know your studies on it. You say that there is a benefit because the Chinese lowered their prices. But the fact remains that 37 billion were collected from the American consumers. Can I add one more thing about investment, international investment? It's not my research area, but as a journalistic kind of opinions from other people, because of the Obama's period, the U.S. emphasized so-called remaking America. And also, Trump says America first kind of policies, providing a lot of incentives to the U.S. companies who are operating abroad. Please come back to U.S. And has that happened? That's what I'm saying. I don't have any statistics about recent years, but from 2010 to 2016, 80 cunning actually calculated cumulative numbers. By that six years period, more than 800 firms returned back to U.S. They are talking about this issue as so-called reshoring rather than foreign investment. That could happen. And I visited Taipei before I came here, and Taiwan is also doing the same thing. And lots of companies who are operating in China, they return to Taiwan. But of course, government is providing a lot of incentives. So in other words, under this kind of uncertain kind of world trade environment, and also government is really pursuing so-called inward-looking trade policies, then maybe investment will be reduced, which could have gone to other parts of the world. It's interesting what you were saying about the dismantling of the value chain, because there was a report from the World Bank about last week actually asking for more globalization. Saying that globalization had been the way to take countries out of poverty. And if you start breaking the value chains, you're going to put them back where they were, or you're not going to help everybody rising. Do you agree with that opinion? Yes, absolutely. So I think the multilateral order that we have, let's say until 2010 or so, produced convergence. The period of hyper globalization, as some say, led to the great convergence. And in a world where power dominates and where international rules are no longer taken for granted, can be changed all the time, so the uncertainty, this hurts small countries most. And the largest countries have big uniform single markets least. So it's maybe not a surprise that the country with the largest single market in the United States is doing this. But we should expect that this breakdown of multilateral order hurts the poor smallest countries most to the extent that they are not able to organize themselves. And if you look at initiatives like the African continental free trade area, that could counterbalance that. But if that's not going on, then we'll see this convergence process stopped. And actually, there's already science for that. Because trade growth has become very weak. We're not getting the stimulus from trade to those economies as we used to. Yeah, I wanted to point out that the value chains are, of course, disturbed by tariffs, but they are also very strongly disturbed by rules of origin. The new agreement, the USMCA is one of the examples where you have rules of origin that I would call perverted. And they have a real effect on also what can be sourced. I had a meeting with Bosch. And Bosch has set up a huge data center in Vietnam, where they want to optimize the components that they deliver to other producers in order to make sure that the rules of origin are met. This is highly complex and it's getting more complex. Yes. So one of the characteristics, so Trump is a protectionist. So one of the characteristics of the renegotiation or the negotiations of these trade deals is they move them away from free trade. So in the case of the United States Korea deal, we moved it away from free trade by extending the periods of liberalization. In the case of the agreement that we have with Canada and Mexico, we did it through rules of origin and other measures such that we call it NAFTA 0.8 because it's actually pulling you away from free trade. And you see the same sorts of things going on now with respect to some of these other deals as well. I was wondering, yeah, just I'm going to ask my question. You can answer right away. Actually, I want to add Carl's point. More specifically, USMCA has closed saying that if you want to use USMCA, in other words, you have to export automobile by paying no tariff. You must produce your output with 35% to 40% of the local content should be produced by the laborers whose hourly income is above $16. Very, very specific. That means Mexican hourly wage is very low. So you must import from United States, for example, those parts and component to produce something and export back to United States.  We add a little anecdote from research. I mean, I've done some work on rules of origin. And what we can find there is that almost always rules of origin have no real economic justification. And they are usually meant to be there to avoid in bilateral preferential trade agreements that third countries don't benefit from the trade references. But we know there is some... It's a defense mechanism, isn't it? Yes, but in most cases, really most cases, there is no danger of the so-called trade deflection anyway, because it's costly to transport goods and because the tariff structure is not such that it makes this deflection very profitable. So we have outrageous cases of rules of origin, like in the USMCA, that are clearly protectionist. But I would say that almost all rules of origin is hundreds of pages, also in EU trade agreements. It's a lot of stuff, and most of it has no rationale. Well, the French care a lot about it. It wouldn't happen. Yes, I know. Our cheese or wine, you know, we like to protect it. Yes. Well, I mean, there's other... There's the GIs that protect these food items. But the point is that there is legitimate case for rules of origin to avoid trade deflection, but there is no economic basis for that, very rarely. So what then remains is really just the protectionist element. And that has been the case for the last 30 years. Now, the Trump administration is playing it very hard on that, but it's not a new feature. The EU knows that quite as well. And if you look at those rules of origin, how detailed they are, sometimes it's really ridiculous. And that's true also, for example, in the EU career trade agreement. It's not something that we can blame the current US administration alone.


