Latest / The Bill Handel Show / Permanent Daylight Savings | AI is Coming for Cubicle Jobs
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
- 0:05Speaker 1: six forty.
- 0:07Speaker 2: It is a Thursday morning, May twenty eight. Some big
- 0:10Speaker 2: news axios is reporting that there has been a deal cut,
- 0:16Speaker 2: except that Trump has to okay it, so there really
- 0:20Speaker 2: is no deal cut. And I think the two sides
- 0:24Speaker 2: are fairly fall far apart, and I'm not wrong. Here
- 0:28Speaker 2: is something we talk about every single year, and this
- 0:32Speaker 2: is what Trump is touting which I couldn't agree with
- 0:35Speaker 2: me with him more, and that is how about a
- 0:40Speaker 2: permanent daylight saving time? And he's not alone. I'm not alone.
- 0:45Speaker 2: Nineteen states are ready to do this. Okay, it's May,
- 0:50Speaker 2: well almost June. Some lawmakers are already thinking about changing
- 0:55Speaker 2: our clocks back in November. If Congress acts quickly enough,
- 1:00Speaker 2: and this was a bill praised by the President, the
- 1:02Speaker 2: clocks may not change at all. So last week, the
- 1:05Speaker 2: language of the Sunshine Protection Act, introduced by a Florida
- 1:10Speaker 2: Republican was included in a larger transportation funding package, and
- 1:15Speaker 2: the House is looking at it, and it's going from
- 1:20Speaker 2: committee to the full House. And this package receives a
- 1:24Speaker 2: roll call of forty eight ya's to one nay from
- 1:28Speaker 2: the Committee to bring it forward, so you know, we're closer,
- 1:32Speaker 2: one step closer to observing a year round daylight saving
- 1:36Speaker 2: town savings time. And the President spoke highly of the bill,
- 1:41Speaker 2: writing a truth social about the costs associated with having
- 1:44Speaker 2: to change the clocks around the US all the time,
- 1:47Speaker 2: and he's going to work hard to ensure the Sunshine
- 1:51Speaker 2: Protection Act becomes law. He said that people can stop
- 1:56Speaker 2: worrying about the clock, not to mention all the work
- 1:59Speaker 2: in money that's spent on this ridiculous twice yearly production.
- 2:03Speaker 2: He is so right, and it'll be a very nice
- 2:06Speaker 2: win for the Republican Party. Don't know about that, but
- 2:09Speaker 2: it does. It makes a lot of sense. And so
- 2:13Speaker 2: here we go. Daylight savings time. We observe from March
- 2:16Speaker 2: to November and the rest of the time it's well,
- 2:22Speaker 2: it's standard time. And right now states can opt to
- 2:26Speaker 2: observe standard time year round, but only Hawaii and most
- 2:30Speaker 2: of Arizona. Arizona the clock, I mean, it's amazing. Right
- 2:34Speaker 2: in the middle of Arizona, you have two different time zones.
- 2:39Speaker 2: So nineteen states have enacted legislation to make the opposite permanent,
- 2:45Speaker 2: awaiting that standard time, and Maine just joining that one.