th and say, oh, I'm getting old now, or have an interruption to their breathing or a cough or something and just put it down. I can't shake this cold. Would there be some of the common sort of examples of us missing potentially early diagnoses? Yeah, I suppose like one of the main symptoms that people would get and that do have COPD is shortness of breath, particularly on exertion. You know, with a cough as well too, and that can be with flame or without flame. So I suppose like if you are having these symptoms, you shouldn't necessarily brush it off that, oh, I'm just getting older and this is part of aging really. Like yes, it does normally affect people over the age of 35 years, but that's again why we want people to come chat to us about it. We can get booked in for spirometry, get that diagnosis early, get you on the right treatment plan and turn a chronic condition into a condition that's treatable and isn't going to impact on your daily activities. It is a progressive disease, isn't it? So early diagnosis and getting to the right treatment can help to at least stave off the worsening of the condition. Is that accurate? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, the earlier that you can detect it, the earlier the treatment can come into place and yeah, try and keep it at a nice steady level without any massive deterioration or progression in it. And you talk about normally it affects people over 35, but what is the most common age that symptoms begin? And talk us through those symptoms again just in case anyone's noticing it because the best thing we can do and we're reluctant to do it is actually just go and get it checked out. Do you know what I mean? It could well be that you need to do a little bit more exercise or you do have a persistent tickling cough but if you have those kind of physical changes like a cough that won't go away or all of a sudden you find yourself at a breath after exertion, you know, in any scenario, whether it's so COPD or something else, you should never ignore those things. I don't think, Alana. No, absolutely. Get yourself checked out 100%. As I say, it typically is people definitely over the age of 35 and we're so over 40. Experience and like I said, a shortness of breath in particular on exertion. A negligent cough that just isn't really going away. You can have sputum or flame with that cough but it isn't always a productive cough. So it could be a dry cough kind of a thing, could it? Yeah, and either a dry cough or a productive cough. Again, COPD, obviously it's more common in smokers but 30% off cases of COPD actually occur in non-smokers. So again, the message to get out there is if you have any symptoms, talk to somebody, get yourself checked out, get that diagnosis so we can get you on the right treatment. But let's go back to the smokers because 70% of cases are in smokers and I'm talking maybe particularly to those in their 20s, 25, 30, 35 that feel okay, it doesn't do them any harm and so on and so forth.  We've got great support through your colleagues that quit up here in the Northwest as well.  Yeah, absolutely. And again, like the younger that you begin smoking and the length of years that you smoke all contribute towards COPD and that. So we have a forum coming up tomorrow in the Mount Erigal as well that I would just also like to mention, I keep saying a bit common in chatting to us and getting yourself checked out. Tomorrow's the perfect opportunity to do that. We're in the Mount Erigal tomorrow from 10 o'clock. The respiratory multidisciplinary team, myself, the respiratory nurses, consultants, physios, with some voluntary groups coming as well there as well too. So I think it'd be a great day. It's free admission for anyone that has COPD or thinks they might have COPD and or anyone that genuinely just wants more information on the condition just to get the word out there and spread awareness. Yeah, I'm thinking maybe bringing, you know, maybe it's an opportunity to bring a reluctant relational partner or something that maybe is putting it off like we've been talking, Alana. I mean, these are all very lovely and welcoming and friendly. Maybe this is the day that, you know, you can get a diagnosis if you have it and start the treatment plans as soon as possible. Yeah, well, as I say, tomorrow, it's going to be a very relaxed day. You'll have an opportunity to chat one-on-one with the professionals. I suppose it'll be nice for people that are kind of reluctant. They don't either want to go. You know, it's not a clinical setting as such. As I say, it's in the Mount Aragile. We'll have a better lunch. We'll have a chat. There'll be some information there for people. I'm really hopeful that it's going to be a good day and people are going to find it informative and it'll be really worthwhile in attending. Okay, and just remind us one more time. It is a free admission to a free event. It's open to CODP patients, their families, friends, or anyone wanting more information, registration at 10 a.m. with tea, coffee on arrival. Lunch will be provided with the day coming to a close at around 3 p.m. Is that correct? Do you have to just register on the morning as an office? Absolutely, it is indeed. And saying that if anyone wants to give me a recall about it, if they've any queries or questions before that, that's absolutely fine. But yeah, no need for pre-booking free admission. And you've summed it up pretty much right there, Greg. Free lunch is what it's doing. Thanks so much for your time, Alana. I'm lovely to speak to you. Alana Kiernan, COPD, Outreach Nurse Specialist. It affects an awful lot of people. Five and a half thousand Donegal people are living with this condition. Three hundred and eighty thousand people with COPD in Ireland. And just the really important thing, and I said it before in this program, if we reach one person or two people or three people that have those symptoms and they go along and get early intervention, they can go on to live a more healthy life. So hopefully that's reached you if you needed to hear it. It's tomorrow at 10 o'clock. And they're lovely people, as I say, it's a non-clinical setting and not as threatening as we might see in a hospital or a GP. Some people just don't like that. OK, back with more shortly. And get your loan transferred directly to your current account. Why wait until Black Friday? At RightPrice Tiles and Wood Flooring, we're offering our Black Friday deals right now.  Everything's reduced and everything's in stock. The 70% off Black Friday sale at RightPrice Tiles and Wood Flooring stores nationwide. Sale now on. Enhance your skills with SIFTECH's part-funded training programs. At SIFTECH, we provide courses including First Aid, Roadworks, People Moving and Handling, Confined Spaces, Electrofusion and Machinery Training for Ireland and UK sites. Also online programs such as Water Hygiene, Construction Supervisors, SIFTE Reps and much more. If you have a group for training, SIFTECH will go to you. Contact SIFTECH today at SIFTECH.ie and take the first step towards upskilling and safety compliance. Hi, Kate Appleby here. Just wanted to let you all know my exciting new autumn shoe collection is available nationwide in all good shoe stores. KateAppleby.com. Hope you enjoy my shoes. It's the appearance of your staff important to your business. It's the first point of contact for customers when entering your premises. At CNM and Broydery and Letter Kenny, they have a huge range of clothing covering all areas of the workplace. It's widely known that customers warm to and trust employees that present themselves well. Have your company name and Broyders are printed on all your work uniforms. Contact CNM and Broydery on 07491 28097 and get your staff looking their best. Highland Radio time checks with Expressway. Travel Route 32 from Letter Kenny to Dublin when you book online and travel for less. Expressway, bringing you the time ask. The time's just approaching 19 minutes past 11. Now, we had two lovely ladies in studio last week talking about an event. So the LIFS, L-Y-F-S Stroke Aragull College Parents Association fundraiser. And I wanted to give it another mention. It's in aid of a brain cancer research. And it's on tomorrow. Just another wee reminder for you. It's a coffee morning. There's going to be a craft sale. So you can get those personalized knitted gifts for someone for Christmas if you so wanted. And there's going to be pampering and makeup as well thanks to some amazing students from the Aragull College. So it is at the LIFS Centre, which is number one new line road in Letter Kenny. And it starts tomorrow morning at 10.30am. Ladies, you better have Highland on in the background or maybe should we give you the hour and a half off while the show's on. But anyway, hopefully you have a great turnout. As I say, I really enjoyed the conversation with two of the beautiful women, beautiful people they were behind that. Hi, I'm 41. I've got a chest x-ray all clear, but I need to take a steroid inhaler a few times a week. I don't smoke or vape. I had a humdinger of a flu in November 2019 and haven't been the same since with my chest indeed. Sometimes people do have after effects after a bad flu. I think she and Fein wanted to close the door bar some time ago. This never happened. I'm sure they were objected to from the usual sources a record during a late door sitting a male TD who pulled a female colleague TD onto his lap. Indeed, I remember that was not a terrible look at. I'm sure a few of the Sinn Fein TDs go into the bar as well. I have a problem with an electricity bill. It would normally be around 300 euro. The last bill was wait for it, 511 euro. We're cutting back, but the bill's getting higher. We've got a smart meter in the early summer that comes in from Joe and Kelly Gordon. Now the problem is, and I'm not here to defend smart meters, but a lot of people have smart meters and they didn't even know they were installed. I know of at least two people very close to me that I was curious and opened their boxes, as you do. And lo and behold, inside was a couple of smart meters. Now, so lots and lots of people of smart meters. So I don't know if it is the smart meter that's causing the higher bills or just the cost of electricity. But from 300 euro to 511 euro in a cost of living crisis, which we are in, is a massive, massive increase. Hi, just listening to your show. I've had a number of experiences with my girl at primary school in which the boys in class have made sexual comments and gestures to her using drink bottles and girls in the playground in both third and fourth class. These were things then I can only imagine they saw online. When I mentioned it to parents, if you said, sure, that's boys for you. I never thought I'd have a conversation with my daughter in third class like that. Kids just shouldn't have phones if parents can't police what they see.  That's not child-proofed as much as can be. I just find it shocking. Kids that young are being exposed to such things in a school playground around younger kids. The school did take it seriously, but sure it's too late when it's already been said. So and they've been careful with the language, but you can fill in the banks. This is third class, third and fourth class in primary school boys making sexual comments and gestures using drink bottles. So you can imagine. That's really worrying, isn't it? Hi, can you let people know the Black Mountain Road in Mallonhead is in a terribly dangerous condition and has been like this for a few months now. There's water running down both sides in torrents. So cars now go up and down the middle of the road due to shocks not cleared on both sides. Please read this out as it's very dangerous. Thank you. Of course, I'm more than happy to read that out. And hopefully something can be done about that. We shall see. All right, you are tuned to the 9 till noon show here on Highland Radio. Business matters in association with the Faculty of Business at ATU Donegal. For a career in financial governance, consider the level 9 MA in governance and IT in financial services starting in January. Contact the exec Ed coordinator on 9 1 8 6 2 0 6 or email donald.hanigan at atu.ie today. All right, we're joined in studio now by Chris Ashmore, presenter of Business Matters podcast. Hi, Chris. Good morning to you. Good morning, Greg. We were talking there about smart meters. Yes, I was looking up my own bill was out of contract and I looked up and I contacted the company and it was very interesting to find out and in fairness to the provider, the person on the other end of the phone did tell me and explain to me. Some people may think that you're going to save a lot of money switching over to a smart meter and you get this much lower rate. But when you go into the detail, there was a very low rate between two and five in the morning geared towards people, you know, charging their electric car and this sort of thing. And then there was a standard. There was actually four different rates and between five and seven in the evening, which is when most of us are in our houses and doing your evening meal, the rate was, I think the standard rate I was looking at was maybe 34, 35 cent, but it was nearly 60 cent between five and seven.  But I wouldn't do, I wouldn't have the dishwasher, the washing machine or the dryer. Now, we don't use the dryer much in fairness. It's mostly a clothes hose, but I would never use any of those overnight because I've spoken to people from the fire service and one of them actually, their dishwasher went on fire themselves. I would not be content with children in the house going to bed with that stuff on. And you're quite right from what I could see. And these are smart meter plans. Yes, you have to sign up for it, but I agree with you. Much more considerably more expensive during the day. Really hitting you when you want to use the electricity. And cheaper at night where you either don't have electric car or you're less inclined to use these goods because of the dangers of it. You'd have to be very disciplined about your use. And I looked at it and I thought, no, this is not going to save me any money. So I didn't, but just on that, if you're out of contract, you do save. And I think a lot of people don't realise when they go out of contract, your unit rate can go up quite a lot. In my case, it went up 33%. And you're 100% right too because the same applies to broadband, Chris, because if someone's signed