- 2:50Speaker 2: So there is now a group that want to make
- 2:54Speaker 2: daylight savings time the law of the land. And you've
- 3:00Speaker 2: got a bunch of states. Texas, Florida has already done it,
- 3:03Speaker 2: and you've got sixteen other states of which we are
- 3:06Speaker 2: not part of. And Bill and Georgia earlier this year
- 3:11Speaker 2: sought to exploit a loophole to make daylight saving time permanent,
- 3:16Speaker 2: but it died, And so we do have legislation to
- 3:20Speaker 2: lock the clocks they call it on daylight saving time
- 3:24Speaker 2: in NEBRAXA and Nebraska, New Metro those died, and so
- 3:30Speaker 2: under consideration Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and West
- 3:35Speaker 2: Virginia it's daylight saving time they are considering. So here
- 3:40Speaker 2: is the problem with daylight saving time, and that is
- 3:44Speaker 2: you get a lot more daylight towards the end of
- 3:47Speaker 2: the day. And you have people that are arguing, wait
- 3:50Speaker 2: a minute, that means kids that wake up early because
- 3:54Speaker 2: daylight comes later. You have kids that wake up early
- 3:58Speaker 2: and they're going to school in the dark. And that's dangerous. Now,
- 4:04Speaker 2: for those of you that care about kids being hit
- 4:07Speaker 2: by cars in the dark, which I don't particularly care,
- 4:11Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you know you get hit and
- 4:13Speaker 2: you get hit. There's a good lawsuit there. There's a
- 4:16Speaker 2: lot of money for the family if a kid gets
- 4:18Speaker 2: hit bias, it's a small price to pay. But daylight
- 4:23Speaker 2: savings time, it's kind of neat to have it get
- 4:26Speaker 2: dark at seven, eight o'clock, sometimes nine o'clock, depending on
- 4:30Speaker 2: the days. I like that. So for me, the answer
- 4:34Speaker 2: is really clear. And a lot of people have a
- 4:36Speaker 2: real hard time going from one time to the other time,
- 4:41Speaker 2: from daylight to standard, from standard to daylight. Lindsey has
- 4:45Speaker 2: a very tough time just one hour and it affects
- 4:50Speaker 2: her for weeks, and it doesn't affect me. I'm fine.
- 4:54Speaker 2: I just like the idea of it getting darker much later.
- 4:58Speaker 2: And I kind of like the idea of kids going
- 4:59Speaker 2: to school in in the morning. Damn it, you know
- 5:01Speaker 2: you can suffer Two.
- 5:03Speaker 1: Wait, you didn't go to school in the dark as
- 5:05Speaker 1: a kid. I remember it being dark when we went
- 5:11Speaker 1: to school.
- 5:11Speaker 2: Yeah, during the winter, during the winter, because we do
- 5:14Speaker 2: have we do have daylight savings time during the winter. Yes,
- 5:18Speaker 2: we would wake up and go to school in the dark.
- 5:22Speaker 2: Makes you a better person, makes you a stronger person.
- 5:26Speaker 2: Hill in the snow, Yes, four miles uphill each way
- 5:29Speaker 2: in the snow, and that's here in southern California. It's
- 5:33Speaker 2: just and now. I was afraid of the dark. Literally,
- 5:36Speaker 2: and this is no exaggeration. I didn't sleep with the
- 5:40Speaker 2: lights off until I was in my mid thirties. I
- 5:44Speaker 2: was one of those people that were genuinely afraid of
- 5:46Speaker 2: the dark. Now, it would have helped a lot if
- 5:51Speaker 2: I was constantly having to go to school in the dark,
- 5:55Speaker 2: but it was now, I dealt with it.
- 5:58Speaker 1: Do you really have a few of the dark like
- 6:00Speaker 1: that I did till you were thirty mid thirties.
- 6:06Speaker 2: You ever seen monsters inc That's basically a biography of
- 6:13Speaker 2: my early years going to bed. Are you afraid of
- 6:16Speaker 2: oh yeah, the boogey man. I was afraid of monsters
- 6:19Speaker 2: coming out from under the bed. I was thirty at
- 6:23Speaker 2: thirty five, Yeah, pretty much. You know what my brother did.
- 6:27Speaker 2: I was a real, real young boy. Member brother Daniel said.
- 6:31Speaker 2: I told him I was afraid of the dark, and
- 6:32Speaker 2: he said, close your eyes. And I closed my eyes.
- 6:34Speaker 2: He goes, what do you see? I said nothing. He goes,
- 6:37Speaker 2: that's what's in the dark.
- 6:38Speaker 1: Go to bed.
- 6:39Speaker 2: But here's the problem. Okay, you close your eyes and
- 6:41Speaker 2: you sort of know it's dark, and then you open
- 6:44Speaker 2: your eyes and it's still dark, and that's when the
- 6:47Speaker 2: monsters come out.
- 6:49Speaker 1: Well, how do you think the monsters feel they're under
- 6:51Speaker 1: your bed by themselves?
- 6:52Speaker 2: That is correct. Also, the other quick one before we
- 6:54Speaker 2: take a break is I can't watch a horror film.