up and they get their 30, 35, 40 euro per month broadband bill, once that contract is concluded, they are out of contract. And it goes up to 55, 60, 65. And you do get noticed, but you know yourself, Chris, we're busy. So what I suggest you do, whenever you sign up for something, and I'm switching left, right and centre, I open my phone because we have it on us. And I fast forward 11 months into the calendar and set a notification and say, price around broadband, price around electricity, price around car insurance. Do you know what I mean? And you do it at the time you book it. And because as I say, I'm at about 210 euro because I wasn't aware that I come out of contract with my broadband and I really got stuck. So now if you ring them, then they go, well, no, we can give you the new contract and it's this, that and the other. But you know, okay, good advice, Chris, good advice as always. Okay, let's talk about a bit of news here. And it was a great night last Friday night for the Leonard Kenney Chamber of Business Awards. Yes. And of course, a business person of the year, Marchine Kelly of Kelly's Central and Mountaintop and Leonard Kenney, James Russell of Glenard Plant was a hall of fame winner. And lots, lots of... I'm throwing on in there as well. And lots of different awards. Really the highlight of the calendar. And it's not just a Leonard Kenney thing, it's a county wide and people from all parts of the county and as long may it continue. And it's great to see that recognition and it means a lot to the people as well when your own people are recognized. You interviewed James Russell? No, that wasn't Kieran. Yeah, because his interview and it was great to see him embracing his success to some extent because he had that convo with Kieran. That was the first time we'd ever spoke publicly. And he came up here for a chat with us and it was the first time ever doing a live radio interview because he's just been him and Anna and the team have just been battering away. And it was lovely for him to get the recognition because I think for him it was a bit of a turning point in that, okay, right, maybe what I'm doing here is particularly successful. And Marchine, of course, was with us as well. And great ambition for the future of Kelly's Centre at Mountaintop. But it was a whole host of other winners and all really worthy. Right, you have a couple of notes for our diaries, Chris. Yes, the local enterprise office is hosting a business supports clinic at the Public Services Centre in Donegal Town. That's on Friday, November the 24th, from 10 to 11 a.m. And it'll outline the supports and services of the local enterprise office and give you an explanation of the various grant aid that is available, the whole criteria involved. So if you have a business or if you think you're starting of something and you're in that Donegal Town area, this is a great way just to get an overview of the supports that are there. And there are a lot of supports there. And you could be guided down. It might be even down the mentoring line. It may not actually be a support. And also a reminder that the Lericanny Chamber in Donegal Women and Business, they have a big event on Wednesday, November the 22nd. And it's all in relation to artificial intelligence, which is AI very much a bit of a buzzword at the moment. It's the events called Marketing AI New, Supercharge Your Small Business. And that's in the Silver Tassie Hotel from 7 to 9 o'clock on next Wednesday. So I'm sure there'll be big interest in that. Now, I don't want to pull the rug from under you, Chris, but I think we're going to talk about carpets now, aren't we? If you think I'm not going to interrupt with dad jokes and ponds, Chris, you've another thing coming. Oh, I know that. I know that. Well, Greg, I'm just wondering, have you any old carpets in your house that could potentially be valuable? Because the rose, that's what it's called, which is a pile carpet that was woven in killi bags, has been sold as an auction at the world's famous Sotheby's in London and the price, 25,400 euros sterling, or 25,400 euro sterling, I should say. It's about 29,000 euro. Now, I've been delving into this and I've found a thick pile of information. Brief history, this is actually quite interesting. This carpet was designed by a man called Charles Francis Ainsley Voisey, back around 1897. He was a very influential designer at the time and it was woven in the Morton and Company a weaving workshop in killi bags. It measured 22 feet by 11 feet, was purchased back in 1899, has remained in one family since and it featured at Sotheby's recent classic design, furniture, clocks, silver and ceramic sale in London. So you never know. There could be an old carpet in your house and why not check it out? I think though this factory, most of their carpets are in places such as Buckingham Palace and others. I can't really quite remember. Those are great carpet tradition. These are just the creme de la creme. Yeah, so you never know and maybe have a look in Granny's house. Now that whole carpet might be worth more than you think. Well, Granny's got a hole that will fit a 22 by 11 foot carpet. Which I don't think she's. All right, but still you never know and I'm sure they did make more affordable smaller carpets but they've got an international reputation. On that, I know the figures from the BBC, the antiques roadshow always gets very good figures and people, I think there's a great sense of surprise and delight on the financial side. When you bring down something that you don't know what it's worth and suddenly you get a nice surprise. All right, okay. And that rose carpet is the earliest datable carpet woven in Donegal to a voice a design, which is again fascinating. Great, great find there, Chris. Right, what's coming up on this week's pod? Yes, business matters this week. My guest is Jackie Fegan, founder and proprietor of four Paul's kennels and dog hotel in Kilmachrennan. And last weekend she won the best kennels in Ireland award at the local pet award ceremony in Dublin. And it was a fitting award for Jackie and her husband Maliki who have put so much time and work into the business. She established it over 15 years ago. And at the time it was a very big move for her. She had a steady job working in a pharmacy. And it's a nice story because here's somebody who had a steady job but they had a passion, a real love of animals. And she took the plunge, decided to go out and the business has really flourished from that early days. And I asked her basically what her message would be to somebody who maybe is thinking in a similar fashion. I would follow your dreams. You only live once and try not to have any regrets. I certainly, I certainly don't. It was a big, big thing. You know, I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing or not. You were used to your wage coming in at the end of the day. And it was massive because the responsibility too of, you know, having your own business as well. But it all just kind of fell into place. It all happened just, I suppose, unexpectedly and gradually. So that, you know, but if any, I'd go for it as what I would say. Doon, baby steps, start small and see how you get on. All right, Chris. Great interview and