- 6:57Speaker 2: I can't watch one. I have nightmares for weeks. Just
- 7:00Speaker 2: can't do it.
- 7:01Speaker 1: You listen to a horror show for three hours every day?
- 7:04Speaker 2: Damn right? Okay, I want to share with you in
- 7:07Speaker 2: which I love to do, what's going on with us economically, sociologically.
- 7:13Speaker 2: And this is a story of economics, and it's a
- 7:16Speaker 2: story of Phoenix, and it's a story of how Phoenix
- 7:21Speaker 2: has unfortunately suffered because there are in Phoenix a huge
- 7:28Speaker 2: number of low rise office parks with tinted windows and
- 7:35Speaker 2: huge parking lots. This is considered America's back office. Why
- 7:40Speaker 2: you got cheap land, Cheap labor made Phoenix a premiere
- 7:45Speaker 2: place to stash lower paid office workers who don't need
- 7:48Speaker 2: to be physically close to clients or headquarters. It's sort
- 7:53Speaker 2: of outsourcing, but it isn't because, for example, these cubicle
- 7:57Speaker 2: based jobs, customer service, data entry, payroll processing. This will
- 8:04Speaker 2: help you replace factory work lost to overseas competition. And
- 8:08Speaker 2: this is the reason it's not a remote job is
- 8:12Speaker 2: because when you look at these service centers, you have
- 8:17Speaker 2: supervisors there, you have people overlooking the people that are there.
- 8:23Speaker 2: There's training, for example, and they have to be trained.
- 8:26Speaker 2: Customer service reps have to be trained. I mean I
- 8:29Speaker 2: read about a training training class where you first of all,
- 8:35Speaker 2: you have to learn how to speak in an Indian accent. Hello,
- 8:38Speaker 2: my name is Bob. Also, if you want the training
- 8:43Speaker 2: center or you want the center to sound like you're
- 8:46Speaker 2: a Filipino center, then you have to learn how to
- 8:50Speaker 2: sing just as soon as you answer the phone, b lings,
- 8:54Speaker 2: nothing more than pee lings. You have to learn all
- 8:57Speaker 2: that when you are training. Now, these were considered white
- 9:02Speaker 2: collar jobs, which I found interesting. And guess what. These
- 9:06Speaker 2: are being outsourced as you know, and as much as
- 9:09Speaker 2: I joke, believe me, they're going like crazy and you're
- 9:15Speaker 2: looking at back office again. They're called seeing less demand.
- 9:20Speaker 2: They are disappearing so quickly. Why because first of all,
- 9:24Speaker 2: you have AI to engage with customers and landline use
- 9:28Speaker 2: dropping like crazy. And here's the problem. AI is doing
- 9:34Speaker 2: it it's getting so sophisticated. Also, these menus are driving
- 9:37Speaker 2: people nuts. If you have this issue, dial number one,
- 9:42Speaker 2: if you have that issue, dial number dover press number two,
- 9:46Speaker 2: or in a few words, why don't you tell me
- 9:49Speaker 2: what's going on? And of course they misinterpret everything that
- 9:52Speaker 2: you say. But you put together all of these questions
- 9:56Speaker 2: and answers and AI figuring it out, and all of
- 9:59Speaker 2: a sudden, you have one person that's answering ten percent
- 10:03Speaker 2: of the calls coming in because the AI, which is
- 10:05Speaker 2: so obnoxious. Those menus and the way the programs work
- 10:10Speaker 2: are so obnoxious. You know what, They make real, real
- 10:15Speaker 2: money for the companies, or they cost companies far less.
- 10:20Speaker 2: My company, when I had a surrogacy agency, I was
- 10:23Speaker 2: probably the last company that I knew of. I refused
- 10:27Speaker 2: to have a menu when people called in. Refused. I
- 10:30Speaker 2: had a real person sitting in the office, a receptionist,
- 10:34Speaker 2: and it made no sense financially. Also, I had to
- 10:40Speaker 2: have one person speak with an Indian accent, Hello, my
- 10:43Speaker 2: name is Bob, or every other call saying peelings nothing
- 10:48Speaker 2: more than peelings.
- 10:49Speaker 1: Could you imagine if you were at the center for
- 10:53Speaker 1: surrogate parenting, Hello, you have reached the Center for Surrogate Parenting.
- 10:59Speaker 1: If you're looking to buy a white baby Press one,
- 11:02Speaker 1: now a brown baby Press two, someone will be with
- 11:07Speaker 1: you in just a moment.
- 11:09Speaker 2: Do you know I would have done that in a heartbeat.
- 11:12Speaker 2: I would have done that, But I had a partner
- 11:15Speaker 2: who stopped all that stuff. I can't even tell you
- 11:19Speaker 2: what my partners. I can't tell you. Well, how many
- 11:23Speaker 2: times do you guys stop me from saying what I
- 11:25Speaker 2: want to say?
- 11:28Speaker 1: Your baby buying is important to us. Stay out a
- 11:32Speaker 1: line and someone will be with you post haste.
- 11:36Speaker 2: Well, the problem is, here's the reality of these jobs.
- 11:41Speaker 2: They were easy to get, required little training, generally paid
- 11:46Speaker 2: better than retail and fast food jobs, and offered better opportunities.
- 11:51Speaker 2: Why because you were getting into corporate offices and you
- 11:54Speaker 2: were taught soft skills like solving problem and talking to strangers,
- 11:58Speaker 2: and that helped workers climb the left to careers like sales.
- 12:03Speaker 2: All that is gone. All of that is gone, and
- 12:07Speaker 2: it is I mean, that's one of unfortunately the prices
- 12:12Speaker 2: we pay. And the reason Phoenix is in this story
- 12:16Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal is because this is the poster child
- 12:19Speaker 2: of what's going on, and it is it's a new world,
- 12:23Speaker 2: simply a new world, and I'm going to probably do
- 12:26Speaker 2: a lot of that, and you know, welcome to the world.
- 12:29Speaker 2: I do not envy my kids. I do not. I've
- 12:33Speaker 2: often thought I wish I would be born fifty years
- 12:36Speaker 2: later so I could look at the technology that's going
- 12:39Speaker 2: on and the flying cars and the jetsons and all
- 12:42Speaker 2: the good stuff. I gotta tell you, I'm not interested.
- 12:46Speaker 2: Between climate change, the cyber wars, between the water wars,
- 12:50Speaker 2: between computers AI taking over a vast number of jobs.
- 12:56Speaker 2: It is not easy. It is not easy. Okay, another
- 12:59Speaker 2: story I want to share with you. We have, or
- 13:03Speaker 2: I have discussed in over the years, the fact that
- 13:08Speaker 2: there's not enough housing. I mean that's a given. And
- 13:11Speaker 2: when you look at what happened during the recession, when
- 13:13Speaker 2: you look at what happened during COVID, and you look
- 13:17Speaker 2: at what happening now with AI, where fewer number of
- 13:20Speaker 2: people need to be at work, and then there's remote
- 13:25Speaker 2: of course, remote work, and that all boils down to
- 13:28Speaker 2: businesses need less space to do business. And so you
- 13:33Speaker 2: have high rise buildings that are either completely empty partially empty,
- 13:42Speaker 2: and they are losing money like crazy. Why because developers
- 13:47Speaker 2: built these buildings at a time when the market was good,
- 13:51Speaker 2: at a time when rents were able to rents were
- 13:55Speaker 2: able to be charged, when there's plenty of businesses out there,
- 14:00Speaker 2: and when you had the rate of renters we're talking
- 14:04Speaker 2: about corporate renters that met or exceeded the supply of
- 14:09Speaker 2: the square footage of these buildings. Well that has changed,
- 14:14Speaker 2: as you know. It's a very different world out there.
- 14:17Speaker 2: And you have seen these office buildings that are virtually empty,
- 14:21Speaker 2: I mean empty, and they're all over the place. And
- 14:25Speaker 2: one of the cities and the reason I'm using this
- 14:28Speaker 2: story is because this is a poster child city for this.