great chorus in the background as well. Very happy dogs there looking for their rundown, you know. Also a few cats down there as well. Yeah, yeah. So the full interview with Jackie available to download now at highlandradio.com or wherever you get your podcasts and business matters goes out on the air on Sunday evening. After the six o'clock news, and if you'd like to get in touch with the program, you can drop an email to businessmatters at highlandradio.com. Chris, thank you very much for that. Lovely to have you in and we'll look forward to chatting you. We do look forward to chatting to you next week. Watch the show live now on YouTube, Facebook, and at highlandradio.com. Scruffix Black Friday deals are here. Save over 65 euro on the Milwaukee 18-volt angle grinder bare unit now $94.95 and get the four steel 22-piece toolkit for $36.95 saving 26 euro. For more Black Friday deals shop now. Must end 27th November. Delivery charges apply. Gum shields that can be remolded to improve fit. Match up your boots with Adidas or O'Neill set of socks and shorts. Brian McCormick Sports, your football specialist. Click on BMC Sports.ie or call in Main Street Larry Kenny. Jason Quigley here. Professional boxing is back in Donegal. Rumble in the Hills pro show takes place November 18th in the Aralizer Center, Larry Kenny. Irish Olympian Joe Ward headlines the bell which also sees lightweight Celtic title fight between James McGevern and Joy Stanford. With many other top class fighters on the card. Tickets available now at alevesportspromotions.co. It's the Christmas Cracker we've all been waiting for. Join Highland Radio for a star-studded Christmas concert on Monday the 11th of December in the Mount Arigal Hotel letter Kenny. Star in Michael English and his band, Claudia Buckley, John McNichol, rising star Jack Q and myself David James. This is a Christmas night out not to be missed. Tickets 25 euros available from the Mount Arigal Hotel reception or online from the outlet at highlandradio.com. Dinner, bed and breakfast packages also available. That's the Highland Radio Christmas concert on Monday the 11th of December. All right, you're welcome back to the program via email. A listener says, talk about missing the point. First question asked by Councillor Keir Brogan yesterday. What's his name? The point is there is a serious failure. The brand he refers to is a hospital, not a sports syndicate. Do something with the information gathered. Staff have to go public because the executive boards suffocate complaints and make life hell for staff that do speak out. Well, the story has been well and truly buried now because the HSE will not be issuing any further comment because the matter has now been referred to on Goddess Shia Khanna. Hi, Greg, I wanted to contact you about the R245 road, the Creasler-Takhargaard Downings Road, particularly from the N56R25 junction down to Pass Lacquer Bridge. The road, if anyone knows who has driven on it, is very narrow and at parts the tarmac is coming away at both sides and the roads causing you to drive in the middle of the road. It's extremely, it's an extremely busy road and is used by very large commercial vehicles, buses, agricultural vehicles, as it's one of the main routes between Karagat and Downings to Creasler and vice versa. If you meet one of these vehicles on the road while you're driving in the opposite direction, you will likely have to slow down, stop, as the road is not designed for this type of traffic going both ways. And they say the road needs to be sorted as soon as is possible. Okay, we are joined now by our next group of guests and there's two pairs of headphones there, ladies, if you don't mind putting them on, there should be two pairs. Anyway, we'll see. Is there another pair for you? It's fine, I'll get to that in a moment. Right, okay, I'll tell you what I might do. I might take a quick break just whilst we do set up a set of headphones. Stay right where you are. We'll be back in two minutes. The Ninetill Noon Show is brought to you by Letter Kenny Credit Union. Seasonal loans now available for Christmas. Apply online or via our app today and get your loan transferred directly to your current account. Are you ready for unmissable magic? Are you ready for winter in Dublin? November's longer evenings when the city lights shine even brighter. Chocoblock with festive fun in December. And unmissable live music and must-see events in January. That's three whole months of winter wonder just waiting for you. Get ready for the buzz of our bustling city streets. It's enchanting, unforgettable fun. Make your plans today at VisitDublin.com. Winter in Dublin, it's magic. Brought to you by Folger Ireland. Hi, Paddy here at Shea and Connolly Cars in Dunnegull Town. Are you looking to upgrade your car? With Shea and Connolly Cars, you'll find mix and models from the latest for every budget. Great finance options and they also accept radiance. Check out Shea and Connolly Cars dot com or call into us at Shea and Connolly Cars from down on her road, Dunnegull Town. M&S Christmas food to order is here with all range of succulent Irish turkeys and a whole lot more. This is not just food. This is M&S Christmas food. Order online now. See marxandspenser.ie for details. OK, let's have a look at the weather forecast for what's left of today, which is most of it actually. Cloud will thicken from the south southwest later in the afternoon and evening. High temperatures of nine or 10 degrees, moderate to fresh and gusty westerly winds in the morning will ease through the afternoon and back southerly. Right, we've had a number of guests now to discuss our next issue. And that is calls on the education minister to take action to end what's been described as the unfair treatment of school transport bus escorts. And we're joined in studio by Anne McLaughlin and Brie Gallagher. Good morning to both of you. Thank you very much for joining us. Good morning, Greg. Deputy Patrick McLaughlin is with us as well. Good morning, Parry. Thanks for joining us. Good morning, Greg, and to all your listeners. Yeah, it's good to have you. And we have people joining us too on the telephone line. But I'll start with you, Anne McLaughlin. The role of a bus escort, for those who may not be aware. Yeah, what do you call it? Well, it came into law in the year 2000. So it's 23 years, the bus escorts would have to be on. For people who don't know what our role as a bus escort is, we travel on the bus, the school bus around the country, collecting children, young adults with special needs, and take them to special needs schools, nationals and secondary groups. These pupils have a wide range of disabilities. To mention a few, from learning, hearing, sight, non-verbal, autism, down syndrome, children in wheelchairs, medical conditions like asthmatics, epilepsy, which require us to administer medication. If they cry, we dry their eyes. If they're sick, we clean them up. If they wet themselves while having seizures, we let them know it's okay and we get them sorted. If they have a bad morning, we calm them down before they go to school. This is the start of the school day for the child. If they're scared, confused, we reassure them that it's all okay and that they are safe. We take care of these children as if they are our own. All this is in a confined space of a bus, with 10 to 15 plus children. And in some cases, only one to two escorts on board while traveling, anything up to four to five hours, round trips a day. We all love our job and it's wonderful children that we are so lucky to be working with and we are the link between the parents and the school. And I think really it's clear that this is not an issue, this is not an issue you have with schools here or with parents, that those relationships are sand and we'll get to the knots and bolts of this. And I want to bring you into, in terms of, I beg your pardon, breed, in terms of wages then, comparable type of work that you do. Where do boss escorts sit? Well, we haven't had a wage rise in almost five years. The last time we had a wage rise was seven cents an hour and nothing has happened since. And I suppose we've arrived to today because we tried many years ago, six, seven years ago with Charlie McConnel, who came as a group of us in his office down the street and he tried his best. He liaised with Regina Daherty who was the then Minister for Social Protection and he got a generic reply back, nothing happened. We tried then with Thomas Pringle and he tried to sort things out, nothing happened. So we're hoping third time lucky with Podric McLaughlin. We had actually a meeting arranged with Podric and then COVID kicked in. So we're kind of, maybe two and a half, three years after the event. So we've come to today, you know, there's been a journey to come to today. Yeah. Just to try and bring us in line, there's been no wage rise in five years. May I ask her, any boss escorts directly employed by the Department of Education or are all of you? Because we've had, it seems quite similar to maybe the secretary situation that we had, all the caretakers situation where we had. In those instances, there was a mixture of those directly employed by the Department of Education and then by schools and then there was discrepancies and I think that problem is on the way to being resolved. So who is the employer of boss escorts? Well, it's kind of kicking the can, Greg, because we are employed, the Department of Education Transport Department pay our wages. They pay it into the school by means of grant aid. So the Board of Management then employs the individual escorts deemed on what's the... So that means you don't have holiday pay. I don't know what the situation is with pensions and what have you. You don't get the entitlements, the people working in similar roles but in different environments yet. I'm going to come back to you.  What's your take on the boss escorts situation? Yeah, Greg, and you rightly referred to the school secretaries and the school caretakers who, you know, everybody knew who were certainly in the case of the secretaries with the beating heart of the schools but they were treated as second-class citizens for a long time. They didn't have any pay at all during school holidays. They had to sign on. They didn't have any pension or entitlements or, you know, any of that. Yet they were playing such a crucial role and that went on for years and that issue, thanks to their campaign, has been resolved pretty much. So now, a number of weeks ago, I met with a large delegation, Bridge and many others, and indeed others have been in contact with me today following the report on your news show and, you know, I just was completely taken aback and obviously, these are mostly women and some men clearly are not doing it for their money. They're civic-minded people. They do such an important job looking after children, young people with special needs or disabilities and has outlined what that job involves. It's so important to these young people. And I was just taken aback how badly they're being treated. 69 days a year, they're not paid. They have to go and sign on. Well, it's a nightmare too because the money takes ages to come through and you've got your bills and what have you and you're sitting there having to go and you have to go through the same process every single time. I'm going to come back to you in a second, obviously, Porg, I appreciate your time, but Anna, I just want to run past you. Do you know, you talk with such passion, such care, such love of the children. And genuine care. Do you feel sometimes that that is being exploited? Definitely. It's not what you call it. It does not be reflected in how we're treated as having to go to as social wealth an interim office. I had to sit for an hour and a half to get a form which they handed me out was the wrong form. Fill that in. Be told that was the right form. Fill that in. Wait for it to get your money. Then to be to phone up the department to be told no, you filled in the wrong form I've got to say, you have to send me out the other form. They never sent it out. Back up to the interim office. Wait another hour to get another form. It took all summer for me to get paid what a small amount of money like from job seekers which we have to apply. And your joy in getting that job seekers money was lost with the hoops that you had to jump through. You don't know, is it? Well, I just did out a little thing here just to let you see what it entails. As Podrick said, we're 69 days where we get no pay like, you know, if the schools decide they're taking an extra bank quality, we don't get paid for that. We'll get the bank quality but we'll don't get one or two extra days. So we're down that with 69 days in total. We received 140 euro in total for the 69 days which works out at 104 euro 34 pence per week which is 20 euro 87 a day. That is what we get for almost 70 days of the year like who can live in this day and age now? Some of our escorts had to take loans out over the... Of course, yeah. Has it been costed how much it would cost the state to employ people properly breed? I don't think so. No, okay. Well, we'll come back to that. Maybe Podrick has some figures. I want to go back to Podrick in a second but I also want to bring in parents as well. Gillian, your daughter attends St Bernadette School. How important is the role of the bus escort to your daughter? And Gillian, a very good morning to you of course in the first instance. Thank you. Well, basically Mari wouldn't go to school if her bus escort wasn't there. Mari has severe separation anxiety. She doesn't like being away from home. She doesn't like new people. So see in that face and that safe we call her bus escort. She's one of her safe people. So she knows that when she's with Eileen on the bus, she's safe. She knows that she can be her.   And then she gets her in the evenings at half past two, three o'clock. When she's exhausted, she's overwhelmed. She's tired and she has her for almost an hour and a half a day where she's constantly working with Mari to keep her confident, to keep her happy, very assured. And it's wonderful for Mari Gillian, but it's also for your peace of mind as well. And I think Mari calls her her safe person. Yeah. Which is lovely. She's on her list as we teach Mari who's safe and who's tricky people and things like that. And Eileen's on her safe people. Eileen's meant four or five times in the morning before we even leave for school.  