- 14:33Speaker 2: There's a developer by the name of Asher Louzato. He's
- 14:37Speaker 2: out of la by the way, and he is now
- 14:41Speaker 2: living in Denver. And this interview that took place with
- 14:46Speaker 2: him was on the twenty ninth floor of an office
- 14:50Speaker 2: building that he just recently bought. And if you ever
- 14:55Speaker 2: go to Denver, man, it's a postcard view. I mean,
- 14:57Speaker 2: it is beautiful. The area around Denver. Can you imagine
- 15:01Speaker 2: from twenty nine floors up, I mean that is utterly magnificent.
- 15:07Speaker 2: And the twenty ninth floor was empty is empty. So
- 15:13Speaker 2: the streets that surround this downtown Denver building has. I
- 15:19Speaker 2: mean it's a mess down there. It really is. Vacant storefronts,
- 15:22Speaker 2: empty office buildings, darkened floors, deserted streets. I mean, the
- 15:26Speaker 2: whole area is blighted because a lot of businesses rely
- 15:32Speaker 2: on office buildings. You look at these food these restaurants,
- 15:36Speaker 2: a fast food places, little cafes. They're not open for dinner,
- 15:41Speaker 2: it's breakfast and lunch because dinner time people pile out
- 15:45Speaker 2: of the buildings. And what if there are no people
- 15:48Speaker 2: piling out and then becomes a real problem, then there
- 15:51Speaker 2: is no business there at all. So this is a property,
- 15:56Speaker 2: one of two office towers known as the Energy Center.
- 16:00Speaker 2: And as I said, this is a poster child. This
- 16:02Speaker 2: is a testament to the rapid decline of downtown Denver.
- 16:07Speaker 2: So what Luzzato did is he picked up these two
- 16:11Speaker 2: buildings seven hundred and eighty five thousand square feet last year.
- 16:18Speaker 2: And what did he pay? Well, how about he paid
- 16:23Speaker 2: five million dollars for these two huge office buildings, which
- 16:28Speaker 2: is ninety seven percent below with the previous owner paid
- 16:32Speaker 2: for it in twenty thirteen, ninety seven percent below. Basically,
- 16:38Speaker 2: he got it for free. And so that changes the
- 16:44Speaker 2: formula completely. Now we know that downtown's all over America
- 16:48Speaker 2: are suffering a crisis. We are too. Office buildings in
- 16:53Speaker 2: LA have a problem. Office work has migrated to the suburbs,
- 16:59Speaker 2: abandoned billuildings, which incidentally not only are abandoned, but the
- 17:03Speaker 2: area around those buildings, as I said, and they're usually downtown,
- 17:08Speaker 2: become empty and becomes skid row in many cases. And
- 17:13Speaker 2: you've got central business district Saint Louis to Dallas to Portland, Oregon,
- 17:18Speaker 2: and they're fighting, fighting and fighting to escape what is
- 17:22Speaker 2: being considered this death spiral. So Luzato has a plan
- 17:27Speaker 2: to fix this catastrophe starting in Denver. And again why Denver. Well,
- 17:34Speaker 2: nearly forty percent of the office space in the central
- 17:37Speaker 2: business district is vacant, which is the highest in the
- 17:41Speaker 2: country's top fifty cities. I mean, it's basically the worst
- 17:46Speaker 2: city of all all Right, I want to finish up
- 17:49Speaker 2: the story of what's happening in Denver, and what's happening
- 17:54Speaker 2: in Denver is endemic of what might be happening and
- 17:59Speaker 2: is happening all over the United States. And these are cities,
- 18:04Speaker 2: downtown areas that have these skyscrapers, office buildings that are
- 18:07Speaker 2: effectively empty because of AI, because of the footprints that
- 18:12Speaker 2: are smaller. Companies are doing more with fewer people. I
- 18:17Speaker 2: mean all of it. Remote learning, excuse me, remote working,
- 18:21Speaker 2: I mean all of it. So here's what this guy,
- 18:25Speaker 2: Angelino asher Lozato did. He said, I'm going to convert
- 18:30Speaker 2: these office buildings into residential. Now, there are a couple
- 18:36Speaker 2: of caveats. He's going to have to have the local
- 18:39Speaker 2: authorities enable him to rezone, for example, and move planning