And oh, there's Eileen now in the bus. It's time to go. So without that, she wouldn't go to school. She wouldn't leave me happy in the morning, which is one of the reasons why she's no longer in stream as she couldn't cope with that separation. And we have never had one day where we've had to worry nice since she started and that's two years now in January. So we couldn't do it without our bus escort. And Gillian, you'd back the bus escorts in their campaign for equal treatment, not looking for anything above and beyond. They're just looking for equal treatment. You, they have your support, I take it. Oh, completely. I honestly didn't know. It was only whenever I was told about it and heard about it and I was shocked. I was horrified. And I think that's actually born out. Sorry to cut across you, Gillian, but I think the majority of parents, 98% a survey, 98% of parents were in disbelief that bus escorts were treated this way. That's, that's everyone really. Statistically, it's everyone. I didn't know at all. Okay. It was, I just couldn't believe it. Gillian, thank you for your time. Best wishes to Maddie and all of the family. Catherine is with us too. A parent of a child who uses the school bosses.  So how important is the bus escort for him? It is so crucial. And my son, David, he is non-verbal autism. And he has been using the bus service for maybe three years now and without the bus service, without the bus escorts, he would not be able to go to school. You know, I, it goes out every morning and Eileen's on the bus. Eileen, she's a favorite. Eileen and Kate are on the bus. You know, like, without them, he would not be able to go to school. They're my voice. They're his second mommy. They take care from us. When I leave, when he leaves my hands in the morning. What an amazing way to be able to discuss one. Yeah. I put my trust in them 100% and they come back and forth to me with any problems.  And you just, you know, if you can't discredit, I have such admiration for people that do this job. And you back them 100% in this campaign. It would not be possible. Sorry, you back them. They need equal pay. Yep. Oh yes, 100%. They need equal pay, equal respect because their job is hard. Okay. I have one chance. Can you imagine being on a bus with 12, $13 children with additional needs? All different needs? Yeah, amazing. Okay, Catherine, listen, thank you. Thank you so much for the time. Deputy McLaughlin, when I get something on the record here and not speak to you as an opposition TD, I'm going to speak to you presumably potentially as a government TD. So to seek a commitment from you now, if elected in, into government, are you confident that Sinn Féin would listen to Bossas Scots and through your Department of Education, Minister for Education, would write this wrong? Is that a commitment? Yes, yes it is. And I spoke to Sorka Clark a number of times now who's our education spokesperson, our TD. And she is aware of this issue. I want her to raise it through the Education Committee. I want her to challenge more forcefully. Yes, we need a situation where special needs assistance, school secretaries, school takers, and our school transport escorts are treated the same, are valued the same. And I think what's happening, I didn't know, that's why I'm just so taking it back. I didn't know until those few weeks ago when I met with such an... No, I'm a little embarrassed that I wasn't aware of this previously, to be honest with you, given the job that I do. Because they're such good people, like they're not in this for the money, but they've been taken for granted for too long and they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and paid accordingly and not have to go on and sign on for those 69 days and get paid to raise the amount of money. So, yes, I'm absolutely committed to them getting justice and hopefully they won't have to wait for a Sinn Féin government, hopefully being do it quicker, hopefully. But be that as it may, breed on the record, you have a commitment from potentially the next government that they will write this wrong. I think Podrick has been... You might take a note at the time and do it. Yeah, I think Podrick has been a beacon, to be honest with you. He came to see us a few weeks ago and he was just wonderful. The passion he showed, it was just amazing to us. And your last speaker talked about the Mammy effect. I have a son with special needs with autism. He's 25 and I have been handing him over to Boss Escorts for many, many years and I can only say they've all been so wonderful. They've made such a difference in our lives and in Luke's life and it is like another... It's like a friend to Luke and he speaks so highly of them. So, you know, we're not angels and we're not doing an amazing work. But we're doing our work and we're doing our best and it would be nice to be appreciated. Exactly by the department. Yes. And I just would like to say one thing. Holly Kearns, who's a Social Democrat lady at TD, she brought this up in July 2023 with the Minister and she got a kind of a generic reply about all the transport system is costing the government. And Norma Foley said that there was 18,000 special needs children travelling every day in primary and post-primary settings. She didn't exactly say about the special needs as well. So, there's 18,000 plus children. She never kind of stopped to think of who's taking those children safely, watching them every day. And so, when Patrick asked her the same question two weeks ago, he got the same reply. It was actually copy and paste. Well, we have, and quite rightly so, revolutionised school transport over the last two, two and a half years to accommodate thousands of extra students. There's bosses with two students going on from one part of the county to another. Not saying that's the wrong thing, okay? But when there is a will, we find the way. So, finally, Anne, you know, it's clear the passion that you have for this job. The last thing you never want to do is withdraw a service. That's not on our plan. That's not on our plan. I know, but we can't allow that to be used as an export. Well, we can say here now that we are all of the same opinion. We are not going to put the whole parents... That can't be used against you. That's... Well, it is what it is, because none of us would like to see that done to any parents and children. And we want to also say that our schools are not the issue here. It's the Department of Education that needs to get their finger out. It's nothing to do with our schools. We have great respect for our schools and they work wonderfully with us. Anne McLaughlin, thank you so very much indeed. Greg, thank you so much. Appreciate your time. Thank you, Brie Gallher. Lovely to have you in as well. Thank you very much, Greg. I hope you're so successful in what you're trying to do. Thanks to our callers.  It's been good to have you on the show again, and we look forward to seeing movement in that regard as you say. Hopefully, within the lifetime of this government. But if not, and if elected, you've committed to do so early on in Sinn Féin's tenure. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, take care. Bye-bye. And that's where we leave it. Back with you tomorrow morning at 9.


Today I have the genuine pleasure of speaking with Chris Thompson from e-research. How are you today, Chris? I'm great, Trace. How about you? Chris, you just initiated coverage of a company called Blue Star Gold Corp. Yes. Okay, fantastic. By recommendation, not going to tell anybody the target price here, Chris, but what I'd love for you to do is tell everybody out there why all of a sudden you need to stop what you're doing and put Blue Star Gold on your watch screen. Tell us why. Well, this is a company with, you know, three very interesting projects all very close together and some of them are adjacent, which is even more important for economies of scale and it's starting off with an existing resource of over 800,000 ounces of gold. So when you're looking at projects, this is a good place to start because they already have a resource. So you know that there's gold there and so they're building on this and they have a district scale package, so there's lots of room for them to find additional resources. So, Chris, help me understand this. We've got gold exploration, cash in the bank, but is this more advanced to give us some more compelling reasons that Blue Star Gold is the gold exploration company we need to be watching? Yeah, they have a good land package in the area with some, you know, historical production that did some bulk sampling previously, so it's a good example of finding a spot where there's already some existing gold and it's fairly high grade gold, so which is always good for the economics of a project. The other key aspect of this project is there's lots of gold showings, so that, you know, on surface and also previous drill results which help the company target other areas to drill, so it's more economical when they're using their drill dollars to find and build on the resources. So you've described it as a golden and growing resource in Canada's north. We're talking about a large package, high grade gold, cash in the bank, is that correct? That's correct, yeah, they did a recent financing, they have an existing resource and they're looking at drilling to add more ounces. And of course I'm not going to tell you out there in Investor Intel land what this uptick looks like because you must go to e-research's website to look up and secure the Blue Star Gold Core research report. Anything else you'd like to add there, Chris? Well, I think that the management team also is good. They have many years of experience with other companies and building value and I think also there's an existing infrastructure up there and you know, when you're drilling in Canada's north, you want to make sure they have a camp already in place and some existing airstrip, etc., which helps reduce the cost of the project. So I think they've got a lot of very positives with this project, so it's not a junior exploration, it's more of an advanced exploration project and one to put on your radar list. All right, I hear you, advanced exploration play, but now I'm going to redirect the question based on this answer. Everybody, Chris, tells me, strong management, strong management, give me an example of what you mean by strong management. I mean, I know you well enough to know that when you say strong management, it's an impressive management team, but maybe you could be more specific. Well, Grant Newing is the president and he's a geo and he's been in the business for more than 25 years and so he's been a CEO of other resource companies, so he has the experience and it's a geo-led company, which I always like to see when you're looking at an exploration play because you want to make sure they can find the right rocks. So high grade, large package, advanced exploration, and geo-led management team. You've heard it here and for more information, please go to e-research.com and this is your senior analyst, Chris Thompson. Thank you, Chris. Thanks, Tracy.


And one of the things I tell people is, do stuff that not everybody's talking about. Yeah. I always say, if you want to make real wealth, you have to go into a jungle that nobody's yet in because when too many people are in a jungle, it goes from a jungle to a forest. And in the forest, there's no money to be made because all the gold has been picked. So when you see everybody you know just saying, oh, just do this and now you'll make money in real estate, be careful.


The Brighton Bengals and New Mission Titans met for the third time this season on Thursday. Only this time in the Boston City League Championship game, where both schools looked to make history. The first half was tight, with Brighton heading into the locker room up by a point 34-33. Heading into the second half, New Mission coach Corey McCarthy knew what his team needed to do to win. No second chance points. What adjustments did you tell the boys that they were going to make in the locker room? Play a lot harder. For most of the third quarter, the game stayed close, with only a couple of baskets separating two teams as the fourth quarter began. In the start of the fourth, emotions flared, but Brighton proved more able to keep their focus and eventually pulled away to win the school's first city championship. Got a little heated? That's the game. Now focus and do the right things. To not get technicals, to not give up easy baskets, to not give them the advantage of getting us out of our game. For coach McCarthy and the Titans, the third time wasn't the charm. If you beat a team three times, you're better than them, and they're a better team than us right now. And I hope they're not a better team than us in a week. Brighton received significant contributions from their sophomore, Jason Jones, as well as team leader and City League tournament MVP, Malik James. How does it make you feel to bring the first city championship to Brighton? Actually, it was my heart and for me to be a part of one, and my team to be a part of one, and for us to get it for our coach over here, Coach Coleman. It was a very, it's an honor. Both Brighton and New Mission have been seated in a Division II North Bracket of the MIAA State Tournament. In Boston, at Madison Park High School, for BUTV10, I'm Alex Hyerson.