- 18:45Speaker 2: in safety, safety and planning much much faster. And it
- 18:50Speaker 2: is these buildings are not cheap to convert into residential
- 18:57Speaker 2: apartments into residential units. So there's only way. There's only
- 19:03Speaker 2: one way this can work, and it's short term. It's
- 19:06Speaker 2: not forever. It's lease. An answer that is here now,
- 19:11Speaker 2: and that is you buy. He bought the buildings for
- 19:16Speaker 2: pennies on the dollar. I mean literally three four five
- 19:22Speaker 2: cents on the dollar. So I just told you about
- 19:26Speaker 2: these two office buildings that sold for over one hundred
- 19:29Speaker 2: million dollars five years ago, and he paid five million
- 19:34Speaker 2: dollars for them. So with that, there's enough money out
- 19:38Speaker 2: there to convert these buildings and Also keep in mind
- 19:43Speaker 2: you're in a high rise in downtown Denver or any
- 19:47Speaker 2: major city, and especially Denver. The views are insane because
- 19:51Speaker 2: it's gorgeous out there. And what he says is the
- 19:55Speaker 2: apartments are going to be comparable in price to what
- 19:59Speaker 2: people are paying right now because he effectively got the land,
- 20:03Speaker 2: you got the buildings for free. Now, that is a
- 20:08Speaker 2: great idea. On top of that, he is getting loans.
- 20:12Speaker 2: The city of Denver wrote him a check for sixty
- 20:14Speaker 2: three million dollars for him to do this. Wow, that
- 20:21Speaker 2: makes a lot of sense. I would do that if
- 20:24Speaker 2: I'm moving to Denver, I would love to be in
- 20:26Speaker 2: a high rise. Now, there are some problems because when
- 20:29Speaker 2: you have buildings that are empty and there are no tenants,
- 20:33Speaker 2: and this has been going on for several years, all
- 20:35Speaker 2: the businesses around the building that is empty I have disappeared. Cafes,
- 20:41Speaker 2: you got your bookstores, you have your Starbucks, They're gone,
- 20:46Speaker 2: they're gone. You have to revitalize what's happening downtown. But
- 20:51Speaker 2: what a start. What a start. So it's good for him,
- 20:56Speaker 2: good for him, and I think it's going to happen,
- 20:59Speaker 2: and he's ambitious as hell. But something happened in Canada, Calgary,
- 21:05Speaker 2: Alberta similar glut of empty office space after a downturn
- 21:10Speaker 2: in the energy energy industry, and they did it. They
- 21:14Speaker 2: did it, and the program worked according to Calvary. Excuse
- 21:20Speaker 2: me to Calgary officials. I don't know if you've heard
- 21:24Speaker 2: been to Calgary. That's where they have probably the most
- 21:27Speaker 2: famous rodeo in the world. Middle of Alberta and this
- 21:33Speaker 2: is a oil region, so that i'd share that. Okay,
- 21:36Speaker 2: that's it. I'm done. What's new? Not much when a
- 21:43Speaker 2: quick reminder that coming up to tomorrow is ask handle anything,
- 21:48Speaker 2: but it's going to be the crew. Addition, it's going
- 21:50Speaker 2: to be us, well not us, because I'm not part
- 21:53Speaker 2: of that. I answer the questions and the morning staff.
- 21:57Speaker 2: If you think that this is embarrassing when I normally
- 21:59Speaker 2: do it, I can't wait for tomorrow and Gary and
- 22:02Speaker 2: Shannon are up next tomorrow morning. It's all over again,
- 22:05Speaker 2: same time, same station, wake up call with Amy and Will,
- 22:10Speaker 2: Neil and I come aboard at six to right about now,
- 22:14Speaker 2: and of course Kno and Ann and that's how we
- 22:16Speaker 2: all make this happen. That's how we make the sausage.
- 22:21Speaker 2: And it's not particularly good tasting sausage either, but what
- 22:25Speaker 2: the hell? Okay, goodbye, My name is Bill. This is
- 22:31Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty. You've been listening to the Bill
- 22:35Speaker 2: Handle Show. Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am
- 22:38Speaker 2: to nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio
- 22:42Speaker 2: app